The Golden City

8

Travelers could break free of their bodies and cross over to another world. The rest of humanity needed an access point, one of several portals known in ancient times. Since Maya hadn’t returned, Gabriel would have to find another way to bring her back. Simon spent several weeks in the British Library studying Greek and Latin texts that mentioned sites of prophecy and transformation. Most of these possibilities were in the Egypt so he asked Linden to arrange a trip to Cairo.

Jugger and Roland were given the passport Gabriel had used to enter Great Britain and hair that would match the DNA samples the Tabula had obtained from Gabriel’s house in Los Angeles. The two Free Runners took the ferry to Calais and then traveled by bus and train across France. Using cyber cafes and mobile telephones, they created the impression that Gabriel was on his way to Eastern Europe.

While the Free Runners were leaving a false trail in various hostels and hotels, Linden prepared cloned passports for Gabriel and Simon. When governments inserted RFID chips into passport covers, forgers quickly learned how to use a machine called a skimmer to read the information. If the skimmer was hidden in a doorway or an elevator it could read the passport carried in someone’s pocket or handbag. Linden didn’t waste time with skimmers and simply bribed a hotel clerk to scan tourist passports with a legally obtained inspection reader.

Once Linden had the information, he created a cloned passport with a duplicate chip. The information could be altered so that the person carrying the clone matched the embedded photograph and biometric data. In developing countries, the match didn’t have to be perfect; ignoring their own instincts, emigration officials tended to wave a passenger through if a machine announced that everything was correct.

“So who I am supposed to be?” Gabriel asked Linden.

“A young man named Brian Nelson who lives in Denver.”

“And what about me?” Simon Lumbroso asked.

“You’re Dr. Mario Festa-a psychologist from Rome.”

Simon grinned and leaned back in his chair. “Good. I’m enjoying this. And, of course, Dr. Festa thinks his government is protecting him.”

A few days later, Gabriel, Linden and Simon flew to the West African country of Senegal. At the Dakar airport, Linden paid a bribe that inserted their new passport numbers into the global monitoring system. They quickly transferred to a different airline and took an overnight flight to Egypt. In the morning, they arrived and took a taxi from the airport into Cairo. Their cab moved through the crowded streets of Cairo like a boat floating in a labyrinth of muddy canals. Drivers kept honking their car horns while the traffic police stood listlessly on the sidewalk. But the Cairo jaywalkers displayed grace and confidence: old people, street sellers and pregnant women glided through the traffic as if they had given their souls to Allah before stepping off the curb.

Simon told the taxi driver to take them to the City of the Dead on the east side of the Nile. Qarafa cemetery had once been the site of the Roman fortress of Babylon; and the brick and stone ruins had been transformed into a burial ground by the Mamluk rulers in the fifteenth century. Over hundreds of years, squatters had built huts among the tombs, and these improvised dwellings evolved into four-story tenements built with a grayish-brown concrete that resembled dried clay.

The cab passed through a square where men were selling canaries and parakeets, the little birds calling to each other as they fluttered back and forth in their cages. Men approached their car offering melons, shoes, and lottery tickets pinned to a cardboard sign. Veiled women walked arm-in-arm through the crowd while a recorded voice wailed from the speakers mounted on each mosque.

The driver got lost a few times, but eventually they reached the tomb of Iman al Shafi-i, a Muslim holy man. A mosque with four minarets had been built around the gravesite, and an elderly caretaker gave them a tour of the complex-stone walls and a faded green carpet, swallows darting around the interior of the copula. When they had seen enough of the mosque to provide a reason for their presence in the neighborhood, they walked across the dirt street to a storefront café. Each customer sat at his own little table as the pudgy café owner bustled back and forth with glasses of hot tea that had sprigs of mint floating on the surface.

Simon Lumbroso could speak basic Arabic and had business contacts in Cairo, but as an Orthodox Jew he felt self-conscious about his appearance in a Muslim country. At the hotel, he slipped on a djellaba- a long cotton robe that covered his shabby black suit and the fringe from his tallit katan, the ritual Orthodox garment.

Linden and Gabriel were wearing cotton trousers and sports jackets without ties. Gabriel didn’t mind looking like a businessman, but he wondered if Linden could truly disguise himself. The big Frenchman moved with an aggressive confidence and constantly surveyed the space around him as if he were preparing for an attack. Beggars and stray dogs sensed the danger and stayed away from him.

Simon lowered his mobile phone and wrote a number down in his memo book. “I just talked to the priest’s wife. She thinks he’s at his uncle’s house.”

“But he was supposed to meet us here.”

“This is typical for Cairo. What is expected never occurs. And what occurs is never expected.” Lumbroso started dialing a new number. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

“While we wait for the priest, order some coffee,” Linden said. “This tea tastes like dishwater.”

Simon spoke to the café owner and then began dialing a new number. Gabriel looked up at the hazy sky above them. The soot and dirt particles in the air softened the light and changed the color of the sun. In the morning, the sun was a yellowish-white, but now it looked like an old bronze coin nailed to the ceiling.

Something was about to happen. He felt a change coming: a moment when he saw the world clearly and all distinctions melted away. In the past, these incidents had frightened him and overwhelmed him. Now, sitting in this street café, he could watch and wait and anticipate what was going to happen. The Light inside him was gaining power like a wave hidden beneath the surface of the sea.

The owner brought out coffee on a tin tray. Gabriel drank quickly and stared at the black grains at the bottom of the glass. A fly landed on his wrist and he flicked it away. More flies circled his boots while others rested on the café tables-tiny silver islands made of hammered steel.

He turned his head slightly, glanced down the street, and then the world opened up before him. During the interval of one heartbeat, his mind pulled back and he saw the city with total detachment. Everything before him-the sky, the flat-roofed tenement buildings and the scrawny fichus trees-was a complete unity, but he could also perceive each detail. He saw motes of dust rising and falling; smelled garbage and baking bread; heard a woman singing on the radio.

The world enveloped him with its intricate variety, and he watched it all as if it were a photograph projected on a wall screen. He saw the faces around him just as clearly-Simon, Linden, the other customers sitting at the café, a woman carrying a white bird in a silver cage and a group of boys kicking a bandaged soccer ball. When his mind was detached in this way, he could float above the street like an angel gazing down on fallen souls. The children radiated joy and happiness, but the adults shuffled along with faces that showed weariness, anger and pain.

“Maybe that car was at the airport,” Linden said. “Someone could be following us.”

Gabriel’s vision melted away and the world was ordinary again-with a feral dog staring at him and a black car parked at the end of the street.

“It is just a Renault sedan,” Simon said. “There are thousands of them in this city. Cairo is where old Renaults come to die.”

“This one has mud on its left headlight.”

“Are you sure you’ve seen it before?”

“It’s possible.”

“Possible? Or just Harlequin pazzia?”

“Even crazy people have enemies…”

Both of them stopped talking as a battered taxicab came around the corner and stopped in front of the cafe. A door popped open and a bearded Coptic priest got out. Using his hands to hold up the hem of his robes, he marched over to their tables. The priest’s blue jogging shoes had lightning bolts on the sides.

“Mr. Lumbroso?”

“Yes.”

“I am Father Youssef from the Church of St. Bartholomew. My cousin, Hossam, says you are looking for me.”

Simon got up and shook the priest’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Father Youssef. We just arrived in Cairo this morning. These two gentlemen are my friends.”

They circled the chairs around one little table and Father Youssef ordered a glass of tea. All the windows on the street were either darkened by curtains or concealed behind shutters. There were no surveillance cameras in the City of the Dead, but Gabriel felt like someone was watching them. When the black Renault made a U-turn and vanished around the corner, Linden relaxed slightly and leaned back in his chair.

The priest stirred sugar into his tea, and then used a spoon to mash the sprig of mint against the side of the glass. “How do you know Hossam?”

“I’ve done business with him involving antiquities,” Lumbroso said. “Your cousin has a good eye for what is real and what is a fake.”

“Hossam says you are a man who keeps promises. That is difficult to find in this city.”

“I know that the Coptic Church is being persecuted.”

“Our young men are beaten and arrested for nothing. My church has no electricity and the roof leaks when it rains.”

Lumbroso touched his breast. A wallet filled with Egyptian pounds was concealed within the inner pocket of his suit coat. “We would reward the person with accurate information. We are looking for-”

“Hossam told me everything. You want a passageway that will take you to another world.” Father Youssef drank his tea with a loud slurping sound and put down the glass with a click. “Most people do not care about these passageways. All they want is a new car and a big television.”

Simon dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee. “We thought that a passageway might be connected to the pyramids. They’ve been a special location for thousands of years.”

“The pyramids were built for the dead. A passageway is for the living.”

Looking annoyed, Linden leaned forward and touched the priest’s arm. “Tell us something of value and your church will get a new roof.”

“The Coptic Church is poor and persecuted. They have taken everything from us, including our sacred chapel. It guards the way to another world.”

“And who controls this chapel?” Linden asked.

“The Greek Orthodox Church. I talk about the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai.”

Lumbroso turned to Gabriel. “Most people know it as St. Catherine’s Monastery. It was built by the Emperor Justinian during the Sixth Century.”

“Our church had a shrine at Mount Sinai before the monastery was built. It was called the Chapel of the Burning Bush. Do you think Moses got his vision from a plant on fire? The burning bush was just a children’s story that someone invented to protect the passageway.”

“Can we go there?” Gabriel asked. “Will the priests let us in?”

Father Youssef spat on the dirt. “When pilgrims arrive at the monastery, the Greeks show them a bush growing outside the church. The chapel with the passageway is in a room behind the altar.”

“What if we offered them a donation?” Lumbroso asked.

“If the monks think you know their secret, they will call the police and have you arrested.”

Looking annoyed, Linden shook his head. Ce prêtre est inutile, he whispered to Simon.

“I want to be helpful,” Youssef insisted. “I can draw you a map of the church and show you the hidden chapel. But you should forget about this and go back to Europe. Passageways are dangerous. If you cross over, you can be trapped in a world with demons or ghosts. Only a saint can take such a journey, and there are no more saints.”

Simon Lumbroso smiled. “Certain rabbis tell us that a handful of hidden saints keep this world from being destroyed.”

“That’s a big responsibility,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“It is not true.” Father Youssef tapped on the table with his spoon. “The Age of Saints is over. God no longer speaks directly to men and women. We speak to ourselves and pray to the echo.”