The Cairo Codex (32 page)

The National Education Centre was on the eleventh and twelfth floors of an office building bought by the Ministry of Education from the Americans seventeen years earlier. The dirty tan façade possessed no redeeming features. It might have stood in Alexandria or Detroit or the outskirts of Milan. The usually cluttered roofs of surrounding buildings, crowned with satellite dishes, had recently been swept and adorned with large potted plants for an impending visit by President Mubarak.

A research center, several small companies, and the Bank of Egypt shared the Centre’s sharply vertical space, which was held together by two poorly functioning elevators hardly large enough to accommodate the growing number of occupants. Fortunately the air-conditioning worked better than the elevators.

The Minister’s secretary invited the two women into the waiting room. A regal woman of around fifty, she projected an air of authority, as was expected in the offices of Cabinet members.

“Isn’t it a bit unusual for a Minister to receive an interim report on a UNESCO project?” asked Justine as she and Nadia stood by the window, observing as bean pots and steaming corn ovens were rolled into the street fourteen stories below.

“Actually, it is. The Minister has taken a personal interest, which I think he’ll explain himself.”

“You may go in now,” said the secretary. “Dr. Ghalib is expecting you.”

“Morgan Jenner’s daughter, I presume,” said the Minister as he extended his hand to Justine and kissed Nadia on both cheeks.

“You presume correctly, Dr. Ghalib. Do you know my father?”

“No, but Ibrahim El Shabry is an old friend. I’ve heard of your father’s adventures. Tell me, Nadia, how did we have the good fortunate to hire this beautiful part-American, part-Egyptian anthropologist?” he asked. Turning to Justine, he added, “I know of your mother’s family also.”

Justine hoped he hadn’t noticed the goose bumps that had risen on her arms. She had come to expect conflicting views on her parents’ adventures.

“. . . so I told Dr. Jenner that we needed a fresh pair of eyes,” Nadia was saying. “For a person to look at her own culture is like a fish studying water.”

The Minister laughed whole-heartedly, warmly, setting Justine at ease. “I’ve taken a personal interest in this project, Dr. Jenner, since in the Middle East the adult literacy rate among women is only half that found in other countries. Further, the United Nations’ studies indicate a direct positive correlation between the education of young women and a thriving economy, environment, and health of the citizens of that country.” The rotund Dr. Ghalib wore a beige Armani suit and tie adorned with miniature golden Sphinxes. His creamy complexion and hazel eyes belied his Egyptian heritage.

“I am thoroughly convinced that your proactivity in partnering with UNESCO to establish Community Schools for Girls will play a major role in Egypt’s development,” Justine said with confidence.

He was genuinely pleased. “
Absolument.
Thank you. Let’s hear what you have for us. Tea?”

“I’d love some tea,” she said. The interim report sat in front of her, several post-its marking key pages. For nearly a half hour, she reviewed key features. “As you know, sir, the mission of the schools is ‘to provide quality, sustainable education for all with an immediate emphasis on girls’ education.’ I have found the focus on literacy, thinking skills, and leadership to show noteworthy success. I’ve had a chance to observe students and teachers in the schools in The City of the Dead, Asyut, Sohag, and Qena. Soon in the reconstructed school in Birqash, I hope,” she concluded.

The Minister was pensive. “What do you think of Asyut?” He addressed the question to both women.

“A hotbed of radical Islam,” Nadia said without hesitation. “We were lucky to even get a school there, yet haven’t found quite the same success.”

“Nadia is right, I didn’t find the same results at the Asyut school,” admitted Justine. “Neither in literacy nor leadership. Much more submissiveness—or, conversely, authoritarian behavior. As you know, submissiveness can look like cooperation. And vice versa. For instance, girls who are brought up to please, to serve, to relinquish their own needs and desires for others may appear to be cooperating, yet . . .”

“We’ve noticed strongly submissive behaviors in girls new to the schools, regardless of age,” offered Nadia. “For instance, three twelve-year-olds at Qena. They learned to read in less than three months, but my, they were submissive.”

“How do we tell the difference between submissiveness and cooperation, Dr. Jenner?” asked the Minister pointedly.

“I struggle with that issue, sir. I am alert for girls who find their voices, speak out without undue attention to the opinions of others,” she said. “Cooperation, and leadership, means that each girl has developed a point of view, and that she speaks from that point of view rather than waiting for others to tell her what to think.”

The Minister nodded. “Distinguishing submissiveness from cooperation and then teaching assertiveness without bossiness—tall orders,” he observed. “This is what I’m hoping for in my own daughters. Just make sure the parents are with you each step of the way. But right now, I have a Cabinet meeting.” He rose and walked around the desk. “Thank you, ladies, I’ll look forward to your next report. Good work.”

As they walked out, Justine turned to Nadia and grinned; she felt valued and listened to. Nadia patted her on the arm and tried to call for an elevator, but the man in possession of the key was nowhere to be found, so they sauntered down the seventeen flights into the dark garage.

“Better down than up,” said Nadia, breathless. “I’ve done that a few times!”

I hope the rest of the day goes as well
, thought Justine, shifting her thoughts to her rendezvous with Amir at St. Sergius.

In spite of a successful morning, approaching the crypt in St. Sergius filled Justine with dread. But she was prepared this time; she wore heavy jeans and a T-shirt that announced the “Napa Triathlon,” and her ponytail spilled out of a Giants baseball cap. She met Amir at the entrance to Old Cairo. Although engineers had propped up the ceiling and braced the walls of the crypt, he carried a bulging backpack full of flashlights, a small camera, and two microscopes.

Amir and his museum colleagues had rigged up lighting and carried in heavy equipment the morning Justine was kidnapped. He leaned and flipped a switch, filling the cavity with a glow like the Blue Grotto of Capri, although not quite so blue. Justine shivered. Amir noted her trepidation, took her by the arm, and escorted her down the now-infamous thirteen steps. “I have a gift for you,” he said, pulling her camera out of his backpack.

“Amir! That’s great! Where did you find it?”

“Right over here,” he said. “Just sitting there. No one had been back in here since the quake.”

“Thank you,” she said, hugging the camera to her chest and glancing around the crypt with surprise. It wasn’t as completely devastated as she’d imagined. “It’s like daylight down here!” she exclaimed, grateful to find no shadows, dark corners, or lurking, imaginary menaces.

“The better to see you with,” he said playfully. “Now, show me where you were standing when the earthquake hit.”

Justine stood near the middle of the crypt to orient herself. She stared back at the steps, the ceiling, and the walls, this time noticing that the once-cave was deeper than it was wide. She walked to the northwest corner and stood for a moment. “Just before it began,” she said, “I was running my hands across the wall, imagining what it would be like to live here. I actually said to myself, ‘What stories these walls could tell!’”

“Almost psychic,” he grinned.

“I think this is where I was standing and that’s the pillar that forced me to the floor.” The pillar had been raised and stabilized by two-by-fours. She patted it like an old friend.
After all, it kept me from being crushed.

“That makes sense. It’s almost exactly where the camera was. Your position is only three feet or so from the northwest wall, which has several areas of cracked plaster. Let’s take them one at a time.” Amir pulled a small flashlight and tweezer-like tool from his backpack and a magnifying glass from his leather belt—a required accessory for a proper archeologist.

Both of them explored the surface with delicate movements and open palms.

“What are your expectations?” Justine asked. “How will we know if we’ve found the right space, the space from which the codex may have fallen?”

“The most curious aspect of cave patina is that it forms in the shape of a cauliflower,” said Amir. “On the inner face of the correct niche, we may find a cauliflower pattern that will be nearly identical to the patina on the codex.”

“That’s astounding! Yet it’s information we don’t have as yet.”

“Exactly, but the designs are like fingerprints. If the two images are a fit, we’ll know we’ve found the right spot. And it will go a long way toward solving the provenance issue.” An unabashed smile flickered across his face; Amir was in his element. “I don’t anticipate a second treasure, although ancient peoples kept many of their smaller possessions in cave niches—cups, shoes, pans, jewels, you’d be surprised what can be found. A team from the museum was excavating in the western desert where layered rock is stuffed with sea shells from the ice age and came across an ice pick of sharpened iron and gold filigree earrings wrapped in Chinese silk.”

“Cauliflowers and Chinese silk! Sounds incredible,” Justine exclaimed, continuing to explore with her palms, her earlier fears assuaged. “Here,” she said, “this niche is a few inches wide.”

Amir focused the flashlight and examined the crevasse with the magnifying glass. “I see something,” he said. Reaching in, he pulled a wooden spoon from the opening and held it in the air.

Justine flushed with excitement.
Who might have held that spoon? What were they eating? Warm soup on a cool November day?
She held open a large plastic Ziploc bag as Amir lowered the spoon in, then made notes on a map of the wall.

“Terrific,” he exclaimed. “Now let’s look for more signs of life . . .”

Hours passed, and they lost all sense of time. As they examined wall crevasses, they found two more small discoveries: shards from broken clay cups and four partially burnt candles.

“I see something!” Justine nearly yelled, her heart quickening. Amir stepped to her side to examine the niche, this one a little wider than the others.

“I don’t see it . . . what are you seeing?”

“Something small and flat, with a pearl-like substance.” She was breathless.

With the light, magnifying glass, and tweezers, Amir located and gently extracted the object from its resting place.

“What is it? It’s definitely man-made. I can’t quite make them out, but it looks like there are some kind of carvings around the edges!”

“Possible. This niche looks large enough to be the location of the codex as well.” He grinned, masking his own excitement in exchange for hers. “We’ll get an imprint of the niche and see what we have.”

They turned to one another. Justine threw her arms around his neck. He smelled like musk in her arms, his warmth blending with her own for the full length of their bodies. They held on for several moments.

“Where have you been?” asked Nasser, extending a glass of wine. “You look as though you’ve crawled through the sewer.”

While Nasser had a key to her apartment, Justine resisted living with him. It was inappropriate behavior in Egypt, but that wasn’t her only reservation. She also needed her own time and independence, something that she couldn’t find in the continual presence of another. “Not exactly,” she said, removing her T-shirt in exchange for another, changing from her filthy jeans into yoga pants, and throwing her ball cap to the floor. “We were in the crypt, searching for a niche.” Barefoot, she sat down and swung her legs over the arm of her favorite overstuffed chair.

“We?” he asked.

“Amir and I. You’ll remember, the day I was kidnapped we’d made plans to return to the crypt so that I could point out where I found the codex,” she said, still flushed with excitement.

Nasser kissed her lightly on the lips. “I hope you found it.” He paused. “Have you talked with Amir about the hunt for his brother?”