The Last Secret Of The Temple (53 page)

In Babylon, that is what the prophecy tells us. In Babylon the true Menorah will be found, in the house of Abner.

Behind him they were starting to serve breakfast, the hostess's voice drifting down the aisle as she asked passengers whether they wanted cooked or continental.

Babylon. Single block of solid gold.

Something was bugging him.

Hor-ankh-amun. Fake chamber. Fooling robbers.

Really bugging him.

The food trolley came level with their row and the woman started serving. Ben-Roi grumped himself awake, asked for the cooked breakfast. Khalifa went for the continental.

'Shomer Ha-Or.'

'What?'

'The name Shomer Ha-Or?' asked Khalifa. 'Does it mean something? In Hebrew.'

Ben-Roi was picking the foil off his plastic plate, ripping his cutlery from its cellophane wrapper.

'Guardian of the light,' he replied. 'Guardian, protector, something like that. Why?'

The Egyptian didn't reply, just stared down at his tray. A few moments ago he'd been starving. Now, suddenly, his appetite seemed to have fallen away.

They landed just after eleven, a warm, clear morning with a blue sky and a fat yellow sun floating in the centre of it, like a lump of tallow.

Ben-Roi wanted to get a connecting flight immediately. There was nothing till that evening, however, so he agreed to share a cab into town where he could go to the Israeli Embassy and get a shower and a change of clothes, have his ear looked at by a doctor. Khalifa gave the driver instructions in Arabic, and they set off.

They didn't talk during the journey, just sat staring out of the windows as the metropolis swiftly enveloped them. When they hit the Nile they turned south along the Corniche, following it for a couple of kilometres before veering inland again, back into the thick of the town, weaving through the chaotic surges of traffic before eventually rounding a corner into a broad, empty street with a Metro station on one side and, opposite, some sort of walled enclosure full of trees and churches. They pulled over.

Ben-Roi had never been to Cairo before, but he was pretty certain this wasn't the Israeli Embassy. Annoyed, he asked Khalifa what was going on.

'I just need to check something,' replied the Egyptian, getting out. 'It'll only take a few minutes. I think you should come as well.'

Ben-Roi grouched and grumbled, but Khalifa was insistent and eventually the Israeli got out too, muttering to himself. They paid the driver, crossed the road and, descending a set of stone steps, passed into the interior of the enclosure, emerging onto a narrow paved street between high walls of red and yellow brick. It was very still in here, and very quiet, the atmosphere dense and musty.

'What the hell is this place?' asked Ben-Roi, gazing around.

'It's called Masr al-Qadima,' replied Khalifa, removing his cigarettes and lighting one. 'Old Cairo. The most ancient part of the city. Parts of it date right the way back to Roman times.' He took a drag. 'Although I seem to remember it had a different name then.' He flicked a glance at Ben-Roi. 'It was called Babylon. Babylon-in-Egypt.'

The Israeli raised his eyebrows, as if to say 'Is that supposed to mean something to me?' Khalifa didn't respond, just wedged the Cleopatra in his mouth and, with a wave of the hand, led the way down the street. Every now and then they passed a doorway or a shuttered window, but they saw no other people, nor heard any sound save for the slap of their feet and, once, a faint waft of song, soft and ethereal. The street doglegged right, then left, then right again before issuing into the open, tree-fringed space in front of the Ben Ezra Synagogue.

Again the Israeli asked what was going on, again Khalifa didn't reply, just flicked away his cigarette and beckoned Ben-Roi into the building. They paused a moment in the entrance, taking in the marble pulpit, the wooden galleries, the intricately decorated walls and ceiling, then walked forward until they were standing in front of the high wooden shrine at the synagogue's far end, flanked to either side by the brass menorahs.

'Welcome, Yusuf. I knew you would return.'

As on his previous visit, Khalifa had been certain the synagogue was empty. Yet there was the tall, white-haired man again, sitting as before in the shadows beneath the gallery. He raised a hand in greeting, staring at them both for a moment before standing and coming over to them. Khalifa introduced his companion.

'Arieh Ben-Roi,' he said. 'Of the Israel Police Force.'

The man nodded, as if he had been expecting some such answer, eyes lingering on the menorah pendant hanging around Ben-Roi's neck. Khalifa shuffled uneasily from foot to foot. Now that it came to it he wasn't entirely certain how to vocalize what was on his mind. Wasn't even entirely certain what it was that was on his mind. The man seemed to understand his dilemma because he came forward a step and laid a hand on his shoulder.

'It was brought here a very long time ago,' he said gently. 'Seventy generations now. Matthias the High Priest ordered it. When he knew the holy city would fall to the Romans.'

Khalifa blinked at him.

'The . . .'

'Other one?' Again the man seemed to understand what he was thinking even before Khalifa himself did. 'Eleazar the Goldsmith cast that. To mislead our enemies. The original was sent to Egypt with my forefather, here to wait until better times should come. Our family has guarded it ever since.'

Ben-Roi opened his mouth, then shut it again, bemused. There was a long silence.

'You've never told anyone?' asked Khalifa eventually.

The old man shrugged. 'The time was not right.'

'It is now?'

'Oh yes. Now the time is right. The signs have been fulfilled.'

His eyes, to Khalifa's surprise, seemed to well with tears – of gladness, not sorrow. He gazed down at the detective, then, slowly, turned away towards the nearest of the menorahs, reaching out a hand and touching his fingertips to one of its branches.

'Three signs to guide you,' he recited softly, his voice distant suddenly, as though echoing across a wide expanse of space and time. 'First, the greatest of the twelve shall come and in his hand a hawk; second, a son of Ishmael and a son of Isaac shall stand together as friends in the House of God; third, the lion and the shepherd shall be as one, and about their neck a lamp. When these things come to pass, then it will be time.'

There was another silence, the man's words seeming to linger in the still, cool air of the synagogue's interior, then he turned again, sapphire eyes sparkling.

'Your coming fulfilled the first sign,' he said, smiling at Khalifa. 'For the greatest of the twelve sons of Jacob was Joseph, Yusuf in the Arab tongue. And you brought with you a hawk. The second sign' – he spread his hands to encompass both detectives – 'this you both fulfilled. For it is to Ishmael that the Muslim people trace their ancestry, and from his brother Isaac that the Jewish race is descended. A Muslim and a Jew side by side in the House of God. As for the third sign . . .'

He tilted his head, indicating Ben-Roi's pendant.

'Lion?' asked Khalifa, his voice sounding strangely thick and foreign to him. 'Shepherd?'

The man said nothing, just looked over at Ben-Roi.

'My name,' mumbled the Israeli. 'Arieh is the Hebrew for lion. Roi is shepherd. Listen, what the fuck's all this about?'

The man's smile broadened and he let out a soft chuckle. 'Let me show you, my friend. Let me show both of you. Seventy generations, and now, finally, the time has come for it to be revealed.'

He took them both by the arm and led them to the rear corner of the synagogue where he produced a key and opened a low door set into the wooden panels lining the walls.

'Our synagogue was built in the late ninth century, on the ruins of an old Coptic Church,' he explained, ushering them down a staircase into a large flag-stoned basement, empty aside from a stack of folding wooden chairs and, in the middle of the floor, a large rush mat. 'That in turn, however, stood on the ruins of an even older building, one dating right the way back to Roman times. When my ancestors first came here that building was the home of the leader of the Jewish community in Babylon, a very wise and holy man. Abner was his name.'

He crossed to the mat and, leaning down, grasped its corner.

'Nothing now remains of that original house save one small part – a vault, very deep, once used for storing wine. That has survived untouched while above it the centuries have slowly passed and the buildings come and gone.'

He drew the mat aside, revealing a stone slab with a socket at its centre, larger than the surrounding flags, smoother, older somehow, much older. With the detectives' help he lifted it aside, opening a hole within which a set of worn steps led downwards. Khalifa couldn't be certain, but he thought he caught a faint hint of light down below.

'Come,' said the man. 'It is waiting.'

He led them down the steps and into a narrow arched passage with a corbelled ceiling and dusty brick walls. The light was now unmistakable, a rich warm glow emanating from round a corner at the passage's far end. They moved towards it, the glow growing stronger with each stride, deeper and more intense, their nostrils picking up a vague suggestion of perfume on the air, barely noticeable and yet at the same time strangely intoxicating so that they began to feel light-headed. They came to the end of the passage, turned the corner and halted.

'Oh God,' choked Ben-Roi.

In front of them was a vault hewn out of bare rock, its walls and ceiling rough and uneven, its interior suffused with the warmest, sweetest, most exquisite light Khalifa had ever known. Standing at its far end, the source of the light, was a seven-branched Menorah, seven flickering flames rising from its lamps, identical to the one they had found in the mine yet at the same time wholly different, its gold infinitely richer and more alluring, its form infinitely lighter and more graceful, its decoration so subtle and lifelike that beside it real flowers and leaves and fruits would have seemed no more than tawdry imitations.

The detectives looked across at each other, eyes meeting and holding for a moment before they turned away again. Following the white-haired man, they walked forward until they were standing directly in front of the candelabrum, its light washing over them like a wave of gold, streaming into their eyes, flooding the remotest recesses of their bodies, filling them.

'You keep the lamps lit?' asked Ben-Roi, his voice barely audible.

'The lamps have not been touched since the Menorah was brought here,' replied the man. 'They were lit then, and have remained so ever since. Their wicks have never burnt down, their oil has never run out.'

They shook their heads in wonder and shuffled forward a few more inches, gazing into the flames. They were unlike any Khalifa had ever seen before, made up of all the colours of the rainbow and more, colours Khalifa didn't even know existed, colours so pure, so perfect, so hypnotic that thereafter every colour he saw would look unbearably drab and monochrome by contrast. They seemed to draw him inwards, swirling and spiralling around him, caressing his face as though he was passing through some diaphanous veil before it suddenly parted to reveal vast open spaces, spaces that somehow – and he never was able to explain it properly – contained every person he had ever known, every place he had ever been, everything he had ever done: his entire life spread out in front of him, all perfectly clear, perfectly real. There were his father and mother, his brother Ali, his police graduation, the day as a five-year-old when he had run away from home and climbed all the way to the top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. And right in the midst of it all, clearest and brightest by far, laughing and waving at him as if he was looking at them through a window, Zenab and the children.

'I can see Galia.'

Khalifa turned. To his horror he saw that Ben-Roi had reached out his hand and was holding it right in the middle of one of the flames. He raised his own hand, intending to pull the Israeli's back, but the white-haired man restrained him.

'The light of God cannot harm those who at heart are truly righteous,' he said quietly. 'Let him be.'

Ben-Roi was smiling, the flame seeming to expand and swell so that it encased his entire hand, wrapping it in a brilliant glove of golden light.

'I can feel her hair,' he whispered, 'her face. She's here. Galia's here.'

He began to laugh, fingers moving back and forth through the flame as though he was stroking a loved one's skin, continuing thus for several moments before suddenly his face crumpled in on itself and he let out a deep choking sob. Another one came, and another, and another, each more violent than the last, his entire body seeming to convulse with the force of his grief. He withdrew his hand, bent forward, clutched his sides, but the convulsions grew stronger and eventually he was driven down onto his knees, sobbing uncontrollably, the tears pouring out of him like water from a broken dam, on and on, emptying him.

'I loved her so much,' he kept saying. 'Oh God, I loved her so much.'

Khalifa tried to mumble some words of comfort, but they seemed wholly inadequate and, stepping forward, he laid a hand on Ben-Roi's shoulder. Still the sobbing continued, tears coursing down the Israeli's craggy face, his breath coming in short, agonized howls. Eventually, hardly even aware he was doing it, Khalifa came forward another step, sank to his haunches and wrapped his arms around the big man.

'I loved her so much,' choked Ben-Roi. 'I miss her. Oh God, I miss her.'

The Egyptian said nothing, just held him close, the light of the Menorah enveloping them both like a glittering cloak, drawing them together, binding them. The old man smiled, turned and walked from the vault.

When they finally climbed back up into the synagogue the man was nowhere to be found. They called his name, but there was no response, and after wandering around for a few minutes they went outside again.

It had been midday when they arrived. Yet now, inexplicably, it was dawn again, as if the conveyor belt of Time had somehow slipped and surged, breaking the normal rhythm of the day's cycle. They gazed east at the swirls of pink and green staining the sky above the ragged heads of the Muqattam Hills, then walked forward and sat down on a bench beneath the bole of a giant India laurel tree. As they did so a little boy in a white djellaba came up carrying a tray with two glasses of tea on it, his eyes blue and bright as sapphires.

'Grandfather said to give you these when you came out,' he said, extending the tray. 'He'll be waiting for you in the synagogue when you're ready.'

They took the glasses and he scuttled off again. Khalifa lit a cigarette and gazed up at the last faint stars still twinkling in the sky above. There was a long silence.

'So, what do we do with it?' he asked eventually.

Beside him, Ben-Roi had hunched forward, blowing on his tea.

'Do good things,' he murmured. 'Try to make a difference.'

'Hmm?'

'The last thing Galia said to me. Before she died. Do good things. Try to make a difference. It was this phrase we had.' He glanced up at Khalifa, then down again. 'I've never told anyone that.'