The Anchorites: Chapter 27
“Madonna,” Raphael whispered.
Last week, the group fought frog-monsters. This week, they enter the city of Tanta.
No Gone Artists this week. We are taking more time to edit the finale.
27
Raphael
“One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’”
—Revelation 17:1–2
The human prisoner turned out to be an old woman. Raphael helped the shaking woman onto the bus. Grasping an elbow to steady her, he noticed she was smaller than her billowing black burka suggested. Raphael tipped his head toward the driver's seat, gesturing for Jema to take the wheel, while he settled their guest into a seat near the back.
Raphael held her old and soft hands. She remained silent and scared for most of the ride to the city gates. Dark brown eyes stared blankly out the window. He noticed well-worn wrinkles at the corners of those eyes, visible between her headscarf. Raphael prayed the rosary in Latin under his breath. By the time he got to the Hail Mary, the old woman started to relax.
They approached the city of Tanta at sunset, to a ramshackle gate made of shipping containers. Barbed wire was hung over in jagged reams. The entrance was manned by guards. The dusty light of the bus reflected off their guns with an ominous sheen. The men's faces were obscured under the shadow of their turbans. These men were dark-eyed, tanned, and mustachioed. Raphael watched Jema and Marius disembark and approach. The guards put their hands out in a halting gesture.
“Marius will be better with these types,” thought Raphael. As if he could read his mind, Marius stepped forward, dabbing his forehead with the purple rag he kept in his back pocket. Raphael kept the door open so he could hear their exchange. The five guards were brusque but not unkind.
“What is your business in the City of Miracles?”
Still holding the woman’s hands, Raphael noticed that rifles were slung around each man’s shoulder, and a couple sported tattoos. Are those guns even loaded? he wondered. I didn’t think Muslims were allowed to get tattoos…
“We are headed to Alexandria,” Marius stated with confidence.
All the guards made a hissing sound.
“I wouldn’t be going there. Haven’t you seen all the Alexandrians going the other way?” exclaimed the head guard.
“How would I know where they were coming from?” Marius inquired, looking confused.
The head guard cut a weary look to his fellows. “The feathers. They celebrated their escape from the city with feathered costumes. They say the city is full of birds now.”
Marius hiked up his belt and peered back at the bus.
“That explains it,” said Marius in the tone of someone who doesn't believe what they are saying. “Well, we have some contacts there, and we think we can manage. Besides…” Marius leaned in. “We don’t believe in ghost stories like that, do we?” he said with a conspiratorial wink.
The captain's single, thick, caterpillar eyebrow didn’t move.
“You will need to stay in your bus tonight. We can evaluate you in the morning.”
Suddenly, the old woman’s hands slipped from Raphael's as she stood up and hobbled to the front of the bus, grunting as she went.
“Let us in right now, Saeed!” she erupted.
“Mother Harari!” the captain gasped, taking a step back. Bringing his right hand to his left shoulder, he chirped a handheld radio. “Sir, we found her.”
She stepped off the bus and started to push the guards around.
“Where did you go, Mother?” asked the captain, retreating bit by bit.
“I went to visit my Modeena’s grave, and these people saved me from the fiends. They don’t have plague, and they are to be my honored guests for the feast tomorrow night!”
The lady extended her arms wide, the sleeves of her sacred gown imparting the impression of wings on a manta ray.
They were escorted through the gates and shown to rooms in a once-opulent hotel. After unloading their meager belongings, one of the guards valeted their bus around the back to a secure lot.
The woman called Mother Harari grabbed Raphael’s hand and led him through the gilded entryway, with the others trailing behind. Raphael saw how this woman doted on him, whispering in Arabic what he could only assume were gentle endearments. Funny, he thought, she may only be ten years older than me, but she treats me like a child.
Some part of Raphael found this comforting, though he did not let it show.
“I am Fatima Harari,” she said, switching to Universal. “Though my people call me Mother. My son Ebin is the Khalif of Tanta—or, as we have called it, the City of Miracles.”
“What is so miraculous about this city?” asked Havel, running his hands through his hair and readjusting his pack on his shoulder.
“You shall see when the sun comes up, my boy. But first, we must feed you!”
The dining room was not set up, so they shoved two wooden tables through swinging double doors into a spacious kitchen. Under the white fluorescent light, they ate sticky raisin cakes and strips of salty beef and lamb. One attendant brought a bottle of wine, but Fatima waved him away. They were offered the luxury of a bath and ushered into spacious bedchambers. Each bed was well-cushioned and fragrant. Havel and Raphael shared the largest room, with two massive four-poster beds.
As Raphael sank into the softness of the mattress, he felt a tinge of loneliness. Ever since he left his wife, any bed felt empty—especially the comfortable ones. He fell asleep and dreamed of his home.
Through tepid mists, he could just make out the shape of his home: a solid two-story sandstone villa with red clay gutters. It had been a vacation home for their family growing up until his father bought it for him as a wedding gift. Raphael had it renovated to be as open-air as possible, breaking down walls and expanding windows so that, no matter where you were in the house, you could smell the lemon orchard that ran down the hill.
The estate was lined by pallets of tall and twisted juniper trees. He imagined the hand of God pulling them toward the starry sky.
In the dream, he watched his family make dinner through the windows. They were laughing in the warm light. He couldn't control his body. He wanted to stay there and watch their smiling faces but was being pulled away—past the pool, the dining terrace, the grand entrance, each window alight through the mist with a pleasant haze. He continued being pulled backward, away from that warm light within, and down the sloping, gravel driveway lined with Tuscan cypress, into the dark wilderness beyond.
Just before sunrise, Raphael awoke to the sound of eerie chanting.
“What is that?”
The noise was not unlike a human mimicking a didgeridoo. He moved slowly to the palatial floor-to-ceiling window and sat on an ornate carpet. From the other side of the room, the bed curtains were drawn back.
“It’s a call to prayer,” Havel said, yawning. With some effort, the young man got up and shuffled toward Raphael, sitting down beside him on the ground.
“What should we do?” asked Havel. “You’re someone who prays, right, Christian?”
The sun broke over the eastern side of the city and began to illuminate the beautiful mountainscape directly in front of them. Raphael squinted at the virgin light.
“Yeah, but who are they praying to? I don’t pray to Allah or Mohamed or whoever.” A familiar scowl screwed up his face. “I only pray to real Gods… and Jesus… who is God… and the Holy Spirit.” He felt his own old cheeks pucker at how silly that sounded, grateful that the young man was more interested in the sunrise than his theological fumblings.
Havel was gaping out at the view, his mouth open in wonder. Raphael turned.
Like watercolors on canvas, the light trickled down to reveal the unmistakable visage of a woman’s face etched in the rock. Her solemn eyes, as big as the domes of a mosque, were crying tears, blood-red.
“Madonna,” Raphael whispered.