My cabana door is open. Sitting on my bed is Dr. Ragar.
"Brother! I have brought for you the map of the Hidden Hall, known only to Masons of many degrees."
I begin to laugh. I'm delighted to see him. I wonder, was he one of the faces? I can't remember.
"Sorry, Doctor, I've already seen the Secret Hall. What else have you got?"
He misunderstands my exuberance. He thinks I am ridiculing him. His eyes take on a wronged look, whimpering from beneath his dark brow like two whipped dogs.
"I Dr. Ragar do have," he says in a hurt voice, "a formula for a blend of healing oils. Used by the Essenes, it is said for the feet of your Jesus. The usual price of this formula is five pounds, but, my brother, for you -"
"Five pounds is perfect! I'll take it."
He helps me carry my bags and shares the taxi as far as Cairo. He is reluctant to leave me. He knows something more than money is up for grabs, but not what. He keeps running that rancid glim over me sidelong. When he gets out we shake hands and I press the Murine bottle into his palm.
"In return for all you've done for me, Brother Ragar, please to accept this rare American elixir. One drop in each eye will clear away the cobwebs; two in each will open the third; three if you wish to see God as he appeared in San Francisco in 1965. I would not divulge this powerful stuff but for the fact that my father, you recall, was a Mason. I think he would want it so. Please, be so kind…"
He studies me, wondering if I'm drunk at nine in the morning, then takes the bottle. "Thank you," he says uncertainly, blinking thickly at the gift.
"One stone at a time," I tell him.
Epilogue. Nine forty-four by the cabbie's watch. He's finding holes no Fiat ever fit through before but I'll never make it. They said to allow at least one hour for getting through Cairo customs. Look at that mob of tourists! Like rats panicked at a sinking porthole. Nine fifty. Nobody's going to make it.
But the plane is delayed because an old pilgrim had a heart attack and they had to unload him. The guy I strap in next to tells me about it.
"Right there trying to put his camera bag in the overhead and the Lord took 'im. Happens all the time on these Holy Land hops."
The guy is a preacher from Pennsylvania and a tour host himself: very, very tired.
"Wasn't part of my group thank the Lord. But I'm due. Y'see there's so many of them that are Senior Citizens, old folks that have saved enough to take a gander at the Holy Land even if it's the last thing they do."
The engines are finally running and we taxi to the end of our runway. The spirit on board lightens. Nervous chatter is heard. Just before we take off somebody yells, Hey, who won the fight last night?
What fight? somebody calls back.
Between the Heathen and the Infidel.
Everybody laughs, even the Turks and Nurds, but nobody knows who won. The stewardess says she'll ask the captain and report back. We blast off. When we level out the Pennsylvania preacher says, "It wasn't Foreman. I don't care what she reports back." I thought he was sound asleep. I say what? and he repeats the statement without opening his eyes: "I said Foreman didn't win, no matter what the outcome." When he doesn't elaborate I turn back to my window.
We're banking right over Cairo. There's the bridge crossing the Nile to the Omar Khayyam. There's the Statue of Isis Awakening, lifting her veil to watch us leave. There's Pyramid Boulevard… The Mena House… Giza village… but I don't see… could I have overlooked it in this haze? There! No wonder; even from up here you don't see it because you're looking for something smaller. But you don't overlook it. You can't. You underlook it.
"And you wanna know why?" the preacher has rolled his head to ask. "Because he's got a discrepancy is why! How can he be the good Christian he claims to be and still be hitting people for money?"
He fixes me with eyes worn red and raw from two weeks' keeping track of his rattled flock.
"That's what does it, the thing really gets these Holy Landers. It's not the age, not the heart. It's the discrepancy!"
His eyes close. His mouth falls open. I turn back to the window. The airplane's shadow flits across the golden ripples of the Sahara. We level out. The speaker pops on and the pilot addresses us in sophisticated Amsterdam English.
"This is your captain, Simon Vinkenoog. It appears we have to take a little detour in our routing to Istanbul, west of the Nile delta, because of… political reasons. We do not estimate much time loss. Lean back relax. The weather in Istanbul is clear and cool. The report from Zaire last night – before a crowd of ten thousand Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round, regaining the World Heavyweight Championship. Have a pleasant flight home."
KILLER
I wander thru each charter'd street
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
– William Blake
Killer, the one-eyed one-horned billygoat – rearing fully erect on his hind legs, tall as a man, tucking his cloven hooves beneath his flying Uncle Sam beard, bowing his neck, slanting his one horn, and bulging his ghastly square-lensed eye at M'kehla's back – came piledriving down.
"M'kehla, watch out!"
M'kehla didn't even turn to check. Using the fence post like a pommel horse he vaulted instantly sideways. Amazing nimble for a man his size, I marveled, not to mention been up driving all night.
The goat's horn grazed his thigh, then struck the post so hard that the newly stretched wire sang all the way to the post anchored at the corner of the chicken house. The hens squawked and the pigeons flushed up from the roof, hooting angrily. They didn't like the goat any better than M'kehla did.
"Choose me off, will you, you smelly motherfucker!" M'kehla pistoned a furious kick against the blind side of Killer's shaking head – "I'll kick your mother skull in!" – then two more to the jaw before the dazed animal could back away from the post.
"Hey, c'mon, man. This isn't anything" – I had to think a moment to come up with an alternative word – "personal. Honest, he does it with everybody."
This was only partly honest. True, Killer had tagged just about everybody on the farm at one time or another – me, Betsy, the kids when they tried crossing his field instead of going around – but the goat had seemed to choose M'kehla off special, from the moment the man had arrived.
It had been early that morning, before anybody was up. I half heard the machine pull in but I figured it was probably my brother in his creamery van, out to get an early start on the day's roundup. I rolled back over, determined to get as much sleep as possible for the festivities ahead. A few seconds later I was jarred bolt upright by a bellow of outrage and pain, then another, then a machine-gun blast of curses so dark they sounded like they were being fired all the way from a ghetto of hell.
Betsy and I were instantly on our feet.
"Who in the world?"
"Not Buddy," I said, dancing into my pants. "That's for sure."
Still unzipped I reached the front door. Through the open window I saw a shiny black bus parked in the gravel of our drive, still smoking. I heard another shout and another string of curses, then I saw a big brown man in a skimpy white loincloth come hopping out of the exhaust fumes at the rear end of the bus. He had a Mexican huarachi on one foot and was trying to put the mate on as he hopped. After a wild-eyed look behind him he paused at the bus door and started banging with the sandal.
"Open the door, God damn your bastard ass – open this door!"