The Coptic Martyr of Cairo

By Martin Roth

Four Americans in Egypt on an archaeological dig. In the blistering summer heat they are fighting amongst themselves. Then they unearth a body. It is an old priest who has been murdered.

The gruesome discovery sets in train a sequence of events that leads to a deadly Islamist attack on the ancient church where the Americans are working.

The leader of the expedition, Professor Rafa Harel, must decide whether to withdraw his fractious team or continue on a mission to unveil a controversial series of wall paintings, all the while knowing that these images have the power to spark even greater violence.

Meanwhile, watching over all of them is a dreamy young Egyptian Christian named Amir. His only quest in life is to become a martyr.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Roth
• Release date: Mar 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301733316

Martin Roth

Martin Roth is a veteran journalist and foreign correspondent who lived in Tokyo for seventeen years and whose reports from throughout Asia have appeared in leading publications around the world. He now lives with his family in Melbourne, Australia, where he enjoys walking his black Sarplaninac mountain sheepdog and drinking coffee in the city’s many wonderful cafés.

Book preview

PART I

EGYPT

Chapter 1

At first they did not realize that they had just unearthed a dead body. The initial impression was of some old clothing - rags perhaps, possibly a blanket, certainly nothing important - sticking out from one of the piles of discarded dirt.

But Professor Raphael Harel - or Rafa as he was called - knew that because this was an archaeological expedition it was, unfortunately, necessary to treat the find with reverence.

All the dirt in this pile is just what we dumped here yesterday, said Brett Lin, one of the four Americans who had flown over to Egypt for this summer enterprise. He was a divinity student, tall and muscular, despite his Chinese heritage, and had already smashed his head several times in the confined space. How come we missed this?

Because it’s so dark down here, said Rafa, who had organized the whole project. I hate to think what else we might be missing.

I think it’s just some clothing, said Elly Hobit, a young art history student, straining her eyes in the dim light and fingering the find. Someone probably threw it away quite recently. But it can’t be anything old. Any kind of fabric would fall apart pretty quickly if it was buried down here. We can forget about it. It’s nothing important.

No, we do not forget about it, barked Susan Clueffe, walking over. Even in this restricted space she took long strides. She was about thirty-five, and was one of Rafa’s students, in his spiritual art class. Her blonde hair was tied in a ponytail. She was not tall, but she had the shoulders of a champion swimmer, with thick arms and legs, and her appearance was imposing. She was the only member of the team with archaeological expertise, and Rafa had placed her in charge of their daily activities. We most certainly do not forget about it. Everything is important. I do not want to hear you talk like that again.

She pulled a small metal object, like a knife, from a leather pouch that she wore strapped around her waist, and began scraping away the soil.

But look, really, we dumped all this dirt here yesterday, protested Brett. I just don’t think we have time to examine every bit of rubbish that we find buried in the dirt. We’re here to…

I said everything is important, warned Susan. Every bit of ‘rubbish’ - as you call it - is important.

Rafa sighed. He watched as she meticulously scraped away the soil from around the fabric, a little at a time, as if cleaning a room with a toothbrush. He knew that Brett was right. They just did not have time to examine everything they found in the soil. Their task was to uncover some potentially historic artworks that had been discovered only recently on the basement walls of a local Coptic Christian church. Unfortunately, they had been in Egypt for a week only and already tensions were flaring.

The blistering Egyptian summer heat was certainly an issue, although conditions down here in the bowels of the old stone church were stuffy but relatively mild.

The primitive working conditions - putrid air, rancid soil and rubble, clouds of dirt and dust that seemed to stick to your lungs, along with just two low-power light bulbs to illuminate the place and an indifferent power supply - also all contributed to the rising stress levels. And although they pretended otherwise, no one was happy with their unexpectedly rough living conditions.

But the main problem was Susan. Rafa had organized this project in the form of a Christian mission trip, and Susan was not a Christian. She had volunteered her services at the last minute when one of the other team members - a worshipper at Rafa’s California church with archaeological experience - had dropped out.

I’m very, very spiritual, she had assured Rafa. Perhaps. But she had arrived with a set of tools and a lot of attitude, while definitely lacking the Christian virtues of patience and humility. She almost always declined any invitation to join the other three in morning prayer or in their evening devotions. Indeed, she seemed to delight in strolling at night through this highly conservative Muslim township in shorts and T-shirt, and sitting with the local men in the coffee houses.

She continued scraping away at the dirt, gradually exposing more and more of the clothing or the blanket or whatever it was. Certainly she knew what she was doing. But Rafa longed to remind her that they were here for four weeks only, and they simply did not have the time to investigate every bunch of rags they found. The whole purpose of the project was to uncover, from behind untold centuries of dirt and rubble, the murals down here on the walls.

He knew that their work was potentially momentous. The St George Church served the Coptic Christians of Al-Harawi, an outer suburb of Cairo. Recently a new senior priest, Father Paulos Nazeh, had arrived, and he decided to venture down and see what lay under his old church. He had been forced to remove some massive stones to gain entry, but once underneath he found that one corner of the church building had apparently been built on top of the ruins of an even more ancient church. And on the walls could be discerned some antique artworks.

As a professor of spiritual art, Rafa, when he learned of the discovery, immediately recognized its significance. He canceled plans to write a new book during the summer vacation, and instead organized this expedition, to remove the dirt and rubble, and expose the paintings. But in the cramped and oppressive conditions it was a slow job, and he wondered how much they could accomplish in just four weeks, with only four people.

Apart from Susan, he had managed to recruit just two others, both from his church, Brett and Elly. He knew they had each taken a dislike to Susan, and now he could see that they had moved away from her, and were back at work on the slow task of unveiling the murals.

After one week they had succeeded in cleaning away enough soil and mud to reveal the faded head of a man, almost certainly Jesus. He appeared to have one hand raised, perhaps in blessing, and in the other hand he held a book. Around him were animals, almost certainly from the Book of Revelation, an eagle, an ox and a lion, together with a man. In all likelihood other beings stood nearby, possibly angels, along with symbols that might represent the sun and moon.

But it was all so indistinct, with large patches missing, that it was really too early to be sure of the identity of the images. And progress was so painfully slow.

Susan was delicately separating mud and dirt from the newly discovered rags, watched with fascination by their gofer. Amir Moussa was a local, rake-thin, unemployed Egyptian youth who translated for them, rushed to the local market when they needed batteries or string or snacks or anything else, arranged their meals, and generally helped in every way he could. This is something, he muttered, in a tone that almost seemed one of excitement. This is something.

What had he spotted? Rafa tried to look more closely in the dim light. Suddenly Susan gave a start. She scraped some more. And then she seemed to be suppressing a scream. Rafa knew she was a tough woman. She wasn’t given to screaming.

He edged nearer. And there they were - some fingers, clearly attached to a hand.

I think it’s a body, stuttered Susan.

Rafa thought hard. His quick brain told him that perhaps this ancient site was some kind of catacomb. But then they would have found a skeleton, not fingers and a hand. Already the other two in the basement were walking across, aware of some irregular new discovery. They both gasped when they saw what had been found. Elly raised her hands to her mouth, as if suppressing a scream.

Rafa looked at Susan. I think we need to find out what we have here. Are you up to it?

She nodded.

I don’t like her, thought Rafa. But I have to respect her. She really is tough.

They worked quickly, removing as much soil as possible, to reveal the blanket-shrouded body. Then they lifted one corner of the fabric, to expose the face of a white-haired old man. Rafa shone a flashlight on him. His face was lined, his eyes were closed, his skin a pasty grey.

Amir the gofer was still staring with fascination. I know who it is, he whispered. I know who that is.

Chapter 2

The outer suburb of Al-Harawi was about an hour’s bus ride north of central Cairo, not far from the banks of the Nile. It was home to around twenty thousand people, the majority of them Muslim, but also including a sizeable Coptic Christian minority, most of whom were apparently members of the St George Church.

In the week that Rafa had been here with his team he had come to respect Father Paulos Nazeh. Though only newly installed as leader of the church, he was in his late-sixties. Apparently he had served several decades - his apprenticeship, he called it - as a monk at one of the numerous monasteries that are scattered throughout the Egyptian desert, until asked to return to his hometown to take over as head of the church.

He was a short, genial man with a flowing black beard, salt-and-pepper curly hair and sparkling eyes, along with excellent English, despite never having left Egypt. On their first meeting Rafa, who had spent a significant amount of time in Asia, was reminded of a Buddhist priest, a squat, slightly rotund figure, laughing a lot, pleasantly vague about almost everything. But after just a few encounters he had come to appreciate that the old Egyptian priest possessed a powerful intellect, and that those twinkling brown eyes were actually little lasers that could penetrate deep into your soul.

It was Father Paulos’s curiosity about his church building that led to the discovery. It was evident that one corner of the old stone structure incorporated some kind of basement. Once inside he discovered the artworks, barely visible over heaps of dirt. He had contacted friends in the Coptic Church in the US, and through them had been directed to Rafa, a professor of spiritual art. Rafa had been immensely excited when he learned the nature of the discovery. So excited that he immediately made plans to gather a team of fellow Christians and fly to Egypt to work on uncovering the paintings.

He had made it clear to anyone interested that danger might be involved. They would be working in hazardous conditions, down in the basement of an ancient church. If this were Italy or Spain an architect would probably have carried out a thorough assessment and determined the degree of security. If necessary, workmen would have been summoned to reinforce some of the infrastructure to ensure safety. But this was a poor church in a poor country, and nothing like that was possible.

In any case, it was something else that caused Rafa even greater concern. This was the sharply rising levels of persecution of the Christians here - about ten per cent of the Egyptian population - by the Muslim majority. Might the arrival of a group of American Christians spark further problems? It was something he wanted to learn more about. But, once he spelled out the possible dangers, he could find only three others to accompany him here, instead of the team of a dozen that he had envisaged.

Still, when he discussed the possible hazards with fellow church members back home in California, he had never imagined that a dead body might be among them. Now he got down on his hands and knees and crawled out through the narrow opening to the basement, then ran straight to the home of Father Paulos, a newer, two-storey sandstone building in a courtyard behind the church. He banged on the front door. An old woman in black who was some kind of housekeeper for the unmarried priest, answered. She did not speak English, and she knew that Rafa did not speak Arabic.

Father Paulos, he said.

She made an elaborate gesture with her hands. Perhaps she was startled at his dirt-smeared clothing and the sweat running freely down his face. In his one week in this town Rafa had learned that when you visited the senior priest you normally arrived in your Sunday best.

He watched her gesturing. He’s at home? He’s not at home? Rafa really did not know what she was trying to tell him. He felt he had no choice. Rudely he shoved his way past. He strode down a short hallway lined with photos of men with beards, then knocked on the door that he had learned opened into the priest’s study. A man’s voice called out some words in Arabic. Rafa entered, and found the priest sitting at his desk, in conversation with a smartly attired middle-aged woman. He was dressed in what seemed to be the only clothing he ever wore, a long black robe, adorned with a bulky silver cross hanging from a chain around his neck.

He looked up at Rafa and perhaps discerned some urgency in his demeanor. He was also probably surprised at the unexpected appearance in his office of a man looking like a coal miner straight from the pits, although he gave no sign of unease. Instead he said something to the woman, then held out his hand. She kissed it and quickly left, glancing nervously at Rafa.

The priest beckoned for Rafa to sit, a generous Christian gesture, given the state of Rafa’s clothing, but he remained standing. You have to come down, he blurted out.

To the basement?

Yes, right now.

The priest stood. You look worried. What’s happened? Has there been an accident?

Rafa hesitated. There’s a body...

A body? You’ve found a body…?

Amir says its Father Cheroubim…

Father Cheroubim, who had also lived for most of his life in a monastery, was in his seventies, unmarried and living nearby. He apparently did a lot of volunteer work for the church in some kind of unofficial capacity.

Without a word Father Paulos dashed from the office, his robes flying behind him. Rafa followed, and watched as the man, with amazing agility for someone of his age, crawled through the opening into the basement.

As Rafa clambered through after him he heard the priest give a sharp cry, then begin praying in a loud voice. For several minutes he prayed, while holding the hand of the dead man, his voice rising and falling, as the four Americans stood around awkwardly. Then without another word he turned and exited through the small opening. Rafa quickly followed and caught up with him at the doorway to his house.

Yesterday he went to Cairo to visit his sister, said Father Paulos. His face was taut. "She is nearly as old as him, and rather sick. They must have seized him when he arrived home, and killed him then. I wondered why he hadn’t