Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

How rife the world was for such upheaval. How perfect the time for the “Hodoporia” to assert its will. How miserable my own existence.

At last awakened from my slumber, I only compounded my iniquity. Like Jonah to Tarshish, I ran further from my duty, now to the East and the city of the Turks. Can I say that I knew I would find the scroll within its walls? I must confess, I cannot. I ran to Constantinople to bury myself in a world unknown. Yet even in my own depravity, Mani guided my steps. Even in my humanity, He allowed me to find the seeds of my salvation.

The story of my redemption is one of Mani’s power….

Pearse flipped through the next few pages-Ribadeneyra’s own version of Confessions -his salvation, in keeping with Augustine’s, at the age of thirty-three while sitting in a garden in Istanbul. But whereas Augustine had succumbed to the flesh-“give me chastity, and give me constancy, but do not give it me yet”-Ribadeneyra had fought a far less tangible enemy: his own self-doubt.

Pearse wondered if such uncertainty ran like a common thread through all those who sought the scroll. His own affinity for the Hieronymite monk grew with each page.

And yet, he couldn’t help but ask just how seriously he was meant to take it all. The phrase “Take it and read” gave way to the equally inspiring, though now familiar, “Those who enter may see the light.” Clearly, Ribadeneyra had chosen the phrase after having seen the scroll and deciphering its message. Still, it made for compelling narrative. Even more absorbing were the tales of midnight jaunts to abandoned churches, secret messages delivered by Orthodox priests, a vision of Mani himself appearing to set the wayward brother on his proper course-all of it ultimately leading the monk to “enter” an eleventh-century church, the scroll hidden within one of its long-forgotten crypts. Soon thereafter, the decoding of the text, the connection to Photinus, the Vault of the Paraclete. Piety rewarded. Certainty reclaimed.

Pearse could only hope for such results.

On unearthing the “Hodoporia,” however, and on reading its contents, Ribadeneyra had made the momentous decision that the brothers of Mani, and the world in general, were not yet ready to confront its power. His certainty had evidently brought with it a residual serving of pride.

How much of the Pure Tongue flies through these pages. How simple the words, their source undeniable. Yet their power demands too much of us, their truth too great a threat. Are such thoughts a blasphemy? Perhaps. But a blasphemy we cannot confront in this age. Too much now conspires against the “Hodoporia” to unleash its power. Too much would be lost in the frantic swirl of heresies that abound. And if not lost, then abused in aid of this Luther, thus sealing the fate of Mani’s return. No. The “Hodoporia” must appear when all is at peace, when the papal church once again grows well pleased with itself and is not armed against its enemies. (How I regret the chance I let pass. How long I shall live with the shame.) Then shall the “Hodoporia” assert its power, and thus make a place for the fullness of the light.

It was here that Ribadeneyra offered his truest indication of faith. Or perhaps the only rationale for his own inaction:

But it is for Mani alone to decide when that time shall come. He alone shall know when the “Hodoporia” shall be revealed.

Now certain he was acting in the best interests of all Manichaeans, Ribadeneyra had returned to Istanbul, reinterred the scroll (for the one “worthy enough to accept the task”), and concocted another bit of gnosis, so that, “centuries from now,” another might discover it-Ruini, as it turned out-and “unmask the path to the Holy Truth.” Mani would keep the scroll well hidden; Ribadeneyra would handle the “Hodoporia.”

Pearse turned to the next page for the first installment of the monk’s “hidden knowledge.”

There is a town on the Drina….

The Drina River. Bosnia. Pearse’s eyes shot to the top of the page. The small triangle.

And he remembered.

Half an hour from the Bulgarian border, he’d crossed into Macedonia, now three hours ago, each passing mile a nod to the Holy Mother’s continuing generosity. Or perhaps to the ancient animosities between the Greeks and their neighbors to the north. Whichever it was, he was counting on that lack of communication to delay any alerts out of Athos. Still, he couldn’t expect to sustain his run of good luck at the border posts. Ill feelings notwithstanding, there’d been too much time since his hasty departure from the mountain. The collar would soon lose its charm.

Unless, of course, the border he intended to cross lay in shambles. With one eye on the map, the other on the road, he knew he had only one choice: Kosovo. Over a year ago, the refugees had been pouring out, thousands of them crammed into camps littered along the Albanian and Macedonian borders. But there had been too many of them, thousands more shipped off to Turkey, Armenia, Greece-wherever friends or relatives had been willing to house them. Now, those same refugees wanted back in. Trouble was, there was no place to put them, entire villages buried under rubble. More than that, the Serbs weren’t exactly encouraging them to reclaim their homes; mines were once again springing up all over the place. Still, the refugees came. And with them, a rebirth of the camps. Not that the rest of the world was taking much notice. That was last year’s news. The horror of the camps, however, remained the same.

Callous as it might sound, Pearse knew that a priest on a relief mission could easily get lost in one of them. Or at least be deemed lunatic enough to be let through without too many questions. He was banking on the latter. More to the point, Kosovo would be the easiest place to disappear once Nikotheos’s call went through to Rome. Mention of the “Hodoporia” would no doubt kick the Austrian and his cronies into high gear. Even if they should find the car-which he planned to abandon a few miles from the border-the chances of locating him within the mayhem were slim at best. Somehow, he would find his way to the Drina.

Where along the river, however, was another question entirely. The latest Manichaean word game had nothing to do with acrostics as far as he could tell; this time, the gnosis lay hidden in what Ribadeneyra had described as “language alchemically transformed.” His explanation had done little to clarify:

Everything has not only one virtue but many, just as a flower has more than one color, and each color has in itself the most diverse hues; and yet they constitute a unity, one thing.

Still mulling over the sixteenth-century instructions, Pearse pulled into the “last petrol in Macedonia.” He’d expected to see some signs of life this close to Kosovo; instead, the road had become empty, the last half hour driven in complete isolation.

And yet, the solitude shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. During his first pit stop some eighty miles back-what had passed for a gas station, shack and seedy little pump-he’d been told that, this time, the UN was trying to keep the refugee camps to a minimum-Senokos and Cegrane to the south of the capital, Blace to the north. Those not involved had no desire to get too close.

The mayhem was at Blace-twelve kilometers on, according to the sign at the rest stop. On foot, Pearse knew, he could be there in a few hours.

The rest stop had clearly been designed for the onetime bus tours destined for the St. Nikita monastery, its minimalist cafeteria-glass as its walls-nestled into an opening in the trees. The pump here was pristine compared to the first he had seen, the name of the gas something unpronounceable, accents and consonants in the vast majority. Pearse pulled around to the back, grabbed the pack, and headed for the building. He left the keys in the ignition. If someone wanted the car, they were more than welcome to it. Let the men from the Vatican chase after an opportunistic refugee.