Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

He lowered his head. God, is that you? Are you talking to me through Creed? Soften my heart, Lord, make me hear…

But before long, all he could think about were the plans they’d made to attack the city, about their massive strike against evil. He tightened his lips and nodded. It was the right thing to do. It had to be.

His fingers slid under the Bible on his desk and slammed it shut.

The knife slipped, pinging against Jagger’s metal hook. He sat in a stout wooden chair on the third-floor walkway in front of their apartment, whittling on a thick branch he’d found in the monastery’s gardens. The physical therapist in Virginia had suggested the craft as a way of becoming dexterous with RoboHand. At first he could barely hold a piece of wood, let alone clamp it tight enough to accommodate the knife’s pressure. But now his biggest worry was leaving indentations in an area of wood he’d already sculpted. He’d even mastered using his non-hand to work the knife, which he did to initially shape the piece. Then he’d switch the knife into his real hand to whittle in delicate details.

He blew on the unfinished product and held it up into the glow of an amber porch light. Carved into the branch was the face of an old man-his scraggly beard flowed into the grains of bark; deep wrinkles etched his forehead, formed perfect crow’s feet, and arched from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. A bulbous nose perched over a grim mouth. Almond-shaped eyes awaited pupils.

“It’s Gheronda!” Beth said, stepping onto the terrace from their apartment. “Shame on you.” She held out a wine glass. When he set down the knife and took it, she filled it from a green bottle.

“A face like that,” Jagger said. “How could I not carve it? I’m flattered you recognized him.”

“Michelangelo has nothing on you,” she said. She set the bottle on the wide, flat arm of the chair next to him and brushed wood shavings off the seat. “That boy needs to learn to clean up after himself.”

“He was tired,” Jagger said. “I told him I’d take care of the mess. He’s getting pretty good too.”

“He showed me. A man, I think.”

“It’s going to be a Union soldier. He wants to make a whole regiment. Confederates too. Is he asleep?”

“Soon as his head hit the pillow.” She dropped into the chair with a long sigh. “This place is an endless playground for a little boy.. and exhausting for his mother.” She filled her glass and took a sip.

Together they scanned the monastery laid out before them, a box about the size of a football field. Moonlight cast a silvery radiance into the compound, which looked to Jagger like the Lego construction of an impatient six-year-old. None of the buildings was quite squared to the exterior walls; a few-such as the single biggest building, the basilica-canted diagonally away from the wall. Over a millennium and a half, structures had been built on top of others and squeezed into gaps. This left rooftops at varying heights, tunnel-like alleyways, and small irregularly shaped open areas. Many rooftops doubled as terraces and walkways, with stone flues popping up at odd locations like memorials to long-forgotten events.

Defying this mishmash was the newest of the structures. Built against the interior of the south wall-to Jagger’s right-was the Southwest Range Building, which housed the library, icon gallery, a hospice, a chapel, and quarters for many of the monks. Its facade boasted a double series of arches, fanning out from a central monolithic tower with its own two-story arch and domed roof. Closest to Jabel Musa, the already-tall building was on high ground, giving Jagger the impression that it watched over the compound, a well-dressed parent calmly protecting its ragamuffin children.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Beth said.

“The Southwest Range Building? Yeah.” The lunar glow caught its edges, accentuating the arches and giving it the appearance of having been carved out of the mountain rising behind it, like the temples of Petra a 150 miles to the northeast.

The compound itself lay mostly in shadows. A small scattering of amber lights glowed slightly brighter than the moon, illuminating a terrace, a couple walkways, and the space between the basilica and mosque, which had been built in the tenth century to placate Egypt’s Arab rulers.

“All of it.” She crossed her wine glass in front of her, inviting his eyes to behold the ancient setting. “So much history. Centuries of worship. Just think of the love for God that went into the placement of every stone.”

“Lot of sweat,” Jagger said.

She smiled. “Listen.”

He did, though he already knew what he would hear: nothing. It was one of the eeriest aspects of the Sinai. No muffled radios or televisions, no barking dogs, no far-off hum of traffic. Even the occasional breeze seemed to pass without stirring a leaf or finding a scrap of litter to push over the ground. At this time of evening-just past ten-the monks had all retired to their quarters, taking with them the noises of human life: footsteps, closing doors, the clearing of throats. During the day it seemed one monk or another was always scraping a straw broom over the silt that settled everywhere.

And with Tyler asleep-the only time he didn’t rattle or stomp or make gun sounds with his mouth-Jagger and Beth had come to treasure this hour. The world had shut down, seemingly just for them.

Jagger felt pressure on his shin and leaned over to see a cat rubbing against him. He scratched its head, which it appreciated for about five seconds. Then it leaped away as if he’d pinched it. He slid back into the chair. The backsides of countless people who had sat there before him had polished the wood to a smooth gleam. The armrests were nicked and scarred by, as far as Jagger could tell, fingernails, knives, pens, and cigarettes. Even so, the chair felt like a throne to him, and he liked the idea of surveying a kingdom that wasn’t his, next to a queen who was. He lifted his wine glass. “To you,” he said, “for sticking with me.”

She tapped her glass to his. “I never considered doing anything else.”

“I know,” he said. He sipped the scarlet Egyptian wine. It was a cabernet sauvignon from Chateau Des Reves, the best they could find, which wasn’t saying much. When it came to wines, Egypt was no France. This blend, with grapes imported from Lebanon, exhibited the varietal characteristics of flowers and cherry cough syrup. “I just mean, you’ve put up with a lot, and we haven’t really talked about it that much.”

She touched his arm. “I figured we would when you were ready.”

He smiled at her, then stared into the glass. “I just…”

“What?”

“I never would have guessed I’d crumble like I did.”

“Your grief ran as deep as your love.”

He squinted at her. “You loved them too.”

“We all grieve differently. I threw myself into my work.”

“I couldn’t work,” Jagger said, feeling that old smoky, choking sense of self-loathing rising up from his gut. He shook his head. “I don’t know how you did it.”

She squeezed his arm. “I laid a lot of pain at the foot of the cross. I just figured he could handle it better than I could.”

“I blamed God,” Jagger said. He pushed his lips tight. The anger was still there. “A whole family, Beth.” As if she needed reminding. “Here one minute, gone the next. All because-” He turned away, didn’t want her to see the fury on his face. It was something he was supposed to have left behind in the States. He gazed at the simple, thin cross rising from the basilica’s peaked roof. “All because some idiot thought he could drive plastered out of his mind.”

Beth half turned and tucked her legs beneath her on the chair. She leaned close to him, her fingers stroking his forehead and running back through his hair. “Shhh,” she said into his ear. Her hand slid over the side of his head and stopped on his neck, holding him while she brushed her nose against his cheek. “Let it go,” she whispered.