Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

You’re the writer, said Momo’s mother. Come in, please, you must be hot.

The living room was a small space filled with rickety furniture. On the table was a tray with two glasses and a jug of lemonade with ice and mint leaves. The lemonade was really delicious. Mother and son said something to each other in Hebrew and Momo went out into the corridor. Then he appeared from another room and said to me, come in, sir, just for a minute. His grandmother was in bed, with her eyes open and an anxious expression on her face, as if fearing that something was about to happen. She hadn’t spoken for months, but she could hear, so I greeted her with a nod and told her my name. She turned her face to me and a shudder went through me. Her eyes were like two windows through which all the horror and madness of destruction, the proximity of death, could be seen. She raised one hand and I saw the number tattooed on her wrist. She put her hand on mine and smiled. She stayed like that for a few seconds and closed her eyes. That’s enough, said Momo, she’s tired. We went back to the living room and finished the jug of lemonade. Momo gave his mother an envelope (money, I assumed) and she gave him a bundle of fruit and canned food. I said goodbye to the woman, walked back out onto the street, clambered into the Toyota, and waited for Momo.

The Universal Coptic Church was located on Rothschild Avenue, a tree-lined boulevard whose sidewalks were overflowing with people at that hour, toward noon. The address I was looking for was on a corner, in an old Bauhaus-style building that curved toward the adjoining street, giving a lovely feeling of flow. On either side of the entrance were other businesses, a video rental store and a dry cleaner’s called Salonika.

As I got out I made a mental list of what I was looking for, or rather, what I assumed I might find out: whether Miss Jessica was indeed now attached to this organization; the possible links between the Coptic Church and the Ministry of Mercy; and how everything had changed since the destruction of the Ministry as Maturana had told it. Of course, I had no very clear idea of what the Universal Coptic Church might be. From somewhere deep in my memory, I recalled that one of the characters in The Alexandria Quartet was a Copt and that in Egypt it still existed as an official Christian sect, would it be the same here? It hardly seemed like it, to judge by the building.

When I entered the reception area, I noticed how bare the place was. No large crucifixes or altarpieces, just a dilapidated wooden desk, a first-generation IBM computer, and a few posters with images of Christ.

Can I help you? asked a woman sitting behind the desk. I told her I was looking for a woman named Jessica, and added, she’s an American friend of mine, of Latin origin, when I knew her she was called Jessica, although I realize that names change when people have a religious vocation, I haven’t seen her in quite a while and then I heard she was is in the Coptic Church, she’s a woman of about forty.

A sly look came over the receptionist’s face and she said, wait here, I’ll see what I can do. Momo, who was by my side — I forgot to mention before that he had come in with me — had not opened his mouth yet, but now he said: this looks like the complaints department of an industrial complex in a Communist country, I bet they won’t tell you anything, sir. I looked at him and shrugged. What else can I do except ask them, this is where the call you received came from, the one Maturana had in his book before he killed himself, obviously they may not know anything about it, we have to be discreet. Momo gave me a knowing look and said, O.K., I understand, my lips are sealed.

Behind the desk there was a window that looked out on an inner courtyard. A fat man was shifting some garbage pails and putting them together near the door. When he had finished, he lifted the flap of his coveralls, took out a bottle, and had a couple of good swigs. Then he looked up at the sky with an expression of gratitude and cleaned his mouth with his sleeve.

At this point the woman came back and said, would you come with me, please? the Metropolitan’s secretary would like to see you. We followed her along a corridor, past a number of prayer rooms, and up the stairs to the third floor. A man of about fifty was waiting for us in an office. Sit down, he said, without getting up or holding out his hand to us, merely indicating the leather armchairs with both hands, would you like a glass of water, iced tea, coffee? Nothing, thanks. The man stood up, turned his back to us, and said: I’m Eddy Peters, at your service and God’s, welcome to our church. Now that he was standing I could see how fat he was, but in a strange way, with a small, thin face, thin arms, and sunken chest, and then a very large potbelly. I noticed the surprise in Momo’s eyes and thought he might be on the verge of committing an indiscretion. I would have to watch out.

So you’re looking for somebody, eh? he said, sitting down again, theatrically. Yes, an American friend, I haven’t seen her in years, but then some friends of mine told me she’s a parishioner of this church and had mentioned to them that she was coming here, that’s why I’ve come to look for her. Oh yes, he said, chance, chance is the ink in which God dips his pen in order to plot the destinies of men, and what leads you to believe that she’s here in this particular branch of our church? I looked at him and said, absolutely nothing, just my intuition.

The man scratched his neck and caught a bead of sweat as it trickled down behind his ear.

The fact is, there’s nobody of that name here, you’ll have to give me more information. As I said before: she’s of Latin origin, forty years old, and has worked for other evangelical churches. . And why do you imagine she may be with us? He was nibbling at the cap of a ball pen. I repeated: because of what our mutual friends told me, that’s the only reason. I paused and added, I’m a writer, I’m used to doing research.

When he heard that, his face changed color, and he spat the pen cap from his mouth and said, you aren’t one of those filthy opportunists who write about the crimes of the church and crap like that to fill their pockets by deceiving people? No, how could you think that? I’m not even writing, in fact I haven’t written anything in more than two years, I only mentioned it to. . But the man was beside himself. And what’s to guarantee that after this visit you won’t recover your inspiration and start slinging all kinds of shit at us? The scene was starting to be grotesque, but I was enjoying myself, so I said: I’ve never done that, I mean sling shit, I only want to know if among your parishioners there’s a woman who fits the description I gave you, from what I know the Coptic Church isn’t a secret society or anything like that, its followers don’t have anything to hide, it doesn’t do anything criminal or shameful, or does it?

He went to the window, put his hands on his hips, thrust his body back, and let out a big breath. All right, my friend, I think it’s time we put our cards on the table, don’t you? let me tell you how I see things: you’re a writer and you came to this country for the conference in Jerusalem; you say you’re looking for a long-lost friend but that wasn’t in your mind at all when you first arrived; but then a tragedy occurs, and one day later you get it into your head to come here and inquire after your friend, don’t you think that’s a rather curious coincidence? I looked at him in surprise and said: maybe so, but that’s all it is, a coincidence. The woman I’m looking for worked with the dead man years ago in an evangelical church in Miami, don’t you find that a bit disturbing?