Demon Box

I grab the pole for support, impressed. Marag has positioned himself in front of me, hands on his hips, grinning skyward. He’s done this before. He flaps a moment, then the breeze stills. I follow his gaze up into the milky sky and see what he has been waiting for: the thumb of God. I see it come down out of the haze and settle on top of Marag’s head, bowing him like a deck of cards until his face snaps, revealing another behind it, and another, and another, face after face snapping and fanning upward in an accelerating riffle—some familiar, from the village, the aouda, some famous (I remember distinctly two widely known musicians who I will not name in case it might bring them hamper), but mostly faces I’ve never seen. Women and men, black, brown, red, and whatever, most of them looking at least past the half-century mark in earthly years. The expressions completely individual and various—bemused, patient, mischievous, stern—but there is a singular quality uniting them all: each face is kind, entirely, profoundly, unshakingly benevolent. The fan spreads up and up, like the deck at the climax of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, clear to the clouds. From a distance these two vast triangles would resemble an hourglass, the bottom filled with grains of limestone, the top with face cards.

At the last there are a number of blanks, positions available for those willing and qualified. When the last blank is snapped away there is a hole left in the shape of Marag’s slight body. Through this hole I can see the Sphinx, and beyond his paws those lanes of huts housing these faithful sentries who have for thousands of years guarded the treasury of all our climbs and all our falls. It is not buried. It is hidden on the very surface, in the cramped comings and goings, the sharing of goat’s milk and sugercane, in the everlasting hustle by the grace of which this ancient society has managed to survive. For thousands of years this people has defended this irreplaceable treasury and its temple with little more than their hustle and bustle and their bladders.

As long as there’s piss in the King’s Coffin there isn’t going to be a pair of McDonald’s arches on the aouda.

“What you think, Mister Deb-ree?” Marag snaps back into the space before me. “Is a good trick?”

“Is a good trick, Marag. Is a great trick.”

Back on the aouda I give him gifts for his family. Handkerchiefs, shoulder-bag stuff. My harmonica for Sami, and I will talk to my wife about the boy coming to Oregon for a year of school. To Marag I give my canteen, my compass, and a page from my notebook inscribed This man Marag is a servant who can be relied upon.

Signed with my name and gooped over with my Polaroid fixative to preserve it. We shake hands a last time and I hurry down to check out.

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.