The street narrowed until we could almost touch the walls from the car. Two Orthodox men in torn suits, sitting on the front steps of a building, looked at us indifferently. A woman who was chatting with her neighbor from a window shouted at us angrily as we passed. What did she say? I asked Momo. That we weren’t at the front and her son is. A bit farther along, the fenders of the Toyota hit an empty cardboard box and a hen squawked as it dodged away from the car. I said to Momo: are you sure this is the way? Trust me, the highway is straight ahead. And indeed, we were soon descending through Bab el-Wad toward Tel Aviv.
Didn’t your girlfriend want to come with us? Momo asked. She isn’t my girlfriend, only a friend, she’s a journalist, she’s covering the conference and I met her in the hotel. How strange, he said, I know women and I can assure you she looked at you as if you were her boyfriend, I can seen that in women; pardon me asking, but have you fucked her? No, I said. Momo turned in his seat. If you want my advice, sir, tell her something sad, it never fails; sadness always finds a kindred spirit. I have a bit of experience in this.
As we passed the Monastery of the Seven Sorrows at Latrun, a jet with the star of David on the back passed over our heads, flying very low. Fumigation, said Momo. What did you say? Fumigation. When the enemy is so close, we can’t shoot too much shit at them, because if the wind changes it falls on our heads; instead they fumigate with a burning liquid that only works for a few seconds but drives anybody who doesn’t have a protecting cream crazy; they have to fly low to spray it, and that has its dangers, they’ve already brought down a couple of planes. But it’s worth it. Their operations are becoming less frequent, which gives us a bit of a respite. We’ve been at war for many years, and we know each other well.
The streets of Tel Aviv were filled with pedestrians in shorts and sandals. It was summer in the Middle East, something that did not seem to exist just forty miles away, because the perception of reality was different there: as if the world’s tribulations had come to an end and only one fortress remained to fall. We entered the noisy, traffic-clogged streets. Momo said: my mother’s place isn’t far, we can have a cold drink and you’ll meet my family, then I’ll take you to your address. Momo’s mother lived in the northern part of the city, near the harbor. The smell of the sea filled our nostrils as we got out of the car. I took a deep breath and felt slightly dizzy, but I was fine otherwise. My health was holding up in spite of all these excesses.
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.