“You don’t have time! That’s a laugh. Tell you what, Otto: When you start helping me, I’ll start helping you. Because if we don’t start helping each other, pretty soon we won’t have any time at all.” With that he turned and vanished out the door.
Chapter 29
Decker wandered aimlessly through the streets, past the state and city courthouses, past City Hall and southward toward the Battery. The evening was oppressively cold. He could see the condensation of his own breath in the air, suspended, ballooning under streetlights. He was still fuming, still replaying his conversation with Warhaftig when he found himself at the southernmost corner of Manhattan. He leaned against the railing and stared out across the frigid waters of the bay, at the Statue of Liberty glowing in the distance. She seemed to be carved out of a solid block of ice, blue green and absolutely still. Decker’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket, making him jump. He flipped it open. It was another text message, short and sweet. It read: Islamic Cultural Ctr, 97 — 2 & 3.
It took Decker a good half hour to make it to the Upper East Side. The Islamic Cultural Center at Ninety-sixth and Third — with its great dome, marble walls and golden minaret — was one of the most striking buildings in a city known for its ostentatious architecture. Built at great cost, the mosque was a landmark of modern and classical design, blending two great schools of architecture.
Decker noticed they were doing some construction just east of the Cultural Center. A huge hole, mostly obstructed by graffiti-splattered plywood walls, had been carved out of the ground. Massive earth-moving machinery slaved away in the pit, bellowing like bulls, tearing at the earth. When there was so much concrete everywhere, thought Decker, it was easy to forget the soil beneath. This is what remained of Manhattan Island’s gentle rolling hills, her meadows and forests and fields — a great scar in the earth, covered by Man.
The main gate leading to the mosque on Third Avenue was locked. Decker walked uptown to Ninety-seventh and noticed another entrance running along a wire fence beside the construction site. A pair of men sat by a two-wheeled halal stand, doling out chicken and beef, accompanied by freshly baked bread. And there he was — Professor Hassan — standing right there, alongside them, joking and laughing, biting at something in a piece of wax paper. As Decker approached, the Professor turned away, tossed the paper into a nearby garbage can, and headed toward the mosque. Decker followed. The entrance led into a narrow corridor. There was a gift shop on the right. Then the hall opened up onto a foyer. A set of double stairs led to the second floor. To his right, Decker noticed a small masjid studded with blue and white tile. A line of men stood praying inside, each facing the same direction. One got onto his knees. They were barefoot, Decker noticed. Their shoes and socks were stacked in little cubicles outside the entrance to the mosque.
Professor Hassan hesitated for a moment by another door. When he realized Decker was behind him, he pushed it open. It led into a kitchen with a restaurant-style range. Then the Professor disappeared through yet another door. Decker had to move quickly to keep up. He followed Hassan through the kitchen, through the next door and down along a corridor. There was a fire exit to their left. Hassan pushed it open and started to descend a set of concrete steps. Decker followed. A moment later they found themselves within another corridor, deep beneath the mosque. Hassan came to a stop by a door with the number seven stenciled on the front. He looked about. He stared at Decker for the first time. The corridor was empty. They had not seen a soul since the masjid. Hassan removed a key from his coat, unlocked the door and stepped inside, with Decker close behind.
The room featured a little metal cot, a washbasin and mirror, and a table. There were no windows; the room was too far underground. Books and papers were strewn across the surface of the table. There were printouts of the various wallpapers pinned to the wall, some in color, and some in black-and-white. Hassan had run a grease pencil along the Arabic, highlighting lines and punctuation marks. It was clear the professor was working on the designs recovered from the hard disk.
If anyone ever finds out I’ve handed over all this evidence, thought Decker, it will mean the end of my career, such as it is. Yet he didn’t care, which rather surprised him. It was too late for that now anyway. If he succeeded, all would be forgiven. And if he failed… Well, it would matter even less. “What’s going on?” he said.
Hassan hovered by the table, flipping through printouts, books and papers, as if searching for something in particular. “I can’t add much to the first translation, the masjid or Individual prayer,” he said. “And I’m afraid the sources of the third and fourth wallpapers still elude me. All I can make out are the same words you translated: Death will overtake you. And, On the ocean like mountains. Plus the numbers fifty-four thousand and zero. But here,” he added, pulling out a printout from the pile. “I’ve made considerable progress on the second wallpaper.” He showed him the familiar arabesque design, the curling script. He ran a fingertip along the lines. “You see,” he said. “It does indeed resemble a jami’ masjid, the prayer used on Fridays in the Congregational mosque.
“At first I was confused,” he continued. “I mean I’d translated a part of it as, ‘How many a deserted well and palace raised high,’ which seems to be from Al-Hajj. But this other part,” he added, pointing. “Here. You see? It didn’t make any sense. Then it dawned on me. It’s not an extension of the same line. It’s another quote altogether? Take at look.”
He handed Decker a copy of the Qur’an. He flipped it open to a specific page. “That’s the first quote from Al-Hajj, the Pilgrimage. ‘So how many a town did We destroy while it was unjust, so it was fallen down upon its roofs, and (how many) a deserted well and palace raised high.’ And here’s the second.” He turned the pages quickly. “It’s a quote from Hijr. It talks about Allah and Iblis — the angel who refused to genuflect to Man.” He read aloud. “‘I will make error appear as attractive to (people) in this life and I will lead them all astray… surely hell is the rendezvous for them all. It has seven gates; each gate has a portion of them allotted to it.’ I’ve translated them but I have no idea what they mean. Iblis has nothing to do with deserted wells or palaces. I’ve been pulling my hair out all afternoon.”
Decker studied the illustration. Unlike the first wallpaper, the calligraphy in this design didn’t flow in one straight line, along the qibla. The two quotes from the Qur’an came together at the mihrab, where the qibla and transversal axes intersected. Indeed, two words from the two quotes were overlain — both “well” and “seven.”
While Hassan struggled for logic, Decker repeated them under his breath, forging the words together as on the page. Well and seven, he thought, well and seven. And it suddenly came clear. The wells of seven. He laughed. After all this time, those years of Sunday school in Iowa had finally paid off. The wells of seven was Beersheba, the town where Abraham had made a treaty with Abimelech. “Genesis twenty-one,” he said aloud. “Verse twenty-seven.”