Mandine woke up early the next day after Adam told her the night before about the appointment he had made with a doctor at Cairo University. She hurriedly changed her clothes and took two spoons of fava beans under Catherine's insistence. "You haven't eaten anything since you came, your mother will scold me when you return to her," Catherine said, while Mandine stood up and slipped out of the house. Catherine continued loudly, "And then she will think I didn't fulfill my duty of hospitality to the fullest."
The driver stopped on the sidewalk near one of the towers on the circular road. Mandine checked her watch and realized that it had taken them half an hour to get from her residence to Cairo University, even though it wasn't far. The driver pointed to one of the nearby buildings and said, "You have reached your destination." She got out of the car and saw Adam nearby, smiling as he bent down to greet her. He paid the fare, and they entered after informing the guard that they had an appointment with one of the professors. It was a vast, ancient Roman-style building, with a dome at the top as a symbol. Adam asked a passing student in English where the Faculty of Archaeology was, and the student directed them there. Moments later, they found themselves standing in front of an office labeled "Dr. Abdul Rahman Jalal."
After knocking, they were invited to enter. The man welcomed them warmly, offering them the only two chairs in front of his office. They exchanged small talk about the weather in Egypt and how it differed from their homeland before the professor asked what they were looking for, assuming they were his students.
"Well, we want to ask you about one of the languages," Mandine said, pulling out a page from a book she had prepared earlier. She placed it in front of him, adding, "We searched some old books, but we couldn't find a language similar to even one letter of this language." The man examined the paper for a while, running his hand over each letter one by one. His face slowly turned into astonishment.
"Honestly, I've never seen a language like this before. It's more like vague symbols than letters. Are you sure it's a language?"
"Yeah, it's an ancient language, I think, from a long time ago," Adam replied.
"It must be one of those languages that's been lost or forgotten. There are many languages that have died out because they were spoken by very small communities that left little behind. Are these all the lines there are? I mean, if there were longer words, we could have deciphered them. Can I ask where this writing came from?"
Mandine looked at Adam, who returned her gaze as if silently asking, "Shall we tell him the story?"
"We're in the process of writing a historical note on the life of King Abubakar, that scholarly king who left his kingdom, traveled across the sea, and never returned. The sources are very few in Britain, and African culture has been wrongly transmitted to the Western world. When we searched for a month in many books and asked many researchers about his biography, we found little. The story always ends with Abubakar traveling into the unknown, with all sources claiming that the sea swallowed him. Then one day, I read an article online that mentioned him in great detail, and the author claimed to have written it based on a book he had found in an Egyptian bookstore. It included the exact address of the store. I wrote to the blogger, and my partner and I decided to come here to search for the book. Instead, we found a small manuscript containing a new version of that mysterious story, which includes some symbols and writing we don't understand. So here we are looking for answers."
The researcher now looked at the paper with a different expression, as if finally realizing its value. "Well, based on my knowledge, I've never seen such writing. The letters don't resemble any language I've encountered before. But I can ask my colleagues, and they may know something about it."
"That would be great. We'll leave you this copy. It might help you," Mandine said, then wrote her email address at the bottom of the paper. "You can write to us anytime. We appreciate this favor."
"You're welcome. I'll write to you tomorrow after I make some inquiries," the researcher said.
"Thank you again," Mandine said. After excusing themselves, they left feeling disappointed.
"Why didn't you tell him about the book? Why did you say it was just a small manuscript?" Mandine asked as they walked out into the public square and headed toward the exit.
"We need to keep something for ourselves, Mandine," Adam replied. "That book must be very old. Do you know the old librarian didn't even know it was on his shelves? He gave it to me for free, saying it was old and no one had ever asked for it. If he knew we had such a book, he'd probably take it in the name of protecting antiquities or something, and then we wouldn't be able to write our memoirs."
"So how could such an old book be left like that?"
"I don't know. All I know is that we need to finish reading it. It contains everything we're looking for. The narrator really knows what he's writing, as if he was with Abubakar every moment. I'm amazed by how many details it has about him." He paused and then repeated, "We have to finish it quickly," in a hushed voice.
"I'll read it and extract what's important for us and start writing the memoir right away."
They passed the exit and were standing in front of the main door when Mandine said, "I'm going to focus all my attention on the book." Adam nodded in agreement, looked at the passing vehicles, then raised his hand and stopped the first yellow car that passed. He opened the door and jokingly said, "Ms. Mandine, please come in." She laughed and said as she got in, "Since when did you become a nobleman, Adam de Sarpiero?" He just smiled, and the car drove off, waving as it left.
When Mandine arrived home, Catherine had already left for work. She worked as an Arabic literature teacher at the middle school where little Sara studied. It was not yet one o'clock. Mandine placed her bag on one of the chairs at the dining table in the center of the kitchen and decided to make something special for herself. "Well, we will reward ourselves now," she said. She thought about cooking Egyptian food that she and her mother had learned in the old days. Her mother was very good at British food, but later, Mandine decided to learn to cook some Egyptian dishes to surprise her father. Koshary was one of them.
Mandine bent down and started looking for the ingredients. In no time, she found the basics. She boiled spaghetti and lentils on the side, then fried onions until they changed color and smell. She added them to the lentils and rice. After a few minutes, the dish was ready. She looked at it and said, "I'll never get better at cooking."
Mandine took a nap that evening despite the Egyptian belief that afternoon naps are bad luck. When she woke up, she decided to continue reading the book.