The Book of Q

avoid detection. Most scholars claim that the sect wanted to avoid detection by the Romans. As I said, though, there have been those who’ve suggested that the Manichaeans might have wanted to avoid detection by other Christians, as well.” Angeli creased her lips around the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “And given what your scroll contains, I’m now somewhat inclined to agree with them.”

Pearse knew there was more to her admission than merely an academic’s reassessment. His encounter with the Austrian had been proof enough of that. The question remained: What? “So fifteen letters, describing some kind of transcendent experience, will change the way we view the Manichaeans? I can’t see how that would be earth- shattering for more than a handful of people.”

“Then you would be wrong.” Nothing hostile in her tone, simply a statement of fact. Without waiting for a response, she bent over and began to lay the pages on the carpet, one by one. Whenever she needed more room, she would push the encroaching pile of books as far as her short arms would allow, eventually forced to drop to her knees so as to gain added leverage. Every so often, a few books would topple; she continued, undeterred, until the area from desk to Pearse lay hidden under a blanket of yellow paper. “Remember, it was a prayer passed down orally,” she said at last, still fiddling with the order of the sheets. “Somehow, I forgot that little piece of information for nearly an hour. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Pearse gazed out over the sea of yellow, the scrawl only slightly less daunting than the wild arrows that ran from one sheet to the next, exclamation points circled in red ink, whole paragraphs written vertically in the margins, the letters almost too small to make out. He watched as she twisted her head once or twice so as to follow the mean-derings of several of the linked pages, the red pen emerging from one of her pockets to solidify the routing. When she was fully satisfied, she pulled herself up to the chair and sat.

“So, what do you think they are?” There was almost a giddiness in her tone.

Pearse looked across the pages. After almost a minute, he shook his head and turned to her.

“Oh, come on. You were wonderful on this stuff. Remember those bits from Porphyrius Optatianus, the poet- courtier of Constantine? All that wordplay? You were the one who figured those out, not me.” She nodded again at the pages. “So come on. What do you think they are? It’s right there in front of you.”

The gauntlet had been thrown. Pearse moved to the edge of his seat and again began to scan the yellow sheets. Another long minute.

“Transposition of lines?” he said. Fatigue, lack of practice-either way, he knew it was a weak attempt, but he had to go with something.

“Too obvious.”

“Thank you.” He looked again. “Reverse sequencing?”

“Before the twelfth century? Oh, come on. You’re not even trying.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “I promise. I’m trying.”

“Think Hebrew scripture.”

“Okay. It’s … actually a pillar of salt.”

“Ha-ha. I’m telling you, you’re going to hate yourself.” When he shook his head again, she conceded, “Oh, all right. It’s a series of acrostics.” She looked out at her handiwork. “Such a common device in prayers, and Hebrew literature is full of them. Took me an age to get that that’s what they were doing here, but I thought you’d … well, anyway. They’re acrostics.”

He saw it at once. Following each of the lines, he confirmed it for himself. “The first letters of each line placed together spell out something else.”

“And these are ingenious. Those pages there,” she continued, pointing to the sheets closest to Pearse, “are the fifteen transcriptions of the prayer. Notice anything strange about them?”

He inched out farther on his chair. This time, he saw it immediately. “The lengths of the lines are all different,” he answered.

“Exactly. Given that they’re all the same prayer, you’d expect them to be identical, or at least close enough, perhaps a few words altered here and there. But in each one of these, the lines begin and end at entirely different points, while the individual words remain identical. Why?” He could tell she was enjoying this.

“The oral tradition,” he nodded.

“Exactly. I knew you’d get it. There wouldn’t necessarily have been established designations of lines and stanzas, because they would have recited it as a continuous flow of words-with a few pauses here and there-but with nothing absolutely fixed. An obvious explanation for the discrepancies. But was it?”

“I’m guessing no,” he answered, eyes still glued to the pages.

“I began to ask myself, Why, given that tradition, did they find it necessary on these occasions-most of them separated by thirty years or so-to write down the prayer along with the letters? Plus, you would have thought that a natural cadence for reciting the prayer would have emerged over time, giving it some sort of shape. There should at least be some similarities among the copies. And yet, there’s none. Why? And why include the prayer with each of the prophetic letters?”

“And that’s when you thought of the acrostics.” He nodded, getting caught up in her excitement.

“Of course. It ties in perfectly with the very thing that lies at the heart of any type of Gnosticism, Manichaean or not-secret knowledge. The gnosis. That’s why they all start with that bit from John. An alarm bell, if you will. ‘Remember the gnosis,’ it’s saying. In this case, the knowledge is literally hidden within the text.” Her enthusiasm continued to mount. “Why the different line lengths? Because each transcription has a specific message of its own, thus requiring different first letters in each of the lines.”

“So what’s the message?”

Her cigarette now found the ashtray. “Unfortunately, none of my first fiddlings came up with anything that made sense. More than that, I began to realize how oddly constructed the prayer itself is. One would expect a prayer called ‘Perfect Light, True Ascent’ to be uplifting, begin with the mundane and progress to the divine. In fact, it works in precisely the opposite way. Sublime at the start, commonplace at the end. That’s when I turned to the letters.” She pointed to the sheets closest to the desk. “They were also about ‘heavenly ascents.’ Why include them? And why keep them all together?”

Pearse stared at the pattern Angeli had created on the floor, following the arrows, trying to make sense of it all. He became aware of her growing impatience. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“Oh, come on, you must see it this time,” she said, the childlike eagerness once again in her voice. When he shook his head, a smile crossed her lips; she quickly leaned over and began to sweep her hand through the air just above the pages, three or four times-desk to him, desk to him-before nodding in encouragement.

“Pillar of salt?” he said with a smile.

With a burst of energy, she threw both her hands into the air. “Up. It goes up. True ascent. You have to read the transcriptions from bottom to top. That’s where the acrostics are.”

He looked at the sheets; it was staring right up at him. “Form following content.” He nodded.

“Exactly. The message is in the ascent. It’s really quite marvelous.”

“Granted, but I still don’t see what’s-”

“So earth-shattering?” she cut in, nodding to herself as she focused on the pages near the desk. “Neither did I for nearly an hour. Each acrostic produced coherent sentences, but their overall meaning wasn’t clear-nothing more than unconnected catchphrases. I can’t tell you how frustrating that was.”

“I’ve worked with you before, remember? No broken plates this time?”

“That was an accident.” She waited. “And no. Just a few snapped pencils.”

“Then it couldn’t have been that long before you figured it out.”

“You know,” she said, “I’m beginning to like you less and less.”

He laughed. “I’m sure you are. You found the answer in the epistles, didn’t you?”

Her eyebrows rose. “You are a clever boy.”

“Each one was ascribed to one of the five Old Testament prophets.” He nodded, “Which, of course, was impossible.”

“Exactly. Oh, I wish you’d been here a few hours ago. Would have saved me an immense amount of time.”

“Not to mention pencils.” He smiled. “So why did the writers choose those names?”