The Cult of Osiris

indifference.

Osir glared at him. ‘By over a tenth of a second! We’ll be lucky to have a car in the front half of the grid at this rate.’

‘We shouldn’t have any cars at all. It is a huge waste of money.’

‘It helps spread the Osirian Temple’s name around the world,’ said Osir. ‘I consider it worth it - and I am not having this discussion again, Sebak.’ His brother scowled and stood, retreating inside the yacht.

Nina turned away from the sunlit vista of the city to Osir. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have thought they’d let religions sponsor cars.’

‘Technically, the Osirian Temple is not sponsoring anything,’ he said, keeping a close watch on the screen. ‘All the money comes from the Osiris Investment Group.’ A new set of numbers appeared. ‘Ah, that’s more like it! That should put us on the third row.’

‘Sponsoring racing teams, running this enormous yacht . . . the Osirian Temple’s not really like other religions, is it?’

Osir eyed her over his sunglasses. ‘You sound disapproving, Nina.’

She shrugged. ‘Not my concern. I’m just sayin’.’

‘My clever accountants worked out a way for the Solar Barque to cost me absolutely nothing, thanks to some loss-making subsidiaries and carefully crafted leaseback agreements with OIG. Since I can have it, I may as well enjoy it. And you may as well too.’ He pushed an intercom button on his lounger’s arm. ‘Nadia? Two martinis, please.’

‘I’m okay,’ said Nina, holding up a hand.

‘I insist. On a beautiful day like this, you should take the maximum pleasure from every one of your senses.’

‘I’d rather be working on the zodiac.’

‘When it’s ready,’ he said, to her disappointment. ‘My experts are making sure it is as perfectly reassembled as possible. It will still take them hours, but I don’t want the slightest clue to be missed.’

She couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘Then maybe you should have left it on the ceiling of the Hall of Records.’

He smirked. ‘Now you really do disapprove.’

‘Moving it wouldn’t have been my first choice - especially since your brother and that asshole Diamondback tried to kill me while they were doing it.’ She shot a venomous look at the deck above. Diamondback was leaning against the rail, surreptitiously keeping an eye on her. ‘But it’s done. So I might as well profit from it.’

‘And you will, Nina. We both will.’ He smiled, then turned as a lithe young Jamaican woman in a bikini arrived with a tray. ‘Nadia, thank you.’

Nadia handed the tall glasses, ice clinking, to Nina and Osir. ‘Is there anything else you want?’ she asked in a suggestive tone.

Osir grinned. ‘Always, my dear . . . but not just now. Perhaps after the party at the casino.’ He gave her backside something between a brush and a swat as she turned to leave, making her giggle.

‘You got a hunky guy in Speedos for me?’ Nina asked. She had seen several other young women in similar states of near-undress since boarding - along with numerous green-blazered guards, some armed with silenced MP7 sub-machine guns.

‘I’m sure we could arrange one.’

She got the feeling he wasn’t joking. ‘So, tell me,’ she said, wanting both to change the subject and to pass the time until she could legitimately go for another ‘bathroom break’ - her first attempt to contact Eddie from the yacht had failed because the head she chose had zero cell phone reception, ‘how does a guy go from being a baker to founding his own religion? With a spell as a movie star in between, too.’

Osir sat up and muted the flatscreen, pleased at the opportunity to talk about his favourite subject: himself. ‘I said in Switzerland that I like to gamble, yes? Well, I became an actor because I took a gamble. I was only fourteen, and a movie was being shot in my town. From the moment I saw the actors, and the crew attending them, I knew I had to be a part of it - somehow. But they were only on location for three days before going back to the studio. So every day I sneaked out of school and hung around the shoot, talking to people between takes - including the lead actor, Fadil. I tried to convince Sebak to come with me - he was twelve - but he was afraid of being caught, and thought our father would be furious.’

‘And was he?’

Osir smiled. ‘Oh, yes. But I’ll come to that. On the last day, they were shooting a scene where the two leads get out of a car and go into a hotel, and they needed some extras in the background. Because one of the people I had befriended was the assistant director, he called me over.’

‘And so began a movie career,’ said Nina. For all her distrust of Osir, with his rich voice and expressive face she couldn’t help warming to him as a storyteller.

‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘Skipping school was only a small gamble. The big gamble was when I gave myself a line during the take.’

‘Ooh. I bet the director was mad.’

He smiled again, no longer looking at Nina but somewhere off into the sky. ‘I can still remember it - Fadil was having trouble getting a big case out of the car. I saw that the director was about to say “Cut”, so I stepped forward and said, “Help the gentleman with his case? Only ten piastres,” and held out my hand like Oliver Twist!’

‘And what happened?’

‘The director was so surprised, he forgot to call for a cut,’ he said, laughing, ‘and Fadil, since he knew me, improvised rather than getting angry. He said, “If you take all the lady’s cases, I’ll give you twenty!” Everyone laughed, and the director decided to keep it in the film. I even got paid! You will never guess how much.’

‘Twenty piastres?’

‘Out of Fadil’s own pocket. So that was my big gamble, and my first screen appearance. Of course, Sebak was incredibly jealous, so he told my parents what I had done. And yes, my father was furious. But a few days later he got a letter from the director. After he saw the dailies from the location he realised there was a later scene where he could follow up my little joke in a way that helped build Fadil’s character. To do that, though, he needed me again . . . so he asked if I would come to Cairo to shoot the new scene.’

‘Wow,’ Nina said, impressed. ‘It really did pay off.’

‘More than I could ever have dreamed. My father took a little persuading, but I got my way; there are advantages to being the first-born son! So I went to Cairo, and since I was working at the studio, I needed to sign a contract. My birth name, Khalid Shaban, was the same as another actor’s, so they asked me to pick a stage name. I chose Osir - after Osiris, of course. I thought it would bring me luck.’

‘And it did.’

‘It certainly did. By sixteen, I was in regular work as an actor - small parts at first, but building my skills and making friends on both sides of the camera. By eighteen, I had starred in my first film, which was quite successful by Egyptian standards. The studio wanted more, but I was due to start my three years of national service in the army. So the studio head, who had friends in the government, pulled a few strings.’

Nina sipped her martini. ‘And got you out of military service?’

He nodded. ‘I would have done it, but I’m glad I didn’t have to. I was having too much fun! I was only eighteen, but I was famous, making lots of money, travelling - and meeting many beautiful women.’ Osir smiled broadly - a smile which, to Nina’s surprise, quickly faded. ‘All this only made Sebak even more jealous . . . and then he had his accident.’

‘What happened to him? I mean, he obviously got burned, but . . .’

‘It happened in the army.’ Osir shook his head sadly. ‘Unlike me, he was conscripted. So he was already angry about that. Then, only a few weeks into service, he was in a truck that crashed and caught fire. He was in hospital for two months, with one side of his face, and more, burned away . . . then he was made to go straight back into his unit to serve the rest of his three years. He was understandably bitter.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ The revelation did nothing to make Nina more sympathetic to Shaban, but she could understand his constantly simmering rage at the world.

‘When he came out of the army, I did what any elder brother should, and took care of him. I found him work