Let me introduce to you Eugène Vladimirovitch Serov, chosen by fate to live an extraordinary adventure.
Genia, diminutive for Eugène, will take you from New-York to Moscow by the way to Venise for a finale confrontation inside the oldest church in the world, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Let me invite you into an epic about death, because it celebrates life, sadeness because it bubbles over with happiness, and 2'000 years of history because it has faith in the future.
Hold out your hand to this 12 year old blind child, he's the one who will guide you...
Manuel M. Martin

Chapter 1

Moscow, October 1992

Andrei looked out the window at the dirty snow as it fell on a dirty city, his city, the city of the czars. A city that shined centuries ago, but that had begun to fade when a little man thought he was better than Nikola-i. Bullshit, he thought, he was just nostalgic because it was the day before the anniversary of the revolution. Didn't all Russians feel this deep within them—the weight of the assassination of the last czar and his family?
It was 4:30 p.m., and night was already falling. It was 10 degrees outside; this was going to be a tough winter, yet another one. Andrei wasn't worried for himself, he had already played his part, a long time ago. He had been successful, in his own way, although, seeing his country today, he realized that their past victories looked more bitter every day. No, Andrei was worried sick for his nephew, Genia, the son of his brother Vladimir. Oh, Vladimir, I miss you so much; it's been 25 years already, I don't know how to say this but . . . and Andrei veered off into another of his long conversations with his brother, who had died because he was just too smart.
He was the youngest physicist who had ever been responsible for an Army research laboratory. Only 28 at the time, Vladimir Alexandrovitch Serov had been the great hope of the Soviet military scientific community to finally silence the great American demon. His nuclear research, that had been immediately applied to atomic bombs, had been so promising that he had been named the head of the research laboratory as soon as the first results had been published. This laboratory quickly swallowed up half of the nuclear research budget; half of the empire's budget! Soviet research at the time was split into two currents: one of them was the official current, led with an iron fist by Igor Vassilevitch Korchatov, fed by intelligence from its espionage network, and made up of Nazi scientists who had divvied up the East and West after the second World War; the second was the new wave led by Vladimir Serov.
Andrei broke off his thoughts—Genia had just gotten home from the Institute. Not quite 12 years old, his nephew accumulated the enviable status of a doctoral student at the Superior Institute of Science as well as the much more tragic condition of a child with an unknown disease, whose eyesight was fading away. Genia was almost totally blind, and had frequent fainting spells, which gave his uncle little hope that the evolution of this disease could be checked even for a while.
“So, Genia, did you have a good day?”
“An excellent day, Uncle Andrei, we finished our light experiment.”
“Um, excuse me if I ask you a question . . . ”
Genia immediately recognized the restraint in his uncle's voice.
“How can you . . . with your condition . . . how can you do the experiment?”
“Uncle Andrei,” Genia said, “you shouldn't be so uncomfortable. I don't know how I can explain this, I can't see things or people anymore but I can perceive them through my eyelids, it even seems like it's getting better. Today it was I who stopped the light beam during the different phases of the experiment.”
Poor Genia, thought Andrei, you don't even realize that what you think is your sight is nothing more than noises, just sound!
“Uncle Andrei?” Genia’s voice was suddenly filled with anxiety.
“Yes, Genia?”
“Uncle Andrei, I'm afraid. There are two men in dark coats and shapkas coming, they look like they come from Dzerniskaya1. Please don't let them in. Please don't answer the door.”
Andrei didn’t understand what his nephew was talking about. He was about to ask what he meant, when the door of their apartment rattled as three quick blows were hammered on it. Andrei mechanically turned to open the door, without having the time to realize what his nephew had said.
“Andrei Alexandrovitch Serov?” asked a man in a dark coat and a fur hat.
“That’s me,” Andrei said, his eyes widening, as he made the connection between Genia’s words and the man’s clothes. Fortunately, he’s alone, thought Andrei, but, what a coincidence!
“We’re from the Institute, Professor Makarov sent us. He would like you and your nephew Eugene Vladimirovitch Serov to come with us for a medical examination. It will take place in one hour, in the annex to the Institute. We have a car waiting for your downstairs.”
The man in black was obviously waiting for an affirmative answer; he seemed like the questions he asked usually got quick answers, the orders he gave had immediate effects. Andrei, caught off-guard, could only say, “Let me get dressed, I mean, let me get my coat. My nephew just got home, I’ll find his coat and we’ll be right with you.”
It was then that a second man, that Andrei hadn’t seen, appeared in the doorway, and spoke directly to Genia, “Hey, kid, did you tell your uncle everything?”
Genia looked at him with his feeble eyes with almost no pupils, and, with a strangely calm voice, said, “My uncle knows nothing. Neither do you . . . ”

Chapter 2

New York, about the same time...

David Stein looked in the window of the store on 5th avenue, admiring the display of Rolex watches for the hundredth time. How could they get complete collections when they weren’t official dealers; they weren’t even watch dealers? Just one of those New York stores where you had the feeling that, if you asked for the price of an aircraft carrier, they would reply, “With or without planes, sir?”
David had left Jerusalem seven years before, on his thirtieth birthday. He remembered the flight very well. It was sad being born on December 24th, it meant you only got one present, but being born December 24th in Jerusalem was a nightmare! Although, the 25th . . . that would actually have been worse. Alone, on that plane, on Christmas Eve, his thirtieth birthday, starting a new life, a better life, at least he hoped.
His name was still David Goldstein then. But after a few months in New York he had shortened it. He didn’t want to renounce on his origins, he just wanted to be himself. He no longer wanted to wear the same name as his father and grandfather; he no longer wanted to bear the weight of tradition and family all the time. He had always been different; while his father and grandfather were important rabbis, he had turned his back on a religious life. He would accept to believe, but only for himself, in private, with his values, and the day he would feel the need.
The change had come one day when he was visiting the Wailing Wall. He had felt that this place was out of sync with his time, as if these vestiges were not his roots, but belonged to another history, another humanity. He needed to find his own direction.
The first task was studying medicine. For his family, the human body was nothing more than a tool, a temporary vehicle; he had the audacity to want it to be something important. Two years with almost no contact with his family had smoothed things over. The more he learned about the human machine, the more he realized that, deep down, and for diametrically opposite reasons, his parents weren’t wrong: medicine wouldn’t give him the answer. So, after he got his medical degree, he studied computer science, and realized that his path was somewhere between the human body and machines. A superman or an intelligent machine, perhaps?
On December 24, 1985, in a Pan Am 747, he reread his contract as part-time research assistant, employee number 627342, for Biocomp in New York. He hoped he would discover, written somewhere between the lines, the proof that he had made the right choice. He fell asleep without finding it . . .

Chapter 3

Jerusalem, as Andrei and Genia are leaving their apartment in Moscow

Shlomo Goldstein didn’t know what to think. Seeing his brother on Time Magazine’s list of promising people filled him with happiness and pride. But finding he had changed his name had overwhelmed him with incomprehension. What had the Goldstein family done to their third son, David, to make him reject them in such a way? Even though he had always been the smartest at school, their father had accepted that he not follow the sacred teachings. Shlomo had always wondered if he had not become a rabbi by default. Sure, his father had been criticized for allowing David to become a doctor, but two years of silence never killed anyone. David even ended up becoming a computer scientist. His father had been right to be wary of his calling as a doctor; first men, then machines: as if there were any relationship between the two!
To clear his conscience, he decided that his brother’s name didn’t really matter. His success in America could only be good for Israel, given the current relations between the two countries. His thoughts had led him to the markets between the Jewish and Christian quarters; the Holy Sepulcre was not far. Having finally shaken off his negative thoughts about David, he went over the different points in the investigation he was carrying out, together with the Pope’s emissary, about the discovery made in the Holy Sepulchre.
While, at first, he had believed it was just a practical joke, the last few days had presented enough disturbing, unexplainable events to make him doubt. He was even beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something serious hidden in there.
Shlomo Goldstein had an appointment with his fate. Somewhere, beneath a very old slab of rock, 1666 years after it had been built, the Holy Sepulchre was speaking once again.