The Sycamore Song

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “A book?” she asked, confused.

  “Not a book in the usual sense. It was written on papyrus at the time of the New Kingdom. It’s sometimes called the Book of Coming Forth Day by Day. It contained details of how the dead should acquit themselves when they came before the Judgement Seat. Nothing was left out about what they would meet on the way. It was a terrifying ordeal, but these instructions must have fortified them somewhat. To prove they had lived an innocent life, their heart was weighed in the scales against a feather, the symbol of Maat, the goddess of truth. You should read it some time. There is a long, negative confession in it of some forty articles that the dead person was invited to recite, each one beginning ‘I have not done such and such’. Many people say that the Ten Commandments were directly descended from the principles embedded in it, a code of virtue that had been laid down to regulate the moral life of the Ancient Egyptian, and which Moses would certainly have known all about.”

  “Do you believe that?” she asked, more than willing to take his word.

  “Me? I think you can find anything if you look hard enough for it. Ethical codes, whether they are the Ten Commandments or the Code of Hammurabi, are likely to include the same prescriptions, especially as all these were Semitic in origin, or closely related.”

  Victoria looked at him with new eyes. “Juliette said you could read hieroglyphs,” she confided, “but I didn’t know you are an expert in these things. You must be a very good archaeologist! Are you better than my father was?”

  “Egyptology is my subject. Your father didn’t specialise. He wasn’t a patient man. He wanted results long before he had unearthed all the available evidence. He was apt to jump to a conclusion and then, when the things he was finding didn’t back him up, he’d lose his temper and insist that they didn’t alter anything. He’d go on stubbornly maintaining that he was right and everyone else was wrong. Sometimes he was right.”

  “That doesn’t sound very scholarly,” Victoria said.

  “No, he was no scholar! But he was an intuitive, sometimes brilliant, amateur. He made some very shrewd guesses in his career and once or twice he came up with the goods very much against the odds. You don’t have to be ashamed of him.”

  “I’m not!” she said sharply.

  He turned and looked at her. “Not as an archaeologist, and not as a man,” he insisted.

  “I wish he’d been kinder to you, that’s all,” she tried to explain. “I can accept he was a stubborn, awkward man, but not that he was stupid! And it was stupid of him to have quarrelled with you.”

  “He thought he had cause.” He shrugged. “Perhaps he had. Who knows?”

  “I know!” she said firmly.

  “You, least of all, can know about that. You can’t begin to know the pressures that may have been brought to bear on him. Nothing worked out right for him with this expedition. It was strain that brought on his heart attack. And my playing the fool with Juliette can’t have helped him to relax.”

  “I don’t think you can be blamed for that!” she declared. She held her lamp up, edging away from him towards the entrance of the burial chamber itself. The light shone on the accumulated rubble of centuries that hid the doorway from her eyes. Despite herself, her hand shook.

  “Nor Juliette,” he said dryly.

  She wasn’t prepared to commit herself about that. “Would you ever allow a woman to make the running?” she asked him instead.

  He took her lamp from her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I chased Juliette. Anything else you want to know?”

  Her eyes were wide and very dark in the white light from the lamp. “Yes, as a matter of fact there is, but it isn’t any of my business either and you might not want to answer.”

  “Ask away,” he invited her.

  “If you had a wife - a proper wife, I mean - would you go off and leave her for months together while you had fun by yourself digging up something like this?”

  He considered the question, his eyes creasing with amusement. “Is that what happened to your mother?”

  “Yes, only she didn’t want to go with my father, not anywhere!”

  “But you wouldn’t want to sit at home by yourself?”

  She shook her head. “Not me! I’m going to cling to my husband like a barnacle to the side of a ship!” She put her head on one side, wondering if he would recognise the quotation from his own words.

  If he did, he didn’t let on. “Indeed? Won’t he have any say in what you do?” He waited for her answer, and then, when none was forthcoming, he went on, “In my book, it isn’t the hen who does the crowing. Wouldn’t you listen to his ideas at all?”

  “Would you listen to hers?”

  “I’d listen, yes,” he agreed.

  “And then you’d decide?”

  “That’s right!” he said easily.

  She tossed her head in the air to show she didn’t care. “How long did you live with Omm Beshir?” she demanded.

  “Somebody has to make the decisions,” he said. “I think it’s better when the man does, that’s all.”

  She tried to remember that the whole argument was hypothetical. “I suppose so,” she said reluctantly.

  He handed her back her lamp after pumping up the flame to his satisfaction. When she had taken it from him, he put up a hand and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. “I wouldn’t be daft enough to leave you on your own for long,” he comforted her. “I’d never have an easy moment, wondering what you were getting up to!”

  “My mother never got up to anything. She lives a very tidy life. On the few occasions my father ever visited us, she used to look on him as some unnecessary clutter that had to be shot out of the house as quickly as possible. How do you know that I don’t take after her?”

  “We-ell,” he said thoughtfully. “We haven’t had a dull moment since you got here. I wouldn’t call that never getting up to anything, would you? Perhaps you have less in common with your mother than you think.”

  That made her want to laugh. “Not very much,” she said. She veiled her eyes with her lashes, struggling to maintain a deadpan expression. “We don’t even look alike.”

  “I’d like to meet her some time, all the same.”

  “Why?” she said. She didn’t dare look at him. With his face half in shadows and half lighted by the glow from the lamp, the strong line of his jaw was accentuated and so were the quick, mobile movements of his hands. She was terribly aware of him as his fingers met hers, turning her lamp slightly so that he could see her better.

  “I’d like to know the person who brought you up.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know if she was more pleased or put out that he should be interested. “Why?” she asked again.

  “Let’s say I have my moments of curiosity too.”

  “About me?” She looked at him quickly. “There isn’t anything to know!”

  “That’s what you think!”

  She wondered what he wanted to know about her. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t an open book to him if he cared to read it, so why did he pretend otherwise? Was it an oblique way of flattering her? No, she didn’t think so. Tariq wouldn’t bother to pander to her vanity.

  “If you’re curious about me, why don’t you ask me whatever you want to know?” she tempted him.

  “Because I suspect you don’t know the answers yourself.”

  “Try me!”

  “I’ll ask you when we have nothing better to do.” He put a possessive hand on the nape of her neck, allowing his fingers to trail down her back. “Shall we go on?”

  She would have done anything he told her at that moment. He made it sound as if they had a future together. His touch aroused a delicious feeling of weakness within her that made her blood sing in her veins. If she had never met him, she thought, she would never have known that it was possible to feel so aware of one’s own womanhood. She would always be grateful to him for that. It was something that her mother had never known—”

  “Vic
toria!”

  She started. “I’m sorry, I was day-dreaming.”

  He shone the light on her face. “This is hardly the time or the place the dream of your heart to dream, habibi. I said, shall we go?” He turned his light away from her and onto the pile of rubble in front of them. “If we want to get through that door, I’d better go and find a couple of shovels. Will you wait here?”

  “Not on my own. Let’s look round properly first. Oh, Tariq, look! There are some footsteps in the sand over there. Perhaps they lead somewhere?”

  Tariq walked across the courtyard and squatted down, studying the prints with interest. “They don’t go anywhere,” he reported.

  Victoria thought that was ridiculous. It was more likely that the sand had shifted across them and that they would appear again on the other side of the pile of fallen masonry that rested against the wall. She took an impulsive jump upwards and forwards, balancing herself on the ancient rubble, to see what lay on the other side, but her view was obscured by a few jagged bricks that stuck out of the wall at an angle looking as if they, too, might fall any moment. She took another step upwards, putting out a hand against the wall as a loose brick dislodged itself beneath her feet and almost sent her crashing down on top of Tariq.

  “Come down,” he bade her. “Let me see!”

  “No.” She raised her lamp above her head, laughing down at him. “I’m the king of the castle!”

  “Not for long you won’t be if you don’t take more care!” She laughed again. “I like looking down at you for a change. Would you catch me if I fell?”

  “Try it and see!” he recommended.

  She took another step upwards and gasped audibly, frozen where she stood.

  “What is it?” Tariq put a sustaining hand on her belt. “There’s no need to panic!” He tightened his grip on her. “Oh no, you don’t, my girl!” he warned her. “You said yourself that it wasn’t very high!”

  “But it is!”

  He clambered up beside her, holding her so tightly she felt as though she was being cut in two. He pulled her close against him, pushing her face against his shirt. “It’s all right, habibi. I won’t let you go!”

  “Look!” she breathed.

  “My God,” he said, and then in a quite different tone, “It looks as though you were right after all.”

  “After all? Of course I’m right! I knew it all along and ” Her foot slipped and if it had not been for Tariq’s hand on her belt, she would have sat down hard on the rubble. “I’m going down there!” she declared.

  “No, you’re not!” He yanked her back on to her feet. “If anyone goes, I’ll go!”

  Victoria set her mouth in a mutinous line. She might be afraid of heights, but she was not afraid of the dark! She looked with increasing excitement at the gaping black hole in the wall in front of her. It had been totally hidden by the bricks and rubble and the angle of the wall, but it was quite large enough for someone to crawl through, and who knew what was lying on the other side?

  “But I found it! Please, Tariq, let me go in first!”

  “You don’t have to unless you really want to. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  “I know, but please let me!”

  He took her lamp from her and put it down on the rubble. She held out her hands to him and he swung her down to floor level, right against the large, gaping hole. He followed more slowly, until he too could look into it, but there was nothing to see. The silent blackness beyond seemed to be impervious to the light from their lamps.

  “I’m going through!” Victoria announced. “Will you pass me my lamp when I’m on the other side?”

  He nodded. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to go first? It may not be safe—”

  “Of course it’s safe!” she protested. “If it weren’t how would Jim Kerr manage to get in and out?”

  She knew Tariq was on the point of pointing out that there was no proof that Jim Kerr, or anyone else, had ever seen the hole in the wall, let alone climbed through it. She gave his hand a quick squeeze and pushed her torso through the gap, straining her eyes to see what lay beyond. She paused, blinking, but there was nothing to see but darkness. With care, she balanced herself, pulling one leg behind her and searching for a foothold that would hold her weight, while she turned round and pulled the other leg behind her. For an instant she thought she had found the floor on the other side and she put all her weight on it. Her foot slipped and she jerked downwards, holding on for dear life with her hands. There was no foothold, nothing to stand on at all!

  Cold with fright, she kicked out, trying to retrieve her position, but her hands lost their grip on the rough edges of the sun-dried bricks and they crumbled into dust between her fingers. Oddly, she wasn’t aware of falling. There was no sensation of being pulled from a height and falling over the edge that had haunted her all her life. She was frightened, but she was scarcely aware of falling. All she was frightened of was the unknown beneath her.

  It was a long way down. She landed in a huddle on some soft sand and was surprised to discover that she wasn’t hurt at all.

  “Victoria, what happened?”

  She tried to laugh, but she thought Tariq would think her hysterical and changed her mind. “I don’t know,” she said weakly. “I can’t see a thing!”

  “Are you hurt?”

  She drew her legs up under her and tried to stand up, but the sand was more uneven than she had thought, and she sat down again quickly, feeling rather foolish.

  “It’s a long way down,” she said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Victoria are you hurt? Half the wall has fallen in.” Victoria caught the anxiety in his voice and tried to stand up again. This time she managed it. “I’m quite all right,” she assured him. “I had a soft landing on some sand. But don’t try to follow me! It’s a terribly long way down and I can’t see any way out!”

  “Shall I pass you your lamp?”

  “You’d have to let it down on a rope!” There was a moment’s silence. “Tariq, I don’t think I’ll ever get out!”

  “Yes, you will. I’ll get you out somehow. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Cheer up. See if you can reach the lamp if I tie it to the end of my belt—”

  Victoria saw the light flash above her and was relieved to see Tariq’s face peering down at her.

  “I’ll never be able to reach it!” she cried out.

  “So I see,” he said grimly. “Are you sure you’re not hurt? For heaven’s sake don’t move! I’ll be grey-haired before my time if you fall down anywhere else!”

  “I’m all right, Tariq. I promise you!” She made a play of brushing down her jeans to show she hadn’t a care in the world. “I’m beginning to think that Jim Kerr didn’t come down this way after all, though.”

  Tariq’s laugh caught in the back of his throat. “I’ll have to go and get a rope and some help. I’ll try to rig up the light up here so that you’ll have something to look at, but you took a lot of the wall with you and it isn’t very safe.”

  Victoria achieved a jaunty smile which she feared was wasted on him, for he looked as though he could scarcely bear to look at her.

  “I’m not afraid,” she claimed. “But you will hurry up, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be ten minutes. Has your watch got a luminous dial? You can time me and tell me what you think of me if I’m a moment longer!”

  “Oh, Tariq!”

  “I know, habibi, but if the wall were to fall it might start a fire. Right, you can start timing me now!”

  She hadn’t the heart to tell him that her watch was a strictly ornamental affair, pretty, but useless for the practical purpose of telling the time even in strong sunlight, the small gold figures were so difficult to see against the chased gold background. She heard him go, taking the lamp with him, and the darkness reached out to her and enclosed her in total blackness.

  She sat down on the sand, pulling her knees up und
er her chin, and shut her eyes, pretending the darkness was self-inflicted and that she had only to reach out her hand to feel Tariq beside her. She wished she had learned the poem about the sycamore tree by heart, for it would have been comforting to have recited it to herself and to have remembered how he had quoted the first few lines to her when they had only just met, and he had stolen her heart away, and had called her the sunrise of beauty.

  “Papyri green are my leaves arrayed,

  And branch and stem like to opal gleam;

  Now come and rest in my cooling shade

  The dream of your heart to dream”

  Had she dreamed of Tariq even before she had met him? It felt like that sometimes. She had looked round and seen him, and she had recognised him at once. But had he recognised her? She sighed, changing her position a little.

  Papyri green had the brightness of banana leaves. Sometimes Tariq’s golden eyes took on a green tinge, but it wasn’t the same green as that. It was more the eau de nil of the waters of the Nile, when the sun caught the ripples of the waves and turned them into liquid gold: gold and green were then transformed into a single hue. Was it that she had seen in his eyes?

  The Nile had always been known as the Source of Life. It had been navigable long before any other river. Travelling north to the delta regions, the current had carried the boats along; travelling south to the Sudan and beyond, the prevailing wind had filled the simple sails and taken the boats against the stream just as easily. Without the Nile, Egypt would never have been. Without Tariq - but that was a thought she did not wish to continue.

  “Eight minutes!” Tariq’s voice sounded above her. “Abdul’s getting a couple of camels to take the strain of the rope. As soon as he gets here, I’m coming down to join you!”

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler if I came up?” she asked.

  “Probably. But I want to see what’s down there and, as you’re already there, I’m sure you’d think it unfair if I checked it out without you!”