by Jerry Dubs
He felt the strength of King Djoser in the stone and he felt the ancient truth of his own life filling him.
He heard himself say, “I am Imhotep. I was friend to King Djoser. I was husband to Meryt. I was father of Maya and Tjau.”
Akila had quietly approached and was standing beside him. He had spoken in the language of the Two Lands so she didn’t understand what he said, but she heard the pain in his voice.
She reached across his shoulders and, leaning into him, she tried to pull him close. Surprised at the strength that held him steadfast against the wall, she said, “It is OK, Tim.”
He turned to her, his face a rigid mask as he held back his tears.
“No,” he whispered tersely, “It is not OK and it will never be OK.”
Akila leaned close to him. “Whatever happened is past, Tim.” She looked at him, surprised to feel frustration creeping into her compassion. “We are here. In this moment. I don’t know what happened to you.” Reaching up to his clenched jaw she stroked the unwavering line of his chin and said, “But I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
Closing his eyes, Tim felt King Djoser’s strength pass to him from the stone, a parting gift from the god-king. He took a deep breath and straightened from the wall.
“You’re right, Akila.”
He took her hand and looked over her shoulder toward the Northern Temple. All that remained of the temple were low, stone walls outlining the chamber where, standing in a cloud of incense, the smoky tendrils swirling to the sound of ancient hymns, Imhotep had joined in the celebration marking King Djoser’s rebirth into the Eternal Field of Reeds.
Tilting his head toward the ruins, he said, “Let’s go sit, Akila.”
***
In ancient Egypt whenever Tim had been worried that he couldn’t meet his duties to the king or his responsibilities to his family or when he had been disoriented by the sometimes alien civilization, Meryt had sensed his fear and isolation and she had taken his hand, her touch forging a bridge between them.
And her touch had shown him that even if he was adrift in the sea of time and space he was not alone.
Holding Akila’s hand now as they lowered themselves to sit on the remains of the stone wall Tim rubbed his thumb over the back her hand. He thought about the arbitrary boundaries people place between themselves and others, so frightening and so isolating, and yet so easily breached.
“Thank you for all of your help, Akila. You saved my life, I know that. And you have been very patient and trusting. I know that, too.”
He looked into her eyes, listened to her silence and appreciated the space that she was giving him.
“I am just going to tell you the truth.” He squeezed her hand softly. “Please listen to it. You might not believe my words, but please accept that I believe them. When I’m finished, we can figure out what to do next.”
He inhaled, held the air for a moment and then nodding his head as he committed himself to his decision, he said, “My name is Tim Hope. I came to Egypt and then here, to Saqqara, seventeen years ago as a tourist. While I was sitting against the wall on the other side of the pyramid sketching, I watched a couple enter what was then called the Tomb of Kanakht. Now it is called the Tomb of Ipy, or, as you said, the Tomb of the Time Traveler.
“The couple, their names were Brian and Diane, never came out of the tomb. A few days later when I sneaked into the tomb looking for them I found a false door that swung open.
“I went through it and became a time traveler. I ended up in ancient Egypt, during the reign of King Djoser. I saved his son’s broken arm and was rewarded with a place in his inner circle. King Djoser gave me a new name: Imhotep.”
He waved a hand to encompass the pyramid and the entire burial complex.
“King Djoser saw the sketch that I had made of the Step Pyramid and he ordered me to build it for his tomb.” Shrugging, he said, “So I did. I wasn’t a builder; I had help from army engineers, temple architects, stone workers, artists, lots and lots of skilled and talented men.
“I married. My wife’s name is Meryt. I had a son, Tjau, and I have a daughter, Maya.” He closed his eyes for a moment, collecting his thoughts, editing what he would say.
“King Djoser eventually died and his son, Teti, took the throne. A few months ago Teti was assassinated. My son was blamed for it and he was killed. I was blamed, too. But instead of killing me, they entombed me alive with the king’s body. Over there,” he pointed south of the Step Pyramid, “in the Buried Pyramid.
“I was wrapped in linen and placed in the tomb with King Sekhemkhet – that was Teti’s royal name. Ahmes and some of my other friends rescued me. They re-created the inscriptions from over the original false door in hopes of creating a time portal so that I could escape. It worked and Ahmes came with me because I was too weak to walk.”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “I know, it sounds completely insane. There are moments when I’m sure that it is a hallucination, some kind of false, disassociated reality. But, Akila, my memories are real.”
He looked at her, wondering what she was thinking. “And there is Ahmes. And the language. And the jewelry. And,” he looked down at his legs, “my condition. Everything fits with my memory.”
Feeling Akila disengage her hand from his, Tim knew that she thought that his story was as insane as it sounded.
She rested her hands on her lap, wishing that she had worn a jacket with pockets. She had a habit of fidgeting with her fingers and usually hid the nervous tic by putting her hands in her pockets. Instead she opened her hands to grip her legs through her dun-colored slacks.
She was torn between laughing aloud or crying.
She had grown to like Tim.
Bakr told her that Tim was both playful and extremely polite. He had never had a more welcome guest. Tim had obviously suffered vile abuse but despite a lingering melancholy he seemed determined to move past it. He hadn’t said anything about revenge or displayed any deep-seated anger.
I don’t just like him, she admitted to herself, I admire him.
Is his fantasy about being a famous ancient Egyptian an elaborate joke? What is the American expression? Is he pulling my leg?
Or is this a concoction to cover up whatever really happened to him?
But what if he is serious, what if he truly believes it?
She thought about Buddhist beliefs of reincarnation and claims of previous lives made by Edgar Cayce and Bridey Murphy. And like anyone who lived near Saqqara, she knew the stories about the Tomb of the Time Traveler. She had always dismissed them as a lame gimmick to attract tourists. She gave them as little credence as she gave to UFO reports or sightings of the Loch Ness monster or reports of alien bodies hidden away in Roswell.
She stole a glance at Tim. He was looking off into the distance, lost in his thoughts or fantasies. He hadn’t insisted that she believe him, instead only asking that she listen to him.
Is he serious, is he joking with me or is he deluded?
Standing, she turned her back on Tim and stared off into the distance. She crossed her arms, wishing once more than she had pockets to hide her hands.
Her mind slipped into triage mode.
He didn’t appear to present a threat to others or to himself.
He didn’t seem delusional: he didn’t think a rock was a loaf of bread or that a car was a hat.
He was aware of where he was and could hold a coherent conversation.
If what he just said could be termed coherent, she thought.
“Akila?” Tim said.
She turned, hoping to see a wide smile on his face, a twinkle in his eye, any clue that he had been telling a tall tale.
He was still sitting on the stone wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, his cane tracing a line in the sand.
“Yes?” she said hopefully.
“There’s more.”
Lunch at Condetti
To Akila’s surprise, Tim asked her to drive across the river to He
lwan so they could have lunch at the Condetti Restaurant and Cafe.
“How do you know about Condetti?” she asked as they drove away from the Saqqara parking lot.
“I had a wonderful mushroom omelet there once,” he said mysteriously. As he leaned his head against the back of his seat he added, “That’s part of what I want to explain next.”
Then he closed his eyes.
***
He woke as Akila slowed the car to turn into the driveway of Helwan University, which was a short walk from the restaurant.
As they drove past the tall stone sculpture that marked the entrance of the university, Tim said, “Egyptians like to stack stone.” Then he looked at her and broke into a wide grin.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, cheered by his good humor.
He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s an inside joke. It will mean a lot more later.”
Akila turned into the lot and parked her car by the clinic entrance.
As he pulled himself from the car, Tim paused for a moment and looked at the doorway that led to the clinic. The last time he had seen this building he had been holding Maya. She had been ill, near death, and he had returned to the modern world to save her.
It had been a few months ago in his personal life, but here – in this timeline – it hadn’t happened yet.
He had been a stranger here then, setting foot in the modern world for the first time since he had disappeared fifteen years earlier, but Akila had already known him for five years. Now he was a stranger to her.
Closing his eyes, he tried to absorb the warp of time. When he opened his eyes, the palms trees by the front of the clinic started leaning toward each other and light reflecting from their broad leaves and from the building and from the glass-fronted door grew thick and began to melt. It seemed to Tim as if each molecule of air was flashing as it blinked through time.
The sparkling light swirled about him creating a cyclone of past and present, of memories and expectations, of worlds overlapping, colliding and melting together. He was trapped in a world envisioned by Dali and suffused with the chaotic reality of an LSD trip.
“Tim?”
He turned toward the sound of Addy’s voice, electrified with excitement at the memory of his long-dead fiancée, her love taken from him far too soon.
“Imhotep?”
Meryt’s soft voice called his ancient name. Worry and pain etched the consonants and lost love hung from each whispered syllables.
“Tim?”
Akila’s voice carried concern and confidence. He opened his eyes to find himself sitting on the parking lot asphalt. Akila was kneeling beside him, supporting him with one strong arm around his shoulders. Her eyes were fierce with anger and worry.
Taking his hand she said, “We should have gone back to Bakr’s. You’re not as strong as you think.”
Shaking his head, Tim squeezed her hand and then rocked forward. Pulling on her and using the car as support, he got to his feet. The air around him had stilled its dance, the palm trees were erect and time was moving forward on a single track.
Leaning against the car, Tim thought about the days and nights he had spent tightly bound in the dark of the burial chamber. He had survived that. He would survive this.
“Maybe,” he said, turning to the car and leaning in to retrieve his cane. “But I’m really looking forward to Condetti’s and I want to finish our conversation.” He straightened and rolled his shoulders. Looking across the parking lot toward the street he said, “It’s just a short walk that way, if I remember.”
Turning away from the car, Tim started walking toward the sidewalk. He moved steadily and smiled sheepishly at Akila when she shouldered closer to him and, taking his arm, pulling his weight to her.
“Are all your patients this stubborn?” he asked her with a grin.
“No. Even my most stupid patients listen to me.” As they left the parking lot and started walking down the tree-lined walkway that ran parallel to El Gendy, Akila said, “Actually most of my patients are college kids with headaches from drinking too much, sore throats from drinking too much and worries about sexual diseases they might have gotten ... ”
“From drinking too much,” Tim finished for her.
She nodded. “I don’t mind the drinking. It’s the ‘too much’ that I don’t like. But I understand it,” she added. “They are young and our world is very unsettled, their future is very uncertain.”
They walked a block in silence. “We haven’t done a very good job of improving the world for our children. Or even keeping it safe,” Akila said, as much to herself as to Tim.
Closing his eyes at the stab of pain Tim felt whenever he thought of his own son, he said, “We do our best. But you can only see a day at a time.”
Akila shook her head. “No, I don’t agree. I mean,” she added quickly, “ I agree that we can’t see the future, but there are so many common sense things that we ignore. As a people, as a country, as a world.
“Everyone knows that the earth is warming. Our leaders sign treaties to limit it, but they constantly ignore them because the political price is too steep. What do you Americans say? They kick the can down the road?
“And poverty,” she continued, “We know that poverty breeds crime and we know that poverty causes women and children to die young. And still the wealthy climb over the backs of the poor, taking every last crumb from them. They have the nerve to belittle the lives of the impoverished while making them even more miserable. And for what? What do the poor have that the rich could want? Another jet plane, more rings and jewels?”
She caught herself. “I’m sorry. Fahim and I had long, passionate discussions about the inequities in the world. It is everywhere and there is no reason for it. Lions don’t kill just because they are stronger. Crocodiles rest when they are full, they don’t need to eat every fish in the river.”
Tim stopped walking and Akila looked up at him, worried that he was feeling ill. Instead she found him smiling as he looked at the table-lined sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
“We’re here.”
***
They sat at a small, round table on the brown chairs that Tim remembered from his previous visit. Beside them, shielding the outdoor dining area from the sidewalk and street, a long, dark wooden flower box overflowed with purple blossoms.
Tim hooked his cane over the arm of the chair beside him and opened the menu. After a moment he looked up at Akila who hadn’t opened her menu and said, “I think I’ll just have the Condetti salad. Asparagus and mushrooms. I haven’t had either since ... ” he left it unspoken.
“Yes,” she said, “You said ‘There’s more.’ ”
He tilted his head toward her menu.
“I know the menu well. Fahim and I dined here every week.”
A waiter brought them tall glasses of water and took their orders. As the waiter left, Tim rested his elbows on the chair arms and leaned back, turning his face toward the sun. Toward Re.
“We were here before,” he said, Re’s rays driving against him, giving him strength.
“No,” Akila said.
“No,” Tim agreed, delaying the discussion as he thought about what ‘before’ meant to him and to her.
Then he took a deep breath and leaned forward toward Akila. Resting his arms on the table, he said, “What I told you in Saqqara is true, Akila. It isn’t an illusion or a psychotic break with reality or some bizarre practical joke. I’m not crazy.”
He lifted the water and took a sip, marveling at the coolness of the ice cubes as they floated against his mouth.
“So, let me tell you the rest of my story. Hopefully you’ll agree with me.”
The waiter returned with their salads. Tim looked at the food and then up at Akila. “This looks awfully good. Maybe we could just talk about the weather or something while we eat. Or cats. That’s a safe topic. What’s your position on cats?” He asked with a wide grin.
He speared a stalk of asparagu
s and bit off the tip. As he slid his tongue across the firm, bumpy buds, he breathed in, letting air pass through slightly parted lips. A hint of garlic and a tang of pepper accented the sweet greenness of the asparagus, its flavor drawn from water and summer sunshine and the swirl of air and the rich loam of the earth. The tip was coated with a thin wash of olive oil, light and clear, a vessel to hold and enrich the flavor and texture.
“I like cats,” Akila said when he opened his eyes. “Not as much as you like asparagus, apparently.” A grin curled onto her lips and she quickly put a shy hand up to cover her mouth.
“I know I lose myself in things sometimes,” Tim conceded with a grin.
He swallowed the bite of asparagus and looked at Akila. “I get caught up in things, like the way light plays on someone’s face, how the breeze moves a stray strand of hair so that it seems to caress your neck, how the pupils of your eyes open wide as you listen to me and then seem to catch themselves and pull back, as if to hide your thoughts.”
He turned his attention back to his salad and lifted a mushroom to his mouth.
“I was wrong,” he heard Akila say as he savored the mushroom, biting through its edges to find the taut interior, tasting of earth and hidden depths. The meat of the mushroom crumbled to his bite, releasing an earthy, woody, flavor and Akila said, “You are stronger than I thought.”
***
They talked of the weather and of stray cats, their lineage dating to the pyramids, their attitude one of tolerant ownership. They talked of the sound of traffic and of airplanes and of Tim’s theory that the overall noise of the world has increased over time, bringing with it an unease in the air itself, a restlessness that passed over onto trees and clouds and birds and animals and people.
“Like those nature shows where the animals always sense the storm approaching or know that a volcano is about to erupt,” he said. He waved an empty fork in a circle and said, “It’s in the air. It’s progress and it’s anger and frustration. It’s bigger and stronger and it’s less delicate and less spiritual. It’s a fist in your face.”
