Pharaoh

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘That was to be expected. Taksoun knew that if the assassination attempt failed, there would be no way out for him. He has decided not to take risks and to put all his cards on the table. You have placed your trust in the wrong person, Mr Holloway, and now you have a number of dead people on your conscience and a traitor in your midst. Excellent results, no doubt about it. Goodnight, Mr Ambassador.’

  Avner left and had a taxi driver take him to the Old City, where he got out and continued on foot. He passed alongside the Wailing Wall and stopped to look at the base of the Antonian Fortress. The cordons were still up and two soldiers in fatigues were guarding the entrance. So Ygael Allon was still digging through the bowels of Mount Moriah. Avner had been told that they would reach the Temple within a couple of days. He had instructed them to let him know when the time came: he wanted to be with them in that tunnel under the Mount which had borne the Throne of God and the Ark of the Covenant for centuries. He wondered, if this was somehow a sign, what would happen if the Diaspora were once again forced upon Israel. He crossed the threshold and disappeared down the dark hallway.

  THE LAST COUPLE of days had been so quiet that Omar al Husseini began to tell himself that perhaps the whole thing had just blown over.

  He’d got back to his apartment at five and had sat down to take care of a few letters and prepare his lesson for the next day. The prints made of the microfilms that reproduced the first three lines of the Breasted papyrus were still on his desk. What could Blake have meant with that strange message? Husseini had asked to meet that evening with Blake’s assistant, the one who had gone with him to El Qurna in Egypt to search for the Breasted original. He was a young man from Luxor who had got his degree in Cairo and then won a scholarship to the Oriental Institute. His name was Selim, and he came from a very poor family of peasants who farmed the land along the Nile.

  He arrived right on time, at six thirty, and greeted Husseini respectfully. Husseini made him a cup of coffee, then got around to the business at hand.

  ‘Selim, what do you know about the Breasted papyrus at El Qurna? Is there any chance it was authentic, or was it a set up to get money from Blake? It’s just you and me here, and nothing you say will go any further. There’s no need for you to lie—’

  ‘I have no intention of lying, Professor Husseini.’

  ‘Selim, Professor Blake has made an extraordinary discovery: an Egyptian tomb of an important figure from the New Kingdom, intact. But somehow this tomb has something to do with the Breasted papyrus. I’m not sure just how it may be connected, but the discovery seems very important. As you know, Selim, he’s always been fair and honest with you, and he still would be, if he were here. He lost his job, he was abandoned by his wife – a terrible thing for an American – and now this is his one chance to show the world that he is a great scholar. To show his colleagues that that they were wrong to kick him out. To show his wife that he isn’t a loser. Personally, I didn’t know him well at all, until I met him sitting outside on a street bench on Christmas Eve, half frozen. He was very grateful for the meagre hospitality I offered him, and I could tell he was a man of feeling, rare among these people who only think of their careers and of business.

  ‘Selim, listen to me well. Professor Blake seems to have found himself in very exciting, but very complicated, circumstances. I’m not sure I understand what has happened, but it seems that the discovery he has made is so important, and the mystery it involves so difficult to solve, that those who engaged him for this work are holding him prisoner. We are the only chance he has. Now, you have to tell me if you are willing to help him even though there’s nothing he can do for you. Not only can’t he further your career, but being associated with him might hinder it.’

  ‘You can count on me, Professor Husseini. What is it that you want to know?’

  ‘Absolutely everything you know about the Breasted papyrus. And whether it can still be found.’

  Selim took a deep breath, then said, ‘I’ll tell you everything I know. It was about five months ago, around mid-September. Professor Blake had got a sizeable grant from the Oriental Institute for his research in Egypt and he had asked me to assist him in this investigation. I was born near El Qurna and I know everyone down there. You could say that the inhabitants of that village have been in the antiquities trade for generations and generations. Any scholar or researcher who has come through the area has had to come to terms with the El Qurna tomb raiders.

  ‘I have a dear childhood friend who lives there, a boy named Ali Mahmudi. We used to swim in the Nile and snatch fruit from the market stands together. Both of us were already interested in Egyptian antiquities before we’d even lost our milk teeth. One of his ancestors had accompanied Belzoni to Abu Simbel, his grandfather had dug the tomb of Tutankhamun with Carnarvon and Carter, and his father was at Saqqara with Leclant and Donadoni.

  ‘Our paths separated when my father managed to sell a set of ushtabi figures and some bracelets from a tomb of the Twelfth Dynasty and got enough money to send me to study at the University of Cairo. There I was awarded the scholarship that brought me here to the Institute, where I met and learned to esteem Professor Blake. Ali, my friend, continued to pillage tombs, but that hadn’t changed anything between us.

  ‘As soon as we got to Egypt he invited us to dinner. He didn’t say anything that was particularly interesting then, we just talked about old times and the adventures of his ancestors in the Valley of the Kings. After we had gone, he came knocking on the door to my room and asked me why I had come back and what I was looking for.

  ‘It was so hot that I certainly wouldn’t have been able to sleep in that stuffy room. So we went up to the rooftop and I told him all about my work and about what we were looking for: a papyrus that an American had seen in a house in El Qurna about eighty years ago. We knew the name and the first few lines of the papyrus. Nothing else.’

  ‘ “Why do you want that papyrus?” he asked me. “There are more interesting things on the market.”

  ‘ “Because my professor is interested in it,” I told him, “and if I help him he will help me. He will extend my scholarship and perhaps find me a position at the university.”

  ‘Ali didn’t answer. We watched the waters of the Nile sparkling under the rays of the moon. It was as if we were boys again, dreaming about what we’d do when we grew up, planning to buy a boat and sail to the delta of the Nile and continue our voyage over all the seas of the world. Suddenly he asked me, “Do you want to become an American?”

  ‘I answered, “No, I don’t want to become an American. I want to finish my studies in a good American university and then come back to Cairo and become the general director of antiquities one day. Like Mariette, like Brugsch and Maspero . . .’

  ‘ “Wouldn’t that be the life?” said Ali. “Then we could really do business.” ’

  Husseini wished he would get to the point, but realized that it was important for Selim to give him all this background information. It was his way of confiding in Husseini and making his story credible.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Selim continued, ‘Ali got up to go and I walked down the stairs with him to the gate outside. He turned to me and said, “You’re looking for the Breasted papyrus.” And then he left.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ asked Husseini.

  ‘I know Ali very well. I knew what that way of talking without saying meant. I didn’t do anything. I waited for him to come back. A few days later, he was waiting at the door when I got home shortly before midnight. I had become worried, because Professor Blake was beginning to think that we’d never find anything and he knew that in Chicago there were people ready to write him off.

  Ali had a sheet of paper in his hands with several lines of hieroglyphics: the beginning of the Breasted papyrus. I nearly dropped dead, Professor—’

  ‘Go on,’ urged Husseini, looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘I told him that I had the same lines and then he pulled out a Polaro
id. I’m sure it was what we were looking for, Professor Husseini. The Breasted papyrus!’

  ‘What made you so sure?’

  ‘The snapshot showed a papyrus along with several other objects from a tomb. Theoretically, it could have been just about anything, but then he showed me another old, yellowed picture with the same papyrus and the same objects on the table in the house of a fellah.

  ‘Now, Professor Husseini, even though James Henry Breasted himself wasn’t in the picture, I think it was legitimate to assume it was his papyrus. First of all, it looked absolutely identical: the top right-hand corner was ripped in just the same way and there was a missing piece on the left edge about three-quarters of the way down. I could have sworn that the objects in that old, yellowed photograph were the same ones in the Polaroid taken eighty years later.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘You can’t even imagine how excited I was. The most logical thing was to ask him if I could see the papyrus immediately, in the name of our old friendship. I couldn’t wait to tell Professor Blake. I could already see his face when I told him the news!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, what I asked him was how come this stuff had suddenly reappeared after almost ninety years.’

  ‘Yes. That is an interesting question.’

  ‘Well, the story was just incredible. I hope you have the patience to listen to it, Professor Husseini.’

  Husseini nodded for him to continue and poured out some more coffee.

  Selim went on, ‘Ali’s grandfather had participated in the exploration of the cave at Deir el Bahri as the foreman of Emil Brugsch, who was then director of the Antiquities Service. Brugsch had always been suspicious of him, because he was a friend of the two fellahin of El Qurna who had found the cave of the royal mummies. Remember, they managed to sell a quantity of precious objects before they were found out and forced to reveal the source of their trafficking.

  ‘Brugsch had reason for suspicion, as it turned out. His foreman, that is, Ali’s grandfather, was a handsome, vigorous young man, but poor as a dog and madly in love with a girl from Luxor, a waitress at the Hoˆtel du Nil. He needed to find enough money to make a suitable gift to the family of the girl, whom he wanted to marry. So what did he do? He tried to sell a few of the things he’d taken from the cave of the royal mummies.

  ‘If he had been in his right mind, he would have waited months or even years before putting those things on the market, but love is love. He was so eager to ask for permission to marry this girl that he threw caution to the wind and, against his friends’ advice, he let certain guests of the Winter Palace Hotel know that he had several extremely old and valuable pieces to sell.

  ‘James Henry Breasted was among these guests, and when he heard that there was also a papyrus among the objects for sale, he asked to see it immediately. They made an appointment, but in the meantime the affair had reached the ears of Emil Brugsch, his boss. He was the director of the Antiquities Service, you see, and he had always had his informers in the hotels in Luxor and especially at the Winter Palace. There had always been bad blood between him and Breasted, because Brugsch had begun to suspect that many of the important objects that formed the collection of the Oriental Institute in Chicago hadn’t exactly been acquired legally.

  ‘Towards the end of that spring, Breasted met with the grandfather of my friend Ali somewhere along the Nile and he was brought on horseback to the house where the objects were being kept. Breasted was mostly interested in the papyrus, but the foreman wanted to sell everything at once. He knew that the fewer buyers and transactions there were, the greater his chances of getting away with it.

  ‘Breasted tried to insist, but the seller wanted nearly as much for the papyrus alone as for the whole lot together. Breasted realized that the funds he had available to him in Cairo would not suffice for the deal. He wanted the papyrus so badly that he had no choice but to telegram Chicago with a request for more funds. He asked Ali’s grandfather if he could photograph the finds. He refused, but allowed Breasted to copy the papyrus. Breasted had just begun when a breathless fellah arrived to tell them that Brugsch’s men were on their trail.

  ‘Breasted certainly couldn’t allow himself to be found in such a compromising situation. He left all the money he had with him as a kind of down payment and quickly slipped away. Ali’s grandfather hid everything and took a photograph of the objects together with the papyrus, but later realized how closely he was being watched by the Antiquities Service. He never succeeded in meeting with Breasted again.

  ‘The poor devil had to forget about his dream marriage with the waitress from the Hoˆtel du Nil. A couple of years later he married a girl from El Qurna whose family was so poor that the father accepted a few sacks of millet and a bushel of rice in exchange for his daughter’s hand.

  ‘Just a few months after their marriage, while Ali’s grandfather was working on a ridge near Deir al Bahri, he slipped and fell. He was dying when they brought him home, but he managed with his last breath to tell his wife, who was already expecting their child, where he had hidden those objects.

  ‘And the secret was handed down from generation to generation—’

  Husseini interrupted him. ‘It seems very strange that a such a treasure would stay hidden for generations. I imagine that Ali’s father wasn’t swimming in gold either.’

  ‘You’re right, Professor Husseini. They would have sold it off instantly had they been able to. The fact is that they could not. Breasted was not the only one to be cheated out of his prize. You see, shortly after the poor man’s death, the Director of Antiquities had a guard house built for the surveillance of that vast area which had become of such great archaeological and historical interest.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Husseini. ‘This shack was built right where Ali’s grandfather had buried his treasure.’

  ‘Exactly. But that’s not all. What was a shack at first was transformed over the years into a little brick barracks – in other words, a permanent structure. However, it was just recently demolished to allow for the passage of a new road. And so one night, when there was a full moon, my friend Ali followed his father’s instructions and dug up the small treasure of Deir el Bahri.’

  ‘But you . . . why did you think of asking this friend Ali in the first place?’

  ‘Well, because there’s always been talk at El Qurna of a hidden treasure and an incredibly valuable papyrus that both Breasted and Emil Brugsch had tried to find. I had told Professor Blake about it when I saw that he was interested in those three lines of the Breasted papyrus and that’s why he decided to transfer his research to El Qurna, in Egypt.’

  ‘No doubt about it,’ admitted Husseini. ‘You were on the right track from the start. What happened then?’

  ‘Well, more or less what you’ve already heard, Professor Husseini. I started to negotiate for the purchase of the finds, because Ali, like his grandfather, wanted to sell everything at once, but the sum he wanted was very high.’

  ‘How high?’ asked Husseini.

  ‘Half a million dollars, paid to a Swiss bank account.’

  Husseini let out a long whistle.

  ‘I was able to talk him down to 300,000 dollars, but it was still an enormous amount of money. Blake had to lay his reputation on the line to get 100,000 dollars immediately, in cash, as a down payment.

  ‘As soon as the money came through, they set up a meeting, but right after Professor Blake got there, the Egyptian police raided the place. They managed to sneak up on us totally by surprise, as though they’d been expecting us.’

  ‘And the papyrus?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know what happened to it. Ali managed to slip off and he probably had it on him. Or maybe he had never brought it: he’s very suspicious, very careful. He had some of the other things: two bracelets, a pendant . . . beautiful, real masterpieces. They were on the table when the police burst in.’

  ‘There’s something you haven’t told me,’ sai
d Husseini.

  Selim raised his eyes and seemed upset, as though he felt guilty or had behaved badly.

  ‘Professor Blake told me that there was one thing above all that convinced him that the papyrus was authentic: the fact that other unknown and powerful buyers were after it. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing . . .’

  Husseini went to the window. It was snowing outside and the white flakes wafted in the air like confetti during a parade, but the street was deserted. In the distance, a low call like that of a hunting horn could be heard. Maybe some boat trying to find its way through the mist on the lake to an invisible port.

  ‘What did you do afterwards?’ asked Husseini.

  ‘I wasn’t there when the police burst in, because I was waiting outside in the car. I got out of there as soon as I saw them driving off with him with their sirens wailing. Poor Professor Blake.’

  ‘Where do you think the papyrus is now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Ali has it, or those other . . . buyers, if what you said is true.’

  ‘Or the Egyptian government, or the American government, or even Blake.’

  ‘Blake, sir?’

  ‘You never know. In reality, we know nothing about what happened that day at Khan el Khalili. Ali got away. You weren’t there. The only one who was there . . . was Professor Blake.’

  ‘That’s true. And you may not be the only one who suspects him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The other day I was working late in my office at the Institute and I saw Professor Olsen going into what used to be Professor Blake’s office with a key.’

  ‘Do you know what he was looking for?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I started keeping an eye on him and I found out something else. Professor Olsen is having an affair with Professor Blake’s ex-wife. And has been for some time. I think that must mean something.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right about that, Selim. But now we have to figure a way out of this and decide what to do. Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you very soon.’