The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  From across the Nile came a burst of song, then laughter, then a door slamming, then silence. I turned in my hammock and lay looking at the moon. The sealed gold doors of the second shrine showed Tutankhamun greeting Osiris, god of the underworld. And between the two outer shrines, Eve said, were a multitude of offerings: alabaster lamps to light the king’s way to the afterlife; a cluster of oars to row him across the underworld’s dangerous rivers… The three of them had stayed there a long, long time, looking into the unknown; then they had turned and seen that the Burial Chamber contained one further space, a second shadowed room, one that they would call the Treasury. There in its entrance, they found their way barred by a statue of the jackal god Anubis, stretched full length on a bier, black as night, prick-eared, ever watchful, the god who supervised the Weighing of Hearts, Anubis the guardian of graveyards.

  ‘Are you awake, Frances?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes. I’m thinking of Anubis. Those gold doors. How they’d look, by flashlight, when your hands were shaking. I’m afraid to go to sleep in case I dream of them.’

  ‘Should they have gone in?’ I asked, sitting up and leaning across to her. ‘Oh, Frances, should they have done that?’

  ‘No. They should have waited for an inspector to be there. Carnarvon could lose his permit if anyone found out. There’d be an unholy row.’ She sat up, and turned her pale face towards me. ‘That’s why they’ve covered their tracks, Lucy. They must have refilled the hole – then they disguised that area with rushes and a basket: I saw those the first time I went into the Antechamber. Now Callender’s erected all that boxwork we saw today. So when they have the official opening, that part of the wall will be completely invisible. Carter’s thought of everything.’ She shivered. ‘They’ve lied – and they’ll have to go on lying. Imagine it, Lucy: a grand, formal opening, Monsieur Lacau and all those officials and scholars and archaeologists sitting there watching their every move – and they’re going to take down that wall and pretend that they have no idea what’s behind it.’

  ‘Don’t forget the journalists,’ I said. ‘Think what the Combine would do with this story.’

  ‘I don’t think they care about them. They hate them – they’re delighted to mislead them. But their friends – maybe they care about lying to them. I think Eve does, anyway. She was ashamed to lie to Miss Mack. That’s why she told us.’ Frances tossed back her blankets and slid out of her hammock. ‘Oh, I can’t sleep,’ she said restlessly. She padded across the deck to the rails and stood there in her white nightdress, like a little ghost gazing across the water.

  I climbed down from my hammock, pulled a jumper over my pyjamas and joined her. We both stood looking out at the lights and listening to the music from the Winter Palace, watching the moon’s radiance: two moons, one in the sky, its twin in the Nile water.

  ‘Where do you think Mr Carter was today,’ I asked her, after a long silence, ‘when Eve was searching for him?’

  ‘Somewhere he could be alone. He needs to be alone, I think, Lucy. Daddy says he’s cracking under the strain – might even be close to a breakdown. Daddy thinks it’s because of the papers, the politics, all the tourists, the heat in the Valley, the work in the tomb – and Mr Carter’s demons. But I think it’s the lies. The prospect of that opening ceremony, having to stand there and act, and then more lies. He’ll never be able to tell the truth now. That’s what’s done for him.’

  ‘And Eve?’ I hesitated, and then asked a question that was much in my mind. ‘Do you think she’s fallen in love with him, Frances? Is that what’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Frances replied, in a sad tone. ‘I don’t know what falling in love looks like. But you must know, Lucy, surely? Your father’s just remarried. So you must have seen it. Did he behave the way Eve did today – did your governess?’

  Her question shocked me. Looking away, I said stiffly: ‘That was different. It was – an arrangement. A marriage of convenience. I told you – he needed someone to look after me, and someone to help him with his work. A secretary.’

  Frances considered this in silence and let it pass. ‘Well, I don’t ever want to be in love if that’s what it does to you,’ she said in a fierce way, staring out across the Nile. ‘And anyway, I don’t think Eve is – not really. Stealing into the tomb at night – think how powerful that would be. It’s bewitched her.’ She paused, and then added in an impatient tone, ‘In any case, what’s the point of Eve being in love with Mr Carter? It’s stupid. He may be fond of her as a friend, but nothing more. She’s the daughter of an earl. He’s the wrong class and he’s old enough to be her father. She can’t possibly marry him.’

  ‘Things like that don’t stop people falling in love, Frances,’ I said, after a silence. ‘It just happens,’ I went on hesitantly. ‘People just do. Miss Dunsire says that when it comes to love, there are no boundaries.’

  ‘Oh, you and your Miss Dunsire.’ Frances gave me a little push. ‘You never stop quoting her, do you know that? If she says it, I suppose it has to be gospel?’

  That remark hurt. ‘Well, she knows a hell of a lot more about it than you do,’ I replied.

  ‘That’s true,’ Frances replied solemnly. ‘Or you, Lucy,’ she added, after a pause. ‘The truth of the matter is, we are both of us horribly ignorant.’ She began to smile; her quicksilver mood changed and her glance became mischievous. ‘And I hope it stays that way for ever – for me, anyway. I never want to be in love and be frantic and silly. I mean to stay as free as a bird. I plan to paint glorious pictures and sail around the world – and wear red lipstick like Poppy d’Erlanger, of course.’ She laughed and then caught me by the hand. ‘Listen, Lucy – they’re playing a waltz at the Winter Palace now. Isn’t it lovely here, by the river? How I love boats! I wish you had come to Maine, and I’d taught you to sail. Can you waltz? Shall we waltz? It might warm us up.’ She shivered. ‘Oh, let’s, Lucy.’

  I could waltz, as it happened; I’d learned at my Cambridge dancing classes, and once, before leaving for Egypt, I’d practised the steps with Nicola Dunsire. So I held up my arms, Frances stepped into them, and I guided her around the deck in the moonlight, one, two, three; one, two, three, negotiating the benches and the chairs, risking a spin when we reached the clear areas. Frances danced gracefully; I was much the taller of us now, and Frances felt very small in my arms; she followed my lead, her hand warm in mine, her body pliant and responsive to my directions and guidance, her face pale and concentrated, her eyes sparkling, her black hair shining. Round and round we went, keeping time with the sweet rhythms of the music, weaving through the awning’s shadows and then out into the astonishing glitter of the starlight. As the waltz approached its end, we launched ourselves into one last tremendous spin, the length of the deck, and came to a halt, breathless, against the rails. Frances broke from my grip, and sank down into a chair. ‘Oh, weren’t we just fine? You dance so well now, Lucy. Madame would be proud of you.’

  I didn’t reply – I was catching my breath; my mind was dizzied by the spins; waltzing saddened me. I couldn’t have explained that to Frances, to anyone, least of all to myself. I stood leaning against the rails, gazing across the water, until my heartbeat slowed. It was late by then, past one in the morning, and the orchestra at the Winter Palace played no more tunes; a last waltz and then – silence, silence, silence.

  After a while, Frances yawned and stretched and rubbed her eyes. She said she thought she might be able to sleep now; we climbed back into our hammocks. Both of us tossed and turned for a while, then settled. I listened to the lap of the Nile. Frances was asleep, I thought – but I was wrong. ‘Tell me, Lucy,’ she said, in a whisper, ‘would you have done what they did? Would you have broken into the inner chamber?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I reached across and clasped her hand. ‘Maybe. Definitely not. I don’t know.’

  ‘I would. I’d have been so burned up with curiosity, I couldn’t have resisted. Besides, what difference does it make? It’s not as i
f they took anything, Lucy. Is it such a sin to look?’

  I did not reply. I couldn’t answer Frances’s question then – and I still can’t, all these long decades later.

  31

  The long-awaited, much anticipated opening of the inner chamber to Tutankhamun’s tomb took place three days later, on Friday 16 February, 1923. This was a great relief to Miss Mack, for we were approaching the end of our stay in Egypt and she’d feared she’d miss the occasion, one she felt was crucial to The Book. And, in a sense, we did miss it, for it was a quiet affair, kept secret until the last possible minute, conducted with stealth, to outwit the journalists. Even if Miss Mack had been in the Valley that day, armed with her camera and notebook, she’d have seen little, for everything was happening inside the tomb, and, excepting Eve, no women were admitted there. But she and I were not in the Valley that day – we were with Helen and Frances, at Herbert Winlock’s dig at Deir el-Bahri.

  ‘We’re banished,’ Helen had said, arriving at our houseboat that morning. She gave Miss Mack a speaking glance: ‘Strict instructions from Herbert: not allowed near the tomb today, mustn’t go near the Valley – so we’re escaping with a picnic to Hatshepsut’s temple, Myrtle, and we’re hoping you and Lucy will join us.’

  Miss Mack gave her a speaking glance in return. ‘My dear, I understand absolutely,’ she said. ‘We’d be delighted.’

  ‘Well, the famous opening ceremony is obviously happening right now, Lucy,’ Miss Mack remarked to me after lunch, as she and I explored the temple ruins, ‘and to tell you the truth, I don’t mind missing it anyway. The Book did tell me to be there, and you know how dictatorial it can be. But I’m not in the writing mood at present, dear. I was most upset by what Eve told us the other day. I wouldn’t dream of breaking her confidence and recording it. But it does weigh on me.’

  I’d already guessed that was the case. Since Eve’s confession, the Oliver No. 9’s keys had been silent. Miss Mack sat down on one of Winlock’s excavated temple walls and surveyed the scene around us, her expression perplexed. Hatshepsut’s beautiful funerary temple, backed up against sheer three-hundred-foot cliffs of rock, facing into the afternoon sun, was magnificent, and punishing. It was huge – inexhaustibly huge in archaeological terms: Herbert Winlock had already been working it for twelve years at the time of this visit of ours, and would continue to do so for another eight in the future. That day the site was empty of tourists. The heat was shrivelling. There was no shade. I put on my dark glasses. Miss Mack raised an umbrella and mopped her face. She glanced across to the temple’s massive colonnade, where Helen and Frances were sketching.

  ‘I’d like your opinion, Lucy,’ she said. ‘How many other people know what Eve told us the other evening, do you think? Have Mr Carter’s fellow archaeologists been told the truth? Would you say Herbert knew – and Mr Burton, Mr Mace, Mr Lucas? Are they part of the deception too? And it is a deception, dear, let’s be clear about that.’

  ‘I think Herbert Winlock has guessed, if he hasn’t been told,’ I replied. ‘As to Mr Burton and Mr Mace, I’m not sure – though the Antechamber is very small, and they were both working inside it for weeks, so you’d expect them to have noticed something. I’m sure Mr Lucas knows – that’s why he made those jokes about boxing-in and carpentry. And Pecky Callender definitely knows, because he was there with them that night.

  ‘I think they probably all know, Miss Mack,’ I went on, glancing across at Frances: she’d abandoned her drawing and was now practising cartwheels. ‘Frances says they wouldn’t be shocked, anyway – they’d probably have done the very same thing Carter did. She says no one wants to go through a ceremonial opening with all the officials assembled, and then knock down the wall and find there’s nothing behind it. She says that has happened in the Valley and elsewhere – many times, even to Mr Carter in the past – and it’s horribly humiliating. Herbert Winlock says archaeologists should never knock down a tomb wall in public without being damn–– without being sure what’s behind it.’

  ‘I see.’ Miss Mack sighed. ‘Well, if Herbert says that, I’ll bow to his judgement. I expect I am old-fashioned and narrow-minded. I should not like to be in Mr Carter’s and Lord Carnarvon’s shoes today, however. Standing up in front of all those people – including Monsieur Lacau himself, for he’s bound to be there – and dismantling that wall, feigning astonishment, acting a lie… and in such a sacred place too. No, I shouldn’t like to have to do that… And how am I to deal with what Eve told us in The Book, Lucy?’ she added.

  ‘Why not just hint at it?’ I suggested. As I’d learned from my letter-writing, there were things that were best left unsaid, things it was wise to edit out – and contriving this was easier than I’d expected. ‘Surely you can bury things, so only people who dig deep and read between the lines notice them? Or leave it out. Just forget it. You could write about our visit to the tomb, then cut straight to the opening ceremony. No one will notice a gap.’

  ‘Well, I can’t forget what Eve said – obviously I can’t. But I see what you mean. Hide it and swiftly cut elsewhere… Perhaps that would be the solution.’ She gave me a considering look. ‘How crafty you can be, dear! I shall put it to The Book and see what it thinks. I shan’t be in the least surprised if it agrees with you. Just between you and me, I fear The Book’s morals are somewhat lax. It is often less than frank. I expect it will be only too delighted to conceal certain events. In fact, it has a tendency to conceal things, as I’ve begun to observe. It even hides things from me, Lucy… I must confess it is constantly tempting me away from stern factual objectivity towards – well, towards what I can only describe as romancing.’

  ‘Romancing?’ I looked at her in astonishment; this admission had been made with great reluctance, and she had coloured. ‘I don’t understand. Do you mean Eve and Mr Carter?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. I shouldn’t dream of touching on that matter, dear. No, no, I meant that The Book seems to have developed a fondness for certain characters. To be exact, a character.’ Her blush deepened. ‘It wants a hero, you see.’

  ‘A hero? But why? I thought it was supposed to be a blow-by-blow report, Miss Mack?’

  ‘I know. It’s very strange, isn’t it? But it’s insistent. A hero it wants and a hero it’s determined to get. I do not intend to give in, Lucy – and I’m holding my own thus far. But it’s becoming progressively difficult. You see, The Book feels it already has a hero, and it’s been concealing him from me. Now it wants him brought forth into the light.’

  How puzzling this was. I considered the candidates: Lord Carnarvon? Howard Carter? Herbert Winlock? None of them seemed an obvious hero to me, but perhaps my concept of that breed, honed by Nicola Dunsire’s taste and her reading lists, differed from Miss Mack’s. A suspicion began to steal into my mind, and so I asked when this heroic problem had first manifested itself.

  ‘Chapter Eight: A Wishing Cup, as I called it,’ she replied. ‘And I had to be very firm with Chapter Nine: A Game of Consequences. That described our Christmas lunch at the American House, and related events… You know, dear – this and that.’

  This chronology narrowed the field. I had my answer, I felt; the identity of Miss Mack’s nascent hero was becoming clear. It became clearer during the afternoon, as I thought the matter over while exploring the ruins with Frances. It became clearer still that evening when we returned to our dahabiyeh. There were candles on our supper table, and three places, not two, had been laid. Miss Mack bathed and changed into her best frock; she came up to the deck in a state of high nervousness, smelling of lavender water and mothballs.

  She paced up and down; she fetched binoculars and scanned the river, the hills. She consulted her watch ten times in the space of ten minutes. I was kind: I asked no questions, made no comments. At seven, Miss Mack gave a cry and leaned over the rails: ‘Why, goodness gracious, it’s you, Pecky,’ she called. ‘What a pleasant surprise! You’re just in time for supper – I know you won’t have eaten yet. I insist on your
joining us.’

  When we came to the end of this meal – Mohammed had pulled out all the stops and served a feast – Miss Mack poured coffee, offered Callender a glass of brandy, which he refused, and then plied him with Turkish Delight. ‘Now, Pecky,’ she said sternly, ‘the time has come for you to sing for your supper. Lucy and I want to know every detail of what happened at the famous opening today, and you are the person to tell us.’

  Callender seemed surprised at this – not too many people requested his feedback, I think. He demurred, ate three pieces of Turkish Delight and was finally persuaded. Carter and Carnarvon had laid a plan for the opening ceremony, he said; it was cunning, required careful timing and was tailored to confound the pressmen. By eight-thirty in the morning, he explained, all four members of the Combine had been at their customary perch on the retaining wall above the tomb’s entrance. They were suspicious that the opening was imminent, so for the last three days not one of them had shifted from that damn wall: they were lined up there from dawn to dusk, like so many vultures.

  At twelve, as usual, the entire team of excavators broke for lunch. Carter locked the steel gates into the tomb and, joined by Mace, Lucas and Burton, strolled off for their midday meal in KV4, the cool ‘canteen’ tomb they used for that purpose. The Combine, unable to escape the Valley’s heat, crept under the shade of a rock, where they drank warm beer, consumed dry, curling sandwiches and grew dispirited. By twelve-thirty the temperature was one hundred and ten degrees: this swiftly sorted the sheep from the goats; most of the tourists fled, as did the less determined journalists. The Combine sat it out… but they were beginning to despair: if anything newsworthy did occur that afternoon, they needed it to happen soon. Their deadline for cabling their papers was 3 p.m. at the latest: in order to send those cables, they had to ride all the way to the ferry, a six-and-a-half-mile journey, then cross the Nile, then ride a further mile to the telegraph office. Time was running out on them.