The Egyptologist

by Arthur Phillips

  These mad assertions of insidious, invisible Ferrell produce an absurd retroactive unwinding of the truth. If I was not at Oxford, how did I meet Marlowe? How did we come to find ourselves unearthing a pot containing Fragment C? If I was not his school chum, how did we come to be in the same unit in Egypt? If we did not enlist together, how did I find my way into the Army? Told this way the story makes no sense at all. Ferrell is a madman.

  Reconstructing the order of events with these slow letters is maddening. Obviously, whatever poison ter Breuggen spilt into Finneran’s ear on the 19th would explain CCF’s financial delays and enigmatic cables. Whoever Ferrell is, he is on an incomprehensible quest to discredit me. He succeeded in ter Breuggen’s office, but the fear and incompetence there made for fertile ground. CCF is of sterner stuff. Oh God, M.

  CABLE. LUXOR TO MARGARET FINNERAN,

  BOSTON, 2 NOV. 1922, 5.47 P.M.

  MY DARLING. HAVE LEARNT A LIAR LURKS, A STRANGER CALLED FERRELL. DO NOT KNOW HIM, DO NOT BELIEVE HIM. IGNORE AT ALL COSTS. YOUR CONQUERING LOVE. RMT.

  CABLE. LUXOR TO C. C. FINNERAN,

  BOSTON, 2 NOV. 1922, 5.49 P.M.

  MASTER OF LARGESSE. HAVE LEARNT MORE OF FERRELL, A LIAR OF MYSTERIOUS MOTIVATION. YOU MAY SAFELY DISREGARD HIM AND INSTEAD COMFORTABLY AND QUICKLY PROCEED ACCORDING TO OUR ORIGINAL PLANS. RMT.

  Margaret: I just sprinted back into town and cabled you to ignore this Ferrell. I am sure you will if you have not already. He is a mythical nemesis dispatched to harass me, by I cannot imagine what forces for I cannot imagine what reason. Even so, he is a clownish, flabby nemesis. And yet, also necessary! Great men, my darling, are often troubled by just such petty thugs and anaemic ill-wishers. These troubled, rodential men are driven by a need to tear down because they cannot create, they have been denied Atum’s spark, the bit of godness that great men desire—the power to create. And, sulphur-veined, they cling instead with ragged claws, driven by the satanic urge to destroy.

  If you have heard his nonsense already—and I suppose you must have, since it appears he was in your home two weeks ago—then my heart breaks for you, because his hissing words no doubt sizzled away at the very idea you have of me. What must you have thought to hear the mad, impossible notion that Ralph was not at Oxford? If you believed for even a single, shocking moment, then I am so very sorry.

  I know, Margaret—I am not such a fool as all that—I know that what first drew you to me was my manner and my history: an English explorer, sculpted from old gentry, Oxford education, War heroism. I know these were our foundation stones. But now, my love, Ferrell provides us an opportunity to grow stronger, to forge a deeper love and understanding. We both know that my curriculum vitae is not the best of me, nor the most of me. And if Oxford were not real—as Ferrell would have it—what would that change between us? Nothing. My accomplishments were the means to bring us together, not the sustenance off of which our love will last forever. If foiled Ferrell has helped us to see that, then our magnanimous thanks to him!

  After a ghastly evening, I am finally feeling myself again. Is this what “court intrigue” actually felt like, when it was a daily reality and not an historian’s dry phrase? When Atum-hadu’s courtiers could not be trusted, when conspirators crept and pretenders to his throne bribed the cooks in the heat of the palace kitchen and priests whispered obscene lies and promises in the shadows of torchlights, did his stomach churn as mine does? Did he grapple with slippery destroyers when he would rather have honoured his name and patron-god by creating?

  Friday, 3 November, 1922

  Journal: Extend the men’s wall searches nearly half a mile into the desert. Clear another four clefts, the most promising of which shows some evidence of human contact, but nothing definitive. Twice the men find something in the wall face worth my hurried descent from the path above, but both times it is a false alarm. I must soon face the possibility that ground will have to be cleared, earth moved. If all of the clefts prove valueless, and the cliff face reveals nothing, then we are left with the inescapable conclusion that Atum-hadu’s tomb is in the flat valley basin, which will mean trenching operations, similar to Carter’s antworks on the other side of the cliff wall. Efficiency will demand several score men if not more. An impossibility without a complete and unequivocal concession from the Antiquities Service.

  Saturday, 4 November, 1922

  Journal: Clear five more clefts, and have the men begin physically scraping the cliff face to a height of seven feet, 250 yards in either direction from the Fragment C site. It is a necessary next step, and I hope it will reward us, but I fear that the vast, flat desert floor now seems a more likely hiding place for Atum-hadu. This possibility stretches out our likely time commitment significantly. Will the Partnership’s nerve hold for another year if necessary? Perhaps I should introduce myself to Professor Winlock, discuss with him man-to-man a partition of the Metropolitan Museum’s land. He has no interest or expertise in Atum-hadu, and can cover only so much land in a season, even with his museum’s obscene resources. And he may welcome some complimentary shares in Hand-of-Atum, Ltd., considering his ltd. success in recent months.

  Late afternoon: I descend to find I am missing Ahmed and one of the men. They return an hour later with this tale: while I was above, one of my workmen’s cousins came to visit him at our site and bore interesting news (gossip-bearing cousins being this country’s chief industry): Carter had found something, and my men’s afternoon absence (much salaaming and “thousand pardons, Lord Trilipush”) was due to their infiltration of Carter’s site, where it appears that Carter had found . . . a stair. Good Lord, a cause for jubilation to the poor old-timer, I am quite sure. Six years later and a stair! Ah well, he deserved to find something, and the Earl of Carnarvon can now feel his money was not entirely wasted.

  Home to relax with the cats, some music.

  The Nordquists stop for a cheering visit and we share supper. I recount my days, and they detail their touristic adventures. Their kind questions and interest in my every word warm me, a welcome surprise and marvellous tonic for my confidence.

  Sunday, 5 November, 1922

  Journal: Visit bazaar, dressed in native garb (it wins me better prices). Buy a few souvenirs—scarabs done by an excellent forger, aged brilliantly. The merchant gamely claims they are authentic Thothmes III. Nonsense, but it should amuse Carter, a congratulatory token from a sand-spitting brother.

  Venture on donkey out to the Valley to see Carter’s stair. I feel queer, hot and cold in turns. How wonderful for him if he has made a find, of course.

  His encampment is a ludicrously large presence squatting practically on top of Rameses VI. Finding Carter himself was rather tricky, as he moves in the centre of a crowd of workmen. Only calling his name loudly caught his attention. He emerged from his throng to greet me, dusting off his hands and usual frosty manner, an easy affectation to maintain with Carnarvon’s cash and a supporting cast of hundreds. He should try surviving on charm alone.

  “Yes, Trilipush,” he says, pocketing my proffered gift of one of the rare first editions of Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt. “What brings you round?”

  “I hear you’ve tripped over a stair, Howard. Mind if I have a look, professional courtesy, peer review, all that?”

  “Word’s already out, is it?”

  “You know the native love of sharing a secret.”

  “Yes, well, I’d rather not have visitors at this point.”

  “Of course not, old man, too early for a bunch of tourists and grandees to muck up the works.” And he is right, the old professional: the thought of civilians tramping away on a new find—unspeakable. I set off towards the spot where his workmen were kneeling, a row of a dozen men with screens, sifting through all of the lifted sand, rebagging the confirmed dirt, calling for a supervisor if any shard of anything turned up. What a production! It was a factory, a capitalist’s “sweatshop” more than a scientific expedition. Massive archaeological waste. No wonder Carter has burnt years at th
is. I finally penetrated to the centre of the fuss and found that his one stair had been hard at it, à la Atum, and had multiplied with showy fertility: now a whole staircase burrowed down into the earth, ending with a wall of stones and rubbish. My God, what a sight, an incredible discovery, no question, of what I cannot say.

  “Cache of plundered junk?” I asked him when he caught up with me. “Ancient storage facility? Granary?”

  “Probably,” he agreed. “Well, if you will excuse me, dearest Ralph, we have days ahead of us to clear this rubbish and gently open any doors we might find.” As I rode off, I looked over my shoulder, and he was all energy in all directions, a remarkable sight for an old fellow, especially if his bowels were in a state anything like mine. The expressions on his workers’ faces were quite unlike anything my discount team can manufacture. Of course, even in his dotage, Carter has such an ability to make one feel completely invisible, weightless. He does not seem to know he does it; it is precisely as if he constantly, from birth, had given off a blinding light from his face that made everyone he spoke to cover their eyes—how would he ever know that people were not dazzled when he was not looking at them? Even if someone told him, he would likely disbelieve them. “What?” he would say, looking incredulously at yet another squinting face. “What do you mean? How am I different?”

  I need to take some air, check poste restante.

  Letter from my fiancée, dated 13 October, twenty-three days ago. What has happened since?

  A long, vindictive session of enforced closet time. Gramophone not helpful. Fever.

  Oct. 13

  My Ralphie—

  Strange adventures to relate, my Egyptian Lord.

  A snooping nosy parker named Harold Ferrell came to our house today. He’s looking for a friend of yours. Get a load of this, Ralphie: he says your friend is a poor Australian boy named Paul Caldwell, an amateur Egyptologist who has lived what sounds like a positively dreary and horrible little life. “A friend of Ralph’s?” I asked in a tone to get the point across, and then, to be quite sure he got it, I told him that even though you were forced to mix with all sorts of odd types in the War, this Paul Caldwell didn’t sound like your sort of friend at all. He’s Australian, too. The snooper, I mean. He also spent time behind closed doors with Daddy, and I tried to put my ear to the door for you, but it was very tiring.

  You’ve been gone forever, it seems like. It’s hard to imagine what you do all day there in the sand. It’s hard to remember having you around. The weather is turning cold here, and Inge has me under such careful watch it’s an absolute bore. J. P. O’Toole comes around with an invitation or a present from time to time. He sends his best to you. Oh, yes: I nearly forgot to tell you, he asked me a favor. He said I should ask you to send him “any and all news” of the excavation too, don’t just send reports to Daddy, because JP doesn’t want to feel left out. Isn’t that sweet? He’s a very sweet man, you know, and so generous.

  That reminds me: I hope you are having success and that it is fast. I think you are a wonderful, heroic man, Ralphie, you know I do, but I don’t like having you gone all this long time. I don’t like it at all, and I think that if there are any more of these expeditions after we are married, I will come with you, or I will wait only at Trilipush Hall with crowds of friends and servants, or at a hotel in Paris. Boston is a horrible bore. You are beastly to have left me alone this long. Daddy is a bore. Inge is a fat bore. What am I supposed to be doing here with my time while you are off having grand adventures? I know that “it is all for us,” and when you come back it is our future you are going to carry home, I know. But still. Being here under Daddy and Inge’s thumbs makes me feel like a little girl. I know that they only want what’s best for me, but that also seems to mean boring me to tears.

  m.

  Monday, 6 November, 1922

  Pay men for one week, send them home. I am not in fit condition to work.

  Wednesday, 8 November, 1922

  Night. Three days lost to fever, et cetera. By nightfall, I am able to rise. The cats were a comfort in my illness, especially dear Maggie. I eat dinner for the first time since Sunday. After days of nauseous, anxious sleep, I am, tonight, of course, unable to sleep. I am curious what ancient, desiccated wine cellar Carter’s found at the bottom of his stairs. I shall climb aboard a nocturnal donkey, trot into the Valley, and find my heartbroken colleague atop his stairway to ancient rubbish bins, and I shall succour him in his despair at six years of wasting Carnarvon’s good, easy money.

  Later: I dressed in native garb. I paid a boy with a boat to ferry me across, and made the moonlit Valley in not much time. Hiked up a side path, behind Rameses VI’s tomb, to look again at the precious stairwell. But instead I found a few of Carter’s workers, standing watch and sleeping, no sign of the great man himself. And there was a pile of boulders atop where the staircase had been. Nothing else. If there ever was a staircase, if heat and solitude and frustration and fever have not tickled me into meaningless hallucination, then Carter has apparently reburied his find. Exchange a few salaams and chitchat with his workers. My disguise is flawless. From what they told me, Carter has set his team to work in the other direction, trenching around the ancient huts of the workmen who built Rameses VI’s tomb. What a man, this Carter! What style! Faced with a black eye unlike anything in Egyptological history (six years and a staircase to a dry hole), and with his noble moneybags sitting in Haw-haw House back in green England, Carter’s simply buried his folly and turned his back on it. Never happened! A trickster, our Mr. Carter, it now seems. Makes one wonder what else he has covered up in his glorious past.

  I set off, back to the river by way of his villa in Gurna. The windows were unshuttered, the moonlight silvering one side of the house. A little corner of England deposited here in Egypt, his easels and books sitting in tidy order in what must be a sitting room and study. The easel’s back was to the window, so I cannot comment on his skill as a painter. He did not clear away his tea things, no doubt he was drinking something potent to erase the dreadful memory of burying rather than digging, covering up his staircase from the 1890s. Who else besides me heard, too early, of his “triumph”? How many souls did his workmen tell? “Ah, yes, Lord Carter has found King Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb today! He found the staircase today, and tomorrow the treasure room! Tell all the cousins!” Poor Carter. No wonder the tea things sit unwashed.

  The back of the house revealed an interesting tableau, framed by the green-painted window sashes. He was sleeping like a man at peace, which is odd, unless one considers the sleeping draught he likely gulped to beat back his roiling worries. His thin eyeglasses were folded on the bedside table, over a pre-slumber read, the cover of which was the same colour as Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt, which would not surprise me, but I could not quite make out the title. Carter himself lay under white sheets and a tent of mesh. He held his old, wrinkled hands up near his neck like some rodent burrowed down for a long, hard winter. I do not envy the questions coming the poor man’s way.

  Thursday, 9 November, 1922

  Journal: After losing three days to fever and sublimated, unnecessary worry, I awake early today, refreshed and ready to work. I feel absolutely tip-top. Set out food for Maggie and the Rameses.

  Ahmed and the men are waiting, loyal and relieved to see me healthy at last. They have come every morning and left only after hours of waiting. Today their eagerness to work is palpable and infectious. They look at me with enthusiasm and respect.

  I have the men continue their careful scraping of the cliff face abutting the rising path. Our progress is heartening, though progress without discovery can also be viewed as a shrinking field of prospect, but I do not indulge such thinking. I clear three more clefts. Not many remain, and more difficult work will be required, I fear.

  Maggie and the toms take their supper with me in my dining room and spend the evening peering curiously at the gramophone.

  Friday, 10 November, 1922

  Journal: Dis
tribute two dozen of CCF’s monogrammed cigars to the men as baksheesh. Tokens of my faith in my workers. It is often and boringly repeated that Carter “inspires loyalty in his men.” But “inspiring loyalty,” as I learnt in the Army, is a caveman’s trick. Anyone can do it with gifts or fear.

  Today I acknowledge the need to begin planning for next steps. I send two of the men out into the flat basin of this section of valley, to mark with stakes a square, 100 yards out from the cliff wall and 100 yards long, centring on the site of Fragment C’s discovery. If it comes to excavating trenches, we will be ready. I ask Ahmed’s opinion how easily we could hire a team of 100 men and equip them all with digging tools. The timing is certainly possible, but the cost will require waiting for the Partnership to act. And the Partnership will need to be prepared for a full-team budget. With nothing to show yet, I am unwilling to go back to Lacau or to Winlock, but it is simply not feasible to tramp in a full excavation team unseen.

  Saturday, 11 November, 1922

  Book notes: Change the epigraph to 11 November, 1922! The 24th was too generous by a full thirteen days!

  Journal: And today we were smiled upon. Just as I was about to change strategy, the world reveals itself to us in a new light, and we see more than anyone else has ever seen before. It is late at night now, and I write from my cot under the stars, outside the tomb of King Atum-hadu. I have sent Ahmed to cable CCF and feed the cats.