THE SMITING TEXTS

by Roy Lester Pond

  He regarded the visitors in turn. “You should be aware that your activities are stirring up grave unease on all sides - the government, antiquities authorities, certain Christian groups and our brothers in Islam, not to mention other less godly elements. I won’t ask what you have done to stir up such attention.” He directed the question to Daniel. “But I will ask this: how long will you go on doing this? What do you plan to do now? Everybody is looking for you.” He turned to Anson with a twinkle in his eye. “Unless you plan to embark on a life of seclusion in our monastery, you are going to have to report your whereabouts.”

  “Yes, we will, but not just yet,” Anson said, adding ‘Your Holiness,” at a prompting glare from Kalila. “We want a chance to make one more trip to the Fayoum. We think that’s where my father’s discovery may lie.”

  “The proof that there is no afterlife? I was a medical man before I joined the monastery,” the Patriarch said. “Consider the effects of anaesthetic before an operation. The lights go out as your senses are crushed into a dreamless sleep. Then you awaken. Has a minute passed, or six hours? Or perhaps a thousand years? It makes no difference. Our death until the resurrection will be just such a thing. Is there life after the night of anaesthetic? Yes. Is there a life after death? Yes, and it will seem to come just as swiftly, occurring after a mere blink of a sleeping eye. But as a former man of science I do not fear new discoveries. Discover what you will. But be very careful, my children, and pray that in searching for the truth you do not sin against the Lord.”

  Did they have the Pope’s blessing on their enterprise? Or a sobering warning?

  It seemed to Anson Hunter that heaven and the entire universe was watching their search and waiting for the truth to unfold.

  Chapter 69

  A TRUCK pulled out behind them just as they passed a village near Lake Qarun. It roared past. A second vehicle, a Land Cruiser, swung in behind them.

  “Watch out,” Anson called a warning to John who slammed on brakes. The truck stopped dead in front of them and they skidded up to its canvas covered back. Four men dressed in galabeas leapt out of the truck, their faces wrapped, rifles in their hands. John slammed the gears into reverse only to see the following Land Cruiser grow in the rear-view mirror and squeal to a stop behind them. They were blocked in.

  Their attackers ripped their doors open and dragged them out, rifles pointed. They shoved the five of them into the back of the truck, which spun around and headed back in the direction of the village.

  What is this? Anson thought, looking at their covered faces and pointed weapons. An ambush by extremists? Usually they shot up tourist buses. Why abduct us? Memories of seeing Western civilian prisoners shown on video in Iraq flashed into his head. Were they hoping to make a political demand to the authorities? Or were they after a ransom? Were these the ones who had engaged in a gunfight, presumably with the armed guards, in the dust storm at Abydos?

  The truck bounded over a dirt road and pulled up. They found themselves at the rear of a grimy building where they were herded inside a bare building and shoved into a room with a narrow grilled window.

  “I hope this isn’t Pope Cyril losing patience with us,” Anson said, trying to lighten the moment as a bolt rattled home on the other side. They slumped to the floor in numb disbelief.

  They were not left alone for long.

  The door opened and a man in a dingy grey galabea poked his weapon at Anson.

  Me first? he thought. What was this, a summary execution? Why bring us here for that? Was he to be the first star of a video-recorded demand?

  The Egyptian nudged him out of the room and down a hall to a bare, windowless room. Well, it wasn’t entirely bare, he noted. There was a chair positioned under a glaring, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling on flex wire. There was also a black widow-in-mourning standing at the edge of the pool of light. Well, not a widow actually, he qualified that impression, but then veiled women in black always made him think of widows and mourning.

  Was it the same one?

  “I apologise,” she spoke through black cloth. “The single chair under a glaring light is not quite the canonical scene of torture and inquisition it appears. At least not intentionally. Electricity came recently to this village, you see, and the service is very basic, supplying just a single light in the middle of the room. But I do want to ask you a few questions. Amicably, I hope. Sit down.”

  Educated. Bright eyes shining like jewels through the black slit of the veil.

  He sat, and found himself the object of inspection by the watchful eyes, the only things visible in the dark shroud. The man in a galabea took up a guarding position just outside the door.

  “What is this?” Anson said. “Why have you brought us here? Are you a political group?”

  “Extremist fanatics, you mean? Why don’t you just say the words?” she said, daring him.

  “I don’t care to. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m a prisoner and there’s a guy at the door with a gun and I can’t see who the hell you are. It makes me come over a bit cautious, I’m afraid. Of course, if you were to have the courage to show me your face, as a sign of good faith, then… ”

  “Be careful.” Her eyes sparked through the slit in the veil.

  Anson felt as if a current had hit him. Something squeezed the spaces in his lungs, tightened like fingers around his throat.

  He tried to imagine the features behind the black cloth. A face straight off an ancient Egyptian tomb wall, exquisitely Mediterranean, with dark hair falling to her shoulders?

  “You won’t use the word extremist. Yet your father was an extremist. His extremes were different from mine that is all.”

  So, he thought. This isn’t about a ransom, it’s about my father. It is the same woman. Did that make him feel better or worse?

  “I don’t think my father took his passions to the extremes of killing.”

  "What about killing the hopes of millions?”

  “He didn’t do it with a gun. That’s fanaticism.”

  “Are only Christians allowed to be fanatics? What about the Christian Copts who wrecked the ancient tombs and temples? They attacked anything of beauty in their desire to end the ancient religion."

  “As did certain Islamic rulers, I recall.”

  “The world has become suspicious of any avidity, even avidity for religion. You should not be lukewarm. You are like your father. You do not care about the living people of this region. We are an irrelevance, an irritant in your quest to recover what you consider to be a golden age. You wish we would all go away. But this is our country. You lament the building of the Aswan Dam because the rising water table is destroying your precious golden age. You would rather Egypt were chained to archaisms, such as the annual flooding of the Nile. But what about the curse of high Niles and low Niles? There have been great droughts in Africa in the past, and floods, and, without the High Dam, thousands of Egyptians, maybe millions, would have died. But if you westerners could click your fingers tomorrow and have your wish, that dam would be gone."

  Anson had to agree. "The dam is a nightmare for conservationists, but I am glad that it has saved so many lives. I just wish there was another way."

  "An old, quaint way, preferably. Nothing that helps Egyptians take their place again among the great peoples of the world."

  Did she think this would help Egyptians take their place among the great peoples of the world? he wondered, but he decided it was not politic to say so. But he did say, “In a matter of decades, it's destroying the heritage of millennia. Everybody knows it. With the change in the water table, you can see the salt rising up in crystals and eating away the frescoes and dissolving the stone reliefs in tombs and temples.”

  “You like to debate, like your father.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  “I know many things that would surprise you.”

  “I hardly knew him.”

  “Then why are you here on this quest?”


  “Because someone made sure I never got to know him. Someone robbed me of that chance and I’m starting to get an inkling of just who that might be.”

  “I am not going to debate with you. I am going to give you a very simple instruction. Take us to the site of the pagan heaven.”

  “You know a lot. But what is your interest if you have such poor regard for the past?”

  “I do not spurn the treasures of paradise.”

  “Antiquities. What would you people care about antiquities? What would you do with them? Melt down gold to fund a revolution, so you can buy more guns to take pot-shots at innocent visitors?"

  “Don’t you think Egypt is sick of visitors? She has had a succession of visitors throughout history, all conquerors of one sort or another, some with swords and guns and others with Coca-Cola and foreign exchange. Egypt is too dependent on them and their influence on her religious convictions is corrosive. They will not be happy until the Egyptians are as lukewarm about their convictions as they are about theirs,” she said.

  “I don’t know much about heaven,” he said. “But I’m getting quite a feel for the other place.”

  “Perhaps your friends will persuade you.” She gave an order in Arabic. A pair of guards shoved Kalila and Daniel into the room.

  “Not this one, again,” Daniel said, gaping at the chador-covered figure.

  “Hello, Abuna,” she murmured. “Tell your friend that he should speak freely with me or I shall grow impatient. And you know what happens then.”

  “Anson, be warned. This is the same black shadow of hell that paid me a visit in my cave. Watch out for the weapon she keeps in her robes.”

  “We’ve met before, shopping together in the Luxor Bazaar,” Anson said conversationally. “And this is no doubt the same shadow that fell across my father’s life in the tomb of Mereruka.”

  Daniel squinted at the veiled figure.

  “I’ll say this, Sister. You are persistent.” “Sister?”

  Anson forced a smile. “I don’t think I’d quite call her that. In spite of the black cloth, this lady is no nun, Daniel.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said, kicking the leg of his chair angrily. “Be careful what you say to me.”

  He’d struck a nerve.

  “What do you want with us?” Daniel said.

  She appeared to regather her composure. “I want to talk about heaven.”

  “The pagan variety, I take it.”

  “Certainly not your Christian variety. You will take me there, Abuna. I tell you this, today we shall be in the pagan heaven together. Or, some of you may fall by the wayside.” She turned her eyes and settled her stare pointedly on Kalila. The young student flinched. “Now give me an answer. I don’t have time to waste. Where exactly is the place to be found?”

  “Okay,” Anson said. “I’ll take you there, or at least to where we believe it is. But it’s not going to be easy. There is no secret treasure map and no signposts.”

  Professor Emory Hunter wrote at night, in his tent in the Faiyum, by the rasping light of a gas lamp:

  Why am I writing this, when to set it down on paper involves so great a risk of discovery? Perhaps because I have spent too much time in the company of a certain chronicling monk. Or perhaps it is a fear that if anything should happen to me personally my heaven-and-earth-shaking discoveries will be lost to future generations – and more disturbingly, to the next generation.”

  The wind outside made a howling sound that reminded him of the dog god, and of Osiris. He paused to eat a light meal of dried dates and washed the fleshy sweet fruit down with strong, black coffee in an enamel mug. ‘The discovery began with a dog,’ he wrote.

  They were working in the sand at the perimeter of this late period, totally devastated temple, under the pressing sun, with brushes in their hands. He looked up and saw his student Kalila vigorously sweeping grains of sand from a broken pot.

  “It’s like cleaning your teeth, Kalila. Don’t scrub in circles with your brush. Just sweep carefully in one direction.”

  Kalila was a post-graduate student and one of the most promising he had ever had the good fortune to work with. Coptic Egyptian, she had a rare gift for languages and translation. She looked up and her dark eyes under the rim of her grass hat were the only liquid things in this parched and sandy plain.

  He saw her smile and shake her head. They loved to argue, about religion mainly, but even about methodology. She had little patience for the kind of archaeology that involved dusting the ground with paintbrushes and she retorted:

  “One day you’ll move on from paintbrushes to computer technology, Professor.”

  She did not normally call him professor, but did so for the benefit of his Headman, Karim, and the Egyptian men squatting on the sand, around them sharing the work of dusting the site for finds, mostly turning up ostraca.

  A dog came limping out of the haze. It flopped down in the shadow of a stone.

  “Too hot for you, Wep?” he said.

  Wep was a nickname, short for Wepwawet, the dog-god Opener of Ways. He was a stray black mongrel that Emory had started feeding. Stray dogs were as much a part of archaeology in Egypt as flies, sun and boredom, but they came in handy. Give them a feed and their powerful territorial instinct kicked in. They turned into instant watchdogs, barking at any strangers who approached the camp.

  The heat was having an effect on Wep today. He whined, gave a dry, rattling cough and then lay still. Just like that. Wep died in front of Emory’s eyes. Why had he chosen to end this life right near him and in this place of all places...?

  Emory tipped a shovelful of sand over a growing pile beside a hole.

  The load of silicate spilling from the blade turned the heap into a pyramid with shifting sides that glistened in the afternoon sun. It was just a dog, an abandoned creature that nobody in the world cared about except me, he told himself.

  Dogs, old bones and death were a part of this desert landscape and it had been that way since the age of the dog gods Wepwawet and Anubis. He reminded himself that in modern Egypt, around thirty-five dogs were slaughtered every day of the year. Cairo’s dog culling was a national scandal. They had recently shot or poisoned 4,000 dogs in just one five month period. Mostly they shot dogs. Official policy allowed just one bullet per dog. But Cairo dog shooters were haphazard. Their first shot often maimed the animal, instead of killing it, and they simply tossed the animal onto the back of a truck along with the dead ones.

  The shovel handle slipped. Emory paused and wiped sweaty fingers on his sleeves.

  ‘I guess these drops of sweat are the only tears you’ll get from me, Wep,’ he thought.

  He wanted the dog back, so that he could run with it again and drum the dog’s strong ribs with his open palms and see the almond shaped eyes spark and the tongue loll from his snout.

  Emory gripped the wood more tightly. Keep digging, old man. You don’t want jackals or wild dogs to find him. You owe him that.

  Just keep thinking of all the dogs that ever died in Egypt. Millions of them and millions mummified, many of them ending up in museum display cases.

  But this wasn’t about dogs, was it? It was about one dog, Wep, who had somehow chosen to end his days with him. Things just came into your life like that, unasked for, and for no reason. And things went out of your life in the same way. Like his son, Anson, even though he was to blame in the boy’s case. Sorrow came up in a wave that scalded the base of his throat and burnt across his shoulders and went deep into his chest and with it came anger.

  The dogs of Egypt didn’t ask for their predicament. Neglected and abandoned. Allowed to breed on rubbish dumps, the only place where they could scavenge a scrap to eat. Wep didn’t deserve to die either. Emory paused and did a slow turn on his heel to take in the landscape. The sandy, rock strewn plain vibrated in the heat. He saw glints like an ancient army with weapons out there. Just reflections on sun glazed stone. The landscape was empty.

  He lifted th
e dog, the body wrapped in a blanket. The animal felt lighter already as if something had left him. He put the stiffened form in the hole. The wavy stripes on the blanket dazzled his eyes like the desert. He spent a moment to fix this last image in his mind. Then, following some primal instinct, he dropped a chipped clay bowl into the hole. It was a bowl he had used for feeding the dog. A blue, heka frieze pattern ran around the rim.

  Tomb goods – and I don’t even believe in an afterlife! he thought, shaking his head. He began to fill the hole. A pile of sand left his spade.

  In mid air, another shovelful crossed his and two streams coalesced and showered down together.

  “Thanks.”

  “It has to be the most awful job in the world burying a favourite dog,” Kalila said.

  She had come, even though he had asked to be left alone.

  “If you’re too upset you feel you’re being sentimental. And if you don’t feel sad, you feel guilty.” She set to work beside him, putting her back into it. She was a strong girl. When they’d finished, she said. “You’re allowed to say a prayer for him.”

  “You can’t pray to an empty universe. Just leave me here for a bit.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to rustle up some coffee.”

  Wep was gone, covered. Only the freshly turned sand memorialized his life.

  He deserved better than that, Emory thought. In the creation beliefs of the Egyptians, the earth rose from the primordial waters of Nun to form the first primeval mound, and the idea of a mound or a tumulus continued into the erection of mastaba tombs and pyramids.

  Wep needed a mound. He set to work again with his shovel, building up a small pyramid of sand. That’s when his shovel blade hit something hard, jarring his arms and shoulders. Stone.