Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  But Cheftu hadn’t gotten there before me, or I would have seen him or his tracks in the sand, and he didn’t appear after me, because I had not left the site for more than ten minutes. That was when I’d made my phone calls and lain on Cammy’s bed. Wow, how good a mattress felt.

  When I’d realized that Cheftu hadn’t turned up and probably wasn’t going to, I’d concluded the only way for us to be together was for me to go find him. Here. Wherever, in the grand scheme of things, here really was. Israel? Palestine? Jordan? Philistine land?

  Canaan, my internal lexicon corrected.

  Cheftu, are you here? I wondered, ignoring the lexicon. Do you sleep close to me and I don’t even know it? I touched my hair, still matted but red. I was in my own skin. Be safe, beloved, I thought as my eyes closed. I’m coming for you, so wherever you are, be safe.

  SHE WASN’T SAFE with him, Cheftu thought. Never had he been so persuaded that homicide was a valid consideration. If she complained once more, if she whined even one more time, he would take great delight in silencing her forever. With his bare hands.

  What had he done to deserve being trapped with this witch? Which god had he offended? What circle of hell was he condemned to?

  “Are you listening, Cheftu?”

  RaEmhetepet. Dear gods, how did he end up confined on a plot of land not big enough to be called an island with RaEm? He glanced at the sky, gray and hazy, and wondered if this was his punishment for some heinous sin he didn’t recall committing.

  I’m sorry, he said to the clouds. I beg for mercy. They’d been here for a day. For a full day RaEm had complained. First about her burned body, then about the weather, then about him, then about how dirty she was, then about how hungry she was, then that she was cold, then starving to death. Her thoughts came full circle, and she’d started complaining about him again. Next she began describing meals she had eaten. Cheftu had decided to do something at that point.

  Now he tugged at the line dangling in the water, hoping that RaEm’s ear bauble would pass as bait. Please, le bon Dieu, let there be fish. Already his mouth was watering at the thought of food.

  It had been days since he’d had a real meal. Days since he’d not been fleeing destruction and death. The time portal had opened while he was holding Chloe’s hands, promising her fidelity. Her fingers had slipped from his handhold as she had vanished from his sight.

  Then light had encapsulated him, pulling him upward through fire and water, wind, and the very earth on which he awoke. The lintel that was the indicator for where a time portal was, the lintel that had cast its shadow across their bodies then, was broken now. It was a statement to the passage of time. Although for him it had seemed a moment, he knew he’d flown through centuries—forward or backward, he wasn’t certain.

  A shout, then a gurgle from the sea, had startled him. Scrambling to his knees, he thought he’d seen Chloe. But the creature who emerged had been RaEm, his former betrothed, a woman so vile and unfeeling that by her own testimony she’d tried to kill her lover. While he was yet within her. Cheftu’s skin crawled at the thought.

  RaEm’s stay in Chloe’s modern times did not seem to have improved her.

  “Can’t you at least catch a fish?” she asked in her flat interpretation of Chloe’s American accent. He hated her voice as much as he loved Chloe’s. Nor could he ascertain why she would speak English to him—even he and Chloe spoke in ancient tongues when they were together.

  For hours he had dangled the line in the water, waiting, hardly breathing. His arm ached, and RaEm’s snide comments were no assistance. While she had slept, he’d rested his arm, sore, hungry, and discouraged. He now massaged his muscles for a few moments, then dunked the line again.

  “You might as well be masturbating for all the good you are doing me,” she said from behind him. The demon was awake.

  If his belly weren’t also empty, Cheftu would have thrown in the line. He’d formed it painstakingly by stripping thread after thread from the edge of RaEm’s skirt, then tying them together. That had been a battle, too, just to get her to let him have a strip of the cloth.

  He turned to see her, her hair burned and standing on end, her eyes brown. Crocodile brown. Cheftu looked back at the water. He assumed they were still in the Aegean. That’s where he and Chloe had been standing when the portal beneath this lintel had opened. When they were now, neither he nor RaEm could guess. Why was also a mystery. Where was Chloe? RaEm said they had “passed” each other on the way here. Was Chloe now in her home time and world?

  Cheftu would swallow, except his throat was painfully dry. His skin was nearly blue from the wind. He was wearing only a sash, and though it did little in the way of protection for his body, it safely held the two oracular stones he’d taken from the ruined civilization of Aztlan. All told, he was likely to catch his death of pneumonia—though was that still possible?

  The fish line tugged, focusing Cheftu’s thoughts on getting the fish, even as his stomach rumbled at the thought of eating it. RaEm assisted in her own way, alternately complimenting and insulting him.

  “How are you going to cut it? How are we going to cook it?” RaEm asked. “It’s not even dead yet! What kind of fisherman are you? Are we supposed to eat it raw?”

  He was hungry enough to bite through the scales but knew he had to cut it open. After a moment he found a sharp enough rock to hack through the slippery skin. His stomach cramped as he wondered if Chloe had eaten, if she was warm. Where she was.

  They’d vowed to be together again, somehow, some way. Remember your vow, beloved.

  “Are you going to cut it or just stare at it?” RaEm inquired. Cheftu sawed through the fish, filleting it clumsily while his mouth watered in anticipation. “So we’re having sushi?” she said, sitting on the rock. Night engulfed them suddenly and, with it, more wind, cooler temperatures.

  “What is sushi?”

  “Raw fish.”

  “Uncooked?”

  “Wrapped in seaweed and served in little bundles with saki.”

  Cheftu peered through the darkness at RaEm. “I’d always thought Chloe came from a titled, landed family.” He shook his head. “It must be awful being poor in her time.”

  RaEm snorted again. Cheftu didn’t remember this being one of her habits, and it certainly wasn’t Chloe’s. “The poor? Nay, only the wealthy can afford sushi. They eat it in dark bars and discuss business so they can write it off.”

  Cheftu handed her a slab of slippery, raw meat. “Regard this as sushi, this rock as your ‘dark bar,’ and tell me what ‘write off’ means.” He cut a slab of fish for himself and bit into it. Maybe he could get her to talk about Chloe’s world instead of complaining.

  His stomach protested the temperature of the fish, his tongue rebelled at the taste, but at least it was food. The nutrition would help to keep him warm. Cheftu was growing concerned about freezing off his privates. RaEm chewed silently. “Does it taste like sushi?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “All I have are the woman’s emotional memories, only her impressions of America. She left me ignorant in her body, so I didn’t dare leave Egypt.”

  “There is no sushi in Egypt?”

  She laughed. “Nay. Except for the neon signs and the cars, Egypt is almost the same as during Pharaoh’s time. Feluccas still ply the Nile, children still beg in the streets.” He heard her awe in the darkness. “But the power there!”

  Cheftu shivered, then hacked another slab of fish. “Whose power?”

  “The electricity!”

  “Eee-lek-trih-city? Who is the Eee-lek-trih- of the city?” RaEm stared at him, the whites of her eyes visible through the darkness. “You are an idiot.” Her tone was flat, dismissive.

  Cheftu stifled his rage. How dare the ignorant, loud-mouthed little witch ridicule him? “Then please,” he said, coldly, “educate me.”

  “They have harnessed the power of the lightning to use in their cities. It can be as bright as day in the middle of the
night.”

  For the first time in Cheftu’s recollection, RaEm sounded excited, enthusiastic. Her ennui was replaced with a childlike wonder.

  It was appealing, though he knew it was only one small side in a multifaceted woman whose other traits he loathed. “How do they harness eee-lek-trih-city? You say it is lightning?” He took another slab of fish. Fishy liquid dripped down his arms, sticky and cooling rapidly. At least his stomach was filling up. Now they needed to find a source for fresh water.

  Also, a way to get off this island. “The Benjamin Franklin unlocked the key to lightning on a kite.”

  “A kite? The birds that fly over the delta?”

  She sounded a little defensive. “Of course! You ignorant fool, what else could it be?”

  “How did he do that?”

  “Well,” she said in a confidential tone, “he tied the kite to a string, with the key.”

  “A bird, a string, and a key?”

  “To unlock the door to lightning,” she said. “Honestly, you must pay attention.”

  Cheftu glowered. “The kite flew into the heavens, unlocked the door, and then the Benjamin Franklin was able to capture it and use it at his will. He colored the lightning, and he boxed it. Even the hieroglyphs of these people are formed of lightning.” He heard her scraping for more fish. “But,” she said, swallowing loudly, “he makes it last.”

  Snippets of conversation from his nineteenth-century childhood, before his fateful trip to Egypt with his brother, Jean-Jacques, were falling into place. These were mentions of people he’d known only through recent history. Franklin and the American Revolution had been inspiration for France’s own revolution. How did the esteemed and eccentric statesmen figure in with lightning? And a key to unlock it? Cheftu’s mind was switching madly from English to French to ancient Egyptian, trying to understand. Perhaps RaEm’s trip through time had addled her wits. “It lasts?” he asked, completely bewildered.

  “It doesn’t flash on and off, but it is a steady light. He must be very powerful to have captured lightning. I wonder what he looked like, what kind of lover he was… .”

  Cheftu rolled his eyes—definitely the same RaEm. Franklin was deceased before Cheftu was even born. Her words still made no sense. Apparently she didn’t realize that Cheftu was also a time traveler. How else would he recognize the word city in English? How else would he understand her English?

  “What magic he had.” She sighed. “So powerful.” Cheftu was fairly certain science was the cause, but to RaEm magic was the only explanation. “Apparently his magic did not die with him?”

  “No. It lives in the streets, on the boats that sail the Nile. It is a magic that anyone can hold in their hand.”

  Cheftu frowned into the darkness. “This magic has been given to everyone?”

  “No. Well, yes and no,” she said, sounding confused. “Through the TV I learned all about it. The TV uses it, too.” The confusion faded from her voice, replaced by RaEm-style arrogance. “I could control lightning if I wanted to.”

  Cheftu refrained from asking about the tee-vee. He’d heard Chloe mention it occasionally, though with her it was usually in a derisive tone. His beloved did not seem as appreciative of her century as RaEm was. Nor had she ever mentioned this story of a bird flying into the heavens with a key and unlocking lightning. It made no sense. There was a missing element here, he was sure of it. What interpretation would be so apparent to Chloe? He wanted to ask her, to hold her while she thought, to touch her while she spoke. Aii, Chloe, where are you? “What else about Chloe’s world fascinated you?” he asked.

  “Rameses,” RaEm said promptly around her full mouth. “Serve me some more sushi and I’ll tell you.”

  Because this was as close as RaEm came to being pleasant, Cheftu handed her another slab of fish. All that was left were scales and head. Should he try to catch another? But it was night now, they needed to rest. Tomorrow he would get more food and ask the oracular stones what they should do to survive—he didn’t want to reveal them to RaEm.

  Chances of rescue were limited to the miraculous. It was wintertime; no one sailed the Aegean now. The waters were deadly. Everyone from Odysseus to Saint Paul had tales of woe from trying to cross in this season. How many more had shipwrecked and been forgotten?

  He looked out at the limitless sea. Was Chloe out there somewhere? They’d always found each other, though this time Cheftu feared it would be more challenging. RaEm was in the skin Chloe had been wearing. So what did his beloved look like? Apparently the two women had traded bodies again, leaving RaEm with him and Chloe in 1996—Cheftu still felt a little awed at the date—on the stretch of sand where RaEm claimed she’d been strolling.

  Except Cheftu knew RaEm. It had been her natal day. He doubted her celebration had been walking alone on a stretch of sand. She was lying to him, a reaction that was as natural and common to her as breathing. Nothing she said was to be trusted. Nothing.

  “Rameses was glorious!” RaEm gushed. Again her voice was filled with excitement. Perhaps modern times had been the making of RaEm. Was he judging her too harshly?

  He bit back telling her that he had heard of Rameses— she obviously didn’t realize Cheftu was from her future, from Chloe’s past, that according to Chloe Cheftu’s real name was well-known in her world. He knew of Rameses. Indeed, in his own century Cheftu had walked through many a temple the smiling pharaoh had built.

  RaEm’s voice was warm. “Many reigns after Pharaoh Hatshepsut, life! health! prosperity! there was a pharaoh named Rameses,” she explained. “Aii, Cheftu, he was such a man, so magnificent! Egypt was magnificent with him! He built a huge temple before the Second Cataract, where he paid homage to his wife. In Chloe’s childhood, the Nile was redirected, so that it wouldn’t hurt the temple Rameses had built, the Abu Simbel.”

  Cheftu froze. “They redirected the Nile?”

  “Yep. They took this huge temple, this Abu Simbel, and moved it up.”

  “Where? How?” He’d seen Abu Simbel, the monstrosity of it. How could it be moved, ever, save by the hand of le bon Dieu himself?

  “Much funding came Frum-A-roundthwerld,” RaEm said. “I saw it on TV.”

  It took a moment for her words to sink in. Did she even have a concept of the world being round? Did she know all the peoples who inhabited the planet? She spoke as though the phrases were memorized. How lost she must have been in Chloe’s fast-paced world of eating raw fish. “What exactly did you see?” Cheftu asked. She didn’t know what she was talking about, but the concept was fascinating. Moving the temple of Abu Simbel?

  “They took Rameses’ temple apart and rebuilt it on the cliff overlooking the lake they’d made from the Nile.” She sucked one finger dry. “To have been in Rameses’ time, to be loved and honored in the shape of that temple! Imagine the jewelry his wife had; the slaves, the power.”

  He should have known her fervor stemmed from customary greed. However, he wouldn’t let her smallness bother him; RaEm was but a temporary companion.

  Chloe would keep her vow. Cheftu needed to keep alert for the green-eyed women who strayed across his path. “More sushi?” He offered RaEm the head.

  “Nay,” she said, recoiling. “You feed me offal?”

  Cheftu sighed as he tossed the remnants in the water. RaEm spoke after a moment, her tone meditative. “Though I think there is more to sushi than just seaweed and raw fish. An avocado.”

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t know, something you eat. I told you: I don’t know things, or facts outside language. I just know how she felt about them. Avocado must be an emotional memory.”

  “Chloe was emotional over avocado?”

  “I want to be a consort, worshiped and adored by a powerful man,” RaEm said, changing the subject back to herself. “I want to be remembered throughout history. Do you know how those moderns worship us? The Amazing Ancients, they say. They are in wonder over how we built the pyramids, over why we mummified our dead. They live narr
ow, dark lives yet think we are fascinated with death.” She shivered. “It is eerie how much they do not know, how unreal we are to them.”

  “Did you think it was easier for you to understand them?” She fell silent, giving Cheftu a moment to marvel that he was having a reasonable conversation with this woman. Of course, there was nothing to gain right now, nothing to barter for or with. Only because she didn’t know about the stones. He shuddered to think of RaEm with that kind of power.

  “Egypt is ruled by a tribe called Arabs, who have a celibate, childless god. I cannot find my roots in their eyes. They are merchants and artisans, with no trace of Amun-Ra in their souls.”

  Cheftu opened his mouth to agree with her, to relay his wonder when he’d arrived from nineteenth-century France and into the people and culture he’d devoted his life to studying.

  “If I had had the power, I would have wiped them all away,” she said. “Start all over again. Even with neon and electricity, they were nothing special.”

  He was stunned. “They are a people,” he said. “An entire nation.”

  “They are groundskeepers,” she said. “They know nothing of real Egypt. Worshiping just one god, a god they can’t even see, how could they?”

  She didn’t know what she was talking about, Cheftu reasoned. She couldn’t.

  “Phaemon, when he first woke, thought he was in the afterworld, so he fought the demons.”

  Cheftu felt the blood leave his face. “But—”

  “But he wasn’t,” RaEm said. “Of course, he killed half a dozen of them, gutting them as one would do to a demon, before he realized it.” He felt her shrug. “Phaemon was distraught, but they were nothing but peasants.”

  “How can you be so removed?” Cheftu whispered, horrified.