Anna smiled grimly. ‘No, I don’t expect you to touch it.’ She gasped as the car lurched into a pothole, throwing her against him. ‘I’d hate you to get swallowed by a snake.’
He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. ‘So would I, believe me.’
There was a long silence as the taxi rattled through the streets, turning this way and that towards the southern edge of town. The main roads were brightly lit, the side roads dark, houses shuttered against the cold night air.
‘Toby?’ Anna was wide awake now.
‘What is it?’ he asked. He groped for her hand.
‘Supposing we’re too late?’
‘We won’t be.’ He squeezed her fingers tightly. ‘Assuming anything at all is going to happen, we’ll get there in time. I’m sure we will.’
12
Hymns of praise to thee O thou god who makest the moment to advance, thou dweller among the mysteries of every kind, thou guardian of the word which speaks …
The house was left empty. Everyone knew of its curse: all who lived there died. But time passes. Villages themselves disappear. In the desert air the mud bricks lie scattered. The few possessions left behind are abandoned and lost and succumb to the sand.
The priests grow weak, insubstantial wraiths without the life blood of man’s energy. They look to the sun and the moon for their existence and the strength of the desert wind and they hover, fuelled only by their mutual hate.
Once again men and boys pass that way, always watchful, always aware that the detritus of millennia may spell riches and fame for the lucky few. A man stoops, picks up a shard here, a pot there. He sees the glint of glass and kicks at the sand to free the tiny bottle lying there. It is attractive. It is interesting. Who knows, perhaps it is old. He picks it up and rubs it on the skirt of his galabiyya and tucks it away. Only once as he moves around does he stop and look over his shoulder and shiver.
The gods watch over thee, man of the desert, lest thy hour be come upon thee soon …
They were awakened some time later when the taxi lurched to a standstill in the middle of the road. The driver turned and leant over the back of his seat to prod Toby’s knee.
‘You want to see birth of sun god, Ra?’
Toby glanced out of the window with a grim smile. Every tourist since the beginning of time had obviously requested this stop. It was probably obligatory. ‘Dawn! Come on, Anna. Five minutes won’t make much difference now and this is worth seeing. Sunrise in the desert.’
Opening the doors they climbed out. The air was fresh and sharply cold as they stood in the middle of the deserted highway and stared round. In the bleak dawn the tarmac stretched across the desert, straight as a die in front and behind them, here and there masked by drifting sand and shingle and a scattering of boulders. The light was cold and colourless and very still. The only sound was the ticking of the car engine as it cooled. The driver had not bothered to get out of the car. He sat behind the wheel and within seconds his eyes had closed.
The loom of light in the east was very bright, increasing every second. Above them the stars, which earlier had seemed close enough to touch, had all but disappeared. Two or three small flat clouds reflected a touch of red for a moment, hanging motionless over them, then first the colour and then the clouds themselves vanished.
Anna reached for Toby’s hand. She was shivering. ‘It’s as though the whole world is holding its breath.’
He nodded. ‘Watch. Any minute now.’
They stood in silence, their eyes fixed on the increasing brightness as around them more and more features of the desert came into focus and the light grew stronger. There was something inexorable, almost menacing in the inevitability of it all as suddenly the rim of the sun erupted blindingly over the horizon.
Anna caught her breath, inexplicably moved near to tears by the beauty of the moment as it rose visibly higher. Within seconds she could no longer look and she turned instead to stare around as the light flooded towards them and on across the desert towards the far horizon.
‘OK. That’s it. Come on.’ Toby took her hand. ‘We must go on. It’s going to start getting hot soon and we’ve still got a long way to go.’
When they arrived at Abu Simbel Anna was once more asleep. She woke as they rattled into the car park and the driver cut the engine.
‘Good speed, yes?’ He leant across his seat again and beamed at them.
Toby nodded. He reached for his wallet. ‘Good speed. Good bonus.’ As he pulled out a wad of dirty notes and began counting them out into the man’s hand Anna was already climbing out of the car. The heat hit her like a hammer blow as she stared round at the ranks of cars and coaches. ‘How will we find the others?’
Toby raised a hand to the driver and watched as the taxi backed away.
‘Is he leaving?’ Anna stared after it.
‘Not if he knows what’s good for him. I’ve only given him the fare here. If he wants the rest he’ll wait for us.’ Toby smiled. ‘No, he’s gone to find a parking space. Then he’ll snooze until we’re ready to go. Now, my guess is the others will already be at one of the temples or perhaps down on the shore. We’ll try the great temple first. There is so much to see there.’
Joining the already considerable queue to enter the gates Anna and Toby began to scan the crowds around them for faces they knew, surrounded as they were by snatches of every language under the sun as they shuffled forward.
Toby frowned, concentrating, trying to make sense of the words and laughter and shouts around him.
‘I think we’d hear about it if anyone had been threatened by a snake. I suspect a cobra would be quite rare up here and it is the sort of gossip which would get people talking very quickly.’ He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Keep your chin up. We’re in time, I’m sure we are.’
She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open as they moved slowly towards the entrance, bought their tickets and made their way in. They followed the path around the side of a low hill and found themselves suddenly in front of what must possibly be one of the most famous sights in the world, the four colossal statues of Rameses II, set into the cliff face, staring towards the brilliant blue waters of Lake Nasser and beyond.
In front of the temple the sea of swirling humanity threatened to overwhelm the facade, for all the enormous height of the statues, and Anna found herself gasping at the sight of the crowds. ‘We’ll never find them!’
‘Of course we will.’ Toby stared round. ‘I hope Andy comes to realise how much effort you are going to, to protect his hide. He doesn’t deserve it.’
They were threading their way through the groups of tourists. Each group seemed to have their own guide standing bellowing out a potted history of the great sun temple and its smaller neighbour, erected by Rameses for his favourite wife, Nefertari, before heading into the temple itself. ‘For all we know the villainous Carstairs might have taken off the curse.’
Anna shook her head. ‘You’ve forgotten. Charley saw the snake.’ She was forging ahead towards the temple facade, desperately looking left and right as she moved through the crowds.
Toby hurried to catch up with her. ‘We mustn’t lose each other! My God, I never realised it would be so crowded. When Omar told us the trip was optional I imagined only a few people were intrepid enough to come here and we would be a select few!’
‘The others might be inside.’ She was looking towards the doorway.
‘It is the most likely place.’
Still scanning the faces all around them at every step they made their way into the darkness through the entrance to what the guidebook had called the pronaos, a vast rock-cut hall with two lines of four lofty columns. They stood close together, staring into the dark, aware of the vast crowds of people milling around the pillars. Only close to the doorway was it possible to see much. Everywhere the walls were covered in relief carvings of Rameses’ victories. Further in all was almost dark.
‘We’ll never see them!’ Too ti
red and worried to take in the scale of the scenes around her, Anna was near to tears.
Suddenly there was a touch on her shoulder. ‘Anna?’
It was Serena. She gave Anna a hug. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Why did you change your mind? How did you get here?’
Anna returned her embrace with relief. ‘It’s a long, long story. Where is Andy?’ She was looking round frantically.
Serena shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, as he’s my least favourite person at the moment I’m hardly likely to be watching out for him!’
‘But he’s all right?’
‘As far as I know. I saw him at breakfast in the hotel. He seemed OK then. Why?’
‘And he’s here?’
‘Somewhere, yes. We’re all supposed to be here. Yesterday we went for a sail on Lake Nasser and last night we saw the temples floodlit and had one of Omar’s lectures. This one was rather good actually, with a film about how they moved the temples when the valley flooded and how they chopped them up and built an artificial hill to put them in and everything. Today we see the two temples themselves and then we’re supposed to be leaving to go back to the boat.’ She paused for a second. ‘So what is all the panic about Andy?’
‘He left the diary in the safe on The White Egret, but he has brought the bottle here with him. And probably the cobra too. And it will kill him.’
‘Why should it kill him?’ Serena dodged out of the way as a determined Italian woman elbowed her in the ribs and shoved a camera in her face, ignoring the guard who was shouting at her for taking photographs with a flash.
‘It’ll kill him because Carstairs summoned it to kill Hassan! That’s its job; it’s there to protect the ampulla. We have to get it back before the wretched creature bites him! It was nothing to do with the priests. It was conjured up to kill Hassan and any man who touches the bottle! And I mean man, not woman. That’s why Charley and I – and you – were safe.’
Serena raised an eyebrow. ‘In that case I’d be inclined to let it get on with it.’ She grimaced. ‘No, OK, I didn’t mean it. Of course you’ve got to take it seriously. So, you want me to help find him and warn him?’
Toby nodded. He tapped his watch. ‘We’ll do better if we separate, then we can search a bigger area. Let’s all meet in half an hour outside the main door and hope one of us has located him.’
‘He’ll never believe us,’ Serena said as she turned away. ‘God knows how you’ll persuade him even to admit he’s got it with him, never mind that he’s in danger of being poisoned by a magic snake if he doesn’t give it back!’ She was still shaking her head as she and Anna separated and turned to push their way one on either side of the huge pronaos towards the entrances leading further into the darkness of the interior.
The crowds were less dense once they had passed from the huge pillared hall into the smaller chambers at the back. Anna, who had walked slowly down behind the righthand column of pillars stepped into the first and squinted at the few people looking at the reliefs in there. In the dark they were just silhouettes, but none had the height and breadth of shoulders of Andy. She moved on to the next entrance and was glancing into the second, smaller chamber when a voice at her elbow made her jump.
‘Anna, my dear. I thought it was you. How on earth did you get here?’ Ben smiled at her. His hat still in place, his old canvas bag on his shoulder, his eyes were shining. ‘Isn’t it an extraordinary place? What a feat of engineering! When you think this has all been cut into blocks and moved and reassembled like a huge lego model.’ He hesitated. ‘Is something wrong, my dear?’
‘Ben, I need to find Andy. I can’t concentrate on looking at anything until I see him. Do you know where he is?’
Ben shook his head. ‘To be honest I don’t think I’ve seen him since last night. I don’t remember noticing him at breakfast.’ He closed his guidebook, leaving his forefinger inserted between the pages to mark the place. ‘If I see him shall I tell him you’re looking for him?’
Anna grimaced. ‘That might make him head off in the opposite direction. Could you bring him to the entrance? We’re all meeting just outside at half past. It’s really important. A matter of life and death!’
Ben nodded, a trifle absent-mindedly. Already he was reopening his book. ‘I’ll keep my eyes open. I promise.’
The next small chamber she looked into was empty. For a moment she stood in the doorway peering in, struck by the strangeness of the sudden stillness. In so few of the places she had visited in Egypt had there been somewhere one could stand lost in one’s own thoughts and absorb the atmosphere, but in this temple, more than any, the noise and bustle had been overwhelming and that was hardly surprising. Rebuilt to save it from the rising waters after the building of the high dam it had been mobbed by crowds ever since. And yet now, in this small side room, she found herself suddenly shivering. The silence was intense. Perhaps the ancient gods or their attendants were here after all. She found the palms of her hands sweating as the stillness of the chamber reached out towards her, and for a moment enfolded her in silence.
Then suddenly a group of people appeared behind her. Talking loudly and excitedly in French they pushed past her into the chamber and almost at once a forbidden flash lit the cave-like room for a fraction of a second in harsh white light. There was a shout of laughter, an excited exchange of comments and a throaty giggle. Anna turned away.
There were four other people in the sanctuary, deep in the heart of the temple. It was here, twice a year, that the sun’s ray pierced all the way through from the entrance, into the depths of the rock to fall on the altar, illuminating three of the four seated statues which guarded it. The temple had been carefully aligned exactly as it had been in its original setting so that this miracle could take place in such a way that the fourth statue, that of the god Ptah, the creator god, god of the mortuary, lord of darkness, remained for ever in the dark, untouched ever by the sun.
Ptah, of course, was the husband of Sekhmet …
Anna stopped. The words floating out of the darkness towards her had come, she realised, from the group of people standing near the statues.
Sekhmet.
She felt her stomach turn over with sudden fear. Would Hatsek come here? Would he recognise this temple, rebuilt and swarming with unbelievers from a different age though it was?
Almost as the thought crossed her mind she knew that he would, that between one second and the next, as though summoned by the processes of her mind, he was there. She stepped sideways into the corner of the sanctuary, staring round.
‘Andy?’ She didn’t realise she had called out loud until one of the group around the statue turned and stared at her.
Andy wasn’t there. The visitors who shuffled out, still gazing around them in awe, one or two of them glancing at her as they passed, were strangers. Two other people were in the chamber, examining the seated statues. Near them the air shimmered for a moment and grew cold.
Anna tried to turn back, but her feet were rooted to the spot. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. The sanctuary was growing darker and in the strange chill that surrounded her, she could hear voices somewhere in the distance, chanting.
Light flickered to one side of the statues. It came from a lamp, she realised, set in a niche in the wall. In the foreground, on what she had thought was an altar, she could see the dark shape of a model boat.
And then she saw him, a tall man, very dark of complexion, his face drawn into harsh lines, his bare arms corded with muscle. He was naked but for a short skirt around his hips and the tawny pelt of a desert lion hung around his shoulders. On his feet she could see gilded sandals and in his hand was a long staff. At its top there was a carving – the formal, angry, snarling head of a lioness.
He was staring past her, not seeming to see her as, slowly, he turned towards the entrance to the sanctuary. The chanting was growing louder. She was aware of the pentatonic cadences of the tune, of the rising and falling of the sound as though it were coming from an inestimable
distance, carried on the desert wind. She could smell the strange sweet spicy smell of incense. He was standing in front of the statue of Ptah, bowing, placing something before it, bowing in turn to the other statues.
Frozen with fear, Anna became aware of someone standing beside her in the doorway. The figure advanced past her and moved towards the centre of the sanctuary. She could see shadows moving across the chamber, two people were talking softly. The two scenes, two eras, seemed for a moment to co-exist within the same place. They seemed not to see the priest standing near them. They gave no sign of hearing anything untoward. It was they who seemed transparent; wraiths out of time. It was the priest of Sekhmet about his sacred ritual who was real in this strange reconstructed place which still had the power to call back ancient echoes.
‘Are you all right?’ It was the touch on her arm which shocked Anna back to the present. She recognised one of the women from their boat – her husband was the retired vicar, she seemed to remember, and they had ten grandchildren who had clubbed together to send them on this, the holiday of a lifetime.
Anna staggered slightly, her hand to her head and the woman moved closer, putting a supportive arm round her shoulders. ‘Shall I help you outside, my dear?’ she said. ‘It’s close in here, isn’t it, and that strange smell doesn’t help.’
‘Smell?’ Anna stared at her, still dizzy and confused.
‘It’s like the inside of an Italian cathedral. Incense.’ The woman smiled. Celia Greyshot. That was her name. It came to Anna suddenly.
‘Incense? How can there be incense in here?’ The statue of Ptah was alone again. No offerings about its feet. There was no priest.
‘Well, no.’ Celia looked puzzled. She sniffed loudly. ‘You’re right. It’s gone. It must have been someone’s perfume. Or perhaps I imagined it.’ She shivered. ‘This is such a powerful, weird place, isn’t it?’
Whispers in the Sand Page 35
