The Exodus Quest

by Will Adams

  ‘How do you go about it?’

  ‘It’s easiest if I explain with scrolls. Imagine finding thousands of fragments from different documents all muddled up together. Your first task is to photograph them all to scale and at very high resolution, because the original fragments are simply too fragile to work with. You then examine each one more closely. Is the material papyrus or parchment? If papyrus, what weave? If parchment, from what animal? We can test the DNA these days, would you believe, to see if two fragments of parchment come from the same animal. What colour is it? How smooth? How thick? What does the reverse look like? How about the ink? Has it smudged or bled? Can we analyse its chemical signature? Is the nib thick or thin, regular or scratchy? And what about the handwriting? Scribal hands are very distinctive, though you have to be careful with that, because people often worked on more than one document, and some documents were written by more than one scribe. Anyway, all that should help you separate the initial jumble into different original scrolls; rather like separating the jigsaw pieces I mentioned earlier into their different puzzles. Your next task is to reassemble them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Often we’re already familiar with the texts,’ answered Gaille. ‘Like with the Book of the Dead, for instance. Then it’s just a question of translating the fragments and seeing where they fit. But if it’s an original document – a letter, say – then we look for other clues. Maybe a line of text that runs from one fragment to the next. If we’re very lucky, multiple matching lines, putting it beyond doubt. More usually, however, we’ll put similar themes together. Two fragments on burial practices, say. Or two episodes about a particular person. Failing that, fragments are, by definition, damaged. Is there a pattern of damage? Imagine rolling a sheet of paper into a scroll, burning a hole through all the layers with a cigarette, then ripping it up. The burn-holes won’t just help you reassemble the scroll, they’ll also tell you how tightly it was rolled in the first place, by the steadily decreasing distances between them. And scribes often scratched guidelines on their parchment to keep their writing level. We can match those scratches from one fragment to the next, by tiny variations in the gaps between them, like checking tree rings.’

  ‘And there are similar indications with talatat, are there?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Gaille. ‘Though they tend to be more elusive. For example, talatat are made either from limestone or sandstone. Limestone talatat typically go with limestone; sandstone with sandstone. And the composition of the stone is useful, too, because walls were often built with stone from a single quarry. But you can’t rely too heavily on that. Paint residue can also be helpful, as can weather-damage. Maybe the bricks have been sun-bleached. Or maybe there was a leaky pipe nearby, and they’ve got matching water stains. Anyway, once we’ve done what we can, we try to reassemble them into scenes. Talatat are typically decorated either on their long side, which we call “stretchers”, or on their short side, which we call “headers”. Egyptians used alternate courses of stretchers and headers. That really helps. After that, it often really is a case of putting heads on torsos. Fortunately, many of the scenes are duplicates of each other, or of scenes that have already been reconstructed from talatat found elsewhere, so we know what we’re looking for.’

  Lily’s ears pricked up. ‘But not all?’ she asked shrewdly.

  ‘No,’ acknowledged Gaille. ‘Not all.’

  ‘You’ve found something, haven’t you? That’s why you brought me down here.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gaille, dropping her eyes. ‘I think Fatima wants that pleasure for herself.’

  II

  Knox picked up one of the shrivelled ears. The tissue had a slight sheen to it where it had been severed from the body, suggesting the cut was recent. He checked the loculi, quickly found a mummy missing its right ear, then another. He frowned, baffled, before belatedly remembering he was on the clock. His self-imposed deadline had already passed. He needed to get out of here.

  He hurried back to the atrium, up the steps, was about to rush away when he heard an engine, and suddenly the pick-up reappeared over the rise, its headlights sweeping the shaft’s mouth like a lighthouse beam, so that Knox barely had time to duck out of sight and retreat back down to the atrium.

  Griffin and his crew were storing everything in the catacombs, so he headed the other way instead, down the right-hand passage. He soon reached another chamber, a huge mosaic on its floor, tesserae bright from a recent clean, though rutted from ancient footfall. A grotesque figure sat naked in the lotus position inside a seven-pointed star surrounded by clusters of Greek letters. He took a photograph, then a second, before hearing a grunt from back along the corridor, someone struggling with a box – and coming his way. He hurried deeper into the site, a confusion of passages and small chambers, the walls decorated with colourful ancient murals: a naked man and woman reaching up in supplication to the sun; Priapus leering from behind a tree; a crocodile, dog and vulture sitting in judgement; Dionysus stretching out on a divan, framed by vines and ivy leaves and pine cones. He was photographing this last one when he heard footsteps and turned to see Griffin approaching down the passage, squinting through the dappled gloom as though he needed glasses.

  ‘Reverend?’ he asked. ‘Is that you?’

  III

  Inspector Naguib Hussein was writing out his report at the station when his boss Gamal came over. ‘Don’t you have a wife and daughter to get home to?’ he grunted.

  ‘I thought you wanted our paperwork up to date.’

  ‘I do,’ nodded Gamal. He perched on the corner of the desk. ‘Word is, you found a body out in the Eastern Desert.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Naguib.

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Her head was bashed in. She was wrapped in tarpaulin and buried beneath sand. I’d say murder was a possibility.’

  ‘A Copt, yes?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘Investigate, fine,’ scowled Gamal. ‘But no waves. This isn’t the time.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You know how I mean.’

  ‘I assure you I—’

  ‘Haven’t you learned yet when to speak and when to shut up?’ asked Gamal in exasperation. ‘Don’t you realize how much trouble you caused your colleagues up in Minya?’

  ‘They were selling arms on the black market.’

  ‘I don’t care. There are crimes we can solve and crimes we can’t. Let’s deal with the ones we can, eh?’ He gave a companionable sigh, as though he didn’t like the way things worked any more than Naguib did, he was just more realistic. ‘Haven’t you been following what’s going on down in Assiut?’ he asked. ‘People out on the streets. Fights. Anger. Confrontation. Just for a couple of dead Coptic girls. I won’t risk that spreading here.’

  ‘She may have been murdered,’ observed Naguib.

  Gamal’s complexion was naturally dark. It grew darker. ‘From what I understand, no one has reported her missing. From what I understand, she could have been there years, maybe even decades. You really want to provoke trouble at a time like this over a girl who may have been dead for decades?’

  ‘Since when has investigating murder been a provocative act?’

  ‘Don’t play with me,’ scowled Gamal. ‘You’re always complaining about your workload. Concentrate on some of your other cases for the moment: don’t go chasing off into the desert after djinn.’

  ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘If it needs to be,’ nodded Gamal. ‘If it needs to be.’

  NINE

  I

  ‘Reverend!’ said Griffin again. ‘A word please.’

  Knox turned sharply and hurried away along the corridor, glad that the gloom evidently made his white shirt look sufficiently like a dog collar against his dark polo neck to fool Griffin.

  ‘Reverend!’ cried Griffin in exasperation. ‘Come back. We need to talk.’

  Knox conti
nued walking as fast as he dared. The passage straightened out, hit a dead end some twenty paces ahead. Just before that, there was a high heap of ancient bricks and plaster fragments and a gaping hole in the wall, through which he could hear Peterson reading from the Bible; though, from the accompanying hiss, it sounded more like an old recording than the real thing.

  ‘“And there came two angels to Sodom; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them.”’

  Knox reached the hole, glanced through. There was a large chamber on the other side, young men and women kneeling on dustsheets cleaning the walls with sponges moistened with distilled water and soft-bristled brushes. The men had the standard crew-cuts, the women short-bobbed hair, and they were all wearing the same cornflower-blue and khaki livery. They were too intent on their work to notice him step through into the chamber. Only once inside did he see Peterson to his left, deep in earnest discussion with a young woman, while his voice incongruously continued to declaim scripture on the portable CD-player in the centre of the chamber.

  ‘“Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.”’

  Griffin was still approaching down the corridor. Knox had only one possible hiding place, the baptismal bath. His foot slipped as he hurried down the wide flight of stone steps so that he had to fight for balance, but he found the shadows even as Griffin poked his head in. ‘Reverend!’ he said. Peterson gave no sign of having heard him, however, so he said it again, louder this time, until one of the young women turned the volume down on the CD-player. ‘Why on earth did you walk away from me?’

  Peterson frowned. ‘What are you talking about, Brother Griffin?’

  Griffin scowled but let it go. ‘We’ve emptied the magazine,’ he said. ‘It’s time to close up.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Peterson.

  ‘It’s going to take hours to fill in the shaft,’ said Griffin. ‘If we don’t start now we’ll never finish before—’

  ‘I said not yet.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Have you forgotten why we’re here, Brother Griffin?’ blazed Peterson. ‘Have you forgotten whose work we’re doing?’

  ‘No, Reverend.’

  ‘Then go back outside and wait. I’ll tell you when to start.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend.’

  Footsteps faded as he walked away. The young woman turned the volume back up.

  ‘“For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.”’

  Knox waited a few moments before risking a glance over the rim of the baptismal bath. Everyone was once more concentrating on cleaning their section of wall, bringing an array of scenes back to life: portraits, landscapes, angels, demons, texts in Greek and Aramaic, mathematical calculations, signs of the Zodiac and other symbols. Like a madman’s nightmare. He photographed the ceiling, two sections of wall, then Peterson and the woman examining a mural.

  ‘“The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”’

  ‘Reverend, sir!’ said a young man. ‘Look here!’

  Knox ducked down, but not quite quickly enough. One of the women saw him as she turned. Her mouth fell open in shock. She pointed at him with a trembling finger and began to scream.

  II

  Meals with Fatima were notoriously frugal affairs usually, but tonight the table was laden with a colourful and fragrant spread of dishes in honour of Stafford and Lily: ta’amiyya, fu’ul, hoummos, beans, tahina, a salad of chopped tomatoes and cucumber seasoned with oil and garlic, stuffed aubergines, chicken dressed in vine leaves, all looking succulent in the rippling candlelight. There were even two bottles of red wine, from which Stafford poured himself a liberal glass that he drained and immediately refilled. For all Gaille’s dislike of him, she had to admit he was looking rather dashing, wearing a borrowed galabaya while his own clothes were being washed in readiness for the morning.

  Lily was looking nervously at the food, as though apprehensive both of local etiquette and cuisine. Gaille gave her a reassuring nod and helped herself to some of the safer dishes, allowing Lily to emulate her, which she did with a grateful smile.

  ‘Will you be in Egypt long?’ asked Fatima, as Stafford sat next to her.

  ‘Amarna tomorrow, then Assiut the day after for an interview. Then off to the States.’

  ‘You’re packing an awful lot in to two days, aren’t you?’

  ‘We were supposed to be here for the best part of a week,’ he shrugged. ‘But then my agent got me on the morning shows. I could hardly turn that down, could I?’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s the only market, the States. If you’re not big there, forget about it. Anyway, we’re only filming a short section here. We’re coming back later in the year to film in …’ He caught himself on the verge of his indiscretion, smiled as though she’d almost wheedled great secrets out of him. ‘For the other sections of my programme.’

  ‘Your programme, yes. Won’t you tell me a little more about it?’

  He took another swallow of wine as he considered this. ‘Will you give me your word that you won’t repeat what I tell you?’

  ‘Of course. I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone your theories, believe me.’

  ‘Because it’s explosive, I assure you.’

  ‘It always is.’

  Stafford’s cheeks pinked, as though he’d only just realized she’d been having a little sport with him. He lifted his chin high, giving himself a swan-neck for a moment. ‘Very well, then,’ he said. He waited for silence to fall around the table, for them all to be still. Then he waited a little longer, building the suspense. An old storyteller’s trick, yet effective all the same. When finally he had their complete attention, he leaned forward into the candlelight. ‘I intend to prove that Akhenaten wasn’t just another Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh,’ he said. ‘I intend to prove he was also founder of modern Israel. That’s right. I intend to prove beyond doubt or argument that Akhenaten was Moses, the man who led the Jews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.’

  III

  Heads swivelled to see what had made the woman cry out. A shocked and frozen silence fell as they saw Knox crouching there in the baptismal bath, camera-phone in his hand. But it was Knox who acted first. He raced up the steps, dived headlong through the hole in the wall, crashed onto the passage floor outside.

  ‘Stop him!’ thundered Peterson. ‘Bring him back!’

  Up to his feet, sprinting through islands of lamplight, yells behind, Knox glanced around as an athletic young man, face contorted with the joy of duty, flung himself into a tackle, taking his legs. He went down hard, grazing his palm and elbow on the rough stone, wind punched from his lungs, but twisting around, throwing the young man off, up and away towards the atrium.

  Griffin and one of the young men appeared in the doorway ahead, standing shoulder-to-shoulder to block his escape. No way could he fight past both of them. He reached down and yanked the electrical flex from the generator, plunging the passage into sudden darkness, then shoulder-charged Griffin flat onto his back, fought his way through his flailing arms into the atrium then up the steps. The two other young men were coming across, summoned by the commotion. Knox cut the other way, over a low ridge, running headlong until he crashed into the wire-mesh fence of the neighbouring power station.

  He ran alongside it for a couple of hundred metres, trying to work out where he was, how best to get back to Omar and the Jeep. But his efforts were taking their toll, a stitch worsening in his side, his breath coming short and fast. He glanced back, silhouettes all around, shouting exhortations and instructions to each other, the moonlight too strong and the terrain too bare for him to go to ground. He gritted his teeth and kicked again. But his legs were growing heavy and his
pursuers were gaining all the time.

  TEN

  I

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Fatima. ‘Akhenaten as Moses. That old chestnut. I can’t tell you how many first-year students of mine have come to the same conclusion.’

  ‘Perhaps for a very good reason,’ said Stafford tightly. ‘Perhaps because it’s true.’

  ‘And you have evidence to support such a bold claim, I assume?’

  ‘As it happens.’

  ‘Won’t you share it with us?’

  Lily bowed her head and looked uncomfortably down at her plate. This wasn’t the first time she’d been ringside when Stafford had launched into one of his lectures. She hated it, not least because it always seemed to be down to her to smooth things over once he was done.

  ‘It’s not so much that I’ve discovered anything new,’ he acknowledged. ‘It’s just that no one else has put the pieces together in quite the right way before. After all, even you have to admit some link between Akhenaten and the Jews, if you’re honest with yourself.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

  ‘Everyone knows that Egyptologists have their heads buried in the sand when it comes to the Exodus. It’s too sensitive an issue for a Muslim country in this day and age. I’m not criticizing you for this—’

  ‘It sounds that way to me.’

  ‘I’m only saying I understand why you’d look the other way.’

  ‘Quite a feat, what with my head already buried in the sand.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fatima. ‘You believe I’d distort the archaeological record for personal convenience or professional advancement.’

  ‘Forgive us,’ said Lily hurriedly. ‘Charles didn’t mean that. Did you, Charles?’