I didn’t. I couldn’t. I rolled myself into a ball like a reluctant foetus and when the daylight behind me was blotted out I started to whimper.
Chapter Seven
I
HANDS TOOK HOLD of me and tried to unwind me. I fought them frantically until it dawned on me that there was something familiar about that grip. ‘Tony,’ I croaked. ‘Oh, Tony, damn it, I thought you were – ’
He slapped me, hard. After my head had settled back onto my neck I squinted up at him. It wasn’t Tony. Of course it wasn’t. Tony was in Chicago, not in that filthy tunnel under the Schloss. Neither was I. I was in Egypt in a filthy tunnel in a tomb,with . . .
‘You bastard,’ I said feebly.
‘How pitifully inadequate.’ John hauled me to my feet and propped me against the wall, out of his way. Leaning over the shaft he called, ‘Blenkiron! Speak up, don’t be shy.’
The voice echoed hollowly. ‘I’m okay. You’ll have to get a rope. The ladder . . .’
‘Hang on.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.
John turned to me. I couldn’t make out his features; the only light came from the top of the ramp and even that distant illumination dimmed as people crowded around the opening, spouting agitated questions and exclamations. I sensed, rather than saw, the movement when his raised arm fell to his side. I had hit him a lot harder than he had hit me. Apparently he had decided not to even things up with a second slap. Too many people watching.
‘You have a positive genius for irrelevance,’ he remarked. ‘Come on, up you go; can you walk or shall I drag you?’
I couldn’t walk. The roof was too low. So I crawled, as fast as I could, leaving John calmly discussing the situation with Larry.
I emerged from the opening to find myself in the middle of a fight, if one can use that word to describe an altercation between a fat elderly midget and a tall muscular man. Ed had Schmidt in a close embrace and Schmidt was pounding on his back and yelling in Mittelhochdeutsch, his favourite language for swearing.
‘Cut it out, you little lunatic,’ Ed said. His breathing wasn’t even fast. ‘Here she comes. Safe and sound.’
He released Schmidt. Schmidt darted at me. ‘Vicky! Are you all right? I was trying to get to you – ’
‘Stop squeezing me, Schmidt. I’m fine.’ But I didn’t try to free myself; it felt good to be held by someone who loved me. Over the top of Schmidt’s head I saw other members of our group, in various poses of curiosity and concern. Feisal clutched Suzi’s voluptuous form. Her eyes were closed, but I doubted she was unconscious; one of her arms was draped around Feisal’s neck. Pale and shaken, Mary leaned against a wall. She wasn’t as pale as the young archaeologist, who had just seen his hopes of a generous contribution go up in smoke. It is difficult to win the heart of a potential donor after he has fallen down a shaft.
‘I don’t understand how it could have happened,’ he insisted. ‘The ladder was perfectly sound, we’ve been up and down it a hundred times . . . Oh! Oh, thank God, Mr Blenkiron. Are you all right?’
‘Just a few bruises.’ Followed closely by John, Larry emerged from the tunnel. He was dusty and sweaty and dishevelled, but he didn’t seem to be damaged. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he went on sheepishly. ‘The ladder is intact. I guess my foot slipped when the lights went out. And someone screamed – ’
‘Probably Suzi.’ Feisal lowered her unceremoniously to the ground. She promptly opened her eyes and muttered, ‘Where am I?’
Nobody told her.
‘It’s fortunate that no one was injured,’ said Feisal, in a voice that reminded me he was responsible for the safety and well-being of the group. Did they dock his pay for every tourist he lost? If so, he was already out a few bucks on account of Jen. Had she really left Cairo? I had only John’s word for it and I wouldn’t have relied on that if he had assured me the world was round.
Urged on by Feisal, we started back to the bus. Nobody asked why the power had failed. Apparently that sort of thing happened all the time. It was probably just an odd coincidence that it had happened after Vicky Bliss, the well-known phobic, had crawled down into a tomb. If I hadn’t baulked at the last minute I might have been on the ladder when it happened.
There were only two people who knew about my phobia. I thanked God I hadn’t made an abject fool of myself in front of Larry; he had realized I was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t aware of the disgusting performance I had put on. My vocal reaction had been in the form of whimpers rather than screams.
My eyes focused on John, who was ahead of us. Mary was clinging to his arm. They hadn’t been part of the original expedition. They – and Suzi and the others – must have accompanied Schmidt. John could have managed it. A yank at the electric wire that snaked around the wall . . .
Another warning, designed to inflict emotional rather than physical damage. It was a low-down filthy trick to pull on a person under any circumstances; the circumstances under which John had learned of this particular Achilles heel made the trick even filthier.
Schmidt looked up at me. ‘You are very red in the face, Vicky. Is it the sunburn?’
‘No, Schmidt. It’s not sunburn.’
II
The boat got under way as soon as we boarded. We were due in Luxor next day. I could hardly wait. By hell or high water, hook or crook, I was going to get myself into the presence of an actual living unmistakable policeman or a member of State Security Investigation, and demand to know what was going on. The situation was coming apart like a soggy paper towel and I must be losing my touch; I hadn’t suspected Ali or spotted Alice until she declared herself. I was beginning to wonder about Sweet and Bright; if they were supposed to be protecting me they had screwed up at least twice. And I hadn’t the faintest idea who John’s confederates might be.
Not that my past record was all that good. On several memorable occasions I hadn’t identified the criminal until he pointed a gun at me.
Alice and I managed to exchange a few words. They were, ‘I hear you had a little adventure, Vicky. Good thing no one was hurt,’ to which I replied, ‘Yes, isn’t it,’ and to which she responded with, ‘Here’s that book on the Memphis tombs I promised to lend you.’
There were no messages written in invisible ink or spelled out by means of dots or pinpricks under certain words. What there was was a note, hastily scribbled in pencil and stuck in between the pages. ‘He was there. Promised we’ll be contacted as soon as we get to Luxor. Said to lie low, take no action, stay in a crowd. Ali died of drowning. All bruises postmortem except for one on his face. Could have hit his head, knocked himself out, fallen overboard. Suggest you don’t think about the alternative.’ There was a P.S. ‘Burn this and flush the ashes down the nearest convenience.’
I would have done it anyhow. As I watched the ashes being sucked down with the swirling water I thought about the alternative.
After lunch Schmidt and I settled ourselves on the sundeck. Schmidt started writing postcards. He’d already sent them to everybody he knew and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t doing the same.
‘At least to your mama and papa,’ he insisted. ‘Here, here is a pretty one of the pyramids. And one of Cairo for Tony – ’
I took them, to shut him up. It was a little difficult composing appropriate messages. ‘Having a wonderful time’ was not only trite but untrue. As for ‘Wish you were here,’ I could only thank God they weren’t.
Yet as I scribbled a witty greeting on Tony’s card (‘Hi! Guess where I am!’) part of me, the selfish, cowardly part, wished he were. Here. This was the first time I’d been completely on my own, with no one to talk to, argue with, or fall back on. Schmidt hadn’t been particularly useful during the Roman affair, but he had been aware of what I was doing, and towards the end of that business John and I had become reluctant allies. We had spent most of our time together trying to elude various people who wanted to kill either or both of us, but when you are running wildly away from killers it’s ni
ce to have company. John was awfully good at running away.
Stretched out in the chair next to mine, Schmidt had tipped his hat over his eyes and dozed off. His hands were clasped on his tummy and the ends of his moustache fluttered every time he exhaled.
The sight of him, vulnerable and lovable and harmless as a baby, was like a cold shower, clearing my head and bringing my thoughts into focus. I had to get Schmidt out of this. I had to get myself out too. I’d been a fool to consent to such a dangerous scheme – even if I hadn’t realized how dangerous it was going to be – and an even bigger fool to go on with it after I spotted John. I had done the job I had agreed to do, and my mysterious employers hadn’t kept their part of the bargain. They had let Schmidt get away. The hell with the Cairo Museum. I wouldn’t have traded a square inch of Schmidt’s bald scalp for the entire contents of the museum. The hell with security, too. I didn’t have to flap around like a wounded duck until somebody condescended to contact me – or until somebody else drowned me in my bathtub and threw me overboard. As soon as we reached Luxor I’d call Karl Feder and hand in my resignation. I’d have done it that minute if it had been possible to make a direct call. I didn’t trust anybody anymore; and that included the radio operator.
It was amazing how much better I felt once I’d made that decision. I could even enjoy the scenery. The cliffs of the high desert bounded the river on either side; even in bright sunlight they were a pale, ethereal pinky-yellow. At some places they rose sheer from the water’s edge; elsewhere they fell back, leaving a narrow strip of cultivable land. Little clusters of brown mud-brick houses were framed by green crops and palm trees. Birds flapped and swooped and beds of blue water hyacinths glided past, floating flowery islands in the stream.
I waved back at a group of children gathered along the bank, but my mind kept wandering. The greatest difficulty would be to talk Schmidt into cutting the trip short. I toyed with wild ideas – a fake telegram announcing that the museurn was on fire, or that a family member had fallen ill? No, that wouldn’t work. He’d telephone and discover the truth. Anyhow, it would be cruel to scare him.
We were to be in Luxor for four days. There wasn’t a prayer for getting Schmidt away until after he’d seen the famous tomb. I was rather keen on seeing it myself. Maybe, I thought hopefully, the cops were waiting on the quay at Luxor to round up the bad guys. Maybe John would call the whole thing off. Maybe Schmidt would get sick. A lot of tourists get sick. Maybe I’d get sick. Maybe I could pretend to be sick and insist that Schmidt take me home to Munich . . .
Maybe the mummy of Tutankhamon would rise up out of its coffin and blast the villains with a supernatural curse.
‘Oh, hell,’ I muttered.
Schmidt stirred. ‘Was hast du gesagt?’
‘Nothing.’
How about faking a nervous breakdown? I shouldn’t have any trouble doing that.
Schmidt pushed his hat back and sat up. ‘Brotzeit,’ he announced.
Sure enough, it was. The stewards were setting out the tea-things. Awake or sleeping, Schmidt always knows when it’s time to eat. If he ever sinks into a deep coma I figure I can bring him out of it by waving a doughnut under his nose.
The passengers who had been elsewhere started to assemble. I was greedily collecting cookies when Perry joined me at the buffet. He was looking a little peaked, and when I recommended the chocolate wafers he grimaced and said he thought he’d better stick to tea.
‘I noticed you didn’t go ashore this morning,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
I hadn’t noticed, actually – Perry was not one of those people who are conspicuous by their absence – but I thought it would be polite to say so. He hesitated. I decided he was torn between his desire for sympathy and his reluctance to admit he was no more immune to common weakness than any inferior tourist.
‘Just a touch of stomach trouble,’ he said finally.
‘There’s a lot of it going around.’
‘It’s never happened to me before,’ Perry said pettishly. ‘And I’ve eaten in places tourists are warned away from. Someone in the kitchen must have been careless.’
There are some ailments that bring out the worst in people who don’t suffer from them. I licked chocolate off my lower lip and took another big bite. ‘They say it happens to everybody sooner or later,’ I said heartlessly. ‘Several people have been sick. Anna, and the Hamburgers and – ’
‘Who? Oh.’ Perry laughed politely. ‘A joke. They’re suffering from the usual tourist complaint. That’s not my problem. I haven’t actually – er – been sick, just a little queasy. My temperature is normal, but my pulse – ’
‘What are you lecturing about this evening?’ I had intended to offer him a little sympathy with his tea, but I really didn’t want to hear a list of unpleasant symptoms.
‘The Valley of the Kings. That’s where you’ll be going tomorrow morning. But Alice has kindly offered to speak in my place. It is essential that I take care of myself. I must attend the reception tomorrow evening. Larry made a point of inviting me.’
Everybody had been invited. An uncharacteristic wave of kindness stopped me from saying so. Poor devil, he couldn’t help being a bore. I wanted desperately to get away from him, but I couldn’t think how to manage it without hurting his feelings. My eyes kept wandering. Schmidt had cut Larry out of the herd and Alice had joined them at their table. They seemed to be having a good time, laughing and talking animatedly. John and Mary were standing at the rail, their shoulders touching. Near them, but obviously not with them, were Bright and . . .
Just Bright. I realized I’d never seen one without the other. Where was Sweet? Could Bright be forced into conversation, lacking his interpreter?
Perry was rambling on about various boring things, all of which he claimed he could do better than anybody else. ‘Not that I couldn’t handle the job, you understand. Anyone can be an administrator, but field archaeology and lecturing require special – ’
‘Right,’ I said, wondering vaguely what I had agreed with. ‘Shouldn’t you rest now? You must take care of yourself.’
As soon as he’d gone I made a beeline for Bright. No need for subtlety here; my first question was one anyone might have asked. ‘Where’s your buddy? Not sick, I hope.’
Bright considered the question. After a moment he nodded gravely. ‘Sick.’
‘I’m so sorry. Has the doctor seen him?’
Bright nodded and smiled.
‘Is there anything I can do?’
Bright shook his head and shrugged.
‘Are you all right?’
Bright nodded and smiled.
I had a feeling that if I kept asking questions the process would keep repeating itself. Nod and smile, shake head and shrug, nod and smile . . . The man wasn’t mute, he had spoken. One word, in a soft hesitant voice, the voice of someone who has a painful speech defect, a lisp or a stutter, who has to choose his words with care.
Or someone who is trying to conceal the fact that he can’t speak the language that is supposed to be his native tongue.
He had to risk it once more; he couldn’t just walk away without a word. His ‘Excuse me,’ was accompanied by another smile and another nod. I watched him cross the deck, nodding and smiling at people, until he had vanished inside.
I supposed he’d got tired of sitting with his sick friend and came out for a breath of air and a change of scene. Careless of him to risk it, though. The last two words had been articulated with a precision no native speaker of the language would employ. I had assumed he wasn’t really a manufacturer from Milwaukee, but I would have expected a professional undercover agent to be smart enough to assume a credible persona.
Yes, I definitely had to talk to somebody who knew what was going on. I sure as hell didn’t.
When I went back to Schmidt I found him entertaining again. John was actually taking notes. ‘Hillbilly,’ he repeated, writing it down.
‘Das ist recht. It means – ’
‘
I’m vaguely familiar with the term. Then the western element – ’
‘Yes, the cowboys. A pessimistic group of individuals.’ Schmidt illustrated the theme. ‘Do not bury me on the lonesome prairie. There the coyotes (a variety of jackals, with loud voices) howl . . .’
‘‘‘And the wind blows free.” Yes, I’ve got that. It does have a lugubrious quality, doesn’t it?’
‘But the most romantic are the prison and the railroad songs.’
I said, before I could stop myself, ‘Romantic?’
‘All those dying pillows,’ John murmured.
Schmidt continued the lecture, with vocal illustrations. How Mary stood it I could not imagine. She had to be tone-deaf as well as infatuated. Finally I took pity on her and tried to change the subject.
‘Where is everybody? It’s a beautiful day, you’d think there would be more people on deck.’
‘On their dying pillows, no doubt,’ John said. ‘The pharaoh’s curse has struck. The rest of us will probably be in the same stage before we reach Luxor.’
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.
‘Hadn’t you heard?’ He turned slightly, facing me. ‘The refrigeration apparatus has broken down. Perfect conditions for ptomaine.’
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew. Once such rumours start they spread quickly, especially in a small closed society like ours. By the time the group reassembled for drinks and the evening lecture, Hamid felt it necessary to make a public announcement.
It was true, as we had heard, that the refrigeration had failed and that efforts to repair it had been unsuccessful. However, there was not the slightest danger of food poisoning. As those of us who had experienced prolonged power failures knew, the freezers would remain cold for hours and we would be in Luxor by morning. Any food served that evening (and the chef, said Hamid, with one of his largest smiles, was preparing a veritable feast) would be perfectly safe.
When he finished there was some grumbling, most of it from our habitual complainers. Alice, who had replaced Hamid on the podium, added a few sentences of reassurance before beginning her lecture.
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