A Grave Celebration

by Christine Trent

  The jeweler who sold them the brooch made no pretension that it was an antique, instead telling them that the scarab was a choice purchase as it was considered a good luck charm by both the rich and the poor, and was even believed by some to hold strong magical powers. Violet smiled politely at this. Undertakers encountered too much dark reality to hope that a bejeweled bug would offer any respite from the malevolent deeds of men.

  Elliot nodded sage approval at all of the purchases, then indicated to Brooks that it was time to take their leave of the couple. Elliot urged Sam and Violet to return to the stage area soon for the fireworks.

  Violet and Sam walked a little farther, purchasing trinkets for Violet’s parents and her closest friend, Mary, as well as their daughter, Susanna, before nearly reaching the end of the entire bazaar area. As they turned around to return to where the rest of the delegation would be gathered, Violet experienced another shock when a hand appeared out of nowhere and yanked her fan away from her.

  Chapter 4

  It happened with such speed and ferocity that for a moment Violet’s mind was stunned into inactivity. Her head cleared at Sam’s explosion of “Little guttersnipe!” as instantly her old burn injury flared to painful life.

  Her right arm had just been brutally wrenched by the thief, and now stabbing pain knifed its way up to her shoulder. She had to ignore it, though, as Sam had already grabbed her hand and was urging her to run with him after the dark-haired urchin who had Violet’s fan clutched in his grubby fist.

  How comical they must look, Violet being dragged along by her husband, who was managing both her new undertaking bag and his cane in his other hand even as he tried to overcome his slight limp with muscular movements. It was almost impossible to keep the boy in sight, so adept was he at ducking under people’s arms and darting around animals and carts.

  Sam was determined, though. “That little wretch is not going to steal from us,” he muttered heavily while plowing forward. The boy continued to run without even looking backward, as if he knew instinctively that his victims were pursuing him. He abruptly scampered down an alleyway full of vendors. Sam and Violet continued to give chase, as the stalls containing papyrus paintings, perfume bottles, and brass boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl all flashed past them in a blur.

  This particular alleyway opened suddenly onto a wide, busy street full of human, horse, and camel traffic moving in no discernibly logical pattern. They managed to keep track of the boy until they reached the other side of the road. With nothing in his way, he launched himself in another direction behind a tiny grove of mulberry trees that practically shuddered with the profusion of silkworms feeding on their fruit. To Violet’s utter dismay, the young imp seemed to have vanished like a wisp of smoke.

  Violet and Sam halted, panting and perspiring heavily from the unexpected activity. The burning sensation in her arm had subsided, and it was the burn in her lungs that affected her now. “Where did he go?” Violet asked haltingly between breaths.

  Sam shook his head as he bent down, hands on his knees as he dropped both the bag and his cane. “I don’t know. He moved like a rabbit being pursued by a bobcat. I’m afraid we will have to buy you a new fan.”

  But at this point, Violet was too distracted to care about the fan, despite its expense. Next to the grove of trees was a small building, perhaps ten feet square, painted white and elaborately decorated in sapphire-blue tiles, including a faux window outlined on the front of it. Two steps led up to a heavy wood door inlaid with swirls of brass, and the entire top of the building was crenelated by star formations. It was completely unlike any other structure around it, like a little windowless dollhouse set apart from the other shops and warehouses nearby.

  Violet was entranced by the charming little building, which couldn’t possibly be a home or shop, given that it had no actual windows. It was so intriguing that she wondered if perhaps she could explore it. With Sam behind her, she climbed the two steps and knocked on the door, even though she didn’t believe it possible that there was anyone inside. Her raps echoed heavily behind the door, but there was no answer. She rapped again, then gently tried the round brass knob, which was locked.

  “What do you think you are doing here?” a voice demanded in English that, while accented, was more cultured than that of Yahir, the artifact seller. Violet turned. That voice belonged to a middle-aged man with dark hair curling over his forehead and behind his ears. His brown eyes flashed with irritation.

  Sam stepped protectively in front of Violet and addressed him. “Pardon us, we are tourists. We did not mean to disrupt your home.”

  “Home? That is an interesting way to phrase it. This mausoleum belongs to my family. It is good fortune that I have come to check on a recent burial or I wouldn’t have caught you. Why are you intruding here?” The man stood belligerently, his fists on either side of his waist, crumpling the sides of his butter-yellow robe worn over a white tunic.

  Sam didn’t say anything for several moments, and Violet knew her husband was debating whether to apologize or to offer the man a voluble piece of his mind. She herself was torn between embarrassment at having invaded such a private space and sheer fascination over the fact that this was a burial place. She knew nothing about Egyptian funerary practices other than what every schoolchild knew about ancient mummy wrappings. If she could only spend just a few minutes inside this mausoleum . . .

  She held her breath over what Sam might do, and exhaled slowly in relief when he obviously decided on the better part of valor. “We meant no harm to you or your family. We are with the British delegation attending the canal ceremonies. I escorted my wife for some shopping in Gemalia, and an urchin stole one of my wife’s purchases. We gave chase, but lost him here.”

  At this, the man softened toward Sam. “Ah, it must have been one of the fellah rats.” His expression reflected the disparagement in his voice. “The peasant class have no manners. They work the fields all day and rob their betters at night.” He failed to note that it was not quite dark yet, but Violet wasn’t about to point that out, as he was finally settling down from his ire. “Whatever it was, you will never see it again, as I guarantee the rat has already sold it back to a dealer in one of the stalls. I pray it was not valuable.”

  Sam shook his head and put a hand to Violet’s elbow as he brought her forward. “I am Samuel Harper. This is my wife, Violet. You speak English very well.”

  The man shook Sam’s hand and nodded at Violet. “I am Samir Basara. I am an archaeologist for the Museum of Antiquities, and have had cause to learn English and French, and am also acquainted with several other languages. I, too, am attending the festivities, although not in an official capacity. I live in Cairo, but my family lives here, so it was advantageous for me to be the one to attend and report back on the ceremonies. I wished to check on my family before the flotilla starts out tomorrow.”

  Basara must be an employee of Monsieur Mariette, the director whom Sir Henry had mentioned. “Are you traveling with the khedive?” Violet asked, speaking for the first time.

  “No, I travel on my own, by land,” he said. “I suffer the sickness of al-bihar. Even though it is just a canal, I do not like the motion. I much prefer trains and caravans.”

  “I’m afraid I have quite the opposite problem,” Violet said. “Trains hold a special terror for me.” She self-consciously reached over and touched her right arm. A faint twinge was now all that remained from the painful yanking of minutes ago.

  Basara spread his hands. “Every human has his individual fear, but we all fear the most merciful Allah, do we not?”

  Violet nodded as Sam spoke up again. “My wife is an undertaker, and I’m sure she would be very honored to visit your family’s mausoleum, if it is not too rude for us to make this request.”

  Basara’s response was not what Violet would have expected. “You say you are with the British delegation? In what respect?”

  Sam also seemed thrown by the question. “Pardon? We were invited
by Queen Victoria to attend on her behalf.”

  Basara smiled then. “You are associated with the royal family, then?” Sam started to explain, but Basara ignored him. “My family would be pleased to know that the royalty of a foreign land, even if English, were here to pay respects. Come.” Basara pulled a large brass key from a chain around his neck.

  “This actually used to be the edge of the town before the port was ever completely developed. Now, my family’s resting place is on a main thoroughfare.”

  “Why do you not move the mausoleum?” Violet asked, thinking it would be better off inside a cemetery.

  Basara looked at her as if she’d sprouted a second nose. “You do not move the dead,” he told her firmly. “My family members have been buried here for the past two hundred years, and one day I, my wife, and our children will be buried here. The living must work around the dead.”

  Violet couldn’t argue with that logic.

  “Most families own mausoleums, whether they be rich or poor. They are usually built in remote places, but then the city builds up and they end up like mine, engulfed by life.”

  They entered the mausoleum, and Violet was immediately struck by how still and quiet it was inside, though there was a rush of people and animals just steps outside. Despite the lack of windows, light filtered in through slats in the ceiling and illuminated the limestone walls. The floor was no floor at all, but a thick layer of sand that supported cactus gardens in each of its four corners, with brightly tiled benches lining all four walls. On one bench sat several lanterns and a tinderbox.

  Violet was puzzled. There were no wall niches above the benches. Where were the bodies buried? Surely not directly under the sand?

  Basara cleared his throat and began speaking. “I do not know your English customs, but in Egypt we have a distinct way of burying our dead, different from our neighboring countries. You must know that the ancient pharaohs were buried in crypts surrounded with food, implements, wealth, and servants so that when resurrected they would find their lives much as they had left them. When Egypt adopted Islam nine hundred years ago, we were told that dead bodies must be buried in unmarked graves, but this concept was not completely embraced.”

  Basara’s tone and inflection demonstrated his archaeological training as he showed them around as a guide would through a pharaonic tomb. He crouched down near the center of the room and began sweeping away sand with his hand while he continued to speak. “So we have our small mausoleums, which remind us of our pyramids, and yet we bury our dead in a simple way inside them.”

  Beneath the sand lay black earth, which Basara continued to sweep away with his hand. “It is Islamic custom for a person to be buried before sundown the day of his death, or, at most, within three days. We have a funeral in a mosque, where special prayers, the janazah, are said. The coffin is then borne by male relatives to the mausoleum, with mourners following behind. Some mausoleums are in cemeteries; some, like that of my family, are old enough that they were never in specially made cemeteries, and now find themselves as relics in the middle of towns and cities.”

  With the dirt cleared away, an iron ring became visible. Basara pulled on it and, with a great creaking noise, the panel that it was attached to pulled up, revealing a staircase leading belowground. The archaeologist indicated that Violet and Sam should proceed down.

  Violet exchanged a quick glance with Sam in the dimness, silently asking if Basara could be trusted. Sam nodded, put down the purchases, and motioned for Violet to descend.

  Violet cursed her own heavy skirts as she gingerly made her way down the narrow staircase into the pitch-black of the crypt, thankful that Basara was soon behind them with two glowing lanterns. Except for the breathing of the three living persons, the crypt was utterly silent. Violet couldn’t help herself: she found herself smiling at the serenity of it, noting that a crypt was a crypt no matter where it was in the world, except the floor of this one was covered in sand, as it was upstairs, making it awkward for her to balance properly on her booted feet.

  Basara moved in front of them to light the way, continuing to explain Egyptian customs. As if he sensed Violet’s peace here underground, he stopped and said, “Knowing that most of my ancestors have been down here, both in death and while alive as mourners, gives me great peace. I spend time here to think and pray and imagine the day that I will join my family here.”

  He resumed walking toward one of the two openings placed across from each other in the small hallway they were in. Chiseled stones were piled outside each entrance. “The women are buried in here.” He silently handed Violet a lantern before saying to Sam, “You may follow me to where my male relatives are buried.”

  With a glance of uncertainty at Violet, Sam followed Basara through the door across from Violet, leaving her alone to take a large hop down into what was apparently a separate crypt for female relatives. She held up the lantern and gasped at what she saw. It was as if there were giant molehills in the sand. Women had been laid to rest in here, with handfuls of sand cast around and over their bodies. Violet put a hand to her mouth, startled by how very different from Western practice this was, and yet her fascination with the Egyptian practice would not permit her to look away. What was the purpose of this?

  She knelt down next to the nearest body, a slim figure shrouded in creamy linen. The face was, of course, decomposing, but her hair was still dark, and the woman’s hands were not covered. Violet held the lantern close to one of the hands, and estimated the woman to be in her early twenties. She wondered what had happened to the young woman. Childbirth? Illness? Disease? An accident? Violet sighed. She would never know unless she asked Basara, and that seemed too intrusive.

  She rose again, holding the lantern up high as she steadied herself once more on the easily shifting sand. This was so different from the services she performed in England. The bodies were entombed here, but they weren’t really buried. Moreover, Violet estimated there were about twenty bodies in the room, but surely more women than that had been buried since the mausoleum was erected. Were there more crypt rooms farther down the hall?

  She brushed loose sand away from her skirts, and was glad to see Basara and Sam already waiting for her, as she needed assistance to make her inelegant climb out of the crypt.

  “Men and women are never buried together,” Basara said, resuming his talk as if there had been no interruption.

  Violet nodded. “May I inquire as to what the piles of bricks outside each crypt are for?”

  “Yes, my lady, they are used to seal off the crypts after burial, and are dismantled each time the crypt must be opened up to add new bodies. My family has buried two distant cousins of mine recently, and the walls have not been put back again. Very tragic. The woman died shortly after producing a stillborn son, and her husband became crazed and deliberately drowned himself in a public fountain.”

  “How terrible,” Violet whispered.

  “Insha’Allah, our family will recover from this tragedy, which has brought disgrace upon our name. It is especially difficult because the fountain in question was built in honor of Isma’il Pasha, our khedive, and it was inscribed as a fountain intended for healing.” Basara shook his head, as though to erase the shameful memory of it all. In a sterner tone he said, “The khedive is not aware of the polluting of the fountain, you understand.”

  Sam nodded. “It is a private thing for your family, and we are honored by your trust.”

  Violet was impressed by her husband’s innate understanding and diplomatic response. His experiences working for the American ambassador had certainly not gone to waste. Basara’s response was to nod curtly. “Now, you may wonder about all of the sand?”

  “Yes, I’m very curious about how it is involved in your burials,” Violet said without thinking. Heavens, hadn’t she just thought to herself that it would be rude to ask about it?

  But Basara seemed to take no offense, shifting into archaeologist mode. “The sand reminds us of our ancient tombs in the de
sert, but more practically, it also helps to preserve bodies. You noticed how far your leap was into the crypt?”

  Violet nodded. Who could overlook such a drop?

  “There are several layers of bodies in each of the two crypts. Some sand is placed inside when each body is buried, but once the crypt is full, a thick layer of sand is placed over the bodies, and then we begin placing more bodies over them. I suspect we can do two or three more layers before we will either have to expand the crypt or build an additional mausoleum.”

  Violet hoped that no alarm showed on her face. Had she landed upon layers of bodies when she dropped into the crypt? The thought was frightful. But surely there was an open area where family members could stand without humiliating the dead by standing upon them.

  Basara turned back toward the stairs, and the Harpers followed him. Once back up in the square of benches and cacti, Basara took Violet’s lantern, extinguished both of them, and began scooping earth back over the trap door in the ground. “After the body is buried, there is an official forty-day mourning period for the deceased that includes special prayers and rituals, and the family is surrounded by others come to pay their respects. For my cousins, of course, we did not receive many visitors.” He shrugged. “We buried both of my cousins more quickly than normal, within two hours of his drowning, just to avoid the prying eyes and nosy questions.”

  Violet had to assume, then, that the woman she had examined was the wife. Had her infant son been buried with her husband?

  Surely I am the only person in the world who concerns herself with such thoughts.