by Warren Adler
“You are amused, Ahmed?” Zakki asked.
Ahmed nodded.
“They have taken elaborate steps to elude us,” he said in a monotone, only his eyes betraying his pleasure. “They are dressed now as fellaheen. I am sure they think they have escaped us.”
Zakki listened with some excitement. His heart palpitated, and he forced his calm.
“And their destination?” Zakki asked.
“There is a design to it,” Ahmed responded. “They have engaged a felucca.”
“Then they must have found a destination.”
“It would seem so.”
“Do you think they have evaded us?”
“Never. You must not lose patience.”
Zakki felt the snake of agony loosen its grip. He rose with effort and crossed the terrace. From its edge, he could see the river, running slowly at its timeless pace, leading in the opposite direction of his thoughts. He strained to reassemble the fading image of Farrah in his mind. Oddly, it had never lost its grip on his heart.
“Soon, Isis,” he whispered. “The fishes of Mother Nile will eat your flesh.”
Chapter Thirty
The old editor, a gnome of a man with a back humped from years of leaning over his desk, was surprisingly alert. He worked in the musty library of the newspaper office now, a hodgepodge of moldering pulp. He delighted in proving that his memory was intact.
“Thompson was more of a freelancer than a staffer,” the old man recalled effortlessly, the remembrance belying his ancient appearance. He had been a subeditor at the time.
“Gloomy fellow. Long in the mouth. Always huddled with the editor.” He studied Si over his glasses, then looked down again at the faded clipping that Si had spread on his desk.
“That piece made quite a stir.”
“And Thompson?”
The old man shrugged.
“Never saw him again. An American. I presume he went home.”
Si nodded. The morass seemed to close in on him again. Yet they had taken elaborate, extravagant precautions, a hired taxi, the desert road from Alexandria. The driver had dropped them at Mena House in Giza, where they took another taxi, getting off in the heart of old Cairo, then moving on foot into the thick crowds, through the backstreets and bazaars to the newspaper office.
Si searched his mind for some inquiry that might offer a next step.
“Did he do other stories?” Si asked. The old man paused and stroked his chin. He knew the man’s curiosity was building, but he deliberately held back any further explanations.
The man stirred and rose from his cluttered desk. He walked slowly past rows of file cabinets to a series of dusty, unused shelves. The room was disordered, with no apparent plan to the filing system. Typically Egyptian, Si thought. But not without a sense of grudging respect. Coping with chaos seemed instinctual, a national trait. He knew the man would find what he was looking for.
He pulled a manila envelope from a pile, stirring a cloud of dust. On its face, someone had scrawled in big, black letters, “Thompson Stories.”
Si resisted his impatience. The old man seemed to relish both the attention and the mystery. Returning to his desk, he opened the envelope and spread a small pile of yellowed clippings on a space he cleared with the heel of his hand. Slowly, he read through each one.
“He seemed to have some interest in the preservation of our antiquities.”
Si hesitantly reached over and quickly read through the headlines. “The Lost Obelisks,” “The Politics of Pyramids,” “Museums of Plunder.” On the surface, it seemed far afield from the lurid story of Farouk’s teenage mistress. Then Si read the body of the clippings. A clear pattern emerged. The antiquities were a metaphor to discredit colonial domination in general, and British domination in particular. They were more political than archaeological.
Embedded in the stories were also some telling swipes at Farouk, and his apparent indifference to Egyptian culture.
“Quite outspoken, don’t you think?” Si asked, although he had shied away from dialogue with the old man.
“They had just come off wartime censorship. The independence movement was just flexing its muscles,” the old man said, winding up for what seemed a long explanation. Si let the old man drone on as he read and reread the clippings.
“Only five obelisks left inside Egypt… More outside than inside… The nose of the Giza Sphinx in the Berlin Museum… pieces of Karnak and Abu Simbel carted off to far away places.” His mind circled in the maze, mulling and backtracking. The main quotations seemed to come from a Dr. Ezzat, Cairo University. Si’s memory was jogged.
“…the concept of National Treasure has always been a rallying point for the intellectuals.” Si felt the man’s faded myopic eyes watching him. “After all”—the man lowered his voice—“what holds it all together? Certainly not the mess you see outside.”
But by then, old Herra’s words echoed in his brain. She had taken Isis to the university. He felt the exhilaration of discovery. Thanking the man, he departed, leaving him, literally, in midsentence.
Outside, he found Abdel gloomy and frightened.
“You were so long,” she said, as they hurried along the crowded streets. He explained what he had learned, surprised when she didn’t reflect his enthusiasm.
“I feel we’re getting closer,” he said, ignoring her depression. “To Isis,” he added.
“And then?” She moved out in front of him, heading for the university. Her tone annoyed him. Again, he remonstrated with himself for ever getting her involved. I can do without her, he told himself. Somehow, his words carried no conviction.
***
“Ezzat,” the professor said, raising his eyebrows, offering Si instant recognition. “One of our most respected authorities.” He drew deeply on a cigarette and puffed smoke out of both nostrils. “His monographs are essential, germinal to our understanding.” He seemed to be growing pedantic, and Si interrupted him. Abdel sat beside Si on a battered leather couch.
It had been terribly disappointing to find that Dr. Ezzat was no longer associated with the university.
“I would like very much to see him,” Si said.
“So would we all, young man. So would we all.”
“He’s not dead?” Si blurted, feeling again the collapse of optimism.
“Haven’t heard that,” the professor said, taking another deep puff on his cigarette. “He was also a bit on the eccentric side. A bit too political as well, an occupational hazard in our business. But very able. Very able.” The professor looked at the ceiling. “And courageous.” His eyes darted toward Si. “You know he opposed the big dam at Aswan. Hated the Russians with a passion. Of course, if it wasn’t for him, Abu Simbel would have been underwater, lost for eternity. Nasser didn’t think it could be done. But Ezzat could be persistent. And abrasive. In the end, Nasser had him sacked. Something like that. He simply disappeared. It could only have been that.”
He shook his head. “Nasser,” he said with contempt, clearing his throat as if he were about to spit. “He ruined us. Of course, Ezzat was one of his greatest initial supporters. Also, the first among us timorous scholars to oppose him.” He raised a finger as if ready to deliver a lecture. “The protocol, you see, is for an archaeologist to transcend the exigencies of contemporary fortune…”
“Do you know where he is?” Si asked, annoyed now with his own impatience. The professor frowned. He was apparently not used to being interrupted.
“Why, anywhere from Memphis to Abu Simbel,” the professor snickered, restoring his sense of self-importance. He punched out his cigarette in the ashtray and looked at Si again. “More than likely anywhere from Thebes to Aswan. Wherever there are digs. Old archaeologists never die, they just haunt digs.” The professor laughed at his little joke, his joviality disintegrating into a coughing fit.
“Is there an
y way you could be more specific?” Si asked, when the professor had quieted himself. The man took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Shuffling among his papers, he found a map and pointed to red markings. “The Poles are here in the Valley of the Kings. The Brits over here. And a joint Anglo-Egyptian team here. And, of course, this one, near Aswan that the Israelis are negotiating to start. Quite important. Eighteenth Dynasty, we think one of Thutmose III’s sons. You see, there is every reason to believe that…”
“And you think he might be found in the vicinity?”
“I didn’t say that,” the professor countered sharply. “I said, more than likely.” He lit another cigarette. “I also said he disappeared.” He looked at the ceiling, as if some clue might be found there. “I seem to remember someone saying he saw him poking around some digs, somewhere.” He paused. “But, he’s completely out of the mainstream. There were some rumors that he was living in Upper Egypt… but who knows?”
“Has he family? Perhaps his family might help?” Si asked.
“A daughter. I saw her once when I visited the Abu Simbel project…”
“And his wife?”
The professor inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs interminably before exhaling.
“Don’t know. Never met her. Poor woman, whoever she was. Ezzat was brilliant, but rather intense.” Beneath the facade was a trace of jealousy.
“It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Si said, turning to Abdel.
“More like a needle in a stone stack,” the professor said, quickly smothering his own chuckle. He was, apparently, used to having his students respond to his humor. He scowled.
“May I copy the map?” Si asked.
The professor looked at it, then at Si with an accusatory stare.
“You’re not one of those efficiency experts from the fund-raisers?” the professor snapped.
Si was perplexed.
“Always snooping around to tell us we do things too slow, that everything costs too much. We are paying the price for our ignorance of the past. Archaeology is the pursuit of truth. A buried pot can tell us more about humanity than an army of contemporary philosophers…” He was wound up again. Si traced the map on tissue paper. It was crude, but serviceable.
“I appreciate it,” he said, standing up. Abdel rose in tandem.
The professor ignored the movement, his face tilted toward the ceiling, as if he were reading from cue cards of knowledge.
“What will anyone remember of us? What will they find in our rubble?”
“Thank you,” Si said politely, quietly closing the door of the professor’s office, his words muffled in the smoky chamber.
Chapter Thirty-One
On the long ride on the Cairo-Luxor train, Si wrestled with his choices. He did not share his feelings with Abdel, if only to avoid her concern, and her warnings.
They were being pursued by people, not phantoms. He could not understand it. To complicate matters, he had unwittingly fallen into the role of Abdel’s protector. And she had become his needed confidante and advisor. Of course he was grateful, but equally confused.
He had bought a map at a kiosk at the train station, and spent part of the journey studying it and copying the dig sites from the tissue map. Brief legends explained the areas and he made mental notes as he traced a potential route. Deir El Bahri in the Valley of the Kings was the logical first stop, near the three-tiered Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, on the Necropolis side, the West Bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor.
Abdel lay against him, cuddled like a cat in the crook of his arm. She had fallen asleep, and he absentmindedly stroked her hair. Feeling her warmth beside him, despite his misgivings, comforted him. But the comfort did not dispel his confusion.
Nothing he had done or seen in Egypt had the remotest resemblance to his romanticized image. Only now could he acknowledge his expectations. He had, he admitted, fantasized a soul-stirring, tearful reunion with his half sister, the validation of blood, the commonality of genetic magnetism. Finding her would mean new beginnings, the lifting of the veil of uncertainty, the discovery of purpose and identity. He was, he had led himself to believe, obeying some mysterious matriarchal imperative, goading him, as if Isis was his Holy Grail.
In the metal capsule of the jostling train, he wrestled instead with the hard realities of this headlong plunge into an unmarked wilderness. It is the compulsive, irrational, romantic Irish side, he decided, chuckling to himself. On the other hand, he was part Egyptian, a people imbued with spiritual mysteries and ancient blood myths, a strange DNA potion that drove him forward beyond his ability to restrain himself.
He did not like the turn of his thoughts. Letting his mind wander, he leisurely observed the people who swarmed around them in the carriage. They were a limitless variety; dark, smooth-featured women huddled in their black shrouds with children clutched to their bosoms; old men with tired faces; young fellaheen smoking endless cigarettes. In the air swirled odors of sweat, feces, urine, ripe fruit, and, unmistakably, hashish. Cooped chickens cackled and fluttered their wings. Finally the sensations faded with fatigue and he fell asleep.
Abdel awakened him. Apparently the train had stopped.
“We should go now.”
He looked out of the window. No station was visible.
“We are still north of Luxor, but it is a good time to leave.”
“Here?”
In the dim light he could see endless fields split by the river. Of course, he thought, as a new idea emerged. River travel would be safer. Besides, most of the “digs” on his map were close to the river. They stood up and moved past sleeping bodies to the train’s door, opened it quietly, and jumped to the ground.
Moving swiftly across a maturing field of beans, they reached a tiny agricultural village.
There, much to the amazement of the villagers who eyed them curiously, they bartered the clothes they wore for a torn djellaba and turban for himself and a black malaya for her. The village elder who supervised the transaction was smug in his certainty that he had gotten the better of the deal. But he was helpful in advising them where they might rent a felucca for the journey up the river.
“My village was like that,” Abdel said, as they crossed a bean field on their way to the river’s edge. Her face was hidden in the folds of her black malaya. He had caught in her tone a sigh of longing. The village had been no more than a cluster of mudbrick huts equipped with makeshift fired cooking stoves and little furniture. Each family literally slept adjacent to their animals.
A fleeting picture of Abdel’s earlier life intruded on Si’s musings. He had seen a young girl sleeping on a straw pallet in a corner of a tiny room.
“Unfortunately, there is no going back,” Abdel said with a sigh, as if reading his mind.
***
The felucca moved quietly against the tide, tacking frequently as Hassan, the boat’s owner, maneuvered the prow as close to the wind as possible. The boat heeled, and Si and Abdel braced themselves against the gunwale. Hassan’s young son, Anwar, hung on the foredeck, ready to untangle any fouled lines. Moshe, the boy’s dog, a large black spot surrounding one eye, slept at their feet, unconcerned by the precarious angle. Si and Abdel watched Hassan’s village fade from sight.
Hassan grinned at them, using his foot to manipulate the tiller while he peeled an orange with his teeth and spit the rinds into the Nile. Abdel had bargained with him, smiling at Si, showing her pleasure in the arrangement, enjoying the exhibition of her street smarts. In Cairo, she had advised him to cash in his traveler’s checks.
“The fellaheen know only cash,” she had warned. He had obeyed her and now could be grateful for the advice.
The negotiations were elaborate and, in the end, Hassan had accepted only on the condition that he was accompanied by his helper, his son, eight-year-old Anwar, named for Sadat. Anwar, in turn, would not go
without his dog, Moshe, obviously named in a rare moment of political awareness of new events.
Si was considerably brightened by the prospect of the journey with this odd triumvirate.
“We are the best on the river,” Hassan assured them.
They also took aboard a supply of beans, onions, carrots, oranges, and bananas, and a few jars of treacle and curdled milk.
“You will like it,” Hassan said. Si had looked at the treacle with distaste.
He did feel safer on the Nile, although the rising light showed a few feluccas off their stern, plying the waters gracefully, tacking against the wind and tide. Occasionally, Hassan would wave, and the men on the other boats would return the greeting. They watched as the sun rose beyond the fields on the east bank.
Abdel made them tea over a kerosene stove, which they drank along with bananas and oranges. After the uncertainties of the night on the train, and warmed by the tea, Si felt calm and confident that somehow, without any real evidence to stoke his optimism, their journey would lead to Isis.
“I know we’re on the right track,” he whispered, as they sat in the wooden cockpit, listening to the music of the wind and the counterpoint of the squeaking mainmast.
A frown shadowed Abdel’s face.
“For you, I hope so,” she mumbled, lifting her face into the breeze.
“Well, the old woman said that she had taken Isis to the university. And Dr. Ezzat was connected with Thompson.” It seemed a rebuke, and he touched her arm. “I mean it seems logical. I can’t think of anything else.” She apparently caught the drift of his appeal, and she looked at him and shrugged.
“Maybe,” she said, studying the wake of the boat. “The important thing is that we are not followed,” she said. “Hassan, I am sure, knows the river. He will be able to tell if there are strangers.”
