Mother Nile

by Warren Adler

  Seeing them watching him, Hassan nodded happily. Si had made a copy of his map and given it to Hassan, who had explained to him that the workers at the archaeological sites started at dawn and, because of the heat, usually stopped well before noon. Even the tourist traffic started and ended early, he told them, pointing out that they were lucky that July was not the height of the season, implying that he would not have then been available for hire.

  “My father always dreamed of owning his own felucca,” Abdel said. She had been looking into the distance, lost in a familiar kayf.

  “And now?” Si asked gently.

  “He is dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Si said. She shrugged and the glaze receded. She had been, he realized, reticent to show him any bit of her background. Nor had he been overwhelmed by curiosity. Suddenly he had the knowledge. The hush of the light-spangled river seemed to stir her recollection.

  “They took him for the war in ’73. He did not come back. I remembered I could not understand why he went away.” She sighed. “I understand now.” He let her relish the silence. “For nothing,” she said bitterly, her eyes misting. “He felt only that the river, a felucca, would give him his freedom. He loved the river.”

  “And your mother?” Si asked, drawn deeper into her recollection.

  “She became the wife of another man.”

  “Did you run away?”

  She shook her head, as if the inquiry were obscene.

  “My father had insisted that I stay in school. It was a long journey, but I went happily. It was very important to him. And to me. Only a handful of the villagers knew how to read. My father was very proud of me.” She grew hesitant again, and he felt her shiver, although the heat had begun to penetrate the breeze. “My mother’s husband wanted me to stop. Ordered me. He said he needed my labor at home. My mother was helpless. What could she do?”

  “So you went away.”

  “I didn’t want to leave my mother,” she protested. “I was sorry that I had been born a girl. There was really no solution. If my father had lived, it would have been different.” She turned toward him, her chin high, showing him her pose of pride. “So you see, I was able to survive. I found the City of the Dead.” She pointed a finger at him. “You’ll see. Someday I will go to the university.”

  Considering her predicament, it seemed like a hopeless wish. But his heart went out to her.

  “Perhaps, someday, I will help you,” he said, reaching out his hand to touch her. She must have interpreted his gesture as pity and disengaged herself, moving toward the prow. He turned toward Hassan, who smiled provocatively.

  “What the hell are you grinning about?” he snapped.

  But Hassan continued to smile.

  ***

  The river became more crowded as they neared Luxor, its high buildings glistening in the sun. A string of barges and large tourist boats were moored along the banks. Ubiquitous wild dogs slumbered on the river slopes, while an occasional droshky could be seen clip-clopping along the river road.

  “The Temples of Karnak,” Hassan said, pointing to a clutter of stones and an obelisk poking into the sky.

  Si acknowledged the reference, and ducked as the mainsail shifted and the felucca tacked toward the opposite bank. Guiding the tiller, Hassan pointed the prow toward the bank and headed to shore on a gust of breeze, jamming the boat into the mud. Si and the girl jumped ashore and walked along the river trail to the large dock provided for the tourist ferries.

  Abdel inquired as to the specific location of the Polish dig on the map and arranged with an old man for the use of two tired-looking gray donkeys. The man also insisted that he accompany them, obviously to earn more money. There was no dissuading him.

  Mounting one donkey, they followed the old man on the other. Abdel sat in front of Si, holding the reins, while he clung to her back. His legs nearly reached the ground, and he had to hold them outward, making the journey difficult. Tourist busses passed quickly on their way to the tombs. Their occupants observed them and waved and smiled. They managed to wave back.

  “See,” he said. “They think I’m a fellah.”

  “You should ask for baksheesh for the privilege of observing you,” Abdel said sarcastically, showing her antagonism for the tourists. Oddly, he actually shared the feeling, resenting the sense of his being on exhibit. When another tourist bus came by, he turned his head.

  They followed the old man’s donkey along the winding roads to the Valley of the Kings. The desert began abruptly, and the donkeys climbed upward through the dry, hot dust, past the mudbrick village that seemed placed there deliberately as a tourist attraction. Hassan had told him that the village derived its sole income from trafficking in phony antiquities, which they hustled to the tourists with a mixture of exasperating pressure and craft.

  “Don’t believe what they seem,” Hassan warned with a tinge of jealousy. “They are rich.”

  Only the women seemed to occupy the village, while the men were out hawking their wares. Wearing black malayas, they carried earthenware water jars on their heads or sat listlessly along the slopes, like roosting ravens, indifferently observing the parade of tourists. In the distance, he could see the flat cliffs, glowing reddish in the blazing sun. As they moved closer, the old tombs and temples defined themselves, like chipped jewels in a diadem of uncertain settings, the centerpiece of which was the beautiful and awesome threetiered Temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

  Watching it as they came closer, it struck Si how arrogantly it had defied time.

  “A woman built that,” he whispered to Abdel, his lips brushing against her ear. She said nothing, although he sensed that she felt some flush of pride.

  “There,” the old man pointed out, urging the donkey toward the temple. Beside it, they could see workmen digging at a nearby site. In a lean-to on the side of a hill, a group of men pored over drawings. They moved closer, then stopped before a fence beyond which was a carpet of numbered stones. Si dismounted and moved over a sandy path to the men. A bearded man, wearing a white wide-brimmed hat, greeted him warily, but his face softened when he heard the name of Ezzat.

  “A storehouse of knowledge,” the man said. “Had a genuine feel for how those old buzzards did things.” Si listened patiently as he described the site and its future. “…with computers, we’ll have this temple reconstructed in half the time. Half the time.”

  “But have you seen him. Ezzat?” Si interrupted.

  “Not since Abu Simbel.” The man scratched his beard. “Someone saw him around two years ago. Brilliant fellow. Eccentric as hell. Wouldn’t acknowledge who he was, but I once heard him speak in Warsaw. When I confronted him with that, he denied it. He was dressed rather odd. Like a peasant, a fellah. But he didn’t fool me. Poking around here as if he were someone else.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  The bearded man shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “Chances are, someplace in Upper Egypt. Near the digs.” Si pressed him, but nothing seemed to spur any further recall.

  “They don’t understand how important this work is,” the bearded man said, bending toward Si and lowering his voice. “The fact is that us scholars and those parasites who make a living off this are the only ones who care. Most Egyptians don’t give a shit.”

  “Well, you can’t blame them for that,” Si snapped, surprised at his own anger. “You can’t eat history, and these damned stones won’t till the land. What has all this got to do with them?” His arm swept the surrounding countryside in what he knew was a grandstanding gesture.

  “Not a damned thing,” the bearded man said. “Not even then. Nothing changes for them.”

  Si glared at him, nodding a farewell. The man had been standing, facing westward, his back to the rising sun, which suddenly popped over one shoulder as he moved. Si turned away to avoid the sudden beam. He walked
through the path between the numbered stones. At least, he thought, the man had confirmed his own theory. Ezzat was somewhere out there. The ultimate question still gnawed at him. With Isis?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The sun bore down relentlessly, slowing the donkeys’ pace. Si was drenched in perspiration. The old man led them through narrow paths, past abandoned tombs and ruins to the other active digs in the valley. Those in charge acknowledged their familiarity with Dr. Ezzat and his work, but could offer no clue to his whereabouts. The older archaeologists had not seen him since Abu Simbel, and the younger ones knew him only by reputation.

  By early afternoon, the heat was scalding, and Si felt compelled to offer the old man additional baksheesh to press forward. The tourists had disappeared, and the village peddlers had moved to any shade they could find.

  The information that the bearded man had given him had excited him. The heat was a mere detail now. Nothing could stop him, he knew, trying to transfer his excitement to Abdel who, at first, had seemed indifferent.

  “Don’t you see?” he argued. “The man is hiding. That can only mean one thing.”

  “If he hides from Zakki, how can you find him?” she said sullenly, kicking the donkey’s haunches. She seemed to be taking the position of the devil’s advocate, and this annoyed him.

  “I’ll find her,” he said, with exaggerated bravado, as if it was necessary to convince himself.

  Even when they had exhausted the various sites, he would not allow his enthusiasm to wane. Nothing would shake his faith, he told himself, remembering his mother’s agonizing confession, recalling it now to buttress his sense of purpose.

  His mouth was parched, and they stopped in front of a mudbrick hut to purchase water for themselves and the donkeys. Bending to dip his face into a bowl of still water, he saw his reflection. He had to touch it, as if the reflected gesture was the only thing to assure him that it was his. His sloping eyes peered back at him under his brown turban. His heart pounded as he contemplated his image.

  “What is it?” Abdel said, startling him. He had apparently stiffened into a frozen pose.

  “Nothing,” he lied, dipping his face into the cool water, splintering the image.

  But when they had mounted the donkeys again, he kicked the donkey’s haunch and the animal pulled up beside the old man.

  “Tutankhamun?” he asked.

  The old man looked at him with exasperation. Si quickly gave him an additional pound. Nodding, the old man took it and struck the tired donkey with the flat of his hand and they moved at a swifter pace along the trail.

  Except for a few peddlers who slept in the shade of their stall awnings, the entrance to the area of the tomb was deserted. Above them on a high knoll was a modern rest house with high glass windows, from which faces peered with mild interest. But, when they dismounted, a man in a brown djellaba came out. Si began to count out the admission charge.

  “Would you like to come?” he asked Abdel.

  She seemed hesitant, but he paid for her anyway, taking her hand and following the signs up the hill to the tomb. As they approached, a man stirred from a squatting position against the wall and lifted a mirror to catch the sun’s reflection, lighting the staircase to the tomb. They followed the old man down the stairs to the main chamber. It was dank and empty, but to the right was a small staircase leading to a vantage from which they could look into another, well-lit chamber.

  In it was the huge, perfectly preserved sarcophagus of the boy king, a supine golden statue in regal headdress, the eyes open and serene, the lips curled in a joyous smile of contentment over its false beard of kingly office. Beyond were the frescoes he had seen in photographs in New York. He recalled the legend depicted by the figures and how he had been moved by them.

  Abdel stood beside him, her gaze fixed on the figure of Tutankhamun.

  “He is in there,” Si whispered.

  “In there?” She gripped his hand.

  “The body mummified.” His eyes rose to the frescoes.

  “The spirit alive.” She shivered beside him, and he put his arm around her.

  “There,” Si whispered, surprised at his detailed recall, knowing that it had lain embedded in his subconscious, ready for retrieval at this moment, “is Ay, Tutankhamun’s successor, wearing the blue crown of the reigning Pharaoh, performing the open-the-mouth rite on the mummified boy king. And there”—he pointed—“is Nut, mother of Osiris, who receives him as her son. You see, he carries the club and staff, symbols of his power. And there…” He felt his excitement rising. “There, the mummy form of Osiris greets him and his Ka… conscience. See the ankh in her hand, symbol of life. And those symbols, hieroglyphics, they are saying ‘given life forever and forever.’”

  He wanted to shout for joy, to hear the sound of his voice echo in the tomb.

  “Don’t you see,” he cried. “The connection.” He looked at her and held her close. “Of all of us. The endless river of blood. You and I. My mother. Isis.”

  He felt the exhilaration, an epiphany.

  “From there to now is more than three thousand years. Don’t you see? It is important to know that. The human link. Nothing dies. Nothing ever really dies.” Perhaps, he thought, that’s why he had come, to prove that his mother had never died, a part of her was still planted in this land.

  “Please,” Abdel whispered. “Take me out of here.”

  He wanted to stay, but her fear was compelling, and he soon led her out of the tomb. The sunlight blinded them, and the mist of heat enveloped them like a hot bath. When his eyes became accustomed to the light, he saw the old man napping in the shadow of the donkeys, who stood drowsing head down in the heat, oblivious to the flies that swarmed on their flanks.

  His excitement left him in a state of euphoria, and although he had mounted the donkey and felt the movement of its hooves against the asphalt road, his mind was still in the tomb. He was sure his experience was not unique, but that did not diminish his wonder. They followed the old man on his donkey over the main road.

  He felt the strangeness in the way Abdel held herself, the silent transmission of fear as his body moved against hers. At first, he thought it had to do with the tomb. She did not turn toward him, but he heard her voice.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “They are following us,” she said.

  He heard the low purring of a car’s motor behind them.

  “They may be tourists.”

  “I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I saw this face in the big windows of the rest house. It struck me then as familiar. In the tomb, I was certain.”

  “I thought it was Tutankhamun.”

  “No. I am not afraid of the dead.”

  He kicked the donkey’s haunches, and they pulled up beside the old man. They were still on high ground. In the distance, they could see the beginning of the green fertile land, beyond which was the river. Below them, the road wound downward.

  “Perhaps we can save time by going over the side.”

  “It is dangerous. The rocks are loose. Even the donkeys find it difficult.”

  They let the old man move ahead. Glancing back in an offhand gesture, he caught a quick glimpse of the car moving slowly. They must have been following them on the train, he realized, and picked up their trail again at Tutankhamun’s tomb. Damned fool, he castigated himself silently.

  “We have no choice now,” he whispered. “They will follow us to the river.”

  Ahead, they could see the bend in the road, a sharp turn, sure to slow them down. He gripped her tightly. She understood the signal, braced herself, and headed the donkey down the hill, slapping and kicking its haunches. They heard the sudden acceleration of the car’s motor. The donkey picked his way downward over the rocks, miraculously surefooted. Then, near the edge of the road, the animal slipped, and they tumbled downward for a few yards. Recovering
quickly, they remounted the stunned animal and resumed the flight.

  The car zoomed toward them. They crossed the road into the field, pushing the donkey to its maximum speed. Behind them, they heard the screech of brakes, the sound of running men. There were two of them in pursuit.

  Heading the donkey into a copse of palm trees, they drove him parallel to the river, over a narrow path beside an irrigation ditch. What Si feared most was that they would give away the location of the felucca, leaving them, literally, a moving target on the river.

  Suddenly, the donkey faltered and fell. It remained at the edge of the ditch, unable to rise. They tugged at the reins until it was obvious that it was too exhausted to move.

  Grabbing Abdel’s hand, he crouched and they moved across the field. In the distance, Si spotted a field of high corn, and they headed toward it, no longer bothering to see if they were being followed. Reaching the cornfield, they crouched low in the security of the stalks, hoping that they could pass between the neat rows without ruffling the high stalk peaks.

  Perspiration soaked through their clothes. The heat was oppressive, and he felt that his lungs would burst. Finally, they had to rest. They lay on their bellies, listening. They heard the river surging nearby, but no sound of pursuit. Si’s heart pumped wildly. The sun was slipping over the western cliffs, laying long shadows on the ground. Earlier, he had fixed the boat’s location by a landmark on the eastern bank, the distant obelisk of the Temple of Karnak, its tip still glistening in the reflection of the falling sun.

  Soon they were fighting time, as the darkness began to descend. At last, in the distance, they saw the mast of Hassan’s felucca. Hassan and Anwar, crouching on the shore beside the boat, were busy preparing the evening meal on the alcohol stove. Moshe lay asleep on deck.

  Their anguished faces told Hassan everything, and with Anwar’s frenetic help, he quickly doused the fire and gathered up the stove and pot and stowed it in the boat. Si and Abdel threw themselves on the deck as Hassan, reacting to their panic, pushed the boat smoothly into the river. He and Anwar quickly unfurled the sail. The wind caught it and moved the felucca to the center of the river.