Reflections in the Nile

by J. Suzanne Frank

  I interrupted, “Symbolically destroyed?”

  “Yes. You see, her name is obliterated. If she had no name, she would have no part of the afterlife; to destroy her presence here would be to destroy her also in the hereafter. Names were of great consequence; even the gods’ true names were kept secret to protect them. For instance, the name ‘Amun’ literally means ‘Unknowable One,’ which is partially the reason he had such awesome power. So to eradicate Hatshepsut's name would be to make her an unknown, wandering throughout time and eternity.”

  I fingered the chipped-away cartouche. “How malicious! I thought pharaoh, regardless of sex, was revered as the incarnation of god on earth? Who would have the authority?”

  As I spoke, my stomach churned. I felt a widening around me, a feeling of space, as if I were suspended over a precipice; suddenly I smelled incense and citrus. I blinked rapidly, reaching out to touch the brilliant white stone walls, trying to steady the fuzzy reflections.

  I turned to Cammy. “What?”

  “I said, ‘You've picked up a lot more about Egypt than you realize, sis,’” Cammy repeated.

  “What did you say before that?”

  She frowned, apparently confused. “Before?”

  “Yeah. You called me something, it began with an ‘R’; a word I haven't heard before. Ray-something? Or maybe it was Ra …?”

  Cammy eyed me askance. “Hatshepsut's ghost must be getting to you, Chloe, because I didn't call you anything. Are you feeling well? Do you need to get in out of the sun?”

  I looked across the columned porch. “No, I'm fine. I must have heard the wind or something.”

  “Probably. It can whip through this site pretty fiercely sometimes.” She caught her blowing hair in one hand, twisted it deftly into a knot, and secured it with her pencil. “To answer your question, most historians and archaeologists suppose that Thutmosis the Third defaced Hat's things out of spite, since she effectively usurped his throne for twenty-something years. It's really a gray area in Egyptology. No one knows and no records exist except what's been left standing.”

  In silence we observed the graceful ramps and columns that merged into the craggy rock behind, highlighting the delicacy of the structure and the strength of the cliff. It was a perfect artistic statement. I snapped off some photos, trying different angles and wishing I had sprung for a wide-angle lens before I'd left Dallas.

  The temple was a monument to an aberration in Egyptian history, a triumph of art over human desire, because Hatshepsut, despite the best efforts of her descendants, lived on in this architectural masterpiece. This was her immortality.

  Cammy wandered through the sunlit porticoes and practiced reading the faded hieroglyphs, while I crouched in the dust and made thumbnail sketches of the soaring columns with their carved female faces. What had I heard before? It had been a soft word, which still whispered, undefined, on the edges of my consciousness. Just the wind, I told myself with a mental shake, and turned back to my notepad.

  We were quiet the rest of the visit, each absorbed in her own thoughts.

  That afternoon Cammy had to help with some translations at the university. I walked to the Nile and looked out toward Karnak Temple, imagining it in ancient times, garnished with embroidered flags hanging from the vibrantly painted pylons.

  As the sun cast a golden-and-rose glow over the city, I caught a taxi back to the inn. Dinner was my treat tonight, since Cammy had treated last.

  We met in the darkened hallway to go out. “Do we have time to see your find?” I asked, still curious.

  Cammy glanced at her watch. “Well, there is a Christmas party tonight, so I guess I can sneak you in.”

  She wasn't overly enthusiastic, but then I had always been the one who got us in trouble. She had more than a healthy respect for the rules. Ironic that I was the one with a military rank and serial number, since I had always been the one willing to bend the rules.

  However, officer's candidacy school for this spoiled daughter of an American diplomat had been more than enough to curb me. Not only had I been different from the other officer trainees—definitely more foreign than American—I was also younger. As a twenty-year-old with a degree in art, I had a hard time making friends. I proved to be a whiz, however, at emergency management, my reservist assignment. Whatever the situation, the Kingsley pride kept me going. Kingsleys never gave up, I'd been told, so I persevered.

  Military service had actually been my brother's “duty,” but he'd been the black sheep for so long, his name not even spoken, that it was unlikely he'd follow through. My father's family had served since the War Between the States, known to the rest of the country as the Civil War, and it was time for the next generation. I'm not sure my joining the air force reserves was what Mimi had had in mind when she'd told me stories of glory about my southern heritage, however.

  At any rate, here I was leading Cammy astray … again. Maybe I wasn't as curbed as I thought.

  A few minutes later we stepped into the foyer of her university's dorm and research facility, known as Chicago House. A scraggly artificial Christmas tree stood in the dimly lit room, decorated with glass balls and cut-out cardboard hieroglyphs. Fortunately the place was deserted.

  Cammy pulled a hefty ring of keys from her daypack and stepped up to a metal door. She unlocked it, and we walked into the lab. After turning on the light and unlocking another room, Cammy went to a wall-length cabinet, passed an ID card through a scanner, unlocked the door, passed the card again, and entered a code. Finally she opened the door and pulled out a long metal drawer. I helped her set the huge thing on the table.

  “This place is tighter than Fort Knox!” I exclaimed. “Is the papyrus plated in gold?”

  Camille unlocked the drawer, her hands trembling faintly. “What we have found is far more valuable than gold. It's knowledge. Though, as yet, we have no explanation for what is in these boxes,” she said, gesturing to the drawer. “At the very least, we must protect it.” She opened the top. “The papyri we have unwrapped are lying between sheets of glass. It's a prolific find—we estimate there are more than fifty scrolls altogether.” We stood in semidarkness. “I have a feeling that these scrolls will be as significant as the Dead Sea scrolls,” she murmured as she turned on the specialized overhead light.

  They were startlingly un-Egyptian.

  I shivered suddenly and reached for my silver ankh necklace, letting its heat seep into my chilled blood. The papyrus scroll was about two feet by three and a half feet. The paper had aged to a pale honey color, the edges curled and ripped.

  It was a sketch of a mud-brick village. Instead of the two-dimensional profile paintings typical of Egyptian work, this was rendered in a realistic perspective. The people were not dressed in djellabas, as if it had been drawn today, but wore the kilts and sheaths of ancient Egypt.

  Cammy moved the plates, and I stared at painstakingly detailed botanical drawings of pomegranates, figs, grapes, lotus, palm, and several other plants I couldn't immediately identify. Under each was what I assumed to be the name in hieroglyphs. I looked into Cammy's face, stunned.

  “Cammy, are you sure these are not modern practical jokes?”

  She shrugged. “The papyrus is ancient. I don't know how to explain the content. This next one is the piece de résistance; it was pieced together and wrapped oh the outside, probably because it is more fragile than the rest.”

  I stared at the huge unrolled scroll. Unlike the others, it was about five feet long by five feet deep and the entirety was dense with detailed illustration—there was no other word. A broad avenue was filled with people, possessions, and animals. In the distance stood a huge archway, silhouetted against the delicately shaded sky. I looked closely. Unlike a lot of drawings of multitudes, many faces were visible, and each was distinct. A mother and child talked over a gaggle of geese, the woman bent under the weight of an infant on her back, the girl's tousled hair banded with a cloth around her forehead. An old man, his beard halfway down his chest,
leaned heavily on his walking stick, surrounded by sheep. To the right of the artist's perspective was a man.

  He was frozen in time, looking over his shoulder as if sharing a joke with the artist His face was lean, with high cheekbones that accentuated his long-lashed eyes and thick brows extended by Egyptian makeup. His profile was clean, the straight blade of his nose leading to full lips and a squared jawline. Black hair touched his neck and ear, framing a gorgeous jeweled earring.

  I was awed. It was a masterpiece. He was so real. Tiny marks embossed my fingertips as I clenched my necklace. Stubble darkened his chin and cheek, and there were lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked as though at any moment he would share the punch line.

  “I can almost hear his laughter,” I whispered.

  Camille agreed. “The strangest thing is that although this appears to be a depiction of some Egyptian city, and they are headed to the border of Egypt, symbolized by the gate with the cobra and vulture, not many of the people appear to be ancient Egyptians.”

  Cammy laid the others on top of it.

  “Is this all you have?”

  “Yes,” Cammy said. “There are many other scrolls, but they have not been unrolled yet. It's very painstaking and time-consuming work.” I watched her hide all traces of our unauthorized visit.

  “What do you think is the explanation?” I asked when we were back on the street.

  “I don't know what to think. There are no records of a mass exodus during the time of Thut the Third—that was in Rameses the Great's time—if it happened. We know that Thut the Third was a conqueror, spending a lot of time outside Egypt, subjugating other peoples. Even if we're wrong on the approximate dates, there are no records from his predecessor Hatshepsut's rule and just basic information from his progeny's rule.”

  We turned onto the main thoroughfare. Sounds from the cruise ships along the dock wafted up to us: male and female laughter, piano music, and the ever-present Arabic radio. We walked in companionable silence as I mulled over what I had seen. “Could you be wrong about the dynasty? Could they be from another pharaoh?”

  “The papyri date to Thut's reign. There is just no explanation for the work and the way it's done. Is there an aspect of Egypt we are unaware of? Even the most naturalistic art is still two-dimensional.” She sighed, then chuckled. “It makes the science of Egyptology seem like nothing more than educated guesses when we find something like this.”

  I spoke without thinking. “That's all it is anyway.”

  Cammy sighed in the darkness. “That's your opinion. Our guesses are becoming more educated. We're able to state things with more certainty. There are facts.”

  “Like…?” I prompted, intrigued despite myself.

  “Like Senmut. He was a grand vizier in Hatshepsut's court. Five years before the end of her reign, there are no more records of him. His picture is both inscribed in and removed from her temple at Deir El-Bahri. His body has never been found. In those last five years there is some hint that Egypt went through internal turmoil, but we don't know what or why. We also know that Hatshepsut died, but we don't know how. She was succeeded by Thut the Third in 1458 B.C.E. Those are facts.”

  I looked at my sister, the light from the river reflected in our similar features. “What happens if you discover that Senmut changed his name and continued to live for years? Or that Hatshepsut was banished and became the wife of some foreign king? What you are calling facts just seem like unsubstantiated theory to me. They can't be proved or disproved. My idea of a fact is …” I searched for an example from my world. “Red and blue make purple. No matter how many times, under how many circumstances or ways, if you mix red and blue, you will come up with some shade of purple. Every time.”

  Cammy turned to me, exasperated. “Look, Chloe, no one is ever going to know for absolute certain about anything. We can't prove a god exists. We can't prove he or she doesn't. No one will ever come from ancient Egypt and tell us we are right or wrong about the timeline of the pharaohs. Every little bit we learn, whether or not it is your definition of a fact, make us, in our knowledge, more human.”

  Impulsively I hugged her. “I miss you, Cammy.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  We continued walking, arms linked, staring at the stars stretched out across the Nile and the treasure-laden desert beyond. Cammy spoke, her voice dreamy. “One of the reasons I got into Egyptology was because of the feeling of connectedness it gives me. I get chills when I think that four thousand years ago, two sisters very likely walked along this same path, feeling the same love for each other.”

  My throat tightened and I squeezed Cammy's arm as we walked along, our images reflected in the dark Nile waters.

  That's how the days passed. We talked a little about Mimi, though with her death only six months before, it was painful, especially for Cammy. She had been in the middle of her dissertation and unable to get away. We viewed the sights and relaxed, enjoying the days together. It had been too many years since we had just hung out. Then Cammy had to go, boarding the hot, dusty train for the eastern desert the day before my birthday. We hugged briefly on the platform, and she shoved a small package into my hands. “Happy twenty-fourth, Chloe,” she said, and I waved until she was out of sight.

  I immediately checked into the Winter Palace Hotel. It was straight out of Death on the Nile, complete with potted palms, layered silk rugs, and brass samovars. A page out of time.

  At dinner I was joined by a guy who was good-looking in a rugged, studious way. He had a lean build, dark tan, and intelligent gray eyes. He was older, maybe late thirties, to judge by the streaks of gray in his longish brown hair.

  He was so charming, though. He kissed my hand when we were introduced and proceeded to tell me that he visited Egypt at least once a year—it was in his blood. So I told him about my sister and how Egypt was in her blood, too. Dr. Anton Zeeman was his name; I guessed from his accent that he was Dutch. We chatted through dinner, laughing at the tourist couple at the next table who unwittingly ordered sheep's stomach (the chef was Greek) and insisted it was what they wanted when the server tried to explain. We watched the belly dancer, and I felt Anton's stare, questioning, on me more than once. Over coffee he offered me a cigarette. I usually smoke only when under extreme stress, but when in Rome … I staggered up to my room about two A.M., hoping all my fun would send me straight to sleepy-bye land with no dreams.

  It did.

  I was haunting the souq the next day after lunch—since it was the only thing still open—enjoying the mixture of cumin, saffron, turmeric, and cinnamon that scented the air. I managed to purchase a sackful of saffron for ten dollars and two ballpoint pens. I would auction it off to my friends when I got home.

  Tambourine and drums blasted me from every radio station as I stepped into a shop. Racks of postcards filled the front, and I began looking through them. I collect postcards, use them for all personal correspondence, so I try to keep a lot of interesting ones on hand. These were of an Egypt many years ago, swamped by sand and virtually deserted. The representations were intriguing, the detail work impressive. They were a snapshot in time.

  Feeling someone behind me, I turned just as a faintly accented voice spoke. “They are David Roberts's works,” Anton said.

  “I recognize his style. I've seen his work,” I replied “I don't know anything about him, though.” I scrutinized the meticulous artistry. “Who was he?”

  “One of the many who came to Egypt in the early to mid-1800s,” Anton said. “It became quite a popular destination following the war. France began the trend in 1798 when Napoleon sent a huge cortege over to catalog Egypt's monuments. Tradition claims they are the ones who shot the nose off the Sphinx.” He grinned at me as he stepped back. “Not that you can see it now.”

  I gathered up all of David Roberts's postcards. “Really? Where can I learn more? I didn't know Napoleon took artists with him.”

  “At the Luxor Museum bookstore,” he said. “It was quite a famous expe
dition. It awakened interest in Egypt. In the next years those who would create the field of Egyptology visited here.” He ticked off a list that would have been familiar to Cammy but left me clueless. Vivant Denon? August Mariette? Gaston Maspero? Richard Lepsius? Jean-François Champollion? Giovanni Belzoni? Ippolito Rosselini?

  The rediscovery of ancient Egypt had all begun with Napoleon's expedition, he said. Interest was heightened by the paintings of David Roberts and others. Anton turned toward a low display of alabaster statuettes, changing the subject. “Have you been to an alabaster factory yet? These are quite good reproductions.”

  I looked at the shelf, covered with white, rose, blue, and gray figurines, and reached for one of a seated woman with the head of a cow, a disk between her horns.

  “I see you pick the goddess HatHor.”

  “What was she the goddess of?” I asked. “Dairy foods?”

  Anton grinned. “Well, most writings will say she was like Aphrodite. The goddess of love, childbirth, dance, et cetera. No one knows for sure. Very little is absolutely certain in Egyptology.”

  “Yep. My sister says almost everything is subject to debate, though there are a few facts.”

  Anton nodded. “That being the case, HatHor could be goddess of anything.”

  As I gripped the statue, a cold foreboding rushed through me. For a few seconds I heard a high-pitched keening and the jangling of cymbals. I glanced around in confusion: the dimly lit room seemed to be full of spinning bodies, with long black hair and white robes whipping around them as they twirled like tops. Then, in an instant, the impression was gone.

  With suddenly shaky hands I put the statue back among the others: human bodies with the heads of animals. Anton watched me. “Are you unwell?” he asked.

  “No, no, I'm fine. It was just a surrealistic mind flash,” I said with a wavering smile. Another weird experience, I thought. Still mystified and wobbly, I crossed the shop to admire the vibrant textiles that decorated the back wall. Nervously I fingered my ankh.