by Jerry Dubs
She drew the lines of the symbols with a confidence she didn’t feel.
If I am wrong, the door will not open, she told herself. But her heart insisted that the door would open and all would be well.
It was, so it will be, she thought. Then she smiled. Or, it will be because it has been.
***
The symbols painted, she stepped down from the bench.
“What happens now?” Ahmose asked. He glanced from Akila to Kebu, worried about the part he was playing. He had found the tomb. He had helped to break the seal and open the tomb entrance at night after sneaking away from Men-Nefer.
Now he worried that the heka to open the door to the Field of Reeds, for where else could they be going from within a tomb, would require blood. Perhaps a human sacrifice.
Akila set the paint on the bench and adjusted the long, full robe she wore, modeled, she hoped, after the striped robes worn in modern Egypt. Satisfied, she took the infant from Kebu.
“If I have drawn the correct hieroglyphs, they will open the false door. I will take him into a different world. Then Kebu will paint over the symbols and you will leave,” she said in answer.
“Without any gold or silver,” Kebu added, looking at Ahmose, who had admired the treasures that filled Ipy’s tomb.
Relieved that he would survive, Ahmose asked, “How long do we wait here for you to return?”
Akila smiled to herself. “We will come back before you are born,” she said, imagining Imhotep saying the words with his confident, mysterious ‘prophet’ voice.
Closing her eyes she said a prayer to the god Imhotep. Then she placed a hand on the ancient stone of the false door. Leaning into it, she felt the door grudgingly give way. Lifeless air exhaled from the other side of the door and the light of Ahmose’s torch wavered.
Peering through the partially opened door, Akila saw four dark spotlights in the next chamber, one in each corner.
It worked, she thought, smiling at the evidence of the modern world.
She paused and looked to her left. From this side of the false doorway, fallen stones and loose rubble blocked the narrow hallway that angled back to the spot she was.
“Wait a moment,” she told Ahmose and Kebu, taking the torch and stepping though the doorway.
She walked around the stone sarcophagus that stood on concrete blocks, ducked through the low door that led to a treasure room and saw the spiral, iron staircase that led to the plateau above and to the modern world.
She returned to the canted doorway and handed the torch across to Kebu. “Thank you, Kebu. Thank you, Ahmose. We will be fine now. I will push the door shut. Once it is closed, Kebu, paint over the hieroglyphs.”
“I will, Lady Akila,” he said. “Farewell.”
“Farewell,” Ahmose said as Akila leaned against the stone doorway and pushed it shut.
Holding her breath in the total darkness, Akila imagined that she heard the brush strokes on the other side of the wall, coming to her through the stone and through three thousand years.
She counted ten breaths and then, with one hand on the wall and one arm holding the infant, she followed the room to the spiral staircase.
The Blue Lotus Guesthouse
JULY 12, 1981
Emerging from Geb’s sandy back, Akila pulled the infant close and paused to catch her breath after the winding climb from the tomb. The Step Pyramid loomed off to her left, a heavy shadow that blocked the starlight.
Off to the east she saw the moon hanging over the Nile and she thought, Khonsu has died and been reborn as Phoebe; Phoebe has given way to Diana and now even the golden huntress has been banished.
The moon is now a pock-marked sphere and nothing more.
The million stars that spread across the sky above the Sahara Desert looked dimmer to her.
Nut’s belly has evaporated, blown across the vast universe by rockets and telescopes and the march of knowledge. Magic and mystery have been conquered.
The infant sneezed and she looked down at him, lowering her head to kiss his soft cheek.
She shifted him to her shoulder and headed east, hoping that she had emerged in the right year.
***
Sitting on a rounded stone beneath a palm tree outside the Blue Lotus Guesthouse, Bakr Fahmy could hear the low sobbing that came from Room Three.
The American couple had returned from the hospital in Helwan two days ago. Since then, the husband had come out to get meals and take them to his wife, but the woman had not emerged.
Bakr picked up the pack of cigarettes that he had placed by his side on the rock and shook one loose. He lit it and tried to hold it like Humphrey Bogart had in ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ Bakr’s favorite movie.
He wedged the slim smoke between the tips of his left index and middle fingers. The movement felt awkward as he took a drag. He reluctantly moved it to his right hand and held it lightly pinched between his thumb and index finger.
Frowning, he coughed. I’ll never be a detective, he thought.
He looked at the glowing end of the cigarette in disgust. Dropping it on the ground, he stepped on it with his sandal and rubbed it dark.
He smacked his lips, tasting the smoke.
It is disgusting, he thought, shaking his head. He glanced at the pack of cigarettes and wondered if he should give it to the American. Squinting his eyes, he tried to remember if he had seen the American smoke.
Lost in thought, Bakr was startled to hear footsteps on the road that wound down from the plateau. He slid from the rock and stepped onto the gravel walkway that led from the parking lot to the adobe entrance of the guest house.
An old woman holding an infant was standing at the end of the walkway studying the small sign that identified the guesthouse.
Bakr thought he saw a smile before she lowered her face into the shadows.
“Hello,” he said, walking toward her. “I am Bakr Fahmy, welcome to the Blue Lotus Guesthouse.”
Akila looked at the gawky teenaged boy and saw the man he would become, the man who would become her friend, who would call her to the Blue Lotus Guesthouse late one night to give aid to a nearly dead man who had mysteriously appeared from the buried pyramid.
“Hello, Bakr Fahmy,” she said. “My name is ... Menwi,” she said, not sure why she had used the dead queen’s name, but feeling certain that she would somehow change the future if Bakr remembered her name when he met her younger self.
“Menwi,” he said with a smile. “That is an unusual name. Very pretty. Well, welcome, Menwi.” He extended an arm toward the front of the guesthouse. “May I offer you tea?”
“Thank you, Mr. Fahmy,” she said.
“No, no, please, I am Bakr.” He bowed his head. “My father, bless his name, may he rest in peace, he was Mr. Fahmy.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” Akila said, trying to recall what she knew of Bakr’s parents. He had always managed the Blue Lotus Guesthouse by himself.
“Thank you. It has been many years and he had a rich life,” Bakr said, noticing the silver ring that pierced her lip. He wondered where she had come from. How had she arrived without a car? Who was the baby? Although her face radiated confidence and she had undoubtedly been a beautiful young woman, she looked too old to be the child’s mother.
A mystery.
***
“The child’s mother died giving birth,” Akila told Bakr as they sipped tea and the baby slept, nestled among pillows on the dining room floor.
“He has no family, so I am taking him to Helwan.”
“Ah,” he said, although he didn’t understand.
“There is an orphanage there,” Akila explained.
“Yes, of course. But he has no aunts or uncles?” he asked, raising his heavy eyebrows. “No grandparents? No grandmother?” he added, looking at her closely.
“No, I am not his grandmother,” Akila said.
“No, I didn’t mean ... ” he said, then stopped as the baby began to cry.
Akila quickly p
icked him up and, cradling him in her arms, she rocked him. “Do you have any milk?” she asked. When Bakr nodded, she said, “Could you please warm some for me?”
As he left the room, Akila heard a door open down the hallway. Light footsteps approached and a young woman, barefoot and dressed in a bathrobe turned the corner and stopped as she saw Akila and the baby.
Akila saw that the woman’s eyes were red and her face was drawn in sorrow. Brown hair fell in tangled waves to her shoulders, which were hunched as she raised her hands to her mouth.
The baby continued to cry, his small fingers trying to find his mouth.
As the woman stood there watching the infant, she wiped tears from her face and took a hesitant step forward.
“Hello,” Akila said.
Louder footsteps hurried down the hallway and a hand appeared on the woman’s shoulders. A man’s worried face slid from behind the wall. The man had curly black hair, his skin a tone darker than the woman’s.
“Julia,” he said softly, his grip firm on her shoulder.
When the woman didn’t respond, the man turned to Akila. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “She’s just ... ”
He stopped as Julia pulled away from his grip to approach Akila. Kneeling by them, she slowly raised a hand toward the baby’s face.
Her eyes darted up to Akila, who nodded.
“He’s beautiful,” Julia said, her fingers sliding softly across his cheek. “How old?”
“Just two weeks,” Akila said.
“Is he yours?”
“No,” Akila said. “I was just telling Bakr, his mother passed and I am taking him to Helwan to the orphanage.”
The man joined them, kneeling beside his wife. “Julia,” he whispered, reading her thoughts. “We can’t just ... ”
“I know,” she said, her fingers still stroking the infant’s face. Without looking at her husband, she added, “but we can, you know.”
“No, we can’t,” he said, his voice soft but insisting.
“I have the milk,” Bakr said, rejoining them.
Julia felt her husband’s hand tighten on her shoulder. “James,” she said and he released her shoulder and stood. She looked at Akila. “Can I feed him?”
“Yes, but ... ”
Julia lifted the infant from Akila’s lap. “I lost my baby two days ago,” she said, sitting on a chair by the cup of milk Bakr had set on the table. “May I?” she said, looking down at her breasts.
Bakr shifted uncomfortably as he realized what the woman meant. Quickly he turned and walked back to the kitchen.
“Darling,” the husband said.
“They are swollen and they hurt,” Julia said, her attention on the infant as she slid the shoulder of her bathrobe down and then slipped a finger beneath the strap of her bra.
The infant found Julia’s nipple and began to suckle. “He’s so hungry,” Julia said as tears began to fall from her eyes.
“We have been traveling,” Akila said, moving to a chair beside the woman. “I’m sorry for your loss, Julia.”
Julia nodded, her mouth fighting to keep loud sobs from disturbing the child.
“He’s beautiful,” she repeated, her right hand resting on his small head, her thumb caressing his forehead.
“Bakr,” the husband said, leaving the dining room to find a telephone.
From the kitchen, Akila heard Bakr answer, “Yes, Mr. Hope,” and she felt Khonsu reanimate the moon and Nut reclaim her place in the sky and the heka of the ancient gods swirled about her.
“You are Julia Hope?” she asked, saying the name of Tim’s mother.
The nursing woman nodded. “Yes, I am Julia Hope and he is my husband, James.” She looked about for a moment and then found a towel that Bakr had set beside the milk cup. She dabbed at the infant’s face and then awkwardly switched arms to feed him from her other breast.
“What is his name?” she asked.
“Tim,” Akila said.
***
Akila didn’t know if the light that seeped through her window at the Blue Lotus Guesthouse was sent by Khonsu or if it was nothing more than sunlight reflected from the barren moon. The pale light fell across the child sleeping in a wooden crib Bakr had set up for her at the foot of her bed. Leaning over the crib, she caressed the infant’s soft cheek. “Good night, Tim,” she said, for she was certain now that the infant she had cut from Queen Menwi’s womb was Tim Hope and that one day he would become Imhotep.
She moved to a small desk in the room she had occupied for five days at the Blue Lotus Guesthouse. Having postponed their departure twice amid low, but long, arguments, James and Julia Hope were waiting now for paperwork to be processed so that they could take Tim with them.
Bakr had offered to arrange for ‘very realistic’ papers to be prepared by a friend he had at Helwan University Hospital, but James had insisted that the U.S. embassy help. Julia was content to wait here in the desert by the Step Pyramid, feeding the child she already regarded as her own, having transferred to Tim the love that had been held in painful suspension when her own child died.
Akila stared at a sheet of paper that waited patiently on her desk. She had written the date on the top right corner: July 17, 1981. On an envelope beside it she had written another date: November 6, 2027. A second envelope bore two names: Ahmes and Brianna.
She lifted her pen and began to write.
Epilogue
NOVEMBER 6, 2027
Bakr Fahmy looked at the red-circled date on the calendar that hung in the dining room of the Blue Lotus Guesthouse.
Each January for forty-six years, when he hung a new calendar on the wall, he had circled the date and written beneath it the year 2027. Eyes wide with excitement, a broad smile fighting the heavy, gray moustache that filled his lip beneath his strong, curved nose, Bakr straightened up from the calendar.
Dawn’s red glow had faded to the ever-present blue that filled the arc of the Egyptian sky. His tea kettle had whistled, the tea had steeped and he had placed two rectangles of baklava on a saucer.
He went to the old wooden desk in his office, opened the rust-pitted metal box where he stored his valuable papers and lifted the faded envelope from it. He held it to his nose, sniffed at the smell of old paper, and, smiling in anticipation, he carried the envelope to his table.
He knew what was in the envelope, still he had waited to open it. The old lady who had given it to him so many years ago had put her secrets in here. He knew it ... the secrets of the baby that she had brought from nowhere in the middle of the night.
Perhaps he was a bastard of Anwar Sadat. Or he had been smuggled in from Iran, a bastard of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Or one of the princes from Saudi Arabia; they were always in Cairo gambling and drinking.
He was certain that she had asked him to hold the secret for so long so the child could reach adulthood without being discovered.
Bakr smiled as he sipped his tea.
It was like the letter Humphrey Bogart had discovered about the Maltese Falcon.
I wonder if I should light a cigarette.
He laughed at the memory of his attempt to learn to smoke so many years ago. Then he set down his tea cup and picked up the envelope. He was almost reluctant to open it. The mysterious letter had been part of his life for so long.
Picking up a butter knife, he slid it under the sealed flap. It came loose quickly, the glue having dried to a brown stain. He rubbed his fingers in excitement and then reached into the envelope.
He withdrew a sealed envelope. Instead of a date, it contained two names: Ahmes and Brianna.
He dropped the envelope on the table.
It is impossible.
Ahmes and Brianna had not been born when this envelope had been handed to him.
He thought immediately of the mysterious arrival of Tim Hope who had turned out to be a time traveler from ancient Egypt.
Giddy with excitement, he stood up and walked to the telephone in his office.
When the connecti
on was made, he said, “Ahmes, I have a letter for you.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know, Ahmes, but it was mailed to you forty six-years ago. Brianna’s name is on it, too. Oh, and bring Akila, it might have something to do with Imhotep.”
“I can’t,” Ahmes said.
“Why not?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there,’ Ahmes said.
***
Ahmes was carrying a folder when he and Brianna entered the Blue Lotus Guesthouse calling Bakr’s name.
“Back here,” Bakr called.
They followed his voice to the dining room where they found that he had set out a teapot, cups, and a tray of baklava.
“Sit, sit,” he said, excitement rushing his words. As they took chairs, Bakr poured tea and lifted servings of baklava onto saucers. Then he sat, his eyebrows waving across his forehead as he looked from his guests to the letter that lay on the table.
He clapped his hands together and leaned forward to tell them the mysterious history of the envelope. But before Bakr could speak, Ahmes said, “I think Akila has gone into the past.” Opening the manila folder, Ahmes showed Bakr a sheet of papyrus. “No one has seen her for a week and when we went to her apartment, we found this.”
Touching the papyrus gently, Bakr rotated it so he could read it. It was a short note.
Akila.
Door from Betrest to Nemathap when Khonsu full.
I wait.
Imhotep
“What does this mean, where are Betrest and Nemathap?” Bakr asked.
“Betrest and Nemathap were wives of King Djoser,” Ahmes said. “They are buried beneath the Step Pyramid. The tunnels that lead to their resting places were dug hurriedly, I remember my father telling me about it. The tunnels to Betrest and Nemathap ran into each other, so Imhotep came up with the idea to put a wall there. They decorated it with a false door.
“My father joked that it was meant to save King Djoser time when he visited more than one wife in a night.”
