Candice Cushing and the Lost Tomb of Cleopatra

by Georgette Kaplan

  On the other hand, it would be very funny.

  Sighing, Nevada gently sidled away, practically limbo-ing down the mattress until she slipped off the edge and left Candice wrapped around the pillow. Candice actually moaned slightly, tightening her grip on the pillow as if trying to find out what had happened to the warmer cushioning she’d been enjoying. Nevada spared one last look, then left Candice to hog the covers by her lonesome. At least this meant she’d have first shot at the shower.

  She was rinsing her face at the sink when Candice came to, sputtering from giving mouth-to-mouth to her pillow. She rubbed her eyes as Nevada poked her head out of the bathroom.

  “Morning, sunshine. Breakfast?”

  Candice snorted. “Uh… if there’s anyone I could believe could conjure up a bagel with cream cheese…”

  “Sorry, I actually meant me. But we do have Pop-Tarts, if you like them cold.”

  Candice got out of bed, wrapping the comforter around herself and most especially around her bare legs. She trudged to the pantry Nevada had indicated. “No frosting. They make Pop-Tarts that way?”

  Nevada shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a thing here. Like… sushi-flavored chips.”

  “Stop. I already want to vomit.”

  Nevada came out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. “Toss me one. Any carbs in a storm.”

  Candice did. Nevada took off the foil wrapping and nibbled on one. “Nn. It’s like a strawberry sandwich with graham cracker bread.”

  Candice opened her own pack. “I had the strangest dream. I was back in Sudan. I was digging again. The ground was hard, but it—turned to sand after I hit it. I’d run my hands through the sand after I dug it up, like I was panning for gold. I didn’t touch anything, but I felt this… history. Like I was connected to everyone who had ever walked on that sand. It was warm. The sand. It felt like it had a beating heart.” She took a big bite from the Pop-Tart and seemed on the verge of gagging. “Yeah. Come up with any good jokes about us sleeping together?”

  “Nah. Too easy.”

  “I know, right?”

  “I could probably joke about it more if you played hard to get.” Nevada ducked a flying Pop-Tart. “Don’t waste almost-food.”

  “We’ll be on your Magic Carpet in a few hours. I assume there’ll be an in-flight meal.”

  “ The Flying Carpet. And yeah, it has a microwave. TV dinners. We’ll get you set up.”

  “Good. I think my appetite for organic food will be nil for the foreseeable. Hot water, on the other hand…” Candice started for the bathroom.

  “Left you some,” Nevada promised. “I’ll be checking in with the home office. You might wanna scrub behind your ears and all. First impressions.”

  Candice turned to face her. “Start without me. I’m beginning to think this is one of those instances where the less I know the better.”

  “That might be for the best,” Nevada said. “Enjoy your shower.”

  “I’m never going to not enjoy a shower again.”

  “Let me know if you drop the soap.”

  Candice firmly shut the door.

  They just wouldn’t listen.

  Pike had taken the bus to a nearby village for supplies, and to check to see if any refugees had found their way there who needed to be relocated to Camp Esau. As his men brought in bundles of firewood, the doctor checked over the ailments of the villagers. Most of it was minor, treatable with antibiotics or Aspirin, but one boy was too sick to even be moved. With Pike and a few of his men as bodyguards, the doctor went to look him over. Parasites. So many that you could see them under the skin, like boils that wouldn’t stand still.

  He would need intensive treatment, immediate hospitalization back at the compound. The father, Jacob Lol Gatkuoth, wouldn’t hear of it. He kept babbling and shaking his head and waving his arms, and all Pike could think was how you tried to be a Good Samaritan, but so many people didn’t want to be helped.

  God didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

  “Get the crate,” he told John Ladu. Another of his men went with Ladu; it was a two-man job.

  Pike walked in front of the father. He ducked his head and lowered his voice, his words audible only within their shared space. He could’ve been taking confession. “Have you read the Bible, Jacob?”

  Jacob was cowed by Pike’s nearness, the muscular frame that towered over him and loomed on either side of his slender body. He only shook his head.

  “That’s okay,” Pike said. “That’s honest. Not many people have. Truth be told, there is a shitload of Bible and people only have so much time. That’s why there’s people like me. Reverends. We chop it down, we space it out, we let you… digest it. Like a meal—we cook it for you. You know what one of my favorite meals is? My signature dish? Matthew, Chapter 18. ‘And Jesus said Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.’”

  Ladu and the other man came back. They carried a footlocker between them. It rattled as they walked.

  “Do you know what a millstone is, Jacob?” Pike asked.

  The footlocker fell to the floor with a thump that rattled the walls.

  “It’s part of a mill,” Pike said. “Like a windmill. After a farmer harvests his grain, he takes it to a windmill. He places the grain on the bedstone, which is one of the two kinds of millstones. The other kind is the runner stone. That’s above the bedstone.”

  Ladu opened the footlocker. The sound of the lid cantilevering down to the floor was far less violent than the first impact, but no less loud.

  “It gets complicated from there—gears and stuff—but the gist of it is, the water or the wind turns a wheel, the wheel turns the runner stone, and the runner grinds against the bedstone to crush anything between the two. It breaks the grain down into flour. So if you want a lot of flour, and you want it crushed down really fine, you need two big, heavy rocks. You can get technical about it, but that’s really what we’re talking about. A big, heavy rock around someone’s neck.”

  Ladu and another of the men grabbed Jacob’s arms, holding him in place and forcing his head down.

  Pike walked to the footlocker. His steps were deafening. “A large millstone would be about a ton and a half. Now this…” Pike reached into the footlocker and brought up a length of chain. “Chain… is about fifty pounds. Sixty-six of these around your neck would be like a millstone. And even that would be better than if you caused a little child to stumble.”

  He was putting the third chain around Jacob’s neck when Alexander Tongan came to get him. “Reverend Dave, it’s the women. Nevada is calling someone.”

  Pike gave a nod. “Route it through here.” He eyed Ladu. “Keep our friend Jacob down there. Let him feel the weight of his decision for a while.”

  Outside, the sun beat down on him. He’d trained himself not to feel it, but his pale skin responded instinctively. Sweat swamped his drying clothes. They said Africa was the birthplace of humanity—the Garden of Eden. Maybe that was why it felt like it was so close to hell.

  One of his men brought him a tablet. It showed a split screen of two video feeds, Nevada on one side and the other a shaking view of a luxurious bathroom. A bearskin bathmat lay across industrially monochrome black and white tiles, while pop art wallpaper overlooked a Victoria and Albert bathtub.

  “I’ve always thought of porcelain as the poor man’s marble.” The man’s voice came from behind the camera, accent sliding between Indian birth and British education. “That’s why in my remodel, the toilet is Saint Laurent marble. Whaaaat? And the wastebasket you put your toilet paper rolls in? It’s by John fucking Brauer.”


  “That’s nice,” Nevada said. “New medication working out for you? But really, I have a plane to catch—”

  “Hold on, hold on, look at this!” The camera swiveled, aiming at a mirror. Pike recognized the reflection of the man holding the phone. Dubai billionaire Akbar Akkad Singh. “Why have a mirror over the sink when the entire wall can be a mirror? You can check out your knees, your belly, your shoes, all the stuff you just had to wonder about before—now you know! Oh, I’m sorry…” The camera jostled as Singh evidently sat on the toilet, then aimed it back at himself. “What was your thing?”

  “The Twitter version? Went to Sudan, it blew up. I killed a bunch of people but they were all bad. Crashed a train, stole a tank, now I’m in South Sudan. Jacques is giving me a ride to the Ennedi Plateau.”

  Singh’s face grew slightly more serious. “Oh, is that where my skull is?”

  “That and maybe Cleopatra’s tomb, not that you care.”

  “Who’s Cleopatra?” Singh replied.

  “I need you to pull some strings, make sure no one asks questions about the flight plan. People around here have this thing called no-fly zones.”

  Singh sighed heavily. “Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be an elected official in Africa who’s open to bribery.” He laughed. “It’s funny because the vast majority of them are corrupt. Oh, I’m in a good mood, so I’ll do it. Look at this antique stool I picked up.” The camera swung around to showcase it. “It used to belong to Denise Richards, and before that, James Garfield. Things got crazy bidding for that. Some ninja set eBay to increase his bid five bucks every time I bid on it. I spent like twenty seconds just before it sold going higher and higher, like ‘Is this gonna be enough, is this gonna be enough?’ Anyway, it came with a free checkerboard, if you need one of those.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Alright then, go get that bread. From me. For doing my bidding.”

  “Sure thing,” Nevada said, and the transmission ended.

  Pike took a comb from his back pocket and ran it through his facial hair, thinking. He was still thinking when John Ladu tapped him on the shoulder. “Reverend, Mr. Jacob has reconsidered. He’d like us to treat his son.”

  “I thought he might.” Pike handed the tablet to Ladu. “God works in mysterious ways.”

  The airstrip was a simple slash of bare earth, like a well-trod footpath for giants, set next to the dimple of a dried watering hole. Candice supposed it was for navigational reasons. Now the pool only had muddy waters, with a ragged bunch of flamingos sputtering around in it. She and Nevada watched them circle and jab at each other. They squawked dismally and picked at the ankle-deep water.

  “You know,” Nevada said, “Africa is nothing like The Lion King .”

  Candice scanned the horizon. Still no sign of the plane, and it’d been an hour since Pike’s men had driven them out here. “Don’t start.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “This is the cradle of humanity. The birthplace of mankind. You don’t have any observations other than comparing it to a children’s cartoon?”

  Nevada coughed. “I was wondering why so many people were missing teeth, but I didn’t want to be rude.”

  “It’s a tradition. People remove their lower six and two upper front teeth.”

  “So why haven’t you had them out?”

  “I just like eating popcorn too much.” Candice cracked a kink out of her neck. “It used to be so that they could still eat if they caught lockjaw. Now no one gets lockjaw—but people think it’s cute. If a girl still has her teeth, they’ll think she’s a bad egg. No one will marry her.”

  “I had my wisdom teeth taken out,” Nevada said. “Think that’d do anything for them?”

  An insectile humming filled the air and Candice held her hand over her eyes to block out the sun as she scanned the horizon. A Grumman G-111 Albatross flew overhead. With the unlikely grace of a fat clown, it turned in an artful pirouette, cutting speed as its noise crested into a reassuringly diesel sound, like some old tugboat come to rescue a stranded ship. With more ballet, it dropped its landing gear and made its approach, growing into a big-bellied troll of a plane. It came down on the runway, jumped, skipped, and then its wheels caught hold of the surface and seemed to hold it down, the plane’s momentum whining slower and slower.

  “Shame,” Nevada said, “You know Laurence Fishburne’s gaptooth? I was about to do a whole bit on that making him a sex symbol.”

  Candice patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find you an open-mic night.”

  With Nevada leading the way, they walked up to the Albatross as it taxied to a stop, now revealing nose art like a sailor’s tattoo. The Flying Carpet. Left of the fuselage, a hatch opened and the pilot, Jacques, dropped down a ladder. He had evidently shaved and bathed since Candice had last seen him in Khartoum, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell by the scruffy facial hair or the rumpled suit he sported. The Frenchman gave healthy skepticism to the notion of his home country’s sophistication, although perhaps not intentionally.

  “Madame, mademoiselle, how you wound me!” He clapped his hands together, then clasped them to his heart still joined. “While I have slaved away on your behalf, thinking only of how I may more humbly serve you, you two have done nothing but become more lovely! Look at you! Visions of ravishment! While poor Jacques, he works fingers into bone. But oh, I forgive you. How can a mortal man stay angry when he sees proof there is still la poésie in this world of computers and… James Corden?”

  Candice found herself smiling. “I am actually glad to see you, Jacques.”

  “Yeah, he grows on you,” Nevada said. “Well, our Uber’s here. Shall we?”

  “ Ma chère , please!” Jacques gasped. “Do not speak the German in the presence of my other lady love!” He blew a kiss to his plane’s nose art—a tastefully offensive portrait of a belly dancer on a Persian rug—while holding out his other hand to help Candice onboard. She took it and was fairly yanked inside. For all his mannerisms, the Gaul had a firm grip.

  On the inside, The Flying Carpet had the cramped but cozy spacing of an RV. Enough to put every airline Candice had ever flown to shame, but the luxury didn’t edge into snobbery. She could’ve enjoyed a very nice flight stretched out in one of the bunks, except that every available surface was covered in potted plants. They sported leaves, branches, and flowers that made the Albatross’s interior look like a greenhouse, with only a barely visible path leading back to the aircraft’s bathroom.

  Nevada came onboard, gratefully sucking in the plane’s air-conditioned cool. “Hey, Jacques, not to cost you the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or anything, but when’s the last time you vacuumed?”

  “ Mon amie ,” Jacques said ruefully, “this is a warzone we fly through, no? What could these people need more than a lovely flower, a fragrant rose, a bouquet of posies? And what could be more French than to provide that?”

  “I don’t know… Cheese?”

  Candice reached into one of the pots, plucking a heat-sealed plastic baggie out of the soil. It was full of white powder. “What’s this?”

  “Sugar!” Jacques declared as Nevada took the baggie from her. “Everyone knows that sugar keeps a plant healthy and growing, like a woman’s love, like a father’s approval!”

  Nevada ripped a hole in the baggie, raised it to her nose, and snorted some of its contents. A tremor went through her. “Good sugar,” she wheezed.

  Candice snatched the baggie away. “Is this drug smuggling? Are we drug smugglers now?”

  “He’s a drug smuggler,” Nevada said. “I’m pretty sure you’re only an accomplice. Maybe a moll.”

  In grabbing it from Nevada, Candice had gotten some of the powder on her hand. She frantically brushed it off. “I cannot believe you people!”

  “ Ma choupette , helping Easy on her quest is my solemn duty, my great privilege, my purpose in life—” Jacques hung his head. “But, alas, it does not pay th
e bills.”

  “Let’s have this discussion in the air,” Nevada said, pulling up the ladder from the hatch. “I’m going to feel really silly if someone shoots us with an RPG while we’re discussing the manifest.”

  Jacques fell into lockstep with her, shutting up the hatch with a resounding clang. “ Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir. ”

  With Candice trailing behind, they left the cargo compartment and went to the cockpit, which was thankfully less verdant. Jacques took up the pilot’s seat and Nevada the co-pilot’s. There were two additional seats behind those of the flight crew, and Candice sat herself behind Nevada.

  “Guys, c’mon, this is the stuff they teach you in second grade. I’m sure there are a lot of people smuggling drugs around here, but if a lot of people were jumping off a bridge, would you jump off too?”

  “British women,” Jacques mused with fond resentment while putting his headset on. “They say they have the stiff upper lip, but oh, how those stiff lips move when they have something to say!”

  He shoved the fuel mixture knob in, pushed the throttle inward, and otherwise brought The Flying Carpet from its idling rest to a full-throated roar of activity.

  “Just for the record, I’m a Sudanese immigrant, so at least use the right national stereotype when you want to condescend to me,” Candice said bitterly.

  Nevada turned to look at Candice as she put on her own headphones. “It’s going to be kinda hard to hear with the props going,” she yelled over the sound of twin engines revving up. “You’re gonna want to use the microphone on the headset. Cuts down on the—you get it.” She faced forward again.

  “Where’s my headset?” Candice looked around. “I don’t see another headset.”