The Egyptologist (35 page)

into eternity, bridging now and the soon-to-be-clarified past and the
fixed, inevitable future? Will 12 November at 10.14 A.M. be the mo•
ment? Will it delay until 4.16 P.M., that instant when one's friends
shout with joy and love?

Who will peer after me into this gold-reflecting murk? What poets,
scribes, tourists? Let the schoolboys practise Atum-hadu's pretty car•
touche on their drawing tablets, and begin the school day in compul•
sory recitation of our king's inspirational Quatrain 7 (Fragment C
only):

When we triumph over our enemies or fate, we call for a dozen girls
Who come to us in haste, and Atum-hadu's robe unfurls.

And they dance and bare themselves for us, their breasts so high
That Atum-hadu 'd hooded cobra leaps as if to fly.

While I would happily celebrate with my king tonight in his pre•
ferred manner, I cannot, as my queen-to-be awaits me in her pure
beauty far away, and my jealous mistress, Science, demands that I re•
cline on this service cot, under sheets emblazoned with cobra, vulture,
and sphinx, and guard my discovery from the bandits and jealous peers
certain to arrive when word escapes, as it surely will, or I do not know
the modern Egyptian labourer's natural threshold of discretion. But
when they come, they will find me with my service Webley (for ban•
dits) or a smiling silence (for Carter). Ah, that will be tasty. The Carter
way is not the only way; my hale and hearty nature served ten thou•
sand times as well as his
hauteur.

I have got ahead of the story. Time, as I said, will play its tricks.
So, the first glimpse by the men was thus:

(FIG. A: VIEW OF ATUM-HADU TOMB DOOR A AS FIRST
SEEN BY ANONYMOUS WORKMAN, 11 NOVEMBER, 1922,
AS WORK SONGS ARE REPLACED WITH A SUDDEN ,
HAUNTING, AND BEAUTIFUL SILENCE )

The covering earth was at some places a foot thick or more, often
rock hard. But at the end of several hours of chiselling, brushing, and
sifting, we had a door, approximately five and a half feet high and three
feet across (must send Ahmed to buy a ruler). It was found approxi•
mately two-thirds above the level of the cliffside path, and one-third
below it. After spadework, we had revealed:

Must arrange for photographic equipment after the wire.

The portal is absolutely intact, absolutely unpenetrated. No robbers
ever broke through it and no later authorities ever replaced an inch of
it. It has not been seen in 3500 years. Further and significantly, it was
not "sealed." That is to say, there were no impressions on the stone
door of any royal cartouches or symbols, no marking of any kind im-

plying the presence of a professional tomb guardian. This would be
somewhat strange in times of peace, but given what we know of Atum-
hadu's last days, the door's pristine purity is further evidence of its
identity. Whoever closed this door had been instructed not to mark its
exterior with anything to identify its occupant (thus identifying him to
me, with unmistakable clarity).

Of course, if (as I am absolutely certain) I write tonight outside the
tomb of Atum-hadu, he was laid to rest at the end of the XIIIth Dy•
nasty, at the end of all culture, religion, life, Egypt, hope, time. For
though a mere hundred years later, the XVIIIth Dynasty would rise
from the XIIIth's ashes and restore Egypt in a glossy, refurbished glory
(a bourgeois restoration, the kitsch New Kingdom, imitative, luxurious
but false, the prancing ground of pudgy-bellied androgynes and the re•
search pool of equally soft scholars), at the time of Atum-hadu's death,
with Hyksos invaders declaring themselves the kings of a country they
could never hope to understand, barbarians playing dress-up games,
defiling the temples with their efforts to worship gods who despised
them, there was no reason to stamp official seals onto the tomb of

Atum-hadu, the last of Egypt's kings, no reason to boast of his pres•
ence. While Carter's tomb, should he find it, will be stamped liberally
with the hieroglyphic equivalent of "Tut Slept Here," Atum-hadu's
door was left blank, covered in fast-drying mud, and off the king hur•
ried to the underworld with not a moment to waste.

I probed the perimeter of the door, found it securely wedged into
the rock of the cliff. The door seems to be at least a foot thick and
should come out as a solid block, a task for tomorrow, or as long as
necessary to do it correctly, as Carter would do it, to give the old, un•
lucky fellow his due.

Meantime, Ahmed and the men have been sent home to perform a
series of crucial tasks while I sleep guard under Atum-hadu's sky. I
wish I could imitate the ancient kings and cut out the men's tongues,
then count on their likely illiteracy, but tasks do need to be performed,
and I cannot do them all. Tomorrow they will return with ropes and

harnesses, metal cylinders to roll the door out, a cart with padding, and
a canvas to get it back to my villa unseen.

Under traditional protocol, I would now contact the Antiquities
Service for an Inspector of Antiquities to be sent out to participate in
and oversee a correct opening, excavation, clearance, and cataloguing
of the tomb located within the area specified by my concession. How•
ever, due to my continued gavotte with Lacau, I am at a bit of a loss,
and see no other way than to continue for the time being on my own,
until I know what help I will actually need from them. When that time
comes, I will return to Cairo and tell them in person what treasures I
have found. I will complete their paperwork, pay gentle fines, play
along as they snicker and delicately slap my wrist, watch them lick
their lips to hear where the tomb is, and listen closely to the slicing
sound of Winlock's concession being trimmed to accommodate the
hauling and laboratory needs of the Trilipush Expedition.

Tomorrow we open our tomb!

CABLE. LUXOR TO C. C. FINNERAN, BOSTON, 11 NOV. 1922, 5.58 P.M.
MASTER OF LARGESSE. VICTORY! THE GLITTER OF DISCOVERY IS
MINE AND YOURS. ASSURE CREDIT FOR THE 22ND. DELAYS OVER
PENNIES RISK MOUNTAINS OF GOLD. RMT.

I'd been buying gifts for your aunt, truth to tell. The usual sort of thing. Billable,
of course, since she was a key source of information. And she accepted all my
gifts, you know, no hesitation at all; I wasn't a fool. And the day came when I de•
cided to tip my hand, declare myself a little. That same morning, before I could
even decide on my technique, I was summoned to the royal court, for Finneran
had news from Egypt. "Look at this, Ferrell," he says to me, pushing me into a
chair. "Looks like we were both wrong about my boy, and that's good news." He
showed me a cable from Trilipush: the devil had found his tomb, or so he
claimed, and his team was opening it up, glitter and mountains of gold. "You
should've seen Maggie's face when I showed her this," Finneran said, waving the
cable about, too excited to sit down, capering about his study, offering me a drink

from beneath his desk. He'd never shared any of his concerns with Margaret—no
mention of Oxford—and he begged me—no, he commanded me, and you could
see what a tough old bastard he really was when he felt strong about some•
thing—commanded me to follow his lead, now that his decision was "vindi•
cated."

Finneran was so delighted, he was going to restart the money supply that he'd
halted when the Oxford news had come in. "Are you sure that's wise?" I asked. "If
Trilipush is a liar, and we do have some reason to think so, surely this cable
doesn't prove anything." Do you blame me, Macy? He'd asked me to look after
his daughter. And I really spoke not out of any self-interest, but just because that
was my honest advice. My mistake. I proved my very first opinion of Finneran's
appetite: honest advice was not what he hungered for. He stopped in the middle
of lighting his cigar and he turned on me. It came absolutely from out of a clear
blue sky: Finneran displayed a temper I hadn't yet seen, though I should've
guessed it was there, and I fled his study and the house, delighted never to see
him or his opium-gobbling daughter again. This client was a lost cause. I was for
Egypt at once.

Such are the resolutions of foolish men in love, Macy, even detectives who
should know better. When she appeared at my hotel that same evening, laughing
at her effortless escape from the house and her Great Dane guard dog, I eagerly
escorted her to jazz club after jazz club, into quarters of Boston where we were
the only white faces to be seen in a sea of dark ones, then into a district with no
one but Chinamen for street after street, and finally back to JP's, where she raised
every glass to her fiance's triumph. Oh, yes, she was cheerful that night, and
didn't touch the opium, never stopped singing her Trilipush's praises. Clear as
clear water I hadn't made the slightest impression on her despite it all. She drank
and I paid (or the immortal estate of Mr. Davies paid, to be fair). A necklace sat
bunched up in my pocket.

That was also the night I met the mysterious J. P. O'Toole, if I recall right. I'm
sure you've heard O'Toole's name, Macy, rather infamous after the gangland
shootings at the end of the '20s. Back then, he operated this club among other
lurks, fed opium to your aunt, and was one of the investors in the Egypt expedi•
tion. When he descended to our couch (probably to see why Margaret wasn't
coming up for her drug that evening), he gave me two fingers of his hand to
shake, affected a sort of French royalty attitude to anyone who dared speak to
him, though he took Margaret on his lap and bounced her on his knee, calling her
his wicked goddaughter, a freedom that made my blood boil. Still, I won't say he

was a bad fellow, since he does turn up again as one of our clients just a ways
down the road, Macy.

I helped her home that morning, just before dawn. We stopped in the public
gardens near her home, and I was ready to tell her everything. I was going to tell
her that Trilipush had used her for her money, that he'd never been to Oxford,
though plenty of his perverted friends had and had forged his diplomas for him.
I was only deciding where to start the whole tale: the dissipated English gent,
sodomist, murderer of his male lover and an innocent Aussie digger. I was going
to tell her for her own good, you see. And I hoped—I
knew
—that when I told her
the truth, she'd be grateful, would thank me, would finally see me in a new light,
a light I hadn't been able to turn on by myself because she was blinded by Trili¬
push's lies. She said, "Good night, Harry." I didn't speak. She turned towards the
gate of her home, not caring if she was caught coming in or not. Then she looked
back at me and said, "Can you even believe it? My hero found his treasure! Ain't
it grand?" And off she went. And now I called her name, but too quietly, and then
the gate clinked shut. I can hear it still, that sound. There's a gate here at the nurs•
ing home, between the so-called garden and where the rubbish bins stand in a
sort of shed outside, waiting for collection, and when the orderlies carry things
out there and the window is open in certain weather and when there's a certain
smell in the air, that gate latch makes its little clinking sound, and I remember
your aunt so clear I could cry. Surely she told you about it.

Sunday, 12 November, 1922

Book notes:
Yesterday was Armistice Day, a moment to recall our
brothers fallen in the Great War, and to be thankful for the blessings of
peace that the rest of us now enjoy, eternally, one hopes. Include some•
thing here about Marlowe and me saying farewell before my departure
to Turkey, Marlowe promising to hold Fragment C until my return, re•
calling in that moment our green and happy days at Oxford, him bless•
ing me before battle, my optimism for our eternal partnership when I
left, my sorrow upon my return from Turkey, et cetera.

Journal:
It is a new Ahmed today, smiles and bowing, and the men
follow his lead. Most gratifying. They arrived at dawn, cables sent and