The Egyptologist (46 page)

very nicely. Daddy's under terrible pressure, you see. He never tells
me a word of it, doesn't want me to worry, but you must forgive

him if he gets angry sometimes or listens to liars like the snoop or
that professor, your boss, the German. He came to the house last
month to talk to Daddy about dynasties and fragments and you
and Oxford and whatnot. (And besides, are we supposed to
trust
Germans now ?Not me, darling, not after everything you went
through in the War.) Ralph, you know I never listen to these peo•
ple. I know just who you are, and I love you from the top of your
head down to your dusty boots and I always will. Do you know
that? You simply must believe me, you must. Without you, I would
be so lost. I keep your cable telling me Ferrell is a liar under my
pillow.

But you have probably already been told that Finneran's Finer
Finery is having certain problems. I can see it, and Daddy looks
worried often, and J. P. O'Toole tells me this and that. So your
wonderful Success is even more important to everyone here, and
they are even more proud of you, almost as proud of you as your
Queen. I hope this news is not alarming to you, or changes any•
thing about how you view Daddy, or us. But I know you are not

like that. And it is not so serious as all that.

You are so good and kind to be so worried about Inge and my
medicine and seeing me healthy for our wedding day. Please don't
worry. It will all be fine. Just knowing how much I mean to you
and how important it is that I be healthy for you is enough to

make me healthy and keep me healthy. I will simply get myself
well out of love for you, and so you won't worry another moment
for me. I can feel it happening already. I can do this for you. Any•
body could for a man like you.

You are coming home, and then I won't be so bored and that's
usually what gets me thinking about going out on the town. This
is it: I will not go out even one more time.

I think of you whenever I am awake and able. You always said
that you are guided by science and deduction, not passion. Do you

remember saying that when we walked on the river? But all the
evidence says you shouldn't love me, archaeologist. But you do. So
I swear I will be better for you and will deserve you and will make
you feel rewarded. I will make myself better right now. Done!

Write me again soon, and about our wedding, tell me about
our wedding and all the gold rings and crowns you're finding in
the sands, tell me of the Hall in Kent and when we will meet the
King of England—a live king, you know, is better than a mummi•
fied one when it comes right down to it.

I am your eternal Queen.
m.

Thursday, 30 November, 1922

Margaret:
Margaret, my love, you will want to know all about
this someday, the order of events as precisely as we can reconstruct it.
So, first thing this morning, the day after your "split" with me, I hob•
bled off to the post. And of course, today's post brings a letter from
you, dated 15 November, and it makes me laugh, the sweet thing. I
cabled you right away, my darling, thank God for cables to clear up
misunderstandings completely and at once from far across the sea.

Now all is clear. Our love is unshaken. Of course: your father is in fi•
nancial strife and cannot bear to admit it to me, the poor man! Of
course! Of course that would make him feel ashamed and worried
about the integrity of those around him, and he would test me by
sending me that false cable. And what have we learnt? I love you no
matter, no matter.

That explains all, and I feel nothing but pity for your father today.
It is for the best, my love, that my relationship with your father be de•
tached from the issue of financing the expedition, especially now, when
he is under pressure. I have been presented with a likely new backer
here, so it is all for the best. You did your father a good turn when you
introduced us, and I will do him another by releasing him from his

debts to me. We will find a solution to it all, as long as you and I are
together. I am so relieved, my love. Last night was unbearable.

I will return to the site tomorrow, but today I must reflect on all I
have discovered so far. Carnarvon will need to understand my success
before we can proceed as partners. I must concentrate my battered en•
ergies on making my work to date as clear and tidy as possible for my
potential new financier. Margaret, I can offer no greater proof of my
love than this: Lord Carnarvon will assume the responsibility of financ•
ing the expedition for the tomb of Atum-hadu, and still
you
will be my
wife. You and CCF cannot possibly still nurse doubts after hearing
that. It is 30 November, 1922, at 11.15 in the morning, and my love for
you is an indestructible stone.

Journal:
A few hours' consideration and planning, out of the sun,
taking sweet tea. After lunch, I now feel able to consider again the state
of Atum-hadu's puzzling legacy. A stage performance has begun, a
small-town imitation of the cabaret I saw in Cairo so long ago. The
girls nod as coins fall at their slippered feet, the drums throb and odd
fiddles keen, and the veils drift down like leaves shaken loose by a light

autumn breeze.

Historiography lesson: Understanding the relationship between a
(complicated) life and a later (simplified) account of that life, using the
case of Atum-hadu:
One can imagine one's own future archaeologist
making a terrible mess of it. Trying to explain you, he fills and fudges
where he must, and all of your nuance and detail—which is precisely
what makes you you—is lost or imagined, replaced by the nuance of your
chronicler instead. Your virtuous behaviour, your generosity or bravery
or acts of humble gratitude—if there is no record of it, it did not happen.
And if there is instead a record of something else—a momentary lapse, a
persistent rival's well-recorded lies, an angry lover's obsessive, unilateral
collection of correspondence, a detective's confident miscomprehension
of a smudged dossier—what will your hapless excavator say of you ?

And this is why one must be careful to leave one's own truth behind
oneself, honest but unambiguous, loose ends snipped off: the
Admoni-

tions of Atum-hadu,
for example, or this very notebook, whatever the
result of my work.

When our excavator, our clarifying biographer, comes for us—as
we all certainly hope he will—when he chronicles our life and simpli•
fies it enough for the dimmest reader to grasp and remember forever,
how can we have helped him ahead of time? How can we help him
know when to stop digging and start writing? Where is the centre of
our life, the core of our character, with all extraneous detail eroded?
Under one layer is another and another, under each silk veil more silk,
under dust more dust, behind one door another and then a sepulchre
and an outer sarcophagus and an inner and the cartonnage and the
golden head mask and the linen wraps and then .. . a black skeleton in
tight, crispy skin, intact but with no brain, liver, lungs, intestine, stom•
ach. Is
thus
the truth? Or did we, in our rush to get to this "answer,"
pass right by the humble truth, knock it down, cover it with the dust of
our hurried burrowing?

I think before further excavation, which is slow and expensive, the
tomb as it stands now deserves a more careful examination, a detailed
inventory of my hurried progress to date.

I have underestimated the amount of ink, paper, and paint I will
need to copy down the tomb's extensive illustrations, the ladder I will
need to read and copy out the highest rows of hieroglyphic inscriptions.
So, off now for last supplies, with nearly the end of my funds, and then
to bed with the regal cats.

This is my last night in a soft bed for a spell because, with this next
phase of the excavation, it only makes sense that I sleep at the site. To•
morrow I move out of the villa; it is a burden for now. Must think of a
plan to care for the cats.

The next day, the 30th, things had gone from bad to horrible in no time at all.
He wasn't well, your great-uncle, swinging from screaming rages to periods of
quiet that were anything but calm. I'd rarely seen him drink before, but now he

was on the nose. Obvious he hadn't slept. I've seen men in his predicament be•
fore, Macy, and it's interesting how alike they are. Pressure does predictable
things to men, that's what I've learnt. There are really only two or perhaps three
human responses to high pressure. I've seen them all.

The evening before, Finneran did as I'd advised and sent the cable breaking
off Margaret and Trilipush's engagement. Today, Trilipush had responded, and
with some heat. That did puzzle me, I have to say, as I didn't think Trilipush
would've cared one way or the other at this point, since he'd taken what he
wanted from the family and Margaret could therefore hold no further interest for
him, and I was ready to catch her in her fall, but Trilipush's plans were evidently
deeper than I could see, and he didn't seem to like losing his fiancee one bit. No,
in response, he'd cabled not Finneran or Margaret but
O'Toole,
and the Irishman
had ominously sent that cable round for Finneran to read and sweat over. Trili•
push's cable read:
O'TOOLE. CONGRATULATIONS ON OUR MUTUAL GOOD FORTUNE, I AS•
SUME
FINNERAN HAS SHARED WITH YOU ESTIMATES OF THE FINAL FINANCIAL PAYOFF.

HANDSOME RETURNS FOR
us
ALL.
O'Toole had scribbled at the bottom of the cable
in pencil: "Good news indeed, CC. Do come around with an accounting."

Trilipush knew just where to shoot. "He's trying to get me killed," moaned
Finneran, showing me the ominous cable. "I just broke the news to O'Toole yes•
terday that the expedition was a bust." Trilipush wasn't finished: an hour earlier,
a reporter from one of the scandal sheets had rung Finneran's doorbell. "Can you
imagine?" Finneran shouted as he told me the story. "A scribbler from the
Boston Mercury
came by because they got an
anonymous cable
saying I'm a collector of
filthy art and I want to talk about it to the Press. He's playing games with my rep•
utation in my city. I am gonna crush his neck," he roared, spilling his liquor on his
desk. "And the cardinal's office telephoned. The cardinal. Of Boston. My cardi•
nal. A prince of the Church. His office had received a
disturbing cable,
they said,
probably a vicious joke, they said!"

I listened politely; displays like this are nothing to me, Macy. I'm a profes•
sional and I'd seen it all before. But in this case, I was also involved. "Has anyone
told Margaret yet?" I asked, getting back to the important issues. Finneran's
anger melted away, and he slumped into his chair. "She's a wreck. I told her he
used her, us, been playing her for my money. She was out all night. Inge has her
upstairs now. What am I going to do?" he muttered, running his hands through
his hair, picking at his collar. I didn't pity him much, Macy. He'd been warned
often enough, but he hadn't wanted to hear it. He'd wanted social standing and
easy gold to pay off his debts to very bad men, but he got himself a confidence