The Egyptologist (67 page)

Gizeh pyramids," and off he set to catch up with me. He tells me all this as if
I shall be pleased to hear it.

A cloying tale, but what the devil does he want from me
now?
Why, just
what any ordinary blackmailer wants: he wants lessons in Middle Egyptian.
Trembling to exhibit his hidden depths for me, he takes pen and paper from
my table to prove he can already write hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic. He
taught himself, he claims (do be sure you are sitting down for this, Bev), from
books in an Australian lending library run by his first love, a woman who died
tragically, breathing her last in his arms. And now he simply wants to discuss
the history of the kings with me. In short, Bev, I am being blackmailed into
tutoring an antipodal, autodidact, widower, criminally inclined, would-be
Egyptologist. Surely you know the type, an old story. Do tell me when I am
boring you, love.

My pupil is a complete
naif
but has strange, unconnected depths of
knowledge, bottomless lakes of Egyptian expertise separated by vast beaches
of ignorance. He is aware of this and wants the land flooded evenly. While we
are at it, he would also like to learn Arabic, which he has already started to
murder on his own.

He has come to my tent three times since—a forty-mile trek, Bev! Such
devotion! He treats me absolutely with awe. Tales of Oxford hypnotise him,
like a cross-eyed cobra swooning for a wog's warbling flute. I whisper "Bal¬
liol" very softly and he begins to grow faint, though not so faint that I am able
to begin instruction in the pedagogical method I think would be more pleas•
urable. I tried this once or twice (one does lose count), thinking it would be
amusing and would also release the young scholar's unpleasant hold over me.
But I was trying to plant my seed in desert sand, I am sure you are relieved to
learn, Bev: "Very koind of ye, Cap'n, but I don't wanna waste yer toim, we
should troy t'discuss just serious matters." The beast. If I looked like you, of
course, we would have progressed nicely by now.

Do write me of what I am missing at home. Tell me of the seasons. Tell
me if my name ever comes up in conversation anymore. Tell me there is
still a place for me back there. And for Christ's sake, tell me what Wexler
says.

Your dusky prince of Egypt,
Go-go

29 July, 1918

Dear Bevvy,

Heartbreaking, honestly. Thank you for your efforts, and thank you for
passing the news. Not that she ever thought much of me, but tell the poor
widow I send my most heartfelt condolences, and that her husband meant the
world to me. Say it better, say it how you would. I am not joking—he truly
was important to me, really, dipsomania and senility aside. He was a pedant,
of course, and his goal in teaching was to produce, before his soul seeped
from its body, as many scholars as possible who thought and spoke precisely
as he did. I think he probably succeeded: before I left Oxford, I had noticed a
half dozen of the younger men had taken to pulling on their earlobes and say•
ing, "Maybe so, maybe so, but I do doubt it," when they wanted to shut some•
one up. Poor old Clem. I truly wanted his advice on this papyrus, damn you.
Damn him.

But, Bev, read on! I had just read your letter when my little orphan came
in for his lesson. (Oh, yes, he is an orphan, too; the story is extraordinary, and
not without some real bathos—
you
, I'm certain, would be sobbing.) He saw at
once I had received bad news, and I was moved by a gust of nostalgia to dis•
cuss Wexler with him, the way he taught, his nicknames of my invention (The
Ibid Ibis, I-Doubt-It, The Sic Bastard), certain methods and debates we had,
including the fascinating questions of the particular historical issue surround•
ing that item I may have found. Of course the boy sat stock-still, agape and
starved for junior common rooms, whatnot. After a few minutes, I regained
hold of myself, and was prepared to start on our day's topic (religious cults of
the Theban kings), but he interrupted me and asked quite simply how he
could go about being
admitted to Balliol.
He is really quite something, full of
surprises. "Well, do let's see," I replied, all seriousness, "did you finish your
schooling in Australia, or just learn at the lending library?" He was silent.
"Well, that does make it rather difficult, doesn't it, ducks?" Not to mention
that moist sheep smell they all give off.

We began our tutorial (which consist mostly of me summarising certain
events or themes, and giving him lists of books to read should he ever return
to civilisation, some of which he has surprisingly already read, most of which
he has not and which I attempt to summarise for him as well). Today, though,

after only a few minutes, conversation slipped back to the glories of Oxford.
This was entirely his doing, and while at first I indulged him and myself, it
was becoming rather irritating, and so I said that discussing Oxford was too
painful for me still, as it invariably brought back memories of (almost a reflex
now to pull up his name when lying is necessary) poor Trilipush, my greatest
friend there, an orphan just like you, ducks, but now missing these many
months in the Bosporus campaign. (Sorry to drop the news on you so sud•
denly, Bev. Had I not mentioned? Oh yes, Ralph volunteered, don't you
know, to lead a detachment of bronzed, broad-shouldered seamen to ap•
proach Constantinople by water, swimming actually, as Ralph, preferring not
to be too ostentatious, declined a ship. Not a word from him in months. Do
pray for our chum.)

The colonial, eager for any holy relic of my saintly existence in the prom•
ised land of Oxford, pleads for details.

"He was my dearest friend at Balliol, quite my inseparable mate, the
golden boy, the hope of Egyptology, the orphaned son of Kentish gentry, the
renowned sportsman, scholar, and soon-to-be gentleman farmer. He and I
joined up for the good fight together, the pride of the Balliol Egypt men,
served here with me side by side at the beginning, but he simply must insist
on combat, mustn't he, and off he strode to help your countrymen in storm•
ing the empire of fezzes, our lovely lost boy." I really did go on a bit, quite
sure my pupil was catching the joke, on and on I went, reminisced over our
triumphs and antics in our varsity days, Ralph and I, this and that about
Ralph's marvellously colourful childhood and career, really anything that
came into my head to avoid our drab little tutorial, but as I went on, I saw the
fool had absolutely no idea. And of course that made me curious to see how
far things could go, and off I went, rather exaggerated here and there about it
all, promoted into reality some things you and I would have liked, Bev, rebuilt
Oxford in our image for him. I was thinking only of you in some of my addi•
tions, particularly the serving dwarves, chosen in ferocious competition for
their servility, discretion, fluency in foreign tongues, and perfectly dimen•
sioned tininess.

He has an unquenchable thirst for details, our blackmailing orphan, and I
was tireless. What did we eat there? What was it like to know we were of "the
fortunate chosen nobility"? As God is my witness, Bev, he asked me this.
What were my parents like, and what sorts of dungs pleased them when I was

a boy, and what methods did I use to "determine when they were about to
thrash" me? That was a difficult one, I must say. You know the governor: can
you imagine wee, wordless Priapus "thrashing" anyone? And, for all his self-
taught and Hugo-enriched knowledge of Egypt, he really hasn't the faintest
idea of how the twentieth-century world operates or who resides in it. I asked
him why the War was on, why we were fighting the Germans and the Turks.
Admittedly, I cannot say myself just why either, but he
really
had no idea,
mumbled something about the international bankers and capitalists, but not
with any conviction. Does he know how Parliament is elected or the name of
the American president or what language they speak in Austria-Hungary or
the rules of cricket? He does not.

I have now decided I am enjoying my blackmail, a pleasant pastime with
this fawning dolt. I think you would rather enjoy it, too, Bev. "Until next
time, then, sah," he says with a merry wave, gathering up his notes and hypo•
thetical reading lists, a last worshipful wink at his private Oxonian tutor. "I'll
learn all of this for next time, no question." How lovely for you, ducks. That
will come in handy when you return home to breed kangaroos.

Congratulations to you, too, BQ, on completing your studies. I wonder if
you've given a thought to our postwar existence, which must become a real•
ity someday. Finally the gentlemen in charge will run out of slaughterable
young men and the Belligerent Powers will have to take a rest to breed up
some more. And in that interval, I, of course, shall be back at my studies, with
an eye to warming Clem Wexler's chair someday. I shall need a housekeeper
cum companion, and I shall insist on one with a high-level degree in Frog
Letters, if you know anyone who might be interested in the post, keeping in
mind, of course, my ferocious temper and Byzantine requirements.

Educating the masses,
Go-go

15 August, 1918
Cherished BQ,

Bit of a cock-up. Any wise counsel you care to offer would be most wel•
come.

You've heard these cockle-warming tales, I suppose, from up in Luxem•
bourg or some such, where on Christmas Eve, there are little front-line truces
and our men and the Boche stop shooting for the night and instead share
drinks and exchange gifts and dance a bit before going back the next morning
to the daily work of plunging bayonets into each other's bellies? Fine, I say,
and no crime there. Well, similarly, out in an otherwise unremarkable suburb
of Cairo, there is an establishment for gentlemen of refined tastes, which
civilised outpost I have visited from time to time when the interrogatees
brought in for questioning have for too long tended to be old women and vil•
lage elders. The management of this establishment, inspired no doubt by the
admirable humanism displayed in those Yuletide trench respites, does not dis•
criminate against clientele of any particular nationality or political belief. No
one thinks this inappropriate, considering the dreadful wartime conditions to
which we are all submitting ourselves. And, of course, now that I think of it,
what an excellent location for potential counterintelligence work, a purpose
to which I shall certainly now put the facility, and have probably put it already
in my previous visits, now that I think about it.

"I don't much feel like these little finishing school sessions anymore," I
told my cobber ward in a fit of honesty and spite at being at his beck and call
when he turned up the other night, chirping questions about Akh-en-Aten
and my childhood bedroom.

"You're not enjoying them?" he asks and looks absolutely as if I have
dashed his heart to splinters.

"I am not, darling Matilda."

"I see. Well, I hardly think that's your choice," he replies, tart as you like.
"Really?" I say. "You think your position is as strong as that?"

And at that, with a calm smile, he simply recited the address of that estab•
lishment I was describing above, the tiresome brute. Seeing my expression, he
mentioned how long it had been since he has been promoted, despite his bold
and tireless efforts on behalf of Allied counterintelligence. And, furthermore,
clearing his throat, and showing a momentary hesitation rare in this magnif•
icently confident swine, he requested—do prepare yourself, Bev, for this—
that our tutorials leave the formality of the study-tent and that I take him to
examine the monuments
in situ,
introduce him to archaeologists as my col•
league from Oxford, a recent graduate, and give them my recommendation
that they hire him after the War. Bev, I ask you. "I shall do no such thing," I