Channeling Cleopatra (7 page)

A three-story lighthouse that had been one
of the wonders of the world had once occupied the Isle of Pharos
(oddly enough, the lighthouse had been called the Pharos
Lighthouse). Its light supposedly had been visible thirty miles out
to sea.

The earthquakes that claimed the royal
palaces of the Ptolemys, formerly situated on the opposite side of
the harbor from Pharos, had also destroyed the lighthouse. The
island's most arresting feature these days was a stockade-type
building, a little crenellated and castlefied, called Fort Quait
Bay. The western harbor was mostly used by the Egyptian Navy and
its teeny submarine fleet. This Leda knew from the boning up she
had been doing since Chimera offered her the job.

"I have never seen such a structure at that place," Gabriella
said, referring to the beluga, "and I go past the Heptastadion and
onto the island rather frequently to check the progress of the
dig."

"That's because it's not there," Duke said.
"And the reason it's not there, before you ask, is because it's
right there instead." He jerked a thumb at the box mountain still
rising majestically over the runway.

Leda groaned.

"It's okay, Leda," Gabriella said. "I can't
believe no one was told to erect your building before you arrived.
I can have Mo and his bros help if you like," she said, indicating
the muscular young things who were actually her cousins, Mohammed,
and his younger brothers Ali and Sami. Casting a doubtful eye on
the mountain of crates, she continued, "If it is a portable
building, it cannot be too difficult to set up, surely?"

"I don't think it will be any sweat," Duke
said. "I'm pretty friendly with the guy who runs the cofferdam
maintenance. He's a hydrology engineer. We can figure out how to
put the damned thing together between us. And most of it will load
onto the donkey carts now."

"Well, yeah, but I hate to check all this
valuable stuff I have with me into a hotel," Leda said. "For one
thing, I'd practically have to get a separate room just for it. And
something tells me it might get lost or damaged if I left it with
Namid. I really don't like that guy."

"I'll put one of my men on it," Duke said.
"I'm gonna have to call, anyway. We could use a real truck or maybe
another couple of donkey carts, too, to load that beluga up. Once
we get it to your site, I'll have my boys guard it till we can put
it together. I've got a great crew. It'll be safe with them."

"Thanks, Daddy."

"Until your laboratory is in place and you
start work, you must come and stay at my home," Gabriella said
enthusiastically. "We will have such fun. I can show you the city
and the other sites, and you can meet my family. And your equipment
will be perfectly safe there, too. Come, we will get you settled.
Duke, you must come to dinner this evening. Perhaps your friend,
the hydrologist, would like to come, too?"

"Sure, it'd be better than having couscous
takeout again," Duke said. "That's what we usually do at the
security barracks."

"Oh, no, our chef cooks Mediterranean dishes
I am sure you will like: a blend of Greek, Italian, French, and
Middle Eastern cooking. Quite tasty."

He nodded.

"I will take Leda home and settle her in. We
can plan how to erect the beluga over dinner, okay?"

"Great. I'll call Pete and see if he can
organize the rest of the transport and some men to load this stuff
and get it to the site," Duke said and winked at Gabriella. "If I
tell him we've been invited to dinner with beautiful women, I bet
he'll come up with something."

"Thanks, Daddy," Leda said. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Kid. See you later."

CHAPTER 5

"I have to go to the market now," Gabriella
said, when she and her cousins had helped Leda unload her
equipment. They lugged the boxes and crates through the modest
entrance, a sort of desert version of a mud room, into a nice
courtyard so heavily vegetated with flowers and fronds, palms and
cedars that it resembled a nursery. Hard to believe the city was
surrounded by desert. This garden would put many in Portland to
shame. The only jarring feature was the huge satellite dish, an
alien presence on the terra-cotta-tiled roof. They passed through
the courtyard into the main part of the house, which was
comfortable and furnished largely in the Euro-colonial style.
Gabriella showed Leda to a room. Leda noticed right off that
something was missing. Other than the door, the walls had no
openings to the outside.

"This is the best place to keep your
equipment, I think," Gabriella told her. "It is on the opposite
side of the hall from the courtyard and, as you see, has no
windows. Here, I will lock it, and you take the key. Go ahead, but
don't lose the key, please. It's the only one I have, and I'm
afraid the locksmiths can be rather risky here. They tend to take
advantage of knowing how to open your locks and sometimes make
extra keys so they can come calling when you are not at home."

"I need to get the things to make dinner,"
Gabriella continued. "Do you want to stay here and rest, or would
you like to come? I can give you a little tour as we go. This is
your first time in Alex?"

"Yep. I'll try to be cool and not a dumb
tourist demanding to know where you're hiding the pyramids. Which
means, yes, I want to come. Except, doesn't your chef do the food
shopping?"

"Oh, yes," Gabriella grinned. "That's what
I'm doing now. I'm the only chef here who cooks Mediterranean. My
Aunt Saida was going to make couscous as usual."

"Will I be meeting her tonight, too?"

"Probably not until the men have left,"
Gabriella said. Leda realized that if Gabriella's aunt was a
traditional Muslim woman, she wouldn't consider it proper to be
seen by strange men, much less share a meal with them. Gabriella
herself was so Westernized Leda had somehow expected the rest of
the household to be the same, which was not necessarily so,
obviously. This was apparently the thoroughly Egyptian side of
Gabriella's family. Leda did wonder if it was all aunts, uncles,
and cousins. Gabriella was certainly young enough that her parents
could still be alive.

"Who all lives at your house besides you and
your Aunt Saida and Mo and his bros?" Leda asked.

"Oh, it is quite a large family, but many of
the children have grown and live in other places close by. They
come and go a lot. There is Aunt Saida, Aunt Naima, and Aunt Layla,
Mo and the bros, and their friends, who are always in and out. Then
there are my married female cousins Yas-min, Subira—Suzy, she
prefers to be called—and Selma. My aunts are widowed. Uncle Omar
died two years ago."

Leda didn't ask. But after a while Gabriella
added, "My aunties are sisters, and Uncle Omar married all of them.
They joke that he didn't really need so many wives, but their
father offered substantial dowries for each, and Uncle Omar was an
ambitious man." During this conversation, the taxi had arrived, and
they were heading east on a broad thoroughfare that spanned the
beach and the pit that had once been the harbor. Beyond an enormous
dam, the Mediterranean gleamed blue and calm.

"That's amazing," Leda said, turning
sideways in her seat to stare at the vast excavation site. "It must
be costing billions holding the sea back like that."

"Oh yes," Gabriella said. "We actually hope
to raise and replicate as much of what the coastline was once like
as possible. Of course, the biggest problem wasn't holding the sea
back, actually. Cofferdam technology is quite ancient and was used
at Aswan while the dam was being constructed and elsewhere. This
dam is on a bit bigger scale, and of course, the displacing of the
businesses of the harbor is a nuisance, but the commercial
inducement was large enough to persuade the government to move the
military's naval operations for the duration of the excavation
while some of the shipping was transferred to the western
harbor."

"Those sound like pretty big problems to
me," Leda said, still staring at the hole the sea—and part of
ancient Alexandria—had once occupied.

"Yes, but the real pain was rerouting the
sewage systems for the city. There were forty that drained into the
eastern harbor. They had to be linked with others farther east
along the coast. Those who can afford decent plumbing have been
most annoyed and inconvenienced. Those who cannot have been
delighted by the jobs offering high pay for such lowly work."

"So the city is revolving around this site
now."

Gabriella shrugged. "It has revolved around
the harbors since its creation, and the site occupies the harbor,
so naturally . . ."

Leda glanced across the highway at the
stacks of tacky buildings lining the road, called in the
guidebooks, Al-Corniche 26 July. On the harbor side of the highway
was beach, crowded with people sitting under umbrellas. Their
chairs were those molded plastic patio chairs restaurants at home
used for sidewalk dining, but here the chairs came in red, yellow,
and turquoise, like big bright birds flocking on the beach. "I bet
the stock in binoculars has risen just because of local sales," she
said.

"Oh yes. You used to see men with fishing
poles out here. Now, of course, the enterprising guides and
hoteliers capitalize on the easy unofficial access to what has
become the city's chief attraction," she acknowledged. "Perhaps it
is all of this which has contributed to Namid's unpleasant
disposition. But no, I am being too charitable. He has always been
a pig. The stress and importance of his current position have
simply worn away the veneer of charm he once used to impress his
superiors."

"That's why they need such heavy security, I
guess, keeping out the tourists," Leda said.

"That and terrorists, yes," Gabriella said.
She sounded rather weary of the subject.

"Well, it all thrills the heck out of me,"
Leda said. "I can't wait to start work."

Gabriella rolled her eyes. "If the work was
all there was to it, I wouldn't be able to blame you. But Namid
will make it as unpleasant for you as possible; count on it."

Because of Gabriella's Western mannerisms
and expressions, Leda was tempted to say, "Gosh, you're a bundle of
cheer," or something else playfully sarcastic. But she had learned
over the years that a sense of humor did not always translate from
culture to culture, and although she liked Gabriella from what she
knew of her, she hadn't known her all that long and didn't know her
very well yet. So all she said was, "Thanks for the warning
again."

Gabriella laughed. "I am
overdoing it a bit, aren't I? I guess you can tell that when I
dislike someone, I really dislike them. Not very
laissez-faire
of
me."

"No, honest though," Leda said. Suddenly she
wondered if Gabriella and Namid had been romantically involved at
some time. Gabriella's wrath about the man was beginning to seem
like the grapeish kind—sour grapes. "Where's the market then?"

"Oh, we've passed it already but—" She
leaned forward and spoke to the driver. "Turn down el-Nebi Daniel,
please, and stop at the corner of al-Horreya."

The driver gave no indication of hearing but
hung a right at the next intersection.

"Once we got into the main part of town, we
could have easily walked and seen more, Leda," Gabriella told her.
"But our time is limited, and I did want you to have a little taste
of the city on your first day. Besides," she said, indicating the
traffic stampeding around them like herds of buffalo about to jump
off a cliff, stopping for nothing and no one, "crossing the street
in Alex is an adventure all by itself."

"Yeah," Leda said. "Someone must carry the
bodies off every hour, or the streets would be full of them."

"Not really. You get used to the rhythm.
You'll learn."

The taxi stopped, and Gabriella said, "This
was once the crossroads of ancient Alexandria. Al-Horreya is the
former Canopic Way. The name was changed when Nasser nationalized
everything. It was Canopic Way since the heyday of the Ptolemys.
Nebi Daniel was the main north-south road, running from the eastern
harbor to the harbor on Lake Mariout. Along here you would have
seen the colonnades, all white, a forest of pillars and fine
edifices. Littering was probably punishable by death," she added,
only half joking.

Leda nodded. She had intended to come here
anyway. The guide books mentioned it, and she was hoping to catch a
little psychic rush from the past, but all she saw were the dreary
modern buildings, not very clean and not very well kept up, many of
them with graffiti scrawled in Arabic across their walls, and
everything smelling ripe with garbage and—aha! The infamous stench
of the displaced sewage Gabriella had referred to, now rerouted to
another section of beach. "What it makes me think of is one of
those postapocalypse movies where everything has gone to hell and
gangs roam around, people have chips in their heads, and you sell
body parts for spending money."

"We are not quite as technologically
advanced as the postapocalyptic people are," Gabriella laughed.
"But I understand what you mean. It does feel grubby. That's partly
the desert's fault, you know. Even though we're on the coast,
everything here gets sandblasted just as it does in the rest of
Egypt. Probably even those ancient white pillars and colonnades
were grubby-looking, too.

"It is said that the key to enjoying
contemporary Alex as a doorway to the glories of the ancient city
is a good imagination," she added ruefully. "There's very little
left of what it once was. We were so great, you see, so far
surpassed other cities, that our invaders were very jealous of us
by the time they came and set out to destroy everything. Cultural
genocide, I believe it's called now. Then the subsequent invaders
thought the remaining treasures were so lovely, they carted them
away. Which is why the earlier expeditions of divers tried to be
culturally sensitive by replacing everything they pulled out of the
sea, laboriously cleaned and examined, right back into the sea
where its destruction could be completed. But don't worry, Leda. I
promise you, my friend, that you shall see what remains."