He Shall Thunder in the Sky (8 page)

     “Yes, Sitt Hakim.” But she was not finished. She cleared her throat. “It is Nur Misur, Sitt.”

     “Nefret?” Curse it, I thought, I might have known. She and Nefret were very close; all the rest had been leading up to this. “What about her?”

     “She would be angry if she knew I had told you.”

     Now thoroughly alarmed — for it was not in Kadija’s nature to tell tales — I said, “And I will be angry if there is something wrong with Nefret and you do not tell me. Is she ill? Or — oh, dear! — involved with some unsuitable male person?”

     I could tell by the look on her broad honest face that my last surmise was the right one. People are always surprised when I hit on the truth; it is not magic, as some of the Egyptians secretly believe, but my profound understanding of human nature.

     I had to wring it out of Kadija, but I am good at doing that. When she finally mentioned a name, I was thunderstruck.

     “My nephew Percy? Impossible! She despises him. How do you know?”

     “I may be wrong,” Kadija muttered. “I hope, Sitt, that I am. It was a closed carriage waiting, on the other side of the road; she was going to the hospital, walking to the tram station, and when she came out of the house a man’s face appeared at the window of the carriage, and he called her name, and she crossed the road and stood talking to him. Oh, Sitt, I am ashamed — I do not spy, I only happened to go to the door —”

     “I am glad you did, Kadija. You didn’t hear what they said, I suppose.”

     “No. They did not talk long. Then she turned and walked away, and the carriage passed her and went on.”

     “You are not certain it was Captain Peabody?”

     “I could not swear an oath. But it looked like him. I had to tell you, Sitt, he is an evil man, but if she learned I had betrayed her —”

     “I won’t tell her. Nor ask you to spy on her. I will take care of
that
myself. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else, Kadija. You did the right thing. You can leave it to me now.”

     “Yes, Sitt.” Her face cleared. “You will know what to do.”

     I didn’t, though. After Kadija had taken her departure I tried to get my thoughts in order. Not for a moment did I doubt Kadija’s word, or her assessment of Percy. He had been a sly, unprincipled child and he had become a cunning, unprincipled man. He had proposed marriage to Nefret several times in the past. Perhaps he had not given up hope of winning her — her fortune, rather, since in my opinion he was incapable of honorable affection. She would have to meet him on the sly, since he would not dare come openly to the house. . . .

     Oh, no, I thought, my imagination is running away with me. It is not possible. Nefret was passionate, hot-tempered and in some ways extremely innocent; it would not be the first time she had fallen in love with the wrong man, but surely she knew Percy’s character too well to succumb to his advances. The callous abandonment of the child he had fathered was only one of his many despicable acts. Nefret knew of that. She knew Percy had done his best to encourage the false assumption that Ramses was responsible. Kadija must have been mistaken. Perhaps the man had been a tourist, asking directions.

     I could not confront Nefret directly, but I knew I would never be at peace until I was certain. I would have to watch her and find out for myself.

     Spy on her, you mean, my conscience corrected me. I winced at the word, but did not flinch from the duty. If spying was necessary, spy I would. The worst of it was I could not count on anyone else, not even my dear Emerson, for help. Emerson has a forthright manner of dealing with annoyances, and Percy annoyed him a great deal. Punching Percy’s face and pitching him into the Nile would not improve matters. As for Ramses . . . I shuddered at the thought of his finding out. Neither of them must know. It was up to me, as usual.

     However, as I guided my amiable steed along the road to the pyramids, a strange foreboding came over me. It was not so strange, in fact, for I often have them. I knew what had caused this one. I had been thinking about it ever since the night we saw Wardani.

     Was Sethos in Cairo, up to his old tricks? I did not — could not — believe he would turn traitor, but the situation was ideal for the kind of skulduggery at which he excelled. Excavations had been cancelled, many archaeological sites were inadequately guarded or not guarded at all, the Services des Antiquités was in disorder with Maspero gone and his successor still in France engaged in war work, the police occupied with civil unrest. What an opportunity for a master thief! And with Sethos’s skill in the art of disguise he could assume any identity he chose. A series of wild surmises passed through my mind: Wardani? General Maxwell?

     Percy?

     As Emerson might have said, that idea was too bizarre even for my excellent imagination. I burst out laughing, and turned to happier thoughts. I never approached the pyramids without a thrill passing through me.

     To excavate in the cemeteries of Giza was the culmination of a lifetime’s dream, but sadness shadowed my pleasure, for we would not have been given permission to do so had not the stroke of a pen transformed friends into enemies and made former colleagues personae non gratae in the country where they had labored so long and effectively. Mr. Reisner, who held the concession for a large part of the Giza necropolis, was an American and would soon begin his winter season, but the German group under Herr Professor Junker would not return until the war was over.

     It had been Junker himself who asked Emerson to deputize for him.

They say the war will be over by Christmas,
[he had written].
But they are wrong. God alone knows when this horror will end, and how. Some might condemn me for being concerned about antiquities when so many lives are at hazard, but you, old friend, will understand; and you are one of the few men whom I trust to protect the monuments and carry out the work as I would do. I pray with all my heart that despite the strife between our two peoples the friendship between us will endure and that everyone in our field of science may be guided by the ancient maxim: in omnibus caritas.

     This touching epistle brought tears to my eyes. How sad it was that the violent passions of men could destroy reason, affection, and scientific accomplishment! Emerson himself had been deeply moved by Junker’s letter, though he concealed his emotion by cursing everybody he could think of, beginning with the Kaiser and ending with certain members of the British community in Cairo, in whose minds charity had little place. With the permission of the Antiquities Department he had taken up the torch thrown him by Junker, and I must admit that my own regrets were tempered by delight at finally coming to grips with a site that I had always yearned to excavate.

     Tourists who visit Giza today cannot possibly imagine what a splendid sight it was four thousand years ago: the sides of the pyramids covered with a smooth coating of white limestone, their summits crowned with gold, their temples bright with painted columns; the mighty Sphinx with his nose and beard intact and his headcloth striped in red and gold; and, surrounding each pyramid, rank upon rank of low structures whose sides also gleamed with the soft luster of limestone. They were the tombs of princes and officials of the royal house, furnished with chapels and statues and funerary equipment that would nourish the soul of the man or woman whose body lay in the burial chamber, at the bottom of a deep shaft cut through the superstructure.

     One could only hope that immortality did not depend on the survival of the objects that had filled these tombs, or on the physical remains of their owners. Gone, all gone, alas, centuries before — the ornaments and jars of oil and boxes of fine linen into the hoards of tomb robbers, the bodies of the dead ripped apart in the search for valuables. Over the millennia, later tombs had been added, around and beside and sometimes on top of the Old Kingdom monuments, and the entire area had been buried by drifted sand; roofing stones had fallen, and walls had collapsed. Making sense of the resultant jumble was not at all easy, even for an experienced excavator, and before he could begin to do so he had to remove the accumulated debris of centuries, some of it several meters deep.

     Junker had located the walls of the tomb the previous year, but the sand had drifted over it again. Emerson had caused the soil to be removed to the top of the walls, and the men had begun clearing the interior. Some excavators simply discarded this fill without examining it, but that was not Emerson’s way. After discovering that the interior walls were covered with remarkably well-preserved painted reliefs, he had insisted on erecting a temporary roof over the chamber. Rainstorms are not unknown in Cairo, and even blowing sand could damage the fragile paint.

     I guided my steed past the carriages and camels and cabs and throngs of tourists toward the site where we were working, but I could not resist casting frequent glances at the towering slopes of the Great Pyramid. I am particularly attracted to pyramids. It was delightful to be working in such proximity to the mightiest of them all and know that, for the time being and in a limited sense, it was mine! I had no great hope of exploring it in the immediate future, however. Emerson meant to concentrate on the private tombs. Anyhow, the pyramid was a major tourist attraction, and it would have been difficult to work there in peace. Our own excavations were so close to the south side, we were always having to shoo wandering visitors away.

From Manuscript H

     Every time Ramses entered the tomb he felt a pang of sympathy for the German archaeologist who had been forced to leave it. Removing the fill and erecting the shelter had taken a long time, but the first chamber of what appeared to be a large complex tomb had now been emptied, and he had begun copying the reliefs. The painted carvings along the west wall showed the prince Sekhemankhor and his wife Hatnub seated before an offering table loaded with foodstuffs and flowers. The inscriptions identified the pair, but so far they had not found a reference to the king whose son Sekhemankhor claimed to be.

     Ramses was working alone that afternoon, inspecting the wall to ascertain how much of the relief had been damaged and whether restoration was possible. His thoughts were not the best of company these days, so when Selim came looking for him his response was ungracious.

     “Well? What do you want?”

     “It is an emergency,” said Selim. He often spoke English with Ramses, trying to improve his command of the language, and his voice lingered lovingly on the long word. “I think you had better come.”

     Ramses straightened. “Why me? Can’t you deal with it?”

     “It is not that sort of emergency.” The light was poor; they had been using reflectors, since the supply of electric batteries was limited and his father would not permit candles or torches; but he saw Selim’s teeth gleam in the black of his beard. He was obviously amused about something, and determined to share it with his friend.

     They emerged from the tomb into the mellow light of late afternoon, and Ramses heard voices. The bass and baritone bellows of the men mingled with the excited cries of children, and over them all rose and fell a series of penetrating sounds like the whistle of a locomotive. Egyptians enjoyed a good argument and did it at the top of their lungs, but the loudest voice sounded like that of a woman. He quickened his pace.

     Straight ahead rose the southern face of Egypt’s mightiest pyramid. The crowd had gathered around the base. They were all Egyptians except for a few foreigners, obviously tourists. One of the foreign females was doing the screaming.

     Ramses raised his voice in a peremptory demand for silence and information. The men came trotting toward him, all yelling and gesticulating. Selim, just behind him, raised an arm and pointed. “Up there, Ramses. Do you see?”

     Ramses shaded his eyes and looked up. The sun was low in the western sky and its slanting rays turned the pyramid’s slope to gold. Several dark shapes stood out against the glowing stone.

     Climbing the Great Pyramid was a popular tourist sport. The layers of stones formed a kind of staircase, but since most of the stones were almost three feet high, the climb was too arduous for the majority of visitors without the help of several Egyptians, hauling from above and sometimes pushing from below. Occasionally a timid adventurer balked when he was only partway up, and had to be hauled ignominiously down by his assistants. Perhaps that was what had happened, but he couldn’t understand why Selim had dragged him away from his work to enjoy the discomfiture of some unfortunate man . . . No, not a man. Squinting, he realized the motionless form was female.

     She was a good halfway up, two hundred feet from the ground, sitting bolt upright on one of the stones, with her feet sticking straight out. He couldn’t make out details at this distance — only a bare dark head and a slender body clad in a light-colored frock of European style. Not far away, but not too close either, were two men in the long robes of the Egyptians.

     He turned to Sheikh Hassan, the nominal chief of the guides who infested Giza. “What is going on?” he demanded. “Why don’t they bring her down?”

     “She won’t let them.” Hassan’s round face broke into a grin. “She calls them bad names, Brother of Demons, and strikes them with her hand when they try to take hold of her.”

     “She slapped them?” Ramses was tempted to laugh. The situation was too serious for that, however. The wretched female must have become hysterical, and if the guides took hold of her against her will, her struggles could result in injury to her and charges of assault — or worse — against them. No proof of malicious intent would be needed, only her word. He swore in Arabic, and added irritably, “Can someone stop that woman yelling? Who is she?”

     The woman in question pulled away from the arms that held her and ran toward Ramses. “Why are you standing there?” she demanded. “You are English, aren’t you? Go and get her. Save the child!”