Sphinx (19 page)

I took the circuitous route, so by the time I reached Hermes Hemiedes’s apartment block it was early afternoon. The smell of frying fish filled the dim foyer and from somewhere in the building came the sound of a wailing baby. As I entered, a mangy dog curled in the corner lifted its solemn head and gazed at me blankly. Then, as if it had completed its duties as guard dog, it flopped back to the ground.

I glanced at the list of residents - the name Hemiedes was written in gold lettering next to the words PENTHOUSE APARTMENT. A handwritten sign in Arabic announced that the lift was out of order. I began hauling myself up the stairs.

 

The view from the roof was spectacular. In front of me, Pompey’s Pillar arched up into the sky, flanked by two sphinxes. Made of red granite, it had been erected in AD 300 to commemorate the Roman emperor Diocletian, who had saved the city from famine. It was a magnificent sight, with the city behind the Pillar stretching back to the Mediterranean. I turned back to the roof garden. The top floor of the penthouse was a small roof-terrace apartment that housed a cane sofa and chairs with plenty of cushions, all shaded by a canopy of vines growing out of huge clay vases. Brass wind chimes hung like strange fruit between the branches, their atonal chimes accompanied by the strains of David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’. It was a bizarre combination. I sat down tiredly, wondering again about the man I’d seen with Omar. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? But who was he and who was he working for? The Egyptian government eager to protect the country’s artefacts? No, it felt infinitely more sinister than that, and even now, sitting in a secure apartment, I found it difficult to shake off an insidious sense of foreboding. It was becoming impossible to feel safe in Alexandria.

The boy who had let me in - whom I presumed to be Hermes’s companion rather than his servant - placed a pot of mint tea and a glass on the low table in front of me and began to pour. Dressed in a sari, with gold hooped earrings, kohl smeared over each eyelid and wearing purplish lipstick, he looked about thirteen years old and was incredibly effeminate in his movements. The classic catamite, I thought: a local tradition that stretched back for centuries. He’d told me in halting English - with a strong American accent - no doubt picked up from watching black-market movies - that Hermes was taking his customary midday walk and would be due back around three. The speech had been accompanied by a series of fluttering flirtatious gestures.

His gaze wandered to the rucksack I’d placed beside me on the couch and, protectively, I put a hand on it. He grinned, an absurdly innocent smile. Then, to my amazement, he took off the sequined scarf draped around his thin narrow shoulders and began to dance to the music - an outlandish pirouetting that seemed to be an exaggerated version of contemporary Western dancing that he must have seen once or twice. He sang along in a high falsetto that dipped occasionally when his voice broke; it was strangely beautiful and poignant to hear this child-man’s voice interweaving with Bowie’s lyrics.

He moved towards me, gyrating his hips in a clumsy seduction attempt. I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh, cry or run.

‘Usta!’ Hermes’s voice bellowed out from the open French doors, followed by a sharp clapping of hands. The boy immediately stopped his dance and went sulkily to the record player to take the LP off.

Hermes stepped onto the terrace. I stood up to greet him. He was dressed in an embroidered caftan and a pair of pearl earrings shone between the strands of his lank dyed hair; a matching necklace hung around his wrinkled neck. He resembled some kind of latter-day alchemist who’d bought his accessories at an upmarket duty-free shop. Clicking his fingers he ordered the boy to leave us.

‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘The silly child wants to be a rock star and live in New York. Still, perhaps he is not entirely without talent. It’s so nice to see you, Oliver. Please, sit, finish your tea.’

I placed the rucksack on the table in front of him and took a deep breath. Then, before I had a chance to regret it, I opened the rucksack. ‘I’ve brought you something,’ I said. ‘Something on which I need your expert advice.’

Hermes opened the rucksack and pulled out the astrarium very gently. Almost as if he were making love to the object, he peeled off the tissue I’d wrapped it in. Finally it stood revealed on the glass-topped table. Hermes muttered what sounded like a prayer and sat back.

‘My poor Isabella, so close to her discovery . . .’ He looked at me. ‘Has anyone else seen it?’

‘Only one other person and he’s dead. I suspect he was murdered.’ If I’d expected Hermes to be shocked I was disappointed.

‘People have accidents so easily these days. I like to regard such unfortunate events as historical phenomena. After all, it is a very accidental era we’re living in,’ Hermes replied cryptically.

I frowned. That was one interpretation, I supposed. But it showed his slightly irritating tendency towards mysticism, albeit a slightly darker, more elemental form than Isabella’s.

‘I am honoured that you have brought the instrument here.’

‘I was hoping you might be able to translate the inscriptions on the discs,’ I suggested tentatively.

‘I will certainly try.’ The Egyptologist pulled a pair of glasses from his waistcoat pocket and peered through them. ‘There are two languages I recognise immediately - Greek, Babylonian and of course there are hieroglyphs, but there is a fourth I don’t know. It will take time - I have to make a rubber impression of the etched letters. Leave the instrument here and I will have the translation finished by tomorrow evening.’

I hesitated, not wanting to leave the instrument overnight but also acutely aware that its very presence here might endanger Hermes’s life. I couldn’t bear the idea that I might be unwittingly responsible for another murder. The vision of Barry’s dead body - the fingers curled over in rigor mortis, the purple thread running around his garrotted throat - flashed through my mind. I looked up to find Hermes watching me closely.

‘I can give you four hours. I’ll wait here while you work.’

‘Please, you must trust me.’

‘Four hours, Hermes. I have my reasons.’

He stared at me, then laughed and reached out to shake my hand. ‘A cautious man is a wise man.’

‘A cautious man is a living man and I made a promise.’

‘I fear the astrarium will demand further sacrifices. Do you think you were followed?’

‘I lost them.’

‘Good. There are spies everywhere in Alexandria; everyone wants to ingratiate himself with someone. Such shocking promiscuity. Come, you will wait in my reception room.’

I followed him back into the apartment. One wall of the small reception room was covered in photographs, most of which looked as if they dated from the 1930s and 1940s. I peered closer - they all appeared to be of lavish social occasions: polo matches, beauty contests on Stanley Beach, yachting races, opera nights. There were even images of a masked ball: characters in ornate evening dress but tribal from the neck up, frozen in time as if caught in some clandestine illegal rite. With a shock I recognised some of the famous faces of people standing next to a younger, slimmer Hermes Hemiedes who smiled arrogantly out of the photographs as if he were already conscious of the awed gaze of the viewer. Lawrence Durrell, Daphne Du Maurier, King Farouk, Lord Montgomery, Maria Callas. The Egyptologist had even been photographed with Winston Churchill.

He sighed wistfully. ‘The glory days, when Alexandria was a real metropolis. Nowadays there is such a grinding earnestness - sometimes I wonder whether I am witnessing the death of imagination itself.’

‘Don’t worry: imagination hasn’t died, it’s just been replaced by paranoia.’

Hermes laughed and I found myself warming to him more than usual.

‘You know, I attended many of these events with Isabella’s grandfather Giovanni,’ he continued, unable to conceal the sadness in his voice.

‘What was he like? I’ve heard so many stories . . .’ I asked gently.

‘Oh, Giovanni was a wonderful fellow, a visionary in his own right. We shared some proclivities - a weakness for ancient beliefs, you could say. However, he had strong opinions and he wasn’t frightened of alienating people. He adored Isabella, she was his little princess. She was such a serious little girl. We visited a lot of sites together. Did she ever tell you about Behbeit el-Hagar? A minor site, but an important one in relation to the last days of the empire.’

‘The empire?’

‘The great reign of the Pharaohs.’ The nostalgic tone of Hermes’s voice made it sound as if he’d lived through it himself. ‘When there was real magic in spirituality, the kind of power we don’t even have the imagination to envisage today. That’s why people are so fascinated by those times now. They sense that a great mystery has been lost.’ Again, he seemed to drift off into a waffling romanticism and I decided to steer him back to reality.

I turned away from the photographs. ‘I apologise for the urgency, but I have to return to Abu Rudeis as soon as possible . . .’

Ripped out of his wistfulness, Hermes’s dreamy expression suddenly changed to one of wariness. He looked over his shoulder to where the boy had disappeared. When he spoke, his voice was quieter, hoarse almost.

‘Oliver, the astrarium is a precious antiquity, priceless to us archaeologists, but many would also see it as a working tool - you do understand that?’ His hands gripped my jacket lapels and he shook me slightly as if to underpin the urgency of his warning. ‘It may even be regarded as a weapon in the wrong hands.’

Disturbed by his warning I drew back. He let go of my jacket.

‘
Whose hands, exactly?’ My fear forced me into bluntness. ‘Government, political groups, private individuals?’

‘I have an idea,’ Hermes sighed, then his expression seemed to close over. ‘But I’d like to keep my theories to myself for the time being. Just remember, whatever your other priorities may be, that to treat the astrarium as anything less than extremely powerful would be very foolish.’ He gave me a last little shake and nodded several times. ‘Be careful, Oliver, that’s all I’m saying.’

I didn’t know whether he was warning me about the people who were after the astrarium or the artefact itself. ‘I am only investigating the astrarium for Isabella’s sake,’ I finally replied cautiously. ‘I don’t believe in astrology or ancient mysticism.’

‘Even so, you must appreciate that there is much about the material world that we do not understand. And there are certain individuals who have gifts . . . gifts of interpretation—’

‘And naturally you’d describe yourself as one of them?’ It was impossible to keep the irony out of my voice.

‘Rest assured that I am not alone in that assumption.’ His quiet confidence was almost convincing. ‘Please, take a seat. Usta will bring you more mint tea, but now I really should get started.’

He left the room and, emotionally exhausted, I sank back into the embroidered silk cushions. Four hours later, I was woken by Usta.

 

Hermes was working in a study at the back of the apartment. The astrarium stood on a table: sheets of tracing paper covered with pencilled inscriptions lay beside latex casts of the machine’s discs - the faint imprints of the hieroglyphs were visible in the raised rubber.

Hermes placed the first page of the transcribed hieroglyphs before me. ‘First, let me say that this instrument is indeed the predecessor of the Antikythera Mechanism, as Isabella had anticipated.’

I nodded, curious to know whether he would also confirm Barry’s findings.

After a glance at me, he continued. ‘It is not of Cleopatra’s era, but originally from that of the Egyptian Pharaohs - the Twentieth Dynasty to be precise, the reign of Ramses III, one of the great kings of Thebes. Interestingly, there are two cartouches, two signatures, if you like, of two great Pharaohs. The first is Ramses III, who I imagine was the king who commissioned the construction of the device, the second cartouche is of Nectanebo II, who ruled over the fading years of that whole era - the Thirtieth Dynasty.’

‘Jesus, Barry was right.’ I spoke aloud without realising it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hermes look up at the mention of Barry’s name. He started to speak but I was distracted as I scanned the lines of hieroglyphs. The inscriptions on the bronze wheels were tiny, barely millimetres tall. In the larger format, I recognised a couple of them - the sign for the Sun that doubled for Ra, the god of embalming, and that for Anubis, symbolised by the jackal’s head. I reached out and touched the serrated edge of one of the cogs. A device from the times of the Pharaohs. Historically priceless. But was that reason enough to kill for it? Or to die finding it?

Hermes interrupted my reverie. ‘What do you know about the Thirtieth Dynasty, Oliver?’

‘I know it was roughly 400 BC.’

‘Indeed. By the time Nectanebo II came to power, Egypt was little more than a banana republic, only kept safe from being annexed by Persia through the employment of Spartan mercenaries. Nectanebo II faced two major challenges at the beginning of his reign. The first was to hold on to power; the second, to balance the ever-threatening Persians and their sophisticated weaponry with the dangerous greed of the Spartan mercenaries who were employed as Egypt’s protectors. More than anything, the young king had to unite Egypt, to restore the nation’s self-esteem. In some respects there are parallels with Egypt today . . .’ Hermes’s voice drifted off before he recovered his train of thought. ‘Nectanebo rebuilt Egypt’s confidence in three ways. One was by reminding his people of Egypt’s former glory days, when it ruled the known world and the Persians and Greeks were primitive upstarts by comparison. The second way was through reinforcing his influence with priests, peasants and the intelligentsia by emphasising his alliance with the gods. This led to the third way: building as many temples as he could during his reign. An astrarium, one that was already legendary in its own time, a spectacularly magical object that one of the great Ramses pharaohs themselves had once owned, would have been a powerful political symbol for Nectanebo. By owning this he could claim direct lineage to Ramses and also to the gods themselves, Isis particularly, the most powerful of the goddesses, to whom this device was dedicated.’