Sphinx (64 page)

 

A luminous blue broke into foaming waves as the water rushed under the bow of the speedboat. I watched, hypnotised. It was over a year since I’d left Egypt and even now that time felt as if it had happened to another man - as if my memory and the need to make things logical had started to mythologise those extraordinary events.

In the near distance the outline of Dokos, the Greek island home of Mr Imenand, loomed. Following instructions from his assistant I’d caught a plane to Athens, then a boat out to the home of the entrepreneur. Although he had shaped my life and career over the past twelve months I hadn’t seen Mr Imenand since Alexandria and now I wondered why the recluse had suddenly demanded to see me.

A dolphin appeared alongside the boat, its distinctive fin rising and falling in joyful abandon as it raced alongside. The water was a brilliant turquoise - a marine cosmos that seemed to promise both mystery and release.

As the speedboat cut through the Aegean Sea, I couldn’t help remembering that last day I’d spent with Isabella, the day before her death: her face when she emerged from the water wildly excited about discovering the astrarium, her frantic panic the night before, her nightmares.

I hadn’t dreamed of her for months. I knew I would always hold her within me but one day I’d woken up and realised, not without sadness, that a sense of her had finally left me; if there was a soul, hers was at rest.

After returning to London I’d moved Gareth out of his squat and into his own flat in London. He was busy recording his first album with Stiff records; more importantly, he appeared to have given up the amphetamines. There was a new intimacy between us, and for the first time since he was a child we both seemed to enjoy each other’s company. I even took him up to see my father and treated the old man to a match at Brunton Park - Carlisle United lost but I was busy watching the two of them together. I hadn’t seen my father so happy since my mother’s death.

I was still regularly in touch with Rachel. She was now back in New York, and her article on Sadat had made the front page of
Time
magazine. We’d spoken a couple of times on the telephone, but the time in Egypt already felt as if it was receding away from us and, like a secret history too extraordinary to share, I could tell that neither of us wanted to talk about it.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Moustafa was happily managing the new oilfield full time. And, bearing in mind Bill Anderson’s threat of intending to collect on his favour, I’d cut him in on the deal. It was a very small percentage of the profits, in exchange for free disaster-management if we should be unlucky enough to have a blowout, but it was also my way of thanking the Texan. Faakhir had disappeared, but I received the occasional postcard from him from politically interesting places, such as Algiers, Guatemala, Sri Lanka; I never did find out for whom he was actually working. Meanwhile, back in Alexandria Francesca had taken residence in the Casa di Reposa - the retirement home for all the Italian diaspora. The Brambilla villa was now leased, although I had given Aadeel ownership of the flat within the complex; it was the least I could do.

President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin shared the Nobel Prize for peace at the end of that year, and it finally felt as if there might be a whole new climate of optimism.

Life had moved on and I should have been happier.

But my drive to find oil had changed irreversibly. When the second well on the new lease tested at eighteen thousand barrels per day I was pleased, but not excited in the way I once would have been. I’d discovered in myself a need to use my divining ability for more egalitarian purposes. Perhaps Mr Imenand, who had made a commitment to back any ventures my newly formed company might be interested in, had intuited my change of heart. After all, it was he, not I, who had arranged this meeting.

 

When I was shown into the room where Mr Imenand was waiting for me, it took my eyes a while to adapt to the dimness after the dazzling light outside. I was shocked to realise that despite the size of the space - almost like an art gallery, with its white walls - and the magnificent Persian rug that covered the marble floor, this was a sickroom. The figure propped up against the pillows was bent and old, his face hollowed by illness, dark shadows under his eyes.

‘Oliver, welcome.’ His voice was impossibly frail.

‘Mr Imenand, you are unwell.’

I faltered. Words seemed superfluous for one so obviously close to death. In the silence that followed, Imenand’s laboured breathing seemed to grow in volume, scratching at the walls like a caged bird.

‘Unwell?’ he said drily and laughed. ‘I am dying, finally, thank the gods.’

He beckoned me forward. A lamp clicked on, as if my movement had triggered the switch. I could see the room more clearly now. Apart from the bed with its surrounding medical apparatus, I was amazed to see that the only other object was a large stone sculpture of a sphinx. Almost a third presence in the room, it sat against the wall, its face still in shadow.

There was a leather seat at the foot of the bed, angled, I noticed, in a way that meant Mr Imenand did not need to turn any part of his body to see me. A tube ran from under one pyjama sleeve up into a clear glass container hanging off a steel frame. A single pomegranate, half-peeled, sat on a white plate on a side table, the red seeds spilling onto the china.

‘I chose you, you know, because you were like me, another Orpheus . . .’ he whispered, his voice as pale as parchment.

‘Chose me for what?’

‘You will be my heir. And my legacy is far greater than just material possessions.’

I looked at him, confused. What was he talking about? I concentrated on the long veined hands lying like old leather gloves against the sheets. They looked abandoned, as if he had already started to vacate his body.

Mr Imenand spoke again, his voice growing in confidence and volume. ‘I never thanked you for returning the astrarium. ’

Startled, my head snapped up. For a minute I thought I had misheard.

‘What are you talking about?’ Shock and confusion had made me discourteous. Who was he? And how did he know? I had the disorientating sensation that the strands of my life had pulled together to converge at this one juncture, this moment right now. The old man pulled himself up with great effort.

‘Oliver, we have no time for games,’ he croaked, his fingers twitching. ‘Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant, but I owe you an explanation - the last few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that stretches far beyond our limited human comprehension. You see, there is another truth hidden behind the astrarium. Please, for now, Oliver, put aside your scepticism. Indulge a dying man.’

Spent, he sank back against the pillows. Anxious that I might hasten his demise by further questioning, I nodded.

‘I’m listening.’

Mr Imenand sighed with profound weariness. Then he began his story.

‘Nectanebo had many women, many wives, but there was one woman he loved beyond all the others - Banafrit. She was not only his high priestess but also a skilled astronomer and astrologer, who consulted with the greatest engineers of her day, from Greece to Babylon. Over there is a statue made in her honour - a sphinx that has survived to this day. I believe you have seen the companion piece at the bottom of Alexandria’s harbour, among the ruins of what was once a magnificent city.’

I swung back to the statue of the sphinx. Now I recognised the patrician arch of the nose, the high cheekbones, the distinctive shape of the face. The mirror image of the stone features of the sphinx that had loomed at me underwater - and that had killed my wife. But the statue before me bore no marks of erosion: it was as if it had been carved yesterday; the features of the face clear and precise. I turned back to the figure in the bed. With a shock, I suddenly realised how the features were repeated in the man before me - his was a masculine, heavier version but the resemblance was unmistakable. A shiver ran through my body. Watching me, Mr Imenand smiled thinly, then with renewed effort continued talking.

‘It was so long ago and yet it is still as clear as yesterday. The pharaoh loved his priestess more than his own life, more than his divine right as a god incarnate. But there was mutiny; the priests, the ministers, even some of the army, were secretly aligning themselves with the Persians. And there was a plot, a plot of assassination. Banafrit heard rumour of this and, unknown to Nectanebo, she posed as his double that day, hiding her own features beneath the Pharaoh’s golden mask.’

His voice cracked with emotion and he paused before finding the strength to go on.

‘Banafrit was killed in the assassination attack, not Nectanebo. That evening, the Pharaoh waited for his lover but instead her servant came to tell him that Banafrit had been poisoned by his enemies and was lying in a coma. Mad with grief, Nectanebo went to his lover and, in the hope of saving her, set the astrarium to her birth date. Isis rules the unconscious and, angry that it had been stolen from her originally, some of her essence passed into the astrarium. The astrarium in turn passed judgement on the Pharaoh, condemning his lover to suffer for eternity and denying him the release of death. And so it was that Banafrit and Nectanebo could never be reunited in the afterlife - until now.’ Mr Imenand’s breath had become a terrible wheezing sound, as if his very lungs were hollow. But he was determined to finish his tale.

‘And so you see, Oliver, you and I have both played Orpheus. I have been doomed for thousands of years to a lingering half-life, a living hell, unable to enter Tuat - heaven - to join my Queen. Until you placed the astrarium into her grave, reuniting her body and soul.’

I stared at him, trying to take in his words. His impending death must have brought with it some kind of semi-lucid senility. Reading my expression, he smiled.

‘I said before, Oliver, whether you believe me or not is unimportant. Nevertheless, you have been my saviour; thanks to you, the sorcery was broken. As you see, I am ageing again, rapidly, but I am grateful that I had enough time to find an heir, a talented man who will make his own mark.’

With a supreme effort he reached for my hand - his own hand little more than a bony claw covered with skin. ‘Thank you.’ His head fell back against the pillow. Then, with his hand still in mine, he spoke again in the faintest of whispers. His tone was one of blessing, even though the language was one I had never heard. Euphoria swept across his face as his eyes focused on a point beyond me - ‘Banafrit,’ he whispered before exhaling for the last time.

 

I stepped into the bright hallway, closing the bedroom door quietly behind me.

A servant - a young Greek girl - sat sewing in a cane chair beside an open window. She looked up and smiled. ‘You must forgive the old man. He is crazy, completely crazy,’ she announced, then bent down to her work again.

The faint jangle of goats’ bells floated in from outside, and for a moment I thought I heard the sound of a woman’s laughter.

Awad, Mohamed and Hamouda, Sahar (editors),
Voices from Cosmopolitan Alexandria
, The Alexandrian and Mediterranean Research Center, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2006.

Callender, Gae,
The Eye of Horus: A History of Ancient Egypt
, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1993.

Davies, Owen,
Grimoires, a History of Magic Books
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Foreman, Laura,
Cleopatra’s Palace: In Search of a Legend
, New York: Discovery Books, 1999.

Goddio, Franck and Bernand, André,
Sunken Egypt: Alexandria
, Periplus Publishing, 2004.

Haag, Michael,
Alexandria Illustrated
, American University in Cairo Press, 2004.

La Riche, William,
Alexandria: The Sunken City
, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.

Maspero, Gaston,
The Struggle of Nations: Egypt, Syria and Assyria
, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1896.

Yergin, Daniel,
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.

For further information on the Antikythera Mechanism:
www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/antikythera

 

Recommended related fiction:

Durrell, Lawrence,
The Alexandria Quartet
, Penguin, 1991.

Kharrat, Edwar Al,
Girls of Alexandria
, Quartet Books, 1993.

Sattin, Anthony,
The Pharaoh’s Shadow
, Indigo, 2001.

Sole, Robert,
The Photographer’s Wife
, London: Harvill Press, 1999.

THE SUEZ CRISIS: On 29 October 1956 Britain, France and Israel began an unsuccessful military attack to secure the Suez Canal after Nasser’s decision to nationalise the canal in reaction to a withdrawal of an offer by Britain and the United States to fund the building of the Aswan Dam.

 

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION: In 1952 there was a military coup d’état that led to the overthrow of King Farouk I and to the establishment of a republic, initially run on loosely socialist principles. Many of the old colonial structures and elite were stripped of their assets and many fled.

 

THE EUROPEAN DIASPORA IN ALEXANDRIA: There were up to fifty-two nationalities living and working together until Nasser’s revolution. The nationalities included Italians, Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Armenians, British, French and Lebanese.

 

PRESIDENT SADAT’S PEACE INITIATIVES: The Egyptian president Sadat surprised the world and Egypt by visiting the Israeli Parliament - the Knesset - on 20 November 1977 in a gesture of peace and reconciliation after his country had been at war with Israel twice, once in 1967 and once in 1973. A year later both President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize; three years later Sadat was assassinated. Both heads of state, witnessed by President Carter, signed the Camp David Accords at the White House on 17 September 1978. The Accords led directly to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.