The Ape Who Guards the Balance (16 page)

He carefully avoided looking at David, but I could not help wondering if the reference had been accidental. Sir Edward had been with us the year we met David, who had been working for one of the best forgers in Gurneh.

“Not at all,” I said quickly. “That is—thank you, Sir Edward. I am acquiring quite a collection of nice little amulets; yours will be a welcome addition to the Bastet Ramses gave me some years ago, and this one, which I received only recently.”

I had had the little statue of the baboon added to the chain on which I wore Ramses’s cat and the scarab of Thutmose III, which had been Emerson’s bridal gift. Sir Edward leaned forward to examine them.

“The baboon is a symbol of the god Thoth, is it not? A handsome piece, Mrs. Emerson. What special significance does this amulet have, if I may ask?”

“It symbolizes a cause dear to my heart, Sir Edward—that of equal rights for women. ‘Huquq al ma’ra,’ as they say here. It was given me by a lady who is taking an active part in the movement.”

“I am not surprised that you should wear it, then. But is there really such a movement in Egypt, of all places?”

“The flame of freedom burns in the hearts of all women, Sir Edward.”

Emerson snorted—not, I felt sure, at the sentiment, but at my manner of expressing it. I took my revenge by delivering a little lecture (or, to be accurate, rather a long lecture) on the history of the women’s movement in Egypt, mentioning the periodical we had seen and the literacy classes. Sir Edward was too well-bred to appear bored, but in fact I felt certain he was genuinely interested, as his occasional questions indicated.

Emerson was bored, and soon said so.

As I had expected, Sir Edward’s reluctance to intrude was readily overcome; I led the way into the house and we gathered round the pianoforte. Sir Edward’s mellow baritone swelled the chorus and after a while Emerson stopped scowling at him and joined in. Emerson always suspects men of having designs on me. It is a flattering but inconvenient delusion of his, and in this case it was completely without foundation. If Sir Edward had designs on anyone, it was on another; seeing his face soften as he watched Nefret I knew he had not abandoned his hopes. She was careful to avoid his eyes, which was even more suspicious.

The only one who did not participate was Ramses. As a child he had been prone to croon in a wordless, tuneless fashion that was particularly annoying to my ears. He had abandoned the habit, at my request, and it had taken considerable persuasion by Nefret before he would condescend to join in our little family concerts. To my surprise, I found that his singing voice was not unpleasing, and that in some manner (not from his father) he had learned to carry a tune. He excused himself that evening on the grounds that his throat was a trifle sore. Nefret did not urge him.

     
(viii)
    
From Manuscript H

“It’s him!” Careless of grammar and the legs of the furniture, Ramses flung himself into a wicker armchair. “He’s the one she was meeting in London.”

“What makes you think that? She always has followers.” David closed the door of Ramses’s room and settled himself in another chair.

“She met that fellow on the sly, and lied about it. That isn’t like her.”

“Perhaps she’s tired of hearing you ridicule her admirers.”

“Most of the victims have made sufficient fools of themselves without any help from me. Well—not much help.”

“Why don’t you tell her how you feel? I know, by your Western standards you are still too young to think of marriage, but if she agreed to an engagement you would at least be sure of her.”

“Oh, yes,” Ramses said bitterly. “She might just be soft-hearted and soft-headed enough to accept my proposal out of sheer pity, and if once she gave her word she wouldn’t break it. Are you suggesting I take advantage of her kindness and affection, and then ask her to remain true to me for four or five years?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” David said quietly.

“You aren’t fool enough to fall in love with a girl who doesn’t love you. I will not admit my feelings until she shows some sign of returning them. So far I don’t seem to be making much progress.”

“Someone has to take the first step,” David said sensibly. “Perhaps she would respond if you took the trouble to demonstrate your feelings.”

“How? Nefret would fall over laughing if I turned up with flowers in my hand and flowery speeches on my lips.”

“She probably would,” David agreed. “You don’t seem to have any difficulty making other women fall in love with you. How many of them have you—”

“That is a question no gentleman should ask, much less answer,” Ramses said, in the same repressive tone his mother would have used, but with a faint smile. “I wouldn’t blame Nefret for—er—amusing herself with other men. I’d hate it, but I’m not hypocrite enough to condemn her for it. And I would never stand in her way if she truly cared for a man who was worthy of her.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Only lovers and deadly enemies look directly into one another’s eyes.

Was that one of his mother’s famous aphorisms? It sounded like the sort of thing she would say; and as his eyes met those of his friend in a direct unblinking gaze, Ramses felt a chill run through him. David looked away, clasping his arms around his body as if he too felt suddenly cold.

After a moment Ramses said, “You must be getting frightfully bored with my histrionics.”

“Anything that is important to you is important to me, Ramses. You know that. I only wish I could . . .”

“You look tired. Go to bed, why don’t you?”

“I’m not tired. But if you don’t want to talk any longer—”

“You’ve heard it all before. To the point of tedium, I expect.” He forced a smile. “Good night, David.”

The door closed softly. Ramses sat without moving for a long time. The suspicion that had entered his mind was despicable and baseless. A single meeting of eyes, an altered note in the voice that had responded to his statement: “I would never stand in her way if she cared for someone who was truly worthy of her . . .” David
was
worthy of her. Not by the false standards of the modern world, perhaps, but Nefret’s formative years had been spent in quite a different world. The strange culture of the oasis had not been free of bigotry and cruelty, but its prejudices were based on caste rather than race or nationality. Nefret didn’t think of David as an inferior. Neither did Ramses. David was—might be—a rival more dangerous than any he had yet encountered. And David, being the sort of man he was, would feel guilty and ashamed at coming between his best friend and the girl his friend wanted.

:

W
e resumed work the following morning. Others of the English community in Luxor might make a festival of Boxing Day, but I had had a hard enough time persuading Emerson to celebrate Christmas, which he considered a heathen festival. “Why don’t we just wreathe mistletoe around our brows and sacrifice someone to the sun?” he had inquired sarcastically. “That is all it is, you know, the ancient celebration of the winter solstice. Nobody knows what year the fellow was born, much less what day, and furthermore . . .”

But I cannot in conscience reproduce Emerson’s heretical remarks on Christian dogma.

When we started for the Valley Abdullah walked with me, as he often did. He honestly believed he was helping me, so I gave him my hand on the steeper slopes; and when we reached the top I tactfully suggested we rest for a moment before following the others.

“We are not so young as we once were, Sitt,” said Abdullah, subsiding rather heavily onto a rock.

“None of us is. But what does it matter? It may take us a little longer to reach the summit, but never fear, we will get there!”

The corners of Abdullah’s mouth twitched. “Yours are words of wisdom, as always, Sitt.”

He did not appear in any hurry to go on, so we sat for a time in silence. The air was cool and clean. The sun had just risen above the eastern cliffs and the morning light spread slowly across the landscape like a wash of water-color, turning the gray stone to silver-gold, the pale river to sparkling blue, the dull-green fields to vivid emerald. After a while Abdullah spoke.

“Do you believe, Sitt, that we have lived other lives on this earth and will come back to live again?”

The question startled me, not only because philosophical speculation was not a habit of Abdullah’s, but because it was an uncanny reflection of my own thoughts. I had been thinking that the golden palaces of heaven could be no more beautiful than the morning light on the cliffs of Thebes, and that my definition of Paradise would be a continuation of the life I loved with those I loved beside me.

“I do not know, Abdullah. Sometimes I have wondered . . . But no; our Christian faith does not hold with that idea.”

Neither did the faith of Islam. Abdullah did not mention this. “I have wondered too. But there is only one way to know for certain, and I am not eager to explore that path.”

“Nor I,” I said, smiling. “This life holds pleasure enough for me. But I fear we will have a dull season, Abdullah. Emerson is very bored with his little tombs.”

“So am I,” said Abdullah.

With a grunt he got to his feet and offered a hand to help me rise. We tramped on together in silence and in perfect amity. He was bored, I was bored, Emerson was bored. We were all bored to distraction, and there was nothing I could do about it. Glumly I followed the familiar path into the small side wadi in which we were working.

The tomb of Amenhotep II was at its far end, and we had been investigating the small pit tombs along the way that led toward the main valley. Most of them had been found by Ned Ayrton in his previous seasons with Mr. Davis. He had removed the only objects of interest, and there had not been many of those. Three of the miserable little tombs had contained animal burials. They were certainly curious—a yellow dog, standing upright, with its tail curled over its back, nose to nose with a mummified monkey, and a squatting ape wearing a pretty little necklace of blue beads—but I could understand why Ned’s patron had not been thrilled by the discoveries of that season.

Emerson of course found objects Ned had overlooked. He always does find things other archaeologists overlook. There were several interesting graffiti (described and translated in our forthcoming publication) and a number of beads and pottery fragments which were to lead Emerson to a remarkable theory concerning the length of the reign of Amenhotep II. These details will be of even less interest to my Reader than they were (candor compels me to admit) to me.

          
(ix)
    
From Manuscript H

Ramses sat up with a start. At first he couldn’t think what had waked him. The room was quite dark, for vines covered part of the single window, but his night vision was good—if not as uncannily acute as some of the Egyptians believed—and he saw only the dim shapes that ought to have been there—table and chairs, chest of drawers, and the garments hanging on hooks along the wall.

He threw back the thin sheet. Ever since an embarrassing incident a few years ago he had taken to wearing a pair of loose Egyptian-style drawers to bed. They did not encumber his movements as he went to the door, noiseless on bare feet, and eased it open.

Like the other bedchambers his opened onto a walled courtyard. Nothing moved in the starlight; a spindly palm tree and the potted plants his mother nurtured cast dim, oddly shaped shadows. No lights showed at the windows. His parents’ room was at the far end of the wing, then David’s, then his, with Nefret’s at this end. Like his parents’ room, hers had windows on an outer wall as well as the courtyard.

He took in the peaceful scene without pausing, drawn on by the same indefinable sense of uneasiness that had waked him. He had reached Nefret’s door before he heard her cry out—not a scream, a soft, muffled sound that would have been inaudible a few feet away.

She hadn’t locked her door. It would not have mattered; the hinges gave way when his shoulder hit the panel, and he pushed the door aside. The room was as dark as his had been; something was blocking the outer window, cutting off the starlight. Then the obstruction disappeared and he saw the glimmer of Nefret’s white nightdress, motionless on the floor between the bed and the window.

“Curse it!” she gasped, raising herself to a sitting position. “He got away! Go after him!”

The full sleeve of her gown fell back as she flung out her arm. It had been slit from elbow to wrist, and the fabric was no longer white.

“Too late,” Ramses said. At least that was what he intended to say. His heart was pounding, trying to compensate for the beats it had skipped before she moved and spoke, and the words caught in his throat. She was wriggling around, trying to stand up, but her movements were slow and unsteady and her long skirts were twisted around her legs. He dropped to his knees and took her by the shoulders. “Stay still. He’s long gone, whoever he was, and you’re going to faint.”

Nefret said indignantly, “I’ve never fainted in my . . .” Her head fell back, and he gathered her limp body into his arms.

He was still holding her when a light appeared in the doorway and he looked up to see David, a lamp in one hand, his knife in the other.

“Good Lord! Is she—”

“Half-smothered,” said Nefret in a muffled voice.

She probably was at that, Ramses thought. He relaxed his grip enough for her to turn her head away from his shoulder, and she gave him a cheerful grin. “That’s better. Close the door, David, and bring the lamp over here. Put me down, Ramses. No, not on the bed, there’s no sense in getting blood on the sheets.”

Wordlessly Ramses lowered her onto the rug.

“You look as if
you
are about to faint,” she remarked. “Sit down and put your head between your knees.”

Ramses sat down. He did not put his head between his knees, but he left it to David to clean and bandage the cut. By the time the job was done, his hands and his voice were fairly steady.