The Egyptologist (20 page)

But when it
was
the day! How I sped to the great front door and the
gravel drive, how I leapt up to his carriage when it was still moving,
and how the door swung open and he pulled me inside, onto his lap,
and the tickle of his moustaches smelt of tobacco and faraway lands, and
how I relished the laughing surprise in his eyes as he would shout,
"What? What? What's this, then? Who are you, young man? I left a
small boy behind! Where's my son? What have you done with Ralph,
then, you scoundrel?"

"It's me, Papa, it's me!"

"What? Ralph? Is it you, really? Why, I took you for one of the
farmhands!"

"It's me, Papa, it's me!"

Monday, 16 October, 1922

Journal:
Post. Lunch in town. Post. Antiquities Service, to see if
there has been a speedy resolution to my application. Post. Visit a por•
trait photographer to send my fiancee just the right memento. The af•
ternoon is well-spent: I have a dozen handsome options for her.

Evening, return to hotel to continue writing the surrounding mate•
rial, the soft, form-fitting packing of this work, as it were, in which its
precious treasures shall be carried out of the tomb and into the world at
large.

On immortality and "The Tomb Paradox":
Atum-hadu reigned in a

Tuesday, 17 October, 1922

Journal:
Yesterday's work ended prematurely with a boiling, vin•
dictive attack of explorer's gut, the brutal, acidic remnants of dysen•
tery. Lost half a day to treating it, sleeping it off, burning through
dozens of styluses on the HMV suitcase model gramophone I have
placed in the water closet to make just such afternoons tolerable. Be•
fore taking up yesterday's work, I shall set off for town to breakfast,
and visit Antiquities and the post.

Sep.22

Hello, darling!

Who's your good girl? I am, my prince. I set myself the goal of
writing to you every day while you are "in the field," and I have
kept my solemn promise. I sent you a letter just this morning that I
wrote and sealed last night, though I can't remember writing it for
the life of me, as Inge had me on some very strong things to help
me sleep, because after you left, I was upset, even though I know
you will say that I was being
simply absurd,
but you are ab•
solutely my Hero, and when a girl's Hero leaves town, everything
feels a little bleak, now doesn't it? And here I am writing you
again,
because this morning I had something I wanted to include,
but last night's letter was already sealed and ready, so I gave it to
Inge just now to run down to Arlington Street while I write you this
one, and then I am going to give her this one to run right back
down to Arlington Street the minute she gets back, because she is
fat and needs the air.

I had an absolutely awful dream last night. Truth is, Inge
gave me pain and sleeping things last night, and I didn't re•
member to tell her that she was giving them to me on top of a
drink or two. See, last night, truth is, I hopped out on Inge, com•
pletely foxed her. She'd been watching me so close for so many
days, it was getting hard to get out of the house, and I was feel•
ing awful bored, which is worse than anything. So I snuck out

last night and went over to J. P. O'Toole's place. When I got back,
she was waiting for me all angry like she gets when I show her
how much smarter I am than she is, so it was sleeping and pain
stuff from her (on top of the drink or two), and it can be aplenty
deep sleep when they're mixed up like that. When it's just you

and me, just the old "man and wife," I'll be so pleased to see
Inge get her walking papers. Do you know she had the nerve to
tell me the other day that you fell in love with me for Daddy's

money? I nearly slapped her, the Swedish hussy, but she had the
drop on me.

Of course, even when I'm done with her, don't be surprised if
she stays on to "work" for Daddy. I know where she goes when I'm
fast asleep. I'm not, after all, a
complete
ninny. You wouldn't

want a complete ninny for a wife, now would you, my Limey?

Are you happy on your Expedition? Where are you now, I won•
der? Probably still at sea, consulting with the ship's Captain,
showing him your maps and your wicked pharaoh's poems. You're
probably surrounded by girls again, just like when I met you. But
you know they aren't for you, Ralphie. Only your Devoted Queen-
to-be is for you, and you are only for her.

Daddy asked me what you and I were thinking about for our
residences after the Expedition and the wedding, and would we
live in Boston only or would we move into Trilipush Hall. He
looked at me all sentimental like he gets, said he'd always wanted
to see me in a big English country house. What do you think?

Would you consider going back to England, or would it still be too
painful? Will there be enough money to open up the Hall again?

Daddy is often an idiot, but on this I think he may be very right: I
think I would be very happy as an English Lady.

That reminds me: this dream last night, in the medication-
fog. It was just a little bit into the future. You and I were married.

I was feeling so strong and healthy. We were so happy, and I never
caused you any trouble with my moods or anything. Your digging
had made us wonderfully rich, and you were famous, and we

were welcomed everywhere with absolutely everyone, and you took
me to England to meet the king and queen. And then we came

back home and I was going to have our first baby. Ralph Chester
Crawford Trilipush was a darling little thing, and just after he
was born he was already talking! At first we were all so proud, but
then we listened, and he was talking only the most terrible curs•
ing, he just wouldn't stop—the filthiest language you could imag•
ine, and the doctors were shaking their heads and the nurses were

all sobbing, and I didn't know what to think, because they were
giving me stronger and stronger things to take, and I was falling
back into the special sleep again, but before I could relax into it, I
looked up and, Ralph, you, you were just laughing and saying,
"Oh, yes, that's my lad, that is."

Honestly, this letter writing is absolutely exhausting, I have to
tell you. It's still God-awful hot here, and I am sleepy just always.
Inge will be back soon, which is good, because I want to send you
this, but I also need something for the pain, which is bad today.
You can't imagine. It's like an itch so bad you'd tear your head off
to feel scratched properly. The stuff Inge gives me scratches me for
a while, and when I'm asleep it doesn't itch so bad. If it would

just stop itching and I didn't always feel so God-awful tired (ex•
cuse me for saying it straight), I'd be out having a gay old time on
the town with my friends or with fellows. Oh, yes, Ralphie, you 'd
better come home soon all covered in laurels or I'll find someone
else to carry me away! Don't think I won't. Englishman. A good
American, stout and strong, could have me in a second.

But I am so tired.

I kiss you, and so do Antony and Cleopatra. They send you
licks. Their tails don't wag as much since you've gone. It's true. I
really think they miss you just like I do.

Your Margaret

(Tuesday, I7 October 1922, continued)

To Margaret:
My darling. Your second letter came today, hard on
the heels of your first effort, and my heart steams with gratitude. Your
charming Atum-haduan dream was delightful and put me in mind of
our first meeting. I have never told you what I was thinking that day
last April, but the memory is sweet to me in my isolation here.

My contribution to the Boston Historical Society's Public Improve•
ment Lectures had been promoted as a discussion of ancient Egyptian

culture, and though I had promised the organisers I would not do so, I
had always intended to read aloud from
Desire and Deceit.
A performer
must face facts: the size of the gathered audience left no doubt as to the
main attraction on the bills advertising the evening. While I do love my
work, I would not be so foolish as to assert that hundreds of Bostonian
ladies had gathered for a generic discussion of Egypt. That the speaker
would be none other than the dashing and mildly notorious translator
of
that scandalous king,
well, it "would not have been fair to our followers
to deny them a quatrain here and there, and to answer those questions
(historical, sociological, anatomical) which naturally arise in a discus•
sion of our king.

Do you know how early in the evening I first noticed you, my
Queen? I was explaining the chronic ancient Egyptian tendency to a
morbid nostalgia, a trait that paradoxically appeared
early
in the coun•
try's development, an illness displaying itself in the Egyptian's persis•
tent political agenda of restoring "debased" religious practise, repeated
century after century; in his foolish folk-memory of a lost West that
was once rich green pasture, full of mighty bulls; and in his recurring
sensation that he was living in corrupted end-times. Usually, such sen•
sations were absurd: nostalgia for things that never existed, restoring
something already in perfect condition, paranoia that the end was near
or that standards had perilously slipped. However, at certain dramatic,
transitional moments, such as the end of the reign of Atum-hadu, these
fears were suddenly justified. "At the end of his life, Atum-hadu must
certainly have believed that Egypt itself was about to vanish forever," I
was saying when I noticed you in the front row: you were dozing off,
my beauty, and that would never do, so I noted your position, and a
few minutes later I made a point of looking you in the eye when I re•
cited his Quatrain 35 (uniquely in Fragment C):

She will be mine, she will be mine
She will be mine, she will be mine

And her mother and her goat and her sisters mine
They shall be mine until I tire of them, fine.

This was always an exhilarating moment in my lectures, and I usually
selected a young woman at random to feel the savage churn of Atum-
hadu's attentions. In this case, my love, I simply did not realise what I
had unleashed.

I recognised you later, when you were but one of many pushing to
the foot of the stage to ask one last question they were too shy to ask in
front of the whole audience, or simply to shake the English explorer's
hand. I was answering questions and signing copies of
Desire and Deceit,
so I did not pay you attention, but
you
did not leave the front of the
stage, did you? When I looked back, you were still there. I had seen
that face before: the woman who has heard the song of the ancient
king.

"Professor Trilipush?" murmured a quiet but resonant voice. "Pro•
fessor Trilipush, I was so interested by your talk."

"Well, to be strictly accurate," I said, stepping down to the floor, "I
cannot purport to be a
full
professor, yet. Technical distinctions at Har•
vard, as in any primitive society, are of the highest importance."

"Well then," you replied with narrowed eyes and upturned mouth,
"I cannot purport to have been
fully
interested in your talk. Some of the
more technical aspects did leave me a little less attentive."

"Oh, miss, now really," scolded the Nordic beauty to your side, all
spheres and half-moons.

"Put a cork in it, Inge," said my future darling. "Why don't you go
take a sauna or something?"

You boldly introduced yourself, and I could not resist quoting the
advertisements one saw everywhere in Boston: "Life is finer when you
find fashion with finesse at Finneran's Finer Finery." But I must re•
mind you, lest you ever believe Inge's Norwegian nastiness, I did not
know that the shop was your family's. And recall: you laughed but did
not confess your connection, so I assumed the names were coincidental.
Atum-hadu was already pulling the strings, my dear, and lucre was
never his chief concern.

After the crowd had finally drained out the door, you and I sat and
spoke at the foot of the stage, and I decided to trust you, to test you,