The Egyptologist (32 page)

something of Atum-hadu and his times. He nodded, seemed to under•
stand the significance of what I was telling him, seemed to grasp to•
wards a sort of pride that these were
but
people,
his
history.

After our meal, I hopped over the edge again, my last reassuring
sight on the surface being Ahmed's glowering face as he double-
checked the knots gripping the rocks and posts.

This time I descended approximately ten feet further to the next
smooth outcropped ledge, but found something far more promising.
This shelf was indubitably the porch of a chamber cut into the cliff
face, approximately twenty-five feet into the cool dark after a slight
turn to the right, so that even a bird hovering directly in front of the
cleft would not see the depth of the chamber, and my heart began to
pound. Untying myself, I looked over the edge and noted with a thrill
that I was nearly directly above the spot where I had found Fragment
C, seven years before. This chamber was absolutely man-made (or at
least man-enhanced), just like Hat-shep-sut's unfinished tomb. In this
case, however, despite nearly four hours of my massaging the walls
from top to bottom, poking with the testing rod like a drunken fencer,
scraping my electric torchlight over every inch of shadow, I could con•

clude only that I had a
dry hole:
an ancient tomb architect had started on
this first room but then found something not to his liking, or a king
changed his mind and opted at the last minute for a nice, opulent pyra•
mid instead. There are many such disappointments lurking out here to
devour the hopes of the overeager.

The sun, though still cruelly hot, was lowering quickly when I had
tied my rope again and called up to Ahmed to lend some muscle, a re•
quest I made again and again as I pulled myself, squeaking and wheez•
ing with peeling palms, up to the top, finding it to be quite unoccupied.
I collected the gear, folded the sheet, gathered the dirty cooking equip•
ment, and wove my way down the hill alone to find harnessed donkeys,
but not a single workman.

I sit now, at the end of day two, in the lamplight of Villa Trilipush,
holding this inadvertently comic cable from Finneran (predictably con•
fused by the Gregorian calendar: MONEY? TOO SOON TO SEND MONEY.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ALL YOUR MONEY SO FAR? BEST LUCK,

CCF). I can imagine Atum-hadu pondering the Tomb Paradox that he
would most surely face. I can imagine him sending a scout to examine
the cliff face of Deir el Bahari and report on likely locations, a scout
who perhaps swung into the very same clefts I saw today. Or, as I think
more of Atum-hadu's unique position, perhaps there was no scout at

all, for we must remember:

I
am the lord of all Egypt, the son of Ra, Horus's essence,
Master of the Nile, host of every feast.

Lover of every woman, lord of every man,
Every hill, every cliff, every beast.

-(Quatrain 23, A & B only)

Given such pride and his need for secrecy, would he have trusted
even a single scout? Or did his majestic kingship himself wander these
stones, alone or with an expendable companion? Did he gaze up to
those secluded clefts, dispatch disposable, de-tongued slaves to crawl
into them and gauge their suitability?

To continue my day. The team found me packed and waiting at the
donkeys, prepared to think the worst of them. But Ahmed, with char•
acteristic effusiveness, informed me in Arabic that, having found
nothing in their continued investigations of the cliff walls, the men had
scouted further afield and witnessed activity at both Carter's site and
Winlock's, which was why Ahmed had descended from the heights,
leaving me hanging. "To keep His Lordship's trespassing a secret," he
added in English with no more facial expression than ever, the trouble•
some man.

We followed the usual route back to the river. Having said farewell
to the men, leaving Ahmed to return the donkeys and store the heavy
gear, I was heading back to the ferry pier, when on the path I came
upon none other than Howard Carter. He was leading a train of carts
overflowing with shovels and levers and filters and other toys, an orgy
of Carnarvonian excess, biting out orders to his parading dozens, his

Arabic slightly accented but transmitting the same dignified manner of
command as he displays in English.

Eager as I was to head off for my evening's tasks, I found myself
drawn into conversation with Carter, strolling alongside him at his
rapid clip. He was on his last trip of the day, hauling equipment into
the Valley to begin his
sixth
season's work on that same pointless
quest—an act of defiance, almost of madness. "Well, good for you, de•
spite it all," I encouraged. "Don't lose hope, old boy." Bit of a cold fish,
really, that one, but I learnt from one of his natives that his scheme this
year is to trench out a long strip of earth starting from Rameses VI's
tomb. A droll plan, but if nothing else Carter was doing an excellent
job of rotating the sand, giving each grain a chance to see the sun for a
bit, digging up no end of s
ebakb
fertiliser for the peasants.

Egypt at the time of Atum-hadu's rise:
Atum-hadu rose to power in
a time of dire trouble. The kingship was failing, flailing, dying for new
blood and leadership. Long-lived kings had left behind uncertain, dis•
tant heirs, weak grandnieces whose shaky hands in marriage offered
the keys to a shaky kingdom. Royal wealth had simmered away; too
often the future had been mortgaged to pay for present needs or recre•
ations. External enemies and internal pretenders gnawed at the dy•
nasty's foundations. And in this troublesome era a leader appeared, one
final hero. But what do we know of him with certainty?

We know from the more autobiographical verses of his Admoni•
tions that he was the last king and that he felt that his death would be
the death of all Egypt. We know that he trusted only a particular ad•
viser, whom he calls his Master of Largesse. We know that his ap•
petites for love and violence were equally unappeasable. We know little
else with certainty.

And yet, standing here, where he stood, facing his Nile, imagining
the approaching end of his kingdom as the Hyksos invaders closed in
on his capital at Thebes, it is not difficult to know what he was feeling,
this mortal man planning for immortality, this king of a doomed king•
dom, heir to nothing, the recipient of a valueless present, which his an•
cestors had viewed only as an infinitely mortgagable future. But the

future was not infinite; one specific day, on a given date, the future
shimmered away in the desert heat and Atum-hadu was left alone
whilst from nothing one, two, four, ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand,
ten thousand spear tips pricked the wavering air over the next bluff.

Thursday, 2 November, 1922

Journal:
Morning: we have cleared three more clefts, for a total
now of five, though the process is slowed by remaining hunched out of
sight when on the cliff top. The men again retrace the path 200 yards in
either direction from where I found Fragment C, this time moving even
slower, testing the cliff-face surface. Twice they find smooth patches of
possible interest, and per my standing order, they call me down from
my work above, but both times slow clearing of the rock face reveals
only wind- or water-buffed ancient stone. Lunch with Ahmed, discuss
Oxford, about which he is charmingly curious. Afternoon: two more
clefts, one more false alarm of smooth rock.

These are the days of mounting excitement, of false leads, of second
guessing. In retrospect they will seem like steps in the right direction,
inevitable and unalterable, but when you are taking those steps, when
they are still the present and not yet the sanctified past, they are all
possible wrong steps in the muck, sloshing with doubt, confidence, de•
spair.

I bid my men farewell until tomorrow, and head to town to check
my
new poste restante,
where I find this paste-worthy relic of a crum•
bling dynasty:

October 19
,
Cambridge
My dear Mr. Trilipush,

A happy day for me here in Cambridge! After my
visit with the trusty Mr. Ferrell last week, I

contacted Oxford, and today, having heard from
them, I spent a happy hour with your fiancee's
father, a fine, rough fellow who learns quickly
and understands at once what an expert has to
tell him.

If you are surprised to learn that Oxford says
you were never there, and that you did not study
under Professor Wexler, then your surprise pales
in comparison with my own when I learned this
news. I shared my surprise with your Mr.
Finneran, as well as my opinion that your expe•
dition will produce nothing of value. You will
not be surprised to hear this doubt from me, as
your speculative specialization in the putative
Atoumadou has hardly impressed me. And, continu•
ing your lack of surprise, I would be surprised
if you were much surprised to learn that, given
this clarifying news, the Egyptology Department
and, in truth, Harvard University, esteemed and
immortal, will be able to survive most ade•
quately into the future without your continued
presence on the faculty in even the most menial
role. Please accept my gratitude for the amuse•
ment you have provided us with your indelicate
translations of apocryphal erotica and with your
spurious background. With every good wish, I re•
main your superior in every way,

Claes ter Breuggen

The gibbering indiscretion of the mad shocks the sane man's mind:
did ter Breuggen think I would not publish this letter? But, my dear
professor of falsehoods, corrupter of youth, of course I will publish it.

I will publish it on page 1, reproduce it over your infantile, wobbly sig•
nature and print the letter alongside a photo of me holding my Oxford
degrees in front of Atum-hadu's mummy.

Ter Breuggen is an object lesson to us all: a man who purports to be
a scientist, trained in weighing evidence carefully, has apparently fallen
credulously in love with a random liar, this Ferrell, a man of mist, fallen
from the clouds like bad weather. And this lie that he so eagerly gulps
makes no sense; that Ralph Trilipush did not go to Oxford makes no
sense whatsoever. A missing file, a misspelled name —whatever the cor•
ruption that has seeped into some text in a damp basement in Oxford is
merely that: a corruption. Corrupted texts do not change reality, they
merely confuse the feebleminded.

Ter Breuggen grasped at this to fire me, no surprise there, I wa•
gered my job on Atum-hadu so on my shoulders be it, and if that know-
nothing wishes to cling to some criminal's lies to justify his ignorance,

I cannot care. But, honestly, what a flimsy reed! A file is lost, therefore
I did not attend Oxford? Brilliant. And so? So I do not know my field?
So I did not translate Atum-hadu's verses? So I did not hold Fragment
C in my hands? But I
did,
I did all that, and I
did
attend Oxford, and no
file's errancy can make it otherwise. If Oxford burnt to the ground
today and left no trace of
anyone's
records, did therefore
no one
ever
walk its gracious ivied halls, luncheon in its open-air rooftop restau•
rants amid the spires, sail on its stormy saltwater lakes, attend its Sun•
day night bullfights in the company of dons and proctors, wrestle nude
on its green quads while the young women of town cheered and threw
potatoes? With a single cleansing blaze, would the world be at once
filled with Oxford impostors and false graduates?

These mad assertions of insidious, invisible Ferrell produce an ab•
surd retroactive unwinding of the truth. If I was not at Oxford, how
did I meet Marlowe? How did we come to find ourselves unearthing a
pot containing Fragment C? If I was not his school chum, how did we
come to be in the same unit in Egypt? If we did not enlist together, how
did I find my way into the Army? Told this way the story makes no
sense at all. Ferrell is a madman.