The Egyptologist (45 page)

The chatter at lunch was unbearable as the ladies all challenged
each other for touristic dominance. Behind their scarab brooches of di•
amond and onyx and under their straw headpieces, they spat pit names
at each other, waging battle for supremacy with tales of authentic sights
of unspoilt beauty, witnessed in only the most privileged circumstances.

"Well of
course
you've seen Rameses VI's hole, and not bad accom•
modations if you must die in Egypt," one lady scolds another who
dared admit she was impressed by R6's tomb, "but the Rameses II
colossi down at Abu Simbel are vastly superior, if you can be bothered
to make the trek to see real art."

"Not bad, true," sighs a third. "I cast an eye over them. Cheeky fel•
low he was, having himself done up in that gaudy dimension. And the
sculptor a regular Michael Angelo. But there is something about seeing
only the expert-acknowledged masterpieces, you must agree, that dead•
ens one's palate. Surely the
discovery
of a new piece with your own eyes
and taste is as important as mere passive appreciation? Surely that is
why we are here, the very first to see this Tut chappy, though I doubt
we can expect anything as magical as the first time I
stumbled,
really,
into the work at Tuna el-Gebel, the glasswork carvings ... "

"Done by an overeager student. The hidden masterpieces are down
at Nuri and El-Kurru."

"Maesttrodities,
I'd call those. Really, you must get to the Sudan,
though you'll have to know the right people to be allowed in, I could
drop them a line for you ... "

".. . that site where King What's- His-Name just up and slapped his
cartouche on the previous chap's monuments? Hardly fair play ... "

".. . a six-day trip to reach it, but the sunrise there is unlike any•
thing ... "

". . . sunrise? Astronomy is not
art,
dear girl."

"You should see what they are finding up at Atum-hadu's tomb,"
someone added, and everyone was quite curious, as they always are
when the great king's name is mentioned.

Finally Carter muttered his remarks, and then we were all paraded,
three at a time, down the sixteen magic stairs and into little Tut's hole

for a hunched walk down a bare corridor and our precious glimpse of a
haphazard storage room with this and that tossed any which way inside
it. I heard it compared to the property room of an ancient opera, and
for a moment the thought occurred to me that perhaps wee King Tut
had ransacked a preexisting tomb, erased Atum-hadu's name and writ•
ten his own on it. It was often done.

"What's that dreadful aroma?" asks some civil servant's wife, and
Carter tries to explain that the tomb's air is 3200 years old, but I also
realise that my bandages need changing and I can do without this dis•
play anyhow. I stride out.

Margaret, poor Carter has foolishly made his discoveries in full
public eye and now must pay the price: a carnival of twits twittering
around him while he works. He spends his days hauling amateurs
through a tomb where every single placement of your foot must be
carefully considered, where every breath you exhale adds deadly hu•
midity to the air, pollutes the delicate gesso of a painted box or the in•
scription on a wall, where some great lady's stray sleeve might brush
against an item which, until preservatives are applied, can literally dis•
integrate at the touch, and one of these ladies today was even wearing a
dangling silver and sapphire necklace, which could have fallen or
brushed something when she bent over to look closely at an item in this
storage room of Tut's. Tours of clumsy, uninformed, admiring fans!

Poor Carter!

This storage chamber, this Tut's tomb, one does grow tired of hear•
ing about it. Seeing it, after all the chatter of the natives and the papers,
was none too impressive. Yes, the Press have told the truth in
nouns
but
not in
adjective*).
I heard the
Timed
called the chariot wheels "haunting"
and the gold "blinding" and the statues "magnificent" and the tomb it•
self "unlike anything ever seen in this land." It is not true, it is simply
not true,
Margaret, it is just a room stuffed without logic or story, just a
room of eye-catching mishmash, and of course, the untrained tourist
oohs
and
aahs
and practically drops her own jewels at the sight of these
semiprecious relics, but for an expert eye, I really feel a certain amount
of pity for Carter and a general sense
disgust,
as if I had just been

forced to eat sweets and sweets and sweets in the most sweltering
weather. There was one piece in particular, this huge bed with carved
lion-head footboards, and I could just hear dear Hugo Marlowe's voice
crackling with laughter at the gaudiness of the thing. The throne with a
backrest in gold bas-relief, these jars of carved calcite and alabaster in
this grotesque XVIIIth-Dynasty, decadent, sagging belly, overwrought,
neurotic androgyny. Of course I was kind to poor Carter, compliment•
ing him, but I saw in his eye a bashfulness that was new to him: my
friend was a little ashamed of the whole production, that he had the
public's attention but for all the wrong reasons.

I am off to my own site now, Margaret, my work, my puzzle, my
glorious discovery. All for you, my love.

Journal:
To achieve
despite
your conditions, not
thanks
to your con•
ditions, you see. That is something Atum-hadu understood, and there
comes a point where it is comic, more than tragic, where the indelible
character of the self-powered man is so much stronger than any chal•
lenge Fate can fling at him, that it becomes exhilarating and humorous
to see him overcome all that.

To wit: Amr was gone when I returned from the Carter show,
though the boy had done a fair job on my temporary door. I called for
him, but out of the tomb emerged instead an angry Ahmed. He had
sent Amr home, told me not to expect his return, so I can only imagine
the threats this brute made to the poor boy. There remained this issue

of back salary for Ahmed, for which I do have a certain amount of sym•
pathy, and so I spent my valuable working time trying to explain the
situation, gently reminding him of his failures in our bargain, and of the
difficulty in handing him all of his cash today.

Ahmed boasted of his patience. Ahmed raged. Ahmed threatened.
But there was no cash, so threats did not avail. So then Ahmed offered
another solution: he handed me a sledgehammer. I would have done
anything to escape this, would have paid him anything, but I had no
choice. At his forceful insistence, I opened Door C, and every stinging
blow vibrated mercilessly down my leg and up to my head by way of
my breaking heart. Ahmed ran in ahead of me — I cannot believe I am

even writing down this sorry fact. He emerged shaking his head. I will
never forget: "My disappointment is keen, Englishman." Unsatisfied,
he expressed his rage in the primitive's usual fashion. Most of his as•
sault consisted of kicks to my wounded leg, but also blows to the face,
and kicks to my back when I was prone. But he did not proceed any
farther in his destruction, thank God, than the one door. Greed blinds,
you see, so he could not be bothered to open the Great Portal, which
still awaits my care and love, and which will reward my sacrifices.

So be it. I wash my injuries as best I can, bandage where necessary.
The swine stole Amr's donkey and one of my gramophones as he left —
the Columbia Favorite.

Circumstances aside, I have today opened the seventh chamber of
the tomb of Atum-hadu.

(FIG. G: THE FIRST SEVEN CHAMBERS, 29 NOVEMBER, 1922)

The rest must wait until tomorrow, the description of this new
chamber, which is remarkable in a dozen different ways. Wedge Amr's
door in the front hole.

Bank is disappointing. Post yields an incomprehensible cable, like a
joke. It is a joke, or at least some fool's game.

CABLE. BOSTON TO RALPH TRILIPUSH, LUXOR, 11/29/22, 10:27

A.M. ENGAGEMENT OFF. YOUR LIES REVEALED. DO NOT CONTACT
ME EVER AGAIN. M.

I could reply, but to whom am I replying, the author of this "cable from
Margaret"? The mind reels at his crimes and betrayal. He merits a pun•
ishment worthy of the great king's imagination.

My cats lick the wounds administered by Ahmed and Finneran
alike. Why does Fate insist on casting us in such unoriginal, flat roles,
when so much more is possible? My own self-casting would have
been—could be still — far more interesting, but no, I must be taken for
whatever flinty Finneran can paint in stick figures and garish colours.
He cannot afford to cover an Egyptian expedition that does not instan•
taneously produce treasures and barrels of smut for his needs, and so
he must betray me and dream up stories about me to poison the love of
his poor daughter, keeping her semiconscious and stupid while he
pleasures himself with her Nordic warden. O judges of the Under•
world, weigh my heart in your balance, read its every secret inscribed
in scarlet fibres and swollen grey vessels, every hidden thought I ever
had. Can you not read there that I loved her, love her,
despite
her
father's money? I am sure a cynical user of people like Finneran would
say that Margaret did not produce for me what I expected of her, did
not come equipped with a limitless fortune to place at my disposal. I
suppose such people would say I should forsake her now, reveal that
my love for her was all a sham. And it is true, from where I lie, that
Margaret deserves a share of the blame for my predicament. She did
not, as it turns out, lubricate the financial wheels of this great excava•
tion, nor is one quite reassured that her fidelity has maintained its
vigour through my absence.

Was I "slumming" when I swooned for her, or was she? I will not
deny my first thought was of her wealth. No, I
must
deny it: that could
not have been my first thought, since I did not know of the fortune to
which she was heiress until much later. And so my first thought was of
her beauty. No, that was not true either, for by many standards, Inge is

more lovely. My first thought, knowing me, was one of pity—a young
woman burdened with some sort of physical weakness, ashamed of her
condition, at a public lecture on a notorious subject, failing to hide her
infirmity, sidling to the stage to introduce herself and compliment the
lecturer, claiming she was an amateur of Egypt and — No. No, I cannot
say that I even noticed her infirmity. I did not desire her money, nor
her beauty, nor her weakness. She made me laugh.

I would sail to her this very day, prove my feelings, but I cannot
leave this place until my work is done, my discovery complete and ac•
knowledged. She certainly will not return to me if I arrive broken and
empty-handed; if I am not her English explorer then I am nothing to
her. Nothing and no one waits for me in Boston without Atum-hadu
wrapped and stately in golden bedding, the last chambers of the tomb.

They were gods for good reason, these cats who repay loyalty and
understanding. Maggie the orange beauty is all kindness, like her
namesake, who did not mean what that cable says. She did not write
that cable, she did not even s
ee
that cable.

Nov. 15

My own, sweet Ralph,

Yesterday I got your letter of October 19th. And it made me so
sad. I miss you very much. And of course just four days ago was
the cable bearing the grand news of your Find, Daddy showed it to
me and I was so very proud of you. We both were, of course.

I read your letter again just now. I don't know what to write I
am so sad. I'm crying as I read your lovely letter, full of concern for
me, which I fear I do not deserve. That's being very
absurd
of me,
isn't it, now that everything is going well ?

Daddy finally lost his temper and showed the snoop the door
the other day. I didn't hear the whole thing, and when I asked
Daddy what had happened, he just told me to go away, and not