“I am mad,” Augustus replied as he picked up his coffee cup. “Dead Frenchmen are regularly found in my front showroom.”
Everyone at the table laughed, although Sir Thomas’s laughter came out somewhat strained.
“Oh dear,” Aunt Pearl tittered, “you are quite mad.”
Augustus gripped his coffee cup so hard it almost broke. Yes, he was mad. The sound of gunfire brought him back to the Western Front, and anytime he closed his eyes his dreams were filled with visions of trenches and barbed wire. The opium helped, giving him blissfully blank sleep, but he worried about what happened during that sleep. He had evidence that he had become a sleepwalker. Food disappeared regularly from the pantry, and if he left a bottle of wine by his bed it would be empty by morning. A couple of times he discovered traces of wine in his sink, so he wasn’t drinking it but rather pouring it out. He had stopped dissolving his opium in wine and started smoking it. He saw no point in wasting his stock of Bordeaux.
But what else did he do at night? Could he have opened the door himself, some odd part of his psychology allowing the gang to bring in the sarcophagus unimpeded while his conscious mind remained ignorant?
He couldn’t dismiss the possibility. He couldn’t dismiss any act of madness on his part.
5
Moustafa was working in the antiquities shop alone. Fortunately, there had been few customers and he had managed to slip out to ask around the neighborhood for more information about the mysterious group of men who had left the sarcophagus.
He had discovered little. A few people he had talked with had heard the lorry pull up, and one curious neighbor had peeked out the window in time to see the men unloading the sarcophagus, but he gave no better description of them than Karim had. No one had seen how they had broken into the house, and no one had seen them leave.
Now he was stuck here dealing with tourists while his boss tried to get to the heart of the matter by conferring with the police commandant. Mr. Wall had promised to get back as soon as possible, but something had detained him.
He had just sent an annoying group of Americans on their way. They had poked and prodded at everything, ignoring Moustafa’s requests not to touch anything, and had eventually left without buying a single piece. Now they had been replaced by an Englishman in a shabby suit carrying a large briefcase. He wandered around, not asking any questions and not looking terribly interested in the antiquities. Probably a lower clerk in some ministry who had come out of idle curiosity. That happened sometimes. All sorts of people came in thinking the shop was a smaller, free version of the Egyptian Museum.
Seeing that he wasn’t needed, Moustafa set to work dusting the shelves. With Cairo’s dust it needed to be done every day, and the boss didn’t trust the cleaning lady to do it in the showroom with proper care. Some of the objects were quite delicate, not that the tourists seemed to be aware. Moustafa shook his head. When he had first taken this job, he thought only the crème de la crème of the foreign community would come to such a place. How wrong he had been!
After a minute he heard a click behind him. Turning around, he saw the customer holding a camera and pointing it at the sarcophagus.
Click. He took another picture.
“Who are you? Get out of here!” Moustafa bellowed, storming over to the man, who retreated. “What are you doing?”
“My job!” the photographer said, his voice shaking a little as he sized Moustafa up. “I work for the Egyptian Gazette.”
“Out! You have no right to come in here and take pictures! If you print them, my boss will sue you.”
Moustafa was tempted to grab the camera and smash it, but the man was English and could call the police.
The journalist obviously realized that as well, because he gave Moustafa a smug grin, although he did so as he hurried for the door.
“That’s all right, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, I got what I came for.”
Moustafa rushed after him, but the journalist was too quick. Moustafa got the impression that he was accustomed to running away after taking pictures.
As Moustafa glared at the man retreating down the street, he noticed an English couple stuck atop a pair of donkeys led by a filthy boy. The boy waved to him. The English couple looked rather precarious and uncomfortable atop the bony animals, and gratefully climbed off once the boy stopped in front of the shop.
Moustafa took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.
The man took his wife’s arm and stepped up to the open doorway where Moustafa stood. Both were dressed all in white (“to keep off the sun” as the guidebooks advised), which only highlighted how dusty they had become while riding the donkeys through the busy streets of Cairo.
“Hello, do you speak English?” the man said in a loud, clear voice, emphasizing every syllable.
“Most fluently sir,” Moustafa replied in the sweetest possible tones. “I can also speak French and Arabic if you prefer. Or we can write notes to each other in Old Kingdom hieratic.”
Talking back to the customers was bad for business, but Moustafa wasn’t in the mood for being obsequious today.
The man only laughed. Perhaps he thought Moustafa was joking.
“I like you, boy. Come on, show us inside.”
Moustafa felt the urge to grab the man and shove his head deep up the ass of the nearest ass. Instead he put on a grin and ushered them in.
The donkey boy tried to follow.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Moustafa said, pushing him out.
“You’ll give me a commission if they buy anything, right?”
“I’ll give you a smack across your backside,” Moustafa growled. These donkey boys were surly little thieves, but at least they had a semblance of a job, unlike that no-good Faisal.
Moustafa glanced both ways down the street, searching for that dirty face and shock of unruly hair. He’d been lurking about lately, hoping to get more money and food from Mr. Wall. His boss was generous to a fault.
“Hey, I led them right here!” the donkey boy whined. “There are plenty of antiquities shops, you know.”
“None as good as Mr. Wall’s. Yes, I’ll give you a commission. Now move your filthy beasts. They’re blocking the entrance.”
Moustafa slammed the door in the donkey boy’s face and hurried to catch up with the tourists.
“What a remarkable collection,” the woman said to her husband. They had already walked through the front hall and into the main showroom as if they owned the place. Now they stood gawping at the vast array of antiquities. The room was nearly filled with ponderous stone statues and colorfully painted mummy cartonnages. Shelves along two of the walls held hundreds of smaller artifacts such as ushabtis, amulets, and weapons. Another long shelf and the floor below was cluttered with inscriptions and sculpture fragments. Coptic textiles hung on the final wall. In one corner, a tall statue of the crocodile-headed Nile god Sobek looked over the scene. At the center of the room stood the mysterious sarcophagus.
The Englishwoman went right up to it.
“What a remarkable piece! This would look stunning in our garden. We could fill it with soil and grow marigolds.”
“If we could afford marigolds after the shipping fees,” her husband sniffed. “Must we buy some of this old bric-a-brac?”
Moustafa eyed a crocodile mummy hanging from the ceiling and wondered what it would feel like breaking it over the man’s head. The thing would probably disintegrate, leading to another hour of dusting, but it might be worth it.
“Of course we do, Henry. We have to show everyone we’ve been.”
Moustafa forced himself to grin. “If the good sir wishes something more portable, we have a fine collection of statuettes on this shelf.”
And every one of them a forgery. I’ll sell no real antiquities to the likes of you.
The forgeries had been Mr. Wall’s idea, and an excellent idea it was too. Only those who displayed true knowledge and interest were sold genuine ancient artifacts.
The woman looked through
the row of statuettes.
“Ah, the animal gods of ancient Egypt. Look, Henry. Here’s Bastet the cat goddess, Horus the hawk god, and Anubis the baboon god.”
Moustafa cleared his throat. “Actually, Anubis has the head of a jackal, madam. You are thinking of the god Babi.”
The woman gave him a haughty look. “You’re quite wrong. Anubis has the head of a baboon and often appears as the complete animal, as he is shown here. Your employer should train you better.”
Moustafa thought of a few comparisons between his customer and baboons but bit his tongue. She stood in front of a life-sized statue of a baboon, squatting on the shelf, and it was as if she faced a mirror.
“It is an excellent example of New Kingdom sculpture, madam,” Moustafa said.
The woman sniffed and looked at it. “I wouldn’t say it’s of terribly high quality, but at least it’s genuine. There are so many fakes on the market, but I can spot them all.”
“You must be quite the expert, madam.”
Although Suleiman Hanzade is more expert than you. He made that just a month ago.
After much haggling, the two left with a matching pair of Bastet statues dating to circa last March. Sadly, she did not take the fake statue of Babi the baboon god. He thought she and it went well together.
The donkey boy haggled more than the tourists, and it took several minutes and two whole piastres to get rid of the brat.
Just as the boy was getting the tourists on their donkeys for a painful ride to the next place where they’d be relieved of some of their spare cash, Moustafa spotted three much more welcome visitors in a motorcar coming up the street. At the wheel was Herr Heinrich Schäfer, a friend of Mr. Wall’s. He was a thin, sandy-haired older German and the world’s foremost expert on Egyptian art. Schäfer honked the horn to move the crowd of vendors and camel riders out of the way. A gaggle of street boys ran laughing in the motorcar’s wake. With Herr Schäfer came Suleiman and Zehra Hanzade. Suleiman, half Egyptian and half Turkish, was the shop’s supplier of fake antiquities, expert forgeries crafted by his own hands. His wife Zehra was full-blooded Ottoman and the manager of the family business. Men were so captivated by her beauty that they often overlooked her brains. That combined with Suleiman’s artistic talent had made the Hanzades quite wealthy.
As they parked in front of the shop, the boys caught up and surrounded the vehicle. Moustafa shooed them away, keeping an eye out for Faisal. Once the boys had cleared out to a respectable distance, Moustafa eyed the motorcar. It didn’t have a scratch on it. After their previous adventure, Mr. Wall had to spend quite a lot of money to get it back into its previous condition. Moustafa couldn’t even spot the bullet holes.
“Hello there, Moustafa,” Heinrich Schäfer said in passable Arabic as he got out of his motorcar. He reached into the passenger’s seat and pulled out a stack of books secured with a leather strap. “These are for you. I think they’ll help with that paper you’re writing.”
Moustafa’s heart fluttered as he took the books and examined their spines. They were various field reports and monographs on excavations in the Soudan. Herr Schäfer was the only European besides Mr. Wall who let him borrow books. Moustafa couldn’t even get a membership to the Institut d’Egypte. Africans weren’t allowed to sit in a library of African archaeology in an African city.
“Thank you so much, Herr Schäfer!” Moustafa said. After a pause to gather his courage, he asked, “What did you think of my first draft?”
“It’s excellent,” the scholar replied to Moustafa’s profound relief. “Almost ready for publication. You do need to address some of the findings published in these works. Once you have, I believe you will have no trouble getting it published.”
Moustafa’s chest swelled with pride. It would be his first academic paper. Once he had put the final touches on it, he would submit it to The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, based right here in Cairo. He would finally make a contribution to scientific knowledge!
“Could we stop talking about archaeology for a moment and speak of murder?” Zehra Hanzade asked, alighting from the motorcar. She wore a brilliant peach caftan interwoven with gold thread. Unlike most women, she did not cover her hair, not even with a European-style hat, and let it fall over her shoulders in rich black ringlets like a girl, despite being in her thirties.
Nothing else about her reminded him of a girl, however. No, she was very much a woman. Moustafa forced himself to look her in the eye.
“Quite right, Madam, I am glad to see you again. Good morning, Mr. Hanzade.”
The skinny antiquities forger shook his hand and Moustafa was enveloped in the smell of hemp smoke. How this man could create such wonderful works of art while forever sucking on that sheesha was beyond Moustafa’s understanding.
Mr. Wall hurried down the street, out of breath. His boss never missed a chance to spend time with Zehra.
“Terribly sorry to be late!” he said through gusts of air when he made it to them. “Got detained at Shepheard’s. Zehra, so good to see you again!”
The Ottoman woman treated Mr. Wall to a dazzling smile. Moustafa found himself smiling too. There would be some new fake antiquities in the showroom before the day was through.
“So nice to see you again, Augustus,” Zehra said, scandalously putting a hand on his arm despite her husband being present. “Spending time with you always brightens my day.”
Mr. Wall looked like a kitten getting scratched under the chin.
Herr Schäfer cleared his throat.
“Oh, hello Heinrich, Suleiman,” Mr. Wall said, nodding to them.
“Shall we go inside?” Zehra asked, reminding his boss why they were here.
“Oh, right. Of course.”
A curious crowd had encircled them, as always happened in Cairo anytime anything occurred of the least interest. Moustafa shoved a path through.
Once inside, they stood around the unwelcome addition to Mr. Wall’s collection.
“A nobleman’s sarcophagus of the Old Kingdom,” Herr Schäfer said, and then looked at Suleiman. “Or is it?”
Suleiman slowly circled it, his eyes bloodshot but intent. After a moment he shook his head. “No, I did not make this.”
“Are you quite certain?” the German academic asked. Suleiman partook of the hookah so much it was entirely possible that he had forgotten that he had ever made such a massive object.
“I always mark my creations with certain patterns of scrapes and chips so that I can identify them later.”
“What kind of patterns?” Herr Schäfer asked.
Zehra laughed. “Come now, Heinrich. You can’t expect us to give away business secrets, can you?”
“As long as I don’t end up putting any of your creations in my book,” he replied, pulling out a pipe and filling it.
“I’ll check the photos for you,” Suleiman said.
“Most kind,” Herr Schäfer said with a nod. “It’s a nice specimen. The false doors for the ka to pass through on either end are well done. Pity we only have these galleries of columns on the long ends instead of more elaborate decoration. Note the graceful curve of the lid with the panther in low relief, only seen on men’s sarcophagi. I have a section on this in my book. The panther skin was generally worn by high priests, but could appear on a sarcophagus of the nobility as sort of a stand in for a priest in the afterlife in order for the deceased to be assured of the correct rituals. A panther can sometimes be seen as a symbol of rebirth. The inscription is well preserved,”— Herr Schäfer turned to Moustafa—“but I’ll let our expert translate that.”
“I am sure you can do it as well as I can, Herr Schäfer,” Moustafa said, bowing.
“Nonsense! You have the greatest knack for languages of any man I have ever met.”
Moustafa smiled. Herr Schäfer and Mr. Wall were the only two Europeans he had ever met who didn’t pretend they were more knowledgeable than he was in areas where they weren’t. Why couldn’t all Europeans be this way? Moustafa had already d
eciphered the hieroglyphic inscription that ran along the edge of the lid, but he walked around the sarcophagus again to read it slowly.
“‘Intef, nomarch of the Khentabt nome, beloved of the pharaoh Merenre. Oh my mother Nut, spread yourself over me, so that I may be placed among the imperishable stars and may never die.”
Suleiman nodded. “That last bit is from the Pyramid Texts. I use it often. It has a poetic ring to it the tourists like.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Herr Schäfer said as he shook his head and chuckled.
“But effective,” Mr. Wall added. “I’ve sold a number of his works with that very same passage.”
“Merenre was VI Dynasty, wasn’t he?” Zehra asked.
Herr Schäfer puffed on his pipe, the stem disappearing under his sandy moustache. “Indeed he was. Not a very well-known pharaoh. He has a very poorly preserved pyramid at Saqqara. Not much to see now but a heap of limestone rubble. It must have been quite grandiose at one time, but it is nothing to look at these days.”
Zehra smiled. “Surely it is not the size of a man’s monument that is important, but how long it endures.”
Herr Schäfer nodded, paused, and flushed scarlet. Moustafa almost sank through the floor. The things this woman got away with saying! And her husband just stood there in bleary-eyed bliss.
His boss was in a bleary-eyes bliss of a very different kind. Yes, there would be quite a lot of purchases today.
Zehra clapped her hands. “Ah, I think I know where this comes from! I was having lunch with another antiquities dealer last week and he boasted how he had recently sold an Old Kingdom sarcophagus to a group of Frenchmen.”
“Frenchmen? Who is this antiquities dealer?” Mr. Wall asked.
“Marcus Simaika.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Moustafa said. “A Coptic Christian. He founded the Coptic Museum. The Simaikas are quite an influential family.”
“One that would not want to get mixed up in murder,” Suleiman said. “Marcus is on the Coptic Council, and a supporter of the independence movement. We will have to be discreet.”
The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus Page 4