The man’s eyelids partly veiled the irises of his eyes. It made him look as if he were communing with some inner voice.
“I know enough. But let me say this to you. Do you think it wise to go in search of the forbidden and dangerous? Do you think it advisable to prod around among ancient, pagan belief systems and risk destabilising the balance of a region?”
“The Middle East?” Anson said.
The stranger nodded.
“In the first place, yes, but the risks go wider. Do you ever stop to think that your digging around might help to begin a worldwide catastrophe?”
Who was he? A hard man, dressed in a tight jacket and an open necked shirt, he had an air of officialdom about him. It would be handy if people came with museum labels.
“My name is Ahmed Ragab.”
He was a messenger, Anson guessed. But who had sent him? The Supreme Council of Antiquities? The Egyptian Government?
Strange currents are gathering around me lately. First the girl on the train and now this Egyptian.
“You just happened to be here and decided to wander over and offer me a piece of advice.”
“You could put it that way.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. Seeing you’ve asked, I’ll just give up my life’s work.”
“It is your life that is a concern. Think about what you are doing and take your steps very, very carefully my friend.”
“You are obviously thinking that I’m on to something. Is that the official view in Egypt?”
“We have seen your persistence before and we know how your brand of speculation seems to attract other interests. Be careful what friends you make. You are a dangerous man and one who is being watched, be assured of that.”
“You’re a long way from home to be making threats.”
“So is Khaemwaset a long way from home, and all the sculptures in this British Museum. They should be back in Egypt.”
“Maybe they’re safer here.” Safer away from extremists, he thought.
“You are safer here too, Mr Hunter. Good day.”
The Egyptian left him and went to examine a relief carved in red granite and mounted on the wall, of Pharaoh Osorkon II and his wide-bodied consort, Queen Karomama.
What was he to make of this approach?
The Egyptian authorities were nervous and that meant they believed in the existence of some new find that could have repercussions, fearing its potential to disturb the intricate equilibrium of the region. But what exactly was the root of their fear - religion or politics? Or both? The Egyptian stranger’s aversion to ‘pagan belief systems’ disturbed him.
Modern Muslim Egyptians lived in fearful tension with their ancient past, he reflected, turning a sweeping glance around the British Museum’s hall of sculptures, taking in the statue of Khaemwaset and the colossal head of Rameses behind him. Not long before, Egypt’s Grand Mufti had issued a fatwa against sculpture. Egypt’s ancient sculptures were forbidden by Islam, he said. Sculptors were doomed to receive the harshest treatment on Judgement Day.
If the extremists had their dearest wish would they obliterate these remnants from the so-called Age of Ignorance before Islam?
Antiquities authorities in the Arab Republic of Egypt wondered why Western museums were less than eager to repatriate their Egyptian collections to Egypt, yet who could see what lay in the future for this Islamic nation?
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities had distanced itself from the fatwa, saying that the sculptures they preserved and showcased were not for the purposes of idolatry but to provide a window on history. “We display statues so they can be studied and so people can get to know their heritage. This is Egypt's national heritage. We don't display them for worship.”
A number of influential sheikhs supported the mufti, however, while intellectuals and artists in Egypt were said to have called the fatwa laughable.
And yet…
Could firebrands one day use this as an excuse to harm treasures of history that belonged to all of humankind?
The Taliban in central Afghanistan demonstrated the peril of antiquities in the hands of ideologues. They had used explosives to destroy the sixth century Buddhas of Bamyan, a pair of colossal standing Buddhas carved into the side of a sandstone cliff, irreplaceable examples of Indo-Greek art.
In spite of recent hectoring by the Supreme Council of Antiquities to return artifacts to Egypt from the museums of the world, modern Egypt's exclusive claim on the civilisation of the pharaohs was shaky. Where was the link of this 21st century Arabic society with ancient Egypt? Not religion, not language, not politics, probably not even temperament, certainly not philosophy or social structure let alone shared basic assumptions about equality between the sexes - not artistic tradition, not even the rhythm of life regulated by the ebb and flow of the Nile - the construction of the Aswan High Dam severed that link forever.
Today’s new antiquities grab was as questionable as the first rape of the Nile by colonial powers. It was a form of rampant nationalism and, in more enlightened times, disagreeable in Anson’s view.
It was also counter-productive for today's Egypt. The very presence of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the museums of the world spurred thousands to visit Egypt every year.
Why kill the goose that laid the golden sarcophagus? he thought.
Feeling a surge of protectiveness for the civilisation he loved, he suddenly - unreasonably, he knew - wished that the British Museum’s ancient Egyptian galleries were ten times their present size, along with those of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Louvre, Berlin Neues Museum and Turin Museum.
And yet he liked a great many Egyptians very much and he loved the land of Egypt itself and its sites of antiquity and he valued the feeling of place that connected him with the past. The Nile Valley was still the biggest and best museum on earth.
He cast a final glance at the broad back of the Egyptian man and walked away. The issue of who owned the past was a complicated one. He moved on through the hall.
He passed an object that had the appearance of a vast stone bathtub. In fact, this was pretty much the fate that had befallen it, he thought. The granite sarcophagus of the last native king of Egypt, Nectanebo II, finely covered with inscriptions taken from the Book of ‘What is in the Underworld’, had never been used for his final resting place, but instead had ended up in Alexandria where it was used for ritual ablutions and dubbed ‘Alexander’s bath’. Napoleon and his company of scholars found it in a mosque in Alexandria, where locals declared it to be the sarcophagus of Eskander, as they called Alexander the Great.
Anson kept moving, his sights set on some other special artefacts. There they were. A woman stood in front of them, a group of four looming statues of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet-Hathor in granite, commissioned by the fearful king Amenhotep III to pacify her angry onslaught. On slender women’s bodies, the lioness heads looked frozen with the ferocious intent of big cats that have spotted a prey. The Museum had over twenty fragments of the six hundred now accounted for, the vast majority of them now standing in the precinct of Egypt’s Karnak Temple.
He felt a shiver. He imagined as he looked up at a disc on a feline head that he could hear the roar of an angry sun.
“Is Egypt threatening you again?” The woman in front of the exhibit spoke to him.
“I’m sorry?”
“I overheard your exchange just now.”
How much of it?
“Oh, that. Yes, I’m afraid I do have an unsettling effect on the Egyptian authorities.”
“You upset them.”
“Let’s say we have history - and not just the ancient kind.”
She was snugly dressed against the London chill in a coat and boots, a blonde with a peculiarly clean, English appeal.
“We need to talk. This is not an accidental meeting. I’m here to pick you up for some polite questioning.”
A museum is a dangerous place. Who was she? Antiquity authorities? Interpol? Did she
know about the girl on the train? This could ruin everything.
“Maybe you should introduce yourself,” he said.
“Not here. How about a break and an early lunch? I missed breakfast to get here and now I’m starving.”
“You missed breakfast on my account? I hope I’m worth it.
Chapter 5
THEY WENT upstairs and across the walkway to the Court Café, an airy open restaurant in the courtyard tower.
They ordered. She chose a mushroom omelette and a latte and he settled for a smoked salmon and salad sandwich and a black espresso.
“Who are you?” he said.
“Who are you expecting? Let me guess. The Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit? I’m Gemma Laughton.”
It might be a good idea not to gulp, he thought.
At least not until his order arrived.
“We think that for a change you might like to assist your own country in an investigation,” she said after a silence designed to give him time to squirm.
Evidently she knew about his past consultancy with US Homeland Security.
She went on. “We have reason to believe that an organisation involved in the illegal sale of Egyptian antiquities may contact you. Maybe they’ve done so already.” She slipped it in so lightly that it almost caught him off guard.
“Why would they contact me?”
“There are of course quite severe penalties for being associated with the sale of illegal antiquities. Not to mention the possibility of a sentence in absentia by an Egyptian court. Fifteen years’ prison with hard labour is not uncommon.”
A recollection of a recently publicised case flashed into his mind. The Art and Antiques Unit had arrested a man who had been sentenced for dealing in antiquities. The item, a stone head of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, smuggled out under a coat of black resin and painted with gaudy stripes to look like a backstreet souvenir, had been returned to Egypt via the Egyptian Embassy.
“I’m not a collector. Not of antiquities, anyway. I limit myself to gathering wild theories.”
“You like to be controversial. Perhaps there are people who might want to make use of your peculiar knowledge to evaluate certain stolen antiquities.”
“What stolen antiquities?” he said in a low voice.
It was just as well he kept his voice down. Their food and coffees arrived.
He’d always liked women with an amiable appetite and this girl’s went all the way to ardour. She tucked into her mushroom omelette with relish. She seemed to forget all about him. Maybe he was supposed to blurt out a confession to fill the silence.
“It sounds as if you know a bit about me,” he said at last.
“Mm yes. These mushrooms are divine. I also know a bit about your line of work. I took a first in ancient history at Cambridge and I have specialised knowledge of the Middle East. I’ve read your theories too. A question. You have fears about someone letting loose ancient danger from the past. Who would do it?”
“Occultists, New Agers, neo-pagans.”
“This omelette is quite scrummy.”
Scrummy.
Yes, she was pretty scrummy herself. A clean, spic and span blonde of a very London sort.
Me and a cop?
He wanted a relationship, not an arrest. “Tell me about your fears.”
He did. She could have read it all in his blog. Maybe she wanted to hear it from him. It would also give her a chance to eat.
Scrummy Girl threw him a question to keep him busy.
“But if you really fear that digging up this source of power is such a danger, why are you going there? Scratching around could set off a disaster. You like to play with fire.”
She had a way of making sweeping observations about him, he noticed, voiced in the present tense, as if he were continuously guilty of her accusations.
“You sound as accusing as the Egyptian I just met,” he said. “You believe in danger from the ancient past. So what would you like to do about this danger?”
“Find the source of power before the wrong people do.”
“Then?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t got that far. But I’m puzzled by your interest,” he said. “Why would antiquities police be interested in metaphysical dangers from a primeval Egypt?”
“It involves an illegal antiquities operation,” she said.
“And what do you want of me?”
“Nothing yet. I wanted to make contact with you and fill in some blanks.” She looked at her wristwatch.
Her appearance on the scene added a new danger to recent events. They finished their meal and coffees.
“I’ll get the bill.”
“No, you’re my guest,” Scrummy Girl said.
Or a guest of the government.
He supposed his taxes would cover it.
As he walked back to his hotel, he felt a sense of exposure. Currents, people and events swirled around him like the cold London air, crowding his world.
Fallen leaves from oak trees in a park cluttered the pavement, curled up like papyrus scrolls, archaeological spoil heaps of rust, yellow and brown. For a moment, his sneakers vanished under this detritus of time and the seasons. Dead leaves, yet they crackled like scrolls of power.
The pavement narrowed, the black railings of the park pushing him closer to the street and the passing traffic, rattling black London cabs and rumbling, red double decker buses that looked as if they were about to overbalance. A gust from a passing bus scattered leaves.
What was it that drove him?
A desire to save the world?
He recalled the same question put to him by the Egyptian man and the antiquities girl.
Aren’t you afraid you’ll trigger an apocalypse?
Was it simply a hunger to feel the crackle of the numinous, to find the great source of Egypt’s power heka?
Heka was the power behind the civilisation of Egypt, behind every idol, every execration text and smashed jar, every sweating wax effigy in the flame, every stabbed, trampled and spat upon image, every prayer to a god, every amulet and love spell.
He certainly did not want power for himself, only perhaps the power that could come from knowing that such power existed, because if that power existed and could be held in his hands, then so did another power.
Where there was shadow, there had also to be the light.
Yet there could be another reason, one that he had enough honesty and self-knowledge to recognise - a hunger for acceptance, sparked by an Egyptologist father who had abandoned him as a child. It would be sweet to shake up the profession and topple their ivory tower.
Maybe a combination of all of these impulses.
In the end, though, would it be worth taking the risk?
Why did he imagine that he could encounter and experience such terrifying psychological and existential danger and remain immune to its effects?
And how did he think he was going to avoid the consequences for the region and the world that others feared?
He crossed a street and had the distinct feeling in the nape of his neck that somebody was watching him. Was he being followed?
The Egyptian? The antiquities girl?
He tried half-turning his head to check behind. None of the suspects was in view. Just a normal London street with a normal assortment of people. But the feeling persisted.
As he approached his hotel in Upper Woburn Place, he recalled that he was walking on the very same street where terrorists had once blown up a bus, creating carnage. He recalled seeing an image of the bomb attack, flashed around the world on television screens and in print, of a red London double-decker now devoid of its top deck, the roof ripped off like the lid of a tin can.
It was an oppressive and depressing world, and might soon become a lot more so if his fears were valid. He vowed to find the truth before someone else did and they re-activated an ancient apocalypse.
Chapter 6
HE SPENT weeks and months in a busy void, waiting for word from Alexia.
/>
He confirmed plans for a lecture tour in America. He read a great deal. He haunted the local Ashmolean museum in Oxford, dwelling morosely on their Egyptian predynastic exhibits.
He was not one for ailments, but a problem had been growing in his life like a cancer and he needed to know if it was benign or malignant.
He found a high street doctor.
The doctor turned out to be a middle-aged Japanese woman, a Doctor Okamura.
She looked at him with wisely crinkled eyes.
“What is the problem?”
“I don’t know if I’m seeing the world as it really is, or whether I’ve been sliding into a bit of depression.”
“How is your world?”
“Not good.”
“Do you have any history of depression?”
“It’s been creeping up over the last year or so. And history may be part of the problem.”
“What work do you do?”
“I’m an independent Egyptologist and alternative historian. I study ideas about the sacred, about death, eternity, mummies, dangerous esoteric texts and the powers of unseen forces and, if that isn’t enough, I wrestle with a faith.”
“Have you gone through any big changes in your life in recent times? Losses?”
“My father, an Egyptologist who abandoned us when I was just a child, died in Egypt not long ago and my mother died more recently, in Oxford. And I’m divorced and living a bit like a lonely crank, locked up in a room, writing and researching all day and night. Am I depressing you?”
“You were depressed about your mother and father?”
“I’m glad you didn’t say my wife.”
“Well?”
“Yes, I suppose I was. Never would have expected it, but I was suddenly stricken with a sad, lonely feeling that nobody was looking on any more. Nobody cared if I was succeeding or failing. Crazy, isn’t it? Who’d have thought that at thirty nine I’d still care?”
THE HATHOR HOLOCAUST Page 3