Joanna smiled at the blithe way Mei dismissed a field of study that had occupied several cultures for thousands of years. She was right, of course, but time would probably teach her to temper her contempt. Or maybe not.
The sound of people talking on the dock below interrupted her. “Oh, right. We told our guests to be here at eight. We’d better go down.”
Charlie and Viviane had already come aboard and Jibril was just leading them into the salon. After a round of air kisses, Charlie handed over a bottle in a crumpled paper bag. “It’s champagne. You have no idea what I had to go through to get any quality stuff here. We refrigerated it before we came, so it’s already cold.”
“Oh, thank you,” Kaia gave him a second kiss. “We’ve got plenty of wine and beer aboard, but I didn’t think to ask the men to buy champagne.” She stepped back and gave Charlie’s wife an admiring glance. “Viviane, I love your Harley-Davidson shirt. With the pants and jacket, it’s a real Johnny Cash look. You’d be right at home at an agent’s party.”
“Well, I was going more for Marlon Brando, but Johnny Cash will do,” Viviane laughed. Joanna led them toward a table with several wine bottles and began to fill their glasses. At that moment, Gil and tribe arrived and came up the stairs for another round of greetings.
Standing at the head of his family, Gil made the presentation. “In Ireland it’s customary to give flowers for birthdays, but there’s not much of a floral industry here, so we got you these.” He flourished an oblong box, which seemed to be three-quarters filled with tissue paper. Reaching in carefully, Kaia uncovered a bouquet of glass flowers: roses, tulips, and what might have been petunias surrounded by glass greenery.
“Oh, it’s exquisite,” she exclaimed. Much better than the kind that die. Thank you so much.”
Peter stepped forward awkwardly. “We also have something for Kiele and Mei.” He presented envelopes to the two girls, giving each one a kiss on the cheek, then stepped back, his face turning pink.
Mei tore hers open with unashamed haste. “Hey, it’s a certificate for an introductory dive at the dive center. The beginning of a course!” She beamed.
“Yeah, we thought you were really missing out by staying at the surface,” Oliver added. “If you like the ‘baptism’ as they call it, you have time to learn the basics for a dive down to the exhibit before you leave. After you finish the course, they’ll let you go to fifteen meters with a monitor.”
“Oh, yay!” Mei exclaimed. “I was thinking about it, you know, but wasn’t sure it was possible. So cool to find out it is.” She hugged both boys with obvious glee.
Kiele held her unopened envelope to her chest. “Thank you for this. It’s perfect,” she said directly to Peter.
“Glad you like it,” he replied, exhausting his repartee.
“Come on, everybody, sit down.” Kaia waved her guests over to the table, diverting attention from the two.
“Does anyone know where Marion is?” Joanna pulled out chairs.
“Don’t worry about her,” Charlie said. “She’ll be along later. She took her girlfriend on a night dive to the city.”
“Her girlfriend’s a diver?”
“Yup, two stars. On vacation here with her brother. Why do you think Marion snapped her up like a seagull would a French fry? Anyhow, if everyone’s arrived, I suggest we open the champagne while it’s still cold.” Charlie stood at the foot of the table while everyone found a seat. After urging the cork from the bottle to a well-controlled pop, he filled each glass, and the company raised a toast.
“To Kaia,” Charlie said.
“To good friends,” Kaia replied.
“To good friends at the Red Sea,” Joanna amended, and everyone drank.
When all were seated again, Joanna leaned across the table toward Viviane. “I want you to know, Charlie has been a lifesaver. Literally, of course. I don’t know how much he told you about the accident, but he not only saved me from the sharks. He stood by me like a trooper afterward.”
Viviane glanced affectionately at her husband. “That sounds like him. The trooper part, I mean. The shark rescue was a first.”
“Do you dive with him?” Kaia asked.
Viviane shook her head. “No, that’s not my thing. Charlie says I have claustrophobia, which makes it sound like a sickness, but basically I prefer to get my air from the air and not sucked from a tube. I also like traveling at a higher speed than you do down there. But we ride our Harleys together. I’d much rather have bugs on my goggles than seaweed in my hair.”
Conversation stopped for a moment as Abdullah and Jibril came from the galley bearing steaming tureens of seafood and rice. “Egyptian paella,” Kaia announced, and passed the first of them to Gil’s wife Jacqueline.
Catching Viviane’s eye, Mei asked, “Do you have a real Harley-Davidson?” She scooped seafood onto her plate, adroitly avoiding the mussels.
“Yes I do. We both do. You ever ridden one?”
“No, but I’d sure like to. Are they expensive to maintain?”
“Hey, now don’t lure my daughter into motorcycles.” Kaia laughed, “At least not until she’s finished school.”
“Oh, you’re a student? What are you studying?” Viviane’s question allowed motorcycles to drop from the conversation.
Mei’s fork stopped midway to her mouth. “Particle physics, with a specialization in cosmology. I’ll start graduate school in the fall at Stanford, to work with their linear accelerator. It’s an antique though. What I really want to do is work at the LHC in Geneva.”
“The LHC? What’s the LHC?” Oliver asked.
“A particle accelerator, built to look for the Higgs-boson particle.” The fork made it to her mouth.
“Higgs boson particle?” Oliver was still at sea, and Joanna suspected everyone else at the table was as well.
Mei chewed for a moment. “The one missing part to the Standard Model of sub-atomic particles. You know, quarks and neutrinos, and other teensy-weensy things. They also call it the theory of almost everything.”
Oliver looked up through his eyebrows. “Riiiight,” he said, and began eating in earnest.
Joanna redirected the conversation. “Jacqueline, what do you think of Gil’s project? You’ve seen it, of course.”
Jacqueline brushed back a strand of white hair and beamed like Mrs. Santa Claus. “Not under water, but of course I watched the whole thing develop when he made all the drawings. And today I saw the top of it from the boat. I’m so happy for him. He’s always loved trains.”
“Yeah, you should have seen all the train sets he built for me and my brother.” Peter set down his glass. “Little wooden ones when we were babies, then electric ones when we were older. But the one he made here is the biggest toy train he’s ever played with.”
“Can I play with the train too?” Gil’s granddaughter asked, her little face just rising above the level of her plate.
Jacqueline took her napkin and wiped a piece of rice from the child’s chin. “As soon as you know how to swim, Grandpa and Daddy will teach you how to snorkel, and then you can play with it.”
“Fnorkel. I want to fnorkel.”
“Yes, sweetheart. Here, drink your juice,” Jacqueline said.
For the next ten minutes, the main sounds were the clattering of cutlery on porcelain and the murmuring of compliments. The paella was in fact excellent, and Joanna remembered the breakfast Abdullah had prepared for her on her first day. The man really had culinary talent. Any hotel in El Gouna should want him.
When the last sets of knives and forks were laid across plates, Abdullah appeared again to collect them and take them to the galley. A few moments later, he emerged bearing a chocolate cake, and Joanna stood up from the table.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Please raise your glasses for another toast. We are celebrating Kaia’s birthday, of course. But I’d also like to announce the coming publication of an article in our museum journal, a transliteration of three clay tablets Charlie and I found on our
first dive. There’s no small connection between the tablets and the exhibit, and someday the world may recognize it.”
“You might have to explain that a little,” Charlie said.
“Well, in a nutshell, the tablets tell the morality tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. In reverse! That is, Sodom and Gomorrah were, in their time and place, as multicultural and colorful as our undersea City on the Plain, and religious fanatics destroyed them.”
“To Sodom and Gomorrah then.” Gil laughed, and everyone drank.
Charlie tapped the side of his glass with a spoon. “Yeah, yeah, all very well and good. But this is first and foremost a birthday party for Kaia. So, all of us, your friends, would like to present you with a gift.” He stretched out his hand toward Gil’s granddaughter. “The sacred object, if you please.”
Beaming at her new office, the child handed a small box across the table toward Kaia.
Obviously bemused, Kaia took up the box and turned it in her hand for a moment, then tore it open. “What’s this?” She lifted out what looked like a digital watch with an extremely large face. “Oh, my gosh. A diving computer!”
“Do you know how to use it?” Gil asked.
“No, of course I don’t. I only know that it’s supposed to tell me the depth and dive times. But don’t worry, I’ll learn. Joanna will teach me.” She caressed the face of it with her thumb.
“We have something too, Ma,” Mei said, and handed her another small package. Kaia fumbled with the wrappings and then held up a silver chain. Dangling from the bottom was the silver figure of a diver with all four limbs articulated, a tiny mask, mouthpiece, hose, air tank, and long curved fins.
“Oh, it’s exquisite,” Kaia said, holding it up. “Here, help me put it on.” She handed it back and lowered her head while Kiele draped the chain around her neck and closed the clasp. Stroking it with her fingertips, she turned to Joanna. “Does this count toward accreditation?”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Joanna laughed as she reached into a pocket. “I also have a gift. It’s really only a possibility, so you’re free to refuse without hurting anyone’s feelings.”
Kaia looked perplexed. “Refuse a gift from you? What are you talking about?”
“You remember when we talked about theater? You said you wanted to do Shakespeare one day, and I said I had relatives in the British theater. Who I meant was Michael Boyd, the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He’s my uncle on my mother’s side. I called him and said you were interested in doing something and that you’d performed Shakespeare as a drama student. He was thrilled at the possibility of having a big name like yours in one of his productions. This is the fax he sent me yesterday.”
She withdrew a folded single page and presented it unceremoniously.
Speechless, Kaia unfolded and read it. “He wants me to play in the second cast of The Tempest,” she said, awestruck. “As a female Prospero.” She stared incredulously at the paper, reading it a second time.
“Do you think you might want to do it? I mean, learn all that Shakespearean English and be stuck for six months in Stratford-on-Avon and then London?”
“Of course I would. How can you doubt it? It’s the perfect place to weather the coming year.”
Mei cleared her throat conspicuously. “Excuse me, but I believe there is a chocolate cake getting old on the table. Has anyone got a knife?”
Abdullah, who still stood by the table, produced one from his apron pocket, and Joanna began the critical surgery.
At that moment, Jibril appeared at Kaia’s shoulder. “Missus, can I talk to you privately? Outside?”
Puzzled, Kaia looked around at her company, clearly reluctant to leave the table. “Uh, well, yes. I suppose so.” Consternation registered on her face as she followed him onto the stern deck. Charlie had begun to tell an anecdote, and the laughter coming from the salon was cut off as the glass doors closed behind them. Jibril motioned for her to sit on one of the fishing chairs.
“What is it, Jibril? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry, missus, but I have a very bad feeling.”
“About what? What’s wrong?” She glanced back at the salon doors.
“Well, you know I always fill your air tanks, yes?”
Kaia nodded, frowning.
“Okay. But yesterday, ah no, evening of the day before, I came back to the boat and saw Mr. Allen with the tanks. He was filling a third tank from the compressor.”
“Hmm. I don’t like him coming on the boat when I’m not here, but he still has a key so I shouldn’t be surprised. He must have been filling a cylinder for himself.”
“No, missus. The strange thing was, he exchanged the new tank for yours. He put your vest onto it and took your tank for himself. He even marked the new tank, with a small piece of tape. I don’t know why.”
“So what are you trying to say? I still don’t see what you’re worried about.”
“I worry because I ask, why did Mr. Allen give you a new tank? I did not like that. It was a dishonor to me because I am always very careful, and with my tank I know you are safe. I was angry, and to save my honor, I changed them back.”
“This is getting a little confusing. I dove with the tank that had the tape, and it was fine.”
“Yes, because I gave you the good tank again, my tank. I put his little tape on it to fool him. If he looked, he would think you had the new tank, the third one. But I put the third tank to the side. And now I fear something terrible happened because of that one. I think I am guilty, but I don’t know for what.”
“What happened to the third tank? Is it still there?”
“That is why I am so afraid, missus. When I collected your equipment this morning, the third tank was gone and so was Mr. Allen’s diving vest. I think he went into the water.”
*
Marion Zimmermann tied up the four-person inflatable to the buoy, feeling exceedingly lucky. Lucky that the committee had left the various personal boats at the disposal of the artists even after the opening ceremony of the exhibit, lucky that the opening had gone well and that the press had taken a lot of pictures of her work, and lucky most of all that she had met Maryke Vaal. What generous fate had brought the woman from the rich waters of South Africa to vacation, of all things, at the Red Sea? Lucky also that she could convince the woman, who had been keeping her at arm’s length for a week, to forego the opening day dive in order to enjoy a private tour at night. If this didn’t get Maryke into bed, nothing would.
Maryke sat across from her, snapping together her own buoyancy vest and checking the pressure valves on both their tanks, obviously professional enough to know the safety drill. They both had underwater lamps plus a backup light, full tanks, and a diving plan.
“I showed you the seabed sketch, so you know the where we go. We start at Gil’s railroad, swim left along the train cars to Joanna’s fountain. We’ll take a quick look at the figures in the middle of the city and then go to my piece, the ‘Great Balance.’”
“Sounds good.”
“After that, we make a circle and pass through the gallery where we’ll see a poem on the wall from my friend Charlie.”
“Uh huh.” Maryke clicked her underwater torch on and off, testing it.
“If the current is strong, we head back sooner, okay? Remember, we also have a birthday party to go to.”
Maryke slid on her fins and then snapped together her weight belt. “Okay, you’re the boss.”
“Ah, I love it when women say that to me.” Marion laughed, making her own final safety check. She turned on the tiny twinkle light in the dinghy that would act as a beacon for them when they emerged. One less thing to worry about if they surfaced some distance away. “All ready?”
“All ready.”
“Okay. Let’s go!”
They toppled backward from opposite sides of the inflatable and popped up in front of it. Double fine signs showed everything was working, so they began the descent.
In a few momen
ts they were on the seabed in front of the train station. They shone their lights inside but were disappointed to find nothing but exposed steel rods and a single fin wedged between two of them. The outside of the station was more realistic, and hovering on the platform, they studied the schedule carved in the concrete station wall and then swam among the passengers who waited to board.
The locomotive was impressive, and Marion ran the beam of her torch along its metallic side, still fresh enough to send back a reflection. Signaling that Maryke should stay in place, she swam to the other side and shone her torch on the smokestack, creating a hazy steam-like halo over it, which, with a bit of imagination, might suggest smoke.
They paddled the length of the train, shining their lights into the car windows as they passed. The seated concrete passengers looked out at them with empty eyes, like drowning victims, and Maryke signaled her discomfort by hurrying away. They passed the caboose and Marion led the way upward to the next objects on a slope of dead coral.
Maryke halted in front of the two uppermost figures and illuminated Lot, about to crash a stone against the head of his wife. Marion directed her attention downward to the fountain, and while Maryke knelt before one of the two girls, Marion found the reservoir tube and sent a shot of air through it from her regulator mouthpiece. A moment later, a series of silver balls burbled up from the center of the fountain. Marion directed her flashlight beam up to Atiyah, revealing the smaller bubbles that rose from the statue’s mouth. Maryke’s enthusiastic fine sign showed she was greatly amused, and it seemed increasingly likely that she would succumb to Marion’s charm that night.
Anxious to present her own work, Marion wove in and out of the other figures in the city, not dwelling on any particular one. To increase the drama, she signaled Maryke to turn off her lamp and follow close behind her.
Thus they made their way in the dark, with only the small sphere of Marion’s light sweeping slowly along the base of the first Egyptian pylon. Finally they came to the opening, guarded by the majestic figure of Osiris. Marion brought them to a kneeling position on the sea floor. Then she raised her torch.
Beloved Gomorrah Page 26