‘We bumped into each other in the executive lounge at Austin,’ Anderson said. ‘Boy, that man can talk. I don’t think he realised that you and I know each other as well as we do. The guy didn’t look well, I have to say, and he was kinda morbid.’
‘He has an eating disorder. In that he eats too much, I mean. What else did the old bastard say?’
‘He asked me if you’re angling to set up your own consultancy, walk off with his clients.’
I laughed. The idea that I could be that underhand seemed absurd. ‘The guy’s paranoid,’ I answered. ‘He just doesn’t understand the way I work.’
The trouble with Johannes Du Voor was that he imagined the rest of humanity to be as ambitious as he was, particularly the few he recognised reluctantly as more talented than himself. He’d recruited me directly out of Imperial College and for two years had insisted I work as his assistant in the field. On our first job together I realised he’d made a mistake; that he was out by nearly a kilometre. It was an important job - the first well in a new structure in Angola - and millions were at stake. I had pored over the seismic data, tested the core samples myself and walked the field while sniffing the air. At the risk of being fired, I’d offered him my alternative interpretation. Johannes had listened and had trusted the leap my instinct was pointing to despite his own calculations. To his credit, he corrected the proposed drilling angle. Then told me that if I was wrong he would not only fire me but he would also go out of his way to ruin my ongoing career. We struck oil that day but our relationship altered profoundly after that. He respected this inherent talent of mine, but even so every new exploration was like free-falling all over again for him.
The car pulled up beside the new drilling rig - untouched since I’d left two weeks earlier. The drill bit hung above the deck, its steel gleaming in the floodlights, poised like some vast mole ready to begin burrowing. Nearby, a deep-water well had been drilled to tap bore water to cool the rig in operation. Generators and various other pieces of equipment stood in the long shadow cast by the drill, like a silent audience awaiting a performance. It was bizarre to think that this massive contraption had remained unchanged, as if frozen in time, while my own life had gone through such devastating upheaval.
I made a quick appraisal of the equipment and the operators waiting at their controls. Then I raised my thumb, just like I had only a few weeks ago, moments before the explosion, and jerked it downwards. The giant diesel motors burst into life and the drill started to rotate as the stem was lowered through the deck. Nearby, engines turning the turntable pumped away the rubble and mud.
Anderson, standing next to me, slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Rotary drilling - don’t you love it!’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Ultimate penetration!’
Ignoring him, I watched the process for a few minutes. This initial stage was always nerve-racking: one had to pray that the drill bit was the correct selection for the rock. So far it was holding.
‘I hear rumour there’s an oasis about fifty miles from here,’ Anderson interrupted my concentration. ‘The guys told me there’s a 1920s Arab-style hotel and it’s great swimming.’
‘I should stay here.’
‘C’mon, there’s nothing going on that your assistant can’t handle. Man, you’re suffering a loss. You need some time to gather yourself. I know how that feels.’
I glanced back at the rig. Anderson was right. It would take two days before the drill had gone deep enough so that it could change direction and enter the pay zone. Maybe a desert drive would burn away some of my sadness.
The road was little more than a track. I drove the company jeep like a madman. Somehow the prospect of dying out here attracted me; an instant way of escaping the grief that now shadowed me.
Inland, the Sinai was endless scrub broken by the occasional sand dune. My eyes played tricks, turning the clock back to repopulate the dunes with primordial trees, an inland sea, swooping gulls against a kinder sky. Once, areas of Egypt had been moister, the weather more tropical. There had been swampland, hippopotami in the Nile, lions and crocodiles, but the desert had always been the kingdom of the snake, jackal and scorpion, the domain of harsh death. Many of the Ancient Egyptian icons reflected this. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming and cemeteries, was an embodiment of the stalking jackal at the edge of the desert, inching his greedy way towards the ravaged corpse; Ammut, the terrifying crocodile-headed goddess to whom the hearts of sinners were thrown during the weighing-of-the-heart ritual, was a manifestation of the real predators in the murky waters of the Nile. As my imagination sketched the fecund past against the arid horizon, I was reminded of Isabella’s recurring nightmare and then of the horror of her missing organs. When I got back to Alexandria I would need to find out more. What kind of individual or organisation might have authorised the desecration of a body? And what of the other Egyptologist whom the coroner had told me about, the young female corpse he’d seen years before with the same organs missing? Was there a link?
‘Anderson, have you ever heard of an illegal organ trade here in Egypt?’
He looked perplexed by the question. ‘Not here. Asia, maybe, but not in Egypt - why? You missing something?’ he joked. Then he realised I was serious.
‘No,’ I lied. ‘Just thought I might have stumbled onto something.’
‘Wow, that’s kinda heavy.’
‘Forget I even mentioned it.’
We fell back into an uneasy silence.
Two hours later we arrived at a fork in the road. There was nothing on the horizon in either direction.
Anderson studied the map in frustration. ‘Jesus, I thought you said you’d been there before.’
‘I have, but I had a local driver,’ I answered, smiling.
He swore and tried to trace on the map the way we’d come.
I jumped out of the jeep. Immediately the heat hit me like a furnace; punching me in the lungs and almost sending me reeling. I stood still, shallowing my breath, then wrapped the scarf I was wearing over my head and across my burning cheeks. I loved this elemental pain, this pushing-up against the tediousness of physicality, the proximity of death and the sharpness of life it brought with it.
Just then I heard the distinct plod of camels’ feet, followed by a shout in Arabic. A group of five Bedouin men emerged from behind a small dune, leisurely making their way down to the desert track, their headdresses and robes catching the breeze. They stopped their camels and stared at the jeep.
Uncertain of my reception, I waved. One of them waved back. Then the chief whipped his mount on its flanks and galloped towards me, the animal moving with surprisingly elegant strides.
From inside the jeep Anderson whistled. ‘Hope your Arabic’s good,’ he muttered as he climbed out.
‘It depends on how thick his dialect is.’
Close up, the hennaed beard of the Bedouin was startling. Now I could see the end of an AK-47 assault rifle poking out from under his saddle. He stared at Anderson. I followed his gaze; the Bedouin had noticed the old army ID tag from his service days in Vietnam that the oilman still wore.
‘May peace be with you,’ I said hurriedly in Arabic, hoping to distract the Bedouin.
Ignoring me, he pointed aggressively at Anderson. ‘Soldier?’
‘Say nothing,’ I murmured to Anderson, praying that the normally loquacious American would stay silent.
By now the others had ridden up. They formed a sullen bunch, staring over the chequered scarves covering the lower halves of their faces, wary, waiting for a cue from their leader as to how to react.
‘Not any more,’ I answered in Arabic, pointing to Anderson’s grey hair. ‘Old.’
Unconvinced, the Bedouin chief’s suspicious gaze travelled across Anderson’s T-shirt, flared jeans and ancient sneakers.
‘Old body, young mind,’ the Bedouin said, deadpan.
Behind him, the other four tribesmen burst into laughter. Anderson, sensing an affront, swung around to me.
‘What’s
he say?’
‘He says you look very strong for a man of your age.’
Anderson narrowed his eyes in disbelief. ‘Jesus, Oliver, just ask him where the oasis is.’
‘The oasis is half an hour’s drive from here. You take the left track,’ the Bedouin replied in perfect English. ‘Be careful - the desert can be dangerous.’
He swung his camel around and they were gone.
The gravelly tones of JJ Cale floated out from Anderson’s radio, mingling with the rustling of the date palms above us. We were lounging beside a small lake surrounded by a green fringe of reeds and palms. Its surface mirrored the turquoise sky yawning above it. Set back a short distance was the low-lying hotel, its white-yellow desert-mud bricks making it barely discernible. Its Moorish architecture, with narrow slits for windows and with arches leading to an enclosed walled garden that was cool and shady even at midday, made it a refuge from the incessant heat.
I lay on a beach towel, left behind by some long-departed tourist and taken by me from the hotel, the grey flannel embroidered with ‘P&O, Suez Cruises’. Next to my head sat the satellite phone borrowed from the oil company. My contract stated that I was to be contactable at all times in case of possible crisis in the field - so where I went the phone went too. Above me, a thick serrated palm trunk leaned over the lake, its reflected counterpart swaying slightly with the movement of the water. It was a perfect isochronism, a parallel world in reverse where anything was possible. I sat up, intrigued by the notion.
Anderson, in voluminous crimson bathing trunks, a copious amount of suntan lotion smeared over his reddening face and chest, lay in full sun, resembling a beached starfish. A thick, crudely rolled joint hung between his fingers. He sat up, took a long drag of the marijuana and, holding his breath, handed it to me. After exhaling he fell back onto his towel.
‘Boy, how good it is to stop the brain.’
I inhaled gingerly; I had never liked to lose control and marijuana wasn’t a favourite of mine, although Isabella had smoked it regularly, claiming that it stimulated her imagination. Personally I thought it stimulated nothing but paranoia, but, for fear of sounding unfashionable and old, I’d never asked her to stop indulging. My preference was alcohol, and I’d never tried any of the stronger hallucinogens and stimulants around at the time - LSD, mescaline, cocaine. But now I was willing to try anything to stop my mind from slipping into introspection. The smoke hit the back of my throat and seared my eyes. Seconds later a sense of psychological dislocation seeped through my body.
‘This is strong. Where did you get it?’
‘Afghanistan - it’s opiated. They always prioritise my equipment so I’m never searched at airports.’
‘Sounds useful.’
‘Sure thing, buddy, but I draw the line at firearms and radioactive waste. A man has to have some morals.’
I stared across the lake, the colours blurring into smudges of brilliant blue, emerald green, white-yellow. An ibis flew low over the water’s surface, its wings a languid progression of semi-circles rising and falling in a spiral of feathers.
‘Do you know why I do what I do?’ Anderson’s voice was distant and slightly slurred, and my own increasingly inarticulate mind struggled to register the fact that he sounded very stoned.
‘For the money, I suppose, maybe the danger.’
‘Wrong on both counts. You know I was in Nam?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, back around ’68 - 17th September 1968, to be precise - my platoon was ambushed by the Vietcong and I found myself crouched among three friends with their guts spilling out. I was the only one left standing. I can’t tell you why - wasn’t reflexes, wasn’t clever thinking, it just happened that way. I missed my death day. That’s what I truly believe: I missed my death day and now here I fucking am - amen.’ He took another drag of the joint, then stubbed it out on a rock. ‘But I know, in my heart of hearts, I was truly meant to die that day.’
I lay there thinking about Isabella, her fear of Ahmos Khafre’s prediction of her death day. Was that really the day she had drowned? Then there was the vision I’d had of her in the bathtub, the fact of her stolen organs and her own terror of her Ba and Ka not being united and ending up in an Egyptian purgatory. I waited for Anderson to continue. I’d never considered him a religious man or even particularly philosophical; in fact, I’d always assumed him to be the opposite: a realist willing to work for anyone for the right price, regardless of his politics.
‘Couldn’t it have been simply luck - the angle of fire?’ I asked finally.
Anderson rolled over and stared at me, the whites of his eyes reddened. ‘Christ, another cynic.’
‘Organised religion is the scourge of the world. Look what it’s done in this region.’
‘That’s economics, colonial history and territory and you know it. Anyhow, I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about the natural span of a man’s life and what kind of meaning we bring to our time here on this damn planet!’
Anderson’s voice was loud - he was too stoned to realise how loud. I glanced around: the place was deserted except for a peasant woman on the opposite bank doing the laundry. She squatted at the water’s edge, her long slim wrists emerging from her robes, her reddened hands a fury of soap suds as she scrubbed the clothes with a pebble on a rock. She looked across at me, then went back to her washing.
I turned back to Anderson, wondering whether to humour the huge bear of an ex-soldier or to be honest.
‘You know, one of the things Isabella and I disagreed on most was her belief in all this voodoo. It used to amaze me that an educated, intelligent woman could believe in astrology and Ancient Egyptian magic, that some kind of invisible force directed her in her archaeology. I just don’t buy that. Everything is what you see: gravity is gravity, the laws of physics are immutable and all mysteries are explicable. We’re complex animals run by our hormones and ultimately not very important in the grand scheme of things. No more, no less.’
There was a short pause during which I realised we were engaged in the meandering philosophising that smoking marijuana always led to. But I was on a roll, I couldn’t stop myself; it was as if I was talking out the events of the past two weeks, trying to incorporate them in a framework that made some logical sense. But why was I so angry? Was I angry with Isabella for dying in her search for something that she believed was a spiritual object - a magical one, even, if some of the old accounts were to be believed?
‘We live and then we die,’ I continued. ‘People live on in memory; that’s the only kind of immortality available, unless you believe in wrapping desiccated corpses in linen and building huge triangular tombs over them. I don’t. I’m worse than an atheist; I believe in expendable biology. Maybe that’s why I’m terrified of forgetting Isabella because that would mean she’d really left me. You know, that moment when she stops appearing in my dreams and I find I can’t remember her face.’
There was another long silence. Intoxicated, I gazed up into the vast blue. Suddenly I realised that the circling dot above me was a hawk patiently stalking over its hunting ground.
Bill lifted his sunglasses and peered at me, genuine emotion crinkling his eyes. ‘She’ll never leave you - you know that, don’t you, Oliver?’
‘I guess not.’
Another silence fell upon us, as dense as wood.
Bill collapsed back onto his towel. ‘Tom, one of the guys who died with me in Vietnam, a real close friend, had this private joke with me. When we were under fire he’d call me Jerry. Tom and Jerry, see? Humour was his way of dealing with terror; no one else in that platoon, hell, on the whole planet, knew this little joke we had going between us. Anyhow, a couple of weeks after his funeral in Austin, the army put on a commemoration dinner for the platoon - most of whom had perished with Tom. So there I am, dressed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, thinking how much Tom would have hated all this hypocrisy and pomp, and I’m looking for my place name on the table. And there it was: Jerry And
erson - not Bill, Jerry - in black ink with a small cartoon of a cat and mouse. It was a sign, you know - Tom joking with me, reminding me that he was still out there, watching.’
‘I’d love to believe that random events may have a special significance,’ I said, ‘but I can’t. Maybe it’s my scientific training - who knows? - but if I had an experience like that I’d just see it as someone’s ill-conceived joke.’
‘That’s bullshit, Oliver. I’ve seen how you work - not all of it’s based on cold logic, not in this game.’
Uncomfortable with the knowledge that he was right, I changed the subject. ‘You still haven’t told me why you became a firefighter on oil wells.’
Anderson trailed a hand into the water. The drips falling from his fingers appeared huge: deliciously welling miniature worlds of cool, cool water.
‘Maybe I just like tempting the gods. You see, every time we set those explosives I’m waiting to die. Just can’t shake off the sensation that I’m living on borrowed time.’
‘Survivor’s guilt?’
‘Like I said, I missed my death day, brother. It’s as simple as that.’
We lay there flattened by the sun, both very conscious of the unspoken statement hanging awkwardly between us. Finally Anderson spoke.
‘Listen, I didn’t mean to suggest that Isabella’s accident was—’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I cut in. Then I stood up and waded into the shallow lake.
At the edge the water was warm. I slipped off the bank and moved into the deeper part where it became colder. After taking a deep breath I dived down, four strokes through the greenish water, sand below, the dark stripes of reeds shooting up towards the light, caressing paintbrushes against my body. The cold jet of the current travelling over my burning skin was soothing; my fingers making splayed frog-hands in the aquamarine light filtering from above.
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