Sphinx

by T. S. Learner

  I swam further down and along the bottom. A small group of large fish hovered above me, metal-blue in the subterranean sun, then darted away, glinting like thrown silver coins. In that moment I felt something pass by me, something large. Nothing was visible. Ripples ran along my skin, making my body hair stand on end. Treading water, I rotated as fast as I could, just in time to catch the sight of feet and naked legs disappearing into a forest of weeds.

  A second later, Isabella loomed out of the lattice of long floating leaves, her loose hair weaving around her face, her breasts luminous. Terrified, I froze, drifting slowly down, as she smiled sadly at me, her face a translucent moon filtering through the green. Then, indicating that I should follow, she turned and swam away with that characteristic kick of hers. This is no ghost, I told myself, fighting blind panic.

  I followed, only to lose her in the shadowy labyrinth. I searched, fighting the dangerous tangle, stirring up clouds of mud, but found nothing. Lungs bursting, I made for the surface.

  Gasping, I broke through, limbs flailing. Disorientated, I struggled for breath for what felt like minutes, then managed to clamber onto the bank where I lay curled on the ground.

  I became aware of a strange dull whirring sound - my satellite phone was ringing. I sat up. Anderson was on his feet, waving frantically.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he shouted.

  Shaking, I got to my knees, trying to compose myself, but Isabella’s face still hovered in front of my eyes. I leaned against the sandy bank.

  ‘Fine. I just shouldn’t smoke and swim!’ I yelled back.

  The satellite phone continued to ring.

  ‘Answer it!’ I shouted, and then I was back in the water, swimming towards him.

  10

  Barry’s excited voice sounded distant, as if he were yelling from the bottom of a ravine. ‘Oliver, this thing, it’s amazing, mate. It’s definitely an astrarium, but I’ve never seen anything even remotely this mechanically sophisticated.’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s an ancient artefact.’

  ‘That’s what’s blowing my mind. It isn’t bronze but some other alloy, which might explain why it’s so well preserved. It seems to have some unusual magnetic properties - there’s a cog-like device at the centre with what appear to be two magnets - looks as if it’s meant to spin. Totally freaky. But get this, mate, the first time I carbon-dated the wooden box I thought I was hallucinating, but I’ve checked it five times now and I’m getting the same result over and over!’

  ‘What result?’

  ‘Mate, this astrarium isn’t Ptolemaic, it’s way older - Pharaonic. I found two cartouches on it - the cartouche of Nakhthoreb, otherwise known as Nectanebo II. That makes it Thirtieth Dynasty, which in itself is bloody unbelievable! But what is even more freaky is the cartouche I found next to it - of Ramses III. You know when that was, Oliver?’

  ‘I have an idea.’ My voice broke in terror. An uncomfortable blend of fear and excitement was making it difficult to talk.

  ‘The Twentieth Dynasty, Oliver!’ Barry yelled down the phone. ‘I reckon around 1160 BCE, time of frigging Moses!’

  My throat was dry and my heart felt as if it was thumping against the wall of my stomach. If the astrarium was Twentieth Dynasty it was well over two thousand years old. The Pharaohs weren’t meant to have this kind of technology. If confirmed the discovery would force a complete reassessment of history, the beginning of civilisation, and our understanding of the Ancient Egyptians. It also meant the astrarium was immeasurably valuable, priceless beyond any reckoning.

  ‘That’s not possible. You’ve made a mistake.’ I fought to keep my voice calm.

  ‘Mate, I don’t make mistakes.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to get back as quickly as I can. Meanwhile, I want you to keep this quiet. Barry, listen to me. Not a single word to anyone.’ Overwhelmed, I sat back on the ground, fighting a sudden dizziness. In my mind I saw Faakhir, then Amelia. Hermes. Isabella’s face. Her unbelievable excitement had she been around to witness this.

  ‘Oliver, this is the discovery of the century.’

  ‘Just promise me you’ll lie low. I don’t want either of us ending up in jail for stealing an antiquity. I’ll be back in a couple of days. And, Barry, for Christ’s sake watch your back.’

  The line cut out before he had a chance to answer. I glanced over my shoulder. I was relieved to see that Anderson was fast asleep on his towel and the peasant woman washing her clothes had disappeared.

  I flew to Alexandria four days later. I took a cab from the airport straight to Barry’s apartment on the Corniche. The apartment block was one of those neoclassical buildings constructed at the turn of the twentieth century and had a crumbling magnificence. Barry had lived there for years, and had an arrangement with his Syrian Christian landlady, Madame Tibishrani. Now a voluptuous widow in her early sixties, she lived on the first floor with her handicapped daughter. She maintained Barry’s place during his long and often inexplicable absences and operated as an unofficial postbox, dutifully collecting his mail. She adored the Australian and was fiercely protective of him, as well as tolerant of the numerous young travellers (almost always female) who’d turned up to stay over the years.

  The apartment was on the third floor, with a large balcony that wrapped around the corner of the building. The cab dropped me off.

  The sun had begun to set - a blood-red eye staring over the sea already streaked with the darkening clouds of night - and the call to prayer echoed: a lone melodic wailing that never failed to stir something elemental in my soul. The stately white Abu El Abbas mosque with its two domes and slender tower reaching to God like an outstretched arm dominated the square.

  Small distinct groups of worshippers had begun to walk to the mosque. The smell of the sea blew in - a crisp breeze tainted with the scent of distant shores - and the familiarity of it saddened me. I glanced back up at Barry’s apartment block. My heart missed a beat. I immediately noticed that something was wrong. The birdcages that usually hung there were missing and the shutters on the doors were closed. I’d never seen it like that before.

  The doorman let me into the building without a word, then resumed his position in a plastic black chair by the stairwell. I raced up the stairs. Barry’s apartment door was shut; the magic eye carved into it to ward off evil stared back at me as if to mock my growing sense of dread. I lifted the brass knocker and banged. There was no reply.

  There was a creak on the stairs behind me; Madame Tibishrani’s platinum beehive appeared on the landing below. The rest of her followed, incongruously dressed in an elegant black evening dress. She gasped, startled to see me.

  ‘Monsieur Oliver, you have given me a scare. It has been so terrible, you cannot imagine.’

  She hurried up the stairs and joined me outside Barry’s door. Even in this dim light I could see that her eyes were swollen from weeping.

  ‘I’m trying to find Barry. Isn’t he in?’

  Sighing, Madame Tibishrani stroked my hand. ‘My poor Monsieur Oliver, have you not heard? Barry is no longer with us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He had an accident. The police say it was suicide, but I don’t believe it, Monsieur Oliver. Barry would never have killed himself. Never.’

  The news ran me through like an electric shock. Reeling, I leant against the wall. I couldn’t believe that Barry was actually dead - it didn’t seem possible that such a spirited bull of a man could suddenly no longer exist.

  ‘Do you have the keys?’ Fighting grief I made an effort to stand, pushing against the barrage of memories of Barry in this apartment - the evenings we’d got drunk together listening to the Rolling Stones, the political arguments that always ended in Barry resorting to standing on his head while making some grand statement that was totally irrelevant to the debate, reducing both Isabella and me to hysterical laughter, the night he got arrested for prophesying naked from his balcony, the day I walked in and found him feeding twenty of the local street ki
ds.

  ‘Of course I have the keys.’

  ‘Let me in, please . . .’

  ‘But the police . . .’

  ‘Madame Tibishrani, please. I need to see for myself.’

  She glanced down and up the stairs - that furtive look of fear so common in Egypt - then turned back to me.

  ‘D’accord,’ she whispered. ‘But you cannot tell a soul it was I who let you in. The police have been here so many times that I think Barry must have been in trouble with the authorities.’

  She pulled a bunch of keys from her pocket and, after wrapping the latch with a handkerchief to muffle the sound, opened the door.

  The smell was awful - musty, with an overlay of old incense, stale cigarette smoke and cat piss. But there was something else that assaulted my senses - the sense of past violence. Death hung in the air, making the back of my scalp prickle. It was dark, almost pitch black: the heavy velvet curtains were drawn across the windows. Broken glass splintered under my shoes as I made my way across the lounge room, my feet bumping against books scattered across the floor.

  ‘When they searched the place they made such a mess, but I have orders not to disturb it,’ Madame Tibishrani murmured from the safety of the doorway. ‘No respect for property, no respect for the dead.’

  I drew the curtains, then opened the balcony doors to let in the sea breeze. Illuminated, the apartment showed itself to be in a state of total chaos. Books had been pulled from the bookcases lining the walls and flung to the floor, as if the intruders had been looking for secret compartments behind the shelves. Several of Barry’s prized beanbags had been ripped open with a knife and the stuffing scattered - it looked like a tidal wave of foam had swept through the apartment. Despite a growing sense of horror I found myself looking for blood smears - on the walls, on the furniture. There weren’t any. A leather armchair, its cushions neatly slit, stood in the centre of the room. I collapsed into it, the cotton stuffing pushing up around me.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Madame Tibishrani stepped gingerly into the apartment. Barry’s cat, a thin black and white creature called Thomas O’Leary, appeared and wrapped itself around her ankles, miaowing. She picked the animal up and stroked it absent-mindedly.

  ‘It happened two days ago. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from him - normally he visits every Thursday night and I make him pigeon . . .’ She blushed; it was an Egyptian belief that roast pigeon was a powerful aphrodisiac. ‘But last Thursday there was not his usual knock on the door, so I went up . . .’ Her face crumpled as she tried not to weep. ‘His front door was unlocked, but this wasn’t so unusual - you know how Barry believed in keeping his door open for every no-hoper to drop by. Anyhow, I went in and that was when I found my poor friend.’

  She pointed at the chair I was sitting in. ‘He was in that chair, with a needle in his arm and a leather string . . . what do you call it?’ I leapt up out of the chair, disturbed by the thought that I was sitting where his corpse had been found. Covering my squeamishness, I turned back to Madame Tibishrani.

  ‘A tourniquet?’

  ‘Oui, like a tourniquet, wrapped further up. He was dead; I think maybe for a day already. But I don’t understand . . . Barry was not a heroin addict, of this I am sure.’

  She was right. Despite his indulgence in many recreational drugs, Barry had always been vehemently anti-heroin. Besides, Alexandria wasn’t the easiest place to purchase such a drug. And Madame Tibishrani was right. There was no way that Barry, a man who’d sucked every sensation he could out of life and relished it, could have killed himself. Why? It didn’t make sense. The astrarium. It had to be. Was it murder, or possibly some kind of assassination, perhaps ordered by some higher authority? Did they find the astrarium? Or had Barry hidden it? My mind reeled as I absorbed this terrible reality. Then another thought occurred to me. If they were prepared to kill Barry, they were quite possibly prepared to kill me. I had to find the astrarium.

  This has got to be a set-up, I thought as I looked around the ravaged room. Someone had killed Barry and then searched the place. And I had the impression they’d left frustrated; frustrated enough to be wantonly destructive.

  ‘I pray for him,’ Madame Tibishrani said. ‘You know, if it is suicide his soul will not be able to enter heaven. I spoke to the priest about it but he is adamant . . .’

  As Madame Tibishrani continued worrying about the possibility of Barry’s condemned soul, I found myself wrestling with my own conscience. Had Barry died because I’d given him the astrarium to carbon-date? Was I directly or indirectly responsible for his death? And who would be so determined to lay their hands on it that they’d kill to get it? Who even knew that it was here? Who was Faakhir frightened of? I shivered and glanced involuntarily over my shoulder. Madame Tibishrani’s raised voice broke into my thoughts

  ‘They tried to tell me Barry was cooking up drugs in his home laboratory. Such ignorance! The police, the secret police and the municipality officials have been harassing me constantly since the accident. An Englishwoman even came and questioned me - what gave her the right! I look at her and I think she cannot ever have been Barry’s lover; in fact, I doubt whether she has ever had a lover—’

  ‘Can you remember her name?’ I cut in urgently. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who she meant.

  ‘Adelia Limeherst, she called herself. When I tried to stop her from entering the apartment, she pushed me aside and looked anyway. Crazy, non?’

  So Amelia had been here. How on earth would she have known that Barry had the astrarium? Although, the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became. Our friendship was well known, as was his ability to carbon-date and Isabella’s obsession. It wouldn’t have been difficult to make the connections. I walked carefully around the room, trying to ascertain what could be missing. A huge glass tank stood against one wall - an aquarium filled with tropical fish of which Barry had been immensely proud. It appeared to be the only undamaged object in the room. Uneasily, I found myself wondering what the fish would tell me if only they could speak. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I turned back to the landlady.

  ‘Did the woman leave with anything?’

  ‘Not a thing! So many questions, though, Monsieur Oliver. She even asked about you and your poor wife.’

  ‘Outrageous. Madame Tibishrani, do you think you could give me a few moments alone? I would like to say goodbye to Barry in private.’

  Again, tears filled the landlady’s eyes, making me feel guilty for deceiving her. But I couldn’t search the room with her there.

  ‘Normally I would say no, but out of respect for you and your poor dear wife who were so close to him . . . Besides, I need to feed poor Thomas. Just call me when you have finished. ’ And she left, the miaowing cat in her arms.

  Now I was even more convinced that Barry had been murdered. What I needed to know now was whether he’d had time to hide the astrarium; and if so, where? And then, the more pressing question: who was behind this?

  I sat back down in the leather chair and tried to place myself in Barry’s mind, follow his line of vision. Where could he have hidden it? Battling the desire to leap up and rummage wildly through the debris I focused my mind, closed my eyes, then opened them. My gaze immediately fell on the fish tank. Nothing obvious had changed and, when I looked inside, the sand and silt seemed to have been there for ages, undisturbed. I stared at it for another minute, then got up restlessly, a sense both of panic and fear rising in me like bile. The police - or even Barry’s murderer - could return at any moment and I needed to move quickly.

  I decided to check the other rooms. In the bedroom, the futon Barry slept on had been slashed, and the three wooden crates he’d kept his clothes in had been overturned - trousers, sarongs, underwear and wetsuits spilled out in a tangled mess. The sight of his adored surfboard, with a line from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road lovingly written on it, made me falter. Suddenly furious at the vandalism, I kicked the wall. A poster slid to the floor,
drawing my gaze down to a small shrine to Buddha. The figure of the deity had been smashed - nearby, his beatific face gazed up from his severed head. Beside it lay a statuette of Thoth, the Ancient Egyptian god of magic and words - Barry’s favourite god. But where was the astrarium? Somewhere outside the apartment a floorboard creaked. Glancing over my shoulder I froze, battling the sense that I was not alone. I waited. Nothing. Carefully and quietly I then walked into the bathroom where Barry had constructed his home laboratory.

  Metres of blown glass tubing - vacuum lines - were clamped to metal frames suspended from the ceiling, the tubes threading around and over each other like some bizarre sculpture. The basin had been turned into a workbench, on which stood a small bar fridge, a hammer, a file - still spotted with flakes of dark wood - and a mortar and pestle.

  I opened the fridge cautiously, nervous about what I might find. Sitting on the grimy plastic shelves were several corked glass flasks filled with liquid nitrogen - one of the necessary components of carbon dating. A couple of them trailed curling wisps of vapour from leaky stoppers. Alongside them was an unopened can of Foster’s beer. For a moment I was tempted to open it and drink to Barry’s health - a ghoulish sentiment I knew he would have appreciated. I was interrupted by the sound of something smashing in the room next door. I jumped, then, pressing myself against the wall, lifted a heavy pair of pliers from the bench as silently as I could. Holding it high like a club I inched towards the half-open door, expecting some thug to appear at any minute. Just then a starved-looking kitten wound its way around the doorway. Staring up at me with huge pus-infected eyes, it began miaowing pitifully. Relieved, I dropped the pliers: just another one of Barry’s waifs.