by Paul Sussman
She said nothing of it the next morning and, after a swift breakfast, they continued south with the dawn, down past Hurghada and Port Safaga and El-Hamarawein until eventually they came to al-Quseir and turned west again, the wind blasting into their faces, the rocky desert rushing past to either side. Daniel kept the Jawa at full speed and Tara buried her face in his back, dreading the moment when the journey would end and they would once again have to face the reality of their situation.
They reached Q'us at two, and western Luxor half an hour later. As the cars and buildings closed in around them and the streets filled with people, Tara's head slumped forward against Daniel's back, as though a great weight had descended on it. She let out a deep sigh, her lungs aching for a cigarette.
'So what now?' she asked as they pulled onto the forecourt of a small Mobil garage at the edge of town.
'We go to Omar.'
'Omar?'
'An old friend. Omar Abd el-Farouk. He was my rais up in the valley. A hundred years ago his family were the most famous tomb robbers in Egypt. Now they work for the archaeological missions and run a couple of souvenir shops. There's not much goes on around here that they don't know about.'
The pump attendant came over and began filling their tank.
'And what if he can't help us?' asked Tara. 'What if we don't find anything here?'
Daniel took her hand. 'It'll be OK,' he said. 'We'll get out of this. Trust me.'
He sounded far from convinced.
Omar lived in a large mud-brick house backing directly onto the ruin-field that had once been the great palace of Malqata. He was working in the garden when they arrived, raking up palm fronds and piling them in a corner, where an aged donkey was lethargically nibbling on their sun-browned leaves. As soon as he saw them he let out a shout of pleasure and came hurrying over.
'Ya Doktora!' he cried. 'It has been too long! Welcome!'
The two men embraced, kissing twice on each cheek. Daniel introduced Tara, explaining who she was.
'I hear about your father,' said Omar. 'I am very sorry. May he be peaceful.'
'Thank you.'
He shouted something towards the house and led them to a table in the shade beneath a banana tree.
'I dig with Dr Daniel for many years,' he said as they sat. 'I work with other archaeologists too, but Dr Daniel always the best. No-one knows as much about Kings' Valley as he does.'
'Omar says that to everyone he works for,' Daniel said, smiling.
'It is true.' The Egyptian winked. 'I only mean it with Dr Daniel, though.'
A pretty girl emerged from the house carrying three bottles of Coke, which she placed on the table. She glanced at Daniel, blushed and hurried away again.
'My eldest daughter,' explained Omar proudly. 'Already she has had two offers of marriage. Local boys, good families. She only thinks of one person, though.'
He tipped his head towards Daniel and chuckled.
'Just drink your fucking Coke, Omar.'
They chatted for a while, lightly: about Omar's children, their journey down from Cairo, other missions currently working in the area. The pretty girl reappeared with a tureen of lentil soup and, when they had finished that, a platter of fried chicken, rice and slippery green molochia. Afterwards Omar's wife came out with a shisha pipe, which she placed between the two men. She accepted their thanks for the meal, collected the plates and with a curious backward look at Tara, disappeared into the house again.
'So,' said Omar, exhaling smoke from his nostrils, 'you are here for a reason, I think, Dr Daniel? Not just as a friend.'
Daniel smiled. 'You can't keep anything from the el-Farouks.'
'My family has worked with English archaeologists for over a hundred years.' Omar laughed, winking at Tara. 'My great-great-grandfather was with Petrie. My great-grandfather with Carter. My great-uncle with Pendlebury at Amarna. We see through them like glass.' He passed the pipe across to Daniel. 'So speak, my friend. If there is anything I can do for you, I will. You are a part of my family.'
There was a silence and then Daniel turned to Tara. 'Show him,' he said.
She hesitated for a moment and then, bending down, pulled the cardboard box from her knapsack and handed it to Omar. He removed the lid and lifted out the decorated fragment, turning it over in his hands.
'I think it came from round here somewhere,' said Daniel. 'A tomb, probably. Have you seen it before? Do you know anything about it?'
Omar didn't answer immediately, just continued turning the piece, examining it front and back before returning it to its box and replacing the lid.
'Where did you get this?' he asked eventually.
'My father bought it for me,' said Tara. She paused and then added, 'Sayf al-Tha'r wants it. And so do people at the British embassy.'
She felt Daniel shift uncomfortably beside her and sensed he hadn't wanted her to mention that. Omar just nodded and, taking back the pipe, puffed slowly on the brass mouthpiece. 'That is why you came such a long way round from Cairo?'
'Yes,' Daniel conceded. 'We thought it best to avoid middle Egypt. You do know something, don't you?'
The Egyptian exhaled a thick billow of smoke, taking his time.
'Yesterday morning I was brought in for questioning by the police,' he said. 'Not in itself unusual. If ever a crime is committed involving antiquities, the first thing the police always do is bring in an el-Farouk. We tell them over and over again that we're not involved in that sort of thing any more, haven't been for a hundred years, but it doesn't make any difference. They still bring us in.
'This time, however, it wasn't the usual sort of silly questions. This time there'd been a murder. A local man. The detective thought maybe he'd found a new tomb. Taken some things out. Upset some powerful people. Wanted to know if I knew anything about it.'
He paused, leaning forward to fan the embers of the shisha.
'I told the police nothing, of course. They are dogs and I'd rather die than help them. The truth is, however, I have heard things. About a new tomb up in the hills. Where I don't know, but it's something big. Something they say Sayf al-Tha'r wants very badly.'
'And you think this piece might be a part of it?' said Daniel.
Omar shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. What I can tell you is that if it is you are both in very great danger. It is not good to go against the Sword of Vengeance.'
His eyes flicked back and forward between the two of them. The donkey had stopped toying with the palm fronds and was sniffing around the mouth of a clay bread oven on the corner of the house. There was a long silence.
'I need to find out where this piece came from,' said Daniel. 'We have to know why it's so important. Help us, Omar. Please.'
The Egyptian said nothing for a long while, just continued puffing on the pipe. Then, slowly, he stood and walked back towards the house. For a moment Tara thought he was abandoning them. At the doorway, however, he turned.
'Of course I will help you, Dr Daniel. You are my friend, and when a friend asks for help an Abd el-Farouk does not let him down. I will make enquiries. In the meantime you will both stay here as my guests.'
He held out his arm, ushering them into the building.
25
CAIRO
As Khalifa stood in the front foyer of Cairo's Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, gazing up at the great glass cupola in the roof and the colossal statues at the far end of the atrium, he wished he had more time. It was two years since he'd last visited the collection and he would have liked to have at least a cursory look round, revisiting some of his favourite objects: the coffins of Yuya and Tjuju, the Tutankhamun treasures, the painted limestone statuette of the dwarf Seneb.
The afternoon was already well advanced, however, and he had a train to catch, so without further ado he turned left and hurried through the Old Kingdom gallery and up a broad staircase at the far end, glancing at exhibits as he passed but resisting the temptation to stop for a longer look.
At the top of the sta
ircase he opened a door marked Private and climbed another staircase, wooden this time, walking down a long narrow corridor until he reached a door with 'Professor Mohammed al-Habibi' stencilled on its window. He knocked twice and a cheerful voice bade him enter.
His old teacher was standing with his back to him, bent over his desk examining something intently with a magnifying glass.
'Won't be a moment,' he said, not turning. 'Make yourself at home.'
Khalifa closed the door and leaned against it, gazing affectionately at the old man's back. He knew it was pointless trying to get his attention. When the professor was engrossed in an artefact a herd of wild elephants couldn't distract him.
He looked exactly as he always had: the same rotund figure, unravelling cardigan, jeans that stopped three inches above his ankles. The shoulders were a little more stooped and his balding head a little more wrinkled, but that was to be expected: he was, after all, approaching eighty.
Khalifa remembered the day they had first met, almost twenty-five years ago. It was here, in the museum. He and Ali had been standing in front of an alabaster libation table wondering aloud what a libation was, and the professor, who was passing, had stopped and explained.
They had liked him immediately – his muddled appearance, his cheerful manner, the way he had described the table as 'she' instead of 'it', as though it was a living person rather than an inanimate object. The professor, too, had taken to them, touched perhaps by their interest in the past and their poverty, and also, maybe – although Khalifa only found this out many years later – by the fact that his own son was Ali's age when he'd been killed in a car accident several years before.
The professor had become their unofficial guide, meeting them each Friday and taking them around the museum for an hour or two before buying each a Coca-Cola and a slice of basbousa from a stall on Midan Tahrir. As they had grown older the Coke and basbousa had given way to regular Friday lunch at the professor's home, cooked by his wife, who was even more rotund and dishevelled than he was, if it were possible. He had lent them books and given them artefacts to handle, and allowed them to watch his television, which, although neither of them would ever have admitted it, was the thing they enjoyed most about going to his flat.
He had, in a way, come to fill the gap left by the death of their father. He himself had certainly looked on the two boys with a paternal eye. The pride he had felt when Khalifa won a place at university had been more that of a father for a son than a friend for a friend. Likewise the tears he had later shed when he heard about Ah.
It was several minutes before he eventually laid aside his magnifying glass and turned.
'Yusuf,' he cried when he saw Khalifa, a huge smile breaking across his face. 'Why on earth didn't you say something, you fool!'
'I didn't want to disturb you.'
'Nonsense!'
Khalifa came forward and the two men embraced.
'How are Zenab and the children?'
'Well, thank you. They all send their love.'
'And little Ali? Is he doing well at school?'
The professor was godfather to Khalifa's son and took a keen interest in the boy's education.
'Very well.'
'I knew he would be. Unlike his father, the boy's got some brains.' He winked and, shuffling round the desk, picked up a phone. 'I'll call Arwa. Tell her you're coming for dinner.'
'I'm sorry, I can't. I'm going back to Luxor tonight.'
'You haven't got time for a quick snack?'
Khalifa laughed. At Professor al-Habibi's house there was no such thing as a quick snack. His wife's idea of fast food was five courses instead of ten.
'No time. It's just a flying visit.'
Habibi tutted and replaced the receiver.
'She'll be furious she missed you. And I'll get the blame. She'll say I should have made more effort to bring you back. Drugged you if necessary. You've no idea what sort of trouble you're getting me into!'
'I'm sorry. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.'
The professor snorted. 'Well, you should come up here on the spur of the moment a bit more often. We don't see enough of you.'
He rummaged in a drawer and produced a bottle of sherry, pouring a hefty tot into a glass on the table.
'I take it the laws of Allah haven't relaxed since I last saw you?'
'Afraid not.'
'Then I won't embarrass you by offering you a glass.' He raised his own. 'Good to see you, Yusuf. It's been too long.'
He drained the sherry in one gulp, burped lightly and then put his arm round Khalifa and drew him in to the table.
'Take a look at this,' he said.
Lying on the ink blotter was a fragment of yellow papyrus, very frayed, with six columns of black hieroglyphic text and, in one corner, badly faded, part of a hawk's head with a solar disc on top of it. Habibi handed Khalifa the magnifying glass.
'Opinion, please.'
It was a game they always played. The professor would produce an artefact of some kind and Khalifa would attempt to work out what it was. The detective bent down now and gazed at the papyrus.
'My hieroglyphs aren't so good any more,' he said. 'There's not much call for them in police work.'
He skimmed along the lines of text.
'One of the afterlife books?' he ventured.
'Very good! But which one?'
Khalifa returned to the text. 'Amduat?' he asked uncertainly. And then, before Habibi had had time to comment, 'No, the Book of the Dead.'
'Bravo, Yusuf! I really am very impressed. But now can you date it?'
That was harder. The prayers and rituals contained in the Book of the Dead had first appeared in the royal tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty and had hardly changed for the next 1,500 years. The hieroglyphs themselves might have given some indication of date – stylistically the signs would have altered over the centuries – but if they did Khalifa wasn't sufficiently expert to be able to spot it. The only possible clues were the hawk's head surmounted by the solar disc and a name in the text: Amenemheb.
'New Kingdom,' he guessed eventually.
'Reason?'
'The Re-Harakhty figure.' Re-Harakhty was the state god of the New Kingdom. And Amenemheb was a typical New Kingdom name.
Habibi nodded his approval.
'Impeccable reasoning. Wrong, but impeccable reasoning nonetheless. Try again, go on.'
'I've really no idea, Professor. Third Intermediate?'
'Wrong!'
'Late Period?'
'Wrong!' The professor was enjoying himself. 'One last chance,' he chuckled.
'God knows. Graeco-Roman?'
'Afraid not.' He laughed, clapping Khalifa on the shoulder. 'Actually, it's twentieth.'
'Twentieth Dynasty? But I said the New Kingdom!'
'Not Twentieth Dynasty, Yusuf. Twentieth century.'
Khalifa's jaw dropped. 'It's a fake?'
'Indeed it is. A very good one, but definitely a fake.'