by Paul Sussman
He pointed to his left wrist. To the spot where Nayar had had his scarab tattoo. The detective was starting to understand.
'I tell my friend what the ghosts have shown me. He says, "Take me!" So I take him. He laughs very loud. He says, "You and me will be very rich! You and me will live like kings!" I must leave it to him, he says. He will take things to show special people. He will buy me a television. I mustn't come here again, he says. I mustn't say anything. And so I wait and wait and wait. But he doesn't come back. And then the others come at night. And I am alone. And there is no television. And I am hungry. And only the ghosts are my friends.'
He sniffed and wandered forlornly round the room, trailing his hand along the walls. Khalifa jumped down too, noting how the section of wall to the left of the doorway had been destroyed. He squatted beside the pile of smashed plaster on the floor, shaking his head, dismayed at such wanton vandalism.
He could see the chain of events clearly. This man had stumbled on the tomb. He had told Nayar, Nayar had removed certain objects, including, presumably, a piece of the wall now lying in ruins at his feet. Sayf al-Tha'r had got wind of it. Nayar had been killed. The rest he already knew.
He stood and began to examine the chamber. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom now and much of the decoration was visible, although the sides of the room were still lost in impenetrable shadow, as though hung with black drapes. The man sat down on the floor, staring at Khalifa through doleful eyes, humming to himself.
'Have you been back here,' asked Khalifa, 'since you found it?'
The man shook his head. 'But I have seen. I hide in the rocks, very quiet, like I am a rock too. They come at night, every night, like jackals. They take things from the tomb, one night, two night, three night, every night more things.'
'Last night?'
'Last night they come. Then they go. Then others come.'
'Others?'
'Man and woman. White. I had seen them before. They go into the tomb. They are eaten.'
'Killed?'
The madman shrugged.
'Killed?' repeated Khalifa.
'Who knows? I have not seen them with the ghosts. Maybe they live. Maybe they don't. The man I had seen . . .'
'What?'
He wouldn't say any more, however, and fell to drawing patterns in the dust with his finger.
Khalifa turned back to the walls. He worked his way slowly round the chamber, using his lighter to illuminate the decoration where it was too dark to see with natural light. He spent a long while in front of the triptych that had so interested Daniel, gazing intently at each of its three sections, and then moved on again. He peered into the canopic niche, at the image of the two Persians, the Greek man before his table of fruit, Anubis weighing the heart of the deceased, examining every inch of the walls, the flame of his lighter growing weaker all the time until eventually, just as he completed the circuit, it puttered out altogether, plunging him into gloom. He returned the lighter to his pocket and stepped back into the light.
'It's perfect,' he said quietly. 'Absolutely perfect.'
The man looked up at him. 'There was sand,' he mumbled. 'Sand, men, an army, all drowned.'
'I know,' said Khalifa, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'And now I need to find out where.'
Chicago House, the home of the University of Chicago Archaeological Mission, sits amid three acres of lush gardens on the Corniche el-Nil, midway between the temples of Luxor and Karnak. A sprawling hacienda-style building, all courtyards and walkways and arched colonnades, it is, for the six months of each year that it is open, home to a disparate collection of Egyptologists, artists, students and conservators, some engaged in their own private studies, most working across the river at the temple of Medinet Habu, whose reliefs and inscriptions the Chicago Mission has been painstakingly recording for the best part of three-quarters of a century.
It was afternoon when Khalifa arrived at its front gate and flashed his ID at the armed guards. A call was put through to the main house and three minutes later a young American woman came down to meet him. He explained why he had come and was ushered through into the compound.
'Professor az-Zahir is such a darling,' said the girl as they walked back through the gardens. 'He comes here every year. Likes to use the library. He's practically part of the furniture.'
'I hear he hasn't been well.'
'He gets a bit confused sometimes, but then name me an Egyptologist who doesn't. He's OK.'
They passed along a tree-lined path and up to a colonnade at the front of the building, the air heavy with the scent of hibiscus and jasmine and newly mown grass. Despite its proximity to the Corniche, the compound was quiet, the only sounds being the twittering of birds and the spitting of a garden sprinkler.
The girl led him through the colonnade, across a courtyard and out into the gardens at the back of the house.
'He's over there,' she said, pointing to a figure sitting in the shade beneath a tall acacia tree. 'He's having his afternoon nap, but don't worry about waking him. He loves visitors. I'll get some tea sent out.'
She turned and went back into the house. Khalifa walked over to the professor, who was slumped in his chair, his chin resting on his chest. He was a small man, bald and wrinkled as a prune, with liver spots on his hands and scalp, and large ears that glowed translucently in the afternoon light. Despite the heat he was wearing a thick tweed suit. Khalifa took the seat beside him and laid his hand on his arm.
'Professor az-Zahir?'
The old man mumbled something, coughed, and slowly – first one, then the other – his eyes levered open and he turned towards Khalifa. He looked, thought the detective, distinctly like a tortoise.
'Is it tea?' he asked, his voice frail.
'They're bringing some.'
'What?'
'They're bringing some,' repeated Khalifa more loudly.
Az-Zahir lifted his right arm and looked at his watch. 'It's too early for tea.'
'I've come to talk to you,' said Khalifa. 'I'm a friend of Professor Mohammed al-Habibi.'
'Habibi!' grunted the old man. 'Habibi thinks I'm senile! And he's right!' Chuckling to himself, he extended a quivering hand. 'You are?'
'Yusuf Khalifa. I used to study under Professor Habibi. I'm a policeman.'
The old man nodded, shifting slightly in his chair. His left hand, Khalifa noticed, lay heavily in his lap, like something dead. Az-Zahir noted the direction of his eyes.
'The stroke,' he explained.
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . .'
He waved his good hand dismissively. 'Worse things happen in life. Like being taught by that dolt Habibi!' He chuckled again, his face crumpling into a broad, toothless grin. 'How is the old dog?'
'Well. He sends his regards.'
'I doubt it.'
A man came out with two cups of tea, which he set down on a small table between them. Az-Zahir couldn't reach his cup, so Khalifa passed it up to him. He slurped noisily at its contents. From somewhere behind them came the rhythmic smack and thud of a game of tennis.
'What's your name again?'
'Yusuf. Yusuf Khalifa. I wanted to talk to you about the army of Cambyses.'
Another loud slurp. 'The army of Cambyses, eh?'
'Professor Habibi says no-one knows more about it than you do.'
'Well, I certainly know more than him, but then that's not saying much.'
He finished his tea and motioned to Khalifa, who placed the empty cup back on the table. A wasp swung in and hovered over the tray. For a long while they sat in silence, az-Zahir's chin gradually sinking into his chest again, as though he was made of wax and was slowly melting in the afternoon heat. It looked as if he was going back to sleep, but then, suddenly, he sneezed and his head jerked upright.
'So,' he grunted, tugging a handkerchief from his jacket and blowing his nose on it, 'the army of Cambyses. What do you want to know?'
Khalifa pulled out the cigarettes he'd bought on the way back from the we
st bank and lit one. 'Anything you can tell me really. It was lost in the Great Sand Sea, right?'
Az-Zahir nodded.
'Can we be any more precise than that?'
'According to Herodotus it went down midway between a place called Oasis, or the Island of the Blessed, and the land of the Ammonians.' He sneezed again, and buried his nose in the handkerchief. 'So far as we know Oasis refers to al-Kharga,' he said, voice muffled by the handkerchief, 'although some people maintain it's actually al-Farafra. No-one really knows, to be honest. The Land of the Ammonians is Siwa. Somewhere between the two. That's what Herodotus said.'
'He's our only source?'
'Yes, unfortunately. Some people say he made the whole thing up.'
He finished blowing his nose and slid his hand down the side of his jacket, trying to get the handkerchief back in his pocket. It kept missing the opening, however, and eventually he gave up and stuffed it into the sleeve of his immobile left arm. There was a crunch of gravel behind them as the two tennis players, their game over, walked past and up into the house. 'Ridiculous game, tennis,' mumbled az-Zahir. 'Hitting a ball back and forth over a net. So pointless. The sort of thing only the English could invent.'
He shook his wrinkled head in disgust. There was another long pause.
'I wouldn't mind one of those cigarettes,' he said eventually.
'I'm sorry. I should have offered.'
Khalifa passed one over and lit it for him. The old man took a deep puff.
'Nice, that. After the stroke the doctors said I shouldn't, but I'm sure one won't do any harm.'
For a while he smoked in silence, holding the cigarette close to the bottom of the butt, leaning forward to puff on it, a look of intense concentration on his face. It was almost finished before he spoke again.
'It was probably the khamsin that buried them,' he said. 'The desert wind. It can be very fierce when it blows up, especially in springtime. Very fierce.' He waved away a fly. 'They've been looking for the army almost from the moment it was lost, you know. Cambyses himself sent an expedition to find it. So did Alexander the Great. And the Romans. It's attained a sort of mystical allure. Like Eldorado.'
'Have you looked for it?'
The old man grunted. 'How old do you think I am?'
Khalifa shrugged, embarrassed.
'Come on, how old?'
'Seventy?'
'You flatter me. I'm eighty-three. And I've spent forty-six of those eighty-three years out in the western desert looking for that damned army. And in those forty-six years do you know what I've found?'
Khalifa said nothing.
'Sand, that's what I've found. Thousands and thousands of tons of sand. I've found more sand than any other archaeologist in history. I've become an expert in it.'
He chuckled mirthlessly and, leaning forward, finished the cigarette, tamping it out on the arm of his chair and dropping the crumpled butt into his teacup.
'Shouldn't leave it on the ground,' he said. 'Litters the garden. It's a beautiful garden, don't you think?'
Khalifa agreed.
'It's the main reason I come to stay here. The library's wonderful, of course, but it's the garden I really love. So peaceful. I rather hope I die here.'
'I'm sure . . .'
'Spare me your platitudes, young man. I'm old and I'm sick, and when I go I hope it's right here in this chair in the shade of this wonderful acacia tree.'
He coughed. The man who had brought their tea came out and removed the tray.
'So no trace of the army has ever been found?' asked Khalifa. 'No indication of where it might be?'
Az-Zahir didn't appear to be listening. He was rubbing his hand up and down the arm of his chair, mumbling something to himself.
'Professor?'
'Eh?'
'No trace of the army has ever been found?'
'Oh, there are always people who claim to know where it is.' He grunted. 'There was an expedition thought they'd found it earlier this year. But it's all just hogwash. Crackpot theories. When you push them for hard evidence they can never provide any.' He drove his finger into his ear, screwing it back and forth. 'Although there was that American.'
'American?'
'Nice man. Young. Bit of a maverick. Knew his stuff, though.' He continued digging his finger into his ear. 'Worked out there on his own. In the desert. Had some theory about a pyramid.'
Khalifa's ears pricked up. 'A pyramid?'
'Not a pyramid pyramid. A large outcrop of rock shaped like a pyramid, that's what he said. He'd found inscriptions on it. Was convinced they were left by soldiers of the army. He called me, you know. From Siwa. Said he'd uncovered traces. Said he'd send me photographs. But they never arrived. And then a couple of months later they found his jeep. Burnt out. With him inside it. Tragedy. John. That was his name. John Cadey. Nice man. Bit of a maverick.' The old man removed his finger from his ear and stared at it.
'Can you remember where he was digging?' asked Khalifa.
Az-Zahir shrugged. 'Somewhere in the desert.' He sighed. He seemed to be getting tired. 'But then it's a big place, isn't it? I've spent enough time there myself. Near a pyramid. That's what he said. Nice young man. For a moment I really thought he might have found something. But then he had a crash. Very sad. It'll never be found, you know. The army. Never. It's fool's gold. A trick of the mind. Cadey. That was his name.'
His voice was growing fainter and fainter, until eventually it petered out altogether. Khalifa looked across. The old man's head had sunk down onto his chest, the skin rucking up around his chin and jowls so that his face seemed less like a face than a bowl full of wrinkles. His good arm had dropped over the side of the chair, and he began snoring. Khalifa watched him for a while and then, standing, left him to his slumber and walked back into the house.
The library of Chicago House, the finest Egyptological library anywhere outside Cairo, occupied two cool, whitewashed rooms on the ground floor of the building, with high ceilings, rows of metal shelving and an all-pervasive smell of polish and old paper. Khalifa showed the librarian his ID and explained why he had come.
The man – young, American, with round glasses and a thick beard – rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'Well we've certainly got things that might be useful. Do you read German?'
Khalifa shook his head.
'Shame. Rohlfs' Drei Monate in der Libyschen Wüste is very good. Probably the best thing ever written about the western desert, even though it is a hundred years old. But it's never been translated, so I guess that's no use. Still, there's quite a few things in Arabic and English. And we've got some pretty good maps and aerial surveys. I'll go and see what I can find.'
He disappeared into a side room, leaving Khalifa beside a stack full of volumes from the very earliest days of Egyptology – Belzoni's Researches in Egypt and Nubia, Rosellini's Monumenti dell'Egitto e della Nubia, all twelve volumes of Lepsius' Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Khalifa ran his fingers along them, pulling out a copy of Davies's Ancient Egyptian Paintings, laying it on top of the stack and gently opening it. He was still looking at it twenty minutes later when the librarian returned and gently tapped him on the shoulder.
'I've put some books in the reading room for you. On the table by the window. It's not everything on the subject, but it's enough to make a start. Give me a shout if you need anything else. Or perhaps a whisper would be better, given that we're in a library.'