Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  Sam looked at Maggie who replied, “Friday, if all goes well.”

  Cairo, Tuesday September 21, 1998

  Sam still couldn’t believe it. She was actually in Egypt. Everything had happened so fast that halfway through the interminable 21-hour flight she was still trying to process the fact that she’d even left home, for the first time in her life. She couldn’t believe that she was now being driven through the streets of a city she’d only ever dreamed of visiting and that she really was within cooee of the pyramids. But mostly she couldn’t believe that having come all this way, she was going to die on her first day in Cairo because her life was in the hands of a maniac driver who was watching the road ahead with his left ear, while he talked in Arabic to Maggie who was in the back seat.

  “Truck,” Sam pointed out, gripping the dashboard. “Truck!” she yelled.

  “Yes, truck,” the driver agreed, zigzagging back onto the correct side of the road. “Is okay.”

  “Is not okay,” Sam stated, rubbing her arm where it had been slammed into the door.

  “Camel truck,” the driver informed her, turning to point behind them.

  “Is that what they were?” Sam said flatly. “All I saw were five furry heads screaming ‘car, car!’ Do you think you could watch where we’re going instead of where we’ve been?”

  “I don’t think his English is a match for your hysteria, Sam,” Maggie stated, before saying something in Arabic. The driver turned to face the front, grinning madly. “Emil is actually one of the better Embassy drivers. You’re lucky we didn’t have to take a service taxi.”

  “Ser-veece taxi, very bad drives,” Emil proclaimed, then added “ismik eh?”

  “He wants to know your name,” Maggie translated.

  “Sam.”

  “Sam,” he repeated, then handed her a business card and said, “Emil best drive, try me all times. No taxi. Is okay?”

  Sam nodded. “Whatever you say, Emil.” She turned to Maggie. “Are you going to tell me how we were ushered straight from the plane to an Australian Embassy car chauffeured by Mad Max?”

  “My friend Michael Frank, who is sort of a cultural attach�� at the Embassy, expedited our passage through customs and immigration.”

  “We didn’t pass through customs and immigration,” Sam reminded her.

  “Exactly,” Maggie said. “And I imagine that when Michael doesn’t need him, Emil is at our disposal.”

  “Wonderful. Oh, this is amazing,” Sam noted, holding her breath as three oncoming cars, a motor cycle and another camel truck veered out of the way as Emil overtook a rickety donkey-drawn cart, “the traffic is much worse than Melbourne peak hour, yet it’s actually moving.”

  “Cairo has upwards of 15 million inhabitants, Sam, it doesn’t have time to stop,” Maggie laughed, then said, “Emil, Sharia Talaat Harb.”

  Sam gripped the seat as Emil swung the car through a huge intersection. “Dammit Maggie, what on earth did you say to him?”

  “I asked him to take Sharia Talaat Harb. This is your first orientation lesson, Sam. Sharia means street, and Talaat Harb is one of the main streets in central Cairo. Everyone knows it, even other travellers, so pay attention to the things that aren’t moving out there so you’ll recognise something if you get lost.”

  “I’m not leaving the hotel,” Sam stated categorically.

  Maggie chuckled. “Cairo is a city that won’t be denied, Sam. It will drag you out by the bootstraps if necessary, to thrill and enthral, annoy and amaze you. You’ll be overwhelmed by the sheer weight and splendour of its history, and by the sights, sounds, smells, colour and movement of its living, breathing fabric. It’s like a vampire; it will get in your blood and you’ll spend the rest of your life wanting more of it. Or you’ll hate it, passionately. But there are no half measures.”

  “Midan Talaat Harb,” Emil announced as he rocketed the limo through a six-street intersection, before screeching to a halt to avoid joining a three-vehicle pile-up that had already happened. Emil put the car in reverse, backed up about 10 metres, then swung across the road and down a narrow side street draped with multi-coloured fabrics, lined with shops displaying food and basketware on the narrow pavement, and crowded with people, motor bikes and the odd donkey or two.

  “Well I’m really lost now,” Sam joked, after Emil had made a couple more turns. Maggie smiled broadly and directed Sam’s attention to the view ahead.

  “Wow!” Sam exclaimed. “Oh wow. That’s the Nile.”

  “Very good Sam. See, you’re not lost at all.”

  “Old Hilton here. New one much better, Maggie,” Emil stated, pulling up in front of the hotel that Sam recognised from the postcard that had brought them half way round the world. “Now you see, I take you to Ramses Hilton yes?” Emil added.

  “No Emil, la’ shukran. This is the one we want,” Maggie said firmly, opening the door and struggling out of the car.

  Sam did the same with great relief and then just stood, open-mouthed, staring at the Nile and the graceful single-sailed boats that skimmed the surface of its dark blue water.

  “You want me drive more, Maggie?” Emil asked, removing their packs from the back seat.

  “Maybe later, okay. Shukran Emil. Are you coming Sam? Because if I don’t get a shower, a beer and some food, in that order and very soon, I will be completely unmanageable.”

  Half an hour later, having showered and changed, Sam sat captivated by the view from the window of their spacious room on the 12th floor. The River Nile passed from left to right below and the white-sailed ‘feluccas’, as she now knew the boats to be called, looked like waltzing butterflies. Opposite, the Cairo Tower loomed out of the skyline of Gezira Island which, according to Maggie, was the home of Cairo’s elite. Looking further west, through a haze of smog and dust, Sam was sure she could see the desert; the actual Sahara Desert.

  “Are you ready for lunch, Sam?” Maggie asked, “or are you still full of trepidation?”

  “Nope, I’m ready,” Sam declared turning around. She slapped her hand over mouth to control a fit of laughter. “Um, but I doubt you’ll speak to me if I let you go downstairs looking like that.”

  “Oh god, not again,” Maggie moaned, running her fingers through the static in her wild hair. She grabbed a wet towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around her head. “Do you suppose this is a manifestation of some kind of dementia?” she asked.

  “No,” laughed Sam, “but you should chuck your dryer out. I think it’s possessed by the demon god of bad hair days.”

  “Do you think the key is to a safety deposit box here in the hotel, or the postcard was simply asking the Professor to meet Winslow here?” Sam asked as the lift doors opened into the lobby.4

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Maggie stated, heading for the reception desk. She produced the key and informed the concierge that she wanted to check her safety deposit box.

  “Well, that went smoothly,” Sam commented, when the concierge simply checked the number on the key, nodded politely and disappeared through a doorway behind. Sam turned, leant against the counter and gazed around at the lobby which was furnished with plants and arm chairs set around low coffee tables. Three elderly women in white linen dresses and wide-brimmed hats sat together drinking iced tea; a swarthy-looking man in an ill-fitting suit snapped his newspaper up in front his face; a man with a moustache and bad acne scars was trying not to fall asleep next to a potted palm; and an American in a very loud shirt was escorting a blonde woman into the bar. “I think we’re on the set of Casablanca,” Sam whispered. “There’s even a guy wearing a fez.”

  “They do that a lot here, Sam,” Maggie said, turning to survey the room. “But the scene is more reminiscent of Death on the Nile don’t you think?”

  “God, I hope not,” Sam laughed.

  “Excuse me, Madame.” The concierge had returned with a long metal box. “Would you care to step to the side, it is more private,” he said, scanning the room for possible spies an
d assassins.

  “Thank you,” Maggie said, taking his advice. Sam hung over her shoulder as she unlocked the box and lifted the lid. “It’s empty.”

  “It can’t be,” Sam objected, reaching over to tip the box on its end. A small white envelope slid into view. “If this is another cryptic note I think I’ll scream,” she said.

  Maggie removed the envelope, slipped it in her pocket, closed the box again and thanked the concierge. “We can’t have you creating a scene in the lobby, Sam. Let’s get a beer,” she suggested, leading the way into the bar, where she ordered two Stellas and chose a table well away from the other patrons.

  “Okay, let’s see which garden path we’re going to be led up next,” Sam prompted, noticing as she resettled her chair next to Maggie that the guy in the fez had given up on his nap and had taken a seat at the bar, and the Miss Marple triplets had obviously decided the sun was far enough over the yard arm to warrant something stronger than tea.

  Maggie opened the envelope, peered inside and closed her eyes. “Please don’t scream, Sam,” she said tipping the contents onto the table. It was another safety deposit box key. “You’ll be pleased to know there’s no note at all this time.”

  “Great! Now is when we need one. It’s not the same sort of key either. So now what?”

  “Now we eat, drink, and then go to the museum to see if Ahmed Kamel has managed to track Noel down for us.”

  “That was a very nice lunch but I can’t believe I came all the way to Egypt to eat pizza,” Sam said, putting her sunglasses on as she and Maggie strolled along Corniche el Nil beside the river.

  “Tonight we’ll do Cairo, Sam. We’ll go to my favourite eating place on Talaat Harb. And if we have time while we’re here I’ll also take you to the mind-blowing Khan el Khalili for a bit of shopping. The Khan is one the largest bazaars in the Middle East.”

  “And the pyramids?” Sam said hopefully.

  “The shopping’s no good there,” Maggie stated, giving Sam a sidelong smile. “I promise, Sam. You will see the pyramids. But right now it’s time for what in my humble and biased opinion is the greatest museum on earth, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities,” Maggie announced waving ahead to the huge sandstone-coloured, neo-classical building fronted by palm trees and sphinxes. “Do you want the lowdown?”

  “Definitely, I’m not going to pass���”

  “Hello, hello, welcome to Egypt.” A young man, dressed in the traditional long-sleeved, ankle-length gown, fell into step beside Sam.

  “Thank you,” Sam replied politely.

  “Ignore him,” Maggie urged.

  “You want change money yes?” he asked.

  “No thank you,” Sam said.

  “Ah, you want museum guide? Mohammed best guide, know everything. Only five pounds.”

  “La’ shukran, Mohammed,” Maggie said firmly.

  “Maybe pyramids, bukra, tomorrow yes? My uncle has best camels for riding. Only 10 pounds.”

  “Don’t say a word, Sam,” Maggie warned and then rattled off something in a particularly formidable tone. It scared the hell out of Sam and she had no idea what Maggie had said.

  Mohammed grinned widely, however, and bowed slightly. “Insha-allah, insha-allah,” he said and turned to try his routine on a middle-aged couple approaching the museum steps.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him if he didn’t leave us alone immediately I would follow him everywhere and ruin his business by claiming my husband’s camels only cost five pounds.”

  “That’s a bit harsh. What did he say?”

  “He said insha-allah which means ‘if god wills it’.”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “Five. English, oddly enough, French, Spanish, Arabic but not very well, and Quechua which is the Indian language of Peru.”

  “I’m no good with languages,” Sam admitted. “I memorised French at school, so I can understand it, but when I open my mouth I’m sure it sounds like Klingon.”

  “That’s just a lack of confidence, Sam. You could try your French here, a lot of Egyptians speak it, and it’s certainly easier than Arabic. But if you want to get into the lingo during our limited stay, I’ll teach you the basics of ordering food and drinks. Apart from that there are only three things you need to know how to say for a brief visit like ours - and I’ve discovered this applies in India, South America and parts of Indonesia - and they are ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘bugger off’. Although if you wish to be polite, ‘no thank you’ is a good substitute for that last one.

  “I don’t know, insha-allah seems pretty useful,” Sam commented.

  “It is that,” Maggie agreed. “Now where was I? Oh yes. The Service de Antiquities le l’Egypte was established by the Egyptian Government in 1835 partly to exhibit its own collection of artefacts but mostly to stop the plundering of archaeological sites by foreigners. This museum was finally built in 1900 to house the Government’s collection and that of the French archaeologist August Mariette. There are some 120,000 objects in the museum, including the mummies of various pharaohs, such as Tuthmosis I, II and III, Seti I and Ramses II through VI. These were found in the late 1800s, not in their own tombs but reburied in ancient times in a shaft at Deir el Bahri, which was Hatshepsut’s Temple, and in the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings. The museum also has artefacts from the time of Akhenaten at Tell el Armana, the contents of several royal and private tombs at Tanis, and of course the incomparable treasures of Tutankhamun. So, are you ready?”

  Sam nodded as they passed through the front doors but was instantly overwhelmed by the stony visages of the colossi that towered over her. She wondered how on earth they’d got the mammoth seated statues inside the building.

  Maggie watched Sam in amusement, remembering her first visit here, and was disappointed they didn’t really have the time to explore it. “We should get our priorities straight, Sam,” she said. “We are on a mission, so perhaps we should find Ahmed, then find Noel and return here later.”

  “Maggie, what if we can’t come back? I have to see it, in person,” Sam insisted.

  “Okay. It’s upstairs, don’t get lost. I’ll find Ahmed and I’ll meet you outside in one hour.”

  Everywhere Sam looked there was history - ancient, ancient history - manifested in columns, statues, blocks of stone painted or carved with reliefs, mummified animals, even the capstone of a pyramid. Sam was beside herself, wanting to take in as much as possible. She passed diadems, pectorals and other jewellery made of gold, silver, and precious stones. She saw royal coffins and stone sarcophagi; canopic jars used for the storage of a mummy’s vital organs; stelae inscribed with hieroglyphs; and weapons, chairs, beds and thrones.

  She stopped to gaze on the 3,500-year-old stone face of Hatshepsut, the third queen to rule Egypt and, after declaring herself Pharaoh, the only woman ever to reign as King. Sam decided there was something about Hatshepsut’s serene yet resolute expression that reminded her of Maggie.

  Finally in a room on the first floor she found what she was looking for: the legendary funeral mask of Tutankhamun. It was the most exquisite handmade thing she had ever seen. Framed by the royal headdress of gold and lapis lazuli, the boy Pharaoh’s features were so finely wrought in beaten gold that Sam realised she was waiting for it to breathe.

  “Happy?” Maggie asked, when Sam emerged into the blinding sunlight, squinting and grinning like an idiot.

  “Thank you, that was, it was���indescribable,” Sam said, sitting down next to Maggie on the steps and accepting the bottled water she offered.

  “There’s no need to thank me,” Maggie said.

  “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” Sam stated. She cast her gaze around at the museum, its lawns and palm trees, and the crowds of tourists flanked by Egyptian touts and hawkers. “I may never have got here at���all,” she hesitated.

  “If it wasn’t for Lloyd’s death and Noel’s mysterious postcard,�
�� Maggie reminded her.

  “That’s true,” Sam said, distractedly, turning back to Maggie with a worried expression. “Maggie.”

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “I think we’re being followed. Here, take this,” she said, handing Maggie the water, “and while you’re casually taking a drink, look behind me.”

  “Why on earth would anyone be following us?” Maggie laughed, but did as Sam requested. “I can see a lot of tourists and a great many Egyptians, including Mohammed your friend from earlier, but no one I recognise and no one who is acting suspiciously, Sam.”

  “I saw one of the men from the hotel lobby loitering under the palm tree just beyond were Mohammed was standing,” Sam stated.

  “Loitering?” Maggie repeated. “We’re staying at a tourist hotel, within walking distance of one of the city’s main tourist attractions, Sam, we’re bound to see the same people more than once.”

  “But he was watching us and he’s a local, not a tourist.”

  “And now you’re going to tell me it was the man with the fez,” Maggie chuckled.

  “Yes,” Sam said indignantly. “The man with the fez, the moustache and the bad skin, who was in the lobby and then followed us into the bar.”

  “Are you sure it’s not a case of ‘all these Arabs looking the same’ - to you at least? Perhaps it’s the fez that looks suspicious.”

  Sam scowled. “Behind me is a middle-aged probably American couple dressed in safari suits, she’s an unnatural blonde, he’s got no hair under his hat. There’s two redheaded guys, probably brothers, sitting on the retaining wall, and next to them are two handsome young Egyptian men wearing black trousers and white shirts, who look like students rather than ‘expert museum guides’. There’s a small tour group, comprised of three inappropriately dressed women and five just plain badly dressed men. An elderly Egyptian man in a blue nightgown thing is offering a trinket to a snooty-faced woman in a red dress; and three Egyptian men are doing I don’t know what, but the one with the beard is wearing a beige gown and turban and the other two, who are alike enough to be father and son, are wearing dark green gowns and brown turbans. Beyond them is the guy in the fez.”