The children grow sick. Their strength has ebbed away into the desert wind. They have no inclination now to dig for ancient worlds and seek the treasure of long-dead tombs. Their mother watches and keeps her sorrow hidden in her heart.
The bottle is forgotten – in the dark corner of the peasant hut it reflects no light. Its keepers are invisible without time or space to define them, without flesh or bone, without tomb or burial goods or names.
The younger boy dies first, his soul sucked dry. His body is buried in the sand and watered by tears. Then the elder falls sick for the last time. As he lies on his bed of fever he sees the priests hover over him, feels them gorge on the breath of his life and he knows it was he who brought them to his house. He tries to whisper a warning, but the words are sucked from him by the dry lips of death.
Soon his mother will feel the night-time kiss of the servants of the gods and she too will give her life to grant them eternity, leaving a sorrowing man in an empty house, who, soon, takes up his belongings and leaves the place to the shadows and the sand. He does not see the bottle on the back of the shelf and it remains behind.
The telephone by Anna’s bed rang at a few minutes after three-thirty a.m. She sat up with a start, wondering where she was. Her dream hovered for a second, insubstantial and floating. Then it was gone. She didn’t even recall the sound of a sandal or the whisper of a linen robe. Disoriented, she stared round, then she remembered. They were getting up to drive across the desert some 280 kilometres southwards from Aswan, to Abu Simbel. The wake up call on the phone was followed by a knock at her door and a cup of tea. She dressed quickly in jeans and a tee-shirt and pulled on a sweater against the cold of the night, then she set out to find Omar. He merely shrugged when she explained she didn’t want to go with them. Inshallah! It was up to her. Tell Ibrahim she would require meals, and enjoy her rest.
Andy was standing near the reception desk where the passengers were gathering in sleepy groups ready to go ashore. He scowled when he saw her and turned away. Well, it was good that he had seen her. He would assume she was getting on the coach with the others. When he found she hadn’t after all climbed on board with the rest of them it would be too late for him to change his mind and stay behind too.
Finding Serena wearily lifting her overnight bag onto her shoulder she whispered her decision. Serena nodded. Was she, Anna wondered, even a little relieved? She couldn’t see Toby, but already the passengers were streaming across the gangplank onto the silent ship alongside them, where they would creep through the deserted lounges and passages smelling eerily of cold cigarette smoke and stale beer, towards the second gangplank which would lead to the shore. There, a small charabanc was waiting to take them out to the assembly point where a convoy of coaches and taxis gathered every morning to leave under escort for the drive south across a desert which was also a military zone.
When they had all gone Anna stood still for a moment, listening to the silence, wondering a trifle wistfully if she had done the right thing. It was too late to change her mind. With a shrug she turned back to her cabin.
At the door she hesitated for a moment, afraid of what she might see when she opened it. Taking a deep breath and with one hand clamped firmly on the gold charm around her neck, she gave it a tentative push. The cabin was empty.
When she woke she was lying on her bed, fully dressed. She frowned, disoriented for a moment, aware that something on the boat had changed. Then she realised. She could sense the emptiness around her, the deserted cabins, the lack of distant bustle. Omar had told her that only two or three of the crew would be staying on the boat, the others were taking the opportunity to go ashore for a couple of days before the return voyage to Luxor. As far as she knew she was the only passenger who had made the decision to skip the overland trip to Abu Simbel and stay aboard.
Slowly she climbed out of bed. She wasn’t sure where she was going to start her search for the diary, but Andy’s cabin seemed the obvious place. Either she had missed it the first time, or perhaps, even if it hadn’t been there before, it would be there now.
To get in, she would need the help of a key. As she expected the boat was completely deserted. It was a simple matter to run down to the reception desk, duck behind it and lift Andy’s key off the hook where Omar had placed them all before they left. Slipping it into her pocket she made her way, for the second time, towards Andy’s cabin.
When she reached the door she stopped suddenly. Supposing she was wrong. Supposing for some reason he had changed his mind and turned back, as she had done, and he was there? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Then quietly she inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the door.
It was neater this time. Presumably both he and Ben had realised that the packing of an overnight bag was easier if some kind of order prevailed in the cabin.
Bolting the door behind her to make sure that on this occasion she was not interrupted, she went through the place systematically and ruthlessly, checking and double-checking every square inch until at last she had to give up.
Standing still she looked round with an overwhelming sense of defeat. There was no sign of the diary or the bottle and there was nothing for it but to let herself out of the cabin, checking before she left that there was no evidence of her intensive search, and return the key to its hook. Then she wandered back up the stairs, deep in thought. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have taken the diary and scent bottle with him. All she could do was hope that he had hidden them somewhere else on the boat.
Pushing open the door to the lounge she wandered in. Ibrahim was behind the bar, polishing glasses. He greeted her with a big smile. ‘Misr il khir. Good morning, mademoiselle.’
She saw him stare at her closely, and she guessed it was to check that she was wearing the amulet when she saw him nod to himself, obviously pleased that he had glimpsed the gold chain at her throat.
‘Good morning, Ibrahim. It looks as though I’m all alone for a while.’
He shook his head. ‘Omar says three people for meals, mademoiselle. I cook for you all myself.’
‘Three people?’ She frowned. ‘Do you know who the other two are?’
He shrugged. ‘Nobody is awake yet. I cook lunch soon and leave in dining room on hotplate. Soup. Rice. I am going to grill chicken with roast banana. You like that?’
She smiled. ‘It sounds wonderful. I didn’t know you were a cook, Ibrahim.’
‘The real cook, he’s a Nubian, and he goes to see his mother in Sehel. But Ibrahim is a wonderful cook too. Inshallah!’ He roared with laughter. ‘Would you like a drink now?’
She ordered a beer and wandered out on deck. It was already hot, the air shimmering over the scrubbed planking as she stood watching yet another huge cruiser manoeuvre its way in towards the bank, its upper deck lined with interested spectators in brightly coloured shorts and shirts. The hill on the far side of the river with its rounded Fatimid chapel was almost hidden in a heat haze and the few feluccas she could see plying their trade on the broad stretch of water were drifting, sails slack, without a breath of wind. Behind her the pot plants blazed with colour, the deck around them long ago dry after their early morning watering.
It was too hot to stay on the top deck. She turned and made her way back downstairs to sit beneath the awning, her glass on the table in front of her. Whilst Ibrahim was cooking she would take the chance to make a perfunctory search of the lounge area. It was just possible, she supposed, that Andy had tucked the diary away in there somewhere. She sighed. It was also possible of course that it wasn’t him at all and that someone else entirely had taken it, that she would never see it again.
‘Anna!’
The quiet voice behind her took her completely by surprise. She swung round. Toby was standing in the shade, his sketchbook under his arm.
They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment then he said, ‘I thought you would have gone to Abu Simbel with Serena.’
‘I couldn�
�t go without knowing what has happened to the diary.’ Anna squinted up at him. ‘Are you all right? I was worried after the scene in Andy’s cabin.’
He shrugged. ‘I went on deck to cool off. I might have killed the bastard otherwise.’
She frowned. ‘You were standing up for me and I didn’t get the chance to thank you.’
Raising his hands he shook his head. ‘No need.’
She gave an uncertain smile. ‘So, why did you stay? I’d have thought you’d want to see the temple of Rameses.’
He shrugged again. ‘I thought it better not to be anywhere around Watson for a bit. I can always see the temple another time. I’m coming to Egypt again, don’t forget.’ He pulled out the chair next to her. ‘May I?’
She nodded. ‘Ibrahim said we could help ourselves from the bar. Just write it on the pad. He’s cooking lunch.’
Toby grinned. ‘Great.’ He headed towards the door into the lounge, then he stopped. ‘I take it you have searched his cabin again?’
She nodded. ‘I have indeed.’
‘No luck?’
She shook her head. ‘It would be an irony if he had taken it with him after all, wouldn’t it?’
‘It certainly would.’ He ducked through the door, to reappear a moment later with two beers, one for himself, the other for her. As he sat down he was frowning. ‘We’ll have to be systematic, of course. Each possible place to be searched in turn and we’ll tick them off as we do it. He won’t have taken it with him. That would be too risky. He’ll have left it somewhere safe on the boat.’
She realised after a moment’s thought that she liked the way he assumed he would be helping her.
He glanced at her over his glass. ‘Of course, the safe! What about the safe? Have you thought of that? It’s the obvious place.’
They found Ibrahim laying three covers at one of the tables in the dining room. From the open door into the kitchen came a wonderful smell of garlic and onions.
‘Is it possible to look in the safe?’ Anna sat down at the table and looked up at him pleadingly. ‘I lent my grandmother’s diary to Andrew Watson and I think he may have put it there for safety, not realising I wasn’t going with them all this morning. I need it urgently.’
‘Your book with the little pictures?’ Ibrahim straightened with a frown.
‘You remember? You saw it in my cabin?’
He nodded. ‘I have the key. I will come and look for you.’
They followed him down to the reception desk and waited whilst he fiddled with the lock, muttered quietly to himself, fiddled again and at last swung the small safe door open. It was full of envelopes and packets.
‘Passports. Money. Jewels.’ He shrugged. ‘So much. I shall find it. Inshallah!’
He rummaged through the packages, glancing at the larger envelopes, apparently reading the scribbled names on them with ease. ‘Andrew Watson!’ He pulled one out.
‘It’s too small.’ Anna looked at it in dismay and shook her head. ‘The diary wouldn’t fit in there.’
Ibrahim felt the envelope carefully. ‘Passport and traveller’s cheques.’ He grinned. ‘I look again.’
A few minutes later he triumphantly produced a second envelope. This one was much more bulky.
‘That’s it! That’s the right size and shape,’ Anna cried in delight.
Ibrahim passed it to her. ‘You look.’
She ran her thumb under the sealed flap of the envelope and pulled out the diary.
‘Good! Good!’ Ibrahim beamed in delight. ‘Now we go to eat lunch.’
‘Wait.’ Anna stretched out her hand. ‘My scent bottle. He was looking after that as well. If it’s here it can stay, but I’d like to check.’
‘Bottle?’ Ibrahim frowned.
‘The little bottle.’ She met his gaze. ‘The bottle which was guarded by the cobra.’
Ibrahim shook his head. ‘That is not here,’ he said firmly.
‘But you haven’t looked?’
‘No. Not here. Ibrahim is sure.’ He slammed the door of the safe shut and turned the key.
She glanced at Toby, who raised an eyebrow. ‘At least you have the diary. And the envelope with Andrew Watson written on it presumably in his own hand.’ He grinned. ‘Proof enough for you? Am I totally exonerated for ever?’
She nodded, hugging the diary to her chest. ‘Proof enough. If you wish I shall grovel to you for the rest of my days.’
His smile deepened. ‘A day or two will be sufficient.’
They waited until after lunch to look at the diary again. The third guest had not appeared, and eventually they left the dining room without seeing who it was, having decided with alacrity to follow Ibrahim’s suggestion that they take a felucca to Kitchener’s Island with a picnic tea and it was there, amongst the trees and the hibiscus and the bougainvillaea that they sat down with the diary and Anna began at last to read out loud.
In the afternoon Hassan had taken the tiller himself as they sailed away from the Ibis towards the south. They beached the boat on the sand just out of sight of the shouting, laughing villagers, far enough away to avoid the crowd of Nubians who had waved at them as they passed and they stumbled up the bank onto the dunes. It was intensely hot. Louisa stared round, holding her parasol over her head. In one direction she could see an arid mountain range, in another on the far horizon a vast magical lake of water shimmered complete with palm trees. She gazed at it longingly and shook her head. ‘It’s too hot to paint. The paint would dry on my brush.’
‘And is it too hot to make love?’ Hassan smiled.
She reached out to touch his hand. ‘It’s too hot to breathe.’
They slid down the burning sand and Louisa climbed once more into the small boat. In the distance on a sandbank two crocodiles were basking, their mouths open. A heron stood near them, completely unafraid.
‘We could stop near those palms.’ Louisa pointed to a distant group of trees. Hassan nodded and put the tiller over, edging the boat towards the opposite shore. There were no crocodiles here. The sand was deserted as Hassan leapt over the side and pulled the boat up. He helped Louisa ashore and they made their way over to the palms. She painted for an hour or so before the heat drove them back to the water and to a new plan. Now they would return to the Ibis, but in the evening, when it grew cooler they would go ashore again and ride into the desert to camp under the vast open sky.
Hassan had sent away the donkey boy. He would return just after sunrise so they could ride back to the Ibis before the sun had gained its full strength. Now, as the sun was setting they could feel the first cold breaths of the desert wind.
‘You are sure he will find us again?’ Louisa gazed around her. The vast distances were unbroken in any direction as far as she could see. There was a line of golden hills on the far horizon, still touched by the sunlight, and on the other side of the river the soft black haze which was the coming night. In front of them there was a raised hill, surmounted by a rocky plateau, scattered with soft sand-filled ravines and crevasses.
Hassan smiled. ‘He will come. There is nothing to fear. We are within sight of the river. It is here all the time. We have only come a few miles upstream from where the Ibis is moored. Come,’ he held out his hand and began to pull her up the narrow valley between the dunes. ‘We follow this wadi, then I will show you my surprise.’
They began to scramble upwards at last, their feet slipping in the sand as it constantly shifted and rearranged itself into curves and swathes and undulating parabolas of light and shade until they had gained the rocky heights of the small hill.
‘There! The top!’ At last he triumphantly hauled her up the last couple of yards and he stood back so that she could see what it was they had come to visit.
On the summit of the plateau stood a small, exquisite temple, similar to the kiosk they had seen at Philae. Louisa stared in delight at the delicate leafy carvings on the capitals, and the heads of the goddess. The temple was badly ruined, but it was a beautiful red-gold in th
e light of the dying sun with behind it the deep, nearly dark waters of the river, already in the shadow of the night.
Louisa stared at it, speechless with delight. ‘Where is this?’ she asked at last.
‘It is the temple of Kertassi.’ He gestured around with his hand. ‘This temple too is sacred to Isis. It is very beautiful, is it not? I knew you would like it.’ He smiled.
Louisa stared up at the pillars with their long black shadows running down to the water, where the gleaming reflections were already deep in darkness as the great sleeping river wound steadily back towards its distant source in the heart of Africa, then she turned to look beyond them across the desert where she could see the huge crimson sun rapidly sinking out of sight. She turned again, breathless at the beauty of the view, stepped back, slipped in the soft, constantly moving sand which encroached on every side and nearly fell, grabbed Hassan’s arm and laughed with delight. She could see the donkey boy now in the distance, the animals’ shadows thrown, elongated in front of them as he retraced his steps towards his village. The figures were no bigger than tiny toys in the distance and as she watched they vanished out of sight into the darkness of the river valley.
‘Soon the sun will go down.’ Hassan put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Look, it slips into the world of the gods as we watch.’ The segment above the skyline was growing steadily smaller, its crimson darkening imperceptibly.
Louisa watched. She found she was holding her breath as the inverted crescent grew smaller and smaller until there was barely a sliver left. Then it was gone.
There were tears in her eyes as they watched the afterglow disappear, then at last it was fully dark and the stars appeared. Louisa had pulled off her sun hat. She shook out her hair, staring up in delight. ‘I can see every star in the firmament! If I stood on tiptoe I could touch them! The sky is like a black velvet cloak, sewn with diamonds!’
Hassan didn’t speak. He too was staring up, lost in thought. They stood there together for a long time until her sudden shiver reminded them that the air was growing sharply colder.
Whispers in the Sand Page 32