by Anne Rice
San Francisco, now that was a city that had an allure for him. They'd almost completely rebuilt it since the earthquake. And he had a feeling he might do well out there, away from all that he had come to loathe in England. If he could take Malenka with him, mat wouldn't be half-bad either. And out there in California, who would give a damn that her skin was darker than his?
Her skin. He loved Malenka's skin. Smoky, hot Malenka. A few times he'd ventured out of this cluttered little house and gone to see her dance at the European club. He liked it. Who knows? Maybe she might be a celebrity in California, with him managing her, of course. That might bring in a little money, and what woman wouldn't want to leave this filthy hellhole of a city for America? She was already learning English from the gramophone, playing records she had bought in the British sector on her own.
It made him laugh to hear her repeating the inane phrases: "May I offer you some sugar? May I offer you some cream?" She spoke well enough as it was. And she was clever about money, that was obvious. Or she wouldn't have managed to keep this house, after her half-breed brother left it to her.
Trouble was his father had to be handled carefully. That was why he hadn't left Cairo already. Because his father had to believe he was still with Julie, and looking after her, and all that utter rot. He'd cabled his father for more money days ago, with some silly message that Julie was quite all right. But surely he did not have to follow her back to London. That was preposterous. He had to work something out.
Of course there was no rush to leave here, really. The game was going splendidly for the eleventh day.
And it had been some time since he'd set foot out of doors, except of course to take his breakfast in the courtyard. He liked the courtyard. He liked the world being completely shut out. He liked the little pond, and the tile, and even that screeching parrot of Malenka's, that African gray-the ugliest bird he'd ever seen- wasn't entirely uninteresting.
The whole place had a lush, overblown quality that appealed to him. Late at night he'd wake up dying of thirst, find his bottle and sit in the front room, amid all the tapestried pillows, listening to the gramophone play the records of Afda. He'd blur his eyes and all the colors around him would run together.
This was exactly what he wanted life to be. The game; the drink; the utter seclusion. And a warm, voluptuous woman who'd strip off her clothes when he snapped his fingers.
He made her dress in her costumes about the house. He liked to see her shining flat belly and her mounded breasts over the gaudy purple satin. He liked the big cheap earrings she wore, and her fine hair, oh, very fine, he liked to see that down her back so that he could grab a handful of it, and tug her gently towards him.
Ah, she was the perfect woman for him. She had his shirts done, and his clothes pressed, and saw to it his tobacco never ran out. She brought him magazines and papers when he asked for them.
But he didn't care much for that anymore. The outside world didn't exist. Except for dreams of San Francisco.
That's why he was so annoyed when they brought a telegram to the door. He never should have left this address at Shepheard's. But then he had no choice. How else could he have gotten the money his father telegraphed? Or the other telegrams his father had sent? Important not to make his father angry until some sort of deal had been struck.
With a cold, nasty expression the Frenchman waited as he tore open the yellow envelope and saw that this message wasn't from his father. Rather, it had come from Elliott.
"Damn," he whispered. "They're on their way here." He handed it to Malenka. "Get my suit pressed. I have to go back to the hotel."
"You can't quit now," said the Frenchman.
The German took a long drag on his smelly cigar. He was even more stupid than the Frenchman.
"Who said I was going to quit?" Henry said. He upped the ante; then bluffed them out one by one.
He'd go to Shepheard's later and see to their rooms. But he wasn't sleeping there. They shouldn't expect that of him.
"That's quite enough for me," said the German, flashing his yellowed teeth.
The Frenchman would stay there until ten or eleven easily.
Cairo. This had been desert in Ramses' time, though somewhere to the south lay Saqqara, where he had come on a pilgrimage once to worship at the pyramid of Egypt's first King. And of course he had gone on to visit the great pyramids of the great ancestors.
And so now it was a metropolis, bigger even than Alexandria. And this the British sector looked for all the world like a part of London, except that it was too warm. Paved streets; neatly clipped trees. Motor cars in profusion, their engines and horns scaring the camels, the donkeys, the natives. Shepheard's Hotel-another "tropical" palace with broad porches, replete with wicker, slatted blinds, and vague Egyptian artifacts thrown in among the English furnishings, the whole crowded with the same rich tourists he'd seen everywhere.
A great advertisement for the opera stood in front of the two ironwork lifts. Alda. And such a lurid, vulgar picture of ancient Egyptians entwined in each other's arms amid palms and pyramids. And in the foreground in an oval yet another sketch of a modern man and woman dancing.
OPERA BALL-OPENING NIGHT-SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL
Well, if this was what Julie wanted. He had to confess he wanted to see a large theater, and hear an orchestra of great power. Oh, so many things to see! He had heard talk of motion pictures.
But he must endure these last few days on his native soil without complaint. There was a good library here, Elliott had said. He'd load up with science textbooks and study, and then slip out at night to stand before the Sphinx and speak to the spirits of his ancestors.
Not that he believed they were really there. No. He did not. Even in ancient times he had not really believed in the gods, perhaps because men called him a god; and so much of his stamina had been sapped by ritual. He had known he was no god.
Would a god have struck down the priestess with one great blow of his bronze sword, after drinking the elixir? But he was not the man who had done that thing. Oh, no, if life had taught him nothing else, it had taught him the meaning of cruelty.
It was the spirit of modern science that he worshipped now. He dreamed of a laboratory in some safe and isolated place, where he could break down the chemical components of the elixir. The ingredients he knew, of course. And he knew as well that he could find them today as easily as he had found them centuries ago. He had seen the very fish in the markets at Luxor. He had seen the very frogs hopping in the marshes along the Nile. The plants grew wild still in those marshes.
Ah, to think that such a chemical action came from such simple things. But who would have combined them but some ancient magician throwing things in a pot like an old woman making a stew?
But the laboratory would have to wait. He and Julie must travel first. And before this could begin, she must say her painful farewells. And when he thought of her saying farewell to her rich and beautiful world, it sent a coldness through him. Yet whatever his fears, he wanted her too much to do anything about them.
And then there was Henry, Henry who had not dared to show his face since their return-Henry who had made a gambling den in old Cairo of a belly dancer's house.
The clerks had been most forthcoming with that information. Seems that young Mr. Stratford had paid them very little not to talk of his excesses.
But what was Ramses to do with the information, if Julie would not let him act? Surely they could not leave the man alive when they departed. But how was it to be accomplished so that Julie did not suffer any more pain?
Elliott sat on his bed, his back to the ornate wooden headboard, the veils of mosquito netting pinned back on either side of him. It felt good to be settled into a suite at Shepheard's.
The pain in his hip was almost unbearable. The long walks at Luxor and Abu Simbel had left him utterly exhausted. There was a slight congestion in his lungs, and for days his heart had been beating just a little too fast.
He watched Henry in his
rumpled linen suit pace the little Tunisian carpet in the quaint "Colonial" bedroom with its old-fashioned chunky Victorian pieces and Egyptian wall hangings, and the inevitable wicker chairs.
Henry now had the look of a round-the-clock drinker, skin waxy as well as florid, hands steady because he was now thoroughly fueled with Scotch.
As a matter of fact, his glass was empty and Elliott had not the slightest inclination to ask Walter to refill it. Elliott's antipathy for Henry had reached its zenith. The man's mumbling, half-incoherent speech left Elliott utterly repelled.
". . .no reason in the world why I should make that voyage back with her, she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And I don't intend to stay here at Shepheard's, either. . . ."
"Why are you telling me all this?" Elliott asked finally. "Write to your father."
"Well, I have. It's only you'd be advised not to tell him that I stayed here in Cairo while you went on that inane voyage south. You'd be advised to back me up."
"And why is that?"
"Because I know what you're up to." Henry wheeled around suddenly, eyes glittering with drunken drama. "I know why you came here. It's got nothing to do with Julie! You know that thing's a monster. You realized it during the voyage. You know what I said was true about its climbing out of the coffin. ..."
"Your stupidity is beyond belief."
"What are you saying?" Henry leaned over the footboard, as if he meant to frighten Elliott.
' 'You saw an immortal man rise from his grave, you worthless fool. Why do you run from it with your tail between your legs?''
"You're the fool, Elliott. It's unnatural. It's . . . monstrous. And if it tries to come near me, I shall tell what I know. About it and about you."
"You're losing your memory as well as your mind. You have already told. You were the laughingstock of London for twenty-four hours, probably the only real recognition you will ever enjoy."
"You think you're so clever, you filthy aristocratic beggar. You dare to put on airs with me. Have you forgotten our little weekend in Paris?" He gave a twisted smile as he lifted the empty glass, then saw there was nothing in it. "You peddled your title for an American fortune. You've peddled your son's title for the Stratford money. And now you're chasing after that filthy thing! You believe in this mad, stupid idea of the elixir."
"And you don't?"
"Of course I don't."
"Then how do you explain what you saw?"
Henry paused, eyes working again in that feverish manner which had become shifty. "There's some trick to it, some twist. But there's no damned chemical that makes people live forever. That's insane."
Elliott laughed under his breath. "Maybe it was done with mirrors."
"What?"
"The thing coming out of the coffin and trying to strangle you," Elliott said.
The contempt in Henry's eyes hardened to hate.
"Maybe I should tell my cousin that you're spying on her, that you want the elixir. Maybe I should tell that thing."
"She knows. So does he."
Utterly stymied, Henry looked down into the empty glass.
"Get out of here," Elliott said. "Go where you please."
"If my father should contact you, leave a message for me at the desk."
"Oh? Am I not supposed to know that you're living with that dancer, Malenka? Everyone else knows it. It's the scandal of the moment, Henry in old Cairo with his card game and his dancing girl."
Henry sneered.
Elliott looked towards the windows. Soft bright sunshine. He did not look back until he'd heard the door close. He waited a few moments, then picked up the telephone and asked for the front desk.
"You have an address for Henry Stratford?"
"He asked that we not give it out, sir."
"Well, this is the Earl of Rutherford, and I am a friend of the family. Please do give it to me."
He memorized it quickly, thanked the clerk and put down the receiver. He knew the street in old Cairo. It was only steps from the Babylon, the French night club where the dancing girl, Malenka, worked. He and Lawrence used to sit and argue in that club by the hour, when there had been dancing boys.
He reaffirmed his vow: whatever else happened, he would find out what he could from Ramsey before they parted as to what had really happened to Lawrence in that tomb.
Nothing would deter him from that, not cowardice, nor dreams of the elixir. He had to know what, if anything, Henry had done.
The door opened quietly. It had to be his man, Walter, the only one who would enter without a knock.
"Nice rooms, my lord?" Too solicitous. He had overheard the argument. He puttered about, wiping the bedside table, adjusting the shade of the lamp.
"Oh, yes, they're fine, Walter. They'll do. And my son, where is he?"
"Downstairs, my lord, and may I tell you a little secret?"
Walter leaned over the bed, hand up to his mouth as if they were in the midst of a crowd rather than in a large empty bedroom with nothing but an empty sitting room opening onto it.
"He's met a pretty girl, downstairs, an American. Name's Banington, my lord. Rich family from New York. Father in the railroads."
Elliott smiled. "Now, how do you know all that already?"
Walter laughed. He emptied Elliott's ashtray of the cheroot, which had gone out because it burned Elliott's lungs so badly he couldn't smoke it.
' 'Rita told me, my lord. Saw him not an hour after we checked in. And he's with Miss Barrington now, taking a little walk about in the hotel gardens."
"Well, wouldn't that be interesting, Walter," Elliott said, shaking his head, ' 'if our dear Alex married an American heiress. ''
"Yes, my lord, it certainly would be interesting," Walter said. "As for the other, do you want the same arrangements as before?" Again Walter assumed a highly confidential air. "Someone to follow him?"
He meant Ramses, of course. He referred to the shameful matter of the boy whom Elliott had hired in Alexandria.
"If you can do it quietly," Elliott said. "They're to watch him night and day, to report to me where he goes and what he does."
He gave Walter a wad of bills, which Walter tucked in his pocket immediately and then went out, closing the door behind him.
Elliott tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in his chest wouldn't allow it; very quietly he took one shallow breath after another. He stared at the white curtains ballooning over the open windows. He could hear the bustle and noise of British Cairo outside. He thought about the futility of all of this-following Ramses in the hope of discovering something, anything, about the elixir.
Absurd, really. A little bit of cloak-and-dagger that did no more than fuel Elliott's obsession. There was no doubt now as to what Ramses was; and if he had the elixir with him, undoubtedly he carried it on his person.
Elliott felt ashamed. But that was a small matter. The larger matter was the mystery from which he was utterly shut out. Might as well go to the man and beg for the gift. He had a good mind to call Walter back, to tell him it was all foolishness. But in his heart of hearts he knew he would try one more time to search Ramses' room; and the boy following Ramses might give him some clue as to the man's habits.
It was something to do, wasn't it, other than think about the pain in his chest and in his hip. He closed his eyes; he saw the colossal statues of Abu Simbel again. It seemed to him suddenly that this was the last great adventure of his life, and he realized that he had no regrets, that this excitement had been in itself a priceless gift to him.
And who knows, he laughed softly to himself. Perhaps Alex will find an American heiress.
Ah, she was lovely, and he so liked her voice and the divine sparkle in her eye, for that's just what it was; and how she'd push him lightly with her finger when she laughed. And what a pretty name she had, Miss Charlotte Whitney Banington.
"And then we thought we'd go to London, but they say it's frightfully cold this time of year, and so gloomy, with the Tower of London and al
l, where they chopped off Anne Boleyn's head.''
"Oh, it wouldn't be if I showed it to you!" he said.
"Well, when are you going home? You're staying for the opera, aren't you? Seems everybody in this place talks of nothing else. It's very funny, you know, to come all the way to Egypt to see an opera."
"But it's Aida, my dear."
"I know, I know. . . ."
"And yes, we are going, as a matter of fact, it's all been arranged. And you'll be there, of course. Ah, what about the ball afterwards?"
What an adorable smile. "Well, I didn't know about the ball, you see. I didn't really want to go with Mummy and Daddy and-"