The Eye of Horus

by Carol Thurston

  Tashat’s painted face possessed a lifelike quality beyond any funerary portrait Kate had ever seen, even from the period called the Golden Age of Egyptian art, when a more natural style had come into fashion. The mummy mask was only intended to resemble the person beneath it, so Tashat’s wandering soul could find the body it belonged to each night, yet it was that infinitely intriguing face that made Kate feel so sure the extra skull was no accident.

  Tashat’s body had been tightly swathed in linen, the outer layers stiffened with gesso and varnished to seal out moisture, then covered with a series of colorful scenes framed by gold bands that imitated the linen ones beneath them—scenes that Kate thought might represent the landmarks in Tashat’s short life, if only they could figure out how to read them. Cleo insisted they were just variations on the standard themes of religious symbolism associated with the afterlife, but they reminded Kate of the dreamlike scenarios of Paul Delvaux, the Belgian surrealist whose visual signature was a common street scene containing one thing that didn’t fit, forcing the viewer to reassess everything else in the scene. On Tashat’s cartonnage it was the tiny figures squeezed into every odd-shaped space like fillers in an artistic design. But they also could be read as pictographs, and one in particular—the stair-stepped hieroglyph for the goddess Isis—appeared again and again, sometimes alone, other times perched on the back of a little white dog, like a saddle on a horse. Except the Egyptians didn’t ride horses. At least not then.

  “That necklace is called an Amarna collar,” she said, breaching the silence to point to the radiating rows of blue cornflowers and green leaves. “It’s one of the reasons we think she lived during or shortly after the reign of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who outlawed all their gods but Aten, the full face of the sun. He built a new capital city at Akhetaten—Tel el Amarna today. But all we really know is that she was the daughter of the doorkeeper at the great temple of Amen and the wife of a Theban noble.”

  “Don’t those hieroglyphs tell you anything?” He pointed to the column of symbols running down the center of Tashat’s cartonnage.

  “They’re sort of an epitaph, verses from the Book of the Dead, which the Egyptians called the Book of Coming Forth by Day.” While she translated one from memory she watched his eyes.” ‘At my death let the bubbles of blood on my lips taste as sweet as berries. Give me not words of consolation. Give me magic, the fire of one beyond the borders of enchantment. Give me the spell of living well.’ “

  His lips moved as if he were about to speak, but his Adam’s apple seemed to get in the way. When he swallowed, shook his head, then swallowed again, Kate guessed that he was discovering—as she had—that any words he could think of paled by comparison. For the first time, Maxwell Cavanaugh was at a loss for something to say.

  In that moment she forgot he was a member of the cabal that had caused her so much grief and came to his rescue. “That style of sandal originated in Thebes around the middle of the fourteenth century B.C.,” she told him, pointing to Tashat’s papier-mâché-like foot mask. “More confirmation of her provenance.” The palm-frond sandals had a low side-wall sloping in from the sole, like the beginnings of a shoe, and a braided strap curling up from the toe to form a T with the strap across the instep.

  “Do you think she was his only wife?” he asked without looking up.

  “A man could have however many wives he could afford. Since most people of her class would have a full pasteboard cartonnage over the linen wrapping, not just a head mask and a foot mask, that suggests a lesser wife, probably one of several.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want three or four wives.” A smile played at the corner of his mouth.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Something about her eyes, or maybe it’s her mouth—both, unless my imagination has gone through the roof. I suspect looking at her might do that to you.”

  “What … about her eyes?” Kate urged, trying not to prompt him.

  “It’s just, well, she has such a look of—” He paused, searching for the right word. “Call it intelligent curiosity combined with, oh, I’m not sure—as if there’s a spark of mischief hiding behind that serious facade. Like she’s smiling somewhere inside.” He turned to Kate with a self-deprecating smile. “I hope you’re not going to tell me it’s just some stylized portrait they put on all the young women back then.”

  Kate watched his lips curve up, pulling a fan of lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Then the fold above them closed down while his cheeks lifted in a classic Duchenne, the only one of several well-documented smiles known to produce happy emotions, or at least a good mood—one more thing she knew about him, despite the beard. That and the fact that he was very good at reading X rays. Had to be to get gender from the skull alone with little more than a casual glance, which probably meant it wasn’t as casual as he made it appear.

  “No, she’s definitely one of a kind,” she answered, just as Elaine poked her head around the door.

  “All locked up and ready to go.”

  “Okay, we’re coming, too.” Kate went to the closet for her coat and on the way out flipped the switch on the viewbox, letting the X ray go dark.

  They walked down the hall together and through the reception area to the main entrance, where the security guard locked the door behind them. It was pitch-dark out side and felt near freezing. “I always forget how cold it can get here in November,” Dr. Cavanaugh mumbled into his collar. “We were still running the air-conditioning when I left Houston.”

  “I heard it might snow tonight,” Kate remarked, trying to think of some way to ask if he’d be interested in a trade—Cleo’s appraisal of the ivory necklace for a professional reading of that X ray.

  They were almost to the parking lot when he slowed and put out a hand to detain her. “Look, I know how you could learn a lot more about her, and without disturbing a hair on either head.” His breath formed a cumulus cloud in the frigid night air. “Maybe if I could describe what I have in mind and you told me more about—” He glanced around as if searching for something. “It’s too cold to stand out here. How about going someplace for a cup of coffee or a beer? Unless you have someone waiting for you at home?”

  She did, and he wouldn’t be a bit happy if she was late again. But a chance like this didn’t come along every day. Sam would just have to wait.

  Vince’s Italian Ristorante specialized in Neapolitan pizza. Anything else, Vince had told her more than once, was a bastard—unworthy of the name. He greeted them from behind the cash register and suggested they pick their own table.

  “Near the fireplace okay with you?” Dr. Cavanaugh inquired. Kate nodded and started across the room, relieved to see that only one table was occupied. She didn’t want to miss anything he had to say.

  Once seated he glanced around at the decor, taking in the red-brick walls and checkered tablecloths, then commented, “Smells great in here. Would you like something to eat?”

  She assumed he was just being polite. “No thanks, but I’ll have a glass of wine. The house red.”

  Vince had followed them and took their order. When he left, Dr. Cavanaugh sat back as if he expected her to make conversation while they waited. When she didn’t, he volunteered, “This kind of weather is why I left Michigan after my residency.”

  The Michigan coincidence was almost too much, but Kate didn’t want to divert him from what he was about to propose. Fortunately, a waitress brought their drinks right away, and he poured some beer into the frosted mug, then tasted it before glancing across at her. “If you’re not an Egyptologist, what are you doing with that X ray?”

  She was beginning to see a pattern in the way he didn’t react immediately to something that puzzled him—first the head between Tashat’s legs, then who or what Kate was at the museum. A cautious man, yet he obviously had acted on impulse as they were leaving the museum. Now it sounded as if he was having second thoughts.

  “What I’m supposed to be doing are forensic illustrations to displa
y with the mummy,” she replied. “How Tashat’s body probably looks right now, under the cartonnage, what she may have looked like in life, and an in-the-round head if I can get accurate enough measurements to duplicate her skull. Unfortunately, I need to get the story I’m going to tell clear in my head before I can draw it. With Tashat, that’s not happening.” She paused, anticipating his reaction, then took the plunge. “I’m a medical illustrator, on temporary assignment at the museum as a favor to Cleo Harris, a friend from college.”

  He came close to stuttering. “You’re a phy—an M.D.?”

  Kate didn’t intend to confess to any stranger why she’d dropped out of medical school, let alone one of them. That the decision was hers to make didn’t matter; that she had worked hard to succeed at something she really cared about and failed, did. Five years later it still felt as if she’d walked into an ambush, mostly because she had gone in believing she could work around her old nemesis just as she had in college—by observing how a classroom was arranged and manipulating most situations so she could concentrate on one voice at a time. And she had, until they started group hospital rounds. That’s when it hit home that she’d never be able to trust herself—to know for sure she hadn’t missed something crucial because too much was going on at once. Too much noise. Trying harder wasn’t enough. She’d finally had to accept the reality of her own inadequacy.

  “No, I’m not,” she replied, opting for the truth but not the whole truth. “I know a lot of medical illustrators are, but I’ve got a solid grounding in physiology, plus I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember.” He watched her the way a cat eyes a bird, without blinking or moving a muscle. “I did give med school a shot,” she continued. ‘Two years. By then my drawings were in such demand I decided illustration was what I really should be doing.”

  He continued to stare at her. Then, without a word, he lifted his beer and drained half the glass. Kate recognized the pattern. Worried that he might be backing off, she grabbed on to the first thing that came to mind.

  “Were you at Ann Arbor?” He nodded, still watching. “It’s an odd coincidence is all. That X ray of Tashat was taken by a team from the dental school in Ann Arbor back in the late sixties, when they took a portable unit over to study the effect of genetics on dentition in Nubian children. The people at the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, asked them to return the next year, to x-ray the royal mummies and try to trace familial connections through dentition and craniofacial features. While they were at it they did several mummies that had been stored in an attic room for some thirty years, mostly priests and government officials from the New Kingdom. Tashat was among them.”

  “How did she get here?”

  “She’s nobody important and the Department of Antiquities needed money to modernize the Cairo museum, so they allowed an indefinite loan in exchange for the requisite baksheesh. Considering the pollution in Cairo, she’s probably better off here.” Actually, Kate wasn’t too sure about that, given the budget constraints Dave Broverman was always throwing in her face to explain why they couldn’t buy the equipment she needed, let alone do the one thing that would solve most of her problems—have Tashat scanned.

  “Okay.” He scooted forward as if he’d come to a decision. “That you’re familiar with what I’m going to suggest only makes it easier. Can I call you Kate?” She nodded. “As I’m sure you know, a CT scan produces cross sections without the shadows cast by surrounding tissue or bone. We also can do three-dimensional images, of an entire organ or a single tooth. That’s what I’d like to try on Tashat.”

  “Look, Dr. Cavanaugh—”

  “Max.”

  “Max,” she agreed. “It’s been a while—five years—so I’m not really up on what the latest scanners can do.” She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to slow down. “Would you mind if I ask a few questions?”

  “Ask away,” he invited.

  “Is there any chance of determining which fractures may have occurred before she died?”

  “Not unless we found some evidence of primary callus. Otherwise, we’d have no way of telling whether there’s no new bone growth because she died right away or because the fractures occurred postmortem.”

  “I meant can the new scanners pick up bone growth the older X rays might have missed?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe.”

  “How about whether that extra skull was wrapped before it was placed between her legs?”

  “I’d certainly think so. How much contrast we can develop might be a question, if you’re thinking of using the films as illustrations. I’ve never scanned a mummy, but if it’s important, I can check the literature. Is it?”

  She nodded. “That would be pretty compelling evidence against any accident.” He waited for another question, but Kate was concentrating on how to approach the touchiest subject of all—money.

  “At the very least,” he continued, “we ought to learn whether that shadow on her right hip was caused by an injury or infection. It could even be an artifact of the conditions under which they shot the X ray, if they were using portable equipment.” Kate hadn’t even thought of that, which only brought home again how much they needed someone with Maxwell Cavanaugh’s expertise.

  “The problem is, Dr. Cavanaugh—”

  “Max.”

  “I doubt my director would even consider shipping her—”

  He was shaking his head. “I mean do it here, at an imaging facility I sometimes consult for. That way you and anyone else from the museum could help us interpret whatever we run into.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to be in town very long.”

  “I can always arrange to stay a little longer, or else come back.” His eyes stayed on her face. “The museum wouldn’t be out anything except the cost of transporting her across town, if that’s what’s worrying you.” He paused to see if that made any difference before adding, “I really would like to do this, Kate. It wouldn’t be a one-way street, all give and no take.”

  She didn’t feel comfortable asking, but obsessing over a woman who lived over three thousand years ago wasn’t her usual thing, either. “Why?”

  A piece of wood popped and he glanced at the fire, then back at her. “My grandmother was sort of the Auntie Mame type, I guess, and one year during the Christmas holidays she took me to Egypt. Just the two of us. I was twelve, but like so many kids, infected with the bug even before that. Wanted to be an Egyptologist, spent hours poring over pictures of mummies and tomb paintings. I must’ve read God, Graves and Scholars at least five times, cover to cover.” He gave her a wistful smile, then shrugged the memory away. “Call it nostalgia, a chance to revisit a time in my life when everything wasn’t set in concrete.”

  “When—what changed your mind about becoming an Egyptologist?”

  “I suppose my fascination with mummies evolved. Still bodies, but living ones. I wanted to know what makes us tick—how the brain works, an organ the Egyptians hardly even talked about. As I recall, they believed the intellect resided in the heart.” Kate finally let herself smile, but he wasn’t through. “Look, you’re not up on the latest scanners, and I’m not up on what three thousand years can do to human bones. I don’t even remember what internal organs they left in and which ones they took out during mummification.”

  “No problem. I can give you a refresher course in fifty words or less. At the time we’re talking about here, the priests in the House of Beautification went up the left nostril with a long spoonlike tool and punched through the spongy ethmoid bone into the cranial cavity. Without disfiguring the nose, I might add. Some people think they used the same narrow spoon to scoop out the brain, but I think it’s more likely that they stirred the brain to liquefy it, then simply poured it out.” She put her fingers to the left and a little below her navel. “They made an incision right about here to remove the lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach, and intestines. But not the heart. That had to stay in to be weighed against the feather of truth when it came time for Os
iris to pass judgment on the deceased.” She reached up to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “After that the body was laid on a sloping table to let the liquids drain off and covered with natron, a crystalline form of sodium and calcium salts, mostly sodium carbonate. Same with the viscera. For forty days.”

  “I thought it was seventy.”

  “I’m not finished. After forty days in the natron, they washed the body with palm wine, closed the abdominal incision, and sealed it with resin. Wads of oil-soaked cloth were placed in the mouth and a piece of linen over each eye, before closing the lids. The nostrils were sealed with wax. Then came the adornments—rings, bracelets, wreaths of flowers—followed by the burning of incense to symbolically restore warmth and odor to the body. Finally, they began wrapping, first each finger and toe, followed by each arm and leg. With a male the penis was wrapped separately, too. In an erect position, of course.”

  He didn’t even try not to smile. “Why do I get the impression you’re looking for more than what you just asked me about?”

  She didn’t want him to think she was a New Age nut bent on making everything fit some half-baked theory like numerology, but she needed to test her hunch on someone whose roots weren’t so firmly planted in the humanities. Cleo’s virtue was flexibility, but her logic often was illogical since she could accept, or simply ignore, evidence Kate could not.

  “I think the scenes on Tashat’s cartonnage, perhaps the ones inside her coffin as well, may tell a story. A boat under sail is the hieroglyph for south, for instance, because the prevailing wind on the Nile is from the north. That’s what made it possible for them to sail up the river against the current. Suppose Tashat traveled up the river for some reason? Certainly that would have been a major event in her life.”

  “Aren’t boats pretty common in Egyptian mythology?”

  He was right to point that out. “I know it’s ambiguous if you view each scene alone, but there’s more. The hieroglyph for the goddess Isis appears in every one of those panels”—she drew a stair-stepped shape in the air—“most of the time with a little white dog. But dogs don’t figure in their religious iconography, unless you count Anubis, who watched over the embalming process. But he has a long tail and pointed ears and is always black, the color of death.”