Flora's War

by Pamela Rushby

  Boots off, we gathered around the low entrance to the pyramid. ‘Bend over,’ I told them. ‘Heads well down. The passage goes down first, then up, and it’s only about four feet tall and three feet wide.’

  Bent over and heads tucked in, we shuffled down the sharply descending passage. Our guide led the way with a dim torch. Hands on either side of the passage, I stumbled along, sucking in moist, stuffy air. Occasionally people coming out of the pyramid met us, and we pressed ourselves against the sides of the passage to allow them by.

  The passage began to tilt upwards and continued low and narrow for a short way. It abruptly opened up into the Grand Gallery and we could stand up and stretch.

  ‘That’s better!’ said Lydia. Her voice echoed. She looked up. ‘It feels … strange,’ she said, ‘with all that great weight of stone above us.’

  It was just the way I felt inside the pyramids. I was always happier when I was outside again. ‘We go up now,’ I said. ‘The king’s chamber is at the top of the gallery.’

  ‘Imagine!’ breathed one of the nurses. ‘The king’s chamber!’

  But when we were standing in the king’s chamber they were, as I’d expected, unimpressed. It was a small room, right in the middle of the massive stone structure, fifteen feet by thirty feet, and nothing in it but an empty stone sarcophagus.

  ‘Where’s the gold? Where’s the treasure?’ demanded one of the officers, not quite jokingly.

  I laughed. ‘In the museum,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you been there?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t say I’m very keen on museums,’ he said. ‘Old Jim is, though. He’s always there.’

  ‘You have a friend who’s interested in ancient history? Then he might like to see my father’s excavation,’ I said.

  ‘A real excavation?’ exclaimed Lydia. ‘We’d all like to see that, wouldn’t we?’

  Everyone agreed, whether through politeness or genuine interest I wasn’t sure. But if they wanted to see it, I was sure Fa wouldn’t mind.

  ‘I’ll arrange it when I can,’ I said. ‘Now, are we ready to go out? Remember, once we’re out of the Grand Gallery, heads down and elbows in.’

  We all made it out without cracking our heads on the low roof and rejoined Gwen, Emily and Lieutenant Callendar. The sun was setting as we found a spot near the Sphinx for our picnic.

  ‘When it’s dark,’ I said, ‘do you want to see the Sphinx smile?’

  ‘What! Really smile?’

  It was a trick performed by the Egyptians to amuse tourists. When the sun had set, I beckoned a guide over and spoke to him, handing over a few coins. He climbed nimbly up under the Sphinx’s head, produced some matches and lit a small object he’d taken from his pocket. In seconds a bright white flame burned, throwing a shadow upwards under the Sphinx’s head. The Sphinx did, indeed, seem to smile in the wavering light. The group gave the man a round of applause – and more coins.

  ‘He burnt a piece of magnesium wire,’ I explained when they asked. ‘The shadow it throws gives the illusion of a smile.’

  Gwen and I were a total success with the officers and nurses. We were invited on more picnics, camel rides and outings than we would be able to manage. A few days later, we went with some nurses to Luna Park and screamed with them as we rode the rollercoaster and scurried through the skeleton house. The following week we took an evening felucca ride on the Nile. In the evenings we danced at Shepheard’s, and at my own hotel. Gwen and I watched, fascinated, as nurses and officers formed friendships, flirted and fell in – and out – of love.

  We flirted with more than a few of the young officers ourselves. ‘After all,’ said Gwen, ‘a girl needs to practise.’

  Frank joined in some of our social activities when he had free time. ‘Just be careful,’ he said after watching us chatting with some officers. ‘It’s all a bit of fun, but these fellows know they could be going off to fight before long, and some of them mightn’t come back. Some of them could be thinking that this is their last chance to have a good time. Everything’s a bit … accelerated.’

  Gwen and I nodded knowingly. Frank was being elder-brotherly again.

  ‘There’ve been a couple of engagements between people who’ve only known each other a short time,’ Frank went on. ‘You don’t want to be letting these boys expect too much.’

  ‘Oh come on, Frank!’ said Gwen. ‘You’ve been doing some serious flirting with the nurses yourself. I could mention Sarah Turnbull? You haven’t got a leg to stand on!’

  Frank grinned. ‘Guilty,’ he said. ‘That Sarah’s quite a girl, isn’t she?’

  I thought about Frank’s advice. ‘You’re right,’ I said to him. ‘So how about you make a list for us? It’s all right to dance, yes?’ I ticked an imaginary list off on my fingers. ‘A walk along the terrace is acceptable? But not holding hands at the same time? And no terrace walk if there’s no lamp at the end? A moonlight picnic at the Sphinx, quite all right, I suppose? But only in a group, naturally. Now here’s a difficulty. Christmas is coming, Frank. Is a kiss under the mistletoe seen as innocent fun? Or must it be refused with an outraged glare?’ I looked at him solemnly. ‘We know you’ll advise us correctly, Frank.’

  Frank gave in. ‘You two are impossible. Do what you like.’ He was serious again. ‘But I know you’ll remember what I said.’

  We nodded.

  ‘Oh, and by the way, Flora.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Christmas? That mistletoe?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll be first in line.’

  …

  Fa and I moved into the House of the Butcher and Blacksmith just before the Australian medical team took over our hotel in late December. The first thing I did when we arrived was step across the alley and try to open the small, mysterious door I’d seen the first time I’d visited the house. It was locked. That wasn’t unexpected, it opened into the alley, after all.

  Mr Bilal had opened the main door across the alley for us, and was waiting for us to come in.

  ‘Where does that door lead to?’ I asked him.

  Was it my imagination, or did his eyes shift sideways a little guiltily? ‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘It is unused.’

  ‘But what was it?’ I persisted.

  ‘It was an old storeroom. It has easy access to the street and many years ago the blacksmith used it to store materials.’

  ‘May I see it sometime?’ I asked. I’d be interested in seeing where the ancient blacksmith had kept his tools.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Bilal.

  Over the next few days I asked Mr Bilal several times to show me the blacksmith’s storeroom. Often he was busy and said he’d show me later, or he couldn’t find the key, and somehow I never saw inside the storeroom. Then Christmas came and my mind was on other things, and I forgot all about the mysterious door.

  Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated in Cairo, except among the European community. Even the local Christians, the Copts, held their Christmas on the seventh day of January. But I decided we would have a Christmas party in our own new home, and Fa agreed.

  I knew many of the nurses and officers and invited them to the party. Fa, Professor and Mrs Travers, Lady Bellamy and her ladies, and many of Fa’s archaeologist friends took over the hall. The young people went up to the roof terrace and danced to records on the new, wind-up gramophone that I’d told Fa I really, really needed for Christmas.

  I’d visited the street of tinsmiths and ordered dozens of lanterns with pierced sides and I had them strung all over the terrace. Candles burning inside them cast soft, dappled shadows over the dancers.

  Frank presented me with some new records from New York as a Christmas present. ‘Oh, thank you! Please put one on!’ I said.

  As he placed a record on the turntable, Frank said, ‘Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”.’

  It was a type of music I’d never heard before, fast music with a strong beat. I couldn’t wait to dance to it! But what kind of dance would you do? Fr
ank held out his hand to me. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how to do the bunny hug and the turkey trot. They’re all the rage in New York.’

  The nurses and officers crowded around to watch. They laughed as Frank hopped on one foot, flapped his elbows like a turkey and skipped to the side. Then, as he grabbed me and clasped me tightly to him, they realised this was a dance they’d like. They clasped each other closely and followed Frank’s steps.

  I held myself stiffly. Frank was clutching me so closely our bodies were welded together from chest to thigh. I’d never danced like this before. I didn’t think I liked it.

  ‘Flora, relax,’ Frank said in my ear. ‘The point of the dance is to be close and move together. You’ve got about as much give in you as a folded umbrella.’

  I have, have I? I glared at him.

  Frank grinned down at me. ‘All the really modern girls dance the turkey trot,’ he informed me.

  All right, I thought, watch me then!

  I took a deep breath and stopped trying to hold myself apart from Frank. It was actually easier that way, I found. Our bodies moved together in the silly, syncopated steps of the dance. We pranced across the terrace, hopping and skipping in perfect time, until the music finished and the record came to a scratching, hissing end as the needle slid towards the centre of the record.

  Frank stopped, took a step back and stared at me. ‘Wow!’ he said.

  I stared back. I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking ‘Wow!’ myself. Two minutes ago, I hadn’t liked being held to a boy’s chest. Now, I found I liked it. In fact, I liked it a lot.

  ‘I’ll just – uh – change the record,’ Frank said.

  ‘Good idea,’ I said. Our eyes were still locked.

  ‘Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  For the rest of the evening, Frank determinedly cut out any young officer who wanted to dance the turkey trot with me. When one did manage to claim my hand, Frank was quick to put on a slow foxtrot or waltz that involved no close body contact.

  It was a night from a fairytale. Stars glittered ice-cold above us in the dark blue sky, scents of spiced cooking and incense rose from the streets below, passers-by looked up as our dancing shadows whirled and hopped on the walls of the buildings beside our house. And Frank and I danced and danced. We didn’t say anything to each other, but that evening I discovered I was looking at Frank in a way I’d never looked at him before.

  As they left, some of the nurses told Fa it was the best night they had ever had in Egypt.

  ‘What a wonderful country! So beautiful, so romantic,’ sighed Sarah, the nurse Frank had been flirting with a few weeks before. ‘It was an enchanted night!’

  Fa held up his glass to her. ‘And here’s to many more,’ he said.

  Chapter 7

  After Christmas, I began serious work on Fa’s excavation. The sand had been cleared all around and it stood alone, a solid, squat, flat-topped building of stone. The entrance had been fully opened and the workers carried out the sand that had accumulated over the years. Wall carvings and paintings were emerging as they worked.

  I watched, holding my breath, as the workmen revealed scenes of the tomb’s owner hunting hippopotamus and birds, and feasting with his family and friends. I laughed at a scene showing his boatmen fighting. I felt sad when I saw him standing before the great God Osiris to be judged after his death. It was like opening a wonderful present every day, as scene after scene was uncovered. I understood how Fa and Professor Travers and Frank felt about archaeology. I felt it too.

  From the wall paintings, we discovered the man the tomb had been built for had died before his tomb was completed. Some paintings were unfinished, just sketched in as rough outlines in red ochre and charcoal. The tomb would have been under construction well before he died; all wealthy Egyptians planned and built their tombs years before they expected to need them. When he died, work would have stopped on the tomb immediately. He would have been mummified, buried, and the tomb sealed up at once.

  The workers were uncovering small finds, pieces of pottery, beads and a shabti or two: little figures of workers which were meant to take the place of the tomb’s owner when it was his turn to work in the fields in the after-life. It was my job to list, describe and draw these small objects. I wasn’t yet busy, but as we uncovered more of the contents I knew I soon would be.

  Fa was totally immersed in the work. He was at the excavation every day. I drove him there in the morning, stayed and worked with him, or – if I had time – drove back to the town to work at Lady Bellamy’s Rest and Recreation Centre or visit at a hospital.

  Now I was visiting at the Australian hospital that had once been our hotel. It was strange to see many of the bedrooms with their wooden doors removed, the rooms converted to wards. The patients seemed awed by the former hotel’s fantastical Oriental design. In the letters home I wrote for them, the boys often said their hospital was ‘like an Arabian palace, Mum!’

  Lydia Herschell had transferred to the Australian hospital, along with many of the Australian nurses, and I often saw them when I visited. I’d been waiting until there was a significant discovery at the excavation before asking Fa if the nurses could visit. Since many of the wall paintings had been uncovered, and we were anticipating finding the owner’s statue soon, I thought the time was right. I invited Lydia to afternoon tea one day to talk about it.

  We met at Groppi’s café, rather grandly termed a Confiserie by its proprietor, and a very popular place for tea and cakes. As usual, it was full of soldiers on leave. We knew several of them, but when some attempted to join us, Lydia waved them away. ‘We have business to discuss,’ she said to them. ‘How many people can your father have visit at one time?’ Lydia asked me.

  ‘Ten would be a manageable number,’ I said. ‘Any more, and the tomb will be overcrowded.’

  Lydia was making notes. ‘Ten,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Then we should invite people who will be genuinely interested, don’t you think?’

  I nodded. Lydia began to jot down names. ‘That’s seven, eight, nine,’ she said. ‘Now who for the tenth? Hmmm. I know! Jim.’

  ‘Jim?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve met him. He’s always at the museum.’

  ‘He sounds perfect,’ I said.

  We settled the date for a week later.

  Fa tasked me with showing the visitors around. It was quite different from being an unofficial guide to the pyramids and I was a little nervous. I asked Gwen to come along for moral support, even though I knew she wasn’t terribly interested in Egyptian history and had seen the insides of more tombs than she ever really cared to.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘As long as you find time for the concert at Shepheard’s on Saturday night. There’s a violinist I want to hear.’

  On the afternoon of the excavation tour, Gwen arrived early at the site. She’d driven herself out from Cairo, causing a great stir as she sped along the road from the town. She arrived, pulled up in a scatter of sand – Gwen couldn’t quite get the hang of slowing down gradually before stopping – and jumped out. Discarding her dustcoat, she revealed a pretty, frilled dress, completing the picture with a large straw hat trimmed with organza flowers and a parasol retrieved from the back seat. In my work clothes of drab-coloured divided skirt and shirt and dusty boots, I didn’t compare. Gwen had sucked all the available elegance out of the immediate atmosphere.

  ‘So what are you showing them?’ Gwen wanted to know. I gave her a quick look at the uncovered rooms, pointing out the inscriptions and paintings. ‘Yes, this should keep them busy,’ she said, looking around.

  ‘And then tea,’ I said. ‘And then they can all go!’

  Gwen looked at me. ‘Flora, you aren’t nervous, are you?’ she said.

  ‘I am a bit,’ I said. ‘I’ve never done this before. Aren’t you nervous when you give a violin performance?’

  ‘I suppose I am. But you’ll be fine,’ Gwen
assured me. ‘Just ask me if you can’t remember any of the dates.’

  ‘Ask you about dates!’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I can make something up in an instant. They’d never know the difference.’

  We were still giggling when the group arrived by donkey.

  I needn’t have worried; they were all either very interested or polite enough to pretend. I was introduced to several young officers I’d never met before, but their names immediately went out of my head as I tried frantically to remember all the things I wanted to tell them.

  I conducted them through the entrance and the small rooms at the front of the tomb. ‘We know now that his name was Khnumhotep,’ I said. ‘His wife was Merithathor. We don’t know, yet, if she’s buried here as well. Or even if he’s still here.’

  We arrived in the central chamber where Fa was supervising the excavation. Just the day before, the workers had uncovered the entrance to the shaft that led down to the burial chamber. At the back of the chamber others were uncovering the statue of Khnumhotep. It appeared to be undisturbed, and Fa was jubilant.

  ‘We expect the shaft will drop straight down for some way, at the end we’ll find a passage at right-angles which will lead to the burial chamber,’ Fa explained. ‘We’re hoping it’s blocked with rubble.’

  ‘You’re hoping it’s blocked?’ an officer asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘It was usual for the shaft and passage to be blocked up after the burial. It might be filled with blocks of solid stone,’ I said. ‘Rubble is much easier to remove.’

  After a few minutes, I took the group outside again, to Fa’s relief I rather suspected. Now he could get back to serious work.

  We went to the tents where the finds were sorted, described, sketched and stored. I’d spread some of the objects out on a long trestle table; shabtis, many pieces of pottery, a few pots that were almost intact, some decorated dishes and beads from necklaces.

  Fa came to join us as I served tea to the visitors. They all seemed very impressed and had plenty of questions. So many that Fa didn’t go back to work after his tea; he stayed and answered the questions, and explained things and showed the small artefacts to the visitors all over again. Finally at sunset they left, some on donkeys, some in Gwen’s car.