Neil pats Lissa’s hand and leans over to me. “Can you trade places with Lissa?” Neil whispers to me.
I already have, I think. “We’re not supposed to,” I say, pointing at the lights above the seats. “The seat belt sign is on.”
He looks at her anxiously. “She’s feeling nauseated.”
So am I, I want to say, but I am afraid that’s what this trip is all about, to get me to say something. “Okay,” I say, and unbuckle my seat belt and change places with her. While she is crawling over Neil, the plane pitches again, and she half-falls into his arms. He steadies her. Their eyes lock.
“‘I have not taken another’s belongings,’” Zoe reads. “‘I have not murdered another.’”
I can’t take any more of this. I reach for my bag, which is still under the window seat, and pull out my paperback of Agatha Christie’s Death On the Nile. I bought it in Athens.
“About like death anywhere,” Zoe’s husband said when I got back to our hotel in Athens with it.
“What?” I said.
“Your book,” he said, pointing at the paperback and smiling as if he’d made a joke. “The title. I’d imagine death on the Nile is the same as death anywhere.”
“Which is what?” I asked.
“The Egyptians believed death was very similar to life,” Zoe cut in. She had bought Egypt Made Easy at the same bookstore. “To the ancient Egyptians the afterworld was a place much like the world they inhabited. It was presided over by Anubis, who judged the deceased and determined their fates. Our concepts of heaven and hell and of the Day of Judgment are nothing more than modern refinements of Egyptians ideas,” she said, and began reading out loud from Egypt Made Easy, which pretty much put an end to our conversation, and I still don’t know what Zoe’s husband thought death would be like, on the Nile or elsewhere.
I open Death on the Nile and try to read, thinking maybe Hercule Poirot knows, but the flight is too bumpy. I feel almost immediately queasy, and after half a page and three more lurches I put it in the seat pocket, close my eyes and toy with the idea of murdering another. It’s a perfect Agatha Christie setting. She always has a few people in a country house or on an island. In Death on the Nile they were on a Nile steamer, but the plane is even better. The only other people on it are the flight attendants and a Japanese tour group who apparently do not speak English or they would be clustered around Zoe, asking directions to the Sphinx.
The turbulence lessens a little, and I open my eyes and reach for my book again. Lissa has it.
She’s holding it open, but she isn’t reading it. She is watching me, waiting for me to notice, waiting for me to say something. Neil looks nervous.
“You were done with this, weren’t you?” she says, smiling. “You weren’t reading it.”
Everyone has a motive for murder in an Agatha Christie. And Lissa’s husband has been drinking steadily since Paris, and Zoe’s husband never gets to finish a sentence. The police might think he had snapped suddenly. Or that it was Zoe he had tried to kill and shot Lissa by mistake. And there is no Hercule Poirot on board to tell them who really committed the murder, to solve the mystery and explain all the strange happenings.
The plane pitches suddenly, so hard Zoe drops her guidebook, and we plunge a good five thousand feet before it recovers. The guidebook has slid forward several rows, and Zoe tries to reach for it with her foot, fails, and looks up at the seat belt sign as if she expects it to go off so she can get out of her seat to retrieve it.
Not after that drop, I think, but the seat belt sign pings almost immediately and goes off.
Lissa’s husband instantly calls for the flight attendant and demands another drink, but they have already gone scurrying back to the rear of the plane, still looking pale and scared, as if they expected the turbulence to start up again before they make it. Zoe’s husband wakes up at the noise and then goes back to sleep. Zoe retrieves Egypt Made Easy from the floor, reads a few more riveting facts from it, then puts it face down on the seat and goes back to the rear of the plane.
I lean across Neil and look out the window, wondering what’s happened, but I can’t see anything. We are flying through a flat whiteness.
Lissa is rubbing her head. “I cracked my head on the window,” she says to Neil. “Is it bleeding?”
He leans over her solicitously to see.
I unsnap my seat belt and start to the back of the plane, but both bathrooms are occupied, and Zoe is perched on the arm of an aisle seat, enlightening the Japanese tour group. “The currency is in Egyptian pounds,” she says. “There are one hundred piasters in a pound.” I sit back down.
Neil is gently massaging Lissa’s temple. “Is that better?” he asks.
I reach across the aisle for Zoe’s guidebook. “Must-See Attractions,” the chapter is headed, and the first one on the list is the Pyramids.
“Giza, Pyramids of. West bank of Nile, 9 mi. (15 km.) SW of Cairo. Accessible by taxi, bus, rental car. Admission L.E.3. Comments: You can’t skip the Pyramids, but be prepared to be disappointed. They don’t look at all like you expect, the traffic’s terrible, and the view’s completely ruined by the hordes of tourists, refreshment stands, and souvenir vendors. Open daily.”
I wonder how Zoe stands this stuff. I turn the page to Attraction Number Two. It’s King Tut’s tomb, and whoever wrote the guidebook wasn’t thrilled with it either. “Tutankhamun, Tomb of. Valley of the Kings, Luxor, 400 mi. (668 km.) south of Cairo. Three unimpressive rooms. Inferior wall paintings.”
There is a map, showing a long, straight corridor (labeled Corridor) and the three unimpressive rooms opening one onto the other in a row—Anteroom, Burial Chamber, Hall of Judgment.
I close the book and put it back on Zoe’s seat. Zoe’s husband is still asleep. Lissa’s is peering back over his seat. “Where’d the flight attendants go?” he asks. “I want another drink.”
“Are you sure it’s not bleeding? I can feel a bump,” Lissa says to Neil, rubbing her head. “Do you think I have a concussion?”
“No,” Neil says, turning her face toward his. “Your pupils aren’t dilated.” He gazes deeply into her eyes.
“Stewardness!” Lissa’s husband shouts. “What do you have to do to get a drink around here?”
Zoe comes back, elated. “They thought I was a professional guide,” she says, sitting down and fastening her seat belt. “They asked if they could join our tour.” She opens the guidebook. “‘The afterworld was full of monsters and demigods in the form of crocodiles and baboons and snakes. These monsters could destroy the deceased before he reached the Hall of Judgment.’”
Neil touches my hand. “Do you have any aspirin?” he asks. “Lissa’s head hurts.”
I fish in my bag for it, and Neil gets up and goes back to get her a glass of water.
“Neil’s so thoughtful,” Lissa says, watching me, her eyes bright.
“‘To protect against these monsters and demigods, the deceased was given The Book of the Dead,’” Zoe reads. “‘More properly translated as The Book of What is in the Afterworld, The Book of the Dead was a collection of directions for the journey and magic spells to protect the deceased.’”
I think about how I am going to get through the rest of the trip without magic spells to protect me. Six days in Egypt and then three in Israel, and there is still the trip home on a plane like this and nothing to do for fifteen hours but watch Lissa and Neil and listen to Zoe.
I consider cheerier possibilities. “What if we’re not going to Cairo?” I say. “What if we’re dead?”
Zoe looks up from her guidebook, irritated.
“There’ve been a lot of terrorist bombings lately, and this is the Middle East,” I go on. “What if that last air pocket was really a bomb? What if it blew us apart, and right now we’re drifting down over the Aegean Sea in little pieces?”
“Mediterranean,” Zoe says. “We’ve already flown over Crete.”
“How do you know that?” I ask. “Look out the window.
” I point out Lissa’s window at the white flatness beyond. “You can’t see the water. We could be anywhere. Or nowhere.”
Neil comes back with the water. He hands it and my aspirin to Lissa.
“They check the planes for bombs, don’t they?” Lissa asks him. “Don’t they use metal detectors and things?”
“I saw this movie once,” I say, “where the people were all dead, only they didn’t know it. They were on a ship, and they thought they were going to America. There was so much fog they couldn’t see the water.”
Lissa looks anxiously out the window.
“It looked just like a real ship, but little by little they began to notice little things that weren’t quite right. There were hardly any people on board, and no crew at all.”
“Stewardess!” Lissa’s husband calls, leaning over Zoe into the aisle. “I need another ouzo.”
His shouting wakes Zoe’s husband up. He blinks at Zoe, confused that she is not reading from her guidebook. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“We’re all dead,” I say. “We were killed by Arab terrorists. We think we’re going to Cairo but we’re really going to heaven. Or hell.”
Lissa, looking out the window, says, “There’s so much fog I can’t see the wing.” She looks frightenedly at Neil. “What if something’s happened to the wing?”
“We’re just going through a cloud,” Neil says. “We’re probably beginning our descent into Cairo.”
“The sky was perfectly clear,” I say, “and then all of a sudden we were in the fog. The people on the ship noticed the fog, too. They noticed there weren’t any running lights. And they couldn’t find the crew.” I smile at Lissa. “Have you noticed how the turbulence stopped all of a sudden? Right after we hit that air pocket. And why—”
A flight attendant comes out of the cockpit and down the aisle to us, carrying a drink. Everyone looks relieved, and Zoe opens her guidebook and begins thumbing through it, looking for fascinating facts.
“Did someone here want an ouzo?” the flight attendant asks.
“Here,” Lissa’s husband says, reaching for it.
“How long before we get to Cairo?” I say.
She starts toward the back of the plane without answering. I unbuckle my seat belt and follow her. “When will we get to Cairo?” I ask her.
She turns, smiling, but she is still pale and scared-looking. “Did you want another drink, ma’am? Ouzo? Coffee?”
“Why did the turbulence stop?” I say. “How long till we get to Cairo?”
“You need to take your seat,” she says, pointing to the seat belt sign. “We’re beginning our descent. We’ll be at our destination in another twenty minutes.” She bends over the Japanese tour group and tells them to bring their seat backs to an upright position.
“What destination? Our descent to where? We aren’t beginning any descent. The seat belt sign is still off,” I say, and it bings on.
I go back to my seat. Zoe’s husband is already asleep again. Zoe is reading out loud from Egypt Made Easy. “The visitor should take precautions before traveling in Egypt. A map is essential, and a flashlight is needed for many of the sites.”
Lissa has gotten her bag out from under the seat. She puts my Death on the Nile in it and gets out her sunglasses. I look past her and out the window at the white flatness where the wing should be. We should be able to see the lights on the wing even in the fog. That’s what they’re there for, so you can see the plane in the fog. The people on the ship didn’t realize they were dead at first. It was only when they started noticing little things that weren’t quite right that they began to wonder.
“A guide is recommended,” Zoe reads.
I have meant to frighten Lissa, but I have only managed to frighten myself. We are beginning our descent, that’s all, I tell myself, and flying through a cloud. And that must be right.
Because here we are in Cairo.
Chapter Two: Arriving at the Airport
“So this is Cairo?” Zoe’s husband says, looking around. The plane has stopped at the end of the runway and deplaned us onto the asphalt by means of a metal stairway.
The terminal is off to the east, a low building with palm trees around it, and the Japanese tour group sets off toward it immediately, shouldering their carry-on bags and camera cases.
We do not have any carry-ons. Since we always have to wait at the baggage claim for Zoe’s guidebooks anyway, we check our carry-ons, too. Every time we do it, I am convinced they will go to Tokyo or disappear altogether, but now I’m glad we don’t have to lug them all the way to the terminal. It looks like it is miles away, and the Japanese are already slowing.
Zoe is reading the guidebook. The rest of us stand around her, looking impatient. Lissa has caught the heel of her sandal in one of the metal steps coming down and is leaning against Neil.
“Did you twist it?” Neil asks anxiously.
The flight attendants clatter down the steps with their navy-blue overnight cases. They still look nervous. At the bottom of the stairs they unfold wheeled metal carriers and strap the overnight cases to them and set off for the terminal. After a few steps they stop, and one of them takes off her jacket and drapes it over the wheeled carrier, and they start off again, walking rapidly in their high heels.
It is not as hot as I expected, even though the distant terminal shimmers in the heated air rising from the asphalt. There is no sign of the clouds we flew through, just a thin white haze which disperses the sun’s light into an even glare. We are all squinting. Lissa lets go of Neil’s arm for a second to get her sunglasses out of her bag.
“What do they drink around here?” Lissa’s husband asks, squinting over Zoe’s shoulder at the guidebook. “I want a drink.”
“The local drink is zibib,” Zoe says. “It’s like ouzo.” She looks up from the guidebook. “I think we should go see the Pyramids.”
The professional tour guide strikes again. “Don’t you think we’d better take care of first things first?” I say. “Like customs? And picking up our luggage?”
“And finding a drink of … what did you call it? Zibab?” Lissa’s husband says.
“No,” Zoe says. “I think we should do the Pyramids first. It’ll take an hour to do the baggage claim and customs, and we can’t take our luggage with us to the Pyramids. We’ll have to go to the hotel, and by that time everyone will be out there. I think we should go right now.” She gestures at the terminal. “We can run out and see them and be back before the Japanese tour group’s even through customs.”
She turns and starts walking in the opposite direction from the terminal, and the others straggle obediently after her.
I look back at the terminal. The flight attendants have passed the Japanese tour group and are nearly to the palm trees.
“You’re going the wrong way,” I say to Zoe. “We’ve got to go to the terminal to get a taxi.”
Zoe stops. “A taxi?” she says. “What for? They aren’t far. We can walk it in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes?” I say. “Giza’s nine miles west of Cairo. You have to cross the Nile to get there.”
“Don’t be silly,” she says, “they’re right there,” and points in the direction she was walking, and there, beyond the asphalt in an expanse of sand, so close they do not shimmer at all, are the Pyramids.
Chapter Three: Getting Around
It takes us longer than fifteen minutes. The Pyramids are farther away than they look, and the sand is deep and hard to walk in. We have to stop every few feet so Lissa can empty out her sandals, leaning against Neil.
“We should have taken a taxi,” Zoe’s husband says, but there are no roads, and no sign of the refreshment stands and souvenir vendors the guidebook complained about, only the unbroken expanse of deep sand and the white, even sky, and in the distance the three yellow pyramids, standing in a row.
“‘The tallest of the three is the Pyramid of Cheops, built in 2690 B.C.,’” Zoe says, reading as she walks. “‘It too
k thirty years to complete.’”
“You have to take a taxi to get to the Pyramids,” I say. “There’s a lot of traffic.”
“It was built on the west bank of the Nile, which the ancient Egyptians believed was the land of the dead.”
There is a flicker of movement ahead, between the pyramids, and I stop and shade my eyes against the glare to look at it, hoping it is a souvenir vendor, but I can’t see anything.
We start walking again.
It flickers again, and this time I catch sight of it running, hunched over, its hands nearly touching the ground. It disappears behind the middle pyramid.
“I saw something,” I say, catching up to Zoe. “Some kind of animal. It looked like a baboon.”
Zoe leafs through the guidebook and then says, “Monkeys. They’re found frequently near Giza. They beg for food from the tourists.”
“There aren’t any tourists,” I say.
“I know,” Zoe says happily. “I told you we’d avoid the rush.”
“You have to go through customs, even in Egypt,” I say. “You can’t just leave the airport.”
“‘The pyramid on the left is Kheophren,” Zoe says, “built in 2650 B.C.’”
“In the movie, they wouldn’t believe they were dead even when somebody told them,” I say. “Giza is nine miles from Cairo.”
“What are you talking about?” Neil says. Lissa has stopped again and is leaning against him, standing on one foot and shaking her sandal out. “That mystery of Lissa’s, Death on the Nile?”
“This was a movie,” I say. “They were on this ship, and they were all dead.”
“We saw that movie, didn’t we, Zoe?” Zoe’s husband says. “Mia Farrow was in it, and Bette Davis. And the detective guy, what was his name—”
“Hercule Poirot,” Zoe says. “Played by Peter Ustinov. ‘The Pyramids are open daily from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Evenings there is a Son et Lumière show with colored floodlights and a narration in English and Japanese.’”
The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Page 31