Goldsands

by William Maltese

  He maneuvered his vehicle over the gentler swells of the desert wadi, knowing just exactly where he was going. Peter had been dropped off at dawn by Gil in a section of sandstone farther south; he'd wanted to make an initial survey for possible tomb sites. Gil was scheduled to pick him up later that morning to drive them both back to the house for a noon rendezvous with the helicopter being sent to fly them to Abdul's villa at Aswân. Arriving at the pickup point early, Gil honked the horn and kept on honking it until Peter finally appeared and descended a high embankment on a slide way of fractured sandstone. He looked displeased, even making an obvious point of checking his wristwatch to indicate he was nowhere as anxious to get to Abdul's villa as Gil apparently was. Gil managed to wipe that you're-here-early-damn-it expression off Peter's face fast enough. “Good heavens, where did you pick this up?” Peter asked, reaching for the segment of white stone and examining it more closely. “This is what I think it is, isn't it?"

  "What do you think it is?” Gil asked. He'd been afraid of prematurely attaching too much importance to his discovery.

  "Looks like a chunk of mace head,” Peter said. “A piece very similar to a certain other scorpion mace head, if I'm not mistaken.” He glanced up, locking eyes with Gil. “This is pretty damned exciting, you do know that?"

  "You really think so?” Gil knew this segment, plus that other mace head, plus the scorpion petroglyph, didn't add up to proof positive that the protodynastic king of Egypt had lived and been buried here. But it was circumstantial evidence that pointed toward that possibility—in contradiction to Peter's theories that the early pharaoh belonged farther north. Thus, Gil was actually surprised that Peter could seem so pleased to have one more clue that the Scorpion King had been no stranger to the area.

  "How did you think I was going to react?” Peter asked, his voice offering a dangerous challenge that Gil realized presented every potential for another quarrel.

  "Let's not bicker, shall we?” Gil pleaded. “The way I wanted you to react is just the way you are reacting. Must you try to read something more into everything I say and do?"

  "Are you certain you didn't simply rush this over here so you could gloat?” Peter asked, his golden eyes flashing fire. “So you could boast, ‘Lookee here, buster, one more shred of evidence turned up to prove your theories about the Scorpion King are pure poppycock!’”

  "I brought this to you, because you happen to be the director of the dig,” Gil answered, hoping he had come to share his find, rather than, as suggested, to brag professional one-upmanship. “To whom else should I have brought it, I wonder?"

  "I'm sorry,” Peter replied, managing just the right degree of appealing humility. “I would hate to have you, or anyone else, think I wasn't flexible enough to amend my theories if enough proof to the contrary turned up."

  "I accept your apology,” Gil said, feeling a little guilty that he had always assumed Peter far less flexible than the man apparently was. Gil seemed to be forever misjudging him, and he worried that all of his preconceptions might continue, to the end, to taint his image of the real person.

  "So, let's go see where you picked this up, shall we?” Peter said.

  "Actually, the area in question has been too disturbed to date the find or determine wherever the piece was originally was buried,” Gil said, not wanting Peter to think that Gil, like so many archaeologists before, had gone running off with treasure without a thorough analysis of the location in which it was found.

  "I've never questioned your professional competence,” Peter said. “If I've criticized at all, in the past, it's merely been because I've always found criticism healthy. It makes us all stand back and take another look at things, makes us all attempt reevaluations, work harder to plug loopholes we've lazily managed to camouflage with defective conjectural putty.” Gil knew Peter was now referring to Peter's past comments about Gil's Crete-Atlantis theories. Gil felt a little embarrassed that he had ever taken what Peter said as a personal affront rather than merely constructive criticism offered by one professional who merely wished another to look more closely for proof to support mere belief. Now seeing how willingly Peter seemed to accept new proof regarding the Scorpion King, Gil wondered if Gil would have been as receptive if this latest evidence had supported Peter's claims.

  If Peter was anxious to see the discovery location, and Gil was anxious to show it to him, they were both frustrated. The security Jeep from the drilling operation immediately intercepted them, and Galal Baseeli refused them permission to proceed any closer, apparently having regretted giving Gil previous access without Sheikh Jerada in attendance. Galal certainly wasn't prepared to let Gil get any closer with a complete stranger in tow, and no amount of persuasion seemed capable of changing his mind. Whatever arguments were tried, to impress upon the Arab the importance of the protodynastic pharaoh whose life was a possible link between unrecorded and recorded history, fell on deaf ears. Gil and Peter's job might be archaeology, but Galal's was security; he scooted them off none too gently.

  "I suppose he was just doing his job,” Gil said as the Land Rover bumped over rough ground on the way to the house. “And there really wasn't much to see that would have proved anything without extensive digging. The bulldozers raised havoc with all once-existing surface strata. The fragment could have been scooped up from anywhere within the depression and deposited inches, feet, yards, even a mile away."

  "The find is damned important!” Peter said and his anger, this time, thank God, wasn't directed at Gil. “You'd think the man might have understood that. This is his country's history we're talking about, isn't it?” he continued. Gil didn't bother going into Abdul's theories (and probably Galal's), regarding Egypt's past versus its present. The security man's prerogatives placed oil at the top of his list, and Gil could see where Galal might have been loathe letting some dusty rock perhaps jeopardize his meal ticket. “Maybe we'll have more success getting Abdul, than Galal, to help us,” Peter suggested. However, considering Gil's past discussions with Abdul on the subject, it was really doubtful there would be any help from that quarter. Gil's suspicions were pretty much verified when they tried to explain it all to Abdul later in the day.

  "Let me get this right,” Abdul said, holding the piece of limestone as if Gil had just handed him a coprolite and told him it was gold and not dried shit. “This is somehow—although it certainly escapes me how—very important?” He handed back the stone, preferring the iced caracadet a servant brought him. They were seated on the awning-shaded veranda outside the sheikh's villa. The Nile, Elephantine Island, and the modern city of Aswân were all laid out before them beyond a low balustrade that heralded a steep descent to the river. The setting was exquisitely beautiful, even in the intensity of an afternoon sun that had sucked the landscape dry of almost all shadow.

  "It's a very important find!” Gil emphasized. “It moves us one small step closer to proving Hierakonpolis was one of the very first capitals, if not the first capital Egypt ever had. The Scorpion King was believed to be an immediate predecessor of the early pharaoh, Menes-Narmer, or even one and the same. Think what it would mean to be able to say once and for all that it was at Hierakonpolis that the First Egyptian Dynasty really began."

  "What would it mean?” Abdul asked, eyeing Gil over the lip of his glass. Gil, who had been expecting just such rely, could tell that Peter hadn't. “What could it possibly mean that could warrant the interruption of a drilling operation?” Abdul added.

  "How would a couple of our people scrounging around in a dirt pile interfere with your drilling?” Gil asked, unable to follow the sheikh's logic. “We don't even have to go close to your machinery. We can do what we have to do on the periphery."

  "And if you don't find anything on the periphery, what then?” Abdul asked. “An end to it? Or will you then want to move in and check under our storage sheds?” Howard Carter's last-ditch effort at Thebes saw him tearing down his workmen's huts in order to get to the ground that suddenly surrendered secre
ts of King Tutankhamen's tomb.

  "Look,” Peter said, obviously trying his hardest to make Abdul see reason. “Somewhere in the distant past, possibly right there at Hierakonpolis, history emerged from prehistory; a series of events took place that triggered much of the civilization we know today. Doesn't it make you wonder just what this first pharaoh was like—a man who was able to take scattered groups of simple fishermen, farmers, and stone-wielding hunters and unite them into an empire that erected the pyramids at Giza a mere three dynasties later?"

  "You're right, of course,” Abdul agreed, though Gil heard that concession as made by a man who had merely wearied of the subject matter. “Why don't you let me look into it and see what I can come up with?"

  "We'd appreciate whatever you could manage,” Peter said, seeing far more progress having been made than Gil did.

  "Don't expect miracles, however,” Abdul warned, then tempered his comment with a winning smile. “Not right away, anyhow. There's been a good deal of paranoia around since several of the wells started showing signs of eventual success. Also, a cache of weapons believed smuggled into the country by hostile factions was only recently uncovered not two miles from one well site near Luxor. Possibly no connection between the two events, but—” A servant interrupted with an announcement that dinner was ready, and Abdul brought Gil and Peter to their feet. “I shall certainly keep you posted on any progress I make regarding your request” the sheikh promised, the finality of his tone insinuating that he hoped for an end to a conversation that was apparently of very little real interest to him now, or ever. Gil put the fragment back into a pants pocket.

  The dining room, banked by large picture windows at two ends, gave access to contrasting views of equal beauty. Standing to face across the Nile, Gil was treated to a world of rose-colored hills that descended to a busy city nestled at the river's edge. The Nile, in its first cataract, narrowed to a low boil as it moved around great boulders. The channel seemed especially complex because of several islands, the largest called Elephantine. This island had once boasted not only a nilometer, which measured the rise and fall of flood waters, but also a well that had been used by Erastosthenes in 1230 B.C. to calculate the diameter of the Earth. Turning away from the river and toward the rear of the house, Gil saw only desert gone earth-brown, dunes ascending on the left to the mausoleum of the Aga Khan and on the right to an escarpment once used for the tombs of Nubian nobles.

  Inside the room, the dining table was oak, long and centered by a low arrangement of red, white, and pink gladioli that ran its entire length. Shorbât—a red lentil soup—was served in a silver tureen. There were gigantic prawns called bamia, with accompanying fresh sea urchins. There was sefrito—fried shin of veal—and belehat—sausages of minced beef. There were stuffed green cabbage leaves, sliced orange carrots, diced creamy marrow, and fluffed saffron rice, with side dishes of red radishes, scarlet beetroot, pale green cucumber and snow-white onions.

  It had been neither the magnificent view nor the attractive table and floral arrangement that had caught Gil's immediate attention, though, when he had first entered the room. Rather, it had been the black-marble fireplace that connected the dining room to the sunken living room. It was ablaze with leaping orange-red flames. “One of my first lovers hooked me on log fires and fireplaces during our Princeton days,” Abdul said. “It gets mighty cold in New Jersey in the wintertime.” Considering the hot temperatures of Egypt at that period of the year, the holocaust was saved from complete incongruity by an air-conditioning and complementary venting system that successfully voided all but the fire's visual and audio effectiveness. After a while, Gil actually came to enjoy the atmosphere created by wood crackling and sparks spiraling up the chimney.

  Gil was interested in hearing more about Abdul's fire-loving Princeton lover, but the sheikh steered the conversation to the latest hawk he had acquired from one of the aeries right there near Aswân. When it became obvious that hawking, in all its varied aspects, was a subject that would entertain Peter indefinitely but not Gil, Abdul diplomatically moved on to other things, culminating with favorable comments on the bowls of large juicy strawberries served with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar that suddenly appeared for dessert

  "And something by way of additional dessert just for Gil!” Abdul proclaimed theatrically when Gil, feeling deliciously decadent, had cleaned his dessert bowl. On cue, a servant appeared with a large silver chafing dish.

  "Please tell me this isn't what I think it's going to be,” Gil said with an accompanying frown.

  Abdul, moved around the table to remove the lid with a flourish.

  "You're going to deplete even your large fortune if you keep buying Gil jewelry,” Peter said, facetiously, probably recognizing the similarity between the unveiled case and the one that had arrived with the neck piece.

  "Actually, it's the same piece,” Abdul admitted. “Do you know how many times the handsome young man in question has refused it as of now? Twice. And I can tell just by looking that he's on the verge of turning it down yet again, aren't you, Gil?"

  "It's too expensive,” Gil confirmed. He had made no effort whatsoever to remove the case from the tray, and he made no subsequent attempt to do so, now; the servant looked at a loss as to what he was expected to do.

  "Maybe you could prevail upon Gil to take this off my hands, Peter,” Abdul said, turning for assistance.

  "Why don't you take it, Gil?” Peter obliged; he sounded as if he really would be interested in the answer. Gil could tell that Peter was confused by the jewelry's reappearance. Peter hadn't the faintest notion that Gil had shipped the neck piece back to Abdul the day after its last untimely arrival.

  "I already told you both,” Gil said. “It's way too expensive."

  "I've decided the only way I'm ever going to get him to take it is to leave it to him in my will,” Abdul said. “I figure he'll feel obligated once I've upped and dropped dead.” Without waiting for comments on that, he returned the lid to the chafing dish and sent the servant off to the kitchen. Gil wanted, at that moment, to give the handsome Arab a big hug, because Gil had finally understood what Abdul been trying to do. The sheikh had just subtly clued Peter in on how Peter's previous fuss over the neck piece's arrival at the house in Hierakonpolis had been obvious overreaction. “Now, if the two of you think you might be able to amuse yourselves for a couple of hours, I'm afraid I've a bit of unfinished business that I had hoped to have managed by now but haven't. Peter, if you like, I can either arrange for the hawks to be flown this afternoon, or we can wait until it's cooler, in the morning."

  Gil could have shot him. Gil had been big-time grateful to Abdul for priming Peter for an apology—and having arranged to leave them alone long enough for Gil to accept it—but, now, the sheikh had nullified those good deeds. The last thing Gil wanted was Abdul off on business, Peter off with those damned birds, and Gil cuddled up and sweating by the raging fire.

  "Let's wait and do it morning,” Peter said; Gil heaved a sigh of relief that was so nearly audible he was instantly embarrassed to think the others might have heard it.

  Abdul flashed Gil a see-you-had-nothing-too-worry-about smile and told them to call Sadid if and/or when they needed anything. Sadid, the servant who had returned to the room to clean off the table, nodded his willingness to comply.

  "Maybe a couple of cold drinks out on the veranda?” Abdul suggested. “I'll have Sadid bring out some chilled champagne.” The sheikh raised a hand to head off any protest. “You'll both be doing me a tremendous favor by drinking the stuff. It's very French, very good, very expensive, and way too much of a temptation for someone like me who has given up alcohol."

  "Well, since you put it that way,” Peter said, graciously.

  "Now, if it were only as easy to give away a certain Egyptian gold neck piece,” Abdul said with a laugh. He gave Sadid instructions about the wine, delivered a slight bow to his guests in parting, and left the room, taking the outside stairs to his speedb
oat.

  Gil and Peter went out on the veranda, not saying anything even when Sadid arrived with cold champagne and glasses that smoked water vapor in the day's heat. The champagne felt refreshingly cool going down. Gil moved to the balustrade, looking out over the Nile to Aswân and the rose-tinted hills in the background. Abdul's boat had already reached the opposite shore, but Gil was far more interested in the man behind him than in the sheikh on the other side of the river. He waited for Peter to speak.

  "Why didn't you tell me you sent back the neck piece after it arrived at the house in Hierakonpolis?” Peter asked finally. Gil could tell by the sound of his voice just how close Peter stood. Gil wanted him closer, so close Peter's words would blow sensuous breath against Gil's ear.

  "Would you have believed me?” Gil asked. A cruise ship was docking at the quay across from Elephantine Island. Not the Osiris, or its sister ship the Isis, but one of the boxier Sheraton versions.