The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [82]
No word there, however, which is professionally and personally disappointing, but clearly there is a problem with the system, and these are the rough obstacles that will bruise us on any travel. Confirm they have the address and wiring information for my corresponding bank in the south. Deliver also a sharp word to the little clerk who has made me so uneasy these past weeks. There were, unfortunately, black-painted iron bars between my flexing fist and his smug little face (no doubt for this very reason, middle-class English bankers being not entirely insensible to the effect they have on other people).
Go to collect my new suits of clothes, but find that, the international money transfer system being the shambles it is, I can, after a damned difficult selection, approve only two of them—an Egyptian twill and a light gabardine. I reassured the poor tailor he would be paid for the remainder when I send for them.
The portrait artist is not yet done with his work. In its current condition, I am in full colour from the top of my head to my upper lip, at which point I fade into sketched brown lines. He has me looking directly outward, but with my head turned slightly to one side. Handsomely done. However, he has imagined a certain sagging under my right eye that no mirror can confirm and no gallery tolerate. So I instruct him that the painting is to be delivered upon repair and completion to the Explorers’ Club, from whom he may collect payment.
And back to the hotel, where the morning manager—an Egyptian—wants to know how much longer they should expect the pleasure of my stay, as I have extended my original reservation. The international system of money wiring is infuriating: these native fellows are doing their best, running a not-at-all-bad hotel to the best of their ability, and it is quite disheartening that they should be so much at the mercy of a bank. But I shall need a base of operations in Cairo, of course, even when I am working down south—mail forwarding, my suite on short notice, a place to store some items, a pied-à-terre for my fiancée or my business partners as they come through town, a central facility for certain Government celebrations projected for early December. And so, excellent news for the manager: his most expensive suite of rooms will be occupied well into the winter. I hold it until January 1, for now, and perhaps longer, I will wire from Luxor with final dates. I pay a small portion of my balance to hold the suite until then. I distribute copies of Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt to the concierge, the bellboys, the African chambermaids, et cetera. Supplies to be left in the suite: the Victrola XVII, largest of my gramophones. Supplies to take for the trip south: more letterhead for the journal, convenient towels and bedding sets: the hotel’s absurd emblem and motto should be highly amusing to everyone at the site. Have my bags taken to the dock, and enjoy one last drink on my veranda while I update this log. I shall miss the padded bed. I shall miss the Sekhmet Bar in the lobby, decorated with paintings of that ancient lion-headed goddess who would, were she ever allowed to sober up, destroy humanity. I shall miss the service. I am older now than when I was in the Army, you know, and cannot say these creature comforts mean nothing. Oh, make no mistake, I shall be delighted to lie again on a camp bed under the stars, guarding my find, coping with heat and cold in rapid alternation, singing and chatting with the native men who treat me both as one of their own and as their natural leader. But I am not as devotedly rugged as all that, not anymore. Sixteen nights in the splendour of the Hotel of the Sphinx, on my smooth bedsheets printed with the vulture, sphinx, cobra, and HORUS CONSUMES THE HEARTS OF THE WICKED—well, I shall warm myself with them (and the memories they carry) on cold desert nights.
One last visit to the bank: nothing.
And at last, at last, my great voyage has begun: I write now from the deck of the steamer Cheops.