The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [91]
Return to villa. Organise my drafting table, desks, notebooks, journals. Shelve research texts, translating dictionaries, gramophone records. Prepare daily work packs with canteens, chisels, rope, et cetera.
After sundown here on the banks of the Nile, with my back to Villa Trilipush, it is no lighter than it was 3500 years ago, and one can imagine the great king himself, walking perhaps this very ground, gazing, as I just have, into the darkness across the river, wondering, when the inevitable end can be held at bay no longer, how he will cross that river and hide his earthly remains with none to bear witness.
Monday, 30 October, 1922
Journal: I am established in Villa Trilipush, the (returned!) cats are fed and thoroughly petted, and I admit this morning I awoke actually worried about the expenses ahead, but I have vowed not to waste another minute doubting my backers. Instead I cabled CCF and encouraged him once more with a promising picture of the coming weeks’ labours.
A busy day follows. In the few hours before Ahmed is due to meet me, I collect portable and nonperishable foods, a cooker, matches, cells for the electric torch, et cetera.
When I return to the villa for lunch and my meeting with Ahmed, the Nordquists are there, the good people. I have Ahmed wait while I show the dears my preparations, maps, library, tour them around Villa Trilipush with pride, and they are kind and complimentary, a pleasure. Over lunch, I help them plan their itinerary, advise which tombs are worth the trouble and which are derivative. They set off, waving farewell to me and my silent headman, the very image of one’s sweet, doddering parents.
Ahmed is going to be an excellent foreman, and I must congratulate myself again on discovering him. He is all business, no smiles or chitchat. I explain to him that our temporary but essential challenge will be to hire and move enough men to our site and have them moving earth, while maintaining discretion as the concession politics untangle themselves. (Success will certainly produce a concession, but in the awkward meanwhile, one must be outwardly respectful of how things are done.)
Winlock and Carter have not started yet; Ahmed and I were first on the scene, and so there was no shortage of poor, strong, uncurious men looking for work. We hired some for now, and engaged plenty for later. To be sure, Ahmed’s few choice mentions of a curse on any who attempt to dig for King Tut-ankh-Amen, and his remark here about Carter’s bankruptcy and there about Winlock’s criminal record, and a nonchalant but audible comment that both Carter and Winlock have used flogging to keep their natives in line should keep the labour market nicely softened up for the coming season. I hardly endorse such methods, but I did not wish to chastise him on our first day, and his inappropriate behaviour was on my account. As it is, we shall begin our expedition with a small, mobile core of six stout men, including Ahmed and myself. He will report at dawn tomorrow with donkeys and harnesses, heavy shovels and picks, canvas sacks, and a wooden cart, and we will begin, though the route still troubles me.
Margaret: In the bazaar today, I found two items you will appreciate. The first is a little toy, a fine gift someday for some clever little boy, my sweet Queen, some rugged little fellow with a taste for Egypt and his father’s company (unknowingly receiving a lifelong training as a future biographer!). It is a jack-in-the-box, painted like a brickwork tomb. One cranks the handle, and a faint ghostly screech emerges, like gas escaping from a nearly sealed bottle of fizzy drink. The noise grows louder until the top of the tomb opens and up rises a fake-stone sarcophagus, a kingly face painted on its head. Keep winding and the top of the sarcophagus opens with a pop, and a golden mummy case rises. Crank more and the mummy case slowly opens