The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [92]
Even better, my love, is a little painted figurine made of dried mud, a striding fellow in tunic, sandals, and crown, a competent reproduction of some anonymous Middle Kingdom work. The winning feature, though, was the sly little grin on his face, completely unacceptable in such pieces, not the usual calm smile but an absolutely inappropriate and charming expression of knowing mischief. It is the perfect companion piece to the other statuette I travel with, the one I received at an intimate luncheon à deux at Locke-Ober (as Inge lingered at a café table outside).
You were glowing; love had quite illuminated you, even if I did not yet realise it. You were adorable, quoting from the book I had told you to read. “Is it true,” you asked, sly kitten, “that when the tomb was closed and sealed, they believed everything inside it came to life?”
“That’s right,” I said, proud of your progress.
“And paintings of feasts became feasts, and statues of beautiful serving girls became beautiful serving girls?”
“Yes, my dear, you have it.” I looked up, and you were handing me that perfect little statue: you, nude but for a modest blanket. “Daddy found out this Frenchman was coming through Boston, so he paid him to sculpt me. I was thinking, maybe if you put it in your room, when you close the door and switch off your light, well, you never know, do you?”
Tomorrow I go to the site, but tonight you are here with me in my villa, M., quite come to life at my side. Good night, my love.
Tuesday, 31 October, 1922, Excavation Day One
At last, into the fight! Now evening, and I am back at Villa Trilipush, the end of our first day. We are moving with a fine speed at last.
Ahmed arrived this morning when it was still dark, and he had the heavy gear and animals ready on the far bank. More importantly, Ahmed had solved my geographical issue. Last night he succeeded in the reconnoitre task I assigned him, stout fellow, and this morning he bent over the giant map on my main worktable and pencilled in a better route than I could find, leading from the river to the path where Marlowe and I found Fragment C, but never passing within sight of anyone who would find our progress threatening. (In the event of a proven Atum-haduan find dangling in front of their faces, Lacau will happily cut Winlock’s concession down to make room for me.)
Thanks to our early start, Ahmed tells me we had the pick of the mules and equipment. It is for precisely this luxury, Ahmed explained, that he presented me with receipts for significantly more than I had budgeted, but such is the price of doing the job right, he reminds me. I was at a loss, actually, staring at the figures in my leather accounts book and the pile of scrawled slips my man dropped on the table. “Why are you looking like this? I can bring you to every one of these merchants to verify.” A bit of a child, Ahmed is. “Mistrust makes figs of men,” he informed me with Koranic intensity, and I suspect I may have misunderstood him, but I can scarcely allow him to think my Arabic is lacking, or he will attempt all manner of mischief with the workers.
Across the river, our first four team members awaited us on donkeys. Dawn on the Nile’s west bank, and we followed Ahmed in a wide loop to a path behind Deir el Bahari. The entire hike took no more than ninety or a hundred minutes, up and down the rocky hills. “There is a faster route here,” muttered one of the anonymous quartet, but Ahmed quieted him with a hard look, bless his black heart.
And then we were there, where Marlowe and I had had our great victory, and where I was now returned with my own team to consummate the work my partner and I had begun seven years before. We were there! Under the high cliffs, on the sand which sunrise was flattering as orange-rust, I called a halt, which Ahmed seconded. I ordered two of the men to begin a preliminary inspection of the lowest part of the cliff face, walking along the terraced paths which abut and twist