The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [28]
“Because he punched her square in the face,” said Ramses. He had had time to calm down, and I thought I detected a tone of unwilling amusement. “Her nose started to bleed, and then David John burst into tears. It was quite noisy. Carla howled and David John hugged her and said he was sorry, and she said she was sorry, and they ended up smeared with tears and blood.”
“Good heavens,” I said weakly.
“It was just a nosebleed,” Nefret assured me. “But David John must learn that there is no excuse whatsoever for physical violence, and Carla must learn to leave other people’s property alone.”
“Quite right,” I said. “But they are only four.”
Ramses smiled affectionately. “Spoken like a true grandmother. We’ll make it up with them after dinner, Mother.”
Conversation during that meal returned to the subject of our new acquaintance. “Are you going to recommend him to your father?” I asked Ramses.
“I can think of no reason not to. I believe I recall hearing his name mentioned as a competent excavator. You keep saying we need more staff.”
“We do. The difficulty will be getting your father to admit it.”
After he and Nefret had said good night I worked on Emerson’s article for a time, but found myself yawning. His academic style is not electrifying (most academic style is not) and I had had a disturbed night. Finally I gave it up and sought my lonely couch.
I dreamed, not of Abdullah, but of Emerson. He was strolling through the narrow streets of the Khan el Khalili, dressed in Bedouin robes and holding aloft a golden statue. A rock whistled past his head. Emerson ducked and went on. A shot rang out. It missed him by a scant inch. Emerson went on. I called out to him, but my voice was no louder than a kitten’s mew. I was a kitten, scrambling at his heels, clawing at the skirts of his robe, in a vain attempt to attract his attention. A woman, scantily clad and veiled, slipped out of a doorway and threw her arms around him. Superbly oblivious, Emerson went on. The perfume shop just ahead of him collapsed with a crash, showering the street with broken glass bottles. I cried out…
And woke, perspiring and shaking. The sound had not been a dream. The echoes still reverberated.
I sprang from bed and rushed to the window that overlooked the veranda and the road. A cloud of dust, pale in the moonlight, rose above the ruins of the guardhouse.
I was not the only one to be awakened by the catastrophe. As I reached the front door, hastily fastening the sash of my dressing gown, I saw Ramses running toward me. He carried a torch—something I had not thought to do—and was trying to button his trousers—his only garment—one-handed. “Mother, are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. The guardhouse has collapsed. Hurry.”
Mud brick is not the most stable of building materials. Only one wall was standing. The rest of the structure was now a heap of rubble, strewn with the reeds that had formed the roof. And under it somewhere, I feared, was Wasim.
“God Almighty,” Ramses breathed. “Here, Mother, take the torch.”
He fell to his knees and began tossing bricks aside. I was about to go to his assistance when we were joined by other members of the household. They all pitched in with a will and before long they were rewarded by the sight of a groping hand. The rescuers cheered and had soon cleared the body of the unfortunate watchman. He was lying facedown. Nefret, who had been the last to join us, caught Ramses by the arm as he was about to turn the poor fellow over onto his back. “Don’t move him yet. Wasim, can you hear me?”
She ran expert hands over his limbs and body. “Is it you, Sitt Hakim?” said a muffled voice. “Am I dead?”
Obviously he wasn’t, but we had some difficulty convincing him. According to Nefret, he had got off easily, with only cuts and bruises. Nevertheless, we removed him carefully to a stretcher and she went with him to the clinic.
Not until that moment, when anxiety was relieved, did I have leisure to think the matter through. How could the building have collapsed? It had not been designed to last forever, but the men had