Emily and the Lost City of Urgup (9 page)

“EMILY HAD A
glimpse of the thieves,” said Professor Witherspoon, “but the Arab saw them clearly. He even could point out the boss. Let us enlist his aid to describe the thieves.” Professor Dasam and the guards approached the Arab who was working on the engine of his truck. They explained their plan and he seemed more than willing to help them. The whole group met in the shade outside Professor Witherspoon’s tent. With Dasam translating, each thief was described, including Smiley Wiley the leader, who had a fat round face. “We should be able to identify him,” said Emily, “and the one who is totally bald. He is the man who tied me up.”

“Now Emily, you are not part of our plan, so please leave us to get on with it,” Witherspoon stated. All the men continued to discuss the plan while Emily only overheard glimpses: “night”, “disguise”, “suborn,” “a perfect sting.” What did it all mean?

After dinner she went immediately to her tent and, through a small opening, watched as Hadar, Kadar and the Arab retired to Professor Witherspoon’s tent. Were they plotting the plan? “It may be tonight,” she thought. She put a kerchief over her face and a light cotton coat with a hood covering her body and crept outside barefooted. Soon the men were seen leaving the professor’s tent. All were dressed as Arabs and Emily could not even make out which was Professor Witherspoon. They ambled towards the worker’s tents. Passing tent after tent, suddenly the lead man stopped and they all stepped back a few paces. Two of the men entered the tent.

Emily’s curiosity was too much. She snuck around the back of the tent and listened to the voices of the men inside. “Who are you?” someone spoke out.

“Never mind we are who,” a voice answered. “We know you no Arab people. You English people.” “What!”, another voice answered. “Quiet, please, and listen to what we offer. We a plan have. But we need more people. Like you.” “Why us?” asked another voice. “No good you up to. We watch you. Always you follow the rich people who come in Rolls Royce and big roadster. Why do you do that, we ask? Aha, we say. Maybe you steal money or something. We, too, want something. “What do you want?” the first voice inquired. “The parchment paper with the map.”

Smiley Wiley had heard enough and he stood up. “I don’t know who you Arabs are but we’re not interested in stealing a piece of paper with a map of a place we are already standing on.” “Do you Arab hieroglyphics read?” a voice responded. Smiley and his henchmen shook their heads. “Much much more is on parchment than just map. On top of palace is secret door to pharaoh’s treasure. So secret only parchment can show.”

The thieves were hooked. “This must be what they mean by a sting,” though Emily. She skirted away from the tent as one of the men leaned against her. “What’s that,” he said. “What’s what?” another asked. “I thought I felt something.” “You felt your imagination.” They plotted to sneak into Professor Dasam’s tent and steal the parchment. The disguised ‘Arabs’ would keep a lookout from outside while the four thieves went inside and ransacked the tent until they found the paper.

Meanwhile Emily returned to her tent and watched the action from afar. Professor Dasam, Hadar and Kadar and several other men had formed a circle near his tent, all sitting on the ground mumbling words in Arabic. Smiley Wiley looked their way, but saw they were only workers, apparently telling each other stories. The thieves entered the tent and seemed to take hours before they emerged triumphantly with a parchment. “This is not map parchment. Look some more”, they were told. When they went inside a second time they found themselves surrounded by Professor Dasam, Hadar, Kadar, the Arab truck driver and several others. “The jig is up,” announced Professor Dasam as he uncovered his face. “Secure their hands and feet with good square knots and put them in the back of the truck.”

Emily watched it all from a distance and then went inside her tent. That night she slept soundly. In the morning she bounded out of bed and went outside to visit the palace. “Emily,” a voice called out. “Have you forgotten to await your guards again?” he went on. “But professor, now that the thieves have …,” and she stopped. “Have what?” Professor Witherspoon went on. “Have, have to worry about your plan,” she stammered, “I just thought……”

“In fact, my dear, the plan has been executed and the thieves are now tied-up and in our custody. Nevertheless, you await your guards.” That was a close call, thought Emily.

With the thieves caught, the professors decided to return to Cairo, place some artifacts they had uncovered with the Museum and get ready for Professor Witherspoon and Emily to return home. Emily walked around dejected. The sparkle in her eyes were dulled with regret. She loved her new dresses and she wanted to spend weeks at the museum. Professor Witherspoon, on the other hand, seemed much more anxious to return home.

“Witherspoon,” said Professor Dasam, “your mind seems to be elsewhere. Did something unusual happen on your trip to Egypt? “Unusual, unusual,” Witherspoon replied, “why nothing in particular, why do you ask?” “Well, your beaming face reminds me of a naughty boy found with his hand in the cookie jar,” Dasam went on. Emily perked up. “Will we be seeing Bibi?” she asked.

“Bibi, who is Bibi. Oh yes, that very attractive tutor you hired to teach Emily French. Do you plan to hire her for the return voyage?” Dasam inquired.

“As a matter of fact, Madam Boissiere has been engaged to tutor Emily on our return,” Witherspoon answered with his face reddening. Professor Dasam’s eyes lit up. “You old goat. Here you are ten years my senior and in the throes of romance.” Emily looked puzzled, was the professor in love?

Preparations for the departure were completed in another week. Professor Dasam’s wife had spent most of every day with Emily, at the Museum, at an elegant hairdressers where three women washed and cut her hair and even trimmed her fingernails and toe nails, at the dressmakers where Emily was outfitted with winter clothes, new shoes and a Panama straw hat with a bright yellow ribbon on top. She felt spoiled. How could she thank the Dasam family enough. Maple syrup seemed rather meager in comparison with all the beautiful things Madam Dasam had given her. She looked sad and forlorn.

“My little kitten,” Madam Dasam said, looking at Emily’s composure. “Why the sad look. Have I spoiled you? I hope so. You are my first daughter and now you are leaving me. I cannot dress you any more. I cannot tell women’s secrets to you. Now I must return to rooms full of men and listen to their incessant chatter about business and sports and politics. I shall miss you and I hope that you shall also miss me.” Emily flew into the Madam’s arms and hugged her and cried. “Of course, I shall miss you, Madam Dasam,” she said.

The Rolls Royce, cleaned and polished was driven to the front of Dasam’s house where farewells were given and Professor Witherspoon and Emily were driven off. This time they drove to Alexandria, a port city of Egypt where a boat awaited to take them to France. “Can I see the remains of the great library when we get there?” asked Emily. “I’m afraid not,” said the Professor. “Alexandria today is a very different city, full of people from all over the Mediterranean, who wish to live in the sun cheaply. For every book now lost there is a bar.”

The boat from Alexandria was a cargo ship which carried four staterooms for passengers. Madam Bibi was to meet them in Paris.

Professor Witherspoon and Emily arrived in Paris in early August. They were greeted at the hotel by Madam Bibi, exclaiming, “Ah, mes cheres, relax, for you are with maybe the only French man or woman in Paris. All the rest are tourists.”

Tourists?” cried Emily.

“Oui,” said Madam Bibi, “It is August and all Frenchmen go on vacation in August. We have free reign of all the museums and Cathedrals, but you will be hearing English and German and Italian and other languages, rarely French and certainly not Parisian French. If only you had arrived last month on the Quatorze!” “Fourteen?” asked Emily.

“Not fourteen, but July Fourteen, the celebration of the successful French Revolution, the beginning of the Republic rather than the Monarchy. Let’s pretend and celebrate it is the Fourteenth, no?, professor,” she added. “Indeed, we shall,” he said.

Back in Cairo, the thieves were tried and convicted of attempted robbery of ancient artifacts. The sentence carried orders to receive five years in prison. Professor Dasam knew that the prisons of Cairo were notorious for unhealthy cells and food. Too many miscreants, people who had broken the law in many different ways, were sick the entire time they were in prison. He arranged that the four thieves would receive in place of a prison cell, daily work in the bowels of an ocean liner shoveling coal into its boilers for the same period of time.

As Emily and Professor Witherspoon were dining on the top deck of the cargo ship, the four thieves were tied up below, to be sent to France and placed aboard the next French Liner leaving from Le Havre.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The True Facts

EMILY, THE PROFESSOR,
and Bibi found a small intimate bistro where an accordion player was singing French songs. After they were seated, Bibi excused herself and left the table. Emily spied her talking to the owner of the bistro who smiled and watched as Bibi returned to their table. Suddenly a very solemn march was played by the accordionist and everybody around Emily, including Bibi and the professor, stood up, standing at attention. Emily stood. When the music ended they all clapped and sat down.

“What was that?” asked Emily. “It is the Marseillaise, our national anthem and I shall teach you its words in English and French. You must admit that it is far grander than Mr. Francis Scott Key’s?”

“I think the Star Spangled Banner is just as thrilling,” protested Emily, although she secretly agreed with Madam Bibi,

Before they left for Le Havre the next morning Madam Bibi strolled along the banks of the Seine with Emily. “Count the bookstalls, mon chere,” she said. “You can determine how civilized a city is by its number of book stores.” “You must come to our house, then,” Emily replied, “it is all books.” Madam Bibi gave her a curious look. Was Emily teasing her?

They took a first class compartment in the train from Paris to Le Havre. It had its own special door inside and outside the train, plush velvet seats but not room for the luggage, which was in a special luggage car attached to the train. Emily watched the countryside roll by. Every piece of earth was under some cultivation. Fields of red poppies, yellow sunflowers, vegetables, walnut trees, vineyards swept by. “France has been called the breadbasket of Europe,” Professor Witherspoon noted. “A small country by our size, it uses every inch of soil to grow something.”

That night they stayed at a small inn run by an elderly couple who offered a glass of wine to Emily along with the professor and Madam Bibi. The professor looked taken back until Madam Bibi said in French, “the young lady would like it watered down, if you please.” When it was returned the dark red color looked a dull pink, but Emily felt very grown up with her glass of wine. “This will be our little secret, no?” said Madam Bibi. “Oui,” answered Emily in her best French.

Next morning they found themselves in the very same state rooms they had on sailing to Europe. Emily’s porter explained that the French Line prided itself on keeping records of every passenger that sailed with them. “Maybe you would like to see the whole ship?” he inquired. “We have an Engineer’s tour on Tuesdays.” Emily told him she would ask Madam Bibi, but was sure the answer would be yes.

Tuesday morning, all three took the tour. There were seven stages, floors, with passenger rooms. The top two were First Class, the next two Cabin Class. She was on the upper of the two cabin class floors. Below that were three Tourist Class floors. Aft, or behind the tourist rooms, were the galleys where cooks prepared more than a thousand meals for every sitting. A sitting was the time when one was obliged to eat. Emily already knew that hers would be the last, the “civilized” last as Madam Bibi would say. Outside Emily’s floor was a promenade deck. Four times around was about one mile. Food was stored more forward on the ship. Some 60,000 eggs would be used during the voyage.

Steam turbines powered the ocean liner and at the very bottom of the boat was the boiler room where Emily watched men bare to the waist, with handkerchiefs wound around their foreheads, shovel coal into furnaces belching hot air from the fires inside. “Look,” professor, “that man, third from the right, isn’t that Smiley Wiley?” “And the bald man next to him?” “What on earth,” said the professor. “I shall certainly inquire about the names of the men working here.”

That night they were invited to sit at the Purser’s table. “This is an honor, Emily,” said Professor Witherspoon. The Captain entertains a select few of the First Class passengers just as the Purser selects a few of the Cabin Class passengers. So best bib and tucker.” Emily chose her favorite dress that Madam Dasam had made for her. Madam Bibi, too, was dressed to the nines, as the professor said, and he was in black tie and tuxedo. “Mon chere, let me fix your tie, it is so crooked,” said Bibi as she reached up on the tips of her toes, straightening his bow tie and giving him a short peck on his cheek.