The Ape Who Guards the Balance (49 page)

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B
ertha was dead of multiple injuries, including several stab wounds. It would have been difficult to ascertain whose hand had struck the mortal blow.

I have no very clear memory of what happened immediately afterwards. We went back to our house to prepare for the funeral, which would take place that evening. My garments were sticky with blood, but I refused Nefret’s offer of assistance. After I had bathed and changed I went to my room. The others were in the parlor. There is often comfort in companionship in cases of bereavement, but I did not want anyone’s company then, not even that of Emerson.

My eyes were still dry. I wanted to cry; my throat was so tight I could hardly swallow, as if the tears were dammed by an unyielding barrier. I sat on the edge of the bed, with my hands folded in my lap, and looked at the bloodstained garments spread across a chair.

He had not thought much of me, or of any woman, when we first met. The change had come so slowly it was hard to remember a precise moment when suspicion had turned to affection and contempt to friendship, and then to something more. I remembered the day he had led me to the dreadful den where Emerson was held prisoner. When I broke down, he had called me “daughter” and stroked my hair; and then he had gone back to gather his men and join them in fighting to free the man he loved like a brother. It was not the only time he had risked his life for one or both of us.

I remembered my remote, indifferent father. I remembered my brothers, who had ignored and insulted me until I came into Papa’s money—the only thing he had ever given me. I thought of Daoud’s warm embrace and Kadija’s loving care and Abdullah’s dying words, and I knew that they were my true family, not the uncaring strangers who shared my name and blood. And still the tears would not come.

He had so enjoyed conspiring with me against Emerson—and with Emerson against me. I remembered the smug smile on his face when he said, “You all came to me. You all said, ‘Do not tell the others’ ”; his theatrical grumble, “Another dead body. Every year, another dead body!” The way he had tried to wink at me . . .

It is the small things, not the great ones, that hurt most. The dam burst and I flung myself face-down on the bed in a flood of tears. I did not hear the door open. I was unaware of another presence until a hand came to rest on my shoulder. It was not Emerson. It was Nefret, her face wet and her lips trembling. We wept together then, our arms round one another. Emerson’s arms had comforted me on many occasions, but this was what I needed now—another woman to grieve as I was grieving, unashamed of tears.

She held me until my sobs had died to snuffles, and I had soaked my handkerchief and hers. I wiped the remaining tears away with my fingers.

“I am glad it was you,” I said. “Emerson never has a handkerchief.”

“Are you glad, though?” She knew my little joke was my way of regaining my composure, but her eyes were anxious. “I didn’t know whether I should come in. I waited outside the door for a long time. I didn’t know whether you would want me.”

“You are my dearest daughter, and I wanted you.”

That made her cry again, so I cried a little too, and then I had to rummage through my drawers for another handkerchief. I bathed my red eyes and smoothed my hair and we went together to the sitting room. Ramses and Emerson were there, and David, who put food on a plate and brought it to me. We talked of inconsequential things, since the important things were still too painful.

“It is a pity about the school,” Nefret said. “I suppose it will be closed now.”

“Mrs. Vandergelt might take it over,” Ramses suggested.

“An excellent idea,” I said. “Do they know . . . Have Cyrus and Katherine been informed of what has occurred?”

It was David who replied. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was quite composed; and I thought he had gained a new maturity and self-confidence. “I wrote to tell them. They sent a message back—they want to be there this evening.”

“Good.” I put the untouched food aside and rose. “David, will you come with me? There is something I want to say to you.”

     
(xix)
    
From Letter Collection B

. . . so you see, Lia darling, it is going to be all right! Aunt Amelia is writing to your parents, and I don’t doubt for a moment that they will do
exactly
as she tells them.

Don’t grieve for Abdullah. If he could have chosen the manner of his death, this is what he would have wanted. Be thankful that you knew him, if only for a short time, and rejoice as we do that he was spared illness and a long slow dying.

You would have found the funeral moving, I think, despite its strangeness. The cortege was led by six poor men, many of them blind (only too easy to find, unhappily, in this country where opthalmia is so common) chanting the credo: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet; God bless and save him!” Abdullah’s sons and nephews and grandsons followed, and after them came three young boys carrying a copy of the Koran and chanting in sweet high voices a prayer or poem about the Judgment. The words are very beautiful. I remember only a few verses: “I extol the perfection of Him who created all that has form. How bountiful is He! How merciful is He! How great is He! Though a servant rebels against Him, he protects.”

The Professor and Ramses were among those honored by being permitted to carry the bier, on which the body lay, uncoffined, and wrapped in fine cloths. Fatima and Kadija and the other women of the family were next. The rest of us followed them. The Vandergelts were there, of course, and Mr. Carter and Mr. Ayrton and even M. Maspero! I thought it was rather sweet of Maspero. Fortunately the Professor was too busy trying to keep a stiff upper lip to start an argument with him. How Abdullah would have laughed!

After a prayer service at the mosque we went on to the cemetery and saw him laid to rest in his tomb. I will take you there when you come back to Egypt. It is a handsome tomb, befitting his high status; the vaulted chamber of plastered mudbrick is underground, and above it is a small monument called a shahid. I took Aunt Amelia away before they replaced the roofing stones and filled in the opening.

I don’t think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn’t someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven’t, I claim the credit myself.) What on earth, then, are we to make of Aunt Amelia?! The Professor (of course), a Master Criminal, and a noble Egyptian gentleman—for that is what he was, by nature if not by birth.

And what of the Master Criminal? you will ask. Well, darling, we haven’t found a trace of him. And believe me, the Professor looked
everywhere
! You ought to have seen his face when Aunt Amelia repeated some of the things Sethos said to her. This time she held nothing back, and a good thing, too; I doubt we’ve seen the last of Sethos. Frankly, my dear, I would
love
to meet the man! He behaved like a perfect gentleman. That’s what really maddens the Professor, I think. He would much prefer to have Sethos act like a cad so he can despise him.

Sir Edward has gone too. He never returned to the house, but he wrote to the Professor. It was a very polite and extremely entertaining letter. At least I found it entertaining. The Professor didn’t.

My dear Professor and Mrs. Emerson,

I do hope you will forgive my rudeness in leaving you so abruptly and without the formality of farewells; but I feel certain you understand my reasons for doing so. I beg you will think it over before you decide to lay a formal complaint against me. You would find it difficult to prove I had committed a crime, but the proceedings would be unpleasant and needlessly time-consuming for all of us.

Please accept my condolences on the death of Abdullah. I had learned to admire him a great deal, though I fear he did not reciprocate. A certain gentleman of whom you know has asked me to express his regrets as well. He blames himself (you know the delicacy of his conscience) for failing to apprehend the lady in time. The weather being inclement, as you no doubt recall, we were unable to reach Luxor until after she had been warned of your escape and mine. She must have realized the game was up and that our friend was close on her trail—and, I assure you, he was. We reached Gurneh less than an hour after the unhappy event. My friend has also asked me to tell you that a man can ask no greater happiness than to die for the woman he loves—and that he is in a position to know. I cannot say I share that sentiment, but I find it admirable.

Give my regards (I dare offer nothing more) to Miss Forth, and to your son and his friend. I look forward with great anticipation to the possibility that we may meet again one day.

Believe me, with sincere regards,
I am ( I really am)
Edward Washington

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W
e were soon back at work, for there is no better way of overcoming grief than to be busy. I sensed a diminution of Emerson’s cheerfully profane ebullience. He missed Abdullah, as did we all; it was hard to imagine going on without him. However, Selim was shaping up well. He had the same air of authority his father had possessed in such large measure, and the men accepted him without argument. They teased him a little, though, and he announced to me quite seriously that he intended to let his beard grow.

Life must go on, as I told Emerson. (I will not record his reply.) It was not one single thing that dimmed his enjoyment of the work, it was an accumulation of them: the laborious effort of clearing tomb number Five; the increase in social activities resulting from the arrival of M. Maspero and a number of other scholars, wanting to see Mr. Davis’s discovery; and above all, the frustration of watching Mr. Davis wreck one of the most important discoveries ever made in the Valley of the Kings.

“Wreck” was Emerson’s word, and so was “important.” He does tend to exaggerate when he is in a temper. How important the discovery might be was questionable as yet, but it certainly had its points of interest, and I had to agree that the clearance of the tomb might have been handled better.

When we returned to the Valley on the Thursday, we found Ned Ayrton removing the fill from the entrance corridor. The black scowl on Emerson’s face as he stood, hands on hips, surveying the activity, would have thrown anyone into a panic. Ned began to stutter.

“Sir—Mrs. Emerson—good morning, everyone, I am pleased to see you. We could use Abdullah now, couldn’t we? But the panels will be all right, you’ll see; I am inserting props as I remove the rubble from under them, and I am being very careful, and I—uh—”

“Quite,” said Emerson, in a voice like the rumble of thunder. He looked down at the streaked dust on the stairs. “Water. It rained yesterday. Quite hard.”

“No damage done,” Ned said. His voice cracked, but he squared his shoulders and spoke up bravely. “Really. M. Maspero was here yesterday, and he—”

“Was he?” Emerson said.

Ramses took pity on his unhappy young friend. “Father, the men will have arrived by now; don’t you want to make certain the ceiling in the far corner is properly braced before they begin? Selim hasn’t Abdullah’s experience.”

Duty, and concern for the safety of his men, always took precedence with Emerson. He allowed himself to be pulled away by David and Nefret.

With his father’s permission Ramses spent most of that day and the next with Ned, though I cannot imagine he was able to do much to assist. His reports were not encouraging. I would not have encouraged him to prevaricate, of course, but I did wish he could equivocate just a little.

“There was some water in the tomb, even before the recent storm,” he said. “Condensation or rain, through that long crack in the ceiling. Nothing has been done to stabilize the gold foil on the panels. To be fair, one would not know what to use. It is so fragile, and most of it is already loose, just lying on the surface; even a breath disturbs it.”

Emerson put his head in his hands.

“Paraffin wax,” I suggested. “I have often used it successfully.”

“Ned thought of it, naturally. But it would have to be applied with great care, almost drop by drop, and that would take a long time.”

I looked anxiously at Emerson, whose face was hidden, but from whom issued strange groaning noises. “Well, never mind,” I said heartily. “It is time we got cleaned up. Katherine and Cyrus are coming for dinner.”

I had invited the Masperos, but Madame had pleaded a previous engagement. It was just as well, considering Emerson’s state of mind, and the fact that we had a number of loose ends to tie up—matters we could only discuss with our oldest friends.

The school was Katherine’s main interest, and for a while she would talk of nothing else. The owner of the building turned out to be our old friend Mohassib, who had been more than happy to hand over the lease to Katherine.

Cyrus was not so happy about having her acquire it. “Why don’t we just build a new house? That one’s got some pretty nasty memories connected with it.”

“Pure superstition, my dear,” Katherine said comfortably. “That woman is dead and her assistant has disappeared. She won’t dare show her face in Luxor again. The students can’t be left high and dry. None of them knew anything.”

“Except for some of the women from the House of—from that house,” I said. “The authorities have assured me it will be closed.”

“For a time, perhaps,” my tactless son said cynically. “Places like that have a way of surviving, in one form or another.”

“Not if I can help it,” Nefret said fiercely. “Mrs. Vandergelt and I are going to find decent positions for those girls, as housemaids and servants, until they can be trained for better things.”

Cyrus’s jaw dropped. “Housemaids? Where? Katherine, did you—”

“Now, Cyrus, don’t fuss. The household staff is my responsibility, you know.”

I beckoned to Fatima, who hastened to fill Cyrus’s wineglass. “Fatima will be one of your students, Katherine,” I said, attempting to change the subject. “It is strange, is it not, that good can come from such great evil? Though it was certainly not her primary aim, Bertha did strike a blow for oppressed womanhood in starting that school and even in arousing aspirations in the most oppressed of our sex.”