The Visitors (47 page)
In any case, Mohammed went on, in a more confident tone, it was well known throughout Qurna and Luxor that the current activities of Mr Carter and El Lord in the Valley were a blind: fabulous treasures, tons of bullion, had
already
been removed from the tomb and spirited away. This booty, which included a mummified king and his gold coffins, was on its way to England right now and would never be seen in Egypt again; it had been looted weeks ago, then collected from the Valley by a fleet of aeroplanes.
Miss Mack, who had been taking rapid notes, stopped him at that point. ‘Now, now, Mohammed,’ she said, ‘you
know
that can’t be true. Land an airplane in the Valley? That’s just plain ridiculous. Besides, it may not even
be
a tomb, and they’re still in the first stage of excavating. I watched them with my own eyes yesterday.’
Mohammed stuck out his lip and regarded her in an obstinate way. As I’d learned on my previous visit, the Egyptian notion of truth was often elastic and imaginative; it differed from Miss Mack’s somewhat hard-line, narrow-minded Yankee approach. It did not always admit the concept of facts and, given the choice between two versions of events – one likely, unvarnished and dull; the other
un
likely, glittering and resonant – it went for the Homeric alternative. Miss Mack, who never appreciated such distinctions, became fretful at Mohammed’s stubborn refusal to recant. ‘Fairy stories like that,’ she said reproachfully, ‘are of no use to me whatsoever, Mohammed. The canary I like. The canary I can
use.
Thank you.
But airplanes? I shan’t waste a single
piastre
on
them
, I assure you!’
Mohammed pledged immediate reform, a newly industrious approach. Thus, while we we’d been up here in the hills, our binoculars trained on Carter’s excavations, he’d also been working on the case. This very afternoon he was visiting Castle Carter, where he would cross-question his esteemed uncle Abd-el-Aal on Miss Mack’s behalf. He would report back this evening. I sighed: I really could not understand why Miss Mack needed such a go-between. Why couldn’t she walk up to Carter’s castle and do her own investigating? I had suggested this; several times. Miss Mack reacted with scorn. ‘Lucy, I’m sorry, but you don’t grasp the
methodology
of journalism,’ she said. ‘That approach would be premature – even fatal. No, dear – by indirection, find direction out. I’m laying the groundwork. I shall move on to
interviews
in due course.’
I stretched lazily in the warm sun and looked up at her with affection. The Book and its needs had her in their grip, I felt. We’d been up here in the heat of the hills all day. Miss Mack’s hat was askew; her grey hair was dishevelled; runnels of sweat ran down her face, yet here she still was, untiring, dedicated, remorseless as destiny, binoculars trained on the Valley below. As I watched her and smiled, she gave a start; she adjusted the glasses and said: ‘I
knew
it, Lucy. Something’s happening.’
Turning to look at the dark entrance of the tomb below us, I saw she was correct. Excavations had finally stopped. Carter’s workforce, some standing, some hunkered down, were gathered silently together a short distance from the mouth of the dig. His
reis
, Girigar, was now standing at the top of the sixteen steps, peering down, his attitude expectant. There was no sign of the excavators, who must still be underground. The westering sun lit the peaks above the Valley and washed them in gold; below them, the shadows were lengthening fast. As always, the kite birds circled the updraughts and broke the silence with their cries. I felt the first flutterings of excitement, but for a while, ten minutes, perhaps more, nothing happened; below us, no one spoke or moved. I glanced back the way we had come: it was almost five o’clock – we’d have to leave soon, before the light began to weaken and the long, steep descent through the hills became treacherous.
‘Lucy,
look
,’ Miss Mack said, and I turned to see the unmistakable figure of Howard Carter emerge at last from underground. He was walking unsteadily; he paused to mop sweat from his forehead, and then looked about the Valley with a blind man’s gaze. Without a word, Miss Mack handed me her binoculars; by the time I had focused them on Carter’s white distraught face, two other figures were emerging from the dark: Lord Carnarvon, who seemed similarly dazed, and Eve, who was shivering violently.
Eve wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and, in a sudden, impetuous way, embraced her father, then clasped Carter in her arms. Her father grasped both their hands; he seemed to be deeply moved and was saying something with emphasis. Carter made some reply and covered Carnarvon’s hand with his own. He gestured to one of the boys, who came running with stools, and Carnarvon sank down onto one of them, burying his face in his hands. Eve bent over her father. Carter crossed to the thin alert figure of Ahmed Girigar. The two men, who had worked together so long, spoke briefly; Girigar, turning to his workmen, said a few quick words. Their reaction was immediate: first one man, then another rose to his feet; they lifted their faces to the sky and tilted back their throats – and in unison they released a haunting sound, that long guttural ululation peculiar to Arab ceremonies, that whooping cry that can signify rejoicing or lament; the cry that, in Egypt, accompanies births, deaths, weddings and funerals.
The unearthly howl swooped, echoed and re-echoed around the Valley like the voice of the long-dead; it pricked the hairs on the back of my neck, closed a cold hand around my heart – and if I shut my eyes now, I can hear it still, echoing down the decades: the crying out that told me Carter and Carnarvon had finally found their tomb.
The great discovery was confirmed for us later that day when, in a state of ebullient excitement, Mohammed returned from his fishing expedition at Castle Carter. He had hung around, he said, until seven o’clock when El Lord and his party finally returned from the Valley; he brought much news. Miss Mack at once retrieved her notebook and sat waiting expectantly, pencil poised. At once, words spilling over each other, Mohammed launched on his account of what had happened when, late that afternoon, the tunnel had at last been cleared of debris. The excavators had found themselves facing a second wall. Mr Carter had then, with the greatest care, made a small peephole in that wall, and thrust his arm through it, holding a candle––
‘A candle?’ Miss Mack interrupted. ‘Why not a flashlight, Mohammed?’
‘Foul gases, miss!’ Mohammed cried. ‘The air in the tombs is dangerous! If the candle extinguishes, take care… if it doesn’t, Mr Carter can proceed.’
The candle had not been extinguished, it seemed. ‘There is a little rush of air, miss,’ said Mohammed. ‘It is the spirits breathing out as they awake. After three thousand years, they are disturbed for the first time. The candle flame wavers, then it grows strong. Mr Carter widens the hole, just a small bit, the merest fraction… and he peers into the darkness beyond. What will he see? Another tunnel? More stairs? No, miss, he sees
gold
. Treasures beyond imagination. King Tutankhamun’s treasures, lying there in the dark.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Meanwhile, El Lord and his daughter are standing by Mr Carter’s side, miss, filled with fears and excitements. They cannot breathe for the suspension. Minutes pass. Eventually, El Lord can bear it no longer and he says… Look, miss, I wrote down for you their very words. He says: “For God’s sake, Carter. Speak, man. Can you see anything?” And Mr Carter makes a sigh and answers him. “
Yes
, he says, yes.
Wonderful
things”… ’
‘Wonderful things? King Tutankhamun? Heavens above! Oh, Lucy!’ Miss Mack clutched at my hand.
Mohammed then launched on a long description of these wonderful things, this unimaginable treasure, King Tutankhamun’s gold, his jewels, and, gathering speed, he explained that today was a great day, but,
Inshallah
, tomorrow, Monday, would be a greater day still. In the morning, Carter’s friend, the engineer Mr Pecky Callender, would tap electricity from an adjacent tomb. With the aid of electric lamps, El Lord and Mr Carter would then re-enter King Tutankhamun’s tomb and explore it thoroughly––
‘Re-enter?’ Miss Mack enquired sharply. ‘You mean they’ve
already
been inside it?’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Mohammed replied, with impatience. He did not like interruptions. ‘Made the peephole bigger, then climbed inside. But there are two chambers, miss. Much to explore. Today, they only have flashlights. One quick look. Tomorrow, blazing electrics. Then they will certainly find the king’s mummy. It eludes them as yet – but not for long!’
Miss Mack forbore to point out that, according to Mohammed that morning, the mummy had already been removed by aeroplane and was now in the Bank of England’s deepest vault – or possibly at Highclere Castle. She waited. In a jubilant rush, Mohammed then explained that, such was the splendour of the discovery, the world would be beating a path to Luxor very soon. First, the officials would come, then the bigwigs, the High Commissioner, the Sirdar, the Mudir of Qena, the Maamor of Luxor, Wise Bey from the police, umpteen Pashas, a host of other excellencies… He paused for breath; Miss Mack, who had been writing rapidly, leapt in.
‘Slow down, please, Mohammed,’ she said. ‘I need to get this straight for The Book. “Officials”? What officials?’
Mohammed, who had a taste for bureaucracy and its abstruse ways, began to reel off details: the Antiquities Service in Cairo, he explained, would now be intimately involved. It was a solemn unbreakable rule that any excavator in the Valley must notify the Department the instant a discovery was made. Mr Carter and El Lord had done that; the Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, an Englishman by the name of Rex Engelbach, had been summoned the previous Friday to examine the first sealed wall to the tomb. Having inspected it, he had enjoyed a convivial lunch in the Valley and had then departed for the city of Qena, where, unfortunately, he had an unbreakable three-day engagement. He would not return until Tuesday – and we’d be sure to see him when he did, as he always travelled on a motor bicycle, a much envied, locally famous machine. Meanwhile, under the terms of El Lord’s permit, an interim inspection was essential, indeed belated, in view of the breakthrough today. In Mr Engelbach’s absence it would therefore be made tomorrow, Monday – by his Luxor deputy, one Ibrahim Effendi, a local man, husband to Mohammed’s cousin’s half-brother’s aunt.
‘And this is somewhat a tragedy,’ Mohammed remarked savagely. ‘Ibrahim Effendi is a grossly fat gentleman. He does not respect my cousin’s half-brother’s aunt as a husband should. I have umpteen run-ins with him since our schooldays. He is a fool and a bungler. El Lord and Mr Carter will dance jigs around him, confuse him utterly, and pull the woolliness over his eyes.’
‘What nonsense, Mohammed,’ Miss Mack said firmly, while noting all this down. ‘I’m sure Ibrahim Effendi is excellent at his job. They wouldn’t have appointed him otherwise. You must never allow personal animosity to distort your judgement, you know. Though the timing is odd here: it seems
very
remiss of this Mr Engelbach to disappear to Qena for three days at such an historic moment – what
can
he have been thinking of? Still, on Tuesday, I shall look out for his motor bicycle… A nice touch, that, I may well use it. And tomorrow I’ll be on the watch for this Ibrahim Effendi – a large man, you say?’
‘Elephantous, miss,’ Mohammed replied. ‘Wearing a red tarboosh, riding a mule. A lazy man, puffed up with his own importance. He will stay five minutes, write two pompous notes and depart. The instant he’s gone, El Lord and Mr Carter will remove all the treasures from the tomb. They will have the rest of Monday to loot it.’
‘Now, now!’ Miss Mack wagged her pencil at him. ‘That is positively libellous, Mohammed. As if they’d dream of doing such a thing! And just supposing for one second that they did – I think Mr Engelbach might have something to say about it when he arrives on Tuesday, don’t you?’
Mohammed stuck out his lip and became obstinate again. In his opinion the tomb was so crammed with treasures – many
portable
, many
pocket-sized
, he stressed – that hundreds,
thousands
, might disappear in the period between inspections, and no one would be any the wiser. However, he continued, brightening, there would shortly be an official opening of the tomb: that was the custom. There would be a splendid reception in the Valley. The British High Commissioner, Lord Allenby himself, would attend, with many other illustrious guests. And hotfoot from Cairo would, of course, come the great Director of the Antiquities Service.
‘Gracious! Monsieur Pierre Lacau himself?’ Miss Mack enquired. ‘Have you ever encountered him, Mohammed? Can you describe him for me?’
Mohammed was happy to oblige. He had never actually met this famous man, he admitted, but he had seen
him on his official visits to Luxor. And he was not the kind of man you forgot: ‘Seven feet tall,’ he said. ‘Looks like a holy man, hairy white beard down to
here.
’ He hit his heart region with his hand. Miss Mack scribbled fast. ‘A very wise man,’ he went on, ‘and a wily one too. El Lord will not pull the woollens over
his
eyes, miss. And as for Mr Carter… Ah!’ He sniffed the evening air and gave a sudden cry of consternation. ‘The dinner chicken is burning, miss. I must go.’
He disappeared at a run to the galley regions where his wife’s nephew, a boy my own age, was in charge of our meal. We never discovered what Carter’s fate at the hands of Monsieur Lacau was to be, but the chicken survived its rough treatment and was delicious; we ate it with the keen appetite engendered by our long walk in the hills.
‘Monsieur Lacau is known as “God the Father”,’ I told Miss Mack, as we ate, hoping this detail might be of assistance to her. ‘That’s what the Metropolitan Museum archaeologists call him, you know. Because of the white beard, I think – and also his character.’