Authors: Gore Vidal
“I hope there will be
many
happy surprises,” said the policeman, and he put his hand gently on Pete’s knee.
“You’re so right,” said Pete, lifting the hand off his leg. For a single moment there was a trial of strength. Both men strained mightily. Pete won and the hand was removed.
Mohammed Ali was quite pale and sweat beaded his forehead. “You are strong,” he said. “I like that.”
“Where is she?”
“How should I know? I presume she is in Aswân.”
“Why are you interested in her?”
“For reasons that don’t concern you, Mr. Wells. If they did…well, I hope they will not. But here’s the hotel.” He parked the car in the driveway and together they went into the lobby.
Osman was waiting for Pete beside the desk. He flashed his usual canine grin and said, “Here is the package, Sir Wells,” and he handed Pete a small but heavy cardboard box. “We go to see sights maybe tomorrow,” and in a rustle of robes he was gone. Peter pocketed the box quickly, aware of Mohammed Ali’s interested gaze. He asked the manager if there had been any word from Anna.
“No, sir, nothing. I am sure she’ll be back soon, though. She took only a small handbag with her; her clothes are still in her room.” He chattered on but Pete turned away, suddenly worried, afraid.
Mohammed Ali walked with him to the dining room. “I must leave you here,” he said pleasantly. “Perhaps we can have dinner together tonight. Unless, of course, you decide to go to Aswân.”
But Pete had no intention of going there. He spent the afternoon telephoning the hotels of Aswân, with no success. No one named Anna Mueller was registered at any of them. There was a chance she had gone to stay with friends, if she had gone at all. The fact that the Inspector had seemed anxious for him to leave Luxor made him suspect she was somewhere else…perhaps in the hands of the police.
The box Osman had given him contained a small German revolver and several ammunition clips. Just owning this compact weapon made him more cheerful. He decided that if he had not heard from Anna in twenty-four hours he would begin his own investigation, and Mohammed Ali would find it thorough, he thought, his lips setting in a hard line.
He had dinner that night alone. The policeman was nowhere in sight.
Dinner over, Pete lit a cigarette and strolled out of the hotel. The night was magnificent. The sky was black as ink and the stars were bright and clear. An enormous moon shone, white and full. A warm breeze stirred the palm trees. Pete wanted Anna then, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
Lonely, worried, he crossed the street and stood looking down at the Nile, which shone dull silver in the moonlight. From far away he could hear laughter in the town, the noise of traffic in the narrow streets.
“The good night, Sir Wells,” said a voice behind him.
He turned quickly and saw Osman standing behind him. He resembled a jackal, thought Pete suddenly, not liking the way the other’s eyes shone in the moonlight. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I am come to talk with Sir Wells.”
“About what?”
“The pale lady he likes,” said Osman, smiling.
“You mean Anna Mueller.”
“Her name, yes.”
“What about her?”
“I know where to find her if Sir Wells looks for her.”
“Where the hell is she, then?”
“In the tombs,” said Osman.
Pete grew cold. “She’s dead?”
“No, not dead. Across the river, there.” And he waved a long hand toward the low white hills webbed with shadow.
“How do you know she’s there?”
“Because I heard her tell manager of hotel she goes across the river for a few days, to the Libyan Inn. Small place up near the tombs.”
Pete grabbed the old man suddenly by the gown and drew him close to him, so close he could smell Osman’s acrid odor. “You lying to me?” he said, his voice low but harsh.
“No, Sir Wells,” said the old man. “She goes there.” He looked into Pete’s eyes fearlessly.
Pete let him go, a little ashamed of himself. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because you first must see Said Pasha. Tonight I speak not, because Mohammed Ali is with you. When I hear manager say the pale lady goes to Aswân, I know they tell lies.”
“Is there a telephone over there?”
“No, Sir Wells. It is small place. Few of the Europeans go there.”
“How do we get across the river?”
“Now? So late in the night?”
“Yes, now. Right now.” The moon might not be wasted yet.
Osman shrugged. “It is possible we can rent small boat to take us across, Sir Wells. But it is late.”
“Come on.”
Reluctantly Osman led him down the cliff to the water’s edge. It was a difficult scramble because there were no steps at this point, only a stony slope covered with sun-withered brush. At the bottom of the cliff they stood among the jagged rocks that edged the shrunken river.
Osman looked about him carefully, like an animal trying to catch a scent. In the silence, Pete was aware of life all about them.
A few yards away a group of naked men bathed in the river, silently, hardly rippling the water, the moon glinting on their dark bodies like light on metal. Here and there along the riverbank small yellow fires gleamed, and about them figures sat, eating and murmuring together in the breathy Arab dialect.
“We must find honest one,” said Osman finally, moving southward, threading his way between the rocks, Pete close behind.
“Honest what?”
“Boatman. Many are thieves, and at night is danger.” As they walked Pete saw many small boats moored to the rocks.
The first boatman Osman found proved unsatisfactory: a powerful, bearded man who sat alone by a tiny fire, his boat close by. After sharp words, they moved on. The second boatman, a young boy, proved more satisfactory and he was hired for the equivalent of two dollars.
The boat was an old dinghy, its bottom much tarred. Even so, a few minutes after they pushed off water began to seep in through cracks at their feet. The boy paid no attention. He rowed intensely, quietly, the only sound that of his breathing.
“Not much of a boat,” said Pete in a low voice.
“It will get us there,” said Osman, sitting back in the stern.
Pete let his hand trail in the water. It was warm, warmer than he had suspected. He watched the lights of Luxor recede as they approached the western shore, a much darker shore, he noticed, with fewer lights.
“How far is it from the shore to the inn?” he asked.
“Almost five kilometers.”
“That’s quite a ways. Is there any kind of carriage on the other side?”
“Not now. We walk,” said Osman cheerfully.
The boat landed on the western bank just as the water had begun to get seriously deep in the bottom. Pete hopped ashore, followed more sedately by the dragoman.
There followed, then, a quarrel between Osman and the boy. The burden of it, Pete discovered, had to do with the boy’s waiting for them on that side of the river.
“He is superstitious,” said Osman contemptuously, “afraid of evil spirits. I tell him he must wait.”
“Not for me. I’ll spend the night at the inn.”
“But for me,” said Osman. “I wish to go back this night to Luxor.”
Pete solved the problem like Solomon; he tore a piaster note in half and gave it to the boy. “Tell him you’ll give him the other half when he takes you back.”
This delighted Osman; the boy complained loudly, finally bursting into tears and tearing his hair in the best Arab tradition, but they were firm and left him sitting on the bank.
“He will wait,” said Osman confidently, as they walked up the embankment to the road.
The road was a winding one, very dusty and rutted from cartwheels. It wound in and out among groves of olive trees. The land on this side of the river was rolling, not flat like the eastern side. They walked a long time without speaking. Occasionally a muffled figure would pass them on the road, silent, swift-moving, and involuntarily Pete’s hand would go to the revolver in his pocket. Osman noticed this.
“Very wise, Sir Wells. Many thieves on these roads at night. They kill so easy.” And he chuckled, an unpleasant sound.
Pete felt better when they had left the tree-lined section of the road and moved up into the hills, into an open stretch of land where the road was straight. No ambush on this road, he thought, looking to left and right at the farmhouses across the dry stubbled fields crisscrossed with narrow ditches containing stagnant river water.
They did not pause until they reached the end of this straight road, when, huge in the night, two enormous statues loomed, the largest Pete had ever seen, one on each side of the road. It was an uncanny sight, in the silver glare.
“What the hell are those things?” he asked, standing at the base of one of the statues. Both were alike: a seated man wearing the royal headdress of ancient Egypt.
“The Colossi, Sir Wells,” said Osman, assuming his professional guide’s voice. “Among the wonders of the world, builded by the great king Amenhotep to his glory.”
So clear was the light that Pete could even make out the face of the dead king, a heavy face with a curiously gentle smile that made him uneasy, as though the smile were meant for him: a warning.
“Let’s get going,” he said, lowering his voice for no reason as they walked between the statues toward the low hills bordering sharp cliffs.
Half a mile beyond the statues they came to a village of mud huts, forty or fifty shacks placed haphazardly on the top of one of the hills. Even before they actually saw the village, they could smell it: wood smoke, urine, goats—the usual odors of an Arab community.
Osman was nervous, Peter could see, and he wondered why. It was understandable on the road, unprotected, at the mercy of hidden thieves, but here in civilization, relatively speaking, they were safe.
“Please to be quiet,” whispered Osman, leading the way through the huts, keeping away from the central ones, which circled a fire at which many of the native men were gathered, though the night was warm. There was no sign of electricity anywhere. The lighted hovels contained only flickering candles or weak lanterns.
They moved unnoticed through the outskirts of the village.
But then, almost free of the last irregular row of huts, Pete stepped on a soft dark shape that, by its hair-raising yowl, turned out to be a child asleep in the street.
There was wild confusion. The child ran screaming toward the center of the village. Women, unveiled for the night, appeared in doorways. Men came rushing toward them, their robes billowing behind them, firebrands in their hands.
“Quick!” Osman pulled Pete after him. They leaped off the hill’s summit and into a shallow ravine. Breathless, a little stunned by the impact, Pete limped after Osman, who was heading up the ravine, just as the light of torches fell across them from above and a high shouting began as the excited Arabs sighted strangers.
Pete followed Osman, thankful for the moonlight, stumbling over boulders as they made their way among a maze of ravines cut out of the limestone hill. In a few minutes they were out of range of the villagers, though they could still hear the shouting as the men searched the ravine they had just left.
Finally, at the mouth of what looked like a cave, Osman stopped, breathing heavily. “We…safe,” he gasped. “No follow…here.” They sat for some minutes on the dusty stone, resting.
Pete looked up at the huge black sky, speckled with brilliant stars. He had the sensation of lying at the bottom of a trench, of a grave, even; for in this place there was almost no vegetation, only porous white limestone, pale as bones in the moonlight.
Finally, when he could breathe easily, Pete asked, “Where are we?”
“Among the tombs,” said the old man.
Pete looked about him. Farther down the ravine in which they sat, he could see two more oblong openings, like the one immediately behind them. “Those?” he asked, pointing to one of the caves.
Osman nodded. “Not the kings, though. Rich men, nobles are buried here. Long ages ago the tombs are sealed, but Europeans come and open them and steal the treasures.” There was an unexpected note of bitterness in the old man’s voice.
“Where are the kings?”
“In a valley to the west of here. We see it in daytime perhaps.”
“Why did they chase us?”
Osman shrugged. “It is night. They are afraid. They hate strangers, and white men, and bad spirits.”
“They thought we were ghosts?”
“Who knows? The torches they carried are supposed to keep them from harm at the hands of the dead.”
“The dead,” repeated Peter thoughtfully.
“Now we must go on to the inn. It is longer journey now.” Osman got to his feet slowly. Pete did the same. He was surprised to find that he was cold, though he had been running and the night was warm, like a dark soft blanket all about them.
Osman led him through a labyrinth of similar ravines. Several acres, perhaps more, of limestone had been worn away by some forgotten flood, leaving behind a series of confusing trenches, a dozen feet deep, containing the tombs of the old Egyptians.
It was a strange sensation, like walking in a roofless corridor, for the steep bare slopes were like walls, and the world above, except for the black sky, was no longer visible. There was no sound but the heavy echo of their footsteps and the distant yapping of wild dogs.
Eternity passed and still there was no end to it. Pete kept his eye on the North Star and discovered soon enough that Osman was off course. They were heading southwest instead of northeast
He stopped; the old man turned around. “Sir Wells is tired?” He spoke in his ordinary voice and the sound of it was as loud as a shot.
“Shut up,” whispered Pete furiously.
“There is no danger now,” said the other, lowering his voice.
“We’re going in the wrong direction. We’re going south.”
Osman nodded, undisturbed. “It is so. We must go backward to go forward in the tombs.”
“Then why don’t we climb out of here and get back on the road? There
is
a road, isn’t there?”
“Of course, Sir Wells, but we are miles away from it now. We are above the Libyan Inn. We move south toward it. We are safest in the tombs, because no Egyptians will come here at night, fearing them,” and he gestured with one long hand at the dark entrance nearest them, a narrow doorway in the rock perhaps five feet tall.