A River in the Sky (18 page)

Kamir assured me that he could. I was not at all surprised. He went on to remark, “If you have settled on the place where you want to dig, Father of Curses, I will speak to the owner of the land. You can trust me to get the best price for you.”

“Damnation,” said Emerson. “I confess that particular issue had not occurred to me.”

It ought to have done. This was not Egypt, where we had usually worked in designated archaeological zones under the control of the Antiquities Department. All the land hereabouts was private property, and although the Ottoman government could probably seize anything they wanted, we could not. However, when Emerson is intent on a new excavation he loses sight of minor issues.

After stroking his chin and pondering, Emerson said, “I will do my own negotiating, Kamir. Have the own er here tomorrow.”

This pitiable effort won a kindly smile from Kamir. One way or another he would get his cut of every transaction, from the carpenter to the servants we would hire, to the food we would purchase.

“How many men and boys will you want for the dig, Father of Curses?” Kamir asked. “I will find them for you, I know the best workers.”

“And take your cut of their wages?” Emerson gave him a knowing smile. “None of that, Kamir. I will hire my own workers. Many of them have had experience, I expect.”

Recognizing this for the useless attempt it was, Kamir grinned back at him. “Oh, yes, and their fathers and grandfathers before them. The infidels have been digging here for many years, looking for sacred relics.”

“They are searching for knowledge,” Emerson corrected. “Knowledge of the history of your people and theirs.”

“What good is history to a man who cannot feed his children?” Kamir asked rhetorically.

Emerson grunted. “I refuse to enter into a philosophical discussion with you, you old wretch. And who are you calling an infidel?”

Daoud, who had been following the discussion with wrinkled brows, finally caught up. He let out a grumble of protest.

“I meant no offense,” Kamir said quickly. “I bear malice toward no man, Moslem, Jew, or Christian. Are we not all sons of Abraham?”

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No bedsheets, no rope, and no projection sturdy enough to hold a man’s weight even if they had a means of descending. Ramses’s sense of urgency was mounting. Ignoring David’s muttered remonstrance, he drove his fist into the section of screen next to the hole. Wood shattered and fell, some scraps inside, some out. A second blow and the opening was now large enough. He forced his head and shoulders through and looked down.

The cobblestones extended clear up to the base of the wall, with no convenient shrubs or flower beds or heaps of trash to break one’s fall. The wall itself was of dressed stone, without ornamentation or breaks, except for a few windows, each covered by a grillwork of curved iron bars set close together. One of them was directly below.

He reported this to David. “There’s a stone lintel about six inches
deep, probably to keep rain out. I’ll lower you. From there it’s only a drop of ten or twelve feet.”

“How are you going to get down?”

“Don’t argue, David, just do it.” He sat down and began unlacing his boots.

By leaning out the window as far as he could stretch, he got David down onto the lintel. He swayed unnervingly when Ramses let go his hands but managed to catch himself.

Once David was on the ground Ramses dropped the pack into his lifted hands, tied his boots together by the laces, and tossed them down too. Then Ramses climbed out the window. The uneven edges of the screen dug into his hands as he let himself down, groping for holds with his bare feet. Like the interior of the old villa, the walls were in poor repair, with enough missing mortar and crumbled edges to make the descent easy for someone who had spent years climbing up and down the cliff faces in Luxor, till the soles of his feet were hardened and his toes almost as prehensile as his fingers. But it was a relief when his feet found the solidity of the lintel. He was about to lower himself the rest of the way when a warning hiss from below made him freeze, his body flattened against the facade.

Until now the street had been deserted. The moon had set; in the starlight he made out a dim form coming toward him. David and the pack had disappeared—where, he couldn’t imagine. He felt as exposed as a lizard on a wall, but any movement, even the slightest, would draw attention.

The pedestrian moved briskly, his sandals slapping on the stones. He wore a woolen coat over his abba and a scarf wound round his head. Ramses’s muscles tensed. If the man looked up and saw him he would have to jump, and hope he could silence the fellow before he cried out.

The man passed out of his line of vision; he was directly below
the window now. The regular slap-slap of leather soles didn’t stop or pause. A workman, still half asleep, hurrying to be on time for the job.

Ramses let his breath out. He waited until the sound of footsteps had faded. Then he heard David’s whisper. “Come ahead. Quick.”

Once on the ground, Ramses said urgently, “Let’s get away from here.”

David drew him into the shelter of a recessed doorway. It wasn’t deep enough to afford adequate shelter for two. “We’ve got to get out of these clothes. The early birds will be waking up soon.”

Ramses was twitching with nerves. It had been easy so far—too easy? He remembered a story he had read, about a jailer who let his prisoner get all the way from his cell to the outside of the prison before recapturing him.

It was too late to worry about that. They had to go on, and fast. The next early riser might not be so unobservant, and European clothing would be remembered. He dug into the pack and pulled out the two galabeeyahs. It didn’t take long to slip them on over their clothes, or to tie the towels onto their heads with pieces of twine. The result wasn’t very convincing, but it might pass if no one examined them closely.

“Which way?” David asked.

Ramses was about to say it didn’t matter when it occurred to him that the front entrance to the villa might face a plaza or a main thoroughfare. “Right,” he said, and led the way into the odorous darkness.

They began to meet other pedestrians and a donkey or two, heavily laden with market produce. The sky had lightened and the cobblestones were slippery with dew. Ramses led the way, turning into one side street after another whenever anyone they met looked closely at them, or seemed about to speak. In the strengthening light
their makeshift disguises were sure to arouse curiosity. Sooner or later they would have to find a bolt-hole and make a plan, but his only purpose now was to put as much distance as possible between them and the villa. Their best hope was to get out of the town and into the countryside, where they might find an abandoned shed or convenient ruin.

When the sun rose they were still in the town—it was a town, possibly even a city, not a village. This area was even more wretched and refuse-strewn than the other sections through which they had passed. Most of the houses were hovels, piles of stone held together with crumbling mortar and bits of wood. One or two of the structures on this stretch of street, if it could be called that, were somewhat more pretentious. He knew what they were even before the flimsy door of one house opened and a pair of Turkish soldiers staggered out. Their tunics were unbuttoned, and they were boasting in loud voices of the pleasures they had experienced.

The street cleared as if by magic—men, women, and even the dogs fading back into doorways and behind walls. Ramses had only time enough to drop to the ground, head bowed, hands cupped, and begin the whining litany of the fakir. “Alms, for the love of Allah, alms for the poor, O beneficent ones!”

The men were dead-drunk—so much for the laws of Islam—and in no state of mind to be observant. One of them burst out laughing. The other called the beggar a filthy name, and kicked him in the side as they swaggered past.

Ramses doubled over with a howl of pain. Cautiously the residents ventured out of hiding. A murmur—a very soft murmur—of sympathy and anger arose. Ramses could have done without the sympathy. At any moment someone would get a closer look at his face and wonder why a beggar would be so young and healthy-looking.

The curtains at the doorway of the house behind him were drawn aside and a woman’s voice said, “Come in, holy one. We have medicines and food.”

It wasn’t the sort of bolt-hole he would have chosen, but there really wasn’t any choice. Bent over, clutching his side and groaning, Ramses stumbled in.

He had seen a number of brothels in el Wasa, the red-blind district of Cairo. He had never been inside one, not only because fastidiousness had triumphed over curiosity but also because he knew his mother would skin him alive if she found out he had done so—and Nefret would have set fire to the remains. He was pretty sure this was a pathetic specimen of the type: a small grimy room lit by a few cheap brass lamps, its only furnishings a wooden table, a few chairs, and a long divan presently occupied by three underdressed, weary-looking girls. The woman who had invited him in was older, her wrinkled face coated with cosmetics and her fleshy body covered by a loose wrapper. Hands on hips, she studied him through narrowed eyes.

“Honored Sitt,” Ramses began.

Her hand shot out and caught hold of his chin, forcing his head up so that one of the lamps shone full on his face.

“You are no beggar,” she said. “Who are you? And why are you being hunted by the Turks?”

A
S WE STARTED UP
the hill Nefret asked, “Do you intend to leave here without discovering what has become of Mr. Plato?”

Her tone was critical and her look severe.

“I don’t give a curse what has become of him,” Emerson growled. “Stop worrying about him, Nefret. He has done this before and always
manages to find his way back to board and lodging. Particularly board.”

However, when we reached the foot of the great wall and the gate called the Dung Gate, whom should we behold but the reverend himself, seated on a boulder and surveying the scene with his usual vague smile.

“There you are,” he said. “I thought you would come this way, so I waited for you.”

“What happened to you?” Nefret asked. “That is a nasty bruise. Did you fall?”

Plato raised his hand to his jaw. “I was met with resistance from the heathen when I preached to them.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Emerson exclaimed. “Who is he now, John the Baptist or one of the Apostles, or…Take him by the collar and drag him along.”

So we did, metaphorically speaking. Plato came without demur. In fact he seemed livelier than usual; every now and then a pleased little smile quirked his mouth. The rising bruise, which his beard did not wholly conceal, looked to my expert eye as if it had been caused by a fist striking his jaw.

In order to make ensuing events clear to the Reader, I should explain that the city is divided into quarters, Christian, Jewish, Moslem, and Armenian. There are no barriers between these sections, and people pass freely from one to another—not always in harmony but seldom in actual conflict. The famous Wailing Wall, where devout Jews gather to mourn the downfall of the Holy City, is on the eastern side of the Jewish Quarter; the huge stone blocks are, in fact, part of the enormous platform on which the Haram stands. The style of masonry and other archaeological evidence prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the entire platform was built in Herodian, i.e., Roman, times, to serve as the foundation for Herod’s temple. Nothing
remains, alas, of the temple itself. The entire circumference of the walls is only about two and a half miles; devout pilgrims follow the entire route on foot or on donkeyback, taking in such sights as the supposed tomb of Saint John and the Pillar of Absalom. Even I was willing to abjure this pleasure. Access to the city is provided by seven gates that pierce the great walls. The route we followed led from Siloam to the nearest gate, whose unattractive name I have already reported, and into the Jewish Quarter.

There is not much difference in appearance between this area and the other quarters—narrow winding streets, dilapidated dwellings, feral dogs foraging for scraps of food. The city’s synagogues are in this section, as Christian churches tend to congregate in that part of the city. Two of the largest and most recent of the former were used respectively by the Sephardim and Ashkenazim sects. The latter’s conspicuous dome was visible from the upper floors of our hotel. I meant to pay a courtesy call there one day—without Emerson.

We were on David Street when it happened. The sky had clouded over and I felt as if I were walking at the bottom of a narrow passageway, walled in by buildings of several stories, and arched over, at intervals, by extensions of dwelling places on one side or another. It was impossible to stay together as a group in the jostling, hurrying throng. Emerson had taken me firmly by the arm and Daoud was looking after Nefret. Should we become separated, I felt sure everyone knew his or her way back to the hotel; we had come that same way earlier. I was not aware of trouble until a penetrating shriek rose over the polyglot babble and the importunities of merchants.

“Stop, Emerson,” I cried, attempting to free my arm. “Someone is in need of help.”

However, Daoud was the first to respond, since he and Nefret
were closest to the cause of the disturbance. Plunging into a tangle of bodies, he lifted from its midst a familiar face framed in floating hair.

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This was obviously a case in which physical coercion wouldn’t work, even supposing he could bring himself to throttle four women. Try to throttle, rather; the proprietress, for all her bulk, had a grip as strong as a man’s, and after a long night on the run Ramses was beginning to tire.

“What makes you think we—I—am being hunted?”

She caught the slip. A gleam of amusement brightened her eyes, but she did not refer to it at once. “They have spread out all over the city searching for you. The two fools you saw leave this house were among the searchers. They were—distracted. And too stupid to see through your clumsy disguise. Are you hungry?”