Imhotep (13 page)

Two
more girls, a little younger than Abana were waiting in the large, square
room.  They stood by a circular stone slab with a hole in its
center.  Buckets of water sat on the ground beside them. 

Abana
took Diane’s hand and led her to the center of the stone circle. 
Hesitantly, she touched Diane’s shirt and blue jeans.  She raised her
eyebrows in question.

Taking
in the buckets, Diane nodded.  “Yeah, I get it.”

She
sat on the ground to untie and remove her boots.  Abana gasped and then
clapped her hands sharply, motioning to the younger girls.  The girls ran
to a corner of the room and came back with a low, wooden chair.  Together
they offered their hands to Diane and helped her to stand.

Sitting
back into the chair, Diane undid her jeans and tugged them off.  Then she
stood to pull off her T-shirt, which she dropped on the chair.  She
slipped off her white thong and unclasping her bra, she shrugged out of it,
adding it to the pile of clothes on the chair.

Naked,
she stepped onto the stone slab and looked expectantly at Abana.

The
Egyptian girl was rooted to the ground.  She had never seen skin so pale
and smooth.

“Quit
ogling and let’s get on with it,” Diane snapped, then she closed her eyes and
braced herself.

Abana
heard the irritation in the goddess’s voice.  She bowed and
apologized.  Of course the goddess would be anxious to be bathed. 
She was beautiful beyond words, Abana thought.  What a blessing to be able
to serve her.

At
Abana’s signal, the girls raised their buckets and slowly poured water over
Diane.  Abana stepped forward with a linen cloth and gently began to wash
the desert’s grit from the goddess.

The
cool water was refreshing after three days in the desert.  After she got
over her initial fear and then the awkwardness of being bathed, Diane began to
enjoy the soothing attention of the three girls.  They washed her slowly,
working perfumed soap into a lather and then rinsing her.  After a few
minutes the younger girls began to sing a soft, lilting melody as they
worked.  They washed and rinsed her a second time and then gently patted
her dry with linen towels.

Abana
led Diane to a narrow raised platform that was covered with white linen. 
Tables on either side of the bed held painted ceramic jars.  Abana showed
her a small wooden step beside the bed and held her arm as Diane stepped up and
then sat on the bed.  She noticed a sweet, slightly bitter fragrance
hanging in the air.

The
two girls walked over and stood on either side of the bed.  Abana gently
pushed on Diane’s shoulders until she lay back, her head resting on a pillow
that was nestled in a curved wooden headrest.  Once she was settled, the
girls began to rub scented oil on her arms, gently massaging her.

She
didn’t know that she had drifted off to sleep until Abana softly shook her
shoulder.  The young girl was smiling at her with undisguised
affection.  Abana signaled for her to roll over onto her stomach so they
could complete the massage.

As she
rolled over she realized that the tension that had built up during the trek
across the sand had been drained away by the massage.  She felt relaxed
for the first time since she and Brian had left the taxi at the Step
Pyramid.  It was only three days ago, but it seemed like another lifetime.

As the
girls began to rub her back, she sighed deeply.  There was so much to
think about, so much to worry about.  But it was hard, she thought as the
girls kneaded her shoulders, so hard to concentrate when she felt so good.

S
unlight slipped through the ceiling at a
steep angle when Diane awoke.  Flickering oil lamps had been lit and Diane
thought for a moment that she was alone.  Then Abana approached the bed
and spoke to her soothingly.

“Thanks,”
Diane said.  “That was great.  Now, if we could just call the Mena
House and arrange a taxi ride.”

Abana
smiled at her as the two young girls approached from the shadows where they had
been sitting, while Diane slept.  One of them carried a white linen sheath
dress across her extended arms.  The other held bleached white sandals,
made from twisted reeds.  Diane noticed that an ornamental wooden box now
sat on the bedside table and the low chair where she had dropped her clothing
was empty, and had been moved near the bed.

Abana
held out a hand and helped Diane step from the massage table.  The girl
with the linen sheath stepped up and with Abana’s help raised the sheer dress
over Diane’s head.  Diane raised her arms and let the soft linen fall to
her shoulders.

The
other girl knelt by her feet with the sandals and when Diane was ready, slipped
them onto her feet.  They led her to the chair where one of the girls
stood behind Diane and gathered her hair away from her face. 

Abana
opened the box of cosmetics.  One of the girls took a polished silver
mirror from the box as Abana leaned toward Diane to begin applying
makeup.  She worked carefully and slowly, making up Diane’s eyes, plucking
hair from her eyebrows, adding lipstick and finally tying her hair back with a
colorful linen band.

Satisfied,
Abana took the silver mirror from the young girl and handed it to Diane.

Although
she was expecting it, Diane still gasped when she looked into the mirror. 
Staring back at her was a living image that could have been a tomb painting of
an Egyptian goddess.

B
rian was dressed in a short linen kilt and
wore a wide beaded necklace.  His eyes were outlined with green kohl and
his bare chest glistened with the sheen of massage oil.

He sat
on a straight-backed wooden chair by a table that was heaped with dishes of
food. 

Yunet
sat at the end of the table.  She wore a linen dress that was gathered
just below her breasts.  A single, wide strap that held the dress over her
left shoulder covered one breast.  She was sipping from a silver cup as
Diane was led into the room.

Yunet
nodded toward a chair with legs carved like lion’s paws across the table from
Brian and smiled at Diane.

“Wow,
babe, you look like Cleopatra.  I’m thinking Russell Crowe for myself, you
know from that gladiator movie.  No wait, that wasn’t Egypt.  Maybe
Rock from that mummy movie.” Brian flexed his biceps and laughed.

At the
sight of Brian, the tension flooded back into Diane's body.  While she had
been with Abana and the two other girls, she had tried to pretend that she was
at an Egyptian-theme spa.  Although part of her knew that her situation,
whatever that was, hadn’t changed, she had tricked herself into enjoying the
only pleasant experience she had had in days.

Now,
seeing Brian dressed like an ancient Egyptian and laughing, oblivious to their
danger, her anger at him returned and as it did fear rushed in, filling her
with a stomach-churning feeling of doom.

“Hey,
are you OK, Diane?”

She
stumbled as her legs weakened.  Yunet, who was nearest to her, stood
quickly and put her arms around Diane to steady her.  Brian came around
the table and put his hand on Diane’s shoulder to pull her into his arms, but
she turned angrily away from him.  Yunet pulled her in closer, holding and
comforting her as Diane began to shiver and cry.

Brian
reached out to caress her hair.

“Diane,
babe, it’s OK, really.  I just got a bath and a wonderful massage and then
Yunet set out this fantastic meal.  I mean, it’s like a feast.  I
don’t know where we are or who these people are, but they’re nice people,
Diane.  Really, they’re OK.  We’ll get this all sorted out and get
back to our trip.  You know we will.”

Yunet
spoke softly to one of the serving girls.  The girl took Brian’s arm and
tugged him toward the doorway.

“Diane?”
he said softly.

She
shook her head and cried silently.  Brian let himself be led from the
room.  When he looked back, he saw Yunet stroking Diane’s hair and
murmuring softly to her.

H
e asked about Diane the next morning when
Pahket, the servant girl who had led him away from Diane and Yunet, came to his
small room.  When he said Diane’s name, Pahket nodded, smiled and said
“netjret nefer.”  So he patted his chest and said “Brian.”  Pahket
nodded again and smiled.

“Brian
go to Diane,” he said, making the fingers of his right hand walk across the
palm of his left.

Pahket
nodded vigorously and then took him to breakfast in the same room where he had
seen Diane and Yunet the night before.  There was no one there, but the
table was set with fresh fruit and bread, still warm from the ovens.

After
breakfast Pahket accompanied him as he searched through the temple, calling
Diane’s name at each doorway.  Although he had been embarrassed by
Pahket’s casual nudity when he first saw her in the morning, by midday, after
seeing that everyone they encountered wore as little, he stopped thinking about
it.

The
stone building where he had eaten and slept had only a few enclosed rooms, two
small, shaded courtyards with shallow pools of water and a larger courtyard
surrounded by walls made from palm tree trunks. 

At the
larger courtyard, a canal from the lake passed through an opening in the palm
trunk wall where it fed a pond that took up almost half the enclosure.  A
pathway wound around the pond to a stone shrine at the far end of the
courtyard.

When
Brian started to follow the pathway, Pahket grabbed at his arm and shook her
head.  He pulled free and walked along the stones with her following
cautiously.  Halfway around the pond he heard from his left, across the
pond, a long roar that sounded like a lion trying to gargle.

He
stopped and cocked his head, trying to identify the source of the sound.

Pahket
pulled at his arm again, trying to get him back to the building.

When
he turned to look at her, at the edge of his field of vision he saw a flash of
low movement on the far bank.  He quickly turned back to it and realized
with a start that it was a crocodile raised up on its legs and it was running
faster than he imagined they could move, headed for the water.

It
reached the lake and soundlessly slid into the water, disappearing beneath the
surface.

Another
roar from the far side of the water brought Brian’s attention back to the
land.  He saw now that the entire lake bank was filled with crocodiles sunning
themselves.  As he watched, two of them raised up on their legs and
bellowed, snapping their jaws challengingly at each other.

He
took another look at the small shrine and saw motion along its floor.  A
crocodile emerged from the shadows carrying the bloody leg of a goat in its
mouth.

Brian
cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the small building.

“Diane! 
Diane!”

Pahket
tugged once more on his arm, shaking her head.

“OK,”
he agreed when there was no answering call from the small chapel, “we can go
now.”

T
hat day and then another passed without
Brian catching a glimpse of Diane.

There
were no locked doors and, aside from the crocodile courtyard, Pahket didn’t try
to stop him from going anywhere else in the settlement.  He looked throughout
the temple and walked through the rambling settlement of mud-brick huts. 

Most
of the huts had only three sides, just enough he saw, to support cross beams
that held palm branches atop the roof to keep out the sun.  There really
wasn’t anywhere for someone to hide.

Not
that these people tried to hide anything, he thought.

All of
the children and most of the men were naked; a few men wore the same kind of
short kilt that Brian wore.  Although some of the women wore kilts like
Brian’s, most of them wore just a narrow cloth belt with one end hanging down a
little from one side.

He
tried to remember if he had ever heard of a place like this.  You’d think
it would have been on the Discovery Channel or something, he thought.

The
oasis was much larger than it had looked when he first had seen it as he, Bakr
and Diane had crested the last sand dune.  The lake was small enough that
he could see the opposite shore, but he realized that the flatness of the calm
water made the distance seem shorter than it was.  It would probably take
two or three days to hike around it, he guessed.

A few
small boats were tied to wooden posts by rough docks built along the canal that
fed the lake.  The boats were made of bundles of waxy reeds lashed
together to form a long, thin hull that curved up out of the water at both
ends.  Another bundle was tied to the center of the boat to help keep the
crew dry.

Even
simpler reed rafts were pulled up on the bank of the canal.  Brian had
seen men take these rafts out fishing on the lake.  The rafts looked like
surfboards, yet the men balanced on them effortlessly.