The Second Mrs. Astor(55)

But they, devastated or not, would arrive in their modern motorcar, and tonight would feast on fine food and wine in their tents, and tomorrow head back to the Nile, the river of life, to resume their place among the living.

The kings and temples would remain, standing as long as they could against the sands.

Thabit was shouting something back at them, lifting a hand to point at a row of rocks in the distance. They were the same color as everything else on the ground, buff and dun, bleached and chalky, painfully pale against the neon sky. They looked like nothing at all at first, lines and shapes, but as the motorcar growled closer, Madeleine could see the lines had an order to them, that they connected into a flat roof and pillars. A vast courtyard and wide steps and ramps.

Thabit slowed, still pointing.

“The dominion of the dead,” he called back to them, and grinned.

*

The moment they emerged from the car, they were surrounded by souvenir sellers, men and children mostly, showing off miniature statues, scraps of papyrus, ivory figurines, ankhs and faience scarabs and enameled amulets. One child—a girl, the only one in sight—wiggled between her competitors to present Madeleine with a necklace of polished reddish-orange beads, holding it out to her with both hands.

Madeleine smiled, lifting the string, testing its weight.

“Asalamu alaykum,” she tried, one of the few Arabic phrases she had heard repeated enough to have memorized. Peace be with you; it seemed to serve as both hello and goodbye.

“Do not buy it,” advised Thabit, appearing at her side. He scowled at the girl and said something brusque, shooing the child away with one hand. “It’s likely only glass. If you wish for true carnelian, for jewelry or gold, ma’am, I have a cousin in Luxor with the finest shop in Egypt. First quality. I will get you a bargain.”

He lifted his voice and said something else to the crowd, and perhaps it was that the men from the dahabiya sauntered up, as well, but the swarm of sellers broke apart, wandering across the courtyard to find easier targets.

*

The temple honoring the great dead pharaoh was composed of limestone and sandstone incised with cartouches, and armies of small brown birds that winged through the shafts of light and high, dense shadows, perching and hopping and taking flight again. It was much cooler inside the towering stone walls than out, which might explain the murmuring birds, although the floor was mostly uneven chipped stone, so Madeleine had to be careful how she stepped.

Jack held her arm, keeping them both steady.

Both Margaret and her daughter had produced mirrors from their handbags, and they used them to reflect the narrow sun shafts falling from slits in the ceiling into beams of movable light. Everywhere they aimed the mirrors, the walls and columns came alive with color. Thabit trailed behind them, reciting the names of the illumed figures in a quiet, reverent tone, as if he spoke incantations.

Osiris.

Isis.

Seti.

Amun-Ra.

The queen, supplicating the god of the underworld.

The young prince, hunting alone.

Horus.

Ptah.

The goddess Nut, giving birth to the sun.

Seti.

Seti.

Seti.

The friezes were so clear, so fresh, they might have been created only a few years ago instead of centuries. She found herself more than once reaching up a hand to touch them, then made herself stop. These were olden beings, sacred beings. She didn’t want to disrespect them. She didn’t want them lingering on her fingertips.

*

Their tent was nearly as large as their cabin back on the boat, lit with both clear and colored glass lanterns, so that the cloth corners became green and violet and tangerine, and the entrance was ordinary gold. The crew had unrolled a large cream-and-carmine rug across the sand, then added a wooden table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, two chairs, and a pair of iron-framed camp beds topped, incongruously, with layers of satin covers.

A bowl of dates and sliced bread (rapidly drying out) sat upon the table, alongside two glasses and a flagon of red wine. Madeleine stood there and nibbled at a date, testing its grainy sweetness.

“Wife,” said Jack, from just beyond the open entrance of the tent. “Come out. Come see the moon.”

She ducked outside. The stillness of the evening struck her; she heard the relaxed conversation among the men from the Habibti, preparing their meal of lamb kabobs and rice over the fire, Thabit occasionally joining in with a chuckle. She heard Helen saying something to Margaret in their tent a dozen yards away, their shadows behind the canvas walls shifting in graceful, elongated lines. But they were the only group camping, the only people within miles, maybe, and beyond those dampened human notes, there lived a noiseless hush, the sound of emptiness that stretched on and on into the ebony night.

Perhaps Jack heard it, too. Without another word, he took her by the hand and drew her away from the tents, from the others and the tantalizing aroma of saffron and charred lamb. They toiled through the sand, sometimes ankle deep, until they stood on a flat, rocky crest far apart from everyone else, facing the ruins in the distance, the moon-frozen courts and shrines and halls.

The dominion of the dead.

Jack reached into his pocket. He withdrew a strand of smooth, heavy beads, reddish-orange, and draped it over her head.

“They were carnelian,” he said. “Not glass. I may not own the finest jewelry shop in Luxor, but I know a few things.”