"Moved? Why ever did you do that?"

"You're the only person I'm telling this to." She sat up again and leaned in, embarrassed. "Anyone else would think I was crazy." She dropped her eyes for a moment. "I...I had a dream. Don't look at me like that. It was very vivid. You were in it, dressed like an Egyptian, with a priest's braid on one side of your head."

"Really? How did I look?" He ran crossed ngers down the side of his face and turned in pro le.

"Pretty good, actually. Thinner. But you spoke Egyptian, and you told me to dig in the next valley. So I did."

"Oh, so now I get the blame for the trouble you're in?" His st went to his hip.

Her smile began small, then grew as if slowly releasing some joyous inner creature. "Not the blame, dear. The credit. We found * 31 *

something."

"Oh!" His eyebrows shot up again, and he pressed his ngertips over his mouth. "You found a tomb?" he whispered.

"Limestone steps in the middle of nowhere? Can't be anything else."

He bounced slightly in his seat, his hands clasped in front of him.

"Oh, Valerie, honey. Fame and fortune! I can hardly wait!"

"Well, there's also this." She pulled the crumpled paper from her shirt pocket and tossed it onto the tiny table. "Just got it this morning.

An announcement of a reception for the new chairman and head of excavations at Brussels University. It's a disaster."

"A reception a disaster? Why?" He unfolded the paper and glanced over the announcement, pursing his lips.

"Not the reception. The man. He's one of the senior professors in my department and a religious fanatic who thinks women don't belong in the university. But more to the point, he arrived in Cairo without warning, and he'll of course want to see the dig site. This is the absolute worst moment for him to arrive."

"But you've got something good to report now."

"Not yet. I don't know what I've discovered. I've spent months digging for this thing, but until it's opened, it isn't really 'discovered.'

I've got to be able to say, 'Look here. I, Valerie Foret, have found a tomb.' Until then, I've got to evade him."

"No problem, darling." He patted her hand. "After the performance, and a good night's sleep, I'll be ready to go out and play archaeologist with you. We can head out tomorrow as soon as it's cool to nish the job!"

Furious shouting from the street below interrupted them. Derek peered over the terrace railing. "What's going on? The police are all over the place."

Valerie stood up to see. The group of men that had pursued the photographer had grown larger and was spreading out into the square.

The original offender was nowhere in sight; only the angry mourners tussled with police. Individuals broke away from the crowd and ran along the street under the cafe terrace. Several police vans had pulled up in front of the mosque, and white uniformed men with bayoneted ri es were pouring out.

"Come on," Valerie said. "We're conspicuous here. We'll be better off in the souq."

* 32 *

"You want to go shopping with all this going on?" Derek looked back at the street where a knot of men engaged the soldiers and were thrown to the ground.

"It's not going to stop, I'm afraid." She hoisted her knapsack onto her shoulder. "And we still have supplies to get."

"What are they so upset about? I mean, what's gotten into them?"

"That's the big question, isn't it?" she said over her shoulder.

Behind them a dark object rose up in an arc from the street. It seemed to hover in the air for a second overhead, revealing itself as a Coca-Cola bottle. Then it crashed onto the iron balustrade, spraying a shower of brown uid and glass splinters across the terrace oor.

* 33 *

* 34 *

CHAPTER IV:.

GIFTS FROM A DARK HAND.

The two of them withdrew into the winding alleys of the souq, threading their way past carts, bicycles, dogs, donkeys.

Merchants called out to them, announcing the quality and prices of their wares in several languages. Valerie drew Derek through narrow passageways of shops for footwear, copper and brass, jewelry, pottery, and papyrus and stopped nally before a spice merchant. Bushel baskets of dried teas, ower petals, ginger, and unidenti able vegetation lined the front. Flies swarmed over everything.

"Tell me again why we're buying food in the souq instead of a nice clean supermarket?" He wrinkled his nose. "Where people don't throw things?"

"Don't be so American, dear." She squeezed his arm. "Enjoy the history. Besides, I really want to smoke a little sheesha later." Valerie turned to the bearded merchant, who already held a wooden scoop and an open paper bag. She pointed at the heap of dried hibiscus petals.

"Tneen kilo, min fadlak. "

The merchant dug into the dark red mass and scooped them into the bag. The ies swarmed leisurely over to the neighboring basket.

"Ishrin guineh, " he said, handing over the bag. He smiled, revealing horrifying teeth.

Valerie raised her hand politely. "Ashera guineh. " She pulled a ten-pound note from the breast pocket of her khaki shirt and laid it on the counter.

He shook his head. "Tamantashar guineh." He pushed the note back to her.

"Ashera," she repeated . She opened her knapsack but was distracted. In an alley, off to the side of the merchant's stand, someone * 35 *

stood watching. A woman in a dark dress and black head scarf thrown over one shoulder seemed to study her.

The merchant's voice registered shock and an appeal to common sense. He held out his open hands to show he had nothing to hide. He was an honest man. She was ruining him. "Sittashar guineh."

"Ashera," Valerie persisted courteously.

The woman still watched from the side, intense and blatant, as no Egyptian woman would be in public. Delicate dark hands, their ngernails much lighter than the skin, were clasped in front of her.

The spice merchant lamented his debts, his ailments, his many children. "Arba'tashar guineh."

"Ashera," Valerie repeated, but could not focus on the haggling.

She kept glancing to the side at the strange woman who stared at her and would not look away.

"Itnashar." The man made his last offer.

"Ashera," Valerie droned, wondering if the woman would approach.

The merchant shrugged nally and picked up the ten-pound note.

The transaction completed, he offered his hand. The gruesome teeth appeared again as she shook hands and then packed away her bag of karkady.

Derek frowned as they stepped away from the shop. "What was that all about?"

"The usual. He assumed we were tourists and doubled the price.

I haven't got time for all that today. I paid him the going price.

Besides-"

The stranger stepped out from a doorway and blocked their path.

She looked like no other Egyptian Valerie had ever seen. Her features were sharp, her jaw and cheekbones well delineated. The long, straight nose was more Greek than Arab, and her eyes were so dark that Valerie could see no iris, only depth. Her long black hair was uncovered, conspicuous in a quarter where women wore the hijab. Under a loose black abaya, she was spare, lacking the voluptuousness of the mature Arab woman. Age and youth combined in her oddly, and she was, in a curious, severe way, stunning.

"I have something you will need," the woman said solemnly. She held up a narrow ivory box, not quite the length of her forearm, incised with a line of text and capped at both ends with gold. Attached to it by a cord was a tiny leather bag.

* 36 *

The archaeologist recognized it instantly: palette, reeds, and pigment bag, the paraphernalia of an ancient Egyptian scribe. "It is very beautiful," she replied. "But we are not looking for souvenirs, thank you."

"It is not a souvenir," the Arab woman said. She stared from fathomless eyes and laid the object in Valerie's hand.

"Yes, but..." She studied the box palette. It had the usual two wells cut at the top, with faint traces in them of the ochre and kohl pigments. Below the inkwells a column of hieroglyphics descended.

She held them up to decipher them. "'I am the instrument of Jehuti,'"

she read. "'Let each word that oweth herefrom be given life, forever.'

Interesting. It is correct New Kingdom Egyptian."

"Can I see it?" Derek took the object from her and peered at both ends of it. Suddenly the gold cap came off in his hand. "Oh my God!

Did I break it?" Horror swept across his face for a second and then relief. "Oh, but look. There's something inside." He pulled out a tube of papyrus and unrolled it. "It's got that picture writing."

Valerie looked past his arm at the text. "It's the Negative Confessions, from the Book of the Dead. Hmm. Beautiful work.

Whoever made this is really good."

Derek pursed his lips. "Who are these guys all around the edges?"

"Those are the forty-two judges. Amazing. How much is it?"

The stranger nodded in agreement, although it was not clear to what. "There is no price. It is for you alone."

"No price? You are giving this to me? Why?"

The dark woman stepped forward, until she was just inches away.

She reached out, touched the bandage delicately with the tip of a dark nger. Then she leaned in and whispered into the other ear. Valerie stood astonished, as the ache faded. The strange woman stood a moment, motionless, her hand still resting on the wound, her face close. Valerie could smell her hair, a scent vaguely like cedar, and feel the warmth that radiated from it. The woman's hip, covered by the abaya, still brushed against her faintly, ambiguously. The memory of Jameela's nude body writhing under her ashed through her mind.

Then the stranger stepped back and Valerie watched, speechless, as she turned and disappeared into the native streets.

"Well, what was that all about?" Derek exclaimed, tucking the palette into Valerie's knapsack. "What did she whisper?"

* 37 *

"She said, 'It begins now. And I will follow you.'" Valerie touched her cheek. "What do you suppose that means?"

"I don't know, girlfriend." Derek laughed, crinkling the light patches under his eyes. "But if I were you and some good-looking woman suddenly appeared and offered to follow me home, I'd be pretty turned on. Oh, that reminds me." He looked at his watch. "There's another attractive woman expecting to meet both of us in just about an hour. We better hurry up."

"Yes, of course." Valerie linked her arm in his and guided him toward the brass merchants. She looked around for any sign of the mysterious woman but saw none. Follow her home? Well, that wasn't going to happen. She had been living in a tent for the last six months.

She had no home at all.

* 38 *

CHAPTER V:.

EL FISHAWY.

Laden with packages, they made their way awkwardly around chicken crates and motorbikes into the street of the jewelers.

At the end of a row of tiny shops, all of which seemed to sell the same thing, they turned sharply to the right.

"Oh, loook!" Derek halted suddenly before an alley.

Shaded on both sides and with only a thin strip of sunlight along the middle, the street had been claimed as a coffeehouse. Clusters of men sat along the walls sipping from glasses and smoking hookahs while peddlers made their way back and forth among them. Here and there ragged children held out their small hands. Heavy mirrors in carved frames hung on both walls, doubling the images and the confusion in the street. From a radio somewhere overhead, the whiny strumming of the oud and the plaintive Koranic singing of Umme Koulsoum covered the buzz of conversation.

Valerie laid her hand on his shoulder. "This is it, Derek. El Fishawy.

The heart of the souq. Every visitor to Cairo ends up here. Let me buy you a drink, Egyptian style."