IN THE PASSAGE, PIERCE felt Nikos freeze at the sound. For a moment, they stood motionless, listening, trying to understand what had happened.
“Barnaby?” Nikos called. “Barnaby!”
No answer.
“Try your light,” Pierce said. “Careful.”
Nikos flashed his light forward and gave a low whistle.
“What is it?”
“Get me a rope,” he said.
Pierce backed out to the anteroom and found the rope they had brought with the other tools. He carried it back to Nikos.
“What’s going on?”
“Hold this end of the rope while I go down. It’s a sunken room.”
Pierce sat down and braced himself against the walls of the passage. Nikos threw the free end of the rope out, and soon Pierce felt the weight tugging as he held the rope in his hands. In a moment, Nikos called, “All right.”
Pierce crawled forward to look through the opening.
It was a second room, empty but larger than the first, and finished smoothly. The walls were adorned with colorful hieroglyphics in long rows that reached from floor to ceiling. The passage they had crawled through entered this room, but not at floor level—instead, it broke through the wall near the ceiling. Barnaby had stepped through and fallen twenty feet to the bottom.
He lay sprawled on the ground, his flashlight alongside him. Nikos was examining him.
“How is he?”
“All right, I think. He’s breathing. He may have broken some bones. I’m not sure. We must wait until he comes around. Did we bring anything to drink?”
“No.”
Nikos reached over and rubbed Barnaby’s hands, then shook him gently. He worked in silence for several minutes, and then, Barnaby stirred. He groaned, the sound amplified by the room.
“Barnaby,” Nikos said. “How are you?”
Barnaby rolled his head back and forth and groaned again. He opened his eyes.
“How do you feel?”
“Nikos,” he said, in an astonished voice. And then, abruptly, he vomited, retching violently all over his clothes. Nikos helped him up on one elbow.
“My God,” Pierce whispered.
“Doesn’t matter,” Nikos said, glancing up at Pierce. “It happens often when a man is unconscious.”
Barnaby vomited again, a dry, ugly sound. Nothing came.
“I wish we had something to give him,” Pierce said.
Barnaby looked up, glassy-eyed. “Hello, Robert,” he said. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then groaned.
“What’s the matter?”
“I got it up my nose,” Barnaby said. “It’s awful.”
“Just sit there,” Nikos said, “while we figure out how to get you out. How do you feel? Anything broken?”
“I don’t think so. My ankle hurts, and I banged my knee when I fell. And my head feels like a watermelon. Otherwise, I’m okay.”
“Just sit,” Nikos repeated. He looked up at Pierce.
“Can you haul him up if I put the rope around him?”
“I think so.”
Barnaby started to get up, but Nikos pushed him back. “Relax. There is no hurry.”
Barnaby sat, and his eyes began to look around the walls. He was scanning the hieroglyphics rapidly, running down the columns. Color returned to his face, and Nikos offered him a cigarette.
Barnaby took it absently.
“What does it say?” Pierce asked. Barnaby shook his head slowly.
Nikos stood: “Where do we go from here?”
Barnaby said nothing. He merely sat, reading. He was mesmerized.
Up in the passage, Pierce leaned back and lit a cigarette. He was feeling strange—the three men in this brilliantly colored room were, to him, the entire world. Objectively, he knew that they were deep in the rock of the cliff, in a tomb hollowed out thousands of years ago. He knew that he had only to retrace his steps and he would find himself outside, in the air, looking at the stars and the Nile Valley. He knew that if he traveled a short distance, he would come to the Land Rover and the camp.
He knew all this, but somehow it was unimportant. “Incredible,” Barnaby said softly.
“What’s that?”
“This room. It relates the deeds of the Pharaoh Meketenre, including his war expedition against the Hyksos. He was apparently a brutal and vicious man.”
“He certainly screwed you,” Nikos said, and laughed. Barnaby seemed to return to the present, a slow process in which his eyes grew alive, focused.
“It’s going to be difficult from here on,” he said. “If this tomb is like some of the others with sunken chambers, the passage will continue up there.” He pointed up to the wall, near the ceiling.
“Nice,” Pierce said. “How do we find it?”
“It won’t be easy. The whole room has been plastered over. You can do it—but it takes time.”
“Speaking of time, we had better leave,” Nikos said. “Can you get up now?”
“I think so.” Nikos helped him up. He let out a squeal of pain as he stepped down on his bad foot; the ankle was swollen and discolored, but nothing else seemed seriously damaged.
Lisa wiped his brow with a damp cloth. “It’s all so unnecessary,” she said. Barnaby lay on his back, his face flushed, his clothes soaked with sweat. He shivered despite the heavy blankets covering him. His mouth, worked, but no words came out.
“We couldn’t avoid it,” Pierce said.
“You could have given up this wild scheme before you ever started.”
“Damnit, it was his own fault!” Pierce exploded. “He walked right out of that passage without checking first. There was nothing any of us could do to stop him.”
Lisa gripped Barnaby’s jaw tightly and slipped a thermometer under his tongue. She held it so he would not chomp down deliriously. “Well,” she said, “what now?”
“Do you think he needs a doctor?”
“Yes, I think he needs a doctor.”
“I was just asking, for Christ’s sake.”
She gave him a cold stare, and for a moment Pierce thought she was going to hit him. Then, she looked away and removed the thermometer. She held it up to the light. “One hundred and four.”
“I’ll get the Land Rover,” Pierce said.
A vacationing German doctor in Luxor pronounced the ankle broken—and insisted that Barnaby be flown to Cairo for X-rays and hospital treatment. Lisa and Pierce drove him to the airport and saw him safely onto the little plane. They watched as it climbed into the clear sky and was lost in the sun.
“I hope he’s all right,” she said softly.
“Oh, I think so.”
“I believe,” Lisa said, “that I could learn to loathe you.”
“It’s been done before.”
“You’re frustrating.”
“Sorry.”
They walked back from the runway to the taxi they had hired in town.
“Please give it up, Robert. Quit now.”
“No.”
“But I don’t understand—”
“It’s out of the question. I can’t stop now.”
She looked at him, shook her head, and sighed.
In the evening, they received a telegram forwarded through the American embassy. It was reassuring: Barnaby’s fracture was minor and would require hospitalization for only a week. Pierce felt immense relief, but Lisa, who had been gloomy and irritable all day, did not improve.
“I just think something awful is going to happen,” she said. “This is only the beginning.”
After a week, they had managed to fix a rope ladder from the passageway leading into the sunken chamber and to sling a hammock on the far wall, permitting them to search for the continuation into the depths of the tomb.
In Barnaby’s absence, Conway took over; he worked cheerfully in the hot, chalky air, whistling and talking. He told Pierce about his youth in Cincinnati, about the digs he had worked on, about his family, and about Parisian girls. They seemed to be his favorite topic. He kept returning to them.
“The greatest chick I ever knew,” he said, “was four and a half feet tall. And tough. So tough, you wouldn’t believe it. She never wore shoes, even in the middle of the winter. And she used to grind out cigarettes in her bare feet.”
Another time: “You ever had a scratcher? I mean a real claw-you-to-death scratcher? I used to know one. Named Michelle. A nice name; you’d never have guessed it. Michelle ate all sorts of things to make her fingernails strong, and when she got through with you, you had to whip over to the hospital for a transfusion, honest to God.”
And still another time: “Did I ever tell you about the lady weight lifter? She was a mean one. I picked her up on the rebound—she had accidentally broken her boyfriend’s wrist, and he left her. Well, uh, this girl used to sit around all the time, you know, in parties and places like that, and flex. She squeezed rubber balls. She lifted dumbbells. All the time…”
His supply of anecdotes seemed endless.
One night, as he chipped away at the plaster, looking for the next door, he said, “What’s going on with you and the girl?”
“What girl?” Pierce was sitting on the floor, smoking. The hammock could support only one person at a time.
“What girl?” Conway imitated him. “What girl do you think?”
“Lisa?”
“The man has a lightning-fast mind. He strikes to the very heart of the problem with the swift speed of a cougar. Yes, my man. Lisa.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well, uh, you should. You know what we talked about, those nights when I was in the camp and you were out digging?”
Pierce waited.
“You, that’s who. Hour after hour, sitting and drinking and talking—” he chipped at the rock “—about—you.”
“So what?”
“She’s crazy about you, that’s what.”
“You want me to bleed all over the floor?”
“I’m just telling you, is all.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“That’s not my problem. But the chick is crazy for you.”
“And?”
“And you’re just sitting there like a dumb American.”
“You want me to punch you in the nose?”
“I’m glad you like her,” Conway said, smiling happily. “I was worried you might not.”
“It’s nice of you to look out for her.”
“Are you kidding? Listen, I just want to set things up so she’ll change the topic of conversation. It gets boring, listening to her talk about you all night.”
Against his will, Pierce said, “What does she say?”
Conway laughed.
“Come on, damnit. You started this—what does she say?”
“She talks about the way you look. She likes your ugly face. She talks about how healthy you look. Then, some days she decided you look tired, and she worries like she was your mother. Then she tells me what you said to her that day—just reels it off, verbatim, a tape recording.”
“If you’re so interested,” Pierce said, “why don’t you get her interested in you?”
Conway shook his head: “I’m not the marrying kind.”
“Well, neither am I.”
“Ha ha.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means, ha ha. An expression of amusement.”
“Christ.” Pierce stubbed our his cigarette. “You want to let me work for awhile?”
“No, I like it up here.”
Pierce shrugged and lit another cigarette. “Confidentially,” Conway said, “I make an excellent best man. The best man is responsible for throwing the stag party the night before, and I can arrange a lulu. Particularly if you have it in Paris. I can throw you a stag party that you’ll never forget.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Pierce said.
“Also, I never forget the ring. I’m very good about that.”
“You must be getting tired. Why don’t you let me work for awhile?”
“All I ask is a chance to kiss the bride before you whiz off for the honeymoon. Now, what’s a good place for the honeymoon? Did you think of that?”
“Lord Grover’s villa on Capri,” Pierce said, irritated at the way Conway was prolonging the conversation.
“That’s the boy! That’s a great idea!” He frowned. “But what will you do afterward? You can’t keep bumming around Europe, and—”
“I don’t bum around Europe;”
“Get off my ass. You know who you’re talking to? You’re talking to an experienced bum-spotter.”
“I bum around Europe,” Pierce said dutifully.
“Right. Now, what are you going to do instead? This girl needs to settle down, have a home, some nice kids—don’t you think she’d look good pregnant? All radiant, and—”
“You must be out of your mind,” Pierce said. Conway laughed and chipped away at the wall.
“Think about it,” he said.
Two weeks passed. They managed to do the upper rim of the whole far wall and discovered nothing. Pierce felt a sagging sense of discontent fall over him again. January had passed, and they were into February. Each day, he x-ed out another day on the calendar.
Soon, they would have to quit for the summer. It was already growing warmer; by the end of March, it would be unbearable.
Nikos had caught a case of dysentery—they all had it, sporadically—so Conway and Pierce worked alone on the tomb each night. He rarely saw Lisa except at meals. Conway no longer kidded him about her, and Pierce found this disturbing. He wondered if Lisa had said anything further to him. She seemed much more friendly and open with the other two men. He had trouble speaking to her, and he avoided her eyes.
One night, they received word that Barnaby would be back in three days’ time. Nikos was feeling better, and he had a drink with Pierce in their tent.
His first words alone were, “If you don’t do something about that girl, I’ll kill you.”
Pierce was startled. “What’s the matter?”
“She’s okay,” Nikos said. “She’s a good girl. Just do something about her, will you?”
Pierce shrugged helplessly.
“Put the poor girl out of her misery. Do something for or stomp on her.” He paused, and looked down at his glass. “Alan and I will work on the tomb tonight. You stay here.”
“All right.”
“And do something, will you?”
Pierce helped them load the Land Rover in the evening and watched it drive away across the desert. He turned and walked back to the camp.
Lisa sat by the fire, poking the embers with a stick. Sparks rose in the air and were extinguished among the stars. It occurred to him as he looked at her that this was the first right they had been alone together since the expedition had begun.
He sat down and said, “Want a drink?” Very classy of you, he thought. What suave Continental charm. But she disarmed him, that was the trouble. She saw right through him.
“No thanks.”
“You seem unhappy.”
“Not really.”
“Anything I can do?”
She looked up at him and seemed about to speak, then took her head.
He went to the supply tent and mixed himself a gin and tonic. When he came back, she was still at the fire.
“Nice night,” he said.
“Do I embarrass you?”
He looked at her face in the firelight, at the dark tan and the glossy hair curving around her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You sound like Iskander.”
“A thousand heartfelt apologies.”
He bowed elaborately and lit a cigarette. A painful silence fell between them.
“I suppose there must be pictures to develop,” he said. As soon as he said it, he felt foolish, like a tongue-tied adolescent.
“Not enough to worry about.”
Another long silence. She stopped poking with the stick and sat there, very calmly, her hands in her lap.
“We’re really at odds about this, aren’t we?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “We are.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s right.”
“Why take it out on me?”
She shook her head, and looked at the fire. “I don’t know. I guess I can’t help it.”
“Now you sound like me.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” she said.
For a moment her face grew tender, and he wanted to kiss her and hold her in his arms. Then he felt a wave of irritation.
“You don’t bitch around the others.”
She frowned. “I don’t bitch around you.”
“Yes, you do. You’re needling me, all the time.”
Her voice rose. “You know it’s wrong, that’s all. Deep down, you know. It’s wrong.”
She sighed. “Why are we fighting?”
“Who’s fighting?”
“You are. You’re trying to pick a fight with me. You have been for—”
“All right,” he said. “Forget it.”
They sat in silence.
“I was looking forward to tonight,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“It has to be.”
“Just because that’s the way you want it.” She caught herself then and asked him for a cigarette. He recognized it as a trick to bring him nearer to her. He threw the pack over to her. She picked it out of the sand and lit a cigarette with a burning ember.
“Look,” he said. “You’re asking something that I just can’t give you. I’m going through with this project, and that’s all there is to it. You can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me. I’m going to rob that tomb.”
“You sound like a maniac.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You’re not.”
“All right, I’m not, then. But I am going through with it.”
“But why? Why is it so important?”
“Don’t ask me. It is.”
“Robbing an Egyptian tomb. That’s…that’s childish, it’s infantile, unreal, divorced from everything in the world. It has no relation to anything. And this elaborate plan, with all the moves and countermoves—it’s like little boys playing commando or something.”
“I’m still going through with it. And you have no right—”
“I have every right. I care about you.”
“Why pick on me? Why don’t you lecture the others? Why don’t you tell them about your schoolgirl morality, your—”
“Because I care about you.” She said it quietly.
“Listen,” he said, “from the very first day we met, from that first breakfast in Cairo, you’ve had a chip on your shoulder—”
“I’ve had a chip on my shoulder?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it is about me that you’ve hit on, but—”
“That’s not true.”
“You know it’s true. Now you’re trying to order me around, when we hardly know each other.”
“I’ve known you for months.”
“You don’t know me at all. We haven’t even—”
Her voice was sardonic: “Slept together?”
He looked down at the fire. “Well, yes, if you want to put it that way.”
“That makes a difference to you, does it?”
“Of course it does.”
“Suppose I told you I was lousy in bed. Then what would you think?”
“Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”
“You brought it up.”
“All right, I apologize.”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and flicked her cigarette into the fire. She stood up. “I’m tired,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
He suddenly felt the night around him and the isolation, the vast space stretching for miles.
“Don’t go.”
“We’re not getting anywhere,” she said. “We just seem to make things worse.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
She shook her head and walked off to her tent.