Death on Tour (4 page)
“Hard to believe that thing was once buried up to its neck in sand,” Alan was saying, as he snapped our picture.
“Would you mind taking one of us with my camera?” I asked, holding it out. Everyone promised to share pictures at the end of a tour, but most of them did not follow through.
“Oh, let’s mix it up,” said Kyla. “Alan, you come stand by me, and Jocelyn can take the picture.”
I almost laughed out loud. Alan bemusedly followed orders, and I took a very good picture of the two of them, Kyla’s dark hair streaming in the wind, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm linked casually through his.
Even before I lowered the camera, she was strolling away with him, arms still linked, chattering away. To my surprise, he looked back at me over his shoulder, his expression a perfect mixture of embarrassment and guilty pride. He almost seemed to be pleading with me to rescue him, but I decided that was just wishful thinking on my part.
I looked around to see where the rest of the group had scattered. Tom and Susan Peterson had finally caught up with their boys and were taking pictures directly in front of the Sphinx. The boys’ bright red hair exactly matched their mother’s in the sunlight, and they were laughing and making rabbit ears behind each other’s head. Near the street, the enormous figure of DJ Gavaskar still stood outside a tiny stall, surrounded by hawkers—none of whom even reached his chin—who were pushing a variety of goods in his face and all talking at the same time. He was laughing and gesturing wildly, in his element, while his wife, Nimmi, stood a few paces away with an indulgent look on her face. To my right, father and daughter Jerry and Kathy Morrison had found a low rock wall where Kathy was posing suggestively while her father took a few unenthusiastic pictures of her. I suspected she was trying to look like some sort of international supermodel posing for a fashion photographer in front of a fabulous international location, but she mainly came across as a cheap porn wannabe. Her father kept glancing around as though hoping no one was watching. For a minute, I felt almost sorry for him.
I walked slowly, taking a few pictures, but mostly thinking about Millie. Here, undistracted by camels or handsome men, the tragedy of it all began to hit me. Millie was dead, laying on a stretcher or in a drawer somewhere, covered by a sheet, never to open her eyes again, while the rest of us were carrying on as though nothing had happened. Our scheduled time at the Sphinx would be cut short by a few minutes, but that was all. The show must go on. I took a deep breath of cool air, aware of the sun on my face and the breeze in my hair, very grateful to be alive. It was a little chilling to think that it could so easily have been me instead. Well, not really, because I wasn’t foolish enough to climb onto a high place and fall, but if I had died, the tour group would have gone on just as it was doing now. Maybe Kyla would have dropped out. But the rest of them would be doing what they were doing now. And then what? A call to my parents and to my school to let them know I wouldn’t be back. A few people would be sorry. My mom would probably claim my fat little poodle from the kennel. And that would be that. Life would go on, just not with me. I wondered who would be mourning Millie and hoped there was someone. Feeling sorry for Millie and maybe a little for myself, I turned around, looking for Kyla, who never, ever, had morbid thoughts and who would provide a much needed kick in the pants.
Kyla was still strolling with Alan, but our guide, Anni, held court a few yards away, talking about the Sphinx and its long and mysterious past, so I decided to join the group. Anni was far more than the average tour group leader. She was, in fact, a legitimate Egyptologist with a degree from Alexandria University. She had a lovely carrying voice, and she was talking about the Turks using the Sphinx as target practice in the late 1700s to a riveted audience consisting of Ben and Lydia Carpenter, Dawn and Keith Kim, and the octogenarians Charlie and Yvonne de Vance. Charlie had one hand cupped around his ear and was leaning forward at a precarious angle.
“The facts about the Sphinx are fascinating enough, but there is a mystery told as well. Some archaeologists have said that the erosion that you see, particularly on the body, was not caused by wind and sand, but by water. It is true that Egypt was not always a desert land. This would mean that the Sphinx is far, far older than the pyramids themselves and was not built as a guardian of the tombs, but rather that the pyramids were built here because of the protection offered by the Sphinx.” Anni looked at us with a sparkle in her eye.
“But you don’t believe that, surely?” asked Charlie, not quite certain whether she was joking or not.
“No, of course not, but it is still interesting, is it not? And it is true that for many hundreds of years, the body of the Sphinx was buried by the desert where it could not have been eroded by either water or wind, so how did it become so worn?”
We all looked up in silence at the enormous, weather-beaten figure, with its high cheekbones, stiff headdress, and serene expression. The face was pockmarked with bullet holes, the cheeks crumbling and scarred, but it still exuded the power its creators originally intended.
Anni smiled, then glanced at her watch. “And now, we should return to the bus.” Running her eyes over our group, she handed Hello Kitty to Keith Kim. “Will you hold this and stand just over there? I will try to gather the others.”
As soon as the pink umbrella unfolded in the crisp air, the group began gathering. Which meant Anni only needed to round up Flora and Fiona, who were nowhere to be seen. As I’d predicted, the Peterson boys were the first on the bus, happy and out of breath from racing each other to the steps. Kyla was one of the last on the bus, and she flopped down beside me with a pensive look on her face. I followed her fixed gaze and saw that Alan had stopped to speak with Anni. I’d fully expected to have the seat to myself while she joined Alan in his. Had he purposely given her the slip at the last minute, or had random circumstances separated the two of them? I began digging through my purse when he finally climbed the steps of the bus. For some reason, I didn’t think I could bear seeing him staring like a faithful puppy at Kyla.
A couple of hours later, after visiting the Step Pyramid and the Alabaster Sphinx, we stopped to see a demonstration of the making of hand-knotted silk carpets. This type of thing was part of the price you paid for being on a tour. Under the guise of a learning experience, the tour company ensured we were a captive audience for a very persuasive sales pitch. I was immune by virtue of previous tour group experience and the fact that I had no money.
By scrimping on everything for two years, right down to the shampoo I used and the brand of peanut butter I chose, I’d managed to save just enough from my teacher’s salary to cover this trip. I knew it was a luxury I really couldn’t afford, but it was my reward to myself for making it through the divorce, a spectacularly cliché event that could have come right out of a Dear Abby column. Boy meets nice girl. Boy marries girl. Boy meets slut. Boy turns into giant asshole. Nice girl throws giant asshole out. End of marriage, end of story. She wasn’t even younger or prettier, but she was definitely sexier, from the low-cut silk blouses to the tramp stamp at the base of her spine. I had been devastated, stupid me. But I wasn’t a pushover, and Texas is a community property state. So, when things got surprisingly ugly, especially considering we had no children, I promised myself that when it was all over, I would do something just for myself, and traveling was one of the many things Mike had vetoed during our short marriage. I chose Egypt because I’d wanted to see the pyramids since I was a kid and because Mike had once said he would rather get an ice water enema than go. And now here I was in Egypt, and I could only hope that Mike was getting his wish too. Multiple times. But there was definitely no room in my budget for expensive handwoven carpets.
We stood in a distressingly modern building that would have been unremarkable in a corner of a Walmart parking lot. Fluorescent lights blazed overhead, illuminating the multicolored rugs that lay in enormous stacks on the floor, like giant limp decks of cards. In one corner, two very young girls tied knots onto the warp threads of a giant loom. Their hands moved with breathtaking speed as they tied the shimmering strands into place. The colors could have come from the Nile itself, pale blues, delicate greens, pearly grays. The owner of the shop, a lean older man with quick smug eyes, explained that they learned this craft after school, and it would bring a very good income to them when they were certified. Watching them critically, he added that they were judged on the uniformity of their knots and the speed at which they worked. Looking at the tense lines of their small shoulders, I wondered how they could bear the combination of stress and tedium.
As the presentation began winding down, a pack of young Egyptian salesmen began circling like wolves, and by the time we were told to meet back at the bus in half an hour they were already beginning the process of cutting the weak from the herd. A very handsome young man watched Kyla and me with an unsettling intensity, and we purposely lingered beside the loom, hoping he would go away. As a cover, we pretended to be interested as Yvonne de Vance asked some technical questions about the weaving. She was about a hundred years old and her rickety little husband, Charlie, was even older, so I’m not sure why she cared enough to waste some of the few minutes she had left with esoteric questions.
Charlie de Vance gave a huge chuckle. “Which ones fly? I want to see one of them magic carpets.”
The owner of the shop threw back his head and let out the hearty guffaw of someone who has heard a very weak joke for the thousandth time. I felt my toes curl with embarrassment, but he seemed quite unfazed.
“All of our carpets are magical, but you must take them home with you before they will work,” he said with a wink.
Charlie looked delighted. “Good line, son. What do you say, Yvonne? Want to see what they’ve got?”
Interrupted in her interrogation of the young girl, Yvonne gave him a sour look that rapidly softened into affection as she noted his eager expression. She took his arm and they tottered willingly into the clutches of an overeager young salesman.
The owner, a large man in western dress, stopped beside Kyla and me. “I hope you are enjoying your visit to Egypt,” he said.
“Yes, very much,” I smiled.
“You are sisters, yes? I noticed the likeness right away. Very beautiful sisters.”
“Not sisters,” Kyla said shortly. “Cousins.”
“Ah, cousins,” he beamed. “Very nice indeed.” He moved on.
Kyla glared after him. “Sisters!” she snorted. “I will never understand it. We don’t look anything alike at all.”
We did, of course. However, Kyla knew deep in her soul that she was unique, and it was one of her pet peeves to be compared to me. If pressed, she would admit that a stranger might be induced to believe that we shared a distant relative on some obscure branch of the family tree, but only if he were blind or drunk or probably both.
From long experience, I knew the right thing to say to stave off a full-blown rant. “He was just making conversation, and after all, we’re about the same age and height. Although you are far prettier and more stylish and better in every way than I am. I’m sure it was just a natural mistake, and he should be allowed to live.”
Kyla turned a cold eye on me, but then grinned. “All right, but it better not happen again.”
The boyish salesman with the intense eyes was circling ever closer. Kyla took one look at him and darted away, leaving me hesitating alone just one moment too long. He pounced.
“Do you not like our carpets? They are very special. No one else in the world makes them like we do.” His English was accented, but otherwise almost perfect.
I smiled and shook my head. “They are very beautiful, but I am not able to buy anything today. You would be much better off finding someone else to help.”
“No, no,” he assure me. “It does not matter if you buy. We are delighted to have visitors learn more about our beautiful carpets. You do not need to buy. It is an honor to see such a very pretty lady in our shop. Very pretty. Tell me, are you married?” He smiled and looked directly into my eyes.
“No,” I answered, puzzled. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was flirting. Without thinking, I touched my thumb to the inside of my left ring finger where my wedding bands had been for so long. They now rested at the bottom of Town Lake in Austin, Texas. I could have sold them, but watching the way they flashed in the sun just before they vanished into the blue water had been worth any price I could have obtained. Moreover, Mike had been trying to get them back in the divorce to make some sort of point, and I wanted them beyond his reach forever. After he knew they were gone, he actually claimed they had belonged to his grandmother and had priceless sentimental value. That fell apart when I pulled out the receipt from Zales. He had always kept good records.
The salesman was still talking. “That is impossible. A beautiful lady like you. Well, if you are not married then that is my good fortune. Will you marry me? I assure you, I would be the happiest man in the world.”
I started laughing. Of all the ridiculous things. A thirty-second courtship. It had to be a world record. And he was almost young enough to be one of my students—one of the more brazen ones. He smiled a very charming smile.
“At least allow me to show you the difference between the finest silk rugs and the less costly wool,” he said quickly and started herding me away. “Even if you do not buy, you will know what to look for when you return.”
I gave a smile and tried to escape. “I would love to look at your beautiful rugs, but we aren’t going to be coming back. In fact, we’re leaving tomorrow. You really should find somebody else to help.”
“Ah, no, no. I do not care if you buy. One day you will return to Egypt and you will remember.” We stopped beside a huge pile of rugs resting on the floor, and he pulled one off the top. “Look at this one. Do you see the colors? The rich shades. You will not find anything like this in your country. Tell me, where are you from? Utah, perhaps? I have heard many things about Utah.”