Tutankhamun Uncovered (24 page)

The tomb and temple complex of the step pyramid is surrounded by a great wall outside of which at this time stood a rest house for the use of personnel engaged in the business of the Antiquities Service. While it was only a relatively short trail from the flood plain of the river across the sand to Saqqara, the effects of the alcohol taken at breakfast, the bright midday sun, and the uncomfortable barrel backs of the donkeys sorely tried the young Frenchmen’s endurance. They reached the door to the rest house and dismounted. They quickly surrounded the bearer who had walked all the way carrying the tea chest on his bent back. They pushed him before them through the open front door.

The ticket inspector sitting inside watched aghast as they wrestled the box to the floor and drew out four bottles of wine. Mohammed plucked up the courage to speak. “Sirs,” he began, “you cannot stay here. This is not a public place.”

“Nonsense,” reacted Jacques. “We are ‘antiquaries’, not ‘public’!”

“Do you have the wherewithal, Jacques?” asked one of the group as he pinned a bottle between his knees.

“Indeed I have it!” He produced a silver corkscrew from the pocket of his dusty jacket.

The bottles were opened and the bread was placed on the ticket collector’s table. Jacques dove deeply once more into the tea chest and with a flourish produced the tin of Brie. From another pocket, to the cheers of his watching colleagues, he brandished a can opener.

Two minutes and the feast was all before them. Jacques cut the Brie into cakelike slices with the tin lid, broke the bread, and took a first swig of wine from one of the bottles.

Overcome by numbers, Mohammed sat and watched as the men sat round on the floor passing the bread, cheese and wine between them. The ‘pop’ of another cork was heard every fifteen minutes or so, and with each of these the conversation grew louder. After about half a dozen bottles had been consumed the noise perceptibly softened.

Georges picked his moment to speak. “Gentlemen. If I may call you such!” Much laughter. “We came here not to picnic in the desert, I believe.” More laughter. “We came here to see things. Great things. Sights most Frenchmen may not even dream of witnessing. And,” he raised his voice, “in the footsteps of Napoleon!”

“Borring!” Shouted one member of the group.

“Vive l’Emperor!” yelled Jacques as he leapt to his feet.

Bedlam broke out. Jacques led the group in a stylised march about the tiny room, loudly clomping his boots on the wooden floor. Someone carelessly kicked over an open bottle of wine and the mock parade came to an abrupt halt. Jacques whisked the bottle up before too much had spilled and gurgled a long draught before sitting himself down again and setting it upright on the floor beside him.

Georges took advantage of a break in the general clamour to address himself to the ticket collector. “Monsieur le Ticket Collector,” he began, “we are antiquaries and we wish to see the Serapeum. At once, if you please.”

“Sirs,” said Mohammed, not a little nervous at coming to the attention of fourteen young, strong, rowdy and obviously careless European trespassers. “You... You must first purchase tickets.” And he raised an example high for all to see.

“How much, my friend?” asked Jacques.

Mohammed’s answer was almost inaudible above the cries of the others.

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“That much to see a pile of rubble?”

Georges tried to quiet his colleagues, but Jacques pulled himself to his feet and turned to face him. “Georges, the man is just trying it on. These Arabs love to bargain. We shall have some fun.” He looked at Mohammed. “I will offer you, for all of us...”

Mohammed broke in at the top of his voice. “Fixed price, sir. The money goes to the Antiquities Service, sir. I have no control over it. Everyone pays the same price. No one enters the monuments without paying the fee.”

There was further shouting and much waving of arms. Finally, Georges advanced out of the crowd towards the ticket collector and paid over the money.

“This is sufficient only for eleven tickets, sir.” said Mohammed quietly.

“This is all the money we have, Monsieur. Surely it is enough for all of us?”

“I am sorry, sir. You have paid for eleven and eleven may see the monuments. Three will have to wait outside.”

“Come on. We’re going.” Jacques grabbed Georges’s arm and pulled him from the room and into the sunlight. The remainder followed, some carrying a bottle or two of wine.

“You got the tickets?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go. No one’s going to care about a few extra once we get there.”

The group moved off along the gravel track that led to the Serapeum. The key master took off running ahead of them, his white robe gathered up between his flailing legs to help him in his frantic scramble to reach the doorway first and execute his official duties. It was almost a kilometre to the subterranean mausoleum and he had to stop frequently to catch his breath. But the donkeys were in no hurry.

The Frenchmen, uninitiated in the archaeology of the area, variously expressed their impatience at being traipsed around a ruined wall and into an apparently empty desert wasteland beyond and away from what they could clearly see were antiquities of massive proportions.

“Where the hell are we going, Georges?” cried Ferdinand, a tall, skinny youth without a perceptible chin. “It’s all back there!” He vigorously gestured over his shoulder. His weight suddenly and carelessly redistributed on the top of a rolling barrel and his reactions dulled by the wine, Ferdinand immediately lost his balance and fell unceremoniously to the ground. Amid uncompromising laughter from his colleagues, he picked himself up and struggled back onto his donkey.

The gaffir, in the meantime, had reached the Serapeum and positioned himself at the threshold, panting heavily. The following Frenchmen arrived presently, dismounted and clustered closely about him. Impatiently they thrust their tickets into his hand, some being momentarily withdrawn and then resubmitted. In the confusion, his ability to count the number who passed was impaired, let alone check the number of tickets he was receiving.

Mohammed was left frantically counting the tickets he had received as Jacques propelled himself down the steps of the entrance to the Serapeum. He forced open the door, tearing the padlock from its loosely secured bolts. All could now enter freely and, like swarming bees entering a new hive, they charged down the stairs. By the time the gaffir had reconciled the numbers, the tourists had disappeared into the darkness below.

Jacques, in the lead, sprinted down the entrance corridor. He could not see his footing, nor anything ahead of him and, weaving somewhat from his self-induced lack of balance, he soon tripped over some masonry that had long since fallen from the vaulted ceiling and fell headlong. His foolishly precipitous dash came to an abrupt end as his head smartly connected with a wall. The shock of the impact half dazed him, but at least for the moment the alcohol mercifully suppressed the pain. Then the noise of the others dashing in behind him added to his temporary confusion. It was not until all of them had caught up with him that his senses began to return.

A still silence followed, all the quieter it seemed for the lack of pandemonium that had preceded it. Each of the Frenchmen stared into the noiseless blackness. They waited for their eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Nothing appeared not the faintest change of contrast, not the slightest definition of the walls, the ceiling, or the floor. They hung there, it seemed, in black space.

Jacques, now sitting up on the rock floor of the corridor, was first to break the silence. “My God! I can’t see. I am blind! I am cursed! My God!”

“Be quiet, Jacques,” yelled Ferdinand. “Don’t be so damned hysterical. None of us can see anything.”

“My God!!” screamed Jacques. “We’re all blind!”

“Stupid bastard. Turn around and look back,” said Georges.

Back up the long, straight passage a thin shaft of light extended along one wall towards them, gradually dimming as it neared. The dust that had been thrown up by their dash into the cavity continued to tumble in the stale atmosphere and sparkled in the sunlight.

“Thanks be to God!” exclaimed Jacques. “What a moment I have lived through!”

“The gaffir will have candles. In our hurry to escape him we forgot to pick them up,” said Georges. “We must return to the entrance.”

They didn’t have to go far. As they filed out of the passage the worried gaffir bustled towards them carrying a torch.

“Meusieurs. Meusieurs!” he shouted. “Three of you have not given me tickets. Everyone who enters must have a ticket. I am responsible to see to this. Please. Your tickets, please!”

Jacques, now quite recovered, shouted back. “What’s the use in paying for tickets if there is no light to see by, fool? Bring us lamps, candles whatever ‘le Service’ provides. At once! You can give us your torch for starters.” And he made a grab for it.

The gaffir had the presence of mind to extinguish the firebrand before the Frenchman got a grip. “Messieurs, we do not have these things. You must provide your own lighting. There are notices. Now, I need the money from the three people who have not paid.”

Jacques took the man by the shoulders, pushed him backwards up the steps and into the sunlight and pinned him against the wall. “If you do not provide lighting, my friend, it will be the worse for you, and there will be no money for any tickets. We want our money back!”

A fairly severe shaking began. As his head thumped against the stones a third time, the gaffir yelled for help.

His colleague had been watching not far distant. He could see that things appeared to be getting a little rough for his friend and he scurried over to the entrance to the Serapeum as fast as his legs could carry him. Jacques continued to thrust the gaffir back and forth against the wall. After some fearful hesitation, Mohammed’s colleague plucked up the courage to reach out and grasp the elbow of the agitated Frenchman. With little control left a combination of alcohol and a not insufficient dose of French guile Jacques wheeled round and elbowed the unfortunate rescuer in the face, dislodging his head cloth and knocking it to the ground. Singing a strident but unintelligible French battle song, he proceeded to stamp disrespectfully all over the fallen headgear until it became little more than a tattered, sweat soaked, sandy rag.

Although the gaffir was his kith and kin, his friend, hurting from the blow to his face, wished he had not tried to intervene. For better or for worse likely worse he was in the thick of it now, and greatly outnumbered by foreigners; by nonsense; and by social position. But he was the head man of the keepers at Saqqara and must attempt to bring some authority to the occasion. He rejoined the mêlée and jumped onto the upturned tea chest. From this makeshift pulpit he addressed the group. “Gentlemen, please listen to me.”

The noise died. The faces of fourteen young Frenchmen in various stages of inebriation turned to look up at the gaunt, cloaked figure perched precariously above them. With the sun at the reis’s back, his thin body stood out jet black against the fine, flowing white linen of his clothing. Standing assertively astride the tea chest, the reis prepared to address the multitude below. The fragile wooden frame wobbled uneasily beneath him and he adjusted his footing to steady himself. He began to speak.

To all who gazed up at him, backlit as he was by the setting sun, it was clear that the reis wore no underwear as was the custom in these parts. The dangling appendage and the adjoining ragged cluster were crisply picked out in silhouette and without dignity hanging there for all to see.

There was a short almost reverent silence. Mohammed, observing the situation for himself, frantically gestured to the reis to get down. Then, shrieks of laughter. The poor reis could only conclude that the Frenchmen were so drunk they were unable to comprehend the gravity of the situation. He raised his hands in the air, shouting to them to be silent.

As the reis maintained this evangelical posture, Jacques fell to his knees in the dust and raised his arms towards him in mock worship. “I see the light!” he exclaimed. “The prophet has balls!”

Mohammed leapt up and elbowed the reis behind the knees. The Arab lost his balance and jumped to the ground. Wishing desperately to defuse the situation Mohammed pressed the foreign multitude to return to the Service house so the entire matter could be discussed and hopefully settled in a calmer environment and, better still, under the authority of ‘Monsieur l’Inspecteur’.

The amusement finally over, the giggling group followed the gaffir back to the house. As they chattered their way on donkey back, the reis ran off to find the Inspector.

Howard Carter was at the time explaining the finer points of Egyptian irrigation methods to two young, unmarried ladies attended by Arthur Weigall. One of the two, it appeared to his company but not to Carter himself, had taken rather a shine to the stoic and starchy little man.

As he described the irrigation network in the fields and gestured towards the river, the reis came into view panting down the track towards them, robe flowing, legs flailing.

“Monsieur l’Inspecteur! Monsieur l’Inspecteur!” he gasped. “There is much trouble at the rest house. Mohammed has been struck by a Frenchman, and some have not paid, and others are demanding their money back, and there is much noise, and they are drinking, and they are saying very bad words to us, and we have done only our duty, and...”

“Ali! Ali!” Carter broke in. “Calm yourself. Be still. Explain this to me slowly, please.”

“You must come. You must come at once!” Ali tugged at Carter’s sleeve.

Seeing that the man was far too agitated to calm down, Carter turned to Weigall and the ladies. “Ladies... Weigall, old man. Sorry about this but it looks like this little matter requires my immediate attention. Forgive me for having to cut short our chat. I will join you for a drink later tonight at your hotel.” And, doffing his hat, he took his leave and walked briskly after the reis.

By the time Carter arrived at the rest house, the Frenchmen had barricaded themselves inside and were applying all their energies to berating the gaffir in pursuit of their money. Not that it was, when all said and done, really about money at all, but more about a bunch of belligerent Europeans having a smashing good time.