“We must not be separated,” Schmidt insisted. “If by chance one of us is, she must return immediately to the entrance and wait.”
“What do you mean, she?”
“She or he,” Feisal said. “That goes for you too, Schmidt. All right, I think that covers the main points. The rest is in the hands of God.”
After dinner we went back upstairs to collect our gear. Schmidt left his bedroom door open, so when I heard him talking I felt no compunction about eavesdropping. I had no difficulty in deducing that it was Suzi on the other end. He kept saying “no” and “but” and sputtering.
“Where is she?” I asked, once he had broken the connection.
“In Luxor. She would not tell me where she is staying. She is not pleased with me. She asked why I did not inform her about Ali.”
“She’s really on top of things, isn’t she? What else?”
“She tells me nothing,” Schmidt said angrily. “It is all reproaches and demands and complaints. I am through with her. Gott sei Dank that I found out what sort of woman she was before I—er—”
“Oh, Schmidt,” I said. “Were you about to propose? I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize matters had gone that far.”
Schmidt squared his shoulders, insofar as they were capable of that shape. “There are other women in the world. I will forget her. Go, Vicky, and get ready to leave.”
“I am ready. Don’t I look respectable enough?”
Head on one side, Schmidt studied my ensemble, which was neat if not gaudy—navy pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt, sneakers (blue) and a (blue-and-green) striped scarf. “I like it better when you wear a pretty dress. But for tonight’s adventure, perhaps trousers are more suitable. A shawl, perhaps? The nights grow quickly cold.”
Picturing myself in a fringed shawl, I was moved to mirth. “Shawls are nuisances, Schmidt, they catch on things and slide off.”
“A jacket, then. Something,” said Schmidt pointedly, “with pockets.”
His jacket had plenty of them—another of those archaeologist-type garments. Many of the pockets bulged.
“What have you got in there?” I demanded, indicating the bulgiest pocket.
“A flashlight. Here is one for you.”
“Not a bad idea, Schmidt. Thanks.”
Before I could pursue my inquiries, Schmidt made shooing gestures. “Put it away and let us be off. We should arrive early in order not to miss Ashraf.”
T he moon was gibbous. Now there’s a word that resonates: gibbet, giblet, gibbering…
It means not quite full. Perfectly harmless word. And support for my hypothesis, that Ashraf had ordered the temple opened for purposes of his own. Full moon was the traditional time, when the brilliant Egyptian moonlight is at its brightest. There would be a lot of dark in there tonight.
Feisal had been rude enough to suggest that maybe Ashraf’s motive for violating tradition was personal or, as Schmidt would have said, romantic. He was a busy man, and if the lady he wanted to captivate had an equally full schedule (with, let us say, a husband), Ashraf would have to improvise.
“That’s disgusting,” I scolded. “Shame on you for implying Ashraf is a philanderer.”
“What a ladylike vocabulary you have,” Feisal scoffed. “And what a naive mind. Ashraf has women hanging off him.”
“Tsk, tsk,” said Schmidt. “He is a married man, is he not?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
Schmidt said, “Tsk, tsk.”
The last Son et Lumière attendees were leaving the temple when we got out of the taxi and headed for the entrance. Schmidt pulled me aside into the shadow of a sphinx—there was a row of them on either side of the path—and indicated two people going in the other direction.
“Suzi!” he hissed.
“Which one?” They were about the same height, wearing the unisex uniform of jeans and shirts, baseball caps and sneakers. I heard a fragment of what sounded like Swedish from one. The other laughed and put his or her arm around her or him. “Now you’re getting paranoid, Schmidt. Come on.”
The last of the lights inside the enclosure went out, leaving only a single source of illumination at the entrance. A uniformed guard was dragging a barricade across the opening. “The temple is closed,” he intoned.
I expected Schmidt to greet him by name, but apparently Schmidt didn’t know absolutely everybody in the world. The guard recognized Feisal, though, and when Schmidt announced himself, the guard nodded. “Yes, Dr. LeBlanc has given your name. This lady is with you? Enter.”
We passed through a pyloned gateway into an open court. It was a clutter of shapes. Column bases, more sphinxes, slabs of carved stone, and broken statues were outlined in black by the gibbous moon. A few dark forms moved slowly in and out of the shadows. There wasn’t a sound except for the faint crunch of gravel under our feet. When Schmidt let out a shout, I jumped clear off the ground.
One of the featureless forms trotted toward us and turned into a neat little man with a neat little goatee and neat gold-rimmed glasses. He and Schmidt embraced and exchanged enthusiastic exclamations in French. Schmidt introduced me and LeBlanc kissed my hand. His goatee tickled, but I didn’t mind. I like having my hand kissed.
“And you know Feisal, of course,” Schmidt went on.
Feisal got kissed on both cheeks. Very French and also very Egyptian.
“Feel free to go where you like,” LeBlanc said, speaking English for my benefit. “I would offer to show you around, but you know the temple as well as I, if not better.”
“You will want to greet your other guests,” Schmidt said. “Who else will be here?”
LeBlanc mentioned several names, none of which was familiar to me. “And the secretary general, of course. Without him I could not have arranged this favor.”
“Aha!” The word just popped out of me.
“Pardon?”
“Sorry. I was thinking of—of something else.”
“And why not?” LeBlanc smiled. Gold teeth matched his gold spectacle frames. “It is a spot for mystery and magic, for romance, for dreams. Enjoy!”
“See what I mean?” Feisal hissed into my ear. “In a setting like this Ashraf could have his wicked way with any female.”
“Not me.” I shivered involuntarily. “I can feel eyes, all those empty stone eyes, staring. Who’s that?”
Feisal followed my gesture. “Ramses the Second.”
“A dead king,” I muttered. “Dead kings, staring.”
“They couldn’t care less,” Feisal said. “Pull yourself together, Vicky. We’ve got to locate Ashraf.”
I pulled myself together and poked Schmidt, who was staring dreamily at Ramses the Second, who stared stonily back. “This is hopeless, Schmidt. I remember the plan of Karnak; it’s vast, enormous, unending. How are we going to find one man in all this?”
“‘Man tut was man kann,’” said Schmidt. Then, believe it or not, he giggled. “Tut! Tut!”
Feisal growled and I said, “I hope you didn’t do that on purpose.”
“No, no, it was a fortuitous joke, you understand. The quotation means, ‘One does what one can,’ and the German verb form ‘tut’ is the third-person—”
“We get it, Schmidt. Lead on.”
Schmidt led the way past Ramses (a much smaller figure next to him was female, presumably his queen) and through another gateway into a forest of stone. I had been in the Hypostyle Hall once before, but that had been in the daytime. At night, with only the moon to light them, the towering columns were even more overpowering. We were midgets, insects, next to those mammoth shapes. They surrounded us and diminished us. A few other insects crawled in and out of sight among them.
My idea of romance is a cozy little room with a fire on the hearth and a lot of soft cushions and a bottle of something on ice. Or maybe a secluded pool, surrounded by palms and hibiscus and vines waving gently in a tropical breeze. Or maybe…Whatever it was, it wasn’t a big dark stony place where the shadows whispered words I couldn’t quite hear.