In the morning Holmes went to the conference for a short time, made the necessary notes for company leaders and returned to his room. It was hot and stuffy. He turned the conditioner on phoned to order some food and opened the “picnics”. Each time he watching the Russian “puzzle’s” pictures he saw an expression of some new sides of the reality, which sometimes exceeded all the boldest fantasies. A waiter brought the cold “pharaoh’s drink”[61] and the ice cream. Slowly sipping slightly tart drink with a delicate flavour of ripe cherry, Holmes thought about the circumstances that seemed to happen on their own but in the way as if the story he needed told itself.
He was ready to go down the hall, where Mahmud was to wait him, when suddenly phone called.
Good evening, Mr. Holmes, – the familiar voice of the deputy director Charles Harvey, – how do you do? What about the weather and pharaohs?
All is nice, thank you, Mr. Harvey. The weather is fine, in the street it is thirty above zero but in the room it’s eighteen. I didn’t visit pharaohs this time but took to the cold “pharaoh’s drink”. It allays thirst well. The conference has finished and I’m going to London on Monday.
I beg your pardon, buddy Holmes, but how do you like going a little bit southerner than Cairo?
I wonder, Harvey, if you suggested me to fly to Cape Town?
No, your guess is beside the mark, Holmes. We suggest you to visit Bombay. There are some troubles in our Indian affiliate and the Board decided that you’re the best to solve these questions. You’ve done well in Zurich and Madrid. We haven’t got but the positive reports.
Harvey, it seems that your geography is rather shy. I’ve got an impression that the Board hankers after the colonial past. If it is so, they had chosen bad candidature for their imperial ambitions realization. It’s the third week I wander and I have a plenty of things to be done in London.
It’s not the problem, Mr. Holmes. According to the covenant we cannot insist on trip to Bombay. But if your interests in India chime with “Ernst & Young’s”, we will appreciate it. Good bye, buddy Holmes. Call me if you change your opinion.
But today is Saturday, Harvey, and I have an interesting evening, – Holmes answered slightly out of place.
Holmes, you know that I don’t to keep the Sabbath. We are to decide on Monday, so call me. Have a nice evening.
Harvey hanged up. Holmes thought upon the firm’s suggestion for some time, but having glanced at the watch and realized that he was late quickly went to an elevator. Mahmud was reading a newspaper.
Good evening, Mr. Holmes, – he rose to meet him. Then having seen the guest’s worried face he asked, – Any problems?
No, Mahmud, all is right. Aren’t we late?
At yours, in England, the punctuality is a kingly virtue. But here on the East if one invited you to six p.m. he waits you to seven.
They had been slowly dodging the confused traffic consisted of cars from all over the world until they left the Old City and entered the fashionable buried in verdure district on the bank of Nile. Several times Holmes noticed that Mahmud drove through a red light.
Mahmud, why have you driven against the red light?
It’s permitted, – he answered with coolness.
And through the green? – Holmes asked with worry.
Moreover, – smiled Mahmud.
The car turned to two-storey Mauritania-style mansion and stopped near tracery gates of the beautiful fence, decorated with garlands of white rambling rose. The master himself met them and introduced Holmes to nice swarthy woman dressed in blue Indian sari.
After the dinner that consisted of half a score of various mostly vegetarian Indian dishes master invited Holmes to his luxurious study. The coffee was served and Holmes asked a permission to smoke. Then he was ready to listen for Salem’s story.
Three years ago a small group from Russia came to Cairo for the restoration of the business relations between our countries, which had been broken after August of 1991. Until 1991 I’ve got a stable business in Moscow and some other USSR cities. My furniture found a market in certain circles. But after the USSR break-up in new Russia some half-bandit structures appeared. They laid my shops under crippling tribute and thus I decided to put an end to my business in that country realizing that I was going to loose the majority of my money. The new Russian government made wide declarations to the world that the controlled economy had been demolished and the society was building the market economy. Nonetheless all the serious businessmen watched only the economy destruction in the whole Former Soviet Union. My visits to Moscow and Petersburg assured me that the pompous proclamations of the new regime were far from the economical reality, which was forming in the country. That’s why I agreed to take part in the conversation with that group. I wished to understand what really was going on in Russia, which I had always been interested in, rather than to recover some lost business.
The negotiating group was quite miscellaneous. Obviously there were those who were always looking for making a good hand of their country’s troubles. But also there were some new, at first totally inapprehensible people. They neatly told about their view on the global historical process and the Russia’s special place in it. The special place is not as an exclusive role of Russians, as for instance Hebrews understand their Peculiarity. But special since any nation’s culture, its history, traditions, customs are always unrepeatable and necessary for the integral culture of the futures united humanity formation. They also had their own view on the history of Ancient Egypt, which they considered to be the cradle of the modern Western civilization. They took a particular interest in the period of religious reforms of Ehnaton, the tenth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. According to their opinion this pharaoh even in his childhood got an afflatus about the monotheism, which he expressed in the famed hymns to Aten (Aton). They earnestly argued this version comparing the hymns to Aten with the Koran’s lines and showed their identity not only in the contention but also in rhythmic; and that impressed me greatly. The conflict between Ehnaton and Amon-Ra’s hierarchy is described in details at many historical monographs. But public used to think that it had been a conflict between a person and a religious clan. I’ve never met the versions about such conflicts between hierophants themselves, who really exercised the stable ruling of the Egyptian civilization at least for three millennia. Moreover, clearly thinking one can hardly imagine that a single man without the certain clan’s support could accomplish such religious upheaval as Ehnaton did. Aldo it’s naturally to suppose that a man like Ehnaton should have followers whose deeds couldn’t be unnoticed in the history. Another matter is how historians, who always work for a certain social ruling, presented their activity to the public opinion.
Russians consider Moses to be one of the first Ehnaton’s followers. He attempted to realize the ideas, which the monotheist pharaoh, who openly opposed the Amon-Ra’s hierarchy, was devoted to. But also they think that Moses’ project failed because it had been in advance inserted into the global hierophants’ project of keeping the atheism in people minds. As a result Moses was most likely killed during the first year of the “Sinai picnic”, which became the initial – the advertising stage of the enclosing project. And the temple’s slaves who had been a usual tribe of Semitic nomads before their capture and had gone (or been expatriated?) with Moses found themselves in a specific concentration camp as a result of work of the enclosing script. There during forty-two years an inhuman (in the whole meaning) experiment on them was held. And Moses is connected with it only because they arrogated its realization to him. And after, they raised him to the rank of the creator of the Judaism-the-result-of-history that substituted the true Afflatus.