Page 25

Annie

Annie did her best to stay out of the way of the technicians and staff pressed into a small room in the basement of the hospital. Unlike the Egyptian Museum, the hospital very much belonged in the twentieth century, the floors pristinely clean, with walls the color of snow. She watched as Charlotte directed the positioning of the canopic box onto the bed of the CT scanner, which resembled some kind of space-age torture machine. Omar had promised it would give them a full picture of whatever was inside the box—as well as an “inside view” of the mummies—without having to pry open the lid or make any incisions.

Having spent several days practically glued to Charlotte’s side, Annie had come to understand that the curator had two different dispositions. One was relentless and single-minded, insisting that the workers at Luxor who packed up the mummy support the bent arm with extra padding, barging into antiques stores and shoving that sad, ripped photograph into the salespeople’s faces. Then there were times when Charlotte thought she wasn’t being watched—like looking out at the city of Cairo from the taxi—that her face went soft and the hint of the young, vulnerable woman she once had been broke through her defenses.

Compared to Charlotte, Annie had barely lived at all. So far, this trip had been a lesson in pushing forward even when nothing was going your way, of being brave. Like the story of Charlotte and the Bedouin and the snakebite. What would Annie have done if someone with a cobra bite asked for her help? Fainted, most likely.

She wanted to be the type of person who didn’t let the emotional craziness of others get in the way of her dreams. She wanted to be like Charlotte, striding along the streets of Luxor and Cairo, waving her arms and raising her voice when someone bumped into her or a waiter refused to give them a decent table. Sure, once Annie had gotten them a cab by stepping into traffic, but that was driven by a mix of jet lag and desperation.

Annie loved how physically expressive the Egyptians were, whether greeting an old friend or fighting over a parking spot. Or even deciding which way to place a canopic box on a stretcher to be scanned, which seemed to be a bone of contention at the moment. The technicians, Omar, and Charlotte all appeared to have strong opinions on the matter, and finally, after much discussion, they agreed to lay it on its back. Then they were all herded into an adjoining room where several monitors were set up behind a glass window.

Omar stood next to Annie.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“This will take a series of X-rays of the object, slices, if you will”—he made a motion with his hands to demonstrate—“and when they’re all put together, they will give us a virtual three-dimensional view of the object.”

“Why can’t you just force the box open and look inside?”

“The viscera inside were preserved using a resin that ended up gluing the lid shut. This way we won’t have to damage anything.”

As the images began appearing on the monitors, Omar used a pen to point out what he believed was a liver. The grayish image reminded Annie of a cow’s tongue. She was glad she hadn’t eaten a big breakfast that morning.

Charlotte gestured to a small white object on the scan, near the bottom of the box. “What do you think that is?” she asked.

Omar studied it and conferred with the technicians. “Something solid. A bone, maybe?”

“It’s a tooth.” Annie didn’t realize how loudly she’d spoken until everyone turned around to stare at her. Heat rushed to her face at having interrupted the experts’ deliberations. She shrugged. “I had my wisdom teeth out earlier this year.”

The technician turned back and nodded his head. “She could be right,” he said in English.

“An oral surgeon!” cried Omar. “Get me an oral surgeon, right away!”

Not long after, one appeared. Omar and Charlotte explained to him what they were doing, and the man leaned in close to the monitor and studied the image. Using a pen, he pointed to a long tendril that extended from the object, and said something in Arabic that got everyone excited.

Charlotte waved Annie over. “You were right, it’s a molar,” she explained. “Do you know what this means?”

“That Hathorkare ate too many sweets?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “If the tooth in Hathorkare’s canopic box matches a missing molar in one of the mummies’ mouths, then it’s more than likely that mummy is Hathorkare. It would be a way to definitively identify her, and the fact that this molar has only one root will help narrow the location down.”

All this discussion of missing teeth was making Annie’s own mouth ache.

“The other clue will be the size,” continued Charlotte. “Right now, the technician is measuring the tooth, and then we’ll scan each of the mummies’ jaws and see what we find.”

It was nice to see Charlotte distracted from her hunt for her daughter, even though Annie knew they’d be right back to it once the scan was over. And what a distraction. The box was removed from the scanner and then, very carefully, the mummy with the folded arm was lifted from the crate and laid gently on the scanner bed. Charlotte hovered over the handlers, urging them to take care, as if the mummy were a living human being. Its thin locks of reddish hair shone under the bright fluorescent lights. The neck was slim, the cheekbones jutted out, and the lips were slightly parted, as if the mummy were about to comment on the indignity of her current situation. Annie already considered the mummy a female, which she knew was a big assumption, but there was no question she emanated a grisly beauty, with her narrow chin and high cheekbones.

Once again, everyone waited as the CT scan was activated. The room remained silent the entire time, and Annie prayed that the tooth would prove Hathorkare’s identity, for Charlotte’s sake, since Charlotte’s search for her husband and daughter so far had been fruitless. At least this way she could go back to New York with an archaeological triumph, and a major one at that.

Finally, the scan was completed. Annie made her way closer to Charlotte in order to be nearby in case the results were disappointing. She felt responsible, in a way. After all, she was the one who’d accidentally found the canopic box and stirred everything up.

Charlotte took her hand and gave her a quick smile. Annie squeezed her hand back. There was always the second mummy. If this one didn’t match, then maybe the other would.

The technician zoomed in on the image of the mummy’s jaw. Annie wasn’t a dentist, but it sure looked like the mummy was missing more than a few teeth. On the screen, the technician’s cursor blinked beside a whitish tendril that trailed down from a space at the back of the mummy’s jaw, like the tentacle of a jellyfish. One tendril, not two. Annie held her breath. He pressed a bunch of keys on the computer that allowed him to measure the empty space above the tendril from many different angles, then murmured back and forth with the oral surgeon. Then they huddled with Omar.

The room remained perfectly silent.

Finally, Omar turned and addressed the assembled group. “That space”—he pointed to the scan—“is where a molar once was. You can see here that there is still one root remaining in the gum. The tooth that is in the canopic box was measured to be 1.74 millimeters wide. The space in the jaw of this mummy is 1.8 millimeters wide. According to Dr. Aziz, that can be considered a perfect match.”

A perfect match.

They’d done it. Annie and Charlotte had discovered the mummy of the ancient Egyptian female pharaoh Hathorkare.

Applause and cheers broke out. Omar raised his voice to be heard.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you with Hathorkare, the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.”

A roar of excitement rose up from everyone present, but it was drowned out by the sound of something exploding. A blinding green-yellow light flashed from the examination room, as powerful as a beam from a lighthouse. Annie turned away, covering her face with her hands, certain that the CT scanner must have blown up. When she opened them, she noticed Charlotte staring into the examination room, her mouth slightly opened, eyes wide, as if she hadn’t even blinked.

“What happened?” Annie asked.

Charlotte didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge Annie’s question, as Omar and two members of the technical staff rushed into the room with the scanner. Luckily, all was in order. The mummies were safe; the equipment was intact. “Probably an electrical surge,” Omar said.

Next to her, Charlotte shook her head slowly, as if she was still in shock.

“Are you okay?” asked Annie.

“I think I’m better than okay,” she answered finally, a peculiar look on her face. “I think I’m going to be just fine.”

The group in the CT scanning room finally dispersed after much backslapping and congratulations. Omar had a smile so wide Annie thought his face might break, and she understood why. They’d accomplished an enormous feat by identifying Hathorkare. Annie caught one last look at the queen as she was being lifted off the CT scan machine and placed back inside the packing crate. To think this was the woman who walked the earth thousands of years ago, ordering temples to be built and ruling all of Egypt. Her bent limb was like an act of defiance, as if she’d raised her arm to fight off the high priests who had wrapped her in linen before burying her in a gloomy tomb.

“You did it!” she said to Charlotte.

Charlotte shook her head as if to pull herself out of a trance. “Wow. Yes. Funny how you can stumble on to something that suddenly changes everything. Or should I say, you stumbled upon it.”

“Tripping over mummified geese will do that. Will you write an article about this?”

“Omar and I already have discussed possibly coauthoring it. Now if only I could convince people that she was a real leader, not a ‘usurper,’ as you put it. I want to tell the whole story.” She glanced over at the CT scanning machine again, as if looking for something. “Without that, she’s still a woman who didn’t know her place.”

“Well, I hope she somehow knows that you’ve been fighting for her. Anyway, congrats. You deserve it.”

“Thanks. You hungry?”

“Starving.”

They found a small restaurant a few blocks away from the hospital, and Charlotte ordered for them both.

“We’ll have the tahini, an order of the warak enab, and the baba ghanoush. With mangoes for dessert, please.” Charlotte handed the waiter their menus and turned to Annie. “This is the end of the mango season in Egypt, you don’t want to miss it.”

Before they’d left, Annie had been worried that she wouldn’t like Egyptian food, but she found the different tastes and textures delicious. Today’s meal turned out to be a dip made of sesame paste that came with toasted bread chips, balls of rice that had been rolled up in grape leaves glistening with olive oil, and mashed eggplant seasoned with garlic and spices. Nothing like she’d ever tried before, but full of flavor. The fashion in Cairo surprised her as well. Many Egyptians wore Western clothes—the men in wide-collared shirts and women wearing skirts that hit right above the knee. Flared jeans were everywhere, just like back home.

Charlotte barely picked at her food, as if something was weighing on her.

“Is everything all right?” asked Annie. Living with Joyce had made her especially alert to the emotional temperatures of those around her.

“When that burst of light occurred in the CT scanning room, did you see anything?” Charlotte asked.

“No,” said Annie. “Why, did you?”

Charlotte didn’t meet her eyes.

“What? What did you see?”

“You’re going to think I’m losing my marbles.”

“Never.”

Charlotte spoke slowly, softly, as if she didn’t trust what she was saying. “After that bright flash, I saw a woman sort of hovering in the air, just above the scanning bed. She wore a nemes headdress with a golden cobra rising out from her forehead—the adornment of a male pharaoh—but she was unmistakably female: dressed in linen, her fingers ringed with golden scarabs, and the broad collar around her neck.”

“It was Hathorkare,” Annie said, leaning forward. “I’m sure of it. What happened then?”

“We stared at each other through the glass for what seemed like minutes. I felt like I was stuck in place, entranced by this spirit but terrified at what might come next. I didn’t know why she was there. Was she angry at having been disturbed? Or was she finally free? Then the figure bowed its head slightly and disappeared. When the lights came back on, I looked around, expecting everyone else to be as shocked as I was. But no one else appeared to have even noticed. I realized I was alone in having the vision, but instead of being freaked out, a strange sense of calm came over me.”

“It was definitely Hathorkare. That means the curse was lifted. You’ve been forgiven.”

Charlotte gave a slight shiver. “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”

“Not at all. You’re free. And so is she.”

As the waiter cleared their plates, Charlotte threw Annie a small smile. “Maybe you’re right. I like the idea that she’s finally at peace. That makes one of us.”

“You’ll find what you’re looking for.”

“I’m going to reach out to Tenny, ask if he knows anyone here I should talk to regarding Henry. Maybe one of his associates can help.” Charlotte looked out into the street. “That’s weird.”

Annie followed her gaze. A couple of women walked down the sidewalk, holding shopping baskets. “What?”

“A man came around the corner and saw me, and then suddenly turned around and disappeared.”

“Maybe he forgot his wallet at home.”

“It’s just that I think I noticed him earlier today as well. As we went into the hospital.”

Annie pictured her attacker at the Met, the way his eyes bulged as he came at her, and shivered. “Was he tall, with dark hair?”

Charlotte pulled her gaze away from the street and rubbed her eyes. “That describes pretty much most of the men in Cairo. I’m tired, that’s all. It’s making me paranoid.”

The mangoes arrived, and Annie bit into a slice, wiping the juice off her chin with her napkin. “What happens to the mummy now?”

“She’ll be put on display here in Cairo.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I do feel protective of her, somehow.” Charlotte fiddled with her silverware. “I mean, is it right to stick her in a display case where the general public can wander by and ogle her? People who have no idea who she is, who are just satisfying their morbid desire to see a dead body?”

“I totally get that. But I meant would you prefer to have her at the Met?”

“Of course, if only for the research possibilities. But there’s no way that’s going to happen, even if it is a superior institution.”

“I think she’d rather be with all her mummy friends here in Egypt,” said Annie.

Charlotte laughed. “You raised some good points earlier, and a lot of museums are asking themselves the same questions these days, including the Met. Is the goal deaccession—sending everything back to its country of origin, no matter what—or is it better for an institution like the Met to hold on to the object and keep it safe? What if it gets sold by the country of origin to raise money—which happens all the time—and is placed in the private collection of some millionaire, where it’s lost to both the public and academia?”

“But who are you to say that you know what’s best? Not you, specifically—the Met, I mean,” Annie added quickly. “What about the works of art stolen by the Nazis during World War II?”

“What about them?”

“Do the investigators who are tracking down the original owners or their descendants question the ability of those people to properly take care of the paintings?”

“Of course not.”

“So why should museums make that kind of judgment call?”

Charlotte sat back in her chair. “I used to think the way you do, when I was younger. And now, to be honest, you’re making me question my current position.” She didn’t seem upset, just thoughtful.

Annie had impressed Charlotte. She tried to play it cool, like she had this kind of back-and-forth every day. “Maybe Hathorkare would have preferred to have been left in the tomb.” The woman was royalty, after all, and now, as Charlotte had brought up, she’d be gawked at like some exotic animal in the zoo, people filing by before heading to the gift shop to buy a postcard. “I know it’s a huge discovery and all, but a part of me feels bad, like I was the reason for all this. I hope she doesn’t curse me.”

“I promise, you’re not cursed. You were amazing.”

“It’s the first time my klutziness paid off, I guess.”

“We were a great team, Annie. Thank you for all that.”

“?‘Were’? Don’t we still have work to do?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. You’re getting on a plane tomorrow and going back to New York. Our work here is done. Or, rather, your work is.”

Panic shot through Annie. Right when everything was looking up, Charlotte was going to send her home? “But we only just got here. Are you going back as well?”

“No. I need to try to find Henry. I can’t give up just yet.”

“Don’t forget the Cerulean Queen. I’m here to help identify the guy who stole it, remember? You still need me.” Annie was embarrassed by the pleading tone in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. Returning to New York was a dismal idea. She had nothing there anymore—no place to stay, no job, no life. She’d been a big asset; Charlotte had just admitted as much. “Look, I came here to try to fix the mess I made at the Costume Institute, to prove that I’m not an accessory to the crime or whatever it is they suspect me of.”

“And I came here to find my daughter.” Charlotte paid the check, and Annie followed her out onto the sidewalk, where half a dozen men sat behind cheap souvenirs laid out on blankets, calling out to passing tourists to inspect their wares.

“But we think the Cerulean Queen and your daughter are somehow related,” said Annie. “Besides, I shouldn’t have even left the country, I was told to stay in New York. When I go back, they might arrest me for fleeing or something, so I really need to have something to show for it.”

“Trust me, they have bigger issues to deal with. I highly doubt they believe you’re part of an international smuggling ring, the girl who opened a box of moths.”

The insult stung.

Annie was all too familiar with this kind of rejection. First her mother, who she’d taken care of and worried over until Annie had been rendered moot by a new boyfriend. Then Diana Vreeland, who’d dismissed her after a misunderstanding. And now Charlotte. Why was Annie drawn again and again to women she hoped would help her, guide her, but who then discarded Annie like an old sock the minute she wasn’t needed anymore? She was desperate for a mentor, someone to explain how the world worked, but instead she was repeatedly shown the door.

They had come to a stop in front of a man selling clumps of bracelets, Egyptian cat statues, and a King Tut mask statue—a match of the one they’d seen in the gallery the other day. Annie reached down and picked it up, stalling for time.

“This is one of a kind,” the seller said, pointing at the statue. He had a long face and bushy eyebrows. “You won’t find this anywhere else.”

In spite of their argument, Annie and Charlotte exchanged a knowing smile. “Right,” said Charlotte, taking it from Annie. “One of a kind.” Instead of handing it back to the seller, Charlotte got a strange look on her face. “That’s weird,” she murmured.

“It’s unique, I promise,” said the seller. “Farid.”

Annie froze. That word. “?‘Farid’?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“?‘Farid’ means unique?” she asked him.

“Yes, yes, I sell it to you for very cheap.”

Annie turned to Charlotte. “The letter from Leon. He wrote: ‘Transfer to the unique location has been arranged.’ The last store we went to yesterday was called the Farid Gallery. The Unique Gallery.”

But Charlotte didn’t seem to even hear her; instead, she handed back the King Tut statue and pulled out some pounds from her wallet, pointing to a cheap glass perfume bottle. “I’ll take that, no need to wrap it up.”

“Why on earth are you buying souvenirs when I have just discovered something monumental?” said Annie.

But Charlotte just shoved the perfume bottle into her handbag and grabbed Annie’s arm.

“Let’s go.”