Nile Shadows

Big Belle smacked her lips. She sighed noisily and licked her lips with an enormous smile.

I know, dear. Forgive me.

But Belle, realll-ly. I haven't seen you do that in sixty-five years.

Belle laughed.

Sixty-seven, dear.

Not since that very first time when you were going to spend a night with Menelik, said Alice. Not since that afternoon when we were somewhere together and Menelik sent a note around just begging you to spend a quiet candlelit evening with him in his sarcophagus, to celebrate his retirement from his digs in the field.

I know, dear, and what a grand invitation it was to a young woman not much more than twenty.

Hieroglyphs engraved on a heavy slab of stone, no less, in Menelik's very own hand, with accompanying translations engraved beneath it in demotic Egyptian and ancient Greek. Menelik's very own Rosetta Stone of love. Just think of all the time and thought it must have taken him to turn that heavy basalt slab into an invitation. No young woman in her right mind could ever have responded to that with anything less than a resounding, Yes I said Yes I will Yes.

I remember, mused Alice dreamily.

Indeed you do, said Belle, and so do I. It isn't often that a suitor presents his case to a woman with words actually written in stone.

To the woman of my dreams, the incomparable Belle.

Dearest:

Today I retire from a lifetime of active archeology and go underground for good and forever.

Won't you please help me inaugurate my future life in the crypt by the Nile that is to be my new home? Among its many delights is a most spacious sarcophagus, cork-lined, which is to serve as both my bed and bedroom, and which will simply take your breath away. Large, my dear, as well as timeless, and need I add that they don't make them like that anymore?

Until an hour after sunset then, my most beautiful Belle, for a time we will both cherish as the night of a lifetime.

Easily. Clearly. And until that moment when I hear your sweet knock on the door of my anonymous crypt, I remain,

Your most ardent and devoted of admirers above or beneath the sands of Egypt, both ancient and modern,

All my love,

(s) Menelik Ziwar.

P.S. Don't bother to dress. After a life of determined Egyptology, all of history is at my disposal and we can wander wherever we choose, adopting such costumes and manners and methods as may suit our purposes, our moods, our tastes, and above all our grand designs for lovemaking throughout eternity.

Belle sighed. She smacked her lips.

No, she said, you don't see invitations like that anymore, no more than you meet a man like Menelik.

Menelik was different, and his unusual invitation was just the beginning of the unusual delights we were to know together that evening. One might have thought a sarcophagus would be a trifle cramped for the tour through history Menelik had in mind, but that was beforehand. Before Menelik got his hands moving and the champagne flowing and started peeling grapes and dipping them here and there.

Belle. I just don't know what to say. I mean, realll-ly. What can Joe possibly be thinking?

I know, dear, but Menelik was an out-and-out contortionist and there's no use denying it. I've never known anything like it, he was just everywhere at once. It must have been all those years he spent excavating ancient tombs, bending himself around in tight quarters. Not to mention doing so in the dark much of the time, when he had to depend on his fingertips to do his seeing for him. Oh, Menelik's fingertips. It makes me shiver to think of them even now.

Belle? Are you sure you're all right?

I am, dear, perfectly, I haven't felt so good in sixty-seven years. It's also that first rush the gin gives you when you gulp it straight from the bottle, there's nothing like it. I never could abide sipping from glasses in order to appear ladylike. Menelik used to say there was only one way to deal with a bottle of gin. The same way you deal with me, he used to say. Just grab the fellow firmly and upend the rascal and swallow for the life of you.

Belle.

Big Belle smacked her lips. She laughed.

Now he was a man, Menelik was. Who could ever imagine such a thrilling night in a sarcophagus? And a sarcophagus that had originally belonged to Cheops' mother, of all things? Oh yes, there was never a moment's rest when you were with Menelik and he was mulling over five thousand years of Egyptian history. Just when you thought all that coming and going through the ages might have tired him a little, he'd twist himself around somehow and all at once he'd be whispering in your ear again. Do you know what they used to do, he'd whisper, back during the XII Dynasty? No? Well it's rather clever. All you do is move this leg a little like that, and your left hand here, and your other hand . . . oh yes. Oh yes. Oooooo.

. . .

Belle. Please.

Big Belle sighed. She licked her lips and beamed.

And then there was that specialty Menelik used to claim had been invented during an even earlier dynasty, but which was really nothing more than a very elaborate hum-job with a few sacred props thrown in. . . . Oh, Menelik. It's exhausting just to think of him. Perhaps I ought to have one more, all at once I'm feeling thirsty. These memories. . . .

Abruptly Belle hoisted the bottle of gin and drank again. She sighed and placed the bottle back on the table.

But why didn't you tell us you were that Joe? That Joe, just imagine. . . . Well all right then, all right. On to business.

Belle's knitting needles began to click in the stillness. Alice glanced at her sister and straightened her shawl, going through a final flurry of flutters before subsiding quietly into an alert position. Belle cleared her throat

Are you ready, Alice?

Ready, Belle.

Belle gazed at Joe.

Stern's in trouble?

Yes.

You think it's serious?

Yes.

How serious?

Joe looked at her and then at Alice.

I'm afraid it's the end.

Belle's fingers stopped moving. She stared through the open French doors at the river, her jaw set.

I refuse to believe that, she said. Please begin with your questions.

***

I'm on unsure ground here, said Joe. I've got some bits and pieces but I don't have an overall shape to what I'm looking for. You might say it's the same as it used to be for Menelik back when he was digging up the past and everything he found was partial and broken and dusted by time, and he had to try to put it together so that it would make some sense. To see who the people of that particular dynasty were, and what they had been up to. A little bit like that maybe. I suppose we all have to delve into the Egyptologist's craft now and then, and there even seem to be some hieroglyphs involved. A code, so to speak. Things I can't decipher because there's no Rosetta Stone for this one.

This one? asked Belle. What's that, this one? What is the code? What does it cover?