What do you think he was getting at?'
'Page numbers?'
'Exactly my own thought,' she agreed. 'The Egyptians considered spring
as the beginning of all new life. He is telling us in which order to
read the panels. This one is spring.' She selected one of the
photographs.
'It starts with four standard quotations from the Book of the Dead.' She
quoted the first few lines of the opening section: ''I am the first
breeze blowing softly over the dark ocean of eternity. I am the first
sunrise. The first glimmer of light. A white feather blowing in the dawn
wind. I am Ra. I am the beginning of all things. I will live for ever. I
shall never perish.'' Still holding the glass poised, she looked up at
him. 'As far as I can see, they do not differ 'Substantially from the
original. My instinct is to set these aside for the time being. We can
always come back to them later.'
'Let's go with your instinct,' he suggested. 'Read the next section.'
She held the glass to the Polaroid. 'I am not going to look at you while
I read this. Taita. can be as earthy as Rabelais when he is in the mood.
Anyway, here goes. 'The daughter of the goddess pines for her dam. She
roars like a lioness as she hurries to meet her. She leaps from the
mountain, and her fangs are white. She is the harlot of all the world.
Her vagina pisseth out great torrents. Her vagina has swallowed an army
of men. Her sex eateth up the masons and the workers of stone. Her
vagina is an octopus that has swallowed up a king.''
'Whoa there!' Nicholas chuckled. 'Pretty fruity stuff, don't you think?'
He leaned forward to study her face, for it was still turned away from
him. 'Och, lassie, you have roses in your bonny cheeks. Not a blush,
surely not?'
'Your Scots accent is not in the least convincing,' she told him coldly,
still not looking at him. 'When you have finished being clever at my
expense, what do you think of what I have just read?'
'Apart from the obvious, I have't any idea.'
'I want to show you something.' She stood up and packed the photographs
and the rolls of art paper back into the haversack. 'You'll need to get
your boots on. I am taking you on a little walk.'
An hour later they stood in the centre of the suspension bridge, swaying
gently high above the swift waters of the Dandera river.
'Hapi is the goddess of the Nile. Is this river not then her daughter,
pining to meet her, leaping from the mountain top, roaring like a
lioness, her fangs white with spume?' she asked him.
They stared in silence at the archway of pink stone through which the
river poured, and suddenly Nicholas grinned lasciviously. 'I think that
I know what you are going to say next. That's what I first thought of
when I looked at that cleft. You said it was like a gargoyle's mouth,
but I had another image.'
'All I can say is that you must have some extraordinary lady friends,'
she said, and then covered her mouth. 'Ooops!
I didn't mean to say that. I am being as disgusting as either you or
Taita.'
'The workmen swallowed up in there!' His voice became more excite& 'The
