(5:00 A.M., NEW YORK CITY)
Shawn Daughtry had the Egyptian taxi driver stop at the al-Ghouri mausoleum, the tomb of the Mamluk leader who’d turned the rule of Egypt over to the Ottomans early in the sixteenth century. Shawn’s last visit had been ten years earlier, with his third wife. He was now back with his fifth wife, the former Sana Martin, and enjoying the visit considerably more than his first. Sana had been invited to participate in an international conference on genealogical tracking. As a celebrated molecular biologist with a specialty in mitochondrial genetics, which had been the subject of her Ph.D. thesis, she was one of the conference’s star speakers. Benefits included an all-expenses-paid trip for the two of them. Shawn had taken advantage of the opportunity by making arrangements to attend a concurrent archaeology conference. As it was the last day of the meeting, he’d skipped the concluding luncheon to accomplish a very specific errand.
Shawn stepped from the taxi and into the sweltering, dusty heat, crossing the bumper-to-bumper traffic on al-Azhar Street. Every car, truck, bus, and taxi honked its horn while pushcarts and pedestrians threaded their way between the mostly stationary vehicles.
Traffic in Cairo was a disaster. In the ten-year interval since Shawn’s last visit, the population of metropolitan Cairo had swelled to a staggering 18.7 million people.
Shawn headed up al-Mukz li-Den Allah Street and into the depths of the narrow-laned Khan el-Khalili souk. The labyrinthian fourteenth-century bazaar sold everything from housewares, clothes, furniture, and foodstuffs to cheap souvenirs. Yet none of these interested him. He headed to the area that specialized in antiquities, searching out a shop he remembered from his previous visit called Antica Abdul.
Shawn was a trained archaeologist, and at fifty-four years old was at the peak of his career, heading the department of Near Eastern art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Although his main interest was biblical archaeology, he was an authority on the entire Middle East, from Asia Minor through Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan, and Iran. Shawn had been dragged into the market on his last visit by his then wife, Gloria.
Separated in the midst of the twisting lanes, Shawn had stumbled upon Antica Abdul.
He’d been captivated by a stunning example in the shop’s dusty window of a six-thousand-plus-year-old predynastic, unbroken piece of terra-cotta pottery decorated with a design of counterclockwise swirls. At that time there was an almost identical pot on prominent display in the ancient Egyptian section of the Metropolitan Museum, though the piece in Antica Abdul’s window was in better shape. Not only was the painted design in superior condition, but the museum’s pot had been found in pieces and had needed to be completely restored. Fascinated but also convinced Antica Abdul’s pot was, like many other supposedly ancient antiquities in the bazaar, a clever fake, Shawn had entered the shop.
Although he had intended to make a cursory examination of the pot and then return to the hotel, he’d ended up staying for several hours. His furious wife, suspicious of his skulduggery and abandonment of her, had even beaten him back to the hotel. When he finally did return, she’d laid into him mercilessly, claiming she could have been kidnapped. As Shawn reminisced about the incident, he realized how auspicious such a denouement would have been. It would have made the divorce proceedings a year later that much easier.
What had kept Shawn in the shop for so long was essentially a free lesson in traditional Egyptian hospitality. And what started out as an argument with the proprietor over the authenticity of the pot ended up becoming a captivating discussion of the widespread market of cleverly made fake Egyptian antiquities over many cups of tea. Although Rahul, the owner of the shop, insisted the pot was a true antiquity, he was willing to share all the tricks of the trade, including the thriving scarab market, when he learned Shawn was an archaeologist. Scarabs, the carved talismans of the ancient Egyptian dung beetle, were considered to have the power of spontaneous regeneration. Using an inexhaustible source of bone from ancient cemeteries in Upper Egypt, talented carvers re-created the scarabs, then fed them to various domestic animals to impart a convincing patina. It was Rahul’s contention that many of the pharaonic scarabs in the world’s top museums were such forgeries.
After the long conversation, Shawn had bought the pot as a way of thanking Rahul for his hospitality. After some friendly haggling, Shawn paid half of what Rahul initially asked. Even so, Shawn thought that two hundred Egyptian pounds was more than double what he should have paid, at least until he got back to New York. Taking the pot to his colleague Angela Ditmar, head of the Egyptology department, Shawn was in for a shock.
Angela determined that the pot was not a fake but instead a genuine relic and definitely more than six thousand years old. Shawn ended up donating the piece of pottery to the Egyptian department to replace the restored pot on permanent display to assuage the guilt he felt for having unknowingly spirited the valuable object out of Egypt.
Shawn walked deeper into the true depths of the bazaar. Stretching across the narrow lanes between the buildings were carpets and awnings effectively blotting out the sunlight. Passing butcher shops with hung lamb carcasses complete with skulls, eyeballs, and flies, Shawn was enveloped in the pungent aroma of offal, soon replaced by the smell of spices and then roasting Arabic coffee. The souk was an assault on the senses, both good and bad.
In the midst of converging alleyways, Shawn paused, lost, as he’d been ten years ago.
Stopping in a tailor shop, he asked directions from an elderly Egyptian in a white skullcap and brown djel laba. A few minutes later he walked into Antica Abdul. Shawn was not at all surprised the shop was still there. On his previous visit, Rahul had said that the establishment had been in his family for more than a hundred years.
Except for the lack of the fantastic predynastic pot, the shop looked essentially the same.
Since most of the so-called antiquities were fake, Rahul just kept on replacing them from his sources as they sold.
The shop appeared unattended as Shawn entered, the glass-beaded strings clacking into place behind him. For a moment Shawn wondered if Rahul would still be there, but any concern evaporated as the man quickly emerged through the dark drapes separating a pillow-strewn sitting area from the front part of the shop. Rahul motioned a greeting with a slight tilting of his head as he stepped behind an old glass-topped counter. He was a heavy-boned, full-lipped former fellahin who’d transitioned easily into an adroit businessman. Without a word, Shawn advanced a few steps and stared into the shopkeeper’s dark, fathomless eyes. Almost immediately, Rahul’s eyebrows knitted and then wrinkled upward with recognition.
“Dr. Daughtry?” Abdul questioned. He leaned slightly forward to get a better look.
“Rahul,” Shawn replied, “I’m shocked that you remember me, much less my name after all these years.”
“How could I not?” Rahul said, rushing from behind his counter and pumping Shawn’s hand. “I remember all my clients, particularly those from famous museums.”
“You have clients at other museums?” The shop was so modest it seemed farfetched.
“Of course, of course,” Rahul intoned. “Whenever I get something special, which isn’t too often, I communicate with whom-ever I think would be the most interested. It’s so easy now with the Internet.”
While Rahul hastened out into the alleyway by pushing through the beads and barking orders in Arabic, Shawn marveled at the speed of globalization. It seemed to him the Internet and the ancient Khan el-Khalili should have been worlds apart. Obviously, such was not the case.
A moment later, Rahul reentered the shop and gestured for Shawn to pass beyond into the seating area at the rear of the store. Oriental carpets covered the floor and the walls.
Large, heavy brocade pillows dominated the space. A hookah stood to the side, along with a number of stacked, faded cardboard boxes. A bare lightbulb dangled from the ceiling. On a small wooden table were a few faded photographs, one of a large man in typical Egyptian dress who resembled Rahul. Rahul followed Shawn’s line of sight.
“A photo of my uncle, given to me recently by my mother. Almost twenty years ago he owned this shop.”
“He does look like family,” Shawn commented. “Did you buy the shop from him?”
“No, from his wife. He was my mother’s brother, but he got himself mixed up in an antiquities scandal involving a very important find: an intact tomb. His association cost him his life. He was killed here in the shop.”
“My goodness,” Shawn voiced. “I’m so sorry to have brought it up.”
“In this business one cannot be too careful. Allah be praised that I have had no such trouble.”
In the next instant the heavy curtain was drawn aside and a barefoot young boy appeared with a tray and two glasses in metal holders, each filled with steaming-hot tea. Without a word the boy placed the tray on the floor next to Shawn and Rahul, then retreated back through the curtains. All the while Rahul maintained a lively chatter
