and said he thought he’d better stick to tea.
‘I noticed you didn’t go ashore this morning,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
I hadn’t noticed, actually – Perry was not one of those people who are conspicuous by their absence – but I thought it would be polite to say so. He hesitated. I decided he was torn between his desire for sympathy and his reluctance to admit he was no more immune to common weakness than any inferior tourist.
‘Just a touch of stomach trouble,’ he said finally.
‘There’s a lot of it going around.’
‘It’s never happened to me before,’ Perry said pettishly. ‘And I’ve eaten in places tourists are warned away from. Someone in the kitchen must have been careless.’
There are some ailments that bring out the worst in people who don’t suffer from them. I licked chocolate off my lower lip and took another big bite. ‘They say it happens to everybody sooner or later,’ I said heartlessly. ‘Several people have been sick. Anna, and the Hamburgers and – ’
‘Who? Oh.’ Perry laughed politely. ‘A joke. They’re suffering from the usual tourist complaint. That’s not my problem. I haven’t actually – er – been sick, just a little queasy. My temperature is normal, but my pulse – ’
‘What are you lecturing about this evening?’ I had intended to offer him a little sympathy with his tea, but I really didn’t want to hear a list of unpleasant symptoms.
‘The Valley of the Kings. That’s where you’ll be going tomorrow morning. But Alice has kindly offered to speak in my place. It is essential that I take care of myself. I must attend the reception tomorrow evening. Larry made a point of inviting me.’
Everybody had been invited. An uncharacteristic wave of kindness stopped me from saying so. Poor devil, he couldn’t help being a bore. I wanted desperately to get away from him, but I couldn’t think how to manage it without hurting his feelings. My eyes kept wandering. Schmidt had cut Larry out of the herd and Alice had joined them at their table. They seemed to be having a good time, laughing and talking animatedly. John and Mary were standing at the rail, their shoulders touching. Near them, but obviously not with them, were Bright and . . .
Just Bright. I realized I’d never seen one without the other. Where was Sweet? Could Bright be forced into conversation, lacking his interpreter?
Perry was rambling on about various boring things, all of which he claimed he could do better than anybody else. ‘Not that I couldn’t handle the job, you understand. Anyone can be an administrator, but field archaeology and lecturing require special – ’
‘Right,’ I said, wondering vaguely what I had agreed with. ‘Shouldn’t you rest now? You must take care of yourself.’
As soon as he’d gone I made a beeline for Bright. No need for subtlety here; my first question was one anyone might have asked. ‘Where’s your buddy? Not sick, I hope.’
Bright considered the question. After a moment he nodded gravely. ‘Sick.’
‘I’m so sorry. Has the doctor seen him?’
Bright nodded and smiled.
‘Is there anything I can do?’
Bright shook his head and shrugged.
‘Are you all right?’
Bright nodded and smiled.
I had a feeling that if I kept asking questions the process would keep repeating itself. Nod and smile, shake head and shrug, nod and smile . . . The man wasn’t mute, he had spoken. One word, in a soft hesitant voice, the voice of someone who has a painful speech defect, a lisp or a stutter, who has to choose his words with care.
Or someone who is trying to conceal the fact that he can’t speak the language that is supposed to be his native tongue.
He had to risk it once more; he couldn’t just walk away without a word. His ‘Excuse me,’ was accompanied by another smile and another nod. I watched him cross the deck, nodding and smiling at people, until he had vanished inside.
I supposed he’d got tired of sitting with his sick friend and came out for a breath of air and a change of scene. Careless of him to risk it, though. The last two words had been articulated with a precision no native speaker of the language would employ. I had assumed he wasn’t really a manufacturer from Milwaukee, but I would have expected a professional undercover agent to be smart enough to assume a credible persona.
Yes, I definitely had to talk to somebody who knew what was going on. I sure as hell didn’t.
When I went back to Schmidt I found him entertaining again. John was actually taking notes. ‘Hillbilly,’ he repeated, writing it down.
‘Das ist recht. It means – ’
‘I’m vaguely familiar with the term. Then the western element – ’
‘Yes, the cowboys. A pessimistic group of individuals.’ Schmidt illustrated the theme. ‘Do not bury me on the lonesome prairie. There the coyotes (a variety of jackals, with loud voices) howl . . .’
‘‘‘And the wind blows free.” Yes, I’ve got that. It does have a lugubrious quality, doesn’t it?’
‘But the most romantic are the prison and the railroad songs.’
I said, before I could stop myself, ‘Romantic?’
‘All those dying pillows,’ John murmured.
Schmidt continued the lecture, with vocal illustrations. How Mary stood it I could not imagine. She had to be tone-deaf as well as infatuated. Finally I took pity on her and tried to change the subject.
‘Where is everybody? It’s a beautiful day, you’d think there would be more people on deck.’
‘On their dying pillows, no doubt,’ John said. ‘The pharaoh’s curse has struck. The rest of us will probably be in the same stage before we reach Luxor.’
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.
‘Hadn’t you heard?’ He turned slightly, facing me. ‘The refrigeration apparatus has broken down. Perfect conditions for ptomaine.’
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew. Once such rumours start they spread quickly, especially in a small closed society like ours. By the time the group reassembled for drinks and the evening lecture, Hamid felt it necessary to make a public announcement.
It was true, as we had heard, that the refrigeration had failed and that efforts to repair it had been unsuccessful. However, there was not the slightest danger of food poisoning. As those of us who had experienced prolonged power failures knew, the freezers would remain cold for hours and we would be in Luxor by morning. Any food served that evening (and the chef, said Hamid, with one of his largest smiles, was preparing a veritable feast) would be perfectly safe.
When he finished there was some grumbling, most of it from our habitual complainers. Alice, who had replaced Hamid on the podium, added a few sentences of reassurance before beginning her lecture.
She was a much better speaker than Perry, enlivening the facts with personal reminiscences and funny stories. Cued by Schmidt’s rumbling chuckles, I laughed in all the right places, but I have to admit I didn’t pay proper attention. Just when I thought I had come to a sensible sane decision, something happened to make me question it. Could I have been mistaken about Sweet and Bright? The answer to that was depressingly obvious. The corollary was equally depressing. They were the only ones to whom I had spoken about John. Several little reels of tape were jostling around in my bag at this very moment. I hadn’t left them in the safe. I kept telling myself there was nothing incriminatory on those tapes, only a series of rude remarks from John and feeble rejoinders from me, but I knew I was kidding myself. And I knew why.
And I knew it was high time I stopped behaving like a fool. John claimed he was opposed to violence, but either he had changed his views or he was mixed up with people who didn’t share them. Ali had been murdered; I was as certain of that as if I had seen it done. I wasn’t at all happy about the failure of the refrigeration either. Machinery is always breaking down – at least my machines are always breaking down – and this damage seemed, on the surface, quite harmless. But our schedule had already been altered once and this might necessitate an even more drastic change, if the coolers couldn’t be repaired.
The lights went on, and I hastily rearranged my features into an expression of smiling interest. Alice started taking questions. As I might have expected, the first one was about the curse of Tutankhamon.
Pure coincidence, said Alice. Lord Carnarvon had cut himself shaving and blood poisoning had set in, followed by pneumonia. The others who had worked on the tomb with him had lived to ripe old ages. She reeled off names
