“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well, uh, you should. You know what we talked about, those nights when I was in the camp and you were out digging?”
Pierce waited.
“You, that’s who. Hour after hour, sitting and drinking and talking—” he chipped at the rock “—about—you.”
“So what?”
“She’s crazy about you, that’s what.”
“You want me to bleed all over the floor?”
“I’m just telling you, is all.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“That’s not my problem. But the chick is crazy for you.”
“And?”
“And you’re just sitting there like a dumb American.”
“You want me to punch you in the nose?”
“I’m glad you like her,” Conway said, smiling happily. “I was worried you might not.”
“It’s nice of you to look out for her.”
“Are you kidding? Listen, I just want to set things up so she’ll change the topic of conversation. It gets boring, listening to her talk about you all night.”
Against his will, Pierce said, “What does she say?”
Conway laughed.
“Come on, damnit. You started this—what does she say?”
“She talks about the way you look. She likes your ugly face. She talks about how healthy you look. Then, some days she decided you look tired, and she worries like she was your mother. Then she tells me what you said to her that day—just reels it off, verbatim, a tape recording.”
“If you’re so interested,” Pierce said, “why don’t you get her interested in you?”
Conway shook his head: “I’m not the marrying kind.”
“Well, neither am I.”
“Ha ha.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means, ha ha. An expression of amusement.”
“Christ.” Pierce stubbed our his cigarette. “You want to let me work for awhile?”
“No, I like it up here.”
Pierce shrugged and lit another cigarette. “Confidentially,” Conway said, “I make an excellent best man. The best man is responsible for throwing the stag party the night before, and I can arrange a lulu. Particularly if you have it in Paris. I can throw you a stag party that you’ll never forget.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Pierce said.
“Also, I never forget the ring. I’m very good about that.”
“You must be getting tired. Why don’t you let me work for awhile?”
“All I ask is a chance to kiss the bride before you whiz off for the honeymoon. Now, what’s a good place for the honeymoon? Did you think of that?”
“Lord Grover’s villa on Capri,” Pierce said, irritated at the way Conway was prolonging the conversation.
“That’s the boy! That’s a great idea!” He frowned. “But what will you do afterward? You can’t keep bumming around Europe, and—”
“I don’t bum around Europe;”
“Get off my ass. You know who you’re talking to? You’re talking to an experienced bum-spotter.”
“I bum around Europe,” Pierce said dutifully.
“Right. Now, what are you going to do instead? This girl needs to settle down, have a home, some nice kids—don’t you think she’d look good pregnant? All radiant, and—”
“You must be out of your mind,” Pierce said. Conway laughed and chipped away at the wall.
“Think about it,” he said.
Two weeks passed. They managed to do the upper rim of the whole far wall and discovered nothing. Pierce felt a sagging sense of discontent fall over him again. January had passed, and they were into February. Each day, he x-ed out another day on the calendar.
Soon, they would have to quit for the summer. It was already growing warmer; by the end of March, it would be unbearable.
Nikos had caught a case of dysentery—they all had it, sporadically—so Conway and Pierce worked alone on the tomb each night. He rarely saw Lisa except at meals. Conway no longer kidded him about her, and Pierce found this disturbing. He wondered if Lisa had said anything further to him. She seemed much more friendly and open with the other two men. He had trouble speaking to her, and he avoided her eyes.
One night, they received word that Barnaby would be back in three days’ time. Nikos was feeling better, and he had a drink with Pierce in their tent.
His first words alone were, “If you don’t do something about that girl, I’ll kill you.”
Pierce was startled. “What’s the matter?”
“She’s okay,” Nikos said. “She’s a good girl. Just do something about her, will you?”
Pierce shrugged helplessly.
“Put the poor girl out of her misery. Do something for or stomp on her.” He paused, and looked down at his glass. “Alan and I will work on the tomb tonight. You stay here.”
“All right.”
“And do something, will you?”
Pierce helped them load the Land Rover in the evening and watched it drive away across the desert. He turned and walked back to the camp.
Lisa sat by the fire, poking the embers with a stick. Sparks rose in the air and were extinguished among the stars. It occurred to him as he looked at her that this was the first right they had been alone together since the expedition had begun.
He sat down and said, “Want a drink?” Very classy of you, he thought. What suave Continental charm. But she disarmed him, that was the trouble. She saw right through him.
“No thanks.”
“You seem unhappy.”
“Not really.”
“Anything I can do?”
She looked up at him and seemed about to speak, then took her head.
He went to the supply tent and mixed himself a gin and tonic. When he came back, she was still at the fire.
“Nice night,” he said.
“Do I embarrass you?”
He looked at her face in the firelight, at the dark tan and the glossy hair curving around her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You sound like Iskander.”
“A thousand heartfelt apologies.”
He bowed elaborately and lit a cigarette. A painful silence fell between them.
“I suppose there must be pictures to develop,” he said. As soon as he said it, he felt foolish, like a tongue-tied adolescent.
“Not enough to worry about.”
Another long silence. She stopped poking with the stick and sat there, very calmly, her hands in her lap.
“We’re really at odds about this, aren’t we?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “We are.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s right.”
“Why take it out on me?”
She shook her head, and looked at the fire. “I don’t know. I guess I can’t help it.”
“Now you sound like me.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” she said.
For a moment her face grew tender, and he wanted to kiss her and hold her in his arms. Then he felt a wave of irritation.
“You don’t bitch around the others.”
She frowned. “I don’t bitch around you.”
“Yes, you do. You’re needling me, all the time.”
Her voice rose. “You know it’s wrong, that’s all. Deep down, you know. It’s wrong.”
She sighed. “Why are we fighting?”
“Who’s fighting?”
“You are. You’re trying to pick a fight with me. You have been for—”
“All right,” he said. “Forget it.”
They sat in silence.
“I was looking forward to tonight,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“It has to be.”
“Just because that’s the way you want it.” She caught herself then and asked him for a cigarette. He recognized it as a
trick to bring him nearer to her. He threw the pack over to her. She picked it out of the sand and lit a cigarette with a burning ember.
“Look,” he said. “You’re asking something that I just can’t give you. I’m going through with this project, and that’s all there is to it. You can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me. I’m going to rob that tomb.”
“You sound like a maniac.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You’re not.”
“All right, I’m not, then. But I am going through with it.”
“But why? Why is it so important?”
“Don’t ask me. It is.”
“Robbing an Egyptian tomb. That’s…that’s childish, it’s infantile, unreal, divorced from everything in the world. It has no relation to anything. And this elaborate plan, with all the moves and countermoves—it’s like little boys playing commando or something.”
“I’m still going through with it. And you have no right—”
“I have every right. I care about you.”
“Why pick on me? Why don’t you lecture the others? Why don’t you tell them about your schoolgirl morality, your—”
“Because I care about you.” She said it quietly.
“Listen,” he said, “from the very first day we met, from that first breakfast in Cairo, you’ve had a chip on your shoulder—”
“I’ve had a chip on my shoulder?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it is about me that you’ve hit on, but—”
“That’s not true.”
“You know it’s true. Now you’re trying to order me around, when we hardly know each other.”
“I’ve known you for months.”
“You don’t know me at all. We haven’t even—”
Her voice was sardonic: “Slept together?”
He looked down at the fire. “Well, yes, if you want to put it that way.”
“That makes a difference to you, does it?”
“Of course it does.”
“Suppose I told you I was lousy in bed. Then what would you think?”
“Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”
“You brought it up.”
“All right, I apologize.”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and flicked her cigarette into the fire. She stood up. “I’m tired,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
He suddenly felt the night around him and the isolation, the vast space stretching for miles.
“Don’t go.”
“We’re not getting anywhere,” she said. “We just seem to make things worse.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
She shook her head and walked off to her tent.
5. The Second Passage
THE NEXT NIGHT, IN the sunken chamber, Conway chipped away in silence for an hour while Pierce sat smoking. Finally, Conway said, “How’d it go?”
“I made as much progress as you did.”
“We didn’t get anywhere,” Conway said.
“Welcome to the club.”
They were both silent. The only sound was the biting chisel and the thump of the wooden mallet. The plaster flaked away and fell, shattering on the floor.
“God damn it, why’d you have to fight?” Conway said.
“Who said we fought?”
“You did.”
“I did not”
“Well, did you fight, or didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Pierce admitted, “we fought.”
“You see? What did I tell you?”
“Someday,” Pierce said, “I really am going to punch you in the nose.”
“My grandpappy used to say that people who loved each other fought in order to avoid intimacy.”
“I thought your grandpappy was a Sioux Indian.”
“This is the other side of the family. This is my grandpappy the psychiatrist.”
“All right. You’ve made your point.”
“But you don’t listen to me, that’s the trouble. Here I am, giving you all this good advice, and you sit there without hearing—”
He stopped.
“What’s the matter? Got a cramp in your tongue?”
Silence. Then Conway said “No, no. It’s just that I’ve come upon this little crack, you see, and it looks as if it might be another door.”
Pierce was on his feet immediately, looking up where Conway was working in the hammock. The edge of a smoothly cut stone block was clearly visible.
“Keep going,” Pierce said.
Conway worked furiously. In less than five minutes, he had found the outline of a rectangle four feet square.
“That must be it,” Pierce said.
Conway jumped down from the hammock. “I think so, too.”
The block was located near the ceiling and near a corner. “Tricky devils,” Conway said. “I’ve never heard of a connecting passage being cut in a place like that.”
“Do you suppose it opens out or in?”
“I’ll give you money it opens out, but let’s try to push it in first.”
Pierce clambered up into the hammock and pushed with both arms. Then, he took the crowbar and tried to wedge it forward. Little flakes of loose plaster and limestone came free, but that was all.
“Try to bring it out,” Conway said.
Pierce applied reverse pressure to the crowbar. Almost immediately, he felt the big stone move.
“Easy there. It must weigh more than a Buick. It’ll fall right into your hammock and take you with it.”
It required half an hour to drive a new spike into the rock and sling the hammock so that the rock would miss it when it fell. Working from the new position was difficult; Pierce had trouble maintaining his balance and gaining leverage. But he made progress—the block moved out farther, then farther. Soon, he could see it in cross section.
“It’s thin. No more than four inches thick.”
“What’re you complaining about?”
“Stand back,” Pierce said. When Conway had crossed to the other side of the room, he gave a final heave with the crowbar.
With a crunching sound, the rock came free and fell. It struck the floor with a heavy crash and shattered into a thousand fragments, almost a powder. The air was opaque with dust, and both men were coughing.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Conway said.
They rearranged the hammock, swinging it back to its old position. Pierce climbed up and shined a flashlight down the corridor. It was long and smoothly finished but lacked the colorful hieroglyphics of the other chamber.
“What do you see?” Conway said.
“It goes about fifty feet and then ends in a blank wall. But it’s smooth, so it must be another door. I’ll go have a look.”
“I’m right behind you.”
Pierce scrambled up and entered the passageway. Crouching, he walked down, feeling his backbone scrape the rock. Behind him, Conway grunted as he hauled himself up into the hammock; rear light was momentarily blocked—Conway must be entering the passage.
“Wait for me,” he said. “What’re you trying to do, hog all the glory for yourself? Remember who found this tunnel in the first place. Yours truly. Keep that in mind, fella.”
Pierce reached the door at the far end—and it was a door; he could see the mortar around the edges.
“Better get the chisel and crowbar,” he said.
“Okay,” Conway said, “but don’t try anything foolish while I’m gone.”
He backed down. Pierce waited by the door. He rapped it with his knuckles and was surprised to hear a hollow sound. It couldn’t be very thick. It sounded like a garden slate, no more than an inch thick.
Tentatively, he pushed on it with his palm.
It moved.
“What do you know?” he said aloud.
“What’s that?” Conway called.
“I think we can do without the tools,” Pierce said.
“Okay, man.”
Pierce pushed again. The door gave way farther. Conway was back in
the tunnel, moving toward him.
“Be careful there.”
“I will.”
Conway was still thirty feet back. He gave a hard push, and the door fell away, slapping down on the rock floor of the next room.
“Made it!”
He stepped into the next chamber.
And then he heard a sound behind him—a grinding, grating sound, like heavy sandpaper scraping.
The light coming through the corridor dimmed.
With a heavy thunk, the corridor was sealed off. Surprised, he dropped his flashlight, which clattered on the floor and went out.
“Hey!”
It was pitch dark. The room smelled dead.
6. Darkness
HE KNELT DOWN AND felt the wall. He could feel the opening or the tunnel and then the walls of the tunnel itself for a distance of about three inches. Then a new stone, completely closing off the corridor.
It must have been actuated by the original door, he thought. When I opened it, I released another stone which came down and resealed the passageway.
Nasty.
He tapped the stone. This one, unlike the door, was solid.
“Can you hear me?” he called.
Silence.
“Alan!”
Nothing.
And then a horrible thought occurred to him. Suppose the stone had crushed Conway when it descended?
He did not have long to wonder. In a few moments, very faintly, he heard a tapping. He tapped back, waited, and heard an answer.
Listening, he realized that Conway was signaling to him in Morse code.
“God damn it, I don’t know Morse code,” he shouted.
The words echoed.
Must be a fair-sized room.
After a while, the tapping stopped. Pierce tapped, but there was no reply. Probably gone for help.
“God knows I need it.”
He listened to his own voice and tried to judge the size of the room, its dimensions. Impossible. Maybe a blind person could do it.
“Got to figure something out,” he said. He realized that he was talking because he was afraid. He was trapped in a space of unknown dimensions, unknown contents, deep in the earth. It was a terrifying idea.
“Keep busy. Don’t think about it.”
He bent over and ran his fingers across the floor, searching for his flashlight. He found it and touched the smashed glass face. He pressed the button, but there was no light. He dropped it again.