A River in the Sky

He went out of the mosque and walked aimlessly along the street, pondering. “They” had been told about his father, no doubt by one of the Egyptian foremen. Egyptians reveled in tall tales about Emerson; his fame encompassed the entire country, from Cairo to Aswan and out into the Nubian deserts. Stories about Emerson’s feats of strength and his imposing presence were accurate enough to require no exaggeration, and many Egyptians regarded him as possessing supernatural powers. It was a reputation Emerson took some pains to encourage. No one who had watched him perform one of his famous exorcisms would ever forget it, for Emerson threw himself heart and soul into his performances. When he cursed an enemy, that enemy was likely to meet an unpleasant end. If fate didn’t see to that, Emerson did.

It was a tenuous lead, but the only one he had.

He didn’t know where Mitab lived, but everybody in Sebaste knew everybody else, and his description of the man he wanted eventually led him to a house on the outskirts of town. It was a little larger and in better condition than the majority of dwellings; Reisner paid good wages. In many cases the money supported an extended family, which appeared to be the case here. The door opened as he approached, and a mob of children spilled out into the street, yelling and laughing and shoving at one another. The boy leading the group, a bright-eyed ragged urchin of about ten, came to a sudden stop when he saw Ramses. Ramses recognized him as one of the basket boys on the dig.

The other children fell silent, staring. Ramses fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of coins-an irresistible offering in this impoverished part of the world. Jingling them in his hand, he said, “I have come to see Mitab. Please tell him I am here.”

The boy had heard the stories too. His eyes widened until the whites showed all round the pupils, and for a moment Ramses thought he would bolt. Ramses spoke gently, as he would have done to a nervous animal. “I only want to talk to him. I mean him no harm. I will wait for him here. Take this, as a gift.”

The word was “baksheesh.” It was regarded, not as payment for services actual or potential, but as a present from one equal to another. The dignity of the recipient demanded a return present, though in a good many cases the present consisted solely of thanks or freedom from harassment.

It took additional reassurance and the handing over of several more coins before the boy nodded. He went back into the house. Ramses prepared himself for a long wait, but it was only a few minutes later when the boy reappeared and held the door open. Ramses dropped a few more coins into his outstretched hand as he entered.

Cooking smells and the reek of charcoal fires mingled with the stench of too many bodies, animal and human, occupying too small a space. Ramses thought he caught a whiff of hashish too. At first glance he believed the room was unoccupied. Then the curtains covering a door at the back of the room stirred. A worried face peered out.

“I came to ask you a question,” Ramses said. “One question only, one truthful answer, and then I will go.”

The curtain parted and Mitab edged into the room.

“Only one?”

“Yes. The answer will be locked in my heart, no one else will hear it.”

“You swear?”

“By God and the Prophet, may his name be blessed, I swear.”

“I meant no harm. It was a warning.”

“It was you who threw the stones, then?”

“I meant no harm.”

“Did someone tell you to throw them?”

“They said you must all go. All the unbelievers. Yusuf and I meant you no harm. It was a warning, that you must go before greater harm came to you.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Mitab gave him a blank stare. Ramses took out his tin of cigarettes and offered it. “Take it,” he said. “Smoke, be at ease. Who are they?”

Mitab accepted the offering with a childish smile of pleasure. “They are the Those Who Come Before,” he said simply. “One of them spoke to us in the mosque and told us of the time when we must rise up against the infidels who want to steal our land.”

“When was that?”

Mitab counted on his fingers. Notions of exact time were too difficult; he said simply, “Two…three times-and again…I do not know.” He accepted the box of matches Ramses handed him, lit up, and drew the smoke into his lungs. A blue fog of expelled smoke veiled his face. “But he was angry when he heard what Yusuf and I had done, and we had heard of the great and powerful magician who is your father, and Yusuf and I did not want his wrath to fall on our heads.”

You were in trouble enough already, poor devil, Ramses thought.

Aloud he said, “I promise you I will appease his wrath. You meant no harm, you will take no harm from him or from me. I will tell the one in the mosque the same, if you-”

“Will you? Will you?” In his excitement Mitab dropped the cigarette. “I saw that you spoke with him that day on the tell, when he was there with the lady. You know him, you have power over him. I will pray for you at the mosque today, Brother of Demons.”