The luxor curse, p.10
The Luxor Curse, page 10
part #1 of Kathryn Black Series
“Of course there is, please listen.” After a short pause to ensure that Kate was not going to slap him again, Alex carried on. “Honestly, dad took no notice of her. He actually found her to be most annoying. Especially so, when she sat down on the white rock of the Theban Hills, right next to where he was working, and told him stories about Roy. What he did, how he lived his life, how he had loved an ancient ancestor of hers. It went in one ear and out of the other, as dad says. Long after she had gone, dad picked up the rock which she had said was the carving of a horse’s head, he really didn’t know why he did, but he took it back to the dig house.
“That evening, the more dad examined it, the more he could see that it was a rock which showed many signs of having been carved in antiquity. Turning it around in his hands had the effect of allowing the single overhead light bulb to throw up shadows and shapes within the rock. It could well have been a horse’s head, but whatever it was, it had definitely been carved. The very next day he had a small group of diggers clear an area behind where he had picked the rock from. Three days later they discovered a previously unopened noble’s tomb.
“Dad was young at the time, not even a fully qualified archaeologist, and being so junior, he received no credit for his find. To this day, dad still becomes emotional when he talks about how, when the hieroglyphs’ experts arrived, they declared it to be the tomb of Roy. Upon hearing this, he collapsed, only to wake a day later in the hospital. He was profoundly affected by this, as being a logical man, there was no way he could make sense of it, but the lady he had thought to be crazy, somehow knew that the tomb of Roy was there. How and why, he still doesn’t know, as dad never saw her again, though it was not for the want of trying. Not knowing her name, he visited every hotel and backpacker room in Luxor, and there were nowhere near as many then as there are now, though nobody recognised her from his description.
“So, you see, Kate, you may be seeing something like she did, if in fact she existed at all outside of dad’s imagination. Perhaps dad conjured her up from memories he did not know he had. The brain does have many areas which are active, though nobody knows exactly what they active for. Perhaps seeing the shabti awoke something in your mind.”
You could have cut the silence with a knife as Kate stared at Alex, and Alex stared back. Cairo stared at them both, and it was he who broke the silence. “So Kate crazy, she need meds, then we can walk everywhere, rather than run.” Kate and Alex both looked at him wide eyed, causing Cairo to disappear beneath the table. They broke into laughter, so Cairo poked his head back up a little.
“It’s okay, Cairo, come on up. Your reaction was not at all what I expected, but rest assured that Kate is not crazy, and she most certainly doesn’t need any meds.”
“That good, Mr Alex, but don’t understand why we run.”
“Well, Cairo, we need to get everything sorted out by Monday week. Just follow us, and all will become clear,” to which Alex added under his breath, “at least I hope it will.”
“Okay, Mr Alex, I follow as this better than work.” Cairo smiled as he picked up his karkadé, which was still a little hot, so he put it down again.
Kate had taken the story in. She was most relieved that Alex did not think she was crazy, though she wondered if the story he had told was actually true, or if it was just his way of trying to get her to relax. Though fantastic, it did have a ring of truth about it. She was unsure. “I really saw it, Alex, the hieroglyphs were there, right there, on the front of the shabti.” Kate was now speaking as if in panic. “I could read them as though they were written in English. It doesn’t matter what I have in my head, as it is only when I say the name out loud that things happen. Though saying it here, nothing has happened. As we are in Luxor … surely something should have happened here when I spoke his name. I really can’t get my head around it, and I bought this large book about the Valley of the Kings, and there was nothing about this pharaoh in it. I know that he exists, everything inside me says that he exists, but I know nothing of Ancient Egypt, so how can I be so sure?”
“Let’s accept that you are right, so the question I have to ask is, why are we going to the Valley of the Kings?” Alex had removed a guide book from his backpack. He checked the chronology of pharaohs several times. There were periods of time where it was clearly stated that there were various rulers who were unknown, but these were from times long before Luxor was even thought of as a burial ground of the pharaohs. The time of the pharaohs in Luxor appeared to be extremely well documented.
“Well, it just seemed to be logical,” said Kate, “as I have a pharaoh’s name and pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings. Perhaps, like the lady who spoke to your dad, I will just know once I am there. And Cairo, why is this karkadé still so flipping hot?”
“Sorry, young madam, but wanted to stop running, so asked Ali for really hot, so we stay.”
“I know, you told us that. It was a rhetorical question.”
“She didn’t need an answer,” said Alex, seeing the obvious confusion on Cairo’s face.
“Okay, Cairo,” added Kate, “I know why you did it, but now we must go to the Valley of the Kings.” There was a slight pause before the question, “What is the best way there?”
Cairo looked at Kate as he thought. Renting a bicycle from the shop next door would not get them there quickly enough, taxis charged too much, and the local little van service would be far too uncomfortable for them. “I shall speak to Ali, as his car here.” Cairo pointed down to a white car, which even from this distance Kate and Alex could see was rather dilapidated as well as very old, though before either of them could say anything, he had trotted off to speak to Ali.
“It looks as though we will be going with Ali, Kate.”
“How do you know that?” asked Kate, as she turned around to see Cairo and Ali both nodding and smiling. “Okay, clever dick, so let’s get rid of this karkadé.” The water that surrounded a small papyrus plant at the end of their table immediately turned red, as without a second thought Kate tipped out all three glasses of karkadé, one after the other. She did it so quickly, that it could have been mistaken for a single movement by a casual onlooker.
Alex guffawed as he spluttered a corrupted line from the film The Mummy. “And the rivers of Egypt ran red, as if from blood,” followed by, “It’s a curse, it’s a curse” in his best Benny voice, before running off, waving his arms.
Cairo returned to the table with a bemused look on his face. Before he could say anything, Kate, who actually thought that Alex had been funnier than she had ever expected he could be, said, “Don’t mind Alex, he is just desperate for the toilet. He will be back in a minute.”
A black cat sat unmoving by the plant pot, looking like a black basalt statue. Nobody had noticed her, but that was only because that was the way she wanted it.
Chapter 9
-
At Last
the Valley of the Kings
Cairo was beaming. “Ali says we take his car to Valley of Kings.”
“We!” said Kate.
“Yes, you.” Then, looking at his feet, he said, “Told Ali you good drive.”
“I’m thirteen, Cairo. Thirteen-year olds do not drive cars.”
“They do here, so told him you good drive, so you drive.”
Alex returned to the table, shaking his hands vigorously, whilst muttering about the lack of hand towels. Hearing Cairo’s comments, he feigned a heart attack. This removed any hesitation from Kate. She stood up, grabbed the keys from Cairo’s outstretched hands, then headed for the stairs. Passing Ali on the way, she offered to pay for the drinks.
“Welcome drink as Egyptian hospitality,” said Ali with a slight bow. “You most welcome. We wait for you after Valley of Kings.”
A hasty thanks was followed by a nod of agreement, in confirmation that they would be back. However, Kate would have agreed to anything in order to leave quickly. She was half way down the stairs before Alex and Cairo had even started to move, but move they did. Kate was in Ali’s car well before they came out of the restaurant. It was only due to Kate’s repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to get a very bent key into the ignition switch that had allowed Alex and Cairo the time they needed to catch up. Thankfully, she had not had to use the key to get into the car, as there was nothing more than a hole where once a lock had been.
Alex slipped into the seat beside her, whilst Cairo sat in the back. The sixth time of trying proved successful. With a twist of the key, the starter motor grudgingly turned the engine over. There was a loud bang, before a cloud of smoke bellowed from the exhaust, as the engine burst into life. Alex thought that if Ali’s car was human, it would be an eighty-year-old with asthma. Black smoke continued to belch from the exhaust, causing Alex to revise his opinion. “It would be an eighty-year-old with asthma, who smokes one hundred a day!”
Alex was wondering if Cairo had been wiser than him by getting into the back of the car, as Kate’s first attempt at moving forward produced a simultaneous blast from several car horns, as well as shouts from a man on a donkey cart. Though move forward they did, not reaching over ten kilometres an hour, but they were off and heading towards the Nile. Cairo was frantically tapping Alex on the shoulder in total panic, whilst Alex was in a state of terror, a state that he would not have previously believed possible at only ten kilometres an hour. It was, however, a state which had rendered him temporarily speechless.
Though not one of the busiest of roads in Luxor, it was busy enough. There seemed to be every type of vehicle coming towards them as Kate proceeded down the left-hand-side of the left-hand-lane, demanding that the stupid drivers get out of her way. Thankfully, Kate had failed to find second gear, because if she had, she would most likely have killed them all.
Alex, finally finding his voice, spurted out, “They drive on the right here.” Immediately he regretted saying anything, as Kate swerved into the right-hand-lane, allowing an all too short, though not particularly interesting life to flash through the minds of both Alex and Cairo. Cars went everywhere. Now, much to their relief, there was a clear road ahead with the Nile at the end. Kate was gripping the wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white, and that was before Alex proffered some additional advice. “There are two lanes on this side of the road, there are also two lanes on the other side of the road,” he said in what he thought was a reasonably calm voice in the circumstances, but then he lost it and shouted, as he saw a lorry coming directly towards them. “We’re still on the wrong side of the road!”
Kate was far too focussed – in a rabbit caught in headlights sort of way – to say or do anything. She headed straight for the lorry, whose driver flashed its lights and blasted its horn before swerving to their left, just missing Kate and her terrified passengers. It came to a halt on two motorcycles which had been quite safely parked, or so their owners had thought, but they had not reckoned upon Kate. On the straight ten kilometres an hour was nerve-racking enough, though that was nothing when compared to Kate spinning Ali’s car around the little roundabout by the edge of the Nile. Ten kilometres an hour around that was worse than being on the scariest ride at Disneyland, yet this ride had no safety certificate. Alex did not know how they made it completely around the roundabout two and a half times, before starting back up the road they had just come down, but make it they did.
Now they were actually going with the flow of the traffic, which was far more comforting for everyone. Policemen, who had previously been sleeping, were dealing with the lorry driver, having been awakened by the sound of crunching metal. Luckily enough for Kate, Alex and Cairo, the policemen were blissfully unaware of why the lorry driver had had to swerve. The driver, however, looking between the two policemen facing him, saw the white car coming back up the road, with Kate still at the wheel. He screamed in Arabic, “That’s her, it was her.” As he tried to push between the policemen, they quite naturally thought that he was attempting to make a run for it, both instantly crushed him to the floor.
“Don’t think, even for a moment, of getting out of the car to sort this mess out, as we are off to the Valley of the Kings.”
“It didn’t even cross my mind, Kate, as this really is beyond sorting out.” Alex then gave a little chuckle before saying, “Though I do feel guilty that because of us it may be quite some time before he sees his wife and children.”
“Oh, do shut up, we are on our way. What more do you want?”
“To live,” he thought, but decided that he definitely would not live if he spoke, so he said nothing. Kate continued to grip the steering wheel for dear life. The car was still in first gear, but the road ahead was clear, and quite frankly, that was the best Alex could hope for.
Passing Africa Restaurant for the second time, Cairo looked up to the roof only to see two waiters trying to console Ali. He appeared to have crumpled over the wall in total despair of ever seeing, what to him was, his beautiful motor car in one piece ever again.
Kate continued up the road. She failed to stop at the police checkpoint, but also failed to slow down for the narrow-gauge railway, used to move the cut sugar cane from the fields to the factory. The noise of the car grounding was followed by a cascade of sparks, raising a cheer from the children, who were either on their way to school, or on their way home from school, as with two shifts at the school every day, it was impossible to know who was going where. The sight of Kate behind the wheel, when combined with her making no attempt to slow down or brake, even for the police, bestowed upon her a respect not frequently afforded to any driver. The road cleared before her.
Leaving the children and the school behind, they passed the Colossi of Memnon, the temple of Merenptah and the Ramesseum in quick succession. They were going past the many Theban tombs of the nobles in what seemed like no time at all, yet the speedometer stayed steady at ten kilometres an hour. The road remained clear, apart from an occasional tourist coach or two. These were heading back to Luxor with their tour parties.
The road remained reasonably wide, which supressed the fear of dying within in Alex. He began to be impressed at how Kate appeared to know exactly where she was going. Shortly after passing the tombs of Shuroy and Roy, which Alex thought it prudent at this time not to point out, Kate turned left, before going through another police check point without stopping. A tour coach had to stop sharply, in order to avoid a collision. So sharply that Alex saw the tour guide, who only a split second before had been standing to impart his great knowledge upon his captive audience, turn into a Garfield type window adornment, though just for a fleeting moment. Cuddly Garfield’s stayed in place with the help of a sucker fitted to each paw, something the tour guide had failed to have fitted, which was a real oversight on his part. He slid down the window to the floor, ending in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the steps by the front door of the tour bus.
Alex really enjoyed seeing the demise of the guide. He wished it had happened on his tour bus the last time he was here. All his guide had done, was to try and get everyone to buy papyrus, alabaster and perfume from various shops, in order to get his commission, when all anyone wanted was a decent toilet and an air-conditioned room.
By now his fear had completely gone, as he started to feel that Kate had a ring of invincibility about her. So his thoughts turned back to Garfield, as he wondered what had happened to all those little Garfields that people insisted on sticking to their car windows.
The road to the Valley of the Kings was uphill all the way. The engine now started to sound quite different. Alex also became aware that his feet were becoming very warm. With the car still in first gear, the temperature gauge had moved well into the red. Leaning over, he slid the heater control to hot, before turning the blower on full. Kate lambasted him, but he held his ground, clearly saying, “If you do not change into second gear, the engine will blow up.” Kate did not reply, though she also made no attempt to change into second gear. “The heater will draw some heat away from the engine, so we might just make it. It’s not far now.”
Turning around the last bend in the road, they could see the entrance to the Valley of the Kings’ car park. What they could also see was a barrier by a little police hut, which blocked the complete width of the road. “You must stop at this barrier, Kate.”
“Which one is the brake?” she asked, as she looked down and drifted to the left.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” shouted Alex with desperation, his feeling of invincibility having left him all too quickly. “When I say, put both your feet on the other two pedals and push hard, then we will stop.”
Kate did just this. Amazingly they stopped right by the barrier. This was a very old and very poorly maintained car, they were also on a hill, and Kate’s legs were neither long enough, nor powerful enough, to keep pressure on the pedals. As the forward momentum left them, and just as one of the policemen stood up, stretched, then started to walk over, the car started to roll backwards. Kate spun around to see what they were going to hit. As she did, she inadvertently turned the wheel.
“Turn the wheel the other way,” screamed Alex.
Kate did, completely changing the direction of the car.
“Take your feet off the pedals, NOW!”
Kate did this also. As first gear engaged, the wheels locked, the engine stalled, the car spun. It came to rest between two parked cars as though it had been parked by an expert. The array of lights glowing on the dashboard were the only sign that Kate’s parking was anything less than she had intended. The beads of sweat running down their faces could easily be explained, as they were not from fear, they were from the heat … though they all knew differently. The policeman wandered down to them, leaving his colleague to move the barrier for yet another leaving tour bus. Speaking very little English, he spoke with Cairo, who translated that only taxis and coaches were allowed in the Valley of the Kings’ car park, not private cars, so where they had parked was perfect.
Once out of the car, it was a short walk through the car park before reaching the visitor centre, which might give them some clues as to where to start looking. More importantly to them all were its decent toilets, which they all needed, if only to collect their thoughts and stop shaking.
“That evening, the more dad examined it, the more he could see that it was a rock which showed many signs of having been carved in antiquity. Turning it around in his hands had the effect of allowing the single overhead light bulb to throw up shadows and shapes within the rock. It could well have been a horse’s head, but whatever it was, it had definitely been carved. The very next day he had a small group of diggers clear an area behind where he had picked the rock from. Three days later they discovered a previously unopened noble’s tomb.
“Dad was young at the time, not even a fully qualified archaeologist, and being so junior, he received no credit for his find. To this day, dad still becomes emotional when he talks about how, when the hieroglyphs’ experts arrived, they declared it to be the tomb of Roy. Upon hearing this, he collapsed, only to wake a day later in the hospital. He was profoundly affected by this, as being a logical man, there was no way he could make sense of it, but the lady he had thought to be crazy, somehow knew that the tomb of Roy was there. How and why, he still doesn’t know, as dad never saw her again, though it was not for the want of trying. Not knowing her name, he visited every hotel and backpacker room in Luxor, and there were nowhere near as many then as there are now, though nobody recognised her from his description.
“So, you see, Kate, you may be seeing something like she did, if in fact she existed at all outside of dad’s imagination. Perhaps dad conjured her up from memories he did not know he had. The brain does have many areas which are active, though nobody knows exactly what they active for. Perhaps seeing the shabti awoke something in your mind.”
You could have cut the silence with a knife as Kate stared at Alex, and Alex stared back. Cairo stared at them both, and it was he who broke the silence. “So Kate crazy, she need meds, then we can walk everywhere, rather than run.” Kate and Alex both looked at him wide eyed, causing Cairo to disappear beneath the table. They broke into laughter, so Cairo poked his head back up a little.
“It’s okay, Cairo, come on up. Your reaction was not at all what I expected, but rest assured that Kate is not crazy, and she most certainly doesn’t need any meds.”
“That good, Mr Alex, but don’t understand why we run.”
“Well, Cairo, we need to get everything sorted out by Monday week. Just follow us, and all will become clear,” to which Alex added under his breath, “at least I hope it will.”
“Okay, Mr Alex, I follow as this better than work.” Cairo smiled as he picked up his karkadé, which was still a little hot, so he put it down again.
Kate had taken the story in. She was most relieved that Alex did not think she was crazy, though she wondered if the story he had told was actually true, or if it was just his way of trying to get her to relax. Though fantastic, it did have a ring of truth about it. She was unsure. “I really saw it, Alex, the hieroglyphs were there, right there, on the front of the shabti.” Kate was now speaking as if in panic. “I could read them as though they were written in English. It doesn’t matter what I have in my head, as it is only when I say the name out loud that things happen. Though saying it here, nothing has happened. As we are in Luxor … surely something should have happened here when I spoke his name. I really can’t get my head around it, and I bought this large book about the Valley of the Kings, and there was nothing about this pharaoh in it. I know that he exists, everything inside me says that he exists, but I know nothing of Ancient Egypt, so how can I be so sure?”
“Let’s accept that you are right, so the question I have to ask is, why are we going to the Valley of the Kings?” Alex had removed a guide book from his backpack. He checked the chronology of pharaohs several times. There were periods of time where it was clearly stated that there were various rulers who were unknown, but these were from times long before Luxor was even thought of as a burial ground of the pharaohs. The time of the pharaohs in Luxor appeared to be extremely well documented.
“Well, it just seemed to be logical,” said Kate, “as I have a pharaoh’s name and pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings. Perhaps, like the lady who spoke to your dad, I will just know once I am there. And Cairo, why is this karkadé still so flipping hot?”
“Sorry, young madam, but wanted to stop running, so asked Ali for really hot, so we stay.”
“I know, you told us that. It was a rhetorical question.”
“She didn’t need an answer,” said Alex, seeing the obvious confusion on Cairo’s face.
“Okay, Cairo,” added Kate, “I know why you did it, but now we must go to the Valley of the Kings.” There was a slight pause before the question, “What is the best way there?”
Cairo looked at Kate as he thought. Renting a bicycle from the shop next door would not get them there quickly enough, taxis charged too much, and the local little van service would be far too uncomfortable for them. “I shall speak to Ali, as his car here.” Cairo pointed down to a white car, which even from this distance Kate and Alex could see was rather dilapidated as well as very old, though before either of them could say anything, he had trotted off to speak to Ali.
“It looks as though we will be going with Ali, Kate.”
“How do you know that?” asked Kate, as she turned around to see Cairo and Ali both nodding and smiling. “Okay, clever dick, so let’s get rid of this karkadé.” The water that surrounded a small papyrus plant at the end of their table immediately turned red, as without a second thought Kate tipped out all three glasses of karkadé, one after the other. She did it so quickly, that it could have been mistaken for a single movement by a casual onlooker.
Alex guffawed as he spluttered a corrupted line from the film The Mummy. “And the rivers of Egypt ran red, as if from blood,” followed by, “It’s a curse, it’s a curse” in his best Benny voice, before running off, waving his arms.
Cairo returned to the table with a bemused look on his face. Before he could say anything, Kate, who actually thought that Alex had been funnier than she had ever expected he could be, said, “Don’t mind Alex, he is just desperate for the toilet. He will be back in a minute.”
A black cat sat unmoving by the plant pot, looking like a black basalt statue. Nobody had noticed her, but that was only because that was the way she wanted it.
Chapter 9
-
At Last
the Valley of the Kings
Cairo was beaming. “Ali says we take his car to Valley of Kings.”
“We!” said Kate.
“Yes, you.” Then, looking at his feet, he said, “Told Ali you good drive.”
“I’m thirteen, Cairo. Thirteen-year olds do not drive cars.”
“They do here, so told him you good drive, so you drive.”
Alex returned to the table, shaking his hands vigorously, whilst muttering about the lack of hand towels. Hearing Cairo’s comments, he feigned a heart attack. This removed any hesitation from Kate. She stood up, grabbed the keys from Cairo’s outstretched hands, then headed for the stairs. Passing Ali on the way, she offered to pay for the drinks.
“Welcome drink as Egyptian hospitality,” said Ali with a slight bow. “You most welcome. We wait for you after Valley of Kings.”
A hasty thanks was followed by a nod of agreement, in confirmation that they would be back. However, Kate would have agreed to anything in order to leave quickly. She was half way down the stairs before Alex and Cairo had even started to move, but move they did. Kate was in Ali’s car well before they came out of the restaurant. It was only due to Kate’s repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to get a very bent key into the ignition switch that had allowed Alex and Cairo the time they needed to catch up. Thankfully, she had not had to use the key to get into the car, as there was nothing more than a hole where once a lock had been.
Alex slipped into the seat beside her, whilst Cairo sat in the back. The sixth time of trying proved successful. With a twist of the key, the starter motor grudgingly turned the engine over. There was a loud bang, before a cloud of smoke bellowed from the exhaust, as the engine burst into life. Alex thought that if Ali’s car was human, it would be an eighty-year-old with asthma. Black smoke continued to belch from the exhaust, causing Alex to revise his opinion. “It would be an eighty-year-old with asthma, who smokes one hundred a day!”
Alex was wondering if Cairo had been wiser than him by getting into the back of the car, as Kate’s first attempt at moving forward produced a simultaneous blast from several car horns, as well as shouts from a man on a donkey cart. Though move forward they did, not reaching over ten kilometres an hour, but they were off and heading towards the Nile. Cairo was frantically tapping Alex on the shoulder in total panic, whilst Alex was in a state of terror, a state that he would not have previously believed possible at only ten kilometres an hour. It was, however, a state which had rendered him temporarily speechless.
Though not one of the busiest of roads in Luxor, it was busy enough. There seemed to be every type of vehicle coming towards them as Kate proceeded down the left-hand-side of the left-hand-lane, demanding that the stupid drivers get out of her way. Thankfully, Kate had failed to find second gear, because if she had, she would most likely have killed them all.
Alex, finally finding his voice, spurted out, “They drive on the right here.” Immediately he regretted saying anything, as Kate swerved into the right-hand-lane, allowing an all too short, though not particularly interesting life to flash through the minds of both Alex and Cairo. Cars went everywhere. Now, much to their relief, there was a clear road ahead with the Nile at the end. Kate was gripping the wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white, and that was before Alex proffered some additional advice. “There are two lanes on this side of the road, there are also two lanes on the other side of the road,” he said in what he thought was a reasonably calm voice in the circumstances, but then he lost it and shouted, as he saw a lorry coming directly towards them. “We’re still on the wrong side of the road!”
Kate was far too focussed – in a rabbit caught in headlights sort of way – to say or do anything. She headed straight for the lorry, whose driver flashed its lights and blasted its horn before swerving to their left, just missing Kate and her terrified passengers. It came to a halt on two motorcycles which had been quite safely parked, or so their owners had thought, but they had not reckoned upon Kate. On the straight ten kilometres an hour was nerve-racking enough, though that was nothing when compared to Kate spinning Ali’s car around the little roundabout by the edge of the Nile. Ten kilometres an hour around that was worse than being on the scariest ride at Disneyland, yet this ride had no safety certificate. Alex did not know how they made it completely around the roundabout two and a half times, before starting back up the road they had just come down, but make it they did.
Now they were actually going with the flow of the traffic, which was far more comforting for everyone. Policemen, who had previously been sleeping, were dealing with the lorry driver, having been awakened by the sound of crunching metal. Luckily enough for Kate, Alex and Cairo, the policemen were blissfully unaware of why the lorry driver had had to swerve. The driver, however, looking between the two policemen facing him, saw the white car coming back up the road, with Kate still at the wheel. He screamed in Arabic, “That’s her, it was her.” As he tried to push between the policemen, they quite naturally thought that he was attempting to make a run for it, both instantly crushed him to the floor.
“Don’t think, even for a moment, of getting out of the car to sort this mess out, as we are off to the Valley of the Kings.”
“It didn’t even cross my mind, Kate, as this really is beyond sorting out.” Alex then gave a little chuckle before saying, “Though I do feel guilty that because of us it may be quite some time before he sees his wife and children.”
“Oh, do shut up, we are on our way. What more do you want?”
“To live,” he thought, but decided that he definitely would not live if he spoke, so he said nothing. Kate continued to grip the steering wheel for dear life. The car was still in first gear, but the road ahead was clear, and quite frankly, that was the best Alex could hope for.
Passing Africa Restaurant for the second time, Cairo looked up to the roof only to see two waiters trying to console Ali. He appeared to have crumpled over the wall in total despair of ever seeing, what to him was, his beautiful motor car in one piece ever again.
Kate continued up the road. She failed to stop at the police checkpoint, but also failed to slow down for the narrow-gauge railway, used to move the cut sugar cane from the fields to the factory. The noise of the car grounding was followed by a cascade of sparks, raising a cheer from the children, who were either on their way to school, or on their way home from school, as with two shifts at the school every day, it was impossible to know who was going where. The sight of Kate behind the wheel, when combined with her making no attempt to slow down or brake, even for the police, bestowed upon her a respect not frequently afforded to any driver. The road cleared before her.
Leaving the children and the school behind, they passed the Colossi of Memnon, the temple of Merenptah and the Ramesseum in quick succession. They were going past the many Theban tombs of the nobles in what seemed like no time at all, yet the speedometer stayed steady at ten kilometres an hour. The road remained clear, apart from an occasional tourist coach or two. These were heading back to Luxor with their tour parties.
The road remained reasonably wide, which supressed the fear of dying within in Alex. He began to be impressed at how Kate appeared to know exactly where she was going. Shortly after passing the tombs of Shuroy and Roy, which Alex thought it prudent at this time not to point out, Kate turned left, before going through another police check point without stopping. A tour coach had to stop sharply, in order to avoid a collision. So sharply that Alex saw the tour guide, who only a split second before had been standing to impart his great knowledge upon his captive audience, turn into a Garfield type window adornment, though just for a fleeting moment. Cuddly Garfield’s stayed in place with the help of a sucker fitted to each paw, something the tour guide had failed to have fitted, which was a real oversight on his part. He slid down the window to the floor, ending in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the steps by the front door of the tour bus.
Alex really enjoyed seeing the demise of the guide. He wished it had happened on his tour bus the last time he was here. All his guide had done, was to try and get everyone to buy papyrus, alabaster and perfume from various shops, in order to get his commission, when all anyone wanted was a decent toilet and an air-conditioned room.
By now his fear had completely gone, as he started to feel that Kate had a ring of invincibility about her. So his thoughts turned back to Garfield, as he wondered what had happened to all those little Garfields that people insisted on sticking to their car windows.
The road to the Valley of the Kings was uphill all the way. The engine now started to sound quite different. Alex also became aware that his feet were becoming very warm. With the car still in first gear, the temperature gauge had moved well into the red. Leaning over, he slid the heater control to hot, before turning the blower on full. Kate lambasted him, but he held his ground, clearly saying, “If you do not change into second gear, the engine will blow up.” Kate did not reply, though she also made no attempt to change into second gear. “The heater will draw some heat away from the engine, so we might just make it. It’s not far now.”
Turning around the last bend in the road, they could see the entrance to the Valley of the Kings’ car park. What they could also see was a barrier by a little police hut, which blocked the complete width of the road. “You must stop at this barrier, Kate.”
“Which one is the brake?” she asked, as she looked down and drifted to the left.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” shouted Alex with desperation, his feeling of invincibility having left him all too quickly. “When I say, put both your feet on the other two pedals and push hard, then we will stop.”
Kate did just this. Amazingly they stopped right by the barrier. This was a very old and very poorly maintained car, they were also on a hill, and Kate’s legs were neither long enough, nor powerful enough, to keep pressure on the pedals. As the forward momentum left them, and just as one of the policemen stood up, stretched, then started to walk over, the car started to roll backwards. Kate spun around to see what they were going to hit. As she did, she inadvertently turned the wheel.
“Turn the wheel the other way,” screamed Alex.
Kate did, completely changing the direction of the car.
“Take your feet off the pedals, NOW!”
Kate did this also. As first gear engaged, the wheels locked, the engine stalled, the car spun. It came to rest between two parked cars as though it had been parked by an expert. The array of lights glowing on the dashboard were the only sign that Kate’s parking was anything less than she had intended. The beads of sweat running down their faces could easily be explained, as they were not from fear, they were from the heat … though they all knew differently. The policeman wandered down to them, leaving his colleague to move the barrier for yet another leaving tour bus. Speaking very little English, he spoke with Cairo, who translated that only taxis and coaches were allowed in the Valley of the Kings’ car park, not private cars, so where they had parked was perfect.
Once out of the car, it was a short walk through the car park before reaching the visitor centre, which might give them some clues as to where to start looking. More importantly to them all were its decent toilets, which they all needed, if only to collect their thoughts and stop shaking.
