For the first time, his smile fades. “Propriety be damned,” he says and takes me by the hand.
He leads me off the train platform, past men on donkeys, travelers, a stationmaster, and vendors hawking their wares at stalls, toward the station proper. There, in an empty corner under the shade of an awning, he kisses me. For a moment, Egypt and Tutankhamun and the Zaghlouls and Papa and Howard are forgotten, and all I can think and feel is Brograve.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you in the lobby of the Winter Palace,” he whispers into my ear, when we finally break for a breath.
“Me too,” I whisper back.
“I love you, Eve. I’d hoped for a romantic pronouncement in the Valley of the Kings, but that was not meant to be.” He gestures around the noisy, hot, crowded train station. “This will have to do.”
“This is perfect,” I assure him. And it is. “I love you too.”
Brograve whoops and then swings me around in delight. When he gently places me back down on the packed dirt ground, he says, “No time like the present. I’d planned on asking your father for permission and then creating an elaborate gesture, but for now, it will just have to be for us two.” He takes a deep breath. “Evelyn Herbert, will you do me the great honor of marrying me?”
“Brograve Beauchamp, of course I will marry you.” I almost cannot get the words out before he swoops me up again, this time for another kiss.
“You’ve made me the happiest man in the world, Eve,” he says, as the train whistle signals the final boardings for Cairo. “Perhaps the next time we are in Egypt together it will be for our honeymoon.”
My heart flutters as my hopes soar with his words. It seems that the answer to the question that has been bedeviling me—can I really have both marriage and archaeology?—is yes.
Chapter Sixty-One
MARCH 4, 1923
LUXOR,EGYPT
Our planned several days on board thedahabiyaextend past a week. Sailing along the Nile on the two-masted boat with its shaded sundeck and luxurious living area belowdecks is precisely what Papa needs. By the end of a week, his color returns and his mood softens. The apologetic note from Howard helps this transformation along, as does Papa’s own contrite reply, and he is calm enough to talk through a reasonable strategy for dealing with Tutankhamun’s tomb. But then, just as we are about to return to Luxor, a mosquito bite on his cheek becomes infected, and I decide more days are necessary for Papa’s recuperation. After all, I have no need to rush back to Luxor for Brograve,my fiancé, I think with a smile. Only the complicated, confusing lure of the past continues to tug at me.
But now, when we finally leave the boat and approach the Winter Palace again, I feel as though we’ve entered a different Luxor from the one we left. The number of tourists seems to have quadrupled and the quantity of journalists along with them. Advertisements for hotel rooms and promotions for restaurants with “Tutankhamun Rag” dances are posted all over town, and Europeans dressed in “ancient Egyptian” costumes crowd the streets. The downpour has escalated to a deluge, and I worry how Papa will fare in this storm—and what impact it will have on the excavation.
Monsieur Gavreau guides us in through the hotel’s side door, so we don’t have to face the hordes in the lobby. He directs us into the private dining room where Howard awaits and we plan to share ameal in peace. As if they’d never had a harsh word, the men shake hands, and Howard and I embrace. It feels like eons have passed since we chipped away at the stone slabs guarding Tutankhamun’s secret, so much has transpired. How the public gaze has transformed our private joy.
Waiters bring in the first of an elegant five-course French meal that Monsieur Gavreau had specially prepared, and we settle into our seats. We discuss the artifacts that continue to pour out of the tomb, and study the photographs that Mr. Burton has made, marveling at the exquisite objects, which include a few artifacts that are of a completely new type. I long to see these items with my own eyes. We then review the Herculean efforts to preserve and box up the treasures that have been removed from the tomb as well as to secure the site, reburying it after the installation of a steel gate on the entrance and hiring round-the-clock security detail. Soon the weather will become so hot that excavation and preservation in the field will not be tenable. Even so, Howard plans to remain at Castle Carter for most of the summer to continue working on the artifacts, never mind the heat.
“Did you have access to the newspapers while you were on thedahabiya?” Howard asks. If I didn’t know better, I might think he’s just making conversation. But Howard never engages in polite chatter.
Why is he asking about the news? I feel a knot returning to my stomach.
“No, for the most part, and it was a bloody relief,” Papa says with a sigh. He doesn’t seem to have picked up on the incongruity of Howard making seemingly innocuous conversation. “I’d gotten pretty tired of being lambasted in the press.”
Howard takes a long sip of wine, and says, “Well, then I suppose I’ll have to be the bearer of bad news.”
Papa puts down his silver fork with its bite of sole, and stares at Howard. “What’s happened?”
“You know, of course, that the British government ended the protectorate. Although England and Egypt have been haggling over what that means, since the British still control the Suez Canal and the British still populate the military and the government. To that end, a new constitution is about to go into effect, one that will purportedly promulgate democracy.” Howard pauses for another sip of wine.
Papa remarks, a little caustically, “I don’t need a newspaper to tell me all that. That’s old news.”
Ignoring Papa’s tone, Howard continues. “What you may not know is that the new constitution calls for an election to choose a leader. Zaghloul is slated to run for prime minister. His platform calls for Egyptian autonomy, civil rights, dominion over the canal,andfull control over Tutankhamun’s tomb and the fate of its contents.”
“No!” Papa exclaims.
“Yes,” Howard says, his eyes downcast.
“I wish I’d never invited that bloody fellow to Highclere. I never thought he’d take such a firm stance against excavations.” Papa seethes.
Mr. Zaghloul’s platform doesn’t surpriseme. His views are ones he’s espoused for some time, and he and his wife intimated as much to me directly. But I suppose Papa’s focus has been on restoring order to Egypt so he could go about his business as usual, which Mr. Zaghloul could help deliver. Anyway, he and Mama are notorious for only hearing what they want to hear.
I feel two contradictory things at once. Papa has invested much of his time and resources into finding a pharaonic tomb, and he does care about both the history of ancient Egypt and the artistry of its antiquities; my sympathies lie with him. Yet, the Egyptian people have been under the yoke of different colonialists for centuries and deserve to own their history; the Zaghlouls’ view seems morally righteous.
