She tears open the envelope. “The first page is just ancestry,” Meret says. “But I already know I’m Irish and…”
“Ninety-eight percent?” Brian looks at the pie chart on the paper. “That’s weird. Your grandma and grandpa were Ashkenazi Jews from Poland. What’s the margin of error for the test?”
Always the scientist.
Meret smirks. “Is now the time to tell me I’m adopted?”
I stare at the pie chart and suddenly I can’t move. My blood, the same blood that runs in Meret’s veins, is sluggish. That nearly complete circle graph. British and Irish, ninety-eight percent.
The marquess is my father. I’m merely an earl.
All the way back to William the Conqueror, I’m afraid.
English,Wyatt had said.Through and through.
THERE’S ANEGYPTIANmyth in which Isis, hungry to get power from Re to give her own son, brings down the sun god by creating a poisonous snake out of his own spit. Re can’t fight it, because it’s part of him. That is how it feels when, the next day, I am working in the magazine and Wyatt comes in.
I already know that Anya is leaving. I heard the Land Rover pulling away; I assumed that Wyatt was in it with her, driving her back to Cairo to make her flight.
“I’m surprised to see you,” I say.
He leans against one of the storage shelves. “Alberto had to go to Cairo to get some computer cable, so he offered to play chauffeur.”
“He deserves a raise,” I say, turning my attention to a line of hieratic I’ve read four times.
Wyatt comes closer, climbing up the scaffolding so that he is standing opposite me, the cavern of the coffin between us. “You’re angry.”
“You said it yourself: I don’t have the right to be angry.” I look away from him. “I got your note. Or was that a parting gift?”
I want to ask him what he said to Anya. And at the same time, I don’t want to know. Either way, I can’t see where we go from here.
“Dammit, Olive. I really want to talk to you.”
“Then talk.”
“Not here.” Wyatt climbs down from the scaffolding and stands at the base of the coffin, his hand extended, like a knight rescuing a maiden from a tower. “Let’s go for a drive.”
—
IN 2003, ONthe day that we found the rock dipinto, everyone else living in the Dig House had taken the day off. We were alone because they’d gone to visit Tell el-Amarna, the city where Akhenaton ruled with his queen, Nefertiti. It is only eight miles from us, thirty minutes, and it’s remarkable that I have never actually been there, because Akhenaton is one of the most fascinating kings in ancient Egypt. A New Kingdom pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty, he is known for two things: for being the father of Tutankhamun, and for changing religion during the course of his reign.
There’s no question that deities—plural—were important to ancient Egyptians. Many Egyptian gods seemed to clot into threes or multiples of threes—from Atum, Shu, and Tefnut to Amun, Re, and Ptah; from Osiris, Isis, and Horus to the Ennead—the nine main deities worshipped at Heliopolis. Temples in Egypt were stages for processions. The Egyptians would have come out to watch, and after the gods had sucked up all the spiritual sustenance from the offerings, the literal food was given to the masses. Feast days then were like Christmas now.
But when Akhenaton became king, he was the Grinch. He shut down the temples and the festivals. Instead of celebrating many gods, the Egyptians now had to celebrate one—the Aton, or sun disk—but Akhenaton wasn’t a monotheist. Instead, he inserted himself into theology, rounding out a new trilogy with himself and his royal wife, Nefertiti. Every day in Amarna, his shining golden city, there were festivals celebrating himself, his wife, and his daughters. He was accompanied by a military escort at all times. It is the only era in Egyptian history where there are representations of people bowing all the time to their king.
He didn’t just cancel Christmas, though. He also canceled the afterlife. Although he was a New Kingdom pharaoh, his tomb—unlike the tombs in the Valley of the Kings—depicts no funerary rituals involving deities like Re and Osiris, because that would negate the concept of Akhenaton as a creator god. By definition, none of those other deities could exist yet.
Wyatt and I are quiet on our way to Amarna. We stop first at the boundary stele, and then we continue to the necropolis.
Wyatt has been here often. The guard knows him by sight and hands him the key so that we can explore on our own. As we descend into the Royal Tomb, I breathe in the sweet, smoky smell of bat guano. Immediately, I am drawn to the images on the walls, which are so different from the art at Deir el-Bersha oranywhereelse in Ancient Egypt.
Nefertiti and Akhenaton are hard to tell apart, because the figures do not look male and female. They are carved with elongated heads and round tummies, like the androgynous creator deities of Ancient Egypt. Their daughters are depicted, too, with the same alienesque heads and bellies, as if they, too, are eternally frozen at the moment of creation. In ritual temple scenes and private tombs, Akhenaton only portrayed his daughters, because a creator god could have as many female manifestations as he wanted, but the minute there was another male, the primordial clock was marching forward.
Suddenly I understand why Wyatt has brought me here. Akhenaton tried to turn back time.
“I didn’t say anything to Anya,” Wyatt confesses, “because I realized I had to speak to you, first.”
Slowly, I face him. Wyatt stands in front of a sunrise scene depicting the royal family. His bright hair is exactly at the level of the sun disk, and for some reason, this makes me want to cry.
