He shakes his head. “He died.”
Muslim clients of mine have always been better with death language than my Christian clients, who tend to be terrified of that transition. “I am so sorry to hear that,” I tell him. “I have many great memories of him.”
Harbi smiles. “As do I,” he says. “My son and I now see to the Dig House.” He frowns. “Mudirdid not tell me you were coming.”
When I hear him sayMudir,the director, I immediately think of Dumphries, who had held that title as the head of the Yale Egyptology program. But of course, there is a new director now. Wyatt.
“It was sort of a last-minute decision,” I hedge. “Where is everyone?”
“It’s Friday,” Harbi says, shrugging. Fridays had been our days off, when we would often take trips to other dig sites. “They were visiting Sohag overnight.”
Sohag is another Yale archaeological mission, about three and a half hours south. “When will they be back?”
“Lunchtime,inshallah.”
“Would it be all right if I wait?” I ask.
“Yes, yes,” Harbi answers. “But you must be hungry,doctora.”
I feel my face color. “Oh,” I correct, “actually, I’m not. Adoctora.” It makes sense for Harbi to assume that a visitor would be another Ph.D., like the ones from Yale, and that the girl who worked here for three seasons as a grad student would have completed her dissertation.
Harbi looks at me for a long moment expectantly. When I don’t say more, he starts walking down the hallway. “But you are still hungry,” he says.
I notice his limp and wonder what happened: if he fell on-site, if his injury pains him. But I can’t ask personal questions, not when I am unwilling to answer any myself.
“I’m not very hungry,” I say. “Don’t go to any trouble…”
Harbi ignores my comment and leads me to the largest room of the Dig House, which functions as a work space as well as a dining hall. “Please make yourself at home.” Leaving me behind, he shuffles toward the tiny kitchen, his rubber sandals scratching along the tile floor. Under the dome of mud brick is the same table where we ate all our meals, the wood still scarred and spotted. But it’s what’s different that takes my breath away. Gone are the rolled sheaves of Mylar and ragged stacks of manila folders and papers. Instead, a jigsaw puzzle of desks on the other side of the room is covered with computers—cables snaking like sea monsters and twined around each other, rigged into surge protectors that balance precariously, straining to reach a wall outlet. There are tablets charging and two impressive digital cameras. On the far wall is a giant printed rendering of the complete epigraphic copy of the colossus-hauling scene from Djehutyhotep’s tomb—the one that I had worked on with Wyatt that entire last season. I recognize the careful drawings I made with my own hand on Mylar, reproduced now in ink, with Wyatt’s translation in the margin. If I needed proof that I was once here, that I had done something worthy—it is literally right in front of me.
I step through the French doors onto the patio just as Harbi returns, balancing a stack of plates. “Please, sit,” he urges, and I slip into my old spot at the table.
He has brought a bowl of salad—chopped tomatoes, cilantro, and cucumbers—soft cheese, andaish shamsi,bread that is leavened in the sun before baking. I don’t realize I am starving until I start to eat and cannot stop. Harbi watches me, smiling. “Not hungry,” he says.
“A little,” I admit. Then I grin. “A lot.”
For dessert, he bringsbas bousa—a mixture of coconut and honey and partially milled semolina. Finally, I sit back in my chair. “I think I may not eat for the next three days.”
“So then you are staying,” Harbi replies.
I can’t. I have a life halfway across the world, a family that is worried about me. But there is something so unreal about being back here, as if I’ve been able to simply rewind the clock, that makes this feel like I am just pretending. It is like when you are having a wonderful dream, and you know you are dreaming, but you tell yourself not to wake up.
It is a few moments after Harbi returns to the kitchen that I realize he didn’t ask a question, but stated an assumption. That he’d already made this choice for me.
And that I didn’t correct him.
—
MY MOTHER USEDto say that blue eyes were bad luck, because you could see everything that a blue-eyed person was thinking, but I didn’t heed the warning the first time I met Wyatt Armstrong. I was a newly arrived transfer to Yale in 2001, a grad student with fifty dollars in my savings account and a shared apartment. I had been in town for three days, and as far as I could tell, the only weather in New Haven was a cold, driving rain. The night before the semester began, I was on my way home from Sterling Library when it started to pour. Desperate to protect the haul of books in my arms—including several hefty volumes of Adriaan de Buck’s Coffin Text transcriptions—I ducked into the first open doorway I could find.
Toad’s Place was—well—hopping, even for a Wednesday night. The bar was a mix of Yalies and Quinnipiac girls, who got bused in and tottered up and down York Street in heels and miniskirts that barely covered their asses. Inside, undergrads jockeyed at the bar, brandishing fake IDs like FBI badges. A metal band thrashed somewhere in the back, drowning out the fizz of a group of girls cheering on two guys engaged in a drinking contest.
The floor was sticky beneath my sneakers and the room smelled like Budweiser and weed. I glanced outside at the sheet of rain, weighing the lesser of two evils, and made my way to the end of the bar. I climbed onto a seat and set my stack of books on the bar, trying for invisibility.
Of course, I noticed him. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows and his hair, gold, spilled over his eyes as he reached for the shot, tossed it back, and then slammed the empty glass upside down on the scarred bar. The entourage around him erupted, cheering:Mark! Mark! Mark!But he didn’t smile or raise his arms in victory or console the loser. He just shrugged as if he knew that this would be the outcome, and accepted it as his due.
Asshole.
There were legacies at U Chicago, but at Yale, they seemed to be the norm instead of the exception. I hadn’t been here very long, but the few students I’d met seemed to be ripped from the pages ofTown & Country. My roommate, whom I’d found through a flyer on a bulletin board, came from the Hudson Valley and was obsessed with dressage. I assumed that had something to do with fashion, until I saw her in her horseback riding gear.
