Bound For Eternity Page 20

Victor, blast him, was at his most agreeable, approving my final exhibit plans and actually offering a few suggestions on effective display. He really liked the idea of setting up the Roman-Egyptian house with artifacts of daily life.

  "Don't forget, we have an Egyptian head-rest you could use. It's in storage somewhere-Ginny can help you locate it."

  Struggling to put on a demure and cooperative face, I agreed. "Okay. And I'm going to pull out the Roman-period children's toys-I remember seeing dice and a couple of doll-like figures. And we have some ivory combs and toiletry items."

  He seemed so approachable today that I ventured a query about plans for the spring semester. Victor evaded the question, leaving me feeling silly. Gloomily, I wondered if he had already made a decision about the curator position-one not in my favor.

  On my way out, I stuck my head in Susie's office to ask when my wall panel labels had to be ready for the printer.

  "You've got until the end of next week," said Susie, smoothing the skirt of yet another trendy new outfit-this time, a light blue suede suit. "Oh, your computer's being upgraded and the tech is still in there. You can use Carl's computer today, since he's out."

  Grateful that I'd had the foresight to toss my working diskette into my pocket (or rather I'd never taken it out, and I was wearing the same jacket as yesterday), I let myself into Carl's office.

  Carl was a total slob; he had probably been just like my brother David as a teenager (David thought at that age that his floor was the bureau and that waste-baskets were for target practice). Carl's office was organized by the pile system, but unlike my system, there was no order and the towers of books and papers looked in imminent danger of collapse. Three days of Styrofoam coffee cups and one dirty mug littered his desk, along with a jumble of campus newspapers and a couple of southwestern archaeology journals.

  I cleared a space by picking up an entire stack of papers and dumping it on the extra wooden chair, assuring myself that I wouldn't bother moving it back when I was done. It was an unwritten rule that you left your desk reasonably tidy in case someone else needed your computer, and I was damned if I was going to do Carl's housekeeping for him.

  Before I got to work though, there was something I had to do. I dialed James's number at work. He wasn't there, so the answering machine kicked in.

  Whirr, rustle. "This is Dr. James Barber. I'm away from my desk, please leave a message." Beep.

  I hated to leave my apology on an answering machine, but I did it anyway. "James, it's me. I just want to say I'm sorry I was such a bitch last night. I didn't mean that I wanted time away from you. Just time to get over my filthy mood." I hesitated. "Call me at the Cape-I'll be there over Thanksgiving."

  I hung up, feeling unsatisfied and vulnerable. What if he didn't call back? What if he couldn't put up with an occasional tantrum? I thought he was more forgiving than that, but I hadn't known him that long...

  My headache was worse. Rubbing my temples with one hand, I turned to Carl's computer and booted it up. Carl had an unusual desktop-all his icons were in funny places. While looking for his Word program so I could update my exhibit list, I stumbled upon a folder on Carl's hard drive containing a long list of locked files.

  I looked more closely at the list as I scrolled down. All of them had names that seemed to relate to the European collection, such as "chapel," "medarmor," and "celticjewel." Why so many locked files? Did this have something to do with the conversation I had overheard in Victor's office?

  But even if Victor and Carl were up to something with European artifacts, how did it relate to the duplicate mummy mask or the other fake Egyptian artifacts? I didn't know, and there didn't seem to be any easy way to find out.

  Besides, I had no proof that the fake mummy mask was brought into the museum by a current staff member. The year of acquisition for the original was 1924-well before any of my colleagues arrived. The actual fabrication of the duplicate mask could have taken place anytime since the twenties. So could its introduction into our collection. Then why was I so sure the fabrication was recent?

  Neglecting my label copy for the moment, I opened a new file and started a list:

  FACT:

  1) Someone, probably a staff member, attacked Marion.

  2) Someone replaced my mummy's original face portrait with a very close copy-and did it recently.

  3) At least two other artifacts-the terracotta antefix and the cartonnage- were partially or fully restored-when?

  I stared at my list, and added another line:

  Item 3 is not necessarily related to items 1 or 2.

  I looked at my watch. Ten minutes more and then I'd better scoot if I was going to make it to that therapy group. Quickly, I opened another file and began a second list:

  WORTH INVESTIGATING:

  1) Carl is working on something illegal with Victor, OR

  2) Victor's business is legitimate, but Carl is doing something else on the side.

  3) Ginny has locked files and is very territorial. Is she up to something, or is this just her normal way of operating?

  4) Susie has more freedom of movement than any other staff member-and more legitimate reasons to be in the museum at odd hours.

  5) Ellen is the only staff member really experienced in the detection of forgeries (we have to accept her opinions since none of the rest of us has enough scientific training to question her findings).

  I stared at my two lists, reflecting that we had only Ellen's word for it that the cartonnage had been tampered with. I didn't really believe my best friend was the culprit, but she had been acting oddly and I was trying to be as thorough and impartial as McEwan had requested.

  I printed my lists, deleted the files, and dashed for the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 34

  "...HE SHALL COME INTO THE FIELDS OF REEDS, AND BREAD, WINE, AND CAKES SHALL BE GIVEN TO HIM..." (BOOK OF THE DEAD)

  Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays on the Cape. The crazy summer traffic had ended, and the part-time residents had fled back to New York and Trenton and Boston. Now it was possible to make a left turn on Route 6 without taking your life in your hands, and you could buy fresh fish for supper without waiting in line. As winter approached, the Cape was left to the permanent retirees, the local business owners, and the birds.

  I gazed out the upstairs window at a spectacular vista. A saltwater inlet meandered around grass peninsulas and carefully built groynes. I could see the sand bar where my father had taken me clamming-how he had laughed at me when I sank up to my knees in black ooze. The blue heron was back, lording it over other birds as he posed on one leg.

  My brother David and I still found it very hard to come "home" and not find our mother here, concocting her wonderful mince pies and waving her glass around as she talked. I kept expecting her to come around the corner from the kitchen. Last night, David and I had lingered after the others had gone to bed, imbibing our father's Scotch and swapping memories.

  My laptop was open on the desk in front of me, but my mind was like a squirrel racing around the back yard. I just couldn't settle down and focus on writing label copy, even with the exhibit opening only two weeks away.

  James hadn't called back, leaving me wondering if I'd blown my chances with him. The thought of losing him brought my personal gray cloud of gloom directly overhead (forecast: rain and more rain).

  Last night, I'd had another dream with Marion in it. Dressed uncharacteristically in black jeans and sweatshirt, she was frantically searching for something in Egyptian storage, flinging artifacts carelessly over her shoulder and muttering, "They do walk around at night, and I know they do!" And as Marion chucked pectorals and cartonnages around like a sawmill spitting out boards, some mummy beads got up and changed drawers to avoid her rampaging hands.

  I'd been told that you should keep a notebook at your bedside to record dreams as they occurred, and that this habit would reward you with insights into your true desires and motivations. Problem was, I never remembered the dreams righ
t after I woke up. Instead, they haunted me during the day at odd hours, out of sequence and context. And there had been so many dreams lately that I couldn't keep track of them.

  The other distraction was the bizarre experience I'd had at the therapy group. I'd finally followed Ellen's suggestion, thinking a little letting-down-of-hair in front of a group might help control the dreams and the insomnia. But it hadn't been at all what I'd expected...

  ? ? ? ?

  I took the subway because I knew north Cambridge was a warren of small streets with no place to park. As I walked up Brattle Street, I remembered the Bogart films that used to show at the corner theatre during exam time. Casablanca, and To Have and Have Not-perfect escapes from the prison of the grim basement lounge stuffed with students trying to cram a semester's worth of studying into one weekend. I passed the Radcliffe Yard and continued north to a quiet neighborhood near the college's pottery studio.

  Why was I doing this? I wasn't at all sure I needed therapy. But it seemed so strange after working through the worst of my grief over Tom that I should start having nightmares and insomnia so many months after his death. Was it just emotional overload from everything I'd been going through since we'd moved back to Boston? Or were there other issues coiling and slithering around in my subconscious, issues that were unresolved and therefore dangerous to my emotional health?

  I had reached my destination. It was a white clapboard house with dingy windows and shutters hanging at odd angles-all in dire need of a paint job. I rang the bell, and all too soon the door opened.

  Oh, no.

  An earthy vision in a long, tie-dyed robe and frizzy hair greeted me. "Welcome, welcome. You must be Lisa!"

  Already wishing I hadn't come, I stepped inside. I had traveled back in time to the late sixties. A beaded curtain hung across the entrance to the living room, and I could smell burning incense. Stepping gingerly through the swaying glass beads, I was confronted by tiny colored Christmas lights and something in the dining room that looked like an altar. Diana saw me gazing at the odd arrangement of stones, fading flowers, and votive candles, and told me cheerfully, "That's where we place mementos of our loved ones so we can let go of grief."

  Huh?

  Ellen had certainly steered me wrong on this one. My doubts increased as I took a seat and listened to the discussion that was already in progress. Martin, the big guy with the punk haircut and nose ring, had lost his (male) lover to AIDS. Gwen, the skinny black woman who lived out of a shopping cart, was inconsolable over the loss of her dog (wasn't there a separate group for people grieving over dead pets?). Doug, an over-earnest bespectacled student, had been dumped by his girlfriend and was playing with the idea of suicide; he thought swallowing a bunch of aspirin would be the best way to go. When we got around the circle to me, Diana said, "Lisa lost her husband many months ago. How are you coping? Would you tell us what's been happening recently in your life, Lisa?"

  I thought for a moment. I said, "Nothing much. I'm a suspect in a murder case, and I'm a rotten mother, but otherwise everything's normal."

  Then I grabbed my coat and fled...

  ? ? ? ?

  Had Ellen known what Diana's group was really like? Or was it her idea of a joke? I was dying to ask her-but first I had to get Ellen to confide in me again. I sighed and turned back to my computer.

  I needed basic background on mummification and the Egyptian concept of the afterlife for the exhibit. I wrote down what I remembered from last night's dinner conversation.

  ? ? ? ?

  My nephew Mathew (the same Mathew who'd experienced the Tooth Fairy in several different countries) asked about mummies over turkey and dressing.

  "Please pass the butter. Why did they take the guts out?" Matt anointed his cornbread lavishly while waiting for my reply.

  "So the priests could preserve the tissues for the afterlife. The body was supposed to remain the home for the Egyptian spirit, so nothing was allowed to decay."

  "Didn't they just pour that natron stuff over the body and let it dry out?"

  "Like beef jerky," added David, his father.

  I laughed. Mathew was a smart kid. "You're right, Mathew, they dried out the body with natron salts, but that was only the first step. Then the embalmers washed the body and used resins and bitumen and honey to preserve what was left. And various perfumes to make the mummy smell better."

  "Yuck," said Mathew, reverting to his age, which was ten.

  "Yeah, Lisa likes dead bodies, almost as much as a pathologist. Except she likes the bones better than the tissues." David had a buddy who was a pathologist in a famous New York hospital.

  "At least archaeological dead bodies don't stink," I retorted. "There are some advantages to being all dried up."

  My dad chimed in. "Lisa, did you see the article in the New York Times this week? About a man in Baltimore who made his own mummy using ancient Egyptian methods and materials?"

  "That's Bob Brier, the philosophy professor at Long Island," I answered. "Yes, I did read it. It's really interesting because he did a huge amount of research on ancient embalming techniques, and collected his own natron in Egypt. His only stumbling block was getting a place to make the mummy."

  "Oh, you mean University of Maryland didn't want a decomposing corpse on their campus?" asked David, who had read the article too. "Yuck," said Mathew, again. "Yuck, indeed," I agreed, and the conversation had moved on to other things.

  ? ? ? ?

  Back to business, then. I typed my thoughts as they occurred.

  Why mummify in the first place? To prepare for the afterlife. The ka, a person's soul or life energy, had to be nourished after physical death. The ba-the mobile aspect of the spirit-needed a home to which it could return. I added a note: get illustration of a ba bird (Papyrus of Ani?) to mount on the wall or insert with the label.

  How was the tomb equipped? The Egyptians put everything the deceased might need in the afterlife in the tomb with him: food, beer, servant figurines (shabtis), wooden models of boats, weapons, jewelry...In addition to real food and furniture, the relatives made sure painted renderings of the objects were on the tomb wall. The ka could recognize the painted versions in case the real things weren't there. An Egyptologist friend of mine had dubbed this practice "heaven insurance."

  I stared out the window again. The great blue heron had moved, and two people were kayaking up the creek towards me. Mathew and David, probably, since Jeanie was in the kitchen making a turkey casserole for dinner and Emma was walking with her grandfather on the beach.

  Emma. How would I explain this to a seven year-old like Emma?

  "You go on living after death, but in a new place. You take your favorite food and toys and clothes into the afterlife with you. Nothing will be missing. Your spirit will protect you."

  You can take it with you.

  That's a good slogan, I thought. I made a note to tell Susie that it could be a theme-or even a title-for the tour the museum would run for school children. I could work the "heaven insurance" into the labels as well.

  I found myself staring at my father's chessboard. Then I remembered that Marion had never pulled the shabti figurines we'd talked about putting in the exhibit. One more thing I would have to do.

  I sighed and moved my chair closer to the board, where I rearranged the pieces in a complicated pattern.

  McEwan, the White King, advanced halfway down the board along with his sidekick and Queen, Eileen Gotti. Behind them stood Lisa Donahue (yours truly) as the White Knight on the king's side. Marion, a captured (and dead) pawn was out of the game, lying on her side.

  At the other end of the chessboard, Victor posed regally as the Black King, with Queen Susie mincing along by his side. Betsy and the other students-all pawns-advanced in rows.

  Now for Ginny. She was tall and fast moving-I'd make her a Bishop. What about Carl? Rooks were sneaky and came up from behind-Carl was a Black Rook.

  I shifted the pieces around until the assembled staff stood in a rough c
ircle around Victor (were they courtiers or slaves?)

  And the Black Knight? He or she, the unknown villain of the game, was disguised as a pawn or another game-piece.

  I sat back, pleased with my arrangement, and thought about the characters. Marion really had been someone's pawn. Her death seemed so pointless. Marion was one of Victor's most essential staff members. Marion-or Ginny-could run the museum alone, even if the rest of us were home with the flu. Collectively, they knew where everything was, and they knew the complete history of the place.

  Betsy was crucial too, despite her natural laziness. She was a whiz at the registration system and was nearly as fast as Ginny at retrieving information.

  Then there was Susie. If anyone bumped off Susie, the staff would be helpless because no one else knew how to navigate the University's Byzantine accounting system. Or how to deal with the tortuous paperwork for ordering supplies and applying for grants.