chance of riches; Atenkham hadn’t been a king. But artifacts were gold, metaphorically, to archaeologists.
“Still not worried about the curse?” Linda asked.
“What Egyptian tomb doesn’t carry a curse?” I asked with a laugh. I toweled off, then leaned over and planted a kiss on her full red lips. “Besides, curses only apply to big rich tombs when the moon is full and you haven’t said your prayers by night.”
“Mmm.”
“So I get my movies mixed up.” I crawled into my sleeping bag, exhausted. It was nearly midnight. I’d be up in five hours.
“Besides,” I muttered, “what kind of curse could a bureaucrat muster?”
* * * *
At dawn the next morning, I was ready for work. Although this was my seventh tomb, I still felt a mounting sense of excitement.
I had dreamed of Atenkham’s mummy. I saw priests removing his organs and preserving them in jars. I saw them filling his veins with embalming fluids and carefully wrapping his body in layers of white cotton swathing. But mostly I had seen papyrus scrolls, thousands of them, the life’s work of this ancient Egyptian bureaucrat. Those scrolls were the sort of treasure I sought.
Now I would see what truth lay in my dream.
My grad students were sitting our breakfast table with someone. I sighed when I recognized Mr. Abdul from the Department of Antiquity. He was in charge of excavation permits.
“Mr. Abdul,” I said to him, “what brings you here?”
“Paperwork, Mr. Jones,” he said in his succinct British accent. He passed me a sheaf of papers.
“What’s this?”
“New regulations go into effect this morning,” he said. “First of the month. I told you last week, as you may recall.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. He had mentioned something of the sort.
“If you would fill it out, please.”
I stared at the forms. None were in English, of course.
“This will take me hours,” I said. I glanced over at the tomb. We were so close —
“Paperwork,” he said, “must be done properly. I shall leave you to it.” He crossed to his Jeep, got in, and drove off in a cloud of dust.
“Shall we start anyway, professor?” Neal Jameson asked me. He was a young, eager, promising grad student.
“No,” I said, imaginary bandages tightening around my chest and throat. “Mr. Abdul doesn’t like me. If we begin without the paperwork, we’ll be shut down.”
“He can’t —”
“He can,” I said.
* * * *
My Arabic was lousy, and making sense of the application was a dense process, even with an interpreter. This, I thought at one point, is the curse of Atenkham: buried alive in paperwork.
I kept thinking of his mummy, swathed in hundreds of yards of cloth, surrounded by scrolls, laughing at me.
* * * *
Picketers arrived at two o’clock. They stood outside our camp waving signs: “Egyptian Tombs for Egyptian Archaeologists” and “No Foreign Digs!” It was an old dispute. Foreigners received more excavation permits than Egyptian archaeologists.
Promptly at three o’clock, Mr. Abdul returned. He had two men in uniforms in his jeep. When Abdul gave the picketers a nod, I felt Atenkham’s door slam shut in my face.
“Your papers,” I said numbly.
He barely glanced at them. “Permit denied,” he said. He stamped the documents in red ink.
“Why?” I asked.
“Improperly filled out. And an objection has been raised.”
“Them?” I gestured at the picketers. “You sent them here!”
“Me, Professor?” He raised his eyebrows, feigning indignation. A cheer went up from the picketers as the guards took positions near the tomb entrance.
“And so,” I whispered bitterly, “the curse is made true.”
“That’s it?” Neal Jameson demanded, looking from Abdul to me, shock and outrage on his face.
“Afraid so,” I said. “The curse wins out.”
“He can’t —”
“He did,” I said.
Mr. Abdul smiled.
Atenkham must have been like him, I thought to myself.
I knew, suddenly, why pharaohs buried their bureaucrats.
SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY, by Edgar Allan Poe
The symposium of the preceding evening had been a little too much for my nerves. I had a wretched headache, and was desperately drowsy. Instead of going out therefore to spend the evening as I had proposed, it occurred to me that I could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful of supper and go immediately to bed.
A light supper of course. I am exceedingly fond of Welsh rabbit. More than a pound at once, however, may not at all times be advisable. Still, there can be no material objection to two. And really between two and three, there is merely a single unit of difference. I ventured, perhaps, upon four. My wife will have it five;—but, clearly, she has confounded two very distinct affairs. The abstract number, five, I am willing to admit; but, concretely, it has reference to bottles of Brown Stout, without which, in the way of condiment, Welsh rabbit is to be eschewed.
Having thus concluded a frugal meal, and donned my night-cap, with the serene hope of enjoying it till noon the next day, I placed my head upon the pillow, and, through the aid of a capital conscience, fell into a profound slumber forthwith.
But when were the hopes of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell, and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once. In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner. It ran thus:
“Come to me, by all means, my dear good friend, as soon as you receive this. Come and help us to rejoice. At last, by long persevering diplomacy, I have gained the assent of the Directors of the City Museum, to my examination of the Mummy—you know the one I mean. I have permission to unswathe it and open it, if desirable. A few friends only will be present—you, of course. The Mummy is now at my house, and we shall begin to unroll it at eleven to-night.
“Yours, ever,
PONNONNER.
* * * *
By the time I had reached
