Chapter 2

The more I looked at the satellite view, the more I wondered if he was right. There was one area, with a high cliff and a flattish plateau below, which could be a good camp site. I pointed it out and he nodded. His finger moved over the cliff face.

“I want you to dig along here. It’s walking distance from the camp. I can borrow a helicopter to take you in, as well as a small team who can set up the camp. After that, it will up to you to charter a chopper to take in your supplies. I believe that the first dig is six weeks. You could take down the tents and store them in hollows for the next dig. If you find anything important, I’ll bring in an experienced crew to help but won’t kick you out like the Society did.”

“Yes, I was disappointed in how they treated me, but that’s how alpha males in positions of power act. At least they made me a member of the Society, although I’ve never been to any of their events. I hope that they made you happy with that find.”

“Sandy, that find was wonderful. We had everything brought here and we’re about to open it as a new attraction. I’ll take you all to have a look. It’s only a couple of weeks before the grand opening. It would be good if you could attend that, seeing that it was your find.”

He led us through the Museum, past all the wonderful artifacts that graced its halls. I knew that we had to spend a few days looking at these before we went back to start the course. He unlocked a big door to a side display area. Over the door was a sign that declared that it was the burial chamber of the woman that had been named in the hieroglyphs. She had been the wife of an important court personage close to the Pharaoh. I had dated her to the time of Khakaure, otherwise known as Senusret the Third. He had reigned for over thirty years and was considered one of the greatest Pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty.

When we went in, the display was as if I had walked into the chamber again. Even the floor had been finished with a sandy look. The sarcophagus was closed, and he told us that the mummy was elsewhere, in climate-controlled safety. The girls were amazed. Tracey asked if I was really the one to find this wonder and Abbas told her that I had been the first person to step foot in the chamber in over three thousand years.

As I inspected the display, something niggled in the back of my mind. There had been a stone slab with the canopic jars on, faithfully recreated here. But my memory was that they had been closer together, with small figures among them. There was also three other jars that were on the original slab. I went over to these, asked if it was all right to look, and then lifted each lid to see that they were empty. I didn’t bother about the canopic jars, as it was standard practice to keep the contents of these with the mummy, for further research. I turned to my friend.

“Are you keeping the jewels and figurines in a safe place?”

“What you see here, Sandy, is what we were given. Were there other items?”

I reached into the shoulder bag that I carried (gallabiyahs not being generous with pockets). I pulled out an SSD.

“This has almost everything I’ve done over the time since I started University. Between the call to the Society, and the day you all turned up, I recorded and photographed that chamber. Do you have a laptop or desk computer we can use?”

He locked the door behind us and led us back to the administration area, where he introduced us to a woman, Heba, and told her that we needed to look at the contents on my drive. She booted up a laptop and I sat in front of it to plug in the drive. When the file list came up, I explained that they were all from digs I had been on. The Egyptian dig was in two parts, one for the dig and one for the chamber. I opened the one for the chamber and started working through the pictures. Heba stood behind me, one hand on my shoulder, as we worked through the pictures of the actual chamber, in the first days of being reopened. When I got to the picture of the stone slab, you could see clearly that there were more things on it than what was in their display, and her hand gripped my shoulder like a vice.

Heba asked me to wait and unhooked a cable from her desktop machine and plugged it into the laptop. Then she asked me to send that picture to the printer. Then I moved on until I had close-up pictures of the figurines, which were also sent to the printer. Then it was the three jars, first with a picture with the lid off, and then a set of pictures with the contents laid out on a small table that I had taken in. Every picture, of course, had a measuring scale included. The jars had contained necklaces, bracelets, armbands, and rings, as befitting an upper-class woman.

Heba gasped as the detail pictures appeared on the screen and were sent to the printer. Abbas had a very worried look on his face. There were only two explanations for them missing – either the crew had stolen them during the night, or the eminent persons who finished the dig had purloined them. In the end, Heba asked if she could copy my file onto her computer, as she was in charge of the new display. When we had done that, I showed her how to look at the written report that I had done, by item, which described all the missing artifacts with my own thoughts on what they were made of.

Abbas took us all to the Museum café, where we sat for lunch and a discussion of what may have happened to the missing items. I told them that someone should go into the records, back in Britain, of Society events, to see if they could spot any of the items being worn by the wives of the eminent men. If they had never been catalogued, they would never be suspected of having been stolen.

The talk came around to us wearing traditional clothes, and Heba told us that there were much nicer gallibayas available than the ones the girls had bought in Britain. She looked at Abbas, and he smiled, so she offered to take us to a shop where she bought her own. After we had eaten, Abbas went off to circulate the pictures of the jewellery to see if any had turned up on the black market, while Heba closed down her computer and we joined her in a taxi to the business district.

The shop that she took us to sold only female garments, and I stood around while the girls browsed the racks. I could see that the clothes were much better than what they had been wearing. As they were trying things on, a woman came into the shop and called to the owner.

“The Morality Police are in the street!”

The owner looked at me, a worried look on her face.

“Sir, if they come in here and see you, shaven, they will think that you are queer. That’s when they arrest you and take you to the police station. You may be lucky enough to come out without broken bones, but I doubt it.”

“What do I do, hide?”

“It’s almost too late for that. The only way you can confuse them is to look like a normal customer. Your height and face will help.”

She spoke quickly to Heba and her shop assistant, who pulled me into one of the changing rooms and told me to get out of my male gallabiyah and take off the turban. After that, it was a whirlwind of activity as I was given a female gallabiyah to put on, my hair taken out of the bun and brushed, and a quick application of eye shadow and lipstick as the doorbell jangled.

A gruff voice shouted, “Queer inspection, all stay as you are.”

I stayed in the changing room, making sure that my own gallabiyah was in a hamper, out of sight, along with my turban. There had been more than one gallabiyah thrust into the changing room, so I tried to calm my racing heart, standing in front of a mirror, holding each one up to see how I would look in them. I was in that pose as the curtains were thrown aside and a very smelly man looked at me, distain in his eyes. He took in the view, then turned around to laugh with his companions about the ugly bitch trying to look good.

They left the shop but stayed in the street. I was told that if I walked outside with my old things on, they would be suspicious. Heba was calming down the other three girls, and they sat me down to complete the disguise. I had to buy some jewellery to complete the look that they gave me, but that was a small price to pay for my freedom.

When we left the shop, we all had bags. Mine had my original gallabiyah and turban at the bottom, with two women’s items on top. It was needed, as one of the Morality Police stopped us to have a look in the bags. We took a taxi back to the museum and I was taken into an empty office to have the make-up removed and change back into my original things.

When I was able to look like I had arrived this morning, Heba took us back to the café to have a break and she brought us up to date with the dangers of being queer in Egypt. She advised us that when we came back with a larger group of girls, it would be far safer if I looked like I was a part of the group, with dress and looks to suit. Otherwise, the Morality Police would think that I must be queer, as no self-respecting man would willingly be close to so many females unless it was his hareem.

Back in our hotel, we all went to our rooms. The girls were sharing one and I had a small single. We met in the hotel dining room for dinner, with all of us now in western clothing and speaking English. The girls told me that they were in awe of me this afternoon on two fronts. One was the fact that I had been the first person inside the chamber, a bit like Carter and King Tut. The other was my actions as a woman, from the moment I had been changed to the time we got back to the Museum.

I laughed and told them that I had always been able to fit in and should have gone on stage.

“The only thing that upset me was when that smelly bloke with his unwashed beard called me an ugly bitch! There I was, trying to channel the inner woman and he had to go and puncture my bubble. If I had been quick, I could have hit him with my bag.”

“And you would have been somewhere nasty, right now, and hurting. No, Sandy, you did the right thing.”

We decided to spend the rest of our visit in western garb, unless there was a special event that would need the traditional outfits. I thought a bit.

“Like the official opening of the exhibit. When we see Abbas again, we should ask him what he suggests.”

The next day we went back to the Museum, as sightseers. We had a good look at the exhibits, taking most of the day. We were near the door to the chamber display when it opened, and Heba came out. It took her a few moments for recognition, but then gave us a big smile.

“Special visit or just sightseeing?”

“Sightseeing today. You have a wonderful collection.”

“What’s on view is about thirty percent of what we have. Most of the rest is too fragile to be on display. How are you after yesterday? You do make a reasonable woman, even if you get called an ugly bitch.”

“Yes, well. I was not happy with that. That man could talk, you could smell him from meters away.

“Come on back to my office, I have the invitations to the grand opening and the press release that the PR office have put together.”

In her office, she gave us the invitations, with the four of us invited by name. Mine read Evelyn ‘Sandy’ Saunders. I glanced over the press release and stopped when I got to the part where I was described as ‘Evelyn Saunders, quite likely the only woman to have found such an important discovery, was in the country as an employee of the Royal Society of Britain.’ It had the group picture where I looked like the person as described.

I took a deep breath and then asked a question.

“Has this gone out yet, or do we have a chance to make a fundamental change?”

“It was sent to the media yesterday afternoon, I believe. The PR office is hoping that you’ll be able to sit for some interviews after the opening. They were over the moon when they found out you were in the country.”

“I bet they were, so far into space that they missed one little fact.”

I showed the release to Veronica. She read it quietly until she reached the point I was waiting for. Then she giggled so hard she had to sit down. Heba took the paper from her and carefully read it for herself. When she got to the same line, she swore in Masri, with words I had last heard when one of my diggers had dropped a large boulder on his foot. They were not words that my three companions knew. She looked at me.

“Sandy, this is terrible. Everyone coming along will expect a female archaeologist. We will be a laughingstock and the whole wonder of that chamber will be lost in the scathing columns.”

The other two girls had read the release by this time, and it was Tracey who suggested a possible way out.

“We turned Sandy into a woman who fooled the Morality Police. We only had minutes to do that. There’s what, ten days before the ceremony. No telling how good he could be made into a woman in that time. We’ll need to start soon, so that he’s walking, talking, and acting like one of us well before the event. Who knows, he may like it well enough to slide into his job back home. They wanted a woman but settled for him because of his knowledge. I think the Headmistress would be very happy if we went back with Miss Saunders.”

I just stood there, lost for words. It was so far out of left field that I had no argument. If I didn’t turn up, the Museum would get pilloried. If I turned up as me, the outcome would be the same. The trust that I had built with Abbas would disappear in a puff of smoke, the dig would likely get cancelled, so giving me a black mark with the school. Everything I had achieved in life would be as nothing. It wasn’t as if there would be people who knew the real me at the event. Perhaps, I thought, I could do the opening and then leave the country in my western male clothing, and it would all be forgotten.

I looked at the three girls, and they looked at me. Veronica held her hand up, fingers splayed and brought her index fingers together.

“One, she’ll need a good salon to remove unwanted hair, add breasts and who won’t blab. Two, she’ll need a full set of underwear and outerwear, in both local and western styles. Three, she’ll need a good hairstyle and make-up. Four, she’ll need to live the part to perfect the mannerisms. She was called Head Girl at the Orkney dig because she became one of us by the end of it. From what I saw, yesterday, that hasn’t been totally lost. We don’t have the cash to pull it off, does the Museum have a contingency fund for emergencies?”

Heba picked up her phone and called Abbas. When she explained our problem, his reply caused her to hold the phone away from her ear. Some of what he was saying repeated a few of the words she had said.

“He’ll be with us in a minute. I think that he’s not happy.”

Abbas came into the office, his face like thunder. He read the press release and thought for a moment.

“Sandy, you’ve always been a friend to me and the Museum. The work you did in Britain for us has allowed us to fill in a lot of blank spaces in our history. The exhibit is because of you. Have you any idea how we are going to get out of this mess without anyone having egg on their faces?”

I stood back while Heba broached the subject of me being the person in the press release, as described. If he didn’t say anything to them, the PR team could carry on with their plans, the press would see me as described, and the event could go ahead. Abbas thought about it and a big grin appeared on his face.

“Sandy, if you do this, there will be a place here for you and your girls, with every group you bring. I will organise a classroom for them to be shown just what they are getting into, with my experts taking the classes. So, when they are out on a dig, they will have a good background knowledge of the sorts of things they are looking for. It will help them to help us. Will you play your part as the first woman to find a tomb?”

What could I say? I had already realised that I had to do it, for my own sake as well as for the Museum. I nodded and he hugged me. After that, all the others hugged me as well, which was different. Heba asked him about funding, and he gave her a number which made her smile. Then he dashed off to do other things.

Heba then reached into her bag and pulled out a tape measure. We always carried one as no true archaeologist would be without one. I had to stand while I was measured by the girls, with particular attention to my chest. I had always been on the slim side, and the girls agreed that the size of the items I had been sold were right, with allowances for a bit of padding. They had seen me with my hair down and it was decided that I should have extensions to make me look womanlier.

Heba told us that salons, as we knew them, were usually only found in hotels and the up-market suburbs. In Egypt, women had to have their own network of people to help with beauty and women’s needs. She had a friend of a friend who had worked with men, in secret, so she would organise a visit for me. Before that, the girls were instructed to go shopping for items I would need. She gave them a list of places where what they bought would not raise any eyebrows.

When we left the Museum, we stopped at a shopping centre where the girls took it in turns to buy toiletries and items of make-up. Stella had revealed that she had attended a course in cosmetics, so took the lead. I just stood back as they made their purchases. This part wasn’t the expensive bit, that would come later. Back in the hotel, I was handed the shampoo and conditioner and instructed to use both items, twice, before I came down for dinner.

With my hair a lot softer than I had ever felt it, we had dinner and discussed what was to come. I would have to use the hair products more regularly than I was used to, and it would take Heba getting me the first appointment before we moved on. In the meantime, the girls now called me Evelyn, or Eve, and the talk turned to similar conversations we had in Orkney.

When we left the dining room, we went into the bar, where Veronica bought the drinks, coming back to our booth with four glasses of wine. Tracey left us for a while, coming back with a bag from the hotel dress shop, which she gave to me.

“These are for the nights, from now on, Eve. It will be a start on you feeling what we feel as we’re in bed.”

When I got back to my room, I looked in the bag to find three silky nightdresses and a pack of three panties. I would have to keep these in my locked case during the day. Then I realised that when I had been transformed, we would have to move to another hotel with me registering as Miss Saunders.

I had an interesting night. Strange dreams and waking to find that the nightie had bunched up around my waist. One would have thought that it might have given me a woodie, but that was something that I had only experienced a few times in my life and hadn’t worried about. When I was thinking about getting out of bed in the morning, I thought about that. I had, for the most part, been sexless all my life. I didn’t have something they call a wet dream, nor did I get excited around the girls in my life. When I showered and dressed, I hid the nightie with the others in my case, along with the panties and the three gallibayas I would now have to use.

After breakfast, the four of us went window shopping, with me asked about the fashions in the shops, to gauge the sort of things I liked. We spoke quietly and shut up if any bearded men came our way. Veronica told me that I should be feeling the sort of fears that girls took for granted. I was feeling vulnerable whenever any of these men came close. While I may not worry, now, when I was dressed as a woman, I would be considered less than a turd on a man’s shoe here, and worse if I gave myself away. Heba had told us that crossdressers were likely to be castrated or just hung.

We did create a base line of the sort of outfits that I would look all right in. These would have to wait until after the salon visit. In the meantime, the girls went shopping for underwear while I sat in the food court and watched the crowds. As I sat, a cup of very strong coffee in front of me, a group of Morality Police walked by, their rancid smell alerting me to their approach. My hair, today, was pulled up into a cap, so I just looked like a normal western tourist.

Marianne Gregory © 2024