Chapter 1
On sunny days I would sit on my window seat and think about how I had arrived at this point. Had there been times when I could have changed the outcome? Had there been stages where I could have dug my heels in and shouted “No!’? Would it have made much difference? The important thing was, that when push came to shove, I allowed things to move along in the same direction, wondering what the results would achieve. I was now at the fitting end.
I had been christened Evelyn Sing Saunders, with the middle name misheard by the authorities. My mother was a fan of ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and wanted me named after Evelyn St. John Waugh, so I suppose that I was lucky for it not being Sinjin. She taught Philosophy at the Uni, while my father taught Maths at the local college. In primary school I went by E. Sing, getting the nickname Singer. In secondary and tertiary schools, I was Saunders to the staff and Singer to my classmates.
All my life I had been a chameleon. Never standing out, always trying to fit in. At primary school I was the typical boy, generally grubby, never too bright, never picking on anyone and never being picked on. We played soccer and I was always in mid-field, providing a solid early attack or early defense. We played cricket and I was always in the sevens or eights in the batting list and fielded in the outfield or on the boundary. Granted, I took a few catches, helped in a few runouts, and even scored some runs, but I wasn’t the star to be lifted on the team shoulders when we won.
In secondary school I carried on the tradition, although a bit less grubby. My school had a uniform, and we were meant to wear it proudly. My marks were mid to high range, my athletic achievements were similar, and my interaction with my classmates was as it should be. I did well enough to sit the exams for tertiary study, although in that I was one of many from this school. I spent my university years studying Ancient History, an interesting subject where I learned that the higher you climb, the further you fall.
In the breaks I found myself working on digs, wearing jeans, boots, and tee-shirts most of the time, along with everyone else. I was a friend to all but important to none. We did a lot of good work, adding to the knowledge of the area, but never coming across anything earth-shattering. I ate with the rest, slept in tents with them, and sometimes went drinking with them.
The only thing that changed during these field weeks was that I found myself relating more to the girls on the digs. On one particular dig there was a group of lads who were more ‘laddish’ than I had come across before. I had, of course, known some within the university who acted the same, but was able to stay clear of them. At the dig, though, it was a matter of being part of their group or making a stand. It was hard, having never really made a stand before, but I refused their invitations to go into town for drinks and trawl for girls. The girls on the dig had made it clear that they were having no part of these lads.
This left me at the campsite, now in a group that were mainly girls, and there was only a small group of boys for me to fit in with. The thing that steered my future was that these guys were all intelligent and aiming at stellar careers. For me to fit in with these, I had to remove my inner restrictions regarding my own intelligence and became part of a higher level of discussion than I had been in earlier.
With this came a new interaction with the tutors and professionals that came to the site every day. I was added to the group that discussed future dig expansion, and even became part of the planning team for the following season. I was now fitting in at a new level. My wardrobe reflected the people I was now interacting with. All of us brighter students were now following the trends set by the older men and women that we were talking to. I became more fashionable, with proper slacks and jackets. Brogues replaced boots and business shirts replaced tees. Whenever I went home, my folks would welcome my new looks, with my mother declaring that I was growing up, at last!
In my final year, I was given the job of managing a small dig in the Orkneys. It was a proper campsite with all the trimmings. I was given a tent to myself, and the authority to run the site as I saw it. This was a great placement of trust on me, and my new persona demanded that I fit the mould of those in charge that I had seen at previous digs. I would be firm, but fair, knowing but willing to know more, and I expected that I would have to now fit in with a range of students without trying to favour any one group.
The last part of that worried me until I got to the site and found that the entire group of students were all girls from a range of schools. During the course of that season, I was hardly ever out of my jeans and boots, mucking in with the girls on site. We made some important discoveries which we recorded and stored to take back to the mainland when we finished.
The main thing that shaped me was that I was determined to remain friendly, without being the aloof site manager. The girls became friends, and I was pulled into conversations that I had never thought I would be able to follow. I learned about the joys and snags of womanhood. I was able to get a package of sanitary products for them when they all had periods at once. That was something I learned later that was typical with an isolated group of women under stress. That stress supplied by some unseasonal weather. I made a call to the Sea Rescue people, and they dropped the parcel from a chopper.
They became so used to talking to me that I found myself giving advice about boyfriends, career moves, ways to improve their further study experiences. I had nearly all my own time in the halls of academia to draw from, on top of all my own knowledge of not standing out. Of course, some of these girls couldn’t help but stand out in any crowd. For me, I had a whole new appreciation of how they thought, how they dressed and how they acted. When we were packing up, they gave me a tee which they had painted ‘Head Girl’ on, for a laugh.
With the good reports that these girls took back to their schools, as well as the finds that we had dug up, my mentor called me into his study to talk about my future.
“Saunders, the season was extremely successful. Not only did you find a lot of good things, but I have been told that you were very good with the group. With your marks, so far, and the records from that dig, you’re in line for an Honours Degree. I wonder if you’ll consider staying in the faculty to join the staff. There will be other offers coming, but I would like you to consider your future carefully.”
When I left his study, I went outside and sat in the shade of a tree to think. While I had enjoyed my time here, I never thought about it as a permanent position. I was a couple of months from graduating but had not considered what I would do afterwards. I had wondered about getting an office job, I had wondered about applying for places with long-term digs, I had thought about taking a break and just backpacking my way around historic areas to see, for myself, the things that I had studied.
The concept of an Honours Degree niggled at the back of my mind. It was so far from my original desire to remain under the radar. There wasn’t a thing I could do about it now unless I put on a balaclava and tried to rob a bank, aiming to be in a cell on the day. Deep in my heart, I was quite proud of what I had done, and I knew that my parents would be over the moon.
My time at the University finally ended without me trying to rob a bank, and I dutifully collected my Honours Degree in Ancient History with my folks beaming in the audience. For the first time in some years, I went home with them. No digs for me, now I had graduated. A week resting was interrupted by a number of letters arriving over a few days, making me sit and wonder what I was going to do.
I had been offered trainee teaching positions in three different establishments, as well as my alma mater. One letter, that followed the others, made my mind up. I showed it to my parents, who told me to go for it. It was from the Royal Society, and I was invited to join a prestigious dig in Egypt. The term would be a yearly placing, with me having the choice to stay or leave on the anniversary. The money wasn’t huge, but I would get all board and lodging on site.
I had my passport, been jabbed with several needles, and with packed bags I was on the plane to Cairo two weeks later. Now, I was going to do real archaeology in the cradle of the civilised world. The first thing I found out was that it’s hot by day, and cold by night, so needed to add to my clothing. Over the first six months, I was more involved with looking after the local labourers. With my desire to fit in coming back, I ended up wearing much the same sort of gallibaya that they did, just needing to get myself a bright red turban to make me stand out from the workers. That was purely for the other westerners on the dig to spot me.
In Egypt, I found that I had a knack for languages and was able to start conversing with the locals. That, and my Arab clothing, caused me to get the nickname of Saunders of the Sands. That was later shortened to just Sandy. I was in Egypt for two years, moving up the chain of management until I had a small site of my own. It was in the desert to the west of Dahshur, an important Twelfth Dynasty center of administration. Late in my second year, my crew dug into an entrance to a tunnel. We cleared the entrance, opened it, and I went in with a light, to come out to tell them to post a guard.
I rang the Society and reported that I had found an unknown burial chamber, untouched in over three thousand years. Two days later, I showed a party of eminent people into the chamber. In the meantime, I had recorded and photographed everything inside. They had brought a PR group with them, and there were many pictures taken, both outside and inside, with the eminent people in most of the shots. There was one with me standing with them. I had been told to remove the turban, letting my hair, that hadn’t seen a barber in a year or more, hang loose. The caption that I saw, later, had me as Sandy Saunders.
One thing that happened that day that determined my future. I could talk to the Museum boss from Cairo in Masri, something that he appreciated, even though he was fluent in English. He also had long discussions with members of my crew. The upshot of that day was two-fold. One part had the Society installing a much more eminent person to run the rest of the excavation, so leaving me high and dry. The second part was that the museum, in Cairo, wanted me to come and see them.
My place on the dig now taken over by three career archaeologists, I packed my bags and went into Cairo for a break. I had a week off before I went to the Museum, so did the tourist bit to see the Pyramids and other attractions. Being able to talk to the various guides got me in to see things that the usual tourist would miss.
At the Museum, I was asked if I would work for them when my time with the Society was finished. What they wanted was someone who could span both worlds, to make an inventory of all the artifacts that were now in England. They would give me a three-month training course in reading hieroglyphics, so that I could understand what I was looking at better. They had passed it by the Society, who were happy to pay me for my last few months.
In that three months, I lived in an air-conditioned apartment in Cairo, worked in an air-conditioned office in the Museum, and found that the drawings made more sense if you spoke the right language. I was given a crash course in hieratic script, and demotic script for writing. I found that many of the old translations were nonsense in English but made sense in Ancient Egyptian. My last payment from the Society included a flight back to London and a certificate that showed that I was an Associate Member of the Society, having now been credited with finding one of the best burial chambers in years. My name on the certificate was Evelyn ‘Sandy’ Saunders.
When I arrived in London, I went home to see my parents. A couple of weeks to settle back to English life and I was back in London, presenting my credentials to the British Museum. They had been told that I was there to purely inventory the Egyptian items, and that there were no plans to demand their return to the country of origin. I found a flat to live in and settled into my task. What I found was that there were Egyptian items all over the country. Museums, stately homes, out in the open, they were everywhere.
I had a car from the Embassy with all costs paid, and travelled all over looking at collections, recording them with photos, and translating the writing when I was able to. I sent the Museum a report each month, and they must have been happy as they kept paying me. Two years later, I had completed my task and received a nice bonus. There must have been some who were keeping tabs on me, as a week later I got a letter in the box at the flats. It was from one of the schools that had offered me a trainee teaching position, four years before.
This one was different. It offered me a position to teach Egyptian History and the translation of hieroglyphics. It was a permanent staff position, with a good salary and there was a note that it could lead to a Professorship and a Chair. So much for the under the radar stuff! The letter asked if I could get in touch and go for an interview. It was only after I had contacted them and arranged a visit that I noticed that the letter had been addressed to Ms E. Saunders.
On the day of the interview, I made sure that I was well dressed and looked good. I had always been slim and several that had seen me in my Arab outfit had told me that I looked like the actor, Peter O’Toole, with my thin face, only not as craggy as him. I had a haircut, but it was still fashionably longish. I took a train, early in the morning, to go north, and then a taxi to the school. When I told the girl in reception that I was here for my appointment, she looked on her list and I saw the glimmer of a smile before she directed me to the right place.
When I knocked on the door a voice called for me to enter. Inside, I found an older woman at a desk, surrounded by piles of paperwork. She greeted me and her first question was “Who are you?”
“I’m Evelyn Saunders. You sent me the invitation for a talk, today.”
“But you’re a man, I expected a woman. There must have been a mix-up, somewhere.”
She made a call on her phone, and we were joined, a few minutes later, by one of the girls I had last seen at the camp in the Orkneys. She came in and immediately gave me a hug. After some discussion, it appeared that my original offer had been made by someone who had retired, with the new person in the office thinking that Evelyn had to be a woman, because that was what the position called for. The girl who had been at the camp was now part of the group that I was now asked to join.
I was with the two of them an hour, talking about what they wanted, then had to endure another hour with the administrators before it was decided that I would be a good fit for the position, even if it had originally been for a woman to fulfil the gender settings at the school. I had the impression that my name would remain, as is, without my male status being highlighted.
Veronica, the girl from the camp, was very vocal in her praises of my interaction with an all-girl dig, and she went to her quarters to come back with a picture of all of us at the dig, with me wearing the ‘Head Girl’ tee. When I finally found out what the job entailed, it made me close my eyes and think whether I was up to it.
The job was to teach Egyptian History, the Masri language, translation of the hieroglyphics with hieratic script, and demotic script, and managing a dig of their own for the archaeology students, with us all going to Egypt to do that part. My experience was high on the desired list, as well as my membership of the Society and my good contacts in Egypt. The classes were all girls, seeing that it was a girls finishing school, and Veronica swept aside any notion that I was a guy who couldn’t relate to them. I would have three teachers working with me, Veronica and two others who had both been in the Orkneys.
The starting date for the course was at the beginning of the next school year, some six months away, and I was expected to go to Egypt and set up the groundwork for the dig, as well as get the whole group into the Museum as part of their studies. If I signed on, I would make sure the three girls were good with Masri, then head for Cairo to start the process, with my three teachers joining me to get up to speed with the set up. All three had started learning both Masri and Literary Egyptian, so they were ahead of the game. My own learning had been by speaking, which is the best way to learn Masri, as it isn’t a written vernacular, as such. Literary, or Arabic Egyptian being the written language. To get it all under your belt was almost as hard as learning Mandarin!
I was not going to back away from this job. It used all the skills I had developed over the years, and offered a chance to make discoveries which would be up to me and the girls to research and record. The accommodation at the school was a bonus, and I was shown it after we had sorted out the paperwork. Veronica opened the door, and I walked in behind her. It certainly wasn’t a man’s room, that’s for sure. The colours and fabrics were all female. Redecorating wasn’t a priority, and I could see that it was comfortable, had plenty of space and an ensuite.
After that, I was re-introduced to Tracey and Stella, who both gave me a hug and told me that they were glad that the Head Girl was going to lead them. I said hello in Masri and told them that, while I was here, we would speak it so that they would become more fluent. We all had lunch at the school and then I returned to my flat.
The next day was busy, with me packing my bags and ending my lease on the flat at the end of the week. I didn’t have much more than my clothes and papers to take to the school, as I had been living as if relocation was a given. That weekend I was back at the school and my things had been put into the wardrobe and drawers. Veronica helped me put things away, and commented on the range of things I had, from macho student to classy manager, I even still had my gallibaya and turban, which she wanted me to wear for dinner with the other two.
I know I must have looked incongruous at the dinner table, but as I spoke Masri to them, they found it easier to relate the language to the person I looked like. The following week, they all went shopping and started wearing a gallibaya without covering their head and face, in the modern way. Over the next couple of weeks, their Masri improved quickly.
The Headmistress did query our appearance but was mollified when she was told that it was all part of the course, in an effort to be truly authentic. When the break started, the four of us went to Cairo. I had found out that the benefactor of the course was a wife of a long dead archaeologist who wanted to help more women take their place in that profession. She had been very generous and there was enough money for us to stay at a reasonable hotel.
With us all in a gallibaya, our first call was the Museum, where I was greeted warmly and shown to the office of Curator, Abbas, the man who had given me the job in England. The girls all greeted him in Masri, and he grinned. I explained why we were there and what had been planned for the future. We would be back during the next school break to dig. I didn’t know where we would be looking.
“Sandy, we have been contacted by the school, and someone had allocated an area for you at Heliopolis, with the idea that British schoolgirls would want to stay in a hotel and just potter around.”
“Far from it, Sir,” cried Tracey. “Last dig we were on with Sandy was a month in the Orkneys, a long way from any habitation.”
“All right. Do you want somewhere that gives you a chance to find something new?”
We all nodded, and he pulled out a map.
“All right. I will let you loose on Ta-wer, or the Open Lands. It’s about fifty kilometres north of Luxor, part of what is known as the New Valley Governorate. There has been a gravesite found, but not much else is known. There is a small town, close by, called Al Kushh. I’ve had my eyes on an area to the east of the Nile, about thirty kilometres to the east of the town. There are a few sites with deep watercourses, similar to the Valley of the Kings, but it’s never been dug. I’ve never had the funds to properly explore it. Your group would have to be taken in by helicopter and supplied by air.”
He showed us the satellite view of the area he was talking about, and it was difficult to see where he was coming from. To anyone else, this could have been a trick to put us all out in the desert and out of sight for a few months, but I knew this man. If he thought there may be something worth finding, then we could go and have a look. It certainly had a similar terrain of old watercourses to the Valley, only a lot further from any habitation.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
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
Chapter 3
When the girls joined me, they had several bags. I bought them all a lunch and we acted as if we didn’t have a care in the world. While we were eating, I had a text from Abbas to go and see him in the afternoon. We took the bags back to the hotel and then took a taxi to the Museum. In his office, he sat us down and showed us some paperwork.
“Firstly, Sandy, one of the newspapers has had a look in their files and found that photo of you at the dig with the other men. We’re lucky that they called you Sandy and that you looked like a woman with the gallibiya on. They have asked us to give them a current picture of you for their paper, before the opening, so that will accelerate your make-over. Heba has been given three days off to help you get transformed. The display is her baby, after all.”
Then Abbas looked at some more papers.
“I’ve put the word out among the crooks in the market, and, so far, none of them have come back to me to say they’ve seen any of the jewels. What I do have, though, from our Embassy in London, is this.”
He showed us a photo with one of the men who had taken over the dig. It was from a gala event and the woman by his side was bedecked in the best of the items from the dig.
“He has answered our invitation to the opening and will be attending the event. I have arranged to have him arrested for the theft and exporting ancient artifacts, the property of this country. I have friends in the government who have seen this picture, along with the pictures you took. He is travelling alone, and when he is arrested a search warrant will be asked for to see if these turn up in his home. I expect that his wife will be unhappy when she loses her collection. The wives of the other two men have no photos with anything from the collection, so we may be dealing with one man who worked alone. He was the one in charge, so may have gone in to remove the jewels before any of the others saw them. If they did take part in the theft, they may have shared the figures, so there’ll be a search of their homes at the same time. This is likely to ruin reputations, but it can’t be helped. Wrong was done and some will now suffer the consequences. None of them will be allowed back into the country and there will be a notice sent out to the archaeological community if we do recover all the items.”
I sat down and pondered what he had said. If I was known to have been the one to have brought this man down, my name would be mud in the Society, notwithstanding that it had been his own actions. I was likely to be stuffed, no matter what I said.
“Is there any way of keeping my name out of the case?”
“Well, we could say that you had given us your report of the chamber, and that it was us that found the discrepancies. I suppose that would work. If the arrest is done quietly, and not reported until after the searches and the grand opening, the spotlight will be on them, not you.”
“I hope so. I would think that the worst that the Society could do is remove me from the list. The only thing that it would make a difference to would be my CV.”
“Anyway, Sandy, how is Project Eve going?”
“Ha! That’s a good one, Project Eve has had some preliminary measurements and is waiting to be cosmetically altered. I think it would be suitable to reveal in a few more days. If Heba has the contacts, the physical changes will not take long. It’s the mental changes that might be a bit longer. What worries me is how I’m going to get on a plane back to Britain with my old passport not exactly like the me that presents itself to the emigration counter.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come along to see you all off. I’m well enough known that the officers will just glance at the name and stamp the right page. When you get to Britain it will be your problem. If you travel as Eve, you can just declare that you’re transgender. It’s not a crime there.”
Stella laughed.
“The Head will be happy if we get back with a genuine Miss Saunders. She will do her best to alter any records we have to say that Eve has always been female. She doesn’t have to even change her name. The school doctors can attest that she is far enough along to ask for a new passport before we come back.”
I looked at her, trying to look stern, but her grin was infectious.
“All right. I seem to be moving along a path which hadn’t been on my radar a few days ago. If I don’t want to go along with this when I’m home, I’ll just have to send you three with the class dig and stay at the school. You will be able to report to me regularly by email if there’s coverage.”
“Sorry, Eve. No coverage in that remote area. I’ll be supplying you with a couple of satellite phones for communication.”
I just looked at Abbas when he said that. My options were being bulldozed as we spoke. We went to find Heba, who was tidying her desk and issuing orders to her staff. On the way out, we went by the display, and she showed us the latest additions to the set up. Where we had just gone through the door into a short passage and then into the chamber, the passage had been clad to now look like the actual entry to the chamber, only a lot shorter.
There was now a booth outside the door, where they would be issuing lights. The idea was that the chamber would be restricted to six visitors at a time, with no lights in the passage and chamber, with the only illumination being what was taken in. This gave an authentic experience. They did have several low-light cameras in the chamber to monitor the visitors. No bags were allowed, and all items now had a tiny unit, hidden, that would activate alarms embedded in the passage. I looked at what they would be charging for this authentic experience and realised that they would be making good money if they only had a half a dozen groups a day and would only need a single attendant.
Heba had her own car and took us back to the hotel, where I had to put the panties and the gallibiyas I now owned into a bag. We went to a café where we had a light lunch, and then to a private house where she rang the bell. I could see the camera in the climbing plant beside the door. The door opened and we all went into the house.
The woman who had welcomed us looked closely at me and smiled.
“This one will be easy.”
She told Heba what it would cost and Heba gave her the money. After that I was taken into a small windowless room with a high bed on it and various machines scattered around the walls. Heba and the girls were taken off to somewhere else to wait for me while I stripped completely and laid on the bed, as instructed.
When the woman came back, she had another with her, and they were both in scrubs with masks on. They went over my whole body, one each side, with handsets that I was told was for laser hair removal. They were very thorough, and I became indifferent as they handled various parts of me that no woman had touched. One worked on my eyebrows with a much smaller unit, and then the other came back into the room with a bag of ice which she placed on my groin.
I was told to relax as they pushed my testicles up into my body, then pulled up a fold of skin either side of my penis, carefully glueing them together to hide it completely, just leaving a gap for me to pee through. After the glue had dried, I was subjected to more glue around my breasts and a pair of lifelike breasts were placed on my chest. I was told to hold them in place and they both left the room, leaving me with no penis and holding on to my own breasts.
When they came back, they had the bag I had brought, as well as another that Stella had been carrying. Before long, I was in one of the pairs of panties, with a matching bra that was now needed to hold my breasts in place. I was finding the change of my center of gravity to be a little odd. One of the gallabiyahs was chosen, and the final thing, for this stage, was a pair of women’s sandals with a small heel.
They took me to where the others were sitting, reading magazines, and drinking tea. Heba had a big grin on her face as I walked in.
“Stage one completed, Eve. Now for stage two.”
They gathered their things, and we left the house to get into the car. I felt different, with a new feeling around my groin and the new weight on my chest, but I didn’t complain. We went to another private house with similar security to the first one. Inside, I was taken to a replica of a beauty salon and sat in a chair. Stella helped the girl as they gave me a jet-black hair colour and extensions. Then one worked on my fingers while the other did my toes. Then they conferred about my palette, whatever that was, and proceeded to work on my face, including some injections around my lips, before ending with me having my ears pierced and studs inserted.
When I looked in a mirror, I didn’t at first recognise myself, with the look of a long-haired woman. I looked for a while and thought that I didn’t look too bad. Certainly not the ugly bitch that the bearded one had seen. When Heba inspected me, she smiled.
“Welcome to our world, Eve. You look good, even your Adams Apple is small enough not to bring attention to it. All that remains is for you to learn how to speak as a woman and then we go shopping. There’s enough money for you to get western styles at the places we get our own. Places the Morality Police don’t visit, in the better suburbs. By the time we get there, you’ll be able to make everybody believe that you’re Evelyn Saunders, the archaeologist who is here to open our display.”
She turned to the girls.
“Veronica, we need to get you checked out of your current hotel and into one which the Museum is paying for, seeing that your party are our guests. If Eve and I wait in the car, do you think that you can pack up your things, as well as Eve’s, and check out?”
At the hotel, Heba parked in some shade, while the girls got out and went in, with my key. For a half an hour, Heba and I talked about things – the display, my part in the school visits, my thoughts about life. All the while we spoke quietly, with me trying to follow her inflections and sounding womanly. When the others came back, the bags were put into the back and Heba took us to a much nicer hotel, close to the Museum. It was a place where tourists stayed. Our new room was a suite, with three bedrooms. I was put in one, Veronica had another and the others shared the third.
Over the next day, we moved on to stage three. Heba had spoken to the clothing shop in the reception, and I was given free rein to choose. It was all clothing that the locals would wear, if they wanted to look like western tourists, and I only liked a few of the things. I was still a little unsure, so chose only long skirts and sleeves. When Heba saw me in one of the dresses, she laughed.
“That is so tourist wanting to look Egyptian! It does look all right, good enough for us to go to a much better shop tomorrow.”
The next day we went to one of the better suburbs, where there was a shopping mall that was as big as the few I had been in at home. There, I went from a lingerie shop to a dress shop and then on to a shoe shop. After a couple of hours, my companions were laden with bags, leaving me with free hands to look at things. I now had several sets of underwear, packs of tights, camisoles and slips, skirts and dresses that revealed more of my limbs that I had previously dared. I also had a range of nicer rings and bangles to augment the ones I had bought earlier.
We ate in a food court after we had taken the bags back to the car. I had arrived in a long-sleeved, full-skirted dress, and was now sitting in a slim skirt that stopped above my knees and a sleeveless blouse. I was feeling more like a female, and my actions had changed since the first visit to the laser place. I found that I was copying the girls in my hand movements and body language. We even discussed the men we saw, especially here where most of them would be rich and powerful. When Tracey made a comment about a rich man pinning her to a bed, I had an involuntary shiver as I imagined the feeling of a man, heavy on me. At that time, I didn’t go any further with the rest of the concept.
When Heba dropped us off at the hotel, she helped us carry our bags up to the suite. She made us stand, one by one, in front of a blank wall while she took pictures of us. I took my bags into my room and hung some things in the wardrobe, now all female clothing. When we went down to the dining room for dinner, the three had changed into good dresses and I had been instructed to do the same. It was odd, to say the least, to be sitting at a table with me only different from the others by being a few years older.
After dinner, I discovered that there was going to be a dance in the hotel ballroom, as I was pulled there to join the merriment. That evening, I danced with the girls for a short while, until we were joined by four Americans on a bus tour. Later in the evening, I found myself shuffling on the dancefloor, a handsome man holding me to him, as the band played love songs. After an initial reluctance, I had decided that I had to do this to fit in with the female half of the world that I was now part of. When he kissed my neck, I realised that I didn’t just fit in, I was happy to be part of that world. When the band played its last tune, he kissed me on the lips, and I felt his tongue in my mouth. I also felt another part of him against my groin.
As we parted, I was joined by the girls and Veronica told him that we had work to do in the morning. He gave me another kiss and we said goodnight. Back in the room, the girls were bubbly and asked me if I had enjoyed myself. I told them that it had been a very new experience. We then went off to bed, where I had the dream which added a kiss to the weight of a man holding me down.
The next morning, Heba turned up as we were having breakfast, with a lanyard for each of us, with our photos on an ID card. We were now officials from the Museum. We were close enough to walk there, waving at our companions from last night as they boarded their tourist coach. At the Museum, Heba said that she had work to catch up on and put us in the hands of one of her staff. With our new IDs, we were now able to go places that were out of bounds to most people. We were taken to big rooms where the actual chariots from the Tut dig were being conserved, to smaller rooms with drawers full of amazing jewels, figurines, tiny animal mummies, and then to an area where they were trying to translate pieces of chamber walls from digs where all they found was a vandalised chamber.
I had been to a few of these places while I was studying before my assignment for the Museum, but it was all new and wonderful for the girls. I thought that if our larger party was given this kind of treatment, it would advance their studies by months.
At one point, we were joined by Abbas, who took a few minutes to figure out that the fourth woman in the group was me. That’s when he hugged me and gave me a double cheek kiss.
“Eve, you look magnificent! The project is a genuine success, with you as our genuine female guest of honour. The man from the Society arrived yesterday, and is sitting in a cell, telling everyone that he is a big shot and to talk to me so that he can be set free. I haven’t heard how the searches went but expect some information in a couple of days. I have a journalist coming to my office this afternoon. Do you feel up to sitting in on it as our celebrity?”
“It has to happen, sooner or later, my friend. We may as well see if we can pull the camel hair over his eyes, yes?”
We all met in the café for lunch, with Abbas sounding very jovial. In the afternoon, the girls went off on another voyage of discovery, while I joined Abbas in his office. We talked about the opening and the future dig until the journalist arrived. He was happy at getting an interview with Abbas, a rare event, and even happier when it was revealed that I was Evelyn Saunders, the leader of the dig that found the chamber.
We discussed the finding of the chamber, a little about what had brought me to Egypt, a bit more about the work I had done for the Museum in Britain, and what I was doing now. He wrote a lot of notes and then asked to see the display. Heba joined us and we showed him the whole experience with just lamplight, as it had been when I first saw it. I told him how we had dug away the sand at the entrance, opened the door and how I had gone down the corridor to find this chamber at the end. For me, it was recreating that first look. Except that the first look didn’t include a man close to me and a hand on my butt.
I kept my cool but was flushed when we emerged into the daylight. After the journalist had left, Heba told me that I had just passed one of the biggest tests for a woman in this country, a close-up fondle from an alpha male. It must have made him happy as his article, a couple of days later, was full of praise and a recommendation to not miss one of the most authentic displays that the Museum had to offer.
The opening ceremony, when it came around, wasn’t a huge affair. There were a few Ministers, an Imam to do the proper religious introduction, and about forty other guests. After I had cut the ribbon, we took them through, six at a time. The Ministers all had a feel, the Imam wanted me to tell him what the hieroglyphs said, no doubt to test me as he just nodded as I translated them, talking in Masri. Up, at the entrance, Heba, her staff, and my girls were acting as hostesses, all speaking Masri if needed. I was proud of them. The three of them seemed to have grown while we were here. They could talk to the high to the not so high and proved to be very popular. The ceremony went well, Abbas and his Minister were very happy, and there was an avalanche of congratulations as they all had their last drinks and left.
Afterwards, Abbas told us to go back to the hotel and put on our glad rags. He would be hosting a dinner at one of the best restaurants in Cairo. He had arranged a limo to pick us up. The four of us had an hour in the hotel salon to be properly made up, and I wore a dress that had been something that I never thought I would wear, but one that Heba had insisted I buy. I guess that she had foretold a celebratory dinner.
When the limo arrived to pick us up, we were four good looking females in evening dresses and jewels. My studs had been replaced with drops, I had rings, bracelets, a couple of amulets and a make-up job that would look good in a magazine. The meal was at a dinner-dance, with Abbas, his wife and two sons. The Minister was there with his wife and two sons, while Heba had her husband. It looked almost like a set-up.
The meal was wonderful, the conversation happy, and the dancing later in the evening saw each of us girls paired with the sons on the dancefloor. My partner, Khepri, was a son of the Minister and worked with his father. He was urbane, funny, and full of stories about being in power in a country split down religious lines, but still welcoming westerners on a constant basis. Like me, he didn’t dance much, but we made a good stab at it. He had been at the opening and had been amazed at the experience in the chamber. He wanted to know about what I was doing next, so I told him about our plan to have some schoolgirls working at a dig. He told me to let Abbas know that he could organise helicopters if we needed them. By the end of the evening, I had the impression that I had made a friend.
When it was time to leave, there were hugs and cheek kisses. I told Abbas about the helicopter offer and he told me that he would follow that up. We had a couple of days off, just lazing around the pool. I had found a one piece that looked all right and covered the right places. On the third day, we had a message to wear jeans, boots, and long sleeves as we would be leaving the airport on the next day. That, for us, meant a shopping session for dig outfits.
The next day, we were picked up and taken to the airport where we were flown to Luxor. There, we joined Abbas and Khepri in a military helicopter. We flew over the Valley of The Kings and then across the Nile to where Abbas had decided we would set our dig. When the helicopter touched down, we all got out and surveyed the scene. It was bleak, it was beautiful, it was dry and hot. Abbas had far more experience at a place like this, so we all listened as he explained his thinking. He had a theory that the depth of the watercourses had been because this area must have had regular rain at one time. He wanted us to see if we could locate a settlement, as he doubted that there would have been burial chambers at the time he was thinking of.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
Chapter 4
Khepri was obviously an amateur archaeologist as he became quite excited at the possibility that we could find signs of a civilisation that predated the Pharaohs. When I suggested that we would need ground penetrating radar and other modern equipment to speed things up, he nodded his head and said that he could organise that, as well as military tents, along with the men to set the camp up. He asked how many we would have, and Veronica told him that there would be twelve students, plus the four of us. He said that he would organise three six-man tents, as well as chemical toilets for each tent. This far out, Abbas explained, the chemical ones were for number twos, while holes were bored away from the tents, for number ones and rubbish, to be filled in when we left.
By the time we left the site, it was agreed that Khepri would be our contact for everything to do with the camp. He would organise another camp, some way from ours, as an exercise for a platoon of female soldiers, so that both camps would be supplied by the military.
On the way back to Luxor, Abbas had a big grin on his face as Khepri made notes and confirmed the dates we would be arriving. As we came back over the Valley of the Kings, the pilot went as low as he could, and Abbas pointed out all of the famous tomb sites as we flew slowly down the valley. At Luxor, we thanked our hosts and went off to the terminal to get our flight back to Cairo.
We talked about what we had seen and the help we were now getting. It was an opportunity that was out of the blue. We wouldn’t tell the Headmistress too much, until after the first dig, just that we had organised all the things we needed. After our run-in with the Morality Police, we would keep in western clothes until we left for the camp but would still make sure the girls all knew enough Masri to know when to run.
Before we left, Abbas let me know that the man from the Society had made a full confession, and that all the items that were missing had been found and were on their way back to Egypt. The figurines would go into the display, but the jewels would go into cabinets where they would be secure and shown alongside the entry booth. All three archaeologists had been blacklisted, with the one in Egypt unlikely to be going anywhere for some years.
When we flew home, Abbas and the Minister were there to see us off. The officials took seconds to stamp our passports with a smile. When we were in the air and heading home, I looked out of the window and wondered how much had changed since I had arrived. Now, I was in a skirt suit, with tights and sensible flats for travelling. I had been the guest of honour at the opening of the exhibit I had found. I had danced with men and made a friend of the son of a Minister. I had been kissed and fondled. The one thing that stayed in my mind was that all of these men who saw me as Eve would be horrified if they knew that I had something under my skirt in common with them.
If I was outed on my next visit, my life, for as long as it lasted, would not be nice.
We were on the approach to Manchester when I had a sudden thought and giggled. Stella was sitting next to me and looked at me with an upturned eyebrow.
“What’s funny, Eve?”
“I just remembered a film I saw a few years ago, on TV. It was a Saint Trinian’s one with Alistair Sim as the headmistress. I was giggling because of my current dress.”
“You look a lot better than he did. The way you look now, you could have played one of the senior girls, you know, the really sexy ones.”
“Do you think I look sexy?”
“There were a few guys in Egypt who thought so. Don’t overthink it, just act the way you’ve been doing, and you’ll be all right.”
“Has anyone thought how we’ll be going back to the school?”
“All sorted. I called the Headmistress from Cairo and told her when we’ll be landing. She said that an article was in the papers with a picture of you opening the display. And there was another with the three others getting their houses searched and blacklisted. The one in jail has appealed to the Embassy to get him out, but the word is that the facts are so clear cut that he has no chance.”
“I hope that she hasn’t connected the dots and drawn a picture of me.”
“Why would she, I don’t think that the Egyptians have said where the contraband came from. It’s only when they go on show at the display entrance that some may connect the dots. I looked at that picture of the wife with the stuff hanging off her and thought that she was a lucky bitch to have been able to wear them. Just think, adorned with jewels over three thousand years old.”
“That’s the only thing going for them. If they turned up in a store today, you would look at them and think paste.”
“If that’s paste then give me paste. They looked wonderful in the pictures you took. Anyway, less about that, I hear the wheels going down. This is where I hang on to your arm until we park.”
She did just that and it made me feel protective. That was an odd feeling, and stayed with me as I led them through immigration and out onto the concourse with our bags. The was one of the other teachers with a big school sign and we went over. She put the sign down to hug each of us. I was starting to get used to all this hugging but hardly instigated them, something that I thought that I should work on.
The school minibus was parked outside with another teacher at the wheel. We loaded our bags and got in. On the drive to the school, I looked out the window to see a green landscape, amply watered from above. It was such a far cry from the arid sands of Egypt. For a moment, I felt a bit homesick for those arid sands, then thought of long hot showers and Yorkshire Pudding with dumplings.
At the school, the Headmistress was at the door when we arrived, hugging the others before grinning as she hugged me.
“I knew that you would come over to the dark side, Evelyn. What was it, the lure of sexy underwear, the idea of joining the master race?”
“Actually, Head, it was the idea that if I hadn’t put a dress on, I would be arrested and beaten up by the Morality Police. It was close. You have no idea how easy it is to be classed as queer in Cairo. Just being shaven and standing in a shop selling female clothes is enough to lose your freedom.”
“Well, my girl, that’s a story that needs to be told over dinner. Nearly all the other teachers are back and waiting to hear what happened. When your photo appeared in the paper, it was a surprise. There was this great looking woman with your name. Have you told your parents about the change of outlook?”
“Not yet. I was waiting to see if I carried on this way or reverted back. The ease that I got through customs make me think that I look all right.”
“Look all right! You looked a million bucks in the picture and you’re standing there now, after flying from Cairo, looking like you’re ready to go out on a date. Go and put your bags in your rooms and then join us in the dining room.”
When I opened the door to my room, I looked at the décor and realised that I now fitted it, or, maybe, it now fitted me. I left my case, put my bag on the bed, used the ensuite, then went back to the dining room. I slowed up as the others joined me and we entered the room as a group. The teachers clapped for a short while and then we got stuck into the heaviest meal we had eaten in weeks.
As we sat with drinks, the head asked us to give a report on our visit. Stella gave a talk about our first days, especially our great welcome at the Museum. She described our first visit to the display, emphasising that she had goosebumps, knowing that she was with the first person to have seen it in over three thousand years. Veronica described the shopping trip and why I was forced into a female gallibiya, and then had to keep wearing it until we got back to the Museum.
Tracey told them about the press release and the dilemma that it put everyone in. She looked at me as she told them that I was brave to go along with the plan to be the woman as described, but that she was surprised at how well I played my part. We left out the dancing and the after opening dinner. I then outlined what we would be doing with the schoolgirls when we went there next break. After that, we were allowed to go off to bed. We had three days before the students started back, and I planned to set out the course to suit what we would be doing in the break. The course was general history, so my part wasn’t that big.
I knew that Veronica was the specialist on British history, Stella was the one for European history, with Tracey doubling on Asian and American history. My speciality was Ancient Egypt and the Arab world. Learning Masri was an option, but all of the girls who had put down for my classes had signed on for this. We would teach all the areas in the first year, with students allowed to specialise based on their marks after that. I would be doing extra work next year, but the other three were already doing the specialist courses for other years.
When we started the school year, it was wonderful to be teaching as Miss Saunders. I had enough of all the areas to be able to teach other areas, but my classes on Ancient Egypt were very popular. I settled into a rhythm during that first term. I also settled into my body as Evelyn, the woman. I didn’t talk to my parents, but I did go into the nearest city on Saturdays to shop, sometimes with one or more of the other teachers. I had been told about a salon that was pro-trans and went to it every three weeks to be unglued and checked over. I was also on hormones, prescribed by the school doctor, who had filled in the correct forms for me to get a replacement passport.
By the time we started preparing for the trip back to Egypt, we had a dozen girls able to converse in Masri, a good understanding of what they were letting themselves in for, and the preparations under way with Abbas. When we arrived in Cairo, he did as promised, with the girls having a week of intense teaching about the Pharaohs. During that time, Stella and Tracey looked after them and Veronica and I worked with Khepri to set up the camp.
We were taken to the site in an old Chinook, along with a small group of female soldiers. They had already set up their own camp and had copied it at our own site. There were three sleeping tents, with six girls in each of two, with the four of us in the third, with room for an office. Another tent was set up for eating, with cooking facilities powered by gas bottles, which also powered the refrigerators. We did have three generators for lights and charging of devices, such as laptops and tablets. The chemical toilets were set up and toilet bores had been made, each one with a bench with a hole in it, and a small tent for privacy.
As a curious person, I walked along the back of the toilet tents and sifted through the mounds of sand piled there. It was a habit I had picked up at digs all over the place. At the third one I felt something solid. When I looked, it was a sliver of ceramic. We had brought some of our equipment, so I went to get a sieve and a small shovel. This attracted Veronica who came over and shovelled while I sieved. After working through all the piles, we had four items that were definitely not expected.
We didn’t recognise any of them, so bagged then with a note on where they were found, and when they were found. We double checked what had been set up and were flown back to Cairo. When we showed the items to Abbas, he phoned for one of his specialists to join us. We all waited, anxious, while he looked at each item through a jewellers loupe. When he put the last one back into the bag, he nodded to Abbas.
“These are from the very early period, the time of the African Humid period. Only a few pieces like this have been found, and I would place these items as pieces of pottery made in the Badari style, around four thousand to eight thousand BC. You must have been looking west of the Nile, where the other items were found.”
We said nothing, letting Abbas to say what was needed. He stayed quiet. The specialist grinned.
“Somewhere else! Ah! It must be a new dig.”
Abbas took pity on him.
“Indeed, Gyasi. A place that has never been dug before. Eve told me that these came out of the sand brought up in boring the dry toilets at the camp site. Don’t worry, we are using a lot of modern gear at this dig. When something more substantial is found, you’ll be the first we call on.”
That weekend, we had Saturday for the girls to go dancing, and Sunday we were all in our digging outfits, with everything needed in large backpacks. Our cases were all in a store at the Museum. The week of intensive training from the experts in the field had done our students the world of good. They were keen, they were focused, and they were surprised when we set down in the middle of nowhere. They had been told that it was remote, but remote in England is not the same as remote in a desert.
They sorted themselves out and claimed their camp beds, then we had a meeting in the eating tent while I told them what we would be doing.
“This dig is not so much a dig, but more an exploration. We have three sets of ground penetrating radar. We will tape out a search grid and make a thorough survey, then move along the ridge line. Veronica and I sieved pieces of pottery that has been dated as up to eight thousand BC. They came from the bore holes that were made for the dry toilets, so I guess that we are sitting on top of an ancient settlement. What we need to do is map the ground so that when we do dig, it’s in a good place.”
We weren’t going to move the camp, so set up our grid from the tent closest to the bore holes. One of the first things we did, when we laid out our first search pattern, was to remove the tents and benches from the two toilet bores, so allowing a full survey over that area. With three units, each one had a team of four, so that they could take turns in pulling the unit over the ground. There were three laptops set up in the office, with a fourth in my sleeping area to keep an overall picture.
We could hear small arms fire during the days, as the soldiers learned how to hit targets in the desert haze and shimmering mirages. We would all get together in the evenings, to talk and socialise. Another thing the army was training for was digging trenches. When I found that out, I smiled. Khepri was devious, having a bunch of very fit girls with digging equipment next of us.
I had measured the depth of the bores and deduced that the ceramic had only been less than a metre and a half below our feet. To me, this was logical, as whatever had been here had been covered as the cliffs eroded, and then much of it washed away in the tremendous rainstorms that had turned the desert into a myriad of ancient waterways.
Over the first few days we trudged up and down the marked areas, creating the electronic files. Each night I downloaded the files to the laptops and looked at the images. I added the three files to the bigger laptop as a mosaic overview. What I could see looked like evidence of some kind of settlement. Of course, any walls would have been built in mud, so there wasn’t clear-cut images of buildings. There were, though, anomalies that looked like fireplaces and rubbish dumps. Shadows too regular in shape to be natural.
I measured out the positions and put flags out where we would dig. The first test pit was a small one, over a place which I thought looked like a fireplace. The pit was the standard metre by a metre, and we hit the firm level with obvious signs of burning at just over a metre deep. At that level, it was all done by the book, with trowels and brushes. We bagged bones and also a few pieces of charcoal, the holy grail of archaeology, as this can be dated accurately.
The place that I thought looked like a rubbish tip needed a bigger hole, so I asked the officer in charge if we could borrow her girls for a few days.
“That was quick”, she said. “I was told that you may not need us for a few weeks.”
We had the army open us a pit some three metres by four metres, across the area, taking in the two bore holes. We stopped them at a metre deep and some of our girls went in with trowels, while others sieved the sand that had been extracted. Another twenty centimetres deeper and we started seeing finds. I held off calling the Museum until we had a whole bed of ceramic pieces, bones, and stone tools to show them. I rang them that evening and a helicopter landed just after we finished breakfast.
Abbas and Khepri were followed by Gyasi. I said nothing except hello, and then led them to the edge of the pit. Khepri gave me a hug and had a huge grin on his face. Abbas was studying the untouched layer, while Gyasi was looking like he wanted to sit down, just before he did.
I went and got him a bottle of cold water to revive him. Then the discussion was along the lines of how we had hit the spot so quickly. I pointed to the line of tents either side of the dig.
“This is where the bores for the toilets went in. That’s where the pieces we brought to the Museum were found. You can still see the holes where the bores go down another thirty centimetres. We established the depth with that small test pit, which had bones and charcoal which we have bagged. I have the full scan on my laptop for you to look at. The other flags dotted about are, I think, more fireplaces. It will take a much longer dig if we want to find the remains of walls. I saw shadows on the radar images, but don’t have the experience to fully interpret them.”
That afternoon, Abbas and Khepri left in the helicopter, taking a copy of the radar survey and the items we had already bagged with them. Gyasi had brought a kitbag, and the army loaned us a camp bed, which he set up in the meal tent. He had also brought a video setup, with a tripod, which he carefully placed to cover the finds and record further excavation.
The next morning, he led six of our girls in recording and bagging every item he could see. I led the rest of them in setting out a new search area and getting the radars working. It was going away from the camp and gave us some indication of the boundary of the settlement, as half of the survey had no indications of any finds. Over the next few weeks, he cleared the layer of finds and had conducted test digs where we had the best signals from the radar, coming up with a couple of blanks and another couple of fireplaces.
I had laid out another survey area, between our tents and the army. I had the thought that whoever had decided that this was a good place to set up the camps, must have been following the thoughts of the original settlers. The last week we were in the camp, I showed Gyasi the results of the radar imaging. Between the two sets of tents were more signs of rubbish tips, and one area that looked the right measurements to be a burial site.
He got our group and the army girls together and told us to stay quiet about what we had found, as it was likely to rewrite the history books. The last thing we needed was treasure hunters swooping in with mechanical digger. Our part in the search would be made clear when it was time to tell the world about it. With the army, we filled in all of the pits and made ready to leave. Next morning, we were visited by four Chinooks, and both camps were pulled down and loaded into two of them. The army girls left in another, while we all loaded our things into the last one. I was by the open tail ramp as we left and could see the site as we gained height. There were only tracks to the toilets to show we had been there, and they would be eliminated in the next high wind.
Abbas was waiting with a bus when we landed. He had organised the swanky hotel for us, and our cases had already been taken there. All it needed was for us all to check in and have long showers. We all got together for a meal, all in good dresses and with make-up for the first time in weeks. We didn’t say much about what we had found but did talk about the experience of working a remote dig. Not one of the twelve students would drop out of the course now. It had been hard work and totally different from anything they had done before, but exposing the layer of finds and then recording them under the tutelage of one of the world experts had been life changing.
We all spent the afternoon at the pool, taking turns to rub each other with sunscreen and hydrating oils. We were all a lot browner than when we started. Abbas came by in the late afternoon to tell us that we would be picked up for a good dinner, and that we could have our pick of the hotel dress shop if we didn’t have anything dressy. The Museum would be picking up the tab.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
Chapter 5
We all went to the shop to take our pick. It was sixteen well-dressed and made-up women who were picked up by a bus and taken to the restaurant that the four of us had been before. We were ushered to a private room where Khepri was waiting with his parents. There was also Abbas, his wife, Heba, her husband, as well as a few of the Museum administration and Gyasi with his wife.
We had a lovely meal and were sitting there after dessert when Gyasi went to a screen and turned it on. The picture was the general view from his video, showing the finds layer.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. When I saw this, I had to sit on the sand. I’ve been on digs where we have found great things, but I had never been shown a layer like this. Everything has been brought here for further examination. Abbas brought back some bones and charcoal when he left, and that has been dated to nine thousand years ago, which proves that the site was there in the African Humid era, and also proves that habitation went a lot further east than we first thought. The site has been remediated and everyone who has worked on it have been told to stay quiet until we can do further work.”
The Minister interjected.
“When will you be doing further digging?”
Abbas spoke up.
“When these girls come back in their next break.”
The expert switched to a picture of the scan to the west of the camp.
“This is why we’re going to keep things to only those already involved. Although the finds we now have will rewrite the books, what lays in the ground has the potential to tell us even more. Eve showed me the results this last scan in the last week we were there. This picture shows more pits that could rival the one we have recorded. There is a place on this scan that looks like a burial. That, on its own, is very important. I will study what we found until they come back, but these girls deserve to be the ones to uncover one of the oldest burials we have had the chance to look at. It’s going nowhere while they continue their study. Khepri and I will look at the terrain and see if we can site the next camp in the area to the east, where a scan shows no returns.”
The Minister beamed.
“I will make sure that there are enough army there to make the digging a quick thing. From what I’ve been told, it’s likely that there’s more to be found directly where the two camps were set up. You’ll be able to dig on that area while others are scanned. I like it.”
There was a toast to the future. I was starting to feel tired, and I knew that the others would be feeling the same. For the last month we had gone to bed just after sunset and rose with the sun. We made our exit and were taken back to the Hotel. When we were all together, I got one of the hotel staff to take group pictures with all the phones that were thrust into his hands. It would be interesting to put one up in the classroom, alongside one that had been taken at the camp by one of the army girls.
We had two more days in Cairo, being a school trip of tourists, and then we were back on the bus to the airport, ready to leave Egypt until we were all back in the next break. For me, it had been highly successful. The three teachers had worked well with the students and the students had grown up into women who could work together as a team. We had made discoveries, and it was those discoveries that would turn that team of women into a group of successful archaeologists. What may have been a hobby was now serious and worth a career.
What I wanted now was a good sleep and a long session in the salon. I had itching under the breasts, and I didn’t think it was sand that had burrowed into the glue layer.
The flight home was restful, and most of us slept most of the way. Once again there was a teacher with a sign and a bus outside to take us back to the school. Once again, we were greeted by the Headmistress and allowed a short break before dinner. I reported on the trip, with the great things that the Museum had done for us and told the diners that we had found a few things which needed us to return to the site on the next break. I didn’t say a word about the importance of what we had found.
The next term seemed endless. I went to the salon for a full check, to be told that the jabs were working, and the itching was from budding breasts. The twelve girls that we had taken to Egypt were now in the tops of their classes, across the board. It takes a good session doing the real thing to see if you want to continue, and our dig had been more real than anything I had been on. I started getting emails from Gyasi to tell me some of the results of his research. He was excited that we had picked up enough bits of pottery to assemble about a third of a bowl, which allowed them to recreate what the complete bowl would look like.
Towards the end of term, I was told that I had to take some time off if I was going back with the group. The Headmistress was firm that I deserved some time to relax. What I ended up doing was not relaxing. It involved a trip home, to show my parents what I now looked like. When I arrived, I booked into a hotel, just in case, and rang Mum to let her know I was in town, arranging a meeting in a café as the first contact.
To say that she was surprised would be an understatement. I explained that it was a girl’s school and they had thought that I was female. I told her about my experience with the Morality Police and she put her hand on my arm.
“You poor dear, that must have been frightening!”
I put my free hand over hers and she didn’t pull away. I then told her about the mix-up with the display event and her eyes went wide.
“We saw that picture and your father commented on how a beautiful girl had discovered an ancient tomb. He was quite taken with you in the picture, and we had a laugh about the name. We had no idea that it was you. Are you one of those celebrities now?”
“Not yet, Mum. With what we are looking for on our digs, it may happen that I’m part of a large group who might get some pictures in the paper. If you and Dad come out to Cairo while I’m there, I’ll show you around the Museum. It’ll blow your mind. Now, if I book a table at your favourite restaurant for special times, will you both join me for dinner tomorrow evening? I’ll glam up so that Dad can meet the girl in the picture.”
She laughed and told me it was a date. When we stood, there was only a fraction of a second before she pulled me into a hug that lasted quite a while.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Evelyn. I’ll prepare your father for the first look at your new, and improved, changes. You do make a lovely woman, and I’m so proud of you.”
The next evening was good. My father didn’t hesitate to give me a hug and tell me that he was proud of his new daughter. We had a good meal with a lot of laughter, and I checked out of the hotel the next day to take my case to my home. I counted myself as truly lucky that I had been accepted as who I now was. I got the family computer going and printed off some of the pictures I had, of the dig, the display, and general pictures of the Museum and our group. I had bought some frames as I came home and set the pictures up in my old room.
A week later I was back at the school and planning the next dig. Abbas had sent an email to tell me what support we would be getting this time. They had relocated the camp, and we were getting better class officer’s tents. We would be eighteen this visit. Two from the previous year were joining us, having been told how wonderful the trip could be. There would be the week of acclimatising, with sessions with the experts. As before, me and the three teachers would go out there first, to lay out the surveys.
On top of the ground penetrating radar units, we were going to use an explosive echo setup. This meant that we had an army expert to set the charges and the receiving sensors. It works by creating a pulse of sound which is reflected off of solid items, giving us a better idea of the depth. We would do this before the rest of the girls arrived, as it takes a little longer to interpret the results. Also, it wasn’t the thing to be letting off a large number of small explosions with schoolgirls close by.
You can survey a much bigger area with this system, you just added more explosive and more sensors. It wasn’t a method that I had seen in the past and was keen to see the results. We spent two days helping to set it up, and another two days with regular explosions. When the girls arrived in a Chinook, the army expert left in the chopper, with all his gear and the computer that the echoes had been recorded on.
We set the girls working with the radar units and took a week with that. The new survey areas, where the two camps had been, showed a lot of promise and we then marked out all the test pits we wanted to dig. We four had students each and set about digging the pits. Two pits were fireplaces and two were rubbish pits, but not as big as the original one. Gyasi had shown the girls what had been found before and the two new girls were very keen, so I let them loose on the next dig. It was the site that we wondered if it could be a burial. Both girls had dug a burial site during the first year, so they knew what to do. With four of the others, they got stuck into the space I has pegged out. The rest of us worked in smaller groups to do the usual metre square pits on other targets.
Three weeks on site, we were visited by Gyasi with a laptop and a large screen. We all sat in the meal tent as he showed us the results of the first deep survey. It had mapped echoes off low remains of dried mud walls, so giving us a good idea of the layout of the settlement. It showed us the relationship of the fireplaces and rubbish pits with the buildings. We were quite naughty, as we allowed him to complete his presentation and answer questions before we took him outside and showed him the larger pit, where the girls had arrived at the layer with the first bones showing.
On the day we were supposed to leave, the Chinook arrived with ten Museum staff, who would be taking over the dig when we went home. It had become too important to leave alone for another three months. I didn’t feel upset with this, as I knew that there would be some hard digging now, to go down either side of what walls showed. Gyasi came back to Cairo with us, his case full of our new finds.
This time, before we left the city there was a media release, where our dig was explained to the journalists. Our part in the find was highlighted and we were all photographed and spoken to. Abbas and the Minister heaped praise on our skills and highlighted that the dig was led by Evelyn Saunders, who had discovered the site which led to the new, smash hit, display. Now that the site would be manned until it had been totally searched, it was time to let the world know about it.
When we landed in Britain, there were some journalists waiting to talk to us. We were all photographed as we exited the customs and there was a babble of questions being flung at us. The Headmistress was there, and she used her headmistress voice when she told them that we were all tired from the journey and that she would host a press conference at the school the next day. She had four of the other teachers to help us with our bags and push through the journalists until we reached the school bus.
That evening, the dinner was very different from before. There had been an article in the national papers, with pictures from the press conference in Cairo. The headlines were along the lines of ‘British schoolgirls find ancient civilisation on school trip,’ which made us laugh. We got a screen going and showed them the pictures that we had taken at the two digs, explaining that we were not allowed to say anything about the first dig in case it was raided by treasure hunters.
The next day saw us fronting the small pack of journalists and it was down to me to relate the full story of the two digs. I was asked why we had been sent to such a remote place and I told them that it was my discovery of the chamber, some three years before, and my good relationship with the Museum. I said that we had originally been allocated some time at Heliopolis, a site in Cairo that had been dug by dozens of people, because it was thought that British schoolgirls wouldn’t be able to take a remote site.
They wanted to know what was happening now, so I told them that a large group from the Museum was digging now, with the hope of finding what little remained of the mud walls, and that we would be going back to extend the surveys to find the western extent of the settlement. After that, I said that I thought we may do another survey along the cliff behind the settlement, in the hope that we might find burials, but that the practice of tomb burials didn’t come in for another few thousand years.
We showed them pictures of the group, at the hotel and the site, as well as some selected ones of the finds. I had a picture of the reconstructed bowl, telling them that this was made from over a hundred small pieces that we had found. They went away happy, and the teachers that had sat in on the talk were happy as well, now with a lot more insight on what we had been doing. There was just four days to the start of term, and we all spent it quietly.
The next term was interesting, as I moved further with my transition. My nubs of breasts were now big enough to do away with the forms and start with a training bra. The heat and work that I had put in had lost me some weight, mainly around the stomach and waist. My hair had grown long enough to be trimmed, with a colour change which was closer to my original hair. It had been a pain to need to keep using a spray on my roots as the hormones caused the hair to grow faster. The school doctor was very pleased with my progress and told me that I would be able to book an operation in another few months, seeing that I would have been living as a woman for nearly a year.
That altered the next break for me. The other three would be taking the girls to Egypt. They had a good rapport with the Museum and more of the staff than I did, had been in the country three times, and it had been decided that the next visit would be the two older girls, plus any from the senior school who wanted to go. They ended up with a total group of twelve. When I waved them off, I was heading to a hospital to become Miss Saunders, after a week at home with my parents.
I was sad to see them leave without me, but I knew that Veronica, Stella, and Tracey were capable enough. This dig, for them, would be mainly survey work and to catch up on what had been discovered. The following dig would have me back there, looking along the cliff edge to see if we could locate anything else.
My mother took me to the hospital and made sure I was settled in. What happened after that was something I had thought about for weeks. I wasn’t upset at losing my penis, it had only been used for peeing up to now. What worried me was how I would feel when I was complete enough to be a partner in bed. I had never taken a woman to bed, so had no idea how they acted. Although I had gained some information about the activity during our evening talk on digs, I knew that I wasn’t ready to think about doing it.
That was before the operation. Afterwards, as I was being pumped full of hormones and now starting to make my own, my thoughts gradually changed. After a week I started to notice how good-looking my specialist was. One thing that made me realise how much of a change I had gone through was when I had a dream one night. I had often had the dream about a man’s weight on me and being kissed. This dream had a man taking me to bed and making love to me. In my dream, the man was young American who had kissed me! I woke during the most wonderful feeling as my body had its first orgasm.
As I lay there in a sweat, a nurse came in to see how I was, as the monitor in the nurses station had gone crazy. She helped me out of bed and into the shower. When I came out there was a clean nightie to put on. She assured me that all girls have similar dreams and I just proved I was now like all girls.
That made me take a long while to go back to sleep as I thought about things. For most of my life I had tried to fit in with the people I had been with. Since becoming a crossdresser, I had used my skills to fit in with all the women around me. Since I had become Miss Saunders, I did fit in as one of half the human race, and had stopped trying to fit in, now standing out as a celebrity in my own right. If I had been a chameleon before, now the colours were fixed. I was a woman, a teacher in an all-girl school, a noted archaeologist, and a friend of a few men who had never seen me as anyone else.
I spent the rest of the break at home, going shopping with Mum for new things that fitted my new thoughts. When I got back to the school, I was part of the group who welcomed the girls at the terminal. At the dinner, I listened to what they had done. It was, as I expected, mainly survey work and that had found the western edge of the settlement. While they were there, the army guy had arrived with his stuff, and they had helped him set up the echo survey of the new area. Veronica said that the survey showed more places that looked like the fireplaces, but no more rubbish pits of burials.
The Headmistress told the three that they were in line for the next break off, so that I would be alone and taking a smaller group of girls on the next visit. During the term most of the girls taking History wanted to go on a dig, and the Head thought that we could do a short one if I could find somewhere who were asking for help. I checked with my contact list and found a site on the edge of The Wash where they were tracking a pathway, expecting that it would lead to a small pier. Most of the artifacts from that period were wood so you looked for places where the wood may have once been.
I took ten girls there for a week. It was different to working in a desert. One thing that it did lead to, was a visit that I had not wanted. One of the archaeologists had been on a dig while I was in University, and he had recognised my name with the latest Egyptian dig. He had spoken to someone who had spoken to someone else, and I was sent a text, asking me to make an appointment with the Society. I cleared it with the Headmistress and sent my party back to the school in a bus while I was given a lift to the nearest railway station.
In London, I took a taxi to a hotel close to the Society and checked in. My appointment was for the day after, so I called the Museum to see what had been happening and what was planned for the next time I was there. I spoke to Abbas and said that I would like to run a targeted survey with the echo system, to take in the whole section between the settlement and the cliff face. My girls could be utilised in helping with the main dig until I had targets to work on. He told me that I could come back to Cairo with the expert and see how the results get compiled. He would send Heba down to look after my group. He thought that it would be good for me to meet a lot of the other people who were asking him to set up meetings.
The next day I walked to the Society HQ and told the receptionist my name. She asked me to wait, and someone would come for me. It was about five minutes when Fiona, a woman I knew from other digs, came in and shook my hand. She led me into the building and to a room which already had two men sitting at a big desk. She went and sat in the third chair while I was pointed to a single chair in front of them. I was getting a bad feeling about this, not made any better when the guy in the middle spoke.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
Chapter 6
With what he said, I knew I was in for a fight for my future in archaeology.
“Evelyn Saunders, what is your part in getting three perfectly respectable archaeologists blacklisted with one still in a hellhole of a prison?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t you Sir me, young lady. I saw your name on the Opening Ceremony of the chamber that our members had excavated. All three were blacklisted for some strange reason while you took the limelight. And now you’re named as the discoverer of a new settlement in some remote site that no-one has ever dug before. Tell me what your game is before we remove you from the member list.”
“If you look at your records, you will find that I was an employee of the Society and was given the chance to lead a dig which resulted in that chamber find. I called it in and waited two days before those three men turned up and took over. Abbas from the Museum was there and can tell you the same. He then took me back to Cairo and gave me an accelerated training session so that I could conduct an inventory of Egyptian artifacts in this country. That took two years.”
I found the original group picture with me in my gallibiya with the three men. I showed it to them, and he snorted.
“No self-respecting archaeologist would dress like that. You look like one of the diggers.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Those thieving locals, I wouldn’t trust them, speaking in a strange language. They probably stole the things from that chamber when your back was turned.”
Just then, I twigged who he was, so said my next sentence in Masri.
“I had a good rapport with my diggers. I respected them and they respected me. A couple had told me about the Englishman who was so far up himself that the only thing he was likely to find was his own shit.”
“What on earth are you prattling about woman. Speak English.”
The other man had been watching me as I spoke. I had met him at a dig and remembered that his name was Roger. He couldn’t help himself and laughed.
“The lady has you pegged, Albert. She just called you a shit in Masri, something you may have learned and actually found things on your digs. Now, young lady, how did the Museum know who to look at for those artifacts?”
“While I was waiting for someone to arrive, I recorded and photographed every item in the chamber. I gave my file to Heba, who was curating the new display, to double check her placements, and I expect that she found the things that I had seen but were not among the items left with the Museum. The man in prison was at one of the events here, and his wife was photographed wearing the items that had been stolen.”
“Perfectly believable, Evelyn. Now Albert, if you could take your manufactured anger somewhere else, there are two of us who want to talk to one of the best new women to grace our establishment.”
Albert stood and huffed as he picked up his papers and left. Then Fiona suggested that we move to somewhere more comfortable. Roger led us to his office, where he had a few chairs next to a window, asking me what I would like to drink. He picked up his phone and asked someone for a tray with three drinks and any biscuits or cake that were going begging. Then we all sat down. Fiona was the first to say something.
“Evelyn, we have to apologise for Albert. He was a great friend of the three who were blacklisted, and he has been trying to get them cleared since then. Seeing your picture with that next dig was the last straw. He was certain that it had been you who caused all the trouble, not their own greed. Hearing that you were in the country allowed him to call you in. You can be assured that your membership will not be reversed, it’s more likely to be lifted to a Full Member, seeing the finds that you have made.”
“Thank you for that. I’m afraid that I don’t have a high regard for the Society, seeing that I was tossed off the discovery I had made, like a piece of scrap, by some jumped up entitled men. It wasn’t nice but did lead to me getting the commission from the Museum that took me two years to complete.”
A girl came in with a tray and we stopped for a biscuits and drink. Roger then continued.
“Can you tell us how you ended up running a dig in the middle of nowhere?”
I gave him the potted history and showed them the pictures from my SSD after we had powered his computer. The two of them were fascinated by the pictures of the first, and the current dig. I showed them a picture of my local diggers from the first find. I pointed out the main man.
“This is the leader of the digging team. What your friend Albert doesn’t realise is that these guys do this as a job, all year round. They have been on more finds than your best ten archaeologists put together. They were the ones that pointed me at the area where we made the find, all from their own experience. As a matter of fact, he did point out another area where it looked similar to other places he’s seen. I might go back and have a look. It will be a nice present to Abbas.”
“You mean to tell us that there could be another tomb still undug that could be as good as that one?”
“I only know that he showed me a part of the valley that he thought could be another site. It’s never been surveyed and the old methods of just picking a spot and digging usually missed the obvious. It might be a good chamber, or it could have been robbed, if one’s there. I don’t know.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“No, you’re the first. After I was kicked off the site I put it in the back of my mind, and then I’ve been too busy to think about it. Unless I have someone able to hold the Society back from its usual bullying tactics, I’d rather talk to Abbas and see what he has to say. He would have to approve the dig.”
“Would you be happy to lead a dig, sponsored by both the Society and the Museum?”
“If I’m asked, that would be wonderful. You would have to accept that it could be a wild goose chase. I need to finish the work on the dig I’m now on. I want to do an echo survey of the front of the cliff. I know it’s collapsed several times in the thousands of years, but there is a good couple of hundred metres from the settlement to the current cliff edge. I can’t see them burying anyone close to the watercourse, seeing that the bodies may be washed away.”
“Leave it with the two of us. We have enough influence to talk the powers that be into funding a dig. We won’t say anything about what we’ve just discussed, just that there’s compelling evidence that the chamber you discovered might not be the only one in the area. If you do tell Abbas, tell him that Fiona and I will be part of the dig. You will get to pick the workers and where you want to survey. So far, you’re the woman with a golden touch, and I, for one, want to see what we can unearth. We’ll see about you getting upgraded to a full member, seeing what you’ve achieved so far.”
“Thank you for that. If you can let me know when funding is approved, I’ll go and see Abbas about getting permission. He might be able to talk the Minister into setting up an echo survey so that we can prove that it’s not a wild goose chase.”
We talked a while longer and I left the building in a much better frame of mind to when I entered. As I strolled along the busy streets, just taking in the idea of leading an expedition, I had a text alarm on my phone. When I looked, it was from Khepri. He said that he was in London on state business and if he could come up to the school to see me. I replied that I had just been to the Society so was in London as well.
He texted the name of a restaurant and a time, saying that he would be buying me lunch. I answered that I would see him there. Of course, I had to look in a shop window to check my reflection. Did I look good enough for that restaurant? Of course not! I took a taxi to a big department store and found a cute dress which made my new hair colour pop. A quick visit to the hotel and another taxi to the restaurant got me there inside five minutes of the agreed time. When I was shown to his table, he stood and gave me a hug which felt more than just a friendly greeting.
“Evelyn, you look more beautiful each time I see you. I’m thinking that I’m not seeing as much of you as I would like. Now, what took you to the Society?”
“A man called Albert who wanted me to be ejected from the Society because he thought that I had falsely dobbed in a few of his friends.”
“Not a happy meeting, then?”
“Actually, it turned out better than I thought. There were two others in the room, Fiona, and Roger, who I had worked with and supported me. Roger speaks a bit of Masri which allowed him to pick up when I told Albert that the diggers knew him as a man so far up himself that the only thing that he would find was his own shit. He, of course didn’t understand a word of it. I ended up in a long meeting with the other two and may have my membership upgraded.”
“That’s good. I know that there isn’t a lot of love between the Society and the Museum. Especially with those three stealing artifacts. I think it would be down to you to repair the bridges that they destroyed. Your work in the Open Lands is going a long way to healing the rift. The Museum experts are in seventh heaven with what’s been found there. It will rewrite the history book, that’s certain. What have you planned next?”
“We will have another small group of girls to get hands-on experience with the dig, but I want to do an echo survey along the cliff edge to see if they did any burials there. It won’t be tombs, as the find level isn’t deep enough to hide the entrances, but there may be normal sites, like the one we found in the settlement. That one’s odd, being the only one inside the boundaries. I wonder if it could have been a chieftain or a religious leader.”
“I’m told that they found a cup and a string of beads beside him, so my money is on the religious leader. You might find the upper crust buried towards the cliff. Look, I can organise our army expert and the equipment again. A survey that size should only take a few days.”
“If I get permission from Abbas, do you think that you could get a second survey in? It will be mainly the edge of a cliff, again. It would be good to check something I was told.”
He looked at me for several seconds before he smiled.
“You have a site in mind? Somewhere that you’ve been recently or further back?”
“Further back. If we did get a dig going, I would like you to be part of it. I think that your father would be pleased to have a son who found a significant chamber. That is, if we did find one.”
“If that only takes a couple of days, I can organise a Chinook to take us there with some helpers. We could camp in the chopper overnight and not leave a sign of our being there. If there’s any questions, I can say that we had a malfunction and had to land to make emergency repairs. Then we could interpret both surveys together.”
The way he said ‘together’ I realised that he didn’t mean the two surveys. I also realised that he hadn’t taken his eyes off me throughout our meal and discussion. I knew that because my eyes hadn’t been off him the same time. We were both eating our meal on autopilot, but I hadn’t dripped or spilt anything that I knew of. He then looked serious.
“I saw the girls in Cairo before they went to the site. Veronica told me that you needed to go to hospital. Nothing serious, I hope.”
“Not if I don’t want a family, but critical If I did. It’s over and healed up now.”
“Ah! I understand. There’s a lot of women in the same boat, just something that can’t be helped. Would you adopt if you married?”
“It depends on the man, and the child. I think that I would be able to bring a child up, especially a girl, or two. If my husband wanted a boy, then I could have one of each. All I would need is a job with a creche attached.”
“They have a good one at the Museum.”
I stopped with a dessert spoon halfway to my face and looked at him. He gave me the sunniest smile.
“Evelyn, I was captured by your brains and beauty the first time we danced. I have looked forward to our meetings since then. Having lunch with you today is wonderful. From the way you’ve been acting, I can only hope that the feeling is reciprocated.”
I put the spoon down and placed my hand on his.
“Khepri, I have to admit that when we danced you were just a handsome man and that we had been paired for convenience. Since then, I have come to like and admire you very much. We haven’t had enough time together for that to develop into love, but it feels right. Let’s take it easy, as I know that your culture doesn’t rush into anything. We can see how things develop. I’m not the sort of woman that your family would welcome, they would want someone from the upper crust of your own community, and I wouldn’t blame them if they tell you to look elsewhere. Maybe we can do something, together, that will cause them to link us in their minds.”
He put his other hand over mine.
“Evelyn, that is more than I had hoped. I feared that you would just tell me to look for someone from my own country. You fit into my culture so well that I think of you as one of us. You have furthered our history; you speak the language and you’re an official member of the Museum staff with access to all areas. How much more Egyptian can you get?”
I grinned.
“I suppose the only other thing would be marrying a local man and adopting two local children. Then getting a new passport.”
He laughed and held my hand, tightly. The talk turned to lighter things, like his work with his father and my teaching at the school. I learned that he was destined to advance into the political sphere to join his father but was happy enough to be working with the army for the moment. I had the idea that it’s good to have the support of the military when you move forward in the politics of the country. He had to go back to the Embassy for a meeting and invited me to join him as the discussion was about things that I may have an input in.
In the Embassy, I met up with people that I had met while I was working for the Museum and was invited into the discussion. It was along the lines of what we had been talking about over lunch. The Embassy had been tasked with finding contacts in the Society who would be more acceptable than the ones they had been talking to. The three thieves had really plunged a knife through the cooperation. I asked if I could call someone I had been talking to and invite them to join us.
I rang the Society and was able to speak to Fiona. I told her where I was and asked if she could grab Roger and come to the Egyptian Embassy to join a civilised conversation. She told me that she would pull Roger out of a meeting and get a taxi. They arrived in twenty minutes and were shown into the room. I made the introductions, and they were brought up to speed on the situation. We then had what the politicians call a productive meeting.
The fact that both Roger and I spoke Masri was a plus, and that I had been teaching the language at the school was another point. Roger told them that the man they had in prison was on the radar as someone without morals, and that there were several in the Society that would be happy not to see him back. Although, he said, there were some who thought that he could do no wrong. The Society was leaderless at the moment and needed a good project to get behind. He wondered if they had any ideas.
Khepri now revealed that he was the son of the Minister and that we had been talking about a couple of important surveys over lunch. Roger looked at me and winked. I then revealed to the Embassy guys the notion that I may know of a site which could, and I emphasised the ‘could’, have an interesting burial site. Khepri told them that he would organise the echo survey to link with the one we would carry out at the Open Lands site. Roger and Fiona asked if they could come along, as they were very interested in the current dig. The Embassy rang Abbas, and we had a speakerphone conference.
By the time Khepri took the three of us to dinner, we had organised the survey. I would have to take a week off school to do my part, but I was sure that I would be able to take the time. Dates were set and flights were booked. Abbas would organise the accommodation and Khepri would organise the transport and equipment. We would chopper into the dig, and I would then tell them where we were going next. As the three of us went to get into a taxi, Khepri gave me a proper kiss – and I liked it.
Back at the school, I organised my time off with a few days at the end, just in case. I flew out with Fiona and Roger. Fiona hadn’t had an Egyptian dig, but Roger had been there several times, usually working at the usual sites. Neither had been shown the back rooms of the Museum before, and both were blown away when I showed them the chamber with handheld lights. This time, the figurines were in their proper place and there was a display case outside with the jewels in.
Abbas was his usual friendly self and gave me the permission, in a private meeting, to survey the valley that I hoped contain another find. He sent Gyasi with us as a fall-back authority. We spent two days at the dig, Fiona and Roger looking at everything we had uncovered while Khepri, Gyasi, the munitions expert and I set out the survey explosives and the sensors. It was a simple rectangle along the cliff edge of the settlement and didn’t take long to set up. The survey was initiated before dinner, and we all ate with the sound of small explosions.
It finished just before sundown so we could get a good sleep. The next morning, we cleared the site and got back into the Chinook. I went up to the pilot after we took off and gave him the coordinates of our next stop. When we were close, I went up to the cockpit and pointed out where I wanted to set down. We were able to lay out the survey along the area I pointed out, starting after a light lunch. The survey was initiated in the afternoon, and we were in the air that evening, getting back to Cairo after dark.
The army expert was given a room at the hotel, and we all went to the Museum after breakfast, with him carrying his laptop. In the Museum, we were given one of the IT rooms to download the survey results and create the pictures. The dig site was the first, and we were excited to see a row of shapes that were the right size for burials. Gyasi phoned Abbas to come and have a look. That section of the survey was emailed to the dig for them to put flags out.
Abbas stayed with us as the results of the second survey was created. I was shaking in my boots, hoping that something would be shown. I breathed a sigh of relief as two targets came up on the screen, some way apart. I only had time to take a breath when Khepri put his arms around me and kissed me. Then I was hugged by everyone, even the army guy taking the opportunity. He pointed out a few advanced characteristics of the survey result.
He told us that the shadows showed well enough to be either stone or manufactured brick on both targets. He also pointed out some targets that were so small we had missed them. He said that they looked like remnants of a workers camp. Abbas was excited by this, as these were often obliterated by indiscriminate digging with the aim of getting to the main find. Between us, we decided that the dig would start here, trying to get as much information as we could, then moving on to the first target, while also working on the second.
Roger was given a print of the survey to take back to the Society, without telling them the location. If they didn’t fund a dig based on that picture, Abbas said that he would talk to other backers. I could see that he still had some animosity against the Society.
As for me, I was vindicated on both counts. Khepri was reluctant to let me go, and that was all right with me. Roger and Fiona were fidgeting with the knowledge that they had been in the beginnings of what could be a momentous find. Abbas and Gyasi were, I’m sure, wondering how they would fund another extension on the Museum.
There wasn’t much we could do now, so made our arrangements to fly home. Khepri took me to visit his family that evening, and I had a pleasant meal with the Minister and his wife, where we all spoke Masri all the time. I rather think it may have been a test, one I might have passed, seeing that I was given a traditional farewell double cheek kiss from both as I left, while Khepri and I spent a lot longer than that before he dropped me off at the hotel.
The biggest result from the week was that if I was to lead the digs, I would have to take a sabbatical from the school or resign. I would have to talk it over with the Headmistress, letting her in on the secret. If I remained an employee of the school, I would be able to host rotating groups of girls, seeing that the main dig was likely to take a year or more, even with the targets located accurately. We would take a lot of care getting the sand and earth removed.
On the flight home, the three of us sat together and spoke quietly about the future. The last few days had galvanised Fiona and Roger, both saying that they would stay in Egypt for the dig. I told them that Khepri had promised a proper camp, army style, a little way back from the action, so we could remain on site. I had been not far away on the previous dig, and there was a small town less than twenty miles away, for the odd day off. The local diggers would have their own camp next to us. It would be a chance for Roger to perfect his Masri and for Fiona to pick up some for herself.
When I spoke to the Headmistress, she wanted to visit the Museum for herself, to see the sort of things that I expected to find. I spoke to my parents and the following break saw the four of us on a plane back to Cairo, along with Tracey and six girls bound for the settlement dig, where they would be excavating the burial sites. They transferred to a Chinook at the airport, while the four of us were met by Khepri and a limo. We were put up at the hotel near the Museum, then spent several days while they were shown all the exhibits, the back rooms, and the chamber.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
Chapter 7
It was the chamber that made my mother cry. The idea that her child had been the first person to step foot in the chamber in more than three thousand years was something that got to her. One of the new things that Heba had added was a screen which constantly showed the pictures I had taken of the general dig scenes and the chamber, taken off my computer files, next to a life-size picture of me in my gallibiya, cut from the picture taken of me with the three eminent men. On the other side was another picture of me, taken at the opening, along with a short history of my life.
Khepri kept close and looked after us. He took all of us to his home, where his parents met my parents and we all had a good meal, this time speaking English in deference to the visitors. It was odd, as I was included as one of the family, while they were the guests. There were times when I would speak Masri to the girl who was serving.
The next day, we were taken to the airfield and then went, by Chinook, to the Open Lands dig, where they were shown what we were doing there. The Head spoke to Tracey and the girls and was shown the pits they were working on, where they had exposed six skeletons, one of which had been totally dug, finding weapons and jewels in his grave. The Museum guys explained how this dig was going to rewrite the history books, seeing that it was up to nine thousand years old, and all started when I picked up four pieces of pottery that was now in the partial pot that they had shown us back at the Museum. That piece of news made my mother hug me and cry, again.
On our way back home, my mother told me that Khepri was a wonderful man, and that she thoroughly approved of him as a son-in-law. The Headmistress was now happy for me to take a sabbatical, as long as I came back to the school for a while afterwards. She told me that it would be easier to attract my replacement if I was there to tell them about the job. She was already factoring in my eventual move to Egypt, full time.
To me, there seemed to be the expectation that I would end up as a married woman in the better suburbs of Cairo. Me, I still wasn’t so sure. Khepri and I were going as steady as we could, in spite of the distance between us. That changed when the next break came around and I started my sabbatical. I flew with Stella and Veronica and twelve girls, who were heading for the Open Lands. I was in the hotel for three days before my case was stored at the Museum and we went to the airfield where Roger and Fiona had arrived.
When we were put down at the new dig, it was a totally different place. There was a substantial camp, with eating and toilet facilities. Even a line of showers. Next to it was the diggers camp, all gathering round to greet me when I arrived. They were happy that I had taken their advice, and even happier at the outcome of the last time we had been together.
Gyasi had put out the flags that denoted all the targets, so we started the first jobs before the light went. I gathered the diggers in the dining tent and showed them the survey results, pointing out the first dig and the targets that I expected. I would show them the results of the rest of the survey when we got to that point. They took to the task with a gusto, now knowing that they would find something when they dug.
The working camp took two months to completely expose and record. The diggers were excited at seeing what their forebears had been doing, some three thousand years before, and there were many selfies taken before the finds were removed and bagged. Roger had followed my lead and spoke Masri as much as he could, while Fiona was picking up a lot as well. There were days when an English word wasn’t spoken, and we all wore gallibiyas and big hats. That created a bond between the diggers and the archaeologists that Roger had never had before. Khepri and Abbas visited us quite often as the dig progressed.
We checked with ground penetrating radar that there were no more finds, so backfilled the site, and I then showed the diggers the result of the rest of the survey, telling them that we had two smaller targets to dig, so that we would split into two groups. Gyasi and Fiona in charge of one, and Roger and I in charge of the other. We were close enough to be able to shout if we had any news.
We took it slow and carefully. The dug sand was piled to each side of the target, and we only worked early morning and late afternoons. The was no rush and the diggers were happy with the way things went. Gyasi was the first to get to the stairway top so slowed even more to expose the stairs to the entrance. My dig was a few days behind. Over a few weeks careful work, we had uncovered the steps that led down to the doorways. Gyasi called the Museum to see if Abbas and anyone else wanted to attend the opening.
The next day we heard the sound of a helicopter coming our way. When it touched down, Abbas, Khepri and the Minister stepped out. As their helicopter left, a Chinook came into view and the crew from the Open Lands dig joined us, along with their tents. They had completed the dig, with all the finds now safely in the Museum, and were here to help us excavate our find if there was any blockages in the tunnels.
We led them out to the first dig, and then showed them the second. Several pairs of eyes lit up when they saw the unbroken seals on the entrance. Abbas asked me if I had been able to decipher the hieroglyphs and I said that I thought that the chamber I had discovered before was a clue. I thought that the first entrance would lead to the tomb of Itakayt, one of the wives of Khakaure, while the other could be Khakaure himself – or Senusret the Third, as he was known.
Abbas looked stern.
“Evelyn, you do know that the pyramid that Senusret the Third had constructed isn’t more than fifty kilometres away, and the ones alongside it are where his wives are buried.”
“Supposed to be buried, Abbas. Nobody had found any of their tombs, even though the pyramids have been excavated and inspected from top to bottom. What if it was a double blind, so that he could be somewhere quiet to continue the journey into the afterlife. We’re very close to where we found the wife of one of his top men. I would think that if we did a lot more work, we may find her husband somewhere close. I may be wrong, but the only way to be sure is to go and have a look.”
The extra men went to set up their camp, with the Chinook leaving when they had unloaded. In the meantime, Abbas, Gyasi, and I made sure that the doors, the seals, and any other hieroglyphs were photographed. When everyone was together again, we cut through the seal with a battery-powered saw, then used a small lever to open the first door.
Inside, we saw a tunnel leading downwards, with hieroglyphs covering the walls. There were odd boulders and piles of sand where bits of the roof had collapsed, but we made good progress with the detritus being taken out and the floor brushed as we moved forward. The passageway ended in a dead end. This wasn’t unusual, and we would need to use radar to find the hidden entrance.
We left a couple of the Museum guys to record the walls, something that could take a week. When we emerged, the diggers had already erected a sand-coloured tarpaulin over the steps and open door, mainly so that anyone having a look from the air wouldn’t see the detail. We moved on to the second entrance and repeated the process, opening the door in the late afternoon. A quick look inside showed a similar sloping passage, with this one looking a lot cleaner. That was a sure sign that this was a much better constructed site.
The next week was recording the walls on both passages. The second one had ended in an empty chamber, covered in wonderful pictures and hieroglyphs. Two days later, Abbas called for a helicopter to come and pick him and the Minister up. They left with a hard drive full of pictures to show the experts of the period. In the meantime, we spent our time in the first passage, trying to find a void behind the wall. It could be anywhere over the length of the passage. The second passage could be the same as the next entrance may not even be in the chamber, or even in a wall.
It took two more weeks of painstaking work before we had dots of masking tape that indicated where the void was in each tomb. In the first, it was in the roof of the passage, and the second was in the floor of the chamber. We had also located smaller voids along the passage walls of both tombs. These may be where offerings had been hidden as a gift to the gods. They would wait until we had seen the main prize.
We went into the roof of the first passage and found another passage that led towards the second tomb. It, like the first passage, was covered in dirt and bits of rock. It took three weeks to clean the floor and shore up the roof. About five metres in, it sloped downwards, and the floor was now a series of shallow steps. All the way, we were watched by the eyes of the figures on the walls. It was, by far, the most decorated tomb I had been into. The further we went, the more pictures of Itakayt appeared, often with Senusret the Third.
We reached a dead end. We were, by our calculations, about ten metres short of the second tomb and ten metres below the level of the chamber. We brought in the radar and found that the next void was straight ahead. After recording the pictures, we used a drill to go through the wall. Then we had a small camera on a flexible arm with a tiny light. It showed a burial chamber, completely untouched.
Leaving the diggers to make a way into the chamber, we then went back to the second tomb and drilled into the floor. When the camera was lowered in, we could only see a large hole disappearing into the earth. When we moved the camera to show the underside of the floor, we could see a square area where what we were standing on was deliberately weakened. If we had used a pickaxe to break into the floor, we would have ended up falling into a deep void. It was an elaborate trap.
We left that second tomb as we found it, with a few of the experts trying to make more sense of the pictures and hieroglyphs, now we knew that it was the triple-bluff. First, the supposed burial pyramid, and now an elaborately constructed tomb that only led any unsuspecting grave robber to his death.
What was likely now, was that when we looked further in the burial chamber next door, it would have another exit to the tomb of Senusret. Once we had the burial chamber ready to enter, everyone wanted me to be the first to go in. I stood my ground and insisted that it should be the three main Egyptians on the site. Khepri, Gayasi and Ahmed, the digger who had pointed me towards the site, were the first to enter. They were filming as they entered, and others were filming their entry for posterity.
The film was emailed to the Museum and Abbas was with us the next day, along with a couple of journalists and the Minister. I was asked why I wasn’t the first to go in, and I just said that I had done it once and I thought that this find was due to the Egyptian diggers and Egyptian backing. It was pointed out that I had held back so that Roger and Fiona could have a good look before me. I just shrugged and said that if it wasn’t for their support I might be in a classroom in England, not at a tomb of a queen.
It took six months to record and remove the items in the chamber. The sarcophagus was the hardest to get out, with the steps that made it impossible to slide on rollers. Every week we had visitors from the government. We had two rotations of girls from the school to help out. We had a Chinook coming in every few days with supplies and to take the finds back to the Museum.
When the chamber was finally cleared, Abbas brought in another crew to double check all the records and to see if they could find another exit from the chamber. We were all flown back to Cairo for a rest and a round of interviews. That was almost harder than being deep underground. I had been working on autopilot, Khepri by my side, as we carefully removed all of the fragile urns, jars, figures, and life-sized statues. These alone had opened up a whole new line of discussion, with all the experts comparing them with the known statues and busts of Senusret the Third.
We were taken to parties where we met famous people and some with a lot of power. Over the next three weeks, while we rested, talked a lot, and I had more pictures taken of me than I thought possible, I didn’t see much of Khepri. While we had worked at the dig, we were never alone enough for much more than a hug. Our relationship had become more like that of brother and sister.
While we were in Cairo, his father had started to dominate his time, although his mother was being very friendly, and I had the idea that Khepri was going to be drawn further into the politics. His mother took me to meet a lot of wonderful women who seemed to know almost everything that was going on in the country. Through them, I discovered that the Minister, and his friends, were basically running the country, while trying to keep the religious leaders happy.
I found out that I may have made a mistake in regard to Khepri. The pictures of him walking into the chamber had boosted his profile to such an extent that several highly placed families wanted him to marry their daughters. He was being pushed into a situation where he had no free will, just a spectacular future as a leader of his country. Many of the women I met were sympathetic with my situation, mixed with some awe at my historic successes.
I ended up asking Abbas if I could go back to the site. There was nothing for me in Cairo. I was spending more time in the deep recesses of the Museum than was healthy. I might as well be in a deep tomb doing what I did best. I was in the next Chinook along with the supplies, ready to spend another six months.
The crew gave me a report on what they had recorded in the burial chamber. They had detected a void in one corner, right where there was a life-size picture of the Pharaoh and his wife. After we had recorded the picture, we drilled through the wall at that point and put the camera in.
What we saw was enough to call Abbas. On the other side of the wall was another chamber. It was very dusty but there was enough gold glinting in the camera light to make it a significant find. I was sure that we had found the elusive resting place of Senusret the Third, who had ruled the land between eighteen seventy-eight to eighteen thirty- nine BC. While not as old as the Open Lands dig, this would fill in a lot of detail about the Twelfth Dynasty period. There was more known of the later Pharaohs than the earlier ones, due to the huge amount of digging into that period and the huge artifacts they had left behind.
A helicopter arrived the next morning. Abbas had brought Roger, Fiona, and Gyasi, along with some more experts and a fully equipped film crew. Everyone had a look at what the camera was showing, then the film crew tapped into the feed as the camera was moved around. They set up a camera of their own to record the opening of the wall to access the tomb. Abbas had decided that this would be done carefully, with every movement recorded.
There was only enough room for a couple of workers, so the rest of us watched the slow opening on a screen as the wall was cut and pieces removed. The pictures were preserved as much as we could. It was a slow process, with all the pieces being brought out through the passages to be tagged and bagged.
A few days later, there was a space big enough to go in. This time, we agreed that the first to enter would be Abbas. He then insisted that I join him. The fixed camera would record the entry, while the two of us wore bodycams to see what we were seeing. We each had a floodlight on a stand, which we took in as we entered and sat to illuminate the tomb. It was a far cry from my first tomb by lamplight.
How can I describe that first look. The lights cast shadows and the statues looked alive. There was gold, a lot of gold, but also stone and wood artifacts. Like Tut, there was a chariot for transport and a large model of a boat to cross the sacred river. Abbas and I took our time, looking at everything we could, before going back outside to allow the others to have a look for themselves. That evening, it was a very subdued group who sat down for the evening meal. The immensity of the find was weighing heavily on us, along with the realisation of just how big a task it would be to get the contents removed and preserved for shipment to the Museum for cleaning and storage before a new display could be built.
Over the next weeks, the only thing we did was to record the contents, in situ, and record all the wall art. After that, Abbas brought in another crew, specialists in artifact removal, and a security detail. The diggers were all paid and went back to their daily lives with a story to tell. The rest of us were taken back to Cairo to face the journalists and get our heads around the find. This one would rival King Tut for grave goods and found in an era where things could be preserved better, it would make a fantastic display that the world would flock to see. Plans were already being drawn up to build a new wing to show the two chambers. When I saw the plans, I noticed that it was to be called the ‘Evelyn Saunders’ building.
My part was now finished, the removal and storage was the experts from the Museum’s long term job. Nothing would be rushed; nothing would be missed. I expected that it would be four or five years before the opening ceremony. I was taken to a number of parties, I danced with a number of men, and I was asked to stay in Cairo for a little while longer. One Saturday night I was taken to a glittering occasion, where we had a good meal and some awards handed out.
Abbas was given the Order of The Republic, the equal of a knighthood. Several employees from the Museum, including Heba, got a Medal of Merit. I was called up to get a Medal of the Sciences and Arts, First Class, as a token of appreciation for my work with the Museum. I was shocked when I was also given the Order of The Virtues, the female equivalent of the Order of the Republic. Included in that package was an Egyptian passport with a new picture of me, no doubt taken over the period when I was last in the city. It also listed me as a cultural ambassador. I hate to say it, but I cried.
I was in the country another three weeks before I could go home. By that time, I was ready for it. The round of dinners and speeches as I was flown around the country was intoxicating, but tiring. One last chopper ride to the dig to see how they were doing, and I was then packed and ready to end my sabbatical. A first-class seat on EgyptAir made the trip home almost an experience in itself.
I hadn’t made any arrangements so didn’t expect to be picked up at the terminal by an Embassy car and driven to the Embassy, where I was expected to stay for a few days while being visited by many of my new countrymen and women, all eager to meet and press the flesh. I have to say that I received almost as many offers of marriage as the offers of employment. I told everyone that I needed to get back to the school, where I was still expected to teach History.
After a couple of days, I called the Society and asked to speak to Roger. When I told him that I was in the Embassy he told me that there would be a car coming for me in an hour, and that the Society would host a small lunch for me. When I arrived, he was there to help me out. Inside, he took me to their dining room where about twenty people stood and applauded as I was ushered to a seat.
Once again, I hadn’t factored in the effect that letting Fiona and Roger into the chamber before me had on my standing with the administration. The President and the Board were all at the table and I was asked if I had any pictures of the main chamber. I had plenty on my trusty SSD, so we had a meal and then we looked at the pictures on a big screen while the three of us described what they were seeing. It was a nice time, calmer than my last visit.
What was a surprise for them was when I stood and told them that I was a bona fide Cultural Ambassador. I had been given three boxes before I left Cairo. Two contained a Medal Of Sciences and Arts First Class, which I presented to a shocked Roger and Fiona, with the gratitude of the Egyptian Nation. The third Medal was for the Society, in gratitude for funding much of the dig. The President accepted it and then gave me something in return. I was now a Fellow of the Society, joining about thirteen hundred who had the same membership, all who had furthered the sciences and arts. The person I now was could not be further from the person who had graduated from University. I now fitted in with several layers of society, and I did so as me and what I had done.
Marianne Gregory © 2024
Chapter 8
When I did arrive back at the school, my room was spic and span, and everyone was happy to see me. Of course, I was way behind with the gossip and the activities. While I had been away there had been a complete intake of first year students, and the older ones had left. There were a lot of cards on my bed, all from girls who had visited the sites, with many of them expressing their gratitude with my involvement with them.
It was nearing the end of term, so my first attempts of taking lessons usually ended up with my SSD getting a workout as I explained how the things that they were looking at fitted in with the days they had been sealed up in the tomb. I had to give some of my spare time for meetings with local organisations, as well as more interviews. I found that my time in Egypt had been followed by the readers of the local paper, and that my returning to teach was viewed with amazement, seeing that I had my awards from Egypt. I told anyone who asked that a promise made is a promise to be kept.
When it came to the break I went home. My mother had been busy since the last time I had stayed there. My old bedroom had disappeared. In its place was a sunny room with yellow walls and the bed was now a double with bright linen and a colourful quilt. All of my old clothes had gone, and Mum had spent some money buying me things. When I questioned it, she declared that it was more for her than for me, as she would say that she was buying for her famous daughter.
She took me to meet her circle of friends, something that would never have happened with the old me. My SSD got a lot of use wherever I went. I was taken to meetings of amateur historians, photography clubs, even giving talks at stalls in holiday shows, with my insight into being in Egypt for long periods. The Embassy arranged most of those and, as a Cultural Ambassador I couldn’t refuse them.
Being in the public eye, I met a lot of men, many thinking they could sweep me off my feet. With my experience with Khepri, I never allowed any of them to get too close. Until I met Darius. I met him in a large display hall at a holiday show. I was on the official Egypt stall, helping out the Embassy. We had a part of it that promoted the history and there were big pictures of some artifacts from the four big finds that I was now eternally linked with. Darius was on a stall not far away, promoting high-end tours to historic sites in the east, with a big push to travel to Egypt.
At one point, he had left his stall in the hands of his assistant and wandered around, finding himself enraptured by the pictures on our stand. He asked questions and I provided answers. At one point he whispered to himself that I was a wonderful person to know all these facts. The thing was that he said it in Masri, so I answered in the same language that I know so much about the sites is because I found them. It was only then that he moved his eyes from my cleavage to my name badge. I could see the wheels turning in his brain as he figured out who I was. I found it funny, as he was so earnest about the country and his core business. I also found him personable. It helped that he knew a lot about the destinations he was promoting.
He insisted on buying me lunch at the questionable food area. Over the course of the ‘meal’, we found that we knew a lot of the same places, especially Cairo. He also knew some of the people I had met at parties. When the show was closing for the day, he invited me to join him for dinner. When I agreed, his smile lit up. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was going to have a proper meal with him, or if he was thinking about signing me on as a tour guide. A small group visit to the Museum, led by someone who had found some of what was displayed would attract a premium.
That thought made me wonder if I was getting cynical. Now over thirty, and still a virgin, I had almost resigned myself to ending up as an old spinster. I realised that I had better make use of what the surgeons had given me, or else it would be a waste of money. I continued to dilate, as ordered, and sometimes used a vibrator with a degree of satisfaction. With the time since the operation, living as a woman and enjoying the company of women, I needed to cut through my reservations with men. They weren’t all bad. Khepri wasn’t a bad man, just caught up in the machinations of family responsibilities and politics, never a good mix.
The dinner was good. I went to the Embassy and glammed up. Darius had changed into a fresh suit. The venue was good, and we had a good table, good food and good service. I found that he owned the tour company, along with others. He did a lot of business with specialist small group tours, like ones to the craft centres of Europe, railway trips, flying shows, and even one that took ‘Acorns’ to Europe to see Knights Templar sites.
We all had another day of the holiday show to get through, so I made sure I had comfortable shoes and had picked up a sandwich that I had asked the Embassy kitchen to supply. The day was very busy, and I didn’t get any time to socialise. We sent a lot of people to visit other stalls to see if they could afford to satisfy their desire to see the Land of the Pharaohs. Later, as we were taking down the stall, Darius came over and thanked us for sending potential customers his way.
He invited me to dinner again, and I told him that I would join him, but had to get an early start in the morning to get the train back to the school, so it would have to be an early night. I went back to the Embassy and chose a different dress for the meal. I must have been thinking about other things because when I stepped out of my taxi at the restaurant, I realised that I had chosen an outfit more aligned with clubbing, rather than genteel dining.
He was also more casual, and I could see something different in his eyes as I approached the table. He rose and pulled me into a hug and a peck on the lips, and then allowed the waiter to help me sit.
“You look stunning tonight, Evelyn. Why don’t we make this a shorter meal and then head for a dance club I know. I promise that you will still get that early night.”
I smiled and nodded. The meal we chose was a seafood platter for two, which we didn’t finish. We skipped dessert and he paid while I went to the restroom to freshen up. We then walked a block to the entrance of the club. It was more sophisticated than I expected, with a DJ playing smooth music rather than hip-hop. There was a bar and alcoves. I found an alcove while he got the drinks.
Over the next hour or so, we drank, we talked, and we danced – very close together. When I went to freshen up, I applied some lube to my vagina. I was under no illusions about his commitment, he may even be married, but I didn’t care. Tonight, I wanted a man in me, and he was going to be that man.
I did get that early night, naked and in his bed. He was wonderful and it was everything I had expected it to be, and a lot more. I didn’t tell him that he was my first, or that I was trans. I was his woman and he played with my body in a most delightful way. I was back in the Embassy a little before one in the morning, with our phone numbers exchanged and the feeling that I would see more of him.
I was a bit later getting away the next morning. I did have a reasonable sleep but spent a little while on the Embassy computer researching my lover. I discovered that he was from a higher-class family, with parents and several siblings living in Cairo. He had arrived in Britain a few years after his college degree to start the touring company. It followed his parents’ business organising coach tours in Egypt. The personal details showed that he was driven to make the business succeed and, although several women had been in a relationship with him, none had managed to get him to commit.
One thing I did see on the computer was a press release destined for release in Egypt. It was a report of the holiday show, with pictures of the stall and more than a few showing me, including me talking to Darius. I printed that off for myself, which I would show him if I met him again.
Back at the school we prepared for a new term. My lessons were very popular, and I was told that we would be getting a second teacher. I would be expected to vet the applications as they came in. We were a month into the term when we employed the new teacher. She was one of the girls in her last year when I had first entered the school. Brenda had gone on to get accreditation in teaching and had just graduated. Although she hadn’t had the joys of being on a dig with me, she had volunteered on sites in the UK and France.
It didn’t take long to get her up to speed with the History lessons and we started working in tandem. The Head arranged for us to go to Egypt in the last two weeks of term, while the students would be doing exams. It was a surprise when we arrived at the airport and found Darius with a group of tourists, all ready to spend ten days looking at historical sights. He had phoned a few times since I had last seen him, and he came over and gave me a hug and a kiss. I introduced him to Brenda, and he asked us if we would help him with his twenty clients while we waited for our flight.
It helped that everyone in the group knew who I was, so I could keep them occupied while we waited. Darius spoke quietly to Brenda and was then on his phone while I looked at the itinerary and talked about the places they would be seeing.
Just before the boarding was called, he took me and Brenda aside.
“I’m sorry if this spoils your plans, but I’ve cancelled your booking with your hotel and added you to ours. We’re staying at the one near the museum. It will be where we spend the first few days, then we look at the Great Pyramids then head for Luxor. If it fits in with your plans, you’re welcome to join us, all expenses covered.”
“We’re just going to get Brenda up to speed with the historical sights, so we will be happy to join you. Let me call Abbas and I’ll see if we can set something up to make the Museum even more memorable. I have my ID so I can take you into places you wouldn’t have seen.”
I rang Abbas while waiting in line to board and he said that he was happy that I was bringing a crowd of tourists. He said that Heba would have a couple of her staff to help us herd the group around. He also told me that tourist numbers had increased since I’d been on the show stand.
There’s a different atmosphere when you’re travelling with a group, to when there’s just two of you. We spent a lot of the flight talking to enthusiasts who were ready to learn all we could teach them. Brenda and I took it as just another time in the classroom. Darius was often at my side as I answered questions. At Cairo, there was a coach and two of his local staff to take us to the hotel.
We had a good dinner and retired to our rooms to be refreshed for the day to come. He had put Brenda in a single room, with me in one that had a door to his suite. Needless to say, that night I didn’t spend a lot of time in my own bed.
Next day, Heba joined us at breakfast, and I had to announce that we would be visiting the Museum in a way that they hadn’t expected. The group was split into three smaller ones, with Heba and Brenda leading one, Darius leading another with them to be joined by one of Heba’s staff. I took the third group.
Heba told them all that the leaders would be rotated over the three days that they were there, and that everyone would see almost everything that there was to see. Before we walked to the Museum, she gave me a piece of paper with the rooms that I was expected to lead my group. My task, each day, was the original chamber, the Tut exhibition, and a tour of the back rooms where the artifacts from the latest finds were stored for preservation. The other two groups would be seeing other areas.
I started with the Tut exhibit. We took our time as I explained what it feels like to be the first into a burial chamber after more than two thousand years. We then moved to the chamber, where I took in three or four at a time, explaining what they were seeing with the lamps and telling them that this is how I had found the original site.
We all met up in the dining room for lunch, then I took my group down to the back rooms, where we were all kitted out in booties, gloves, and masks to go into the climate-controlled area. One of the staff was there to show us the way. The first table had a lot of artifacts from the oldest dig, with the partial pot and the complete replica in pride of place, alongside some of the grave goods that had come out of the burial sites.
I could explain each item on view, where it was found on site, and how it fitted into the history of the area. Most of the group was staggered at finding that these items would be rewriting the history books.
Next was the artifacts of the two latest sites, much later, but so far more wonderful. It took all afternoon for my small group to see everything and absorb the importance of the items that they were seeing, some five years, so the staffer told me, before they would be going on public display.
It was an energised crowd that met for dinner, with everyone swapping stories about what they had seen. Darius was beaming, as he could see the next trip could be very well attended. Once again, I didn’t spend a lot of time in my own bed, that night. After all my years without sex, I couldn’t get enough of it.
Over the next two days, I repeated my tour with different groups. On the fourth day, Darius and his helpers were heading for the Pyramids, so Brenda and I went back to the Museum, where I thanked Heba and Abbas for their help. Then Heba took the two of us on a tour that took in everything that was to be seen, so giving Brenda a complete overview of the Museum. The last thing she showed us was the plans of the Evelyn Saunders wing, which was in the process of being surveyed, and where the Pharaoh and his queen would take pride of place, with an annex showing the finds of the African Humid finds. She told us that a couple of historians were busy writing the catalogue and a new history book.
The following day, we joined the rest of the group to fly to Luxor, checking in to the Hilton and spending three days visiting all of the best sites, including a guided tour of the Valley of The Kings, going into a lot of the famous tombs. The next day, we all flew south to Abu Simbel to see the famous temple and the one for Nefertari, both well worth the time to visit. We stayed at the New Abu Simbel Hotel, a five-star modern establishment, where I didn’t spend a lot of time in my bed.
After that, we all flew back to Cairo, where the group was allowed a day of exploring the city but were pointed to the best shops to get souvenirs. Brenda went with them while I spent the day with Darius, visiting his family and being welcomed. I had met his father at a couple of parties, and he was surprised to have me turning up at his doorstep with his son.
We had a very good day, with me meeting most of the extended family. His mother took me aside and told me that Khepri had married the daughter of one of the politicians and that they had already had a son. As usual, it was the women of the family that knew the best gossip. I was sure that news of my return, with Darius, would be doing the rounds before long.
That evening, at dinner, one of the group stood and thanked us for making their trip so memorable. Darius was asked if another could be organised, so he said that anything was possible, and that his clients would be the first to be told. That night, after we had made love, he gave me a box with a diamond ring in and asked me to marry him.
It only took me a few seconds to say yes but did tell him that I wasn’t able to have children. He laughed.
“Too many in the family already. I expect that we’ll have a couple of my sisters’ children to look after from time to time. We can be the go-to uncle and aunt.”
The flight wasn’t until late morning, so we went to tell his parents before we met the group at the airport. Brenda was agog when she saw the ring on my finger and gave me a hug. She was followed by everyone in the group, all happy that they had been to places that none of their friends would see for years. To them, my happiness was secondary.
Back in England, I gave my resignation to the Headmistress, telling her that I was sorry to leave, but that marriage was on the cards. On the last day of term, I was given a send-off with flowers and a box of chocolates. It was hard to leave Veronica, Stella, Tracey and now Brenda, but I had another life to lead now.
When I left, with Darius picking me up, I had tears in my eyes as we left the grounds. My life here had been exciting and worth every second I had spent. He drove us to his home, an apartment in a tower overlooking the Thames. It was wonderful, and our first full day was spent in bed, only getting out to pee and eat.
I had some duties to do, with a visit to the Society to give them the news of how the new exhibit was going. I also checked in with the Embassy to find out the dates of the future holiday shows that they would want me to attend. That was when we could set a date for the marriage. It would be in Egypt, in the arms of his family, and we would be splitting our time between his apartment there and the apartment here.
He asked me if I would lead tourist group in the future. I had a lot of fun with the last one, so agreed. The next day, we did a visit to his London office to introduce me to the staff. I was welcomed, as many of the tourists had been in touch to find out when I was going to lead another tour.
We went to stay in his apartment in Cairo, near the top of a new tower with a view that had the Pyramids on the horizon. It was fantastic. The wedding was full-on. My parents flew out to attend and were put up in luxury. We had a full church, his family not being Muslim, but lapsed Coptic Orthodox Catholics.
I was made ready by my new mother-in-law to be, and three new sisters-in-law. The dress was far too hot for the climate, but I was able to change for the reception. The guest list was a who’s who of Cairo society and Museum staff. Khepri was there with his wife and new son, along with his parents and a few other ministers. It was a shock to Darius when I was referred to as ‘My Lady’, as I wore the sash of my Order of the Virtues with my going away dress.
We honeymooned across the water in Greece, staying in a villa on one of the islands. Then we were back in Cairo so that I could co-ordinate with Abbas about bringing small groups to the Museum, to give them the full tour. Darius told him that the first tour group would be by invitation only, all travel writers.
Abbas gave us permission to go to the sites of the finds and said that we would be allowed to take people in with lights, as the sites were too remote to be opened like the Valley of the Kings. Darius arranged with a Cairo helicopter company to fly us around, with an ex-military Chinook, a method of transport that I was too familiar with but would be something special for visitors.
My life took on a new focus, working for our family business. I discovered that my husband was very rich, and, with my awards and contacts, we were able to expand the usual tour to take in the extra sights. We would fly to London or Manchester to pick up the tour groups, stay with them in hotels as we guided them around, and fly back to stay at the London apartment as we went to the office to discuss the tours and work on changes.
The first Egypt tour with the travel writers cost a lot but was well worth it in advertising. The Egypt tours, led by Evelyn Saunders, were hot tickets. I did keep my own name for business purposes, you don’t throw away a hook that grabs customers.
I was able to get my parents, and friends, into groups on free tickets, a couple at a time, and it was a lot of fun when they were with me on the trip. I was still feted in Cairo as a member of the society, and we had lots of invitations to parties and other events. We now had our stand next to the Embassy stand at shows and I would flit between them. We all did a roaring trade, especially with the big pictures of the Senusret chamber, as taken in situ.
Five years later, I was asked to cut the ribbon on the Evelyn Saunders Wing of the Museum. They had spent a lot of money to house all the treasures and it was an instant success.
We were starting to talk about adopting a son and that brings me to where I started this tale. I was sitting at the window of our Cairo home, watching the Pyramids change colour in the light of the setting sun. Tomorrow, we would be starting the process to adopt. Tomorrow, I would be starting a new chapter in my life. One where I would be fitting in with the other mothers in the city. I had come to this point in ways that I had never seen coming, but it had been fun and interesting. As I sat, Darius came and sat next to me, kissing me, and telling me that he loved me more every day. That was something I never wanted to end.
Marianne Gregory © 2024