Sphinx Read online

  At dawn I was freed, apparently due to a phone call from Henries, the British consul. I couldn’t face going back to the villa; instead, I found myself stumbling through the streets towards the Brambilla family home. Time had stopped for me, refusing to spill over into the tragedy that had now become my life. I can’t remember how, but what seemed only a minute later I was standing under the stone arch of the entrance, too petrified to ring the bell. When I did, and Aadeel opened the door, my unshaved face, sullied clothes and violent trembling told him everything.

  ‘Mr Warnock, we thought they would never let you go,’ he murmured, ashen with grief.

  ‘What have they done with the body?’ I asked.

  ‘She is already in her coffin. We bury her tomorrow afternoon. ’ Aadeel’s face crumpled. ‘I have known her all her life. She was the only reason my mistress still lives,’ he whispered, his large frame now folding in on itself, squeezing grief tight.

  I reached out to him. His shoulders were heaving. But I, the Englishman, could not weep. Grief had locked my emotions in, like a frozen river with its water trapped inside the ice.

  ‘Oh Lord, take this soul, torn from us before her time, and transport her into heaven,’ the priest intoned in Italian.

  I stared at the coffin standing beside the freshly dug grave, the darkened recess as intriguing as a secret chamber. I wanted to smash open the wood and rescue my wife. Sudden bereavement is illogical, irrational. It refuses to believe the obvious. The scent, the physical warmth of skin, the weight of her head on your shoulder: the memory of these sensations stays suspended, waiting for the departed to return and confirm the internal illogical truth that beats on relentlessly - one that tells you that they haven’t really died at all but are only hiding.

  The priest began a Latin chant; his incomprehensible words emerging in a solemn murmur, and I found myself furious - at a God that had allowed such a futile death, at the world, even at Francesca for hijacking the funeral arrangements.

  It was a family tradition for the Brambillas to bury their dead within two days and because Francesca hadn’t been able to reach me during my interrogation at the police station she had taken it upon herself to organise everything, from the funeral parlour through to the Catholic service at St Catherine’s Cathedral. The whole event appeared brutally fast to me, as if Isabella had been drawing breath only moments before we were putting her into the ground.

  The only thing left to me was the grim task of breaking the news to my own family. I had called my father first. His reaction had been one of initial disbelief followed by an irrational insistence that I should return to England immediately as if my own life might be in danger. Dialling my brother’s number had been more difficult. I was frightened that the news might set off one of Gareth’s lapses into addiction, but it had to be done. I’d been blunt and to the point; anything else felt evasive. Afterwards he had fallen into a long silence, then, to my annoyance, launched into a Buddhism-inspired soliloquy about reincarnation. I knew his emotional clumsiness was unintentional but it still distressed me. His rant turned into weeping. That was Gareth, always oscillating between bravado and fragility.

  The Valium the company doctor had prescribed made my head swim. The sun danced in streamers, catching the shimmering feathers on the more ornate hats of the women - a second of visual distraction, a brief respite from the crushing emotion that overlay everything. I couldn’t bear to think. I hadn’t slept since the accident, unable even to shut my eyes without seeing Isabella’s body lying limp on the wooden deck. That last conversation we’d had about Ahmos Khafre and his terrible prediction kept floating back into my head. And part of me was furious at the idea that Isabella had allowed herself to be influenced by it, as if, maybe, her believing in it had made it real, and in doing so had ensured her own demise.

  I glanced at Francesca who was standing on the other side of the grave, propped up by Aadeel. She was dressed in an elegant mourning dress that must have dated from the 1950s, but her granddaughter’s death had withered her overnight. Standing beside her was Hermes Hemiedes, his hand absently stroking the old woman’s frail arm. He returned my gaze, his blank stare devoid of emotion. I looked away.

  The sound of wood scraping against gravel jolted me out of my reverie. The casket touched the bottom of the grave and the ropes were pulled out. A bird swooped over the cypress trees and down towards the open grave, the movement of its wings catching my eye. It was a sparrowhawk. It reminded me of Isabella’s tattoo, her Ba. Abstractly, part of my mind wondered whether this was her spirit freed from her body. The thought helped distract me for a moment. I was interrupted by a gentle nudge to my elbow and turned to see Aadeel there, holding out a spade. The male relatives were expected to cast the first shovels of soil into the grave. I took the spade and stared down at the polished surface of the coffin; the strata in the banks of reddish sandy soil around it changed as the grave deepened. A geophysicist committing his wife to the earth; I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to give her up.

  The crying of the mourners mingled with the ambience of the world beyond the high walls of the cemetery: the squeal of tram wheels, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the midday call to prayer from a nearby mosque, the imam’s voice threading through the air like a thin purple ribbon. Could Isabella hear any of this from inside her coffin? I couldn’t help wondering, trying to distract myself from the excruciatingly tight band of grief now squeezing my heart and lungs. The moment swelled and burst into the next while I stood there, paralysed, dreading the rain of soil against wood, the rattle that signified finality.

  The Brambilla family headstone was a large altar dominated by a statue of the Madonna. Set into the marble, in circular frames like lockets, were sepia photographs of the dead: her father, Paolo; Isabella’s great-grandfather and his wife; her great-uncle who had been killed in the Second World War; a spinster aunt. I looked for Giovanni Brambilla’s photograph, but he appeared to be missing. Below the miniature portraits were empty frames, yawning sinisterly. The idea that a photograph of Isabella would appear there, in a solemn pose that betrayed her exuberance, horrified me.

  The warmth of hands wrapping themselves over mine brought me back. Aadeel had stepped up behind me, and together we shovelled the first spadeful of earth into the grave.

  Several ancient black Mercedes cars stood outside the cemetery gates, waiting to drive the mourners to the wake. Wanting a moment of solitude, I broke away from Francesca and her entourage and walked towards a row of cypress trees. A man emerged from behind a statue and approached me so swiftly I was barely aware of him until he was in front of me.

  ‘Monsieur Oliver Warnock?’

  Startled, I looked up. The man was short and looked to be in his fifties, with heavy-lidded eyes that blinked like a tortoise’s. He looked vaguely bureaucratic in his ill-fitting suit and embroidered fez and, disorientated, for one absurd moment I wondered if I knew him from the Egyptian Oil Ministry in Cairo. He glanced around nervously, then pulled me behind a high gravestone.

  ‘You don’t know me but I know you,’ he said. ‘And I have met your wife. Unfortunately, after her demise.’

  I assumed he was one of the cheap psychics that operated like parasites amongst the elderly European community. He noticed the repulsion in my expression.

  ‘Many apologies - let me explain. My name is Demetriou al-Masri. I am a coroner at the city morgue. My condolences, Monsieur Warnock. Forgive this interruption but there is something I must tell you.’

  ‘Were you working that night?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, of course, but this is a strange thing, Monsieur Warnock. Is it okay if I speak frankly?’

  ‘I suspect I wouldn’t be able to stop you.’

  ‘Alas, in my profession there are many things that cannot be said delicately.’

  A mourner passed us and tipped his hat. Al-Masri lowered his voice.

  ‘Monsieur Warnock, it is my great misfortune and, I believe, my duty to have to tell you that b
y the time your wife’s body arrived at the morgue it was missing several of its internal organs.’

  His expression was grim yet nervous, as if he were committing some terrible crime by giving me the information. My mind reeled as I tried to grasp the simple facts.

  ‘You mean there was an autopsy?’

  ‘I mean that several of the organs had been removed before the body came under my jurisdiction.’

  Nauseated, I leaned against the gravestone. The idea that Isabella had been violated in such a manner was abhorrent.

  ‘Impossible,’ I murmured. ‘What is it you really want?’ I was still clutching at the idea that the man may be trying to extort money from me somehow.

  ‘It is terrible to be the bearer of such bad news,’ he said. ‘But I must tell you, the liver, the stomach, the intestines and the heart were gone. I have seen this only once before, twenty years ago. Interestingly, the victim was an Egyptologist, female and about the same age as your wife.’

  ‘Isabella’s heart was gone?’

  Again, he looked around nervously. ‘Please, it must appear as if I am simply offering my condolences. Even the statues have ears in Egypt.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report it?’

  ‘Because, my friend, my relationship with the authorities is tenuous enough without further aggravation, you understand?’

  I nodded; I understood exactly.

  He moved closer. ‘Do you know anything about the art of mummification?’ he whispered.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Then you will know that these organs had great significance to the Ancient Egyptian priests. They would place them in a series of Canopic jars, each with a stopper that symbolised the god that would protect the deceased’s journey into the underworld. What I don’t understand is why the heart was taken as well. Traditionally it is left in the body as it is essential for the ancient ritual of the weighing of the heart. Without a heart, your wife would stand no chance of entering the afterworld. She would be, as you Christians say, condemned to purgatory.’

  ‘But why would someone commit such a disgusting crime? My wife was a Catholic.’ Not entirely relevant, perhaps, but I was still grappling with the enormity of the revelation and the man was clearly distressed by the spiritual implications of the theft.

  ‘And I am a Sunni Muslim with a Greek Orthodox grandfather. In this city, religion is not a simple issue. I hope your wife’s spirit will find peace.’ He bowed, said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and slipped away through the gravestones.

  I lingered in the shade of the murmuring branches, an overwhelming sense of powerlessness pinning me to the gravelled path. How could any intelligent person believe in the spiritual dimensions of mummification? And why had they chosen Isabella’s body for such desecration?

  6

  Our car weaved slowly through the narrow streets towards the Brambilla family villa. I glanced at Francesca, her profile rigid in grief.

  I had to ask. ‘What happened to Isabella’s body after the ambulance collected her at the jetty?’

  ‘She was taken to the city morgue, and then to the funeral directors in the morning. The Brambillas bury their dead swiftly - it is a tradition in our family.’

  ‘You’re positive there was no autopsy?’

  ‘Please, we have just laid my poor granddaughter in the ground. Do we have to talk about such matters now?’

  ‘Francesca, you were in control of the arrangements while I was being held by the police. I just need to know if there was an autopsy,’ I persisted, determined to get a straight answer.

  ‘Of course not,’ she snapped back. ‘Is this something to do with that idiot official who approached you at the cemetery?’

  I thought she hadn’t noticed, but she peered at me sharply, her frail frame dwarfed by the huge crimson leather seat, and again I was struck by how she had aged since the drowning.

  ‘You know him?’ I asked.

  ‘Alexandria is a village. A village of chattering monkeys making mischief. There are many truths here and some of them dangerous. Be careful, Oliver, otherwise you will find yourself fighting for your own truth along with the rest of us.’

  A marquee had been erected over the villa’s courtyard and beneath it stood a long table covered in a variety of both Arabic and Italian pastries. Subdued waiters in tails served coffee and everyone spoke in muted whispers. I knew Francesca couldn’t really afford the wake, but when I’d offered her money she had been insulted. Façade was all that many of the European diaspora had left, but it was essential to them to maintain that illusion of wealth.

  For the first time, I took note of who had attended my wife’s funeral. There was Cecilia, Isabella’s errant mother, whose beauty isolated her from the others, the usual elegantly dressed Italian pensioners who formed Francesca’s social circle; also the British consul, Henries, who had recently liberated me from the Alexandrian police, and his wife. On our first encounter, Henries’s reaction to my northern English accent had been supercilious, and when he realised the high status of the Alexandrian family I had married into he had done nothing to conceal his amazement - neither of which responses had endeared him to me.

  I spotted a representative from my company’s client, The Alexandrian Oil Company - Mr Fartime, the man who’d employed me as a consultant. Catching my eye, he nodded in sympathy. Despite the arguments he used to have with Isabella at the occasional cocktail party, usually over benign issues like the environment, I liked the man. Standing near him was a middle-aged European woman in an ill-fitting grey tweed suit, her flushed face betraying the unsuitability of such an outfit in Alexandria’s heat. Amelia Lynhurst. I saw her glance towards me, and then become distracted by the sight of Hermes Hemiedes, still at Francesca’s elbow. To my surprise, her expression changed to one of apprehension and she turned away quickly.

  A tall, handsome man in his early thirties approached me, his veiled wife beside him. Ashraf Awad, son of Aadeel, Francesca’s housekeeper. He had grown up with Isabella and their friendship had lasted into adulthood. I didn’t like to think I found Ashraf threatening, but I suspected his relationship with Isabella had more than once slipped into something approaching intimacy. An ardent socialist and supporter of Nasser, Ashraf had completed his engineering degree at Moscow University, which had appealed to Isabella’s left-wing leanings. ‘Meet the new Egypt’ had been the way she’d always introduced him; she’d seen his education and political fervour as a manifestation of the better side of Egyptian nationalism. Ashraf had visited us once in London en route from Moscow to Cairo. He had slept on our couch and dominated our dinner parties for a couple of weeks, captivating the women and outraging the men with his fervent discourses on socialism and the Middle East. I sensed that he’d never fully approved of me, but Isabella had loved him. In many ways he’d been the brother she’d never had. More importantly, through him she had seen a way she could fit into this new post-colonial society. Noting the full abeyya his wife was wearing and Ashraf’s traditional clothes and newly sprouted beard, I wondered about ‘the new Egypt’. Why and when had he become a fully practising Muslim?

  To my surprise, Ashraf began to weep as he reached to grasp my hand.

  ‘Oliver, my friend, it is a tragedy, a real tragedy. I have lost a sister, you a wife. But Isabella, she had courage. More than perhaps we will ever know.’ He embraced me; embarrassed, I patted him awkwardly on the back.

  I had always secretly envied the openness with which Middle Eastern men expressed their emotions. I couldn’t remember my father ever embracing me or Gareth. A hand on the shoulder was the best we could expect, and as a child I had craved the ponderous intimacy of that deceptively casual gesture. In Egypt, men kissed, held hands; fathers openly caressed their sons. I watched Ashraf’s tears with secret envy. My grief hadn’t broken yet and I wished I could weep like that now.

  Francesca, determined to follow protocol, interrupted Ashraf’s condolences and guided me to a podium at one end of the marquee. It held three ornate cha
irs.

  ‘You, as the husband, sit in the centre. I am on your right, while the mother,’ Francesca spat the word with ill-hidden disgust, ‘sits on your left. People will pay their respects and we shall conduct ourselves with proper decorum. Then my duties as a grandmother will be over.’

  Cecilia collapsed into her chair. She moaned quietly, her painted mouth opening and shutting like a beached fish. There was a self-conscious theatricality to her grieving that appalled me, and I noticed Francesca glaring disapprovingly at her.

  Despite Isabella and I having been married for five years, I had never met Cecilia before now. Isabella had described her mother as having a pathological fear of intimacy. ‘It makes her claustrophobic to spend time with her own daughter,’ she’d told me one night after an argument on the phone with Cecilia. ‘She doesn’t like to be reminded that she gave birth. This is a woman who is running from her past and she is terrified that one day it may trip her up in the shape of a resentful daughter.’

  I could still hear Isabella’s scornful tone ringing in my ears. She had reason to be resentful. As far as she was concerned, her mother had abandoned her. Seeing Francesca’s reaction towards Cecilia now, I suspected the situation might have been a little more complex than that.

  The Valium was beginning to wear off. I desperately needed something to defend myself from encroaching grief and the tedium of greeting a parade of strangers, but there wasn’t a drop of alcohol to be seen.