Reflections in the Nile

by J. Suzanne Frank

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Romance

Synopsis

After entering an ancient chamber on an archaeological dig, Cloe Kingsley is sent back in time to the year 1452 B.C. to the Egyptian court of Hatshepsut and into the body of a corrupt priestess, where she is now forced to face her new environment and the challenges it holds. A first novel.

Release date: August 6, 1999

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 418

Sample

EGYPT. WHITE WALLS WITH LIFE-SIZE FIGURES IN COLORS SO BRIGHT, THEY HURT.

The floor on which she was lying was cold and getting colder. Chloe attempted to sit up, only to fall back onto the stone, boneless as a rag doll. She looked around again, a feeling of horror and disbelief growing in her.

Something was wrong.

Was she dreaming? But dreams should not be filled with cloying odors. She should not hear singsong voices from beyond this room. She should not be able to taste the blood from a cut on her lip. She should not feel bruised and battered. Something was terribly, horribly, unfathomably wrong…

“A dazzling tale of momentous adventure and unexpected love.… Fans of literate fantasy will revel in the delights of this enthralling tale.”

—Romantic Times

“A dazzling, spectacular, gloriously sumptuous saga of timeless passion—with a delicious surprise twist.”

—Bertrice Small, author of Betrayed

“An unforgettable saga of hope and love and miracles. Dialogue that literally jumps off the page, characters that come to life in the most wonderful ways, and a story that is as magical as it is compelling.”

—Jo Reimer, CompuServe Romance Reviews

“This is incredible. Ms. Frank blends fact and fiction into a story that makes ancient Egyptians breathe with the immortality that they so craved.”

—Heartland Critiques

“A captivating first book that keeps readers up late as they thrill to the tales of ancient Egypt.”

—Fresno Bee

“A fast, exciting read with a moving love story and a fascinating retelling of the biblical escape from Egypt.”

—Roberta Gellis, author of The Roselynde Chronicles

“A brilliant new book … a remarkable story that keeps the reader enthralled for many pleasurable hours. J. Suzanne Frank is a uniquely gifted writer and storyteller.”

—Lake Worth Herald (FL)

“J. Suzanne Frank's first novel is a delicious read, with a devastatingly yummy hero, a spunky heroine, and a fascinating premise. It's an absolute delight.”

—Anne Stuart, author of Prince of Swords

“J. Suzanne Frank has not only a talent for painstaking research and good storytelling, but a sense of historical imagination that makes the marshes of the Nile come alive and peoples the palaces of its plains with physicians, gods, and priestesses—all scheming, conniving, and fornicating in their quest for immortality.”

—Diana Gabaldon, New York Times bestselling author of The Drums of Autumn

CHAPTER 1

Egypt was gorgeous. Lapis sky, green palms, sands the color of pale gold. The artist in me could appreciate the beauty, never mind that my feet were swollen and my eyes bleary and that I felt as though I'd left my soul about two thousand miles back. It had been a long trip, flying from Dallas to Cairo via New York and Brussels, then taking an overnight train to Luxor, which at one stop had thrown me violently from my bunk to the floor. It went with the territory. I had spent some time growing up in the Middle East, so I knew what to expect and was familiar with the three ruling concepts, namely Inshallah —as God wills it; bukra —tomorrow; and an ever-present, incomprehensible hospitality.

Unfortunately, said hospitality didn't extend to someone helping me with my backpack as I stepped onto the platform at Luxor station. It was a heady moment as the city enveloped me. I had forgotten how the Middle East smelled. I had left in 1987, off to university at age seventeen. The odors drowned me now: spices, incense, unwashed bodies, and urine. They combined into a potent mix that caught me between gagging and smiling. And the noise! The shouts of reuniting families, the babble of tourists, the cacophony of radio stations, and, above us, the Muslim call to prayer. I pushed past the hawkers offering me “very best price, lady,” on cheap hotels, because I knew cheap equaled no door, no closet, and many multilegged sleeping companions. This was Christmas and my birthday, and I had left behind the cool glitter of the Galleria, spiked eggnog, and crackling fires. No way was I staying in some sleazy, doorless hotel.

My sister, Cammy, short for Camille—believe me, I know it's confusing, her Camille, me Chloe—stood across the way. You'd never guess we were sisters, since I'm tall and lean, with copper penny-colored hair, green eyes, and pale skin, as opposed to Cammy, who looks exotic. She's not as tall, but she's statuesque, with chestnut hair and eyes the color of new Levi's. Indigo blue—sometimes they almost look purple. All that and she's brilliant, too. I was here to celebrate her receiving her doctorate in Egyptology. I love Camille; she's been my idol all my life, despite the fact she cursed me with a goofy nickname—kitten.

“Chloe! Hello, sis!” she said, looking into my face, her smile bright against her tan.

“Dr. Kingsley, I presume?”

Cammy threw back her head and laughed, a low throaty sound that garnered more than one appreciative male glance. “I'll bet you've been waiting all day to say that!”

“Actually, I've been waiting most of your life to say it. Is all the toil and sweat worth it? Now that you're finished you've got to find a real job.”

“Not a problem. I believe I'll be employed sufficiently for quite a few years,” she said with a smile Mona Lisa would have envied. She took my daypack and headed to the taxi queue. Further conversation was drowned out by the cries of “Baksheesh!” from a pack of children, their large dark eyes dancing with excitement as they played their game with tourists. Baksheesh was not begging, it was more like a tip. A tip for them being alive, if nothing else.

“Did you bring those pens I wanted?” she asked.

“In the pack.”

Cammy pulled out a handful of cheap, almost worthless ballpoint pens, and the children oohed in awe. With admonishments in Arabic to leave us alone, Cammy distributed the pens, and the children scattered. “You've just bought yourself a handful of helpers,” she said triumphantly.

“All for a few ballpoint pens?”

“Yes. Now when they go to school they will have something with which to write. Keep the pens with you—they're good for reducing the price of anything in bargaining.”

She knew how truly dreadful I was at bargaining. “Cool,” I said.

As I shouldered my bags a taxi screeched to a halt before us, and I climbed in next to Cammy. She gesticulated and argued with the driver before we took off, as he tried to push the ancient machine from zero to thirty-five in something under a half hour. We headed south on the main road, parallel to the river.

Luxor is two cities, one a modern reflection of the other. While the “touristic” part has hotels, restaurants, shops, and a few nightclubs surrounding the ancient sites of Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple, the “native” part consists of ramshackle houses, mosques, and tangled, narrow streets filled with small barefoot soccer players. We charged past several horse-drawn caléches clip-clopping along the waterfront, turned a few streets away from the souq, and drove through the twisting lanes until we finally lurched to a stop before a dilapidated inn with a fluorescent cartouche on the awning.

I couldn't believe it.

Dingy didn't even begin to describe this place. However, exhaustion was taking over, and I cared less about where we were going to stay than when I could rinse my face and lie down. We were settling for “native” versus “touristic,” but at this point I would have slept on a camel if it was still long enough. I hauled my bags out of the taxi and waited while Cammy paid.

I arched my brow. “We're staying here?”

Cammy smiled. “Yes. It's a fun place. It has a rooftop garden with a wonderful reproduction of a statue of Ramses …”

Yep. I was back in the Middle East “Do the doors lock?” I asked.

Cammy continued extolling its nonluxurious, nonamenable virtues. I held up my hand. “Okay, okay. I'll stay here while you're in town, but as soon as you hop that bus to your desert outpost, I am heading to the nicest four-star available!”

She opened the door with a smile and a flourish. “I didn't expect any different, my civilized little sister.”

A nap revived me. We changed clothes, locked the flimsy door that a halfhearted kick from a six-year-old would have popped right open, and headed into the Egyptian night.

The sky had deepened. Golden fingers wove purple, magenta, fuchsia, and rose pink into a tapestry, bleeding to midnight blue with silver stars. I huddled into my jean jacket against the breeze, since the temperature had dropped. We rode in a calèche down to the waterfront, where countless cruise ships moored, casting myriad lights onto the dark water. Immediately upon arriving at the hotel restaurant, we were shown to a table and we ordered one of everything with double the olives. I raised my gaze and looked expectantly at my agitated sister.

“You're about to pop. Excitement is almost an aura around you. What's going on? Anything to do with that cryptic statement about having a long-term job?”

Cammy's eyes widened. “Me? Excited?” Unlike mine, Cammy's face was an open book. Mom and Father never told her about Christmas or birthday gifts because she couldn't keep a secret longer than ten minutes.

“Yep,” I said around an olive.

“You should be excited, you are about to be related to a very famous person.” Her navy eyes were sparkling.

“Did you find another King Tut's tomb?” I asked carelessly.

“Maybe,” she said smugly. She ate a piece of pita, watching me. She had always been overly dramatic.

“Are you going to tell me or just let the curiosity kill me, Cammy?”

“It's weird.”

“Weirder than your monkey?” Her first find had been a small clay monkey from around the time of Ankhenaton, now lost in the vaults of the Egyptian Museum. It was anatomically correct and strategically painted blue. She was still teased about it.

“No,” she said firmly. “It's not like the monkey.” She sighed. “I really can't describe it.”

Oh, great, twenty questions. “Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“It's papyrus.”

“And … ?” I prompted. Really, she had learned too much discretion.

“Well, let me start with the initial hypothesis. The religious artifacts found at the temple—”

I cut her off. “English, dear sister. Plain, everyday English. No references, no footnotes, no mentioning names like Carter, Petrie, Mariette, nobody. What have you found?”

Cammy opened her mouth, then shut it again. “No references?”

“None.”

She tapped her fingers, thinking. “Right. It is possible there are some undiscovered tombs in the eastern desert. We—” She stumbled, and I knew she was rephrasing. “The university … is excavating out there. It's almost a joke, which is why we have mostly grad students working on it. Then we found this subterranean cavern. It looks like it was inhabited at least once. We found several huge earthenware water jugs leaning against one wall.”

“How big is huge?” I asked between bites of baba ghanouj. I love eggplant.

“About five feet tall.”

“Cool.”

“They reminded me of the jars found in Qumran. Do you remember?”

Yep, I remembered. Summertime by the Dead Sea. It had been around one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade and smelled like a rotten egg farm. We'd hiked all over the wadi, with Mom and Cammy commenting and comparing theories about the dig and the find while Father and I followed, sunburned, peeling, and dehydrated. “Go on,” I said.

“Well, these jars we found are filled with papyri. We brought them back to Luxor to unfold….” Her eyes gleamed fanatically. “It's completely amazing, because according to all our tests, the papyri are from about 1450 B.C.E. That's around the time of Thutmosis the Third,” she said to me, the Egyptologically impaired one. She leaned closer and whispered, “What's so unusual and baffling is that they are depictions like nothing the Egyptians have ever been known to do!”

Citrus and incense teased my nose for just a second.

“They are illustrations,” she continued, with enthusiasm. “However, they are so perfect and so detailed that they look almost like photographs.” She leaned back abruptly. “Then there are the lions.”

I choked on an olive. “Lions?”

Cammy shrugged. “The entire site appears to be where the lions came to die. There are hundreds of bones; generations and generations of lions died there.” Her voice again dropped to a whisper. “I had the eerie sensation they were still watching us.” She shivered.

I took a sip of my bottled water. “Let me get this straight. This is such a marvelous find because you have found photographic-quality illustrations of ancient Egypt?”

“Yes. I think we have, anyway.”

“Are the colors bright? Do they have writing on them, or are they easy to identify as everyday scenes or what?”

Cammy thought for a moment. “We've only unrolled a few. One is a scene of daily life, done in bright colors; another is … well, just unexplainable. Another is a masterpiece of ink and charcoal.”

I felt professional artistic curiosity rise in me. “May I see them?”

Cammy bit her lip, looking at me. “Well, they are kept in high-security cases.”

“But you have the keys?”

“Yeeesss,” she said reluctantly.

“I won't touch them. I'm just curious to see them since I've been drawing Egyptian-style pictures for you since we were kids. Do you realize even your paper dolls were ancient Egyptian?”

Cammy laughed. “So I was a little obsessive. It runs in the family.”

“What am I obsessed with?” I asked foolishly.

“Roots,” she said.

I agreed.

Roots that had kept me connected even while I grew up in alien and foreign lands. Roots that gave me pride in my European heritage and southern family. Roots that consisted of an iron-filled, camellia soft grandmother, Mimi, who had been my best friend and anchor, until her death six months ago.

I woke, not quite rested, my mind still clouded with disturbing dreams. Ancient dreams. Dreams of death, passion, possession. Not my normal fare. I'm more likely to dream about rewriting Cadillac ads and having dinner parties with Monet and Michelangelo. Or better yet, running a Coca-Cola campaign. But the feeling stayed with me. A definite Middle Eastern ambience, exotic, fragrant, and sensual. I shook my head. Apparently fries and chick-pea dip before bed was a really bad idea.

The day passed in a jet-lag blur, but I managed to jot off a few postcards, eat a couple of times, and work halfway through Agatha Christie's ancient Egyptian murder mystery. Then Cammy cracked her whip and the tourist bit began in earnest. She had me walking through the Valley of the Kings by seven in the morning, followed by an extensive tour of Deir El-Bahri, the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut. However, as Camille said, you were either pharaoh, which translated literally to “great house,” or consort. Since there was no word referring to queen as an absolute monarch, every reference to Hatshepsut was masculine. Therefore she was usually depicted as a man.

Camille had taken on her lecturing voice. “No one knows what happened to cause her temple, her obelisks, and her other monuments to be symbolically destroyed—”

I interrupted, “Symbolically destroyed?”

“Yes. You see, her name is obliterated. If she had no name, she would have no part of the afterlife; to destroy her presence here would be to destroy her also in the hereafter. Names were of great consequence; even the gods’ true names were kept secret to protect them. For instance, the name ‘Amun’ literally means ‘Unknowable One,’ which is partially the reason he had such awesome power. So to eradicate Hatshepsut's name would be to make her an unknown, wandering throughout time and eternity.”

I fingered the chipped-away cartouche. “How malicious! I thought pharaoh, regardless of sex, was revered as the incarnation of god on earth? Who would have the authority?”

As I spoke, my stomach churned. I felt a widening around me, a feeling of space, as if I were suspended over a precipice; suddenly I smelled incense and citrus. I blinked rapidly, reaching out to touch the brilliant white stone walls, trying to steady the fuzzy reflections.

I turned to Cammy. “What?”

“I said, ‘You've picked up a lot more about Egypt than you realize, sis,’” Cammy repeated.

“What did you say before that?”

She frowned, apparently confused. “Before?”

“Yeah. You called me something, it began with an ‘R’; a word I haven't heard before. Ray-something? Or maybe it was Ra …?”

Cammy eyed me askance. “Hatshepsut's ghost must be getting to you, Chloe, because I didn't call you anything. Are you feeling well? Do you need to get in out of the sun?”

I looked across the columned porch. “No, I'm fine. I must have heard the wind or something.”

“Probably. It can whip through this site pretty fiercely sometimes.” She caught her blowing hair in one hand, twisted it deftly into a knot, and secured it with her pencil. “To answer your question, most historians and archaeologists suppose that Thutmosis the Third defaced Hat's things out of spite, since she effectively usurped his throne for twenty-something years. It's really a gray area in Egyptology. No one knows and no records exist except what's been left standing.”

In silence we observed the graceful ramps and columns that merged into the craggy rock behind, highlighting the delicacy of the structure and the strength of the cliff. It was a perfect artistic statement. I snapped off some photos, trying different angles and wishing I had sprung for a wide-angle lens before I'd left Dallas.

The temple was a monument to an aberration in Egyptian history, a triumph of art over human desire, because Hatshepsut, despite the best efforts of her descendants, lived on in this architectural masterpiece. This was her immortality.

Cammy wandered through the sunlit porticoes and practiced reading the faded hieroglyphs, while I crouched in the dust and made thumbnail sketches of the soaring columns with their carved female faces. What had I heard before? It had been a soft word, which still whispered, undefined, on the edges of my consciousness. Just the wind, I told myself with a mental shake, and turned back to my notepad.

We were quiet the rest of the visit, each absorbed in her own thoughts.

That afternoon Cammy had to help with some translations at the university. I walked to the Nile and looked out toward Karnak Temple, imagining it in ancient times, garnished with embroidered flags hanging from the vibrantly painted pylons.

As the sun cast a golden-and-rose glow over the city, I caught a taxi back to the inn. Dinner was my treat tonight, since Cammy had treated last.

We met in the darkened hallway to go out. “Do we have time to see your find?” I asked, still curious.

Cammy glanced at her watch. “Well, there is a Christmas party tonight, so I guess I can sneak you in.”

She wasn't overly enthusiastic, but then I had always been the one who got us in trouble. She had more than a healthy respect for the rules. Ironic that I was the one with a military rank and serial number, since I had always been the one willing to bend the rules.

However, officer's candidacy school for this spoiled daughter of an American diplomat had been more than enough to curb me. Not only had I been different from the other officer trainees—definitely more foreign than American—I was also younger. As a twenty-year-old with a degree in art, I had a hard time making friends. I proved to be a whiz, however, at emergency management, my reservist assignment. Whatever the situation, the Kingsley pride kept me going. Kingsleys never gave up, I'd been told, so I persevered.

Military service had actually been my brother's “duty,” but he'd been the black sheep for so long, his name not even spoken, that it was unlikely he'd follow through. My father's family had served since the War Between the States, known to the rest of the country as the Civil War, and it was time for the next generation. I'm not sure my joining the air force reserves was what Mimi had had in mind when she'd told me stories of glory about my southern heritage, however.

At any rate, here I was leading Cammy astray … again. Maybe I wasn't as curbed as I thought.

A few minutes later we stepped into the foyer of her university's dorm and research facility, known as Chicago House. A scraggly artificial Christmas tree stood in the dimly lit room, decorated with glass balls and cut-out cardboard hieroglyphs. Fortunately the place was deserted.

Cammy pulled a hefty ring of keys from her daypack and stepped up to a metal door. She unlocked it, and we walked into the lab. After turning on the light and unlocking another room, Cammy went to a wall-length cabinet, passed an ID card through a scanner, unlocked the door, passed the card again, and entered a code. Finally she opened the door and pulled out a long metal drawer. I helped her set the huge thing on the table.

“This place is tighter than Fort Knox!” I exclaimed. “Is the papyrus plated in gold?”

Camille unlocked the drawer, her hands trembling faintly. “What we have found is far more valuable than gold. It's knowledge. Though, as yet, we have no explanation for what is in these boxes,” she said, gesturing to the drawer. “At the very least, we must protect it.” She opened the top. “The papyri we have unwrapped are lying between sheets of glass. It's a prolific find—we estimate there are more than fifty scrolls altogether.” We stood in semidarkness. “I have a feeling that these scrolls will be as significant as the Dead Sea scrolls,” she murmured as she turned on the specialized overhead light.

They were startlingly un-Egyptian.

I shivered suddenly and reached for my silver ankh necklace, letting its heat seep into my chilled blood. The papyrus scroll was about two feet by three and a half feet. The paper had aged to a pale honey color, the edges curled and ripped.

It was a sketch of a mud-brick village. Instead of the two-dimensional profile paintings typical of Egyptian work, this was rendered in a realistic perspective. The people were not dressed in djellabas, as if it had been drawn today, but wore the kilts and sheaths of ancient Egypt.

Cammy moved the plates, and I stared at painstakingly detailed botanical drawings of pomegranates, figs, grapes, lotus, palm, and several other plants I couldn't immediately identify. Under each was what I assumed to be the name in hieroglyphs. I looked into Cammy's face, stunned.

“Cammy, are you sure these are not modern practical jokes?”

She shrugged. “The papyrus is ancient. I don't know how to explain the content. This next one is the piece de résistance; it was pieced together and wrapped oh the outside, probably because it is more fragile than the rest.”

I stared at the huge unrolled scroll. Unlike the others, it was about five feet long by five feet deep and the entirety was dense with detailed illustration—there was no other word. A broad avenue was filled with people, possessions, and animals. In the distance stood a huge archway, silhouetted against the delicately shaded sky. I looked closely. Unlike a lot of drawings of multitudes, many faces were visible, and each was distinct. A mother and child talked over a gaggle of geese, the woman bent under the weight of an infant on her back, the girl's tousled hair banded with a cloth around her forehead. An old man, his beard halfway down his chest, leaned heavily on his walking stick, surrounded by sheep. To the right of the artist's perspective was a man.

He was frozen in time, looking over his shoulder as if sharing a joke with the artist His face was lean, with high cheekbones that accentuated his long-lashed eyes and thick brows extended by Egyptian makeup. His profile was clean, the straight blade of his nose leading to full lips and a squared jawline. Black hair touched his neck and ear, framing a gorgeous jeweled earring.

I was awed. It was a masterpiece. He was so real. Tiny marks embossed my fingertips as I clenched my necklace. Stubble darkened his chin and cheek, and there were lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked as though at any moment he would share the punch line.

“I can almost hear his laughter,” I whispered.

Camille agreed. “The strangest thing is that although this appears to be a depiction of some Egyptian city, and they are headed to the border of Egypt, symbolized by the gate with the cobra and vulture, not many of the people appear to be ancient Egyptians.”

Cammy laid the others on top of it.

“Is this all you have?”

“Yes,” Cammy said. “There are many other scrolls, but they have not been unrolled yet. It's very painstaking and time-consuming work.” I watched her hide all traces of our unauthorized visit.

“What do you think is the explanation?” I asked when we were back on the street.

“I don't know what to think. There are no records of a mass exodus during the time of Thut the Third—that was in Rameses the Great's time—if it happened. We know that Thut the Third was a conqueror, spending a lot of time outside Egypt, subjugating other peoples. Even if we're wrong on the approximate dates, there are no records from his predecessor Hatshepsut's rule and just basic information from his progeny's rule.”

We turned onto the main thoroughfare. Sounds from the cruise ships along the dock wafted up to us: male and female laughter, piano music, and the ever-present Arabic radio. We walked in companionable silence as I mulled over what I had seen. “Could you be wrong about the dynasty? Could they be from another pharaoh?”

“The papyri date to Thut's reign. There is just no explanation for the work and the way it's done. Is there an aspect of Egypt we are unaware of? Even the most naturalistic art is still two-dimensional.” She sighed, then chuckled. “It makes the science of Egyptology seem like nothing more than educated guesses when we find something like this.”

I spoke without thinking. “That's all it is anyway.”

Cammy sighed in the darkness. “That's your opinion. Our guesses are becoming more educated. We're able to state things with more certainty. There are facts.”

“Like…?” I prompted, intrigued despite myself.

“Like Senmut. He was a grand vizier in Hatshepsut's court. Five years before the end of her reign, there are no more records of him. His picture is both inscribed in and removed from her temple at Deir El-Bahri. His body has never been found. In those last five years there is some hint that Egypt went through internal turmoil, but we don't know what or why. We also know that Hatshepsut died, but we don't know how. She was succeeded by Thut the Third in 1458 B.C.E. Those are facts.”

I looked at my sister, the light from the river reflected in our similar features. “What happens if you discover that Senmut changed his name and continued to live for years? Or that Hatshepsut was banished and became the wife of some foreign king? What you are calling facts just seem like unsubstantiated theory to me. They can't be proved or disproved. My idea of a fact is …” I searched for an example from my world. “Red and blue make purple. No matter how many times, under how many circumstances or ways, if you mix red and blue, you will come up with some shade of purple. Every time.”

Cammy turned to me, exasperated. “Look, Chloe, no one is ever going to know for absolute certain about anything. We can't prove a god exists. We can't prove he or she doesn't. No one will ever come from ancient Egypt and tell us we are right or wrong about the timeline of the pharaohs. Every little bit we learn, whether or not it is your definition of a fact, make us, in our knowledge, more human.”

Impulsively I hugged her. “I miss you, Cammy.”

“I miss you, too.”

We continued walking, arms linked, staring at the stars stretched out across the Nile and the treasure-laden desert beyond. Cammy spoke, her voice dreamy. “One of the reasons I got into Egyptology was because of the feeling of connectedness it gives me. I get chills when I think that four thousand years ago, two sisters very likely walked along this same path, feeling the same love for each other.”

My throat tightened and I squeezed Cammy's arm as we walked along, our images reflected in the dark Nile waters.

That's how the days passed. We talked a little about Mimi, though with her death only six months before, it was painful, especially for Cammy. She had been in the middle of her dissertation and unable to get away. We viewed the sights and relaxed, enjoying the days together. It had been too many years since we had just hung out. Then Cammy had to go, boarding the hot, dusty train for the eastern desert the day before my birthday. We hugged briefly on the platform, and she shoved a small package into my hands. “Happy twenty-fourth, Chloe,” she said, and I waved until she was out of sight.

I immediately checked into the Winter Palace Hotel. It was straight out of Death on the Nile, complete with potted palms, layered silk rugs, and brass samovars. A page out of time.

At dinner I was joined by a guy who was good-looking in a rugged, studious way. He had a lean build, dark tan, and intelligent gray eyes. He was older, maybe late thirties, to judge by the streaks of gray in his longish brown hair.

He was so charming, though. He kissed my hand when we were introduced and proceeded to tell me that he visited Egypt at least once a year—it was in h