The Peaceful Affair: Chapter 21
The camel extracted the cigarette from his mouth and belched quietly. He had been contemplating the pros and cons of one hump versus two for the past hour or so, while distractedly watching the game of towelball on the proto-TV made of sand and optimism.
“Anubis takes hold of the towel!” announced the left sportscaster on the screen. “What a quarterback! What a quarterback! He’s going to make a pass! My God! He throws the towel to Osiris! What a running back! What a running back! Osiris is on the thirty-cubit line! The twenty-cubit line! Wait! He’s down! But where’s the towel? There it is! Osiris has managed to throw the towel to Ra! What a flashback! What a flashback! Ra is on the ten-cubit line! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Washdown!”
“Ken!” remarked the right sportscaster, “there’s no doubt! Ra is the best flashback since Ramming Ramses! I’m sure he’s going to lead the Cairo Catacombs to the payoffs!”
“I absolutely agree with you, Ben!” replied the left sportscaster, and added, “Look! Ra is unfurling the towel!”
“Ken, you’re unquestionably right!”
“Ben, what does the flashback’s towel say?”
“Ken, it says ‘Cairo, 1925’!”
The camel grabbed the remote whip and flogged off the proto-TV.
The antique Ford Harrison pickup rolled to a full stop in an ostentatious fanfare of clink, clunk, and clank, spewing out a wiry man of stocky build. He was wearing a wide-brimmed brown fedora on the upper part of his head, and holding a natural-tan bullwhip in his right hand, with the aid of all five fingers.
“When will you finally trade that antediluvian vehicle of yours for a comfy Japanese, Syd?” asked the thickset man of lean physique, who was placing the final touches on the sand castle he’d been building out of indigenous sand.
As always, Sydlig Henrikson just smiled good-humoredly, and said, “Arma, the Japanese haven’t yet developed a motorcar industry.”
The two were conversing in English drenched in a Swedish accent, having opted to steer clear of their native tongue, in proactive anticipation of the establishment of the academy awards, whereupon the categories of Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor would be much preferred to that of Best Foreign-Language Film.
“I see,” said Armageddon Baggins, calmly stepping out of the sand throne room. “Would you like to grab a bite? There’s this great place in my sand shopping mall where they make one hell of a steak — ”
“Snake? Snake?” shouted Henrikson hungrily, reminiscing about that song-and-dance ordeal in Cuba with the mambo mamba. “You know I hate snakes!”
Gently, Baggins said, “Syd, I don’t think you heard — ”
“Herd?” yelled Henrikson, whipping into shape, his fingers closing tightly on the whip. “There’s a herd of snakes? Where? Where?”
Deciding it was time to play it by ear, Baggins walked over to his friend, yanked the headphones off his head, and admonished, “Could you please stop listening to Madonna all the time? She hasn’t been born yet! Why, the whole of pop music is nothing but a hunch.”
“Okay, okay,” okayed the rebuked. “Now, Arma, shall we head on to the dig?”
“Fine by me,” replied Baggins, and the two jumped into the Ford Harrison.
After about half-an-hour’s drive, which the two had passed in a silent game of twenty questions, Baggins pointed to the scenery on the right, and asked, “What the inferno is that?”
Henrikson, who was driving and talking on his cellular PhonY at the same time, in total disregard of mother and law, followed Baggins’s finger with his eyes. A group of ardent men, garbed in galabias and kaffiyehs, was hitting small balls of petroleum across a wide abyss, using diamond-studded gold clubs.
Henrikson waved his hands dismissively. “I’ve seen them before — they’re just playing gulf.”
“O,” Baggins expressed his fondness for the English alphabet’s fifteenth letter.
Henrikson pressed the accelerator and the car gathered speed, what with amphetamines still being within the safe haven of the law. By now the landscape had changed from flat desert to hilly terrain, and after several minutes of rising and falling they’d topped a hill beyond which lay their destination.
“Wow,” wowed Baggins as the image auto-focused, “this place never ceases to astound me de novo.”
The view was breathtaking, indeed, if one was inclined to let two take one’s breath: a vast, mostly flat surface, its uniformity broken up by five enormous dug-out craters, housing five partially excavated dimaryps. The renown of Egypt’s inverted pyramids was entirely legal, as had been decided recently by the Supreme Court in the case of Isis versus Sphinx.
“Hey,” exclaimed Baggins in delight at the sight of the site, “you’ve almost reached Ingrid’s nadir.” Early on in the dig, their struggle to reach the lowest point had inspired the two to name the dimaryps after the women in their lives — past and present. Ingrid was Sydlig Henrikson’s current wife.
“Yah,” replied the man with the fedora. “During your furlough in Alexandria we managed to advance quite nicely. You know, Arma, an inverted pyramid is really quite the archeologist’s dream — there’s less to dig the closer you get to the rock bottom.” Egypt tended to stimulate the mind, which in turn would urge the brain to produce such beautiful thoughts.
“How’s Ingrid, by the way?” asked Baggins.
“Fine, fine,” came the pensive reply.
“Have you decided on a name yet?”
Now there was a thorny topic. “If it’s a boy,” began Henrikson, “we’re definitely in agreement over Ingmar. But if it’s a girl, well …”
“Well?”
“Well, we’ll have to dice for it. I’m for Greta, Ingrid’s for Annabelle.”
Baggins decided it would not be a good idea at this point to inform his friend that the girl’s name — should girl be the gender conceived — would be Annabelle Henrikson. Some matches were simply not matched.
They walked over to the group of workers seated in the tent near site Ingrid, which was in the midst of the meal pause. With the desert given to perennial bouts of heat, the men greeted the two quite warmly, and bade them share their meal. The two acquiesced and sat down on the mats.
“Excellent pita bread,” chewed Henrikson. “What vintage is it?”
“1923,” replied one of the diggers.
“An excellent year for dough,” commented Henrikson.
“Indeed,” added Baggins. “That’s the year we harvested our funding for the dig.”
The meal ended abruptly a few minutes later when the waning afternoon sun prodded them to get back to work.
The employees descended hurriedly deep into the bowels of Ingrid and began to employ their trowels and picks. Management stayed above and managed.
“Pick the picks,” shouted Henrikson at the pickmen.
“Trowel the trowels,” Baggins yelled at the trowelmen.
Having provided the workers with such highly precise instructions, the two returned to the shade of the tent and sat down exhausted.
“Managing is so hard,” griped Henrikson complainingly.
“Yah,” agreed Baggins, extracting the little cock’s tail from his margarita. “Sometimes, I really wish I were down there with the boys.” He sipped the drink languidly while his friend attempted to negotiate with the sun for fifteen more minutes of light.
“That’s one tough dealer,” said Henrikson sweatily after a short heated debate, “but I’ve secured nine additional minutes.”
“Hollo,” called Baggins, rising from his chaise longue. “What’s going on down there?”
A commotion had developed down in Ingrid. Before long, the diggers were clambering up the excavation ladder, carrying what looked like a large rock.
“What the deuce are they carting?” cried Henrikson.
“Looks like some silly piece of stone,” opined Baggins, the error of his statement brought to the last rays of light with the arrival of the workers.
Henrikson was thrilled. “Look, Arma, it’s a tablet of some sort. And it has something engraved on it!”
The object in question turned out to be a black basalt stone bearing an inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphics, accompanied by a running translation in Swedish.
Longingly recalling his former Greek lady friend, Baggins announced somberly, “I’d like to name this tablet the Rose Eta stone.”
“Fine, Arma, fine,” said Henrikson gently, lightly patting his friend’s shoulder. He then turned toward the stony slab and murmured softly, “Rose Eta, please tell me your secret.”
Back inside the Ford Harrison, with the tablet safely tucked behind them in the truck’s bed, the excitement was palpable.
“We’re going to be famous, Syd!” Baggins affirmed his belief concerning their upcoming public standing.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Henrikson suggested serenely. Baggins considered the proposal, decided it was reasonable, and the two got back behind themselves. “You know,” added the whip-carrying flogger, “in the future, Andy Warhol will say, ‘In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes’.”
“Warhol, shmorhol, Syd. I’m talking celebrity, fame, stardom. Why, I bet you Spielberg will make a movie about this!” Baggins babbled excitedly, and added, “Once he’s born, of course.”
“Don’t be such a smorgasbord, Arma. Nobody will ever go to the cinema to watch a picture about an archeologist,” averred Henrikson, absentmindedly scratching the scar on his chin. “May I quote Francis Bacon now?”
“By all means,” smiled Baggins.
“The only means I need is my mouth,” stated Henrikson and quoted Bacon:
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things
light and swollen, and drowns things
weighty and solid.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried Baggins. “Encore!”
“Very well,” said Henrikson meekly, as he came back on stage for a final bow. “One last quote from Bacon:
Men in great place are thrice servants:
servants of the sovereign or state, servants
of fame, and servants of business.
The applause lasted for quite a while and the next days’ critiques hailed Henrikson as an up-and-coming quoter. The moment was ripe for an arrival.
They arrived at their hotel.
“Damn,” said Henrikson. “It’s ancient Swedish — I can’t understand a word.” The two had just lugged the Rose Eta stone up to their suite, placing it on the large mahogany coffee table in the drawing room.
“Don’t worry, Syd,” Baggins unworried his friend, “I’ve got this great piece of software that can translate a stone faster than it takes you to say ‘My papa was a rolling stone’.”
“Arma,” began Henrikson peevishly, “for one thing, they haven’t yet invented the very word ‘software’. And for another, even granting you’re in possession of said item, what are you going to use as hardware? They haven’t yet invented computers, for crying out loud!” He slouched upon a red sofa.
“I assure you, Syd,” assured Baggins assuredly, “I do have this translation software. And forget all this future fiddle-faddle. Remember what Quintus Horatius Flaccus — aka Horace — said.”
“What did he say?” asked Henrikson curiously.
Exercising his quoting skills, Baggins recited, “ ‘Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero’.”
“My Latin is a bit corroded,” whispered Henrikson ashamedly.
“You really should use my translation software, Syd,” remarked Baggins. “Anyway, it means, ‘While we’re talking, envious time is fleeting: seize the day, put no trust in the future’.”
“Future, shmuture, Arma,” cried Henrikson, “we still need hardware to run your software on!”
“Then let’s improvise, Syd, like that time the satellite was inoperative and we needed to place a call to the funding agency.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Henrikson.
“How about we use sofas?” suggested Baggins.
“Too soft.”
“Tables?”
“Too rigid.”
“Doors?”
“Too open.”
“Windows?”
Henrikson reflected silently for a moment. “You know what, Arma — that just might work.”
“Great, Syd,” said Baggins pleasantly. “It’s settled then: I’ll run my software on windows. I promise you we’ll have that stone translated in no time.”
For the next three hours Baggins shut himself in the study, and the only sound Henrikson could make out from atop the drawing-room sofa was that of glass in action. The idyll ended suddenly with the resonance of shattering glass.
“What happened?” cried Henrikson as he rushed into the study.
“My windows just crashed,” cried Baggins. “Be careful — the floor is full of glass shards.”
“How did this happen?” asked Henrikson in shock.
“Locust.”
“Locust?”
“Yah, those damn bugs swarmed in here by the zillions and smashed the glass. They crashed my windows.”
Disheartened, Henrikson asked, “Were you able to obtain anything useful out of your computer before it collapsed?”
Baggins tried to cheer up his friend. “Don’t lose hope, Syd. I have the first letter of each word in the tablet.”
“Let’s see,” requested Henrikson halfheartedly.
“Here.” Baggins handed him a piece of paper on which he’d been scrawling the computer’s output. It read,
M — W — M —
M — W — W —
W — W — D —
D — W — M —
“This is useless,” said Henrikson dejectedly, throwing the sheet on the glass-ridden floor.
In a voice full of high spirits Baggins pledged, “Syd, I’ll break all the windows from Cairo to Seattle if that’s what it takes to get Rose Eta translated.” A gleam of hope barged into Henrikson’s eyes unceremoniously.
“I swear,” added his friend, “we’ll beat this thing, yet.”
Without missing a beat, the two proceeded to perform a delightful future duet of We Are The Champions by Queen.
