Unraveling the Pharaoh

Emma and James Turner had blown off all the candles in the room. They used to say it helped the guests feel as if they were in Egypt instead of London. Certainly, the heat of the desert country had been purposely recreated, also protecting all the attendants to the secret party from London’s foggy and rainy evening. Catherine had left her house without any expectations about the reunion: it was not her first gathering of mummies. Yet this one was promising. When she had met Emma on the street a couple of days before, she had been surprised that they were back from Egypt. Her face was still porcelain white, but her arms showed that she had been partaking in the excavations over the Valley of the Kings everyone was talking about. Catherine herself had never set a foot on Egypt but was extremely interested in the subject. After questioning Emma for a while the lady had decided to invite her to her unwrapping party. Her husband and her - sponsors of the archeologists - had brought back a mummy from Cairo, and wanted to unwrap it before their close friends and family. It would be the event of the year.

And they had kept their word. Dressed in what they thought was the typical Egyptian wear, with what once had been necklaces on their heads and white linen dresses, they had all been warned that the mummy was cursed. A cruel pharaoh that had been dead for millennia and had sworn vengeance in the Afterlife. Catherine wondered how a random merchant could have managed to convince Emma and James to buy a mummy of him, but he had done a great job and deserved whatever money he made out of the con.

They had put a lot of effort into the ambiance. The service moved around the room with trays full of kushari and rice-stuffed vegetables alongside lamb meat and snacks that made everyone feel at home in that Fake Egypt. The faint sound of a flute and a lyre made its way to the room, completing the transformation of the mansion into a palace of the Old Kingdom. With wine on a hand and a sandwich on the other, Catherine made sure to be on the front row for the big revelation.

A stone sarcophagus had been placed in the center of the room. No one dared come close to it, but the scent of rotten oils and parchment invaded de room in a way everyone knew the pharaoh was there. Its old bandages and scents contrasted with the new, deep brown mahogany furniture in the Turners’ expensive London house. Right in the outskirts of the city, there were no buildings close enough to hear their loud voices and music, they were isolated for the night. Rooms had been prepared, dinner had been served and eaten, and everyone was now waiting for the great unveiling of the thousand-year-old mummy.

‘I see you’re waiting already for the big reveal,’ someone whispered in Catherine’s ear, pulling her out of her thoughts.

‘I don't want to miss it,’ she answered. Turning around she discovered Emma was wearing her most elegant clothes. She also carried a fan that she used to hide her words from unworthy eyes.

‘Look around you. People are here for the spectacle of it,’ Emma continued talking, ‘how many are here to see if there is a curse? How many have come for the sake of science?’

‘Do you celebrate this party for science or pure macabre spectacle?’ asked Catherine back.

‘I guess a bit of both.’

The lady of Firecross manor walked away. The time had come, and when Emma made her way to the table where the mummy lay everyone fell silent. All eyes turned to the woman dressed in white and camel brown.

‘Welcome, everybody,’ she started. This was the single most important moment of her life. ‘Ever since James and I came back from Thebes and Cairo, we have been keeping this very special guest in the Royal room,’ Emma paused to let the people laugh at her joke, ‘prepare to welcome Pharaoh Khufu!’

People began clapping and cheering. No one wondered if that sound scared the mummy after such long years of peaceful rest. Two women behind Catherine gasped as the butler removed the top of the sarcophagus. If it was a king’s mummy, he had chosen to be austere in death. Apart from the worn-out hieroglyphs and illustrations in red and gold, there was nothing there to observe but the mummy. The small false door from where the ka would leave this world and join the gods in the Afterlife was still visible, and Catherine wondered if the so-called pharaoh had departed the tomb by the time they had looted it.

‘We will proceed with the unwrapping of his bandages,’ said Emma, ‘that have remained untouched for more than two thousand years.’

With the help of the butler, she raised her hand and started unraveling the linen sheets. One by one they disappeared behind the table, leaving the corpse without its protection against Death. The black ashy head had been uncovered and with it the expression with which the pharaoh had died. A strange shiver went down Catherine’s spine, as she leaned on and discovered that Khufu’s mouth was open. He had died screaming.

A small trace of black hair remained alongside the jewels and dried flowers around the coffin, and his teeth were almost all there. That man looked as if he had died no more than a hundred years ago.

‘Majestic, don’t you think?’ James said at her side. Catherine had been so focused on the mummy that had not felt the presence of James Turner. ‘We bought it just like that.’

‘Pharaoh Khufu seems to have had a hard time dying,’ she said in return, ‘maybe we should be careful of what we unwrap.’

She moved closer to the sarcophagus and looked at Khufu in the eyes. His aquiline nose stood straight between the two eye sockets. He had his eyes opened when he died. Everyone around her approached the table at the same time, not able to wait until Emma had unveiled the arms and legs.

‘Look at him, he doesn’t look African at all!’ spoke a plump lady looking at his face. ‘I bet Thomas Pettigrew is right. They are not so different from us.’

‘Madam, Egyptian people are dark-skinned,’ Catherine started to say, ‘yet after thousands of years of rotting inside the Valley of the Kings they all look ashy.’

The woman looked at her and disappeared among the crowd. Why had she been offended by her comment?

After everyone had taken a look at the jewels and the mummy, the feast started again. People returned to their conversations about politics and war, about Egypt and England, but Catherine stayed beside the sarcophagus. She was too intrigued to leave just yet. She thought about what it could have been like to live in Egypt’s Old Kingdom, and the power this person had held under his rule.

‘What have we come to?’ she asked him with a whisper, ‘To show you off as a piece of cake. What would you think if you could talk?’

As she posed the last question, Catherine felt something move inside the linen sheets. His fingers had drawn a circle and gone back to being still. Catherine held her breath. It had not happened.

The mummy seemed to look at the ceiling without realizing he was not in Egypt anymore. Without any conscience or sign, it was alive. Catherine came closer to his head. It was then when it turned and faced her, making her look into the void of his skull and letting out a horrible moan. He had come alive again.