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| What kind of Egyptologist believes in unseen realities and dangers from the ancient past? |
ANSON looked at his watch, again. He was waiting in the lamplit interior of an occult bookshop in London and longed to be somewhere else.
A sign in the window said:
MEET ANSON HUNTER
Alternative Egyptologist and author of ‘The Secret Stela of Destiny’ (11 – 12 noon)
“You can sign a few more copies, if you like.”
It was the bookseller speaking, a saturnine lady who presided from a table near the back. She had the air of a spirit guide channelling the mystical wisdom of the books in her shop. Did she conduct Tarot card readings back there?
“We don’t charge our customers extra for signed copies of our books, not like the Americans,” she said.
But her sales strategy wasn’t working, he thought. The place was packed, but only with books.
Any general bookstore would be better than this, even The British Museum’s Bookshop, situated just a stone’s throw from this occult-New Age establishment. Or should that be a crystal’s throw? The scent of incense laced the atmosphere of the bookshop like a mystical cobweb. Depressing. A bookshop should have a whiff of imagination, mental rigour and print, he thought, not of dreamy nirvana.
So close, and yet so far from mainstream acceptance, in fact he was a long way from any acceptance right now. Few took him seriously and right now he was chasing a new and even more sinister obsession about danger from the ancient past - the Destiny Stela, subject of his latest book.
A pile of his new books sat ignored among others on a book table beside him, the cover showing a stone relief of the ibis-headed Thoth, ancient Egypt’s god of writing and magic, or heka. Narrow paper tags ran across the covers and carried the bookstore’s New Age logo and the words ‘signed copy’. Anson had signed a batch lingeringly to pass the time.
He glanced around the shelves with eyes that normally held an obsessive light, but now appeared morose. Which books would The Secret Stela of Destiny end up rubbing covers with? That one over there about the eternally lost continent of Atlantis and the ten plagues of Egypt, or that one about the pyramids going unrecognised as ancient power plants? Dispiriting.
The bookseller revealed the skills of a clairvoyant.
“I’ll be putting you in the ‘mystery history’ section, following the launch period,” she said, “in case you’re wondering.”
The information did little to cheer him.
The shop door opened and a man swept in. Was he a prospect for a signed copy of his book?
The new arrival brought a swirl of cold air and turbulence into the shop with him, like a man in a hurry. Perhaps the blue Lufthansa travel bag slung over his shoulder gave a clue. On the other hand, he could just be anxious to get his hands on a signed copy of Anson’s new book.
Anson reminded himself that the Germans were pillars of Egyptology and he tried to engage the newcomer. But the man barely paused to meet Anson’s stare, before checking out the bookseller at the back of the shop. Then he ran a hand over sparse blond hair before directing his attention to the shelves where he began to browse among the books.
Anson felt his shoulders sink. Right at that moment, he could almost have exchanged his life as a renegade Egyptologist, theorist and phenomenologist working in the shadows of the sacred and mysterious, for the ivory tower of respectability.
Almost.
He thought about signing another copy of his book and wondered how long he could stretch out the scrawling of another signature. Perhaps he could include a written message inside:
Dear New Age/occult reader,
Here’s hoping my book puts the fear of God into you.
But wait, all was not lost. The browser was working his way around the book table. He was approaching and making eye contact.
“Mr Anson Hunter, the Egyptologist? I am hearing that you are signing books today,” the man said in a low voice, speaking in accented, present continuous English.
Hope surged.
“I am. In fact I have been.” He picked up a book to hand it over. “Here’s one I prepared earlier.”
The man made no attempt to take the book. “I do not want it,” he said, shaking his head.
“You don’t want it signed?”
German. Maybe he’d prefer a pure copy without Anson’s seismographic graffiti inside.
“No, I do not want your book for me. I do not like it.”
“Maybe try a few pages before you decide.”
“I do not study Egyptology.”
So a little author adulation was out of the question, Anson thought.
“It is about my grandfather that I come here.”
Anson did some arithmetic. The answer was not encouraging. Judging by the gift-shopper’s age, the grandfather would have to be pretty decrepit by now.
“Your grandfather likes Egyptology?”
The man shook his head again.
“He is dead.”
Past tense. No grandfather. He failed to see where this was going.
“Then a suggestion. My book could make a doorstop. You could cover it in a funky fabric and sit it at the front door.”
The man took a notepad and a pen out of a coat pocket and began to scribble.
“I write my name here - it is German and maybe uneasy to spell.”
An autograph from a reader? No, make that a nonreader. This was certainly unexpected. The man wrote and wrote. A long name evidently. Finally he tore the message off the pad and slipped it to him, throwing a guarded glance at the bookseller.
Anson read it.
I am Reiner Faltinger. In Berlin I have clues for your search. We talk more on the Internet.
Anson shrugged. “You’re going to have to give me a clue.”
The man appeared to engage in some inner struggle. He sighed.
“Okay. I give you one clue now - Tot.”
“Tot? As in ‘a splash of whisky’?”
The man frowned and shook his head.
“Tot, the Egyptian God.” He pointed to the book cover. “It is correct in your book.”
Anson blinked at him in surprise.
“So you really have read my book?”
He shook his head.
“I am reading about it on the Internet. It is correct.”
Had he taken the trouble to read Anson Hunter’s ancient Egypt Blog, ‘The Other Egypt’?
“What’s correct?”
The man lowered his voice to a whisper.
“It is correct about the Stela of Tot.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“But it is incorrect to say the Stela is lost. My grandfather - a genius - found it. He located this relic in Egypt. He took rubbings of the texts. He took them to Germany before the war. To Berlin, in nineteen thirty nine.”
“Your grandfather found the Stela of Destiny?”
He nodded. “Ja, but he again put the texts back in Egypt, before the Stela can destroy him and all of Germany. I come here today so that you see that I am real. Genuine. We talk more on the Internet.”
He pressed a finger to his lips and went, leaving the shop, taking a swirl with him.
A bookshop with this sort of specialty was bound to attract cranks.
He slipped the note into a pocket.
Yet the man’s disclosure found a resonance in his mind.
(Excerpt from "The Ibis Apocalypse")
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