The Moment of My Career
The diplomas in my hand felt surreal. It had taken seven long years, but I was finally finished. I sat on the worn leather couch, ignoring the way my sweaty skin stuck to it, and inspected each of them, three in total.
The Macquarie University hereby confers upon Etta Jane Mae the degree of Bachelor of Archaeology...Bachelor of Ancient History...Diploma of Ancient Languages.
I reread them over and over, checking each one, making sure my name was spelt correctly, that this wasn't a complete dream, that I'd actually done it. I knew I had—or I wouldn't have been sitting in my new home in Giza—but holding tangible evidence was completely different to simply "knowing".
Salma Hayes, my new boss, wasn't patient enough for me to graduate before beginning work. In fact, she'd demanded I fly out as soon as I'd accepted the position. I didn't even get to enjoy a graduation ceremony after my years of hard work. But I wasn't about to turn her down, either. Salma was one of the best Egyptologists in the world. Both hands wouldn't be enough to count the impact she's had on finding and understanding the history of Egypt (but I could write a ten-thousand-word paper on the subject if needed).
The only problem was that she's a diva. A demanding, rude, annoyingly brilliant diva who didn't let me attend my graduation ceremony. But she did pay for my first-class ticket, which is no small feat considering the flight from Sydney, Australia to Cairo, Egypt was over twenty-four hours of flying and included two stops. I was a sucker for first-class.
My phone buzzed and the peculiar ringtone told me automatically who it was. I answered quickly, partly because I was sick of hearing the rhythmic darbuka playing and partly because I knew Salma was going to chew my ear off.
'He–'
'Where are you right now?' Salma cut me off with an angry tone I knew was her default.
'Still at home. Why? I thought we weren't meeting up until eleven?'
'I need you here now.' I sighed and placed my precious diplomas down, wandering over to the window to peek outside. As I expected, her beat-up four-wheel-drive was sitting in the narrow street. She waved her arm at me in an impatient gesture. 'C'mon, we gotta go.'
'I'm coming, I'm coming,' I replied into the phone, hanging up and shaking my arms at her in a "what the hell?" gesture.
I was already dressed for the day, in the usual long khaki pants and loose-long-sleeved shirt. I used to wear white shirts a lot but learnt pretty quickly that black was a better option. It doesn't get dirty as quickly and it diffuses heat faster, so technically you're meant to feel cooler quicker. I say technically because I can't really tell a difference, but Salma had mentioned before that if I ever got stranded in the desert it was better to have a black shirt because it would help me stay warmer at night. Not sure how much science was behind that, but she always wears black, so there must be some life-saving advice in there.
I scooted out the door, backpack slung over my shoulder and double-checked that the door was locked. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference—the houses here certainly weren't as sturdy as the ones back home—but I checked, nonetheless. The streets were bustling with a life I never saw in Australia. A small motorbike buzzed past, with a large family squished on it. A bus beeped its horn irrationally at a car stopped in the middle of the road, the owners loading carts of fresh fruit from a store into the boot. I dodged a small car as it weaved between traffic and danced across the road, stopping by Salma's open window.
'What's the big deal?' I asked, pulling the door open as she scooted over, making room so that I could drive. She hated driving here. I did too, but she was the boss.
'They've found something at Saqqara.'
'Saqqara? That place has been dug to death; what could there possibly be left?'
Saqqara was one of the most popular archaeological spots in Egypt because it's a massive burial ground and it's less than an hour from Giza. Of course, people would flock to it, easy access and all. Salma cut the end off a cigar expertly as the car bumped over the uneven road. I tried to pay attention to the weaving traffic in front of me, but the idea of someone finding something whilst I was here was too exciting. The very idea that I could be there at some historical moment made me speed up.
Salma twisted the cigar around a flame slowly, letting it heat up evenly as she spoke, 'Someone started a dig site about fifteen kilometres west after the GPR showed some promising readings.'
I tried to flick through to the file in my brain that remembered what GPR stood for as I sped around a car with a goat in the backseat: ground-penetrating radar.
'Oh my god, this is huge news!' I exclaimed, flicking my fingers out on the steering wheel like I was a jazz dancer.
'Settle down, Etta. We don't know what they've found. It could be something small.' Salma took a slow puff of her cigar and blew the smoke out the window. Her hair, long and grey with a few blonde strands, whipped in the wind.
'Still,' I muttered. 'It's the first "something" that's been found since I got here two months ago.'
Salma was silent for a moment, shaking her head at me. She acted like a grump, but I knew deep down she was as excited as I was.
'Did you bring your tent?'
'Of course, I brought my tent,' I scoffed confidently.
As it turned out, I didn't bring my tent. I stared at the empty boot of the car with an open mouth. We'd parked up at Saqqara, still fifteen kilometres from where the big find was, to meet up with the archaeologists who worked at the site.
'You forgot your tent, didn't you?' Salma sighed as she jumped out of the car. 'Go ask James if he has a spare. Mine won't fit two people and I don't want to sleep next to you anyway.'
'James? Is he here too?'
James was an Egyptologist as well, although a much newer one than Salma. He was relatively young—compared to most Egyptologists anyway—at a ripe age of forty-two. Salma was in her late fifties. And I was, as they liked to say, the young chick of the group, at twenty-five. I first met James when he picked me up from the airport on my first day. He showed me the ropes and taught me how to deal with Salma. Last time I saw him was a month ago when he said he was headed off to a remote dig site past Toshka Lakes. When I'd looked it up on Google Maps, there weren't even any direction options to get there from Cairo, that's how remote it was.
I heard James before I spotted him—he laughed loudly and unabashedly with a thick Texan accent. I double-checked the four-wheel-drive was locked and headed over to James, spotting Salma already rubbing shoulders with some important-looking figure in a suit. It didn't take long for James to spot me, and he called me over with a big wave.
'Etta!' He grinned and a gold tooth sparkled in the sun.
'It's been so long!' He wrapped me in a pair of large arms.
'How've you been holding up with Salma? Has she made you do anything crazy?'
'Not just yet.' I rolled my eyes. 'Although I do have to buy a lot of cigars.' He laughed and patted me on the back.
'Are you excited to see?' His eyes sparkled brightly.
'Have you already seen it?'
'You betcha! Went out there this morning at the crack of dawn. Couldn't wait.'
'I want to see!' I whined, throwing my head back to look at the sky. 'What is it?'
'Salma hasn't told you?' I could feel his energy sizzling in the air as he smirked at me. 'It's big, Etta. Really fucking big. This is going down in history, that's for sure. I don't know how it sat there, unfound for so long.'
'James! Just tell me what it is! I can't wait, I need to know.'
'Nu-uh. Wait, trust me. We'll be setting out in a bit.' He ruffled my hair and turned away.
'Wait!' I grabbed his arm and grinned sheepishly. 'You don't happen to have a...spare tent at all, do you?'
I headed back to Salma, spoils in hand, and grinned at her triumphantly. She offered the smallest grin possible in return before steeling her face back to her usual scowl. The suited man glanced at me curiously, offering his leathery hand as I dumped the tent, narrowly missing Salma's steel-toed boots. He had white hair and a small, wispy goatee.
'I'm Aruther Gregorian.' I brushed black strands of hair out of my eyes before gripping his hand.
'I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting,' I replied smoothly. His grip was tight and demanding, yet not dominating. 'I'm Etta Mae, Salma's assistant.'
'Assistant?' He looked impressed. 'I hear she's ruthless when it comes to choosing those. Congratulations.'
I smiled, not bothering to feign embarrassment. 'You can say that again. She didn't even let me go to my graduation ceremony.'
'Lies! That's horrible.' He shook his head and sent Salma a side-eyed glance.
'I'm right here.' Salma turned and walked away, yelling back at us, 'Etta, Aruther is riding with us; let's get going, you two.' Aruther winked at me as he followed her lead.
On the drive out I kept to a reasonable speed, mainly because I found out that Aruther was from the government and was technically the benefactor of Salma, which made him the benefactor of myself. Without him, Salma might never have been allowed to touch a historical ruin, let alone the hundreds that she had. I followed a train of dusty cars to the site and listened to Salma and Aruther's conversation, piecing together small bits of information: they'd known each other for years, there was some unspoken chemistry, and Salma was playing hard to get (unsurprising, really).
I parked the car and jumped out in one swift move, craning my neck to see past the other on-lookers. The dig site was still a good hundred meters away, but we all excitedly tried to see. I pulled my backpack out and urged Salma and Aruther to walk with some purpose.
This was the moment of my career. The moment I saw something huge. The moment I went down in history as someone who was there. I mean, not literally, because no one is going to write about the assistant who just happened to be in the background of some amazing discovery. But this event will go down in history and I can tell everyone I was there watching it all unfold.
My mind raced with the possibilities of what it could be: the tomb of an unknown, a perfectly mummified specimen, or even an underground pyramid, hidden by years of sand. Yet none of my imaginings was as grand as reality. Salma pulled me close and ducked under a tape, leaving all lesser-known archaeologists to admire from behind it whilst we moved in close. Aruther stayed behind the tape with James, whose face was saying "I told you so".
'This...can't be real,' I whispered in awe as we descended into the pit. Salma sent me a rare genuine smile.
'It's incredible.' I agreed with a nod of my head.
The pit was around five metres deep, and at the bottom sat a large stone structure, still half-covered with fine desert sand. Large pillars covered in golden hieroglyphs sparkled. The pillars were cut off partway, still hidden beneath the sand. There was a large stone door, that had been carefully dug around and cracked open. I tried to read the symbols on it, but some of them were completely new to me. I dropped to my knees and ripped a notebook out of my bag, quickly scribbling them down as Salma wandered off to talk to the dig-site owner.
'Abode...Amon...enter...Ing?' I muttered to myself. I pulled my phone out and took a picture, zooming in to try and see it clearer. 'King?'
'We think it's an old shrine dedicated to Amon-Re.' I jumped slightly at the voice next to me.
'Amon-Re? As in, the god?' I stood up, brushing the sand off my knees and facing the male.
'We think so. We're not entirely sure since some of the glyphs are eroded.' I held my notebook out.
'Do you know what these ones mean?' He looked at them for a moment and shook his head.
'Sorry, hieroglyphs aren't my specialty. I do know the glyph team that was here yesterday couldn't decipher all of them, though.' I nodded my head and frowned, looking back at the large structure.
'Etta!' Salma yelled for me from across the dig. I said goodbye to the man and headed over.
'Salma, this is incredible. They think it's the shrine of Amon-Re! Look! There's new glyphs too!' I showed her my notebook, pointing out the symbols I'd copied in excitement.
She grabbed my arms and grinned at me, her wrinkled cheeks crinkling at the edges. 'Are you ready to go inside?'
I agreed hurriedly, realising that this really was the moment of my career.
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