Page 73 of The Stolen Queen

“Bukra fil mish mish,” answered Charlotte.

“Mish what?”

“It means ‘Tomorrow, when the apricots bloom.’ Basically, it’s the Egyptian way of saying they’ll get there when they get there, don’t hold your breath.”

“But they’ll eventually go on display at the Egyptian Museum?”

“Hopefully, yes.”

“Why hopefully?”

“It’s something of a shambles, the Egyptian Museum. To be honest, they’d be much better off at the Met. At least we have electricity, we can keep the temperature and humidity stable and ensure they don’t get damaged.”

“Last week, I heard some of the docents talking about the Benin bronzes in the same way. That they’re better off at the Met instead of being returned to Africa.”

“Right. Truly gorgeous pieces. Stolen from the kingdom of Benin by British troops in the 1800s and now scattered in museums around the world.”

“But now the ruler of Benin wants them back. The docents were very upset that the Met’s collection of bronzes might be spirited away.”

“They’re safer at the Met, for certain.”

“But they were stolen. Shouldn’t we give them back? Just like when we find the Cerulean Queen, we’ll want it back, since it was stolen from the Met?”

“You can’t compare the two. Benin doesn’t evenhavea museum. What then, the bronzes get put into storage, completely out of the public’s view?”

“What about all of the things in storage at the Met?”

Charlotte caught herself bristling. Why was she becoming so defensive? “We can’t exhibit everything,” she explained. “There wouldn’t be a building large enough. And in any event, the question of the Benin bronzes is moot, as it looks like they’ll have a deal in place to return them very soon.”

A conversation from long ago drifted into Charlotte’s memory, back when she and Leon had been on this very site, arguing about the obelisks, one of which had ended up in Paris. Charlotte had rued the fact that it had been taken away. It was strange how, after so many years working at the Met, her viewpoint had changed 180 degrees. Had she been just an innocent kid, like Annie was now, unable to understand the nuances of antiquity preservation and ownership as they existed in the real world? Or had she become jaded over time, developed an unwarranted proprietorship over the objects in her galleries?

Hergalleries. That really said it all.

Charlotte spent a moment among the columns in the Hypostyle Hall, remembering her first kiss with Henry, before getting to work. The more she studied the erasures and compared them with the dates of reconstruction, the more a hesitant excitement crept through her. Hesitance because this was only the beginning, not the end of the project now, and she still didn’t have the solid proof that Frederick was looking for, the reason why the erasures occurred in the first place.

But excitement because, even without the proof, she was even more certain she was correct.

The next day, it was time to track down Leon.

As Charlotte and Annie headed back to Leon Pitcairn’s apartment building, they passed a grungy-looking open-air restaurantwith mismatched tables and chairs spilling onto the sidewalk. The customers, all men, stared hard at the pair of women as they walked by. Charlotte doubted tourists often ventured this way. But one of the men glanced up and then quickly turned away, lifting a cup of coffee to his mouth. He wore khakis and a white button-down shirt, and Charlotte caught a glint of yellow on the pinky finger of his left hand. A ring made of yellow jasper, a ring Charlotte had seen before.

“This way,” she said to Annie, maneuvering in between the tables to where Leon Pitcairn sat.

He put down his coffee and did a terrible double take. “Charlotte Cross? My God, is that you?”

She’d last seen Leon on a sinking ship, yet here he was, drinking coffee and walking the streets of Luxor like nothing had ever happened. Seeing him in the flesh was astonishing and strange, and she knew her face reflected that. Leon’s professed shock, though, had an air of showmanship about it, as he loudly exclaimed his surprise and wrapped his arms around her before giving her a European-style double-cheek kiss. Charlotte introduced Annie as her assistant and took up his invitation to join him, gesturing for Annie to do so as well.

Leon’s youthful good looks were gone. His high forehead was now a bald pate, the skin sagged under his eyes, and his nose looked like it had been broken a few times over.

“I thought you were dead,” he said, twisting the ring on his finger. “I can’t believe it’s actually you.”

“Imagine my own surprise when I heard you were still alive, kicking around the Valley of the Kings.”

He regarded her with wary eyes.

“Let’s stop with the games,” she said. “I know what was going on back in ’37. That you and Henry were smuggling antiquities from the digs out of Luxor, out of Egypt. Is that why we had to leave so quickly? It wasn’t because of world politics, like Henry said.”

For a moment it looked as if Leon was going to try to deny it, but Charlotte cocked her head at him in warning. “I’m sorry for what happened,” he finally said. “It was a terrible night, a terrible time. And yes, Henry convinced me to set some things aside. We’d worked at the Egyptian Museum that summer, we knew what a mess the place was, that no one would notice. Why not get a little cash for all the trouble we took to pull these things out of the earth, digging away in the hot sun, melting day after day? You remember what it was like.”

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