Bound for Eternity

CHAPTER 1. X-RAYED

The patient came in feet first.

No protest from this one! commented a young man with cropped black hair and a nose ring as he transferred his cargo from the gurney to the table.

No sedation required, either! his assistant said with a chuckle.

We stood in a large, gray-walled room with no furniture except for one large table. A tangle of cables drooped from a metal hook in the ceiling. An X-ray apparatus, folded up like a praying mantis, stood to one side. Someone was sweeping up the pungent droppings of the last patient in the hallway outside.

Students gathered around, jostling in their eagerness to see everything.

Yuck! said a young woman, backing away from the table. I can see bones—what happened to this guy?

Her reaction amused me, but then I was used to bones.

I spotted a tall, lean man in the control booth, so I walked over and introduced myself.

Are you Brad Farrington? I’m Lisa Donahue. We spoke on the phone.

The radiographer shook my hand, holding it just slightly too long, rubbing his thumb over the wedding ring I still wore. His sleepy bedroom eyes flickered over me. Lisa Donahue, welcome. He bowed slightly.

Hmm—this guy must have quite an effect on all the young female students. I, of course, was immune to such obvious charm.

I looked around with greedy curiosity. As Tom would have said, this wasn’t your usual radiology suite. The patient was a little unusual, too.

This scene just had to appear in our next museum newsletter. I fished a small digital camera out of my purse and took two quick shots of the set-up.

Brad strode back to the table and adjusted the patient’s position one more time. We’re ready here, he nodded to me. Adjusting the X-ray tube and feeding in the first plate, he added, Okay, folks, time to move out of the X-ray area.

I moved obediently through the double door, accompanied by the crowd of students. Brad followed us and pushed a button on the console. Immediately a red, flashing sign indicated that the X-ray instrument was on. Two white-coated guys joined the crowd.

Hey, I thought you never did two-legged customers, Brad! What gives? A tall man with bushy brown hair and a beard spoke. As he leaned sideways to speak with his colleague, his white coat fell open, allowing me to admire his muscular torso in a blue work shirt. He was over six feet tall, couldn’t be older than . . .

Brad’s voice interrupted my unprofessional assessment. Ask the lady. This is all new to me. Miz Donahue, could you move him over to the left about six inches?

Telling myself to squash the hormones, I reentered the X-ray room with the shorter doctor. Together, we moved the small body. My companion said, You know, this is the most cooperative patient we’ve ever had!

He should be. He’s been dead quite a while.

We gazed at the four-foot-long Egyptian mummy with its wooden face portrait and painted gods marching down the front. The cloth wrappings were brown and gummy with old resins, but I could see traces of rose-colored stucco on the surface. Gilded leaves and diamond-shaped lozenges surrounded the portrait. Near the feet, strips of linen cloth hung loose, and a couple of foot bones protruded.

My boss, Victor Fitzgerald, had recently acquired the mummy for the Boston University Museum of Archaeology and History. He’d sent me, a brand new curator, as his sacrificial victim to deal with the press and supervise the X-ray. All I had to do was act like an experienced Egyptologist, which I wasn’t, and make sure the mummy got back to the museum safely.

When we returned to the viewing room, Brad slapped the first film on the light box. It showed a close-up view of the skull with a slightly distorted jaw.

Is that a fracture? I asked Brad.

Could be. And that might be an extra tooth. He pointed to a bright spot in the jumble of teeth.

You mean, a tooth that fell out?

I’m not sure. It could be an un-erupted tooth, one that never finished growing through the gum.

I thought of my own child shedding teeth and greeting the world with proud gaps in her smile. Tom would have been so proud of her…

Hey, Lisa, how old is this thing, anyhow? Brad jerked me out of memories of my dead husband as he fed the next plate into the developer.

I rubbed my forehead and tried to concentrate on the present as I moved around students in the crowded viewing room. Um, the portrait is Roman-period. So, two thousand years, give or take.

Shall we turn King Tut over to get a back view? He said, winking at me.

I laughed. Tut certainly sounded better than the unknown relative of a minor Egyptian official. Better not, I said. Victor would have a fit. He's worried about the condition of the mummy already.

The feet were already damaged, and the painted face was so worn that only the eyes were visible. If anything more happened to this mummy, heads would roll—the registrar’s and mine, not Brad’s.

Can you take one more side view of it without moving it? I asked. I wouldn’t breathe easily until the mummy was safe back inside its cardboard box.

Brad moved the apparatus to a new position so he could take two more films of the mummy’s side. This is a lot more fun than X-raying cows, I can tell you. Here at the Vet School, the most exotic patient we ever get is a horse. Except for the time we did a Siberian tiger, he waggled his eyebrows expectantly.

I asked obligingly, He was asleep, I hope?

Yeah. Brad was pleased with me. We drugged that sucker.

We could have negotiated doing the X-rays at a Boston hospital, but the Veterinary School was closer and cheaper. Not to mention that it was useful to have Brad as a contact—we could X-ray other artifacts in need of conservation.

All conversation ceased while we waited for the rest of the plates to develop. The crowd milled around, and a reporter pushed his way forward.

I hated talking to reporters. Surely my skirt was crooked, my hair was dirty, and my mind was complete mush. I smoothed the top of my Freeport Studio soft suit. A useless gesture. It didn’t matter how I looked, as long as what I said passed muster with Victor. Whatever I forgot to say would be my fault. All part of being low-woman on the totem pole—the newest staff member, hired with temporary funds.

Miz Donahue? The reporter said, brandishing his notebook. I’m Dave Trendall from the Boston Globe. Can you talk now? His Bostonian was pretty thick.

Sure. As long as you don’t mind interruptions—we’re not done yet. We stepped outside into the hallway, carefully avoiding a suspicious yellow puddle.

Okay. What can you tell me about this dried-up critter?

I resisted the urge to fiddle with my long hair and leaned against the cold cement wall. I described the museum, the Near Eastern collection, and the upcoming exhibit—Crypts and Queens—on Egyptian burial customs while Trendall scribbled busily. The mummy's from the Fayum district of Egypt—an oasis settled by the Greeks and Romans after the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. Most of our Roman period mummies come from that area, but—

He interrupted me. Skip the academic stuff. I can get that later. Tell me why the mummy’s interesting.

Well, okay. We’re X-raying this mummy because we want to find out more about the person inside, so we can tell a better story. How he lived and died, did he have bad teeth, was he rich or poor? That sort of thing. As I spoke, a ridiculous headline flashed through my brain: Mummy with Cavities—Poor Dental Care in Ancient Egypt.

How can you tell the social status of a mummy?

How it was wrapped, for starters. This one has gold gilt on it, and bits of red stucco. Pretty fancy. And if we see evidence of careful embalming in the X-rays, it would mean this person’s family was wealthy enough to pay for a good job of mummification.

The reporter winked at me. And what happened if they couldn’t pay?

The embalmers just washed the body and gave it a purge, something like turpentine, to clean out the insides. Then they sent it home to be wrapped in household linen—old clothes, bedspreads, curtains and so forth. I smiled as I pictured my boss wrapped up in his elegant tie collection. Returning to ancient Egypt, I added, Or if you were a sailor, you got wrapped up in a sail.

Any idea who the person inside the wrappings is, I mean, was? Trendall asked.

No. There’s no inscription on the wrappings to identify it. And we don’t know the specific site or tomb—all we know is that the mummy came from somewhere in the Fayum district.

He’d better not ask too many specific questions about Egyptian archaeology or I’d expose the tattered rags of my ignorance. My dissertation had been on Mycenaean Greek pottery found in Israel, not mummies.

Fortunately for me, the reporter had other concerns. Boy or girl?

I’ve no idea. That’s one of the things we hope to find out. And Victor, my boss, had better find his name, title, and the correct name of the museum in the newspaper article or I was in deep trouble. I made sure Trendall had that information, and he said he’d call me in the morning if he had more questions. Maybe by then I’d be more coherent and caffeinated.

My longing for a cup of coffee increased. A soft couch would be nice too, preferably with a purring cat.

Lisa! Come and see the rest of the films! Brad’s voice jerked me out of my stupor. He was leaning out of the annex with the light boxes, an expectant look on his handsome face. I squeezed myself into back into the tiny room with several veterinary students.

Look at the knees, Lisa. See these? Brad pointed at the knee joints. The epiphyses are still open—that means this is definitely a kid!

Epiphyses? I asked. What the heck were they? My caffeine-and-sleep-deprived brain couldn’t dredge up the meaning even though I’d been married to a pathologist for almost seven years.

The gaps at the ends of the long bones, explained the doctor with the beard.

I squinted at his tag. I really should wear my glasses more often, but I was trying to pretend I didn’t need bifocals yet. The tag identified him as Dr. Barker.

They become fused as you get older and are completely closed in an adult. His voice was deep and rich, like bittersweet chocolate, or maybe strong cocoa with a touch of rum.

My stomach rumbled loudly. I looked around, pretending it was someone else.

Here’s the pelvis, said Brad, with a grin. Yup, he knew whose stomach was making those uncouth noises. He pointed to another film on the light box.

Can you tell its sex? I asked, determined to focus on business instead of chocolate cravings. That’s one of the things the reporter wanted to know.

Sorry, no. That’s the problem with a child’s skeleton. Not enough pelvic development to tell one way or the other.

Is there any technique you could use to determine sex, short of a full autopsy?

It’s hard to be sure what’s going on without actually seeing some tissue. Can you take samples? Or use an endoscope? Dr. Barker asked. His eyes were kind—maybe he possessed subnormal hearing and he hadn’t noticed my stomach music.

Oh, that’s a great idea! Our director said no destructive sampling or disturbing the mummy in any way, but maybe I can persuade him. I thought that was about as likely as getting a raise. The wrappings are brittle, though, and you can see how the lower end is falling apart.

I sighed. These days, you could find out so much about the health and disease of mummies—everything from arthritis to intestinal parasites, diet, and dental health. In the Manchester mummy project, the researchers had been allowed to do full autopsies and take tissue samples, but their museum hadn’t planned to display the sawed-up remains of the mummies once the tests were finished.

We looked at the last two films. Leg bones shone like white pillars, and there were multiple layers of cloth and petrified embalming fluids. At the ankles, the skeleton stopped abruptly, matching what we could see with the naked eye. The foot bundle hung on by a few threads, shedding bits of bone every time the mummy was moved.

I glanced at my watch. Almost five-thirty; no wonder I was so hungry. It was time to pick up Emma at after-school daycare. I collected all the films in one big envelope.

Time to transfer the little mummy back into its cardboard box. I moved forward, but the radiographer and Dr. Barker beat me to it. They lifted it carefully, but then Brad’s grip slipped and the nether end of the mummy thudded on the X-ray table. Bits of wrappings and a tiny foot bone slipped out of the wrappings.

My breath hissed in my throat. If anyone from the museum saw that I’d let strangers handle the artifact and drop it, I’d be out of a job. And if Marion, our preparator and collections manager had seen this, she would have had a heart attack on the spot. Marion couldn’t stand having any of her artifacts damaged.

Sorry! That was clumsy of me, apologized Brad. His brown eyes looked huge and worried. Dr. Barker’s green eyes were calm and sympathetic.

Heart galloping, I checked the feet of the mummy. They still shed bits of linen and bone, just like before the X-ray trip. That’s okay, Brad, no real harm done.

I spied a few bits of petrified resin and what looked like an insect carcass I hadn’t seen before. I dug into my purse for the plastic bag I had put my film in and quickly gathered up the scraps.

Thinking of doing some materials analysis? asked Dr. Barker.

Why yes, I said, startled at his ability to read my mind. We’ll check the composition of the cloth and embalming fluids if we can.

Could turn into a very interesting project, he replied.

I wanted to prolong the conversation, but I was late already. Thanks so much for your help, both of you.

No problem. Brad loomed over me like a large, friendly dog. Anytime you have another mummy, let me know, he said.

I nodded as I fumbled for my driving glasses.

Plop. The X-ray envelope landed on the floor. Now I was the clumsy one.

Dr. Barker beat Brad to the envelope, handing it to me with a small flourish. Good luck with your research, he said, looking intently at me with his moss-green eyes.

I felt a quiver of interest; this guy was definitely my type. I glanced at his nametag again and realized I had misread his name. "Dr. Barber? Are you James Barber?"

I was wondering when you’d notice that, he grinned enticingly. You’re Ellen’s friend.

Yes! James Barber, a radiologist, was the current boyfriend of Ellen Perkins. My best friend.

Down, girl. I did a little rapid review of my behavior so far.

I don’t read tags so well without my glasses, I confessed. And you’re out of context—I thought you were a veterinarian.

James handed me his card, after scribbling a couple more phone numbers on the back. I think those X-rays are worth further study. Give me a call and we can go over them more carefully. His eyes added another, more interesting message.

All my blood cells rose up and danced.

Brad tried to have the last word. Lisa, do ya suppose this shriveled-up kid has a curse on it? Are we in deep poop for tampering with its body?

I barely noticed him. I think you're safe, Brad. That's Hollywood stuff.

A veterinary student helped me lift the box and we carried the mummy through the swinging doors to my car.

CHAPTER 2. GUARDIAN OF THE BALANCE

Having carefully stowed the mummy in the cargo area of my rusty red Rabbit, I drove down a twisty side street. I’d no real hope of outwitting Boston traffic at this hour, but I couldn’t resist trying.

Formerly cow paths, the streets of Boston bunched together like over-cooked spaghetti. When I popped out of my side street, I found myself stuck on one of the strands at a three-way intersection. My Rabbit inched its way forward in traffic so dense I’d be lucky to arrive at Emma’s daycare center by midnight.

Even with its crazy traffic, I’d take Boston any day over filthy Philly. Philadelphia was the past. Six years of seedy apartments and low-paying graduate assistantships. Wedded bliss among orange-crate furniture and my older brother’s kitchen castoffs. Chinese carryout on the living room floor, surrounded by anatomy books and stacks of journals.

My husband Tom and his crazy medical school friends, all with gallows humor and dark-circled eyes . . .

Remembering Tom, I patted the coffee cup holder he had installed. He’d added a compass, too. Such a personalized interior, so much a guy’s first car—now mine, for better or worse.

I eased into the line of cars turning right onto Massachusetts Ave. and picked up a little speed. I fell into my usual conversation with myself, interspersed with rude remarks at other Boston drivers. I wanted some excitement in my new job, but not too much. Last year had been so difficult, with the move from Philly . . .

Watch it, you twit! Stay on your own side of the road!

. . . being a single mom, turning my doctoral thesis into a viable publication.

Tom’s death—that was the worst. Tom died in a car accident only eighteen months ago.

All my hopes and dreams derailed overnight.

Idiot! Where’d you learn to drive? I muttered, swerving to avoid a black SUV.

We gave up the row house. I sent out my C.V. to a zillion different colleges and museums, and finally managed to swing the museum job and return to my native Boston. That was a plus—I could visit my dad on the Cape on weekends. And he could finally get to know Emma, his granddaughter.

A spiffy little blue car zipped into the tiny space ahead of me. I swore, and then remembered what happened the last time I’d done that, when Emma was in the car. A little voice piped up from the back seat, Mommy, what’s an asshole? Cringing, I replied that it was just a bad word only people old enough to drive could use.

I hoped my little darling didn’t try out her new word in school today.

I clutched the wheel with both hands. A headache lurked behind my eyes, haunches bunched and ready to pounce.

As I drove, my latest nightmare returned in snatches. Ice on the Charles River, skating behind someone with a shopping cart . . . I couldn’t see Tom, only black ice merging with a black, starless sky. Tears rolled down my cold cheeks as I skated faster and faster. Emma’s voice shrieked from behind me: Mommy! Mommy, wait! I’m so scared! And then the ice was cracking. Tom—he was ahead of me! I couldn’t get there in time. I was falling . . .

A real stinker. The nightmares and headaches were the latest manifestations of my grief for Tom that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried to keep myself busy.

Think about something nice, why don’t you, like what if James Barber was my boyfriend instead of Ellen’s.

Bad idea. I tried to divert my baser self by thinking about Victor Fitzgerald’s probable reaction to the mummy project. He would be pleased with the X-ray results, but he wouldn’t show it. Public display of feeling had no place in Victor’s world. Maybe I’d capture his interest with the proposed CT scans. I’d explain that if we could identify which internal organs were still in place, we’d learn how mummification changed during the Roman period—how Roman embalmers took shortcuts, making the mummy exteriors looks good instead of preserving the tissues.

And the story wouldn’t be complete unless we knew what happened to the child. Why had he—or she—died so young? Did the broken jaw mean a fall, or maybe a fight? The CT scans would show vertical sections, like one of those hard-boiled egg-slicing gadgets my mother had.

When I finally pulled up to Playtime, the tiny driveway was choked with parental cars and children being herded by tired teachers. I parked two blocks away and walked. The September dusk was crisp and bracing, with the tang of salt I loved. Deliberately, I crunched through the heaps of swirling red and gold leaves on the sidewalk.

A blond pixie in a bright red jumper rushed up and hugged my legs. Waving a grimy envelope marked Emma's Tooth, she asked, Mommy! How much will the Tooth Fairy bring this time?

Oh, fifty cents, if she's feeling rich.

I smiled, remembering my brother’s tooth fairy story. Years ago, David and his wife traveled with their son, who littered the capitals of Europe with baby teeth. David played Tooth Fairy in several currencies, and one night he was caught putting the coins under Mathew's pillow. Mathew sat up, tears streaming down his chubby little face, and said, "Daddy, I know you're Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but