to England after your precious opera ball, as if none of this ever happened?"
"Your secret's safe. It always was. No one would believe what I've seen. And I wish only to forget it, though I never will."
"And the lust for immortality has burnt itself out?"
Elliott thought for a moment. Then he answered in unhurried fashion, rather relieved himself at the resignation in his voice.
"Perhaps in death, I'll find what I seek, rather than what I deserve. There's always the chance of that." He smiled up at Ramsey, who appeared completely surprised by the response." Now and then," Elliott continued," I picture heaven as a vast library, with unlimited volumes to read. And paintings and statues to examine galore. I picture it as a great doorway to learning. Do you think the hereafter could be like that? Rather than one great dull answer to all our questions?"
Ramsey gave him a sad wondering smile.
"A heaven of man-made things. Like our ancient Egyptian heaven."
"Yes, I suppose so. A great museum. And a failure of the imagination."
"I think not."
"Oh, there are so many things I wanted to discuss with you, so much I wanted to know."
Ramsey didn't answer him. The man just stood there, looking at him; and Elliott had the weirdest sense of being listened to, studied. It made him aware of how inattentive most human beings were in general.
"But it's too late for all that." Elliott sighed." My son Alex is the only immortality that matters to me now."
"You're a wise man. I knew that when I first looked into your eyes. And by the way, you are bad at treachery. You told me where you were keeping Cleopatra when you told me she'd slain Henry and his mistress. It had to have been the belly dancer's house. I played out your game with you. I wanted to see how far you'd go with it. But you gave yourself away. You are not so good at such things."
"Well, my brief career at them is over. Unless you want me to remain here when the children go home. But I don't see how a crippled, prematurely old man can help you. Do you?
Ramsey seemed perplexed." Why weren't you afraid of her when you saw her in the museum?" he asked.
"I was afraid of her. I was horrified."
"But you sheltered her. It couldn't have been merely for your own ends."
"Ends? No. I don't think so. I found her irresistible; as I found you irresistible. It was the mystery. I wanted to sit-Move into it. Besides ..."
"Yes."
"She was ... a living thing. A being in pain."
Ramsey thought about this for a moment.
PART 2 Chapter 30
"You will persuade Julie to go back to London - until this is over," Elliott asked.
"Yes, I'll do that," Ramsey said.
He went out quietly, closing the door behind him.
They walked through the City of the Dead," the place of the exalted ones," as they said in Arabic. Where the Maml1'6 Sultans had built their mausoleums; they had seen the fortes of Babylon; they had wandered the bazaars; now the he" l °f me afternoon wore on Alex, and her soul was chastened and shocked by the things she'd discovered, the long thread of history having connected the centuries for her from this radiant afternoon to the time she'd been alive.
She wanted to see no more of the ancient ruins. She wanted only to be with him.
"I like you, young lord," she said to him." You comfort me-You make me forget my pain. And the scores I must settle."
"But what do you mean, my darling?"
She was overcome again by that sense of his fragile mortal man. She laid her fingers on his neck. The memories rose, threatening inundation; all too similar to the black waves from which she'd risen, as if death were water.
Was it different for each being? Had Antony gone down in black waves? Nothing separated her from that moment if she wanted to seize it, to see Ramses turn his back again and refuse to give Antony the elixir; to see herself on her knees, begging." Don't let him die."
"So fragile, all of you ..." she whispered.
"I don't understand, dearest."
And so I 'm to be alone, am I? In this wilderness of those who can die! Oh, Ramses, I curse you! Yet when she saw the ancient bedchamber again, when she saw the man dying on the couch, and the other, immortal, turning his back on her, she saw something