Pharaoh Read Online Free PDF Page A

felt like crying.
    A hot shower eased the cramps in his stomach and muscles, but washed away his remaining energy. He slipped down to the floor nearly unconscious, and lay under the steaming downpour for long minutes. Then, with a supreme effort, he reached up towards the tap and turned it to cold. The water spurted out in a freezing stream and he was jerked to his feet as if he had been whipped; he tried to bear it for long enough to regain a lucid mind, an upright position and an awareness of the misery he had been plunged into.
    He dried himself vigorously with a bath towel, then turned back to the mirror. He carefully lathered his face, shaved and applied an expensive lotion, one of the few reminders of his past lifestyle. Then, like a warrior putting on his armour, he chose a jacket and trousers, a shirt and tie, socks and shoes, considering a number of combinations before he settled on what he would wear.
    He had nothing in his stomach when he poured a shot of bourbon into his boiling black coffee and gulped down a few mouthfuls. This potion would have to do instead of his usual Prozac this morning; he was determined to face the last stations of his own personal cross-carrying expedition, scheduled for today, on willpower alone: the session with the judge that would confirm his divorce from Judy O’Neil, then his afternoon appointment with the rector and dean of the Oriental Institute, who were expecting his resignation.
    The telephone rang as he was about to leave and Blake lifted the receiver.
    ‘Will,’ said the voice on the other end. It was Bob Olsen, one of the few friends he had left since fate had turned her back on him.
    ‘Hi, Bob. Nice of you to call.’
    ‘I was just leaving, but I couldn’t go without saying goodbye. I’m having lunch with my old man in Evanston to wish him a merry Christmas and then I’m off to Cairo.’
    ‘Lucky you,’ said Blake in a lifeless voice.
    ‘Don’t take it so hard. We’ll let a few months go by, things will quieten down on their own and we’ll talk about the whole thing again. The board will have to re-examine your case. They’ll have to listen to your reasoning.’
    ‘What reasoning? There are no reasons. I have no witnesses, nothing.’
    ‘Listen, you have to get back on your feet again. You have to fight this. You can do it. You know, in Egypt I should be completely free to move around. I’ll try to get some information. Whenever I’m not working I’ll find out whatever I can. If I meet someone who can testify that it wasn’t your doing, I’ll bring him back here, even if I have to pay their fare myself.’
    ‘Thanks, Bob, but I don’t think there’s much you can do. Still, thanks anyway. Have a good trip.’
    ‘So – I can leave without worrying about you?’
    ‘Oh, sure. You don’t have to worry about me . . .’ He hung up, took his cup of coffee and walked out onto the street.
    A bell-ringing Santa Claus greeted him on the snowy pavement, along with a gust of bitterly cold wind that must have licked the entire icy surface of the lake from north to south. He reached his car, which was parked a couple of blocks down, still holding the steaming cup of coffee in his hand, got in and headed downtown. The shopping district was splendidly decked out for the holidays: the bare trees had been covered with thousands of tiny lights, looking like a miraculous out-of-season blossoming. He lit a cigarette and enjoyed the warmth as the car began to heat up, the music on the radio and the scent of tobacco, whisky and coffee.
    These modest pleasures gave him a little courage; made him think that his luck would have to change. After all, once you hit bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. And somehow, doing things that his health-fanatic wife had prohibited all those years all at once – like drinking on an empty stomach and smoking in the car – made the terrible regret he felt at losing both the woman he still loved so intensely and the work he couldn’t