Chapter Thirty-Two
Sadie
D igs are hard work.
Even though it’s winter in Egypt, and the nights are really cold, the sun is bright, and the temperature often gets up above twenty-five degrees Celsius during the day.
It’s hot, dusty work. And I never want to leave.
Amarna is enormous and has been pretty thoroughly excavated, apart from the small area where we are working, far to the north of the main city, away from the areas most tourists are keen to see.
Here and there, ancient mudbrick walls are visible, peeping up through the sand. Exposed for the first time in perhaps thousands of years. At one end of our dig site, there’s the beginning of a stone wall, which suggests either a temple or a palace once stood there, but we’re concentrating on the workers’ village where ordinary Egyptians worked and lived.
The site is broken up into sections in a grid pattern and cordoned off with ropes staked in the sandy ground. Black- and-white level measures stand in one corner of each section, allowing us to record the stratification of the dig for later comparison.
Ethan has assigned us to sections in teams of two, and I sagged with relief when he teamed me with Bart and not Riley. Or Garret, who seems to have developed a nervous tick and jumps at the slightest unexpected sound. Poor thing. The rat gnawing on his toothbrush really freaked him out. I feel sorry for him. I don’t think he’s cut out for dig life. He belongs in a dusty library somewhere. But I don’t feel sorry enough to want to have my first dig ruined by his constant fretting and freaking out.
We start out scraping layers of sand back with trowels and depositing it in small buckets, looking for changes in the colour or consistency that might indicate something is there. Sometimes little things appear, and we move to brushes, so as not to damage potential artefacts.
Sieves are piled neatly beside the giant sifting machines the Egyptian team use to gently sift the sand we remove from our sections, looking for tiny things we may have missed, like beads or little fragments of broken pottery. Everything we find, no matter how small, will be recorded, numbered and cross-referenced for inclusion in the dig report. Because you never know what might prove to be important.
When Ethan isn’t checking on our progress, which he does several times a day, he largely works on his own or with one of the Egyptian assistants. There are lots of them. They’re helpful and friendly and really know their stuff. They’ve also picked up Sayed and Ashraf’s nickname for me and have taken to calling me Amira, which is sweet but kind of embarrassing.
There’s constant chatter and laughing from the Egyptian staff, loud directions from Tarek, the head of the team of local workers, and the sound of shovels and trowels in the sand. It somehow manages to be both loud and peaceful at the same time.
We rise at five in the morning, have a quick breakfast, then Mo drives us to the dig site, where we work from six until one, then head back to the boat for lunch and to write up our dig journals. Ethan insists we document everything, however insignificant, as well as the conditions on the day and how we’re feeling. Although my dig journal gets a very abridged version of my feelings. Because watching Ethan work, how he interacts with the locals, how his muscles flex when he digs. Well, I’m pretty sure they’re not the kinds of feelings he means.
Once our journals are done, we sit together on deck in the shade of the tarps and report our morning to Ethan. This is my favourite part of the day because the questions Ethan asks sometimes make you look at things in an entirely different light. Much like in his lectures, we go off on all kinds of interesting tangents.
Riley, for the most part, ignores me, although I often feel her watching me. As though she expects to catch Ethan and me making eyes at one another or something. She even brought up the inappropriateness of the workers calling me Amira at one of our debriefs, giving everybody a good laugh.
“You’re just jealous they don’t call you Princess,” Garret responded. Which is all I need. She’s already jealous of what she imagines is going on between me and Ethan. I don’t need her to be jealous of my relationship with the dig crew as well.
We’ve been at Amarna for five days when Ethan closes our debrief with an announcement.
“Tomorrow will be your last day in your current sections. We’ll take a break over the weekend, then you’ll be put on new sections on Sunday,” he says as we’re wrapping up. “If everyone’s keen we can sail down to El Minya for the weekend.” The weekend in Egypt is Friday and Saturday, and because we rely so heavily on local workers, that’s our weekend too.
“Oh, thank God, yes. Civilisation. Are there shops? Nightclubs?” Riley perks up immediately.
By the expression on Bart, Simon, and Jeremy’s faces, I suspect she’s in for disappointment.
I’m getting a little tired of pianos being dropped on my head. There I am, minding my own business in what is my new happy place, working and chatting with Bart about why Australian music is becoming so popular around the world, when Tarek sidles up to me.
“There is a man asking for you, Amira.”
A prickle runs across my scalp, and my hands start to shake. There’s no need for Tarek to give me a name. Only one person would be visiting me here.
“Are you okay, Sadie?” Bart asks as I drop my trowel clumsily.
Nobody is allowed into the dig site without permission from either Ethan, Ashraf or Tarek, and I consider telling him not to let my father through, but what would he do then? Come back again? Make a scene and embarrass me?
I try and smile at Bart.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I’ll be back in a minute.” My legs wobble as I stand, willing down the nausea. This is ridiculous. I’m a grown woman. He can’t hurt me. All I have to do is walk away.
I haven’t seen my father in over ten years. The absurd thought flits through my mind that if my mother finds out I’ll be in big strife. Mum isn’t even speaking to me right now. How would she find out? Stop it, Sadie. You’re not a child. So what if she does find out?
Tarek leads me to the site entrance, where leaning against a dusty four-wheel drive is a man I almost don’t recognise as my father.
His once-brown hair is now almost all grey, his face more heavily lined, although objectively, you would still describe him as handsome for his age, I suppose. His arrogant smile hasn’t changed a bit.
“Sadie. You’ve finally made it to Egypt,” he says, holding his arms wide as though I might want to walk into them for a hug. How does he make even that short statement sound like an accusation? As though, somehow, it’s my fault I haven’t been to Egypt earlier.
I cross my arms and stand only close enough to have a conversation without having to shout. Again, silly. Because he never beat me or hurt me physically. It was all just emotional. Yet I find myself physically scared of him.
“What are you doing here, Derek?” I won’t validate his position in my life by calling him Dad. Real dads don’t walk away and leave their children, never to return. Real dads don’t ‘forget’ to pay child support for months on end. Or ignore birthdays and Christmas. And real dads certainly don’t blame their children for the unhappiness of their marriage.
Derek looks around, I suppose wondering if anyone can overhear us before he laughs.
“Come on.” His tone is cajoling. Sadly for him, it won’t work on me. “I wasn’t going to ignore my little girl on her first dig, was I?” Bad choice of words.
“I don’t see why not. You’ve ignored every birthday, Christmas and graduation since I was, what, seven, eight years old? Why change the habits of my lifetime?” Despite the heat, cold sweat breaks out on my back.
“Aww. You know I would’ve come if I could. But your mother—”
“I’m not discussing my mother with you.” I cut him off, holding up a hand in a stop motion. Does he think I’m going to buy these lies?
“Alright. Fair enough.” His own hands go up in surrender. “I thought maybe you could show me around the site. Tell me what you’re up to.”
“Why? You’re not interested in the Amarna period. You’re not interested in me. And you’re a long way from your dig. What are you really doing here?” Part of me wants to rage at him and tell him to get the hell out. But the small child desperate for approval, is begging me to show him what I’m doing. As though he might actually care. Or be impressed.
“Don’t be like that. Of course I’m interested in you. You’re my daughter. About to get her doctorate. I’d love to hear about your thesis.” Why is he trying so hard? And then I notice the direction of his gaze. He’s not looking at me. Of course he isn’t. I turn and see Ethan striding across the uneven sand. Anyone who didn’t know him might think he’s wearing a neutral expression. But I know him well now. He’s wearing the same face he uses on Martin Collins.
Dad is about to get his arse ever so politely handed to him. And I don’t mind a bit.