Connie Willis - Death on the Nile

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Death on the Nile
Death on the Nile
Connie Willis
Connie Willis is the only writer ever to have won Nebula Awards in all four categories of fiction. She has in addition won
five Hugo Awards, including one for her novel Doomsday Book, which was also honored with the Nebula Award and the
Locus Award, and one for this story. Her other honors include the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel,
Lincoln’s Dreams. Impossible Things, a recent collection of her short fiction, and Uncharted Territory, a new novella,
display this compulsively readable writer at her best.
Of her Nebula Award nominee “Death on the Nile,” she writes:
“Stories of wonder often have their beginnings in noticing some magic everyone else has missed, in making some
connection no one else has seen, or in illuminating some ordinary thing with ), skill and style so that it seems
extraordinary. :
“I don’t claim any of that for ‘Death on the Nile.” It is, after .’; all, about Egypt, that place of’wonders more in number
than those \ of any other land,‘ as Herodotus said, and I never met anyone who wasn’t immediately drawn to (and troubled
by) its magic and mystery. Even Napoleon’s army, arriving at Luxor, ’at the site of its scattered ruins, halted of itself, and
by one spontaneous impulse, grounded its arms.‘ How could they not be awed by its wonders— its pyramids and sphinxes
and pharoahs? Its curses and treasures and kings?
“I can’t even claim credit for the connections. They are all right there in plain sight: the torchlit tombs and the tarry linen
bandages, the jackals and snakes and silence. And the stone steps, drifted with sand, leading down and down. And down.”
CHAPTER ONE:
PREPARING FOR YOUR TRIP — WHAT TO TAKE
“ ‘To the ancient Egyptians,’ ” Zoe reads, “ ‘Death was a separate country to the west—’ ” The plane
lurches. “ ‘—the west to which the deceased person journeyed.’ ”
We are on the plane to Egypt. The flight is so rough the flight attendants have strapped themselves into
the nearest empty seats, looking scared, and the rest of us have subsided into a nervous window-
watching silence. Except Zoe, across the aisle, who is reading aloud from a travel guide.
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Death on the Nile
This one is Somebody or Other’s Egypt Made Easy. In the seat pocket in front of her are Fodor’s Cairo
and Cooke’s Touring Guide to Egypt’s Antiquities, and there are half a dozen others in her luggage. Not
to mention Frommer’s Greece on $35 a Day and the Savvy Traveler’s Guide to Austria and the three or
four hundred other guidebooks she’s already read out loud to us on this trip. I toy briefly with the idea
that it’s their combined weight that’s causing the plane to yaw and careen and will shortly send us
plummeting to our deaths.
“ ‘Food, furniture, and weapons were placed in the tomb,’ ” Zoe reads, “ ‘as provi—’ ” The plane
pitches sideways. “ ‘—sions for the journey.’”
The plane lurches again, so violently Zoe nearly drops the book, but she doesn’t miss a beat. “ ‘When
King Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened,’ ” she reads, “ ‘it contained trunks full of clothing, jars of wine,
a golden boat, and a pair of sandals for walking in the sands of the afterworld.’”
My husband Neil leans over me to look out the window, but there is nothing to see. The sky is clear and
cloudless, and below us there aren’t even any waves on the water.
“ ‘In the afterworld the deceased was judged by Anubis, a god with the head of a jackal,’ ” Zoe reads, “
‘and his soul was weighed on a pair of golden scales.’ ”
I am the only one listening to her. Lissa, on the aisle, is whispering to Neil, her hand almost touching his
on the armrest. Across the aisle, next to Zoe and Egypt Made Easy, Zoe’s husband is asleep and Lissa’s
husband is staring out the other window and trying to keep his drink from spilling.
“Are you doing all right?” Neil asks Lissa solicitously.
“It’ll be exciting going with two other couples,” Neil said when he came up with the idea of our all
going to Europe together. “Lissa and her husband are lots of fun, and Zoe knows everything. It’ll be like
having our own tour guide.”
It is. Zoe herds us from country to country, reciting historical facts and exchange rates. In the Louvre, a
French tourist asked her where the Mona Lisa was. She was thrilled. “He thought we were a tour
group!” she said. “Imagine that!” Imagine that.
“ ‘Before being judged, the deceased recited his confession,’ ” Zoe reads, “ ‘a list of sins he had not
committed, such as, I have not snared the birds of the gods, I have not told lies, I have not committed
adultery.’”
Neil pats Lissa’s hand and leans over to me. “Can you trade places with Lissa?” Neil whispers to me.
I already have, I think. “We’re not supposed to,” I say, pointing at the lights above the seats. “The seat-
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Death on the Nile
belt sign is on.” He looks at her anxiously. “She’s feeling nauseated.” So am I, I want to say, but I am
afraid that’s what this trip is all about, to get me to say something. “Okay,” I say, and unbuckle my seat
belt and change places with her. While she is crawling over Neil, the plane pitches again, and she half-
falls into his arms. He steadies her. Their eyes lock.
“ I have not taken another’s belongings,‘ ” Zoe reads. “ T have not murdered another.’”
I can’t take any more of this. I reach for my bag, which is still under the window seat, and pull out my
paperback of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. I bought it in Athens.
“About like death anywhere,” Zoe’s husband said when I got back to our hotel in Athens with it.
“What?” I said.
“Your book,” he said, pointing at the paperback and smiling as if he’d made a joke. “The title. I’d
imagine death on the Nile is the same as death anywhere.” “Which is what?” I asked.
“The Egyptians believed death was very similar to life,” Zoe cut in. She had bought Egypt Made Easy at
the same bookstore. “To the ancient Egyptians the afterworld was a place much like the world they
inhabited. It was presided over by Anubis, who judged the deceased and determined their fates. Our
concepts of heaven and hell and of the Day of Judgment are nothing more than modern refinements of
Egyptian ideas,” she said, and began reading out loud from Egypt Made Easy, which pretty much put an
end to our conversation,
and I still don’t know what Zoe’s husband thought death would be like, on the Nile or elsewhere.
I open Death on the Nile and try to read, thinking maybe Hercule Poirot knows, but the flight is too
bumpy. I feel almost immediately queasy, and after half a page and three more lurches I put it in the seat
pocket, close my eyes, and toy with the idea of murdering another. It’s a perfect Agatha Christie setting.
She always has a few people in a country house or on an island. In Death on the Nile they were on a Nile
steamer, but the plane is even better. The only other people on it are the flight attendants and a Japanese
tour group who apparently do not speak English or they would be clustered around Zoe, asking
directions to the Sphinx.
The turbulence lessens a little, and I open my eyes and reach for my book again. Lissa has it.
She’s holding it open, but she isn’t reading it. She is watching me, waiting for me to notice, waiting for
me to say something. Neil looks nervous.
“You were done with this, weren’t you?” she says, smiling. “You weren’t reading it.”
Everyone has a motive for murder in an Agatha Christie. And Lissa’s husband has been drinking
steadily since Paris, and Zoe’s husband never gets to finish a sentence. The police might think he had
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Death on the Nile
snapped suddenly. Or that it was Zoe he had tried to kill and shot Lissa by mistake. And there is no
Hercule Poirot on board to tell them who really committed the murder, to solve the mystery and explain
all the strange happenings.
The plane pitches suddenly, so hard Zoe drops her guidebook, and we plunge a good five thousand feet
before it recovers. The guidebook has slid forward several rows, and Zoe tries to reach for it with her
foot, fails, and looks up at the seat-belt sign as if she expects it to go off so she can get out of her seat to
retrieve it.
Not after that drop, I think, but the seat-belt sign pings almost immediately and goes off.
Lissa’s husband instantly calls for the flight attendant and demands another drink, but they have already
gone scurrying back to the rear of the plane, still looking pale and scared, as if they expected the
turbulence to start up again before they make it. Zoe’s husband wakes up at the noise and then goes back
to sleep. Zoe retrieves Egypt Made Easy from the floor, reads a few more riveting facts from it, then puts
it facedown on the seat and goes back to the rear of the plane.
I lean across Neil and look out the window, wondering what’s happened, but I can’t see anything. We
are flying through a flat whiteness.
Lissa is rubbing her head. “I cracked my head on the window,” she says to Neil. “Is it bleeding?”
He leans over her solicitously to see.
I unsnap my seat belt and start to the back of the plane, but both bathrooms are occupied, and Zoe is
perched on the arm of an aisle seat, enlightening the Japanese tour group. “The currency is in Egyptian
pounds,” she says. “There are one hundred piasters in a pound.” I sit back down.
Neil is gently massaging Lissa’s temple. “Is that better?” he asks.
I reach across the aisle for Zoe’s guidebook. “Must-See Attractions,” the chapter is headed, and the first
one on the list is the Pyramids.
“Giza, Pyramids of. West bank of Nile, 9 mi. (15 km.) SW of Cairo. Accessible by taxi, bus, rental car.
Admission L.E.3. Comments: You can’t skip the Pyramids, but be prepared to be disappointed. They
don’t look at all like you expect, the traffic’s terrible, and the view’s completely ruined by the hordes of
tourists, refreshment stands, and souvenir vendors. Open daily.”
I wonder how Zoe stands this stuff. I turn the page to Attraction Number Two. It’s King Tut’s tomb, and
whoever wrote the guidebook wasn’t thrilled with it either. “Tutankhamun, Tomb of. Valley of the
Kings, Luxor, 400 mi. (668 km.) south of Cairo. Three unimpressive rooms. Inferior wall paintings.”
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There is a map showing a long, straight corridor (labeled Corridor) and the three unimpressive rooms
opening one onto the other in a row—Anteroom, Burial Chamber, Hall of Judgment.
I close the book and put it back on Zoe’s seat. Zoe’s husband is still asleep. Lissa’s is peering back over
his seat. “Where’d the flight attendants go?” he asks. “I want another drink.”
“Are you sure it’s not bleeding? I can feel a bump,” Lissa says to Neil, rubbing her head. “Do you think
I have a concussion?”
“No,” Neil says, turning her face toward his. “Your pupils aren’t dilated.” He gazes deeply into her eyes.
“Stewardess!” Lissa’s husband shouts. “What do you have to do to get a drink around here?”
Zoe comes back, elated. “They thought I was a professional guide,” she says, sitting down and fastening
her seat belt. “They asked if they could join our tour.” She opens the guidebook. “ The afterworld was
full of monsters and demigods in the form of crocodiles and baboons and snakes. These monsters could
destroy the deceased before he reached the Hall of Judgment.‘ ”
Neil touches my hand. “Do you have any aspirin?” he asks. “Lissa’s head hurts.”
I fish in my bag for it, and Neil gets up and goes back to get her a glass of water.
“Neil’s so thoughtful,” Lissa says, watching me, her eyes bright. “ To protect against these monsters and
demigods, the deceased was given The Book of the Dead,‘ ” Zoe reads. “ ’More properly translated as
The Book of What Is in the Afterworld, The Book of the Dead was a collection of directions for the
journey and magic spells to protect the deceased.‘ ”
I think about how I am going to get through the rest of the trip without magic spells to protect me. Six
days in Egypt and then three in Israel, and there is still the trip home on a plane like this and nothing to
do for fifteen hours but watch Lissa and Neil and listen to Zoe.
I consider cheerier possibilities. “What if we’re not going to Cairo?” I say. “What if we’re dead?”
Zoe looks up from her guidebook, irritated. “There’ve been a lot of terrorist bombings lately, and this is
the Middle East,” I go on. “What if that last air pocket was really a bomb? What if it blew us apart, and
right now we’re drifting down over the Aegean Sea in little pieces?”
“Mediterranean,” Zoe says. “We’ve already flown over Crete.” “How do you know that?” I ask. “Look
out the window.” I point out Lissa’s window at the white flatness beyond. “You can’t see the water. We
could be anywhere. Or nowhere.”
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Death on the Nile
Neil comes back with the water. He hands it and my aspirin to Lissa.
“They check the planes for bombs, don’t they?” Lissa asks him. “Don’t they use metal detectors and
things?”
“I saw this movie once,” I say, “where the people were all dead, only they didn’t know it. They were on
a ship, and they thought they were going to America. There was so much fog they couldn’t see the
water.“
Lissa looks anxiously out the window.
“It looked just like a real ship, but little by little they began to notice little things that weren’t quite right.
There were hardly any people on board, and no crew at all.”
“Stewardess!” Lissa’s husband calls, leaning over Zoe into the aisle. “I need another ouzo.”
His shouting wakes Zoe’s husband up. He blinks at Zoe, confused that she is not reading from her
guidebook. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“We’re all dead,” I say. “We were killed by Arab terrorists. We think we’re going to Cairo, but we’re
really going to heaven. Or hell.”
Lissa, looking out the window, says, “There’s so much fog I can’t see the wing.” She looks frightenedly
at Neil. “What if something’s happened to the wing?”
“We’re just going through a cloud,” Neil says. “We’re probably beginning our descent into Cairo.”
“The sky was perfectly clear,” I say, “and then all of a sudden we were in the fog. The people on the
ship noticed the fog, too. They noticed there weren’t any running lights. And they couldn’t find the
crew.” I smile at Lissa. “Have you noticed how the turbulence stopped all of a sudden? Right after we
hit that air pocket. And why—“
A flight attendant comes out of the cockpit and down the aisle to us, carrying a drink. Everyone looks
relieved, and Zoe opens her guidebook and begins thumbing through it, looking for fascinating facts.
“Did someone here want an ouzo?” the flight attendant asks.
“Here,” Lissa’s husband says, reaching for it.
“How long before we get to Cairo?” I say.
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She starts toward the back of the plane without answering. I unbuckle my seat belt and follow her.
“When will we get to Cairo?”
I ask her.
She turns, smiling, but she is still pale and scared looking. “Did you want another drink, ma’am? Ouzo?
Coffee?”
“Why did the turbulence stop?” I say. “How long till we get to Cairo?”
“You need to take your seat,” she says, pointing to the seat-belt sign. “We’re beginning our descent.
We’ll be at our destination in another twenty minutes.” She bends over the Japanese tour group and tells
them to bring their seat backs to an upright position.
“What destination? Our descent to where? We aren’t beginning any descent. The seat-belt sign is still
off,” I say, and it bings on.
I go back to my seat. Zoe’s husband is already asleep again. Zoe is reading out loud from Egypt Made
Easy. “ The visitor should take precautions before traveling in Egypt. A map is essential, and a
flashlight is needed for many of the sites.‘ ”
Lissa has gotten her bag out from under the seat. She puts my Death on the Nile in it and gets out her
sunglasses. I look past her and out the window at the white flatness where the wing should be. We
should be able to see the lights on the wing even in the fog. That’s what they’re there for, so you can see
the plane in the fog. The people on the ship didn’t realize they were dead at first. It was only when they
started noticing little things that weren’t quite right that they began to wonder.
“ ‘A guide is recommended,’ ” Zoe reads.
I have meant to frighten Lissa, but I have only managed to frighten myself. We are beginning our
descent, that’s all, I tell myself, and flying through a cloud. And that must be right.
Because here we are in Cairo.
CHAPTER TWO:
ARRIVING AT THE AIRPORT
“So this is Cairo?” Zoe’s husband says, looking around. The plane has stopped at the end of the runway
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Death on the Nile
and deplaned us onto the asphalt by means of a metal stairway.
The terminal is off to the east, a low building with palm trees around it, and the Japanese tour group sets
off toward it immediately, shouldering their carry-on bags and camera cases.
We do not have any carry-ons. Since we always have to wait at the baggage claim for Zoe’s guidebooks
anyway, we check our carry-ons, too. Every time we do it, I am convinced they will go to Tokyo or
disappear altogether, but now I’m glad we don’t have to lug them all the way to the terminal. It looks
like it is miles away, and the Japanese are already slowing.
Zoe is reading the guidebook. The rest of us stand around her, looking impatient. Lissa has caught the
heel of her sandal in one of the metal steps coming down and is leaning against Neil.
“Did you twist it?” Neil asks anxiously.
The flight attendants clatter down the steps with their navy blue overnight cases. They still look nervous.
At the bottom of the stairs they unfold wheeled metal carriers and strap the overnight cases to them and
set off for the terminal. After a few steps they stop, and one of them takes off her jacket and drapes it
over the wheeled carrier, and they start off again, walking rapidly in their high heels.
It is not as hot as I expected, even though the distant terminal shimmers in the heated air rising from the
asphalt. There is no sign of the clouds we flew through, just a thin white haze that disperses the sun’s
light into an even glare. We are all squinting. Lissa lets go of Neil’s arm for a second to get her
sunglasses out of her bag.
“What do they drink around here?” Lissa’s husband asks, squinting over Zoe’s shoulder at the
guidebook. “I want a drink.”
“The local drink is zibib,” Zoe says. “It’s like ouzo.” She looks up from the guidebook. “I think we
should go see the Pyramids.”
The professional tour guide strikes again. “Don’t you think we’d better take care of first things first?” I
say. “Like customs? And picking up our luggage?”
“And finding a drink of… what did you call it? Zibab?” Lissa’s husband says.
“No,” Zoe says. “I think we should do the Pyramids first. It’ll take an hour to do the baggage claim and
customs, and we can’t take our luggage with us to the Pyramids. We’ll have to go to the hotel, and by
that time everyone will be out there. I think we should go right now.” She gestures at the terminal. “We
can run out and see them and be back before the Japanese tour group’s even through customs.“
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