Chapter 3

Jamal Wahdan's joy did not last long when his two friends informed him of this great deal they had made with Engineer Salah, He was very happy when they gave him his money, one hundred pounds. He dreamed much to own that amount of money, but couldn't keep that happiness for a long time as his only child, Naji, four years old, was struck with a severe fever just two days after. His temperature rose very high and he suffered from severe diarrhea, which made him susceptible to dehydration and wasting, which caused him to lose weight significantly within a few days.The doctor they had brought from Luxor quickly was unable to treat him despite the many medications he tried to use to help him, as his condition remained the same. After ten days, his child Naji, who was the joy of his mother's eyes and the life and happiness of his father, Jamal, died, and he was extremely sad about him until he almost lost his mind, unable to believe what had happened within a very short period that began with his severe illness after he went down to the princess's ancient room. His two friends tried to ease the burden of this disaster on him, knowing how much he loved his deceased child, but they urged him to try to forget what had happened so that his illness would not increase from the impact of his deep grief on his child. However, their invitation could not get him out of what was raging inside him. He could hardly stop thinking about forgetting what had happened to him and his son. His son had died while he was still bedridden since he had forced himself to bury his son, but he could not resist any longer. His dead son would come to him every day in his dreams, extending his hand to him as if asking to be near him. He kept waking up terrified, grieving and crying until God’s command came and he joined his son a little weeks later to be near his Lord. His two friends, his lifelong companions and lifelong friends, cried over him, while the surprise and shock were great and painful. How much Jamal had wished to get one hundred pounds to own everything he had wished for, a spacious house full of furniture and a large plot of land for him and his children. When the money came to him, he lost his son and died as well without enjoying what he had obtained after a long wait. It was like a puzzle, the puzzle of life in general that no one understands no matter how wise and knowledgeable he is; it is like this and it continues in this state. When you feel that you have understood it, mastered it, and mastered its details and wholes, you lose it as if it were seawater, no matter how much you collect it, it slips away from your hands, it was and always will be the fact of life that no one owns it, it seems that the life itself owns all of us.

The two men continued in this state of shock and sadness for about a month. After they woke up, they found that each of them still had a full hundred pounds, and they had to start a new life that might be happy, even if it was missing their dearest friend, Jamal Wahdan, who had left and would never return in any case.

Another month passed and both Amer and Zakaria realized they had both the money and the dreams, each of them began building a large, spacious house, as they had dreamed of with Jamal a few months before. Within days, each of them owned a house next to the other, and they felt that life had begun to smile at them after years of misery. Their families moved to live in their new homes in extreme happiness.

At the third month after Jamal's death, Amer visited Zakaria at his house, drinked tea with him and lited his cigarette then said quietly:

- Shouldn't we complete our great work, my friend?!

- What work?!

- Excavation and digging in search of statues and princesses' rooms.

- Why? What do we need now?

- We lack nothing, thank God, but we have been out of work since Jamal's death; perhaps we do not lack anything now, but we may need more money and property for our children.

- But...

- But what?!

- This grave, I mean the room we went down to...

- What about it?

- It was not a good omen for our friend Jamal.

- But it was a good omen for us, my friend, and what happened to Jamal and his son was their fate, no doubt.

- Yes, but...

- I bought new equipment for us to start digging again tomorrow in a house that I feel will be a bigger grave than this room you are talking about.

Zakaria couldn't dissuade Amer from digging up the ancient tombs again. He couldn't make his friend understand that his heart was clenched, even if he didn't know the reason for that. But he hadn't felt well since the death of Jamal and his son Nagi, or rather since that night when he and Amer handed over that coffin to Engineer Salah, who gave them the money and received the coffin with the princess's mummy. He felt then that the princess was looking at him with a frightening look when they opened the coffin to examine it one last time before handing it over to its owner.

- What's wrong? To where did your thoughts take you, my friend?

- Nothing, I am good.

- Okay, let's start tomorrow on our new search for a bigger and more valuable treasure.

It's not easy to go against your lifestyle and habits that you've been used to for forty years; Being away from the familiar and the usual is a very difficult and complicated matter, almost impossible. Zakaria and Amer were good friends for this long period. They lived together, ate together, and worked together for almost thirty years. They were inseparable. People, trees, and stones know that they are companions on the same path. It is not easy for one of them to stay away from the other, even if he wanted to. One of them might not know how to live or work without the other. This is what Zakaria was well aware of when Amer offered him to return to work again in searching for ancient Egyptian antiquities around the temple of Khnum in Esna, the archaeological area at Luxor city.

It was impossible to refuse this request, which was like an invitation that could not be refused, even if you did not want to attend or were afraid of it.