Chapter One: Pretty Bad Beginnings
If you were to ask any person pulled off the street to find the best antique dealer in Cairo, not a single person would point you towards the back ally shop that was "The Crimson Diamond. Not only did its name somewhat resemble that of a low end gentleman's club, but one look at the shop and you could tell that it had seen better days. The dust coated windows were covered in spider web cracks and the flaking white walls hadn't seen a paint brush in too many years to count. It was only if someone peered into the building that they could see the treasures that were held inside. Shelves that reached the ceiling filled the room from wall to wall and each one was stuffed to the brim with different items. The one closest to the door seemed to be the designated "crumbling apart old pottery section while the one next to that looked like the "clearly gold and shouldn't be laying out in the open" shelf. And if you twisted your head just the right way you could catch a glimpse of the wooden desk in the very back of the room that held the eternally empty cash register and the poor soul that had been wrangled into working that day. Bianca Chevalier was usually that poor soul. And now that every other worker had been fired, she was the only poor soul available.
Sunlight shone in through the windows, making the dust that floated through the air more apparent than usual, and the sound of the busy city outside barely reached inside the walls. In the very back of the store sat a slumped over woman and the stack of papers that had kept her working so late the night before. Her rust colored hair threatened to spring out of the tight bun that it had been wound into hours before and the once perfectly ironed and wrinkle free linen dress that she wore was now a complete mess. A sigh escaped her lips as she pried open her eyes and gazed around. She slowly pushed herself up off of the desk and into a sitting position, much to the protest of her aching back. Grimacing, she realized that she had fallen asleep on the job for the second time that week.
'I really have to do something about that.' she thought as she rose her arms above her head and started to work out the kinks that had formed in her joints. 'It's not even like the bedroom is that far away. It can't be more than twenty feet.'
She would never admit it to herself, but she knew that there were plenty of reasons that she hadn't made the short journey to her bed that night. The room held too many memories for her and she probably got more sleep hunched over the counter than she would have on her old, lumpy spring mattress. Her lips dipped down slightly as the thoughts fluttered through her mind before they were quickly banished.
After a quick roll of her shoulders she leaned down to focus on the problem area that was her leg. Bianca clumsily swung it to the side and slowly lifted it up, bending it carefully at the knee. She winced as the sharp pain shot up through her body and quickly placed it back on the ground. 'It's been worse these last few days. I'll have to be more careful today.'
Bianca reached to the side of the desk and wrapped her hand around the worn wooden cane that was leaning exactly where she had propped it. She could feel the familiar carvings that wound around the handle and down the shaft. Even the indents where her fingers had worn grooves into the cherry wood were apparent to her. With years of experience at hand, she used her new leverage to stand up from her seat and took a few shaky steps forward. Her body quickly adjusted to the new weight and she was able to steady herself completely.
Humming a few bars from the song that had wedged itself firmly into her mind for the last few days, she gathered up the top layers of papers from her stack and looked them over. 'Lovely.' she thought as she tucked the papers under one arm and started making her way toward the middle of the shop. 'Only about three more shelves to go and then every single worthless piece of junk in this bloody shop will have finally been categorized and catalogued. Only took us what? Five years?'
She knew that she was being unfairly bitter about the whole thing, but at the moment she really didn't care. 'Well, it's not like we ever had any customers to worry about any way.' The shelves around her slowly began turning from the rusted old metal section to rocks that may or may not be worth anything part of the store. A quick glance down at her papers told her that this was where she had stopped the day before. She quickly removed her pen from its place tucked into her bun and placed the stack in a vacant space on the shelf ahead of her. 'Time to get to work'.
The hours seemed to fly past as she made her way through the piles and piles of treasure mixed with trash. She found fake jade dragons, old papyrus scrolls tucked behind South American jugs, and a variety of items that she couldn't even dream of putting a name to if her life depended on it. All of it was quickly inspected then a rough date was given and a highly inflated price was assigned for each antique. By noon she was finally at the final shelf.
"Just cast an eye in his direction, oh me oh my, aint that perfection?" She half mumbled and half sung the song lyrics softly under her breath as she hobbled a few steps forward and turned to face her next obstacle. She caught herself quickly and snapped her mouth shut. After glancing around the very empty shop for anyone that could have heard her little solo, she shook her head at her slip.
This last shelf was nearly empty, not that she was complaining, with only one real object of interest. A few small ore samples and broken open crystals were scattered on the top most shelves and a bag of bronze coins was resting on the bottom, but the thing that really drew her attention was the tablet resting at eye height. Even after five years of working at the shop, and three years of thinking that she had seen everything under the sun, she had to admit that there wasn't anything else like it. As black as the night and with every inch covered in cryptic hieroglyphics, the tablet was so thin it seemed like it would crumble apart with just one touch. Bianca rested her cane against the shelf and carefully picked the stone up. She tilted it slightly so that it caught the light and seemed to shine. 'I remember when Louis came back with you.' she mused. 'He left for some little dig out in the middle of the desert and left me in charge of the shop for a week. We both expected him to come back with gems and gold and instead he brought back a rock!'
Bianca ran her fingers lightly over the engravings that covered the tablet, feeling the intricacy of each symbols. Just as she was about to put it back in its place, she caught sight of something moving out of the corner of her eye. She spun around, but was faced with nothing. 'That's odd.' she thought. 'I could have sworn...' A shiver shot up her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck seemed to jump strait up as if a sudden breeze had blown through the shop. The sensation was gone just as fast as it had arrived.
She quickly set it back down and took up her pen and paper. In the next blank line she quickly scribbled down "black tablet, more than 2000 years?" She paused for a moment before continuing "Included in samples for museum."
Without really thinking she jotted down something similar for the last two items. Bianca grabbed her cane and turned to look around the shop. She was finally done. With a smile on her face she walked over to the desk with a slight spring in her step and picked up the telephone. After a few whisks of her finger she was connected.
"Yes, this is Bianca Chevalier from the Crimson Diamond. I would like to set up an appointment with the curator. I think I have a few items that they would be interested in"
Bianca gazed up at the marble building that stood ahead of her with a grim look of determination. With her cane gripped in one hand and her full carpet bag in the other, she was ready for her next objective: facing other human beings and convincing them to buy useless things from her. It could have been a lot worse for her; what little luck she possessed ensured that Louis had made some useful connections while he had still been around and the one that she was taking advantage of at the moment was the newly appointed curator of the museum. From what she had managed to pry out of the man she knew that the two had met when Louis was still respected in academia and that this mystery friend of his owed him quite a favor.
'Well, it's not like he'll be calling in on any favors for himself any time soon.' she thought as the bitterness slithered its way back into her mind.
Not wanting to waste anymore time, she quickly ascended the front stairs and was through the large doors that led to the atrium. Her eyes adjusted from the bright mid after noon sun to the hardly lit museum and she glanced around for anyone that could point her in the right direction. There were a pair of men that seemed to be in the middle of lifting a heavy box into the next room that Bianca knew not to be disturbed. Besides those two, the only other human being in the room was a young woman, about Bianca's age, who was peering at a large statue in the center of the room. Taking a chance, she staggered over to the woman.
Now that she was closer, Bianca could see that the woman was pretty. In fact, a better word to describe her might be beautiful, stunning, breath taking, or makes every other woman in the room look like an utter ogre. Any one of those would do. A swell of jealousy ran through Bianca as she took in the woman's flawless skin, her flowing chestnut brown hair and, most of all, her unmarred figure. With a stern chastising to herself, the feelings were quickly squashed.
"Excuse me?" The woman spun around to face her. "I have a meeting with the curator. Do you know where his office is?"
The woman smiled warmly at Bianca and the jealousy gave a little bubble in the pit of her stomach. "That would be me. I'm Evelyn O=Connell. It's very nice to meet you." Evelyn held out her hand, but seemed to realize that Bianca's hands were full and quickly retracted it. "Would you like me to take that from you?" She said as she gestured to the carpet bag.
Bianca resisted the urge to refuse and decided to take the slight wound to her pride. "That would be lovely. It's a bit heavy." Eveline took the bag from her hands and made a face as she realized that Bianca had been right about the weight.
"My office is right this way." Evelyn began walking briskly down the corridor before adjusting her pace to accommodate the limping woman following her. She glanced over towards Bianca, seeming to evaluate her, before snapping her eyes back to the front. Bianca knew that she had been on the verge of offering more assistance or asking if she needed to rest. She had been asked those questions more times than she cared to count and could sense the signs of pity. She held her chin up just a fraction higher in silent protest.
When the two women finally reached their destination of the main office, Evelyn took her place behind the desk and motioned for Bianca to take the chair on the other side. She leaned her cane against the side of the chair and lowered herself into the plush armchair. Bianca cleared her throat, took a breath to calm her nerves, and began the speech that she had gone over in her head since that morning.
"My name is Bianca Chevelier and I work at the Crimson Diamond antique and oddities store here in the city. I am in the process of selling the shop and because of this I need to sell the majority of my wares. I understand that you and the store's former owner, Louis, were aquainted?" She waited for Evelyn's nod of conformation before continuing "I also understand that you were in his debt. I'm here today to call on that favor and ask that you would look at some of the samples that I've brought in today. If you think that they're worth buying, I'm offering them to you at a reduced price."
Bianca leaned back slightly in her chair and looked for Evelyn's reaction. To her surprise, she was met with a warm smile from the other woman. "You're quite the business woman, Ms Chevalier. I'm sure that Louis was very proud to call you his protege Bianca winced very slightly at the sound of his name coming from another's mouth. She was still getting used to saying it again herself.
"I'd like to think so."
Evelyn pulled the carpet bag onto her desk and went to open it. "I'm sure that there's something that we can work out here. I was always hearing from Louis about all the fantastic objects that he had managed to unearth; I can only imagine the treasures that you've seen while working with him." Bianca smiled at the woman as she watched her unload the artifacts from the bag and gingerly place them on the desk.
"That one he found in Italy, near Pompeii. That's gold inlay on the handle of the comb and ivory teeth. And that one's from Kenya, I believe. He was told that it was some kind of sacred figure and housed the soul of a goddess or something ridiculous like that. I can't understand how anyone believes in that sort of thing these days, can you?"
Evelyn simple looked at Bianca with a sly smile on her lips, one that seemed to say "you have no idea".
She went through each piece as they were pulled from the bag until there was only one left "This last one is the one that I really think that you'll be interested in."
Evi gasped as she laid eyes on the smooth, midnight black polished stone and ran her fingers over the engravings. It was even more magnificent when it wasn't under dingy florescent lighting. "It certainly is impressive. I would love to have a chance to translate these hieroglyphics completely. Do you know where he found it?"
Bianca knew then that she had a sale. "In a dig near Akhmim three years ago. Now that you've seen all that I have to offer, I was wondering if you'd like to discus the pricing?"
Just as the two women seemed to be getting down to business, they heard a large racket coming from the hallway.
"Evi? Evi? How on earth do you find anything in this bloody labyrinth?"
"Oh no." sighed Evelyn as she rubbed spun around to face the door way that the sound was emanating from. "Jonathan."
The word "Who?" was on the tip of Bianca's tongue as the man stumbled into the room and all but collapsed on to the desk, sending most of the artifacts rolling away. She quickly scrambled to stop any of them from falling from the table.
"There you are! Now Evi, that brute of a husband of yours has taken my wallet from me again! How am I supposed to go out and have myself a good time in this heap of sand and sun if I don't have a pound on me?" The man was turned away from Bianca and she wasn't really sure that he had noticed her at all.
"That's the point, Jonathan. We warned you not to get into any more trouble, but we still woke up with the police on our doorstep. Just like I warned you not to come into my office while I'm meeting with clients." Evelyn said in a firm voice as she looked pointedly behind her brother to the other woman sitting at the desk.
As the man turned to face her for the first time, Bianca took a moment to take in his tanned face, combed over hair and sparkling blue eyes. All in all, he looked like one of the boys that she had gone to school with. The kind of boy that pulled her hair and tugged on her skirts in the hallways. Her eyes involuntarily narrowed at the connection.
Seeming to not notice the tension in the room, Jonathan simply smiled and leaned closer to her. "Hello. You don't look like one of the old stuffy busy bodies that Evi usually has in here. What do you say that I save you from whatever torture that she's putting you through and we go get some drinks?"
His sister sighed. "No, Jonathan. She's here on a business meeting. Not a social visit that you can just waltz in and commandeer. Now if you'll excuse us." Evi waved towards the door and hoped that he would get her message. If he did, he ignored it completely.
He snatched one of the items that Bianca had brought: a small, south American, bronze cube and began tossing it from hand to hand. Bianca thought she was going to have a heart attack. "Now, now, sister. Didn't you ever learn that we must share our toys? And you didn't even ask your friend here what she wanted. Isn't that right, dear?"
Bianca stared up at him with the iciest glare that she could muster and said, "I'm here for business, sir. Now would you please put that down before you drop and break it?"
The man then did the last thing that she ever expected anyone to do after receiving one of her looks: he laughed. Bianca could feel the heat quickly flooding to her cheeks at the sound and the sight of him carelessly tossing the cube back onto the desk.
"You certainly do know how to find stuffy historians, don't you Evi?" The urge to stand up and punch the man square in his smug face seemed to quadruple. "Well, now that I'm here, I might as well add my own professional opinion to the mix."
Evelyn glanced at her guest with a worried eye and said "Jonathan, please. I'm trying to get work done."
"And I'm trying to help you! Let's see what we have here." He glanced across the desktop and seemed to not find anything that he was looking for. Then, his eyes landed on the exact object that Bianca had been praying would escape his notice. His hand quickly snaked around and grabbed the cane from its resting place leaning on the desk. He held it out in front of him, waving it like a baton, and began. "Seems like cherry wood, only about 50 years old, nice designs on the handle and bottom. They almost look like something that would be found in Celtic or Gaelic artwork. But it's definitely not museum worthy and definitely not worth being sold to you. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that your new friend was trying to dupe you, sister." He glanced over at Evi with a Cheshire grin. "And you say that I never payed attention to all those lectures. I know my treasure."
Bianca could barely feel her nails pressing against her palm so hard that there would be marks and she couldn't hear the sound of her teeth grinding together as she fought to keep the words from leaving her mouth. What she could feel was the fresh wave of anger that washed over her. Anger that this imbecile would dare suggest that she would try to pass of anything for less than it was, anger for the attention that he had drawn to her condition, and most of all anger at him for even laying a finger on that cane.
Her hands shot out and pulled the cane from his hands so fact that at first she didn't realize that it had happened. Like lighting, she was out of her seat and standing toe to toe with the rude man in front of her. Bianca took a deep breath as her mind reeled and tried to produce the words that would get her rage across. She drew a blank and was forced to settle with a glare. "I'm very sorry, but I really must go. You're free to keep the samples here to examine. You can find me at the store whenever you're ready with your decision.
With that, she turned and started for the door. After the second step, her leg seemed to buckle underneath her and she had to take a second to right herself again. She clenched her eyes closed as she realized her fault and the blood rushed to her head. "It was lovely meeting you Miss O'Connell. Goodbye." She scurried out of the room as quickly as she was able.
Thank you anyone that read through this! Since this is my first published piece on this site I would love any comments or critiques that you have. Even little things like "oh that one word in paragraph two, line four really didn't sit well with me" would be lovely. I would especially like to know about the pacing. Was it too fast, too slow, smack dab in the middle? Please tell!