She turned on her heel, walked up to the statue of Isis, and clapped her hands four times. There was a great creaking of wood, a groaning of gears, and a squeal of moving parts as the statue of the goddess spread her arms wide. Fountains of blue and green sparks leaped from the gilded palms of her hands and the ceiling began to leak roses.
Before Dov's astonished eyes, the lights dimmed and a citrine glow suffused the great room. He smelled patchouli incense and heard many voices chanting sonorously, but he could not for the life of him figure out where they were coming from. When he looked for Nenufer, to ask her what was going on, he found her gone.
Now the gauze curtain at the far end of the room began to wave as if a small windstorm had darted into the house. With a clash of tinny bells, the fragile cloth was whipped aside and down the steps came Ray Rah, leading a procession of his followers— those who weren't watching the Cubs play, anyway.
They walked slowly, solemnly, in perfect order. Ray Rah himself was dressed to resemble the divine Osiris, ruler of the Afterlife. The thick layer of blue paint covering his face looked itchy—his nose and firmly closed mouth both twitched like mad—but despite his obvious agony he repressed any urge to break character and scratch. Behind him came two women dressed as the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Musicians followed, playing small harps, drums, and the sistrum's jangling framework of bells. Next came those who carried burning bowls of incense, palm fronds to spread the fragrant smoke throughout the hall, and last of all a magnificently tall, regal woman wearing a gilded mask.
Dov drew in his breath sharply when he saw her painted face. It was Edwina.
Stumbling from the shock, he fell into line at the end of the procession and followed Ray Rah's congregation into a smaller room to one side of the hall of the gods' images. The walls were either stone or painted to look like stone. They were certainly painted to look as if they had been carved with low relief figures, in the style of the ancient Egyptian pharaonic tombs. Dov glanced to left and right and felt his heart begin to beat faster with dread.
The painted walls were covered with pictures of his mother.
As the rest of the procession circled the room, making reverential gestures at each of the pictures, Ray Rah dropped back from his place at the head of the line in order to speak with a trembling Dov.
"Please take your proper place, Mr. Godz," he said. "Ever since Horus first avenged his father Osiris' death, the firstborn son has been the most important participant in rites like these."
"But—but she's not dead yet!" Dov protested. "You're giving her a funeral and she's not dead!" Another, more terrible thought struck him: Could it be that while he was in transit, somewhere a computer had hiccupped and he'd missed out on a truly vital piece of news? "Is she?"
Ray Rah raised the ceremonial crook and flail aloft in a warding gesture. "May the gods forbid it! Of course not. We've been in touch with her on a daily basis ever since we heard about her illness."
"Oh." Dov lowered his eyes. They've been in touch with her every day, he thought. And what have I been doing? Nothing. Just looking out for my own interests. I'm one hell of a son. Suddenly he felt more ashamed of himself than when Sam Turkey Feather had called him on his lack of filial devotion.
"This isn't a funerary rite," Ray Rah went on. "Though I must admit that what attracted me to the ancient Egyptian practices was the emphasis on death. The trouble is, when you're at a cocktail party and someone asks you about your beliefs and you say something like, 'I belong to what's basically a death cult,' that kind of kills the conversation."
Dov couldn't disagree with that. "What is this if it's not a funeral?"
"It's our way of making peace with what must come. As much as we love Edwina, as much as we owe her, we knew that the day would come when we'd have to bid her farewell. That's how it is for all of us, isn't it? But in this country, death is an embarrassment. It's a wonder we can hear ourselves talk over the noise of several million people whistling past the graveyard. We worship youth and beauty not for their own sakes but because we tell ourselves that the young and the beautiful never die. We follow a thousand different health fads because we believe that there's some magic number of granola bars that will let you live forever, but only if you wash them down with the right kind of one hundred percent natural spring water while standing on the Sacred Treadmill. My generation's called the Baby Boomers for a reason: We act like babies when it comes to facing the inevitable. If we close our eyes, cover our ears, and hide under the blankets, Death won't be able to find us."
The inevitable ... Dov thought. My mother is going to die. He had known it for days, he had been saddened by it, but for the first time he truly felt it. Tears stung the corners of his eyes.
"The ancient Egyptians loved life just as much as we do," Ray Rah went on. "They loved all the physical joys and comforts of day-to-day living. That may be why they found a way to take it with them. But our way is not just about being buried in your red Thunderbird convertible: It's about knowing that someday you will have to be buried. We who follow the old ways know this, and trust me, knowing that today could be the last day of the rest of your life is not as scary as it seems."
"You get used to the idea," Dov said. "Is that it?"
Ray Rah nodded and smiled, cracking his blue face paint. "Exactly."
"And this ritual is to help you get used to the idea that Edwi—that Mom is going to die soon?"
Ray Rah nodded again. "To help us, but mostly to help you. We figured that it was the least we could do for you, since we've already pledged our support to your sister as the future head of E. Godz, Inc."
Dov was surprised that the news of Peez's victory didn't affect him at all. He was preoccupied by thoughts of a more important loss. "Thank you," he managed to tell Ray Rah. "It's very kind of you. I wish I could stay longer, but— I'm sorry." His usual glibness deserted him.
My mother is going to die. I'll never see her again, never hear her voice, never even be irritated by the way she treats me like I'm still a baby. My mother is going to—
He wheeled around and ran out of the Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore before any of them could see him cry. On the way out, he collided with a young man carrying two heavy shopping bags. Dov knocked him off his feet without a second thought as he ran on, sending forth a taxi-summoning spell like a flare. By the time he reached the street, a cab was waiting.
The young man he'd overrun sat in a puddle of bright red fruit while he watched Dov speed away. The front steps soon crowded with Ray Rah and the rest of the congregation. The young man looked from the departing cab to the mounds of smashed fruit to the group on the stairs and said, "I got the pomegranates. Did I miss anything?"
"Not much, Billy-hotep," said Meritaten. "C'mon in and have a beer."
Chapter Fifteen
"My dear young woman," Mr. Bones said with a winning smile. "Had I but known how beautiful you were, I would not have been so quick to promise my support to your brother." He raised Peez's hand to his lips and bestowed a delicate kiss.
"You flatter me, Mr. Bones," Peez replied. "But please, don't worry about whatever you've promised or to whom you promised it. I'm disappointed, of course, but it was your choice to make."
The two of them were standing in front of one of several New Orleans restaurants calling itself the Court of the Three Sisters. Peez had found him there by chance, in the course of a thorough search of the Vieux Carre, in much the same way that Dov had encountered the venerable voodoo priest. It was at least as effective a way of finding Mr. Bones as saying "Meet me in front of the Court of the Three Sisters" without specifying which one. There were several. Since every tourist who came to visit New Orleans was told by the folks back home that he or she simply must eat at the Court of the Three Sisters, could the local restauranteurs be blamed for trying to accommodate them?