The anthropologist and the mummy

The hieroglyphs on the walls of my tomb speak of how my spirit will accomplish eternal life, and all the tasks I need to perform before I can live forever. The writing praises the gods, describes my mighty battles, shows me with my wife and son, and outlines the curse against all who dare disturb my tomb. The curse is powerful and protects me against grave-robbers.

I thought the hieroglyphs took care of everything. They give my soul nourishment and instruction, they glorify my name and the name of the gods, and they protect my body and my possessions. I thought that was enough, but it wasn’t. Nothing could have prepared me for you.

When you entered my tomb, you were carrying a dazzling light. My spirit watched you and wondered how the light made no smoke. This was a strange, cold fire that formed your torch. You wore a headdress with a wide brim to protect your fair skin. You had beautiful, kohl-rimmed eyes and painted lips. Your skin was exposed to a point of scandal, but your comrades did not look askance at you. Your knees were showing, and your skin glistened with sweat in the heat. You exclaimed in your high voice over the beauty of my possessions, and it was then that I fell in love with you.

I felt the curse begin to take hold of your neck, and I hastily loosened its grasp. You went straight to my sarcophagus, ignoring that of my wife and son, and you laid your soft fingers gently on the gilded wood. A tingle shot through me at your touch. I loved you completely, already. I would let you do anything—take my possessions, remove my body to your world, anything—for your love.

The hieroglyphs on my walls do not protect my soul from love.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

It was brutally cold. I was wearing two pairs of pants, two sweaters, a coat, gloves, and two hats, and I was still shaking violently. The snow muffled everything. The mass graves were hidden from sight under a serene blanket of snow, which lay over everything like a crisp linen sheet, freshly ironed and bleached. There was no sun, but the day was bright from all the whiteness.

I was so cold, it was hard to listen to the tour guide. He said, “Ja?” a lot and told stories about the people who were imprisoned and died here. Horrific stories, like the man who was beaten bloody and then forced to strip and clean up his own blood with the rags of his clothing. I tried to imagine being imprisoned here and wearing nothing but a thin pajama-like outfit. I couldn’t. I shook in the cold and tried to tough it out, as if by standing for a couple hours in the cold I could somehow stand with the thousands of people who suffered here, an act of solidarity. If I couldn’t do it, in all the warm clothing I had, how could they stand in two-month-long death lines?

We reached Station Zed. It was only foundations now, but the building was easy enough to imagine. We saw the room where people were sent to be shot. We saw the gas chamber. We saw the incinerators. And then I closed my eyes and saw her.

Her face was gaunt, her hair thin and wispy. Dirty gray rags hung from her skeletal frame. She reached out to me, a gesture of supplication. Tears welled in her gray eyes. She gestured at me to come and join her. Gestured desperately. I opened my eyes and gasped, struggling for breath as if I had almost drowned.

I wanted to get away from this evil place, as fast as my feet would carry me.

Heidelberg Castle

The fog was dense; we couldn’t see more than a few hundred meters in any direction. It had a silencing effect on the normal noise of the city; car horns and voices seemed muffled and far away in the fog.

We lazily sauntered alongside the river, watching a dog chase geese or pointing at the regal buildings that overlooked the shore. Great chunks of ice floated in the rushing waters, washed away to unknown distances, soon out of sight. Each step revealed more of the city across the river. A steeple materialized, then a statue, then a towering city gate.

We were walking across the Old Bridge when we realized something dark hovered in the fog above the city. We could barely make out its edges, jagged but clearly manmade with straight lines and arches. We realized we were looking at the castle. It floated serenely in the fog, tempting us to walk back in time through the mist.