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true lover of antiquities would speak to a stone monolith.”
    â€œIn this town, it’s not unusual to see people talking to brick walls—it just depends on what they’ve snorted.” I offered my hand. “How do you do, Dr. Kaseem?”
    He gave me a dead fish handshake.
    My dad had always taught me to give firm handshakes when I was introduced to people. “It reveals character,” he said. But he never told me what a limp one revealed and I suspected firmness was sometimes a cultural thing.
    Not all cultures were into shaking hands and some foreigners, especially older Middle Easterners, are caught by surprise even today when a woman offers her hand. I figure that’s their problem, not mine, and I give a firm handshake even to a limp one.
    â€œHave you solved the Isis necklace mystery?” he asked.
    â€œI think so. The tip-off wasn’t the necklace or the beautiful gowns the women were wearing, but the wall with glyphs behind it. The party took place in a room at the Egyptian Museum that I’ve been to a number of times where they hold special events. I don’t know why the woman was wearing the Isis necklace, but I assume it is still at the museum where it belongs.”
    â€œVery good, I’m impressed. And yes, it is the Isis necklace. The woman wearing it was making a substantial donation to the museum and was permitted to wear the necklace at the party.”
    â€œI hope you’re not going to tell me that she has since had an Egyptian cobra appear around her neck that bit her as part of King Tut’s retribution?”
    He smiled. “I get the impression that you believe any retribution from the ghosts of the Nile are solely creatures of Hollywood.”
    I gave that a little thought as we meandered around a bit, looking over the obelisk.
    He reminded me of Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who starred in Doctor Zhivago years ago. Kaseem looked to be in his late fifties.
    â€œThe mummy’s revenge is obviously the stuff of movies,” I said, “but I have to admit that spooky things did happen after King Tut’s tomb was opened, especially Lord Carnarvon dying so soon and mysteriously. What do you think? Did the boy king lash out murderously with a curse?”
    â€œI believe there is a curse. Not upon the thieves who stole our history, taking pieces like this magnificent monolith of Thutmose, but upon my own people. Our heads should be held down in shame for permitting foreigners to rape our land of historical treasures for more than two thousand years.”
    â€œForeigners didn’t always just take them,” I said. “Most often they were sold to them by your people.”
    â€œYes, exactly, and it is shameful that my people did such a thing. The result is that there are thousands of our artifacts scattered around the world. Every time I come to New York, I come to this park and visit Thutmose’s obelisk. Then I go to other exhibits where many of our artifacts are kept.”
    He nodded at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a stone’s throw away on Fifth Avenue, which had a stunning gallery of Egyptian antiquities.
    â€œI do the same,” he went on, “when I go to London, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul—our history is shattered and scattered and it is our own fault. That is the true curse of the pharaohs—we are a damned people because we permitted foreigners to take our historical treasures.”
    â€œI hope you weren’t planning on hiring me to get the City of New York to ship this 250 tons of granite back to where it belongs on the Nile?”
    â€œYou think the city would object to me packing it up and taking it home?”
    â€œYou probably would not make it through airport security.” I gave him a studied look. “You brought me here to test my reaction to the fact that so many historical treasures have been taken from your country?”
    â€œActually, I already know that you have