American Gods

“Well,” said Mr. Ibis, smiling just a little smugly, “we go back a very long way. Of course, it wasn’t until after the War Between the States that we found our niche here. That was when we became the funeral parlor for the colored folks hereabouts. Before that no one thought of us as colored—foreign maybe, exotic and dark, but not colored. Once the war was done, pretty soon, no one could remember a time when we weren’t perceived as black. My business partner, he’s always had darker skin than mine. It was an easy transition. Mostly you are what they think you are. It’s just strange when they talk about African-Americans. Makes me think of the people from Punt, Ophir, Nubia. We never thought of ourselves as Africans—we were the people of the Nile.”

“So you were Egyptians,” said Shadow.

Mr. Ibis pushed his lower lip upward, then let his head bob from side to side, as if it were on a spring, weighing the pluses and minuses, seeing things from both points of view. “Well, yes and no. ‘Egyptians’ makes me think of the folk who live there now. The ones who built their cities over our graveyards and palaces. Do they look like me?”

Shadow shrugged. He’d seen black guys who looked like Mr. Ibis. He’d seen white guys with tans who looked like Mr. Ibis.

“How’s your coffee cake?” asked the waitress, refilling their coffees.

“Best I ever had,” said Mr. Ibis. “You give my best to your ma.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, and bustled away.

“You don’t want to ask after the health of anyone, if you’re a funeral director. They think maybe you’re scouting for business,” said Mr. Ibis, in an undertone. “Shall we see if your room is ready?”

Their breath steamed in the night air. Christmas lights twinkled in the windows of the stores they passed. “It’s good of you, putting me up,” said Shadow. “I appreciate it.”

“We owe your employer a number of favors. And Lord knows, we have the room. It’s a big old house. There used to be more of us, you know. Now it’s just the three of us. You won’t be in the way.”

“Any idea how long I’m meant to stay with you?”

Mr. Ibis shook his head. “He didn’t say. But we are happy to have you here, and we can find you work. If you are not squeamish. If you treat the dead with respect.”

“So,” asked Shadow, “what are you people doing here in Cairo? Was it just the name or something?”

“No. Not at all. Actually this region takes its names from us, although people barely know it. It was a trading post back in the old days.”

“Frontier times?”

“You might call it that,” said Mr. Ibis. “Evening Miz Simmons! And a Merry Christmas to you too! The folk who brought me here came up the Mississippi a long time back.”

Shadow stopped in the street, and stared. “Are you trying to tell me that ancient Egyptians came here to trade five thousand years ago?”

Mr. Ibis said nothing, but he smirked loudly. Then he said, “Three thousand five hundred and thirty years ago. Give or take.”

“Okay,” said Shadow. “I’ll buy it, I guess. What were they trading?”

“Not much,” said Mr. Ibis. “Animal skins. Some food. Copper from the mines in what would now be Michigan’s upper peninsula. The whole thing was rather a disappointment. Not worth the effort. They stayed here long enough to believe in us, to sacrifice to us, and for a handful of the traders to die of fever and be buried here, leaving us behind them.” He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around slowly, arms extended. “This country has been Grand Central for ten thousand years or more. You say to me, what about Columbus?”

“Sure,” said Shadow, obligingly. “What about him?”

“Columbus did what people had been doing for thousands of years. There’s nothing special about coming to America. I’ve been writing stories about it, from time to time.” They began to walk again.

“True stories?”

“Up to a point, yes. I’ll let you read one or two, if you like. It’s all there for anyone who has eyes to see it. Personally—and this is speaking as a subscriber to Scientific American, here—I feel very sorry for the professionals whenever they find another confusing skull, something that belonged to the wrong sort of people, or whenever they find statues or artifacts that confuse them—for they’ll talk about the odd, but they won’t talk about the impossible, which is where I feel sorry for them, for as soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely, whether it’s true or not. I mean, here’s a skull that shows the Ainu, the Japanese aboriginal race, were in America nine thousand years ago. Here’s another that shows there were Polynesians in California nearly two thousand years later. And all the scientists mutter and puzzle over who’s descended from whom, missing the point entirely. Heaven knows what’ll happen if they ever actually find the Hopi emergence tunnels. That’ll shake a few things up, you just wait.