Now it can be told
         Now that we have met
         The world may know

         Hau sat in the shade of a date palm and reapplied his makeup. The sun was low, so the workers faced east as they dug. Soon it would be dusk, and they would retire to the camp, to begin again in the morning. But then, a shout! Hau stood and walked out onto the site.
         Amon-is-pleased approached. A chamber of some sort, he said. We have uncovered a wall but I do not recognize the writing on it. Together they descended the slope into the pit. On all sides men were hauling away dirt and sand. Under a tent lay all the old things they had discovered so far: pottery shards, strange plates of pounded brass, a worn stone that seemed to have two faces carved upon it. On the far side of the pit the workers with their camel-hair brushes swept sand from a slanted granite wall.
         Hau was a scholar, that was the reason he was here in this place, but the carvings on the wall meant nothing to him. If they represented sounds, he had no education that would reveal their meaning. If they were images, then they were of very unusual things. The men had uncovered the edges of the slab, but the light was going, and it was necessary to stop for now.
         That night he dreamt of his first love, young Peaceful-is-her-face, who had died of a wetness in the lungs when she was only twelve years old. He had not thought of her in many years, and for much of the morning her memory distracted him from his work. But soon the men had partly moved the slab, and threaded the ropes behind it, and bound it tight, and Hau gave the order to pull.
         Inside the chamber, illuminated by their torches, lay two bodies on an elevated platform, a man and a woman, entwined, dessicated but not decayed, among simple cloths that were perhaps once brightly colored. Hau reverently unfolded them. No grave-goods were to be seen, but on the walls Hau saw more of the strange inscriptions and now he knew that it was a song.
         Amon-is-pleased was astonished. Who are they? By their features they are not of Black Earth, he said. Yes, Hau agreed, it seems we are not the first people to dwell in this land. A mighty power laid these stones and entombed these lovers, but I do not know who they might have been.
         Gods? asked Amon-is-pleased.
         Possibly so, said Hau.
         He took careful drawings of the inscriptions and then ordered the slab replaced and the pit filled in. It was obvious to even the most untrustworthy worker that there was nothing of value to be robbed from here. Hau and his men then dug in other places and found many other curious things.
         Some time later, I sat in the dank, cigarette-rich club and watched the big lady take the stage, resplendent with her black lace-trimmed gown and her gleaming marcelled hair. The band swung and she sang:

         As an inspiration
         Every other tale
         Of boy meets girl is just an imitation

         The great love story
         Has never been told before
         But now
         Now it can be told

         I applauded, so moved, so deeply moved, remembering those old days, and us.
𓄣𓄣