House of Dreams (13 page)

“But this is your room,” she told me. “You will sleep here.”

“Do I share it with you?” I looked about for the pallet on which I supposed I would lie. She laughed.

“No, Thu. It is all your own. I sleep close by. Would you like water or beer or wine? There is also pomegranate or grape juice.”

“My own?” I whispered. I had never imagined such space, such opulence. I had presumed that I would be housed with the other servants outside the main grounds. I thought of the room I had shared with Pa-ari. It had seemed large enough, but it would fit in here four or five times over. “I would like beer,” I said with an effort, and she opened the door and called. Not much later a small boy appeared carrying a tray. Disenk took it from him and set it by the couch.

“There are raisins and almonds if you are hungry,” she said, pouring beer and handing me the cup. “Then we must go to the bath house. Harshira forgets nothing either!” I took the cup and drained it. There was no cloudiness and little sediment in the dark liquid. Immediately Disenk offered me the dish of nuts and dried fruit.

“Are you to be my companion, my guardian, what?” I questioned her as I crammed a handful of the appetizing mix into my mouth. “I would like to know where I stand, Disenk.” Once again an expression of pain furrowed her brow as she watched me.

“Your pardon, Thu,” she said, distressed, and I thought for a moment that I had somehow offended her. “A lady does not talk with her mouth full. Nor does she take so much food that her cheeks bulge. It is ugly and unseemly.” I stared at her, feeling the surge of truculence that always rose in me when anyone gave me advice or a reprimand.

“I am not a lady,” I retorted. “Everyone has been reminding me of that fact since I left Aswat. I am a peasant girl. Why should I try to be anything else?” Yet I swallowed hurriedly and resisted the urge to scoop up more raisins and almonds.

“You are very beautiful,” Disenk said gently. “Forgive me for upsetting you, but my orders are to refine and civilize that beauty. I hope you will not find my lessons too humiliating. I intend only good.”

Her mention of beauty mollified me. No one but the Master had ever called me beautiful before, and that was only off-handedly, in passing. Vanity in girls was not encouraged in my village. It was thought to breed idleness and selfishness in a world where hard work and obedience were admired. Even Pa-ari had done little more than tease me for my blue eyes. “I believed that I was here to assist the Master in his labours,” I probed cautiously. “Why must I learn such frivolous things?” Her gaze dropped. Black eyelashes quivered against the fine-grained patina of her skin.

“I am only your body servant,” she murmured. “Harshira has not seen fit to acquaint me with the Master’s purposes for you. Now if you are refreshed we will go to the bath house.”

“My body servant?” I gaped at her incredulously, while wanting also to laugh. “I am to have a body servant?” For answer she smiled again, politely, and going to the door she held it open.

“It is time to bathe,” she said firmly.

There were more stairs at the opposite end of the passsage to the one I had ascended, almost outside my door. These were narrow, and led down to a small interior courtyard surrounded by the walls of the house where a date palm spread its stiff shade in complete privacy. One other door led out from it, and to my left as I stepped onto the stone paving of the courtyard was a dim entrance. I followed Disenk into it. The room had a sloping stone floor with a raised slab in the centre. It was damp and cool. Huge urns brimming with water from which a sweet but subtle scent emanated lined the walls, and shadowy recesses held unrecognizable pots and jars. Disenk gestured. “Please remove your sheath,” she requested in a tone that I soon came to know as a good-natured command, then she vanished. Uneasily I did as I was told, dropping my worn clothing and feeling immediately vulnerable. A wave of homesickness engulfed me and then was gone. I wanted to step out into the late afternoon glow of sunlight streaming past the doorway of the bath house but was afraid of being seen naked by invisible eyes.

I was hesitating when Disenk reappeared, followed by two female slaves carrying dippers and linen towels and a young man in a loincloth. I shrank back dismayed as he approached me, my hands going instinctively to cover my genitals. His appraisal, however, was completely impersonal. He ran a hand down my calf. “Very dry,” he muttered. Lifting my foot, he kneaded it briefly, and here I heard disdain in his words. “These feet are very calloused and rough,” he complained. “I cannot be expected to work miracles, Disenk.”

“Castor oil mixed with sea salt to begin with,” Disenk ordered. “The feet must be abraded. As for her skin, olive oil and honey should suffice.”

“But so much body hair,” he grumbled, the massive muscles of his shoulders and arms flexing as he lifted my tresses and expertly felt my spine. “Good lines though.” I spoke up.

“I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself,” I retorted, though inside I was cringing with shame. “It is bad enough that I am being forced to bathe as though I am dirty when I swim in the river every single day, but I will not stand here and be discussed like a cow being judged in the market-place!” He smiled in surprise, and for the first time he looked me full in the face.

“Your pardon,” he said formally. “I am only doing my job.”

“Like Disenk,” I said, allowing anger to mask my humiliation, and he bowed.

“Like Disenk,” he agreed. Going to one of the recesses he selected several pots before leaving the room. Disenk signalled. Still mutinous, I got up on the slab and the slaves sprang to life. Water from the dippers cascaded over me, then hands rubbed me vigorously with grains of a substance I identified as natron. More water sluiced off the salts. My hair was washed and coated in olive oil, then wrapped in a towel. I was dried gently, then led outside. The slaves bowed and vanished as silently as they had come.

Meekly, my skin tingling, I lay on the portable table that had been set up under the palm. Disenk knelt beside me, tweezers in hand. “This will hurt,” she told me, “but from now on I will remove the pubic hair twice weekly and the pain will be less. I will shave your legs and under your arms in a moment.” I nodded, then looked up at the trembling fronds of the tree outlined against a slowly blushing sky while she set to work. The pain was indeed intense and I supressed the urge to pull away from it. “Your pardon, Thu,” she went on, her head bent over my abdomen, the tweezers making pricks of fire, “but you must not swim in the river any more. For one thing, water alone cannot cleanse and soften the skin and for another, a lady does not expose herself to direct sunlight for fear that her colour may deepen and she may begin to look like a peasant. Your colour is too dark. You must stay indoors or walk under the protection of a canopy so that it may become pale and attractive. I will treat your skin with meal of alabaster to hasten the lightening process.”

I wanted to kick out and stop the steady throbbing of my tender region. I wanted to grab up my comfortable, shabby sheath and thumb my nose at Disenk and her snobbishness, running out through the house, into the gardens, away from all this nonsense, but the die had been cast and my metamorphosis had begun. Each ruthless manipulation of Disenk’s tweezers took me further from my origins, and in the end I accepted my hurt, gritted my teeth, and remained silent.

When she had plucked my genitals she attacked my eyebrows, her tiny, perfect face pressed close to mine, her pink tongue protruding delicately as she concentrated, then she shaved me with a sharp copper razor while another slave held a bowl of steaming hot water at her elbow. At last she rose and I made as if to scramble up but she shook her head, jerking her fingers imperiously at someone out of my sight. The young man was back, looming over me suddenly as he set his pots on the ground. “Better,” he observed drily, and I sighed. “Turn over, Thu.” I did so. Cool oil slid onto my back, and as his hands descended onto my shoulders I felt every muscle in my body loosen. Perhaps being a lady would not be so bad after all. I closed my eyes.

Much later, tired and hungry again, I submitted to a further washing of my hair, sat while Disenk slipped a pair of papyrus sandals onto my newly softened feet, stood while she wrapped me in voluminous linen, and followed her back to the quiet safety of my room. The sun had long since left my window and the sky beyond it was red swiftly dissolving into darkness. The bedside table had been moved to the window and was crowded with dishes whose odours sent a gush of saliva into my mouth. Disenk removed their covers. There was broiled fish and hot fresh bread, grape juice and sticky figs, leeks in white sauce. I did not wait to be invited to eat but sat at once under Disenk’s watchful eye. The fish melted in my mouth and the flavour of the leeks was enhanced by something in the sauce that I had not tasted before. This time I took small portions and strove to be dainty.

There was a bowl of water by my hand, and before reaching for the figs I made as if to drink from it but Disenk shook her head. “That is for rinsing the fingers,” she explained, pushing the juice towards me instead, “and when you have done so and are ready to eat again I dry your hands.” She lifted a small cloth. Suddenly it was all too much for me and I had to swallow the quick tears that had risen.

“I’m so tired, Disenk,” I said. “I know it is wrong to waste food but I cannot finish this meal.” She laughed.

“Dear Thu,” she replied. “What you do not consume will go back to the kitchen or to the beggars outside the temples of the city. Do not fret. Come.” She lifted the table away from me and walked to the couch where she turned down the sheet and stood waiting. “Sleep now. My pallet is outside your door, in the passage, if you wake in the night and need anything.” Gratefully I approached the bed and clambered onto it, and she lowered the sheet over me. It was obvious that no prayers were to be said and I wondered who the totems of the house were. Thoth, certainly, for I had seen his shrine in the garden, but to whom was I to pray in order to sanctify my rest? What other gods guarded the inmates of Hui’s home through the night? Disenk was lowering the reed mat that covered the window, and the room filled with a slumbrous dimness. She walked to the table. “There is fresh water beside you,” she told me, gathering up the remains of my meal, “And I will leave the figs in case you are hungry in the night. Do you wish to be read to sleep?” Startled, I declined. She smiled, crossed the floor, bowed, and let herself out, the door closing softly but firmly behind her.

Drowsily I turned on my side and lay looking into the dusky stillness around me. I knew I should get up and face the south, where many miles and another life away, Wepwawet’s temple stood peaceful and gracious at the end of the path beside the river along which I had kicked up the dust with my bare feet so many times. I should perform my prostrations, say the words of gratitude and abasement that I owed to the god who had answered my plea, but I was unwilling to move. My muscles ached pleasantly from the expert massage the young man had given me and my mind, full to overflowing with a jumble of impressions, strange voices, instructions and anticipation, was exhausted. My stomach was full. My eyes closed. Mother always taught us that we must never ask someone else to perform a task we can do for ourselves, I thought as I curled into a ball and savoured the deep softness of the cushion beneath my head. But it seems to me that such virtues are reversed here. A lady is judged by how little she does for herself.

Do not become lazy and complacent, Thu, some part of my heart whispered to me. There may be dangers ahead that only a sturdy peasant girl could face. Swallow your pride and learn from Disenk. Obey those in authority over you. But never forget that your father is a farmer, not a nobleman, and the god who raised you up can just as quickly cast you down. But he won’t, I thought firmly. We have a special bond, Wepwawet and I, for he is a God of War and I am a warrior.

6

THE SOUND
of the window mat being raised woke me the next morning, and as I sat up a ray of strong sunshine fell across my couch. Disenk approached, smiling a greeting, and placed a tray across my knees. There was grape juice again, fresh bread and dried fruits. I drank thirstily with an anxious eye on the window. It appeared that Ra had already travelled across half the sky and I had no right to be still abed. Disenk stood waiting attentively, small hands folded, until I spoke.

“Do I begin work today do you think, Disenk?” I asked her. She answered immediately, and it was then that I began to understand that it was up to me to initiate any conversation with her.

“When you are bathed and dressed you are to report to Harshira,” she told me. “Other than that, I do not know. I am sorry.”

My heart sank, and some of my appetite left me. I did not particularly want to face the daunting bulk of Hui’s Steward. My quarters had very quickly become a womb and this woman a safeguard, but I scolded myself inwardly for my cowardice and dabbled my fingers in the waterbowl as daintily as I could, holding them out for Disenk’s ready cloth and noting her pleased expression. I was a fast learner. “Down to the bath house again?” I asked in mock dismay, and her good-mannered smile widened into a grin of pure amusement. For a moment I saw the real Disenk under the strictures of her position.