The Egyptian (12 page)

“I go to keep watch tonight in the street before your house. I go to make sacrifice in every temple in Thebes, in thanksgiving to the gods that I have met you again. I go to pluck blossoms from the trees to strew in your path when you leave your house and to buy myrrh with which to anoint your door posts.”

She smiled and said, “It would be better if you did not go, for flowers and myrrh I have already. And if you go fired so with wine, you will run astray among strange women. That I will not allow.”

Her words filled me with joy. I would have seized her, but she resisted me, saying, “Stop! My servants can see us. Though I live alone, I am no contemptible woman.”

She led me out into her garden, which lay in moonlight and was filled with the scent of myrtle and acacia. The lotus flowers in the pooi had closed their chalices for the night, and I saw that the edge of the pool was inlaid with colored stones. Servants poured water over our hands and brought us roast goose and fruits steeped in honey, and Nefernefernefer said, “Eat and enjoy yourself here with me, Sinuhe.”

But my throat was roughened by desire, and I could not swallow. She gave me a mocking look and ate greedily. Each time she glanced at me the moonlight was mirrored in her eyes. I would have drawn her into my arms, but she pushed me away, saying, “Do you not know why Bast, the goddess of love, is portrayed as a cat?”

“I care neither for cats nor gods,” said I, reaching out to her, my eyes blurred with desire. She pushed my hands aside.

“Quite soon you may touch me. You may lay your hands on my breast and my stomach if it will quiet you, but first you shall listen to me and learn why a woman is like a cat and why passion, too, is like a cat. Its paws are soft, but they hide claws that rip and tear and stab mercilessly into your heart. Ay, indeed, a woman is like a cat, for a cat also takes pleasure in tormenting its prey and torturing it without ever tiring of the game. Not until the creature is maimed will she devour it and then set forth to seek another victim. I tell you this because I would be honest with you; I have never wished you ill. No, I have never wished you ill,” she repeated absently, taking my hand and moving it to her breast while the other she placed in her lap. I trembled, and the tears sprang from my eyes. Then she pushed me away again.

“You may leave me now, never to return, and then I shan’t hurt you. But if you don’t go now, you can’t blame me for anything that may happen.”

She gave me time to go, but I did not. Sighing a little then as if weary of the game, she said, “So let it be. You must have what you came for, but be gentle, for I am tired, and I fear I may fall asleep on your arm.”

She took me to her room and to her couch of ivory and ebony, There, slipping off her robe, she opened her embrace to me.

It was as if my whole self were being burned away to ashes by her body.

Soon she yawned and told me, “I am very sleepy—and I must believe that you have never lain with a woman before, for you go about it very clumsily and give me no pleasure. But when a youth takes his first woman, he gives her a priceless treasure. I will ask no other present of you. But go now and let me sleep, for you have had what you came for.”

And when I sought to embrace her again, she defended herself and sent me away. I went home with a body molten and seething, knowing that never should I be able to forget her.

On the following day I told my servant Kaptah to send away all my patients and bid them seek other doctors. I sent for a barber, washed and anointed myself with sweet-smelling oils, dressed, and ordered a chair, telling the porters to run. I desired to hasten to the house of Nefernefernefer without soiling my clothes or feet with dust. Kaptah looked after me with concern and shook his head, for I had never before left my workroom in the middle of the day, and he feared that if I neglected my patients the fees would dwindle. But I had one thought only, and my body burned as with fire—a glorious fire.

A servant admitted me and led me to Nefernefernefer’s room. She was adorning herself before the mirror and looked at me with hard, indifferent eyes.

“What do you want, Sinuhe? You weary me.”

“You know very well what I want,” I said, trying to gather her into my arms and remembering her ardor of the night before. But she pushed me roughly away.

“Is this malice or stupidity? To come now! A merchant has arrived from Sidon with a jewel that was once a queen’s—a forehead orna ment from a tomb. This evening someone is to give it to me; I have long yearned for a gem such as no one else possesses. Therefore I shall make myself beautiful and let them anoint my body.”

She undressed without embarrassment and stretched herself upon the bed for a slave girl to rub salve into her limbs. My heart rose into my throat, and my hands sweated at the sight of her beauty.

“Why tarry, Sinuhe?” she asked when the slave had gone, leaving her lying there unconcernedly upon her bed. “Why have you not gone? I must dress.”

Giddiness seized me, and I rushed at her, but she warded me off so adroitly that I could not take her and stood there finally shedding tears of thwarted desire.

I said at last, “If I could buy you that jewel I would, as you well know—but no one else shall touch you—I will die first.”

“Ah?” she said, her eyes half shut. “You forbid anyone else to touch me? And if I give up this day to you, Sinuhe—if I eat and drink and play with you today—since no one knows what tomorrow will bring—what will you give me?”

She stretched out on the bed so that her flat belly was hollowed. There was not a hair on her, either on her head or on her body.

“I have indeed nothing to give you,” and I looked about me as I said it—at the floor of lapis lazuli inlaid with turquoises and at the many golden cups that were in the room. “Truly I have nothing to give you.”

My knees gave beneath me, and I was turning away when she stopped me.

“I am sorry for you, Sinuhe,” she said softly, stretching her lithe body once more. “You have already given me what you had that was worth giving—although its value appears to me much overrated. But you have a house and clothes and all the instruments that a physician needs. You are not altogether poor, I think.”

Trembling from head to foot, I said, “All that is yours, Nefernefernefer, if you wish. It is worth little, but the house is fitted up for a doctor’s use. A student in the House of Life might give a good price for it if his parents had the means.”

“Do you think so?”

She turned her naked back to me, and as she contemplated herself in the glass, she drew her slender fingers along the black lines of her brows.

“As you will. Find a scribe, then, to record this so that all you possess may be transferred to me in my name. For though I live alone, I am not a woman to be despised, and I must make provision for the future when perhaps you will cast me off, Sinuhe.”

I stared at her naked back; my tongue grew thick in my mouth, and my heart began to beat so violently that I turned hastily and went. I found a law scribe who quickly made out the necessary papers and dispatched them to the royal archives for safekeeping. When I returned, Nefernefernefer had clothed herself in royal linen and wore a wig as red as gold; neck, wrists, and ankles were adorned with the most splendid jewelry. At the entrance a handsome chair awaited her.

Handing her the scribe’s receipt I said, “All that I possess is now yours, Nefernefernefer, even to the clothes I have on. Let us now eat and drink and take our pleasure together this day, for no one knows what tomorrow may bring.”

She took the paper carelessly, put it in an ebony casket and said, “I am sorry, Sinuhe, but I find that my monthly trouble is upon me so you cannot come to me as I had wished. You had better go now until I have made the appointed purification, for my head is heavy, and my body pains me. Come another day, and you shall have your desire.”

I stared at her with death in my breast and could not speak. She stamped with impatience.

“Away with you. I am in a hurry.”

When I sought to touch her, she said, “Do not smudge the paint on my face.”

I went home and set my belongings in order, that all might be ready for the new owner. My one-eyed slave followed every step I took, shaking his head, till his presence maddened me. I burst out, “Do not hang at my heels; I am no longer your master. Another owns you now. Serve him obediently when he comes, and do not steal so much from him as you did from me, for it may be his stick is harder than mine.”

Then he cast himself to the ground, raising his hands above his head in the depth of his grief and weeping bitterly.

“Do not send me away, lord, for my old heart has grown into your ways and will break if you banish me. I have always been faithful to you, young and simple though you are. What I have stolen from you I have stolen with due regard to your advantage. I have run about the streets on my old legs in the noonday heat, crying your name and merits, though the servants of other physicians have beaten me and cast dung upon me.”

My heart was as if filled with salt, and I had a bitter taste in my mouth as I looked at him.

But I was touched, and gripping him by the shoulders I said, “Get up, Kaptah! Of what use is all this outcry? It is not from displeasure that I dismiss you, for I have been content with your service, though you have often shown your temper in a shameless manner by slam. ming doors and clattering the dishes when something has vexed you. And your pilfering has not angered me, for it is a slave’s right. I have been forced to hand you over against my will, for I had nothing else to give; my house has gone, too, and all that I possess, so that not so much as the clothes upon my back are my own. You lament in vain.”

Kaptah tore his hair and groaned, “This is an evil day!”

He mused heavily for a time, and then went on, “You are a great doctor, Sinuhe, despite your youth, and the world lies before you. It will be best, therefore, if I make haste to gather up those things that are of most value, and when darkness comes, we can fly. We can make our way to the Red Lands, where no one knows you, or to the islands in the sea where the wine is sparkling and the women joyous. In the land of Mitanni, also, and in Babylon, where the rivers flow in the wrong direction, the arts of Egyptian physicians are highly regarded so that you may grow rich and I may become the servant of a respected master. Hasten, therefore, lord, that we may pack up your belongings before dark,” and he tugged at my sleeve.

“Kaptah, Kaptah! Spare me this witless chatter. My heart is grieved to death, and my body is no longer my own. I am bound with fetters that are stronger than copper chains though you do not see them. I cannot fly, for to be absent from Thebes is to be in a glowing furnace.”

My servant sat on the floor, for his feet were afflicted with painful swellings that I treated from time to time when I had leisure.

He said, “It is clear that Ammon has abandoned us—which I cannot wonder at since you so seldom go to make sacrifice to him. Nevertheless, I have faithfully sacrificed one fifth of what I have stolen from you in thankfulness for having been given a young and simple master. Now he has abandoned me also. Well, well … We must change gods and hasten to make sacrifice to some other who will perhaps divert the evil from us and make all well again.”

“No more of this nonsense. You forget we have nothing to sacrifice since all is now another’s.”

“A man or a woman?”

“A woman,” I answered—for what need was there to conceal it?

When he heard this, he burst out in fresh lamentation. “Oh, that I had never been born into this world! Oh, that my mother had strangled me in my navel cord at birth! For there is no bitterer fate for a slave than to serve a heartless woman—and heartless must she be who has done this to you.”

“She is in no way heartless,” I answered him—for so foolish is man that I needs must talk of Nefernefernefer even to my slave, having no one else in whom to confide. “Naked upon her couch she is more beautiful than the moon. Her limbs gleam with costly oils, and her eyes are green as the Nile in the heat of summer. Happy are you and enviable, Kaptah, if you are permitted to live near her and breathe the same air.”

Kaptah made yet louder outcry.

“She will sell me for a porter or a quarryman—my lungs will be choked, and blood will spurt from under my nails, and I shall perish in the mud like a mangled donkey.”

In my heart I knew that this might be the truth, for in the house of Nefernefernefer there would scarcely be bread and houseroom for such as he. Tears fell from my eyes, also, though I didn’t know whether I wept for him or for myself. When Kaptah saw this, he fell silent at once and stared at me aghast, but I bowed my head in my hands and cared not that my slave should see me weep. Touching my head with his broad hand, he said ruefully, “This is all my doing—I should have kept better watch over my master. But I did not dream he was so white and pure-like a cloth before its first washing. For that alone would explain it. I marveled, indeed, that my master never sent me out for a girl when he came back at night from the wine shop, and the women I sent you for your pleasure went peevishly away, calling me rat and carrion crow. And there were young and comely ones among them. But my trouble was wasted, and like a blockhead I rejoiced, thinking you would never bring a wife into your house to cuff me on the head and throw scalding water over my feet whenever she had quarreled with you. Fool, blockhead that I was! It is the first firebrand that burns down the hut.”

He also said much more, and the sound of his voice was as the buzzing of flies in my ears. At length he ceased and prepared food for me and poured water over my hands. But I could not eat, for my body was on fire; and, when evening came, one thought alone filled my mind.

EARLY in the morning I went to Nefernefernefer’s house, but she was still sleeping. When I roused her servants, they swore and threw slops over me, so I sat in the doorway like a beggar until I heard movement and talk in the house and then tried once more to enter.

Nefernefernefer lay upon her bed. Her face looked small and white, and her green eyes were dark from wine drinking.