The Egyptian (15 page)

Among them was an elderly man named Ramose, whose task was the most difficult of all: he had to detach the brain and draw it out through the nose with pincers, and then swill out the skull with purifying oils. He noted the deftness of my hands with astonishment and began to instruct me so that by the time I had completed half my service in the House of Death he made me his assistant, and life for me became more bearable. I helped him in his work, which was the cleanest and most highly regarded of any in that place, and so great was his influence that others no longer dared frighten me or throw guts and offal upon me. I do not know how it was he had this power, for he never raised his voice.

When I observed the thieving and saw how little was done to preserve the bodies of the poor though the fee was large, I resolved to help my parents by myself and steal for them eternal life. For to my mind, my sin against them was already so hideous that it could be made no blacker by a theft. The one hope and joy of their old age had been that of their own eternal preservation, and in my desire to fulfill this hope I embalmed them, with Ramose’s assistance, and bound them in strips of linen, remaining for this purpose forty days and nights in the House of Death. My stay was thus prolonged in order to steal enough for the proper treatment of the bodies. But I had no tomb for them—not so much as a wooden coffin—and could do no more than sew them up together in an oxhide.

When I was ready to leave the House of Death, I became irresolute and my heart thudded in my breast. Ramose, who had noted my skill, invited me to remain as his assistant. I could then have earned and stolen much and lived out my life in the burrows of the House of Death without the knowledge of any of my friends and free from the vexations and sufferings of a normal life. Yet I would not—and who can tell why?

Having washed and purified myself most thoroughly, I stepped out of the House of Death, while the corpse washers shouted curses after me and jeered. They meant no ill by this; it was their way of talking to one another, and the only way they knew. They helped me to carry out the oxhide. Although I had washed, the passers-by gave me a wide berth, holding their noses and making insulting gestures, so steeped was I in the stench of the House of Death. No one would ferry me across the river. I waited until nightfall when, heedless of the watchman, I stole a reed boat and rowed my parents’ bodies over to the City of the Dead.

The City of the Dead was strictly guarded by night and day, and I could not find one unwatched tomb in which to hide my parents so that they might live forever and enjoy the offerings that were brought for the rich and illustrious dead. So I bore them out into the desert, where the sun burned my back and drew the strength from my limbs till I cried out in the belief that I was dying. But I carried my burden up into the hills along dangerous tracks that only grave robbers dared to use and into the forbidden valley where the Pharaohs lie entombed.

Jackals howled in the night, venomous snakes of the desert hissed at me, and scorpions crawled over the hot rocks. I felt no fear, for my heart was hardened against all danger. Young though I was, I would have greeted death gladly if death had had a mind for me. My return to sunlight and the world of men had made me feel again the bitterness of my shame, and life had nothing to offer me.

I had not learned then that death avoids a man who desires it, to snatch at him whose heart holds fast to life. Serpents darted from my path, scorpions did me no harm, and the heat of the desert sun did not stifle me. The watchmen of the forbidden valley were blind and deaf and never heard the rattle of stones as I climbed down. If they had seen me, they would have killed me instantly and left my body to the jackals. So the forbidden valley opened out before me, deathly still and to me more maj estic in its desolation than all the enthroned Pharaohs in their lifetime had ever been.

I walked about that valley all night, seeking the tomb of some great Pharaoh. Having come so far I felt that only the best was good enough for my parents. I sought and found a tomb whose Pharaoh had not long stepped aboard Ammon’s boat, that the offerings might be fresh and the death ceremonies in his temple on the shore faultlessly performed.

When the moon went down, I dug a hole in the sand beside the doorway, and there I buried them. Far away in the desert jackals were howling. It seemed to me that Anubis was abroad, watching over my father and mother and bearing them company upon their last journey. And I knew that their hearts would not be found wanting in the great scales before Osiris, though they lacked the death books of the priests and the lies learned by rote to which the wealthy pinned their faith. Sweet was the relief in my soul as I scooped the sand over them, for they would live from everlasting to everlasting beside the great Pharaoh and humbly enjoy the good offerings set before him. In the Western Land they would journey in Pharaoh’s boat, eat Pharaoh’s bread, and drink his wine.

As I was heaping the sand over them, my hand struck against something hard, and I found that I was holding a sacred scarab carved in red stone, with tiny jewels for eyes, and engraved all over with holy signs. I trembled and my tears fell upon the sand, for it seemed to me that I had been given a sign from my parents telling me that they were contented and at peace. This I chose to believe, though I knew that the scarab must have fallen from among the furnishings of Pharaoh’s tomb.

The moon had set, and the sky was growing pale. I bowed down in the sand; I raised my hands and said farewell to my father Senmut and my mother Kipa. May their bodies endure forever, and may their lives in the Western Land be full of all delight. For their sake alone I could hope that such a land exists though I no longer believe it.

I regained the banks of the Nile that same day, drank of its waters, and lay down to sleep among the reeds. My feet were cut and torn, my hands bleeding. The desert had blinded me, and my body was scorched and blistered, but I lived, and slumber vanquished pain, for I was very weary.

In the morning I awoke to the quacking of ducks among the reeds; Ammon sailed in his golden boat across the sky, and from the far shore there came to my ears the murmur of the city. River craft glided under red sails; washerwomen clapped their boards together, laughing and calling out to each other as they worked. The morning was young and fresh, but my heart was empty and life like ashes in my hands.

I had made what atonement I could, and now there seemed no further purpose or goal to my existence. I wore a ragged loincloth, like a slave; my back was burned and scabby; and I possessed not so much as the smallest copper coin with which to buy food. I knew that if I moved I should soon run into the guards, who would challenge me. I should be unable to answer them, for I believed that the name Sinuhe was accursed and dishonored for all time.

I was brooding upon this when I became aware of some live creature near me, though at the first sight I did not imagine him to be human but rather some specter from an evil dream. There was a hole where the nose should have been, his ears had been cut off, and he was horribly emaciated. When I looked at him more closely, I saw that his hands were large and bony and his body tough and scarred as from burdens or the chafing of ropes.

When he saw that I had observed him, he spoke. “What is that you hold so tightly in your hand?”

I unclenched it and showed him Pharaoh’s sacred scarab, which I had found in the sand of the forbidden valley, and he said, “Give it to me that it may bring me luck, for I stand in sore need of it, poor wretch that I am.”

I answered, “I, too, am poor and own nothing but this scarab. I shall keep it as a talisman to bring me good fortune.”

“Though I am poor and wretched, you shall have a piece of silver for it, though that is too much to give for a bit of colored stone. But I feel compassion for your poverty. Here is the piece of silver.”

And indeed he dug a silver piece from his belt. Nevertheless, I became the more firmly resolved to keep the scarab and obsessed with the idea that it would prosper me, and so I told him.

He rejoined wrathfully, “You forget I might have slain you where you lay, for I was watching you for a long time as you slept, wondering what you held so tightly in your hand. I waited till you awoke, but I repent now of not having killed you, since you are so ungrateful.”

“I see by your ears and nose that you are a criminal escaped from the quarries. You were welcome to kill me as I slept—it would have been a kindly action, for I am alone and have nowhere to go. But take heed and fly from here, for if the guards see you, they will flog you and hang you head downward from the walls or at the very least take you back whence you came.”

“What sort of stranger are you not to know that I need not fear the guards, being a free man and no slave? I could enter the city if I wished, but I do not care to walk the streets, for my face terrifies the children.”

“How can he be free who has been condemned to a lifetime of labor in the quarries, for so much I see by your nose and ears?” I sneered, thinking he boasted.

He answered, “Do you then not know that the prince, when he was crowned with the crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, decreed that all bonds should be loosed and all slaves freed from mines and quarries so that those who work there now are free men and are paid for their toil?”

He laughed to himself and went on, “Many a stout fellow now dwells among the reeds and lives on the offerings from rich men’s tables in the City of the Dead—for the watchmen fear us, and we fear no one, not even the dead. No man does who has been in the mines; there is no worse fate than to be sent there as a slave, as you well know. Many of us do not fear even the gods, though I believe that prudence is a virtue, and I am a pious man—if I
have
lived for ten years in a mine.”

I heard now for the first time that the heir had come to the throne as Amenhotep IV and liberated all slaves and prisoners so that the mines and quarries in the east by the coast were deserted, also those c Sinai. For there was none in Egypt so mad as to work in the mines of his own free will. The royal consort was the Princess of Mitanni, who still played with dolls, and Pharaoh served a new god.

“His god is assuredly a very remarkable one,” said the ex-slave, “for he causes Pharaoh to act like a madman. Robbers and murderers now wander freely through the Two Kingdoms, the mines are deserted, and the wealth of Egypt sees no increase. I, indeed, am innocent of evildoing, being the victim of injustice, but such things have always happened and always will. It is crazy to cut the fetters from hundreds and thousands of criminals in order that one innocent man may be freed. But that is Pharaoh’s affair not mine. Let him do my thinking for me.”

He had been examining me as he spoke, feeling my arms and the scabs upon my back. He was not afraid of the smell that still hung about me from the House of Death, and it was clear he pitied me because of my youth, for he said, “Your skin is burned; I have oil. Will you let me rub you?”

He rubbed oil into my legs and arms, but swore as he did it.

“By Ammon, I know not why I do this, for of what use are you to me? No one oiled me when I was beaten and wounded and reviled the gods because of the injustice done to me.”

I knew well enough that all slaves and convicts protest their innocence, but he was good to me, and I wished to be as much to him. Moreover, I was so lonely I dreaded that he might go and leave me to my desolation. So I said, “Tell me of the injustice that was done you, that I may grieve with you.”

“Know then,” he began, “that I was once a free man with land to till, a hut, a wife, oxen, and beer in my jar. But I had also a neighbor, an influential man named Anukis—may his body rot! No eye could measure his land; his cattle were as countless as grains of desert sand, and their bellowing was as the ocean’s roar—yet he coveted also my little plot of ground. He caused me all manner of vexation, and after every floodtime, when the ground was measured afresh, the boundary stone was moved nearer to my hut, and I lost land. There was nothing I could do; the surveyors listened to him and not to me, because he gave them handsome presents.”

The noseless one sighed and rubbed more oil into my back.

“Nevertheless, I might still be living in my hut had the gods not cursed me with a beautiful daughter. I had five sons and three daughters, for the poor breed rapidly. When they were full grown they were a help and a joy to me though one of the boys was stolen by a Syrian merchant when he was small. But my youngest daughter was very fair, and in my madness I was proud of her and did not make her do heavy work, or carry water, or tan her skin by toiling in the fields. It would have been wiser to cut off her hair and rub her face with soot, for my neighbor Anukis saw her and desired her and would have let me keep my field if I had given him my daughter. But this I would not agree to, for I hoped that with her beauty she would get a decent man for a husband—one who would care for me in my old age and show me kindness.

“At last his servants set upon me. I had nothing but my staff, but with that I smote one of them over the head so that he died. Then they cut off my nose and ears and sent me to the mines. My wife and children were sold as slaves, but the youngest one Anukis kept for himself, and when he had enjoyed her, he gave her to his servants. Therefore, I think it was unjust to send me to the mines. When after ten years the King freed me, I hastened home, but my cabin was torn down, alien cattle grazed in my meadows, and my daughter would have nothing to do with me but threw hot water over my feet in the cowmen’s shack. I heard that Anukis was dead and that his tomb lies in the City of the Dead near Thebes and has a long inscription on the door. So I came to Thebes to rejoice my heart with what is written there. But I cannot read and no one has read it out to me though I found my way to the tomb by inquiry.”

“If you wish it I will read the inscription for you,” I said.

“May your body be preserved forever if you will do me this service, for I would know what is written of Anukis before I die.”