The Egyptian (43 page)

These things I saw with my own eyes, and having seen them, clutched my head in my hands, indifferent now to all that happened. I reflected that no god can cure man of his madness. I ran to the Crocodile’s Tail, and with Merit’s words blazing up in my heart, I called the soldiers who were on guard there. They obeyed me, having seen me in company with Horemheb, and I led them through that night of delirium, past revelers dancing in the streets, to the house of Nefernefernefer. There also torches and lamps were burning and from the house, which had suffered no pillage, the noise of drunken revelry rang out into the street. When I had come thus far, my knees began to quake, and my stomach sank.

I said to the soldiers, “These are the orders of Horemheb, my friend and the King’s commander-in-chief. Go into the house where you will find a woman who carries her head haughtily and whose eyes are like green stones. Bring her here to me, and should she resist, smite her over the head with the butt of a spear but do her no other harm.”

The soldiers strode in cheerfully. Soon the startled guests came reeling out, and servants called for the guards. My men soon returned with fruit and honey bread and jars of wine in their hands, and with them they carried Nefernefernefer. She had struggled, and they had struck her with a spear so that her smooth head was bloody and her wig had slipped off. I laid my hand on her breast, and her skin was smooth as warm glass, but to me it was as if I had laid my hand on a snakeskin. I felt her heart beating and knew that she was unharmed, yet I wrapped her in a dark cloth as corpses are wrapped and lifted her into a chair. The watch did not interfere when they saw that I had soldiers with me. These attended me to the gateway of the House of Death, while I sat in the swaying chair with Nefernefernefer’s senseless body in my arms. She was beautiful still but more repulsive to me than a serpent. So we went on through the riotous night to the House of Death, where I gave the soldiers gold and dismissed them, and I also sent away the chair.

With Nefernefernefer in my arms I entered the House and I said to the corpse washers who met me, “I bring you the body of a woman whom I found in the street; I do not know her name or her family, but I fancy the jewels she is wearing will reward you for your trouble if you will preserve her body forever.”

The men swore at me, saying, “Madman, do you think we have not had enough carrion to deal with in these days? And who will reward us for our trouble?”

But when they had unwound the black cloth, they found that the body was yet warm, and when they took off the dress and the jewels, they saw that she was fair—fairer than any woman who had yet been brought to the House of Death. They said no more to me but laid their hands on her breast and felt her heart beating. They swiftly covered her once more in the black cloth, winking and grimacing at one another with delighted laughter.

Then they said to me, “Go your way, stranger, and blessed be this act of yours. We shall do our best to preserve her body forever, and should it depend on us alone, we will keep her with us seventy times seventy days, that her body may be preserved indeed.”

Thus did I exact payment from Nefernefernefer for the debt in which she stood to me on my parents’ account. I wondered how she would feel when she awoke in the recesses of the House of Death, robbed of her wealth and in the power of corpse washers and embalmers. If I knew anything of them, they would never let her return to the light of day. This was my revenge, for it was through her that I ever came to know the House of Death. But my revenge was childish, as I was later to discover.

At the Crocodile’s Tail I saw Merit and said to her, “I have enforced my demands, and in a more terrible manner than anyone has ever done. But my revenge gives me no relief, my heart is yet emptier than before, and despite the warmth of the night my limbs are cold.”

I drank wine, and it was as dust in my mouth. I said, “May my body perish if ever I lay my hand upon a woman again, for the more I think of woman the more do I fear her; her body is a wilderness and her heart a mortal snare.”

She stroked my hands, and her brown eyes looked into mine as she said, “Sinuhe, you have never known a woman who wished you well.”

And I answered, “May all the gods of Egypt save me from a woman who wishes me well. Pharaoh also wishes only well, and the river is full of bobbing corpses because of his well wishing.”

I drank wine, and I wept, saying, “Merit, your cheeks are smooth as glass and your hands are warm. Let me touch your cheeks with my lips this night and put my cold hands into your warm ones so that I may sleep without dreaming, and I will give you whatever you desire.”

She smiled sadly and said, “The crocodile’s tail speaks through your mouth, but I am accustomed to that and I take no offense. Know therefore, Sinuhe, that I require nothing of you and never in my life have required anything of a man; from none have I taken a gift of any value. What I give I give from my heart, and to you also I give what you ask, for I am as lonely as you.”

She took the wine cup from my trembling hand, and having spread her mat for me, she lay down beside me, warming my hands in hers. I brushed her smooth cheeks with my lips and breathed in the fragrance of cedar from her skin, and I took pleasure with her. She was to me as my father and my mother—she was as a brazier on a winter’s night and a beacon on the shore that guides the seaman home through a night of tempest. When I fell asleep, she was to me Minea—Minea whom I had lost forever—and I lay against her as if on the floor of the sea with Minea. I saw no evil dreams but slept soundly, while she whispered in my ear such words as mothers whisper whose children fear the dark. From that night she was my friend, for in her arms I could believe once more that there was something greater than myself beyond my understanding, for which it was worth while to live.

Next morning I said to her, “Merit, I have broken a jar with a woman who is now dead, and I still have the silver ribbon with which I bound her long hair. Yet for the sake of our friendship, Merit, I am ready to break the jar with you if you wish it.”

Yawning she held the back of her hand across her mouth and said, “You must drink no more crocodiles’ tails, Sinuhe, since they make you talk so foolishly next day. Remember that I grew up in a tavern and am no longer an innocent girl who might take you at your word—and be sorely disappointed!”

“When I look into your eyes, Merit, I can believe that there are good women in the world,” I said, and I brushed her smooth cheeks with my mouth. “That was why I said it, that you might know how much you are to me.”

She smiled.

“You note that I forbade you to drink crocodiles’ tails, for a woman first shows her fondness for a man by forbidding him something, to feel her own power. Let us not talk of jars, Sinuhe. You know that my mat is yours whenever you are thus lonely and sorrowful. But be not offended if you find that there are others lonely and sorrowful besides yourself, for as a human being I too am free to choose my company, and I hold you in no way bound. And so, in spite of all, I will give you a crocodile’s tail with my own hand.”

So strange is the mind of man and so little does he know his own heart that my soul at this moment was as free and light as a bird, and I recalled nothing of the evil which had come to pass during those days. I was content and tasted no more crocodiles’ tails that day.

Next morning I came to fetch Merit to watch Pharaoh’s festival procession. Despite her tavern upbringing she looked very lovely in the summer dress that was made in the new fashion, and I was not at all ashamed to stand beside her in places reserved for the favored of Pharaoh.

The Avenue of Rams was brilliant with banners and lined with the vast crowds who had come to see Pharaoh. Boys had climbed the trees in the gardens on either side, and Pepitaton had ordered countless baskets of flowers to be set out along the road so that, according to custom, the spectators could strew them in Pharaoh’s path. My mood was hopeful for I seemed to glimpse freedom and light for the land of Egypt. I had received a golden bowl from Pharaoh’s house and had been nominated skull surgeon to his household. Beside me stood a mature and lovely woman who was my friend, and around us in the reserved places we saw only happy, smiling people. Yet profound silence reigned; the squawking of crows could be heard from the temple roof—for crows and vultures had taken up their abode in Thebes and were so gorged that they could not rise and fly back to their hills.

It was a mistake for Pharaoh to allow painted Negroes to walk behind his chair. The mere sight of them aroused the fury of the people. There were few who had not suffered some injury during the preceding days. Many had lost their homes by fire, the tears of wives had not yet dried, men’s wounds still smarted beneath the bandages, and their bruised and broken mouths could not smile. But Pharaoh Akhnaton appeared, swaying high in his chair above the heads of the people and visible to them all. Upon his head he wore the double crown of the Two Kingdoms—lily and papyrus. His arms were crossed on his breast, and his hands were hard clenched about the crook and whip of royalty. He sat motionless as an image, as the Pharaohs of all ages have sat in the sight of the people, and there was a dread silence as he came, as if the sight of him had struck men dumb. The soldiers guarding the route raised their spears with a shout of greeting, and the more eminent of the onlookers also began to shout and throw flowers in front of the royal chair. But against the menacing hush of the crowd, their cries sounded thin and pitiful, like the buzz of a solitary midge on a winter’s night, so that they soon fell silent and looked at one another in amazement.

Now, against all tradition, Pharaoh moved. He raised the crook and whip in ecstatic greeting. The crowd surged back and suddenly from its manifold throat broke a cry as terrible as the thunder of bursting seas among the rocks.

“Ammon! Ammon! Give us back Ammon, the king of all gods!”

As the mob billowed and swayed and the cry rolled out ever louder, the crows and vultures winged upward from the temple roof and flapped their black pinions above the chair of Pharaoh. And the people cried, “Away with you, false Pharaoh! Begone!”

The shout alarmed the bearers so that the chair halted in its course. When they again moved forward, goaded by the nervous officers of the guard, the people poured in an irresistible flood across the Avenue of Rams, swept away the chain of soldiers, and threw themselves pell-mell before the chair to block its advance.

It was no longer possible to follow exactly what was happening. The soldiers began to belabor the people with their cudgels to clear the way, but soon they had recourse to spears and daggers in their own defense. Sticks and stones sang through the air, blood flowed across the street, and above the roar rose the screams of the dying. But not one stone was cast at Pharaoh, for he was born of the sun like all other Pharaohs before him. His person was sacred, and no one in the crowd would have dared even in his dreams to lift a hand against him, though in their hearts all hated him. I do not believe that even the priests would have done so unheard of a thing. Pharaoh looked on unmolested. Then he arose, forgetting his dignity, and called out to halt the soldiers, but no one heard his cry in all the din.

The mob stoned the guards, and the guards defended themselves and slew many of the people, who cried out unceasingly, “Ammon! Ammon! Give us back Ammon!” and also, “Away with you, false Pharaoh! Begone! Thebes will have none of you!” Stones were cast on those of high rank, and the people surged threateningly about the reserved enclosures, so that women threw away their flowers, dropped their phials of perfume, and fled.

At Horemheb’s command the horns were sounded. From courts and sidestreets came the chariots that he had disposed there out of sight lest the people be provoked. Many were crushed beneath the hoofs and wheels, but Horemheb had ordered the removal of the scythes from the sides of the chariots to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. They drove slowly and in a prearranged order, encircling Pharaoh’s chair and also protecting the royal family and others in the procession, and so escorting them away. But the crowds would not disperse until the royal barges were seen rowing back across the river. Then they broke out in jubilation, and their rejoicing was yet more terrible than their anger. The ruffians among the crowd besieged the houses of the rich until the soldiers restored order and the people dispersed to their homes. Evening drew on and the crows circled down to tear at the bodies that remained lying in the Avenue of Rams.

Thus Pharaoh Akhnaton was confronted for the first time by his raging people and saw blood flowing on his god’s account. He never forgot this sight. Hatred dropped poison into his love, and his fanaticism grew until at last he decreed that everyone who spoke the name of Ammon aloud or held his name concealed on images or vessels should be sent to the mines.

I speak of these events before coming to the time in which they took place, to make plain their cause. That same evening I was summoned hastily to the golden house, for Pharaoh had had an attack of his sickness. His physicians feared for his life and sought to share the burden of responsibility, for he had spoken of me. He lay long like one dead; his limbs grew cold, and his pulse was no longer to be detected. After a period of delirium during which he bit his tongue and lips until the blood flowed, he came to himself. He then dismissed all the other physicians, for he could not endure the sight of them.

“Summon the boatmen,” he said to me, “and hoist red sails on my ship. Let my friends come with me, for I am going upon a journey and will let my vision lead me until I find a land belonging neither to gods nor to men. This land I will dedicate to Aton and build there a city that shall be the city of Aton. I will never again return to Thebes.”

He said also, “The conduct of the Thebans is more hateful to me than all that has gone before—more loathsome, more contemptible than anything my forebears ever saw, even among foreigners. Therefore I spurn Thebes and leave it to its own darkness.”