The Egyptian (58 page)

I divided silver among the rowers, and gold also, and I said to them, “By Aton! Go, eat and fill your bellies! Rejoice your hearts with good beer and take pleasure with the beautiful girls of Thebes, for Aton is the giver of joy and loves simple delights, and he loves the poor better than the rich, because their pleasures are artless.”

At this the faces of the boatmen darkened; they fingered the silver and gold and said, “We would not offend you, but tell us whether this be accursed silver and accursed gold since you speak to us of Aton. For such we cannot accept; it burns our fingers and turns to dust as is well known.”

They would not have said this to me had I not rowed with them and won their confidence. I reassured them.

“Go quickly and exchange it for beer if such are your misgivings. But have no fear; neither my gold nor my silver is accursed. You may see from the stamp on it that it is the old, pure metal, unalloyed by the copper of Akhetaton. You are foolish men, ignorant of what is good for you, if you fear Aton; in him there is no cause for dread.”

They made answer, “We have no fear of Aton, for who fears an impotent god? You know well enough whom we fear, lord, although because of Pharaoh we may not speak his name aloud.”

Exasperation burned within me, and I would dispute no longer. I dismissed them and they went, leaping and laughing and singing their boatmen’s songs. I too would gladly have leaped and laughed and sung, but this would have been inconsistent with my dignity. I made my way directly to the Crocodile’s Tail without even waiting for a carrying chair. After long separation, I saw Merit and she was lovelier to me than before. Yet I must acknowledge that love, like all passions, colors vision. Merit was no longer very young, but in the full ripeness of her summer she was my friend and nearer to me in her way than anyone had ever been.

When she saw me, she bowed deeply and raised her hands, then came forward to touch my shoulders and my cheeks also, smiling and saying, “Sinuhe, Sinuhe! What has happened to make your eyes so clear, and what has become of your belly?”

“Merit, my most dear! My eyes are bright with longing and the fever of love, and my belly melted away in melancholy as I hastened to you, my sister.”

Wiping her eyes she said, “Oh, Sinuhe! How far does a lie surpass the truth in sweetness when one is alone and one’s spring has flowered in vain! When you come, spring is here once more, and I believe in all the old stories.”

I shall say no more of this meeting, for I must speak also of Kaptah. His belly had certainly not melted away; he was more corpulent than ever, and more rings jingled about his neck and wrists and ankles, while the disk of gold that hid his empty eye socket was now set with precious stones. On seeing me, he wept and shouted for joy, and said, “Blessed be the day that brings my lord home!” He led me to a private room and bade me sit on a soft mat, while Merit served us with the best the Crocodile’s Tail had to offer, and we rejoiced together.

Kaptah rendered account of my wealth and said, “My lord Sinuhe, you are the wisest of men—you are more crafty than the grain dealers, and few have ever got the better of them. Last spring you deceived them with your guile, even if the scarab had some share in this. You will remember that you bade me distribute all your corn among the settlers for seed, requiring of them measure for measure only, for which reason I called you mad. And by the gauge of common sense it was indeed the act of a madman. Know then that thanks to your cunning you are twice as wealthy as before. I can no longer carry the sum of your estate in my head, and I am exceedingly vexed by Pharaoh’s tax gatherers, whose impudence and rapacity are now boundless. As soon as the merchants heard that the settlers were to have seed the price of grain fell immediately and fell still further when the news of peace came since everyone then sold to be free of their commitments, by which the merchants suffered great loss. But at that point I bought at a very low price grain that had not even been reaped. In the autumn I gathered in measure for measure as you had commanded, so that by this means I regained also my former stocks. In all confidence I may tell you, lord, that the settlers’ grain is as good as any other and harms no one. I believe that the priests and their followers have secretly splashed blood on the corn in the bins so that it is speckled and acquires an evil smell. With the coming of winter the price of grain rose again, because Eie in Pharaoh’s name shipped some to Syria after peace was made, in order to crowd Babylonian grain from the Syrian markets. Therefore the price has never stood higher than at present. Our profits are enormous, and they will increase the longer we hold onto our stocks. Next autumn famine will creep into the land because the fields of the settlers are unplowed and unsown; the slaves flee from Pharaoh’s fields, and the farmers are hiding their corn lest it be taken from them and sent to Syria. For all this I can do no more than sing your praises to the heavens, lord, for you are more crafty than I, although I believed you mad.”

In great excitement he continued, “I praise these times, which make the rich man richer, whether he will or no. They are indeed very strange times, for now gold and silver flows from nowhere into my chests and coffers. By selling empty jars I have made as much profit as through grain. All over Egypt there are men who purchase empty jars of any kind, and when I heard this, I hired slaves by the hundred to buy up jars. People gave them their used ones for nothing, only to have the smelly vessels removed from their courtyards. If I say that this winter I have sold a thousand times a thousand jars I may exaggerate somewhat, but not much.”

“What fool is buying empty jars?” I asked.

Kaptah gave me a sly wink with his one eye and said, “The buyers affirm that in the Lower Kingdom a new way has been discovered of preserving fish in salt and water. Having gone into the matter, I know that these jars are being sent to Syria. Shiploads of them have been discharged at Tanis—and at Gaza also—whence they are conveyed into Syria by caravan. What the Syrians do with them all is a mystery. No one can perceive how it pays them to buy used jars for the price of new ones.”

Kaptah’s tale of the jars was remarkable, but I did not puzzle my head over it, the grain question being one of more importance to me.

When I had listened to Kaptah’s full account, I said to him, “Sell all you have if need be, and buy grain; buy all the stocks you can, no matter at what price. Do not buy any that has not yet been harvested, but only that which you see with your own eyes and can run through your fingers. Consider also whether you can buy back what has already been shipped to Syria, for although Pharaoh by the terms of the peace treaty must send it thither, yet Syria can always import grain from Babylon. Truly in the autumn famine will creep into the land of Kem; therefore let that man be cursed who sells grain from Pharaoh’s stores to vie with the grain of Babylon.”

At this Kaptah further commended my wisdom.

“You say well, lord. When these affairs have been brought to a happy conclusion, you will be the wealthiest man in Egypt. I believe I can still buy grain, though it be at usurer’s prices. But the man you have cursed is that simple priest Eie, who sold grain to Syria at the beginning of peace while the price was still low. In his foolishness he sold enough to supply Syria for many years because Syria paid immediately and in gold, and he needed a great quantity of gold for Pharaoh’s anniversary festival. The Syrians will not sell it back to us, for they are wily merchants, and I fancy they will wait until we have come to weigh a grain of corn in gold. Only then will they sell it back to us, and so suck all the gold of Egypt into their coffers.”

But I soon forgot corn, and the famine that threatened Egypt, and the future that had lain hidden in darkness since sunset had cast its blood-red glow over Akhetaton. I looked into Merit’s eyes, and my heart drank its fill of her beauty, and she was the wine in my mouth and the balsam in my hair. We parted from Kaptah, and she spread her mat for me to lie on. I did not hesitate now to call her my sister, although I had once supposed that I could never again call any woman so. She held my hands in the darkness of night, and her breath was on my neck, and my heart had no secrets from her, and I spoke to her without falsehood or deceit. Her heart preserved its secret from me, and I never guessed what it might be. By her side I did not feel like a stranger in the world, for her body was to me a home, and her mouth kissed away my loneliness—and yet this was but a fleeting illusion through which I must pass, that the measure of my experience be fulfilled.

At the Crocodile’s Tail I again saw little Thoth, and the sight of him warmed my heart. He laid his arms about my neck and called me “Father,” so that I could not but be touched by his good memory. Merit told me that his mother had died and that she had taken him to live with her since in carrying him to be circumcised she engaged, according to custom, to bring him up should his own parents be unable to do so. Thoth was quite at home in the Crocodile’s Tail, where the customers made much of him and brought him presents and playthings, to please Merit. I was greatly charmed with him, and during my stay in Thebes I took him back to the copperfounder’s house. Muti was delighted at this, and as I watched his play at the foot of the sycamore and heard him romping and arguing with the other children in the street, I remembered my own childhood and envied him. He liked it here so well that he spent his nights with me also, and for my own enjoyment I began to teach him although he was not yet of an age to go to school. I found him intelligent; he quickly learned the signs and characters of writing, and I determined to pay for him to be educated at the best school in Thebes, which children of high rank attended. This made Merit very happy. Muti never wearied of baking honey cakes for him and telling him stories. She now had had her way: there was a son in my house but no wife to worry her or throw hot water over her feet, as is the way of wives when they have quarreled with their husbands.

I might have been happy, but there were disturbances in Thebes at that time to which I could not close my eyes. Not a day passed without fighting in the streets, and the endless disputes over Ammon and Aton resulted in bloodshed and broken heads. Pharaoh’s guards and magistrates found plenty to do, for every day men, women, and children were bound with ropes and taken to the wharf, to be sent to forced labor in Pharaoh’s fields—and even to the mines—on Ammon’s account. But their departure was not that of criminals, for people gathered on the quays to greet them and sprinkle them with flowers. The prisoners raised their bound hands and said, “We will soon re. turn!” And others, “Indeed we will soon return to taste the blood of Aton!” Because of the people the guards dared not silence the prisoners and did not beat them until the ships had carried them from the shore.

Thus the people of Thebes were divided among themselves, son against father, wife against husband, for Aton’s sake. Just as the followers of Aton wore the cross of life at their necks or on their garments, so the horn was the mark of Ammon’s faithful, and they too wore it visibly. No one could prevent them since for ages past this horn had been accepted adornment on clothes or in jewelry.

To my surprise, the power of Aton had notably increased in Thebes during the past year, and at first I was at a loss to know why this was. Many settlers had fled back to the city, and having lost everything, they brought Aton with them in their bitterness, and they accused the priests who poisoned their grain and those who stopped up their irrigation ditches and let their cattle trample over the fields. Many who had learned the new script and attended Aton’s schools were eager on his behalf, as youth will always be eager in opposing age. The porters and slaves of the harbor spoke thus, “Our measure has dwindled to half of what it was, and we have no more to lose. In the sight of Aton there is neither lord nor slave, neither master nor servant, whereas Ammon exacts from us full payment.”

The hottest champions of Aton were the thieves, tomb robbers, and traitors who had greatly enriched themselves by informing and now feared retribution. All those who in one way or another earned their bread by him and desired to keep in favor with Pharaoh held fast to Aton likewise. Thus the people were divided until honest, peaceful citizens were weary of it all and, losing their faith in any god, lamented bitterly, “Whether Ammon or Aton, it is all one to us. We desire only to live in peace and do our work, but we are torn this way and that until we don’t know whether we are standing on our heads or our heels.”

But he suffered most who sought to keep an open mind and allow every man his own faith. All with one accord fell on him and reviled him, accusing him of sloth and indifference, of stupidity and a hardened nature, of obstinacy and backsliding, until he was tormented into accepting cross or horn, whichever he fancied might cause him least vexation.

Many houses displayed one or other of the signs; wine shops, alehouses, and pleasure houses displayed them, so that horns drank in one place and crosses in another. The girls who plied their trade by the walls hung cross or horn about their necks as best pleased their clients. Every evening crosses and horns roved the streets in their drunkenness and smashed lamps, quenched torches, and rattled shutters and came to blows with one another. I could not say which faction was worse, being equally appalled by them both.

The Crocodile’s Tail also had been compelled to display its sign, although Kaptah had not desired this, preferring to agree with everyone from whom he could milk silver. It was not left to his choice, for every night the cross of life was scrawled on the tavern walls, surrounded by indecent pictures. This was very natural, as the corn merchants nursed a bitter hatred for Kaptah, who had impoverished them by distributing corn to the settlers, and it was in vain that in the tax returns he had declared the tavern under Merit’s name. It was alleged further that certain of Ammon’s priests had met with violence in his house. Kaptah’s regular customers belonged to the dubious rich of the harbor who shrank from no means of acquiring wealth and who had all declared for Aton since it was through him that they had prospered.