Imhotep (10 page)

Paneb
was inspired by those moments, by the proof that his work was pleasing to the
priests and so, perhaps, to the gods.  He wished he could share that
feeling with Taki, so she could understand his love of the tombs and his
eagerness to stand in the dimly lit underground chambers painting and communing
with the gods, especially Ptah, the god who guided his hand.

But
then sometimes, when Taki was teaching their daughters to cook or to weave
linen and Paneb saw Taki’s concentration reflected in the faces of his beloved
daughters, he knew that they also communed with the gods.

She
should meet this god, he decided.  It was a gift he could give her.

T
im shook himself free from his reverie and
looked across the desert as if finding himself here for the first time.

He
couldn’t walk across the desert, hoping to survive for three or four days,
hoping to accidentally stumble across To-She.  For the moment, Brian and
Diane were beyond his reach.  He needed transportation; he needed a better
way to communicate than scratching in the sand.  He needed a plan.

He
stood, careful to keep his damp fingers from touching the sand.

He
picked up the long brush Paneb had used to draw in the sand.  Ahmes
hurried to his side to clear away a space in the sand.

Tim
drew a box with a doorway.  He pointed to it and looked at Ahmes, who said
‘hewet.’

He
pointed to the house again.  “Hewet of Paneb and Ahmes.” Then he placed
his hand against his chest and said his name.  Ahmes’ mouth gaped open in
surprise.  He turned to Paneb.

“Father,
he wants to come to our house!”

“Yes,
Ahmes, I think so,” he agreed, wondering if the god had read his mind.

Tim
continued to draw, making a circle to represent the sun and then a dashed line
to show it moving across the sky and setting.

Paneb
nodded.  “At night.  I think, Ahmes,” he said, thinking of Djefi’s
orders to be silent, “that the netjrew like to be secretive.”

“That’s
why we never see them, isn’t it?” Ahmes said.

W
hen dusk came, Paneb sent Ahmes ahead to
make sure no one was along the path to Ineb-Hedj and to tell his mother that
she should prepare for a guest.

They
had spent the afternoon teaching the god their language.  They took turns
drawing in the sand and saying the words to match the pictures.  At other
times they had acted out ideas, pretending to eat, drink, sleep and ride
camels.  The god was shy at first, depending on Ahmes and Paneb to decide
which words to teach. But when they ran out of ideas, unsure what he wanted to
learn, the god pulled an object out of the sack he carried.

He
lifted part of it and showed Paneb and Ahmes that it was filled with pages of
papyrus only smoother and whiter.

The
god drew pictures on the pages and asked Ahmes and Paneb to describe them.

One
picture showed two men fighting.  Another showed a crocodile attacking a
man.  Others were less exciting: a boat, a man walking across the desert,
the sun rising and setting.  He drew a snake, a scorpion, a fire, and a
water pot.  His drawings were quick and accurate and Paneb, remembering
how the god Brian had thrown the spear so deeply into the sand, wondered if
there was anything the gods could not do.

I
t was dark as Paneb and Tim approached the
outskirts of Ineb-Hedj.  They were greeted by Ahmes who was out of breath
after running from their house back to the edge of town.

“Mother
wouldn’t let me go because I wouldn’t tell her who the guest was,” he
said.  “I told her it was someone you met at the tomb, but I didn’t know
his name.  She asked what he did and if he wore a kilt.”

Paneb
smiled.  “What did you say?”

“I
told her it was a surprise.”

Paneb
nodded.  “It will be, it will be.”

Tim
followed none of the conversation.  He knew that the crash course in
Egyptian that afternoon was just a start at acclimating his ear to sounds he
had never heard before.  He hoped that being immersed in the language
would make him learn it quickly.

The
moon was in its last quarter, however, the stars were bright and it was easy
for Tim to follow Paneb through the maze of hard-packed dirt streets of
Ineb-Hedj.  Mud-brick homes with open doorways and narrow open holes for
windows were scattered along the tree-shaded pathways.  At some places a
group of three or four homes faced each other in a half circle with a
rock-lined fire pit in the center of the clearing.

It
seemed that Paneb was leading him through back alleys, avoiding areas where Tim
heard the sound of people talking.  Once they startled a pen of geese and
Paneb’s pace picked up as the geese began to honk.  At one house a young
goat tethered to a post cried out as they passed.

Soon
they left the crowded area and entered a neighborhood where the pathway was
wider and straighter; the houses were larger and set back from the
street.  Most of them had head-high, mud-brick walls surrounding a small
courtyard.

They
followed the street into a small cul-de-sac, where a larger house stood beside
two smaller homes.  The smell of cooking spices and horseradish coming
from the larger home reminded Tim that he hadn’t eaten since they had shared
the cinnamon roll.

They
stopped in the dark clearing and Paneb pointed to the small house at their
left.  “The hewet of Taki’s mother,” he said.  Pointing to the other
smaller home, he said, “Hewet of Taki’s sister.”

As Tim
nodded his understanding his stomach growled in hunger.

Paneb
smiled at this human-sounding god.  “Taki will have prepared food.” He
started to pray that the food would meet this god’s approval, but then wondered
to whom he should pray.  If the god approved, he approved.  He had
seemed a very generous god so far.  Paneb hoped it would continue.

“I
call my wife Taki, but her name is Takhaaenbbastet.”

Tim
repeated the longer name and Paneb nodded approval.

He
pushed open the gateway in the whitewashed wall that enclosed the courtyard and
entered, holding the gate open for Tim.

Directly
in front of them was a palm leaf-topped canopy, similar to the one Tim had seen
at the tomb, although the poles supporting this frame were sturdier than the
ones at the tomb.  Beneath the canopy was a pool of water.

Tim
saw Paneb glance up at the dark roof of the low house.  A narrow staircase
followed the left wall to the flat roof.  He could see the outline of two
arches on the roof and wondered what they were. 

Paneb
led him around the canopy and past the steps.  In the dim light coming
from the doorway, Tim could see four columns supporting an overhanging roof
that provided shade at the front of the house.

The
aroma of garlic and onions mixed with roasted goose grew stronger at the
doorstep.  Tim wondered if Taki had prepared a special meal because she
was expecting a guest or if this was the welcome Paneb received every evening.

“Welcome
to my hewet, Netjer Tim,” Paneb said, reciting the words as a ritual welcome.

T
aki and her oldest daughter had their
backs to the doorway when Tim and Paneb entered.

“Beloved
sister, this is Neb Tim,” he said to his wife using the title ‘Lord’ with Tim’s
name.

Taki
and her daughter turned to the doorway.

She
wore a long, black wig and a white linen dress with a single strap over her
right shoulder.  Gold bracelets were on her wrist, and a gold amulet with
the strange dwarf figure of the household god Bes on it hung around her neck.

Her
daughter, nude except for a linen belt that hung around her waist, its ends
hanging by her side, stood beside her.  She looked a year or two older
than Ahmes, her body still boyish and un-shaped.

Taki
held a platter with a roasted goose on it.  Her daughter held a bowl of
beans.

They
juggled the bowls when they saw Tim, almost dropping the food onto the house’s
hard-packed dirt floor.

Paneb
had seen three gods arrive this week and spent all day with this one. 
There had been moments when he had forgotten that Tim was a god.  He also
had gotten used to Tim’s strange looks.  He hadn’t thought of the effect
Tim would have on his family.

Paneb,
his head shaved, was wearing only the pleated kilt he had put back on before
returning to Ineb-Hedj. 

Tim
was wearing khaki shorts, a white T-shirt with a drawing of Family Guy’s Peter
Griffin and a safari jacket vest with a dozen pockets and flaps.  Although
cut short, he had a full head of curly, black hair.  And although only
average in height for a twenty-first century American, he was half a foot
taller than Paneb.

Paneb
stepped quickly across the small room and took the roasted goose from Taki and
placed it on the low table beside her.  His daughter recovered and placed
the bowl beside the goose.

Tim
promptly forgot the greeting he had memorized, and said in English, “Good
evening, Takhaaenbbastet.  Thank you for receiving me.” He blushed when he
realized that it made no difference how polite he was because she wouldn’t
understand a word he had said.  He hoped that his tone and body language
would ease her fear.

Before
the confusion could begin to clear, Paneb’s youngest daughter, Hapu, ran crying
into the house.  She was followed by Ahmes who held a dead scorpion in his
hand.

She
held her left arm stiffly in front of her.  Even in the dim light from the
lamps Taki had lit, Tim could see the red swelling where the scorpion had stung
her.

As
Taki bent to take her daughter in her arms and comfort her, Paneb ran to the
next room and quickly returned with a knife.  He went to Hapu and grasped
her arm, preparing to cut open the wound.

Without
thinking, Tim shouted “Wait!”

He and
Addy had taken first aid courses while planning the trip and had studied
treatment for problems that they thought were likely in the desert: heat
exhaustion, dehydration, and various animal attacks, including the one Tim
feared the most - a camel bite.  He knew a scorpion sting was painful,
but less likely to be fatal than whatever Paneb was going to do with that
wicked looking knife.

Paneb
had stopped and was watching Tim, his eyes full of fear.

Tim
swung his backpack off his shoulders and squatted beside it.  He dug out
his first aid kit and opened it.  He took out a pack of instant cold
compresses and squeezed one of the five cold packs to activate it.

Sitting
cross-legged on the floor, he motioned for Paneb to bring Hapu to him. 
The girl, astonished at Tim’s appearance, stopped crying when she saw
him.  With Paneb’s gentle urging she approached Tim.

“Name?”
he asked Paneb in Egyptian.

“Hapu,”
he answered softly.

“Hapu,”
Tim said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.  “I know you can’t
understand me, but neither could my dog when I talked to him and we got along
fine.  And I promise I won’t ask you to roll over or jump through a hoop.”
He smiled, hoping that his attempt at a calming bedside manner would work.

He
felt Paneb and Taki watching him and thought for a second about the knife in
Paneb’s hand.

He
laid the ice pack on his left leg and sat Hapu on his right.  Leaning away
from her to reach his first aid kit, he tore open a cleansing wipe.  He
took her injured arm in his hand and gently cleaned the swollen area around the
sting mark.

He
took a tube of first aid cream and dabbed some on the sting, spreading it
softly.

“You’re
doing great, Hapu.  Really brave,” he whispered.

He
tore a small strip of gauze and folded it to make a bandage, which he placed
over the sting.  Then he wrapped gauze around it to hold the bandage in
place.

“You’ve
probably never felt anything this cold,” he told her pointing to the cold
compress.  He held the ice pack up to her and lifted her hand to it. 
He nodded encouragement as her hand reached for and then touched the icy pack.

She
jerked her hand away and cried, “Mother, mother!”

Taki
started to step forward, but hesitated, fearful of this man her husband had
addressed as ‘lord.’ Tim waved her forward and held the pack up to her. 
She touched it and jerked away as Hapu had done.

Tim
held the compress against his forearm.  “Nefer,” he said, hoping they
would understand the word as good instead of beautiful.  “Ahhh,” he said,
hoping it sounded like a sigh of relief and not pain.

He
felt Ahmes sidled up beside him.  The boy touched the cold compress.
Instead of jerking back as Taki and Hapu had, he pretended it felt good. 
“Ahhh,” he said, trying to sound like Tim.

“Here,
Hapu, you try it,” the boy said.