The Egyptian (16 page)

We went together to the City of the Dead, unchallenged by the guards, and wandered between the rows of tombs until we reached a large one before which meat had been set forth and many sorts of cakes, fruit, and flowers. A sealed wine jar stood there also. The noseless one ate of the offerings, giving some to me, and then bade me read what was written upon the door. And this is what I read to him:

The noseless one listened reverently, and when I had finished, he shed bitter tears, saying, “I am a poor man and I believe all that is written. Thus I see that Anukis was a pious man, revered in death. Future generations will read the inscription on the door of his tomb and do him honor. But I am miserable and an evildoer and have neither nose nor ears so that my shame is seen of all, and when I die, my body will be cast into the river, and I shall cease to be. Is not everything in this world great vanity?”

He broke the seal of the wine jar and drank. A watchman came up and menaced him with his stick, but my companion said, “Anukis was good to me in his day, and I would honor his memory by eating and drinking at his tomb. But if you lay hands upon me or upon my friend here beside me—a learned man—know that there are many sturdy fellows among the reeds, and some of us have knives and will come upon you by night and slit your throat.”

He glared at the guard and was horrible to see. The man looked this way and that and went away. We ate and drank by the tomb of Anukis, and the roof above the offerings gave a cool shade.

He said, “I see now that it would have been better to give up my daughter willingly to Anukis. Perhaps he would have let me keep my hut and given me presents as well, for my daughter was beautiful and a virgin though now she is a worn-out pallet for his servants. I see that the rights of the rich and powerful are the only rights in this world and that the word of the poor man does not reach the ear of Pharaoh.”

Raising the jar to his lips he laughed aloud and said, “Your health, most righteous Anukis, and may your body be preserved forever! I have no wish to follow you to the Western Land, where you and your like live merrily, unvexed by the gods. Yet it appears to me but right that you should continue in your loving kindness on earth and share with me the golden goblets and the jewels in your tomb, so this next night I shall visit you when the moon is veiled in cloud.”

“What are you saying, Noseless?” I exclaimed in consternation and unthinkingly made the holy sign of Ammon. “You would not become a grave robber, for that is the vilest of all crimes in the eyes of gods and men!”

But Noseless, fired with wine, retorted, “You talk great nonsense in your learned way. Anukis is in my debt, and I, being less merciful than he, will enforce my demands. If you try to stop me, I will break your neck. If you are wise, you will help me since four eyes see better than two, and together we could bear away more from the tomb than I could manage alone. That is if there is no moon.”

“I do not wish to be hung head downward from a wall and flogged,” said I in a fright. But on reflection I knew that my shame could hardly be deeper though my friends should see me hanging thus, and death of itself held no terrors for me.

That night soldiers rowed across the river from the city to guard the tombs, but the new Pharaoh had not given them the presents that were customary after a coronation. So they murmured among themselves, and when they had drunk wine—for there was much wine among the offerings—they began to break open the tombs and despoil them. No one hindered Noseless and me when we violated the tomb of Anukis, overturned his chest, and took away as many golden cups and valuables as we could carry. At dawn a throng of Syrian merchants had gathered on the river bank to buy up the plunder and take it down the river in their ships. We sold our booty to them, receiving nearly two hundred deben in gold and silver, which we divided between us according to the weight stamped upon the metal. The price we got was but a fraction of the true value of the goods, and the gold was alloyed, but Noseless rejoiced greatly.

“I shall be a rich man, for in truth this trade is more profitable than staggering under burdens at the harbor or carrying water from irrigation ditches to the fields.”

But I said, “The pitcher goes once too often to the well.” So we parted, and I returned in a merchant’s boat to the other shore and Thebes. I bought new clothes and ate and drank at a wine shop, for the smell of the House of Death was leaving me. But all day long there came from the City of the Dead across the river the notes of horns and the clash of arms. Chariots thundered along the paths between the tombs, and Pharaoh’s bodyguard pursued the plundering soldiers and miners with spears till their death cries could be heard in Thebes. That evening the wall was lined with bodies hanging by the heels, and order was restored.

I slept one night at an inn, and then went to what had been my house and called for Kaptah. He came limping forth, his cheeks swollen with blows. When he saw me, he wept for joy and threw himself at my feet.

“Lord, you have come back though I believed you dead! I thought that if you were alive you would surely return for more silver and copper, for when once a man gives, he must go on giving. But you did not come though I have stolen from my new master as much as ever I did in my life, as you may see by my cheek and by my knee which he kicked yesterday. His mother, the old crocodile—may she rot!—threatens to sell me and I am in great fear. Let us leave this evil house, lord, and fly together.”

I hestitated and he misunderstood me.

“I have indeed stolen so much that I can take care of you for a time, and when it is all gone, I can work for you if you will only take me away.”

“I came but to pay my debt to you, Kaptah,” I told him, and I counted gold and silver into his hand, many times the sum he had given me. “But if you like, I will buy your freedom from your master so that you may go where you will.”

“And if you free me, where shall I go since all my life I have been a slave? Without you I am a blind kitten, a lamb forsaken by the ewe. Nor should you waste good gold upon my freedom—why pay for what is already yours?” He blinked his one eye in sly reflection. “A big ship is now fitting out for Smyrna, and we might perhaps venture to sail in her if we first make lavish sacrifice to the gods. It is only a pity that I have not found a powerful enough god since I gave up Ammon, whG made such mischief for me.”

Remembering the scarab I had found I gave it to Kaptah, saying, “Here is a god who is very powerful, though small. Guard him well, for I believe he will bring us luck; already I have gold in my purse. Clothe yourself as a Syrian, then, and escape if you must, but do not blame me if you are caught as a runaway slave. May the little god help you; we will so save our money to pay our passage to Smyrna. I can no longer look anyone in the face in Thebes or in the whole land of Egypt, so I will go never to return.”

“Make no vows, for who knows what tomorrow may bring? A man who has once drunk of Nile waters cannot quench his thirst elsewhere. I know not what evil you have done—you drop your eyes when you speak of it—but you are young and will one day forget. A man’s action is as a stone cast into a pool: it makes a splash and rings spread outward, but after a while the waters are still again, and there is no trace of the stone. Human memory is like that water. When sufficient time has passed, everyone will have forgotten you and your deed and you may return—and I hope that by then you will be rich and powerful enough to protect me also.”

“I go and shall not return,” I said resolutely. Just then Kaptah’s mistress called him in a shrill voice. I went to wait for him at the streer corner, and after a time he joined me there with a basket. In the basket was a bundle, and he jingled some coppers in his hand.

“The mother of all crocodiles has sent me marketing,” he said delightedly. “As usual she gave me too little money, but it will all help, for I believe Smyrna lies a long way from here.”

His dress and wig were in the basket. We went down to the shore and he changed his clothes among the reeds. I bought him a handsome staff such as is used by servants and running footmen in the houses of the great. Next we went to the quay where the Syrian ships were berthed and found a big, three-masted vessel, on which a rope the thickness of a man’s body ran from stem to stern and from whose masthead fluttered the signal for sailing. The captain was a Syrian, and he was glad to hear that I was a physician, for he respected Egyptian medicine, and many of his crew were sick. The scarab was bringing us luck indeed, for he entered us on the ship’s register and would take no money for our passage, which he said we should earn. From that moment Kaptah venerated the scarab as a god, anointing it daily and wrapping it in fine cloth.

We cast off, the slaves began to bend to their oars, and in eighteen days we reached the borders of the Two Kingdoms. In another eighteen days we reached the Delta, and in two more the sea lay before us, and there was no further shore in sight. When the ship began to roll, Kaptah’s face turned gray, and he clung to the great rope. Presently he moaned to me that his stomach was rising to his ears and he was dying. The wind freshened, the ship rolled more steeply, and the captain headed her out to sea until we were beyond sight of land. Then I, too, grew uneasy, for I could not understand how he would ever find it again. I no longer laughed at Kaptah because I felt giddy myself and had unpleasant sensations. Presently Kaptah vomited and sank down upon the deck; his face was green, and he uttered never another word. I became alarmed, and when I saw that many other passengers were vomiting and moaning that they would perish and that they were strangely altered in the face, I hastened to the captain and told him that it was clear that the gods had put a curse on his vessel, as a terrible sickness had broken out on board despite my skill. I begged him to put back to land while he could still find any, or as a doctor I could not answer for the consequences. But the captain reassured me, saying we had a fair wind, which would bring us smartly along on our course, and that I should not mock the gods by calling this a storm. He swore by his beard that every passenger would be as spry as a young goat the moment he set foot on dry land and that I need not fear for my dignity as a physician. Yet, when I observed the misery of these travelers, I found it hard to believe him.

Why I myself did not fall so gravely ill I cannot say unless it was that immediately after my birth I had been put to rock on the Nile in a reed boat.

I sought to tend Kaptah and the others, but when I would have touched the passengers, they cursed me. When I offered Kaptah some strengthening food, he turned away his face and snapped his jaws noisily like a hippopotamus, to empty his belly though there was no more in it. But Kaptah had never before turned from food, and I began to think he really would die. I was greatly cast down for I had begun to grow used to his nonsense.

Night fell, and at last I slept, fearful though I was of the rolling of the ship, the terrifying smack of the sails, and the thunder of the seas against the hull. Days passed, but none of the passengers died; some indeed recovered enough to eat and walk about the deck. Only Kaptah lay still and touched no food yet showed some sign of life in that he began once more to pray to the scarab, from which I concluded that he had regained hope of reaching land alive. On the seventh day a coast line appeared, and the captain told me that we had sailed past Joppa and Tyre and would be able to make Smyrna direct, thanks to the favorable winds. How he knew all this I cannot even now make out. On the following day we sighted Smyrna, and the captain made lavish sacrifice in his cabin to the sea gods and others. The sails were lowered, the oarsmen manned their oars, and rowed us into the port of Smyrna.

When we had entered smooth water, Kaptah stood up and swore by his scarab that never again would he set foot aboard a ship.

I SPEAK now of Syria and of the different cities to which I came, and to this end I should explain first of all that the Red Lands differ from the Black Lands in every particular. There is, for example, no river there like ours; instead, water pours from the sky and wets the ground. Every valley has its hill, and beyond every hill lies another valley. In each of these dwells a distinct people governed by a prince who pays tribute to Pharaoh—or did at the time of which I write. The dress of the people is colorful and expertly woven of wool and it covers them from head to foot, partly, I think, because it is cooler in their country than in Egypt and partly because they think it shameful to expose their bodies except when they relieve themselves in the open—which to an Egyptian is abomination. They wear their hair long and allow their beards to grow and eat always within doors. Their gods, of which each city has its own, demand human sacrifice. From all this it may readily be seen that everything in the Red Land differs from the ways of Egypt.

It is also clear that to those distinguished Egyptians who held resident posts in the Syrian cities, supervising taxation or commanding the garrisons, their task appeared more of a punishment than an honor. They yearned for the banks of the Nile—all but a few, that is, who had succumbed to the alien ways. These had altered the style of their garments and their thoughts and made sacrifice to strange gods. Moreover, the constant intrigues among the inhabitants, the cheating and roguery of the taxpayers, and the squabbles between rival princes embittered the lives of the Egyptian officials.