The Egyptologist (48 page)

cious Lover; He of the Sedge and Bee — Hand of a Scribe, Victorious
Bull, Fish of a God; Son of Ra—Atum-Is-Aroused. But the king was
born with his name hidden.

He is born far from the capital, near the waters. [His] mother is
chosen for her especial grace and beauty and intelligence to receive the
seed of Seth [god of confusion and disorder—RMT]. The summer at
its zenith, Seth disguised himself as a fisherman and lay with this
woman. At the moment he delivered his seed, Seth revealed his truth,
and the woman saw his donkey head and was frightened. Seth de•
parted, and she would kill the life in her womb. Seth stayed her hand.
Seth made her fingers like an animal's paw. Seth took from the un•
grateful her beauty, and she became dull and her name is everywhere
forgotten.

The woman washed clothes and drank beer. She was heavy with
child by as many men as stars in a sky. Her first son asked her who his
father was. She pointed to a fisherman who resembled Seth when he
had disguised himself. "This son of a whore's vulva is the father of
you." The fisherman said no, she had copulated with a donkey and her
children were all donkey-children.

Seth saw the boy grow strong and visited him. Seth explained all,
and the boy understood. The boy was made not by people but by gods
and himself. He created himself. The god whom he most resembled was
not Seth but Atum, the great creator of everything, at the moment

when the god strained towards creation. He named himself Atum-Is-
Aroused, and Seth came to Atum-Is-Aroused and praised him. With a
blinding flash of the sundisk, Seth made the boy forget his false birth
name all at once and forever.

At this time, the priest of the temple of Amen was jealous. The
priest's hungers ruled him, and he often skewered the boy like a veal to
be sacrificed, and the boy was forced to burn brightly and the boy
vowed that the priest would see his own heart beat in a fire fuelled by
camel dung while Atum-Is-Aroused would lay with the priest's sisters
and nieces before the priest's bleeding eyes.

Illustration:
Extraordinary illustrations: here we see Seth copulat•
ing with a beautiful woman under a midsummer sun, his head in mid-
transformation— half-donkey, half-man—the very instant of
impregnating Atum-hadu's mother. And here we see her with a golden
child in her transparent belly. Here we see her attempt to beat her belly
with fists, and Seth's punishment for that crime, transforming her into
an ugly, charmless washerwoman. Here we see the boy—golden-
skinned and beautiful—surrounded by countless other children—squat
and dark—while his mother lies drunk. Here we see the boy taken bru•
tally ("made to burn brightly") by the temple priest. Here we see the
boy visited by Seth. Here we see the boy teaching himself to read and
write, to hunt and fish. Here we see him standing aside from the fishing
village and his family, and the boy gazes towards the sundisk, where
Horus and Ra admire him in return.

The illustrations are not of an impressive accuracy, by Western art-
critical standards, nor are they quite typical of Egyptian art, yet still
how affecting!

Analysis:
Despite my easy childhood, the men whom I admire
most in this world are self-made men, a description which seems to fit
the king.

By
self-made
I do not mean poor men who have become rich. I
mean, rather, those men who gathered the fragments made available to
them as abandoned or downtrodden children and then, with the boil•
ing, creative force of their own minds, forged a self marked by strength
and, more importantly, by style. Such men create selves that bear no
trace whatsoever of their dark inheritances, no trace of foolish parents
or dusty childhood towns or the crimes committed against them, no
trace of the deprivations (money, affection, nourishment, friendship),
no trace of any source material at all, but instead an aesthetic and prac•
tical creation, godlike in its simplicity and in its completeness. Simplic•
ity: everything is from within this one head, no parental influence, no
village tradition, nothing that did not hail from the self-creating mind
itself. Completeness: everything must be created, every attitude, every

mannerism, every belief and value and stylish gesture. Nothing inher•
ited can be tolerated from an intolerable past.

And yet, great irony that is our world, such men are often not hon•
oured, while men like
me
—born with love, guidance, every advan•
tage—are. I admire, perhaps most of all the verses, his Quatrain
24
(Fragments B & C):

Atum-hadu looks behind him and marvels at the height.
Atum-hadu looks at all he has surpassed with great delight.
Atum-hadu owed nothing, is in debt to no man,

And will therefore act as no other man can.

One can easily imagine the young man composing this verse not
long after he found he had become the king of Egypt.

On Atum-hadu's Name:
Underneath the story's typically Egyptian
mythology, we find two details of crucial historical importance: Atum-
hadu came from nothing, and Atum-hadu named himself. The legend
allows for no other explanation. He was not of royal birth but of peas•
ant birth; in the chaos marking the end of the dynasty, a climb like his
was possible. The king's full five-name titulary—which opens the text
and ends with the "Son of Ra" name Atum-hadu (Atum-Is-Aroused) —
is given here for the first time. Usually, the "Son of Ra" name was the
king's birth name and was unsurprisingly royal in tone, given to a royal
newborn. But it appears that, in this case, this extraordinary mind risen
from humble beginnings had some other name at birth.

One pities him as a boy, of course, telling himself stories to fall
asleep, creating this dream of a celestial parent. An analysis of Atum-
hadu obviously benefits from modern sociology: in these terrible mod•
ern cases one hears of, research reveals that there is typically a critical
moment, the age at which the child first realises his predicament, finally
understands his relationship to his mother, for example, and thus with
the entire world. This moment is too easily bathed in retrospective
bathos, as I fell victim to just now, above, but in truth, one need not
pity such children. On the contrary, see the beautiful and heroic as-

pects: a boy of eight runs for the very last time into his ramshackle
home (for there must have been a
last
time, whether he knew it or not
just then), and he shouts with pride about some accomplishment, still
expecting (with the dregs of his childish instincts for love) to receive
praise from the lady of the house. He shouts with pride that he has
learnt to do this or that, something academic or athletic. And he re•
ceives as a mark of her definitive indifference to him either a blow or a
fruity curse marinated in liquor or mere runny-nosed, vomiting silence,
while new semi-siblings mewl and squat all over the room. As if such a
moment is, in the child's blossoming mind, necessarily tragic! Not at
all: why assume such a moment represents a door closing, rather than
the equally creaky sound of a door opening? How can the untrained
ear tell the difference? Close your eyes, and if, after that tooth-grinding
squeal, one feels a breeze of insight or opportunity, then you know. As
Atum-hadu apparently knew. Something had opened for him, which he
chose to recall as a nocturnal visit from Seth.

Modern sociology shows that the brightest children understand the
significance of this moment, and their adaptation to it can only be
termed a
second birth:
a birth into total independence, free of any ties to
illusions, free of any illusions of ties. A birth in which the child becomes
both his own parents. He alone will make himself from this day on.

There can be no question what passed through the great king's mind
when he chose the name by which the world later knew him:
the greatest
act of creation will now begin, the creation of myself.

And, of course, it is only by this superficially torturous second birth
that one is able even to aspire towards the
third birth,
which eludes most
men, even men who have made themselves (let there be no doubt of the
monstrous odds at play here). The third birth is that of
immortality,
in
which, after a productive life guided solely by one's own auto-parental
instincts, one's name is remembered and loved forever, in an under•
world or merely in celebrated glory. But, if you are unable to realise
your way out of childish delusions, if you blunder on, relying on the
love of a mother, the trustworthy interest of the priest or the teacher or
the employer or the lover or the officer, the benevolent concern of the

rich for the poor, the jolly companionship and foul-weather loyalty of
trusted pals, well, then you are doomed to a life of childhood. You will
have no real adulthood, and no hope of making an achievement worthy
of permanent note.

All of this makes Atum-hadu a worthy model for study. For if one
thing is clear in Quatrain 80 (Fragment C only), it is how closely the
great king's life illustrates the principles I have just outlined:

The mother's heart seals itself shut to her child.

No greater gift can she bestow, though he weeps and wails,
As we weep on our deathbed Like a maiden defiled,

But it is when our tomb door is sealed that our soul prevails.

The donkey-headed god Seth — sexually aggressive, mischievous,
power-hungry—is depicted on these walls also as sympathetic and
caretaking, almost a family dog rather than a donkey. The nameless
mother, the priest, the neighbours are all—even in the restrained pro•
files and formal requirements of Egyptian art, even when they are little
more than dribbling stick figures — clearly depraved and vicious.

Sunset on the Bayview Nursing Home
Sydney, Australia

January 5,1955
Macy,

I've been unwell again, not to be a bore about it, old men do fall ill, and who
cares. Also, I rather hoped to have heard from you by now, a response to my first
letter, but now I look at the new calendar they've tacked up here, pictures of the
bloody ocean, and I see I'm being impatient. Even in the fastest circumstances, I
couldn't hope to hear from you for some days yet, I suppose. Still, a word from
you that you've had some luck with publishers or motion picture people, well,
that would go a long way in helping me feel fit again, mate. Tired more than ill is
how I feel, didn't much enjoy mucking about in all those memories of Boston,

had quite put them out of my mind for some years, bit of a splash of cold water
on the face and heart after all that time. When I think of your poor aunt, finding
happiness again after this misadventure, well, that gladdens the heart, it does.
But that she's passed on already, at a young age, makes one feel old. Haven't had
many close chums in my life, a risk of the trade, you see, something for you to be
wary of before jumping into the detection game, Macy, little free advice from me
to you. She was a fine woman, your aunt. I do still hope to see a copy of your fam•
ily history when it's done.

Let's see. I went downstairs. I'd a job to do, for her as much as for anyone. On
Finneran's desk were the notes for her and the nurse I already described, I think,
as well as a stack of other incoming and outgoing correspondences, and a cable
from Trilipush to Margaret, still trying to patch things up, just to buy himself
some time. I left everything undisturbed.

Finneran's note to Margaret mentioned being out of town for a spell, and it
took me only half a day (the 1st of December) to confirm that he was on the
steamer leaving that very day from New York, due in Alexandria the 14th. There
was nothing to keep me in Boston another day now, so I spent the rest of the 1st
making my own travel arrangements, returned to my hotel to pack. I was a bit
low, rather like I feel now, hoping I'd feel back on track when I was clear and away
from the gathering Boston winter, pursuing the case in the homier, more Aus•
tralian warmth of Egypt. The end was in sight.

Well, comes a knock on my hotel door: J. P. O'Toole looking down his nose at
me, and next to him a perfectly round little man I recognised from newspaper
photographs as Heinz Kovacs, though O'Toole never introduced him, and he
barely spoke throughout our meeting. (You remember what happened to Kovacs,
I think in the late 1930s? It even made the newspapers in Australia. Jesus, that
was ghastly.) In they strode like they owned the place, sat in the chairs by the win•
dow, and O'Toole talked at me in his Irish brogue: "You're a detective, yes. Then
haven't we got a wee spot o'detecting for you to do."

We had new clients, Macy, and the first thing I learnt from them was what
would drive Finneran to play Holy Family and vanish off to Egypt in the dark of
night. In the previous eighteen months, the man had gone well past bankrupt, I
can tell you now, seeing as the news certainly comes thirty years too late to pre•
vent your uncle from marrying my Margaret! Yes, Finneran was quite out of
money, his shops were in danger, and as I'd deduced, he'd gone to O'Toole and
company for sizable sums on several occasions, with quite harsh terms. The last
time, he'd sold them on Trilipush and his no-fail Egyptian excavation as a way for