Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

by Naguib Mahfouz

  “Give me what you have,” he demanded.

  When the messenger was sure that they were alone in the tent, he lifted the black cowl from his head. Luxuriant black hair cascaded from under it, the locks falling over his shoulders in a flurry, painting a halo around a marvelous head. Then the messenger's hand reached toward his beard and pulled it off with a refined twist, as he opened his eyes that had been deliberately narrowed. A radiant face appeared, beaming a light through the air of the tent, along with the first rays that the sun sent forth over the desert's vastness outside.

  Djedef ‘s heart flew about in his breast, as he exclaimed with a tremulous voice, “My Mistress, Meresankh!”

  He rushed toward her like a panicked bird, and knelt at her feet, kissing the fringes of her loose-fitting robe. The princess fixed her gaze in front of her with a timid, bashful expression, while her lissome body trembled. All the while, she felt the young man's hot breath flowing through the fabric of her trousers, blowing upon her perfumed thighs. Then she stroked his head with her fingertips and whispered softly, ‘Arise,” and the young man stood up, his eyes flashing with a joyful, delighted light.

  “Is this real, My Mistress? Is it true what I hear? And what I see?” he stammered.

  She gazed upon him with a look of surrender as though saying to him, “You have overcome me totally, so I have come to you.”

  “The gods of joy are singing all at once within me at this moment. Their songs have accompanied me through these months of torment and their sleepless nights. Their melodies have cleansed my heart of the bitterness of distress and shadows of despair. O Lord! Who would say that I'm the one whom yesterday life had scorned?”

  The emotion showed on her face as she said in a shaking voice, like the cooing of a dove, “Did life truly treat you with scorn?”

  As his eyes devoured the lips from which her speech had issued, he replied, “Yes, it treated me harshly, and I actually wished for death. The soul who craves death is that which has lost hope. I've never been a coward, My Mistress, so I remained loyal to my duty. Yet the sense of futile triviality tortured me.”

  Then he added, “This and the melancholy weighed heavily upon me, and my eyes — were veiled with gloom.”

  She sighed and rejoined, “I was fighting my pride, struggling with myself, for it tormented me always.”

  “How cruel you were to me!”

  “I was even cruder to myself,” she said. “I remember that day on the bank of the Nile. That day a strange unease kept filling my heart. Later I learned that my heart was fated to awake through your voice from its deep slumber. This fact, I discovered, left me split between the thrill of adventure and the fear of the unknown. Then I remembered your nobility and your self-confidence, so I rebelled. And whenever I cast my eyes upon you, I was harsh with myself, and with you, as well.”

  Then he sighed, and said with yearning, “How I suffered for my vain delusions! Do you remember our second meeting, in His Majesty's palace? You scolded me violently and rebuked me severely. Just yesterday you wouldn't hear out my grievance, and left me without a word of goodbye. Do you know how much agony and pain I have endured? Alas! If only I had known what was to come! My most desolate times would have been my happiest. I pleaded to the gods over my torment. How they must have laughed at my ignorance!”

  “And the gods witnessed my arrogance and were amused by my contempt,” she said, smiling. “Have you ever seen such a farce as ours before?”

  “And when the farce is over, it is time to mourn. All I can think of is the precious time that has been lost to us!” he said.

  Groaning regretfully, she said, “The blame is on my head.”

  He regarded her tenderly. “I would sacrifice myself to protect you from all evil,” he said.

  Smiling sweetly, she replied, “I think that time is being cruel to us today.”

  He moaned sorrowfully and peered at her with downcast eyes. So she said as the spirit of hope spread through her being, “There is a long future, lit with hope, lying before us. Wish for life as you once wished for death.”

  “Death shall never hold sway over my heart,” he said, with happiness and joy.

  “Don't say this,” she said, putting a finger over his mouth.

  But then he said, with an insane passion, “What can Death do to a heart that love has made immortal?”

  “I shall stay in the palace — I shall not leave it,” she vowed, “until I hear the horn sound the tidings of your triumphant return!”

  “Let us pray to the gods to shorten our separation!”

  “Yes, I'll pray to Ptah, but in the palace, not here,” she said, “because we do not have enough time.”

  As she replaced the cowl on her head, it pained him to see her pitch-black hair disappear once again beneath it.

  “I hate to be parted from such a dear limb of my own body,” he said.

  She looked at him, her eyes glinting with the light of love and expectation. Yet she imagined that his face was growing dark as his breast was pounding, and that his brow was shadowed by storm clouds. Disquiet conquered her as she asked him, “Of what are you thinking?”

  “Prince Ipuwer,” he answered, tersely.

  Laughing, she replied, “Hasn't what the gossips were saying about him some time ago yet reached you? How strange…. Nothing is hidden in Egypt, even the secrets of Pharaoh's palace. But you've learned only one thing, while you don't know others. The prince is a sublime person, of virtuous character. He spoke with me one day while we were alone, on the subject that had been announced. I apologized and said to him that I'd be comfortable to remain his friend. No doubt he felt disappointed, but then he smiled his magnanimous smile and told me, “I love truth and freedom — and I would hate to so demean such a noble soul as yours.’ “

  Djedef said with exhilaration, “What a magnificent man!”

  “Yes, he is decent, indeed.”

  “Is there not one thing on our horizon that might call for pessimism?” Djedef stuttered. “I mean… I do fear Pharaoh!”

  She lowered her eyes shyly. “My father would not be the first pharaoh to make one of his subjects a member of his own family.”

  Her answer delighted him and her shyness intoxicated him.

  He leaned toward her in painful passion, stretching his hand toward hers — when it was about to reattach the beard to her face — in fear that the gorgeous, luminous visage would vanish. She surrendered her hand to his, and her acquiescence was a bewitching act of sweetness. The young man knelt down again before her, kissing her hand with mad enchantment, as she said to him, “May all the gods be with you!”

  Then, putting the false beard back on her chin, and pulling down on the cowl until its edge touched her eyebrows, she returned to her former guise as the crown prince's messenger. Before turning her back to him, she reached within her breast and withdrew the little beloved portrait that nature had made the spark for this beautiful infatuation, and gave it to him wordlessly. He took it with mad love and passion, kissing it with his mouth before burying it in his own breast in its original, familiar place. Then she flashed him a smile of goodbye, before — to make him laugh — giving him a military salute and marching, in soldierly fashion, outside.

  The youth that she left reeling with delirium, his face beaming with the light of hope, was not the one she saw at her arrival — dejected, distracted, and confused. His love was aroused once more and revived after it had become lifeless. In that spectacular moment, fantasies of his heart's past visited his imagination — Nafa's lovely gallery; the lush green banks of the Nile; the band of pretty peasant girls. Then he remembered his sadness and despair, and wrapped himself once more in the pelt of patience before recalling the glowing promise that he perceived amidst the flood of despondent sorrow. The reality of life and love seemed to him like a river bearing water to a burgeoning garden, with flowers blooming and birds warbling from the sweetness that it brings. But should its springs dry up, the garden trellises would be bare, it
s beauty would wither — and it would be nothing more than an abandoned patch of desert.

  Sennefer's return snapped him from his reverie. The officer informed him that everything was now ready, so Djedef ordered him to have the horns sound the signal for departure. Immediately a great movement spread throughout the encampment as the music was played and the first units of the army began to march. Djedef mounted the commander's chariot, — which — was driven by Sennefer. Then the most senior officers mounted their vehicles, and the group of them proceeded to the heart of the troop of chariots. As the horns sounded again, Djedef's chariot moved to the head of the troop, flanked by two wings of mighty officers. Following them was a formation composed of parallel ranks of three thousand war chariots bristling with weapons. Marching behind them were the brigades of infantrymen, each one bearing its own standard. At their head was the brigade of archers, then the spear-throwers, trailed by the swordsmen. Following the army were huge wagons bearing weapons, provisions, and medical supplies, guarded by a squadron of horsemen.

  This army traversed the desert wastes, its destination the mighty wall that the tribes had taken as their secure fortification.

  The forenoon sun had risen over them, and the blaze of midday heat had scorched them, when the breeze of sunset struck them as they stalked the earth like giants. The ground almost seemed to complain from bearing their immense weight, while they themselves complained of nothing.

  27

  A scouting chariot was seen rapidly covering the ground in their direction, and they watched it with great interest. Its commander approached Djedef and informed him that their eyes had detected a band of Bedouin scattered around Tell al-Duma. The reconnaissance officer proposed that a troop of soldiers go out to fight them. Intrigued, Djedef spread out a map of the desert in front of him, searching for Tell al-Duma.

  “Tell al-Duma lies to the south of our path,” he said. “These Bedouin are known to travel in small parties that pillage and then flee — and it would never enter their minds that they would be attacked by a sizable army like ours. We have no reason to fear an attempt to outflank us.”

  One of the officers spoke up. “I think, Your Excellency,” he said, “that it would not be wise to leave them as they are.”

  “No doubt we will stumble upon quite a few groups like this one,” the youthful commander countered. “If we sent out a unit of soldiers against each of them, we would disperse our forces, so let's keep our eyes fixed on the primary objective. And that is to pierce the wall around their stronghold in the midst of their territory, and to arrest their leader, Khanu.”

  Yet Djedef wisely chose to strengthen the force protecting their supplies. Meanwhile, the army advanced on its route, seeing no trace of any tribesmen along the way. News came to them that all those who roamed the desert, when they heard of the approach of the army marching in the peninsula's direction, had turned tail and fled. And so the Egyptians proceeded down the safe, empty road until they reached Arsina.

  There they stopped for rest and provisions. Prince Ipuwer came to visit them, and was given a reception befitting his rank. The prince inspected the units of the army, then lingered with the commander and his senior officers, discussing with them the affairs of the campaign. He suggested that they leave a detachment between them and Arsina to communicate their news, and to promptly send them anything they might need. Then he addressed them, “You should know that all the forces in Arsina are buckled up to fight,” said Ipuwer, “and that sizable reinforcements from Serapeum, Dhaqa'a, and Mendes are on their way to Arsina, as well.”

  “We beseech the gods, O Your Highness,” answered Djedef, “that we do not require new troops, respecting the — wish of His Majesty, — who is anxious to preserve the lives of the believers.”

  That night the army slept deeply and quietly. Then it awoke to the blast of the horns when the cock began to crow.

  Pharaoh's army resumed its march, moving east from Arsina with an awful clamor. They kept stopping for rest, then resuming their journey, until there loomed in the distance the huge wall that began in the south at the Gulf of Hieropolis, then bent eastward, tracing the shape of a great bow. The expedition swung toward the north, then turned slightly to the east before encamping in a spot where assailants’ arrows could not reach them.

  From their camp, they could observe the firmness of the wall's construction. They could also see the guards perched upon it, bows in hand, ready to defend it against any attacking army.

  Djedef and the officers agreed that, in this case, there was no purpose in waiting to launch their assault, as there would be if they intended to take a city by starving its populace. They reached a consensus that it was best to begin with light provocative skirmishes to test their enemy's strength.

  Clearly it was dangerous to use their chariots in the first battle for fear of losing their brightly bedecked horses. Therefore, they put hundreds of armored bowmen at the lead, arrayed in a half circle, each one separated by tens of arms’ lengths from his nearest fellow. They approached until they reached a point where the enemy thought that it was practical to launch their arrows at them, and they judged it effective to respond in kind. Thus began the first battle between the two sides, the arrows flying in dense droves, like clouds of locusts, most of them vanishing into the great void between them.

  Djedef watched the battle with absolute concentration, admiring the Egyptians’ skill in archery that had long — won them a reputation without peer. Then he spied the gate on the wall.

  “What a massive portal that is,” he said to Sennefer, “as though it — were the entrance to the Temple of Ptah!”

  “Just wide enough for our chariots — when — we punch through it later,” the zealous officer replied.

  The skirmish — was not in vain. Djedef noticed that the tribesmen had not built towers on the fortress's walls from which to shoot arrows down on their attackers. As a result, their bowmen could not respond without exposing themselves to danger. Hence, it seemed profitable to attack with great armored shields, known as “the domes.” Shaped like the prayer niches in the walls of temples, and big enough to cover a soldier from his head to his feet, they each had a small aperture near the top, through which the soldiers fired their arrows. Thanks to their thick plating, the only way these shields could be penetrated was through these same openings.

  Djedef ordered several hundred of the men carrying these shields to advance on the wall's defenders. The soldiers were all to line up behind their armor in the form of a wide half circle. They all then moved up toward the wall, indifferent to the hail of arrows falling down upon them. Next, they set their shields on the ground and fired their own arrows, as a fierce and bloody battle began between them and their enemy, the messengers of death flying to and from both sides. The tribesmen succumbed in great numbers, but they nonetheless displayed a strange steadfastness and a rare sort of valor. Each time a group of them fell, another took its place. And despite the Egyptians’ protection behind their peculiar armor, many were struck by missiles piercing the tiny apertures, and were killed or wounded as a result.

  The vicious combat continued until the western horizon was stained with the blood-red glow of evening. Then commands went out for the Egyptians to fall back, when exhaustion had sapped them of all that it could.

  28

  Memphis awaited news of the Sinai campaign — with a confident calm, due to the overwhelming trust she had in the great nation's army, and her overweening contempt for the marauding Bedouin tribes. Yet great hearts still feared for the fate of those fighting on Egypt's behalf.

  Among them was the mighty monarch of the Nile, who, in his old age, had turned toward wisdom as he continued to compose, from the inkwell of his soul, his immortal message to his beloved people. Another was Zaya, consumed by pain, tormented by dread, and haunted by insomnia. And there was another heart, which had not before known the meaning of agony or the bitter taste of terror. This belonged to Princess Meresankh, whom the gods had endowe
d with the most splendid beauty on earth, and with the most pleasing opulence and comfort, rendering the most magnificent of all human hearts subservient to her affection. The gods went so far as to hold her harmless from the powers of nature: the cold of winter did not sting her, the heat of summer did not sear her; the wind from the South did not fall upon her, nor did the rain from the North. All the while she had continued to sport and play until her heart was touched by love, as the newborn infant's fingertips are first touched by flame. Burned by the fire, she opened her breast to its torture, and its humiliation.

  Her condition was noted by her handmaidens, and by her servant Nay in particular. One day Nay said to her, as she observed her with a fearful, worried eye, “Did you sigh, My Mistress? What then, would one do, if they were not one to whom the gods and the pharaohs pay heed? Are you kneeling down to beg and plead? But to whom, then, can we do the same? You're lowering your eyes, My Mistress? But for whom was your haughtiness made?”

  Yet the princess's dream held no room for her servant's banter. During those long, empty, difficult days, all she thought of was her own plight. If she had been able, she would have wanted to keep to what she said to her sweetheart — that she would not leave the palace until she heard the horns blowing the call of his triumphant return. Yet she found herself yearning to visit the palace of her brother, the heir apparent, to pay a heartfelt tribute to the place where her love used to meet her whenever she came.

  When the crown prince received her, he did not conceal feelings that she had not known of before. These were his discontent over the king's policies, to the point that he told her angrily, “Our father is becoming senile very quickly.”

  She looked at him with disbelief. “True,” Khafra continued, “he has preserved his physical health and the sharpness of his mind. Yet his heart is getting old and feeble. Don't you see that he's turning his back on state policy, distracted — in both his heart and his mind — by meditation and compassion? He spends his precious time writing! Where is this found among the duties of the powerful ruler?”