by Howard Fast
Many of the people, children and adults, stayed to watch, but at a distance of at least a dozen feet; it was plain that Doogana was a man well respected. Then Moses—and to a lesser extent Nun—talked with Doogana. They talked for a good while now, and again on other occasions, for Moses and Nun remained for eighty-two days with these people and Doogana was the only one they could talk to. Yet they were loath to leave, for these were a happy and contented people who lived in the most beautiful land Moses or Nun had ever known.
And this is the substance of what passed between them and Doogana; for he spoke to them in Egyptian, accented, but easier and more fluent as the conversation progressed.
[7]
DOOGANA OPENED THE conversation with a few words about language, his manner of speech verging upon the cynical, so that Moses was often puzzled as to how to take his remarks. He pointed out that only when one faced such an insuperable language barrier as lay between these two men from Egypt and his own tribe, did the importance of communication between men become fully apparent. He himself was the only person who could talk Egyptian, which he had learned as a slave in Egypt a long time ago. He smiled slightly here, but whether to indicate that he did not hold Moses responsible for his slavery or to note the fact that he recognized Nun as a slave, they did not know. The old man enjoyed ambiguities and equivocations. For the present, he said, he would talk to them in order that they might feel a little more at home, for his people were hospitable folk with many obligations toward strangers woven into their way of life. Of course, he explained, smiling again, it was their fortune that they dealt with so few strangers, and he shrugged with great knowingness. Then he went on to his own position—that he was not by any means the chief of this place but simply a doctor. More properly a witch-doctor, or magician-doctor, as it was put in Egyptian, he added modestly; and he was deprecatory of his few talents as he explained the purpose of his drugs and herbs. The copper dish, he said, grinning impishly at them, was filled with the water-of-time, which enabled him to read the past, the future, and many things of the present which were either far away or hidden by the guile of men.
And as if to give substance to his words, he said, “With all this spoken, I wish to greet you and welcome you, for it is not often that two travellers journey such a distance as you have come. You I greet first, O Prince of Egypt, Moses of the half-name;, and being of a folk without nobility, commoners or slaves, I also greet your companion, Nun the Bedouin.”
When he saw the open-mouthed, gaping astonishment of the two young men, be cracked his palms against his skinny thighs and shook with mirth. The people gathered around, knowing nothing of what was spoken, recognized that Doogana had scored a point, and they joined his laughter. Nun whispered, “Master, how does he know us? Is he a god of these people?” Puzzled and bewildered himself, Moses stared dumbly at the witch-doctor, who managed to say through his mirth,
“And you, O Prince of Egypt, with all your civilization and science and skills of rational thought, shall I read your very heart? Here in this water-of-time, your mind opens like a book for me to read, and I tell you that right now you are beginning to believe that I am the ghost—the ka, as your priests call it—of that poor old king, Irgebayn, whom you Egyptians betrayed and slew so foully.”
He rocked with glee, glancing from Moses to Nun, and then he shook his head and spread his clawlike hands. “Ah, now—forgive an old man who salts his own boredom with the confusion of strangers.” He trailed a finger through the water in the copper dish. “Not here, but here”—touching his forehead—“do I read things. The water-of-time is plain good water from the well, and how can we talk with open hearts if you think me a witch? Yet if we talk, we must talk that way, or to no purpose; and aside from food—I am long past the age where women mean anything to me—talk is my great pleasure. You see, my friends, no people live alone, and if travellers are few, they still come and go, and even here, so deep in Africa, the news comes. All who pass talk with me, and it would amaze you how little happens elsewhere that I do not know. A handful of those you call Kushites, but whom we call the Baynya, rested here for a space, and they told me of the Prince Moses and of his slave Nun. Things are simple when they are explained, are they not?” He was mocking Nun gently, for Nun was grinning with relief. “And of Moses of the half-name and his mother, Enekhas-Amon, and of the priest, Amon-Teph, who lost his head as well as the dreams it contained—of them I have heard this and that in the past, for it would be both proud and foolish for you to imagine that you are the first to come this far from Egypt. I could have beguiled you with that knowledge, but it’s a child’s game after all. You wear the royal neckpiece, Moses, and just as another man does not walk like a prince, a prince has his own difficulties walking like other men. So I put these simplicities together, and you thought me a witch. Am I not right?
Moses nodded. “You are right. But how did you read my thoughts?”
“Ah, you would have all my secrets! Yet what is a witch-doctor but a man who guesses at a little bit of the truth, but must wrap it in every kind of superstition to make it palatable to the ignorant? Truth is a dangerous thing, Prince of Egypt, and even your own man Nun becomes afraid of you and flees into himself when you try to serve him a meal of the truth. Am I right, Nun?” Nun stared, and Doogana rubbed his hands and giggled. “So you will learn, Moses, and if you make a wedding with the truth, you too will become a witch-doctor, rest assured. As to reading your thoughts—an awful guilt is always on top of the thoughts of a good man. To you white men, black men look all alike, for you feel that we are less than you are, and what you lessen, you rob of its singularity. I am an old man—so was Irgebayn. Do I need magic to read the rest?”
“And why do you say I am a good man?” Moses asked.
“Ah—I am garrulous, in all truth, but not enough to go into a dissertation of good and bad. Have it that I read it in your face, or have it that your slave Nun loves you, for with all his fear, he glances at you as a child glances at a father. This is not the way of slaves and I am a practical observer. But enough of this. Tell me now why you came here, so great a distance?”
“Because Ramses dreams of the city of gold that the old legends speak of.”
“And he sent you to find it?”
“Or to lose myself, so that I would not return with my hatred of him who murdered my mother.”
The old man nodded, his bloodshot and yellowed eyes fixed keenly upon Moses. “A strange breed, we humankind,” he reflected. “A mother dreams of her babe and a young man dreams of his maiden, but a king dreams of gold. Does the God-King fear you?”
“Someday I will kill him, and I think he knows it,” Moses said.
“I think not. I think you have had enough of killing, Prince of Egypt, to seek no more of it. And tell me, have you found this golden city?”
“It doesn’t exist. I knew that when we started. It is a legend and no more.”
“And are legends such lies, Moses?”
Puzzled, Moses said, “I don’t understand you, Doogana. Are lies and dreams the same thing?”
“No. No. they are different. I know where this golden city is, Moses—”
Nun interrupted him, “Then keep it to yourself, old man! We are sick to death with wandering! And you will curse the city you name.”
“And you, O Prince of Egypt?”
“I want no more blood on my hands, and Ramses has enough gold.”
“Yet you would be high in his favour—”
“I spit on his favour!”
“Nor would you have to wander,” the old man smiled, baring his black gums and four yellow teeth. He pointed to the huts, their grass thatch golden in the long rays of the afternoon sun. “You are there. This is the city of gold, the golden city, the city of dreams and legends.”
Nun looked at the mud huts scornfully, deciding that like many an old man’s, this one’s humour was as foolish as a child’s; but Moses sensed that the witch-doctor was deeply serious and he watched him with
interest and respect. They had reached each other. This was another of the singular fraternity of Amon-Teph and Neph and Seti-Keph and the doctor of the white house on the cliff and Merit-Aton, who was now a distant and wonderful dream clutched in his heart. This too was a demander of why and how, an image-breaker, this old, ugly black man—and did he recognize Moses as of the company? “We wear no insignia,” Moses thought, “no badge, and we have no signs. Then how do we know each other?”
“The golden city,” the old man repeated.
“And where do you hide your gold?” Nun asked boldly; but the old man took no offence and answered, “We find a nugget now and then, a bit here, a bit there, and whoever finds it brings it to me. In the course of a year, we have perhaps enough to fill this copper bowl. Then I send it north with ten strong young men to the land of the Baynya, and in exchange, they give us bronze spear-points, bronze arrowheads, and sometimes bronze knives. We have a little copper here, but no tin, and we can’t make our own bronze; yet it is less for the bronze, you, Nun, who have much to learn, than to be rid of the gold. For then it is told that in our golden city, there is not enough to make it worth anyone’s while to war against us—and thus we have just a little more wisdom than the Baynya, who wear gold bracelets and gold jewels and cover their gods with sheets of gold. Do you see?”
Nun shrugged, and Moses said, “I think so, but I am not sure. You were laughing at us when you called this the golden city.”
“I was telling the truth,” the old man snapped.
“Why?”
“Ah—in the manner of respect, ask why. The fool laughs. The wise man desires to know why. The coward is afraid of why, and he says—give me a sword-and I will cut the root of knowledge. I will kill—he says, and lo, we have a warrior! Have you killed, O Moses of the half-name? And you, Nun, black-bearded man of the desert? Are you full of the pride of killing?”
Nun did not reply; he was afraid of the tremulous anger in the little man’s voice, and he said to himself that perhaps this was a powerful witch-doctor after all. But Moses, whose heart was suddenly heavy as lead, answered,
“No, I am not proud.”
“Then why did you kill, Egyptian?”
“They were the enemy and it was kill or be killed,” Moses answered slowly. “I did not make war. We warred with Kush, and if I had not slain Kush, then Kush would have slain me.”
“And why did you war with Kush?”
“Because the God-King wished it so,” Moses muttered.
“And now the God-King looks for a golden city, so that the blood can run again. Oh, what a fool you are!”
From a black man, this was too much for Nun and too much even for his fear to tolerate. “Take care, old man,” he said. “You talk to a prince of Egypt.”
“Oh? And will the Prince of Egypt return with an army and put us to the sword? I think not.”
“To set foot in this lovely land,” Moses said. “No. I would die first. Before I brought them here, I would die.”
The witch-doctor gave a shout of applause and clapped his skinny hands together, and all the people and children standing about and listening to a conversation they did not understand also clapped their hands together.
“Then my medicine works,” Doogana said. “There is bleeding inside of you, but it will heal, Moses, it will heal. Think then—is only the metal golden? What of the sunshine?”
“My teacher said that the golden sun is god,” Moses whispered.
“Gods—what a need for gods you Egyptians have, godsick and godridden the way you are! The wheat in the field is golden for the harvest, and I have seen fish that gleamed like the purest gold. But do you know what is most golden of all?”
“What, Doogana?” asked Moses, like a child with his teacher.
“The memory of innocence. Out memories of childhood are woven with golden thread, and when a whole people recall the misty time before they learned to kill and steal and lie and squeeze each other’s blood, they call it the golden time, the golden age—and this they people with golden cities. How do I know? Am I just an ignorant old man, Moses, an old man full of superstition and magic spells?”
“I think you are wiser than I will ever be,” Moses answered, slowly and haltingly.
“That I do not know, for I had no teachers—and observe, you, Nun, that a teacher is not to be mocked—ever. Thus I teach the Prince of Egypt what is beyond your understanding, and in turn he will teach you. Thus I was taught by an Egyptian physician in old Giza, when your royal father had not yet seen the light of birth. Yes, I, Doogana, a poor black slave, taken first as a slave by Kush and sold to Egypt for three shekels of silver—and yet this man taught me because he had tasted the sweet pleasure of teaching, which is like no other pleasure on earth. Much did he teach me, of medicines and unguents and how to, set the broken bone and how to sew the broken flesh and how to dress a wound so that it healed clean and fresh. He taught me of the organs of the body and wherefore one man dies in youth while another lives to old age. But most precious of all, he taught me to write and to read in your hieroglyphics, and put no bar in my way when I spent a thousand hours poring over the old scrolls in his library and the old wisdom. Thus I came to know that in the legends of all folk, there is a golden age and golden cities—a time when no man coveted what another had.”
Nun said, “And your own people, Master Doogana—they do not steal or kill or lie?”
Doogana grinned at Moses and observed, “If you are a dreamer, Moses of the half-name, then surely your servant is a practical person indeed. What do they say of the Bedouins—that they will cut your throat to sell the blood for pig fodder? No—no, Nun, I mean no offence, but ignorance is rash. You call these my people; would it astound you to know that they are ruled by a council of seven women—and that the word of these women is more searching and emphatic than the word of Ramses himself? These are the mothers, and—who better to say us yea or nay than the mothers? And as for stealing—the very word is not in my tongue. Murder? Yes, sometimes there is murder, but then the murderer must go away from us and never return—and for us that is worse than death. Lies? We have no need for them, for we have not yet become civilized enough for wrong and deceit to be profitable. These are not virtues we parade; these are our way of life because we have only touched the knowledge of civilization. We are not always content, but we have more of real contentment in our little village than exists in all of mighty Egypt. The golden city—well named. You fret now—this is a foolish old black man who talks to you. But stay with us for a while—and perhaps you will think otherwise.”
Moses was tired. He had wandered too far and too long; the old man was not wrong; and this place was full of peace. He smelled the sweet smell of the fields and he watched the bees gathering from the wild flowers that grew among the huts. And almost dreamily, he asked Doogana, “What gods do you worship here where the whole land is so sweet? They must be good and gentle gods.”
Doogana smiled and inquired as to whether Moses believed in the gods. It was a strange question, and no Egyptian would ask it.
“I believe—but I hate them, and those I do not hate I have only contempt for.”
“Some day,” the old man said, crooking a finger at Moses, “you will learn to put a bridle on your tongue, young Prince, or else it will grow long enough to strangle you.”
“I am not afraid of the gods,” Moses shrugged.
“That is bravado. Of course you are. Every Egyptian is afraid of the gods. But it is men who strangle other men—not gods. We have no gods here, not yet. When we go to hunt the antelope, we dance magic, and in the dance we beseech the antelope to forgive us and not fear us, for he must give us flesh or we perish. The antelope clan takes him in and gives him shelter and love, to repay him for the necessary cruelty we inflict. So with the elephant and the elephant clan. So with all the beasts and the birds. When drought comes we bring water from the lake and pour it on the ground and dance the rain dance, so that the sky may take pity and see our ne
ed and pour its water on us. Of course, Prince of Egypt, all this is magic, and even though I hear that the Great House in Tanis swarms with magicians and every sort of faker these days, I know that an educated Egyptian like yourself scorns magic. Yet given a choice of gods or magic, I will take the magic and be grateful.”
“And this—all this beauty,” Moses murmured sleepily, “who made it, and why?”
“Your gods?” the witch doctor snorted. “They are jealous, petty, squabbling creatures who could not make a basket or a pot or anything else of use to man. Can you imagine for a moment that those wretched creatures made all this wonder and complexity—this mystery that even in a blade of grass defies the understanding of the wisest man?”
Moses was drowsy, deliriously drowsy and wonderfully at peace with himself. Never in all. his life had he felt so relaxed, so much at ease, without fear or trepidation. The old man’s sarcasm was as gentle as the afternoon wind. He found himself nodding.
“And here you are far from your mummies and your foolish tombs and all your feats of death and extinction. Death is like sleep, boy, and when you are as old as I am, you will not be afraid to sleep. As you are now at the beginning of life—so must you be at the end of it, without fear of a long sleep and rest. Go now, and we will talk again.”
He spoke in his own tongue to some of the people who were listening, and they led Moses and Nun through the village to an empty mud hut. It was clean, the doorway open to the wind, and the beds were skin bolsters filled with dry, sweet grass. Gratefully, Moses shed the harness and weapons he had borne so long, but Nun muttered worriedly about spells and enchantments and told Moses that in all probability they would be murdered in their sleep. Moses fell asleep to the sound of Nun’s petulant complaint, and slept the easy sleep of a child into the following dawn.