by Jerry Dubs
“And Super Bowl week,” Imhotep added.
“Or the Hajj at Kaaba,” Akila said. Shaking her head she looked at Imhotep and added, “Super Bowl week, seriously?”
Imhotep shrugged. “I was an American, Akila. Sports are us.”
Akila adjusted a red-bordered cape that lay over her white gown. “This is so festive. It doesn’t feel like a funeral.”
“No,” Imhotep said, uncurling the lip of her cape and then rubbing Akila’s back softly. “Yet it is very solemn and very important. The priests must offer the right prayers and appeal to the right gods in the right order. Everything needs to be done correctly to help Pharaoh Hatshepsut find her way through Duat to the Field of Reeds. But, you are right, there isn’t a sense of regret or sadness.
“The river still flows. Re still sails. Pharaoh still rules. Nothing really changes. The Egyptians are very fond of the repeating, reassuring seasons and festivals and rituals. There are formulas for everything.”
He sighed and then said, “Life here is too short for most of them. They can’t waste time figuring out what to say or do. Or think.”
Sitting placidly on a wide, pillowed stool, he watched his beloved wife lean toward a polished brass mirror to apply her kohl. “The rituals and beliefs are the stone structure of their lives. Everything else — families, feasts, work, growing old — all of that is the artwork, the paintings that will fill their tomb walls.”
He laid his walking staff across his lap and studied the snakehead carvings.
“You really are getting philosophical,” Akila said, glancing back at him.
He smiled and rocked to his feet. “I think funerals do that to me,” he said lightly. Then he frowned. “I’ve seen too many of them.”
***
A thin fog of incense wafted about the eight gods as they waited by the newly built landing on the west side of the river Iteru.
Across the causeway stood four lines of white-gowned wbt-priestesses and beyond them stood the royal court of the House of Thutmose and beyond them, spilling from the stone walkway onto the surrounding desert stood the pulsing, milling heart of the Two Lands.
Many in the crowd had crossed the river the night before, sleeping under the sparkling night sky so that they could get a better view of today’s procession. Others had crossed late this morning after watching the stately ceremony at the Temple of Amun. Still others, held back on the far bank while the royal barges departed, stood in boats swaying along the river bank.
Now, as a gold-gilded barge glided to a stop by the eight gods, the air began to tremble from the death rattle of sistrums shaken by the wbt-priestesses. A crowd of professional mourners began to wail, their thin cries weaving through the clattering sistrums and the wafting mist of frankincense and myrrh.
Hapi, baboon-headed son of Horus, approached the barge. Holding his arms extended toward the painted sarcophagus of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, he spoke the ritual words: “I have come to be your protection. I have bound your head and your limbs for you. I have smitten your enemies beneath you for you, and given you your head, eternally.”
Standing beside Hapi, the goddess Nebt-het spread her falcon-feathered arms, tilted her head skyward and cried a piercing call to frighten demons who lay in wait for Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s winged ka.
Now Imsety, Horus’ second son, stepped to the barge accompanied by the goddess Isis.
“I am your son, Ma’at-ka-Re, I have come to be your protection. I have strengthened your house enduringly.”
Bowing his head, he began to recite the names of Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Hapi and Isis joined the chant, finding a rhythm that matched the shaking sistrums while Nebt-het led the mourners in a keening song of lamentation.
Amid the growing cacophony, Duamutef, jackal-headed third son of Horus, stepped past his brother gods to the barge. Trailed by Neith, red-gowned goddess of war, Duamutef boarded the barge and approached the sarcophagus. With his arms and torso wrapped in the thin linen used to enshroud mummies, the god laid his hands on the painted coffin and said, “I have come to rescue my father Hatshepsut from his assailant.”
Then he stepped aside as the fourth son of Horus, falcon-headed Qebehsenuef, joined him on the barge. Accompanied by the goddess Selket, healer of scorpion stings, Qebehsenuef sprinkled water on the sarcophagus and then turned to the mourners.
“I have come to be your protection, deathless Ma’at-ka-Re,” he shouted. “I have united your bones for you, I have assembled your limbs for you. I have brought you your heart, and placed it for you at its place in your body.”
Booming drums joined the sistrums now and the keening cry of the mourners rose, racing across the desert air to the red sandstone cliffs that shielded the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut from the western horizon.
Standing beside Imhotep, Akila shivered at the heavy sadness that descended over the western bank of the river, and she felt an unnamed fear rise in her stomach. She reached for Imhotep’s hand, found that it was clenched into a fist, and turned to look at him.
His eyes were fastened on the woman who was portraying the goddess Neith.
“That was a thousand years ago,” she whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back. “And I know it was a different woman. But it was the same spirit, the same worship of violence and war. It killed Tjau and almost killed Meryt.”
She raised her hand to rub his back, felt the muscles tight at his shoulders.
“You really don’t like funerals,” she said, trying to lighten his mood.
“They are raw here,” he said. “Osiris is always waiting. He sends Wepwawet to fetch you. And although they talk of eternal life in the Field of Reeds, you and I have seen the crumbling mummies dragged from the cave tombs and displayed in museums.”
He raised his staff and tapped it on the ground, careful to not draw attention from the death procession that was winding past them now toward the mortuary temple.
He looked at Akila, his eyes sad and tired. “We must follow them,” he said, nodding toward the slow walking gods. “We must celebrate the wonderful life Pharaoh Hatshepsut is entering, even though we know that death is dust and emptiness and nothing more.”
***
Six hours later Imhotep and Akila emerged from the mortuary temple to find the sky turning a deep red as purple clouds rushed from behind the sandstone cliff to ambush Re. Looking into the sky, Imhotep reached out and wrapped nervous fingers around Akila’s wrist.
She looked at him in confusion. “What is wrong?”
His eyes were on the tumultuous roiling clouds.
“It’s only a storm, Tim,” she said in English.
“I have never seen a storm here, Akila. Not once in more than twenty years.”
She looked from the gathering clouds to Imhotep.
“It’s only a storm,” she repeated, one hand rubbing the back of Imhotep’s hand as she watched him.
Her words had barely settled when a crash of thunder rolled down the desert sands, hammered the sandstone cliff, and rebounded toward the river.
Akila felt Imhotep’s hand tighten under hers, and above her the goddess Nut began to weep.
***
Although warm as tears, the rain was heavy and the drops pelted against thin linen robes and kilts like a million invisible stones.
Pharaoh Thutmose, his guards, Senenmut, and the priests of Amun had departed to escort Pharaoh Hatshepsut on her final journey through the winding pathways of the Valley of Kings where the ruler would be entombed with her father, Thutmose, first of the name.
Looking westward from the middle terrace of the temple, Imhotep saw only a black sky and wondered what thoughts were roiling through Pharaoh Thutmose’s mind. He was sure that the religious ruler would see this as an omen.
Will he see the storm as the gods mourning Pharaoh Hatshepsut or as some cataclysmic event?
The rain began to fall harder now and Imhotep raised his free hand to shelter his eyes.
“We should get back to the
palace,” he said.
Around them, the insistent murmur of the crowd began to rise in intensity. Akila clutched Imhotep’s arm and pulled him back among the columns. Looking over at her in question, he saw her eyes were on the crowded ramp that led away from the temple.
From this height, the throng looked like a field of wheat stalks, swaying with the wind. But the wind was swirling and the crowd began to panic as the rain fell heavier and the sky grew darker.
The distant, frightened shouts grew louder, fighting the thunder and, suddenly, the crowd turned into a mob and the shouts stretched into screams.
“No,” Akila said, remembering stories of soccer game mobs turning into fatal rampages, “no, no, no.”
Now the crush of people disintegrated into frightened clumps. Some rushed madly toward the river, pushing and trampling those in their way. Others, disoriented, fought their way up the ramp toward the temple.
“We should go,” Imhotep said, tugging Akila’s arm to lead her deeper into the temple. They passed through the courtyard where the remaining priests were prostrate, praying to their gods for protection. A cluster of soldiers huddled in the shelter of the stone roof, watching the priests, glancing at the sky in dread and clutching their swords in fear.
“Imhotep!” a voice called.
Akila and Imhotep turned toward the voice and saw Pentu and Maya waving to them from the short ramp that led to the next terrace.
Imhotep hurried toward them, using his staff to push his way through a crowd of priests who had retreated from the open courtyard.
“There is more shelter up there,” Maya said, nodding toward the ramp.
“And fewer priests,” Pentu said, his eyes studying the courtyard. “What is happening, Imhotep?” he asked, turning to his father-in-law.
“Nothing, just a storm,” Imhotep said, turning to lead them up the ramp.
“Nothing?” Pentu said. “I have never seen anything like this. Re has been devoured before our eyes. Nut is weeping like Hapi before the flood. This is most certainly not ‘nothing.’ ”
Imhotep smiled to himself at the amused exasperation in Pentu’s voice. His son-in-law would have thrived in the modern world. He was unafraid to acknowledge his lack of knowledge, was able to detach himself emotionally, and had a wry sense of humor.
Imhotep sidled close to him.
“You know how steam rises from boiling water? Well, that moisture continues to rise. In my country, water rose from the rivers, from the ocean, from lakes and ponds. It gathers together in the sky and then, when it becomes heavy, it falls again as rain.”
Pentu nodded. “Yes, Imhotep, you’ve explained that to me. I understand it. But this?” he waved a hand at the dark sky and heavy rain.
“The same water that flows gently past Waset also splashes and fights through the cataracts. Yet it is the same water,” Imhotep said.
“So the water has different moods,” Pentu said as they entered the second terrace, finding it empty.
“Well, the rocks and the narrow river force the water to behave differently.”
“They make it angry,” Pentu said, fitting the information to his understanding.
Imhotep nodded, realizing that even his enlightened son-in-law would be unable to see the world as impersonal ‘things.’
“Well,” Pentu said, shielding his eyes with his hand as he looked upward, “someone needs to sacrifice a goat or an ox and get this settled.”
Fire of the god
By the time the rain stopped, Re had disappeared, leaving the western bank of the river hidden by a heavy darkness.
Emerging from the outermost sanctuary where they had sheltered, Imhotep and his family paused in the upper courtyard. The night sky, usually blazing with stars, was black, covered by a shroud of heavy clouds.
Pentu sniffed at the air and cocked his head as he fought to identify the strange smell. “Ahh, the scent of the river at high flood,” he said in surprise, “but without the decay or the fish.” He sniffed again and shook his head. “No, no, it is more like freshly washed linen, but without the bite of lye.”
Frowning, he breathed deeply and then went to the closest pillar and wiped his hand against it. Holding his damp fingers to his face he breathed in deeply. Smiling, he turned to Maya. “The water from the sky brings out the scent of the ka of whatever it touches.” He held his moist hand to her. “Here, smell, Maya. It is the ka of stone.”
She shook her head and turned toward the stone doorway that led to the lower terraces.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
Akila turned to Imhotep. “I know that sound. I heard it on the streets of Cairo after the army crushed demonstrations.” Without hesitation she began to run toward the cries.
***
Shouted names, unmuffled sobs, and cries to the gods rose from the straggle of survivors who wandered among trampled bodies scattered on the lower ramp.
Pentu jogged beside Akila while Maya walked beside Imhotep, his walking staff clattering against the slanted stones that led to the stone causeway.
The first body they encountered was an infant, its chest crushed, its face contorted into a final spasm of pain. Akila knelt by it briefly, confirming that it had not survived the frenzied stampede caused by the storm.
Looking up, she saw that Pentu was bending over an old woman.
“I think that both of her legs are broken,” he said sadly. He looked past the woman to the bodies and wanderers. “We should organize everyone.”
Akila nodded agreement and, as she stood, she saw that Imhotep already was gathering the walking survivors and pointing with his staff toward the fallen. “I think Imhotep has started,” she told Pentu. “Why don’t you and I tend to the injured while he organizes the survivors?”
***
Approaching the palace hours later, Akila and Imhotep walked beneath clouds cushioned by air that crackled with spent lightning.
Twenty-three had died on the stone causeway by the temple, another hundred had been injured. While Akila and Pentu tended those who could be helped, Imhotep had sent messengers across the river to bring soldiers and boats to the temple to aid in the rescue.
Without the sight of the moon’s passing, they had no idea how long they worked, but arriving on the eastern bank they saw that Re had not started to fight his way free of the underworld.
As they walked hand-in-hand through the quiet palace hallways, the lamplit dimness was suddenly split by white light and a moment later thunder crashed so close they felt the air shake.
“I’ve never heard of a storm like this in my country,” Akila said, squeezing Imhotep’s hand.
“Maybe it is the gods,” Imhotep said tiredly. “I mean we are nothing more than a collection of atoms organized into molecules. Same as the wind or the earth or fire. The elements don’t act any more randomly than that stampeding crowd did. So we might as well blame it on the gods, it’s easier than taking responsibility ourselves.”
You’re in a mood today, Akila thought.
“We’re tired,” she said, squeezing his hand once more.
“You’re right,” Imhotep said, disengaging his hand from her and wrapping his arm around her waist. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Akila. Sometimes this all gets me down. If we hadn’t found ... ” he left the thought unfinished as another lightning bolt crashed, the crack of thunder so quick and close that they jumped.
“Let’s find a bed to crawl under,” Akila said, only half joking.
Passing a stairway that led to the roof, they heard singing coming from above.
Imhotep turned to the steps, felt a tug on his arm, and looked back at Akila. “They don’t know what it is about, Akila.” He gave a small chuckle. “They don’t know enough to come in from the rain and the lightning. Go ahead, love. I’ll just be a minute.”
***
Emerging into the night air, Imhotep saw that the storm had turned into a heavy rain accompanied by flashes of approaching lightning and constant thund
er. On the far side of the wide, flat roof, he saw a group of men, their heads tilted back as they sang. The words were unclear, but he recognized their drunken, unharmonious song as a hymn to Amun.
They are trying to appease Amun and stop the storm.
Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and Imhotep hurried across the roof, uncomfortably aware that he was the tallest person standing below the stormy sky. Unconsciously hunching his shoulders, he gripped his walking staff and picked up his pace.
Drawing close enough to see the men clearly, he was not surprised to see that Pharaoh Thutmose was at the center of the group, his arms raised to the sky as the men sang.
Imhotep wondered if Pharaoh Thutmose was giving thanks to gods for making him sole ruler, or if he was beseeching them to treat his stepmother’s ka with reverence. Either was possible and neither would be contradictory to the ruler’s beliefs. Fervently religious, he saw the hand of the gods in every event, was willing to accept their actions, and was equally sure that what he himself did was inspired by the gods for he was Horus incarnate.
Glancing at the guards, Imhotep recognized one-handed Pawura, forgiven by Pharaoh Thutmose seven years ago, but removed from the maryannu and reassigned as a personal guard. Imhotep had not been surprised. After seeing the man cut off his own hand to offer it to Pharaoh Thutmose, it was impossible to doubt his loyalty.
Neferhotep was here, too. Imhotep was happy to see that his grandson was part of the ruler’s inner circle, but he wanted him to leave the exposed danger of the lightning storm.
The song finished, the men drew their swords and raised them overhead.
Alarmed, Imhotep saw only a waving field of lightning rods.
“Stop! Lower your arms!” he shouted, lurching forward.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck a palm tree beside the roof. There was a burst of flame, immediately smothered by the dampness of the tree and the heavy rain that was falling now.