The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

  My night was long. While the others slept, I was filled with devotion and aspiration, and I reflected that I had kept myself pure and fasted and obeyed all the old commandments so that Ammon might reveal himself to me. I repeated his holy names and listened to every rustle with senses alert-but the temple was void and cold. With the approach of morning the veil of the sanctuary stirred in the draft, but nothing further happened. As daylight began to creep into the hall, I blew out the lamp with a heavy heart and woke my companions.

  Soldiers blew their horns, on the walls the guard was changed, and from the forecourts came a murmur like the rushing of distant waters. We knew that day and its work had begun. At last the priest entered in a great hurry and with him, to my surprise, Metufer. A strong reek of wine came from them; they were walking arm in arm, the priest swinging the keys of the sacred shrines in his hand. Prompted by Metufer, he gabbled off the holy formulas before greeting us.

  “Postulants Mata, Mose, Bek, Sinufer, Nefru, Ahmose, and Sinuhe! Have you watched and prayed as you were commanded, that you might be acceptable to the Most High?”

  “We have watched and prayed,” we answered with one voice.

  “Has Ammon revealed himself to you according to his word?”

  The priest belched, and his eyes traveled over us unsteadily. We glanced sideways at each other and hesitated. At last Mose faltered, “He has revealed himself.” One after the other my companions repeated, “He has revealed himself.” Last of all Ahmose firmly and reverently declared, “Most certainly did he reveal himself.” He stared the priest straight in the eye, but I said nothing. I felt as if a hand were squeezing my heart, for to me my companion’s words were blasphemy.

  Metufer said impudently, “I also have watched and prayed to be worthy of initiation, for this next night I have other things to do than to tarry here. And to me also Ammon appeared, as the priest can testify. His form was that of a huge wine jar, and he spoke to me of many sacred matters that it is not fitting I should repeat to you; but his words were as refreshing to me as wine so that I thirsted to hear more and yet more until the dawn.”

  Then Mose plucked up courage and said, “To me he appeared in the shape of his son Horus, perching upon my shoulder like a hawk and saying, ‘Blessed be thou, Mose, and thy family and all thy deeds, that thou may’st come to dwell in a house with two gates and have command over many servants.’ “

  Now the others also hastened to relate what Ammon had said to them; they talked eagerly, several at a time, while the priest listened and nodded and laughed. I do not know whether they spoke of their dreams or whether they were lying. I only know that I stood apart and said nothing.

  At last the priest turned to me, knitted his shaven eyebrows, and said sternly, “And you, Sinuhe! Are you not worthy? Did not Ammon appear to you in any shape at all? Have you not seen him even in the likeness of a little mouse? For he manifests himself under many forms.”

  My entry into the House of Life was at stake, so I summoned courage and answered, “At dawn I saw the holy veil of the sanctuary stirring a little, but I have seen nothing else, and Ammon did not speak to me.”

  Then everyone burst out laughing; Metufer laughed and slapped his knees and said to the priest, “He’s simple.” Then tugging his wine- soaked sleeve, he whispered something to him, his eyes still upon me.

  The priest looked at me again sternly and said, “If you have not heard the voice of Ammon you cannot be initiated. Yet, for all that, we may find a remedy, for I believe you to be a steadfast youth, full of honest purpose.”

  When he had said this, he vanished into the holy of holies, and Metufer came forward to me. When he saw my woeful face, he smiled in a friendly way and said, “Have no fear!”

  A moment later we all jumped, for through the darkness of the hall came the braying of a supernatural voice that was unlike the voice of any man. It seemed to come from everywhere at once: from the roof, the walls, and between the pillars-and we looked about us to discover whence it came.

  “Sinuhe, Sinuhe, thou sluggard, where art thou? Come swiftly and bow down before me, for I have but little time and cannot tarry all day for thee.”

  Metufer drew aside the veil of the sanctuary and, pushing me in, gripped the back of my neck and bent me to the floor and into the attitude in which salutation is made to gods and Pharaohs. But I raised my head at once and saw that the holy of holies was full of light.

  A voice came from Ammon’s mouth, saying,

  “Sinuhe, Sinuhe, thou swine and baboon! Wast thou then drunk and sleeping when I called thee? Verily thou should’st be cast into a pool of slime and eat mud all thy days; nevertheless, for thy youth’s sake I will have mercy, despite thy foolishness, thy uncleanness, and thy sloth. For I have compassion on those who believe in me, but all others shall be cast into the abyss of the Kingdom of Death.”

  Many more things were spoken by the voice, with howls, revilings, and curses, but I no longer remember it all nor desire to remember, such was my humiliation and bitterness of spirit. For as I listened, I could detect through the superhuman reverberations the voice of the priest, and this discovery so shocked and horrified me that I could no longer give ear to it. After the voice had ceased, I remained lying before the statue of Ammon until the priest came in and kicked me aside. My companions made haste to bear incense, ointments, cosmetics, and red cloths.

  Each of us had a task allotted to him, and remembering mine, I went out to the forecourt to fetch a vessel of holy water and the consecrated towels for washing the god’s face, hands, and feet. On my return I saw the priest spit in Ammon’s face and rub it with his dirty sleeve. Then Mose and Nefru painted his lips and cheeks and eyebrows. Metufer anointed him and laughingly rubbed holy oil into the priest’s face and his own. Lastly the statue was undressed to be washed and wiped as if it had befouled itself, and then a red pleated skirt and an apron were fastened round it, a cloth hung across its shoulders, and its arms thrust into sleeves.

  When all this had been done, the priest collected the cast-off garments and took charge of the washing water and the towels. All this was to be divided up and sold in the forecourt to wealthy travelers, the water being dispensed as a remedy for skin diseases. Then we were free to go out into the sunshine of the court, where I vomited.

  My brain and heart were as empty as my belly, for I no longer believed in the gods. But when the week had passed, my head was anointed with oil, and having sworn the priestly oath, I was given a certificate. On this document was the great seal of the temple of Ammon and my name, and it entitled me to enter the House of Life.

  So we entered it, Mose, Bek, and I. Its gate was opened to us, and my name was inscribed in the Book of Life as my father Senmut’s name had been inscribed before me and his father’s name before him, But I was happy no longer.

  4

  In the House of Life, which was part of the great temple of Ammon, the teaching was supervised nominally by the royal physicians, each in his own branch. We saw them but seldom, however, for their practices were large, they received costly presents from the wealthy, and they lived in spacious houses outside the city. But, when any patient came to the House of Life whose sickness puzzled the ordinary doctors, or if these would not venture to undertake the cure, a royal physician would come to treat him and to demonstrate his proficiency before those who were specializing in his branch. Thus even the poorest sufferer might have the benefit of a royal physician’s care, to the glory of Ammon.

  The training period was a long one even for those with talent. We had to take a course on drugs and potions, learn the names and properties of herbs and the seasons and hours at which they must be gathered, and also dry them and make extracts from them; for a physician must be able to prepare his own remedies at need. Many of us grumbled at this, not seeing the use of it, since by merely writing a prescription one could obtain from the House of Life all the known remedies correctly mixed and measured. Later, however, this knowledge was to stand me in good stead, as I
shall show.

  We had to learn the names of the different parts of the body, also the functions and purpose of every human organ. We learned to handle scalpel and forceps, but above all we had to accustom our hands to recognize disease both through the natural orifices of the body and through the skin; from the eyes also we had to detect the nature of a disorder. We must be able to deliver a woman in childbirth when the midwife’s help was of no avail. We must stimulate and alleviate pain as occasion required and learn to distinguish between trifling complaints and severe ones, between ailments of mental and physical origin. We had to know truth from falsehood in the patients’ talk and what questions to ask in order to gain a clear picture of the complaint.

  The long period of probation was followed by the day when-after ceremonial purification-I was clothed in a white gown and started work in the reception hall, where I learned to draw teeth from the jaws of strong men, to bandage wounds, lance boils, and set broken limbs. None of this was new to me; thanks to my father’s teaching I made good progress and was promoted to the charge and instruction of my companions. Sometimes I received gifts such as are given to doctors, and I had my name engraved on the green stone that Nefer- nefernefer had given me so that I could set my seal below my prescriptions.

  I was put to ever more exacting tasks. I went on duty in the rooms where the incurably sick lay and attended renowned physicians at their treatments and at the operations, in which for every one that was cured ten died. I learned that death holds no terrors for a doctor and for the sick comes often as a merciful friend so that their faces after release are apt to be more serene than at any time during their life of drudgery.

  Yet I was blind and deaf until the day of awakening came as it had come in my childhood, when pictures, words, and letters sprang to life. Once more my eyes were opened, and I woke as from a dream; my spirit welled up in its joy because I asked myself “why?” The dread key to all true knowledge is “why?” It is mightier than the reed of Thoth, more potent than inscriptions in stone.

  It happened thus: A wife came to me who had had no children and who believed herself to be barren, for she was already forty years of age. But her monthly flow had ceased, and she was uneasy; she came to the House of Life because she feared that an evil spirit had taken possession of her and poisoned her body. As was prescribed in such cases, I planted grains of corn in some earth, watering half of them with Nile water and the rest with the woman’s urine. I then exposed the soil to the warmth of the sun and bade the woman return in two days. When she came again, the seeds had sprouted, those which had been watered with Nile water being small and the other shoots green and strong.

  What had been written of old was true, and I said to the astonished woman, “Rejoice, for holy Ammon in his grace has blessed your womb, and you shall bring forth a child like other favored women.”

  The poor soul wept for joy and gave me a silver bangle from her wrist weighing two deben,* for she had long ago given up hope. And as soon as she could believe me, she asked, “Is it a son?” thinking me omniscient. I plucked up courage, looked her in the eye, and said, “It is a son.” For the chances were even and at that time my gambling luck was good. The woman rejoiced still more and gave me a bracelet from her other wrist, of two deben weight.

  But when she had gone, I asked myself how it was possible for a grain of corn to know what no doctor could discover and know it before the eye could detect the signs of pregnancy? Summoning up my resolution, I asked my teacher. He merely looked at me as if I were half-witted and said, “It is so written.” But this was no answer.

  I took courage again and asked the royal obstetrician in the maternity house. He said, “Ammon is chief of all the gods. His eye sees the womb that receives the seed; if he permits germination, why should he not also allow corn to grow when moistened with water from the pregnant woman’s body?”

  He, too, stared at me as if I were half-witted, but his was no answer.

  Then my eyes were opened, and I saw that the doctors in the House of Life knew the writings and the traditions but no more. If I asked why a festering wound must be burned while an ordinary one is merely dressed and bandaged and why boils are healed with mildew and cobwebs, they said only, “So it has always been.” In the same way a surgeon might perform the hundred and eighty-two operations and incisions prescribed, and perform them according to his experience and skill, well or badly, quickly or slowly, more or less painfully; but more he cannot do because only these are described and illustrated in the books, and nothing else has ever been done.

  There were some cases in which the sufferer grew thin and pale, though the doctor could find in him no disease or injury; he could be revived and cured by a diet of raw liver from the sacrificial beasts, bought at a high price, but one must on no account ask why. There were some who had pains in their bellies and whose hands and feet burned. They were given purges and narcotics; some recovered, others perished, but no doctor could say beforehand who would live and whose belly would swell so that he died. No one knew why this was; no one might seek to know.

  I soon noticed that I was asking too many questions, for people began to look at me askance, and those who had come after me were set in authority over me. Then I took off my white robe, cleaned myself. * A deben weighs approximately 314 ounces. and left the House of Life, taking with me two silver rings that together weighed four deben.

  5

  When I left the temple-a thing I had not done for years-I saw that while I had been working and studying Thebes had changed. I noted it as I walked along the Avenue of Rams and through the markets. There was restlessness everywhere; people’s dress had become more elaborate and costly so that one could no longer distinguish men from women by their wigs and pleated skirts. From wine shops and pleasure houses came shrill Syrian music; foreign speech was heard in the streets, where Syrians and wealthy Negroes rubbed shoulders with Egyptians unabashed. The wealth and power of Egypt were immeasurable; for centuries past no enemy had entered its cities, and men who had never known war had reached middle age. But I cannot tell whether the people were any happier on this account, for their eyes were restless, their movements hurried, and they seemed always to be waiting impatiently for some new thing and could not be content with the day that was passing.

  I walked alone along the streets of Thebes with a heavy and rebellious heart. On coming home, I found that my father Senmut had aged; his back was bent, and he could no longer distinguish written characters. My mother Kipa was old also; she panted as she moved and talked of nothing but her grave. For with his savings my father had bought a tomb in the City of the Dead on the west bank of the river. I had seen it: it was a handsome tomb built of mud bricks with the usual inscriptions and pictures on the walls, and all about it were hundreds and thousands of similar graves that the priests of Ammon sold to honest, thrifty folk at a high price-a price they paid to obtain immortality. I had written out a death book to be laid in their tomb so that they should not go astray on the long journey: a fine, fairly written book, though not adorned with colored pictures like those sold in the book court of Ammon’s temple.

  My mother gave me food, and my father asked about my studies, but beyond this we found nothing to say to each other; the house was strange to me, as were the street and the people in the street. My heart grew heavier still until I remembered the temple of Ptah and Thothmes who had been my friend and was to become an artist. I thought: I have four deben of silver in my pocket. I will seek out my friend

  Thothmes, that we may rejoice together and make merry with wine, for I shall find no answer to my questions.

  So I took leave of my parents, saying that I must return to the House of Life, and shortly before sunset I found the temple of Ptah. Having learned from the porter where the art school lay, I entered and inquired for the student Thothmes; only then did I hear that he had been expelled long ago. The students spat upon the ground before me when they spoke his name, because the teacher was present; when he turned his
back, they counseled me to go to a tavern called the Syrian Jar.

  I found this place; it lay between the poor quarter and the rich and had an inscription over the door praising the wine from Amnion’s vineyard and also that from the harbor. Inside there were artists squatting on the floor drawing pictures while an old man sat in sad contemplation of the empty wine bowl before him.

  “Sinuhe, by all the potters’ wheels!” cried someone, rising to greet me with his hands lifted in wonder. I recognized Thothmes, though his shoulder cloth was dirty and tattered and his eyes were bloodshot and there was a big bump on his forehead. He had grown older and thinner, and there were lines at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes still held that cheerful, impudent, irresistible glint, and he bent forward till our cheeks touched. I knew then that we were still friends.

  “My heart is heavy,” I said to him. “All is vanity, and I have sought you out so that we may rejoice our hearts with wine-for no one answers when I ask why.”

  Thothmes lifted his apron to show that he lacked the means to buy wine.

  “I carry four deben of silver on my wrists,” said I with pride. Thothmes then pointed at my head, which was still shaven because I wanted men to know that I was a priest of the first grade: it was all I had to be proud of. But now I was vexed that I had not let my hair grow and said impatiently, “I am a physician, not a priest. I think I read over the door that wine from the harbor can be had here; let us see if it is good.”

  Thothmes ordered mixed wine, and a slave came to pour water over our hands and set roasted lotus seeds on a low table before us. The landlord himself brought the brightly colored goblets. Thothmes raised his, spilled a drop on the ground, and said, “For the divine Potter! May the plague consume the art school and its teachers!” And he recited the names of those he hated most.