by Mika Waltari
I hestitated and he misunderstood me.
“I have indeed stolen so much that I can take care of you for a time, and when it is all gone, I can work for you if you will only take me away.”
“I came but to pay my debt to you, Kaptah,” I told him, and I counted gold and silver into his hand, many times the sum he had given me. “But if you like, I will buy your freedom from your master so that you may go where you will.”
“And if you free me, where shall I go since all my life I have been a slave? Without you I am a blind kitten, a lamb forsaken by the ewe. Nor should you waste good gold upon my freedom-why pay for what is already yours?” He blinked his one eye in sly reflection. “A big ship is now fitting out for Smyrna, and we might perhaps venture to sail in her if we first make lavish sacrifice to the gods. It is only a pity that I have not found a powerful enough god since I gave up Ammon, who made such mischief for me.”
Remembering the scarab I had found I gave it to Kaptah, saying, “Here is a god who is very powerful, though small. Guard him well, for I believe he will bring us luck; already I have gold in my purse. Clothe yourself as a Syrian, then, and escape if you must, but do not blame me if you are caught as a runaway slave. May the little god help you; we will so save our money to pay our passage to Smyrna. I can no longer look anyone in the face in Thebes or in the whole land of Egypt, so I will go never to return.”
“Make no vows, for who knows what tomorrow may bring? A man who has once drunk of Nile waters cannot quench his thirst elsewhere. I know not what evil you have done-you drop your eyes when you speak of it-but you are young and will one day forget. A man’s action is as a stone cast into a pool: it makes a splash and rings spread outward, but after a while the waters are still again, and there is no trace of the stone. Human memory is like that water. When sufficient time has passed, everyone will have forgotten you and your deed and you may return-and I hope that by then you will be rich and powerful enough to protect me also.”
“I go and shall not return,” I said resolutely. Just then Kaptah’s mistress called him in a shrill voice. I went to wait for him at the street corner, and after a time he joined me there with a basket. In the basket was a bundle, and he jingled some coppers in his hand.
“The mother of all crocodiles has sent me marketing,” he said delightedly. “As usual she gave me too little money, but it will all help, for I believe Smyrna lies a long way from here.”
His dress and wig were in the basket. We went down to the shore and he changed his clothes among the reeds. I bought him a handsome staff such as is used by servants and running footmen in the houses of the great. Next we went to the quay where the Syrian ships were berthed and found a big, three-masted vessel, on which a rope the thickness of a man’s body ran from stem to stern and from whose masthead fluttered the signal for sailing. The captain was a Syrian, and he was glad to hear that I was a physician, for he respected Egyptian medicine, and many of his crew were sick. The scarab was bringing us luck indeed, for he entered us on the ship’s register and would take no money for our passage, which he said we should earn. From that moment Kaptah venerated the scarab as a god, anointing it daily and wrapping it in fine cloth.
We cast off, the slaves began to bend to their oars, and in eighteen days we reached the borders of the Two Kingdoms. In another eighteen days we reached the Delta, and in two more the sea lay before us, and there was no further shore in sight. When the ship began to roll, Kaptah’s face turned gray, and he clung to the great rope. Presently he moaned to me that his stomach was rising to his ears and he was dying. The wind freshened, the ship rolled more steeply, and the captain headed her out to sea until we were beyond sight of land. Then I, too, grew uneasy, for I could not understand how he would ever find it again. I no longer laughed at Kaptah because I felt giddy myself and had unpleasant sensations. Presently Kaptah vomited and sank down upon the deck; his face was green, and he uttered never another word. I became alarmed, and when I saw that many other passengers were vomiting and moaning that they would perish and that they were strangely altered in the face, I hastened to the captain and told him that it was clear that the gods had put a curse on his vessel, as a terrible sickness had broken out on board despite my skill. I begged him to put back to land while he could still find any, or as a doctor I could not answer for the consequences. But the captain reassured me, saying we had a fair wind, which would bring us smartly along on our course, and that I should not mock the gods by calling this a storm. He swore by his beard that every passenger would be as spry as a young goat the moment he set foot on dry land and that I need not fear for my dignity as a physician. Yet, when I observed the misery of these travelers, I found it hard to believe him.
Why I myself did not fall so gravely ill I cannot say unless it was that immediately after my birth I had been put to rock on the Nile in a reed boat.
I sought to tend Kaptah and the others, but when I would have touched the passengers, they cursed me. When I offered Kaptah some strengthening food, he turned away his face and snapped his jaws noisily like a hippopotamus, to empty his belly though there was no more in it. But Kaptah had never before turned from food, and I began to think he really would die. I was greatly cast down for I had begun to grow used to his nonsense.
Night fell, and at last I slept, fearful though I was of the rolling of the ship, the terrifying smack of the sails, and the thunder of the seas against the hull. Days passed, but none of the passengers died; some indeed recovered enough to eat and walk about the deck. Only Kaptah lay still and touched no food yet showed some sign of life in that he began once more to pray to the scarab, from which I concluded that he had regained hope of reaching land alive. On the seventh day a coast line appeared, and the captain told me that we had sailed past Joppa and Tyre and would be able to make Smyrna direct, thanks to the favorable winds. How he knew all this I cannot even now make out. On the following day we sighted Smyrna, and the captain made lavish sacrifice in his cabin to the sea gods and others. The sails were lowered, the oarsmen manned their oars, and rowed us into the port of Smyrna.
When we had entered smooth water, Kaptah stood up and swore by his scarab that never again would he set foot aboard a ship.
BOOK 5
The Khabiri
1
I speak now of Syria and of the different cities to which I came, and to this end I should explain first of all that the Red Lands differ from the Black Lands in every particular. There is, for example, no river there like ours; instead, water pours from the sky and wets the ground. Every valley has its hill, and beyond every hill lies another valley. In each of these dwells a distinct people governed by a prince who pays tribute to Pharaoh-or did at the time of which I write. The dress of the people is colorful and expertly woven of wool and it covers them from head to foot, partly, I think, because it is cooler in their country than in Egypt and partly because they think it shameful to expose their bodies except when they relieve themselves in the open-which to an Egyptian is abomination. They wear their hair long and allow their beards to grow and eat always within doors. Their gods, of which each city has its own, demand human sacrifice. From all this it may readily be seen that everything in the Red Land differs from the ways of Egypt.
It is also clear that to those distinguished Egyptians who held resident posts in the Syrian cities, supervising taxation or commanding the garrisons, their task appeared more of a punishment than an honor. They yearned for the banks of the Nile-all but a few, that is, who had succumbed to the alien ways. These had altered the style of their garments and their thoughts and made sacrifice to strange gods. Moreover, the constant intrigues among the inhabitants, the cheating and roguery of the taxpayers, and the squabbles between rival princes embittered the lives of the Egyptian officials.
I lived in Smyrna for two years during which I learned the Babylonian language, both spoken and written; for I was told that a man with this knowledge could make himself understood among educated people throughout the kno
wn world. The written characters, as is well known, are imprinted on clay with a sharp stylus, and all correspondence between kings is so conducted. Why this is so I cannot tell unless it be that paper will burn but a clay tablet endures forever as a testimony to the speed with which rulers forget their pacts and treaties.
Syria differs from Egypt also in that the physician must seek out his patients, who, instead of coming to him, trust to their gods to send him to them. Moreover, they give their presents before and not after they have been cured. This profits the doctor, for patients tend to be forgetful once they are well again.
It was my intention to follow my calling here quite unpretentiously, but Kaptah was of another mind. He wished me to lay out all I had in fine clothes and to hire criers who would make known my fame in every public place. These were to announce also that I did not visit patients but that they must come to me, and Kaptah forbade me to receive any who did not bring at least one gold piece with them as a present. I told him this was folly in a city where no one knew me and where the customs differed from those of the Black Land, but Kaptah stood his ground. I could do nothing with him, for when once he got an idea into his head, he was as stubborn as a donkey.
He persuaded me also to visit those doctors who were held in highest repute and to say to them:
“I am Sinuhe, an Egyptian physician to whom the new Pharaoh gave the name of He Who Is Alone, and I am a man of renown in my own country. I restore the dead to life and bring back sight to the blind if my god wills it-for I have a small but powerful god whom I carry with me in my traveling chest. Knowledge differs from one place to another, however, nor are diseases everywhere the same. For this reason I have come to your city to study maladies and to cure them and to profit by your learning and wisdom.
“I do not mean in any way to encroach upon your practice, for who am I to compete with you? I propose, therefore, that you send to me such patients as are under your god’s displeasure so that you cannot cure them, and especially those requiring treatment with the knife-for the knife you do not use-that I may see whether my god will bring them healing. And should such a patient be cured I will give you half of what he gives me, for I have not come here for gold but for knowledge. Should I fail to cure him, I will take nothing from him at all but send him back to you with his gift.”
The physicians whom I met in the streets and market places visiting their patients and to whom I spoke swung their cloaks and fingered their beards and said:
“You are young, but truly your god has blessed you with wisdom, for your words are agreeable to our ears. What you say of gold and of presents is wise as is also your allusion to the knife. For we never use knives to heal the sick, a man who comes under the knife being more certain of death than he who does not. One thing only we desire of you, and that is that you will effect no cures by sorcery, for our own witchcraft is very powerful, and in that branch there is too much competition both in Smyrna and in the other cities along the coast.”
This was true, for there were many illiterate men haunting the streets who undertook to heal the sick by means of magic and lived fatly in the homes of the credulous until their patients either recovered or died.
In this way sick people with whom others had failed came to me, and I treated them, but those I could not cure I sent back to the physicians of Smyrna. From Ammon’s temple I brought sacred fire to my house that I might carry out the prescribed purification and so venture to use the knife and to perform operations at which the physicians fingered their beards and marveled greatly. I was fortunate enough to give a blind man back his sight, although both physicians and sorcerers had smeared clay mixed with spittle upon his eyelids to no effect. I treated him with the needle, as the Egyptian manner is, thereby greatly enhancing my reputation. However, after some time the man lost his sight again, for the needle cure is but temporary.
The merchants and wealthy men of Smyrna led an idle and luxurious life; they were fatter than the Egyptians and suffered from breath- lessness and stomach troubles. I used the knife on them till they bled like pigs. When my medical stores were exhausted, I found good use for my knowledge in the matter of gathering herbs upon the right days and under favorable aspects of moon and stars, for in this the men of Smyrna had little science, and I dared not trust to their remedies. To the obese I gave relief from their abdominal pains and saved them from suffocation by means of medicines I sold to them at prices graded according to their means. I quarreled with none but gave presents to the doctors and city authorities, while Kaptah spread a good report of me and gave food to beggars and storytellers that they might cry my praises in street and market and preserve my name from oblivion.
I earned a quantity of gold. All that I didn’t spend or give away I invested with the merchants of Smyrna, who sent ships to Egypt, to the islands in the sea, and to the land of Hatti, so that I had a share in many vessels-a hundredth or a five-hundredth, according to my means at the time. Some ships were never seen again, but most of them returned, and my stakes in them-now doubled or tripled-were entered in the trading books. This was the custom in Smyrna, though unknown in Egypt. Even the poor speculated in this way and either increased their funds or became still more impoverished; ten or twenty of them would pool their copper pieces to buy a thousandth share in a vessel or her cargo. Thus I never had to keep gold in my house as a lure for robbers. Neither was I obliged to carry it with me when I traveled to other cities, such as Byblos and Sidon, in the course of my work, for then the merchant gave me a clay tablet to be presented at the business houses of those cities, by which I could obtain money from them whenever I required it.
Thus all went well with me. I prospered, and Kaptah grew fat in his expensive new clothes and anointed himself with fine oils. Indeed he became insolent, and I was compelled to thrash him. But why everything favored me so I cannot say.
2
Nevertheless, I continued in loneliness, and life gave me no delight. I even wearied of wine, for it never cheered me but turned my face as black as soot so that when I had drunk I desired only to die. Therefore, I sought ever to increase my knowledge that no moment of the day should find me idle-for in idleness I fretted over myself and my deeds-and at night I slept like the dead.
I acquainted myself with the gods of Smyrna to learn whether they might hold some hidden truth for me. Like all else, these gods differ from those of Egypt. Their great god was Baal, a cruel god who exacted human blood in return for his favor and whose priests were made eunuchs. He also required children. Moreover, the sea was greedy for sacrifice so that merchants and those in authority must be forever seeking new victims. No crippled slave was ever to be seen, and the poor were threatened with savage punishment for the least offense. Thus a poor man who stole a fish to feed his family was dismembered as a sacrifice on the altar of Baal.
Their female divinity was Astarte, also called Ishtar, like the Ishtar of Nineveh. She had many breasts and was robed every day afresh in jewels and thin garments, being served by women who for some reason were known as the virgins of the temple, though that they were not. On the contrary, they were there to be enjoyed-a mission regarded with favor by the goddess-and the more exquisite the enjoyment, the more gold and silver was offered to the temple by the client.
But the merchants of Smyrna guarded their own women with great strictness, shutting them up at home and clothing them from head to foot in thick garments lest they tempt the stranger. The men, however, visited the temple for the sake of variety and to win divine approval. Thus in Smyrna there were no pleasure houses like those of Egypt. If the temple girls were not to a man’s liking, he had to take a wife or buy himself a slave girl. Slave girls were for sale every day, for ships were continually coming into port with women and children on board of every size and color, both plump and thin, to suit all tastes. But the crippled and unfit were purchased cheaply for sacrifice to Baal on behalf of the city council, who would then laugh and slap their chests and commend themselves for their cunning in thus d
eceiving their god.
I, too, made sacrifice to Baal since he was the god of the city and it was prudent to seek his favor. Being an Egyptian, I bought no human sacrifices for him; I gave him gold. Sometimes I visited Astarte’s temple, which opened in the evenings, to listen to music and watch the temple women-whom I will not call maidens-dancing voluptuous dances to the glory of their goddess. Since it was the custom I lay with them, and I marveled at the practices they taught me of which I had known nothing. But I was not cheered and did all from curiosity. When they had taught me what they had to impart, I wearied of them and no longer visited their temple. To my mind there were no accomplishments so monotonous as theirs.
But Kaptah shook his head in concern for me, for my face was aging, the furrows between my brows were deepening, and my heart was sealed. His wish was that I should have a slave girl to beguile my leisure moments. Since he kept house and handled my money, he bought a girl for me who was to his own taste. He washed, dressed, and anointed her, and presented her to me one evening when, tired after the day’s work, I desired only to go to bed in peace.
This girl was from the islands in the sea; she was plump, her skin white, her teeth faultless, and her eyes were round and gentle like the eyes of a heifer. She gazed at me in veneration and showed fear of the strange city to which she had been brought. Kaptah extolled her charms with the greatest earnestness, and to please him I took her. Yet, though I did my best to escape from my loneliness, my heart was not gladdened, and I could not bring myself to call her my sister.