The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

“My friend is Sinuhe the Egyptian, He Who Is Alone, and by profession he is a doctor,” said Minea.

  “I wonder how long he will remain alone here,” the old man jested. “But surely you are not ill, Minea, that you come in company with a physician? That would distress me, for I am hoping you will dance before the bulls tomorrow and turn my luck. My steward down at the port has been complaining that my income no longer covers my expenses-or perhaps it is the contrary? I do not well remember, for I can make nothing of his complicated accounts, which he constantly thrusts before me in the most tedious manner.”

  “I am not ill, but this frifend has rescued me from many perils, and we have journeyed far to return to my homeland. I was shipwrecked on my way to dance before bulls in Syria.”

  “Indeed?” said the old man uneasily. “I hope that despite your friendship you have kept your virginity, or you will be excluded from the competitions-and there are also other vexations as you are well aware. I am indeed distressed, for I note that your breasts have developed in a suspicious manner and your eyes have a moist shine in them. Minea, Minea! You have not cast yourself away?”

  “No!” said Minea in wrath. “And when I deny it you may trust to my word and need not examine me as they did in the Babylonian slave market. You seem scarcely to understand that it is thanks to my friend here that I have returned safely after many perils. I thought my friends would rejoice to see me, but you think only of your bulls and your wagers!” She began to weep with rage, and her tears left streaks of eye black on her cheeks.

  The old man was greatly disturbed and cast down, and he said, “I doubt not that you are overwrought from your travels, for in foreign countries you may not even have been able to take your daily bath. Nor do I think that the bulls of Babylon can be compared with ours-and that reminds me that I should long ago have been at Minos’, though the matter escaped my mind. I had better go at once. If my wife should come, tell her I am with Minos and that I did not wish to disturb her and the young aspirant. Or I might go to bed since no one at Minos’ will observe whether I am there or not. On the other hand if I went I could look in at the stables on the way and learn how that new bull is shaping-the one with the patch on its flank. Perhaps after all I had better go. A truly exceptional beast!”

  Absently he took his leave of us, but Minea said to him, “We shall also go to Minos’ that I may present Sinuhe to my friends.”

  So we went to the palace of Minos, on foot because the old man could not make up his mind whether or not it was worth while to take a chair for so short a distance. Not until we reached the palace did I discover that Minos was the king and that their kings were always called Minos to distinguish them from other people. But which Minos of his line he might be was unknown, for no one had the patience to reckon and record them.

  There were countless rooms in this palace; on the walls of the reception hall were depicted billowing seaweeds and cuttlefish and jellyfish swimming in transparent waters. The great room was filled with people, each more rarely and extravagantly dressed than the last, and they moved about conversing in lively tones with one another, laughing loudly and drinking chilled drinks-wine and fruit juice-from small cups, while the women compared dresses. Minea presented me to many of her friends, who all displayed the same absent-minded courtesy; King Minos said a few friendly words to me in my own language, thanking me for having saved Minea for their god and brought her home. She should now enter the god’s house at the first opportunity, he said, although her turn according to the lot she had drawn was now past.

  Minea went about the palace as if it were her own, leading me from room to room, crying out in pleasure at the sight of some object familiar to her, and greeting the servants, who returned her salutation as if she had never been away. I learned that any eminent Cretan could visit his country estates or set forth on a journey whenever the fancy took him, and though he forgot to mention it to his friends, no one would wonder at his absence. On his return he would join the rest again as if he had never been away. This habit must have softened the fact of death for them, for when anyone disappeared, no one inquired for him and he was forgotten. His absence from an appointment or a meeting or a reception caused no remark since he might have taken it into his head to do something else instead.

  At length Minea took me to a room that was perched on a rock above the rest of the building. Its wide windows commanded a view over smiling fields and plowland, olive groves and plantations beyond the city. She told me that this was her room; all her possessions were there as if she had left it but yesterday, though the clothes and jewelry were now out of date and could no longer be worn. Only now did I learn that she was a kinswoman of Minos, though I should have guessed this from her name. Gold and silver and costly presents were meaningless to her since she had been accustomed from childhood to have whatever she desired. From childhood also she had been dedicated to the god and had been brought up in the house of the gods, where she lived when she was not staying at the palace, or with her old patron, or with friends. They are as casual in their dwelling places as in every other particular.

  Next Minea took me to the house of the bulls, which was a city in itself, with stalls and arenas, meadows and paddocks, school buildings and priests’ houses. We went from stall to stall, breathing the rank smell of these beasts. Minea wearied not of calling them by pet names and enticing them, though they tried to gore her between the posts of the partitions, bellowing and pawing the sand with their sharp hoofs.

  She met there boys and girls whom she knew, although these dancers were in general not friendly, being jealous of their skill and unwilling to impart their tricks to one another. But the priests who trained both bulls and dancers received us warmly, and when they heard that I was a physician, they asked me many questions concerning the digestion of bulls and their diet and the gloss of their coats, although they must have known more of these matters than I. Minea stood high in their favor and was at once allotted a beast and a place in the program for the following day; she was eager to display to me her proficiency with the very best beasts.

  Finally Minea took me to a little building where the high priest of the Cretan god lived alone. Just as Minos was always named Minos, so was the chief priest always Minotauros, and for some reason he was the most venerated and dreaded man in Crete. His name was not willingly mentioned and he was referred to as “the man in the little bull house.” Even Minea feared to visit him though she would not confess this to me; I saw it from her eyes, whose every shade I had learned to know.

  When we had been announced, he received us in a dim room. At first I fancied that we beheld the god himself and believed all the tales I had been told, for I saw a man with the golden head of a bull. When we had bowed before him, he removed this head and revealed his own face; nevertheless despite his courteous smile I did not like him, for there was in his expressionless face something of sternness and cruelty. I could not define what it was, for he was a handsome man, very dark and born to command. Minea had no need to tell him anything; he already knew of her shipwreck and her travels. He asked no unnecessary questions but thanked me for my good will to Minea and through her to Crete and its god. He told me that rich presents awaited me at my inn with which he fancied I should be well content.

  “I am indifferent to presents,” I said. “Knowledge is of more value to me than gold, and to increase it I have journeyed in many countries so that I am now familiar with the gods of Babylon and of the Hittites. I hope to acquaint myself with the god of Crete, of whom I have heard much that is marvelous, and who loves virgins and pure boys in contrast to the gods of Syria, whose temples are pleasure houses and who are served by castrated priests.”

  “We have a great number of gods whom the people worship,” he replied. “In the harbor there are temples to the glory of foreign gods, where you may make sacrifice to Ammon or the Baal of the port if you so desire. But I would not mislead you, and acknowledge that the might of Crete depends upon that god who has been worshiped
in secret from as far back in time as our knowledge goes. The initiates alone may know him, and that only when they meet him face to face. No one has returned to tell us of his shape.”

  “The gods of the Hittites are the heavens and the rain that falls from the heavens and fructifies the earth. The god of Crete I understand to be the god of the sea since the wealth and power of Crete derive from the sea.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Sinuhe,” he said with a strange smile. “Know, however, that we Cretans worship a living god, differing herein from the people of the mainland who worship dead gods and images of wood. Our god is no image although bulls are accounted as his symbols, and as long as our god lives, so long endures the Cretan sovereignty of the seas. Thus it has been foretold, and we are assured of it though we also put great trust in our warships, with which no other seafaring nation can compete.”

  “I have heard that your god dwells in the mazes of a dark mansion,” I persisted. “I would gladly see this labyrinth, of which I have heard much. But I do not understand why the initiates never return from it, though they have permission to do so when they have been there for the space of one moon.”

  “The highest honor, the profoundest bliss, that can fall to the lot of an initiate is to enter the mansion of the god,” said Minotauros, repeating words I had heard countless times before. “Therefore the islands in the sea vie with one another in sending their fairest maidens and the flower of their young men to dance before the bulls so that they may take part in the drawing of lots. I do not know whether you have heard stories of the sea god’s mansions; life there is altogether different from that which we know so that no one who has entered it desires to return to the torment and sorrow of the world. How say you, Minea? Do you fear to enter?”

  Minea made no reply and I said, “I have seen the bodies of seamen washed up on the beach at Smyrna; their faces and bellies were swollen, and no joy was reflected in their features. That is all I know of the mansions of the sea god, but I do not doubt your word, and I wish all good to Minea.”

  Minotauros said coldly, “You shall see the labyrinth for the night of the full moon, is near, and upon that night Minea will enter the house of the god.”

  “And if she refuse?” I demanded fiercely, for his words angered me and froze my heart with despair.

  “Such a thing has never happened. Be easy, Sinuhe the Egyptian. When Minea has danced before the bulls she will enter the god’s house of her own free will.”

  He donned the golden bull’s head once more as a signal that we might retire, and his face was hidden from us. Minea took my hand and led me away; she was no longer happy.

  3

  Kaptah was at the inn when I returned and had drunk copiously in the wine shops of the harbor. He said to me, “Lord, for servants this land is the Western Land; no one beats them or remembers how much gold was in his purse or what jewels he had. If a master be wroth with his servant and order him to leave his house, the servant has but to hide himself and return the following day when his master has forgotten the whole matter.”

  This he said in his customary manner as if he were drunk, but then he shut the door, and having assured himself that no one was listening, he went on, “Lord, strange things are coming to pass in this country. The seamen in the wine shops say that the god of Crete has died and that the priests in great fear are seeking a new god. This is dangerous talk for which sailors have already been hurled from the clifftop to be devoured by cuttlefish, for it has been foretold that the might of Crete will crumble when the god dies.”

  A wild hope blazed up in my heart. I said to Kaptah, “On the night of the full moon Minea is to enter the house of that god. If he is indeed dead-and it may be so, for the people come to know all things at last though no one tell them-then Minea will perhaps come back to us from the god’s house, whence no one has hitherto returned.”

  On the following day I secured a good place in the great amphitheater whose stone benches rose up like steps one behind the other so that everyone could see the bulls without difficulty. I greatly admired this cunning device, never having seen another like it; in Egypt, at processions and displays, high platforms are erected that all may behold the god and the priests and those who dance.

  The bulls were let into the ring one by one, and each dancer in turn carried out a routine that was complex and exacting. It included many different feats, which must all be faultlessly performed in a prescribed order. Most difficult of all was the leap between the horns and from there the back somersault into the air, which must end with the dancer standing on the bull’s back. Not even the most proficient could execute the whole without some fault, for much depended on the behavior of the beast, how it stood, charged, or lowered its head. The wealthy and eminent of Crete made wagers among themselves at every event, each backing his favorite. When I had seen a few of these, I could not understand their eagerness, for the bulls all looked alike to me, and I could not distinguish one event from the next.

  Minea also danced, and I feared for her life until her marvelous agility and skill so bewitched me that I forgot her danger and rejoiced with the rest. Here the girls danced naked, and the boys also, for so treacherous was the sport that the smallest garment would have hindered their movements and imperiled their lives. To my thinking Minea was the loveliest of all as she danced there, her skin gleaming with oil, although I must admit that among the rest were some exceedingly beautiful girls who won great applause. But I could spare no glance for any but Minea. Compared with the others she was out of practice by reason of her long absence, and she won not a single garland. Her old patron, who had wagered on her success, was full of bitterness and resentment until he forgot the silver he had lost and went to the stables to make fresh bets, which as Minea’s patron he had a right to do.

  When I met Minea in the bulls’ house after the performance, she looked about her and said to me coldly, “Sinuhe, I shall see you no more, for my friends have invited me to a feast; also I must prepare for my god since the moon is full the night after tomorrow. Therefore, it is likely that we shall not meet again before I enter the house of the god, unless you would care to accompany me thither with the rest of my friends.”

  “So be it,” I said. “I have much to see in Crete; the customs and also the clothes of the women divert me greatly. As I sat watching your performance, several of your women friends invited me to their houses, and I found delight in gazing on their faces and their breasts-even though these women were a little fatter and more frivolous than you.”

  She seized me by the arms in a fury; her eyes blazed and her breath came quickly as she said, “I forbid you to make merry among my friends when I am absent! For my sake you should wait until I have gone, Sinuhe. And though doubtless in your eyes I am too thin-which never occurred to me before-yet do this out of friendship for me since I ask it of you.”

  “It was a jest. I have no wish to trouble your peace since you have doubtless much to do before you enter the house of the god. I will return therefore to my inn and heal the sick, for in the harbor are many who need my help.”

  I left her, and for a long while afterward the smell of the horned beasts was in my nostrils. Never shall I forget the smell of the “Cretan stables, and to this day, when I see a herd and catch the scent of it, I am seized with sickness and cannot eat, and my heart aches in my breast. Nevertheless, I went from her to my patients at the inn; I treated them and soothed their suffering until darkness fell and lamps were lit in the pleasure houses of the harbor. Through the walls came the sound of music and laughter-for even slaves had caught the carefree manners of their masters, each living as if he would never die and as if pain, grief, and loss had no existence.

  It was dark; I sat in my room, where Kaptah had already spread my sleeping mat, in darkness, for I would have no lamp lit. The moon rose large and bright but not yet quite full, and I hated the moon because it was to sever me from the only one in the world who was my sister. I also hated myself for being weak and tim
id and uncertain of my own desires. Then the door opened, and Minea came cautiously in. She was no longer dressed in the Cretan manner but wore the same simple dress in which she had danced for the mighty and the humble of many lands, and her hair was bound with a golden ribbon.

  “Minea!” I cried in amazement. “Why have you come? I thought you were preparing for your god.”

  She said, “Speak softly, for I do not want others to hear us.”

  She sat close against me and staring at the moon she went on quaindy, “I do not like my sleeping place in the house of bulls, and I am not as happy among my friends as formerly. But why I should come to visit you at this inn in the harbor, which is so unseemly a thing to do, I cannot tell you. Should you wish to sleep, however, I shall not disturb you-I will go.

  “I could not sleep and I felt a craving for the old smell of drugs and herbs; I wanted to pinch Kaptah’s ear once more and pull his hair for the nonsense he talks. Travels and strange peoples have distracted me so that I no longer feel at home among the bulls nor elated at the applause on the field, and I do not even long for the god’s house as before. The talk of those about me is like the babbling of silly children, their mirth is like sea froth on the beach, and their pleasures are no pleasures to me. My heart is a void, and my head also is empty; there is no single thought that I can call my own. Everything is pain, and I have never in my life known such distress. I beg you, therefore, to hold my hand again as you used to do. I fear no evil-not even death-as long as you hold my hands, Sinuhe, though I know only too well that you would prefer to look on plumper and more beautiful women than I am and hold their hands.”

  I said to her, “Minea, my sister! My childhood and youth were like a clear, deep-running brook. My manhood was a great river, which spread and spread, covering much soil, but its waters were turgid, and they settled into foul, stagnant pools. But when you came to me, Minea, you gathered up all these waters; they poured joyously down a deep channel so that all within me was cleansed. The world smiled at me, and evil was easily brushed aside. For your sake I sought goodness; I healed the sick without regard to gifts, and the dark gods had no power over me. Thus it was when you came. Now that you go, the light goes also, and my heart is like a lonely crow in the desert. I bear good will to no one any more. I hate men, and I hate the gods and will not hear them spoken of.