The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

  “Be of good courage, Aziru,” I said. “Your son is not dying, but I must cleanse myself before I examine him. And take away the accursed brazier before we all choke!”

  Keftiu raised her head quickly from the floor and said in a fright, “The child will catch cold!” Her eyes lingered on me. Then she smiled and sat up, tidied her hair and her dress, and said, “Sinuhe, is it you?”

  But Aziru wrung his hands and groaned, “The boy can take no food but spews up all he eats, and his body is hot. For three days now he has taken scarcely anything-only wept so that my heart breaks to hear it.”

  I bade him drive out the nurses and the slave women, and he obeyed me meekly, altogether forgetting his majesty. When I had cleansed myself, I undid the baby’s woolen clothes and took them off, then opened the shutters so that the room was freshened by the cool evening air. The child at once grew quieter. His crying ceased and he began to kick his fat legs. I felt his body and his belly until all at once I thought of something and put my finger in his mouth. I had guessed rightly: the first tooth was showing like a pearl in his jaw.

  Then I exclaimed wrathfully, “Aziru, Aziru! Was it for this your wild horses dragged hither the cleverest physician in Smyrna? Nothing ails your child-he is merely as impatient and irritable as his father. It may be he has had a little fever, but that has now abated. If he vomited, it was because he had the good sense to save his own life, for he has been overstuffed with rich milk. It is time that Keftiu weaned him and accustomed him to proper food, or he will soon bite off his mother’s nipples. You must know that your son wept in petulance at the cutting of his first tooth-and if you do not believe me, see for yourself.”

  I opened the baby’s mouth and showed Aziru the tooth. He broke out in wild jubilation, clapped his hands, and danced about the room till the floor shook beneath him. I showed Keftiu the tooth also, and she vowed she had never seen so fair a tooth in the mouth of any child. When she would have swathed the baby in the woolen things again, I forbade her and wrapped him in a cool linen cloth lest he be chilled by the evening air.

  Aziru continued to dance and stamp and sing in his raucous voice and was not at all abashed at having dragged me from so great a distance. He insisted upon displaying his son’s tooth to the members of his court and to his officers. Even the guards from the walls were called in to behold it. They pressed about the cradle amid a clanking of spears and shields and admired the child and tried to poke their dirty thumbs into his mouth to see the tooth, until I drove thetn all from the room, bidding Aziru take thought for his dignity and control himself.

  Aziru looked foolish and said, “Truly I may have forgotten myself and made a needless pother. Many nights I have lain awake by his cradle with a sick heart. But you must understand that he is my son and my first-born, my prince, my jewel, the apple of my eye, my little lion who one day will wear the crown of Amurru and rule over many. For truly I mean to make this land a great one, worth the inheriting, so that he will come to praise his father’s name. Sinuhe, Sinuhe, you don’t know how grateful I am to you for lifting this stone from my heart. You must acknowledge that you have never seen so fine a man child, not in all your travels. Look at his hair-at the swarthy lion’s mane-and tell me whether you have ever before seen such hair on a child of that age! You saw yourself that his tooth is like a pearl, faultless and gleaming-and look at his limbs!”

  I grew so weary of his prattle that I bade him and his child take themselves to the nethermost pit. I told him my limbs were crippled from that hideous drive so that even now I hardly knew whether I stood on my head or my heels. But he appeased me, and putting his arm about my shoulders, he offered me many kinds of food on silver dishes, roast mutton and rice cooked in fat, also wine from a golden goblet. I was refreshed and forgave him.

  I remained as his guest for some days. He gave me lavish presents and much gold and silver; his wealth had greatly increased since last we met. In what manner his poor country had grown rich he would not tell me but laughed in his beard and said that the wife I had given him had brought him good fortune. Keftiu was cordial also and showed me marked respect-no doubt recalling the stick with which I had so often tested the toughness of her skin. She followed me about, swaying and jingling in all her opulence, looking at me fondly and caressing me with her smile. So burning a love did Aziru bear toward her that he seldom visited his other wives, and from courtesy only. They were the daughters of tribal chieftains whose alliance he had thus prudently secured.

  I had traveled so widely and seen so many countries that he felt impelled to boast of his might. He told me much that later he may have regretted mentioning. Thus I learned that the men who had attacked me in Smyrna and would have cast me into the harbor were agitators whom he had sent forth, and it was they who reported to him that I was once more in Smyrna.

  He deplored what had happened but added, “Truly there shall be many broken skulls among the Egyptians, and many an Egyptian soldier shall be cast into the harbor before Smyrna and Byblos and Sidon and Gaza have learned that Egyptians are not invulnerable-that their blood flows and life leaves them when their hides are pierced. The merchants of Syria are overcautious, the princes timid, and the people as sluggish as oxen. It is for the alert to lead them and show them where their advantage lies.”

  I asked him, “Why must this be, Aziru, and why do you bear so great a hatred toward Egyptians?”

  He stroked his curly beard with a sly smile and said, “Who says I hate them, Sinuhe? I do not hate you. I grew up in Pharaoh’s golden house, like my father before me and all other Egyptian princes. I learned there that in the eyes of the educated all peoples are much of a muchness. No nation is either braver or more chickenhearted, crueler or more compassionate, wickeder or more virtuous than another. Among all races there are heroes and cowards, straight men and crooked-and this is true also of Syria and Egypt. Rulers therefore hate no one and acknowledge no difference between nations-but hatred is a great force in the ruler’s hand! It is more potent than many weapons, for without hatred no arm is strong enough to wield a weapon. Therefore I am doing what I can to kindle hatred between Syria and Egypt, and I shall blow on the flame until it blazes up into a fire to consume Egyptian sovereignty in Syria. All the cities, all the races of Syria shall learn that Egyptians are more despicable and cowardly and cruel, more corrupt, greedy, and thankless than Syrians. They shall learn to spit when they hear them mentioned and regard them as usurpers, oppressors, bloodsuckers, torturers, and defilers of children until their hatred can move mountains.”

  “But none of this is true, as you said yourself.”

  Throwing out his hands with a shrug he said, “What is truth, Sinuhe? When their blood has soaked up enough of the truth I offer them, they will swear by all their gods that it is the only truth and will believe no one who affirms the contrary. They will be persuaded that they are stronger, braver, and more righteous than any other people in the world. They will fancy that they love freedom more than they fear death and starvation and hardship, and they will be ready to pay any price to gain it. I shall teach them this. Many already believe it, and each believer will convert others until the new truth has run like wild fire throughout Syria. It is also a truth that Egypt once entered Syria with fire and blood and therefore with fire and blood must be driven out.”

  “Which freedom is it you speak about to them?” I asked, fearing his talk on Egypt’s account.

  He raised his hands once more and smiled gently.

  “Freedom is a word with many meanings; some mean one thing by it and some another, but this is of no importance so long as the freedom is never attained. Many are needed to achieve freedom. When it has been won, it is safest not to share it but to keep it for oneself. I believe that the land of Amurru will one day be called the cradle of freedom. A nation that believes all it is told is like a herd of cattle that can be driven through a gate by means of a stick, or like a flock of sheep that follows the bellwether without reflecting where it is bound. And p
erhaps it is I who drive the herd and lead the flock.”

  “You must indeed have the brain of a sheep to talk thus dangerously. When Pharaoh hears of it, he will send his chariots and his spears against you. He will break down your walls and hang you and your son head downward from the bows of his warship when he returns to Thebes.”

  Aziru only smiled.

  “I do not think that I am in any danger from Pharaoh, for I have received the symbol of life from his hands and have raised a temple to his god. He believes in me more than in anyone else in Syria-more than in his own envoys or in the officers of the garrison who worship Ammon. I will now show you something very diverting.”

  He led me to the walls and showed me a dried-up, naked body hanging by the heels; it was crawling with flies.

  “Look closely,” he said, “and you will see that this man is circumcised: he is indeed an Egyptian. He was one of Pharaoh’s tax gatherers who made so bold as to come prying here to find out why I was a year or two in arrears with my tribute-money. My soldiers had good sport with him before they hung him on the wall for his impudence. By this I have ensured that Egyptians do not willingly travel through the land of Amurru, even in large bands, and the merchants prefer to pay their taxes to me rather than to them. You will grasp the significance of this when I tell you that Megiddo is under my dominion, obeying me and not the Egyptian garrison, who cower in the fortress and dare not venture into the streets of the city.”

  “The blood of this poor man will be on your head,” I said appalled. “Your punishment will be terrible when the deed is known, for one may trifle with anything in Egypt rather than with its tax gatherers.”

  I sought to explain to him that he had a mistaken notion of the wealth and majesty of Egypt and warned him against being puffed up. Even a leather sack swells when filled with air yet when pricked collapses. But Aziru merely laughed and flashed his golden teeth, then ordered in more roast mutton on heavy silver dishes so as to display his wealth.

  His study was filled with clay tablets, for messengers brought him intelligence from all the cities in Syria. He received tablets also from the King of the Hittites and from Babylon, of which he could not refrain from boasting, though he would not let me see their contents. He was most curious to hear from me about the land of the Hittites, but I perceived that he knew as much of it as I did. Hittite envoys visited him and spoke with his warriors and chieftains.

  When I understood this, I said, “The lion and the jackal may make alliance to hunt the same prey-but did you ever see the choicest morsels fall to the jackal’s share?”

  He only laughed. “Great is my thirst for knowledge, and like you I seek to learn new things, though affairs of state prevent me from traveling as you do, who are without responsibility and as free as the birds of the air. What harm, then, if the Hittite officers advise my chieftains in the arts of war? They have new weapons and experience that we lack. This can only be of service to Pharaoh, for should war ever come-why, Syria has long been Pharaoh’s shield and often a bloody one. This is something we shall remember when we come to cast our accounts together.”

  When he spoke of war I thought of Horemheb and said, “I have enjoyed your hospitality too long and must now return to Smyrna if you will place a chair at my disposal. Never again will I step into one of your terrifying chariots. I would rather be clubbed at once. Smyrna has become a wilderness for me, and doubtless I have sucked the blood of poor, indigent Syria too long. I intend to take ship for Egypt. We may not meet for a long time-perhaps never-for the memory of Nile water is sweet in my mouth. Who knows but that I shall remain to drink of it since I have seen enough of the world’s evil and have also learned something of it from you.”

  Aziru replied, “No one knows what tomorrow may bring. Rolling stones gather no moss, and the resdessness glowing in your eyes will not allow you to stay long in any one place.”

  We parted friends; he gave me a chair and many presents, and his warriors escorted me back to Smyrna lest any should offer me violence because I was an Egyptian.

  At the gateway into Smyrna a swallow darted like an arrow past my head; my mind was troubled and the street scorched my feet. When I had reached my house I said to Kaptah, “Gather up our belongings and sell this house. We are bound for Egypt.”

  3

  It is needless to describe our voyage, which is to me now as a shade or an unquiet dream. When at last I stepped aboard the vessel that would bring me on my way to Thebes, the city of my childhood, such intense and boundless longing filled my soul that I could neither stand nor sit nor lie, but paced to and fro over the crowded deck, among the rolled-up mats and bales of merchandise. The smell of Syria lingered in my nostrils, and each passing day increased my eagerness to see, in place of the rock-bound coast, a certain low-lying land green with beds of reeds. When the vessel lay to for days on end at the quays of the cities along the coast, I had not serenity enough to explore these places or to gather information; the braying of donkeys on the shore mingled with the cries of the fish sellers and the murmur of foreign tongues into a roar that to my ears was indistinguishable from that of the sea.

  Spring had come again to the Syrian valleys. Seen from offshore the hills were red as wine, and in the evenings the foaming surf of the beaches gleamed a pearly green. The priests of Baal made shrill commotion in the narrow alleys. They gashed their faces with flint knives until the blood flowed, while women with burning eyes and disheveled hair followed the priests, pushing wooden barrows. But all this I had seen many times before; their alien ways and brutish frenzy revolted me when before my eyes there floated a faint vision of my homeland. I had thought that my heart was hardened, that I had by now adapted myself to all customs and all faiths, that I understood the folk of all complexions and despised none, and that my one purpose was to gather knowledge. However, the consciousness that I was on my way home to the Black Land swept like a reviving flame through my heart.

  I laid aside my foreign thoughts like foreign garments and was Egyptian once more. I longed for the smell of fried fish at dusk in the alleyways of Thebes when the women light their cooking fires before the mud huts. I longed for the savor of Egyptian wine and for the waters of the Nile with their scent of fertile mud. I longed for the whisper of the papyrus reeds in the evening breeze, for the chalice of the lotus flower unfolding on the shore, for the picture writing in the temples, for the colorful pillars with their eternal images, and for the smell of incense between those pillars. So foolish was my heart.

  I was coming home although I had no home and was a stranger upon the earth. I was coming home and memory stung me no more. Time and knowledge had silted like sand over that bitterness. I felt neither sorrow nor shame; only a restless yearning gnawed at my heart.

  Astern of us dropped the Syrian land: prosperous, fertile, seething with hatred and unrest. Our vessel, urged forward by the oars, glided past the red beaches of Sinai, and the desert winds blew hot and dry over our faces although it was spring. Then there came a morning when the sea was yellow, and beyond it the land lay like a narrow green ribbon. The seamen lowered a jar and brought up in it water that was not salt; it was Nile water and tasted of the mud of Egypt. No wine ever tasted so delectable to me as this muddy water, hauled up so far from land.

  Kaptah said, “Water is always water, even in the Nile. Have patience, lord, until we find an honest tavern where the beer is clear and foaming, so that a man need not suck it through a straw to avoid the husks of grain. Then and then only shall I know that I am home.”

  His godless talk jarred on me, and I said, “Once a slave always a slave, even when he is robed in fine wool. Have patience, Kaptah, until I find a flexible cane-such a one as can be cut only in the reed swamps of the Nile-and then, indeed, you shall know that you are home.”

  He was not offended, but his eyes filled with tears, his chin quivered, and he bowed before me, stretching forth his hands at knee level.

  “Truly, lord, you have the gift of hitting upon the
right word at the right moment, for I had already forgotten how sweet is the caress of a slender cane on the legs and backside. Ah, my lord Sinuhe, it is an experience that I wish that you also might share. Better than water or beer, better than incense, better than wild duck among the reeds-more eloquently than these does it speak of life in Egypt, where each fills his proper place and nothing changes. Do not wonder if in my emotion I weep, for only now do I feel that I am coming home after seeing much that is alien and perplexing and contemptible. O blessed cane that sets each in his proper place and resolves all problems, there is none like you!”

  He wept a little and then went to anoint his scarab, but I noted that he no longer used as fine oil as before. Land was near, and he fancied no doubt that once in Egypt his own natural guile would suffice him.

  When we berthed in the great harbor of the Lower Kingdom I realized for the first time how weary I was of brightly colored, voluminous clothes, curly beards, and thick bodies. The narrow hips of the porters, their loincloths, their shaven chins, their speech which was that of the Lower Kingdom, the smell of their sweat, of the river mud, of the reeds and the harbor-all was different from Syria; all was familiar.

  The Syrian clothes I wore began to irk and stifle me. When I had finished my business with the harbor clerks and had written my name on many papers, I went at once to buy new clothes. After so much wool, fine linen was sweet to the skin. But Kaptah resolved to continue as a Syrian, for he feared lest his name might still figure on the list of runaway slaves, though he had obtained a clay tablet from the authorities in Smyrna, certifying that he had been born a slave in Syria, where I had lawfully bought him.