The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

  But Ankhsenaton broke the jar with a ten-year-old boy named Tut, upon whom were conferred the dignities of Master of the Horse, and Overseer of the Royal Building Works and Quarries. He was a slender, sickly boy who played with dolls and liked sweetmeats and was obedient and docile. There was no evil in him, if no particular good, and he believed all he was told, echoing the words of the last speaker. These boys were of the noblest blood in Egypt, and by marrying his daughters to them, Pharaoh thought to secure to himself and Aton the alliance of their two illustrious families. The boys pleased him because they had no wills of their own; in his fanaticism he would tolerate no difference of opinion nor listen to his counselors.

  Outwardly all went on as before, but the attempt on Pharaoh’s life was an evil sign. Worse still, he stopped his ears to human voices and would listen only to those within him. Life became oppressive in Akhetaton; the streets were quieter, and the people laughed less than formerly and spoke in an undertone as if some secret fear were looming over the City of the Heavens. Often I would be roused from my thoughts while at work beside the murmuring water clock and looking out would be aware of a sudden, deadly hush over the city; not a sound would reach me save that of my clock as it measured out immeasurable time. At such moments the murmur of it seemed sinister, as if an allotted span were drawing to its close. Then carriages would roll again past my house, and I would see the colored plumes waving above the horses’ heads. With the cheerful clatter of the wheels would mingle the voices of servants plucking fowls in the kitchen court. Then I would be reassured and fancy that I had had a bad dream.

  Nevertheless there were cold, clear moments when I saw the city of Akhetaton as no more than the fair rind of a fruit that inwardly was eaten away by maggots. The grubs of time sucked the substance from its gay life so that joy faded and laugher died in Akhetaton. I began to yearn for Thebes and had no need to seek out pretexts for the journey; my heart abundantly supplied me with these. So it was with many who fancied themselves devoted to Pharaoh; they left Akhetaton, some to see their estates, others to marry off their kinfolk. Many returned to Akhetaton, but some did not, being now indifferent to Pharaoh’s favor and relying more on the secret power of Ammon. I arranged for Kaptah to send me a number of papers testifying that my presence in Thebes was necessary, that Pharaoh might not prevent my going.

  4

  Once I had stepped aboard and was on my way up the river, my soul seemed liberated from a spell. Spring had come again, the river had fallen, and the swallows were flashing above the swift yellow waters. The fertile mud had spread over the fields, and fruit trees were in blossom. I hastened, filled with the sweet unrest of spring, like a bridegroom hastening to his beloved. So much is man the slave of his heart that he will shut his eyes to what does not please him and believe all that he hopes. Freed from the spell and the prowling fear of Akhetaton, my heart was jubilant as a bird released from its cage. It is hard to be bound by the will of another, as everyone in Akhetaton was bound by the fevered, fitful, and oppressive will of Pharaoh. To me, his physician, he was but a man, and this slavery was worse for me than for those to whom he was a god.

  I rejoiced at seeing once more with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears, at speaking with my own tongue and living according to my will. Such freedom is in no way harmful; rather it made me humble and melted the bitterness from my heart. The greater my distance from Pharaoh the more clearly did I see him as he was and wish him well. The nearer I came to Thebes the more immediate and living were the memories in my heart, and the greater were Pharaoh Akhnaton and his god.

  Therefore my hope and my belief were the same, and I rejoiced, feeling that I was a good man and better than many others. If I am to be honest with myself and live in truth, I must confess that I felt myself to be a better man than Pharaoh himself since I harmed no one willingly, forced my faith on none, and in the days of my youth had tended the poor without requiring gifts. As I pursued my way up the river, I saw everywhere the traces of Pharaoh Akhnaton’s god. Though it was now the height of the sowing season half the fields of Egypt lay unplowed, unsown, and barren save for weeds and thisdes, and the flood waters had filled the ditches with mud that no one cleared away.

  Ammon was exerting his power over the hearts of men, driving the settlers from the land that had been his, and cursing Pharaoh’s fields also, so that plowmen and laborers fled from them and hid themselves in the cities. A few of the settlers remained in their huts, scared and bitter.

  I spoke with them and said, “Madmen! Why do you not plow and sow? You will die of hunger when the winter comes.”

  They looked at me with enmity because my clothes were of the finest linen and answered, “Why should we sow, when the bread that grows in our fields is accursed, killing those who eat it as the speckled grain has already killed our children?”

  So remote lay the city of Akhetaton from the life of reality that it was only now I learned that the speckled grain caused the death of children. I had not heard of such a sickness before. It spiead from child to child; their bellies swelled, and they died with pitiful moaning. Neither physicians nor sorcerers could help them. It seemed to me that this sickness could not originate from the grain but rather from the flood waters whence came all the infectious diseases of winter. It is true that this one killed only children, but when I surveyed the grown people who dared not sow their fields, preferring to submit to death by famine, I saw that the illness had killed at least their hearts. I did not blame Pharaoh Akhnaton for all I saw, but Ammon, who so poisoned the lives of these people in the fields that they chose death rather than life.

  Impatience to look once more upon Thebes drove me onward. The sweat poured down the faces of my oarsmen. With reproach they showed me their hands, which were blistered and swollen because I urged them to such speed. I promised to heal the sores with silver, and I quenched their thirst with beer in my desire for goodness.

  But as they pulled, their haunches braced askew, I heard them mutter one to another, “Why should we row this fat swine if all men are equal before his god? Let him try it himself, to learn how it feels, and then heal his hands with silver if he can!”

  The stick at my side cried out to lay about me, but my heart was filled with goodness because I was on my way to Thebes. Having reflected on the men’s words, I perceived their justice.

  I went among the speakers and said, “Oarsmen, give me an oar!”

  I stood and rowed among them until the hard wood of the oar rubbed blisters on the palms of my hands, and the blisters turned to sores. My back strained sideways until I thought my spine would crack, and I drew my breath with pain.

  But I said to my heart, “Will you give up the labor you took on yourself, for your slaves to mock and scorn you? This and much more than this they endure every day. Experience their toil, their sweat, their swollen hands, that you may know what the boatmen’s life is like. You, Sinuhe, once required your cup to be full!”

  So I rowed until I was near swooning and the servants had to carry me to my bed.

  The next day also I rowed with my flayed hands, and the oarsmen no longer laughed at me but begged me to cease, saying, “You are our lord, and we your slaves. Row no more, or floor becomes roof for us, and we shall seem to walk backward with our feet in the air. Row no more, for there must be order in all things; every man has his station as ordained by the gods, and yours is not the oarsman’s stretcher.”

  But I rowed among them all the way to Thebes; my food was their bread and their porridge and my drink the bitter beer of slaves. Every day I could row for a longer time; every day my limbs grew wirier; every day I took more delight in living and noted that I had ceased to be short winded.

  My servants were uneasy on my account and said to one another, “Surely a scorpion has bitten our master, or he has gone mad like everyone else in Akhetaton, madness being an infectious disorder. Yet we do not fear him, for we have the horn of Ammon hidden beneath our clothes.”

  But I was not mad
and had no intention of rowing beyond Thebes.

  So we approached the city, and the scent of it reached us far out on the river-a scent surpassing all others for one who was born in that place. I bade my servants rub healing salves into my hands and wash me and dress me in my best clothes. The loincloth was too wide for me, for much of my belly had melted away in rowing, and it was necessary to tighten it about me with pins, which they very woefully did. I laughed at them and sent them to warn Muti of my arrival, not daring to present myself unannounced.

  I divided silver among the rowers, and gold also, and I said to them, “By Aton! Go, eat and fill your bellies! Rejoice your hearts with good beer and take pleasure with the beautiful girls of Thebes, for Aton is the giver of joy and loves simple delights, and he loves the poor better than the rich, because their pleasures are artless.”

  At this the faces of the boatmen darkened; they fingered the silver and gold and said, “We would not offend you, but tell us whether this be accursed silver and accursed gold since you speak to us of Aton. For such we cannot accept; it burns our fingers and turns to dust as is well known.”

  They would not have said this to me had I not rowed with them and won their confidence. I reassured them.

  “Go quickly and exchange it for beer if such are your misgivings. But have no fear; neither my gold nor my silver is accursed. You may see from the stamp on it that it is the old, pure metal, unalloyed by the copper of Akhetaton. You are foolish men, ignorant of what is good for you, if you fear Aton; in him there is no cause for dread.”

  They made answer, “We have no fear of Aton, for who fears an impotent god? You know well enough whom we fear, lord, although because of Pharaoh we may not speak his name aloud.”

  Exasperation burned within me, and I would dispute no longer. I dismissed them and they went, leaping and laughing and singing their boatmen’s songs. I too would gladly have leaped and laughed and sung, but this would have been inconsistent with my dignity. I made my way directly to the Crocodile’s Tail without even waiting for a carrying chair. After long separation, I saw Merit and she was lovelier to me than before. Yet I must acknowledge that love, like all passions, colors vision. Merit was no longer very young, but in the full ripeness of her summer she was my friend and nearer to me in her way than anyone had ever been.

  When she saw me, she bowed deeply and raised her hands, then came forward to touch my shoulders and my cheeks also, smiling and saying, “Sinuhe, Sinuhe! What has happened to make your eyes so clear, and what has become of your belly?”

  “Merit, my most dear! My eyes are bright with longing and the fever of love, and my belly melted away in melancholy as I hastened to you, my sister.”

  Wiping her eyes she said, “Oh, Sinuhe! How far does a lie surpass the truth in sweetness when one is alone and one’s spring has flowered in vain! When you come, spring is here once more, and I believe in all the old stories.”

  I shall say no more of this meeting, for I must speak also of Kaptah. His belly had certainly not melted away; he was more corpulent than ever, and more rings jingled about his neck and wrists and ankles, while the disk of gold that hid his empty eye socket was now set with precious stones. On seeing me, he wept and shouted for joy, and said, “Blessed be the day that brings my lord home!” He led me to a private room and bade me sit on a soft mat, while Merit served us with the best the Crocodile’s Tail had to offer, and we rejoiced together.

  Kaptah rendered account of my wealth and said, “My lord Sinuhe, you are the wisest of men-you are more crafty than the grain dealers, and few have ever got the better of them. Last spring you deceived them with your guile, even if the scarab had some share in this. You will remember that you bade me distribute all your corn among the settlers for seed, requiring of them measure for measure only, for which reason I called you mad. And by the gauge of common sense it was indeed the act of a madman. Know then that thanks to your cunning you are twice as wealthy as before. I can no longer carry the sum of your estate in my head, and I am exceedingly vexed by Pharaoh’s tax gatherers, whose impudence and rapacity are now boundless. As soon as the merchants heard that the settlers were to have seed the price of grain fell immediately and fell still further when the news of peace came since everyone then sold to be free of their commitments, by which the merchants suffered great loss. But at that point I bought at a very low price grain that had not even been reaped. In the autumn I gathered in measure for measure as you had commanded, so that by this means I regained also my former stocks. In all confidence I may tell you, lord, that the settlers’ grain is as good as any other and harms no one. I believe that the priests and their followers have secretly splashed blood on the corn in the bins so that it is speckled and acquires an evil smell. With the coming of winter the price of grain rose again, because Eie in Pharaoh’s name shipped some to Syria after peace was made, in order to crowd Babylonian grain from the Syrian markets. Therefore the price has never stood higher than at present. Our profits are enormous, and they will increase the longer we hold onto our stocks. Next autumn famine will creep into the land because the fields of the settlers are unplowed and unsown; the slaves flee from Pharaoh’s fields, and the farmers are hiding their corn lest it be taken from them and sent to Syria. For all this I can do no more than sing your praises to the heavens, lord, for you are more crafty than I, although I believed you mad.”

  In great excitement he continued, “I praise these times, which make the rich man richer, whether he will or no. They are indeed very strange times, for now gold and silver flows from nowhere into my chests and coffers. By selling empty jars I have made as much profit as through grain. All over Egypt there are men who purchase empty jars of any kind, and when I heard this, I hired slaves by the hundred to buy up jars. People gave them their used ones for nothing, only to have the smelly vessels removed from their courtyards. If I say that this winter I have sold a thousand times a thousand jars I may exaggerate somewhat, but not much.”

  “What fool is buying empty jars?” I asked.

  Kaptah gave me a sly wink with his one eye and said, “The buyers affirm that in the Lower Kingdom a new way has been discovered of preserving fish in salt and water. Having gone into the matter, I know that these jars are being sent to Syria. Shiploads of them have been discharged at Tanis-and at Gaza also-whence they are conveyed into Syria by caravan. What the Syrians do with them all is a mystery. No one can perceive how it pays them to buy used jars for the price of new ones.”

  Kaptah’s tale of the jars was remarkable, but I did not puzzle my head over it, the grain question being one of more importance to me.

  When I had listened to Kaptah’s full account, I said to him, “Sell all you have if need be, and buy grain; buy all the stocks you can, no matter at what price. Do not buy any that has not yet been harvested, but only that which you see with your own eyes and can run through your fingers. Consider also whether you can buy back what has already been shipped to Syria, for although Pharaoh by the terms of the peace treaty must send it thither, yet Syria can always import grain from Babylon. Truly in the autumn famine will creep into the land of Kem; therefore let that man be cursed who sells grain from Pharaoh’s stores to vie with the grain of Babylon.”

  At this Kaptah further commended my wisdom.

  “You say well, lord. When these affairs have been brought to a happy conclusion, you will be the wealthiest man in Egypt. I believe I can still buy grain, though it be at usurer’s prices. But the man you have cursed is that simple priest Eie, who sold grain to Syria at the beginning of peace while the price was still low. In his foolishness he sold enough to supply Syria for many years because Syria paid immediately and in gold, and he needed a great quantity of gold for Pharaoh’s anniversary festival. The Syrians will not sell it back to us, for they are wily merchants, and I fancy they will wait until we have come to weigh a grain of corn in gold. Only then will they sell it back to us, and so suck all the gold of Egypt into their coffers.”

  But I soon
forgot corn, and the famine that threatened Egypt, and the future that had lain hidden in darkness since sunset had cast its blood-red glow over Akhetaton. I looked into Merit’s eyes, and my heart drank its fill of her beauty, and she was the wine in my mouth and the balsam in my hair. We parted from Kaptah, and she spread her mat for me to He on. I did not hesitate now to call her my sister, although I had once supposed that I could never again call any woman so. She held my hands in the darkness of night, and her breath was on my neck, and my heart had no secrets from her, and I spoke to her without falsehood or deceit. Her heart preserved its secret from me, and I never guessed what it might be. By her side I did not feel like a stranger in the world, for her body was to me a home, and her mouth kissed away my loneliness-and yet this was but a fleeting illusion through which I must pass, that the measure of my experience be fulfilled.

  At the Crocodile’s Tail I again saw little Thoth, and the sight of him warmed my heart. He laid his arms about my neck and called me “Father,” so that I could not but be touched by his good memory. Merit told me that his mother had died and that she had taken him to live with her since in carrying him to be circumcised she engaged, according to custom, to bring him up should his own parents be unable to do so. Thoth was quite at home in the Crocodile’s Tail, where the customers made much of him and brought him presents and playthings, to please Merit. I was greatly charmed with him, and during my stay in Thebes I took him back to the copperfounder’s house. Muti was delighted at this, and as I watched his play at the foot of the sycamore and heard him romping and arguing with the other children in the street, I remembered my own childhood and envied him. He liked it here so well that he spent his nights with me also, and for my own enjoyment I began to teach him although he was not yet of an age to go to school. I found him intelligent; he quickly learned the signs and characters of writing, and I determined to pay for him to be educated at the best school in Thebes, which children of high rank attended. This made Merit very happy. Muti never wearied of baking honey cakes for him and telling him stories. She now had had her way: there was a son in my house but no wife to worry her or throw hot water over her feet, as is the way of wives when they have quarreled with their husbands.