The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

  I might have been happy, but there were disturbances in Thebes at that time to which I could not close my eyes. Not a day passed without fighting in the streets, and the endless disputes over Ammon and Aton resulted in bloodshed and broken heads. Pharaoh’s guards and magistrates found plenty to do, for every day men, women, and children were bound with ropes and taken to the wharf, to be sent to forced labor in Pharaoh’s fields-and even to the mines-on Ammon’s account. But their departure was not that of criminals, for people gathered on the quays to greet them and sprinkle them with flowers. The prisoners raised their bound hands and said, “We will soon return!” And others, “Indeed we will soon return to taste the blood of Aton!” Because of the people the guards dared not silence the prisoners and did not beat them until the ships had carried them from the shore.

  Thus the people of Thebes were divided among themselves, son against father, wife against husband, for Aton’s sake. Just as the followers of Aton wore the cross of life at their necks or on their garments, so the horn was the. mark of Ammon’s faithful, and they too wore it visibly. No one could prevent them since for ages past this horn had been accepted adornment on clothes or in jewelry.

  To my surprise, the power of Aton had notably increased in Thebes during the past year, and at first I was at a loss to know why this was. Many settlers had fled back to the city, and having lost everything, they brought Aton with them in their bitterness, and they accused the priests who poisoned their grain and those who stopped up their irrigation ditches and let their cattle trample over the fields. Many who had learned the new script and attended Aton’s schools were eager on his behalf, as youth will always be eager in opposing age. The porters and slaves of the harbor spoke thus, “Our measure has dwindled to half of what it was, and we have no more to lose. In the sight of Aton there is neither lord nor slave, neither master nor servant, whereas Ammon exacts from us full payment.”

  The hottest champions of Aton were the thieves, tomb robbers, and traitors who had greatly enriched themselves by informing and now feared retribution. All those who in one way or another earned their bread by him and desired to keep in favor with Pharaoh held fast to Aton likewise. Thus the people were divided until honest, peaceful citizens were weary of it all and, losing their faith in any god, lamented bitterly, “Whether Ammon or Aton, it is all one to us. We desire only to live in peace and do our work, but we are torn this way and that until we don’t know whether we are standing on our heads or our heels.”

  But he suffered most who sought to keep an open mind and allow every man his own faith. All with one accord fell on him and reviled him, accusing him of sloth and indifference, of stupidity and a hardened nature, of obstinacy and backsliding, until he was tormented into accepting cross or horn, whichever he fancied might cause him least vexation.

  Many houses displayed one or other of the signs; wine shops, alehouses, and pleasure houses displayed them, so that horns drank in one place and crosses in another. The girls who plied their trade by die walls hung cross or horn about their necks as best pleased their clients. Every evening crosses and horns roved the streets in their drunken state and smashed lamps, quenched torches, and rattled shutters and came to blows with one another. I could not say which faction was worse, being equally appalled by them both.

  The Crocodile’s Tail also had been compelled to display its sign, although Kaptah had not desired this, preferring to agree with everyone from whom he could milk silver. It was not left to his choice, for every night the cross of life was scrawled on the tavern walls, surrounded by indecent pictures. This was very natural, as the corn merchants nursed a bitter hatred for Kaptah, who had impoverished them by distributing corn to the settlers, and it was in vain that in the tax returns he had declared the tavern under Merit’s name. It was alleged further that certain of Ammon’s priests had met with violence in his house. Kaptah’s regular customers belonged to the dubious rich of the harbor who shrank from no means of acquiring wealth and who had all declared for Aton since it was through him that they had prospered.

  No one made bold to persecute me, because I was physician to the household, and the inhabitants of the poor quarter by the harbor knew me and my works. Therefore, no crosses or shameful pictures appeared on my walls, and no carcasses were flung into my courtyard. Even the drunken rioters avoided my house when they wandered the streets at night, shrieking the name of Ammon to annoy the watch. Respect for those who bore the sign of Pharaoh was in the people’s very blood, despite all the priests could do to convince them that Akhnaton was a false Pharaoh.

  But one hot day little Thoth came home from playing, beaten and bruised, with blood running from his nose and a tooth missing from his jaw. He came in sobbing although striving to be very brave, and Mut’ was aghast. She wept with rage as she washed his face, then seizing a washing club in her bony fist she cried, “Ammon or Aton, it is all one-but this the rush weaver’s brats shall pay for!”

  She was gone before I could stop her, and soon from the street came the howls of boys, cries for help, and the oaths of a grown man. Thoth and I peeped fearfully out through the door and saw Muti thrashing in the name of Aton all five sons of the rush weaver, his wife, and the man himself. Presently she returned, still panting with fury, and when I sought to upbraid her and explain that hatred bred hatred and vengeance begot vengeance, she came near to clubbing me also. In the course of the day her conscience began to trouble her, and having packed honey cakes and a jar of beer in a basket, she took them to the rush weaver and made peace with him and his wife and children. After this incident the man held Muti in veneration, and his boys became the friends of Thoth. They pilfered honey cakes from our kitchen and together fought as much with horns as with crosses whenever young partisans strayed into our street to make mischief.

  5

  There remains little to say of this sojourn in Thebes. A day came When Pharaoh Akhnaton summoned me because his headaches had become worse, and I could no longer postpone my departure. I bade farewell to Merit and little Thoth, for to my sorrow I could not take them with me on this journey since Pharaoh had commanded me to return with all possible speed.

  I said to Merit, “Come after me, you and little Thoth! Dwell with me in my house at Akhetaton, and we will all be happy together.”

  Merit said, “Take a flower from its place in the desert, plant it in rich soil, and water it every day, and it will wither and die. So would it be with me in Akhetaton, and your friendship for me would wither and die likewise when you compared me with the women of the court. They would take care to stress every point in which I differ from them-for I know women, and men also, I believe. It would ill become your rank to keep a tavern-bred woman in your house who year after year has been fumbled after by sots.”

  I said to her, “Merit, my beloved, I will come to you as soon as I may, for I hunger and thirst every hour that I am absent from you. Many have left Akhetaton never to return, and perhaps I shall do the same.”

  But she answered, “You say more than your heart can answer for, Sinuhe. I know you. I know that it is not in your nature to forsake Pharaoh when others forsake him. In the good days you might have done it, but now you cannot. Such is your heart, Sinuhe, and perhaps it is for this reason that I am your friend.”

  Her words set my heart in a turmoil, and there was a prickling in my throat as of chaff when I reflected that I might lose her. Very earnestly I said to her, “Merit, Egypt is not the only country in the world. I am weary of battles between gods and of Pharaoh’s madness. Let us fly to some place far away and live together, you and I and little Thoth, without fear of the morrow.”

  But Merit smiled and the sorrow in her eyes grew and darkened as she said, “Your talk is vain, and you know yourself that it is, yet even your lies please me because they show that you love me. But I do not think that you could live happily anywhere save in Egypt, nor I anywhere save in Thebes. No, Sinuhe, no man can escape his own heart. In course of time, when I had grown old and ugly and f
at, you would sicken of me and hate me because of all you had missed on my account. I would rather give you up than see that happen.”

  “You are my home and my country, Merit. You are the bread in my hand and the wine in my mouth, and you know it well. You are the one being in the world in whose company I am not lonely, and for that I love you.”

  “Yes, indeed!” rejoined Merit a little bitterly. “I am but the cushion to soften your loneliness-when I am not your worn mat. But that is how it must be, arid I desire nothing else. Therefore, I do not tell you the secret that eats at my heart and which perhaps you should know. I will keep it to myself although in my weakness I had meant to tell you. It is for your sake I conceal it, Sinuhe, for your sake only.”

  She would not confide her secret to me, for she was prouder than I and perhaps lonelier, although at that time I did not understand and thought only of myself. It is my belief that all men do so when they love, though this is no excuse for me. Men who believe they think of anything but themselves when they love are deluded, as they are in many other matters.

  Once more, then, I departed from Thebes and went back to Akhetaton, and of that which followed there is nothing but evil to relate.

  BOOK 13

  Aton’s Kingdom on Earth

  1

  Upon my return to Akhetaton I found Pharaoh exceedingly ill and in need of my help. His face was narrower, his cheekbones protruded, and his neck seemed even longer than before. It was incapable now of supporting the weight of the double crown, which pulled his head backward when he wore it on state occasions. His thighs had swollen, although his legs below the knees were mere sticks; his eyes also were puffy from constant headaches and were ringed with purple shadows. They did not look directly at anyone; his gaze wandered into other realms, and he often forgot the people with whom he spoke. The headaches were made worse by his custom of walking uncovered in the midday sun, to receive its rays of benediction upon his head. But the rays of Aton shed no blessing; they poisoned him so that he raved and saw evil visions. Perhaps his god was like himself, too liberal with his loving kindness, too overwhelming and profuse for his blessing to be other than a blight to all it touched.

  In Pharaoh’s lucid moments, when I applied wet cloths to his head and administered mild sedatives to soothe the pain, his dark, afflicted gaze would rest upon me in such unspeakable disillusion that my heart was moved for him in his weakness and I loved him; I would have sacrificed much to spare him this anguish.

  He said to me, “Sinuhe, can it be that my visions are lies-the fruit of a sick brain? If so, then life is inconceivably hideous, and the world is ruled not by goodness but by a boundless evil. But this cannot be so, and my visions must be true. Do you hear, Sinuhe, the stiff-necked? My visions must be true although his sun no longer illuminates my heart, and my friends spit on my couch. I am not blind. I see into the hearts of men. I see into your heart also, Sinuhe-your weak and vacillating heart-and I know that you believe me mad. Yet I forgive you because of the light that once shone into that heart.”

  When pain assailed him he moaned and cried, “Men take pity on a sick animal, Sinuhe, and dispatch it with a club, and a spear brings release to the wounded lion-but to a man no one will show mercy!

  My disillusion is more bitter to me than death because his light streams into my heart. Though my body die, yet shall my spirit live eternally. Of the sun am I born, Sinuhe; to the sun shall I return-and I long for that return because of the bitterness of my desolation.”

  With the coming of autumn he began to recover although it might have been better if I had let him go. But a physician may not allow his patient to die if his arts can avail to cure him-and this proves often the doctor’s curse. Pharaoh’s health improved and with this improvement came reserve; he would converse no further with me or with others. His eyes were hard now, and his solitude profound.

  He had spoken no more than the truth when he said that his friends spat on his couch, for having borne him five daughters Queen Nefertiti wearied of him and came to loathe him and sought by every means to cause him pain. When for the sixth time the seed quickened within her, the child in her womb was Pharaoh’s in name only. She lost all restraint and took pleasure with anyone, even with my friend Thothmes. Her beauty was regal still although her spring had flowered and passed, and in her eyes and her mocking smile lay something that men found irresistible. She conducted her intrigues among Pharaoh’s adherents, to alienate them from him. So the circle of protecting love about him thinned and melted away.

  Her will was strong, her understanding disturbingly acute. A woman who combines malice with intelligence and beauty is dangerous indeed-more dangerous still when she can add to this the power of a royal consort. For too many years Nefertiti had been content to smile and to rule by her beauty, to find delight in jewels, wine, verses, and adulation. Now, after the birth of the fifth daughter, something seemed to snap; she believed then that she would never bear a son and laid the blame for this upon Akhnaton. It must be remembered that in her veins ran the black blood of Eie the priest, the blood of injustice, treachery, and ambition.

  Let it be said in her defense that never until now could an ill word have been spoken of her; no scandal about her was uttered abroad. She had been faithful; she had surrounded Pharaoh Akhnaton with the tenderness of a loving woman, defending his madness and believing in his visions. Many were amazed at her sudden transformation and saw in it a token of the curse that brooded like a stifling cloud over Akhetaton. So great was her fall that she was reputed to take pleasure with servants and Shardanas and hewers of tombs, though I will not believe this. When once people find something to talk of, they love to exaggerate and make more of it than the facts will warrant.

  However this may be, Pharaoh shut himself away in his solitude. His food was the bread and gruel of the poor, and his drink was Nile water, for he desired to regain clarity by the purification of his body, in the belief that meat and wine had darkened his sight.

  From the outside world no more joyful tidings came to Akhetaton. Aziru sent many tablets from Syria full of remonstrance and complaint. His men desired to return to their homes, he said, to tend their flocks and herds, to till their fields and enjoy their wives, for they were lovers of peace. But robber bands, armed with Egyptian weapons and led by Egyptian officers, made continual raids into Syria from the Sinai desert and were a permanent danger to the country, so that Aziru could not allow his men to return home. The commandant in Gaza was also behaving in an unbecoming manner and in contravention of the peace treaty, both in the spirit and the letter. He closed the gates of the city to peaceful traders and admitted only those whom he thought fit. Aziru made many other complaints and said that anyone save himself would long ago have lost all patience, but that he was long suffering because of his love of peace. Yet unless an end were put to these incidents, he would not answer for the outcome.

  Babylon likewise was incensed at Egypt’s competition for the Syrian grain markets; King Burnaburiash was far from content with the presents he had received from Pharaoh and put forward many demands.

  The Babylonian ambassador in Akhetaton pulled his beard, shrugged his shoulders, and threw out his hands, saying, “My master is like a lion that rises uneasily in its lair and sniffs the wind, to learn what the wind will bring. He set his hopes on Egypt, but if Egypt is too poor to send him gold enough to hire strong men and build chariots, I do not know what will come of it. Though my master will ever prove a good friend to a powerful and wealthy Egypt, the friendship of a poor and impotent country is of no value to him, but rather a burden. I may say that my master was severely shocked and surprised when Egypt in its weakness yielded Syria. Everyone is his own nearest neighbor, and Babylon must consider Babylon.”

  A Hittite deputation, among which were many distinguished chiefs, now arrived at Akhetaton. These men declared that they had come to confirm the hereditary friendship between Egypt and the land of Hatti and at the same time to acquaint themselves both with
the customs of Egypt, of which they had heard much that was good, and with the Egyptian army, from whose arms and discipline they believed they might learn a great deal. Their behavior was cordial and correct, and they brought munificent presents to the officers of the household. Among the gifts they offered to young Tut, Pharaoh’s son-in-law, was a knife of blue metal, keener and stronger than all other knives. I was the only other in Akhetaton in possession of such a blade-one that had been given me by a Hittite harbor master, as I have related-and I counseled Tut to have his also set in gold and silver in the Syrian manner. Tut was so greatly delighted with this weapon that he said he would have it with him in his tomb. He was a delicate, sickly boy who thought of death more often than do most children of his age.

  These Hittite chiefs were indeed agreeable and cultured men. Their large noses, resolute chins, and their eyes that were like those of wild creatures entranced the women of the court. From morning till night and from night till morning they were brilliantly entertained in the palaces of the great.

  They said smiling, “We know that many dreadful things are told of our land by the invention of envious neighbors. We are therefore delighted to be able to appear before you in person so that you may see for yourselves that we are a cultured nation and that many of us can read and write. We are also peaceful and do not seek war; we seek only such knowledge as may be useful to us in our endeavors to educate and instruct our people. Do not believe the nonsense that is talked about us by the fugitives from Mitanni. They are bitter because in their fear they abandoned their country and all that was theirs. We can assure you that no evil would have befallen them if they had remained. But you must understand that the land of Hatti is cramped and we have many children, for the great Shubbiluliuma takes great delight in children. Therefore we need space for our offspring and new grazing grounds for our cattle. And further, we could not endure to see the oppressions and wrongs that prevailed in the Land of Mitanni-indeed, the natives themselves appealed to us for help, and we marched into their country as liberators not conquerors. In Mitanni there is room enough for ourselves and our children and our cattle and we do not meditate further annexations, for we are a peace-loving people.”