The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I awoke late the next day, and so powerful had been the drug that at first I wondered where I was. When I remembered what had come to pass, I was calm and clear- headed, and thanks to the dose, I raved no longer. Many of those who took part in the procession had returned to the city, but some still slept among the bushes, men and women together, their bodies shamelessly uncovered, for they had drunk and danced and partied till morning. When they awoke, they donned fresh clothes, and the women put up their hair again, discontented because they could not bathe — for the streams were too cold for those accustomed to hot water from bathroom silver taps.

But they rinsed their mouths and rubbed ointment onto their faces and painted lips and eyebrows and said yawningly to one another, “Who stays to await Minea, and who goes back to the city?” Most of them were now weary of the revelry on the grass and in the bushes and returned to the city during the course of the day, and only the youngest and most insatiable remained to divert themselves further, on the pretext of awaiting Minea’s return, even if everyone knew no one had ever returned from the god’s house. They stayed because of an encounter during the night with one or other in whom they had found pleasure, and the wives took this opportunity of sending their husbands back to the city to be rid of them. Seeing this, I understood why there was not a single pleasure house in the city but only in the harbour. Having beheld their play during this night and the day following, I reflected that girls who made it their profession would have been hard put to rival the women of Crete.

Before Minotaur left, I said to him, “Can I stay to await Minea’s return in company with her friends, foreigner though I am?” He surveyed me malevolently and said, “There is nothing to prevent you. But I fancy that there is just now a ship lying in the harbour that will take you back to Egypt, for you wait in vain. No one initiated has ever returned from the god’s house.”

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But I pretended to be simple and said flatteringly, “It is true that I was somewhat taken with Minea, though it was a bit boring to be denied her for the sake of her god. To speak truly, I do not expect her to return, but like the others I give that as my reason for remaining here, for there are many enchanting girls and some wives also who like to look into my eyes and lay their breasts seductively between my hands, and that is a thing I have never before experienced. Minea was in fact a damnably jealous and quarrelsome girl who interfered with my pleasures though I was not allowed to touch her. Furthermore, I must ask your forgiveness if I was so drunk last night as unwittingly to offend you, but I cannot quite call to mind the matter, being still a little fuddled. I only remember I put my hand on your neck and asked you to teach me the dance you danced so beautifully and solemnly that I have never seen such thing before. But if I offended you, I ask for your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart, because I am a foreigner and do not know your customs well enough and did not know I cannot approach you because you are a very sacred person.”

I babbled all this slurring and squinting my eyes and moaning about my headache until he smiled, taking me for an idiot, and said, “If that is how the matter stands, I shall not hinder your enjoyment, for in Crete we are not narrow in our views. Stay, therefore, and await for Minea as long as you wish, but take care to get no one with child, for that would be unsuitable as you are a foreigner. Let not this counsel wound you for I offer it as one man to another that you may understand our customs.”

I assured him that I would be careful and babbled of my alleged experiences with the temple maidens of Syria and Babylon until he thought me a bigger fool than before and very tedious and patted me on the shoulder and turned away to start upon the journey to the city. Nevertheless, I believe he adjured the watchmen to keep an eye on me, and I believe also that he bade the Cretans to entertain me, for soon after he had gone, a flock of women came to me who hung garlands about my neck and looked into my eyes and leaned upon me until their naked breasts pressed against my arm. They took me with them in amongst the laurel bushes to eat and drink. Thus it was I saw their habits and frivolity, and they were not shy of me, but I drank heavily and feigned intoxication so that they had no joy of me but grew weary and smote me, calling me swine and barbarian. Kaptah came and dragged me away by the arms, insulting me loudly because of my drunkenness, and he

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offered to take my place with them for their enjoyment. They laughed and tittered at the sight of him, and the youths mocked him, pointing at his great belly and his head that was bald at the back. But he was a foreigner, and women everywhere are attracted by what is foreign so that when they had done tittering, they let him join their company, giving him wine and stuffing his mouth with fruit, leaning their sides against his sides and calling him their he-goat and being outraged at the smell of him until his smell also began to seem alluring.

I left Kaptah in their care and fled their company, for all I could think of was Minea, and despair was like a hungry rat inside of me. While the watchmen were napping, I went to the copper gates and saw the small gate next to them, but it was impossible to open without a key. I pressed my mouth against the metal of the door and whispered Minea’s name, but did not dare to say it aloud. When the watchmen woke up, I went to them with a wine jar and let them drink; and I talked to them so that they were greatly surprised about my behaviour for in Crete the eminent do not converse with the lowly but live their lives as if the low and poor did not exist. But they knew I was a foreigner and thought I was dumb because of my behaviour and drank wine and mocked me to each other in their own language.

The temple priest became jealous and came to us from his house and drank my wine. He was an old man having lived all his life in the temple guarding the copper gates, but when I asked if he had ever entered the god’s house, he became terrified and said that only the initiated and Minotaur could enter the god’s house, and whoever else entered the god’s house faced a gruesome death. As evidence of this, he told how a long time ago, when the power and fame of Crete was not yet that great, some pirates had come ashore close to the temple and surprised the watchmen hoping to find a treasure in the god’s house. But the group of pirates who entered the god’s house never returned, and those who followed to look for them, never returned either, and terrible cries for help were heard by the guards from a distance. Then the other pirates became frightened and released the watchmen without daring to kill them and escaped to their ship. After that, no one had tried to enter the house of god. He thought there was no point in guarding it, since no one dared to enter it in any case, and he took me to his house and showed me the key of the gate without trying to conceal it and told how Minotaur had taken the key when entering the god’s house to exit from the small door when the great copper gates were closed behind the initiated.

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I bought from him some talismans and small bulls which he carved from stone to pass time in his house, and this pleased him greatly, and we became friends. But when he spoke about the god’s house, he lowered his voice for he was much afraid of the house he guarded. He also told me that if the copper gates were open, he would not dare to live in the temple, but he was not able to explain why that was so.

I did not want to stay too long with him so as to not draw attention, and so I returned to the others and drank wine and tried to rejoice and laugh with them, and pretended to take great liking to the women. Kaptah was very drunk and told many lies about the countries we had visited so that they laughed and clapped their hands and shouted for joy like children. He also told them about his day as the King of Babylon and about the sentences he had pronounced from the throne of the King and about his great successes in the King’s women’s house, but all this they regarded as the greatest lie and laughed ever more and said, “He must have Cretan blood in his veins.”

So that day passed until I was sickened by their gaiety and carefree ways and could fancy no more tedious life than theirs, for lawless caprice is in the end more wearisome than a life of purpose. They whiled away the night as before, and my anguished dreams were broken by the cries of women in the groves, pretending to flee from pursuing youths who snatched at their clothes to pull them off. But in the morning they were weary and cloyed for not being able to bathe, and the greater number returned that day to the city. Only the youngest and most indefatigable lingered by the copper gates.

On the third day the last also went, and I let them take my chair, which had awaited me for those who had come on foot were unfit to walk and staggered from immoderate lechery and want of sleep as they went; and it suited my purpose that they took the chair and none should wait for me. Every day I had given the guards wine, and when I brought them a jar at dusk, they were not surprised but received it joyfully for they had few pleasures in their loneliness, which lasted a month at a

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