The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

About this time, I noticed that I did not look like the rest. My face was narrower, my skin lighter and my limbs more slender than those of the other lads and of the people among whom I dwelt. But for the difference in dress, hardly anyone could have distinguished me from the boys who were carried in chairs or walked the streets attended by slaves. I was sneered at for this. The corn merchant’s son would try to put his arm round my neck and called me a girl until I had to jab him with my stylus. He revolted me for he had an evil smell. But I liked to be with Thutmose, who never touched me.

One day Thutmose said shyly, “I will model your likeness if you will sit for me.”

I took him home, and there under the sycamore he made a likeness of me in clay and scratched the characters of my name upon it with a stylus. My mother Kipa, coming out with cakes for us, was badly frightened when she saw the image and called it witchcraft. But my father said that Thutmose might become artist to the royal household if he could only join the Temple school, and jokingly I bowed down before Thutmose and stretched forth my hand at knee level as one does in the presence of distinguished persons. His eyes shone; then he sighed that it could never be, for his father thought it was time he came back to the barracks and joined the school for charioteers. He could already write as well as was required of any future officer. My father left us then, and we heard Kipa muttering to herself in the kitchen; but Thutmose and I ate the cakes, which were greasy and good, and we were well content.

I was still happy then.

The day came when my father put on his newly- washed best robe and set about his neck a broad collar embroidered by Kipa. He went to the great Temple of Amun, though secretly he had no love for priests in his heart. But nothing ever happened in Thebes or indeed in the whole of Egypt at this time without their help and intervention. They administered justice so that a bold man against whom judgment had been given by Pharaoh’s own court could appeal to them for redress. In their hands lay all instruction for the higher administrative posts. They foretold the height of the flood waters and the size of the harvest and from this assessed the taxes for the whole country. But why explain this further, since everything has returned to what it was and nothing has changed.

I do not think it can have been easy for my father to humble himself before them. All his life he had been a poor man’s physician in the poor man’s quarter and a stranger to the Temple and the House of Life. Now like other penniless fathers he had to wait in line outside the administrative department until it should please some holiness or other to receive him. I can still see these poor fathers, squatting in the Temple courtyard in their best robes, dreaming ambitious dreams for their sons, for whom they coveted a better existence than their own. Many of them had come a long way to Thebes on river boats, carrying their food with them and spent their subsistance on bribes to doorkeeper and clerk for the privilege of a word with a gold-embroidered, perfumed and anointed priest, who wrinkled his nose at the smell of them and gave them harsh words. And yet — Amun stands in continual need of new servants. The greater his wealth and power, the greater the numbers of scribes he wears out in his service. However, there is not a father who does not regard it as a divine favour for his son to be received into the Temple — though in bringing the boy he brings a gift more precious than gold.

My father was fortunate in his visit, for noon had scarcely passed when his old fellow student Ptahor came by, who, in the course of time, had become skull opener to Pharaoh’s household. My father ventured to address him, and he promised to honour our house in person and inspect me.

The day being fixed, my father saved up for a goose and the best wine. Kipa baked and nagged. A luscious odour of goose fat floated out into the street till blind men and beggars gathered there to sing and play for their share of the feast. Kipa, hissing with rage, charged out with a bit of bread dipped in the fat for each of them and sent them packing. Thutmose and I swept the street from our door far into the city. My father had asked Thutmose to be at hand when the guest came, in the hope that he also might be favoured with the great man’s attention. Boys though we were, when my father lit the censer and set it to perfume the entrance way, we felt as awestruck as if we had been in a temple. I guarded the can of scented water and kept the flies off the dazzling white linen cloth Kipa had set aside for her own burial, but which was now brought forth as a towel for Ptahor.