The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

On the other side of the range, I was hauled from one chariot into another drawn by fresh horses so that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels, and I could only scream at the drivers, “You filth, carrion, dung beetles!” and thump them on the back with my fists when we came to smoother stretches and I dared to loosen my hold upon the edge of the cart. They did not heed me but shook the reins and cracked the whip so that we leaped over the stones, and I thought the wheels would fly off.

Our journey to Amurru was thus not a lengthy one, and already before sunset we came to a city that was encircled by newly built, high walls. Soldiers bearing shields were walking on the walls, but the gates had been opened for us, and we drove through the city amidst the braying of donkeys and the cries of women and yelling of children, while baskets of fruit flew through the air and countless pitchers were crushed beneath the wheels, for the drivers paid no heed to what they drove over. When I was lifted from the vehicle, I could no longer walk but reeled like a drunken man, and the drivers rushed me by the arms into the house, followed by slaves with my medicine chest. We had come no farther than the outer wall, which was hung with shields and breastplates and spears tasselled with feathers and lion tails, when Aziru collided with us, trumpeting like a wounded elephant. He had rent his clothes and cast ashes on his hair, and he had scratched his face with his nails until it bled.

“What took you so long, you thieves, carrions, snails,” he bellowed and pulled his curly beard so that golden ribbons tying it were flying in the air like lightning. He hit the riders holding me with his fists and yelled like a beast, “Why did you drag your feet, you lousy servants, for my son is dying.”

But the drivers defended themselves and said, “We have exhausted several horses and raced over the mountains faster than birds fly. We need to give great credit to this doctor whom we fetched for he was so eager to come to cure your child that he encouraged us with his yells when we became tired and hit our backs with his fists when the speed slowed down, and never did we believe there was an Egyptian like him, and we believe never has anyone come in such a short time from Zemar to Amurru.”

Aziru then embraced me fiercely and wept and said, “Heal my son, Sinuhe, please heal him, and all that is mine shall be yours.” I said to him, “Let me first see your son that I may find out if I can heal him.”

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He led me quickly to a large room heated by a brazier although it was summer, and the air within was stifling. In the middle of the floor stood a cradle in which lay a baby less than a year old, swathed in woollen garments. He was screaming so hard that he was blue black in the face, and sweat stood in beads upon his forehead, and although he was still so small, he had thick black hair like his father. I could not see that much ailed him for, had he been dying, he would not have roared so monstrously. I looked around and saw lying on the floor beside the cradle Keftiu, the woman I had once given as wife to Aziru, and she was fatter and whiter than ever, and her voluptuous flesh shook as she struck her forehead on the floor in her grief and mourned and shrieked. Shrieking and crying in the corners of the room, there was a group of female slaves and wet nurses whose faces were swollen and bruised from the blows that Aziru had dealt them because they could not heal his son.

“Worry not, Aziru,” I said. “Your son is not dying, but I must cleanse myself before I examine him. And take away the accursed brazier for we swelter here.”

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

But Aziru wrung his hands and said, “The boy can take no food but spews up all he eats, and his body is hot, and 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 wet nurses and the slave women, and he obeyed me meekly, altogether forgetting his majesty. When I had cleansed myself, I undid the child’s woollen clothes and took them off, then opened the shutters so that the room was freshened by the cool evening air. The child soon grew quieter, began to kick his fat legs, and his crying ceased. 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.

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