The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“I am a thief and my master’s swine,” said the servant meekly. “What are my master’s commands?”

Ptahor gave him his orders, and the servant went off to look for the chair. Ptahor settled himself comfortably under the sycamore, leaned against the trunk and recited a poem concerning morning, lotus flowers and a queen bathing in the river, and then related to us many things that boys love to hear. Meanwhile, Kipa woke up also, lit the fire and went to my father in the bedroom. We could hear her voice right out in the garden, and when my father emerged later in a clean robe, he looked sorrowful indeed.

“You have a handsome son,” said Ptahor. “He carries himself like a prince, and his eyes are gentle as a gazelles.” Young as I was, I understood that he spoke thus to make us forget his behaviour of the night before. After a while he went on, “Has your son talent? Are the eyes of his soul as open as those of his body?”

Then I fetched our writing tablets, and Thutmose got his, too. The royal skull surgeon, gazing abstractedly into the topmost branches of the sycamore, dictated a little poem, which I still remember. It ran thus:

“Rejoice, young man, in thy youth, For the throat of age is filled with ashes And the body embalmed smiles not in the darkness of the grave.”

I did my best, first writing it down in ordinary script and then in pictures. Lastly I wrote the words age, ashes, body, and grave in all the ways in which they can be written, both in syllables and letters. I showed him my tablet, and he found not one mistake. I knew that my father was proud of me.

“And the other boy?” said Ptahor, holding out his hand. Thutmose had been sitting apart, drawing pictures on his tablet. He hesitated before handing it over, though there was mirth in his eyes. When we bent forward to look, we saw that he had drawn Ptahor fastening his collar about father’s neck, then Ptahor pouring beer over himself, while in the third picture he and my father were singing with their arms round each other’s shoulders, and the picture was so funny that you could see what manner of song it was that they were singing. I wanted to laugh but dared not for fear that Ptahor might be angry. For Thutmose had not flattered him. He had made him just as short and bald and bandy-legged and swag-bellied as he really was.

For a long time Ptahor said nothing but looked keenly from the pictures to Thutmose and back again. Thutmose grew a little scared and balanced nervously on tiptoe. At last Ptahor asked:

“What do you want for your picture, boy? I will buy it.”

Thutmose, crimson in the face, said, “My tablet is not for sale. I would give it to a friend.”

Ptahor laughed. “So be it. Let us then be friends, and the tablet is mine.” He looked at it attentively once more, laughed and smashed it to pieces against a stone. We all started, and Thutmose begged forgiveness if he had offended him.

“Am I wroth against water when it reflects my image?” said Ptahor mildly, “and the eye and the hand of the draftsman are more than water. I know now how I looked yesterday, and I do not desire that others shall see how I looked yesterday. I smashed the tablet but acknowledge you as an artist.” Thutmose jumped for glee.

Then Ptahor turned to my father and, pointing to me, solemnly pronounced the ancient oath of the physician, “I will undertake his treatment.” Pointing then to Thutmose he said, “I will do what I can.” And, having thus come into doctors’ talk again, they both laughed contentedly. My father, laying his hand upon my head, asked from me:

“Sinuhe, my son, will you be a physician, someone like me?”

Tears came into my eyes, and my throat tightened till I could not speak, but I nodded in answer. I looked about me, and the garden was dear to me, and the sycamore was dear to me, and the stone-set pool was dear to me.

“Sinuhe, my son,” my father said. “Will you be a physician more skilled than I, better than I, a lord of life and death and one to whom all, be they high or low, may entrust their lives?”

“Neither like him nor like me,” said Ptahor and straightened himself, and his eyes became wise and sharp, “but a true physician. For a true physician is the mightiest of all. Before him Pharaoh himself stands naked, and the richest is to him as is the poorest.”