The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

In any case, he departed from Akhetaten in anger, and Pharaoh greatly rejoiced to see him go, for the conversations with Horemheb had much plagued him so that even the sight of Horemheb approaching him gave him a headache. But to me he said musingly:

“It may be the will of Aten that Egypt loses Syria, and if so, who am I to revolt against his will since it must be for the good of Egypt. For the wealth of Syria has eaten at Egypt’s heart, and all extravagance, indolence, vices and bad manners have come from Syria. Were we to lose Syria, Egypt would return to a simpler life, alife by the truth; and what comes to pass then would be the best thing that can befall Egypt. The new life must start in Egypt and spread amongst all nations.”

But my heart rose up against his talk, and I said, “The commander of the Zemar garrison has a son named Ramesses, and he is a lively boy with big brown eyes who loves to play with speckled stones. I treated him once for chickenpox. And in Megiddo there dwells an Egyptian woman who, having heard of my skill, once visited me in Zemar for her belly was swollen, and I cut her open with my knife, and she lived. Her skin was soft as wool, and she walked beautifully like all Egyptian women, even though her belly was swollen, and fever was gleaming in her eyes.”

“I do not understand why you tell me of these things,” said Akhenaten, and he began to make a sketch of a temple he beheld in his mind’s eye for he was constantly vexing his architects and master builders with drawings and explanations though they understood everything about buildings better than he.

“I mean that I can see that little Ramesses with his mouth bruised and the locks at his temple clotted with blood. I see the woman from Megiddo lying naked and bleeding in the courtyard of the fortress while men from Amurru violate her body. Yet I acknowledge that my thoughts are trivial compared with yours and that a ruler cannot remember every Ramesses and every soft woman amongst his subjects.”

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Then Pharaoh clenched his fists and raised his fists up in the air, and his eyes darkened from headache as he cried, “Sinuhe, can you not understand that if I must choose death rather than life, then I will choose the death of a hundred Egyptians rather than that of a thousand Syrians. Were I to give battle in Syria so as to save every Egyptian there, then many Egyptians and many Syrians would lose their lives in war — for a Syrian is a human being like an Egyptian, and a heart beats in his chest, and also a Syrian has wives and bright-eyed sons. Were I to meet evil with evil, only evil could result. But if I meet evil with good, the resulting evil is less than if I met evil with evil. I do not want to choose death rather than life. So I stop my ears to your talk, and speak to me no more of Syria if you love me and if my life is dear to you for when I think of Syria, my heart feels all the suffering of those who die for my will’s sake, and a man cannot long carry the sufferings of many. Therefore give me peace for the sake of Aten and of my truth.”

He bowed his head, and his eyes were swollen from pain and started becoming red, and his thick lips trembled from pain. I left him in peace, but in my own ears I heard the thunder of battering rams against the Megiddo walls and the cries of outraged women in the woollen tents of the men from Amurru. But I hardened my heart against these sounds for I loved him, even if he was mad, and perhaps I loved him the more because of it, for his madness was more beautiful than the wisdom of other men.

Yet I have to tell about the courtiers who without delay followed Akhenaten to the City of the Heavens for they had lived all their lives in Pharaoh’s golden house, and their lives served no other purpose than to live in Pharaoh’s presence and smile when he smiled and frown their foreheads when he frowned. Thus had their fathers done before them and fathers of their fathers before their fathers, and they had inherited their royal offices and titles from their fathers and were proud of their ranks and compared them with each other. They included the royal sandal porter who hardly ever had put any shoes on with his own hands and the royal cupbearer who had never treaded any grapes and royal baker who had never seen flours mixed to make dough and the royal porter of the balm spatula and yet the royal circumciser and various other officials — and I was myself the royal skull opener, but no one expected me to open the King’s skull even if I could have done my job and maybe even keep Pharaoh alive, unlike the others.

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