some amongst us of high rank and others who had already taken their law examination — full-grown men who were entering Amun’s service to make their careers more secure. These men had brought plentiful provisions with them and gave the priest presents of wine, and some even ran off at night to the pleasure houses, for initiation held no meaning for them. I stayed awake with an aching heart and with many wistful thoughts in my mind, contenting myself with only a piece of bread and a cup of water, the traditional diet for novices, and waiting in mingled hope and grim foreboding for what was to come.
For I was so young that I had an unspeakable longing to believe. Amun himself appeared at the initiation and spoke individually to each candidate, so it was said, and it would have been an ineffable comfort to find release from myself in the awareness of some ultimate and universal purpose. And yet before the physician even Pharaoh himself must stand naked. Already as a child, I had seen sickness and death at my father’s side, and my eye had been trained to greater keenness than others of my age. To a doctor, nothing must be too sacred, and he bows to nothing but death —my father taught me that. Therefore, I doubted — and all that I had seen in the Temple during those three years had only deepened my doubts.
Yet I hoped that behind the veil in the dimness of the holy of holies that I should find the unknown. Maybe Amun would appar to me and bring peace to my heart.
I was musing upon this, as I wandered along the Temple colonnade passage to which laymen had access and I surveyed the colourful sacred pictures and the inscriptions that told of the stupendous gifts Pharaohs had brought back to Amun from the wars, as the god’s share of the spoils. Then I was approached by a beautiful woman whose robe was of linen so transparent that her breasts and loins could be seen through it. She was a straight, slender woman, and her lips, cheeks and eyebrows were coloured, and she looked at me in unabashed curiosity.
“What is your name, you handsome boy?” she asked, her green eyes lingering upon the grey shoulder cloth that showed me to be a candidate for initiation.
“Sinuhe,” I answered in confusion, not daring to meet her gaze.
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But she was so beautiful and the ointment dripping on her forehead so perfumed that I hoped she would ask me to be her guide about the Temple. Such requests were often made to the Temple students.
“Sinuhe,” she repeated thoughtfully, surveying me questioningly. “Then you must be easily frightened and flee when a secret is confided to you.”
This was an allusion to the story of Sinuhe’s adventures, and it annoyed me since there had been enough of that teasing already at school. I drew myself up and looked her in the eye, and her glance was so strange and curious and clear that I felt my face beginning to burn, and a flame seemed to be running over my body.
“Why should I fear?” I said. “A physician-to-be dreads no secrets.”
“Ah!” she said smiling. “The chick has begun to cheep before it has cracked the shell. But tell me, have you amongst your comrades a young man named Metufer? He is the son of the royal master builder.”
It was Metufer who had filled the priest with wine and given him a gold bracelet as initiation present. I felt a pang as I told her that I knew him and offered to fetch him. I thought that the woman might be his sister or some other family member. This cheered me, and I looked boldly in her eye and smiled.
“How am I to fetch him, though, when I do not know your name and cannot tell him who has sent me?” I dared to ask.
“He knows all right,” said the woman, tapping the pavement impatiently with her jewelled sandal so that I was made to look at her little feet, unsoiled by dust, and their beautiful toenails lacquered bright red. “He knows who calls for him. Perhaps he owes me something. Perhaps my husband is on a journey, and I am waiting for him to come and console me in my grief.”
My heart sank once more at the thought that she was a married woman, but I said briskly, “Very well, fair unknown! I will fetch him. I will say that a woman younger and fairer than the Moon goddess calls for him. He will know then who it is, for whoever has seen you once can never forget you.”
Scared at my own presumption I turned to go, but she caught hold of me. “Why such haste! Wait a minute, perhaps you and I have something more to say to one another.”
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