The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“Blessed be the day that brought you home, my master, but like all men you go rioting amongst pleasure houses all night without coming home for breakfast, although I have taken very great pains to prepare the food you like and have stayed up all night to bake and roast and I have thrashed the idle slaves with stick to speed them with the cleaning of the house, until my right arm aches with weariness. You know I am an old woman and have lost my faith in men, nor has your behaviour in the evening and during the night and this morning done anything to raise my opinion of men. Come home now and eat the breakfast I have prepared for you and bring the harlot with you if you cannot bear to be parted from her even for a day.”

Such were her words although I knew she held Merit in high honour and admired her, but this was her way of talking, to which I had grown accustomed living in the old copper founder’s house as the physician to the poor so that her acrimony was sweet to my ears, making me feel that I had come home. Therefore I went with her willingly and sent word to Merit at The Crocodile’s Tail , and Muti walked with dragging feet beside my chair and kept up a constant muttering and said:

“I hoped that you had settled down and learned to behave decently during your long sojourn amongst royalty, but it is plain that you have done nothing of the kind and are as unruly as before, yet I seemed to read peace and composure in your face yesterday. I also rejoiced in my heart to note that your cheeks were somewhat plumper, for when a man grows fat, he grows tranquil, and it will certainly not be my fault if you lose weight here in Thebes, but the fault of your own wild nature, for all men are alike, and all evil in the world springs from the little tool they hide beneath their loincloths because they are ashamed of it — and I do not wonder that they are ashamed of it.”

Thus she spoke and nagged incessantly so that I was reminded of my mother Kipa and should certainly have been moved to tears had I not quickly snapped at her, “Shut your mouth, woman, for your chatter disturbs my thoughts and is like the buzz of flies in my ears.” She fell silent at once, delighted at having teased me into shouting at her and so making her feel that her master had indeed come home.

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She had prepared the house very beautifully for my reception, and bunches of flowers were tied to the pillars of the entrance, the garden was swept, and even the street was swept — and the carcass of a cat that had lain before my door now lay before that of the neighbour. She had hired children to stand in the street and shout, “Blessed the day that brings our lord home.” She had done this because she was indignant that I had no children of my own, and she would have liked me to have some as long as they could have been obtained without a wife, but how that would have been possible I cannot explain. Thus was her thinking, however, and I gave the children copper, and Muti distributed honey cakes amongst them, and they went away rejoicing. Then Merit came, very beautifully arrayed and with flowers in her hair, and her hair gleamed with perfumed oil so that Muti sobbed and wiped her nose as she poured water over our hands. The food she had prepared for us was sweet to my palate, for it was Theban food, and in Akhetaten I had forgotten that nowhere in the world is there to be found such food as in Thebes. But perhaps my hunger was because of Merit for she had made me young, and my heart was again as young as my body. Serving the food, Muti talked to us incessantly and said:

“You must curse me badly, my master, for this bird was roasted too much, and I am not happy with the sauce. Did you taste, Merit, this palm spring sprout core that I have braised with kidneys? I usually prepare it well but today, of course, it boiled for too long. And you, my master, have no idea how many times I have conversed with this pretty and decent woman and endlessly warned her of you and proved how unstable and mercurial your mind is and how naturally dumb and foolish you are — but she won’t believe my words and I cannot understand what she sees in you since you are bald already. But when the women are young, they are as mad as men and charmed by the little tool that men — well, I don’t care talking about it this time, but you know what I mean, and I guess Merit knows, too, for she is not altogether young any more. However, experience is as good for a woman as it is for a man — and even more important to a woman since it teaches her to beware of men and not to believe their deceitful words. These small fish I have preserved myself in oil in the Cretan manner, and I do not believe Cretans do it any better, but this time the fish have of course become rancid.”

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