The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“I guess that Pharaoh is worried about my health and has sent you as a physician to examine me. But I can assure you that the Egyptian climate suits my health excellently, and my only worry is if I am a bit too fat to the taste of Egyptian men. You tell me if I am too fat and if I need to lose weight. Tell it to me honestly as an Egyptian man and friend so that I can correct this flaw in me for in Babylon a woman is more desirable to a man the fatter she is — so I diligently ate sweets and drank cream there to grow some meat around my bones.”

I forgot I was a doctor and watched her as an Egyptian man and friend, like she requested, and assured to her that she had no flaw in her and that most men liked soft carpets better than hard ones, and in this matter there was no difference between the Babylonian and Egyptian men. I however advised her to give up sweets and cream because both Pharaoh and the great royal consort were slim and long-necked, and therefore good custom required that also court nobles were slim and long-necked, and women’s clothing was designed accordingly. I think that the eagerness of my advice gave her slightly wrong impression for she looked at me confidently and said:

“I have a small mole under my left breast, as you can see. It is so small that anyone hardly notices it so you need to bring your eyes closer to see it. Though it’s small, this mole bothers me greatly, and I’d like you to remove it with your knife since some court ladies who have been to Akhetaten tell that you perform these operations very skilfully and make them pleasant both to the patient and yourself.”

Her rosy breast was indeed quite luscious and worth looking at but I noticed from her words and behaviour that the Thebes fever had already reached her, and I had no desire to start breaking the seals of Pharaoh’s jars. Therefore I apologised that I did not carry my physician’s case with me and left her company quickly since certainty is best — and Merit was more pleasing to me than all Babylonian princesses. But I saw through the princess’s eyes Thebes and the golden house and realised the extent of the decadence of the golden house, for it had already infected her to imitate the worst ways of Egypt like a child. That is why I told about this. Yet I have to admit that leaving her, I felt a certain wistfulness — but was it for her sake or for the sake of all my thoughts that buzzed in my head, I don’t know. In any case, meeting her made it easier for me to leave the golden house than had I only left with the spikes hit by Ay into my heart.

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Yet it remains to be told that while I stayed in Thebes, priest Herihor let himself be carried to my house in the darkness of the night and came to see me. He reminded me about everything that had come to pass between us and said to me, “Sinuhe, remember your promise! The ship flies already along the flowing stream, but you can still jump on board if you want.”

“I don’t remember promising you anything,” I said to him maintaining my dignity. Then he smiled to me the smile of a wise man, rolling the holy ring of Amun in his thumb and his face gleaming from sacred oil, and he said, “Perhaps your head did not promise, but your heart promised though you don’t know it. Your head needs to hasten to catch up with your heart, for next winter hunger arrives to the land of Kem, and diseases follow the hunger, and flowing blood follows the diseases, and then not even the wisest can know what may happen.”

“It may be easy to raise a flood,” I said to him, “but while the flood rises, it swells and sweeps aside all dams on its way. Perhaps the flood you are about to raise will also sweep you aside, Herihor, you and your priests — and I cannot say if I’d feel sorry about that. A great flood can create lot of damage but once it recedes, it leaves more fertile mud behind than ever before so that the harvest will be hundredfold.”

Herihor did not get angry but preserved his wise kindness and said, “You may think you are wise, Sinuhe, saying such complicated things, but your parable is wrong. I’d rather say that a sword is forged in the dark, and I already see sparkles shooting from its blade. A sword is forged, and it is forged by the madness of Pharaoh and the frenzy of the crosses and hunger and diseases, and it is forged by blood, too, until it penetrates the heart of Egypt. But once you penetrate a man’s heart, he lies down and does not get up, and only worms benefit and get fat from him. Do you want to leave Egypt to the worms, Sinuhe? Flood or sword, it’s all the same. The ship flies forward, and the speed accelerates, but you can still jump on board, Sinuhe, if you want. Unless you want to, perhaps you drop in the water and drown, if you jump too late. And you will jump, Sinuhe, so much I know about the hearts of men that I can assure you so.”

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