The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

Book 13: Aten’s Kingdom on Earth

Upon my return to Akhetaten, I found Pharaoh ill and in need of my help. His face was narrower, his cheekbones protruded from his face, and his neck seemed even longer than before so that during festivities it was incapable of supporting the weight of the double crowns and his head tilted backward under the weight. His thighs had swollen, even though his legs below the knees were mere sticks, and his eyes were puffy and ringed with purple shadows from constant headaches. He did not look directly in the eye of anyone any more, but his gaze wandered into other realms, and he often forgot the people with whom he spoke for the sake of his god. The headaches were made worse by his custom of walking without a royal headpiece or parasol in the midday sun in order to receive rays of benediction upon his head. But the rays of Aten shed no blessing on him, but they poisoned him so that he raved and saw evil visions. Perhaps his god was like himself: for also he shared his goodness and love too generously, too quickly, and too abundantly and violently, so that the consequences from his goodness were evil, and his love spread destruction around him.

During his lucid moments, when I applied cool cloths to his head and administered mild sedatives to soothe the pain, his grim and bitter eyes would rest upon me as if unspeakable disillusion had sneaked into his mind, and his gaze hurt my heart so that I loved him again in his weakness and would have sacrificed much to spare him from his disillusion. He spoke to me and said:

“Sinuhe, can it be that my visions are lies and only because of my sick head? If so, then life is more hideous than I can imagine, and the world is ruled not by goodness but by a boundless evil. But this cannot be so, and my visions must be true. Do you hear, Sinuhe, you hard-headed man, my visions must be true, although his sun no longer illuminates my heart, and my friends spit upon my bed. I am not blind and see into the hearts of men. I see into your heart also, Sinuhe, into your soft and weak heart, and I know that you believe me mad, yet I forgive you because of the light that once shone into that heart.”

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When pain assailed him, he moaned and wailed and said, “Sinuhe, men take pity on a sick animal and dispatch it with a club, and a spear brings release to a wounded lion, but to a man no one will show mercy. My disillusion is more bitter to me than earthly death, and I am not afraid of death because his light shines in my heart — and my body may die, but my spirit will live on from eternity to eternity and within him it will shine across the whole world. Of the sun am I born, Sinuhe, and to the sun I will return, and I already long for that return because of the bitterness of all my desolation.”

These were his words when he was ill, and I don’t know if he was aware of everything he said. With the coming of autumn, he began to recover, although it might have been better if I had let him die. But a physician may not allow his patient to die if his arts can avail to cure him, and this proves often the doctor’s curse — but a doctor cannot help it, and he needs to cure the good and the bad, the pious and the wrongdoers, without separating them from one another. As autumn arrived, he started recovering, and as he recovered, he turned inwards and would converse no further with me or with others, but his eyes became hard and he was mostly alone.

He had spoken no more than the truth when he said that his friends spat on his bed, for having borne him five daughters, Queen Nefertiti wearied of him and came to loathe him, and she didn’t care what she did any more but sought by every means to hurt him. When for the sixth time the seed of barley quickened within Nefertiti, the child in her womb was Pharaoh’s in name only since she had let strangers’ seed pour into her womb — and having once lost her restraint, she lost all restraint and took pleasure with anyone who happened to please her, and she had even rejoiced with my friend Thutmose. She didn’t need to spend time looking for bed-fellows, for her beauty was regal still although her spring had already flowered, and there was something in her eyes and in her mocking smile that forced men to her like it was sorcery so that they could not control themselves. For the sake of her bitterness and hatred, she deliberately and purposefully conducted her intrigues amongst Pharaoh’s faithful and alienated them from Akhenaten by rejoicing with them so that the circle of protecting love about Pharaoh Akhenaten thinned and became remote.

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