The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“Isn’t this how things are? Grown people laugh at the pictures too, because the images are so crazy. It is ridiculous for a mouse to attack a cat or a priest to lead Pharaoh. But those who know begin to reflect upon a number of things. Therefore, I shall not lack for bread and beer, until the priests have the guards club me to death in some street corner. Such things have happened.”

“Let us drink,” I said, and we drank wine, but my heart was not gladdened. “Is it wrong to ask, why?” I said.

“Of course it is wrong,” said Thutmose, “for a man who presumes to ask why has no home nor roof nor resting place in the land of Kem. All must be as it has been, you surely know it. I trembled with joy and pride when I entered the art school, you remember that, Sinuhe. I was like a thirsty man who has found a spring. I was like a hungry man clutching at bread. And I learned many fine things. I learned how to hold a pen and handle a chisel, how to model in wax what will be hewn from stone, how stone is polished, how coloured stones are fitted together, and how to paint on alabaster. But when I longed to get to work and make such things as I had dreamed of, I was set to treading clay for others to handle. For high above everything stands the convention. Art has its convention no less than writing, and he who breaks with it is damned. Everything has its convention, and he who breaks with it is not fit as an artist. From the beginning of time, it has been laid down how one should represent a standing figure and how a sitting one. From the beginning of time, it has been laid down how a horse lifts his hooves and how an ox draws a sled. From the beginning of time, it has been laid down how an artist needs to do his work, and whoever departs from such is unfit for the Temple, and stone and chisel are denied him. Oh, Sinuhe, my friend, I too have asked, why? Only too often have I asked, why? That is why I sit here with bumps on my head.”

We drank wine and grew merry, and my heart lightened as if a boil in it had been lanced, for I was no longer alone. And Thutmose said:

“Sinuhe, my friend, we have been born into strange times. Everything is melting and changing its shape like clay on a potter’s wheel. Dress is changing, words and customs are changing, and people no longer believe in the gods though they may fear them. Sinuhe, my friend, perhaps we were born to see the sunset of the world, for the world is already old, and a thousand and two thousand years have passed since the building of the pyramids. When I think of this, I want to bury my head in my hands and cry like a child.”

But he did not weep, for we were drinking mixed wine in brightly coloured goblets, and each time the landlord of The Syrian Jar refilled them, he bowed and stretched forth his hands at knee level. From time to time, a slave came to pour water over our hands. My heart grew light and arrow-fast as a swallow on the threshold of winter, and I could have declaimed verse and taken the whole world into my arms.

“Let us go to a pleasure house,” said Thutmose and laughed. “Let us hear music and watch girls dance so that our hearts are gladdened and we cease asking why and demanding that our cup be full.”

I gave one of the bracelets as payment and urged the landlord handle it with care as it was still wet from a woman’s urine. This thought amused me immensely, and also the landlord laughed heartily and gave me a whole deal of marked silver for the bracelet, so that I could give some to the slave too. He bowed deep in front of me, and the landlord escorted us to the door and told us to keep The Syrian Jar in our minds. He said he knew many young, open-minded girls who’d be glad to get to know me, if I visited them with a wine jar under my arm. But Thutmose said that already his grandfather had slept with the same Syrian girls, and they’d rather be called grandmothers than sisters. So playful we were, our heads full of wine.

We walked along the streets, and the sun had set, and I learned to know that Thebes where it is never night for the people enjoying themselves made their shining quarter as bright as daylight. Torches flamed before the pleasure houses, and lamps burned on columns at the street corners. Slaves ran here and there with carrying chairs, and the shouts of men running before them mingled with music from the houses and the roars of the drunk. We peeked into the wine tavern called Kush and saw a black man playing drums with his hands and wooden sticks, the frightening sound of the drums booming afar. Competing with them was the sound of primitive, tinkling Syrian music, so alien that it hurt my ears, but its rhythm stuck in my mind and heated up my blood.