The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“If that is true,” I said smiling, “I can almost believe that Amun punished him, for he mocked Amun.” I told her how the priest and Metufer had spat in the face of Amun’s statue to wash it and how they had rubbed themselves with Amun’s sacred ointment. She smiled, but her eyes were hard, and she had a distant look in them. Suddenly she said, “Why did you not come to me then, Sinuhe? If you had sought me, you would have found me. You did ill in not coming and in visiting other women with my ring on your finger.”

“I was but a boy, and maybe I feared you,” I said. “But in my dreams you were my sister, Nefernefernefer, and — laugh at me if you will — I have never yet slept with any woman. I have been waiting to see you again.”

She laughed and made a gesture of disbelief. “You are certainly lying. In your eyes I must seem an ugly old woman, and so it amuses you to mock me and lie to me.” Her eyes were gay now as in other days, and she looked so much younger that my heart swelled and ached as I looked at her.

“It is true that I have never touched any woman,” I said. “But it may not be true that I have waited for you. Let me be honest. Very many women have come before me, young and old, pretty and plain, wise and simple, but I have looked upon all alike with the eye of a physician, and not one of them has stirred my heart, though why this should be I cannot tell.” I continued, “I could easily say it was because of the stone you gave me for the memory of our friendship, and you without my knowledge put a spell on me. Maybe you put a spell on me when you touched my lips with your lips, so soft were your lips. But that is no explanation. You may ask thousand times why, and I cannot answer you.”

“Perhaps when you were a little boy you fell from the top of a wagon load and landed astride the shaft, so that ever since you have been melancholy and happier alone,” she said jokingly and touched me lightly as no woman had ever touched me. Reply was needless, for she knew herself that what she said was untrue. She quickly withdrew her hand, whispering: “Let us drink wine together. I may yet take my pleasure with you, Sinuhe.” We drank wine while the slaves carried some of the guests out to their chairs, and Horemheb put his arm about the woman beside him, calling her his sister. The woman smiled and put her hand against his mouth and said that he should not say silly things he would regret on the following day. But Horemheb stood up and with a glass of wine in his hand shouted:

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“What ever I do, I will never regret, for from this day on I only look forward and never backward. This I swear by my falcon and by a thousand gods of both Kingdoms, and I cannot name them all, but may they all hear my oath.” He took the gold chain from his neck and would have hung it about hers. But she resisted and said angrily, “I am a decent woman and no harlot!” Rising, she moved away in an offended manner, but in the doorway beckoned secretly and Horemheb followed her. I saw nothing more of either of them that evening.

This did not draw any attention, for it was late and the guests should have been long gone. Still was everyone drinking wine and staggered about the floor tripping over stools and rattling sistra they had filched from the musicians. The guests embraced, calling each other brother and friend — and then fell out with blows and cries of ‘gelding’ and ‘eunuch.’ The women felt no shame to remove their wigs and let the men caress their smooth heads, because ever since the rich and noble women had started to shave their heads, was there no caressing more pleasurable to men. Some of the men also approached Nefernefernefer, but she rejected them with her hands, and I trampled on their toes, when they got too pushy, regardless of their position and rank, and they were all drunk from wine.

I was drunk, not with wine but with the nearness of Nefernefernefer and with the touch of her hand. At last she made a sign and the servants began to put out the lights, carry away tables and stools, and gather up the trampled garlands, and see out to their carrying chairs those guests who had slept next to the wine jars. Then I said to her, “I think I must go.” But each word stung my heart like salt in a wound, for I dreaded losing her, and every moment not spent in her company seemed to me wasted.

“Where will you go?” she asked in feigned surprise.

“I go to keep watch tonight in the street before your house,” I said. “I go to make sacrifice in every temple in Thebes, in thanksgiving to the gods that I have met you again. I go to pluck blossoms from the trees to strew in your path when you leave your house and to buy myrrh with which to anoint your door posts.”

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