The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“Why tarry, Sinuhe?” she asked when the slave girl had gone, leaving her lying there unconcernedly upon her bed. “Why have you not gone already? I must dress.”

Then a frenzy seized me, and I rushed at her, but she warded me off so adroitly that I could not take her and stood there finally shedding tears of thwarted desire. I said at last, “If I could buy you that jewel, I would, as you well know. But I cannot allow anyone else to touch you. I will die first.”

“Is that so?” she said softly, her eyes half shut. “You forbid anyone else to touch me? And if I give up this day to you, Sinuhe? If I eat and drink and play with you today, since no one knows what tomorrow will bring, what will you give me?” She stretched out on the bed so that her flat belly was hollowed. There was not a hair on her, either on her head or anywhere on her body where hair normally grows. “What will you give me, Sinuhe?” she repeated and stretched herself and looked at me.

“I have indeed nothing to give you,” I said and looked about me, at the floor of lapis lazuli inlaid with turquoises and at the many golden cups that were in the room. “Truly I have nothing to give you.” My knees gave beneath me, and I turned away from her. But she stopped me.

“I am sorry for you, Sinuhe,” she said softly, stretching her lithe body once more. “You have already given me what you had that was worth giving — although afterwards its value appears to me much overrated. But you have a house and clothes and all the instruments that a physician needs. You are not altogether poor, I think.”

Trembling from head to foot, I said, “All that is yours, Nefernefernefer, if you wish. It is worth little, but the house is fitted up for a doctor’s use. A student in the House of Life might give a good price for it if his parents had the means.”

“Do you think so?” she said and turned her naked back to me, and as she contemplated herself in the glass, she drew her slender fingers along the black lines of her brows. “Be it as you will. Find a scribe, then, to record this so that all you possess may be transferred to me in my name. For though I live alone, I am not a woman to be despised, and I must make provision for the future when perhaps you will cast me off, Sinuhe.”

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I stared at her naked back, and my tongue grew thick in my mouth, and my heart began to beat so violently that I turned hastily and went. I found a law scribe who quickly made out the necessary papers and dispatched them to the royal archives for safekeeping. When I returned, Nefernefernefer had clothed herself in royal linen and wore a wig as red as gold, and her neck, wrists and ankles were adorned with the most splendid jewellery, and a handsome chair awaited her in front of her house. Handing her the legal scribe’s receipt, I said:

“All that I possess is now yours, Nefernefernefer, even to the clothes I have on. Let us now eat and drink and take our pleasure together this day, for no one knows what tomorrow may bring.”

She took the paper carelessly, put it in an ebony casket and said, “I am sorry, Sinuhe, but I find that my monthly trouble is upon me so you cannot come to me as I had wished. You had better go now until I have made the appointed purification, for my head is heavy, and my body pains me. Come another day, and you shall have your desire.”

I stared at her with death in my breast and could not speak. She became impatient and stamped the floor with her foot and said, “Away with you for I am in a hurry.” When I sought to touch her, she said, “Do not smudge the paint on my face.”

I went to my house and set my belongings in order, that all might be ready for the new owner. My one-eyed slave followed every step I took, shaking his head, till his presence maddened me, and I burst out, “Do not hang at my heels since I am no longer your master, but another owns you now. Serve him obediently when he comes, and do not steal so much from him as you did from me, for it may be his stick is harder than my own.”

Then he cast himself to the ground and raised his hands above his head in the depth of his grief and wept bitterly and said, “Do not send me away, my lord, for my old heart has grown into your ways and will break from sorrow if you banish me. I have always been faithful to you,

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