The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I dressed and followed her, and the servants poured water over my hands and bowed, stretching forth their hands at knee level. But behind my back, they sniggered and mocked me though I pretended that their sneering was no more than the buzzing of flies in my ear. When Nefernefernefer came down, they fell silent at once, and we ate and drank together, and there were five sorts of meat and twelve sorts of pastry, and we drank mixed wine, which goes quickly to the head. The legal scribe came and wrote out the necessary papers, and I made over to Nefernefernefer my parent’s tomb in the City of the Dead with all its furnishings and also their deposit in the Temple, defrauding them of immortality and of their hope of journeying to the Western Land after death. I pressed my father’s seal upon the paper and signed it with his name on his behalf, and the scribe undertook to dispatch the documents to the royal archives that same day and so make them legally valid. He handed the receipt to Nefernefernefer, and she put it into the black casket and paid him for his trouble, so that he left bowing his head and lowering his hands to his knees in front of us.

When he was gone, I said, “From this hour, I am accursed and dishonoured before gods and men, Nefernefernefer. Prove to me now that my doing was worth it.” But she smiled and said, “Drink wine, my brother, that your heart may be gladdened.” When I would have seized her, she evaded me and filled my wine cup from the jar. Presently she glanced at the sun and said, “See, the day is spent, and it will soon be evening. What do you stay for, Sinuhe?”

“You know well what I stay for,” I said. But she asked, “And surely you know which well is deepest and which pit is bottomless, Sinuhe. I must hasten to dress and paint my face, for a golden goblet awaits me, which tomorrow will adorn my house.” When I would have gathered her into my arms, she slipped from me with a shrill laugh and called out for the servants, who instantly obeyed her summons. And she told her servants, “How came this insufferable mendicant into my house? Throw him out instantly and let him never come within my doors again, and if he resists, beat him with sticks.”

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The servants threw me out, numb as I was with wine and fury, and came again to beat me with sticks when I battered at the barred outer door. And when people began to gather about the spot because of my roaring, the servants declared, “This drunkard insulted our mistress, who lives in her own house and is not a woman to be despised.” They beat me with sticks until I was senseless and left me to lie in the street, where men spat upon me and dogs made water upon my clothes.

When I came to myself and became aware of my misery, I was without the will to rise and lay there motionless until the morning. The darkness protected me, and I felt that I should never dare to show my face to another man again. The prince had named me He Who Is Alone, and I was assuredly the loneliest mortal in the world that night. But when dawn came and people began to move about the streets and merchants displayed their wares before their booths and the oxcarts rumbled by, I rose and went out of the city and hid myself among the reeds for three days and three nights without food or drink. My body and heart were one hideous wound, and had any one spoken to me then, I should have screamed aloud and shouted; and I feared I was losing my mind.

On the third day, I bathed my face and feet and washed the dried blood from my clothes and returned to the city and went to my house. But the house was no longer mine, and at the door was the signboard of another doctor. I called Kaptah, and he came running, sobbing for joy, and threw his arms about my knees.

“My lord,” he said, “for in my heart you are still my master, no matter who may give me orders. A young man has come here who fancies himself a great physician. He has been trying on your clothes and laughing in his delight. His mother has already been out into the kitchen to throw hot water over my feet and call me rat and dung fly. But your patients miss you, and they say his hand is not as light as yours and that his treatments cause a lot of pain and that he does not understand their maladies as you do.”

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