The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I would make my nest among the speckled columns of Amun, among the obelisks roaring in fire and gold in the smell of incense and burning sacrifices. I would make my nest on a roof of a mud hovel in the alley of the poor. The oxen pulling the sledges, the craftsmen making paper from reed, the merchants yelling to sell their goods, a beetle rolling its dung ball along the paved street.

Clear were the waters of my youth; sweet was my folly. Bitter is the wine of age, and not the choicest honeycomb can equal the coarse bread of my poverty. Turn, you years, roll again, you vanished years — sail, Amun, from west to east across the heavens and bring again my youth. Not one word of it will I alter, not my least action will I amend. Oh, brittle pen, smooth papyrus, give me back my vain deeds, my youth and my madness.

This was written by Sinuhe, an exile, poorer than all the poor in the land of Kem.

Senmut, whom I called my father, was physician to the poor of Thebes. Kipa, whom I called my mother, was his wife. They had no children, and they were old when I came to them. In their simplicity, they said I was a gift from the gods, little guessing what evil the gift would bring them. Kipa named me Sinuhe after someone in a story, for she loved stories, and it seemed to her that I had come fleeing from danger like my namesake of the legend, who by chance overheard a frightful secret in Pharaoh’s tent and fled to live for many adventurous years in foreign lands.

But this was only a simple story to the tune of her childish mind, and she hoped that I, too, would always run from danger and avoid misfortune. So she named me Sinuhe. But the priests of Amun hold that a name is an omen, and it may be that mine brought me peril and adventure and sent me into foreign lands. It made me a sharer of dreadful secrets — secrets of Kings and their wives — secrets that may be the bearers of death. Eventually my name had me banished and made me an exile.

Yet I should be as childish as poor Kipa to fancy that a name can influence one’s destiny. My fate would have been the same, had I been called Kepru or Kafran or Moses, so I believe. But I cannot deny that Sinuhe was indeed exiled whereas Heb, the son of the Falcon, was crowned as Horemheb with the red and white crown, to be the King over the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. As to the significance of names, therefore, each must judge for himself. Each in his own faith will find solace against the evils and reverses of this life.

I was born in the reign of the great King Amenhotep III and in the same year as the one who desired to live by truth and whose name may no longer be named because it is accursed — though at the time nothing of this was known. There was great rejoicing at the palace when he was born, and the King brought many sacrifices to the great Temple of Amun that he had built, and the people also were glad, not knowing what was to come. The great royal consort Tiye had until then hoped vainly for a son, though she had been the great royal consort for twenty-two years and her name was written beside that of the King in the temples and upon the statues. Therefore, he whose name may no longer be named was proclaimed heir with elaborate ceremonial as soon as the priests had performed the circumcision.

But he was not born until the spring in the sowing season, whereas I had come the previous autumn when the flood stood at its highest. The day of my birth is unknown, for I came drifting down the Nile in a little reed boat daubed with pitch, and my mother Kipa found me among the reeds on the shore close by her own doorstep, so high had the flood risen then. The swallows had just returned and were twittering above me, but I lay still and she believed me dead. She brought me to her house and warmed me by the charcoal fire and blew into my mouth until I started whimpering quietly.

My father Senmut came back from visiting his patients, carrying two ducks and a bushel of flour. When he heard me crying, he thought Kipa had adopted a kitten and was about to rebuke her, but my mother said, “It is not a cat — but I have got a son! Rejoice, Senmut my husband, for a son has been born to us.”

My father angered and called her an idiot, but Kipa showed me to him, and my father was moved by my helplessness. So they adopted me as their own child and even put it about amongst the neighbours that Kipa had borne me. This was her vanity, and I do not know how many believed her. But Kipa kept the reed boat that brought me and hung it up