The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But Kaptah said, “Make no vows, for who knows what tomorrow may bring, and a man who has once drunk of the Nile waters cannot quench his thirst elsewhere. But otherwise your thoughts and decision are wise, and even wiser you are when you take me with you, because without me you are like a baby who cannot tie its own diapers. I know not what evil you have done — you drop your eyes when you speak of it — but you are young and will one day forget. A man’s action is as a stone cast into a pool. It makes a splash and rings spread outward, but after a while the waters are still again, and there is no trace of the stone. So is human memory like that water. When sufficient time has passed, everyone will have forgotten you and your deed and you may return, and I hope that by then you will be powerful and rich enough to protect me also, if by chance the list of runaway slaves would bring trouble to me.”

“I go and shall not return,” I said resolutely, but just then Kaptah’s new mistress called him in a shrill voice. I went to wait for him at the street corner, and after a time he joined me there with a basket. In the basket was a bundle, and he jingled some coppers in his hand.

“The mother of all crocodiles has sent me to shop for groceries in the market,” he said delightedly. “As usual, she gave me too little copper, but it will all help, for I believe Zemar lies a long way from here.”

His dress and wig were in the basket. We went down to the shore, and he changed his clothes among the reeds, and I bought him a handsome staff such as is used by servants and front runners in the houses of the distinguished. Next, we went to the quay where the Syrian ships were berthed and found a big, three-masted vessel, on which a rope the thickness of a man’s body ran from stem to stern and from whose masthead fluttered the pennant for sailing. The captain was a Syrian, and he was very glad to hear that I was a physician, for he respected Egyptian medicine, and many of his crew were sick. The scarab was bringing us luck indeed, for he entered us on the ship’s register and would take no money for our passage if we provided for our own meals. From that moment, Kaptah venerated the scarab as a god, anointing it daily with good balm and carried it wrapped in fine cloth.

The ship cast off from the quay, the slaves began to bend to their oars, and after travelling for eighteen days, we reached the border of the Two Kingdoms, and in another eighteen days we reached the point where the river splits in two to flow to the sea, and in two more days the

147

sea lay before us. During our journey, we passed cities and temples, we saw fields and droves, but the wealth of Egypt brought no joy to my heart, and I anxiously wished we’d soon leave the Black Land. But when we faced the open sea and there was no sight of the other shore, Kaptah became uneasy and asked if we considered disembarking and travelling to Syria by land, however troublesome that journey was and vexed by robbers. He became ever more uneasy when the oarsmen and sailors, as is the good custom, started moaning and cutting their faces with sharp stones until they were bleeding even if the captain forbade them because he did not want to frighten the numerous passengers. The name of the ship was Garfish. The captain had the oarsmen and sailors whipped, but this did not silence their moaning and wailing, so that many passengers also started moaning bitterly and sacrificing to their gods. Egyptians called for Amun to help them, and the Syrians were pulling their beards and summoned the Baal of Zemar, Sidon, Byblos or other city, depending from where they were coming.

I also urged Kaptah to sacrifice to our god, if he was afraid, and he took the sacred scarab from our bag and prostrated in front of it and threw a piece of silver to the water to appease the gods of the sea and cried for the sake of himself and the lost silver. The sailors stopped shouting and raised the sails, the ship tilted and started rolling, and the oarsmen were given beer and bread.

When the ship began to roll, Kaptah’s face turned grey and his cries died, and he clung to ship’s hawsers. Presently, he said to me in wistful voice that his stomach was rising to his ears and he was dying. But he did not want to blame me for luring him to this journey, yet he forgave me, so that he would please the gods; for he had the faint hope the seawater was salty enough to preserve his body, so that after drowning he could enter the Western Land. But the sailors who heard his talk laughed at him and said the sea was filled with monsters who would swallow him before he even reached the bottom.

The wind freshened, and the ship rolled more sharply, and the captain headed her out to sea until we were beyond sight of coast. Then I, too, grew uneasy, for I could not understand how he would ever find the coast again having lost the sight of it. I no longer laughed at Kaptah because I felt dizzy myself and had unpleasant sensations. Presently,

148