The Egyptian

4

We tarried there for a while-though it was a noisy town, full of vice and crime-for when we saw a ship bound for Crete, Minea would say, “That one is too small and will sink, and I have no wish to be shipwrecked a second time.” And when we saw a larger one, she would say, “That is a Syrian ship, and I will not sail in her.” And of a third she would object, “The master of the vessel has evil eyes, and I fear he will sell us as slaves in a foreign land.”

So we stayed on in the seaport, and I for one did not regret this. I had plenty to do there, cleansing and stitching up gashes and opening crushed skulls. The harbor master himself eventually came to me, for he was suffering from a pox. I knew the disease from my Smyrna days and was able to cure it with a remedy used by the physicians there.

When I had cured him he said, “What shall I give you, Sinuhe, for your great skill?”

I replied, “I do not want your gold. Give me the knife in your girdle, and the obligation will be mine; I shall also have a lasting gift by which to remember you.”

But he objected, saying, “The knife is a common one; no wolves run along its edge, nor is there silver inlay in the handle.”

But he said this because the knife was of Hittite metal, of which it was forbidden to give or sell any to strangers. I had been unable to buy such a weapon, not liking to insist for fear of arousing suspicion. In Mitanni such knives were to be seen only among the most distinguished persons, and their price was ten times their weight in gold-and even then their possessors would not sell them because there were but few of them in the known world. But for a Hittite such a knife had no great value since he was forbidden to sell it to a foreigner.

The harbor master knew that I was soon to leave the country, and reflecting that he could find better use for his gold than to give it away to a doctor, he did in the end present me with the knife. It was so sharp that it shaved hair more easily than the finest flint blade and could make nicks in copper without damaging its own edge. I was delighted with it and resolved to silver-wash the blade and fit to it a handle of gold as did the Mitannians when they had acquired such a knife. The harbor master bore no grudge but was my friend because I had wrought him a lasting cure.

In this town there was a field in which wild bulls were kept as was often the case at seaports, and the youth of the place were wont to display their litheness and valor in encounters with these beasts, hurling darts into their shoulders and leaping over them. Minea was overjoyed to see them and desired to test her skill. In this way I first saw her dance among wild bulls; it was like nothing I had ever seen before, and my heart froze as I watched. For a wild bull is the most terrible of all savage beasts-worse even than an elephant, which is gentle when not irritated-and its horns are long and sharp as brad awls; with one stroke it will slit a man’s body or toss him high in the air and trample him underfoot.

But Minea danced before them wearing only a flimsy garment, and she stepped lightly aside when they lowered their heads and charged at her with dreadful bellowings. Her face was flushed, and with growing excitement she threw off her silver hair net so that her hair floated in the wind. Her dance was so rapid that the eye could not follow all her movements as she leaped up between the horns of an attacking beast, held fast to them and then, thrusting with her feet against its forehead, threw herself upward in a somersault, to land on its back. I gazed spellbound at her performance; I believe her awareness of this urged her on to do things I could never have believed a human being could accomplish. So I looked on with my body streaming with sweat, and I could not sit still, although those who sat behind me on the benches swore at me and tugged at my shoulder cloth.

On her return from the field she was loudly applauded. Garlands were set upon her head and about her neck, and the other young people presented her with a bowl on which bulls were painted in red and black. All exclaimed, “We have seen nothing like it!” and the sea captains who had been to Crete said, as they blew wine fumes through their nostrils, “Even in Crete there is hardly such another to be seen.”

But she came to me and leaned against me, and her thin dress was wet with sweat. She leaned against me, and every muscle in her strong, slender body was quivering with weariness and pride. I said to her, “I have never seen anyone like you.” My heart was weighed down with grief, for now that I had seen her dance before the bulls, I knew that they had come between us like some evil sorcery.

Soon after this a ship from Crete put into the harbor; she was neither too small nor too large, and the captain’s eyes were not evil. He spoke Minea’s own language; and she said to me, “This ship will take me safely home to my god, so now you will leave me gladly, because I have caused you much vexation and loss.”

“You know very well, Minea, that I am coming to Crete with you.”

She looked at me with eyes like the sea in moonlight; she had colored her lips, and her eyebrows were thin black lines.

“I do not know why you would come with me, Sinuhe, since the ship will take me straight home in safety, and no further evil can befall me.”

“You know as well as I do, Minea.”

She laid her long, strong fingers in mine and sighed.

“We have gone through much together, Sinuhe, and I have seen so many people that my mother country has grown dim in my memory like some fair dream, and I do not yearn after my god as I did formerly. Therefore, I have put off this voyage with empty excuses as you well know-but when I danced once more before the bulls, I knew that I must die if you were to possess me.”

“Yes, yes, I know. We have been all through this before; it is a tedious, pointless, and oft-repeated tale. I do not mean to ravish you, for the matter is not worth the plaguing of your god. Any slave girl can give me what you refuse-there is no difference, as Kaptah says.”

Then her eyes glistened green as a wild cat’s eyes in the dark; she drove her nails into my hand and hissed, “Make haste then and find your slave girl, for the sight of you revolts me. Run away now to the grimy girls in the harbor whom you so desire, but know that thereafter I shall not recognize you and will perhaps even shed your blood with your own knife. What I can forgo you also can forgo.”

I smiled at her.

“No god has forbidden me this thing!”

“I forbid it-and dare you to come to me afterward!”

“Be easy, Minea, for really I am weary of the matter. There is nothing more monotonous than taking pleasure with a woman, and having tried it, I feel no desire to repeat the experience.”

But she flared up again and said, “Your talk wounds the woman in me, and I fancy you would not find-everyone-so monotonous.”

I found I could say nothing to please her, though I did my best. That night she did not lie beside me as usual but took her mat into another room and covered her head to sleep.

I called to her, “Minea! Why don’t you warm me? You are younger than I am; the nights are cold, and I shiver.”

“That is not true, for my body burns as if I were in a fever, and I cannot breathe in this stifling heat. I would rather sleep alone-but if you are cold, have a brazier brought to your room, or take a cat to lie beside you, and trouble me no more.”

I went and felt her, and her body was hot and shivery under the blanket. I said, “You are ill, perhaps. Let me tend you.”

She kicked and pushed me away, saying angrily, “Be off now! I do not doubt that my god will heal this sickness.”

But after a little while she said, “Give me something, Sinuhe, or my heart will break.”

I gave her a soothing medicine, and at last she slept; but I watched until the harbor dogs began barking in the wan light of dawn.

Then came the day of departure, and I said to Kaptah, “Pack up our belongings, for we are going aboard a ship bound for Keftiu’s island, which is also Minea’s.”

“I guessed this, but I did not rend my clothes, for then I should have had to mend them-and it is not worth strewing ashes in my hair for such a false dealer as you! Didn’t you swear when we left Mitanni that we need not put to sea? Nevertheless, I have resigned myself and will say nothing; I will not even weep lest I lose the sight of my one remaining eye-so bitterly have I already wept on your account in the countries to which your folly has led us. I merely say at once, to avoid subsequent mistakes, that this is my last voyage-my stomach tells me so. But I shall not trouble even to reproach you, for the bare sight of you and the physician’s smell of you are revolting to me. I have put our things together and am ready to depart, for without the scarab you cannot venture forth in a ship, and without the scarab I cannot hope to travel the land route to Smyrna and preserve my life. Therefore, I go with the scarab and either die on board or drown in the sea with you.”

I marveled at Kaptah’s reasonable attitude-until I learned that he had inquired among the seafarers in the harbor concerning remedies for seasickness and had bought magic talismans from them. Before we sailed, he tied these objects about his neck, drew his girdle tight, and drank an intoxicating herbal mixture so that when he stepped aboard his eye was staring like that of a boiled fish. He begged in a thick voice for fat pork, which the sailors had assured him was the best preventive of seasickness. He lay down on his bunk and fell asleep with a pig’s shoulder blade in one hand and the scarab gripped in the other. The harbor master took our clay tablet and bade us farewell; then the oarsmen unshipped their oars and rowed us out of the bay.

Thus began the voyage to Crete. The captain made sacrifice in his cabin to the sea god and others, then gave the command to hoist sail; the vessel heeled over and began to cleave the water while my stomach rose to my throat-for ahead there was no shore line. Ahead was but the endless, rolling sea.