The Egyptian

5

The founding of the new city brought division into the royal family, for the Queen Mother refused to follow her son into the desert. Thebes was her city, and the golden house of Pharaoh, glowing hazy blue and russet among its walls and gardens by the river, had been built by Pharaoh Amenhotep for his beloved. Taia, the Queen Mother, had begun life as a poor fowler girl in the reed swamps of the Lower Kingdom. She would not leave Thebes, and Princess Baketamon stayed with. her. Eie the priest, bearer of the crook on the right hand of the King, ruled and sat in judgment there on the King’s throne with the leather scrolls before him. Life in Thebes went on as before; only the false Pharaoh was absent-and unregretted.

Queen Nefertiti returned to Thebes for the birth of her next child, for she dared not be brought to bed without the help of the physicians and the Negro sorcerers of Thebes. Here she bore her third daughter, whose name was Ankhsenaton and who would in time be queen. To ease the birth, the sorcerers narrowed and lengthened the child’s head as they had done with the other princesses. When the girl grew up, all the court ladies, and others who wished to be in the fashion and to imitate the styles of the court, took to wearing false backs to their heads. But the princesses themselves kept their heads close shaven to show off the fine shape of their skulls. Artists also admired it, and they carved and drew and painted numerous portraits of them without suspecting that this distinctive feature was but a result of the magicians’ arts.

When Nefertiti had born her child she returned to Akhetaton and took up her residence in the palace, which in the meantime had been set in habitable order. She left the other women behind in Thebes, being vexed at having given birth to three daughters and unwilling to let Pharaoh waste his virility on the couches of others. Akhnaton was content to have it so, for he was weary of fulfilling his duty in the women’s house and wanted no one but Nefertiti, as all who beheld her beauty could well understand. Not even her third confinement had dimmed her loveliness. She seemed younger and more radiant than before, but whether this change in her was due to the city of Akhetaton or to the black men’s witchcraft I cannot say.

Thus Akhetaton rose from the wilderness in a single year; palm trees waved proudly along its splendid streets, pomegranates ripened and reddened in the gardens, and in the fish pools floated the rosy flowers of the lotus. The whole city was a blossoming garden, for the houses were of wood, airy and fragile as pavilions, and their columns of palm and reed were light and brightly colored. The gardens entered the very houses, for the paintings on the walls were of palms and sycamores swayed by the breezes of eternal spring. On the floors were beds of reeds and multicolored swimming fish, and ducks with brilliant wings rose in flight. In this city nothing was lacking to rejoice the heart of man. Tame gazelles wandered in the gardens, while in the streets the lightest of carriages were drawn by fiery horses adorned with ostrich plumes. The kitchens were fragrant with keen spices brought from every part of the world.

Thus the City of the Heavens was completed, and when autumn returned and swallows emerged from the mud to dart in restless flocks above the rising waters, Pharaoh Akhnaton consecrated the city and the land to Aton. He consecrated the boundary stones north, south, east, and west, and on each of these stones was the representation of Aton shedding the benediction of his rays on Pharaoh and the house of Pharaoh. Inscriptions on the stones recorded Pharaoh’s vows never again to set foot beyond these boundaries. For this ceremony the workmen laid stone-paved roads to the four quarters of the land so that Pharaoh might drive to the borders in his golden carriage attended by his family in their carriages and chairs and by the members of his court, who strewed flowers as they went, while flutes and stringed instruments sounded in praise of Aton.

Not even in death did Pharaoh intend to leave the city of Aton. When the building of it was finished, he sent his workmen to the eastern hills within the consecrated land, to hew out eternal resting places. They found work enough to last their whole lives through and were never able to return to their birthplace. They did not greatly desire to do so but accustomed themselves to dwelling in their own town and in Pharaoh’s shadow, for grain was measured to them abundantly, their oil jars were never empty, and their wives bore them healthy children.

When Pharaoh had decided to build tombs for himself and his nobles and to present one to each of his distinguished followers who would live in the City of the Heavens with him and who believed in Aton, he built also a House of Death outside the city so that the bodies of those who died in Akhetaton should be preserved forever. To this end he summoned from Thebes those embalmers and washers who held the foremost place in their craft. They came down the river in a black ship, and their smell was borne before them on the wind so that the people hid in their houses with bowed heads, reciting prayers to Aton. Many also prayed to the old gods and made the holy sign of Ammon, for when they smelled the body washers’ smell Aton seemed far away and their thoughts turned to their earlier dieties.

The embalmers stepped ashore from the vessel with all their materials, blinking with eyes that were accustomed to the dark and swearing bitterly at the light, which hurt them. They entered swiftly into the new House of Death, taking their smell with them so that the place became a home for them, which they never left again. Among them was old Ramose, the expert of the pincers, whose task was to extract the brain. I met him in the House of Death, for the priests of Aton held the House of Death in horror, and Pharaoh had placed it under my charge. When he had gazed at me for some time he knew me again, and marveled. I made myself known to him to gain his confidence, for uncertainty gnawed like a worm at my heart and I desired to know how my revenge had prospered at the House of Death in Thebes.

When we had spoken a little of his work, I asked, “Ramose my friend, did you ever have under your hands a beautiful woman who was brought to the House of Death during the Terror and whose name I believe was Nefernefernefer?”

He regarded me, bent backed and blinking like a tortoise, and said, “In truth, Sinuhe, you are the first distinguished man who has ever called a corpse washer his friend. My heart is greatly moved, and the information you require is doubtless of great import since you so address me. Surely it was not you who brought her one dark night, swathed in the black robe of death? For if you were that man you are the friend of no corpse washer, and if they come to hear of it, they will stab you with poisoned knives and so inflict upon you a most hideous death.”

His words caused me to tremble, and I said, “Whoever may have brought her, she deserved her fate. Yet from your words I suspect that she was not dead but came to life under the hands of the washers.”

Ramose answered, “Most certainly that frightful woman was restored to life, though how you know of this I prefer not to guess. She awoke, for such women never die-and if they die, they should be burned so that they can never return. When we came to know her we gave her the name of Setnefer: the devil’s beauty.”

A dreadful suspicion seized me and I asked, “Why do you speak of her as of something that has been? Is she not still in the House of Death? The washers vowed that they would keep her there for seventy times seventy days.”

Ramose rattled his knives and pincers angrily, and I believe he would have struck me if I had not brought him a jar of the best wine in Pharaoh’s cellar. He merely felt its dusty seal with his thumb and said, “We bore you no ill will, Sinuhe; you were to me as my own son, and I would have kept you all your life in the House of Death and taught you my art. We embalmed the bodies of your parents as only those of the eminent are embalmed and did not spare the finest oils and balsams. Why then did you wish us so ill as to bring that terrible woman to us alive? Know that before her coming we led a simple, hard -working life, rejoicing our hearts with beer and greatly enriching ourselves by thefts of jewelry from the dead, without regard to sex or standing, and also by selling to sorcerers such organs as they require for their spells. But after the coming of that woman the House of Death became like some abyss of the underworld. The men knifed one another and fought together like mad dogs. She stole all our wealth from us-all the gold and silver we had amassed in the course of years and hidden in the House of Death-nor did she scorn copper. Even our clothes she took from us, for having robbed the young men of all they possessed she set them on to steal from the old ones such as I, whose lust could no longer be kindled. No more than thirty times thirty days had passed before she had stripped us naked of possessions. Then she left, taking all her wealth with her, and we could not prevent her, for if one placed himself in her path he was opposed by another-for the sake of a smile or a touch of her fingers. Thus she took from us our property and our peace. She had by then no less than three hundred deben of gold, to say nothing of silver, copper, linen bands, and salves that for years we had stolen from the dead, as the custom is. She vowed to return to us in a year to see how much we had been able to save by then. There is more theft in the House of Life than there has ever been before; moreover the washers have learned to pilfer from each other and not only from the bodies, so that our peace has altogether departed. By this you may understand why we gave her the name of Setnefer, for she is exceedingly fair though her beauty is of Set.”

It was now I learned how childish my revenge had been since Nefernefernefer returned unharmed from the House of Death richer than before and, as I believe, suffered no ill effects from her stay save the smell, which soaked into her body and for some time prevented her from plying her trade. My revenge had eaten at my own heart and left her unharmed. When I knew this, I knew also that revenge brings no satisfaction. Its sweetness is brief and it turns against the avenger, to eat at his heart like fire.