Kefta the Cretan embraced me, also, smearing salve all over my face as he did so and calling me his friend. But Nefernefernefer looked at me and said, “Sinuhe! I once knew a Sinuhe; he also was to be a physician.”
“I am that Sinuhe,” I said, looking her in the eye and trembling.
“No, you are not he.” She made a gesture of denial. “The Sinuhe I knew was a young boy with eyes as clear as a gazelle’s-but you are a man with the ways of a man. There are two furrows between your eyebrows, and your face is not smooth like his.”
I showed her the ring with the green stone that I wore on my finger, but she shook her head, pretending to be puzzled, and said, “I must be entertaining a robber in my house, who has killed that Sinuhe and stolen the ring I once gave him in token of our friendship. His name also you have stolen, and the Sinuhe who pleased me no longer lives.”
She raised her hands in the gesture of grief, and in my bitterness I took the ring from my finger and handed it to her, saying, “Take back your ring then, and I will go and vex you no longer.”
But she said, “Do not go!” and again, laying her hand lightly on my arm as she had done once before, she said softly, “Do not go!”
And I did not go though I knew that her body would burn me worse than fire and that never again could I be happy without her. Servants poured out wine for us, and wine was never more delectable in my mouth than then.
The woman who had been ill rinsed her mouth and drank more wine. Then she drew off her soiled gown and threw it down; she also removed her wig so that she was quite naked. She pressed her breasts together with her hands, telling the servants to pour wine between them, and she let any drink there who cared to. She reeled down the room laughing loudly-young, beautiful, reckless-and, pausing before Horemheb, she offered him the wine between her breasts. He bent his head and drank. When he raised it again, his face was dark, and he looked the woman in the eyes, seized her bare head in his hands, and kissed her. Everyone laughed, and the woman laughed with them. Then becoming shy all at once, she demanded a fresh gown. Servants clad her, and she put on her wig again. She sat close to Horemheb and drank no more. The Syrian musicians played on; I felt the fever of Thebes in my blood and knew that I was born to live in the sunset of the world-that nothing mattered any more as long as I might sit beside the sister of my heart and gaze on the greenness of her eyes and the redness of her lips.
Thus it was through Horemheb that I came to meet Nefernefernefer my beloved once again; but it would have been better for me if I had never met her.
4
“Is this your house?” I asked her as she sat beside me, surveying me with her hard green eyes.
“This is my house, and these are my guests. I have guests every evening, for I do not care to be alone.”
“And Metufer?” I asked, for I wished to know all, despite the pain it might cause me. She frowned a little.
“Did you not know that Metufer is dead? He died because he misused money Pharaoh had given his father for the building of a temple. Metufer died, and his father is no longer the royal master builder. Did you not know that?”
“If that is true,” I said smiling, “I can almost believe that Ammon punished him, for he mocked the name of Ammon.” I told her how Metufer and the priest had spat in the face of Ammon’s statue to wash it and how they had rubbed themselves with Ammon’s sacred ointment.
She smiled, but her eyes had a hard, distant look in them. Suddenly she said, “Why did you not come to me then, Sinuhe? If you had sought me, you would have found me. You did ill in not coming and in visiting other women with my ring on your finger.”
“I was but a boy and I feared you-but in my dreams you were my sister, Nefernefernefer, and-laugh at me if you will-I have never yet lain with any woman. I have been waiting to see you again.”
She laughed and made a gesture of disbelief.
“You are certainly lying. In your eyes I must seem an ugly old woman, and it diverts you to mock me and lie to me.” Her eyes were gay now as in other days, and she looked so much younger that my heart swelled and ached as I looked at her.
“It is true that I have never touched any woman,” I said, “but it may not be true that I have waited for you. Let me be honest. Very many women have come before me, young and old, pretty and plain, wise and simple; but I have looked upon all alike with the eye of a physician; and not one of them has stirred my heart; though why this should be I cannot tell.”
“Perhaps when you were a little boy you fell from the top of a wagon load and landed astride the shaft, so that ever since then you have been melancholy and happier alone”; and, as she laughed, she touched me lightly as no woman had ever touched me. Reply was needless, for she knew herself that what she said was untrue. She quickly withdrew her hand, whispering: “Let us drink wine together. I may yet take my pleasure with you, Sinuhe.”
We drank wine while the slaves carried some of the guests out to their chairs, and Horemheb put his arm about the woman beside him, calling her his sister. He took the gold chain from his neck and would have hung it about hers.
But she resisted and said angrily, “I am a decent woman and no harlot!” Rising, she moved away in an offended manner, but in the doorway beckoned secretly and Horemheb followed her. I saw nothing more of either of them that evening.
Those who yet remained went on drinking. They staggered about the floor tripping over stools and rattling sistra they had filched from the musicians. They embraced, calling each other brother and friend-and then fell out with blows and cries of gelding and eunuch.
I was drunk, not with wine but with the nearness of Nefernefernefer and with the touch of her hand, until at last she made a sign and the servants began to put out the lights, carry away tables and stools, and gather up the trampled garlands. Then I said to her, “I must go.”
But each word stung my heart like salt in a wound, for I dreaded losing her, and every moment not spent in her company seemed to me wasted.
“Where will you go?” she asked in feigned surprise.
“I go to keep watch tonight in the street before your house. I go to make sacrifice in every temple in Thebes, in thanksgiving to the gods that I have met you again. I go to pluck blossoms from the trees to strew in your path when you leave your house and to buy myrrh with which to anoint your door posts.”
She smiled and said, “It would be better if you did not go, for flowers and myrrh I have already. And if you go fired so with wine, you will run astray among strange women. That I will not allow.”
Her words filled me with joy. I would have seized her, but she resisted me, saying, “Stop! My servants can see us. Though I live alone, I am no contemptible woman.”
She led me out into her garden, which lay in moonlight and was filled with the scent of myrtle and acacia. The lotus flowers in the pool had closed their chalices for the night, and I saw that the edge of the pool was inlaid with colored stones. Servants poured water over our hands and brought us roast goose and fruits steeped in honey, and Nefernefernefer said, “Eat and enjoy yourself here with me, Sinuhe.”
But my throat was roughened by desire, and I could not swallow. She gave me a mocking look and ate greedily. Each time she glanced at me the moonlight was mirrored in her eyes. I would have drawn her into my arms, but she pushed me away, saying, “Do you not know why Bast, the goddess of love, is portrayed as a cat?”
“I care neither for cats nor gods,” said I, reaching out to her, my eyes blurred with desire. She pushed my hands aside.
“Quite soon you may touch me. You may lay your hands on my breast and my stomach if it will quiet you, but first you shall listen to me and learn why a woman is like a cat and why passion, too, is like a cat. Its paws are soft, but they hide claws that rip and tear and stab mercilessly into your heart. Ay, indeed, a woman is like a cat, for a cat also takes pleasure in tormenting its prey and torturing it without ever tiring of the game. Not until the creature is maimed will she devour it and then set forth to seek another victim. I tell you this because I would be honest with you; I have never wished you ill. No, I have never wished you ill,” she repeated absently, taking my hand and moving it to her breast while the other she placed in her lap. I trembled, and the tears sprang from my eyes. Then she pushed me away again.