Kaptah tore his hair and groaned, “This is an evil day!”
He mused heavily for a time, and then went on, “You are a great doctor, Sinuhe, despite your youth, and the world lies before you. It will be best, therefore, if I make haste to gather up those things that are of most value, and when darkness comes, we can fly. We can make our way to the Red Lands, where no one knows you, or to the islands in the sea where the wine is sparkling and the women joyous. In the land of Mitanni, also, and in Babylon, where the rivers flow in the wrong direction, the arts of Egyptian physicians are highly regarded so that you may grow rich and I may become the servant of a respected master. Hasten, therefore, lord, that we may pack up your belongings before dark,” and he tugged at my sleeve.
“Kaptah, Kaptah! Spare me this witless chatter. My heart is grieved to death, and my body is no longer my own. I am bound with fetters that are stronger than copper chains though you do not see them. I cannot fly, for to be absent from Thebes is to be in a glowing furnace.”
My servant sat on the floor, for his feet were afflicted with painful swellings that I treated from time to time when I had leisure.
He said, “It is clear that Ammon has abandoned us-which I cannot wonder at since you so seldom go to make sacrifice to him. Nevertheless, I have faithfully sacrificed one fifth of what I have stolen from you in thankfulness for having been given a young and simple master. Now he has abandoned me also. Well, well… We must change gods and hasten to make sacrifice to some other who will perhaps divert the evil from us and make all well again.”
“No more of this nonsense. You forget we have nothing to sacrifice since all is now another’s.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A woman,” I answered-for what need was there to conceal it?
When he heard this, he burst out in fresh lamentation. “Oh, that I had never been born into this world! Oh, that my mother had strangled me in my navel cord at birth! For there is no bitterer fate for a slave than to serve a heartless woman-and heartless must she be who has done this to you.”
“She is in no way heartless,” I answered him-for so foolish is man that I needs must talk of Nefernefernefer even to my slave, having no one else in whom to confide. “Naked upon her couch she is more beautiful than the moon. Her limbs gleam with costly oils, and her eyes are green as the Nile in the heat of summer. Happy are you and enviable, Kaptah, if you are permitted to live near her and breathe the same air.”
Kaptah made yet louder outcry.
“She will sell me for a porter or a quarryman-my lungs will be choked, and blood will spurt from under my nails, and I shall perish in the mud like a mangled donkey.”
In my heart I knew that this might be the truth, for in the house of Nefernefernefer there would scarcely be bread and houseroom for such as he. Tears fell from my eyes, also, though I didn’t know whether I wept for him or for myself. When Kaptah saw this, he fell silent at once and stared at me aghast, but I bowed my head in my hands and cared not that my slave should see me weep. Touching my head with his broad hand, he said ruefully, “This is all my doing-I should have kept better watch over my master. But I did not dream he was so white and pure-like a cloth before its first washing. For that alone would explain it. I marveled, indeed, that my master never sent me out for a girl when he came back at night from the wine shop, and the women I sent you for your pleasure went peevishly away, calling me rat and carrion crow. And there were young and comely ones among them. But my trouble was wasted, and like a blockhead I rejoiced, thinking you would never bring a wife into your house to cuff me on the head and throw scalding water over my feet whenever she had quarreled with you. Fool, blockhead that I was! It is the first firebrand that burns down the hut.”
He also said much more, and the sound of his voice was as the buzzing of flies in my ears. At length he ceased and prepared food for me and poured water over my hands. But I could not eat, for my body was on fire; and, when evening came, one thought alone filled my mind.
BOOK 4
Nefernefernefer
1
Early in the morning I went to Nefernefernefer’s house, but she was still sleeping. When I roused her servants, they swore and threw slops over me, so I sat in the doorway like a beggar until I heard movement and talk in the house and then tried once more to enter.
Nefernefernefer lay upon her bed. Her face looked small and white, and her green eyes were dark from wine drinking.
“You bore me,” she said. “What is it you want?”
“To eat and drink and take pleasure with you,” I replied heavily, “for so you promised.”
“That was yesterday. Today is a new day.”
A slave girl drew off Nefer’s rumpled dress and oiled and rubbed her limbs. Nefer regarded herself in the mirror, painted her face, put on her wig, and taking up the new ornament of pearls and precious stones set in antique gold, she placed it on her forehead.
“It is beautiful,” she said, “and worth the price, though I am as weary as if I had been wrestling all night.”
“So you lied to me yesterday, and there was nothing to hinder us,” I said, though in my heart I had known it.
“I was mistaken-but my time should have come, and I fear you have got me with child, Sinuhe, for I was limp in your arms, and you were violent.” But she smiled mockingly.
“So your jewel comes from a royal tomb in Syria-wasn’t that what you told me yesterday?”
“Ah,” she said softly. “It was found beneath the pillow of a Syrian merchant-but do not let that vex you. He was a paunchy man, as fat as a pig, and he smelled of onions. I have what I sought and do not mean to see him again.”
She took off wig and ornament and dropped them carelessly on the floor beside the bed. Her bare skull was smooth and comely as she stretched herself out again and pillowed her head on her clasped hands.
“I am weary, Sinuhe, and you abuse my weariness by thus devouring me with your eyes when I have not strength to prevent you. You should remember that though I live alone I am not a woman to be despised.”
“You know very well that I have no more to give you, for you already possess all that was mine.”
I bowed my head down to the edge of the bed and caught the perfume of her ointments and of her body. She put out her hand to touch my hair, then withdrew it quickly, laughing and shaking her head.
“What deceivers men are! You lie to me, too, Sinuhe. I cannot help my fondness for you-I am weak.”
But when I would have taken her in my arms, she pushed me away and sat up, saying in a voice of bitter resentment, “Weak, lonely though I may be, I will have no dealings with cheats and swindlers. You never told me that your father Senmut has a house in the poor quarter near the harbor. The house is worth little, but the ground it stands on lies near the quays, and his furniture might fetch something at the market. I might eat and drink and take pleasure with you today if you were to give me this property of yours-for no one knows what tomorrow may bring, and I must guard my reputation.”
“My father’s property is not mine,” I said aghast. “You must not ask of me what is not mine to give, Nefernefernefer.”
She tilted her head sideways, watching me with her green eyes.
“Your father’s property is your lawful inheritance, Sinuhe, as well you know. And further, you never told me that he is blind and that he has entrusted you with the stewardship of his possessions so that you can dispose of them as if they were your own.”
This was true, for when my father’s sight had grown dim, he had given me his seal and asked me to look after his property as he could no longer see to sign his name. Kipa and he had often said that the house would fetch a good price and enable them to buy a little homestead outside the city and to live there until the time came for them to take possession of their tomb and start on the journey to immortality.