The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

I, SINUHE, the son of Senmut and of his wife Kipa, write this.

I do not write it to the glory of the gods in the land of Kem, for I am weary of gods, nor to the glory of the Pharaohs, for I am weary of their deeds.

But bounds have been set to my walking, and no ships can put in through the surf of these shores; never again shall I smell the smell of black earth on a night in spring.

I possessed all that a man can desire, but like a man I desired more-therefore, I am what I am. I was driven from Thebes in the sixth year of the reign of Pharaoh Horemheb, to be beaten to death like a cur if I returned-to be crushed like a frog between the stones if I took one step beyond the area prescribed for my dwelling place.

Turn, O you years-roll again, you vanished years-sail, Ammon, from west to east across the heavens and bring again my youth! Not one word of it will I alter, not my least action will I amend. O brittle pen, smooth papyrus, give me back my folly and my youth!

They had no children, and they were old when I came to them. In their simplicity they said I was a gift from the gods, little guessing what evil the gift would bring them.

Many poor people put their children out; many a rich wife, whose husband was away on his travels, abandoned the proof of her adultery to the river.

With the approach of age the soul flies like a bird back to the days of childhood. Now those days shine bright and clear in my memory until it seems as if everything then must have been better, lovelier than in the world of today.

They foretold the height of the flood waters and the size of the harvest and from this assessed the taxes for the whole country.

“I would like to be a real physician,” I said shyly, for I was still a boy and knew nothing of life nor that age ever seeks to lay its own dreams, its own disappointments, on the shoulders of youth.

I had not understood his purpose in this, but in giving me his ebony box to carry he had singled me out to be his assistant in Pharaoh’s palace.

The prince opened his eyes, took a step forward, and his face quivered as he said, “Not Ammon but RaHerachte shall bless him, and he manifests himself in Aton.”

Shortly after this we were conveyed under guard to a pavilion in the House of Justice, where the Keeper of the Seal read the law to us from a leather scroll and told us that we must die since Pharaoh did not recover after his skull had been opened.

“Yesterday I made over to you all my father’s property; and he is now a poor man, though formerly a respected physician. Being blind, he must beg bread in his old age while my mother must wash the linen of others.”

“How came this insufferable mendicant into my house? Throw him out instantly and let him never come within my doors again! If he resists, beat him.”

In the inner room Senmut and Kipa lay on their bed, their faces as rosy as when they were alive, and on the floor stood a still smoldering brazier in whose fumes they had perished, having tightly closed the shutters and the doors.

Our life has been long and its joys many, but the greatest joy of all we had of you, Sinuhe-you who came to us from the river when we were already old and solitary. “Therefore, we bless you.

The price of embalming varied according to means, and the embalmers lied to the kindred of the dead, charging for many costly oils, salves, and preservatives that they vowed they used, though all was but one and the same sesame oil.

Nevertheless, the body washers and embalmers stole all that they could lay their hands on and looked upon this as their right.

Only those accursed of the gods or criminals fleeing from authority took service as corpse washers, and they could be recognized far off by the smell of salt and lye and cadavers inseparable from their trade so that people avoided them and would not admit them to wine shop or pleasure house.

Had I not already witnessed worse things, I should have fled appalled at the way in which they defiled the bodies of even the most distinguished, mutilating them in order to sell to sorceresses the organs these had need of.

I could then have earned and stolen much and lived out my life in the burrows of the House of Death without the knowledge of any of my friends and free from the vexations and sufferings of a normal life. Yet I would not-and who can tell why?

But I carried my burden up into the hills along dangerous tracks that only grave robbers dared to use and into the forbidden valley where the Pharaohs lie entombed.

My return to sunlight and the world of men had made me feel again the bitterness of my shame, and life had nothing to offer me.

“Do you then not know that the prince, when he was crowned with the crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, decreed that all bonds should be loosed and all slaves freed from mines and quarries so that those who work there now are free men and are paid for their toil?”

I heard now for the first time that the heir had come to the throne as Amenhotep IV and liberated all slaves and prisoners so that the mines and quarries in the east by the coast were deserted, also those in Sinai. For there was none in Egypt so mad as to work in the mines of his own free will.

Pharaoh served a new god.

It is crazy to cut the fetters from hundreds and thousands of criminals in order that one innocent man may be freed. But that is Pharaoh’s affair not mine.

No one hindered Noseless and me when we violated the tomb of Anukis, overturned his chest, and took away as many golden cups and valuables as we could carry.

Pharaoh’s bodyguard pursued the plundering soldiers and miners with spears till their death cries could be heard in Thebes. That evening the wall was lined with bodies hanging by the heels, and order was restored.

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. Human memory is like that water.

I carry a golden whip in my hand, as you see. But I won it by degrading service in Pharaoh’s bodyguard, rounding up the robbers and convicts whom in his madness he had freed from the mines.

He says that he lives by truth-but truth is like a sharp knife in the hands of a child; a knife should be carried in its sheath and used only when need occurs. So it is with truth, and for no one is truth more dangerous than for the ruler.”

But you yourself know that the death rate among the royal children is high-higher than in the poor quarter though it seems hard to believe. It is wisest to name no names, but I would halt my chariot before Eie the priest’s house if I dared.”

The warriors smote their chests saying, “See how we burn the god of the Khabiri!” The name of this god was Jehou or Jahveh; it was the only one the raiders possessed, and they had to return bereft to the wilderness.

The Khabiri are the Hebrews. These early Jews carried graven images because this book predates Ramses II, Exodus, and Moses.

I understood now why most of the wounded had died despite my care. There remained so much more booty for their comrades, who had also stolen the clothes and weapons and treasure of the sick and given them neither water nor food so that they perished.

The soldiers squandered the gold and silver on beer and girls till the traders, having thus regained their money, went away. Horemheb levied a tax upon the merchants both when they came and when they left and was thus a rich man though he had abstained from his share of the spoils.

There is a rumor that the Hittites have discovered some new metal and that weapons made of this can chip the edges of the finest copper ax.

Iron

But the walls of the fortress were unguarded, the defenses had crumbled, and both officers and men lived in the city with their families, remembering that they were warriors only on the days when grain and onions and beer were distributed from Pharaoh’s stores.

By listening to the talk and the complaint of the Mitannians, I came to understand that their country had been designed as a shield for Syria and Egypt against the might of Babylon and of the savage peoples, to receive in its body the spears aimed at Pharaoh’s sovereignty.

“Right and wrong? Right is what we desire, and wrong is what our neighbors desire.

Following the track of this down into the water, my eyes beheld Minea’s body, or what was left of it.

I knew that Minotauros had followed her here, thrust his blade through her from behind, and thrown her into the water, that none might learn that the god of Crete was dead.

Therefore I am doing what I can to kindle hatred between Syria and Egypt, and I shall blow on the flame until it blazes up into a fire to consume Egyptian sovereignty in Syria.

All the temples of Ammon, both in the Upper and Lower Kingdoms; all his land, cattle, slaves, buildings, gold, silver, and copper were forfeit to Pharaoh and his god.

Because of the great noise there were not many who heard that Pharaoh, to dissociate his name from that of Ammon, that day assumed the name of Akhnaton, the favored of Aton.

“My Sudanese cat Mimo is to kitten today; I am anxious about her because I am not there to help her. In the name of Aton go in and overturn that accursed statue that we may all go home, or by Set and all devils I will snatch the chains from your necks and break your whips; I swear it!”

Thus Pharaoh Akhnaton was confronted for the first time by his raging people and saw blood flowing on his god’s account. He never forgot this sight. Hatred dropped poison into his love, and his fanaticism grew until at last he decreed that everyone who spoke the name of Ammon aloud or held his name concealed on images or vessels should be sent to the mines.

What will become of Egypt if everyone is made literate? Such a thing has never been. No one will then be content to labor with his hands; the soil will lie untilled, and people will take no pleasure in their ability to write when they are starving.”

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.