Ancient Evenings (4 page)

THREE

As if to mock me for my desperation in this dreadful place, I thought of an evening in Memphi full of food and wine and the sweetest conversation. I did not know if it was a day ago, or a year, but I was visiting with a priest at his sister’s house, and in that month—what a lively month for me!—I had been the sister’s lover. The priest—did I remember him truly as a priest?—had been (like many another good brother) her lover for years. How we talked. We discussed every subject but which one of us should make love to the sister.

She was, of course, excited by our appearance together—did she not have every right to be? When he left the room, she whispered for me to wait and watch her brother and herself. A girl from a good family! At just the right moment, she said, she would put herself into position above him. She hoped I would be ready then to mount her. She promised to be able to receive us both. What a wife she would make! Since I had already had her by other mouths, so to speak, I was pleased at what she planned to save for me—this lady’s buttocks were the equal of a panther (a plump panther). But then if you were lucky, you could get a sniff of the sea by any of her ports. Or catch the worst swamp. She could give you the sweet and subtle stink that was in the best of the mud—the smell of Egypt, I swear—or be as fragrant as a young plant. A lady with gifts enough for both of us, and I did as she said that night, and soon proved to the priest that the living could find their double as quick as the dead (because he soon lost all sense of who was more of a woman, his sister or himself—except that he alone was completely shaved of hair—a way to learn where we were in the middle of this embrace).

Glimpsing such memories, however, certainly made my hunger worse. Like a wound that throbs, its fury was now increasing with every breath. It was not love I wanted to make, but food I needed to gorge upon.

I had to be in some fatal fever—it was certain I had never felt a hunger like this before. My stomach felt drawn down a long dark hall and pictures of food danced before me. I thought of that instant at the Beginning when the God Temu created all of existence with one word. The kingdom of silence had come to life in the gathering of sound from the heart of Temu.

Ergo, I raised my arm once more, fingers pointing to the unseen sky above this ceiling, and I said, “Let there be food.”

But there was nothing. Only a small whimper reverberated into the empty space. I was faint with the emptiness of the effort. My fever burned. Before my closed eyes, I saw a small oasis. Was deliverance being offered? I trudged through the litter on the floor, as if crossing an imaginary desert—how real it was: the sand stung my nostrils! Now I was in the corner, and by the light of my torch, saw lovely paintings on the sides of Meni’s broken coffin. They were portraits of food. All the rich food that the Ka of Meni Two might request when hungry was there, a dinner for a dozen friends with tables and bowls, vessels and jars, vases and animal joints, thighs hanging from hooks, all painted on the wall of this broken coffin. What a masterpiece of offerings! Domestic fowl and winged wild game I could see, ducks and geese, partridge and quail, tame meats and meats of the wild bull and wild boar, loaves of bread and cakes, figs and wine and beer and green onions and pomegranates and grapes, melons and the fruit of the lotus.

It was painful to look. I did not dare to search my mind for the words of power (which I must once have learned) that could now bring to me a portion of this painted food, bring it out where I might sup upon it, no, the food painted here was for Meni Two, a resource to be used by him if his other gifts of game and fruit were stolen.

Then I had the thought of betraying Meni, and was surprised to realize—given my damnable and fragmentary memory—that he must be a true friend to me. For I discovered that I had no wish to raid this store of painted provisions; on the contrary, my voracity seemed quieted by my scruple. As I stared at the painted food, hunger softened into that more agreeable state when appetite is about to be satisfied. Lo! With no effort at all, my jaws were working, and a piece of duck, or so it tasted (neatly broiled upon well-managed embers) was in my mouth, and juices—no longer was I ravenous—of its meat ran agreeably down the empty corridor to my stomach. I was even tempted to take the food away from my lips and look at it, but curiosity was no folly to be tolerated by the satisfaction of a moment like this. Besides I was overcome by the generosity of my friend Meni. He must have taken full recognition of his own need for food, yet had given me some (by way I suppose of his influence in the Land of the Dead).

More food came, flavors in plenty, ox-meat and goose, figs and bread, one taste of each. It was amazing how little food was required to satisfy what had been such a huge hunger. In my stomach, for instance, was the sensation of a full tankard of beer I had not knowingly swallowed. But I felt so nice as to be mildly drunk, and even burped (with a taste of copper from the tankard) and found myself saying the end of the prayer that accompanies the petition for food. So heavy was the desire for sleep that like a child I complained aloud because there was no place on the floor to lie down in all the distasteful litter of these wrappings. It was then I reasoned that if Meni were kind enough to offer me food intended for his Ka, he would hardly mind if I slept by his side, and so I put my torch in a sconce, and got up next to his mummy case, not even worried (thus deep were my limbs already out on slumber) that my foot lay near his foot and scorpions were nesting in the exposed hole. But I was settling in and had time once to burp and think that the meat I had eaten while good was hardly from the kitchens of the Pharaoh for it smacked of the garlic cheap restaurants were ever ready to employ. Then, on the edge of the world of sleep which began so near and went so far away, I thought of Meni and his kind heart and his love for me, and sorrow powerful as a river of tears flooded my heart. Slowly, hearing my own sigh, I returned to sleep, and he, in the deepest communion of friendship, from the domain of the grave, received me. And we went out together, he in the Land of the Dead, and I, by my half in the land of the living, and I knew that I must be feeling all that he had felt in the hour of his death.

FOUR

Within such sleep, I believe I journeyed through the shade that passes over the heart when the eyes close for the last time, and the seven souls and spirits make ready to return to heaven or go down to the underworld.

Cold fires washed behind my sightless eyes as they prepared to leave. Nor did they take sudden flight, but departed with the decorum of a council of priests, all but one, the Ren, one’s Secret Name, who left at once, even as a falling star might drop through the sky. That is as it must be, I concluded. For the Ren aid not belong to the man, but came out of the Celestial Waters to enter an infant in the hour of his birth and might not stir again until it was time to go back. While the Secret Name must have some effect on one’s character, it was certainly the most remote of our seven lights.

I passed then through a darkness. The Name was gone, and I knew the Sekhem was next. A gift of the sun, it was our Power, it moved our limbs, and I felt it begin to lift from me.

With its absence, my body grew still. I knew the passing of this Sekhem and it was like the sunset on the Nile that comes with the priest’s horn. The Sekhem was lost with the Ren, and I was dead, and my breath went out on the last glory of the sunset. The clouds in such a sky gave their carmine light. But with evening, dark clouds remained in view, as though to speak of storms before morning. For the Sekhem would have to ask its dire question. Like the Name, it had been a gift of the Celestial Waters, yet unlike the Ren, it would, as it left, be stronger or weaker than when it first entered me. So this was the question: “Some succeed in using Me well. Can you make that claim?” That was the question of the Sekhem, and in that silence, my limbs stiffened, and the last of the power to give some final shake of the skin gripped itself and was done. Extinction might have been complete but for the knowledge that I was awake. I waited. In such a darkness, void of light, no move in the wind, no breath to stir a thought, the inquiry of the Sekhem persisted. Had I used it well? And time went by without measure. Was it an hour, or a week before the light of the moon rose in the interior of my body? A bird with luminous wings flew in front of that full moon, and its head was as radiant as a point of light. That bird must be the Khu—this sweet bird of the night—a creature of divine intelligence loaned to us just so much as the Ren or the Sekhem. Yes, the Khu was a light in your mind while you lived, but in death, it must return to heaven. For the Khu was also eternal. Out of the hovering of its wings, there came to me a feeling, yes, of such tenderness as I had never known for any human, nor received in return—some sorrowful understanding of me was in the hovering of the Khu. Now I knew it was an Angel, and not like the Power and the Name. For the return of my Khu to heaven would be neither effortless nor unhindered. Even as I watched, it was clear that one of its wings was injured. Of course! An Angel could not feel such concern for me without sharing a few of my injuries and blows. Just as such understanding returned to me, however, so must the Khu have come to recognize its other duties because the bird began to ascend, limping through the sky on its bad wing until it passed beyond the moon, and the moon passed behind a cloud. I was alone again. Three of my seven lights had certainly departed. The Name, the Power, and the Angel, and they would never die. But what of the other souls and lights, my Ba, my Ka, and my Khaibit? They were not nearly so immortal. Indeed, they might never survive the perils of the Land of the Dead, and so could come to know a second death. There was gloom within my body after this thought came to me, and I waited with the most anxious longing for the appearance of the Ba. Yet, it gave no sign it was ready to show. But the Ba, I remembered, could be seen as the mistress of your heart and might or might not decide to speak to you, just as the heart cannot always forgive. The Ba could have flown away already—some hearts are treacherous, some can endure no suffering. Then, I wondered how long I must wait before seeing my Double, but if I recalled, the Ka was not supposed to appear before the seventy days of embalming were done. At last, I was obliged to remember the sixth of the seven lights and shadows. It was the Khaibit. The Khaibit was my Shadow, imperfect as the treacheries of my memory—such was the Khaibit—my memory! But I made a count. Ren, Sekhem, and Khu, the Ba, the Ka, and the Khaibit. The Name, the Power, and the Angel, my Heart, my Double, and my Shadow. What could be the seventh? I had almost forgotten the seventh. That was Sekhu, the one poor spirit who would reside in my wrapped body after all the others were gone—the Remains!—no more than a reflection of strength, like pools on the beach as a tide recedes. Why, the Remains had no more memory, and no less, than the last light of evening recollects the sun.

With that thought, I must have swooned for I entered a domain separated from light and sound. It is possible I was away on travels because the passage of time was what I knew least of all. I waited.

FIVE

A hook went into my nose, battered through the gate at the roof of the nostril, and plunged into my brain. Pieces, gobbets, and whole parts of the dead flesh of my mind were now brought out through one aperture of my nose, then the other.