The Red Tent (25 page)

Death was in the room. I caught sight of him in the shadows beneath a statue of Bes, the friendly-grotesque guardian of children, who seemed to grimace at his own powerlessness here.

Ruddedit introduced me to her daughter, who looked up at me with empty eyes, but did as I asked. She moved to her side so I could reach an oiled hand up to the womb, but I felt no sign of the baby’s head. The room was very still as the women waited to see what I would do or ask of them.

The dog-shaped shadow of death stirred, sensing my dismay. But his eagerness only made me angry. I cursed at his bark and his tail and his very mother. I did this in my native tongue, which sounded harsh even to me after so many years of Egyptian words in my ears. Meryt and the others thought I uttered a secret charm, and murmured approval. Even Hatnuf stirred and looked around.

I called for oil and a mortar and mixed the strongest herbs I had at hand: birthwort and an extraction of hemp, both of which sometimes cause the womb to expel its contents early in pregnancy. I did not know if they would work, and worried that the combination might cause damage, but I knew there was nothing else to be tried, for she was dying. The baby was already dead, but there was no reason to give up on the mother.

I applied the mixture, and soon strong pains seized the girl. I had the women help Hatnuf back up to the bricks, where I massaged her belly and tried to push the baby downward. HatnuFs legs could not hold her, and soon Meryt had to take Ruddedit’s place behind her, where she whispered encouragement as I reached in again to feel the baby’s head, which was now near the door.

The pains became ceaseless and intolerable to the poor woman on the bricks. Her eyes turned back in her head, and she fell into Meryt’s arms, senseless and unable to push.

It was full daylight now, but the shadow in the room would not let the sun’s rays penetrate the gloom. My cheeks were streaked with tears. I did not know what to do next. Inna had once told a tale of freeing a baby from its dead mother’s womb, but this mother was not dead. I had no other tricks to try, no other herbs.

And then I remembered the song in which Inna had taken such delight, the song which she learned in the hills above Shechem.

“Fear not,” I sang, recalling the melody easily, reaching deep for the words.

Fear not, the time is coming Fear not, your bones are strong Fear not, help is nearly

Fear not, Gula is near

Fear not, the baby is at the door

Fear not, he will live to bring you honor

Fear not, the hands of the midwife are clever

Fear not, the earth is beneath you

Fear not, we have water and salt

Fear not, little mother

Fear not, mother of us al

Meryt joined me in singing the words “Fear not,” sensing the power of the sounds without knowing what she was saying. By the third time, all of the women were singing “Fear not,” and Hatnuf was breathing deeply again.

The baby was delivered soon after, and indeed he was dead. Hatnuf turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes, wishing only to join him. But when Meryt began to pack her poor, battered womb with boiled linen, Hatnuf cried out again in the voice of a laboring mother. “There is another child,” said Meryt. “Come, Den-ner,” she said. “Catch the twin.”

With just one more push, Hatnuf delivered a baby utterly unlike his brother. Where the first one was fat and perfect and lifeless, this one was puny and wrinkled and bellowed with the lungs of an ox.

Meryt laughed at the sound, and the room erupted in peals and gales and giggles of relief and joy. The bloody, unwashed, squalling baby was passed from hand to hand, kissed and blessed by every woman there. Ruddedit fell to her knees and laughed and wept with her grandson in her arms. But Hatnuf did not hear us. The little one arrived in a torrent of blood that would not cease. No amount of packing stanched the flow, and within moments of her son’s birth, Hatnuf died, her head on her mother’s lap.

The scene in the room was terrible: the mother dead, one baby dead, a scrawny newborn wailing for the breast that would never feed him. Ruddedit sat, bereaved of her only daughter, a grandmother for the first time. Meryt wept with her mistress, and I crept away, wishing I had never ventured out of my garden.

After the horror of that scene, I thought I would be forbidden to enter another birth chamber. But as Meryt told the story, I alone was responsible for saving the life of the surviving child, who had been born, she said, on a day so hated by Set that it was a miracle he drew a single breath.

Soon messengers from other important houses of Thebes came to the door of Nakht-re’s garden with orders not to return home without Den-ner the midwife. These were the servants of priests and scribes and others who could not be gainsaid. I consented only if Meryt would accompany me, but since she always agreed, we became the midwives of our neighborhood, which comprised many fine houses where the ladies and their servants enjoyed fertile wombs. We were called at least once every seven days, and for every healthy baby, we were rewarded with jewelry, amulets, fine linen, or jars of oil. Meryt and I divided these goods, and though I offered my share to Re-nefer, she insisted that I keep them.

Within a year my shed was cluttered with a collection of objects I did not use or care for. Meryt looked around one day and declared that I needed a wicker box to contain my belongings. Since I owned more than enough to trade, Meryt selected an auspicious day for us to go to market.

By then I had gone out to attend at many births, still I dreaded this venture out into the larger world. Meryt knew I was afraid and held my hand as we walked out of my garden, chattering all the way to keep me from dwelling upon my fears. I held on to her like a baby in fear of losing her mother but after a time found the courage to look upon the sights of the busy Theban quay. The harvest was still many days off and most of the farmers had little to do but wait for ripening, so the stalls were clogged with country folk who had nothing much to trade except time.

Meryt exchanged a beaded necklace from one of her mothers for some sweet cake, and we ate as we wandered, arm in arm, from one stall to the next, I marveled at the amount of jewelry for sale and wondered who could afford so many baubles. I saw sandal-makers turning out cheap shoes, made to order. A line of men waited for one particular barber, known to have the best gossip. I averted my eyes from a pile of Canaanite woolens, which might have been woven by my own aunts. Meryt and I laughed over the antics of a monkey, who held a brace of tall, hungry-looking dogs on leads and made them beg for scraps of food.

After we had taken in the sights, my friend said it was time to start our hunt, but the first basket-maker we came upon had nothing large enough to suit my needs, so we walked on, passing the wine and oil merchants, bakers, and men selling live birds. We saw many beautiful things, too: incised Kushite pottery, hammered bronze vases, household gods and goddesses, three-legged stools and chairs. My eye fell upon a handsome box with an inlaid cover that bloomed with a garden made of ivory and faience and mother-of-pearl. “Now there’s a piece for the master’s tomb,” said Meryt, in honest admiration.

The carpenter appeared behind his work and began to tell the story of its making: where he purchased the acacia wood, and how much difficulty he had in applying the ivory. He spoke thoughtfully and slowly, as though he were telling a story rather than trying to make a sale. I kept my eyes on the box as he spoke, hearing only the warmth of his voice, and staring at his hands as they traced the design upon his handiwork.

Meryt started teasing the fellow. “What do you take us for, knave?” she asked. “Do you think we are rich ladies disguised as midwives? Who but a rich man could afford anything so fine as this? Who could lay claim to such a work of art except the king’s own tomb-maker? You are pulling my leg, little man,” she said.

He laughed at her words and replied, “If you think me little, you must come from a land of giants, sister. I am Benia,” he introduced himself. “And you might be surprised at the bargains available at my stall. It all depends upon the buyer, my dear,” he teased back. “Beautiful women always get what they want.”

At this, Meryt howled with laughter and poked me in the ribs, but I said nothing, for I knew that his words had been aimed at me. In an instant Meryt, too, understood that the carpenter had been talking to me, and although I had not said a word, the “sound of his voice and the gentleness of his words had moved me.

My fingers, almost of their own accord, traced the pattern of a milky-white leaf that was inlaid upon the box. “This comes from the heart of a sea creature that lives far to the north,” Benia said, pointing to another part of the design.

I noticed the size of his hands. His fingers were thick as the branches on a young fruit tree, and even longer than his massive palms, which hard work had gnarled into mountains and valleys of muscle. He caught me staring and drew his hand away, as if in shame.

“When I was born, my mother took one look at me and cried out when she saw these,” Benia said. “They were far too large for my body, even then. ‘A sculptor,’ she said to my father, who apprenticed me to the finest stonecutter.

“But I had no talent for stone. The alabaster cracked when I so much as looked at it, and even granite would not permit me to approach. Only wood understood my hands. Supple and warm and alive, wood speaks to me and tells me where to cut, how to shape it. I love my work, lady.”

He looked into my eyes, which I had raised to his face as he spoke.

Meryt saw the look pass between us and leaped into the silence like a shrewd fishwife. “This is Den-ner, tradesman, a widow and the finest midwife in Thebes. We come to the market in search of a simple basket to hold payment from her grateful mothers.”

“But a basket will not do for a master,” said Benia, turning to bargain with Meryt. “Let me see what you brought to trade, Mother, for I have been sitting here all day without luck.”

Meryt unpacked our collection of trinkets: a carved slate for mixing malachite into green eye shadow, a large carnelian scarab too red for my stomach, and a beautiful beaded head covering, the gift of a pretty young concubine who gave birth to a fine little boy she handed directly to her mistress, without even looking at the baby. (Meryt and I saw many strange things in the birthing rooms of Thebes.)

Bema feigned interest in the scarab. “For your wife?” Meryt asked, without pretense at subtlety.

“No wife,” Benia replied, simply. “I live in my sister’s house and have these many years, but her husband is impatient of my place at his table. Soon I will be leaving the city to live among the workmen in the Valley of the Kings,” he said slowly, speaking again to me.

At this, Meryt grew excited on her own behalf and told him all about her sons, who were bakers employed for the workmen there. “When I go, I will seek them out,” Benia promised, and added, “I will be given my own house there, as befits a master craftsman. Four rooms for myself only,” he said, as though he could hear his own voice echoing through the empty chambers already.

“What a waste, carpenter,” Meryt replied.

As the two of them exchanged these confidences for my benefit, my fingers followed the edges of the pond that Benia had fashioned on the box cover. Before I could draw away, he covered my hand with his own.

I was afraid to look into his face. Perhaps he was leering. Perhaps he thought by making this absurd transaction—trading a pretty bauble for a masterwork—I then would owe him the use of my body. But when Meryt jabbed me in the ribs to answer, I saw only kindness on the carpenter’s face.

“Bring the box to the garden door at the house of Nakht-re, scribe to the priests of Amun-Re,” Meryt said. “Bring it tomorrow.” She handed over the scarab.

“Tomorrow in the morning,” he said. And we left.

“Now that was a good transaction, girl,” said Meryt. “And that scarab was a lucky piece to buy you a treasure box and a husband, too.”

I shook my head at my friend and smiled as though she were babbling, but I did not say no. I said nothing at all. I was embarrassed and thrilled. I felt an unfamiliar tightness between my legs and my cheeks were flushed.

And yet, I did not fully understand my own heart, for this was nothing like what I felt when I first saw Shalem. No hot wind blew through Benia and into me. This feeling was much cooler and calmer. Even so, my heart beat faster and I knew my eyes were brighter than they had been earlier in the day.

Benia and I had exchanged a few words and brushed against each other’s fingers. And yet, I felt connected to this stranger. I had no doubt that he felt the same.

All the way home, my step beat out the rhythm of my wonder—“How can this be? How can this be?”

As we approached Nakht-re’s house, Meryt broke an unaccustomed silence and laughed, saying, “I’ll deliver your babies yet. By my count, you are not yet thirty years in this world. I’ll see grand-babies through you, daughter of my heart,” and she kissed me goodbye.

But once I walked into the garden all thoughts of Benia were banished. The house was in an uproar. Re-mose was back!

He had arrived soon after I had left. The servants had been sent to search for me, and since I never left the grounds without informing Re-nefer first, she had grown alarmed and even sent word to her friend Ruddedit. When my mother-in-law saw me enter the yard carrying a half-eaten cake from the market, she grew angry and turned on her heel without speaking. It was the cook who told me to hurry and see my son, who had come home to recover.

“Recover?” I asked her, suddenly cold with fear. “Has he been ill?”

“Oh, no,” she said with a broad grin. “He comes home to heal from the circumcision and to celebrate his manhood in high style. I’ll be working from dawn till midnight all this week,” she said and pinched my cheek.

I heard nothing past the word “circumcision.” My head rang and my heart pounded as I rushed into the great hall where Re-mose was arrayed on a litter near Nakht-re’s chair. He looked up at me and smiled easily, without a trace of pain in his face, which was now a different face altogether.