The Twice Born (48 page)

Suddenly he came to a halt.
Ishat
, he thought with a shock.
I shall be seeing Ishat. What does she look like now? Gods, she must be fifteen! How has she grown? Will her sharp tongue sting me with truth, and shall I really not mind, the way it used to be?
Methen had disappeared around the side of the temple and Huy hurried after him.

The storehouse yielded a rickety couch, obviously cast off from some noble’s household, judging by the gilt peeling from its frame and the carved likeness of the goddess Nut, she who swallowed Ra every evening, arching across the headboard, her colours still bright. Methen unearthed a plain wooden table scored with knife marks that had come from a kitchen, two chairs, two low stools, and two cracked clay oil lamps. “These can be mended with wet clay, I think,” he said. “I can let you have pillows and bed linen and a couple of blankets as well, but you will have to use the temple bathhouse. As for cups, plates, utensils, I will see what the kitchen offers.”

Huy shook his head. “I have the things Pabast gave me. They will suffice. I will need to borrow a bowl and some natron and rags and a broom to clean the house, and then perhaps some whitewash?” he ended hopefully.

Methen laughed. “The house is indeed dark. I will see if the man who takes care of the grass and the temple’s vegetable garden and animals can mix you whitewash and find you a brush. It’s time for the noon meal and then I sit just outside the sanctuary doors and wait for the petitioners. We’ll eat together, Huy, and I think you should sleep. You still look tired.”

Huy replied to him silently.
It is not the state of my body you see, but the turmoil in my soul, dear friend. I am homesick for my school, for Thothmes, and, yes, for my quiet, clean cell. It was so easy to live as Nakht’s son, to learn to speak and behave like a noble, to take soft linen and sweet oils and kohl mixed with gold dust for granted, to converse easily with Nakht’s guests as an equal, to call for a servant whenever I needed something. Can I face this gritty new existence? Can I endure it for even one day? What have I done?

Inside Methen’s quarters he saw his linen piled neatly on the cot, starched and folded with a reverence, Huy knew, for Nasha’s gold and silver borders and the quality of the weave. Methen’s servant darkened the door bearing a tray from which the aromas of good hot food arose. There was beer as well. Both men sat and began to eat.

“I do not need more sleep,” Huy said. “I will change your voluminous linen for one of my own kilts and leave at once for my father’s house.”

“And face the inevitable as soon as possible,” Methen rejoined, seeing Huy’s gloomy expression.

Huy did not reply.

15

 
HUY DRESSED
for his visit to his family in a mood of recklessness. He chose one of Nasha’s kilts, a piece of gold-bordered linen of the twelfth grade so fine that the outline of his thighs could be seen through its folds in spite of the starch. He strapped Nakht’s turquoise-studded belt around his waist. He did not regret giving Anuket’s earring to the whore, but he did miss its opulence swinging against his neck. The only other one he had was a simple ankh dropping from a short gold chain that Nakht’s wife had tired of and had tossed to him good-naturedly on a sunny morning long ago. It would have to suffice. He outlined his eyes carefully with the kohl Thothmes had given him. He had no bracelets, but the sa amulet shone on his shaved chest and the fingers of his left hand were heavy with the ring amulets, Soul and Frog. He would not go shamefaced to Hapu’s house, bereft of dignity like a chastened child. The odour of jasmine oil, the only oil he possessed, sickened him with the remembrance of his humiliation, but only the very poorest citizens had no oil with which to soften their skin against the harshness of Egypt’s climate and to perfume themselves; and Huy, as he rubbed jasmine over his torso and into his loose hair, reflected that the encounter with his parents was likely to be just as crushing as his interview with Nakht and his abortive attempt at intercourse with the whore. Combing and braiding his hair and fastening it with the frog clasp, he slipped his feet into his worn old sandals. It was unfortunate that he would have to walk through the town and arrive at his parents’ home with dusty feet and legs, but it could not be helped.
At least
, he thought grimly as he placed the scrolls containing his tutors’ evaluations into his small satchel, left Methen’s quarters, and struck out across the grass,
at least I may be able to keep my kilt clean
.

He remembered the way perfectly well although he had not trodden it for many years, not since he had come to the temple with Itu and Hapu to thank the god for his fourth Naming Day and to give Khenti-kheti his gift. Then as now, the town’s areas were islanded by deep dikes filled with the flood water in which naked children splashed and slung mud at each other and at passersby. Huy, knowing himself an attractive target, avoided the few groups of happy young scoundrels. The hottest hours of the day had begun and many families were resting in the coolness of their houses.

Reaching the outskirts seemed to take him a long time. He deliberately walked slowly, willing himself not to sweat. When the densely packed buildings became a straggle of private dwellings, away to his right, beneath the height of the Inundation, his uncle Ker’s precious arouras stretched to a line of truncated palms shimmering on the humid horizon. Huy found the path that ran in front of his father’s gate, and with the water lapping inches from his feet he turned onto it. Soon, all too soon, he saw the low mud-brick wall and the wooden gate and, beyond them, through the few trees of the garden, the whitewashed gleam of his father’s house. How small it all was, he marvelled as he paused, his hand on the gate. How tiny the garden with its miniature pool surrounded by his mother’s vegetable plots; how low the flat roof; how modest the house he had once thought as huge as Pharaoh’s palace! Off to the right was the hedge dividing garden from orchard and, beyond that, Ker’s fields where Huy’s father laboured, an abundance of rich dark soil even now being replenished with nourishing silt. In another six weeks or so Ker’s army of peasants, Huy’s father among them, would walk ankle-deep in the warm mud and strew the seeds of a hundred different perfume flowers to become garlands, wreaths, exotic perfumes, and fragrant oils for the wealthy.
Yet my father lives in greater privacy than I shall, with my three rooms crammed between a beer house and fronting a dusty street
. Consciously willing his hand to push the gate open, his feet to carry him through it, he walked the short distance to the open door.

The interior of the house was quiet but for a subdued snoring coming from the room Huy knew was his parents’. Quietly he slipped along the short hallway to the door of the room he still thought of as his. It was closed. Carefully he pushed it ajar and peered around it. Someone was sleeping on his cot. All Huy could see was a head of tousled black hair and one small foot protruding from under a rumpled sheet. For a moment Huy was indignant. This was his room! He had painted those admittedly crude pictures of hectically green frogs and bushy yellow palm trees himself, and there was his name repeated several times over the white walls, the hieroglyphs clumsy but decipherable. He felt the paintbrush in his hand, the frown on his brow as he laboriously stroked the characters over the whitewash. Then his good sense reasserted itself. This was no longer his room. It belonged to his brother Heby, surely the child buried under the thick grey sheet.

He must have made some sound, an exhalation of breath, the creak of the door, for all at once the figure stirred, pushed the sheet away, and sat up. He and Huy regarded one another silently. Huy had time to remark to himself on the boy’s sturdy, even features, the glow of health on his brown skin, the large dark eyes shaped very like his own regarding him sombrely and without fear. “Who are you?” Heby asked at last. “Why are you staring at me?”

Huy stepped farther into the room. An expression of alarm crossed the boy’s features. “I’m your big brother, Huy,” Huy began to explain, but the child had pushed himself against the wall and bunched his fists.

“No you’re not,” he said loudly. “My brother Huy lives at Ra’s temple in Iunu, far far away. Mother! Come quickly! There is a strange man in the house!”

“Hush, Heby, don’t wake them,” Huy admonished in a moment of panic.
I am not ready for this
, he thought as he heard an immediate stirring from along the passage.
It is not the slow and easy way I imagined it would be. I am not in control here
. He stood irresolute, his satchel hanging forgotten from one hand.

“Hurry up, Mother!” Heby called. “And you had better bring Father as well. The man looks strong!” In spite of his position against the wall, shoulders hunched around his bony knees, there was no real fear in Heby’s eyes.

Footsteps padded along the passage and Huy came to himself. He opened the door wider. Itu stood there in a sheath she had obviously pulled on in haste. One strap was crushed under her arm. Her hair was in disarray and her eyelids swollen with sleep, but her glance was alert. Behind her Hapu came hurrying, still tying on a kilt. Both stared in blank amazement at Huy. Huy, his nostrils slowly filling with the well-remembered scent of his mother’s lily perfume, so common and yet so distinctly hers, felt himself loosen inside. “Mother, it’s me, Huy,” he said huskily. “The front door was open. I’m sorry to startle you. I …”

He got no further. With a cry of joy Itu flew at him, flung her arms around him, and crushed him to her. “My Huy, my Huy, my son,” she said, her voice muffled below his shoulder. “Is it really you?” Huy felt a wetness blossom on his skin. She was crying. “You are really here? But we had no word. You sent us no word …”

Huy extricated himself and kissed her. She had changed little, he reflected. Her delicate face held a few more wrinkles and her long hair was slashed with grey at both temples. But she was still beautiful, this woman whose love for him, whose faith in him, had never wavered. She clung to his arm as he turned to his father. Hapu was smiling warily.

“I hardly recognized you,” he said. “So tall and handsome! So you visit us at last. You are very welcome.” His gaze fell to the sa on Huy’s breast and back to Huy’s face. Huy could see the questions there and, deeper still, a small bud of resentment. Or was it the old fear that had spawned the breach between them?

He held out his hand. “I am very glad to see you again, Father. Glad that you have not changed.” But he had. As Hapu took the proffered hand, Huy thought how stooped the man had become, how ropy the muscles of his arms and chest, and all at once he was filled with pity.
This is what happens to the man who spends his life in hard labour
, he thought sadly.
My father Hapu, so strong, so virile, being gradually twisted into deformity so that his old age will be filled with aching joints and hands that will no longer obey him
.

“Oh, I’ve changed,” Hapu replied. “I know it. So have you.” He ran a critical eye over his son and then suddenly grinned. “Gods, you’re a sight to be proud of! Wait until Ker hears that wonderful noble accent of yours! You’ve made your school days a triumph of success, haven’t you? Itu, clean yourself up and run and get Hapzefa. There must be wine tonight instead of beer, and definitely a feast!”

An indignant shout came from the cot. Heby had wriggled off it and was pushing his way between Hapu and Huy. “I’m your son!” he cried, tugging Hapu’s hand away from Huy. “Lift me up, Father, and tell this man who I am!”

Hapu laughed and hoisted Heby onto his shoulders. “You are my little Heby, and this is your brother, big Huy. You must be respectful towards him.” Huy met the boy’s hostile glance.

“I am big Heby,” Heby announced, his fingers in his father’s hair. “I go to school. I go to a much better school than Huy. I get all my lessons right.”

“No you don’t, you child of Set,” Hapu said indulgently. “Get down now. When Hapzefa comes, you must be washed and have some milk. Then you can play with the cats. Huy and your mother and I have much to talk about.”

“I don’t want to play with the cats.” Heby slid down Hapu’s body and glowered at Huy. “I want wine and a feast if that’s what he’s getting!” He pointed at Huy, who was cursing himself for not bringing any sort of a gift, even something small, for this little firebrand. Then he remembered that at the bottom of his small satchel he had thrust the box of almonds Thothmes had given him. Quickly he opened the bag, rummaged about, and, lifting the box, handed it to Heby.

“I brought these for you, my special brother,” he said gravely. “They are very good to eat and quite rare. You don’t have to share them if you don’t want to.” Hapu raised his eyebrows. “Almonds,” Huy whispered.

Hapu’s eyes widened. “Quite an expensive gift.” The tartness in his voice was back. Huy sighed inwardly.

Heby’s eyes flicked doubtfully from the box to Huy’s face and back again. Then, gingerly taking the box, he lifted the lid. “These are funny brown nuts,” he pronounced. “Father, shall I eat one?”

“Eat as many as you like, but save a few for your mother,” Hapu replied heavily. “We won’t see almonds again for a very long time.”

Anger flared in Huy, but he pushed it down, resisting the urge to tell his father that he had not acquired the expensive treat himself, that he had never been able to afford such things, that Thothmes had given them to him, as Thothmes’ family had given him almost everything on his body that Hapu was openly assessing.

Heby reached into the box, carefully extracted an almond, and put it in his mouth. He bit down on it with an audible crunch. “It’s bitter, but I like it,” he said presently. “I’ll have another one. Thank you, Huy.” He set the box on the table beside the cot. “Can I go outside now?” Hapu nodded and the child scampered into the passage.

So I am accepted
, Huy thought, relieved.

Hapu indicated the door. “Come into the reception room and sit. Itu won’t be long. Then you can tell us all your news.” Taking up his satchel, Huy followed him.

Nothing had changed in the little house’s main room either. A couple of worn cushions, a low communal meal table, a few stools, made up the furnishings Huy remembered. Sinking to the floor, he put his back to the wall. He and his father regarded one another in silence for a moment. Then Hapu said, “Itu has enjoyed your letters very much, particularly when you began to write them in your own hand. Each time one was delivered we requested the messenger to read it to us and then Itu would sit with the papyrus in her lap and finger the hieroglyphs as though she could touch you. She has grieved at your long absence.”
But you have not
, Huy accused him in his mind.
Now you have another son, a normal, healthy child who will not go away to school, who will not be struck by a noble’s throwing stick, who will not die and return to life. Now you can sink into the security that you enjoyed before
.

“I have no excuses, Father,” Huy said aloud. “My life filled up with school and my city friends. You and Mother and Hut-herib receded into my past. I should have returned more often, but everything here became small and dreamlike to me. There’s no point in lying about it.”

Hapu’s thick eyebrows rose. “Well, at least you do not insult me with false sentiments. When Itu returns, you can tell us why you are here.”
Of course, you did not travel all the way from Iunu just to see us
—Huy heard the addition although Hapu’s mouth had closed.

“My brother is a handsome boy,” Huy said. “How is his school work? Does he like learning?”

Hapu smiled. “He is already ahead of his class in reading and reciting,” he said proudly. “He is slightly weaker than his fellow students in writing and numbers, and unfortunately we, your mother and I, cannot help him seeing that neither of us can read or write. But he goes to visit Ker quite often and Heruben helps him.”