Ancient Evenings Page 3

  “When the soul has departed,” I said softly, the light from my torch casting shadows on the ceiling, “a man sees corruption. He becomes a brother to decay and he sinks into a myriad of worms, he becomes nothing but worms.…

  “Homage to Thee, Divine Father Osiris. Thou did not wither, Thou did not rot, Thou did not turn into worms. So will my members have being everlasting. I shall not decay, I shall not rot, I shall not putrefy, and I shall not see corruption.”

  My eyes were closed. I looked within myself deep into the darkness of the blackest earth I had ever seen, black as the Land of Kemt, our Egypt, and in that blackness I heard my words reverberate, as in the tolling of a large bell at the tithe-taker’s gate below Memphi, and knew these words had a buoyancy greater than the ascension of prayers on odors of incense. The echo reverberating in the closed darkness of my eyes, I could contain my hunger no longer, and held up my arm with all five fingers extended as if to say, “With these five fingers, I would eat,” and turned in a circle, committing myself to Gods or demons I did not know.

  In reply, five scorpions came in file out of the hawk-faced jar of Qebhsenuf, God of the West, the liver, and the gall bladder, and crossed the floor from the bier of Menenhetet One up to the hole in the wrappings of Menenhetet Two. There, they began, I assume—for I was not ready to look—to devour the worms. Did they go on to the flesh of Two? I do not know, but my sore foot burned with the fiery spice of a nest of ants.

  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 belo
ng 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.

  Yet for all it hurt, I could have been made of small rocks and roots. I ached no more than the earth when a weed is pulled and comes up with its hairs tearing away from the clods of the soil. Pain is present, but as the small cry of the uprooted plant. So did the hooks, narrow in their curve, go up the nose, enter the head, and poke like blind fingers in a burrow to catch stuffs of the brain and pull them away. Now I felt like a rock wall at the base of which rakes are ripping, and was warm curiously as though sunlight were baking, but it was only the breath of the first embalmer, hot with wine and figs—how clear was the sense of smell!

  Still, an enigma remained. How could my mind continue to think while they pulled my brain apart? They were certainly scooping chunks of material as lively as dry sponge through the dry tunnels of my nose, and I realized—for there was a flash in my cranium when the hook first entered—that one of my lights in the Land of the Dead had certainly stirred. Was it the Ba, the Khaibit or the Ka that was now helping me to think? And I gagged as a particularly caustic drug, some wretched mixture of lime and ash, was poured in by the embalmers to dissolve whatever might still be stuck to the inside of my skull.

  How long they worked I do not know, how long they allowed that liquid to dwell in the vault of my emptied head is but one more question. From time to time they lifted my feet, held me upside down, then set me back. Once they even turned me on my stomach to slosh the fluids, and let the caustic eat out my eyes. Two flowers could have been plucked when those eyes were gone.

  At night my body would go cold; by midday it was close to warm. Of course I could not see, but I could smell, and got to know the embalmers. One wore perfume yet his body always carried the unmistakable pungency of a cat in heat; the other was a heavy fellow with a heavy odor not altogether bad—he was the one with breath of wine and figs. He smelled as well of fields and mud, and rich food was usually in him—a meat-eater, his sweat was strong yet not unpleasant—something loyal came out of the gravies of his flesh. Because I could smell them as they approached, I knew it was daylight so soon as the embalmers arrived, and I could count the hours. (Their scent altered with the heat of the air in this place.) From midday to three, every redolence, good and bad, of the hot banks of the Nile was also near. After a time I came to realize I must be in a tent. There was often the crack of sailcloth flapping overhead, and gusts would clap at my hair, a sensation as definite in impression as a hoof stepping on grass. My hearing had begun to return but by a curious route. For I had no interest in what was said. I was aware of the voices of others, but felt no desire to comprehend the words. They were not even like the cry of animals so much as the lolling of surf or the skittering of wind. Yet my mind felt capable of surpassing clarity.

  Once I think Hathfertiti came to visit, or since it is likely the tent was on family grounds, it is possible she strolled through the gardens and stopped to look in. Certainly I caught her scent. It was Hathfertiti, certain enough; she gave one sob, as if belief in the mortal end of her son had finally come, and left immediately.

  Somewhere in those first few days they made an incision in the side of my belly with a sharp flint knife—I know how sharp for even with the few senses my Remains could still employ, a sense of sharpness went through me like a plow breaking ground, but sharper, as if I were a snake cut in two by a chariot wheel, and then began the most detailed searching. It is hard to describe, for it did not hurt, but I was ready in those hours to think of the inside of my torso as common to a forest in a grove, and one by one trees were removed, their roots
disturbing veins of rock, their leaves murmuring. I had dreams of cities drifting down the Nile like floating islands. Yet when the work was done, I felt larger, as if my senses now lived in a larger space. Was it that my heart and lungs had been placed in one jar, and my stomach and small intestines in another? Leave it that my organs were spread out in different places, floating in different fluids and spices, yet still existing about me, a village. Eventually, their allegiance would be lost. Wrapped and placed in the Canopic jars, what they knew of my life would then be offered to their own God.

  How I brooded over what those Gods would know of me once my organs were in Their jars. Qebhsenuf would dwell in my liver and know of all the days when my liver’s juices had, been brave; as well would Qebhsenuf know of the hours when the liver, like me, lived in the fog of a long fear. A simple example, the liver, but more agreeable to contemplate than my lungs. For, with all they knew of my passions would they still be loyal once they moved into the jar of the jackal Tuamutef, and lived in the domain of that scavenger? I did not know. So long, at least, as my organs remained unwrapped, and therefore in a manner still belonged to me, I could understand how once embalmed, and in their jar, I would lose them. No matter how scattered my parts might be over all the tables of this tent, there still remained the sense of family among us—the vessel of my empty corpse comfortably surrounded by old fleshly islands of endeavor, these lungs, liver, stomach and big and little guts all attached to the same memories of my life (if with their own separate and fiercely prejudiced view—how different, after all, had my life seemed to my liver and to my heart). So, not at all, therefore, was this embalming tent as I had expected, no, no bloody abattoir like a butcher’s stall, more like an herb kitchen. Certainly the odors encouraged the same long flights of fancy you could find in a spice shop. Merely figure the vertigos of my nose when the empty cavity of my body (so much emptier than the belly of a woman who has just given birth) was now washed, soothed and stimulated, cleansed, peppered, herbified, and left with a resonance through which no hint of the body’s corruption could breathe. They scoured the bloody inside with palm wine, and left the memories of my flesh in ferment. They pounded in spices and peppers, and rare sage from the limestone foundations to the West; then came leaves of thyme and the honey of bees who had fed on thyme, the oil of orange was rubbed into the cavity of the ribs, and the oil of lemon balmed the inside of my lower back to free it of the stubborn redolence of the viscera. Cedar chips, essence of jasmine, and branchlets of myrrh were crushed—I could hear the cries of the plants being broken more clearly than the sound of human voices. The myrrh even made its clarion call. A powerful aromatic (as powerful in the kingdom of herbs as the Pharaoh’s voice) was the myrrh laid into the open shell of my body. Next came cinnamon leaves, stem, and cinnamon bark to sweeten the myrrh. Like rare powders added to the sweetmeats in the stuffing of a pigeon, were these bewildering atmospheres they laid into me. Dizzy was I with their beauty. When done, they sewed up the long cut in the side of my body, and I seemed to rise through high vales of fever while something of memory, intoxicated by these tendrils of the earth, began to dance and the oldest of my friends was young while the children of my mistresses grew old. I was like a royal barge lifted into the air under the ministrations of a rare Vizier.