Nefertiti rr-1 Read online

  I stood watching, not wishing to disturb her feast by stroking her. I had no offering to make to the owner of the chapel. In the light of the moon I found I could make out the hieroglyphs of the offering formula. It began at the top in the usual way with hetep-di-nesw, ‘a gift which the King gives to Osiris’, followed by the standard list of food. And as my eyes moved down the sides of the panel I saw, yes, the figure of a man seated before the offering table. My eyes continued down the stele to the title and name of the deceased. It read: ‘Seeker of Mysteries’ and then: ‘Rahotep.’

  The cat stopped eating and looked up at me calmly, as if to say: what else did you expect? You are here. This is the moment of your reckoning. It licked its lips, then quickly slipped behind the stele and vanished.

  I had walked into an obvious trap, led on by need and gullibility. How could I have been so stupid? Mahu had fooled me with the kind of tale that appeals to women, children and Priests. I had to get out of there. My tongue was thick and dry. Panic surged through me, its concoction of bile and fear embittering my mouth. Images of my girls swept through my mind, and then a feeling of terrible waste and loss, and something like that snow falling, cold and eternal and silent.

  26

  I ran back through the halls and out into the desert, gasping to restore my breath and slow my heart. But then I stopped. If the cat had found a way forward, then perhaps I was meant to follow. If I fled this dark place now, I would never know. I hit the wall of the chapel with my fists, forcing myself back to reality, these actions helping me to achieve a state that felt enough like clarity to enable me to make a decision. It was as if I heard Tanefert in my head urging me, ‘Don’t let your fear conquer you. Use your fear. Think.’

  I gathered up all my courage-some Medjay officer, some detective, who was suddenly afraid of the dark! — and re-entered the chapel sanctuary. I felt around the back of the stele. Nothing but builders’ dust. So much for the materials of eternity. I felt along the edges of the wall. I licked my finger and held it just slightly off the wall. Was I imagining it? A cooling, the remotest possibility of a current of air where there should be none?

  I slipped with difficulty into the narrow space behind the stele and found a gap, barely wide enough for me to pass through to a dark and dusty space, lit, strangely, by a single oil lamp. What little light this gave revealed the cat sitting in the dark, waiting. It turned, its tail curled as elegantly as a temple dancer’s finger, and slipped down some stone steps and disappeared. I picked up the lamp. It had an exquisite beauty that reminded me of other sophisticated and elegant things I had seen in the city. I put the thought to one side and raised the lamp, revealing more of the way. By its wavering light I took my first steps down into the deep shadows.

  At the bottom, perhaps twenty steps down, I found the cat waiting for me. I greeted her, but she darted away down a tunnel that vanished into a yet deeper darkness. The little tinkle of the charm around her neck was quickly lost. I held up the lamp. Its flame struggled against little gusts of hot air charged with the scents of sand and humid blackness that rose up to me from the region of spirits. I was afraid. But what choice did I have now? ‘Do you go down into the Otherworld, as it is said in the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day.’ So I began to walk.

  It was not a straight path, but a winding serpent, sometimes sinuous, sometimes zig-zagged, and soon my orientation was baffled. The Otherworld is said to be populated by monstrous-headed beings who haunt its terrible caverns and treacherous passing points. The Book of the Dead has efficacious prayers and spells to be spoken to those monstrous guardians who will yield only to their secret names. But could I recall any of those prayers now? Not one. I shivered, hoping no monster would rise up invisibly in this darkness to block my path and demand the fatal passwords.

  I had walked now for a long time in my circle of light. The lamp was growing fainter and weaker. I could not estimate, even from a rough count of my paces, where I was. Then the wick guttered, flared for a moment in its last struggle for life, and died. I was plunged into a far deeper blindness than I had ever encountered; always, no matter how obscure the last corner of the alleyway or the deepest room in a deserted house, some light from the world had suggested itself somewhere, but not here. My eyes swam with half-ghosts, the strange, jumbled imaginings of my mind. I dropped the useless thing, and as it hit the stone it jarred horribly. Echoes noisy enough to wake the dead ran like banshees up and down the passageway.

  I put out my hands either side of me, but they were invisible, as if numb in the dark. Then I touched the wall of the tunnel, and like a blind man who feels the world only through the point of his stick, and not through the hand that holds it, I began to edge my way onwards into the chaos of the dark. I tried to keep count of my paces as I had no other way of gauging my progress in time or space. But soon the numbers blurred, and I felt disorientated by the slow count.

  I walked on like a dead man without his spirit, grazing and bruising myself on unseen corners, banging into the twists and turns of the walls. What few crumbs of comfort I had had-the lit lamp, the presence of the now-vanished cat, the enigmatic message-now lost all meaning and all hope.

  Then, as I peered ahead into the endless blackness, it seemed to me I could see a star low in the dark. I walked on, concentrating on it, my lost hands still struggling to guide me between the walls. The more I wanted to believe it was brightening, the more it did. But could my imagination be tricking me with shadows? Or was this the approach of the moment of death, the bright light shining described by those who claim to have approached the threshold of the Otherworld and returned? The star then became a shape, a threshold of light framing a figure-waiting, it seemed in my madness, for me. I began to panic, afraid the opening would slam shut before I could reach it. I struggled on, my knuckles grazing sharply against the walls. I licked the blood and its saltiness shocked me back to a sense of life.

  And then I was running, running, my breath rasping, my heart thudding, through the darkness towards the changing, expanding star, reaching out to the figure of a waiting woman. Tanefert? I heard myself shouting her name: ‘Tanefert! Tanefert!’

  And then I collapsed through a doorway into light.

  27

  Everything went dark. Words went round and round in my head like a little dream of nonsense: ‘O my heart which I had from my mother. O my heart of my different ages…’ Then I came back to myself, opened my eyes, and slowly sat up. The cat was sniffing my hand delicately.

  I struggled to my feet and looked around me. I was in a long stone chamber illuminated by lamps, hundreds of them. The walls and ceilings were decorated with hieroglyph panels and the Aten and the many little hands reaching down with the Gift of the Ankh to the divine and royal worshippers. In niches all along the walls were set solitary figurines and statuettes in crowns and masks, and I knew them: the forty-two gods holding their symbols of judgement. And I knew too that all of this, the old religion, was banned at Akhetaten.

  In the centre was a large set of scales, bigger than a man, made of gold and ebony, surmounted by a carving of a seated woman-the goddess Maat, the regulator of the seasons and the stars, of earthly and divine justice. How often had I seen her image on the gold chains worn by all-too-human judges, below their gaunt and jowly faces, compromised and corrupted by luxury, brutality and time? The scales hung at this moment in equilibrium. The atmosphere was perfectly still around them. Then there was a motion. The cat looked up, her eyes green and clear, then ran off into the dark.

  Next to the scales appeared a tall, black-skinned figure in a gold girdle, with the large black and silver head-mask of a jackal. Anubis. The figure stared at me, waiting. He said nothing, so I spoke.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘This is the Hall of the Two Truths.’

  The voice came not from the mask but from the deeper shadows of the chamber. It was a woman’s voice, confident, direct, beautiful. I knew at once I had found her.

  I said, ‘I thought th
e thing about truth was there is only one truth.’

  ‘There are many truths. Even here. There is your truth, there is my truth.’

  ‘And then there is the Truth.’

  It was as if I could see her smile, though she remained invisible in the shadows.

  ‘How wise you are,’ she said. ‘You and all the others who speak of such things as the Truth. I wonder what you have been writing about me in your little journal. Which truths have you recorded there?’

  She knew everything already. I tried to keep up with her.

  ‘Not truths, necessarily. Stories.’

  ‘Ah, stories. And how do they help us?’

  ‘They are versions of things. Possibilities. Of you.’

  ‘How many sides are there to that story? I would say many. I would say perhaps an infinite number.’

  Was she right?

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘So every story has an infinite number of sides. A circle, perhaps. Is every story a circle?’

  ‘Every true story, perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps we arrive at the end only to find it is a beginning, but now we know this truly for the first time.’

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. I was a little enchanted by our cleverness. There was a quickness to it all, an intimacy, as if already we were thinking and completing each other’s thoughts. Suddenly I needed to see this long-lost, troubling, enigmatic woman.

  ‘Will you show yourself?’

  She was silent for a moment, then made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a light laugh. ‘Perhaps. But you must answer some questions first. You must be judged. Your truth must be judged. Your sins must be judged. Your heart. I hope it is a good one. A true one.’

  The jackal-headed god gestured for me to approach. ‘Your heart must not lie in the presence of the god,’ he said. His voice was sonorous, firm, and with an accent I knew came not from the Two Lands but from beyond the cataracts. Nubia.

  I nodded. This was a game, a play of masks and scenes. I understood. At the same time, it was deadly serious. We were enacting the prayers and spells in the Book of the Dead. Everything we were doing was proscribed now. My answers, I knew, would determine my fate, regardless of anything.

  ‘I will not lie,’ I said.

  ‘We will commence the Negative Confession.’ He began to recite. ‘You Gods of the Soul’s House who judge the Earth and the Sky…Worship Ra in the Ship of the Sun…’ More incantations about the fire serpent and the Children of Impotence, and seeing the sun disc and the moon disc unceasingly: ‘May my Soul go forth and travel to every place which it desires, may my name be called out, may a place be made for me in the Ship of the Sun when the God sails the Sky of Day; and may I be welcomed into the presence of Osiris in the Land of Truth.’

  As he mentioned the Great Name of Osiris, a fear burned in me that my whole life was suspended on the thread of this moment, gathering like a single drop of water into fullness, only shortly to fall. On one side of the scales was the matter of my life: my childhood, my wife, my girls, my love for our precious little world, all the things, good, bad and indifferent, I had thought and felt and done and been. On the other was the future, as intangible and unknowable as that strange snow in a box.

  The jackal-headed figure bade me approach a spot to one side of the scales. I looked about me. The further reaches of the chamber disappeared into shadows, but now I saw the two statues on either side of me: Meskhenet and Renenutet, goddesses of fate and destiny, who would speak for the dead. And on the other side, a crouching beast like a lion with the long jaws, ferociously armoured, of a crocodile-the Devourer, ready to consume me and my little lies. He looked as if he was made of stone, but I could not be sure.

  The Perfect One spoke: ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Rahotep.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I am seeking the answer to a mystery.’

  ‘What is the nature of this mystery?’

  ‘I seek one who has disappeared.’

  Silence. Then the Jackal came forward and bade me speak my words of reply into one of the gold dishes of the scales. His questions came fast, insistent, not pausing for me to think, and out of my mouth came a litany of responses: ‘No, I have not lied; No, I have not committed adultery; Yes, I have killed; No, I have not stolen’ and so on, until I found myself pouring out the words of my good and bad deeds as if into a cursing bowl. Then the Jackal dropped a white ostrich feather which zigzagged through the air into the other dish of the scales. The device seemed calibrated to the weight of nothing for it shivered slightly as the feather touched down; as if it might dip under the grave doubts of such lightness, and indicate my doom. But it gradually returned to absolute stillness. The air around me had held its breath. Now it began to breathe again.

  Then she spoke again: ‘You are a Truth Speaker. Welcome. Close your eyes. Come forward.’

  I shut my eyes and stepped like a blind man into more shadow. Her hand took mine, led me forward, and suggested I sit. I sensed her moving around me.

  ‘All that remains is to return you to yourself. For if you were truly dead, your soul would be a bird, fluttering between the worlds. Is your soul fluttering?’

  I could not answer.

  ‘The Truth Speaker is lost for words?’

  ‘Not everything can be expressed in words.’

  ‘True. But now it is time for me to restore your five senses. I cannot speak for the others, the senses of humour, honour and so on.’

  She led me to a bench and I sat down.

  ‘According to the directions of the rite, you should really be lying in a coffin, but I think that would be melodramatic. Do you recognize this?’

  I nodded, feeling the object she was holding, recognizing the fishtail flint blade. ‘It is a peseh-kef knife.’

  ‘It is said that the Priest will point the right leg of a freshly slaughtered ox at you to try to transfer some of its strong spirit into your resurrected body. I will not be using the right leg of an ox.’

  She placed the knife at my mouth. I felt the cold kiss of the blade against my lips. I smelled the warm scent of her body. I felt suddenly filled with warmth, with the possibility of life. I began to believe again that I could accomplish the task set for me, and return home to my life. She held the blade there for a little while as these feelings opened up inside me, then slowly she lifted it away and placed it over my eyes, right, then left, and the same for my ears. Again the cool touch of the metal. I felt myself blush like a lover.

  ‘You may now speak, and eat, see and hear. You are alive again.’

  So I opened my eyes.

  28

  The shadows were drawn aside like a curtain, and I saw her.

  I was sitting in an antechamber. It seemed the walls and floor were made of silver; but perhaps this was just the cumulative effect of the multitude of lamps, and besides, by this point I would have believed anything, such was the state of confused enchantment in my mind. There was nothing in the chamber but steps disappearing up into further shadows, a low bench, a small table set out with food and drink, and two chairs. She was sitting in one of them. She was wearing the blue crown, revealing the pure shapes and contours of her neck and shoulders, and accentuating the open beauty of her face.

  She sat with her hands in her lap, watching me quizzically, observing and enjoying, I believe, the play of thoughts and feelings that passed no doubt plainly across my face. I would have told her anything. And it seemed she knew this, for as the thought occurred to me she smiled quickly. The brief smile passed through me like a wave of delight, of warmth, of…where are the words for moments like these when we feel ourselves most alive, most alert to another living presence, to its mysterious spirit, tingling to the very borders of our physical being and beyond so that we feel we are not after all limited by skin and bone but have become a part of everything? I am nothing more than a Medjay officer, a detective, just one passing character in the world’s charade; yet for a moment, in the glory of
her attention, I felt like a small god liberated from time and the world. Then her smile passed. I knew I wanted it to come back, knew indeed that I would do anything to return it to that remarkable, dignified, open face.

  ‘What time is it?’ I finally asked, and immediately felt like a fool for asking such a simple and irrelevant question.

  ‘It is the hour of Akhet.’ Her voice was calm and clear.

  ‘Remind me what that means, please.’ I felt crude next to her.

  ‘It means the hour before dawn. It is also what the Books call the time of becoming effective. Another way of thinking of it might be this: the akh is the name we give to the reunion of the person with his soul after death. Some think this reunion endures for eternity.’

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  She returned my nervous irony with a careful look. It reminded me I did not need to play the Medjay man here. The challenge was harder: to be myself.

  ‘And another way of thinking about it is this: in the sacred language the sign akh is the sacred ibis, bird of wisdom. Think of it as the dawn chorus of your new life.’

  We looked at each other for a moment. What was happening to me?

  ‘Is this my new life?’ I asked. ‘Did I die? Am I reborn?’

  ‘Perhaps, if you look at it in the right way. The true way.’ She tilted her head to consider me.

  ‘I am honoured to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, please don’t be honoured. I am tired of honours. I’m sorry to have made things so difficult for you. So dramatic. All these tasks and tests. You must have felt like a man in a fable. But I had to know whether I could trust you. Whether you were the true man. Are you hungry? Thirsty?’