She paused for a moment, her eyes swimming with the memory of departure.
‘We travelled for days beyond telling. Then one evening we were surprised and surrounded by a band of Medjay guards. We were forced to march, and eventually they rounded up other straggling groups of desperate people from all over the Red Land. We were nothing but cattle. Cattle.’
She held out her ruined hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Finally we arrived at the Great River. But all the sweet waters that flowed before my eyes could not have satisfied my thirst to return home again, and know my own hearth. We were shipped down the river to the city and set to work. We were not slaves, but we were not free men either. Men and women had to wait together every morning for the Overseer and his assistants to make their selections: who would work and eat, and who would not work and starve. Always the fittest and strongest worked, and while these lucky ones tried to bring supplies back in secret for the others, gradually those not chosen died away in the filthy hovels where they were left to fend for themselves. I worked as a labourer. My children are now mixing the mud for the sun-dried bricks that, one by one, are building the city. My husband is now the foreman of a work gang. But it has soured his soul. He drinks. We fight. And now…’
She gestured to her foot. I saw that it was bandaged.
‘It is broken?’
She slowly unwound the stained linen and showed me the damage: it had been crushed by a stone building-block. The flesh was mottled blue and crimson and rotten yolk-yellow, the shape distorted, the toes curled into themselves. It looked to me as if the bones were smashed, the flesh rotting. She would have to lose the foot.
‘I am as useless now as a dancer with one leg.’
It was tempting to read a parable of suffering and wisdom in her dignified face. But what I saw there was simply hopelessness.
‘I wish we had not come,’ she continued. ‘But what choice did we have? All we had left to sell was ourselves. And this is a world in which if you have nothing to sell, you die.’
What could I do for this woman? Our green and gold world, our life of houses and linens and fine wines, is built on the invisible, inescapable labour of the multitudes. Not a new thought, of course. There had been many occasions in my life when I had been exposed to these unpleasant realities. My work had shown me day after day the effects of this poverty: in the crimes committed out of the despair of drink, in particular; the delirious exuberance, the indifference to cares, the sorrowful songs of misfortune soon giving way to irredeemable acts of rage and violence.
We sat for a little while, listening to the birds’ free music. It seemed like a beautiful joke at her expense, a sweetness she could never possess; but she closed her eyes and drank it in like wine. I pressed upon her the only thing I could offer: a draught of water from the jar. She drank a few sips, grateful more for the offer than the thing itself. And then we made our farewells, and she hobbled away across the rooftops in the burning afternoon.
Not long after that Khety returned with the news that we could attempt to enter the archive that evening. He was full of problems and concerns: how would we pass through security, how would we find the necessary information among so much papyrus, what would happen to his brother and his family if we were caught? But in such situations I find myself becoming less, rather than more, concerned.
‘Don’t waste my time with your worries,’ I said. ‘Concentrate on solutions, not problems.’
He didn’t like that.
‘Listen, Khety, there are two things in our line of work. One is knowledge, under the heading of which I include planning. The other is improvisation, under the heading of which I include errors, mistakes, cock-ups and the general chaos to which all things inevitably, especially in our business, tend-and that goes for planning too. So let’s make a plan, and then, when it goes wrong, we’ll improvise our way out of trouble.’
31
It was in the personae of a court scribe and his assistant that we left the safe house. I had my story prepared. We were researching an official history of the reign of Akhenaten to be presented to him by the Office of Culture on the occasion of his jubilee. It was to be a surprise, and must be kept secret. We carried with us documents of permission from the Akhetaten Medjay office which Khety had forged, having stamped them with some kind of blurred approval-seal in his office. I also had with me the original papers of authorization, but they would not help us now that we were in hiding.
‘Did you see Mahu?’ I asked Khety.
‘He was out. I timed my visit carefully. He’s been asking for me.’
‘I imagine he has. What does he think you are doing now, since we were arrested after Meryra’s murder?’
‘He’s been too busy to care. The murder has badly damaged his prestige, and he’s on the rampage to fit someone to the crime. I guess he’s furious that you’ve disappeared again. I’m sure that’s why he wants to see me.’
I gave myself a moment to relish the satisfaction Khety’s words brought me. With the Festival coming, and the escalating security tensions after Meryra’s murder, Mahu was almost certainly too preoccupied with his immediate problems to make good on his threat against my family.
It was a strange experience to walk once more through the streets of the city. The absolute single-minded purpose that characterized the attitude of the citizens during my first days here had changed now; among the new crowds there was a sense of uncertainty, touching on anxiety, as if everyone was apprehensive about the coming events and the arrival of so many strangers. But that was all to our advantage, as it enabled us to move far less conspicuously up and down the roads. Nevertheless, we covered our heads in the vague imitation of some kind of religious modesty. No-one paid us any attention.
We walked away from the slums and up the Royal Road heading north, where Thutmosis the sculptor had driven me in his chariot. We continued towards the central city among the evening crowds, past the Small Aten Temple, which was besieged with worshippers clamouring to enter through the first pylon. I caught a quick glimpse of the open sun court packed with people, their hands raised to the many statues of the King and Queen, and to the rays of the late sun. We followed to the right along the long northern wall of the temple, struggling against the current of the crowds, until we passed the House of Life and came to the complex of the Records Office. Now we were in more danger. We were more likely to be recognized here, not least because Mahu’s office in the Medjay barracks was only a few blocks away to the east.
Khety confidently made his way down a narrower avenue between high walls, past offices where all kinds of bureaucratic activity seemed to be taking place. We turned through a formal portal decorated with the insignia of the Aten sun disc, and found ourselves in a small courtyard. Here we encountered our first set of security guards. Khety wafted the permission briefly before their eyes, and I tried to look haughty. They glanced at us suspiciously, but nodded. We were about to move on through the courtyard when a commanding voice called us to halt. Khety looked at me. Another guard approached us.
‘This office is not open for public attendance.’ He scanned our permission. ‘Who authorized this?’
I was about to start speaking, to try to improvise a way past this danger, when a high, clear voice cried out, ‘I did.’ The thin young man who had spoken had the serious, pale face of those who avoid the sun. He stood at the threshold to one of the offices. ‘They have a meeting arranged with me. I’ve been assigned to offer them assistance. It is a great honour. Don’t you know this is one of the finest writers of our time?’ He nodded respectfully in my direction. I bowed almost imperceptibly to acknowledge the compliment, in a way I copied from a public reading I had once attended, on Tanefert’s insistence, given by a writer much admired for his supposed wit and brilliance. I had spent the endless time marvelling at his pomposity, his bad but costly dress, and his affected speech. The young man gestured respectfully for me to lead the way, and as we passed beyond the jurisdiction of the guards he whispered to me, with a quaver of fear in his voice, ‘Fortunately none of them can read.’ And with that we passed through the immediate danger and into the building.