The Queen walked past me, her face proud and dignified beneath the great crown. I remembered all those glorious stone faces in Thutmosis’s workshop, and it was as if the best of them had come to life now in her poise, balance and beauty. Her face was self-possessed and powerful. But I saw in her eyes, for a moment as she glanced at me, those gold flecks of pain. Then the door closed behind them, and she was gone.
As the hall burst into an uproar of controversial shouts and arguments, a breathless pain overwhelmed my heart. Nakht noticed.
‘Let us go outside,’ he said.
As we walked away through the crowds I tried to regain my breath. I needed to talk, to keep thinking, to move ahead, as she had done, into my own future. I needed to evade the pain of this moment.
‘How is your garden coming on?’ I heard myself say, astonished by the irrelevance of my question.
Nakht smiled, understanding. I had forgotten how much I liked him.
‘Oh, it is struggling with the desert, as always,’ he said. ‘But I am returning to Thebes, now that all is changing. Why don’t you join me?’
44
Khety and I stood together on the jetty while Nakht’s boat was undergoing its final preparations. The city was emptying. The dock was a mess of boats and cargoes, but a new sense of purpose seemed to have taken hold. People knew, once more, what they could believe in. For my part, I could not wait to leave the terrible delusion of this place.
‘Find your family, Khety. Go home. Stay in touch. I’m sure we’ll meet again.’
He nodded. ‘And you yours. That’s what matters now.’
‘Thanks. And keep trying for a child.’
‘We will.’
He smiled. I liked him.
‘We will look back upon all this one day over a good wine from the Dakhla Oasis.’
He nodded again, and embraced me. How strange these partings, when words will not suffice.
So I stepped away upon the Great River that carries us all to our different destinations and destinies. As the boat pulled off from this strange, unreal land, Khety stood watching and occasionally waving, growing smaller and smaller until, finally, as we sailed away around the great curve of the river, he and the city of Akhetaten disappeared. I wondered for a moment if I would ever return, and if I did, what I would find. Then I looked ahead, towards Thebes.
Of the journey home I have little to say except that it was too slow, the north wind helping us against the ever-opposing current. I had no patience, and I could not sleep. My heart beat too fast. I saw the unchanging world pass by: the long, luxurious light of dusk upon the marshes; the shadowy and magnificent papyrus groves; the cattle drinking at the water’s edge; the women washing pots and clothes in the river; the children playing with nothing, using their imaginations, then waving and calling with open delight as we passed; the sky always the same great blue, the fields the same green haze, turning now to gold; the moving water with its endlessly changing hues-silvers, viridians, greys, ambers; and the blackness of the unknown depths below our passing keel.
I recalled sailing in the opposite direction all those days before, with this journal almost empty, and with no knowledge of how things would turn out. And as I sit here now, in the dawn light, as we approach the great and glorious chaos of the city of my life, with its familiar noises and cries, streets and secrets, smells and perfumes, beauties and catastrophes, I find I am glad but also afraid. The gods have granted me a safe return to the place where I started. But do we ever truly return from such journeys? Surely we come back to where we started, changed. We are not the same. ‘How do you know what you know?’ Nefertiti had asked me. There is only one answer: ‘Because this happened. Because now she is gone for ever.’ This is the truth of a true story. Something lost. Something found. Something lost again.
I bade farewell to Nakht. ‘We will meet again,’ he said. ‘I am sure the future has something in store for us. Come and see me soon, and let’s talk about the world, and its changes, and gardens.’ I believed we would. I embraced him, a man I knew I could trust, with fondness and gratitude.
I walk up towards my street in the early morning light, back through the familiar passages and squares, past the expensive shops selling monkeys and giraffe skins, ostrich eggs and engraved tusks; past the familiar stalls of the Alley of Fruit, and the wood and metal workshops just opening for the new day; under the roofs where the children leap and the birds sing who have no knowledge of the dark world beyond. Back towards my life and my home.
I arrive at the wooden door. I offer a prayer to the little god in his niche who knows I don’t believe in him, then push the door open. The courtyard is swept and tidy, the olive tree stands silver and green. I listen to the silence. Then I hear a girl’s voice asking a question, and then another, in the kitchen. I enter the room, and there they are, my girls, my Tanefert, with her hair the colour of midnight, and her strong nose, and her eyes that brim suddenly with tears. And I hold them all, for a long, long time, hardly daring, yet, to believe that life could bring me now such happiness.