Trembling I looked into her eyes and said, “Your magic is of a simple and despicable order, great queen mother: your fingers braid it into the bright rushes for all to see.”
She dropped the work as if it had burned her, and her beer-reddened eyes rolled in her head in dismay as she exclaimed, “Are you also a magician, Sinuhe, or is this matter known to all the people?”
I told her, “Everything is known to them at last. Although none may have witnessed your actions, yet the night has seen you-the night wind has whispered of your deed in many ears. Though you could silence the tongues of men, yet you could not stifle the night wind’s utterance. Nevertheless, the magic carpet beneath your fingers is exceedingly handsome, and I should be grateful for it as a gift. I would set great value on it-certainly a higher value than anyone else to whom you might present it.”
As I spoke, she grew calmer. She continued to work with fingers that trembled, and she drank more beer. When I had stopped she gave me a cunning look and said, “Perhaps I will give you this mat if I ever finish it, Sinuhe. It is a beautiful and precious mat since I have made it with my own hands-a royal mat. One gift deserves another. What will you offer me, Sinuhe?”
I laughed and answered indifferently, “As a gift in return, Queen Mother, I will give you my tongue although I would be glad if you would let it stay where it is. It will not profit my tongue to speak against you, therefore, it is yours.”
She muttered to herself and shot me a sidelong glance, then said, “Why should I accept as a gift that which is already in my power? No one would stop me from taking your tongue. I might take your hands also so that you could not write what you were prevented from uttering. Furthermore I could take you to my cellars to greet my dear Negroes, whence you might never return since they like to use humans for their sacrifices.”
But I said to her, “Clearly you have drunk too much beer, Queen Mother. Drink no more tonight lest you encounter hippopotamuses in your dreams. My tongue is yours and I hope to receive your mat when it is finished.”
I rose to go, and she giggled as old women do when tipsy.
“You divert me greatly, Sinuhe-you divert me greatly!”
I left her and returned unmolested to the city, and Merit shared her mat with me. I was no longer quite happy. My thoughts ran on the soot-blackened reed boat that hung above my mother’s bed, on the dark fingers that fashioned a mat with fowler’s knots, and on the night winds that carried the fragile boats downstream from the walls of the golden house to the Theban shore. I. was no longer quite happy, for what increases knowledge increases vexations, and this was a vexation I could well have dispensed with, being no longer young.
5
The official pretext for my journey to Thebes was a visit to the House of Life. It was years since I had entered it although my position as skull surgeon to Pharaoh entailed this obligation. Also I feared that I might have lost something of my skill since during the whole of my stay in Akhetaton I had not opened a single skull. So I went to the House of Life, where I discoursed and instructed those pupils who had chosen to specialize in this branch. As students were no longer required to qualify for the lowest grade of priesthood before entering the House of Life, I fancied that knowledge also would have been freed from the bonds of convention and would have advanced, because the pupils were no longer forbidden to ask “why.”
But in this I was greatly disappointed. These boys were immature and lacking in any desire to ask “why.” Their highest ambition was to obtain knowledge ready made from their teachers and have their names entered in the Book of Life so that they might start to practice and to earn money without delay.
There were now so few patients that weeks passed before I had opportunity to open the three skulls I had set myself as a test for my skill. These operations won me high regard; both physicians and students flattered me and praised the steadiness and dexterity of my hands.
However, I was oppressed by the suspicion that these hands were less skillful than they had once been. My eyes had dimmed so that I was unable to detect disease with my former ease and assurance and was obligated to ask numerous questions and perform lengthy examinations in order to arrive at my conclusions. For this reason I received patients daily at my house and treated them for nothing, with the sole purpose of regaining my former proficiency.
Of the three skulls I dealt with in the House of Life, one I opened from compassion because the sick man was incurable and suffered intolerable pain. Both the remaining cases were interesting and demanded the full exercise of my skill.
One was a man who a year or so before had fallen on his head from a rooftop, where he had been disporting himself with another man’s wife. He had fallen while fleeing from the husband but regained consciousness later without apparent injury. After some time he fell ill of the holy sickness and suffered successive attacks, which invariably followed the drinking of wine. He saw no visions but merely shouted in a furious voice, kicked, and bit his tongue, and could not contain his water. So greatly did he dread these attacks that he begged to undergo the operation. I laid bare the whole surface of his brain, which in many parts was black with old blood. The cleansing process took a considerable time and could not have been fully performed without injury. The man suffered no further attacks, however, for he died on the third day after the operation, as is usual. Nevertheless this operation was acclaimed as highly successful; I was praised for my performance, and the students took careful note of all I did.
The other case was a simple one: the patient was a young boy whom the guards had found lying senseless in the street, having been robbed. His head was beaten in, and he was at the point of death. I chanced to be at the House of Life when he was brought in and saw that I had nothing to lose by operating as the physicians refused to attend him, being convinced that he must die. I opened the crushed skull as rapidly as possible, removed the splinters of bone from his brain, and covered the hole with a plate of purified sliver. He recovered and was still alive when I left Thebes two weeks later, although he found difficulty in moving his arms and could feel nothing when his hands and the soles of his feet were tickled with a feather. I believed that in time he would be completely cured. The case was remarkable in that its urgency had given me no time to shave his head before operating, and when I had stitched the scalp together again over the silver plate, the hair went on growing as before and entirely hid the scar.
Although I was treated with respect in the House of Life because of my position, the older physicians avoided me and withheld their confidence, for I was from Akhetaton, while they were governed by fear of the false god. I never spoke to them of Aton and discussed professional matters only with them. Day after day they sought to read my mind, and sniffed about me like dogs on a trail until I marveled at their behavior.
At length, after the third skull operation, a certain physician of exceptional wisdom and proficiency approached me and said, “Royal Sinuhe, you must have observed that the House of Life is emptier than in former days and that our knowledge is less sought after than it once was, although there are as man*y sick people as ever in Thebes, and more. You have traveled in many countries, Sinuhe, and seen many cures, yet I doubt if you have seen such healing as is performed secretly in Thebes today. This healing requires neither knife nor fire, neither medicine nor bandages. I have been instructed to tell you of it and to invite you to witness some examples. You must promise not to speak of what you see, and you must suffer your eyes to be blindfolded when you are conveyed to the sacred healing place, that you may remain in ignorance of where it lies.”
His words repelled me, for I feared trouble with Pharaoh, and yet my curiosity was aroused. I said, “I have indeed heard that strange things are happening in Thebes. Men tell tales and women see visions, but of cures I have heard nothing. As a physician I am exceedingly skeptical of cures effected without knife or fire, medicine or bandages, and I prefer not to involve myself in deceptions lest my name be taken falsely, to testify to things that do not exist and cannot occur.”