The Red Tent (24 page)

Then she turned, and I saw that her cheeks were wet. “My only life is here, by the river,” she said, her voice heavy with tears. “The bad fortune, the evil thing that stole my ka and cast it down amid beasts in the western wilderness, is over at last. I am restored to my family, to humankind, to the service of Re. I have consulted with the priests my brother serves, and it seems to them that your ka, your spirit, must belong here as well, or else you could not have survived your illness, or the journey, or this birth.”

Re-nefer looked upon the baby at my breast and with infinite tenderness said, “He will be protected against ill winds, evildoers, and naysayers. He will be a prince of Egypt.” And then, in a whisper that hid nothing of her resolve, “You will do as I say.”

At first, Re-nefer’s words held little meaning for me. I was careful never to call my son Bar-Shalem when anyone else was in the room, but otherwise I was his mother. Re-mose stayed with me day and night so that I could nurse him whenever he cried. He slept by my side, and I held him and played with him and memorized his every mood and feature.

For three months we lived in Re-nefer’s room. My son grew from hour to hour, becoming fat, and sleek, and the finest baby ever born. Under Meryt’s good care I healed completely, and in the heat of the afternoon, Re-nefer watched him so that I might bathe and sleep.

The days passed without shape or work, without memory. The baby at my breast was the center of the universe. I was the entire source of his happiness, and for a few weeks, the goddess and I were one and the same.

At the start of his fourth month, the family gathered in the great room where Nakht-re sat among his assistants. The women assembled along the walls as the men clustered around the baby and placed the tools of the scribe into his little hands. His fingers curled around new reed brushes, and he grasped a circular dish upon which his inks were mixed. He waved a scrap of papyrus in both hands like a fan, which delighted Nakht-re, who declared him born to the profession. So was my son welcomed into the world of men.

Only then did I remember the eighth day, when newborn boys of my family were circumcised and first-time mothers cowered in the red tent while the older women reassured them. My heart broke in two pieces, half mourning that the god of my father would not recognize this boy, nor would my brother Joseph or even his grandmothers. And yet I was fiercely proud that my son’s sex would remain whole, for why should he bear a scar that recalled the death of his own father? Why should he sacrifice his foreskin to a god in whose name I was widowed and my son orphaned?

That night there was a feast. I sat on the floor beside Re-nefer, who held the baby on her lap and plied his lips with mashed melon and tickled him with feathers and dandled him so that he laughed and smiled into the faces of the guests who came to celebrate the arrival to Nakht-re’s house of a new son.

Food and drink were brought in quantities I could not fathom: fish and game, fruit and sweets so rich they set the teeth on edge, wine and beer in abundance. Musicians played pipes and sistrums, instruments with lingling hammers that sound like nothing so much as falling water. There were silly songs, love songs, and songs to the gods. When the sistrums appeared, dancing girls ran to the floor, whirling and leaping, able to touch the tops of their heads to the ground behind them.

The headpieces given to every guest at the door were cones of perfumed wax, which melted as the evening waned in streams of lotus and lily. My baby was sticky with perfume when I lifted him, sound asleep, from Re-nefer’s lap, and the aroma clung to his dark hair for days.

Among the many wonders of my first banquet was the way women ate together with men. Husbands and wives sat side by side throughout the meal, and spoke to one another. I saw one woman place a hand upon her husband’s arm, and a man who kissed the fingers of his companion’s bejeweled hands. It was impossible to think of my own parents eating a meal in each other’s company, much less touching before others. But this was Egypt, and I was the stranger.

That night marked the end of my seclusion. My wound had healed and the child was healthy, so we were sent into the garden, where his mess did not soil the floors and where his prattle would not disturb the work of the scribes. So my days were spent outdoors. While my son napped in the flower beds, I weeded and gathered whatever the cook called for and learned the flowers and fruits of the land. When he woke, he was greeted by the songs of Egyptian birds, and his eyes widened in delight as they took flight.

The garden became my home and my son’s tutor. Re-mose took his first steps by the side of a large pond stocked with fish and fowl, which he watched in open-mouthed wonder. His first words—after “Ma”—were “duck” and “lotus.”

His grandmother brought him fine toys. Almost every day, she would surprise him with a ball or top or miniature hunting stick. Once, she presented him with a wooden cat whose mouth opened and closed by working a string. This marvel delighted me no less than the baby. My son loved Re-nefer, and when he saw her approach he would toddle to greet her with a hug.

I was not unhappy in the garden, Re-mose, who was healthy and sunny, gave me purpose and status, since everyone in the household adored him and credited me with his nice manner and pleasant temper.

Every day, I kissed my fingers and touched the statue of Isis, offering thanks to distribute among the multitude of Egypt’s goddesses and gods whose stories I did not know, in gratitude for the gift of my son. I gave thanks every time my son hugged me, and every seventh day I broke a piece of bread and fed it to the ducks and fish, in memory of my mothers’ sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven, and in prayer for the continued health of my Re-mose.

The days passed sweetly, and turned into months, consumed by the endless tasks of loving a child. I had no leisure for looking backward and no need of the future.

I would have stayed forever within the garden of Re-mose’s childhood, but time is a mother’s enemy. My baby was gone before I knew it, and then the hand-holding toddler was replaced by a running boy. He was weaned, and I lost the modesty of Canaan and wore a sheer linen shift like other Egyptian women. Re-mose had his hair shaved and shaped into the braided sidelock worn by all Egyptian children.

My son grew strong and sinewy, playing rough-and-tumble with Nakht-re, his uncle, whom he called Ba. They adored each other, and Re-mose accompanied him on duck-hunting parties. He could swim like a fish, according to Re-nefer. Though I never left the house and gardens, she went on the barge to watch. When he was only seven, my son could beat his uncle at senet and even twenty-squares, elaborate board games that required strategy and logic to win. From the time he could hold a stick, Nakht-re showed my son how to make images on bits of broken stone, first as a game and then as teacher to student.

As he grew, Re-mose spent more time inside the house, observing Nakht-re at work, practicing his letters, eating the evening meal with his grandmother. One morning when he took breakfast with me in the kitchen, I saw him stiffen and blush when I split a fig with my teeth and handed him half. My son said nothing to cause me pain—but Re-mose stopped eating with me after that and began to sleep on the roof of the house, leaving me alone on my pallet in the garden, wondering where eight years had gone.

At nine, Re-mose came of the age when boys tied their first girdle, putting an end to his naked days. It was time for him to go to school and become a scribe. Nakht-re decided that the local teachers were not accomplished enough for his nephew, and he would attend the great academy in Memphis, where the sons of the most powerful scribes received their training and commissions, and where Nakht-re himself had been taught. He explained all of this to me in the garden or one morning. He spoke gently and with compassion, for he knew how much it would grieve me to see Re-mose go.

Re-nefer scoured the markets for the right baskets for his clothing, for sandals that would last, for a perfect box in which to put his brushes. She commissioned a sculptor to carve a slate for mixing ink. Nakht-re planned a great banquet in honor of Re-mose’s departure and made him a gift of an exquisite set of brushes. Re-mose’s eyes were large with excitement at the prospect of going out into the world, and he spoke about his journey whenever we were together.

I watched the preparations from the bottom of a dark well. If I tried to speak to my son, my eyes overflowed and my throat closed. He did his best to comfort me. “I am not dying, Ma,” he told me, with a serious sweetness that made me sadder still. “I will return with gifts for you, and when I am a great scribe like Ba, I will build you a house with the biggest garden in all of the Southern Lands.” He hugged me and held my hand many times in the days before his departure. He kept his chin high so that I would not think him afraid or unhappy, though of course he was just a little boy, leaving his mothers and his home for the first time. I kissed him for the last time in the garden near the pond where he had marveled at the fish and laughed at the ducks, and then Nakht-re took his hand.

I watched them leave the house from the rooftop, a cloth stuffed in my mouth so that I could finally weep until I was empty. That night, the old dream returned in all its force, and I was alone in Egypt once more.

CHAPTER TWO

F
ROM THE MOMENT of his birth, my life revolved around my son. My thoughts did not stray from his happiness and my heart beat with his. His delights were my delight, and because he was such a golden child, my days were filled with purpose and pleasantness.

When he left, I was even lonelier than I had been when I first found myself in Egypt. Shalem was my husband for a few short weeks and his memory had dwindled to a sad shadow who haunted my sleep, but Re-mose had been with me for the whole of my adult life. In the space of his years, my body had taken its full shape and my heart had grown in wisdom, for I understood what it was to be a mother.

When I glimpsed myself in the pond, I saw a woman with thin lips, curling hair, and small, round, foreign eyes. How little I resembled my dark, handsome son, who looked more like his uncle than anyone else and who was becoming what Re-nefer had prophesied: a prince of Egypt.

I had little time to brood about my loneliness, for I had to earn my place in the great house of Nakht-re. Although Re-nefer was never unkind, with Re-mose gone we had less to say to each other, and I felt the silence grow ominous between us. I rarely went into the house.

I made myself a place in the corner of a garden shed used to store scythes and hoes—a spot where Re-mose used to hide his treasures: smooth stones, feathers, bits of papyrus gleaned from Nakht-re’s hall. He left these things behind without a backward glance, but I kept them wrapped in a scrap of fine linen, as though they were ivory teraphim and not merely a child’s discarded toys.

The men who tended the garden did not object to having a woman among them. I worked hard, and they appreciated my knack with the flowers and fruit, which I supplied to the cooks. I did not want company and rebuffed the attentions of men so often that they stopped seeking me out. When I saw my son’s family enjoying the shade of the garden, we nodded and exchanged nothing more than polite greetings.

When there was word of Re-mose from Memphis, Nakht-re himself brought me the news sent by Kar, the master teacher who had been his own instructor. Thus I learned that Re-mose had mastered something called keymt in only two years—a feat of memorization that proved my son would rise high, and perhaps even serve the king himself.

There was never any word of his coming home. Re-mose was invited to go hunting with the governor’s sons, and it would not do to reject such an auspicious offer. Then my son was chosen as an apprentice and aid to Kar when the master was called to rule upon a case of law, which took up the weeks during which other boys visited their families.

Once, Nakht-re and Re-nefer visited Re-mose in Memphis, making pilgrimage to their father’s tomb there. They returned with fond greetings to me and news of his growth; after four years away he was taller than Nakht-re, well spoken and self-assured. They also brought proofs of his education—shards of pottery that were covered with writing. “Look,” said Nakht-re, pointing a finger at the image of a falcon. “See how strong he makes the shoulders of Horus.” They made me a gift of this treasure from my son’s hand. I marveled over it and showed it to Meryt, who was duly impressed at the regularity and beauty of his images. I was awed by the fact that my son could discern meaning from scratchings on broken clay bits, and took comfort in the knowledge that he would be a great man someday. He could be scribe to the priests of Amun or perhaps even vizier to a governor. Had Nakht-re himself not said that Re-mose might even aspire to the king’s service? But of course, none of these dreams filled my arms or comforted my eyes. I knew my son was growing to manhood and feared that the next time I saw him, we would be strangers.

I might have vanished during those long years without anyone taking more than passing notice except for Meryt. But Meryt was always there, unfailing in kindness even when I turned away from her and gave her no reason to love me.

The midwife had come to see me every day in the weeks after Re-mose’s birth. She tended my bandages and brought broth made of ox bones for strength, and sweet beer for my milk. She rubbed my shoulders where they were stiff from cradling the baby, and she helped me to my feet for my first real bath as a mother, pouring cool, scented water over my back, wrapping me in a fresh towel.

Long after my confinement was over, Meryt continued her visits. She fussed over my health and delighted in the baby; she examined him closely and gave him slow, sensuous massages that helped him sleep for hours. On the day he was weaned, Meryt even brought me a gift—a small obsidian statue of a nursing mother. I was confused by her generosity, but when I tried to refuse any of her attentions or gifts, she insisted. “The midwife’s life is not easy, but that is no reason for it to be unlovely,” she said.

Meryt always spoke to me as one midwife to another. No matter that I had not seen the inside of a birthing room since my own son was born; she continued to honor the skill I had shown at Re-mose’s birth. When she returned to her own house after my son was born, she asked her mistress to learn what she could about me; her lady, Ruddedit, had sought out the story from Re-nefer, who provided only a few details. Meryt took these and wove them into a fabulous tale.

As Meryt told it, I was the daughter and granddaughter of mid-wives who knew the ways of herbs and barks even better than the necromancers of On, where the healing arts of Egypt are taught. She believed me a princess of Canaan, the descendant of a great queen who had been overthrown by an evil king.

I did not correct her, fearing that if I named my mothers or Inna the whole of my history would come pouring out of me and I would be thrown out of the house and my son cast out for bearing the blood of murderers in his veins. So Meryt embroidered my history, which she repeated to the women that she met, and they were many, as she attended most of the births of the northern precincts, noble and lowborn alike. She told the tale of how I had saved my son’s life with my own hands, always leaving out her own part in it. She spoke of my skill with herbs and of the renown I had earned in the western wilderness as a healer. These things she imagined entirely on her own. And when I helped one of Nakht-re’s servants deliver her first baby, Meryt spread the news of how I turned it inside the womb in the sixth month. Thanks to Meryt, I became a legend among the local women without once venturing out of Nakht-re’s garden.

Meryt had her own story to tell. Though she had been born in Thebes, her mother’s blood was mingled with that of the distant south and her skin showed the color of Nubia. But unlike Bilhah, whose face would appear to me while Meryt chattered on, she was tall and stately. “Had I not become a midwife,” she said, “I should have liked to be a dancing girl, hired for grand parties in the great houses and even the king’s own palace.

“But that life goes too fast,” she said, with a mock sigh. “I am already too fat to dance for princes,” slapping at the skin beneath her skinny arm, which did not budge, and breaking into a laugh I could not resist.

Meryt could make anyone laugh. Even women deep in travail forgot their agony to smile at her jokes. When he was little, Re-mose called her “Ma’s friend” even before I realized that she was truly my friend, and a blessing.

I knew everything there was to know about Meryt, for she loved to talk. Her mother was a cook married to a baker, and known as a singer, too. She was often called upon to entertain at the parties of her master. Her voice caused audiences to shudder with pleasure at its deep resonance. “Had she not been bare-breasted, they would have doubted she was a woman at all,” Meryt said.

But the mother died when her daughter was still a girl and the household had no use for her, so Meryt was sent to the place where she lived even to the days when I knew her. As a child, she carried water for Ruddedit, a daughter of On, where the priests are famous as magicians and healers. The lady looked kindly upon Meryt, and when she saw that Meryt was clever, Ruddedit sent her to learn from the local granny midwife, a woman with uncommonly long fingers who brought luck to her mothers, Meryt grew to womanhood in that house and, like her mother, married a baker there. He was a good man who treated her well. But Meryt was barren, and nothing could induce her womb to bear fruit. After many years, Meryt and her man adopted two boys whose parents had been felled by river fever. The sons were now grown to manhood and baked bread for the workers in the village of the tomb-makers, on the west bank of the river.

Her husband was long dead, and Meryt, though she saw her sons rarely, often boasted of their skills and health. “My boys have the most beautiful teeth you’ve ever seen,” she would say solemnly, for her own mouth was a pit of decay and she chewed marjoram all day to ease the pain.

For years, Meryt spared me no detail of her life in hope that I would share some hint of mine. Finally, she gave up asking me about myself, but never ceased inviting me to attend upon birthing women with her. She would stop at Nakht-re’s house and request of Herya or Re-nefer that I be permitted to accompany her. The ladies deferred to me, but I always declined. I had no wish to stray from Re-mose, nor had I any desire to see the world. I had not stepped outside the grounds since I arrived, and as the months became years, I came to fear the very thought. I was certain I would be lost, or worse, somehow discovered. I imagined that someone would recognize the sin of my family upon my face and I would be torn apart on the spot. My son would discover the truth about his mother and about her brothers, his uncles. He would be exiled from the good life that he seemed destined to inherit, and he would curse my memory.

I was ashamed of these secret fears, which made me turn my back on the lessons taught to me by Rachel and Inna, and thus upon their memory. My worthlessness imprisoned me; still I could not do what I knew I should.

Meryt never gave up. Sometimes, if a birth went badly, she returned afterward, even in the dead of night, waking me from my pallet in the garden shed to tell the story and ask how she might have done better. Often I could reassure her that she had done the best anyone could do, and we would sit silently together. But sometimes I would hear a story and my heart would sink. Once, when a woman had died very suddenly giving birth, Meryt did not think to take up a knife to try to free the baby in the womb, so both of them perished. I did not shield my dismay well enough, and Meryt saw my face.

“Tell me, then,” she demanded, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Do not curl your lip when you might have saved the baby. Teach me at least, that I might try.”

Shamed by Meryt’s tears, I began to speak of Inna’s methods, her way with a knife, her tricks at manipulation. I tried to explain her use of herbs, but I lacked the Egyptian names for plants and roots. So Meryt brought her herbal kit, and we began to translate. I described my mothers’ ways with nettle, fennel, and coriander, and she scoured the markets searching out leaves and seeds I had not seen since childhood.

Meryt brought me samples of every flower and stem sold at the wharf. Some of it was familiar but some of it stank, especially the local concoctions which depended upon dead things: bits of dried animals, ground rocks and shells, and excrement of every description. Egyptian healers applied the dung of water horses and alligators and the urine of horses and children to various parts of the body in different seasons. There were times that the most odious preparations appeared to help, but I was always amazed that a people so concerned with bodily cleanliness would accept such foul remedies.

Although Egyptian herbal lore was deep and old, I was pleased to find methods and plants of which they knew little. Meryt found cumin seed in the marketplace, and she was surprised to learn that it aided the healing of wounds. She bought hyssop and mint with their roots still intact, and they flourished in the pungent black soil of Egypt. No one suffered from a sour stomach in the house of Nakhtre again. Thus Meryt became famous for “her” exotic herbal cures, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that my mothers’ wisdom was being put to good use.

My quiet life ended during the fourth year after Re-mose left the house of Nakht-re, when Ruddedit’s daughter came to stand upon the bricks.

Her name was Hatnuf, and she was in a bad way. Her first baby had been born dead—full-sized and perfect in every feature, but lifeless. After years of miscarrying, another child had finally taken root, but she faced this labor in terror, and after a full day of travail, the pains had not advanced the baby’s progress. Meryt was in attendance, and the lady of the house had sent for a physician-priest, who chanted prayers and hung the room with amulets and set a pile of herbs and goat dung to smoking while Hatnuf crouched over it.

But the smell had caused the mother to faint, and in falling, the girl cut her forehead and bled. After that, Ruddedit banished the doctor from the room and had him wait outside the front door, where he recited incantations in the nasal drone of a priest. Day turned to night again, and night began to brighten to another dawn, and still the pains did not abate, nor did the baby move. Hatnuf, the lady’s only daughter, was nearly dead with fear and pain when Meryt suggested I be summoned.

This time, it was not a matter of being asked. Meryt appeared at the doorway of my garden hut with Ruddedit standing in the dawn’s light behind her. Weariness barely dimmed the beauty in a face no longer young. “Den-ner,” she said, in the accents of Egypt, “you must come and do what you can for my child. We have nothing left to try. The smell of Anubis is in the birth chamber already. Bring your kit and follow me.”

Meryt quickly told me the story, and I grabbed a few herbs I’d been drying in the rafters of my shed. The lady was nearly running. I barely had time to realize that I was out of the garden. We walked past the front of Nakht-re’s house, and I remembered the day I first saw the place, a lifetime earlier. Sunlight caught the gold-tipped flagpoles in front of the great temple, where banners hung lifeless in the still of the dawn. Ruddedit’s house was just on the other side of the temple, so it took no time to reach the antechamber where Hatnuf lay whimpering on the floor, surrounded by the servants of the house, who were nearly as exhausted as the laboring mother.