Her answer was logical and well thought out but could still be the clever words of a performer.
“Ah, Ankhtifi, do you not remember me?” she said. “My heart, my ka, lives in you. You are my life. You are my other. The one cannot know itself without the other; the other cannot exist without the one.”
“What connection could I have with you? I don’t know you,” I said, yet part of me thrummed and sang in response to her words.
“It is no wonder you don’t know me,” she said. “You are transformed. Your ba, the eternal spirit that your priests call the soul, has taken a new form, and your ka, the life in your heart, is reborn and forgets all except the tastes, the thoughts, the desires, of this existence. I know you, however, despite your skin is pale, your features sharper. I still covet those lips.” Her gaze told me she yearned to touch me, and I drew back a little. She coughed again, and more dirt befouled her lips. I felt shame for cringing from her. I reached for the pitcher. “Would you like some water?”
“I would,” she rasped, “but I am afraid. My organs may be … incomplete.”
I swallowed hard. “How about if I dab your lips and forehead instead?” I said hastily, and I dipped my handkerchief in the water with nervous little jabs. Half of me believed her, half of me thought her a clever and ill young actress. As I bathed her face, I noticed her lips were plumper.
“I will tell you of us,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “Lean over me that I may see your cherished eyes.”
I did as she instructed, still wary, but eager to hear the tale she would concoct. “Wouldn’t you like me to free your arms?” I asked.
Her eyes flashed fear. “It is not time,” she said. “Only listen.”
Mummy or ossified woman, she must need the bandages for support.
“In that life,” she said, “Kemet was ruled by invaders from the land my scholar called ‘Palestine.’ They took our ways as well as our land, but they mocked us by naming their pharaoh Apophis, after the snake of the netherworld. Worse,” she said, “they raised the worship of Set over the other gods. Set, who killed Osiris, the husband of Isis, cut him to pieces and cast him into the Nile.
“My father worked as a scribe of the court,” she continued. “He supervised the records of the royal stores. His house was prosperous, and my mother had many servants to guide.”
She moaned.
“Do you hurt?” I asked, not sure what I could do if she did.
“Yes,” she answered. “I hurt with all time lost. That life is all gone. Except for you.” The smile she attempted unsettled me, but her lips now covered more of her teeth. How could that be?
I tried not to dwell on that. It was too strange. “And you were a dancer?” I prompted.
“I was,” she agreed. “When I became a woman, I entered the temple of Hathor as a priestess.” Her eyes glowed and her voice took on a breathy youth. “When I danced, I became the goddess on earth.” Her odor sweetened, as if capturing the memory of that goddess.
I tried to imagine this wizened, leathery body that lay rigid in yellowed, crumbling linen as a beautiful dancer, and I could not. She was spinning a tale to please me, like any sideshow fakir.
Tauseret was unaware of my doubt. “But when I danced at the feast of Min during the time of inundation, I caught the eye of a man whom one should not be noticed by,” she said. Her voice cracked. “Sethnakhte.”
I don’t know why, but I shivered.
“He was of mixed foreign and Kemet blood and had trav-eled,” she told me. “He knew languages, and the court valued him in talks with foreign kings. He had studied in the temple of Set at Tanis. He knew the ways of khemi—magic, you would call it, or maybe science. The pharaoh, impressed by his knowledge, made him priest of Set in Avaris, servant of the despised god of deserts, storms, and war.
“The servants of Sethnakhte followed me all feast day. They gave me flowers. They laid sweet fruits before me. They entreated me to come to him, until I finally agreed, if only to put an end to his attentions.
“I met him in a palm arbor. He stood too close to me, and his breath stank of the pellets of natron that he chewed to cleanse himself, the same natron used to preserve the bodies of the dead. I saw the lust on his face as he asked me to be his mate. I feared the anger of a powerful man, but he was much too old. I should marry a beautiful youth, not a man twice my age. I tried to refuse.
“He trapped me against a tree and threatened me with the unwelcome length of his body as well as his words. With the same lips he pressed against my neck he said he could prove that my father wrote false records for his own gain. His accusations were not true, but Sethnakhte had the ear of the pharaoh. What chance did a lesser man have? For love of my father I submitted.
“As soon as I moved my possessions to his house, he demanded that I forsake my service to her of music, dance, and happiness, as that did not become the wife of Set’s priest. What husband is shamed to have a dancer of Hathor under his roof?” Her voice strengthened with her wrath.
“I threatened to take him in front of the judges. Again he promised to ruin my father. I had no choice. I took off my menat and laid my sistrum down. More fool he, for the menat stands for joy and fertility. He would have neither of me. I shuddered in repulsion at his touch, and my body rejected his seed. In turn he treated me with disdain for my barrenness. He called me less than a woman, yet he forced me repeatedly to his bed.”
I found Tauseret’s honesty brutal.
“I lived in misery,” Tauseret told me. “I relished my freedom in the hours he worked on the documents he brought home to translate.”
She fell silent, perhaps to gather strength. I let her be and listened to the gentle, chirping night as I watched over her. Far away a train whistle blew. Her head jerked and her eyes widened.
“It’s just a train,” I said. “A steam carriage.”
She nodded solemnly. Her lower lip trembled. “Yes, my scholar spoke of trains, but I didn’t know they screamed. I thought I’d heard the Eater of Souls.”
As if in response to the lonely train whistle, a child cried inconsolably.
“Ah,” said Tauseret, “the little seer frets.”
“You do talk to Minnie!” I exclaimed with relief. “You’re just a real girl after all.”
Tauseret’s lips twitched into a smile. “I do not speak to her with my mouth. She can see my ka—my double that speaks for me. You saw it too.”
“Lady T.,” Minnie had called the mummy, and said she was pretty. I stared at the creature that lay before me and tried to see what Minnie did, what I had seen in my dreams. I found that impossible. “Maybe Minnie does have a gift,” I muttered.
“Indeed,” answered Tauseret, “but she is too young to understand much of what she sees.”
“I wonder why she’s crying,” I said, unsure if I should go and help, but reluctant to leave this newfound mystery. “Perhaps she’s had a nightmare.”
“It’s death,” said Tauseret. “She sees death.”
21
DEATH?” I ASKED, AND LOOKED over my shoulder before I could help it.
“She may have seen an animal die on a farm down the road,” Tauseret answered. “Or a man meet his end a thousand miles away. The death could be this night or next year. Her visions keep her awake. She whispers what she sees to me, but I have had no arms to comfort her.”
Even now Tauseret’s arms were immobile, crossed down her front, tied at the wrists at hip level, individually bound with ancient cloth. “How did you end this way?” I asked to change the subject. My heart would break if I dwelled too long on a tiny child who could foresee death. There were others to comfort Minnie; Tauseret was here alone.
“Since you cannot remember, I will tell you,” she said, and her little yellow teeth looked ready to bite. I felt aggrieved. How would I remember?
“On one of my cherished visits home, my father brought a student from the school of court to the evening meal,” Tauseret told me. “I was married. I sho
uld have looked at the food and not at him, but he had the body of an acrobat and the eyes of a poet, and I could not look away. I wanted to know the limits of that body. I wanted poetry from those lips.” She turned her head to me, as far as her bindings would allow. “That man was you, Ankhtifi.”
My cheeks burned. She lay there in tatters, yet now I heard the voice of a voluptuous woman. And I knew that voice. Excitement and fear knotted together in my throat. It was the voice of the woman who had haunted my dreams. How could this be? “How old are you?” I asked. These had to be the day-dreams of a girl. She couldn’t really be an ancient dancer from the past.
She smiled, and the skin of her cheeks folded like oiled leather and no longer threatened to crack. “How old am I? I have lost count,” she said. “But then … I had celebrated eight-een inundations. I was a woman grown.” Did I detect a hint of self-mockery?
“I changed my opinion of you when you asked about my husband,” she said. “You proclaimed you admired him. How I seethed when you said you wished to discuss theology with him, but a disciple would distract my husband from me, therefore I arranged a meeting. I underestimated my husband’s thirst for praise; he sucked up your attentions like a parched man drinks water. You asked his opinion on the Book of the Dead. You gasped at his collection of rare scrolls, the ones I knew he had bought to impress the pharaoh and never read. You remarked on his taste. I wanted to vomit. You offered to order his library for him, and soon you were a constant visitor and had the run of the house, like a pet.
“Yet you didn’t confine your attentions to my husband. You watched me constantly, and I was infuriated.” She must have stared at this Ankhtifi quite a bit herself, to notice how often he looked at her.
“You don’t remember this?” she rasped. “Nothing?”
I shook my head.
“Where are you, Ankhtifi?” she muttered. She took a rattling breath. “One day everything changed. I came home from the market and found you creeping from my husband’s study with a papyrus roll in your arms.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I remembered the dream I’d had on my first night in Mrs. Delaney’s house. “I was stealing,” I said in a small voice.
“And I discovered you,” Tauseret answered with delight. “‘Chantress of Hathor, be my ally,’ you begged, and, safe in the garden, you told me who you really were.”
“But I don’t know who I was supposed to be,” I said. This was crazy. “It was just a dream.”
“You were a soldier in the army of Kamose of Thebes,” Tauseret told me. “Sworn to drive the foreign rulers from our land. You gathered information for the rebel army to use. The documents my husband had might save the kingdoms of the sun. I already thought you were beautiful, but now I admired you,” she said, caressing me with her gaze. “Your bravery thrilled me. You were no puppy of my husband’s, but his nemesis. ‘I will return the scrolls once you have copied them,’ I promised. I brazenly slid my arms around your neck and gently touched your lips with mine. You trembled, and I believed it was for fear of discovery or, worse yet, fear of me. Shamed, I released you, but desire ignited in your eyes. You pulled me to your chest, and you kissed me in return as if you would devour me. I lost my breath as your hands turned my flesh to fire and your mouth made hot, sweet honey of me.” She sighed with the memory. “I seduced you in that bower, and you became mine.”
For a moment her voice carried me away, but when I looked at her wizened form, I couldn’t begin to think what she told me was possible. She couldn’t be that girl in the dream, and the dream couldn’t be real. Parts of me shriveled at the idea. Tauseret laughed at her memories of happiness, unaware of my silent rejection, and I felt sorry.
“We met often,” she said. “You brought me poems—sad and yearning for what you could not have all for yourself—then you tried to wipe away that sorrow with desperate pleasure. You were my cat that drove away the snakes.” Her voice still sounded throaty, but richer now, with the hint of a purr.
“I ached that I could not shed my husband like a useless skin, but I was yours alone, despite him, and I gave you a token of that—a scarab ring. The scarab beetle is Khepri the sun, which rises like the scorching heat that rose in my loins for you; the scarab protects the heart and means rebirth. I had it blessed at the temple of Hathor, she who is love, so our love would never die.”
I rubbed the band of the ring on my hand with my thumb, but I dared not look. A peculiar dizziness overtook me.
“I remember clearly,” Tauseret said. “We were by the fountain, and the dance of the water was reflected in your eyes.”
A shiver ran down my spine. I had seen that in another dream the first night I owned the ring. I remembered the clay tile walls of the garden, the abundant flowers, and a beautiful woman who couldn’t possibly be this corpse.
“I loved that fountain,” Tauseret said. “The sound of the water calmed my spirit, and the lotus flowers that grew there delighted me.”
“The lotuses grew in the still pool at the center of the garden,” I blurted out. “The fountain had lotus-patterned tiles on the rim.” I choked on my last word. I had scared myself.
“Yes, you are right,” she exclaimed. “And you remember!” She slowly closed and opened her eyes in satisfaction. “I asked you to keep the ring always in remembrance of me.” Her voice trembled with excitement. “The centuries have passed, but you were true to your word, you wear my ring still.”
“No,” I said, my fist clenching. “How could this be that ring? It was given to me less than two months ago.”
“Do not deny me,” she pleaded, her voice full of hurt. “Look on the back of the stone.”
I removed the ring and searched within the band, using my left hand to shield it from her view, but I already knew she would tell me what lay there.
“I had an inscription carved on the back of the scarab,” she said. “First is the half circle that represents the ‘tuh’ sound that begins my name. It looks like the rising sun of rebirth. Second the ankh—a looped-top stick with a crossbar; it is the symbol for life and the sound that begins your name. Thus, we were joined in heart, in life, and in rebirth.”
I swallowed hard. Indeed, the symbols on the back of the scarab were a half circle and a sort of cross. There was no way she could have known they were there unless her story was true.
“It is a spell that plays with words,” she said. “For the sym-bol ‘tuh,’ which looks like the rising sun of rebirth, is really a rounded loaf of bread. The loaf of bread might make someone think of another symbol, ‘dee,’ which is also shown as bread of a different type, and together with the ankh means ‘given life,’ which is the spell written in tombs to ensure a person might live forever. Remember, the scarab beetle means ‘rebirth’ also, so I gave you a symbol of rebirth three times over—a magic number. I believe that ring has sustained our love over the centuries.”
How could I deny what she said? For when I had put the ring on my finger and laid that hand on her breast, that’s when her eyes had opened. I had given her life. “What happened to you and Ankhtifi?” I whispered, afraid to know.
She looked upon me with a gaze that was oh so sad. “You discovered plans for the deployment of mercenaries,” she answered. “Excitement made you rash. You caught me in the empty corridor outside the kitchens and told me you must return to Thebes with the information. I pleaded with you to take me along. I would forgo my dowry to be free and divorce my husband in Thebes. You were afraid for my safety but finally agreed. You met me that night in the gardens. If only I hadn’t begged you to come back for me, you would have been safe.” Eons-old torment sobbed in her voice.
I knew what was coming. Someone in the kitchens had overheard our plans. We would be caught. We? When had I accepted that? “Your husband,” I murmured. “He said if you condemned me as a spy, said I had forced myself upon you, he would protect you.”
“He wanted to protect his name, that is all,” she answered.
Her fingers t
witched in the rags that bound them and startled me. I laid my hand over hers to calm them and give them warmth.
Tauseret gazed at me, eyes luminous with love. “I could not betray you. You had taught my heart to soar with Horus in a few short weeks. Because of me, you would die. I could not let the last words you heard be my denial of you.”
I glanced away, humbled. I hoped the Ankhtifi I used to be understood she had condemned herself for him.
Tauseret’s plaintive voice drew my eyes back. “They cut off your head in front of my eyes. As my husband’s servants dragged me off, all I could see was your blood splattered over the garden where we’d loved.”
She fell silent. Her eyes were haunted.
I realized I was clutching a hand to my neck. I lowered it, hoping she hadn’t noticed, but Tauseret stared past me as if she saw that blood even now, and I stroked her ravaged cheek even though I felt sick. “Here I am, safe and sound,” I said, as much to reassure me as her, but she had gone beyond my touch, deep inside the terror of her past.
“They took me into the bowels of the temple of Set,” she told me. “To a chamber that stank of khemi. ‘Where is my trial?’ I cried. ‘Where is the judge?’
“‘I am your judge,’ my husband growled. ‘You have shamed a priest of Set.’
“‘My parents will demand to know where I am.’
“‘They will think you eloped with that adulterer,’ he told me.
“‘Will you kill me?’ I wailed. ‘That is more than the law allows. I should be banished.’
“‘I will not kill you,’ he said. ‘I will deny you death.’ Madness lit his eyes. His servants held me tight while he pinched my nose and poured a noxious fluid down my throat that sapped the strength from my limbs. He then stuffed my mouth with foul powders.”
I grimaced and wondered if that was the tar I’d wiped from her lips.
Freaks: Alive, on the Inside! Page 18
