Song of the Nile
Page 55
The next day, they decided to press on to Denderah to visit the Temple of Hathor, which her father had always praised for the magnificence of its decoration. Given the Goddess Hathor was the patron of the Pharaony home, it seemed only right that she and Phares should visit. Both agreed that they couldn’t pass by without stopping, although it would take the whole day and part of the night to get there. They didn’t mind, though. They loved every part of this leisurely cruise, discovering each other’s minds during the days and their bodies during the nights.
As if in some languid dream they passed the cool green reaches of Manfalout on the west bank and its picturesque terraced gardens by the waterside; they saw crested minarets and fretted domes, and floated on to where the Arabian Desert again closed in and precipitous mountain crags frowned over the river.
From time to time, a monotonous chant on three notes, which must surely have been heard by the very first pharaohs themselves, echoed at different places along the shore. Half-naked men on the banks, with torsos of bronze and voices all alike, intoned it in the morning when commencing their labours and continued throughout the day, until the evening brought them repose. Aida loved this song of the water drawers – the song of the shaduf, accompanied by the slow cadences of creaking wet wood. She found the movements of the men manoeuvring it to have a singular beauty: one man would lower the wooden lever to draw water from the river while the next would catch the filled bucket in its ascent, emptying it into a basin made out of the mud of the riverbank.
With both sails set and flying before the wind, they saw the panorama unfold itself rapidly, mile after mile, hour after hour. Villages, palm groves, rock-cut sepulchres all flitted past and were left behind.
They arrived at Denderah in the early morning. In the pre-dawn, the Nile was the colour of ink, the current invisible on its glassy surface. Morning mists hung across the top of the water and the stillness was such that the silhouettes of the robed figures of the crew, huddled in blankets on the shore, seemed transfixed. A couple of feluccas had joined their dahabeyeh for the night and together, the boats moored at the side of the darkening river evoked the ancient and romantic scenes of a David Roberts painting.
Phares and Aida waited until the sun was up before starting their journey to the ruins, four kilometres away. A crowd of boys with their donkeys were waiting for any foreigners wanting to visit the temple, although today there were few people except some local guides sitting around smoking and fellahin in the neighbouring fields. The heat had dropped and there was a pleasant breeze, so unusual for a summer’s day. Phares hired a couple of donkeys and, along with one of the boys, they made their way to the Temple of Hathor.
They came to a plain, green and level as a lake, widening out to the foot of the mountains – and the temple, islanded in that sea of rippling emerald, rose up before them upon its platform of stone and blackened mounds of earth. Although they were still far off, it looked enormous, a sharply defined mass of dead-white masonry. The walls sloped in slightly towards the top and the façade appeared to be supported on six massive columns, with the remnants of a large stone doorway still standing in the centre of the courtyard leading to the main temple building.
‘It looks very naked and solemn,’ Aida remarked. ‘More like a tomb than a temple.’
‘That’s because we’re too far away to distinguish any of the carvings or images of legends on the walls,’ Phares answered, squinting into the distance. ‘I’ve visited this temple before, and trust me, the paintings are remarkable and so well preserved.’
As they drew nearer and the ground rose, the details of the temple gradually became more distinct. It was surrounded by a hefty mud brick enclosure. Inside the boundary, rows of ruined walls showed the original position of the ancient streets and what was once their buildings.
And now they were close enough for Aida to see that the huge, round columns of the façade were topped with stone-headed Hathor capitals, the rays of the sun seeming to light a spark of life in their carved eyes and accentuate the melancholy smile that gives most Egyptian statues such a mysterious attraction. And the walls, instead of being smooth and tomb-like, were covered with a multitude of sculpted figures.
‘It’s one of the only temples with its roof intact,’ Phares told her as they dismounted, leaving their donkeys with the boy. While he waved away a couple of men trying to sell them trinkets, Aida watched as the boy led the animals over to a man sitting by the ruins of the great doorway. Then she felt Phares take her hand, leading her quickly towards the pillared entrance of the imposing temple.
‘Those zodiacs and murals on the ceilings are so detailed and vivid in colour, it’s like they were painted only yesterday,’ Aida murmured in awe as they entered the magnificent edifice. She felt dwarfed by the gargantuan columns rising up to the vaulted ceiling, each covered with elaborate carved reliefs set against exquisitely painted blue backgrounds.
Phares still held her hand. ‘Come, let’s climb up the staircase to the roof. You’ll see how intricately the zodiac has been carved into the ceiling.’
The effect of the portico as Aida stood at the top of the staircase was one of overwhelming majesty. Hieroglyphs, emblems, strange forms of kings and gods covered every foot of wall space, frieze and pillar. Images of the sky goddess, Nut, swallowing Ra, the sun god, at dusk to birth him back to the world at dawn were spread out all along the walls.
Phares gestured towards one of the paintings, his mouth curving with amusement. ‘I can tell you, the god Amon himself, the procreator, is often crudely drawn, but even he would seem chaste compared with the hosts of this temple.’
The beautiful goddess Hathor – her throat, her hips, her unveiled nakedness – was portrayed with a searching and lingering realism; her flesh seemed almost to quiver. She and her handsome spouse contemplated each other naked, their laughing eyes seemingly alive and intoxicated with love.
‘Our ancestors, no doubt,’ Aida added, raising her gaze to Phares with an intimate smile.
He slipped his hand around her waist and kissed her lightly on the lips before turning back to the depiction of Hathor and her husband Horus. ‘Sex was an important part of life in Ancient Egypt, untainted by guilt. Both singles and married couples made love, and even the gods themselves were earthy enough to copulate. People think that the Kama Sutra was the first sex manual of its kind, but there is a famous Ancient Egyptian papyrus painting discovered at Deir el-Medina in the early nineteenth century, created during the Ramses period, that pre-dates it.’ He grinned at her mischievously. ‘It portrays in the most erotic way what went on between the bedsheets in Ancient Egypt.’
‘Really? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘It’s in the Museo Egizio in Turin. I’m sure your father would have been familiar with it. The museum houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities, after Cairo, that is. I’d like to take you there one day.’
Aida glanced up at him with laughter in her eyes. ‘I never knew that you were so knowledgeable about Ancient Egyptian erotica.’
Phares winked at her. ‘There are many things you don’t know about me, chérie.’
I bet, she thought, as they moved off to continue their walk through the temple. As each day passed, she was beginning to discover more and more about her new husband and she’d already realised that Phares had a deeper side to him that he didn’t show off to the world, and she admired him for that. It made him seem mysterious, which only enhanced his appeal, but she wished that he would share more of himself with her. There were always things about him that felt out of reach.
It was as they were finally leaving the site that Aida noticed the Bedouin for the first time. She knew that he was a Bedouin, not only because he had a different build to the fellahin in the fields and the guides who hovered around the monuments, but also because of the way he dressed, his pure white keffiyeh shawl wrapped around his head and face, showing only his eyes. In his hand he held a string of blue beads and a knife was hung on
a belt around his waist. He seemed to be following them and now that Aida thought about it, she realised he had been sitting by the entrance when they arrived, talking to the boy with the donkeys.
As they approached their young guide, Phares dropped back a little. When Aida looked back, she noticed that he was in deep conversation with the Bedouin, who appeared to be showing him something. Phares’s tall frame was in the way and Aida couldn’t make out what it was, but she noticed that the keffiyeh had now slipped from the man’s face. His well-chiselled features, the thin, hooked nose and high cheekbones, were unmistakable – she had seen Bedouin tribesmen like this at the prince’s oasis. A strange sense of foreboding crept over her, but she brushed it aside, putting it down to the memory of her unpleasant experience at Wahat El Nakheel, which was still vivid in her mind.
The two men did not speak for long, but then Aida saw Phares shove something in his pocket before making his way back to her.
‘Who was that?’
He shrugged. ‘Oh, one of those pedlars. They always hang around the sites, pestering people and trying to trick them into buying their stuff,’ he told her lightly.
‘He’s a Bedouin.’
‘Maybe … they’re all Bedouins around here.’
She frowned. ‘Did you buy anything from him?’
‘No, why would I do that?’
Aida didn’t insist, but she was sure that she had seen Phares put something in his pocket.
It had been a long and exhausting day. On the way back, the donkeys weren’t particularly cooperative either. At one point, Aida’s obstinate animal ran into a cornfield and refused to budge. She had to climb on to Phares’s donkey for part of the way so it took them double the time to reach their dahabeyeh.
They had supper on deck as the twilight gloom lay warm upon the landscape and afterwards had an early night. For once, Phares seemed restless and not very talkative. Aida put it down to tiredness and she was so exhausted herself that she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
It was three o’clock in the morning when she woke to find that Phares wasn’t lying next to her. The dahabeyeh was at a standstill, and although it was dark outside, she could see through the porthole that they were at Luxor. Puzzled, she got up, slipped on her dressing gown and went up on deck.
Phares was nowhere to be seen, but she found Mahmoud, the head boatman, sitting on one of the steps to the boat, drinking a glass of ink-coloured tea and smoking.
‘Feen el Bey? Where’s the Bey?’
The Nubian shrugged. ‘Maarafsh, I don’t know.’
‘Has he been gone long? Has something happened?’
Before the man could answer, Aida saw Phares drive up in his Jeep. A moment later, he was hurrying up the steps to the boat.
‘You’re up, chérie,’ he said, beaming.
‘Yes, where have you been? I was rather worried when I woke up and didn’t find you. And why are we in Luxor? Has anything happened? Aren’t we going to Philae next?’
Phares placed an arm around her shoulders and smiled reassuringly. ‘Slowly, slowly, so many questions … I’ll explain everything in good time, but for now, go and get dressed because we’re going out.’
‘Out?’ Aida stared at him. ‘Where?’
Taking her hand, he almost dragged her to the bedroom. ‘Just throw anything on, we’re not going far.’
His excitement was infectious. Aida found herself doing as he said and dressed quickly. While the mercurial side to her husband might have thrown other women, she found it fascinating as it suited her own taste for adventure.
She was ready in a few minutes and hand in hand, they almost ran to the Jeep, to the surprise of Mahmoud, who by now had risen and was standing at the bottom of the steps of the dahabeyeh with a bewildered expression on his face as they rushed past.
‘Where are we going?’ Aida asked again as Phares started up the Jeep.
But he wouldn’t tell her, just threw her a smile and drove along the dark, quiet roads while she leant her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes. She must have dozed a little as soon Aida heard Phares’s voice again.
‘Wake up, chérie, we’re here!’
Quickly sitting up, Aida looked around her and saw that they were at the temple complex at Karnak. She gave Phares a puzzled look, but he was already coming around to the passenger side to help her out.
They walked up to the temple and a man appeared and opened a pair of tall, wrought-iron doors for them.
It was dark inside. Aida reached for Phares and his hand closed round hers – warm, reassuring.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Why have you brought me here now?’
‘You’ll see, chérie. Come on.’
Aida had visited the remains of the temple in daylight and knew that it was beautiful when the sun shone on it, bringing out the details of the hieroglyphics carved into the yellow sandstone. But, tonight, there was only a thin crescent of a moon and the ruins were engulfed in an eerie darkness. The guard had lit his lantern, and had given one to Phares, but their feeble glimmer only emphasised, rather than dissipated, the darkness in which they moved. In the dancing shadow of the moving lanterns the half-buried pylons, the solitary obelisk, the giant head of the pharaoh rising in ghastly resurrection before the entrance to the temple, floated before their eyes for a moment, then suddenly faded away and were reabsorbed by the darkness. A vague presence seemed to hover in the gloom, pursuing them along the avenue of sphinxes and from chamber to chamber. At any moment at the turn of a corridor, Aida half expected to meet the figure of a priest come back to his post after centuries of absence, or to hear the jingling of distant timbrels pierce the silence, announcing the coming of Tutankhamun.
By now, Phares had sent the guard away with a hefty bakshish, tip. But Phares seemed to know his way and led them unerringly along. Finally, he came to a stop and Aida was aware of the huge stone forest of papyrus-crowned columns all around her. They had entered the hypostyle hall of the Great Temple of Amun. Above them, stars glimmered in the night sky, visible through the roofing slabs lying across the mighty columns of this vast hall.
Phares gently pulled Aida against him. ‘This is a special place, Aida. It can only be appreciated at this hour,’ he murmured next to her ear. ‘You need to imagine it as it used to be, feel the emotions it roused in the souls of the faithful. This is one of the most magical gifts I could think of giving you on our honeymoon.’
Suddenly, he let go of her and moved away. For a split second, Aida felt nervous, but her husband’s warm voice came softly out of the darkness and began to tell her of the boy king Tutankhamun, who had come this way to his coronation, of the priests and court nobles who had led him in, a small child of nine, walking beneath these great columns. He told her of the musicians who had played for him, their music echoing among the stones as the great procession moved slowly on to the inner temple and into the presence of Amun, the god of gods.
‘Close your eyes, Aida. Don’t you hear the drums and the lutes and the reed pipes?’
Phares began to recite poetry to her, some in the original Ancient Egyptian, some that she could understand. His words danced in her head, telling of the young pharaoh, the living embodiment of a god, and the heroes and deities of these ancient lands.
There was silence as his voice died away, then he spoke again, ‘Open your eyes, chérie. Look up.’
Aida did as he said and saw the first rays of dawn suddenly breaking through the sky, the rich golden light touching the carved heads of the columns, bringing to life the brilliant colours that still adorned them. She caught her breath as carved muscles seemed to flex, eyes to see, and mouths to smile, welcoming the new day.
The sun rose and the temple filled with glorious light, once again becoming the place of worship it was created to be, reaching out for the dawn’s serenade, and as it had done for thousands of years, showing itself to be the greatest monument that man had ever made to their gods.
Placing an arm around her, Phares led her out into the wakening town and, without needing to speak a word, they drove back to the dahabeyeh.
* * *
The approach by water to the small island of Philae, the last stop of their honeymoon, was truly breathtaking. The river widened, flowing past gigantic black rocks of the most fantastic shape and form, and then suddenly, after a couple of sharp turns, Philae came suddenly into view, fringed by palms and crowned with a long line of temples and colonnades. Seen from the dahabeyeh, the island with its vegetation and its monuments seemed to rise out of the river like a chimera.
‘It’s incredible,’ breathed Aida, standing on deck next to Phares while the boat glided nearer and the sculpted towers rose higher and higher against the sky. ‘One can almost forget for a moment that the temple was built centuries ago. It all looks so solid, stately and perfect.’
Neither Phares nor Aida had visited the temple before and both stood in reverent awe.
‘Right now, if we heard the sound of ancient chanting and a procession of white-robed priests was to appear now, I wouldn’t think it so strange,’ Phares observed. ‘I can see now why Philae has been the subject of so many paintings. I’ve never seen anything so superb.’
The crew of the dahabeyeh scrambled off the boat to moor it in the shallows, allowing Aida and Phares down the steps.