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.
Death was in the room. I caught sight of him in the shadows beneath a statue of Bes, the friendly-grotesque guardian of children, who seemed to grimace at his own powerlessness here.
Ruddedit introduced me to her daughter, who looked up at me with empty eyes, but did as I asked. She moved to her side so I could reach an oiled hand up to the womb, but I felt no sign of the baby’s head. The room was very still as the women waited to see what I would do or ask of them.
The dog-shaped shadow of death stirred, sensing my dismay. But his eagerness only made me angry. I cursed at his bark and his tail and his very mother. I did this in my native tongue, which sounded harsh even to me after so many years of Egyptian words in my ears. Meryt and the others thought I uttered a secret charm, and murmured approval. Even Hatnuf stirred and looked around.
I called for oil and a mortar and mixed the strongest herbs I had at hand: birthwort and an extraction of hemp, both of which sometimes cause the womb to expel its contents early in pregnancy. I did not know if they would work, and worried that the combination might cause damage, but I knew there was nothing else to be tried, for she was dying. The baby was already dead, but there was no reason to give up on the mother.
I applied the mixture, and soon strong pains seized the girl. I had the women help Hatnuf back up to the bricks, where I massaged her belly and tried to push the baby downward. HatnuFs legs could not hold her, and soon Meryt had to take Ruddedit’s place behind her, where she whispered encouragement as I reached in again to feel the baby’s head, which was now near the door.
&n
bsp; The pains became ceaseless and intolerable to the poor woman on the bricks. Her eyes turned back in her head, and she fell into Meryt’s arms, senseless and unable to push.
It was full daylight now, but the shadow in the room would not let the sun’s rays penetrate the gloom. My cheeks were streaked with tears. I did not know what to do next. Inna had once told a tale of freeing a baby from its dead mother’s womb, but this mother was not dead. I had no other tricks to try, no other herbs.
And then I remembered the song in which Inna had taken such delight, the song which she learned in the hills above Shechem.
“Fear not,” I sang, recalling the melody easily, reaching deep for the words.
Fear not, the time is coming Fear not, your bones are strong Fear not, help is nearly
Fear not, Gula is near
Fear not, the baby is at the door
Fear not, he will live to bring you honor
Fear not, the hands of the midwife are clever
Fear not, the earth is beneath you
Fear not, we have water and salt
Fear not, little mother
Fear not, mother of us al
Meryt joined me in singing the words “Fear not,” sensing the power of the sounds without knowing what she was saying. By the third time, all of the women were singing “Fear not,” and Hatnuf was breathing deeply again.
The baby was delivered soon after, and indeed he was dead. Hatnuf turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes, wishing only to join him. But when Meryt began to pack her poor, battered womb with boiled linen, Hatnuf cried out again in the voice of a laboring mother. “There is another child,” said Meryt. “Come, Den-ner,” she said. “Catch the twin.”
With just one more push, Hatnuf delivered a baby utterly unlike his brother. Where the first one was fat and perfect and lifeless, this one was puny and wrinkled and bellowed with the lungs of an ox.
Meryt laughed at the sound, and the room erupted in peals and gales and giggles of relief and joy. The bloody, unwashed, squalling baby was passed from hand to hand, kissed and blessed by every woman there. Ruddedit fell to her knees and laughed and wept with her grandson in her arms. But Hatnuf did not hear us. The little one arrived in a torrent of blood that would not cease. No amount of packing stanched the flow, and within moments of her son’s birth, Hatnuf died, her head on her mother’s lap.
The scene in the room was terrible: the mother dead, one baby dead, a scrawny newborn wailing for the breast that would never feed him. Ruddedit sat, bereaved of her only daughter, a grandmother for the first time. Meryt wept with her mistress, and I crept away, wishing I had never ventured out of my garden.
After the horror of that scene, I thought I would be forbidden to enter another birth chamber. But as Meryt told the story, I alone was responsible for saving the life of the surviving child, who had been born, she said, on a day so hated by Set that it was a miracle he drew a single breath.
Soon messengers from other important houses of Thebes came to the door of Nakht-re’s garden with orders not to return home without Den-ner the midwife. These were the servants of priests and scribes and others who could not be gainsaid. I consented only if Meryt would accompany me, but since she always agreed, we became the midwives of our neighborhood, which comprised many fine houses where the ladies and their servants enjoyed fertile wombs. We were called at least once every seven days, and for every healthy baby, we were rewarded with jewelry, amulets, fine linen, or jars of oil. Meryt and I divided these goods, and though I offered my share to Re-nefer, she insisted that I keep them.
Within a year my shed was cluttered with a collection of objects I did not use or care for. Meryt looked around one day and declared that I needed a wicker box to contain my belongings. Since I owned more than enough to trade, Meryt selected an auspicious day for us to go to market.
By then I had gone out to attend at many births, still I dreaded this venture out into the larger world. Meryt knew I was afraid and held my hand as we walked out of my garden, chattering all the way to keep me from dwelling upon my fears. I held on to her like a baby in fear of losing her mother but after a time found the courage to look upon the sights of the busy Theban quay. The harvest was still many days off and most of the farmers had little to do but wait for ripening, so the stalls were clogged with country folk who had nothing much to trade except time.
Meryt exchanged a beaded necklace from one of her mothers for some sweet cake, and we ate as we wandered, arm in arm, from one stall to the next, I marveled at the amount of jewelry for sale and wondered who could afford so many baubles. I saw sandal-makers turning out cheap shoes, made to order. A line of men waited for one particular barber, known to have the best gossip. I averted my eyes from a pile of Canaanite woolens, which might have been woven by my own aunts. Meryt and I laughed over the antics of a monkey, who held a brace of tall, hungry-looking dogs on leads and made them beg for scraps of food.
After we had taken in the sights, my friend said it was time to start our hunt, but the first basket-maker we came upon had nothing large enough to suit my needs, so we walked on, passing the wine and oil merchants, bakers, and men selling live birds. We saw many beautiful things, too: incised Kushite pottery, hammered bronze vases, household gods and goddesses, three-legged stools and chairs. My eye fell upon a handsome box with an inlaid cover that bloomed with a garden made of ivory and faience and mother-of-pearl. “Now there’s a piece for the master’s tomb,” said Meryt, in honest admiration.
The carpenter appeared behind his work and began to tell the story of its making: where he purchased the acacia wood, and how much difficulty he had in applying the ivory. He spoke thoughtfully and slowly, as though he were telling a story rather than trying to make a sale. I kept my eyes on the box as he spoke, hearing only the warmth of his voice, and staring at his hands as they traced the design upon his handiwork.
Meryt started teasing the fellow. “What do you take us for, knave?” she asked. “Do you think we are rich ladies disguised as midwives? Who but a rich man could afford anything so fine as this? Who could lay claim to such a work of art except the king’s own tomb-maker? You are pulling my leg, little man,” she said.
He laughed at her words and replied, “If you think me little, you must come from a land of giants, sister. I am Benia,” he introduced himself. “And you might be surprised at the bargains available at my stall. It all depends upon the buyer, my dear,” he teased back. “Beautiful women always get what they want.”
At this, Meryt howled with laughter and poked me in the ribs, but I said nothing, for I knew that his words had been aimed at me. In an instant Meryt, too, understood that the carpenter had been talking to me, and although I had not said a word, the “sound of his voice and the gentleness of his words had moved me.
My fingers, almost of their own accord, traced the pattern of a milky-white leaf that was inlaid upon the box. “This comes from the heart of a sea creature that lives far to the north,” Benia said, pointing to another part of the design.
I noticed the size of his hands. His fingers were thick as the branches on a young fruit tree, and even longer than his massive palms, which hard work had gnarled into mountains and valleys of muscle. He caught me staring and drew his hand away, as if in shame.
“When I was born, my mother took one look at me and cried out when she saw these,” Benia said. “They were far too large for my body, even then. ‘A sculptor,’ she said to my father, who apprenticed me to the finest stonecutter.
“But I had no talent for stone. The alabaster cracked when I so much as looked at it, and even granite would not permit me to approach. Only wood understood my hands. Supple and warm and alive, wood speaks to me and tells me where to cut, how to shape it. I love my work, lady.”
He looked into my eyes, which I had raised to his face as he spoke.
Meryt saw the look pass between us and leaped into the silence like a shrewd fishwife. “This is Den-ner, tradesman, a widow and the finest midwife
in Thebes. We come to the market in search of a simple basket to hold payment from her grateful mothers.”
“But a basket will not do for a master,” said Benia, turning to bargain with Meryt. “Let me see what you brought to trade, Mother, for I have been sitting here all day without luck.”
Meryt unpacked our collection of trinkets: a carved slate for mixing malachite into green eye shadow, a large carnelian scarab too red for my stomach, and a beautiful beaded head covering, the gift of a pretty young concubine who gave birth to a fine little boy she handed directly to her mistress, without even looking at the baby. (Meryt and I saw many strange things in the birthing rooms of Thebes.)
Bema feigned interest in the scarab. “For your wife?” Meryt asked, without pretense at subtlety.
“No wife,” Benia replied, simply. “I live in my sister’s house and have these many years, but her husband is impatient of my place at his table. Soon I will be leaving the city to live among the workmen in the Valley of the Kings,” he said slowly, speaking again to me.
At this, Meryt grew excited on her own behalf and told him all about her sons, who were bakers employed for the workmen there. “When I go, I will seek them out,” Benia promised, and added, “I will be given my own house there, as befits a master craftsman. Four rooms for myself only,” he said, as though he could hear his own voice echoing through the empty chambers already.
“What a waste, carpenter,” Meryt replied.
As the two of them exchanged these confidences for my benefit, my fingers followed the edges of the pond that Benia had fashioned on the box cover. Before I could draw away, he covered my hand with his own.
The Red Tent Page 24
