“Aw, can it. Nothing’s that important. You’ve done your dirty work.”
“That’s not fair.” I desperately tried to get her to listen, to see that I was the unwilling messenger, not the cause of her trouble. I told her Trilipush had betrayed her family, had only pretended to love her, had spent her father’s money to get other people’s money, and now he was running off with the ancient gold he’d dug up, without a thought for her. “He used you, he’s not coming back here. I know you don’t truly care about him and your father forced him on you, so it doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t take this how I’d expected. I’d started to think—I don’t know what I’d started to think. “You don’t know anything! You don’t know anything! I hate you, you make me sick.” And then she was screaming for her father and her nurse, but I knew we were alone in the house, and no one was going to interrupt. She felt she needed to humiliate me. She was calling me some rather horrible names, pushing at the bedcovers like they were choking her, insulting anything about me that caught her anger. I tried to get her quiet is all, for her health, tried to prevent her from hurting herself and throwing things at me, tried to tell her how I felt, that I loved her and she’d be safe with me, that she’d escaped a close call with Trilipush, and I was an honest man who could offer her proper happiness.
Well, some of us aren’t built for love, I know after a long life, Macy, and she didn’t—it pains me to admit even years on—she didn’t stop and look at me with wonder and gratitude, dawning affection, all that. No, she laughed at me, and it was a nasty little sound. She mocked me, and I looked away, looked at the two little dogs sitting on the white sofa with the green painted design of French country scenes: the milkmaid and her lover hand in hand in the woods. I looked at those dogs looking me in the eye curiously, while she just did not stop: I was nothing next to Ralph, I didn’t know anything, I was a fool and a monster and a bastard, a joke next to a man like Ralph, I wasn’t fit to say Ralph’s name, didn’t understand anything, I was less than a joke, I was pathetic and disgusting, and on and on. “A stupid Australian is what you are, Harry, you horrible ass. You spread these lies. You made Daddy do this. But your lies can’t ever touch a man like Ralph.” And on and on, crying and yelling, throwing pillows and dolls and glass things at me, repeating what a wonderful man her English murderer was, how loyal and true and English and noble, while I was a red-haired pygmy from the bush who deserved to be spit on by everyone. “And you love me? You make me sick, Harry.”
After a spell, I’d had my fill, and I walked out the door and I never saw your family again, Mr. Macy. Those dogs were still sitting on that painted sofa, still looking right at me when I left, never took their beady judge’s eyes off me the whole time. They say every hero has his weak heel, so there you are then. I only did what any man in my position would’ve done, trying to win her heart, you see, a girl like that. I was foolish, but that’s no crime.
I’ll drop this in the box to you now and hope for some sleep. You’re getting these, yes? I think I’d give up the ghost if they were lost in the mails, or sitting in an unread heap on your desk. I’d throw myself off the roof of this place, if I thought you weren’t hearing me.
Merry Christmas, Macy.
HF
Friday, 1 December, 1922
Journal: Spend morning moving my base from villa to Atum-hadu’s tomb, as intensive work approaches. Rental agent assists me in storing certain items in a shed. Hate to part from Maggie and the toms, but I will attempt to feed them as often as I can conveniently come back across the river. It is tempting to bring them with me to the west bank, but they have their hunting grounds here, I am certain, and I would not wish to disorient them.
Work to improve the door Amr made. I use adhesives to cover its front with rocks and sand, and cut it until it fits snugly and invisibly, flush into the tomb’s opening. Efficient, inexpensive protection! Also, the former Door A, lying on its crushed cylinders, was unfortunately likely to attract tomb-robbers, tourists, other unwanted attention, so it had to be sacrificed, not a significant loss.
Summation of our finds in the History Chamber: The ornamentation covering from floor to ceiling the walls and pillars of the History Chamber is preserved in astounding condition. Every imaginable surface is covered with text and illustration. The text is the highest quality hieroglyphs, all written—to my trained eye—by the same hand. If I may speculate further, I would say that this hand belonged to a scribe of impeccable intelligence, but perhaps not one who came through the recognised academic training of the day.
The walls’ hieroglyphs include passages from the Admonitions, extinguishing any smouldering doubt that (a) Atum-hadu existed and reigned; (b) he is the author of the Admonitions; (c) this is his tomb, or was intended as such. A triple crown, certain to move Carnarvon to a quick decision to finance further explorations at this site, or other likely sites nearby.
And, if the accompanying illustrations are not of the highest artistic accomplishment, if their composition is unwieldy, if the faces are not as iconic as one would expect from ancient Egyptian tomb-painting, if the animals are not easily distinguishable from furniture, if here and there the paint seems to have smeared or dribbled down the unforgiving tomb walls, if the artist was not apparently even trained as an artist, well, one can only say that the rough last days of the dynamic XIIIth Dynasty were not the soft, easy days of the flaccid XVIIIth, and perhaps Atum-hadu’s court had more vital attributes than the dainty painterly facility of the peace-drugged faux-raonic dynasties that served as epilogue to my king’s grand drama.
For now, I expect it will take me several days at least to complete a full copy and translation of the hieroglyphs, and make descriptive notes of the paintings. After the chamber is fully catalogued, I will invite Lord Carnarvon to examine our discoveries to date before proceeding through Door C, the so-called Great Portal, and into the tomb’s likely treasury, sepulchre, and other chambers. Or perhaps Carnarvon and I shall continue excavations in other locations instead, if in the end we find this tomb unoccupied, with only the History Chamber to identify it (as if such a find alone were not remarkable enough).
(FIG. H: CHAMBER 6, THE HISTORY CHAMBER, OPENED 23.11.22, SHOWING THE PLACEMENT OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS AND TEXTS)
Each of the twelve pillars depicts one key event from each year of Atum-hadu’s twelve-year reign, a span concretely determined now, thanks to these twelve pillars, and likely having occurred 1642–1630 B.C. More comprehensive than the pillars, each of the twelve wall panels tells, with text and image, a portion of the life of Atum-hadu, from his conception through his reign to the end of his earthly life.
WALL PANEL A: “THE BIRTH OF ATUM-HADU,FINAL KING OF THE BLACK LAND”
Hieroglyphic Text: The great king’s titulary has been composed and will forever be Horus—Son of Osiris and Seth; He of the Two Ladies—Restorer of the Lost Kingdom; Horus of Gold—Ma’at’s Ferocious Lover; He of the Sedge and Bee—Hand of a Scribe, Victorious Bull, Fish of a God; Son of Ra—Atum-Is-Aroused. But the king was born with his name hidden.
He is born far from the capital, near the waters. [His] mother is chosen for her especial grace and beauty and intelligence to receive the seed of Seth [god of confusion and disorder—RMT]. The summer at its zenith, Seth disguised himself as a fisherman and lay with this woman. At the moment he delivered his seed, Seth revealed his truth, and the woman saw his donkey head and was frightened. Seth departed, and she would kill the life in her womb. Seth stayed her hand. Seth made her fingers like an animal’s paw. Seth took from the ungrateful her beauty, and she became dull and her name is everywhere forgotten.
The woman washed clothes and drank beer. She was heavy with child by as many men as stars in a sky. Her first son asked her who his father was. She pointed to a fisherman who resembled Seth when he had disguised himself. “This son of a whore’s vulva is the father of you.” The fisherman said no, she had copulated with a donkey and her children were all donkey-children.
Seth saw the boy grow strong and visited him. Seth explained all, and the boy understood. The boy was made not by people but by gods and himself. He created himself. The god whom he most resembled was not Seth but Atum, the great creator of everything, at the moment when the god strained towards creation. He named himself Atum-Is-Aroused, and Seth came to Atum-Is-Aroused and praised him. With a blinding flash of the sundisk, Seth made the boy forget his false birth name all at once and forever.
At this time, the priest of the temple of Amen was jealous. The priest’s hungers ruled him, and he often skewered the boy like a veal to be sacrificed, and the boy was forced to burn brightly and the boy vowed that the priest would see his own heart beat in a fire fuelled by camel dung while Atum-Is-Aroused would lay with the priest’s sisters and nieces before the priest’s bleeding eyes.
Illustration: Extraordinary illustrations: here we see Seth copulating with a beautiful woman under a midsummer sun, his head in midtransformation—half-donkey, half-man—the very instant of impregnating Atum-hadu’s mother. And here we see her with a golden child in her transparent belly. Here we see her attempt to beat her belly with fists, and Seth’s punishment for that crime, transforming her into an ugly, charmless washerwoman. Here we see the boy—golden-skinned and beautiful—surrounded by countless other children—squat and dark—while his mother lies drunk. Here we see the boy taken brutally (“made to burn brightly”) by the temple priest. Here we see the boy visited by Seth. Here we see the boy teaching himself to read and write, to hunt and fish. Here we see him standing aside from the fishing village and his family, and the boy gazes towards the sundisk, where Horus and Ra admire him in return.
The illustrations are not of an impressive accuracy, by Western art-critical standards, nor are they quite typical of Egyptian art, yet still how affecting!
Analysis: Despite my easy childhood, the men whom I admire most in this world are self-made men, a description which seems to fit the king.
By self-made I do not mean poor men who have become rich. I mean, rather, those men who gathered the fragments made available to them as abandoned or downtrodden children and then, with the boiling, creative force of their own minds, forged a self marked by strength and, more importantly, by style. Such men create selves that bear no trace whatsoever of their dark inheritances, no trace of foolish parents or dusty childhood towns or the crimes committed against them, no trace of the deprivations (money, affection, nourishment, friendship), no trace of any source material at all, but instead an aesthetic and practical creation, godlike in its simplicity and in its completeness. Simplicity: everything is from within this one head, no parental influence, no village tradition, nothing that did not hail from the self-creating mind itself. Completeness: everything must be created, every attitude, every mannerism, every belief and value and stylish gesture. Nothing inherited can be tolerated from an intolerable past.
And yet, great irony that is our world, such men are often not honoured, while men like me—born with love, guidance, every advantage—are. I admire, perhaps most of all the verses, his Quatrain 24 (Fragments B & C):
Atum-hadu looks behind him and marvels at the height.
Atum-hadu looks at all he has surpassed with great delight.
Atum-hadu owes nothing, is in debt to no man,
And will therefore act as no other man can.
One can easily imagine the young man composing this verse not long after he found he had become the king of Egypt.
On Atum-hadu’s Name: Underneath the story’s typically Egyptian mythology, we find two details of crucial historical importance: Atum-hadu came from nothing, and Atum-hadu named himself. The legend allows for no other explanation. He was not of royal birth but of peasant birth; in the chaos marking the end of the dynasty, a climb like his was possible. The king’s full five-name titulary—which opens the text and ends with the “Son of Ra” name Atum-hadu (Atum-Is-Aroused)—is given here for the first time. Usually, the “Son of Ra” name was the king’s birth name and was unsurprisingly royal in tone, given to a royal newborn. But it appears that, in this case, this extraordinary mind risen from humble beginnings had some other name at birth.
One pities him as a boy, of course, telling himself stories to fall asleep, creating this dream of a celestial parent. An analysis of Atum-hadu obviously benefits from modern sociology: in these terrible modern cases one hears of, research reveals that there is typically a critical moment, the age at which the child first realises his predicament, finally understands his relationship to his mother, for example, and thus with the entire world. This moment is too easily bathed in retrospective bathos, as I fell victim to just now, above, but in truth, one need not pity such children. On the contrary, see the beautiful and heroic aspects: a boy of eight runs for the very last time into his ramshackle home (for there must have been a last time, whether he knew it or not just then), and he shouts with pride about some accomplishment, still expecting (with the dregs of his childish instincts for love) to receive praise from the lady of the house. He shouts with pride that he has learnt to do this or that, something academic or athletic. And he receives as a mark of her definitive indifference to him either a blow or a fruity curse marinated in liquor or mere runny-nosed, vomiting silence, while new semi-siblings mewl and squat all over the room. As if such a moment is, in the child’s blossoming mind, necessarily tragic! Not at all: why assume such a moment represents a door closing, rather than the equally creaky sound of a door opening? How can the untrained ear tell the difference? Close your eyes, and if, after that tooth-grinding squeal, one feels a breeze of insight or opportunity, then you know. As Atum-hadu apparently knew. Something had opened for him, which he chose to recall as a nocturnal visit from Seth.
Modern sociology shows that the brightest children understand the significance of this moment, and their adaptation to it can only be termed a second birth: a birth into total independence, free of any ties to illusions, free of any illusions of ties. A birth in which the child becomes both his own parents. He alone will make himself from this day on. There can be no question what passed through the great king’s mind when he chose the name by which the world later knew him: the greatest act of creation will now begin, the creation of myself.
And, of course, it is only by this superficially torturous second birth that one is able even to aspire towards the third birth, which eludes most men, even men who have made themselves (let there be no doubt of the monstrous odds at play here). The third birth is that of immortality, in which, after a productive life guided solely by one’s own auto-parental instincts, one’s name is remembered and loved forever, in an underworld or merely in celebrated glory. But, if you are unable to realise your way out of childish delusions, if you blunder on, relying on the love of a mother, the trustworthy interest of the priest or the teacher or the employer or the lover or the officer, the benevolent concern of the rich for the poor, the jolly companionship and foul-weather loyalty of trusted pals, well, then you are doomed to a life of childhood. You will have no real adulthood, and no hope of making an achievement worthy of permanent note.
All of this makes Atum-hadu a worthy model for study. For if one thing is clear in Quatrain 80 (Fragment C only), it is how closely the great king’s life illustrates the principles I have just outlined:
The mother’s heart seals itself shut to her child.
No greater gift can she bestow, though he weeps and wails,
As we weep on our deathbed like a maiden defiled,
But it is when our tomb door is sealed that our soul prevails.
The donkey-headed god Seth—sexually aggressive, mischievous, power-hungry—is depicted on these walls also as sympathetic and caretaking, almost a family dog rather than a donkey. The nameless mother, the priest, the neighbours are all—even in the restrained profiles and formal requirements of Egyptian art, even when they are little more than dribbling stick figures—clearly depraved and vicious.
Sunset on the Bayview Nursing Home<
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Sydney, Australia
January 5, 1955
Macy,
I’ve been unwell again, not to be a bore about it, old men do fall ill, and who cares. Also, I rather hoped to have heard from you by now, a response to my first letter, but now I look at the new calendar they’ve tacked up here, pictures of the bloody ocean, and I see I’m being impatient. Even in the fastest circumstances, I couldn’t hope to hear from you for some days yet, I suppose. Still, a word from you that you’ve had some luck with publishers or motion picture people, well, that would go a long way in helping me feel fit again, mate. Tired more than ill is how I feel, didn’t much enjoy mucking about in all those memories of Boston, had quite put them out of my mind for some years, bit of a splash of cold water on the face and heart after all that time. When I think of your poor aunt, finding happiness again after this misadventure, well, that gladdens the heart, it does. But that she’s passed on already, at a young age, makes one feel old. Haven’t had many close chums in my life, a risk of the trade, you see, something for you to be wary of before jumping into the detection game, Macy, little free advice from me to you. She was a fine woman, your aunt. I do still hope to see a copy of your family history when it’s done.
Let’s see. I went downstairs. I’d a job to do, for her as much as for anyone. On Finneran’s desk were the notes for her and the nurse I already described, I think, as well as a stack of other incoming and outgoing correspondences, and a cable from Trilipush to Margaret, still trying to patch things up, just to buy himself some time. I left everything undisturbed.
Finneran’s note to Margaret mentioned being out of town for a spell, and it took me only half a day (the 1st of December) to confirm that he was on the steamer leaving that very day from New York, due in Alexandria the 14th. There was nothing to keep me in Boston another day now, so I spent the rest of the 1st making my own travel arrangements, returned to my hotel to pack. I was a bit low, rather like I feel now, hoping I’d feel back on track when I was clear and away from the gathering Boston winter, pursuing the case in the homier, more Australian warmth of Egypt. The end was in sight.
The Egyptologist Page 31
