Lights on the Nile

by Donna Jo Napoli

  And now she remembered where she was. How long had she been here?

  Babu ran his fingers along Kepi’s lips. He grunted again. He tried to wriggle his hand inside her mouth.

  “Funny baby.” Kepi found the energy to search around in the dark for the satchel. She was proud of herself for having thought to save the remainder of the honeyed goat milk in case Babu needed it. She took the stopper off the jar and fed the little baboon from her fingers.

  He ate and ate and ate. Gradually Kepi realized something worrisome: This wasn’t just a few little suckles. Babu ate the way he did every morning, after a long night.

  Kepi’s cheeks went slack. Was it morning? It couldn’t be. Menes had said they’d take her home. She should have been home long before morning. Something must have changed. Menes’s plans had gone wrong. Kepi should get out of the basket. She tried to stand, but it was hard to hold herself up.

  She let Babu finish what was in the jar. Then she got to her knees. Babu immediately climbed onto her head. Maybe he could see in the dark? She didn’t know. They’d never gone anywhere in the dark before. She got to her feet all crouched over, so she wouldn’t mash Babu’s head against the lid, and spread her legs in a bracing position, as anyone should on a boat. But she didn’t feel the least wobbly. This boat was so big, a person didn’t even feel it moving through the water. She reached a hand up to push. The lid didn’t budge.

  Menes had tied it shut.

  He had told her he would. She fought off fear.

  A vibration came through the bottom of the basket. Kepi dropped to sitting. She didn’t know why she was having so much trouble waking up. She snapped her fingers in front of her face; that’s how she usually woke up. Nanu would snap her fingers by Kepi’s head, and Kepi’s eyes would fly open and she’d be up just like that. But it didn’t work now; she was groggy. She lay back down and stretched out. This basket really was huge. Babu settled on her chest. Her eyes closed on their own. Vibrations came up from the floor.

  She rolled in one direction and the side of the basket pushed at her right shoulder. She rolled in another direction. Now it pushed at her feet. She pushed back, only to meet an unyielding force. That was a surprise. When she’d gotten into the basket, nothing had been touching it on the outside.

  With both hands, she felt the sides of the basket. Instead of bulging outward in the nice way they had when she first jumped in, they were straight. Her hands moved up and down. Yes, it was as though there were five straight, rigid walls around the basket. Something was pushing against them from the outside.

  Kepi pushed back hard now. Nothing happened. She pushed harder. Nothing. She was stuck. Like a wild thing in a cage. Her insides banged around inside the hollow of her body.

  She dropped her hands and shouted, “Help!” She shouted until her throat was raw and her ears had gone deaf. Babu whimpered the whole time.

  Then came a huge lurch. There was no doubt about it: The boat was moving. And it hadn’t been before. She knew that now for sure.

  Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Panic tightened her skin. Where was Menes? He should know she’d be scared. He should be there, telling her what was going on.

  What if Menes wasn’t around? What if the boat had left without him and no one even knew she was in this basket?

  Kepi tried to dig her fingers between two loops of the basket coil. If she could only make a hole, she could shout through it. She dug. The fibers cut her fingers, but she dug and sucked them and dug some more. Whoever had stitched this basket had done a very fine job.

  Kepi searched in the satchel. She found the leaf, opened it, and ate a fingerful of the soft goat cheese. She wasn’t hungry, really, but food might wake her up so she could think better. She ate another fingerful. Then she ripped a strip off the date leaf and chewed, sucking the bitter juice. That was when she realized the jar with the honeyed goat milk was empty. So nothing would be lost if she broke it.

  She held the jar by the neck and slammed it on the floor. The thick basket bottom cushioned the blow. She tried again and again, but the jar wouldn’t break. She tried slamming it against the sides of the basket. But they were just as thick as the bottom. Babu pulled on her hair, his teeth chattering. “Don’t worry,” she whispered to him. “I’ll figure it out.” She could bash it against the beer jar, but then they might both break and she’d lose that beer. Anyone who lived near desert knew that losing the only thing you had to drink was too dangerous to risk. She could conk it against her head, but she might knock herself out.

  She pulled her dress up to her waist and rearranged herself so she was sitting with one leg straight and one leg bent, knee in the air. She leaned forward and kissed that knee. “I’m sorry,” Kepi whispered. “You’re a very good knee, but I have no choice. I’m getting really scared. I’m sorry.” She brought the jar down as hard as she could on her knee. The blow stunned her, it hurt so bad. Hot blood rolled down her leg in both directions. The jar had broken. The smell of blood sweetened the air.

  She gritted her teeth and blinked back tears, then gathered the pottery pieces into a pile near one side of the basket. She moved as little as possible, both because her knee burned and because she was afraid of getting cut on whatever little shards she might have missed. With the biggest shard, she attacked the side of the basket at her shoulder level sitting down. She stabbed and sawed. She couldn’t believe how tough the basket was. Sweat covered her and her knee throbbed. She sawed for a long time.

  Finally the hole was big enough to stick three fingers through. That would do. She put her mouth to it and shouted. “Help! Help, help, help!”

  Chapter 10

  Away

  Within moments she heard a scraping noise, and the side of the basket went pliable again. Then—“Stop that!” came the hiss. Whoever it was, he must have been squatting, because his mouth was lowered to the hole.

  “Let me out!”

  “Not yet, Kepi.” It was Menes.

  “Let me out now!”

  “In a while.”

  “Now! I’m bleeding.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “A jar broke.”

  “Is the baboon all right?”

  Kepi’s eyes burned. Her head felt heavy. But the question still seemed suspect. “I’m not sure,” she lied. “Let us out.”

  Menes cursed. The top of the basket shook a little, and soon the lid lifted off and light flooded in.

  Kepi blinked against the sun and got to her feet. She let out a yelp because straightening her knee hurt so bad. She stood on her good leg and let her hurt one hang. “Help!” she shouted. “Get me out of here!”

  Men sat on the benches along both sides of the boat, rowing. They heard her for sure, but they did nothing. They were facing the stern and her basket was near the stern, so they could easily have looked at her. But only a few even glanced her way, and none stopped rowing.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” said Menes.

  Kepi felt tears coming. Why was Menes acting like this? She blinked hard.

  “And don’t go crying.”

  “I’m not! I’m blinking because of the sun. It’s morning.”

  Babu climbed up Kepi’s back and perched on her head.

  “That baboon’s all right,” said Menes. “You lied.”

  “The sail’s not up.” Kepi shook her head slowly in horror as the meaning of that sank in. “We’re going with the current. We’re going north. Away from my home!”

  “Be quiet. I’ll explain.”

  “You said you’d take me home. You said we’d go last night!”

  “Boats can’t go at night on this river. You saw what the croc did to your baboon’s mother. What do you think crocs would do to a boat at night? Don’t talk like an idiot.”

  “I’m not an idiot!” Menes had told her the boat would travel at night, and now he was calling her names for believing him. “No crocodile could turn over this boat.”

  “But they can ram it hard enough to do d
amage.”

  Kepi wanted to punch Menes’s smug face. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Let me out.”

  “You’re better off in the basket.”

  “I want to go home. Let me out right now.”

  “If you stay quiet, I’ll leave the lid off.”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Kepi reached down and wiped at the wetness above her knee. She thrust a bloody hand in Menes’s face.

  He blanched. He went over to a box and came back with a cloth. “Tie this around so it covers the cut. Tie it as tight as you can bear.”

  Kepi snatched the cloth. “Help!” she shouted. “Help!”

  One of the men looked at her and smirked. The top half of his left ear was missing. “Hurry up,” he called to Menes. “It’s hard to keep the boat straight without you at your oar!”

  “See? I have to go back to work. I can’t be bothered with you now. If you keep shouting, I’m tying the lid back on. And the poppy has clearly worn off, so it will be awful.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you think poppy seeds do, little idiot? You think you had all those nice dreams all on your own? That’s a poppy-seed haze.”

  Menes had drugged her. Kepi gritted her teeth. “I’m standing. If you push that lid down on me, you’ll crush Babu.”

  Menes frowned.

  “Ha! I knew it. You’re as bad as those Nubian boys. You want to steal Babu.” It was only as she said it that she realized it was true.

  Menes grabbed at Babu, but Babu bit his hand. He let out a little shriek and shook his hand and blew on it. “All right, all right. Stand there and yell till you drop, if you’re that much of an idiot.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Prove it. Shut your mouth, and I promise, when we stop for a break, I’ll explain everything.”

  “You don’t keep your promises.”

  “Shut your mouth anyway. None of the crew cares what happens to you. There’s no one on the shore to hear you. If we pass a boat going our way, we’re obviously going faster than them, so they can’t catch us. And if we pass a boat going the opposite way, do you really think they’re going to turn around and chase us—a crew this big? Think, Kepi.”

  Kepi’s head spun. No one cared what happened to her? What could that mean? She looked at the men. They were big. She felt small. “Where are you taking me?”

  “What did I say? I told you I’d tell you later, right?”

  Menes went and got the bowl Kepi had used the night before and offered it to her. She took it numbly.

  Menes went back to his oar.

  Kepi felt a scream grow inside her chest. It burned her lungs and throat. But if she let it out, Menes would close the basket lid. That would be worse. They were going north, and right now there was nothing Kepi could do about it. She had to think about something else. She’d go crazy if she didn’t.

  Kepi set the nasty bowl down on the bottom of the basket and inspected her knee. She hadn’t dared touch it before, so she didn’t know how bad it really was. A piece of the jar still protruded from it. She picked it out, and the bleeding started all over again. She squeezed her eyes shut. The trick here was to pretend this wasn’t her knee at all. She was Mother, taking care of her daughter Kepi. She opened her eyes, and with just the tips of her fingers she gently checked for other pieces. The cut wasn’t wide, but it was deep. She carefully placed the cloth on it and tied it behind her knee as tight as she could without wincing. Then she stood on her good leg and looked around.

  The boat rode low in the water. The crew had loaded on many smaller baskets since Kepi had come on board. Her basket was surrounded by them; they were what pushed up against the basket sides and made them rigid. She had no idea what was in them.

  Kepi looked back. Where were they? She couldn’t see any trace of Wetjeset-Hor. It had taken her a while to cut that hole in the basket, so there was no telling how far they were from the city now. The farther they went, the longer it would take her to get home, and her family must already be frantic. They would have searched everywhere for her by now. They probably feared the worst. Kepi feared the worst.

  She swallowed hard and willed herself to be strong. Father always said to put a stout heart to a steep hill. She hadn’t listened to Father when she’d run off to search for the sycamore figs, and that was when everything had gone wrong. Girls should obey their fathers. She had made a mistake then. But now she’d listen to him. She would remember all his sayings. That way it would be almost as though he was here, whispering to her. He’d be the one person on this boat who cared about her.

  On the west bank of the river rose a large red structure, as tall as a sycamore fig. Kepi knew what that was: a pyramid from the old days. Her family had visited it years ago. Though she had been too small then to remember seeing it herself, her parents had talked about it recently, when Father had come home from the north. It was red and rough because in the old days the pharaohs built their pyramids of sandstone instead of limestone. The side of the pyramid ran parallel to the river, so she could see it well, reaching up to a jagged top that the winds and rains had ravaged.

  On the east bank a huge rock shaped like a vulture rose up out of the desert. It looked like pictures of the goddess Nekhbet. There were no villages, no isolated farms, no signs of people at all. A cool wind kept the sky clear. Now and then the red sandstone of a hillock would shine, but mostly the banks held widely scattered clumps of low green plants and wading birds, poking their long bills into the mud. This must be how the river valley had looked since the beginning of time.

  In late morning a flock of pelicans came flying up the river, straight toward the boat. So many, the flock was as wide as the river. They swerved off to the west and looked like they were going in for a landing somewhere beyond a particularly thick group of bushes. As if that was a signal, the men rowed for shore.

  Kepi’s stomach pitched with worry. Those bushes probably marked a waterlogged marsh full of crocodiles and hippopotamuses. “Are we stopping?” she called. “Why? Where are we?”

  Only Menes looked at her. “Do what I say, and you may just make it out of this.”

  Chapter 11

  The Lake

  The crew anchored the boat on the west bank. Since no one was answering Kepi’s questions, she kept her mouth shut and watched, trying to notice everything. Father always said details mattered. He said if you focused too much on the snake, you’d miss the scorpion.

  Nine men jumped onto the mud, carrying spears and nets. Menes and two other men stayed on board.

  Menes came over to Kepi’s basket. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll haul you out of there.”

  “Why? What are we going to do?”

  “Stop talking and let me get you out of there.”

  “If you do anything bad, I’ll tell Babu to bite you again. Harder.”

  Menes glanced quickly at Babu. He licked the raw spot on his hand. Then he looked down at Kepi and lowered his neck.

  Kepi locked her arms around Menes’s neck and let herself get dragged out. She yelped involuntarily as her injured knee scraped over the basket edge.

  Menes set her down and frowned. “Can you walk?”

  “I can hop.” Kepi hopped. It made her knee hurt worse. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from tearing up. Then she looked hard at Menes and hopped again.

  “Okay, climb on.” Menes turned his back to her and squatted. “Come on now. Don’t make me wait, or I might change my mind and leave you here.”

  Kepi thought of the spears the men carried. “How do I know here isn’t better than where you’ll take me?”

  “You don’t.” Menes shrugged. “But I do. Take this.” He held up a cloth satchel. “I’m carrying you—so you carry this for me.”

  Kepi took the satchel and climbed on, holding her hurt leg out straight. Menes hooked his arms around and under her th
ighs, careful not to touch the bandage. He lowered himself off the boat.

  Two men stayed behind.

  “Where are those men going to take the boat?” Kepi asked in sudden panic.

  “Nowhere. They’re just guarding it. Look around. You’ll see beautiful things.”

  Menes followed the other men’s tracks in the mud. Even though he moved slowly, every step hurt Kepi. Plus Babu kept pulling her hair insistently; he was obviously hungry again, and she had nothing for him.

  Kepi gritted her teeth and swallowed over and over. She was lost. With poor little Babu to take care of. She wanted Mother. And Father. She even wanted Nanu.

  It hurt her knee when she held herself erect, so she slumped against Menes’s back and rested her cheek in the little curve where his neck met his torso. Babu chattered in angry discomfort, but Kepi felt too sorry for herself to change positions. Menes’s regular loping steps rocked her into a half sleep.

  After a while, Menes tapped Kepi on the nose and stopped walking. “Look at that,” he whispered.

  “Huh?” Kepi lifted her head groggily.

  “Don’t make noise. Just watch.”

  They were standing on a small hillock and a lake spread out before them, its perimeter thick with papyrus reeds. Kepi held herself up tall so she could see everything. A herd of oryx grazed in the stubble on the far side, while several of them drank at the water’s edge. It wasn’t a big herd—maybe a hundred. Their clean black-and-white markings made their faces beautiful. Kepi loved oryx because of those funny faces, though she knew they were dangerous. Their graceful, backward-curving horns were strong enough to kill a lion. Father had told her stories.

  But the best thing was the pelicans. The flock she’d watched fly up the river had joined many others. Two islands in the lake were entirely covered with them. Thousands. Gigantic white birds with yellow bills and black-tipped wings. Some were stretching their wings right now and turning in circles on their pale pink legs. The wingspans were enormous, twice a man’s height. And there were so many chicks, all gray and fluffy. A small group took off, flying so low, their big bellies almost brushed the water’s surface. How wonderful that must feel, flying.