Lights on the Nile

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Don’t be stubborn.” Menes leaned toward her. “I’ve made a decision. When we find the crew, I’ll get them to give you a share of whatever they got for the baboon.”

  “I’d never take anything for Babu. You don’t trade away a friend!”

  “You infuriate me, you know that?” He slapped the side of the boat. “All right, forget it. We’ll talk about it when we get to Ineb Hedj.”

  “I need to talk now. About something else. The pharaoh.”

  Menes protruded his lips as though appraising her. “Are you really going to try to see him?”

  “He hurt my father. Can you tell me where to find him?”

  “What do you mean, he hurt your father?”

  “My father was working on his pyramid, on the inner chamber, and a chunk of granite fell on his foot. They had to cut it off. Now he can’t farm anymore and everything’s so hard. We could lose our land.”

  “That happens all the time, Kepi. Pharaoh Khufu’s been building that pyramid for nearly twenty years, and thousands of men have worked on it. I don’t know—maybe a hundred thousand. They get maimed. They die.”

  Kepi pressed her lips together. Of course that was true. Lots of men were like Father. “So you understand. I have to tell him.”

  “He doesn’t care.”

  “He has to care. We’re his people.”

  “Khufu’s father and grandfather, they were good rulers. Djoser Netjeriket and Snefru. They had compassion. Khufu doesn’t know what compassion is.”

  “Everyone knows what compassion is.”

  “Let me tell you something. Khufu used to have a magician who was trying to learn how to bring dead people back to life. So he chose prisoners for the magician to practice on. Understand?” Menes jutted his chin forward. “He’d kill them so the magician could try to make them come alive again. But they never did.”

  Kepi could hardly speak. She whispered, “That’s so terrible. Who told you?”

  “It’s what people say.”

  “It couldn’t be true. It’s against the law.”

  “And people never break the law? Look who you’re talking to, Kepi.” Menes covered his mouth for a moment. “Let’s paddle. I need to think. You should, too. No more talking till we’re almost there.”

  Kepi’s insides were jumbled now. But the wood felt smooth and good in her hands. She put all her energy into paddling. She’d think later, when her heart had calmed.

  The Nile widened steadily as the morning gently warmed. They traveled for hours. The river grew positively swampy at the edges, clogged with weeds and rushes and the tallest papyrus Kepi had yet seen. A gentle wind came from the north, like usual. But beyond that, there was no motion other than the river’s current. The birds seemed to be asleep late today; even the ducks and geese were absent. And the only herd of gazelles Kepi had caught sight of was in the distance, hightailing it away.

  “Do you feel that?” Menes asked.

  Kepi flinched. Menes’s voice was such a surprise in this quiet that it came as a rude shock. “Feel what?”

  “A cold wind.”

  She hadn’t. But now that he said it, she did notice a slight chill. “Yes.”

  “Which way do you think it’s coming from?”

  “Behind.”

  “I know that, but which way, east or west?”

  “I think east.”

  “Paddle for the west bank as fast as you can!”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “A sandstorm. Paddle! We have to make it to the west bank before it hits.”

  Kepi had never been outdoors in a sandstorm. The very idea terrified her. At home they all huddled in the storage cellar when the winds blew.

  They paddled as hard as they could. The cold wind came faster now. She looked back over her shoulder. A thick cloud was speeding toward them, all red and gold from dust and sand swirling together. It barreled up the river, spreading out as far as she could see to the east. It stretched upward through the skies so that there was no blue beyond. She let out a yelp and paddled harder, faster, deeper.

  “All trade boats take passengers,” shouted Menes.

  “What?”

  “I told you it wasn’t allowed. I told you that when I first got you to come on our boat. But I was lying. If something happens to me, beg a ride home on a trade boat and they’ll take you in exchange for cleaning fish or gear or whatever.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Menes.”

  “In my cloth satchel is the glass bead necklace I bought you at Nekheb. I was going to give it to you when we got to Ineb Hedj. Put it on now. Just in case.”

  Kepi knew what “just in case” meant. “Stop talking like that. We won’t die, Menes.”

  “Set is the god of storms. And you’re his little tempest. He might protect you, but he sure won’t protect me.”

  “I didn’t pray to Set for a storm. I promise. I’d never do such a thing.”

  “I know that. Sometimes the gods just do things, all on their own. But I’ll fight. I won’t give up. And you’re like me—you don’t give up. You remember that. What-ever happens.”

  “Stop it! Really. You’ll put that necklace on me when we get to Ineb Hedj.”

  The clear air turned dark gray in an instant, as though someone had just blown out the wick flames in a bowl of kiki oil. The sand cloud reached so high, it blocked out the sun.

  Menes steered them into the middle of the closest rushes. The little boat jerked as it slammed against the plants. Menes threw his paddle into the bottom of the boat and grabbed the pole. He poled them deeper into the rushes, till the boat couldn’t move at all. Then he opened his cloth satchel and took out a ball of fabric and stared at Kepi. “I only have one.”

  That ball was a sand scarf. Kepi knew all about them. You wrapped them around your whole head, to protect your eyes from being scratched blind by the sand and to keep the dust and sand from filling up your nose and mouth and suffocating you. The cloth was thin enough to see through, so you could still breathe, and firm enough so that it could hold itself away from your mouth. A flimsy scarf could get pushed into your throat and choke you. Without the protection of the right scarf, no one could survive a sandstorm. Kepi stared back at Menes.

  He turned his back to her and wrapped his head, winding fast. Then he stopped and unwound. He looked at Kepi and took out his knife. “You’re right. Everyone knows what compassion is.” Menes slit the cloth and handed her half. “If we make it through this, I’ll go with you to talk to the pharaoh. Hurry now.” He closed his eyes and wound his half around his head. Around and around. So fast his hands were a blur. He was expert at it. When he finished winding, he curled up on his side in the bottom of the boat and hugged himself.

  Kepi had better be fast, too. She was holding her half by one end when the wind blew upward and snatched it away, over the tops of the papyrus, lost to sight!

  The cloud had become a solid wall, pushing forward with wild winds. Only the gods could save her now. Kepi opened her mouth to pray, but the wind stole her words. It pulled her hair. It tried to rip off her dress.

  Kepi pulled her dress off over her head and the wind tore at it, but she held on for dear life this time. She tied the top of it into a knot, so the dress was like a bag now. Then she pulled the bag down over her head and bunched the bottom of it around her neck, clutching it tight with her hands. She curled into the bottom of the boat.

  The storm roared. It bellowed. It screamed. It was as though every wild animal in the whole world cried out in anger at once. The dust and sand scoured Kepi’s bare skin raw. She tightened into the smallest ball she could, to protect at least the front of her. Her back and upper shoulder burned savagely. She felt something wet spread from that shoulder down to the well of her neck, then get sucked away by the wind. She was bleeding. She’d be skinned completely if her body stayed out in the open like that.

  She got to her knees, fighting against the force of the gale, and hurled herself over the edge of
the boat. She couldn’t even reach out to catch on to anything, because it took all her strength to hold her dress bunched tight around her neck. She landed in papyrus so thick, it was almost impenetrable. It held her up. She thrashed and kicked and wiggled, and slowly, slowly she worked her way down. Her feet found their way under the cool water. What enormous relief. Then her legs and bottom and finally her shoulders. Papyrus surrounded her. It slapped down on her head from every direction.

  The storm raged on. The noise deafened her. Her dress blinded her. The water and papyrus enveloped her. She felt a part of her close off from the world outside. It gathered itself together and sealed away in a secret spot she’d never known she had, deep in the center of her being. Was that her ka? Was it preparing to separate from her body? Kepi didn’t want to die. Please. Please.

  She pressed the side of her head against the papyrus plants. She could still feel their pressure. But only barely. She wanted to sleep. The need to doze off was huge. But she had the sickening conviction that if she let herself sleep, she’d never wake.

  Aiiii! Something bit her foot. Kepi kicked at it like a maniac. She could barely move, wedged into the reeds like that, but she still kicked until she couldn’t anymore. It was all she could do just to hold on to her dress and breathe.

  And still the storm raged. It just wouldn’t stop. Kepi lost all sense of time. It was as though she’d always been here in this water in these papyrus leaves, and she always would be.

  Finally the noise lessened. Did it really? Kepi couldn’t be sure of anything. Maybe her ears had truly stopped working. For now she couldn’t hear anything. It wasn’t like before, when she felt deafened by noise. This was just absence. Nothingness. Did she live still? She moved her tongue around in her dry, dry mouth. Her teeth were still there.

  Chapter 23

  Gone

  Crack!

  Kepi dared to stretch a hand upward. Rain came splashing down in big bold drops. But the wind was gone. Kepi pulled her dress off her head.

  She had to blink several times before she could see. The world was red and yellow. Dust and sand covered the papyrus leaves. It covered the river weeds and the rushes and the land beyond. It even sat on the surface of the water. But the downpour was quickly doing its job. The dust on the plants turned to mud and slid off.

  The sky lit up with a great jagged line of flame from one side to the other. Crack!

  Kepi stuffed part of her dress in her mouth so she wouldn’t lose it, and she used both hands to turn herself around in the reeds. The little papyrus boat was still behind her, but it was upright now, its nose immersed in the river, as though some giant had lifted the rear of it with a finger.

  “Menes!” mumbled Kepi. “Menes, where are you?” She grabbed the rim of the side of the boat and pulled herself to it. She reached under the water and felt inside the bow of the boat. There was nothing there. The boat was entirely empty except for the pole, which had somehow gotten speared through the side, high up near the gunwale. She took her dress out of her mouth and shouted, “Menes! Menes, answer me! Where are you?” Her words were lost in the rain. Even she could barely hear them.

  Kepi held her dress with her teeth again and pulled herself, hand over hand, along one side of the boat, as if she were climbing a rope. She yanked and struggled, and finally the papyrus yielded and the bow came up and the boat was righted. It was full of dust and sand and water. But it couldn’t sink because of the matted papyrus reeds.

  The rain pounded. It made the mud in the boat roil. Kepi hauled herself over the side and fell into the little boat. She stood up shakily. She could hardly see anything, the rain came so hard. She crumpled her dress into a ball and clutched it to her belly. “Menes!” she screamed. “Where are you?” She called and called.

  She pulled the pole out of the side of the boat and poked it down under the water, through the reeds. He must have jumped into the reeds as she had. He must still be hiding there. “Menes!” She poked everywhere she could reach. She poked and poked. “Menes!” She screamed till her voice was completely gone. But she kept poking. He had to be here somewhere. Maybe he had gotten caught in the papyrus. But he was breathing. He had to be. Where was he? She poked on and on. Inside her heart she prayed to every god she could think of. Save him. Save Menes. Don’t let his body be lost in the river. Don’t let his ka be alone forever. Save him. Please. One of you, please please, save him.

  The rain gradually came to a halt. The sun glowed far in the west. It was late afternoon. A crocodile silently glided by on the river behind Kepi. Ducks quacked. The air came to life again.

  “Menes,” Kepi whispered. She put her face into the reeds and drank. “Menes,” she said, louder now. Her voice had returned. “Menes!” she shouted. And she went back to poking. “Menes! Don’t do this! Don’t be gone. Please, Menes.”

  The crocodile glided past again with egg-yolk-yellow eyes.

  “Is that you, great god Sobek? Don’t just glide on past. If that’s you, help me. Please help me.”

  The crocodile blinked several times, then went under without a sound.

  Ke-ke-ke-pi. A thin cry came from overhead. It was a vulture.

  “Great goddess Nekhbet?” Kepi called. “You protect the pharaoh. But we’re the pharaoh’s people. Please protect us.”

  Kepi watched the vulture till it glided out of sight. Not once did it flap its wings.

  There was no one else around, no one else to appeal to. The day was passing. This little boat couldn’t stay on the water in the dark.

  Kepi made a bowl of her hands and slowly scooped the mud from inside the boat. Then she used the pole to push the boat out of the papyrus reeds. Once it was free, she leaned over the side and dipped her dress in the water to rinse it of the mud. Then she put it on, sopping wet.

  And all the while, tears rolled down her cheeks. But she didn’t think about why. She didn’t really think at all. Her body just did things on its own.

  She had no paddle. Nothing but the pole. She used the pole to push the boat out until it was too deep to reach the bottom anymore. Then she sat and waited. The current took the boat, slowly at first, then faster, to the middle of the river. She had no way to steer, no way to increase or decrease her speed. She just went with the river, and the river went fast. The rain had dropped so much water that the current was stronger than Kepi had ever felt it.

  After a long time, she passed an overturned boat. A big one of wood planks. Broken into pieces and half sunk. But she was pretty sure it wasn’t the trade boat that had carried her Babu.

  She passed a floating body—a woman. She looked away.

  It was early evening when she saw the white walls. They went on forever. Pure white stone walls, still wet from the rains that had followed the sandstorm. The dying light of day glistened orange off the tiny puddles that formed in the crevices. And the buildings within those walls, oh! There were so many. Kepi had never imagined that a city could bring together so many people. Date palms grew in clusters within the walls. The dock was littered with broken boats. Children carried debris from the storm down to the river and dumped it in. A boy looked up and saw her and waved.

  That was when Kepi realized she was going to drift on by the city. She had no way of getting to shore. “Help!” she shouted. “I have no paddle. Help!”

  The boy just waved.

  “Help!” Kepi stood, her legs wide to brace against the movement of the boat. She held up the pole. “This is all I have. Help me get to shore! Help!”

  By this point a few of the children had gathered to watch her. They talked with one another. One of them went running back into the city. He must be going for help. But Kepi was floating on by. She couldn’t wait or she’d be lost. Again. She wouldn’t let that happen, never again.

  She dove into the river and swam for the dock. It was far and the river was strong, but Kepi was stronger. This month of constant paddling had transformed her. Her arms were hard as those stone walls. If a crocodile came up to her, she’d pu
nch him in the nose.

  The children on the dock shouted now. They jumped and urged her on. “Swim! Swim fast!”

  And she did. Kepi, who had never been a good swimmer, who had lagged behind Nanu in every race—Kepi swam as though the water was her home. She reached the dock, and many hands pulled her up.

  “What happened?”

  “Why were you out on the river?”

  “You weren’t on the river during the storm, were you?”

  “No one could survive the sandstorm on the river. My father said so.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Why were you all alone?”

  Kepi shook her head and dropped to the ground. “I wasn’t all alone. I wasn’t. But he’s gone.” And her tears came again, this time with knowledge. She cried for Menes. For Menes, who had lied to her and stolen her and wanted to sell her. For Menes, who had fed her and protected her and taught her and shared his sand cloth with her. He shouldn’t have died. No no no. She beat her chest in grief.

  Two men came out on the dock carrying a papyrus boat.

  “She’s safe,” one of the boys called to them. “She swam to shore. She swam among the crocodiles. The gods protected her.”

  “Where’s the boat?”

  The boy pointed. Kepi’s little boat was far down the river now.

  The men put their boat in the water and paddled fast. Kepi watched as they reached her boat. She watched as one of them climbed into it and both of them paddled the two boats back to the dock.

  The man in Kepi’s boat jumped out and pulled on the boat.

  “I’ll take one side,” said Kepi. And she helped him haul it onto the dock.

  “It’s ours now,” said the man to Kepi. “You abandoned it. It’s ours.” He pointed at the two tallest boys. “Help us carry these boats away.”

  The rest of the boys left, too. Only the boy who had first waved at Kepi remained. “Go home,” he said. But nicely.

  “I don’t have a home. Not in Ineb Hedj.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know. I used to know. But right now I can’t . . . I can’t think. I’m just sad.”