The Twice Born

by Pauline Gedge

  “Wait!” he commanded. “Wait. Don’t move. Something is unfolding.” He dared not breathe as the knowledge slowly bloomed within the mysterious recesses of his mind. “The scarab! I remember! All the other boys envied me for the luck of having it.” He pursed his lips. “But it did not bring me luck, did it? It brought me to this.”

  Ishat sucked appreciatively at the wine then set the cup back on the table. “Where is it now?” she demanded. “Did some other pupil steal it after you died?”

  “I don’t know. It was in the box my uncle gave me, together with my sennet game and my Nefer amulet and my scribe’s palette. Oh, Ishat! I can see those things! Look under my couch. See if the box is there.” She knelt and, scrabbling about, withdrew the cedar box. Huy snatched it from her and hugged it to his chest, but he did not want to open it, not until she had gone.

  “I can’t see that you’ve changed much, except for the silly halo of fuzzy hair all over your head,” she said a trifle sulkily. “Show me the wound.” Still clutching the box, he twisted sideways. Ishat climbed up beside him and he felt her deft fingers move over what had become to him a ravine, her noisy breath in his ear. Presently she sat back. “It’s really ugly,” she pronounced. “Deep and red and all furrowed. I heard it was a throwing stick.”

  Shame at the disfigurement washed over him. “So I was told,” he responded dryly. “But I can’t see the person who did it, or any of the other boys for that matter.”

  Ishat grinned. “So we are equal again. You will be staying home now, won’t you, Huy? No more school. No more aristocratic friends. Only me. You’ll have to marry me now. I’m the only one left who isn’t afraid of you.” At his expression of distress she lifted his hand and laid it to her cheek. “I’m sorry. That was cruel. I do not believe that you are inhabited by something evil. Not you! But I had to see for myself, and Mother has kept me away from your house ever since the priest brought you back.” She smiled. “Well, at least it has meant a rest from sweeping floors and washing linens and trying to cook.” She let him go and stood. “I had better go before we wake your parents. May I visit you again in the middle of the night?”

  He nodded but said nothing, and after a moment she quickly drained the wine, ran noiselessly across the floor, and vanished. The reed mat slapped once against the wall and then hung motionless.

  Silence filled the house once more. Huy fancied that he could still feel Ishat’s touch on his scalp and resisted the urge to scratch his wound. So I have one friend whose faith in me has not wavered, he thought. I know and yet do not know her. Behind her face, her familiar gestures, there is a tapestry of colours and events and conversations, but they are so muddled and garbled that I cannot sort them out.

  All the same, his heart was lighter as reverently he set the cedar box across his thighs and raised the lid with its silver image of Heh, god of eternity, kneeling on a stool. Huy’s nostrils filled with its pleasant scent. The scarab, wrapped in a piece of spotless linen, sat in one of the compartments. Huy drew it out, laying back the cloth and gazing down at the glittering thing. “I found it floating on the flood,” Ishat said loudly. Huy looked up, startled, but the lamp’s glow showed him an empty room. “My father told me that scarabs are very rare here in the Delta. They like to live in the desert,” the voice went on, Huy now knew, in his own head. “He said it would bring me good fortune, but I said Huy needs it more than I do, seeing that he has to go away to school.” The proximity of the memory in which the words were encapsulated made Huy feel nauseated. My Naming Day, he thought. Garden. Family? Which Naming Day? A flash of something came to him. He was running down the passage outside his door towards the bright sunlight of the garden, but he doubted that such a moment had anything to do with the scarab.

  The sennet game fed his father’s personality into his questing hands. Yes, Hapu had definitely made it himself with love and care. “I want to see you so badly,” Huy whispered as he laid it aside. “I cannot believe in your cowardice, dear Father. No power under Ma’at could make me hurt you.”

  Right at the bottom of the box, nestling on top of a pile of kilts and tunics, was the palette. Huy withdrew it, slid it open, drew the brushes across his palm, unstoppered the ink powders, caressed the ivory burnisher, and suddenly his teacher’s face swam into view. “Erudition is knowledge coupled with wisdom,” the man said, and around him the classroom resolved itself, full of the noise of busy pupils, the clatter of chunks of broken pottery being removed from the basket, the low chanting of one of the older boys far across the room, the smell of papyrus, and the mouthwatering odour of fried fish being carried into the dining room next door. Huy felt like shouting for joy. But where are my classmates? Them I cannot see. But one day I will. His teacher spoke again. “As yet you have little knowledge and no wisdom, Huy son of Hapu. But one day your erudition will surpass that of the gods themselves.” Huy frowned. The eyes meeting his belonged to someone else he had met, and the voice was different, the speech more measured than that of his teacher. An ache of loss assailed him, for what he was not sure, and he slid the palette closed, all at once aware of a bone-deep exhaustion. Setting the box on the floor beside the couch, he fell asleep almost immediately.

  Even though he was now able to sit in his chair and walk about, his mother insisted that he was not ready to leave the confines of his room. “You must eat more, rest more, build up your strength,” she said, but Huy believed that her effort to control him came from a reluctance to see him hurt. Accordingly, one morning he dressed himself in a loincloth and kilt from his chest, slipped on a pair of sandals, and ventured through the doorway he had lain and stared at for so many weeks.

  The passage was empty. Huy turned right, towards the square of early sunlight pouring in from the garden. His body felt heavy and his legs feeble. His ankles ached. Reaching the end, he stood blinking while his sight adjusted. Powerful light sparked from the surface of the pond. He could hear the high peeping of young nestlings in the trees separating his home from the vast orchard beyond, and the air was redolent with the scent of fruit blossoms. Of course, he thought. It is still the season of Peret. Spring. What month? When was I struck down? How fresh and lovely the garden looks!

  He advanced carefully, all his senses assaulted by a tumult of impressions after his long detention in the quiet dimness of his room, and as he did so there was a stirring in the deep shade of the sycamores. A woman had risen from the reed mat flattening the grass, a child in her arms. Both were staring at him warily. Hapzefa, his mind told him at once, and the baby must be my brother … Heby! Huy forced a smile. “It’s such a beautiful morning, Hapzefa,” he called. “I decided to spend a little time enjoying it.” Don’t be afraid, he wanted to add, don’t run away. But she was already turning to disappear through the orchard gate, her arms visibly tightening around Heby. Her alarm must have been transferred to him, for he began to squirm and grunt a protest, his eyes on Huy. “Please let him come,” Huy urged. “He remembers me, Hapzefa. Heby! It’s me, Huy.” But Hapzefa shook her head and ran clumsily to the gate. Heby began to wail, the sound growing fainter as the servant vanished through the orchard.

  Huy sighed. Approaching the pool, he stood looking down at its busy life. The blue lilies had already opened. Tiny beads of water trembled on their delicate boat-shaped flowers. Frogs squatted on their sturdy pads, waiting to snap at the gnats clouding above them. A water beetle skimmed past from the shelter of the sedge choking the verge, leaving a barely perceptible wake. His mother’s vegetables clustered neatly around the circumference, the dark green, narrow leaves of lettuce, the yellow melon flowers trailing the ground, the tiny buds of new cabbages making him feel all at once thin and sick. Moving into the shade, he sank onto the mat the servant had vacated.

  He must have dozed, for he came to himself with a start to find his father sitting cross-legged beside him, gazing across the garden to the dazzling white wall of the house. The man did not move as Huy struggled up, but as Huy tried to touch him he shrank
away.

  “My son covered that wall with his pictures and writings,” he said huskily. “Every winter when I renewed the whitewash I was sorry to paint over such pretty colours, but I knew that he would soon be at work again, wielding the brushes his uncle gave him, with his brother happily slung across his back. When I attended to the wall this year I did not know that my son would soon be dead and there would be no more pictures. If I had known I would have left the house alone until the paint faded away.” He laced his broad fingers together. “I am wondering if you are a punishment from the gods because I have failed to give them the worship they demand.”

  Huy did not respond. There was nothing he could say. He glanced across at the sun-furrowed face, the dear, familiar set of the jaw, the healthy, muscular neck.

  Hapu did not look at him. “Well, I will soon know,” he went on tonelessly. “The priest will come with incense and water sent to him from the sacred lake at Iunu. If it is proved to me that you are indeed my son, I will offer the gods the regular service I have always denied them. But if they have sent an abomination to live in my house, I will renounce them all forever and no priest will set a foot on my soil again.” He swallowed. Huy, with a paining heart, saw a trail of tears suddenly track through the dust clinging to Hapu’s features. “If I am maligning Huy my son, I am deeply sorry,” he finished. “I long to hold him in my arms, but I refuse to embrace something evil. Therefore, until the proof I desire is presented to me, we will have no commerce with each other.” He got up, and Huy watched him stride across the grass and disappear inside the house, a tall, proud man with an invisible weight of grief bowing his wide shoulders.

  Huy decided to frighten and shame the members of the household no more. He retreated to his room, determined to stay there until the rite of exorcism had been completed. He considered taking his exercise at night, wandering the garden and the orchard in the dark when he was unlikely to meet anyone, but his new fear of the hours Ra spent in the body of Nut, battling the demons that lay in wait for the god, quickly changed his mind. Nor was his apprehension limited to whatever might be hiding under cover of the darkness. The possibility that his body might be harbouring a malevolent ghost, or worse, a demon, was growing. Perhaps it had insinuated itself into those blank spaces where his memory had disappeared. Huy longed for the poppy, and could not sleep.

  Three days after the encounter with his father, the welcome figure of Methen emerged from the shadows of the passage and Huy rose to greet him. He had been sitting by his window staring moodily out at his brother, who was toddling to and fro under Hapzefa’s watchful eye. Huy had been careful not to be seen, a precaution he resented and that hurt his already tender feelings. The priest was a happy distraction.

  “I had hoped to accompany you to the temple at Iunu for your exorcism,” Methen began without preamble, “but no sailors would agree to crew any vessel once they knew who would be on board. In fact no one at all could be persuaded to help us.” He perched on the edge of Huy’s couch and poured himself a cup of water. “I understand the fear, but I am angry nonetheless. I even approached your uncle, but he was as intractable as everyone else.” He sighed, drank, then scowled. “I have written to the High Priest of Ra. He replied at great length. He seems to know you well, Huy, and is sending someone directly to Khenti-kheti’s shrine to examine you. I am sorry.”

  “Why sorry?” Huy exclaimed. “This is good news, Methen. My situation will at last be resolved.”

  “Perhaps.” Methen hesitated. “The High Priest is sending a Rekhet. Whatever the outcome, the people of Hut-herib may not accept the verdict of a woman.”

  Huy’s mouth went dry. “I didn’t know that such a one resided at Iunu. They are greatly to be feared. They have much power. What if she casts an evil spell on me?”

  Methen raised his eyebrows and smiled wryly. “Everyone believes that you hold such a power,” he retorted. “A Rekhet is not a magician. Nor is she a physician. She talks to the spirits of the dead and can divine the presence of demons, that is all.” He replaced the cup on the table and stood. “She can exorcise as well. The demons listen to her. You are surely not as full of ignorant superstitions as the peasants who work for your uncle!” Huy did not reply. “I trust the High Priest of Ra,” Methen continued, “particularly as he wrote about you warmly and with a certain humour. Somehow you have impressed him. He will have made the correct decision regarding you. I must leave, Huy, but I will return to escort you to the shrine when the Rekhet thinks the time is right. She will cast a horoscope for the day, not a spell to turn you into a crocodile!”

  He left chuckling, but Huy sensed the tension beneath his friend’s attempt at jocularity. A noose was drawing about his neck, to send him back to the House of the Dead or to haul him at last out of his predicament, but either way, as the slap of Methen’s sandals died away, Huy thought, Dead or alive, I suspect that nothing will ever be the same again.

  A week went by during which his impatience grew. He would have liked to talk to his mother about the thing he was facing, but he remembered Methen’s warning and chose not to burden her with his growing terror. Ishat slipped into his room one windy night, but her presence could not cheer him. She would share the peasant’s irrational fear of the Rekhet, and Huy, enveloped in a deepening fatigue of body and mind, did not have the energy to calm her. Of his father he tried not to think. Hapu had dealt him a grave wound and he wanted no more emotional turmoil.

  On the eighth morning, soon after dawn, Methen arrived and ushered him out of the house and into the litter waiting for them on the path. Huy had time for a few breaths of the fresh, scented air before the heavy linen curtains were drawn closed to either side of him and Methen’s voice came to him, muffled by the stifling hangings. “It’s better if you are not seen. The bearers are my servants. They have been purified and wear protecting Wadjet Eye amulets.” His tone dropped. “Do your best not to touch them, Huy. I am sorry.”

  So am I, Huy wanted to shout, his muscles stiff with the urge to rip apart the curtains, leap onto the path, and wrestle these craven men to the ground. I am sorry I have a rich uncle, sorry I went away to school, sorry I didn’t put Sennefer in his place a long time ago, sorry I’m such a cause of distress to my family that I should not have been born! But the fit of angry self-pity faded. He sat back and closed his eyes.

  It was a relief to reach the temple and step once more into the light breeze. The bearers had quickly turned their backs to him, not out of rudeness, he knew, but so that they could not see any cursing gesture he might make. Each wore an amulet hanging between his shoulder blades in the place where demons liked to strike. Huy felt a bubble of laughter rise to his mouth and this time he did not restrain himself. His guffaw echoed off the walls of Khenti-kheti’s shrine. It had been closed, the outer doors through which he had been carried secured, but the door to the inner sanctuary stood open. Methen did not reprove him. Putting an arm around his shoulders, he led him forward, pausing so that both of them could remove their sandals. Huy’s heart began to pound in both fear and anticipation. A shape moved within the dimness. Methen shut the door behind them.

  “Do not step on the sand,” the shape commanded. “I have created an area of No-Time. Come forward, Son of Hapu, but do not step on the sand.” The voice was strong and harsh. Huy did as he was told, coming to a halt by the edge of the sand and staring at the Rekhet curiously.

  At first he saw only the cowrie shells, dozens of them, hung around her neck, slung across her belly, encircling her wrists and ankles, so that her slightest movement caused them to click against each other. The cowrie held great protective heka, Huy knew, and many people wore them, but the genuine ones were extremely expensive and difficult to obtain. Most were made of clay. This woman must be very rich. She was small, slightly bent with age, the skin of her hands and face wrinkled, her grey hair wound on top of her head and fastened in place with a cowrie attached to a pin. What he could see of her linen under the profusion of shells was spotlessly
white and enveloping. She was grasping a black rod in both hands. Huy, his eyes becoming accustomed to the half-light, saw that it was covered with carved Wadjet eyes, lamps, baboons, and cats. Two lion figures and two crocodiles were fixed into it, and a turtle, sinister and malevolent, squatted on the top of one end. Any magician who controlled the negative heka imbuing these creatures could use it for his protection. Huy’s gaze dropped to the woman’s feet. Snakes had been painted on them, and she had drawn more snakes around herself in the sand.

  “You do not know, do you?” she said. “Your father does not circle his house with the sycamore club to protect it from evil, nor does he pour the water of Ptah upon the door bolts. He does not place a statue of Renenutet in the fields to protect the crops he tends. He does not teach his son the laws and precepts of the unseen world. He leaves him defenceless.” She pointed her rod at the snakes. “Weret-Hekau Great in Magic will protect me from the demon within you. If there is a demon within you. We shall see.” She swept the rod over the objects assembled at her feet. “I have brought excrement to lure the demon out to eat, seeing that his anus is his mouth. Fresh herbs, fresh oil, and a pot into which the demon will fall, be smashed, and flung into the flowing water of the river. Do you understand what I am about to do?”

  Huy swallowed. “You are a Knowing One,” he answered huskily. “I understand, and I must trust you. May I ask a question?” She nodded, the cowries around her neck clacking tunelessly. “I have been told that if I am inhabited by a demon and you cast it out, I will die. Is it so?”

  “In your case it is so,” she said brutally, “because you lay in the House of the Dead and many people attested to the lifelessness of your corpse. If the six invisible members that, together with the body, make up the person of Huy are gone, then what animates the thing I see is something that has no right to it and will give it up under my command. Then the body of Huy may be properly beautified and entombed. I have already been purified and the sign of Ma’at is on my tongue. I will begin.”