The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome)

Kemsa shuddered. “Let us not speak of it. As I said, it is only for the desperately poor who can afford no better, and I do not think you would like me to describe the results.”

I nodded. “If a body is mummified in the best way, what then becomes of it?”

“The mummy is returned to the family, and placed inside a wooden case inscribed with the formulas needed to reach the Land of the Dead. Some cases are very ornate, but others are less so, depending on how much the family spends—”

“For our fathers, the sons of my family never purchased less than the very best of mummy cases!” cried Djal suddenly. Then he lowered his face and was silent again.

“So the mummy is put in a case,” I said, “and then what becomes of it?”

“After the funeral rites,” said Kemsa, “the mummy is taken to the family vault and leaned against the wall, upright in his case, so that when his descendants visit they may gaze upon him face to face. If the family is too poor to purchase a vault in a consecrated area, they may add a room to their house, and keep their ancestors there. Some people actually prefer such a room to a cemetery vault, for it makes it convenient for them to converse with their ancestors every day.”

I considered this. “If a man’s spirit moves on to the Land of the Dead, of what use is his mummy?”

Kemsa looked at me as if I were a simpleton. Djal wailed and buried his face in his hands.

Kemsa explained. “After death, the ka is freed from the body and seeks to find its way through many perils to the Land of the Dead. But for the ka to survive, it is essential that the earthly body be preserved from decay and supplied with all the everyday needs of life. The ka is not immortal; if the mummy perishes, the ka, too, will perish. That is why the mummy must be preserved and protected. That is why a man’s descendant must give regular offerings to his mummy—so that his ka may continue to thrive in the next world.”

“Oh, what have I done!” cried Djal, throwing back his head and beating his fists against his chest. “What have I done?”

“What has he done?” I whispered to our guide.

Kemsa drew back his shoulder and looked sidelong at the wretched man. “I think I know. You bartered the mummy of an ancestor, didn’t you?”

Djal shuddered and stiffened. “Yes! For a handful of silver, I gave away the mummy of my father!”

“What is he talking about?” I said.

“This man is the lowest of the low,” declared Kemsa. “He has used the mummy of his father as collateral.”

Antipater’s eyebrows shot up. “Herodotus writes of such a practice. If a man finds himself in dire straits, he may use the mummy of a family member to obtain a loan. So this practice still exists?”

“Only among those who have no respect for the dead,” declared Kemsa, who spat on the ground.

“I was desperate,” whispered Djal. “The floods came late two years in a row; twice my crops were ruined. All I had left I invested in a caravan to bring incense from Arabia. Then my wife and little daughter both fell ill. I needed money to pay the physicians. And so—”

“You gave up the mummy of your father in return for a loan?” I said.

Djal nodded. “There is a man in Memphis named Mhotep who specializes in such loans. A greedy, wicked man—”

“No man is more wicked than he who abandons the mummy of his father!” declared Kemsa.

Djal raised his chin defiantly. “I had every expectation that I would be able to repay the loan. But then the caravan was lost in a sandstorm, and with it the last of my fortune. All the money Mhotep lent me I had already spent, on physicians. My daughter recovered, but my wife is still ill. The repayment of the loan will fall due at the commencement of the annual inundation, which will happen any day now, and I have nothing to give to Mhotep.”

“Sell your house,” said Kemsa.

“And put my wife on the street? She would surely die.”

“You first duty is to your father. I’ve heard of this Mhotep. Do you know how he treats the mummies he collects as collateral? As long as there is a chance of repayment, he keeps them in a sealed room, crowded together and starved of offerings but safe from the elements. But if a debtor defaults, the mummy is never seen again. They say Mhotep dumps them in a ravine in the Libyan mountains, where insects and lizards and jackals feast on the remains, and whatever is left is turned to dust by the sun, then scattered by the wind—”

“Stop!” Djal clutched his face and shuddered.

“Tell them what happens to a man who gives up a mummy for a loan and never redeems it,” said Kemsa. “You cannot speak? Then I will tell them. If this wretched fellow should die without recovering the mummy of his father, the law forbids that he should be mummified, even by the standards of the third class. Nor can he be given funeral rites. His body will rot. His ka will perish forever.”

“Oh, what have I done?” cried Djal. “What a fool I am!”

“But you spoke of someone coming to save you,” I said. “That was why you were in the pyramid, wasn’t it?”

“When I saw the hopelessness of my situation, I went to the priesthoods of all the temples in Memphis, begging for their help. Only the priests of Isis showed any interest in my plight. They disapprove of men like Mhotep and would drive them from the city if they could. They called upon Mhotep and appealed to him to be merciful. At first he refused, but the priests were persistent, and at last Mhotep told them: ‘Let this man Djal answer the second riddle of the sphinx, and I will return the mummy to him!’ He said it with a smirk, of course, because no one yet has been able to answer the riddle.”