breathed with difficulty.
I finally said to her, “Only once in my life have I called a woman ‘my sister,’ but her embrace was a fire and her body a parching desert that brought me no refreshment. Therefore, I beseech you, Minea, set me free from the spell in which your limbs have bound me. Do not look at me with eyes that are like moonlight on the river, or else I shall call you ‘my sister,’ and you will lead me into destruction and death as the other woman did.”
Minea looked at me curiously.
“You must have known strange women, Sinuhe-but perhaps those of your country are different. Don’t be uneasy on my account. It is far from my purpose to seduce you as you seem to fear. My god has forbidden me to approach a man, on pain of death.”
She took my head between her hands and laid it against her knees, and stroking my cheeks and hair, she said, “This is a stupid head to make you speak so ill of women, for though there be women who poison all wells, certainly there are others who are like a fountain in the desert-like dew on a parched meadow. But, though you have a thick and uncomprehending head and your hair is black and stiffs I like to hold it in my hands. There is that about you-in your eyes and your hands-that I find lovely and alluring. Therefore, I am sad that I cannot give you what you wish-sad not only for your sake but for mine if such an immodest confession can please you.”
The water rippled against the boat, green and gold, and I held her strong, beautiful hands in mine. I held them like a drowning man and looked into her eyes that were like moonlight on the river and yet as warm as a caress.
“Minea, my sister!” I said. “I am weary of all the gods whom men have raised up for themselves-for fear, as I believe. Renounce your god, therefore, for his demand is cruel and useless-and today more cruel than ever. I will bring you to a country beyond the reach of his power though we have to journey to the edge of the world and eat grass and dried fish among savage tribes and sleep on reeds till our life’s end. For somewhere there must be a bound set to the power of your god.”
She held tightly to my hands and turned away her head.
“My god has set his boundary within my heart so that wherever I go I am within his reach-and if I give myself to any man I must die. Today as I behold you, my god seems to me cruel and foolish to demand this, but I can do nothing against him. Tomorrow all may be different-you will tire of me and forget me, for that is the way of men.”
“No man knows what tomorrow will bring,” I said impatiently, for all my being blazed toward her like a bundle of reeds that has been scorched year in, year out by the sun until kindled by a spark. “Your talk is but empty evasion to torment me-as all women love to do-and you enjoy my torment.”
She withdrew her hands with a reproachful look.
“I am no ignorant woman, for besides my own language I speak that of Babylon and yours also and can write my name in three sorts of letters both on clay and paper. Moreover, I have been in many great cities, and I have danced before many different people, who have marveled at my art, until I was stolen away by merchants when our ship foundered. Ever since childhood I have grown up in the stables of the god and have been initiated into his secret ritual so that no power or witchcraft can separate me from him. If you also had danced before bulls and in the dance swung yourself between sharp horns and tickled a bellowing muzzle in play with your foot, you would understand. But I believe you have never seen youths and girls dancing before bulls.”
“I have never even heard of it. But if I am to spare your virginity for the benefit of bulls, then it is a matter beyond all understanding, though I have heard that in Syria the priests who perform the secret ritual of the earth mother sacrifice maidens to he-goats, and these maidens are chosen from among the people.”
She smote me hard on both cheeks, and her eyes burned as the eyes of a wildcat burn in the dark as she cried in a fury, “I find there is no difference between a man and a he-goat, for your thoughts turn on bodily things only so that a goat would answer your lusts as well as a woman. Sink then beneath the ground and leave me in peace; plague me no more with your Iovesickness, for you know as much about it as a pig knows of silver.”
Her speech was harsh and her blows severe. I left her and went aft. To pass the time I opened my medicine chests and began to clean my instruments and weigh out drugs. She sat in the bows, drumming her heels on the bottom of the boat in her exasperation; presently she threw off her clothes in a passion, rubbed her body with oil and began so wild and violent a dance that the boat rocked. I could not resist a sideways glance, for her performance was masterly beyond belief. She could bend backward without effort till she rested on her hands, arching her body like a bow, then raise her feet straight up into the air. All the muscles of her body quivered under the gleaming skin, she grew breathless, and her hair billowed about her head, for the dance demanded a degree of skill such as I have never seen equaled though I have watched dancing girls in the pleasure houses of many lands.
As I watched her, my anger melted away, and I brooded no longer upon what I had lost through stealing this capricious, ungrateful girl. I remembered also that she had been ready to stab herself to death in defense of her maidenhood and knew that I had behaved ill in demanding of her what she could not give. When she had danced so long that the sweat ran down her body and every muscle quivered with exhaustion, she covered herself, head and all, with a garment, and I heard her weeping. Then I forgot my drugs and instruments. Hastening to her, I touched her shoulder gently and asked, “Are you ill?”
She made no answer, but pushed my hand away and wept the more. I sat down beside her, and my heart was full of grief.
“Minea, my sister, do not weep-do not weep at least because of me, for truly I never mean to touch you- never, never-even if you were to ask me. I would save you all pain and sorrow and would have you stay always as you are.”
She raised her head and wiped away her tears in a gesture of annoyance.
“I fear neither pain nor sorrow, you fool. And I do not weep because of you but because of my fate, which has separated me from my god and made me as weak as a rag so that a glance from a blockhead makes my knees give beneath me.”
I held her hands, and she did not withdraw them but turned to me at length, to say, “Sinuhe, in your eyes I must appear ungrateful and vixenish, but I can’t help it, for I don’t know what has come over me. I would gladly tell you of my god so that you might understand me better but to speak of him to the uninitiated is forbidden. I can tell you only that he is the god of the sea and lives in a dark house, and no one who has entered that house has ever returned but dwells with him eternally. But there are some who say that he resembles a bull although he lives in the sea. We who are dedicated to his service are trained to dance before bulls. It is said also that he is like a man despite his bull’s head, but I believe this is no more than a tale.
“I know only that every year twelve are chosen by lot from among those dedicated to enter his house one at a time when the moon is full, and there is no greater joy for those so dedicated than to enter this house. The lot has already fallen to me, but before my turn came, our ship foundered, as I have told you. The merchants stole me away and sold me in the slave market of Babylon. All my youth I have dreamed of the wonderful mansions of the god and of his couch and of immortality. Although we who are consecrated have permission to return to this world after a month is past, no one yet has ever done so-so I think the world has nothing to offer those who have once beheld the god.”
A cloud seemed to veil the sun as she spoke; the scene took on a wan and deathly hue in my eyes, and I was seized with trembling, for I knew that Minea was not for me. Her story was like the stories told by the priests of every land-and she believed it, which barred her from me forever. I did not want to vex or sadden her.
Warming her hands between mine, I said only, “I understand that you desire to return to your god, so I will bring you over the sea to
Crete-for I know now that that is where you come from. I guessed it when you spoke of bulls, but what you said of the god in the dark house makes me sure of it. It is what merchants and seamen in Smyrna have told me though I never believed them until now. They would have it that the priests slew all who tried to return from the god’s house, lest any should learn from them what he is like. That was only the talk of sailors and the common people; you being initiated will know better.”
“I must go back-you know it!” she pleaded. “Nowhere else on earth should I find peace. I rejoice at every day to be spent with you, Sinuhe, and not because you delivered me from evil but because no one has ever treated me as you have. I have not the same yearning for the god’s house as before but go to it with sorrow in my heart. If it be granted me, I will return to you after the allotted time-still, I don’t think that will be, for no one has ever come back. Our time is short, and nobody knows what tomorrow may bring as you say, so let us enjoy every day as it
