long-lost, troubling, enigmatic woman.
‘Will you show yourself?’
She was silent for a moment, then made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a light laugh. ‘Perhaps. But you must answer some questions first. You must be judged. Your truth must be judged. Your sins must be judged. Your heart. I hope it is a good one. A true one.’
The jackal-headed god gestured for me to approach. ‘Your heart must not lie in the presence of the god,’ he said. His voice was sonorous, firm, and with an accent I knew came not from the Two Lands but from beyond the cataracts. Nubia.
I nodded. This was a game, a play of masks and scenes. I understood. At the same time, it was deadly serious. We were enacting the prayers and spells in the Book of the Dead. Everything we were doing was proscribed now. My answers, I knew, would determine my fate, regardless of anything.
‘I will not lie,’ I said.
‘We will commence the Negative Confession.’ He began to recite. ‘You Gods of the Soul’s House who judge the Earth and the Sky…Worship Ra in the Ship of the Sun…’ More incantations about the fire serpent and the Children of Impotence, and seeing the sun disc and the moon disc unceasingly: ‘May my Soul go forth and travel to every place which it desires, may my name be called out, may a place be made for me in the Ship of the Sun when the God sails the Sky of Day; and may I be welcomed into the presence of Osiris in the Land of Truth.’
As he mentioned the Great Name of Osiris, a fear burned in me that my whole life was suspended on the thread of this moment, gathering like a single drop of water into fullness, only shortly to fall. On one side of the scales was the matter of my life: my childhood, my wife, my girls, my love for our precious little world, all the things, good, bad and indifferent, I had thought and felt and done and been. On the other was the future, as intangible and unknowable as that strange snow in a box.
The jackal-headed figure bade me approach a spot to one side of the scales. I looked about me. The further reaches of the chamber disappeared into shadows, but now I saw the two statues on either side of me: Meskhenet and Renenutet, goddesses of fate and destiny, who would speak for the dead. And on the other side, a crouching beast like a lion with the long jaws, ferociously armoured, of a crocodile-the Devourer, ready to consume me and my little lies. He looked as if he was made of stone, but I could not be sure.
The Perfect One spoke: ‘What is your name?’
‘Rahotep.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I am seeking the answer to a mystery.’
‘What is the nature of this mystery?’
‘I seek one who has disappeared.’
Silence. Then the Jackal came forward and bade me speak my words of reply into one of the gold dishes of the scales. His questions came fast, insistent, not pausing for me to think, and out of my mouth came a litany of responses: ‘No, I have not lied; No, I have not committed adultery; Yes, I have killed; No, I have not stolen’ and so on, until I found myself pouring out the words of my good and bad deeds as if into a cursing bowl. Then the Jackal dropped a white ostrich feather which zigzagged through the air into the other dish of the scales. The device seemed calibrated to the weight of nothing for it shivered slightly as the feather touched down; as if it might dip under the grave doubts of such lightness, and indicate my doom. But it gradually returned to absolute stillness. The air around me had held its breath. Now it began to breathe again.
Then she spoke again: ‘You are a Truth Speaker. Welcome. Close your eyes. Come forward.’
I shut my eyes and stepped like a blind man into more shadow. Her hand took mine, led me forward, and suggested I sit. I sensed her moving around me.
‘All that remains is to return you to yourself. For if you were truly dead, your soul would be a bird, fluttering between the worlds. Is your soul fluttering?’
I could not answer.
‘The Truth Speaker is lost for words?’
‘Not everything can be expressed in words.’
‘True. But now it is time for me to restore your five senses. I cannot speak for the others, the senses of humour, honour and so on.’
She led me to a bench and I sat down.
‘According to the directions of the rite, you should really be lying in a coffin, but I think that would be melodramatic. Do you recognize this?’
I nodded, feeling the object she was holding, recognizing the fishtail flint blade. ‘It is a
‘It is said that the Priest will point the right leg of a freshly slaughtered ox at you to try to transfer some of its strong spirit into your resurrected body. I will not be using the right leg of an ox.’
She placed the knife at my mouth. I felt the cold kiss of the blade against my lips. I smelled the warm scent of her body. I felt suddenly filled with warmth, with the possibility of life. I began to believe again that I could accomplish the task set for me, and return home to my life. She held the blade there for a little while as these feelings opened up inside me, then slowly she lifted it away and placed it over my eyes, right, then left, and the same for my ears. Again the cool touch of the metal. I felt myself blush like a lover.
‘You may now speak, and eat, see and hear. You are alive again.’
So I opened my eyes.
28
The shadows were drawn aside like a curtain, and I saw her.
I was sitting in an antechamber. It seemed the walls and floor were made of silver; but perhaps this was just the cumulative effect of the multitude of lamps, and besides, by this point I would have believed anything, such was the state of confused enchantment in my mind. There was nothing in the chamber but steps disappearing up into further shadows, a low bench, a small table set out with food and drink, and two chairs. She was sitting in one of them. She was wearing the blue crown, revealing the pure shapes and contours of her neck and shoulders, and accentuating the open beauty of her face.
She sat with her hands in her lap, watching me quizzically, observing and enjoying, I believe, the play of thoughts and feelings that passed no doubt plainly across my face. I would have told her anything. And it seemed she knew this, for as the thought occurred to me she smiled quickly. The brief smile passed through me like a wave of delight, of warmth, of…where are the words for moments like these when we feel ourselves most alive, most alert to another living presence, to its mysterious spirit, tingling to the very borders of our physical being and beyond so that we feel we are not after all limited by skin and bone but have become a part of everything? I am nothing more than a Medjay officer, a detective, just one passing character in the world’s charade; yet for a moment, in the glory of her attention, I felt like a small god liberated from time and the world. Then her smile passed. I knew I wanted it to come back, knew indeed that I would do anything to return it to that remarkable, dignified, open face.
‘What time is it?’ I finally asked, and immediately felt like a fool for asking such a simple and irrelevant question.
‘It is the hour of Akhet.’ Her voice was calm and clear.
‘Remind me what that means, please.’ I felt crude next to her.
‘It means the hour before dawn. It is also what the Books call the time of becoming effective. Another way of thinking of it might be this: the
‘That’s a long time.’
She returned my nervous irony with a careful look. It reminded me I did not need to play the Medjay man here. The challenge was harder: to be myself.
‘And another way of thinking about it is this: in the sacred language the sign
