and beyond that the infinite opposition of the desert. I thought of my girls, and Tanefert. What were they all doing now? Were my girls asking about their father? Was their mother making up some story with her rich invention? Or were they just running around, or reading, or executing new acrobatic movements over and over and over until something was knocked flying?
As I sat there pondering the imponderables of my life, a frail figure emerged onto one of the nearby roofs. She shaded her eyes and looked around, and when she noticed me she made a polite, deferential bow. I nodded back. It would do no harm, I thought, to discover more about this quarter of the city, not least because secrets and information are not the preserve of palaces alone, but are found equally in the most dismal of shanties. So I stepped over the parapet, making my way cautiously over the crumbling roofs-in places the dry reeds, bundled and plaited together, which served as roofing material had already broken or given way-and joined her on the opposite parapet. Her skin was darker than mine, her features nomadic, her dress clean but poor, adorned with a few trinkets of traditional style. She might have been no more than twenty years old, but hard labour had aged her well beyond that: as always the hands, with their callused skin as tough as hide, gnarled knuckles and broken nails, told the story. Still, there was life and humanity in her smile. We greeted each other.
‘I am from Mut,’ she said, by way of introduction.
I knew of it-a desert settlement to the south-west, near the Dakhla Oasis.
‘I’ve never been there, but I enjoy the wine,’ I said.
She nodded without comment.
‘Why did you come to the city?’ I asked her.
‘Ah. The city.’ She shaded her eyes and shook her head slowly. ‘My husband overheard a wonderful story someone was telling in the market, of the new capital, about the need for workers. He came home and told me, “We can escape, make something of ourselves.” I was afraid to leave everything I knew and cared for to set out on such a dangerous journey. We’d heard other tales of gangs of convicts and even the soldiers of the Amun Priests robbing travellers by night. But he wanted to go, and there was nothing for us where we were. So we surrendered all we possessed to a guide, who guaranteed safe passage. He told us about a green city of towers, gardens and ample work for all. Even I was beguiled by his words. We left, with our two young children. Parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters-we left them all behind knowing we were unlikely ever to see them again. We were five families who set out together that evening.’
She paused for a moment, her eyes swimming with the memory of departure.
‘We travelled for days beyond telling. Then one evening we were surprised and surrounded by a band of Medjay guards. We were forced to march, and eventually they rounded up other straggling groups of desperate people from all over the Red Land. We were nothing but cattle.
She held out her ruined hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Finally we arrived at the Great River. But all the sweet waters that flowed before my eyes could not have satisfied my thirst to return home again, and know my own hearth. We were shipped down the river to the city and set to work. We were not slaves, but we were not free men either. Men and women had to wait together every morning for the Overseer and his assistants to make their selections: who would work and eat, and who would not work and starve. Always the fittest and strongest worked, and while these lucky ones tried to bring supplies back in secret for the others, gradually those not chosen died away in the filthy hovels where they were left to fend for themselves. I worked as a labourer. My children are now mixing the mud for the sun-dried bricks that, one by one, are building the city. My husband is now the foreman of a work gang. But it has soured his soul. He drinks. We fight. And now…’
She gestured to her foot. I saw that it was bandaged.
‘It is broken?’
She slowly unwound the stained linen and showed me the damage: it had been crushed by a stone building- block. The flesh was mottled blue and crimson and rotten yolk-yellow, the shape distorted, the toes curled into themselves. It looked to me as if the bones were smashed, the flesh rotting. She would have to lose the foot.
‘I am as useless now as a dancer with one leg.’
It was tempting to read a parable of suffering and wisdom in her dignified face. But what I saw there was simply hopelessness.
‘I wish we had not come,’ she continued. ‘But what choice did we have? All we had left to sell was ourselves. And this is a world in which if you have nothing to sell, you die.’
What could I do for this woman? Our green and gold world, our life of houses and linens and fine wines, is built on the invisible, inescapable labour of the multitudes. Not a new thought, of course. There had been many occasions in my life when I had been exposed to these unpleasant realities. My work had shown me day after day the effects of this poverty: in the crimes committed out of the despair of drink, in particular; the delirious exuberance, the indifference to cares, the sorrowful songs of misfortune soon giving way to irredeemable acts of rage and violence.
We sat for a little while, listening to the birds’ free music. It seemed like a beautiful joke at her expense, a sweetness she could never possess; but she closed her eyes and drank it in like wine. I pressed upon her the only thing I could offer: a draught of water from the jar. She drank a few sips, grateful more for the offer than the thing itself. And then we made our farewells, and she hobbled away across the rooftops in the burning afternoon.
Not long after that Khety returned with the news that we could attempt to enter the archive that evening. He was full of problems and concerns: how would we pass through security, how would we find the necessary information among so much papyrus, what would happen to his brother and his family if we were caught? But in such situations I find myself becoming less, rather than more, concerned.
‘Don’t waste my time with your worries,’ I said. ‘Concentrate on solutions, not problems.’
He didn’t like that.
‘Listen, Khety, there are two things in our line of work. One is knowledge, under the heading of which I include planning. The other is improvisation, under the heading of which I include errors, mistakes, cock-ups and the general chaos to which all things inevitably, especially in our business, tend-and that goes for planning too. So let’s make a plan, and then, when it goes wrong, we’ll improvise our way out of trouble.’
31
It was in the personae of a court scribe and his assistant that we left the safe house. I had my story prepared. We were researching an official history of the reign of Akhenaten to be presented to him by the Office of Culture on the occasion of his jubilee. It was to be a surprise, and must be kept secret. We carried with us documents of permission from the Akhetaten Medjay office which Khety had forged, having stamped them with some kind of blurred approval-seal in his office. I also had with me the original papers of authorization, but they would not help us now that we were in hiding.
‘Did you see Mahu?’ I asked Khety.
‘He was out. I timed my visit carefully. He’s been asking for me.’
‘I imagine he has. What does he think you are doing now, since we were arrested after Meryra’s murder?’
‘He’s been too busy to care. The murder has badly damaged his prestige, and he’s on the rampage to fit someone to the crime. I guess he’s furious that you’ve disappeared again. I’m sure that’s why he wants to see me.’
I gave myself a moment to relish the satisfaction Khety’s words brought me. With the Festival coming, and the escalating security tensions after Meryra’s murder, Mahu was almost certainly too preoccupied with his immediate problems to make good on his threat against my family.
It was a strange experience to walk once more through the streets of the city. The absolute single-minded purpose that characterized the attitude of the citizens during my first days here had changed now; among the new crowds there was a sense of uncertainty, touching on anxiety, as if everyone was apprehensive about the coming events and the arrival of so many strangers. But that was all to our advantage, as it enabled us to move far less conspicuously up and down the roads. Nevertheless, we covered our heads in the vague imitation of some kind of religious modesty. No-one paid us any attention.
