regaled them with the story of Pharaoh's blessing upon him as tears of joy glistened in his handsome eyes. Zaya could not control herself, but burst out weeping, praying to Lord Ptah the Magnanimous, the Gracious. Bisharu was beside himself, rocking back and forth — with his bloated, sagging frame. As for Nafa, he kissed the young man and laughed for a long time with glee and delight. Kheny blessed him, assuring him that the gods do not decree such glorious things without having designed some lofty purpose that no man had previously achieved. All of them kept expressing the gladness and gaiety that were uppermost in their thoughts.
Suddenly, Djedef remembered the woman that he had left in the guest room. He stood up immediately upon recalling her. Quickly relating her story, he said to his mother, “I hope that you will extend her your hospitality, Mama, until she departs our home.”
“I will go down to welcome her, my son.”
Djedef escorted his mother as they entered the guest room together. “Welcome,” she said. “My lady, you have arrived at your own house…”
The woman rose from her seat, her heavy figure drooping from the degradation and disgrace of her long captivity, and put out her hand to her generous hostess. The two women's eyes met for the first time. With lightning speed, they forgot all about their exchange of greetings as they looked at each other strangely, each as though she were struggling to pierce the heavy veil that time had pressed over the face of the distant past. At length, the eyes of the strange woman widened as she shouted with mad astonishment, “Zaya!”
Seized by panic, Zaya stared at her with intense confusion. Djedef kept looking from one to the other in bewilderment, amazed at the woman who knew his mother though she had spent twenty years of her life in the wilderness.
“How do you know my mother?” he asked her in shock.
Yet the woman paid no heed to what he said. Perhaps she hadn't even heard him — because she was entirely focused on Zaya with an absolute mania. She grew furious with her silence and screamed at her, “Zaya… Zaya! Aren't you Zaya? What's wrong — why don't you speak? Speak, you treacherous servant! Tell me what you did with my son! Woman, where is my son!”
Zaya said nothing, her eyes never leaving the outraged woman. But the commotion had paralyzed her; she began to shudder as her fear tore her apart, her face like that of the dead. Djedef took her by her cold hand and sat her down on the closest seat, then turned to the woman. “How did you summon the nerve to speak this way to my mother, Madam,” he demanded, “after I've taken you into my house, and saved your life?”
The woman was gasping like someone about to die. What the commander who had rescued her said greatly affected her. She wanted to speak, but — besieged by emotion — she could do no more than point to his mother as if to say, “Ask her.”
The young man bent down toward Zaya with compassion and asked her softly, “Mama… do you know this woman?”
Zaya still said nothing. The woman was unable to sustain her silence as she said, her rage returning, “Ask her, ‘Do you know Ruddjedet, wife of Ra?’ Ask her, ‘Do you remember the woman that fled with her from tyranny, twenty years ago, carrying her little child?’ Speak to me, O Zaya! Tell him how you crept away under the cover of darkness, how you kidnapped my nursing son. Tell him how you abandoned me in the unknown desert, a despairing soul, facing nothing but hardship and with nothing to avail against it. That is, until the beasts found me and took me prisoner, subjecting me to torture and the humiliation of captivity for twenty long years. Speak, O Zaya…. Tell me, what did you do with my child? Speak!”
More and more confused, Djedef whispered in his mother's ear in torment, “Mother… allow me, who has caused you this agony, I who brought this woman that grief has deprived of her reason… allow me, Mama… I will throw her out.”
But she gripped his hand to prevent him from acting, and he asked her pleadingly, “Why don't you speak, Mama?”
Zaya groaned painfully, and then spoke for the first time since the stupefaction had overwhelmed her, “There's no use… my life is finished.”
The youth called out, his voice roaring like a lion, “Mother, don't say this. You have me, O Mother!”
She sighed from her ordeal. “Oh, dear Djedef, by God, I committed no evil deed, nor used evil means, but Fate has determined what was beyond a person's power to prevent. O Lord! How can my life be destroyed in a single stroke?”
The youth was nearly insane with pain. “Mama!” he cried. “Do not forget that I am at your side, defending you from all harm. What is hurting you? What causes you such grief? Whatever your past enfolds of good or of ill, it's all the same to me. There's nothing important for me to know except that you're my mother, and I'm your son that protects you — be you oppressor or oppressed, malicious or benign. I beg you not to weep when I'm beside you.”
“It's impossible for you to help me!”
“Sheer nonsense, Mama! What calamity is this?”
“You will not be able to help me, dear Djedef. My God! How I built upon hopes, but I set them on the edge of a crumbling cliff! How they were almost steady and upright, then they crashed down to the lowest ground, leaving my heart a ruin in which the ravens are screeching!”
At this, the young man's emotions grew even stronger, and he turned again toward the woman — but she did not relent. Instead, she went on pressing Zaya, “Tell me, where is my son? Where is my son?”
Zaya remained speechless for a little while, then she stood up nervously and shouted at the woman, “Do you think that I betrayed you, O Ruddjedet? No — I've never betrayed anyone. I stayed awake over you on that fateful night, but the Bedouin attacked us, and I had no choice but to flee. I took pity on your baby from their evil, and carried him in my arms, racing across the desert like a madwoman. I had to run away, seeing the nature of the threat, while your falling into their hands was decreed by Fate. Afterward, I took care of your son, and devoted my life to him. My love was good for him, for he grew up to be a man honored by the world. There he is then, standing right in front of you. Have you ever seen a mortal like him before?”
Ruddjedet turned toward her son. She wanted to speak, but her tongue would not obey.
All she was able to do was to open her arms, and, hastening to him, to entwine them around his neck while her lips trembled — with these words, “My son.my son.” The young man was dumbfounded, as though he was watching a strange dream unfold. He remained silent, sometimes looking at Zaya's cadaverlike face, and sometimes at the woman hanging onto him, kissing him — with a motherly fervor and clutching him to her beating breast. Zaya saw his surrender, noting in his eye a look of affection and compassion. Groaning in despair, she turned her back to them, bolting out of the room like a butchered hen.
Djedef started to move, but the woman strengthened her grip and implored him, “My son… my son… would you abandon your mother?”
The youth froze where he was, casting a long look into her face. He saw the visage that had moved his heart from the very first glance. He saw in it this time even greater purity, beauty, and misery than he had noticed before. Giving himself over in sympathy to her, he leaned his head toward her unthinkingly until he felt her lips press on his cheek. The woman sighed in relief as her eyes drowned in tears — then she began weeping, and he set about trying to ease her distress. He sat her down on the divan, taking a seat next to her as she held back her sobs, while she remained in a state between confusion and happiness over this new love in her life.
Looking at him, the woman said, “Say to me, ‘Mother!’ “
“Mother…” he said, weakly.
Then he said in bewilderment, “But I hardly understand anything.
“You will learn everything, my son.”
And so she recited to him all the long tale, telling him about his birth and the momentous prophecies surrounding it, and of the prodigious events that befell her — until the fortunate hour when her spirit returned to her breast at the sight of him — alive, happy, and full of glory.
32
The fates guided Bisharu to hear Ruddjedet's tale without his intending it. Wanting to welcome Djedef's
