Naguib Mahfouz - Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

The old woman came with the goat's milk. The make-believe mother began to nurse the infant in an unnatural manner until she thought that he had had his fill. Then there was nothing left for her but to get ready to go out to see Karda. She bathed herself, combed her hair, and put her veil over her shoulders, before leaving the inn with Djedef in her arms.

The streets of Memphis were crowded, as they usually were, with people both walking and riding — men and women, citizens, settlers, and foreigners. Zaya did not know the road to the Sacred Plateau, so she asked a constable which way to go. The plateau, he said, was “northwest of the Wall of Memphis — it would take two hours or more to get there on foot — a half hour on horseback.” In her hand she clutched the pieces of gold, so she hired a wagon with two horses, seating herself in it with serenity and bliss.

No sooner had her dreams pulled her out of the world and taken her to the heaven of rapture and delight, than her imagination raced ahead of the wagon to her dear husband, Karda. With his tawny skin and brawny arms, nothing was more becoming than the effect of his short loincloth, which revealed his thighs of iron. And what was more loveable than his long face with its narrow forehead, his great nose, and widely-spaced eyes, and his broad, powerful voice with its saucy Theban drawl? How many times had she yearned to grab his forearms, kiss his mouth, and listen to him speak! In earlier reunions of this kind, when she had been gone for a long time, he had kissed her passionately and said to her caressingly, “Come now, wife — for me you are like stony ground that soaks up water, but grows nothing.” This time, though, he wouldn't say it — how could he, when she meets him holding the most beautiful creature ever conceived by woman? There is nothing — wrong if he stares at her in confusion, the muscles softening on his hardened face, the look in his flashing eyes dissolving into gentleness. Or as he shouts out to her, unable to contain himself for joy, “Finally, Zaya — you have borne a child! Is this truly my son? Come to me — come to me!” Holding her head high in haughtiness and pride, she would say to him: “Take your child, Karda — kiss his little feet, and kneel down in thanks to the Lord Ra. He is a boy, and I have named him Djedef.” She vowed to take her husband to his birthplace of Thebes, because she was still afraid — though she did not know just why exactly — of the North and its people. In lovely Thebes, under the protection of the Lord Amon, she would raise her son and love her husband, and live the life that she had been denied for so long.

She was jolted from her reverie by the clamor and chaos of Memphis. She looked ahead to see the wagon ascending the winding road, the man urging the horses onward with his whip. From her seat she could not make out the surface of the plateau, but the lively voices, clanging tools, and chants of the workers rang in her ears. Among the chants, she recognized one that Karda would sing to her in happy times:

We are the men of the South, whom the waters of the Nile Have brought to this land, that the gods have chosen for our home, Home of the Pharaohs — where we make the black earth flourish. Behold the towering cities, and the temples with many pillars! Before us, there were but ruins that sheltered beasts and crows. For us, stone is soft and obedient, and so are the mighty waters. Ask of our strength among the tribes of Nubia and Sinai! Ask about our labors afar — while our chaste wives wait alone.

She listened to the men as they repeated these verses with strength and affection combined, and she longed to be with them, as the dove longs for the cooing of its mate. Her heart sang with them.

Crossing the road called the Valley of Death, the wagon arrived at the plateau. Zaya got out and walked toward the mass of men spread over the sprawling terrain like an enormous army milling about a square. On her way, she passed the Temple of Osiris, the Great Sphinx, and the mastaba tombs of the ancestors whose — worldly — works earned their repose — within this purified ground. She saw the long channel that the — workers had cut for waters from the Nile to reach the plateau. Huge boats were plying her — waters, filled — with massive rocks and stones, awaited by crowds of laborers — with — wagons crawling at the dockside. From a distance she saw the base of the pyramid that the limits of vision could not wholly take in, and the men scattered like stars on its surface. The sounds of the chanting blended with the shouts of the overseers, as well as those of the commanders of the Heavenly Guard, and the crackle of tools. Confused, Zaya stopped with the child in her arms, turning this way and that without knowing which direction to choose, and saw the futility of calling out over this depthless ocean of humanity. Her anxious, exhausted eyes rambled back and forth among all the faces.

One of the guards who passed her — thinking there was something strange about her — approached and asked her roughly, “What did you come to do here, madam?”

In all simplicity, she replied, “I'm looking for my husband, Karda, sir.”

“Karda? Is he an architect or a member of the guard?” the soldier asked her, knitting his brow as he tried to remember.

“He's a laborer, sir,” she said, timidly.

The man laughed sarcastically and said, pointing to a nearby building, “You can ask about him at the Inspector's Office.”

Zaya walked toward her goal, an elegant building of modest size, where a military guard stood by the door, blocking her way inside. But when she told him why she had come, he made way for her. She entered a wide room, its sides lined with desks, behind which sat the employees. The walls were filled with shelves stacked with papyrus scrolls. Within the room there was a door standing ajar, toward which the guard directed her with his staff. She passed through it to a smaller chamber, more beautiful and more expensively furnished than the other. In one corner, behind an enormous desk, there was a fat, squat man, distinguished by his outsized head, short, broad nose, full face, jutting jaw, and cheeks inflated like two small water skins. His eyes bulged under heavy lids as he sat with immense conceit, inflicting his supercilious bossiness upon — whoever came to him.

He sensed someone had entered — yet did not raise his eyes nor display any sign of interest until he finished what he had before him. Then he peered at Zaya with bold disdain, asking in an overbearing, vainglorious voice, “What do you want, woman?”

Embarrassed and afraid, Zaya answered weakly, “I have come to look for my husband, sir.”

Again in the same tone, he asked her, “And who is your husband?”

“A laborer, sir.”

He struck his desk with his fist, then said fiercely, his voice ringing out as though in a vault, “And what reason could there be for taking him from his work, and putting us to this trouble?”

Zaya grew more frightened. Confused, she did not even try to respond. The inspector continued to look at her. He noticed her round, bronze-colored face, her warm, honey-hued eyes, and her succulent youth. Hard it was for him to lay the weight of fear over a face as lovely as hers. His conspicuous power was only for show and vanity — his heart was good, his feelings refined. Taking pity on the woman, he said to her, in his usual pompous manner, but as gently as he could manage, “Why are you looking for your husband, madam?”

Sighing in relief, Zaya said calmly, “I have come from On, after I lost my means of livelihood there. I want him to know, sir, that I am now here.”

The inspector gazed at the child that she held in her arms, then asked her in the fashion of high-ranking persons, “Is that really why you came here — or was it to inform him of this child's birth?”