THIRTEEN

There was an exclamation from my father at this mention of his father, but a glint came into Menenhetet’s eye like the light I had once seen on a merchant’s face in the sharpest moment of the bargaining.

“Yes,” he said, “I bought my way out of Eshuranib. But I cannot boast that it was clever, merely that I was able after fourteen years to put aside enough gold to make arrangements for a large payment to a General in Thebes. In return, my name was put on the list of charioteers assigned to the Royal Household.”

Ptah-nem-hotep asked, “How many of the officers who drill in My outer courtyard have been promoted by comparable payments?”

Menenhetet did not look away. “What matters is that they ride well. There is no cure for injustice other than committing another injustice to correct the first—let the river wash away the bad blood.”

My father nodded profoundly as if this last remark were the thighbone of all wisdom.

“Not the least,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “of your qualities as a Vizier will be your ability to take our petty vices and return them to us as virtue.”

“That is the way it may now seem,” agreed my great-grandfather, “but I can tell You, Divine Two-House, it was not easy then. I had to wait a year after I made the payment. All the while, since I did not tell Renpu-Rept, I began to wonder if I could desert her, and after she died, I thought of those Hittite hands we collected at Kadesh and was terrified that my own would soon be added to such a pile. Remembering those exceptional cities Hera-Ra saw while eating his last meal, I decided the most terrible punishment must be to lose your hands, for it would prove the same as loneliness. Without our hands, we cannot know the thoughts of others. We are left only to our own thoughts. Do not ask me why this is so, but I know it. To reassure myself, I looked again and again at the papyrus I had been sent from Thebes. It told of my ‘zeal to guard the gold of the Pharaoh from all who would steal it.’ Well, I did my best to believe this.”

“I must leave you to the Lord Osiris,” laughed Ptah-nem-hotep.

Menenhetet touched his head lightly to the floor. “Good and Great God,” he said, “I brooded much on the nature of proper behavior in those days. Since this papyrus bought with stolen gold testified to my honesty, I came to realize that a man who lies can be as comfortable as anyone who tells the truth, provided he keeps lying. For then no one can catch him. Such a man has a life as true as an honest life. Consider it. An honest man is miserable once he begins to lie. For then he must remember the truth, and what he said that was not the truth. So is the liar miserable so soon as he speaks in an honest voice.

“I say this because Ramses the Second—as I soon learned on my return to Thebes—had become a liar. Forgive me, but it is the Night of the Pig. I discovered I was known to all, and for the worst of reasons. My name was on every new temple wall, and I can promise that in the years I was gone, many temples had been built. Usermare was always erecting some monument to Himself, large or small. You could not fail to see His statue at any bend of the river, and commemorative pillars in every grove. Be certain that in each new temple was an account of the Battle of Kadesh and there was I with my name on the wall, forever crying out, ‘O my Lord, we are lost, we must flee!’ and I would shake my head on seeing it as if that could erase the sacred marks. ‘Go, Menni,’ He would answer, ‘I will fight alone.’ Even my name was wrong. I, who had learned to recognize MN on a papyrus now found it cut into the stone as MNN. I was still ignorant. I did not see how there could be any error on a temple wall. I did not know then, as I would learn in my second life, that scribes know less than priests but are all too ready to inscribe a stone. I did not realize I was looking at a crude error. I stepped backward, as if the temple wall could fall on me. I thought of all the prayers I had offered to great and little Gods, ten hundred such Gods, but I had addressed Them with the wrong sacred marks in my heart. ‘MN beseeches You,’ I had been saying when I should have said MNN.

“Now, if the misspelling of my name bothered me so greatly, think of my confusion about what was written in stone. That could not be false. I must have said things in the battle that I had no memory of saying. Yet in the same temple, on another wall, as if the truth was no better than the wall at which you looked, I would read, word by word: ‘Lo, His Majesty hastened to His horses and stormed forward—He alone.’ I would awake in fever that night with the wall pressing on my chest. Had the Pharaoh been alone in His Chariot through all of the Battle of Kadesh? It took me years to comprehend that, to Himself, He was by Himself. He was a God. I had been no more than the wood of His Chariot.

“All the while, as if to mock me, I became renowned. My name was cut in stone. My deeds might count no larger than the works of a worm, but I was a sacred worm. In the barracks, among the charioteers, a subtle derision greeted me. One or another would always cry out on my arrival, ‘Here is our hero of Kadesh.’

“ ‘What do you mean by that?’ I would ask. I did not like the word he used for hero. It could also mean ‘bird’ or ‘coward.’

“ ‘I mean that you are a hero. We know that.’ There would be much laughter. I could do nothing about it. These charioteers from the best families of Memphi and Thebes were not about to fight. It was well known there was no officer I could not defeat. So they mocked me in their noble manner, which was to play with words until the meaning was as hard to catch as a minnow with one’s hands. I took a vow they would serve under me before I was done.

“Then an event took place which did, indeed, teach me new ways. Word came to Thebes that Metella had died.

“Now, while I had been in Eshuranib, many small wars had been fought with the Hittites, but so soon as Metella was gone, his brother, Khetasar, proposed peace, and was accepted. It may be that our Ramses was tired of war. Each year for fifteen years, He had found Himself in the field. So, at Tanis, in a splendid temple just completed, He received the new King of the Hittites. Khetasar brought with him a silver tablet on which were more than a hundred lines of writing clearly engraved into the metals, and I still recall what it said, for all of us in the Household Guard who were at Tanis looked at it closely: ‘This is the treaty which the great chief of the Hittites, Khetasar, the valiant, son of Merasar, the valiant, and grandson of Seplel, the valiant, has made on a silver tablet for Usermare-Setpenere, great ruler of Egypt, son of Seti I, the valiant; grandson of Ramses I, the valiant: This good treaty of peace and brotherhood sets peace between these nations forever.’

“I read all of it, taking in the words one by one, and was much impressed that it had been composed by the Hittite King, for our Pharaoh would not have spoken in such a way. I may say that this tablet of silver had the light that comes from the moon, and that gave me a new fear of these Hittites. With their dirty beards and clumsy chariots, they had seemed crude, yet how wise was this tablet. The phrases were in such fine balance that you could feel peace was near: ‘Between the great Prince of the Hittites, and Ramses the Second, the great Monarch of Egypt, let there be a beautiful peace and a beautiful alliance, and let the children’s children of the great Prince of the Hittites remain in a beautiful peace and a beautiful alliance with the children’s children of Ramses the Second, great Monarch of Egypt. Let no hostilities arise between them.’

“Why, this Khetasar even said: ‘If a man flee from the country of Egypt to the Hittites, then shall the great Prince of the Hittites take him into custody and cause him to be brought back to Ramses the Second, the great Monarch of Egypt. But when he is brought back, let not his crime be brought against him, nor shall his house be burned, nor his wives and children killed, nor his mother slain, and he shall not be beaten in his eyes, or in his mouth, or on his feet.’ And it would be the same for any Hittites,” said Menenhetet, “who fled from their country to ours. I was much impressed with the good sense of this. It takes no great effort to make people go back to the land from which they have fled, if they are not afraid of terrible punishment. I was even more impressed when our Ramses allowed the name of the Prince of the Hittites to come before His own. That had to be due to His respect for all these fine words written on silver. Besides, the treaty concluded with the names of the most powerful strange Gods. It was said, ‘A thousand of the male and female Gods of the country of the Hittites, together with a thousand of the male and female Gods of the country of Egypt, will be with us as witnesses to these words: ‘The God of Zeyetheklirer, the Gods of Kerzot, the God of Kherpenteres, the Goddess of the city of Kerephen, the Goddess of Khewek, the Goddess of Zen, the God of Zen, the God of Serep, the God of Khenbet, the Queen of the Heavens, and the Gods and all the Lords of Swearing, the Goddess and the Mistress of the Soil, the Mistress of the Mountains and the rivers of the land of the Hittites, of the heavens, the soil, the great sea, the wind and the storms.’

“That was how it ended,” said Menenhetet,” ‘the wind and the storms,’ and there was a hush when all was read and we were finished. Ramses pressed the cartouche of His ring on the soft silver of the tablet, and the mark was made. He embraced the messengers. Lo, the war was done.”

When Menenhetet was silent, our Pharaoh yawned. He did not seem pleased to hear the names of so many strange Gods, and remarked, “Hathfertiti may be wise in her wish that you return to more amusing matters. Yes,” He said, “You hide yourself too much in this account. You are too modest.” He shook His flail as if to clear the air of all echoes of this treaty. “Do you know,” He said, “that when I first ascended the throne, your name was always on the lips of My little queens?”

“My name?” asked my great-grandfather.

“None other.”

“But I have not been in the House of the Secluded since the year I served there for Usermare.”

“For that, you were mentioned all the more. I grew to detest their fascination. Even when they were silent, I was obliged to hear the little queens think of you.”

On this pause I lived in the mind of my mother, and knew her discomfort. It was as simple as the beating of my own heart: Our Pharaoh spoke so easily of hearing the thoughts of others. Now, He must be enjoying her thoughts far better than she could hope to dwell in His! On that instant, like a cloth thrown on a spill of soup, the inside of her head became as clean as a floor that is wiped.

Ptah-nem-hotep gave a smile. I wondered if He was amusing Himself with how empty and polished were the thoughts presented to Him; then He laughed. “Yes,” He said, “no man in Egypt attracted more attention than you, Menenhetet, among My beauties. They live in a sea of gossip, and you were the storm that hides in the wind of the sea. Even now, they suffer a perfect fury that not one of them was invited to be with us. I can hear them”—He pointed an indolent finger in their direction. “So be it. They will talk of you tonight, and tell again all the stories I have already heard about your second life, and your third, and your fourth. Of course, your first life is their favorite. They will never quit speaking of how you were General-of-all-the-Armies, and yet, so great, they say, was the prestige of the House of the Secluded in the years of Usermare, that you were made Governor of the Secluded.”

“Is that how they speak of it?” asked Menenhetet.

“By half,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “Some of the little queens keep a high opinion of their importance. Others wonder how a General-of-all-the-Armies could bear to become a keeper of concubines. They have quarrels over this, I assure you. Still, I expect you fascinate them for a better reason. No story absorbed My harem beauties (nor Myself) so much as the one that is always whispered—for they believe it is a sacrilege. Indeed I can hardly believe it either. Especially since your account of your first meeting with Ramses the Second and His Queen is most innocent. But they say—you see, I whisper it Myself—they say you became the lover of Queen Nefertiri. I even heard that you departed from your first life and entered your second by way of a knife left in your back. That you died as your seed went forth into the Queen.”

Ptah-nem-hotep smiled, a true sweetness on His lips. Had He been waiting through this night to encourage Menenhetet to tell us about the love of Queen Nefertiri? He was certainly amused by the shock He had given to all.

My mother had every thought at once, including every one of my father’s. His thoughts leaped into her. He saw Menenhetet lying on Nefertiri’s belly. Indeed, my father was so overcome by the sight of family flesh upon royal flesh that his groin was plucked, and he came forth right there and was wet beneath his linen. My mother was instantly offended by the waste. The fresh seed of my father was the finest lotion she had ever found for her face.

Menenhetet began to cough. A desert wind could have been whistling down the caverns of his body. Yet so soon as it was gone, he was quick to speak.

“I do not wish,” he said, “to contradict Your amusement, but there is much I cannot recollect. To be born more than once, as I have been born these four times, is not the same as remembering each life clearly.”

“All the same,” our Pharaoh replied, “My request is that you tell us of your friendship with Queen Nefertiri.”

“I served first as Governor to the little queens,” said Menenhetet. “Only later did I become Companion of the Right Hand to the King’s Consort, Queen Nefertiri.”

“Then I would hear of these matters in order. As you tell us, so may you remember much that you believe is forgotten.”

Menenhetet bowed, and touched his head to his fingers seven times. “I will,” he said, “say again that these matters are more difficult to relate than the story of one great battle.”

“Yes,” said our Pharaoh, “but I feel no haste. It is My preference to be entertained on this night through all the hours of darkness.”

“And to be amused by Your guests,” said my mother.

“Yes, by My guests,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, and as if her attention—if it became too sulky—would spoil His own, He gave her a dazzling smile, then turned back to Menenhetet. “Find your memory, old friend,” He said.

“May I speak,” asked Menenhetet, “of the years after Eshuranib when I rose in the army? I think that may warm my thoughts. For I confess, it is not comfortable for me to move so quickly into the Gardens of the Secluded.”

“I say again,” said our Pharaoh, “tell it in your manner.”

Menenhetet nodded. “I would go back to my careful study of the treaty with the Hittites written on silver. For I would never have become General-of-all-the-Armies if not for the influence of those words on me. I had never read language so fine. It suggested to me that I must learn the arts of subtle men. This Khetasar had known how to address Usermare. All I had gained until then had come from the gifts of my body, but, now, if I would thrive in the world, I must learn the arts of speech.”

“Did you discover many principles for such use?” asked my Pharaoh.

“One principle above all: Avoid all subjects of which your superiors are afraid. All men are afraid, I learned, and do everything in their power to conceal what they fear the most. Those, for example, who are cowardly will tell you of their acts of courage so long as you were not there to witness them.

“I, who used to believe all that was told me, began to look for the lies. I soon could recognize ambitious men by the traps they set to discover if you told the truth as little as themselves. I came to enjoy such games and the people you could play them with. Be certain I studied flattery. That was still the fastest way to become valuable to one’s superior. Of course, by the balance of Maat, I also had to learn that it was not wise to become too indispensable, or you would never be given a promotion. Look at the best of houseservants. They always die in the same job. The trick, therefore, is not only to please one’s superior but inspire a little uneasiness—the fear, at least, that you know his fear. That will make him wish to promote you. He can still receive your compliments but at a safer distance. I even had to learn how to keep my inferiors from advancing more quickly than myself, which was a skill I had always scorned before. What need had I of flanks in my early days? Like Ramses, Beloved-of-Amon, I believed in nothing but attack. Yet I had learned, by way of Hera-Ra, that the unforeseen could destroy you. So I was careful to slow the ambition of officers beneath me, yet quietly, so they did not know, and to my superiors I tried never to be unsettling. I had come to understand that no one hates the unforeseen so much as men of powerful family and mediocre ability. Amuse them, titillate them, confirm them in their habits, speak softly to their fears, but do not alter their day. They are terrified of all that is larger than themselves.”

“Never have I heard you speak more eloquently,” said our Ptah-nem-hotep. “It is the voice of the highest servant.” He reached across the table and tapped Menenhetet with His flail. “But why,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “do you tell these truths? Why not hold more closely to your principles and offer a few lies?”

Now, my great-grandfather showed a smile. “The art of the liar is to speak so well that You will never know when he is ready to betray You for the first time.”

“You set My heart to beating,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “Now, you must tell Me what is next.” I could see, however, that He was greatly amused for He had succeeded in making my great-grandfather eloquent once more.