The Past Before Us

Pomegranate Wine

You're one of those people.

Yes.

Don't you worry, dearest brother, I replied, petting his back. I remember how you looked at circumcision age, and before that when we would run around stark naked between the neighbours' houses as children. You're exactly how you were then. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Any pharaoh would take you as their husband, I vow on my hairs.

What a lie! Give me that stone, don't tire me. What are we eating this morning?

There was no need for him to ask. It was the same as yesterday: bread, some beer, the sweet onion only I would fry and eat, dates, and figs, because they were in season. Our salted meat had run out. Seeing it best that I prepare it all, I left my brother to his fussy self.

My brother would busy himself with seasonal jobs like building canals. In between, he was very interested in music, something we didn't hear very often in these parts. As I was peeling the onions in front of the window, he was softly singing something again:

To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me:

I draw life from hearing it.

Could I see you with every glance,

It would be better for me

Than to eat or to drink.

Without meaning to, my mind wandered to the blue eyes again. Were they lined with kohl, I wondered. It was dark then, not very clear, perhaps if I could find the courage to enter the neighbour's house through the window... All of a sudden I heard my brother enter the room. Will we go to greet the convoy together, once I return? he asked. A voice from deep inside convinced me that I would die of curiosity if I stayed at home so I said yes. We sat down to eat and he left.

Then I alternatively worked on my weaving, rested and thought. I do not remember what I thought about in the hours in between...

When we arrived at the square near noon we found everyone waiting under the heat. An hour later, the grand vizier and the commanders of the Egyptian army arrived on their black-haired donkeys. At their feet pranced luxuriously the dancers with tambourines and lyres. From the very back the government officials walked, solemn and noble. The heavy incense the Pantheon priests carried made me dizzy. These were the kind only the Pharaoh and those close to him could afford. My nose followed its solid purple smoke. I dragged myself in a trance, as I would my parched soul to an oasis in the middle of a desert, to the front of the crowd. One of the scribes glance over at me.

Her.

The roots of my hairs stood at the sight of her, under my wig. They screamed Her! in one word. Her long navy wig was tightly braided, two bottomless teal eyes in that face sculpted from still water... She was as attractive as a lotus flower on calm waves, I wanted to reach out and touch her. Perhaps her burnt almond skin was as soft as I imagined, viscous like honey...

Yet, she was obviously a serious woman. She glanced over once and turned around. I could not distract her. She had scrolls of papyri under her arm and a shaped reed in her hand. Her job was to put the vizier's life into words or make a list of the gifts the villagers would give. That was it. She was too respectable to grant attention to extraordinary desires that affected the likes of only me and King Neferkare. And there was our neighbour coming her way, carrying a copy of the scribe that once watched me from his window, the wooden statue of the woman who did not find my eager eyes interesting enough to hold. There were a few more sculptors approaching the vizier and the commanders. Our neighbour kneeled in front of the scribe. The convoy stopped. The music stopped. My heart stopped -- it was disappointment.

Scribe Ahset, I heard him say. I would like to give you a gift from your willing servants. Bless you, welcome to our village!

Blue-eyed dark-skinned Ahset bowed her head and thanked him as appropriate. The convoy continued and the sculptors tailed them, struggling with the awkward weight of their masterpieces. In fact I probably should have followed the crowd, there was another ceremony at the temple (and who knows how many wonderful smells!) but I could not bring myself to do it. My sulky brother used to lose at senet and leave the game to sit by the river at long length. At that moment, I felt like I had lost in life's senet. It was the pain of one who has lost again what they knew they could not have. My brother had already left without me, carried along by the excitement of the ceremony. What need was there for me to stay?

I sat cross-legged at the foot of the Nile. I grabbed and pulled at young papyrus shoots. Finally, I thanked the gods for allowing me to at least remember, forever, the eyes of Scribe Ahset. Even if my social standing barred me from ever seeing her again, dreams were free and without punishment!