THE SUN WAS UP and the sky clearing as Penelope and I walked back through Oldcastle’s gardens, a damp, glistening mist clinging to the hedgerows and the canted obelisk. Halfway through the gardens we heard the grating sound of a window opening. Oldcastle, his face swollen and distorted, was leaning out a second-floor window above the large sun disk of Aten. Strands of saliva ran down his chin and swung out into the wind.
I say, he shouted in a thick voice, say hello to Mick Wheelhouse for me! That wee fucker! He’s next! I’ll do him straightaway!
Then hands appeared behind Oldcastle, holding his shoulders and waist, and pulled him from the window, his bony claws clinging to the sill. We turned and kept walking.
On the grassy hillside below where the path ran down to the woods and the river, a cluster of men moved about slowly in the fog. A few wore the long pale robes and Krishna topknot. The others were large men, the American professional wrestlers. The Bartender, the Pied Piper, and the Angel, wearing a white bodysuit with a diminutive pair of silken wings sprouting from his broad back. They were all holding some kind of club in their hands. A round table stood to one side draped in a white tablecloth and covered with a full tea service, silver decanters and cups and a stack of delicate finger sandwiches and cakes. The men didn’t seem to notice us; instead they appeared to be studying the ground intently.
They were apparently engaged in a game of croquet. The Bartender was lining up a ball with his foot about to send someone out; the Krishnas leaned on their mallets with concerned looks. Penelope just continued straight ahead through the middle of the group toward the break in the woods where the path to the river lay. We wound our way through the small metal hoops in the wet grass, and as we passed, the wrestlers and Krishnas looked up from their game, no real alarm or surprise in their faces. Then the Bartender drew back his club, stretching it far over his head, and whacked his ball with a grunt, sending a blue ball skipping across the field and down a short slope and into a ditch about fifty yards away. The others turned their gaze from us to watch the ball go. One of the Krishnas threw up his hands.
Fockin’ ’ell, he said, what the fuck y’do that for?
We passed through them and followed the path down to the woods. They disappeared behind us into the fog, and all the way to the river we could hear their muttering followed by the clacking of mallet on ball. Penelope climbed down the dock and into the punt, and pulled a blanket that lay in the bow around her shoulders. I stepped into the punt and stood unsteadily, crouching, holding the sides with my hands.
Are you all right? I asked her.
She nodded, and I took up the pole from the bottom of the boat. We let the current carry us, slowly and silently, back down the river. I used the pole to fend us off the banks. Penelope’s shoulders shook.
I’m sorry, Walter, she said. I’m so sorry.
It’s okay, I said, it’ll be okay.
I kept looking back as the river unfurled behind us like a narrow snake in the woods. I was afraid something was still bearing down on us.
After a few minutes, when we were well out of sight of Oldcastle’s dock, I put down the pole and sat in the bottom of the boat. I reached under my shirt and took out the Amun papyrus that I had stuffed into the waistband of my pants. It was barely holding together, with long rents in the fabric of the paper and a few pieces hanging on by threads. The whole lower half was wet with my perspiration, but the ink, already sealed by three millenniums of arid climate, was still intact and readable. Penelope was still sitting in the bow, wrapped in the blanket, as the boat began to yaw and spin around in the lazy current. A light wind shook the bare trees that hung overhead, sending droplets of rain cascading down onto the river. I held out the papyrus in my palms.
Penelope, I said. Look. Look.
She unwrapped herself and turned around on the bench seat. Her lips were blue and she had large purple crescents under her eyes. She was coming down, hard. I too felt incredibly, painfully sober. She cocked her head at the torn and wet piece of papyrus that I held in my hands, puzzling over it for a moment or two. Then a broad smile spread across her face.
You surprise me, Walter, she said.
Well, I said, it was the least I could do. You saved me back there. You saved us.
Penelope gestured to the papyrus in my hands.
Is it still . . . readable?
Yes. Mostly.
So what’s it say?
Well, I said, I’m still not really sure. It’s not really the Song of Amun, at least not directly. It’s . . . a letter of some kind.
So you told Oldcastle the truth?
Not really. Just a different sort of truth. It seems like some kind of paean to Amun, but disguised with an orthographic device intended to fool someone. Maybe the carriers of the letter, priests perhaps. Anyway, it’s a fake; it looks like a traditional hymn or song of praise but really it’s a personal letter. Or perhaps it’s both at the same time. That’s the trouble with this kind of interpretation. But that’s the thing, that’s what makes it even more rare. Very few personal letters survived—mostly because papyrus is so fragile. Ninety-five percent of the stuff on stone is religious in content, connected with funerary rites or worship. And we’re pretty sure that only about one percent of the population was literate. But we know that letters were sent and some may still be out there. This one is quite amazing in that regard. I don’t know if the museum even knows it.
The punt was bumping along the muddy banks. The sun was up and began to burn the mist off the river, though I was still damp and shivering in my coat. Penelope was facing me with the blanket wound around her waist.
Yeah, so what’s it say? What’s the story?
I watched her face as I told her about a merchant in Aswan, a seemingly noble and prosperous man who one day found himself many miles from home. How this man had sent this letter back to his family in Aswan by caravan across the vast emptiness of the western desert, from the tiny oasis of Kurkur where he was trading with Nubian tribesmen, trading spices and silver at a lonely outpost on the fringe of the empire, on the edge of nothingness, eternity. I told Penelope how this man was trying to express, through the seemingly stilted structure of formal hieroglyphics, something that would have brought joy and surprise and honor to his home, that he had taken the time and focus to construct such elegant language, the only modern analogy being if you sent your family a series of detailed pictures that you had painted in order to tell the story of how much you missed them, how much you loved them. I told her about how he described the desert region where he was trying to conduct his business, a business that he initially undertook in order to do what he thought was most important. I described how he was so surprised at finding himself like this, so far from home. And that he didn’t know how he came to be there, or what to do to make it back again. He would make it home again, but he would never have that time back, never regain or relive the time apart, and how this made his heart heavy with sadness.
It was more complicated than that, it always is, and yet as I said all this I looked at Penelope and I thought of that spiraling helix that cast itself into space, the chain of reverberative events, the things that connected all the emotional moments of our lives, the most simple things, and I felt it kiss the ground, sweetly, once again. I found myself hoping that we could drift down this narrow river, this muddy creek, cold and shivering, alone, that we could ride this river all the way to the end.
Then it won’t help you with the Stela, will it?
I don’t know, I said, I mean it is obliquely about Amun, but in a way I haven’t figured out yet. Something to do with the determinative, the category of meaning. The figurative aspect of the symbol for Amun, whom the letter seems to be addressed to, is a bit tricky. I’ve never seen anything like it. Or I’ve never seen anything in this way. It’s hard to explain.
We looked at each other as the punt bumped along, coming to rest on a muddy bank.
Well, Penelope said, we do have this wad of money Oldcastle gave us. Must be like ten thousand quid in here.
You keep it, I said.
Don’t be absurd. He was paying for your time, not mine. I was just along for the ride.
Just hold on to it for now at least.
Think they’ll come after us?
I don’t know. Maybe.
After a moment Penelope stood, stretched her thin body like a cat for a moment in the sun, then picked up the pole.
I suppose I’d better get us going, she said. Try to keep it together till we get back.
I crouched on my seat, holding the document at a shaky arm’s length. Penelope fended us off the bank and began to push us into the current that carried us downstream, the water gurgling darkly at my feet.
We drifted back into Cambridge sometime in the late morning. At the Silver Street bridge we brought the punt in and tied it up to the others, ignoring the bewildered stares of the students who were in the midst of contracting with various tourists to take them on tours of the Cam. We were both sodden with water and flecked with mud, and I was still holding the remnants of the Amun papyrus in my outstretched hands, like some kind of disheveled Frankenstein’s monster reading the morning paper.
It was Tuesday, November fourth. The streets were streaming with students and local merchants making preparations for the next day’s Guy Fawkes Day celebration, and the pubs were lively with those who’d started celebrating early. We drifted through town like sleeping strangers to this world. After a few minutes of walking along the King’s Parade, both of us staggering from lack of sleep and squinting into the brilliant daylight, we decided to head to Dr. Hardy’s place in Grantchester to avoid being followed back into London, though more likely this decision was driven by fatigue or bewilderment or something else.
Penelope stood swaying slightly, watching the clouds over the graying tower ramparts of St. Catherine’s College while I put a foot in the street and flagged down a minicab. I kept staring at her; I was drawn to her sweetly scrunched face, the earnestness it described. She was so generous and kind, and for what? In the cab Penelope immediately closed her eyes and leaned against the window as I riffled through my pockets to find Hardy’s address.
As we wound through the low hillocks and pastures of the countryside outside Cambridge, Penelope dozed peacefully, her head rocking against the cab’s window. I shifted on the plastic seat and felt the deep, clammy chill of my damp clothes. I could see half of my face in the rearview mirror, the half that wasn’t bruised, but it didn’t look so good either. We were traveling up a narrow lane bound tightly on both sides by tall hedges, stopping several times and backing up to a hidden drive to let Range Rovers manned by sporting chaps and ladies wearing houndstooth and argyle to pass by. Our driver seemed to have little consideration for the tight, blind corners that the hedges offered and sped along the gravel path, pushing the small engine into whining registers and lurching movements that roused Penelope from sleep repeatedly. She kept her head against the window, her eyes half lidded, her fair face still lightly marked with streaks of mud. I had the Amun papyrus laid out on my lap.
Hardy’s place was tucked into a deep arbor that lay beyond a sunny clearing of pale gravel with an old Rambler parked at a low fence. The day was already fading into a hazy afternoon as we pushed through the gate and started up the flagstone walk. The cottage lay under a canopy of elms that spread over the entire thatched roof and the wide yard that was bordered by a narrow fence of stacked stone. Nobody came to the door when we knocked, but I could hear music playing inside, so we walked around the side of the house. The back opened up into a wide garden, rimmed by the stone fence and then clearing into a field that rose up a gentle hill to another stand of woods. At the edge of the woods stood another small cottage made of timber, plaster, and thatch. The country fell off on both sides of the garden beyond the fence; the smudge of Cambridge on the hills rolling into the foggy, indeterminate distance.
We found Hardy in a furrowed garden kneeling between a row of withered plants. He appeared to be digging about them with a trowel, though this was November and there wasn’t a living thing in the garden, much less weeds. He had on an old beige mackintosh and a battered pith helmet, left over from the days when he was the one probing about the cracks of history in North Africa, instead of what he was now: an old windbag weeding his ruined garden in a tattered hamlet outside Cambridge, muttering over the same ideas and translations, producing dusty papers that no one bothered to read anymore. It was me, I supposed, in another twenty years. If I was lucky.
Hardy stood up and brushed his hands briskly on his trousers and removed his hat.
Ah! Dr. Rothschild! Hello! And this must be your friend? Ms. Otter? Penelope? Yes! Delightful! Good lord—you’re both filthy!
He shook our hands firmly, warmly. He looked grimly healthy, a flush in his cheeks and his skin ruddy with cold. Hardy proffered his elbow to Penelope and she took it and leaned into him as we turned to go inside.
I’ll have some tea up in a moment, Hardy said, you look like you could use some refreshment. So, did you have a pleasant time in Cambridge? Find what you were looking for?
I held up the soggy papyrus laying flat on my outstretched palms.
I say, Hardy said, what do we have here, Dr. Rothschild? A bit of something for the Stela of Paser, I’ll bet. A secondary piece? How on earth did you get so dirty? Were you in an altercation of some kind?
We walked up to the back door of his cottage, a wide path of scattered flagstones in the lush grass.
Obviously, Hardy said, transporting the papyrus in this manner doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of maintaining the integrity of the artifact. And good Lord, man, what happened to your face?
Penelope rolled back her head and laughed at the mackerel sky as Hardy led us into the back of the house and into the living room, where we were met by the smell of wood smoke, cinnamon, and pipe tobacco. Hardy put a fresh record on his phonograph, a string serenade of sorts, then bustled back into the kitchen and served us a batch of fresh scones with clotted cream and some cups of steaming black tea with milk and sugar. Penelope and I fell upon this refreshment like wolves as Hardy put the Song of Amun in a plastic sleeve and spread it on the kitchen table and chattered away about the obvious determinatives and brought out some reference manuals and began pointing out various points of significance and the like. I was concentrating on putting the warm, crusty, sweet bread and cups of hot tea down my gullet. Penelope seemed to be of the same mind, though she was at least politely listening. He directed several questions to me that I largely ignored, just shaking my head and helping myself to another scone and pouring more tea. Penelope was spreading cream with a broad butter knife, sculpting chiaroscuro mounds on the warm scone. Hardy eventually seemed to get the point and let us just eat for a bit. He was watching Penelope handle the knife and stroking his chin. He gestured toward the Song of Amun.
You know, Penelope, Hardy said, at the time of this writing, you wouldn’t have been allowed to use that knife.
She paused mid-stroke.
Well, Hardy said, his crinkly old eyes twinkling with the pleasure of dropping this anecdotal nugget, you know, women in ancient Egypt weren’t allowed to use cutlery of any kind. Too dangerous, I suppose.
Penelope stared at him. Too dangerous for who? she said.
Aha! Hardy laughed, good point, my dear, excellent point! But lest you think the ancient Egyptians were a race of chauvinists, I must tell you that it was quite the opposite. Women were not allowed to do the washing either! No laundry for them, no!
Crocodiles, I gurgled with a mouthful of dry scone.
Well, quite so, Dr. Rothschild, he blurted. There was the danger of crocodiles on the Nile, where of course the washing would be done, but still, um, it was quite an egalitarian society. Why, the earliest records of—
Then how come, Penelope said, women didn’t do any writing?
Yes, well, Hardy choked, there was that, but . . .
I couldn’t help but laugh a bit as Hardy stammered.
I know what you mean, Dr. Hardy, Penelope quickly said, patting his hand. I’m just having you on. I’m sure ancient Egyptian men were just as charming and gentlemanly as you are.
Hardy recovered and beamed at her and soon was prattling on, going to his bookshelf and flipping through another one of his dusty tomes. I tuned him out again and gazed out the back window that overlooked the garden. The sun was lowering over the small ridge of woods on the hill that lay just beyond the cottage. I had Penelope dial the number to Zenobia’s hotel on her cell phone and I stepped outside to make the call. Zenobia wasn’t in of course, but I left a message, explaining that I’d run into some problems and I’d be back in London early tomorrow.
When I came back inside, Hardy had the Song of Amun laid out in front of him on the table again and appeared to be translating it phonetically for Penelope.
I hope you don’t mind, he said, blushing, I figured that—
I asked him to, Penelope said. I wanted to know what it sounded like.
She smirked at me, flashing her eyes, before returning to the papyrus to follow Hardy’s finger as he intoned the basic transliterations.
I was going to mention that we really have very little idea how it sounded, how the ancient Egyptians pronounced it. We had the very barest of estimations. The vagaries of phonetic and linguistic adaptation and evolution are difficult to estimate back a few hundred years, much less four thousand, as any linguist will tell you. But Penelope seemed to be enjoying Hardy’s overly elaborate, clumsy intonations.
The music stopped, the record finished, and Hardy paused in his speech and got up to put on another. In the quick silence the sound of the evening birds swelled in the darkening yard and the golden light played across the kitchen table, across the papyrus and Hardy’s various papers. Penelope was looking at me strangely. I think I was falling asleep, perhaps even nodding off while I sat there; things were getting fuzzy and remote. Hardy put on another record, something light and tuneful played on the piano.
I was wondering, Hardy said, what you make of the particularly curious hieroglyphic grouping used for “Amun.” It’s most unusual.
Yes, I said. I noticed that.
Well, he said, drawing a breath, if I were to venture a guess, it appears to be a figurative combination.
Yes. And?
Right, Hardy said, and it seems that it is working with a basic syllabic representation, at least at first, but then there is this bit with the raying sun, some odd strokes, and this low hill, which I take to be the horizon, the place of coming into being, perhaps.
I stepped to the table and examined the ligatures. True, there was an interesting focus on the symbolic representation of the horizon. The place of coming into being. The raying sun done in the style of the instructional frieze on the Stela of Paser. The connotation of what is unseen in the text, that part of the cryptography is clear. Could it be that it was implying some kind of figurative “place” where the meaning would become clear? Or something would appear? I thought of Alan Henry’s event horizon, the edge of time-space where time travel happens.
What were you thinking? I asked Hardy.
He held his chin in his spotted hand. His forehead drooped, creating thick, convoluted folds.
I was thinking, he said, about Amun itself. The word “Amun.” “The unseen” or “he who is not seen.” That would mean some rather interesting things for the apparent, um, secular aspect of the actual hymn.
Yes, I said. It seems to be a personal letter.
Extraordinary. Right, so then why use Amun this way? To produce this metaphor of the unseen? Or just to disguise the true content of the letter?
That’s a good question, I said.
The old guy was sharper than I gave him credit for.
Well, Hardy smiled, I guess this is your specialty, Dr. Rothschild! That’s why they have you at the BM, eh?
I guess so.
Then there’s the paleography, a rather interesting hand, this piece. I think we can determine several things about the author.
Yes, I said, merchant class, obviously at some point educated as a scribe, highly intelligent.
And, Hardy said, obviously had exposure to other . . . figurative poetic texts as well? He’s read the classics, shall we say, The Tale of Sinuhe, The Tale of King Cheops’ Court, perhaps the Instructions of Any?
Possibly.
And such a delicate hand. Look here, how he manages to work in the musculature in the leg of an ox, the slight stipple of feathers on the ibis and owl. Remarkable for a papyrus piece. Simply brilliant work. Which makes the . . . content and apparent manner of its construction so odd. Don’t you think?
Yes, I do.
Any relation then, Penelope said, to the Stela of Paser?
Yes, Hardy said, that is the question. Certainly on its own this is a remarkable piece of work. This sort of personal communication, and on papyrus to boot, is remarkably rare. Now there is a man, the curator of papyrology, Dr. Obbink at the Ashmolean in Oxford, he might have some other ideas—
No, I said. That’s okay, thanks.
Well, Dr. Obbink has this thing with a computer database that—
I got it, I said. Don’t worry about it. Don’t contact anyone, please. In fact I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone that we were here. At all. Okay?
Hardy’s fleshy jowls wobbled and he looked about the room like he was lost for a moment, as if he had forgotten where he was.
Right, he said.
Penelope smiled weakly at him and took one of his knotty hands in hers.
Of course, Hardy said. Right. Of course.
We sat for a few moments in awkward silence. The fire popped a discordant harmony with the soft tones of the piano on the record player. I asked Hardy if it would be okay if we stayed with him tonight.
Why absolutely, he cried, of course! I insist. You both look positively knackered. It’s still early but I like to turn in myself. You look like you might stand for some dry clothes as well.
Well, Penelope said, we wouldn’t want to—
Nonsense! Hardy said. I insist. Mrs. Hardy has a full closet of things, all fresh and clean, though of course they will be a bit large for you, my dear, Mrs. Hardy being a bit more, shall we say, stout, than you are! Regardless, let me show you what we have and you can pick some things out. The guest cottage there, on the hill, has a working shower and fresh linens on the bed and everything else you might need. I keep the woodstove full of dry logs just for situations like this.
Really, Penelope said, for situations like this? You normally have guests showing up a day late, completely filthy and half asleep? You must lead an interesting life, Dr. Hardy.
Ah, quite so, quite so.
Is Mrs. Hardy around? Penelope asked. Perhaps she could help me out.
Hardy shuffled his papers about and cleared his throat, smiling weakly.
I’m afraid, he said, Mrs. Hardy is no longer with us.
He waved his hand at Penelope’s falling expression.
No, my dear, no matter, he said. She passed several years ago, it’s quite all right.
He looked at the papers in his hand, seeming to search for something to say. For a few moments we all just opted for the excellent English tendency of just saying nothing. The music on the record player played low and sweetly.
Sometimes, Hardy said finally, sometimes I forget myself. He gestured toward the bedroom. I still keep her things. Not sure why, really, but it’s all there. Yes, it’s been eight years now. I was at Giza at the time. For a new exhibit at the Great Pyramid of Khufu, you remember the one, Dr. Rothschild? Yes, I received a phone call my last night there. We had just wrapped up the final ceremonies. A wonderful event, really, so beautiful, the lights playing on the pyramids, a great gathering of scholars from around the world. Mrs. Hardy had a . . . an attack, right out there in the back garden. She was working on her peonies. By the time I got home, she was already gone. As Dr. Rothschild knows, without prior scheduling it is nearly impossible to get out of Africa and back to Europe in less than twenty-four hours. I . . . I never should have gone. She was . . . we were both getting on and . . .
We sat quietly for a few moments, all of us just looking at the light falling over the trees and onto the garden.
Hardy took a deep breath and stood up.
Right, he said, let’s see about some dry clothes for you two. Dr. Rothschild, I believe I might have a suitable carrying device for that papyrus. Something to get it back to the museum with you at least.
I’m sorry that we didn’t call, Penelope said, and that we didn’t show up last night.
Quite all right, Hardy said. Come, let’s get something dry for you, Ms. Otter. You must be tired. I’ll show you where everything is in the cottage and get the fire started for you.
Even though I had drunk at least two quarts of tea, I was feeling the persistent tug of sleep, so much so that I thought I was going to fall over, the sort of sleepiness that suddenly makes anything or anyplace, the floor, the flower bed, the sidewalk, the dustbin, seem like a perfectly acceptable and even desirable resting place.
Wait, Penelope said, slapping my arm, I’d like to stay up and talk with you, Dr. Hardy. I’d like to hear more about the role of women in ancient Egypt. I have a lot of interest in such matters.
Ah, my dear, Hardy said, so very kind of you, but I must admit that I was planning on turning in shortly myself. You see, I have another compulsion that is even stronger than my interest in ancient cultures. I am quite the amateur angler, and I plan on visiting a certain stream tomorrow very early to see if I can land a few late-season trout. It is my greatest pleasure these days, to spend the early hours of the morning by the stream that runs through the back of the property here. Simply my favorite spot in the world. Superb. Drains into the Cam, incidentally. Years ago when the water was high enough I would often row down to Trinity Hall to give my lectures.
That’s simply brilliant, Penelope said.
It’s true! Not anymore, of course. Since I retired I spend my mornings angling, my days in the garden, and in the evenings I read the work of such brilliant scholars as Dr. Rothschild here. Yes! Quite a life. Really though, I must turn in to get an early wake, thanks. Simply have to get a decent night’s kip at my age or I might not ever get out of bed again! Come now; let’s find you something to wear for the night. You can hang your wet things by the woodstove to dry for the morning. I should be back around seven, and hopefully we’ll have a bit of fresh brown trout to go with our egg and tomatoes, eh? Wish me luck for that. Right, off we go.
And with that we trundled into the bedroom where Hardy threw open his modest closet for us to choose from, anything we liked. Penelope and I stood there, shifting our feet like embarrassed children in front of the closet, our eyes on the floor, and allowed Hardy to thrust things at us. Hardy insisted that we take an extra set of clothes to wear back to London.
Just send them along whenever you can, he said. No hurry.
Then we walked out into the cold evening, to the cottage.
The cottage was essentially a large studio, with a set of French doors that opened onto the yard, and a small porch in the back that looked out into the woods. A large bed with a simple wooden frame that stood in one corner, a chest of drawers, a small writing desk, and the woodstove made up all the furniture. The floor was made of dusty planks of oak; the raw, dark wood of the large beams striped the ceiling, and the walls were bare stucco with a few hanging Egyptian prints. The woodstove roared to life quickly and Hardy filled the wood pail from a stack on the back porch. The room warmed up almost immediately, and the open stove door cast a flickering light over the simple arrangement.
I hope that the, er, bed . . . is satisfactory . . . The only other bed in the house is in my bedroom, and I’m afraid that’s also rather small, Hardy said.
No problem, Penelope said, laughing, Walter will keep to his side, I can promise you.
I don’t care, I said. I could sleep anywhere at this point.
When Hardy left, Penelope sat on the bed beside her stack of clothing. She looked at me sharply as if she expected me to say something.
What?
Look, she said, I don’t see why you are acting this way. He really is such a sweet man.
What way? I said.
You’ve been basically ignoring him all evening.
Well, you know I’ve had a rather difficult few days; I’m not exactly feeling real friendly.
Do you ever?
What?
Feel friendly?
Sure. What do you mean?
Forget it.
It just seems sort of pathetic, you know? Rambling on like that . . . and the thing about—
Christ, Walter! He’s a nice old man!
You don’t understand. He’s one of these guys who—
Don’t give me this shite about scholarship or Egyptology or whatever! I’m tired of it! Do you even realize what a complete snob you are? Christ!
She gathered her things and went into the bathroom and closed the door. I stood there in the center of the room.
It’s not that, I said, speaking loudly to no one. But then I didn’t know what it was. I lay on the coverlet, perched on the very edge of the bed, and dozed while Penelope showered, and when I awoke I was shivering in my damp clothes and it was already dark. Penelope was burrowed under the covers on her side, curled up away from me, her hands clenched with cold. I staggered up and put fresh logs on the dying fire. I carried a set of Hardy’s pajamas into the bathroom and stood under the shower for an indeterminate amount of time, finishing only when the hot water ran out.
When I came back out into the bedroom the fire was raging and the room warm. Penelope had flipped to her back and cast the covers off the top part of her body. She had on one of Mrs. Hardy’s old nightshirts, a billowing, frilly cotton affair that tied at the neck. The firelight played over her open throat and sharp chin, and she breathed slowly and evenly through thinly separated lips.
Hardy had a large wedjat emblem, the falcon eye of Horus, done in shaky oil paints on a wood board, hanging over the bed. The eye of wisdom, stolen from Horus by Seth, the defender of Egypt and lord of the wild lands, the brother of Osiris. It was a symbol for the constant struggle to be made whole, to control the destinies of Egypt, of oneself. The world was a constant battle between the forces of chaos, being understood as the will and pride of man, and truth, society, and civilization, represented by the daughter of the creator god. She was the one who could bring stability, who could bring order. The wedjat was the emissary here on earth, sent to observe, to make sure we remained steadfast and truthful. I stood by the stove, sweating lightly in a set of Hardy’s old flannel pajamas, and watched the eye of Horus looking over Penelope, looking over both of us.
Then I crept onto the bed, staying on top of the covers, and turned away from Penelope’s gentle breath and open expression. When I slept I dreamed of Hathor, the daughter of the sun god Ra, the most popular female goddess in temples across Egypt, the destroyer, the avenger of the gods who paid the human race in kind for their disrespect. I dreamed of vast lakes of beer, colored to look like blood. This was the only way you could dissuade Hathor from the slaughter; she would become intoxicated and sweetly loving, a representation of both aspects of the female character: violent scorn and tender affection. I was on a punt crossing one of these lakes, a lake of blood, heading toward a woman who stood on the other side. The sky was black and hung low, so low I felt like I could reach up and through the fabric of the world. In my hands I held a scrap of papyrus that I knew was the Song of Amun, but as I raised it to my eyes in the dim light, the glyphs shattered and re-formed, turning into something from the P. London/Leiden “Magical Papyrus,” a series of spells written in late demotic and Old Coptic script. Column 5 was illuminated—a spell for “A TESTED god’s arrival,” meaning to conjure up a vision in a dream.
If you put frankincense up in front of the lamp and look at the lamp, you see the god near the lamp; you sleep on a reed mat without having spoken to anyone on earth, and he tells you the answer in a dream. HERE IS ITS INVOCATION: FORMULAE: Here are the writings which you should write on the wick of the lamp: Bakhukhsikhukh.
I found myself repeating the invocation, murmuring to myself as I bobbed in the punt, Bakhukhsikhukh, Bakhukhsikhukh, Soul of Darkness, Son of Darkness, Soul of Darkness, Son of Darkness . . .
When I glanced up, still repeating the invocation, the woman on the bank began to shift and change, and soon I was watching a large-eyed cow, attending to a spindly calf that nursed around her ankles. She watched me with sharp, blue, intelligent eyes as she straddled the calf, holding it tightly between her hind legs. Just as I decided to continue onto the bank she changed once again, this time into a lioness, seated sphinxlike now with a young cub between her arms. Her gaze turned fiery, malevolent, and I tried to avoid her eyes but was too late. I saw her make a protective movement toward her cub, and begin to rise. I tried to turn the punt around, but I struggled with the slippery pole, making no real headway through the thick, viscous fluid. The lake seemed to stretch on forever before me; there was no demarcation, no horizon, no stretched point where it met space. I heard a roaring sound at my back and I began to pole faster, but the pole turned soft and slithered out of my hands like a snake, disappearing into the bloody murk. The roar was almost deafening and I felt a terrific heat at my back and I lay down in the boat and put my hands over my head.