I know what made me careless. It was the thought of seeing a god – in person – breathing, speaking, eating, moving about. Priests had worshipped at his shrine every day for two years. Now I was going to see him in the flesh – the pharaoh. God on Earth. The thought filled my brain. How could I think about anything else? So you see, it was all my fault.
Our ship, when we set sail that day, was a wonder to see. Even I was amazed, and I was accustomed to my father’s trade. My father, Harkhuf, dealer in rare beasts, was himself a rare, golden creature in my eyes. Mostly away in the south – beyond a dozen white-water cataracts of the Nile, beyond the southernmost districts of Egypt, beyond even Nubia – Father would reappear once or twice a year, his clothes threaded with strands of the fur of leopard, cheetah and lion. He took wild animals and tamed them into purring house pets for mayors and noblemen and, of course, for the pharaoh.
‘Pharaoh Amenhotep, may his names be spoken for ever, relied upon me completely for baboons,’ he used to say, cocking his nose in the air and sniffing.
Baboons were always Father’s favourite. Well, he was born in Hermopolis, and the people down there worship Thoth the baboon-god above all the rest. Pharaoh Amenhotep loved the beasts, too. So our home was always leaping with baboons, caged or tame, and little bronze figurines of baboons crouched in the living room. All the time I was growing up, they grinned at me, or bared their teeth – I never quite knew which.
Now the new pharaoh, son of Amenhotep III, had commanded my father to bring him animals; lots of animals, he said, for his new capital city. When word reached Father, he was breathless with delight. Despite my aunt’s objections – ‘Tutmose has his studies,’ and ‘Oh, surely you won’t take Ibrim on the river!’ – he invited my brother and me to go with him on the journey down the Nile to deliver the animals. ‘The trip of a lifetime,’ he said.
A lifetime, yes.
So, we set sail from Nehkeb in the Palm of Thoth, its decks laden with cages containing baboons, some smaller monkeys, a few serval cats and three dozen scarlet ibises. There were six baby crocodiles in a wooden trough, and two hunting falcons tethered to their perches with lengths of leather. The noise was cacophonous.
Father posted me in the prow to keep watch for sandbars. The river currents shift so much sand and mud about that the navigation channels are constantly changing. The hippopotami can wreck a boat, too. The holy Nile is a treacherous river, and boats have to be so shallow to sail it that they are quite frail.
My brother Ibrim sat up on the deckhouse roof, chanting the spell against crocodiles – we never cross water without saying it – and playing his harp. Ibrim was losing his sight, you see. He had river blindness. Not unusual. Terrible, but not unusual.
My father would keep saying, ‘You’ll get better, son. Your eyes are improving every day.’ But even then, young as we were, Ibrim and I knew it wasn’t true. Father just wasn’t very good at coping with bad news. He made sacrifices to the goddess Ishtar. He went on pilgrimages. He hung a gold case around Ibrim’s neck. Inside it was a little rolled-up note from the great baboon-god Thoth, promising to protect him. Even so, I had to keep look-out on my own for sandbars, while Ibrim sat on the cabin roof. He had a sweet voice; I loved to hear him sing. But that day, all I could hear was the rush of water under the prow, and the baboons jabbering. All I could think about was seeing a god.
The broad sail was furled; we were travelling with the current. Even so, the northerly wind was blowing so strongly that we made slow headway. The rowers had to pull without rest on their oars. It occurred to me that, with our cargo of livestock, we must look like the Ship of a Million Days that sails the skies crowded with its animal-headed gods. I had seen pictures; their boat had the same upward curve at prow and stern, like the curve of a hammock; it had the same two great steering boards at the back, the same oars moving with perfect symmetry. I remember wondering if the gods were looking down just then, over the side of their ship, watching us sail the holy Nile, sail down the length of the Black Land, between banks bright with flax and wheat, gardens, orchards and vineyards, square white houses and little moored reedboats.
‘Is the Ship of Heaven made of reed, like this one, Father?’ I asked.
‘No. Cedarwood. Like the pharaoh’s barge,’ he answered at once.
In those days, I thought he knew everything about the gods.
As we sailed past Iunet, he pointed out the Temple of Hathor, goddess of birth and far-off lands, of gold and silver and music.
‘She’s protected me on all my travels,’ said Father proudly. ‘On the way back we shall visit the temple and ask the priests to perform a ritual for Ibrim and bathe his eyes in the sacred water; let him sleep nearby and dream a cure for himself. I promise! On the way home.’
‘She gave me my gift of music,’ Ibrim said softly, from his perch on the roof. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t ask for more.’
But Father chose not to hear.
We sailed only when there was daylight. The river, with its shifting mudbanks and shoals of sand, was too dangerous in the dark. As we sailed past Thebes, Father described the wonders of the Temple of Karnak there – nearly eight hundred lionesses carved in black granite, and the avenue of sphinxes, a sacred lake, gateways taller than twenty men. ‘A hundred thousand people work here, Tutmose,’ he said. ‘Many of my animals live here.’
I thought he had been everywhere, seen everything, my wonderful father.
But, he had not sailed downstream beyond Thebes – not for twenty years. Pharaoh Amenhotep III had kept court at Thebes. The new pharaoh had shifted ground. So on we sailed, past Thebes and Luxor. The further we sailed, the quieter Father became, lost in thought, contemplating his first meeting with Amenhotep’s son. The new king. The new god on earth, ruler over all Egypt. There were strange rumours spreading up and down the Nile. The new pharaoh had changed more than his capital city; he had also changed his name – to Akhenaten (Spirit of Aten).
I, too, was lost in thought. What did a god look like? Would he speak to me? What should I say if he did? The sun was harsh on the moving water, hot on my shaven head, my naked body. I screwed my eyes shut against the brightness. I closed them, but my lids still glowed red. I covered my aching eyes with my hands.
And that was when we struck the sandbar.