Everything went dark. Words went round and round in my head like a little dream of nonsense: ‘O my heart which I had from my mother. O my heart of my different ages…’ Then I came back to myself, opened my eyes, and slowly sat up. The cat was sniffing my hand delicately.
I struggled to my feet and looked around me. I was in a long stone chamber illuminated by lamps, hundreds of them. The walls and ceilings were decorated with hieroglyph panels and the Aten and the many little hands reaching down with the Gift of the Ankh to the divine and royal worshippers. In niches all along the walls were set solitary figurines and statuettes in crowns and masks, and I knew them: the forty-two gods holding their symbols of judgement. And I knew too that all of this, the old religion, was banned at Akhetaten.
In the centre was a large set of scales, bigger than a man, made of gold and ebony, surmounted by a carving of a seated woman-the goddess Maat, the regulator of the seasons and the stars, of earthly and divine justice. How often had I seen her image on the gold chains worn by all-too-human judges, below their gaunt and jowly faces, compromised and corrupted by luxury, brutality and time? The scales hung at this moment in equilibrium. The atmosphere was perfectly still around them. Then there was a motion. The cat looked up, her eyes green and clear, then ran off into the dark.
Next to the scales appeared a tall, black-skinned figure in a gold girdle, with the large black and silver head-mask of a jackal. Anubis. The figure stared at me, waiting. He said nothing, so I spoke.
‘Where am I?’
‘This is the Hall of the Two Truths.’
The voice came not from the mask but from the deeper shadows of the chamber. It was a woman’s voice, confident, direct, beautiful. I knew at once I had found her.
I said, ‘I thought the thing about truth was there is only one truth.’
‘There are many truths. Even here. There is your truth, there is my truth.’
‘And then there is the Truth.’
It was as if I could see her smile, though she remained invisible in the shadows.
‘How wise you are,’ she said. ‘You and all the others who speak of such things as the Truth. I wonder what you have been writing about me in your little journal. Which truths have you recorded there?’
She knew everything already. I tried to keep up with her.
‘Not truths, necessarily. Stories.’
‘Ah, stories. And how do they help us?’
‘They are versions of things. Possibilities. Of you.’
‘How many sides are there to that story? I would say many. I would say perhaps an infinite number.’
Was she right?
‘Perhaps.’
‘So every story has an infinite number of sides. A circle, perhaps. Is every story a circle?’
‘Every true story, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps we arrive at the end only to find it is a beginning, but now we know this truly for the first time.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment. I was a little enchanted by our cleverness. There was a quickness to it all, an intimacy, as if already we were thinking and completing each other’s thoughts. Suddenly I needed to see this long-lost, troubling, enigmatic woman.
‘Will you show yourself?’
She was silent for a moment, then made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a light laugh. ‘Perhaps. But you must answer some questions first. You must be judged. Your truth must be judged. Your sins must be judged. Your heart. I hope it is a good one. A true one.’
The jackal-headed god gestured for me to approach. ‘Your heart must not lie in the presence of the god,’ he said. His voice was sonorous, firm, and with an accent I knew came not from the Two Lands but from beyond the cataracts. Nubia.
I nodded. This was a game, a play of masks and scenes. I understood. At the same time, it was deadly serious. We were enacting the prayers and spells in the Book of the Dead. Everything we were doing was proscribed now. My answers, I knew, would determine my fate, regardless of anything.
‘I will not lie,’ I said.
‘We will commence the Negative Confession.’ He began to recite. ‘You Gods of the Soul’s House who judge the Earth and the Sky…Worship Ra in the Ship of the Sun…’ More incantations about the fire serpent and the Children of Impotence, and seeing the sun disc and the moon disc unceasingly: ‘May my Soul go forth and travel to every place which it desires, may my name be called out, may a place be made for me in the Ship of the Sun when the God sails the Sky of Day; and may I be welcomed into the presence of Osiris in the Land of Truth.’
As he mentioned the Great Name of Osiris, a fear burned in me that my whole life was suspended on the thread of this moment, gathering like a single drop of water into fullness, only shortly to fall. On one side of the scales was the matter of my life: my childhood, my wife, my girls, my love for our precious little world, all the things, good, bad and indifferent, I had thought and felt and done and been. On the other was the future, as intangible and unknowable as that strange snow in a box.
The jackal-headed figure bade me approach a spot to one side of the scales. I looked about me. The further reaches of the chamber disappeared into shadows, but now I saw the two statues on either side of me: Meskhenet and Renenutet, goddesses of fate and destiny, who would speak for the dead. And on the other side, a crouching beast like a lion with the long jaws, ferociously armoured, of a crocodile-the Devourer, ready to consume me and my little lies. He looked as if he was made of stone, but I could not be sure.
The Perfect One spoke: ‘What is your name?’
‘Rahotep.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I am seeking the answer to a mystery.’
‘What is the nature of this mystery?’
‘I seek one who has disappeared.’
Silence. Then the Jackal came forward and bade me speak my words of reply into one of the gold dishes of the scales. His questions came fast, insistent, not pausing for me to think, and out of my mouth came a litany of responses: ‘No, I have not lied; No, I have not committed adultery; Yes, I have killed; No, I have not stolen’ and so on, until I found myself pouring out the words of my good and bad deeds as if into a cursing bowl. Then the Jackal dropped a white ostrich feather which zigzagged through the air into the other dish of the scales. The device seemed calibrated to the weight of nothing for it shivered slightly as the feather touched down; as if it might dip under the grave doubts of such lightness, and indicate my doom. But it gradually returned to absolute stillness. The air around me had held its breath. Now it began to breathe again.
Then she spoke again: ‘You are a Truth Speaker. Welcome. Close your eyes. Come forward.’
I shut my eyes and stepped like a blind man into more shadow. Her hand took mine, led me forward, and suggested I sit. I sensed her moving around me.
‘All that remains is to return you to yourself. For if you were truly dead, your soul would be a bird, fluttering between the worlds. Is your soul fluttering?’
I could not answer.
‘The Truth Speaker is lost for words?’
‘Not everything can be expressed in words.’
‘True. But now it is time for me to restore your five senses. I cannot speak for the others, the senses of humour, honour and so on.’
She led me to a bench and I sat down.
‘According to the directions of the rite, you should really be lying in a coffin, but I think that would be melodramatic. Do you recognize this?’
I nodded, feeling the object she was holding, recognizing the fishtail flint blade. ‘It is a peseh-kef knife.’
‘It is said that the Priest will point the right leg of a freshly slaughtered ox at you to try to transfer some of its strong spirit into your resurrected body. I will not be using the right leg of an ox.’
She placed the knife at my mouth. I felt the cold kiss of the blade against my lips. I smelled the warm scent of her body. I felt suddenly filled with warmth, with the possibility of life. I began to believe again that I could accomplish the task set for me, and return home to my life. She held the blade there for a little while as these feelings opened up inside me, then slowly she lifted it away and placed it over my eyes, right, then left, and the same for my ears. Again the cool touch of the metal. I felt myself blush like a lover.
‘You may now speak, and eat, see and hear. You are alive again.’
So I opened my eyes.