Read Online House of Dreams by Pauline Gedge - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Pauline Gedge
Ads: Link
those grim white wrappings, don’t you? What if he’s not human? Aren’t you afraid? Good-night, Thu.”
Half the hours of darkness seemed to pass before I heard my parents return, but it cannot have been that long. Pa-ari was soon asleep. I listened to the comfort of his regular, slow breathing and beyond that the watchful silence of a summer night, hot and still. Yes I was afraid. But I was learning that fear can make your spirit sick. It can turn you into a shuffling thing inside and it can feed on itself like a disease until you cannot move, you no longer have any pride. And without pride, I thought darkly, what am I? A jackal howled, the strident, agonized sound very faint and far away, and I wondered if it was the mate of the beast father had killed. I heard his step and my mother’s low, coquettish giggle. I wondered if they had lain down together on the warm, dusty earth of the fields or in deep shadow by the Nile. When the house had settled I rose and crept outside.
The air embraced me, fingering my naked limbs and lifting the hair from my neck. The moon rode high and full and I paused to pay it homage, raising my arms to the son of Nut, goddess of the sky, and to the stars, her lesser children, before entering the shadow of the path leading to the temple. Here a little of my exaltation at being out and free and alone left me, for the black palm fronds above my head stirred with a secret fretfulness and I remembered that the spirits of the neglected dead could be thronging the dense moon-shadows, watching me jealously. The path itself had lost its cheerful daytime face and now wore another, dreamlike, pale and magical, a road to somewhere I could not foresee. But that is why I am here, I told myself stoutly, keeping my eyes on my feet while the palms whispered a warning and their laced shadows crept up my body as I walked. I must foresee. I must know.
I sensed rather than saw the greyish blur of the two huge tents that had been pitched up against the temple wall and I came to a halt, poised for flight, my heart suddenly pounding. But there was no sound, no movement. Ahead and to my right the lovely prow of the Seer’s boat curved indistinctly. It, too, was still. The river was very low and the canal half-empty. Sweat broke out along my spine as I crouched and ran across the path to the shelter of the river growth. Peering through the branches I saw that Pa-ari had been right. A soldier stood at the curtained door of the cabin, looking in my direction, and I had no doubt that his fellow was stationed on the other side. Very well. I would swim and climb. As I turned towards the river a great tide of excitement rushed up inside me and I wanted to sing for the joy of it. I was smiling and gasping with delight as I slid into the black, moon-rippled water.
I was a very good swimmer and could move without greatly disturbing the surface. Revelling in the silken coolness, the polite resistance of the Nile, buoyed by that strange exaltation, I reached the canal and turned cautiously up it, feeling the stern of the boat grow larger until it towered above me. My fingers found wood and then I rested a moment, my wet cheek against the sweet-smelling cedar. I no longer cared about anything but the thrill of my adventure. Something in me was being fulfilled at last and it grew and blossomed and I knew, hanging there with my mouth caressed by the river, my eyes on the broken sky-road the moon was making all around me, that I would never be the same. “Praise to you O Hapi, source of Egypt’s fructifying power,” I murmured to the dark expanse of water, then my fingers found a grip and I pulled myself from the God’s arms.
The ship’s construction was such that the planks were overlaid one upon another. It was child’s play for me to climb the side. I had some difficulty at the top where the lip curved inward but once I had anchored myself on this I had only to roll quickly onto the deck to find myself in blessed
Half the hours of darkness seemed to pass before I heard my parents return, but it cannot have been that long. Pa-ari was soon asleep. I listened to the comfort of his regular, slow breathing and beyond that the watchful silence of a summer night, hot and still. Yes I was afraid. But I was learning that fear can make your spirit sick. It can turn you into a shuffling thing inside and it can feed on itself like a disease until you cannot move, you no longer have any pride. And without pride, I thought darkly, what am I? A jackal howled, the strident, agonized sound very faint and far away, and I wondered if it was the mate of the beast father had killed. I heard his step and my mother’s low, coquettish giggle. I wondered if they had lain down together on the warm, dusty earth of the fields or in deep shadow by the Nile. When the house had settled I rose and crept outside.
The air embraced me, fingering my naked limbs and lifting the hair from my neck. The moon rode high and full and I paused to pay it homage, raising my arms to the son of Nut, goddess of the sky, and to the stars, her lesser children, before entering the shadow of the path leading to the temple. Here a little of my exaltation at being out and free and alone left me, for the black palm fronds above my head stirred with a secret fretfulness and I remembered that the spirits of the neglected dead could be thronging the dense moon-shadows, watching me jealously. The path itself had lost its cheerful daytime face and now wore another, dreamlike, pale and magical, a road to somewhere I could not foresee. But that is why I am here, I told myself stoutly, keeping my eyes on my feet while the palms whispered a warning and their laced shadows crept up my body as I walked. I must foresee. I must know.
I sensed rather than saw the greyish blur of the two huge tents that had been pitched up against the temple wall and I came to a halt, poised for flight, my heart suddenly pounding. But there was no sound, no movement. Ahead and to my right the lovely prow of the Seer’s boat curved indistinctly. It, too, was still. The river was very low and the canal half-empty. Sweat broke out along my spine as I crouched and ran across the path to the shelter of the river growth. Peering through the branches I saw that Pa-ari had been right. A soldier stood at the curtained door of the cabin, looking in my direction, and I had no doubt that his fellow was stationed on the other side. Very well. I would swim and climb. As I turned towards the river a great tide of excitement rushed up inside me and I wanted to sing for the joy of it. I was smiling and gasping with delight as I slid into the black, moon-rippled water.
I was a very good swimmer and could move without greatly disturbing the surface. Revelling in the silken coolness, the polite resistance of the Nile, buoyed by that strange exaltation, I reached the canal and turned cautiously up it, feeling the stern of the boat grow larger until it towered above me. My fingers found wood and then I rested a moment, my wet cheek against the sweet-smelling cedar. I no longer cared about anything but the thrill of my adventure. Something in me was being fulfilled at last and it grew and blossomed and I knew, hanging there with my mouth caressed by the river, my eyes on the broken sky-road the moon was making all around me, that I would never be the same. “Praise to you O Hapi, source of Egypt’s fructifying power,” I murmured to the dark expanse of water, then my fingers found a grip and I pulled myself from the God’s arms.
The ship’s construction was such that the planks were overlaid one upon another. It was child’s play for me to climb the side. I had some difficulty at the top where the lip curved inward but once I had anchored myself on this I had only to roll quickly onto the deck to find myself in blessed
Similar Books
