Egypt20:27 Apr 20 2005
Times Read: 546
"We will go over Mount Sinai," Sadiki said as he pulled me along the alleyway. "We will finally be together. We will be free from this place, and we can go wherever we want."
"But what about Pharaoh?" As the words escaped my lips, we both paused. We knew the punishment if we were caught. We would both be killed. His fate would be much worse than mine, because he was a slave and my husband was not. My husband, what would become of him? To know that I love another, to find me gone, that knowledge would destroy him.
"I cannot," I said, looking back towards the city. "My family, our honor, would be destroyed."
He stopped and spun me towards him. His great arms held me there in the moonlight. "Time will not matter. Your family will be fine. I love you. We will be together, always. And, if I ever loose you, I will find you again. I promise you." As I gazed into his dark eyes, I knew that he was my path. Destiny had brought us together, and no force on Earth would take us from each other. I knew that even if we died that night, we would die together, and that was all that mattered.
I leaned towards him, resting my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating, and it was as though we were one, together under the desert moon. And, in that moment, time did stop, and we were there, holding each other close. In his arms, I would be fine. In his arms, fate would not find us.
But fate did find us, even before we had reached the alleyway. My husband found that I was gone. One of the servants in the house told him that I had left with a man, a slave man. My husband was enraged. He grabbed the servant by the neck, squeezing the life out of her as she squirmed. Even as the blood started to trickle out of her nose, he did not stop. Instead, he squeezed harder and harder. He felt betrayed. Something would be done. He would have his revenge against this slave that took his wife.
He glanced down at the dead girl in his hands. How pretty her face was in death. How pretty his wife’s face would be, when he did the same to her. He threw the girl up against one of the stone pillars in his home. He could hear her skull crack from the impact. Blood was now pouring from her eyes as she stared lifelessly at him. He released his hand from around her neck. Her body slumped onto the floor. He spit on her and then headed towards the door, stopping for a torch. He would go see Pharaoh. He would have his revenge.
We had to get outside the city. If anyone saw us together, they would know, and they would kill us on the spot. A slave and the wife of a dignitary. They would think I was being kidnaped, and when they discovered the truth, we would go before Pharaoh. We knew we had to split up, meet at the statues just past the fields. He would follow the river in darkness, and I would find him, waiting for me. We could leave, make our escape across the river and up the mountain. No one would know until the morning.
"I love you," I said, kissing his lips. "I will see you again, I promise." I stared at him, memorizing his face, his eyes. I did not want to go, but knew that I had to.
"Neferet, Ani ohev otah," he said, staring back into my eyes.
"If the guards catch you..." I began to say. His fingers went across my lips, silencing my words.
"They will not." He kissed my lips one last time, pulling me closer to him. I closed my eyes and I felt him pull away from me, leaving me in the alley alone.
I ran through the streets as fast as I could. I knew that my husband would go to Pharaoh, and that soon the guards would be coming for us. I ran headed for the river. In the distance, I could hear my husband, running through the streets, screaming, calling for Pharaoh. I could see the torches of the army being lit throughout the city. Was it too late?
The river! I could see it now, just up ahead. I glanced back behind me and saw soldiers, many soldiers, coming towards me in the darkness. They were carrying torches and yelling to one another. With each breath they were getting closer and closer. I had to hide.
There was nothing now but the river and the fields. I fell to the ground, in between two rows of wheat. They were coming for us. I prayed that Sadiki would be ok. As they passed, I could feel the ground shake from their feet. I held my breath and laid perfectly still in the dirt. I knew that if I could just wait until they were gone, I could make it to the river.
Suddenly, there was a great shrieking in the distance. A falcon. Pharaoh was coming. He used falcons to find his prey while hunting. He would go everywhere with them. Because the falcon was sacred to Horus, Pharaoh knew that he would be protected against all evils no matter where he ventured, even along the great river in the middle of the night.
Moments later, I could feel the sharp claws of the bird, ripping through the flesh on my legs. It was calling to Pharaoh, telling him where to find me. I grabbed the bird and threw it away from me, its wings thrashing and hitting me in the face.
"There!" The guards had spotted me. I started running towards the river as fast as I could. By now, I was covered in mud. I could feel the soil of the fields grabbing me, slowing me. I tried to run for the river as fast as I could, but in vain. The more I ran, the more the dirt pulled me back down. Egypt was unforgiving, and would not let me leave.
"Bring her to me," a deep voice said off in the distance. "I want her to see this." It was my husband. By now, I was standing next to the great statue of Pharaoh beside the river.
‘I was to meet him here,’ I thought to myself. A crowd of guards had surrounded me at the river, taking me to my husband, and to Pharaoh.
"Look, woman," said Pharaoh as he pointed towards the river. From the darkness, several guards appeared. In the middle of them was Sadiki, bruised and battered. "Nothing betrays Egypt. Nothing."
"No!" I could hear myself screaming even as my husband slapped me across the face, over and over.
Pharaoh had the guards beat Sadiki repeatedly with reeds, across his back, on his sides, even on his stomach. When I tried to look away, one of the guards would take my face and force me to watch. I could hear the echoes of each rod, each hit. Sadiki was bleeding so much. I kept begging them to stop, to leave him alone. I told them it was all my fault, but they would not listen. They just kept hitting him, over and over again. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
But not once did I hear him cry out. He would just look at me, and in my mind I could hear his words: Neferet, Ani ohey otah. This had been my fault. I was the cause of such pain. I was the bringer of his misery.
"Please, Pharaoh," I begged, "please just stop."
"Mercy?" Pharaoh got a wicked smile across his face, "you want me to stop? Fine. Guards."
He gestured towards the guards. Three of them ran over and picked Sadiki up and drug him towards the river.
"No!" I screamed again, but it was too late. The guards had taken him to drown.
He fought at first, thrashing and trying to hit the guards. The water was turning dark, darker than it had been. As his blood was flowing into the river, he started not to fight as much. Soon, he lay face down in the river, dead. I could feel my soul ripping apart as his lifeless body floated downstream.
"I want her," my husband said, walking away from the river and towards me, pointing his finger. "I deserve to have justice."
"Justice you will get," replied Pharaoh. He gestured for the guards to let me go.
I tried to run, but they stopped me, holding me for my husband.
"Come," said Pharaoh to the guards, "let’s leave them to their business." Soon the Pharaoh and all the guards were gone, leaving just me and my husband in the darkness.
"Did you love him?" questioned my husband as he walked in circles around me. "Answer me! Did you love him?"
"Yes," I fell to the ground, feeling the sand between my fingers turn to mud as I cried.
Wham! I felt numb. He had hit me with the blunt end of his torch. I fell face first into the dirt. He continued to circle around me, lost in his madness.
"You had no right!" he yelled as he continued to pace. "You were my wife. You were mine! I could have loved you too, you know. Now you will lay here and rot, food for the birds. You will never know eternity. You will stay here, living from one life to the next, never knowing love. You will never find your lover again. No one will speak of you. No one will write of you. You will be lost to us."
He continued hitting me over and over again with his torch until I lost consciousness. Hours passed, and I slowly woke up, still laying in the dirt, in a puddle of my own blood. Where was Sadiki? I had to find him. I tried to stand, but fell back to my knees. The pain was unbearable. Slowly, I crawled towards the river.
He was there, laying on the bank of the river. I put my hand on his chest. He was still breathing. Had they left us here, believing us to be dead already? Or did they know our fate? Did they know that death was coming for us, and that we would soon be gone?
Everything was quiet now. No longer did I hear the birds in the sky. No longer did I hear the great river as it flowed through the valley. No longer did the wind rustle through the fields as the farmers collected the harvest. The only sound was our heartbeats, slowing with each breath. We were dying. I held his hand as I lay next to him in the sand by the great river. A single tear fell from his eyes and into the dirt. Time seemed to slow, almost stop, as we lay there in silence, staring into each other’s eyes. No words passed between us. We did not need them. Finally, we would be free, and we would be together.
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