The wheel turns, the wheel burns
The ram and the phoenix grow lean.
So hey for the wind and hey for the air
For they don’t care for the wheel,
And the black dog walks and the black dog stalks
And the ghosts of the dead city squeal.
And the wheel turns and the wheel burns
The ghouls in the graveyard sigh,
The wheel turns and the wheel burns
And the stork and falcon fly . . .
And so on. And so on. And so on. That old song is as much a part of my world as the feel of dust under my feet or the smell of woodsmoke in the evening, but I never really thought about it as I followed the old woman around the yard.
Then just last year, after the new king had declared the Aten to be the one true god and his soldiers had closed the temples, the old woman checked we were alone, put her broom down, grabbed me by the arm and marched me to the empty temple at the foot of the Great Pyramid. I was frightened of the enormous stone gateway, the dark doors and the huge statues of dead gods and dead kings, their faces and names hacked off on the orders of the new king.
On we walked, through empty courtyards and dusty, high-pillared halls. Courtyards and halls grew smaller, then darker, then even darker and smaller but the more scared I grew, the harder the old woman’s nails dug into my arm.
At last we paused at a low, square doorway. Inside I could hear scrabbling and snarling. The old woman pushed me to one side and threw stones through the dark doorway until a wild dog rushed out and past us. Then she led me in.
We waited in the dark stillness. Slowly my eyes adjusted and dim shapes began to emerge from the walls. Figures carved into stone. The king’s soldiers had been at work with their chisels here as well and it was hard to make the shapes out until the old woman took my hand, laid it on the stone and started to chant.
Through the stone, under the roughness of the chisel marks, the shapes of the falcon and the stork, the sphinx and the lioness pressed up against my fingers. Gods and goddesses.
‘The new king thinks he killed ’em, but he’s just driven ’em out of the stone,’ the old woman whispered in my ear. ‘They’re hiding now. Boy of water, boy of earth: you’ll find ’em, boy. You’ll bring ’em back. That’s your job.’
At the time what she said made no sense to me, but when you’re young nothing does.
All I know is that if I mix water and earth it makes mud, and in the mud I can find the stork, the falcon, the cobra, the lioness and all the rest of them. It’s not me that’s doing it; the shapes of the animals press up against my fingers from inside the mud. The gods are in the animals and the animals are in the mud and that is where they’re hiding.
No time to think about that now. Here comes my mother, swooping down on me, her head pecking the air like a chicken.
‘Time for you to stop daydreaming and fetch your little sister. Can’t you see how late it is? What are you thinking?’
She glances at the Quiet Gentleman out of the corner of her eye and simpers: ‘What is it with the young of today? They’re like chalk and cheese, him and my daughter. She’s as good as gold, but he’s –’ and her voice takes on an all too familiar rasp ‘– he’s like a moonstruck cow. A burden ever since we took him in. Go, child. And be back before sunset or there’ll be a clip round the ear waiting for you.’
She points up at the sun, which is where it always is at this time of day, and nips my earlobe between her finger and thumb. What I’m thinking is that I was told to fetch my sister from her aunt’s house tomorrow morning, but someone’s changed their mind and forgot to let me know.
‘But it’s too late,’ I protest. ‘I’ll never be able to get there and back in time.’
‘Then hurry! And don’t go taking any short cuts through you know where.’
‘But . . .’
‘GO!’
Imi, Imi, Imi. My little sister. My parents’ daughter, their real child, as they never stop reminding me. I’m big enough to admit that Imi’s great, even if she is my kid sister. But sometimes, sometimes, I think that if she wasn’t so perfect, I might seem a little less bad.
I scrape the mud off my potter’s wheel, prop it against the wall and leave.
The aunt doesn’t live far away, just the other side of the pyramids, but between our home and hers is you know where – a place that scares the loincloth off me.
It’s like a town, this place. It has streets. It has squares. It has houses, and the rich stay in the big ones and the poor stay in the small ones. But there’s one VERY BIG difference between this town and the one I live in: everyone in it is dead.
I know, I know. Dying is not really dying. This life is a preparation for the next one which is far, far better and you go there surrounded by all your favourite possessions and pets and food and drink and blah blah blah . . .
But here’s the catch. To keep your spirit alive, your relatives have to say your name and bring food to your tomb, and just to check, your spirit flies back from the underworld like a bird every evening. The houses of the dead sometimes even have a little perch above the front door for the soul to rest on.
But what happens to souls that have been forgotten, whose relatives don’t turn up with biscuits and milk? I’ll tell you. They become wandering ghouls. Not just hungry ghosts but hungry, angry ghosts.
Now, because I actually have eyes in my head and a tiny little bit of reasoning power, I know for A FACT that grieving relatives have pretty much given up visiting these houses of the dead. Result? An AWFUL LOT of whispering ghouls and MORE and MORE every day.
Here I am, walking past the wall that surrounds the City of the Dead. Now I’m passing its main gate and I look in – and wish I hadn’t. The houses of the dead are spilling darkness. It fills the streets and alleyways and in the darkness are the ghouls.
My friends, it’s a good place to avoid.
The aunt is rich. She has a two-roomed house with a bread oven out the back and a slave who does just about everything for her. My little sister Imi goes there to learn manners, weaving, hair-braiding – all a girl needs to hook a good husband.
When I get to the house, Imi’s hair is neatly braided and she’s showing off a new tunic and a brightly coloured belt. She jumps
