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“Who are you?” I whispered, aghast.
The only sound was her labored breathing. Lungs, unprac-ticed for centuries, would find it hard to do their work once more, I supposed. Except she couldn’t be a real mummy. I had heard of ossified men. Did she have an illness like that, which had hardened her to leather and bone?
She coughed, and dark spittle frothed on her lips. She struggled weakly, but her arms we
re bound. I pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her mouth. The cloth came away stained. Her ailment must affect her lungs.
“You are always kind, Ankhtifi,” she whispered.
That name! I had heard it before. Fear tightened its hold once more. “Who are you?” I asked again.
This time she answered, in a voice thin and strained. “Know me not? I have talked to you in that world between waking and dream. I have danced for you.”
“No, no, no.” I shook my head. This couldn’t be the beauti-ful dancer, Lady Adventure. Not this. It was a cruel joke.
“I am Tauseret, Servant Priestess and dancer in the khener of Hathor; daughter of Tetien, scribe of the court at Avaris, and Nenufer, mistress of his house; reluctant wife of Sethnakhte, high priest of Set; lover of Ankhtifi; cursed by Set, blessed by Hathor, saved by Isis.” She paused, then, “I am not a princess,” she said. Her last words were weak, but her green-flecked brown eyes were luminous with the laughter within.
She fell to gasping again, no doubt exhausted by this recita-tion.
“I think you are a clever girl,” I said. “You may even have some mind-reading powers, since you are trapped in an infirm body.” Hadn’t I dreamed of the dancer as I sat beside her only the other day? “But an ancient Egyptian? I doubt it. Mink has taught you well,” I said. I wondered what plans he had for her.
She waited so long to speak that I thought I had imagined that she had said anything at all, but at last she answered. “The bone man has taught me nothing.” Was that a sneer on her lips? “My home is Kemet—land of the rich, black mud of the Nile. They are fishing there, cats hunt, children play, and I cannot return.”
She had a guttural accent I couldn’t place, and she tripped over words, her vowels wrong and her rhythm off; but she could be from anywhere foreign. “And how did an ancient Egyptian lady come to speak English?”
She continued in the same hushed voice, oddly halting and fluid in turns. “I stood for many years in the study of a scholar in one of your cities. My mouth was sealed, yet by the mercy of the great Isis I needed no eyes to see, my ears could hear beyond walls. I listened to his words with visitors, his commands to ser-vants, and the disputes with his wife. He spoke with scribes and priests. They pointed to the writing of my people and said their own words. This unlocked the mystery.”
Her answer was logical and well thought out but could still be the clever words of a performer.
“Ah, Ankhtifi, do you not remember me?” she said. “My heart, my ka, lives in you. You are my life. You are my other. The one cannot know itself without the other; the other cannot exist without the one.”
“What connection could I have with you? I don’t know you,” I said, yet part of me thrummed and sang in response to her words.
“It is no wonder you don’t know me,” she said. “You are transformed. Your ba, the eternal spirit that your priests call the soul, has taken a new form, and your ka, the life in your heart, is reborn and forgets all except the tastes, the thoughts, the desires, of this existence. I know you, however, despite your skin is pale, your features sharper. I still covet those lips.” Her gaze told me she yearned to touch me, and I drew back a little. She coughed again, and more dirt befouled her lips. I felt shame for cringing from her. I reached for the pitcher. “Would you like some water?”
“I would,” she rasped, “but I am afraid. My organs may be … incomplete.”
I swallowed hard. “How about if I dab your lips and forehead instead?” I said hastily, and I dipped my handkerchief in the water with nervous little jabs. Half of me believed her, half of me thought her a clever and ill young actress. As I bathed her face, I noticed her lips were plumper.
“I will tell you of us,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “Lean over me that I may see your cherished eyes.”
I did as she instructed, still wary, but eager to hear the tale she would concoct. “Wouldn’t you like me to free your arms?” I asked.
Her eyes flashed fear. “It is not time,” she said. “Only listen.”
Mummy or ossified woman, she must need the bandages for support.
“In that life,” she said, “Kemet was ruled by invaders from the land my scholar called ‘Palestine.’ They took our ways as well as our land, but they mocked us by naming their pharaoh Apophis, after the snake of the netherworld. Worse,” she said, “they raised the worship of Set over the other gods. Set, who killed Osiris, the husband of Isis, cut him to pieces and cast him into the Nile.
“My father worked as a scribe of the court,” she continued. “He supervised the records of the royal stores. His house was prosperous, and my mother had many servants to guide.”
She moaned.
“Do you hurt?” I asked, not sure what I could do if she did.
“Yes,” she answered. “I hurt with all time lost. That life is all gone. Except for you.” The smile she attempted unsettled me, but her lips now covered more of her teeth. How could that be?
I tried not to dwell on that. It was too strange. “And you were a dancer?” I prompted.
