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II
Esa, dressed in her best pleated linen gown, peered across at her son
with a kind of sardonic amusement.
‘Welcome, Imhotep. So you have returned to us–and not alone, I hear.’
Imhotep, drawing himself up, replied rather shame-facedly:
‘Oh, so you have heard?’
‘Naturally. The house is humming with the news. The girl is beautiful,
they say, and quite young.’
‘She is nineteen and–er–not ill looking.’
Esa laughed–an old woman’s spiteful cackle.
‘Ah, well,’ she said, ‘there’s no fool like an old fool.’
‘My dear mother. I am really at a loss to understand what you mean.’
Esa replied composedly:
‘You always were a fool, Imhotep.’
Imhotep drew himself up and spluttered angrily. Though usually com-
fortably conscious of his own importance, his mother could always pierce
the armour of his self-esteem. In her presence he felt himself dwindling.
The faint sarcastic gleam of her nearly sightless eyes never failed to dis-
concert him. His mother, there was no denying, had never had an exag-
gerated opinion of his capabilities. And although he knew well that his
own estimate of himself was the true one and his mother’s a maternal
idiosyncrasy of no importance–yet her attitude never failed to puncture
his happy conceit of himself.
‘Is it so unusual for a man to bring home a concubine?’
‘Not at all unusual. Men are usually fools.’
‘I fail to see where the folly comes in.’
‘Do you imagine that the presence of this girl is going to make for har-
mony in the household? Satipy and Kait will be beside themselves and will
inflame their husbands.’
‘What has it to do with them? What right have they to object?’
‘None.’
Imhotep began to walk up and down angrily.
‘Can I not do as I please in my own house? Do I not support my sons and
their wives? Do they not owe the very bread they eat to me? Do I not tell
them so without ceasing?’
‘You are too fond of saying so, Imhotep.’
‘It is the truth. They all depend on me. All of them!’
‘And are you sure that this is a good thing?’
‘Are you saying that it is not a good thing for a man to support his fam-
ily?’
Esa sighed.
‘They work for you, remember.’
‘Do you want me to encourage them in idleness? Naturally they work.’
‘They are grown men– at least Yahmose and Sobek are– more than
grown.’
‘Sobek has no judgement. He does everything wrong. Also he is fre-
quently impertinent which I will not tolerate. Yahmose is a good obedient
boy–’
‘A good deal more than a boy!’
‘But sometimes I have to tell him things two or three times before he
takes them in. I have to think of everything–be everywhere! All the time I
am away, I am dictating to scribes–writing full instructions so that my
sons can carry them out…I hardly rest–I hardly sleep! And now when I
come home, having earned a little peace, there is to be fresh difficulty!
Even you, my mother, deny my right to have a concubine like other men–
you are angry–’
Esa interrupted him.
‘I am not angry. I am amused. There will be good sport to watch in the
household–but I say all the same that when you go North again you had
best take the girl with you.’
‘Her place is here, in my household! And woe to any who dare ill-treat
her.’
‘It is not a question of ill-treatment. But remember, it is easy to kindle a
fire in dry stubble. It has been said of women that “the place where they
are is not good…”’
Esa paused and said slowly:
‘Nofret is beautiful. But remember this: Men are made fools by the gleam-
ing limbs of women, and lo, in a minute they are become discoloured corneli-
ans…’
Her voice deepened as she quoted:
‘A trifle, a little, the likeness of a dream, and death comes as the end…’
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