Anput

The Last Dry Room

The coffin was too beautiful to break, and the dead woman was slipping.

Anput caught the edge of the reed mat before it went under. Muddy water struck her wrist. On the far side of the broken causeway, the two bearers leaned backward, trying to keep the woman’s shoulders above the flood. One had lost a sandal. His bare toes scraped for a purchase on the crumbling bank.

“Put her down,” Anput said. “Flat. Keep hold of the mat.”

Behind her, in the doorway of the embalming house, a man tightened both arms around a painted coffin.

“No.”

“I have not asked you yet.”

“You have looked at it.”

The gap in the causeway was little wider than a man’s stride. Water rushed through it with enough force to roll stones. The coffin lid would reach across. Inside the house were stone tables, earthen vessels, folded linen. Nothing else long enough could be moved without bringing down part of the roof.

The man pressed his cheek against the painted face on the lid. The face was young and perfect. Someone had drawn the corners of its mouth as though it were about to smile.

“My son stays in this.”

Another piece of the far bank dropped away. The bearers dragged the woman back from the widening edge.

Anput turned toward the chamber behind the father.

“Anubis.”

Her husband looked up from a length of linen. At his feet, two bodies already lay on mats, carried from the lower burial ground before the causeway broke. There were wet footprints around them and none leading away.

“How many?” he asked.

“One more that I can see.”

“Then fetch her.”

“I need the boy’s coffin.”

His hands stopped.

The father turned so that his body stood between them and the painted lid.

Outside, the jackal standard above the entrance creaked in its socket. From the low fields came the sound of people calling across water. Anput knew those fields, their channels, the little strips of earth men disputed with their brothers. Now the river had rubbed out the divisions. At the edge of the desert, it was opening the graves.

The dead woman across the breach had been carried to that ground three days earlier. Her daughters had walked behind her. One had kept reaching forward to straighten the mat, though the bearers had asked her to stop.

Anput could still hear her: Her shoulder. Be careful of her shoulder.

“Lift the lid,” the goddess said to the father.

He shook his head.

“You may lift it yourself. Or I will.”

He stared at her, then at the wet hem of her dress. Slowly, he loosened his arms.

The Painted Face

The boy inside did not resemble the face on the wood.

Linen covered him to the chin. Above it, one side of his head had been crushed. Anput saw why the father had chosen this coffin, why he had clung to the painted smile.

Anubis came to stand beside her.

“A wall fell,” he said quietly. “He was helping his father shore it.”

“I told him to come away.” The man kept his eyes on the lid. “He put his hand up. Like this.”

He raised a palm, impatiently, the gesture of a boy who had heard the same warning too often.

For a moment he held it there. Then he lowered it.

From outside came a shout. Anput turned. One of the bearers was pointing upstream, where a dark branch spun toward the breach.

She went to the doorway and caught it as it struck. The wood tore at her fingers. She forced it around, let the current take it past the men, and returned to the coffin.

“We can lay your son on the table.”

“No,” said Anubis.

She looked at him.

“The linen beneath his head is not secured. Lift him carelessly and you will undo what I have done.”

“Then secure it.”

“I am securing it.”

For an instant she wanted to seize the lid and leave them both. The woman outside had no painted shelter, no father to obstruct a goddess on her behalf. Only two tired men and a reed mat coming apart at its edge.

Then the father reached into the coffin. He meant to adjust the linen. His fingers stopped short of his son’s cheek.

Anput knelt beside him.

“What is his name?”

“Dedi.”

She repeated it. The father looked at her for the first time without looking immediately away.

“Hold the linen under his shoulders,” she said. “Your hands there. Let my husband show you.”

“You said you wanted the coffin.”

“I do.”

“You will carry him out in front of them.”

“No. We will carry him farther in.”

He looked toward the table, then back at the painted face.

“Will you put him back?”

Anput could have said yes. The lid was thick. The gap was narrow enough. She could have made the next few breaths easier for him.

“I will keep him here,” she said. “I will guard him. I cannot promise you the wood.”

His mouth twisted. He waited for her to offer something more.

She stayed beside him.

At last he slid his hands where Anubis directed. Together they lifted the boy. Anput supported the head without letting it turn. The father walked backward, watching every movement of her arms. When they reached the table, he would not release his share until his son’s weight had fully settled.

Anubis bent over the damaged linen.

The father stood empty-handed.

“Come,” Anput told him. “Help me with the lid.”

What the Water Took

They carried it through the door with the painted face upward.

The bare-footed bearer had begun to shake. His companion was crouching behind him, arms hooked beneath the dead woman’s shoulders. The water now covered the place where they had first set her down.

Anput lowered one end of the lid to the far bank. The other rested against the threshold. The painted smile lay between her feet.

“Bring her across on the mat. One ahead, one behind.”

The first man tested the wood with his foot.

“Not you,” the father said.

The man froze.

“You are shaking. Give me your end.”

Before Anput could answer, the father stepped onto the lid. He kept his eyes on the far bank and crossed with his arms held out. When he reached the woman, he knelt, took the mat, and waited for the bearer to move past him.

The man made it to the threshold on his hands and knees.

Anput caught his arm and drew him inside. As she released him, something heavy struck the underside of the lid.

The causeway lurched.

Across the water, the remaining bearer shouted. Earth fell beneath his heel. He dropped the mat and vanished to the waist, both hands clutching at the bank.

The father grabbed his wrist.

The dead woman began to slide between them.

Anput stepped into the breach.

Water hit her breast. Beneath its surface, her feet found the torn edges of the causeway. She braced herself between them, shoulders against the surge. The current climbed her throat, split around her, and fell in two white streams behind her back.

For a few heartbeats the broken channel held still enough to see its bottom.

“Pull him up.”

The father dragged the bearer onto his knees. Together they hauled the woman clear. But more earth had gone. The lid no longer reached the far bank.

Anput felt stones working loose beneath her left foot.

She could reach the men, but not without turning. The moment she turned, the water would strike the bank again.

“Anubis!”

He appeared in the doorway. One strip of linen hung over his wrist.

“Bring the coffin. And a rope.”

The father looked up from the woman.

“There is a mooring line beside the door,” he said. “Under the jar.”

Anubis found it. He and the bearer inside pushed the empty coffin through the doorway, then lowered it on the line. Anput caught it before the current could turn it sideways. Keeping her back against the flood, she brought it around into the small pocket of quiet water between her body and the far bank.

The father’s hands settled on its rim.

“Put her in,” Anput said.

For a moment he only looked at the empty hollow where his son had lain.

Then he reached beneath the woman’s knees.

He and the bearer lowered her onto the bare wood. The coffin dipped. Anput held it level while they climbed down beside it, gripping its sides. There was no room for them inside without kneeling on the body.

“Hold the line tightly,” she called to her husband. “When I turn, pull.”

She looked at the father.

“Do not let go.”

He nodded.

Anput shifted her weight. Water spilled over her shoulder, struck the coffin, and drove it toward the house. The line snapped taut. Anubis and the man at the doorway hauled together while she kept the narrow vessel from rolling.

The bearer kicked clear of the bank and caught the threshold. Hands pulled him inside.

Then a length of timber came spinning through the breach.

It hit the coffin just above the waterline.

A side panel split. The woman’s shoulder sank with it. Anput thrust her arm beneath the mat, holding the body up while water poured through the broken wood.

The father tried to press the panel back into place.

“Leave it,” she said.

He was forcing the painted boards together with both hands. They sprang apart again. Water rose around the woman’s face.

“Give me the wood,” Anput said. “You take her.”

He looked from the broken side to the body within it. His fingers opened.

Anput tore the panel free. Through the gap, the father got his arms beneath the woman and lifted. Her head rested against his shoulder. He staggered as the current struck them both, but he did not lower her.

Anput caught the back of his neck and held him above the surge. With her other hand beneath the woman’s hips, she moved them toward the threshold.

Anubis reached down. Together the gods raised the woman onto the floor. The father climbed after her, helped by the men he had crossed to rescue.

The line fell slack. The ruined coffin rolled, filled, and tore free.

Anput caught the threshold and hauled herself up. Behind her, the gilded boards struck the stones and separated, gold flashing once before the water rolled them over.

The Loose End

Inside, the father was on his knees beside the dead woman.

One corner of her mat had folded underneath her. He eased it out and straightened it beneath her shoulder.

Anput crossed to the table.

Dedi lay where she had promised to keep him. Anubis had finished binding his head. The shape beneath the linen was still uneven; there would be no painted face to hide it now.

The father came slowly.

His hands were bleeding from the splintered wood. He stood beside his son and looked down for a long time.

“I had the painter change the mouth,” he said. “The first one was too solemn. He never looked like that.”

Anput waited.

“He laughed when he was frightened. It used to anger me.”

Anubis reached for the last length of linen. The father stepped back, but Anput caught his wrist before he withdrew.

“Hold this.”

She gave him the loose end. He took it carefully, turning his torn palms away so he would not stain the cloth.

Anubis passed the strip beneath the boy. Anput received it on the other side. Between them, the father let it feed through his fingers, a little at a time.

At the doorway, the rescued bearer found a broken piece of painted wood lodged against the sill. He set it beneath the door to keep it open. There were people calling from the upper path, and room on the floor for more.