House of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

occasions when I tried to play with them. He knew also of my need to be the daughter of a long-lost Libu prince out of that same loneliness. I assumed no haughty airs with him and he, in turn, treated me with a gentleness unusual between brother and sister. I touched his naked shoulder.
    “I want to be able to read and write,” I said, the words tumbling out in a breathless spate of anxiety and embarrassment. “Show me how, Pa-ari. It won’t take you long, I promise!”
    He stared at me, taken aback, and then his smile broadened. “Don’t be silly,” he chided. “Such learning is not for girls. It’s precious. My teacher says that words are sacred, that the world and all laws and all history came from the pronunciation of divine words by the gods, and some of that force remains enclosed in hieroglyphs. What use would such power be to an apprentice midwife?”
    I could almost taste the things he was saying, feel the excitement of such mastery. “But what if I don’t become a midwife?” I said urgently. “What if one day a rich merchant is going by in his golden boat and his servants lose an oar and they have to put up overnight right here at Aswat, and I’m down on the bank doing the washing or even swimming and he sees me and falls in love with me and I marry him and then later his scribe falls ill and there is no one to take down his letters? Dearest Thu, he might say, take up the scribe’s palette, and then I am struck dumb with shame, for I am nothing but a poor village girl without learning and I can see the scorn on his face!” I was quite carried away with my own story. I felt the shame, saw my unknown husband’s pity, but then all at once my throat dried up. For part of the story was true. I was indeed a poor village girl without learning, and the realization was like a stone growing heavy in my heart. “I am sorry, Pa-ari,” I whispered. “Teach me, I beg you, because I want to understand the things you know more than anything on this earth. Even if I remain nothing but a village midwife, your labour would not be wasted. Please.”
    A silence fell between us. I looked down at my hands lying curled in my lap and I knew he was regarding me steadily. I could almost hear his thoughts, so motionless was his body.
    “I am still only a nine-year-old schoolboy,” he said quietly after a while, speaking without moving. “I am nothing more than the son of a soldier farmer. Yet I am the best student in my class and if I choose I can go to work for the priests of Wepwawet when I turn sixteen. The written word will assure me a position as a scribe if I want it one day. But what would the written word do to you?” He reached across the dimness and took my hand. “Already you are not satisfied, Thu. Such knowledge will only hurt you further.”
    I grasped his fingers and shook them. “I want to read! I want to know things! I want to be like you, Pa-ari, not helpless, without choices, condemned to stay in Aswat for the rest of my life! Give me the power!”
    Helpless … condemned … These were adult words coming from some part of me that did not know I was only eight years old, unformed and gangly and still in awe of the giants who ruled my world. Tears of frustration came to my eyes. My voice had risen and this time it was Pa-ari who warned me to be quiet with a swift finger to his lips.
    Wrenching his hand free he held it up in the universal gesture of submission.
    “All right!” he hissed. “All right. May the gods forgive me for such an act of foolishness. I will teach you.”
    I wriggled with joy, my earlier misery forgotten. “Oh thank you, dearest!” I said fervently. “Can we begin now?”
    “In here? In the dark?” he sighed. “Honestly, Thu, you are tiresome. We will begin tomorrow, and in secret. While Mother and Father sleep we will go down to the river and sit in the shade, and I will draw the characters for you in the sand. Then you can see my pieces of pottery, but Thu,” he warned,