Death Comes as End - Agatha Christie [66]
‘But I will in this case. He cannot force me to agree with him and I shall not do so.’
Renisenb looked up at him. How resolute and determined his usually undecided face was looking!
‘You are good to me, Yahmose,’ she said gratefully. ‘But indeed I am not yielding to compulsion. The old life here, the life I was so pleased to come back to, has passed away. Kameni and I will make a new life together and live as a good brother and sister should.’
‘If you are sure–’
‘I am sure,’ said Renisenb, and smiling at him affectionately she went out of the hall on to the porch.
From there she crossed the courtyard. By the edge of the lake Kameni was playing with Teti. Renisenb drew near very quietly and watched them whilst they were still unaware of her approach. Kameni, merry as ever, seemed to be enjoying the game as much as the child did. Renisenb’s heart warmed to him. She thought: ‘He will make a good father to Teti.’
Then Kameni turned his head and saw her and stood upright with a laugh.
‘We have made Teti’s doll a ka-priest,’ he said. ‘And he is making the offerings and attending to the ceremonies at the Tomb.’
‘His name is Meriptah,’ said Teti. She was very serious.
‘He has two children and a scribe like Hori.’
Kameni laughed. ‘Teti is very intelligent,’ he said. ‘And she is strong and beautiful too.’
His eyes went from the child to Renisenb and in their caressing glance Renisenb read the thought of his mind–of the children that she would one day bear him.
It sent a slight thrill through her–yet at the same time a sudden piercing regret. She would have liked in that moment to have seen in his eyes only her own image. She thought: ‘Why cannot it be only Renisenb he sees?’
Then the feeling passed and she smiled at him gently.
‘My father has spoken to me,’ she said.
‘And you consent?’
She hesitated a moment before she answered:
‘I consent.’
The final word was spoken, that was the end. It was all settled. She wished she did not feel so tired and numb.
‘Renisenb?’
‘Yes, Kameni.’
‘Will you sail with me on the River in a pleasure boat? That is a thing I have always wanted to do with you.’
Odd that he should say that. The very first moment she had seen him she had thought of a square sail and the River and Khay’s laughing face. And now she had forgotten Khay’s face and in the place of it, against the sail and the River, it would be Kameni who sat and laughed into her eyes.
That was death. That was what death did to you. ‘I felt this,’ you said, ‘I felt that’–but you only said it, you did not now feel anything. The dead were dead. There was no such thing as remembrance…
Yes, but there was Teti. There was life and renewing of life, as the waters of the yearly inundation swept away the old and prepared the soil for the new crops.
What had Kait said: ‘The women of the household must stand together.’ What was she, after all, but a woman of a household–whether Renisenb or another, what matter…
Then she heard Kameni’s voice–urgent, a little troubled.
‘What are you thinking, Renisenb? You go so far away sometimes…Will you come with me on the River?’
‘Yes, Kameni, I will come with you.’
‘We will take Teti too.’
II
It was like a dream, Renisenb thought–the boat and the sail and Kameni and herself and Teti. They had escaped from death and the fear of death. This was the beginning of new life.
Kameni spoke and she answered as though in a trance…
‘This is my life,’ she thought, ‘there is no escape…’
Then perplexed: ‘But why do I say to myself “escape”? What place is there to which I could fly?’
And again there rose before her eyes the little rock chamber beside the Tomb and herself sitting there with one knee drawn up and her chin resting on her hand…
She thought: ‘But that was something outside life–this is life–and there is no escape now until death…’
Kameni moored the boat and she stepped ashore. He lifted Teti out. The child clung to him and her hand at his neck broke the string of an amulet he wore. It fell at Renisenb’s feet. She picked it up. It was an Ankh sign