Chapter 21
DAYMARE
An-khi’s wish to help combat the drought brought her to God-king Khufu’s pyramid one daybreak. As governor, she knew that this year’s Inundation had peaked eleven feet below the level required for a healthy flood. Last year, it crested seven feet below. A third drought of any level next year would starve her nation. In three months, Egypt would begin to learn whether a good or bad flood approached. Her gut rippled queasily.
Perhaps she came to the Giza plateau to fill the loss of her father. Absence steeped in her. She ached for her father, imperfect as he might have been, and for Mehi, who was not only gone from her life, but also from Mer, she’d learned.
Too, Egypt’s foundation of communication and cooperation that she’d known all her life had gone missing. She no longer felt the solid ground upon which she and the nation once stood.
During her provincial business—or estate business that Heria, disinterested in everything but her cats since her husband’s death, had happily relinquished—wherever An-khi traveled the citizens’ hostility toward the God-king blistered the air. Nobles in her province cursed to her of Khufu’s failure as a warrior during his recent hunt in the desert. And, reconciling the several reports of her scribes stationed throughout the province, An-khi had concluded that the Hituptah priests’ were conspiring to foment public discord against Khufu. It appeared that High-priest Siptah led them in blessing the treasuries of affluent citizens in exchange for steep tribute. Then, as Ptah’s storehouses fattened a thousand-fold, the priests distributed food to poor people who consumed it hungrily along with the priests’ whispered stories of Khufu’s blame for their hunger. Shamefully, the priests exploited Egyptians’ fear of disease and death even though An-khi’s provincial records indicated that the incidence of either was normal.
One way to fill that void was to volunteer at the pyramid, the embodiment of Egypt and its God-king, a larger father. Even incomplete, its four sides clasped together like four hands. She saw there her own hand holding those of Paser, Mehi and God-king Khufu.
She was not encouraged by her initial impression of the pyramid site. Under a stark sun, portending the return of the hot season, An-khi saw the depleted stock of fish, onions and bread for its three thousand year-round workers. “This isn’t enough,” she said to a nearby foreman.
“There was a problem in shipments,” he said with a shrug. “More might be delivered later.”
“Might be?”
“Vizier Shaf-Khufu is handling it, yellow lady.”
“My skin may be paler than yours because I don’t normally work in the sun, but I am the governor and deserve your respect. And until ‘later’ arrives, how will we feed these orange men?”
“When food runs out, it runs out. They can’t get food anywhere else.” The foreman smacked his club on his palm. “Besides, they know not to argue.”
An-khi gaped at the man. His ready brutality swelled her queasiness.
Anxious that the day’s sticky heat would shorten the men’s tempers, An-khi determined to ration the food so that each worker would receive something. None of the foremen interfered with her, glad to yield the duty. At noon, the workers ran to the food lines for their one meal of the day, reduced from two.
“Is this all?” each man repeated when given his lettuce leaves and onion. Each one demanded more. Guards shouted them down. This delayed the lines and frustrated those behind. Hungry men pushed hungry men in front of them. The guards started down the lines, pouring out beer, which was plentiful, thinking it would calm them. An-khi feared it would only fuel their disquiet.
After An-khi and the other female servers had served about three hundred workers, rumors that food was running out blazed through the lines. Workers yelled, gestured angrily. An-khi heard Khufu’s name blasphemed. The lines bucked like gigged snakes. A guard smacked one worker on the forearm, quieting others around him for a moment.
“Tell them they will each be served a portion,” An-khi said to the foreman. He complied but only by barking her instructions from where he stood.
“What was that?”
“Did you say there’s no more food?”
“What? No food?!”
An-khi instructed the guard to walk the lines with her message. But before he could comply, he instead rushed to stop a worker in the line who had grasped another in a headlock. Four snaps of the guard’s whip returned stopped their fight.
But then, more and more workers up and down the lines threw punches and elbows at each other. Men pitched others to the ground. Guards ran in all directions wielding their whips and clubs—not An-khi’s promise—leaving her and the other female servers alone. More fights, yells. Cursing.
One after another, workers tore from the lines for the front. Guards clubbed whoever they could reach. Hundreds ran forward. They trampled several guards in their surge. They each ran at the serving area. Those reaching the now unguarded front of the lines snatched onions by the armful.
All of the servers but An-khi bolted. Trying to guards to food bins, she was swept aside.
Squads of guards from other areas rushed to the scene. Dust swirled around the brawls. Whips stung backs and faces. Clubs cracked collarbones. “Back to work. Everyone.”
Still, workers streamed for the food.
“To work. To work.” The guards aimed at heads. Blood spurted. Men crumpled from their feet.
Blood had its effect. Most workers retreated, kicking the dirt and cursing. Guards beat several men to the ground. Uninjured men shouted. “It’s that old man we got as God-king.” “He’s lost his magic, that’s what.” “Make him run the Heb-Sed again.”
Three senseless men were carried off, blood mingling in their sweat. An-khi bemoaned that even a little preparation and tolerance would have averted this violence. It was Mehi who had sensed all the men on the pyramid working together. What would he think if he’d been here today? Cooperation disappears with those who appreciate it.
That afternoon, An-khi called “Senbeb” at Horemheb’s hut. After a look over her shoulder at the courtyard, bare even of the clay oven, she was about to call out again when Horemheb emerged from the darkness inside at his doorway. In the sunlight, he squinted and blinked. He seemed unaware of the flies buzzing about his sweaty face.
“Horemheb,” she said. “Sir? Horemheb? Hello.”
“Hmn.”
“Do you remember me? I’m An-khi.”
Horemheb gazed on her.
“Mehi’s friend?”
“Uh ...”
By Horemheb’s blank expression, An-khi guessed that he didn’t remember.
Neglecting to invite An-khi, he scuffled back into the hut. She followed. The room suffered a moldy odor and a confusion of bits of rags, pottery shards and stained walls. The unpacked floor scratched up beneath An-khi’s feet. Only the wall amulets, hanging at odd angles, reminded her of Khety’s home.
Mehi’s father creaked to a corner. An-khi paused for him to sit his stiff body, grunting as his rear end hit the ground. She said, “How have you been?”
“Oh, um ...” Horemheb mumbled, waving off the question.
In her mind, An-khi likened this little man to Egypt, feeble and aging. “You appear well.”
Not changing his dour expression, Horemheb nodded.
An-khi shifted her tact. “Have you heard any word from Mehi?”
Mehi’s father pulled back his shoulders and announced, “He’s a great scribe. Working in a province down south for a governor. He’s been there ... he’s been there for, uh ...”
“I understood he’d left the scribe school before he graduated.”
Horemheb stared coldly at her. “So how’d he get placed at the pyramid stone-counting?”
“Stone-counting? You said he’s working for—” An-khi stopped herself. It was cruel to argue with a confused father, even to hear news of Mehi.
Giving Horemheb time to liven up, An-khi began tidying the room. She picked up a pot, swiping a cloth underneath. She cons
idered whether she was meddling, but Horemheb was smiling as he watched her. An-khi patted his shoulder.
At her touch, Horemheb’s eyes widened. “What’s your name again?”
“An-khi.”
“You and Mehi were friends, right? A long time?”
“Yes. A long time.” An-khi grinned and scratched at the pot’s cinders.
Horemheb said, “Why’d you and Mehi never build a hut together anyway?”
An-khi dropped her gaze. “Well, my sister passed away at that point—”
“Oh tu, and your old man mucked it up for you. That’s right.” Horemheb shook his head. “Yes, well, you got to get old to be that much of a fool.” Then, laying his hands before him, Mehi’s father said with a bashful grin, “I never knew my wife—not a day—when she came to my house.”
“When was that?”
“When we married, of course. Sesher.”
“Oh.” An-khi began to doubt her visit here. She’d wished to reconnect to a father and found anger instead. She’d had enough of male anger. Could Mehi be this angry at her—wherever he might be?
“You remind me of Khety. You know that? You listen like her. You smile like her.”
An-khi felt herself blushing.
“I brought her to my house. It was ... beautiful. It really was. I got all these flowers there, wild roses and cornflowers, on the roof. That’s when we first touched, when I held her hand. Her bones were like a bird’s. My life was made right there.”
An-khi beamed at the father of her former love. Horemheb had some tenderness. “I’m sure she felt the same way.”
“You think so?” Horemheb said with a laugh.
The next dawn, supplies sufficient for a week arrived at the pyramid. Theormi saw Prince Hordedef, not Vizier Shaf, oversee the correction. Men still grumbled, but without resorting to riot.
After the midday serving, and on many afternoons, An-khi visited Horemheb before returning to the treasury building. They talked of the days prior to the river’s two bad seasons, his stonecutting, and mostly of Khety and the boys.
Two weeks later when An-khi crossed the threshold, she found that Horemheb had cleared away the clutter—most of it—and swept the front room. His caring to civilize his surroundings either for himself or for her warmed An-khi more than she could explain.
“Senbeb.” Horemheb quickly sat, his face glowing. He seemed to have something to say. An-khi placed herself beside him on the cool, newly-packed floor. “My Khety—my happiest day was when she died.” Horemheb grimaced. “Oh spit, that’s not what I mean. I mean she forgave me that day. Forgave me for everything.”
An-khi touched his shoulder. It trembled in her palm.
Closing his eyes, Horemheb tipped up his face toward the ceiling. “She’d been sleeping. I hadn’t seen her eyes for two days. She woke long enough to say—I remember it exact—she looked me in the eye right now like she knew I was waiting for her. She said, ‘I’ve always loved you, husband. I loved you the first day to the last.’” His eyes glazed.
An-khi rubbed Horemheb’s back.
“That gave me a chance,” he continued, his voice thickening, “to tell how sorry I was to’ve made her live in such a bad way. She deserved more. Much more.” Horemheb blinked. His eyes began to glisten. He cocked his head as if again hearing her words. “Not ’til that minute ... I’d never known how she thought of those days I made that mistake. Those were her last words: ‘I always loved you, husband.’ A good woman.” His cheeks colored.
“That night, I got a beer jug,” he said. “Maybe I stole it. I don’t know, I was happy. They kill you nowadays for taking beer. Nobody had better use for it I can tell you. I was happier with each gulp. I strutted like I got back those days before I did that stupid thing. Then there’s this young fellow up the alley. Turns out it’s Mehi. He says something. I don’t hear what it is but, by the stink on his face, I know it’s bad.”
An-khi winced.
“Well, there I was drunk … and his mother ... his mother ...”
An-khi took Horemheb’s hand and rubbed it between both of hers.
He turned his face to her. “Mehi never was much keen on me.”
“That’s not true. He loved you a great deal.”
“I don’t blame him. I wasn’t much. I made mistakes. I thought he was a cute baby. All in white linen.”
An-khi pictured a boy now gone from both of them.
Horemheb grasped An-khi’s wrist, the first time he’d touched her. “Khety used to walk a lot to rummage for whatever or look for our boys. Want to go out?”
Horemheb had always declined An-khi’s invitations to leave the hut. “Let’s go.”
Horemheb, squinting in the blazing sun and using a stick for a cane, and An-khi strolled in comfortable silence. Soon, the pair happened upon a crowd of neighbors collected around a tax collector whipping a man tied to a post. Two Per-O guards stood watch.
Incensed, An-khi stomped forward. Tax collectors were to report to her before taking any actions against citizens.
Horemheb said, “There’s no work to earn taxes so the Per-O whips him—and the fool neighbors crowd ’round for fun.”
An-hi pushed through the crowd. She yelled to the tax collector, “I am Governor of the First Nome, I order you to put down your whip.”
After two more strikes the collector told her, “I’m here on orders of the vizier himself. That trumps a governor, yellow lady.” He continued whipping the unfortunate posted man who yelped with each crack.
“You will stop this minute or I will order my soldiers to whip you.” The collector at least paused his assault.
The two guards, whispering to each other about how to respond, didn’t spot Horemheb elbowing his way into the circle. “Stop, you Per-O flunkeys.” Horemheb braced his cane above the collector’s head. “Does this pay taxes?” Some in the crowd cursed Horemheb, others cursed the collector as his cane chopped down. The collector pivoted, saw the cane and fended it off with a forearm. The crowd broke into mayhem. A woman swung a fist at Horemheb. Several men grabbed the collector, more grabbed the guards, and all of them wrestled to the ground. Someone cut the whipped man’s binds. Shielding Horemheb’s head, An-khi bent him down and snuck him away.
An-khi guided Horemheb home. He nearly bounced. “How ’bout that? We put an end to those fools. That was great.”
He set free An-khi’s laugh. Little Egypt had some life in it yet.
Theormi’s new status as a full member of the Medja enabled her to speak for longer periods with the villagers. The ease with which she learned their language confirmed for her that she had lived here at some point early in her life. The elders told her that the Medja had migrated from the south for a hundred years before settling here. Many Medja were still pastoral nomads, moving in a cycle with the seasons. Due to the skills of their now aged Chief Taharqa, the Medja had lived in peace for two generations with the Wawat and their Chief Piye, the Wild Man, after years of war.
One mid-morning, a month into her adoption, the no-longer-strange woman received a visit from Chief Taharqa, his ears long and his back hunched. Erecting a hut for herself in the shade of a date palm near several Medja families, Theormi dropped a mudbrick she had been about to set in place. After bowing, she took his hand. Onto his palm, she placed a candied date. Taharqa gazed at it, tapped and squeezed it.
“Taste it,” Theormi said in his language.
The chief’s nose and lips pinched. “It’s a dead date. It’s shriveled.”
Theormi placed a second fruit on her tongue. She showed him that she was chewing it. Its intensity roused her juices to flow on her tongue and then to dance inside her cheeks. She smiled to her chief. “Go on.”
Taharqa struck the tip of his tongue at the fruit on his palm. He shrugged and slipped the date into his mouth. Instantly, his eyes brightened. The chief pressed his lips together. “Hmn.”
“It’s the way it’s brought back to life.”
Taharqa shot Theormi a har
d look. He then spat out the fruit and backed away from its landing spot.
“Don’t be afraid, chief. I didn’t really bring it back to life. This is just a different way to prepare it. Now,” she said, kneeling down to one of the tribeswomen’s black earthenware jars, “watch this. As the water inside disappears, the jar cools. You can cool a room this way.” She reached for his hand and tugged it to the jar, close enough for him to feel the cooler air around it.
Taharqa shook off her hand. His eyes hardened into points. “Deviltry. This is devil’s work.” His black pupils swelled and his face darkened. “Only a devil knows such things.”
Theormi’s insides quivered. Was she about to be exiled again? She decided that truth was her best defense. “Chief, I come from the north, from Egypt.”
He nodded.
“I learned how they do these things there.”
Taharqa still stared at her, his arms folded over his chest.
“When I lived in Egypt, I was tutored by the God-king.”
The chief’s eyes bulged. “Khufu?”
“Yes, Chief. God-king Khufu.”
Taharqa touched his hands over his head so that his arms formed a circle, indicating “large.” “Khufu? Khufu?” The chief hopped on first one leg and then the other, slamming each food in turn on the ground like an ape displaying its strength. “Khufu? Khufu?”
Theormi had to laugh. “Yes, that Khufu.” Her lover, the legend whose sacred name could have been the tribe’s name, lived here too. Even after their distance and time apart, she felt the sinew and poetry of Khufu’s love. “See, there is nothing to fear.”
An hour before noon in Khufu’s vanity, the Keeper of the Grooming whitewashed the God-king’s red swelling of his ears, scoured his teeth with chalk paste, as well as rouged his lips and cheeks with red ochre. Sitting before the silver mirror and gauging the keeper’s work, Khufu shifted his face side to side. “How hard you toil, keeper. Harder year by year, eh, you old magician.”
The keeper sniffed. “Pleasure is mine to render the god as he appears.”
“Do you mean as I appeared when a young God-king?”
“Your beauty is everlasting.”
“Hmn,” said Khufu chuckling. “You practice for the day when my rendering will be everlasting. For most people, death is the place from where no one returns; for you it’s the cosmetics painting that can’t be redone.”
“I will provide you as perfect as you are.”
With a grimace, Khufu stretched up his torso as if to relieve pressure on his pelvis. “Not perfect today.”
“Your bowels are rebelling again, Majesty?”
“There’s that peculiar way you state things. But ... yes, I run to the basin twice as often as I eat. And here,” Khufu said, holding up his fingers, “no longer working as a team, my fingers flop like ten mongoose-smashed snakes. They once lilted like lotus on the water or curled into a perfect crescent around a lover’s sex.” Hands falling to his sides, Khufu glared at his lap. “Correct that. Eleven worms. Nothing performs as it once did.”
“Sire, if you speak to the failure of that secondary function of one’s genitalia, be thankful you are free from that particular nuisance.”
“Good Gods, keeper, what do you and your wife do?”
“We dine fabulously well.”
“No respect for the body, that’s your problem.” Khufu pressed back in his chair. “I am forever astonished, whenever sharing sweetness with a woman I love, that a mere fraction of me in a mere fraction of her nevertheless immerses us both in all of each other.”
“Be that as it may, please allow me to assert that you are the perfect man to be a god.”
Khufu whirled around at the keeper who recoiled two steps. “I am no man. A man is not perfect. I am immortal. The god within is stone, immortal as stone.”
“Yes, yes, unquestionably, your Majesty. Undeniably.” The keeper bowed.
“Get on with your work. Paint me perfect.” Khufu faced the mirror once more. Through the reflection, he saw Prince Hordedef and Royal Magician Djedi pass his suite’s pond toward him. As they entered the vanity, Hordedef motioned to a harem servant removing Khufu’s untouched morning meal on a gold tray. “Has he requested some other food?”
“Prince,” she said, eyes wide, “he requested nothing.”
“How does he survive on so little?”
Not turning from the mirror, the God-king said, “’How does he strive for the middle?’ I don’t understand you, prince.”
Hordedef asked, “Sire, when shall I direct the carriers to prepare for the dedication ceremony?”
“My keeper performs his miracle of time travel. It’s about twenty years ago now. Another thirty minutes and I will be young enough to parade myself in the present.”
“For your protection, Majesty, we will add several guards to the procession.”
The God-king laughed. “I’m sure the people will control their excitement at seeing me.”
Hordedef and Djedi traded worried glances. “We pray so, your Majesty.”
Three hours later on the north road, dust flying up around the royal procession, the God-king hollered at the carriers of his jolting palanquin. “Softer, devils. Pity your King’s guts.” Although he had deflected Hordedef’s concern earlier, Khufu knew that his feet often only slid when he walked. The running that the ceremony required seemed beyond his present ability. Yet he trusted his divinity would rouse him for his people.
Near the delta, men on the roadsides as still as a stand of egrets bore their stares through the dust at the God-king.
By the recent pyramid riot and similar incidents elsewhere, the God-king judged that Shaf had too slowly addressed the food delivery. Hordedef intervened to re-route supply lines. That would prevent any further shortage this year. And, worsening the drought’s evils, Shaf’s orders sometimes contradicted Khufu’s commands. As a result, officials often ignored both. To overcome that lack of trust, Khufu would show the people a god today who still possessed the magic to summon a full Inundation.
When the procession approached Djedu, congregations of three, four and ten citizens sang of their hunger. When the palanquin set down atop the hill cleared for the construction alongside the Osiris Temple, a hundred muttering citizens had gathered. Twenty guards ran to form a barricade in front of the audience. They crossed spears.
Each citizen’s eye followed the god on earth.
Enthroned, the God-king fixed his eyes forward and inhaled a huge breath. His chest projected. The God-king rose to his feet, squaring his barrel frame. His grand head and feline eyes paused on every face. Their mutterings subsided. Sunlit dust settled.
Khufu descended from his throne. He clapped his feet onto the parched, flaking ground; the audience stepped back. Despite his knees’ give, he marched as the audience closed back around him, pressing the guards. Others joining the crowd fought to the front. Khufu saw all their faces glow with love for him. They displayed the same affection as they had at his Heb-Sed ten months ago.
The God-king cast off his royal robes, allowing the now three hundred citizens to behold a god. He began. His feet thudded on the ground without lift.
The citizens’ mutterings became loud enough for their God-king to make out. “Why is the river low, Khufu?” “What does my family eat, Khufu?” “Who stops my baby from crying, Khufu?” “Khufu? Khufu?”
The God-king heeded his name.
Citizens pushed closer. Guards dug in their heels and re-gripped their spears as the crossed shafts rattled as the rebounded off the citizens’ chests.
At the end of each circuit, Khufu rapped a ringing note on a silver door signaling Ra’s defeat of another night demon. He pleasured in his reflection there, his skin red-orange and glowing. Smoothing his stride, Khufu gathered speed. As he’d expected. Through each of the twelve orbits around the site’s course, Khufu ran ever stronger, spurred by the chanting of his name.
“Khufu, we want food. Khufu.”
The God-ki
ng sped into the eighth circuit.
More citizens arrived. They jostled for position. Each heaved against the guards, tightening their circle surrounding the God-king. The guards clacked their spearheads together, digging in their heels and pushing back.
The God-king rounded his tenth circuit. His speed was surely as fast as during his first Heb-Sed eighteen years ago.
Citizens shook fists. “Food, Khufu, food.”
Hordedef yelled at the guards, “Hold them.” Guards bent to lock their hips and feet into place. Shaf ducked and made way for his palanquin.
In the twelfth and final circuit, Khufu threw his hands to the sky and then opened his arms to his citizens encircling his ritual. They didn’t cheer.
“Khufu? Water, food. Khufu?”
The God-king spread his arms once more. Still no cheers. Curses only. He continued to fling out his arms. Khufu only then realized his pain at drawing breath. It tore at his chest. His knees gave way. A pair of guards supported him on either side as they hustled him to his palanquin. When the guards on the barricade disentangled from the crowd to form a cordon for him, ten citizens ran past them for the God-king. At last, Khufu thought, his people were rushing to him to offer praise. He waited for them.
“Climb, King,” Hordedef said. “Up.”
The guards tried to boost Khufu onto the palanquin. He couldn’t keep his sweating body from collapsed back on them. The feverish pain from the cataract water worming into his ear was as much as he could bear without screaming.
“We starve, Khufu.” “Khufu, you’re no god.” “What does my child eat?”
“Lift the palanquin,” Hordedef said. “Go!” Guards knocked away the first group stampeding toward the God-king. One man reached within an arm’s length. Twenty others closed behind.
“Go, go. Go!”
The carriers elevated their royal charges. Khufu stood and again spread his arms. His carriers hesitated, afraid their movement would eject him.
“Sit, Father,” Hordjedef shouted. “A God-king should be sitting.”
Khufu reclined just as the crush of citizens drove his guards against the palanquin, rocking it as it started forward. Twenty more citizens stormed around the palanquin. Ten hands stabbed for the King. Guards thrust out their spears and the closest citizens retreated. The carriers sped their pace and were away.
Khufu raked back his sweat-slicked wig. Numbness seized his body. He had devoted everything to Egypt, yet not enough. His people did not love him. Through his closed eyes he saw a red tint of desert.
On the road south to the Per-O, no one in the procession spoke. Khufu sat as a statue, staring ahead. The sun baked the dirty sweat on his face, arms and skirt. Hours passed before he turned his head to see the withering plants, ashen dirt, bare sycamores and gaunt faces of people grumbling along his promenade.
Khufu too distracted to recognize where during their return, a group of villagers clamoring around six market booths blocked the procession. They clutched torn cloths and other scraps as barter for food. “You call these melons?” yelled a man. “Who’d eat it? Pigs wouldn’t.”
“That’s all right,” the vendor answered, “since pigs and you can’t afford it.”
Above the shouts, the royal guards ordered, “Make way for the great God-king Khufu. Make way.”
No one heard, save those nearest the procession. Four guards wedged toward the red-faced, bellowing customer. “You.” The lead guard pricked his spear against the man’s neck.
The man twirled around, about to throw a fist until he saw who held the spear. He then saw Khufu. The crowd also caught sight of the God-king. They all fell stone silent. As the crowd yielded to two flanks, the royal company walked through between them. Khufu understood he had stolen from them even the venting of their frustration.
Something flew through the air. A rotten melon. It thumped the back of Khufu’s head with a hollow sound. The rotten fruit slithered down his shoulder.
“Head on,” Hordedef said, stopping the guards about to charge the crowd. “Head us on.” The carriers started up. Guards reformed their barrier and ran alongside.
Khufu wiped at the chunks of melon oozing down his arm. He shook them off, spraying Shaf behind him.
Minutes north of Annu, the procession trudged outside a peasant village where a father and mother bathed their baby boy in a broken vase. Their lean-to behind them, the father had his back to the road while the mother scrubbed the infant. Over his shoulder, the mother saw her God-king. She flailed her hand at her husband who twisted toward the road. This revealed to the procession his stream of urine arching into the vase. The parents used urine to clean their boy.
The father started to hide his urinating, but turning one’s back on the God-king was blasphemy. He tried to squeeze off the flow with his hand and failed. Finally, he managed a half-bow to Egypt’s God-king.
Khufu and the Royal officers shaded their eyes, wishing they had not come out in the Egyptian countryside today.