The Sacred River Read Free Page A

morning, he had arrived early. After he’d examined her, he sat down on the chair drawn up to her bed and looked at her with his soft brown eyes.
    “What is it, Grams?”
    “It’s you, Hattie.”
    “What of me?”
    “There is a thickening of the membranes of the bronchial tubes. Percussion of your chest reveals emphysematous hyper-resonance. Forced respiration produces rhonchus and sibilus.”
    “Speak to me in English.”
    “Your condition’s worse, Harriet. It saddens your old doctor to see it.”
    Harriet pressed her hand against her chest. The bones under her skin felt sharp and light as wishbones, lifting slightly as she breathed in, falling almost imperceptibly as she breathed out, the effort unmatched by the movement. No one knew better than she the state of her health. This winter, more than ever before, she’d wearied of the struggle for breath; no one wanted to hear that the thought that she could cease to struggle, could one day stop breathing, was a comfort to her. Only Dr. Grammaticas nodded his old head when she told him that she was tired.
    “Help me, then,” she said. “Help me to get away.”
    “Where did you want to go? Bournemouth? Bath?”
    “D’you mean it?” She pulled herself up on the pillows.
    “Boscombe? Broadstairs?”
    Harriet took hold of his liver-spotted hand with both of hers and kissed it. Shook her head.
    “Where, then? Menton? The Riviera?”
    “Far—” She broke off in a fit of coughing. “Farther.”
    Dr. Grammaticas removed the rubber tubes of his stethoscope from around his neck and stowed the instrument in a case, fitting its curves to the empty, waiting spaces.
    “I’ve a nephew in Sydney.”
    “Egypt. I want to go to Egypt.”
    The doctor barked with laughter. “Sightseeing amid the tombs.” Closing the brass clasp of the case, he sat down again, resting his elbows on his knees. “A tonic climate might benefit you, Harriet, but it’s risky. My opinion is that you’re not well enough to travel.”
    “I’m not well enough to stay here.”
    “You may rally, when spring comes. You have before.”
    Harriet met his eyes with her own and the doctor looked away first.
    “All right. I’ll do my best for you.”
    He stood up and when he spoke again his voice was loud, filled with artificial cheer.
    “Meanwhile, rest! Do you hear me, young lady? Rest.”
    •  •  •
    Groping under the bed, Harriet picked up a book. The corners and spine were bound in leather the color of fallen leaves, the nap worn to the texture of peach skin. Lying back on the pillows, she balanced the volume on her knees and opened it. Her books were her medicine. It was her books that kept her alive.
    Great-Uncle Redvers had instructed in his will that his collection on ancient Egypt be passed to Harriet’s three older brothers. Not one of them was interested. The books remained on a high shelf in the study, dusted and unread, until the day Harriet happened to retrieve one and began turning the pages.
    In it, she found a dictionary of the hieroglyphics used in the writing of the ancient Egyptians. Looking at the tiny images of birds and beetles, stars and moons, legs walking, Harriet was entranced. The pictures were thousands of years old yet many were as recognizable as if she’d drawn them in her own hand. There were horned vipers and serpents, sickle moons and sun disks, stems of lotus flowers.
    Some of the meanings were transparent. A man with upraised arms meant to praise , an eye to see . Others could not have been guessed at: a bird with a human face represented the ba , the aspect of a person that made them different from all others. Immediately, the ba bird became one of Harriet’s favorites.
    Losing herself in the dictionary, Harriet had a sense of having come home. The ancient Egyptians had named things that still needed naming; there were dogs and cats, sparrows and swallows, loaves of bread. They depicted the male phallus, a woman in childbirth, prisoners of war. And