Not long after my dive into the fountain, my mother took me to the Nile. It was here, on the shore of the mightiest river, that Moses had inscribed God’s name upon gold, throwing it into the waters, begging the Almighty to allow the Exodus of our people to begin. It was a long journey to undertake, but my mother insisted we must go. Our servants brought us there in a cart pulled by donkeys. A tent was lifted over our heads to protect our skins from burning as we traveled. We set off in the middle of the night so that the voyage would be cooler. We rested during the heat of the next day, then set off once again. As I dozed I listened to the wheels of our cart and the drone of our servants speaking to each other in Greek, the language we all spoke publicly, whether we were Jews or Egyptians, pagans or Greeks. Our donkeys were white and well brushed, their gait even and quick. We had fruit in a basket to eat whenever we were hungry, along with cakes made of dates and figs. I wondered if I were a princess, and my mother a queen. The air gleamed with heat, but the closer we drew to the river, the cooler the breeze became.
Morning was rising, and people were already busy in the working world around us. The mass of life was noisy on the road to the river, the air scented with cinnamon and cardamom. There were pepper trees and date palms that were taller than any I’d seen before. I felt a shimmer of excitement, and great satisfaction at being alone with my mother. For once I did not have to share her. She allowed me to play with the two golden amulets she wore at her throat, and the serpent key that gleamed in the sunlight.
My mother wore a white tunic and sandals. She had oiled and braided her own hair and mine, as she would have had we been attending a ritual to make an offering. As we drew even nearer to the river, the hour was still early, the sky pink. There was the rich scent of mud and lilies. Women had brought baskets of laundry to wash and then dry on the banks, and men were setting out in narrow, flat-bottomed wooden fishing boats, their oars turning as they called to one another, their woven nets flashing through the air as they tossed them out for their catch.
My mother leaned down to whisper that we had arrived at our destination. She told me that, if water was indeed my element, I must learn to swim with my eyes open. I must control it or it would control me. To take charge of a substance so powerful, one had to give in to it first, become one with it, then triumph. We went through the reeds, though they were sharp as they slapped against us, leaving little crisscross serrations on our legs in a pattern of X’s. I saw herons and storks fishing for their breakfasts. Our feet sank in the mud, and as we went deeper our tunics flowed out around us.
The Nile always grew fat after the full moon in summer, its water a great gift in a time of brutal heat. I could feel how refreshing and sweet it was. I had never known the sense of true delight, how intense pleasure coursed through your body slowly, and then, suddenly, in a rush of sensation. All at once you possessed the river, as it possessed you in turn. I had the sense that I belonged to these waters and always had.
“Now we’ll discover who you will be,” my mother said to me, eager to see what her daughter might become.
I sank under, my eyes open. I would have blinked had my mother not told me to be vigilant. I trusted her and always did as she said. I made certain to keep my eyes wide. Because of this I saw a vision I would carry with me for my entire life. There was a fish as large as a man. He was luminous in the murky dark. He was enormous, a creature who needed neither breath nor earth, as I did, and yet I had no fear of him. Rather, tenderness rose inside me. I felt he was my beloved. I reached out, and he ventured close enough for me to run my hand over his cold, silvery scales.
I arose from the river with a sense of joy, but also with a melancholy I had not known before. It is not usual for a child to feel such sadness when nothing has changed and the world around is still the same. Yet I had a sense of extreme loss.
When I told my mother about the fish, she said I had seen my destiny. She didn’t seem at all surprised.
“Did he bite you?” she asked.
I shook my head. The fish had seemed very kind.
“Well, he will,” my mother told me. “Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.”
I did not know what this meant, though I knew the world was a dangerous place for a woman. Still, I did not understand how a person whose element was water could stay away from fish.
THEY SAY that a woman who practices magic is a witch, and that every witch derives her power from the earth. There was a great seer who advised that, should a man hold a witch in the air, he could then cut off her powers, thereby making her helpless. But such an attempt would have no effect on me. My strength came from water, my talents buoyed by the river. On the day I swam in the Nile and saw my fate in the ink blue depths, my mother told me that I would have powers of my own, as she did. But there was a warning she gave to me as well: If I were ever to journey too far from the water, I would lose my power and my life. I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.