The Memoirs of Cleopatra (102 page)

Was he drunk? I looked at the cup, but it was only half-empty.

“Off! Off!” He flung the gown away in disgust. “I have been transformed!” He looked down at himself, holding out his thick arms and staring at his hands. “All these rings!” He pulled them off and started throwing them on top of the crumpled gown. Then he kicked off his silk-embroidered sandals. They cartwheeled through the air, and one landed in the brazier and caught on fire.

Antony burst into laughter at the sight of the smoking shoe. But he calmed down. “It is you who have done this,” he finally said. “Transformed me from a Roman magistrate into an eastern potentate.”

“So Octavian has conquered even you,” I said, “with his lies and distortions.”

“Behind his statements lies enough truth to be considered.” He began to shiver in the cold room, and grabbed a blanket from the bed rather than put on the offensive decorated gown.

So now we must have this talk—and I had not prepared myself for it. I gave a quick prayer to Isis to help me keep my thoughts clear. “You look like a fool, huddled there in that blanket,” I said. “Almost as much of a fool as you sound.”

He just looked at me, a picture of distress. “The truth pains me,” he finally said. “I do not think I can bear it.” He looked so miserable, my heart went out to him. I had never been torn between two worlds as he now was. Life had spared me that particular torture.

I went over to him, where he had sunk down into the chair again. I stood behind him, putting my head near his and encircling his shoulders with my arms, like the statues of Horus protecting a Pharaoh. Now I was the strong one. Let me help him, dear Isis!

“If you have been drawn into it step by step, it is because that was your fate,” I finally said. “And no one can repulse his fate. To refuse it is hopeless, and just makes its burden heavier. And each man’s fate is tailored to him, like a shirt. There is no second Alexander, no second Moses, no second Antony. You are the first and only to walk this earth. So you have to be the finest version of Antony possible.”

I felt his head move from side to side, slowly.

“It does no good to say you would rather be someone else, or covet his lot in life. You have been assigned your own portion. Because you are the foremost living general, it was natural that the rich eastern part of the Roman holdings would fall to you. That being so, it was natural that you would become a part of it. You have a rare sympathy with your subjects—”

“Subjects! I have no subjects! I am not a king!” he cried out.

“Very well, then, your…client kingdoms, your provinces.” I sighed. What difference did the name make? “You understand them, that is why you belong here. And it is true, the western half of Rome is yoked strangely with the eastern. They do not pull well together. Eventually they will break apart—that is, if they are both ruled by a western-thinking Roman. Only someone like you—a Roman bred and born, who can understand the east as well—can hold them together.”

He was sitting as immobile as any Pharaoh’s statue. Was he even hearing my words—my raw, unrehearsed words? Were they helping at all?

“It is you who are called to preserve Rome,” I said. “And it is not only because you have become partly eastern. As if anything could erase your glorious family history, your long years of service to Rome! No, that will endure. All you have done is to add another dimension, a new understanding on top of the old. It is what will make you the ruler Rome has earned, and deserves.”

“I am not a ruler!”

“I meant leader,” I assured him. “And when we lead, what a new dawn! The world is much richer than the narrow vision of the Roman patriot, who eats his plain porridge, straps on his sturdy sandals, and scurries past the altars of foreign gods, looking neither to the left nor the right.”

Antony laughed, faintly. This encouraged me to continue.

“You know the sort. Wearing his rough homespun, speaking only Latin, feeling threatened by Greek poetry, plum sauce, and the sound of sistrums. What would be the fate of all your…client kingdoms…to be ruled by such a man?”

“A rather austere one,” he said.

“If your fate is here, then embrace it! Rejoice in it! Give thanks to the gods that they made you the master of these people you understand so well, and cherish so dearly! It does not make you any less a Roman to be a citizen of the world as well—no matter what Octavian says! It makes you greater!” Was he listening? “And I tell you this—you will be their salvation. If Octavian becomes their ruler—and he will not demur to call himself that, I assure you—they will suffer. Oh, how they will suffer!”

A long silence hung in the air. Finally he said, “You understand the east well, but I do not think you understand Rome. You reduce her to the same caricatures that you so resent Romans doing to easterners. The ignorant, barbaric Roman eating his porridge is just as false as the wily, effeminate easterner.”

“You see! You have just proved my point! You have the wisdom and understanding to see both sides! It is you, and only you, destined to rule—lead—the entire Roman world.”

“I do see the merits of both,” he admitted.

“As did Caesar. He understood, as do you, that all citizens of Rome must be equal, and each side respect the other. Do not shirk your responsibility!”

“And how will they ever accept you, by my side, in Rome?” he asked sadly. “They are not as broad-minded as your idealized world citizens.”

“They are being taught to hate me,” I said. “But when they see me, in person, when they realize they have nothing to fear from me…Anyway, that is a long time coming. First you must remove Octavian!” I repeated the words slowly, directly in his ear. “You…must…remove…Octavian.”

“Under what color?”

“First oust him from the seat of Caesar. Declare him a pretender, and prove it, and you have removed his basis of power.”

“His basis, yes, but not the power itself. That resides in all his legions. And in his stranglehold on Italy.”

“First the basis, then the power itself. Announce the rights of Caesarion, and challenge Octavian. Then be bold, and proclaim the eastern empire as an entity. Provoke him. The sooner the fight is held, the surer your chances of victory. Day by day he grows stronger.”

“Perhaps fate will do my work for me,” he said. “If you believe in fate, then fate will give Rome the ruler she deserves, with no help from us. Octavian is still fighting in Illyria. Perhaps he’ll die there. I hear he has injured his knee—”

“Caesar always said if luck did not go our way, then we had to give luck a helping hand,” I said.

“I am no second Caesar, as you pointed out.”

“I know I am right! Please follow my plan!”

He sighed. “After Armenia—”

“Yes, of course, after Armenia. That gives you time to perfect your plans.”

“Yes, my love.” At last he turned around and buried his head against my shoulder. “We will make our empire together…my empress.” He rose and took my hand. “Come to bed, and celebrate our multitudinous kingdoms. Let us make love in all their fashions. They are as varied as their clothes and cooking…. Shall we introduce them to Rome? Enrich their lives?” He laughed, my old Antony restored. “Or shall we imitate Octavian’s way tonight? I am sure it is unimaginative, but thoroughly and officially Roman.”

“No,” I said. “Let Livia enjoy it.”

“I understand,” said Antony, “that Livia is not the only one to sample his practices, whatever they may be. He is busy in the beds of other men’s wives.”

Then he had not changed much. I would not have such a husband for all the gold in the Temple of Saturn!

“Dear husband,” I said, “let us get busy in our own.”

It was spring, and I was parted from Antony once more, as he pursued his campaign in Armenia. He had mobilized sixteen legions—sixteen, enough to crush Nebuchadnezzar!—and set out to punish his foe. This time there was no suspense, and I had no worries; my face was turned toward what we would do
after
Artavasdes was duly chastised.

I was restless. The fresh breezes blowing across the city made me feel like dancing, enveloping myself in the new light silks that had reached us from far to the east, beyond even India. They were so thin they floated about the body like a mist. Just such garments the Aurae, breeze nymphs, must have worn—I had seen sculptures of them, the streaming gowns curling about the outlines of their graceful limbs as they leapt and flew. Their bodies were as visible beneath as if the material had been wet. Now I felt like one of them, ready to fly high over the city, over the Delta, out over the desert.

Flying being out of the question, I decided to sail to Heliopolis, there to inspect my balsam plantings. It had now been two years since I had brought cuttings back from Jericho, and they had been watered and tended as lovingly as a royal baby. I was eager to see them. If they truly thrived here, the possibility of enormous riches hovered like a mirage.

Heliopolis, the ancient City of the Sun, stood near the place where all the branches of the Nile united to make that long stalk that reaches all the way to Nubia. It had been sacred since long before the pyramids were built; no one really knew how old it was. When my dynasty, the Ptolemies, came to Egypt, they asked Manetho, also a priest of Heliopolis—who presumably had access to old records—to write a history of Egypt. He did so, and provided the only list we have of all the Pharaohs. Knowledge of the past was fading even then; its roots were still vigorous in the ancient holy cities, but its branches elsewhere were nearly bare. Fewer and fewer people could read the sacred writings; fewer and fewer people cared; ancient Egypt was already receding into a mist of the fabulous, the make-believe. The last native Pharaoh had surrendered his throne to Persians over three hundred years ago.

But the past was too strong to evaporate; instead, it dyed the new conquerors in its colors. First the Persian rulers, then the Greeks, became Pharaohs once they were on Egyptian soil. I was a Pharaoh, the beloved daughter of Re, as all Pharaohs were. My father had been a Pharaoh, too. That was why we were crowned at Memphis in the old rites.

Did we feel like Pharaohs? That is hard to say. When I was in Alexandria, no. There was so little that was Egyptian there, or old. It was a brand-new city—a Greek head on an Egyptian body, as someone had once described it. But away from Alexandria—ah, that was different. I had found myself drawn to the “real” Egypt in a way my predecessors had not. I was the only one to learn to speak its language, and the only one to travel up and down the Nile so often, visiting so many towns. Perhaps that was why I had been willing to do so much to keep Egypt from being swallowed up.

On days like the one on which my barge approached the landing-stage of the canal to Heliopolis, gliding on the bosom of the Nile, past the tall papyrus stalks vibrantly green against the blazing blue sky, I felt I would be willing to do even more—that no price was too high to keep Egypt for Egyptians.

Awaiting me was Nakht, the high priest of Heliopolis, who presided over the Temple of the Sun. He was a portly man wrapped in a white linen robe, his shaven head gleaming. He had a bevy of priests under him, young assistants, acolytes, scribes, and musicians. Here, in this bastion of Re, he reigned supreme, guarding it as I guarded larger Egypt.

“We salute and welcome you, Queen Cleopatra, Netjeret-Merites, Goddess, Beloved of Her Father.” He bowed low, and a file of others behind him did likewise.

I wished Caesarion had accompanied me, so he could see this—after seeing Rome. Here he was Ptolemy Iwapanetjer Entynehem Setepenptah Irmaatenre Sekhemankhamun: Heir of the God that Saves, Chosen of Ptah, Carrying out the Rule of Re, Living Image of Amun. Here he was the heir that would—that must!—preserve Egypt and carry the burden of her past. Even in a larger empire, Egypt would still be uniquely herself. That was the vision Antony and I could offer, rather than the Roman idea of transforming the rest of the world into another Rome.

“You have missed the morning stars washing the face of Re, and bringing him breakfast,” said Nakht. “And you have missed the blessed Re descending in the form of a bird to touch the sacred Benben obelisk at dawn.”

Was he scolding me? But no, he just sounded disappointed. “For that I am sorry,” I said.

“Stay with us through the night, so you can witness these events,” he said. “You, Goddess, the daughter of Re, should behold them.”

I had not planned to stay. I thought of all the state business waiting in Alexandria. Then I looked up the row of obelisks lining the gentle slope to the great pylon of the temple, and I felt a strong urge to linger here.

“Depending on the hour, perhaps it will be possible,” I said.

The entire company of priests bowed and made a pathway for me to follow through them, while Nakht led me toward the enormous temple, its stone fiercely golden in the intense noonday sun—Re burning down directly overhead. The stone would have looked like solid sand somehow rearing itself high, had it not been for the bright flowers, winged discs of Re, and colored designs decorating it.

Tall, slender palms kept watch behind the obelisks, repeating their lines except in their crowns of bristly fronds.

In the old religion, this hill was believed to be the first piece of land to emerge from the formless waters of Creation, and it was thereby sacred. From here the origins of the world and the gods were studied; a vast school of astronomy had grown up on the grounds. Here the stories of the gods, of Nun, of Geb and Nut, of Osiris, of Isis, had been discovered, and written down in holy texts. But more than anything else, the nature of Re, the sun god, had been understood here. Re in all his forms—the young Khepri of the morning, the strong Re of midday, and the tottering, weak Atum of sunset. They had even divined what Re did after he vanished beneath the western horizon, and how he traveled in his Mesektet-boat, his night barque, accompanied by “those who never grow weary”—men who had been transformed into stars. There at night Re passed through great dangers in order to emerge once more at dawn, where he descended to touch the gold-clad obelisk at Heliopolis in the center of the temple.

Beside me, Nakht kept slow, measured footsteps. We passed the first pylon, coming into the forecourt. Beyond this point, which no ordinary person could pass, the secular world fell away. We were now in the realm of the gods—or rather, the abode prepared for them on earth by mortals. A vast forecourt, open in the center but ringed with pillars and dark, shaded colonnades, spread out on each side. Before us beckoned the deep recesses of the temple.

“Come.” He made his way toward the second division between the secular and the sacred, the first roofed hall. We passed through the doorway and were surrounded by a forest of massive pillars, their tops carved to look like lotus buds, supporting a roof that cut off all sunlight, except for the small windows running near the seam where the walls met the roof. There Re sent probes of bright, glaring light.

The party of priests stood respectfully back as we, and we alone, proceeded beyond this point. Behind the next set of doors was the inner hall, much smaller. Here the light was even dimmer.

Gradually my eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and I could see the pillars standing like sentries in the cool dimness. But the roof was lost in darkness.

Nakht had stopped. I stood still, too. Utter silence and stillness surrounded us. It was hard to believe that outside Re was still beating down above us, so completely was the normal world excluded.

I do not know how long I stood there, but after a passage of time Nakht began to move on, and I followed him. Deeper and deeper into the temple we penetrated, and since there were no torches or candles, I had to pause to accustom myself to what little light there was before proceeding farther.

Eventually we reached the sanctuary, that place of utter darkness, surrounded by polished black stone. Here the Majet-boat, “barque of millions of years,” rested on its pedestal—the barque that Re rode, symbolically, during the day.

How odd it was, I thought, for the sun to be worshiped in a place of black nothingness. But the sacred seemed to demand the exclusion of everything of sensation—as if all sensations were too tainted with earthly feelings.

Around the sanctuary lay the sacred chambers—little rooms opening off the corridor. In them the various ceremonies were performed, essential to the life of the temple. Here, Re had his face washed by the stars—the priests acting on their behalf—and here his statue was clothed afresh each day with cloth woven on temple looms.

“And here, Goddess—” Nakht stepped aside to show me the altar dedicated to my father, me, and Caesarion, as gods who worked in concert with the other gods to preserve Egypt. Our statues stood unseeing on carved pedestals, and we wore the garb of ancient Egypt. Offerings were placed here each day.

I examined them critically. The likeness of Father was good enough. Mine did not look like me at all. And Caesarion—no, nothing like him.

“Exalted one,” said Nakht, “you see here yourself as Isis. Since you are daughter of Re and Isis is also the daughter of Re, and she is your protective goddess, we thought this representation fitting.”

Isis had a snake coiled around one of her arms. She seemed unalarmed by this.

“The sacred cobras are kept here as well,” said Nakht. “As you know, they are the embodiment of the burning eye of Atum—the sun in his destructive element. Yet the sacred cobra, the goddess Wadjyt, protects Egypt. She encircles the crown of Lower Egypt, ready to strike. She kills ordinary men, but if she bites a son or daughter of the gods, it is a gift to them. It confers immortality.”

“The bite of an asp can take us directly to the gods?”

“Yes, Goddess. For us it is so. For others—no. That is reserved for those already divine, or in the service of the divine.”

“You have sacred cobras here?”

“Indeed. I will show them to you later in the day.”

We next entered the most sacred place in the temple. All temples had dark sanctuaries with a barque of the god, but only Heliopolis had the obelisk, covered in shimmering beaten gold; this was the Benben stone, touched by Re at the beginning of time, and again each morning. It stood in a roofless room.

Overhead the sky was the color of brilliant blue faience. My eyes hurt at the intensity of it after the dark temple. The obelisk was dazzling, the gold glittering, reflecting Re in his heavens.

“Here is the center of the world,” Nakht breathed, and it was easy to believe him.

As the heat of the day grew more intense, Nakht ushered me into a private chamber in his own quarters.

“We will wait for the shadows to grow,” he said. “Then you may see your incense shrubs, and the rest of our holy site.”

I took my rest on a beautiful carved bed, its head and feet that of a lion, with a long tail trailing from the back. I lowered my head onto the curved headrest and watched the bars of light from the slitted windows move across the walls.

It was good to lie here. Not that I would sleep, of course. Not that I would sleep….

But the heavy, drugged air and the slow afternoon overwhelmed me. I was looking at the walls, thinking how far removed this was from my world at Alexandria, wondering if these rituals and these halls were really unchanged from centuries ago, until it all gradually merged into a dream.

The ancient gods—were they angry at the new gods now set up in Egypt? How did they feel about Serapis, the Ptolemaic god? Did they resent Dionysus crowding in on Osiris? And what about Aphrodite, and Mars, and Zeus? Here the novel, foreign gods seemed so loud, so unsubtle, so intrusive. Our goddess Hathor incorporated love, and joy, and music, whereas their Aphrodite was so one-sided.

I sighed.
Their
gods,
our
gods…who was I, really? Which gods were mine? I was not born of Egyptian blood, yet I was Queen of Egypt.

I stirred. I felt sticky from the heat and from sleeping at this unnatural time of day. I saw that the sunlight had slipped far down on the walls, and the edges were no longer sharp. It must be near sunset.

I stood up, arranged my clothes and hair. In the adjoining chamber, Nakht was waiting, as I knew he would be.

“The Goddess has rested?” he asked.

“Indeed,” I assured him.

“Now, as Re has turned into Atum—poor weakling!—it is safe to venture outside. He will bathe the landscape in the softest tones, as he lovingly bids farewell.”

He was right. Outside the colors had completely changed. Where at noon the sand had been bright gold-white, now it had a tawny tinge. The walls of the temple were rich with color, and the stones now gave back the heat they had received earlier. There was even a slight afternoon breeze, which was at its strongest here on the hilltop.

“The incense grove is here, beside our fields of flax, where we grow the linen for our robes,” he said. We left the walled temple precinct, and walked to neat rows of tended bushes stretching toward the orchard.

I was delighted. The bushes were almost knee high, and their leaves looked green and healthy. “Why, they are thriving!” I said.

“They struggled that first year,” he said. “We lost a few of them. ’Tis said they will grow nowhere but near Jericho. Perhaps they were mourning their removal, their exile. But then they took root and shot up, and now I think we can assume they will attain maturity. Just think—for the first time they will flourish outside their native land.”

“Yes.” And they would enrich us tremendously. The small area in Jericho where they grew was the richest spot on earth. Each hand-length of ground yielded a fortune. I sighed. Another means of security for Egypt. As if there could ever be enough! “I am pleased.”

I looked around. The pleasant vista spreading itself out around me—the fields and orchards, the mellow radiating stone of the temple—persuaded me to stay. “I will indeed remain here tonight,” I said, “if I may witness the arrival of Re tomorrow, and see him attended by the priests.”