The Memoirs of Cleopatra (16 page)

“That is not something I am accustomed to: following.”

We were traversing the rooms that lay between the general audience chamber and the innermost one of the royal bedchamber. Abruptly he stopped and pulled my hand.

“I go no step farther until you swear to me that this is of your own volition,” he said in a very soft voice. “What I said in the audience chamber, about the bed, was a jest. I am no rapist, no pillager. I will support your claim to the throne regardless. You need not ever have anything to do with me personally.” He paused. “I have never touched a woman who did not wish me to.”

“It
is
my desire and wish,” I assured him. It was true, but I could not understand it. This man was a stranger. I did not even know if he was right-or left-handed. Perhaps that was the thrill of it.

But no, I deceive myself. It was Caesar himself. Just looking at him—at his powerful frame, his straight bearing, his lean and tanned face—made me want to touch him. I had never touched or lingeringly stroked anything besides an animal before—only my horse, my dogs, my cats. Now I wished nothing more than to touch the flesh of this man standing before me. Had I gone mad?

As in a dream, I led him through the rooms. They were in darkness, except for a few corners where standing oil lamps had been lit.

We walked on onyx floors, slippery beneath our feet, with the lamplight reflecting but faintly in them, past pale rooms covered in ivory panels. I could hear the low hiss and murmur of the sea outside the eastern windows. Still I led him on wordlessly, I Orpheus and he Eurydice, until we reached my chamber.

It remained as I had left it months ago. The bed coverlet, steeped in rich Tyrian dye, looked brown, not purple, in the moonlight. A half-moon was setting outside the window, as if it hastened away and would not look.

Now, suddenly, I was at a loss as to what to do. I had brought him here, but this was so formal, so abrupt. It almost seemed like an initiation ceremony, one of the mysteries that were celebrated in secret rites. And it was a secret rite of which I was ignorant. What was I thinking of?

Caesar stood still, like a statue. And then I said—the thought suddenly came from nowhere—“You must wear the robes of Amun.” Opening an ebony-inlaid trunk, I took out the ancient robes that the ruler kept in readiness for ceremonies at the temples. This one was shot through with gold thread, heavy with encrusted jewels, and woven with rare glistening colors.

“I am not a god,” he said quietly, as I draped the robe over his shoulders. “Yet in Ephesus I was hailed as one.” There was a wistfulness in his voice, faint, yet there.

“Tonight you are a god,” I said. “You will come to me as Amun.”

“And you? Who are you?”

“Isis,” I said. My ceremonial robes were also at hand.

“Can we not merely be Julius Caesar and Cleopatra?” I had to strain to hear his voice.

“Tonight we are more than that, and we must embrace it,” I said. I was frightened at what I had embarked on; I was not even sure I could complete it. Perhaps the costumes would serve to disguise my confusion.

He stood before me in the robes of the god. In the darkness his face was hidden, but his physical presence filled the robes and did them justice.

He bent down to kiss me, the first time anyone had ever done so. I almost flinched at his touch, it was so foreign to me to let anyone come that close. He touched my hair, bringing both hands up to do so; he embraced me gently, he kissed my neck. Each action was so slow and deliberate that it felt portentous, as if he were unbolting a sacred door or unsealing a shrine. He took my hands in his and guided them to embrace him as well, as if he knew I needed to be taught. And touching him, even just his shoulders, felt as forbidden as his touch on me: unpermitted, shocking, alien. Not only was he a stranger, but now I seemed a stranger to my very self. And yet…it was as if I did know him, in some fundamental, reassuring way. My fear evaporated, its place taken by eagerness and excitement.

He reached down and picked me up, more easily than Apollodoros had. I felt his arm bones, and I wanted them to be dedicated to me, to protecting me, to fighting for me. He took only two steps over to the bed.

The robes of Amun were heavy and smothering. Now he must throw them off. But no; he insisted on stripping off his military gear in a ritualistic manner, and lying naked beneath the robes.

I removed my gown in turn, and was glad to do so; once becoming, after the hard journey it was dirty and smelled of the rug and the bottom of the boat. With unsteady hands I drew the Isis robe around my shoulders and over my back.

“Ah.” He put out a hand and touched me, as if in wonder. Had I not known better, I would have believed he had never seen a woman’s body before. “You are beautiful.” And I knew that tonight it was so.

Bolder now, I touched him, feeling his muscled chest, so different from the eunuch Mardian’s—the only male I had ever embraced. I ran my hands over his shoulders, exploring like a child in a new room. He seemed amused.

“You must teach me,” I whispered into his ear, freely admitting my lack of knowledge. I trusted him absolutely, a curious thing.

“Can Amun teach Isis?” he said. “No. They are both fully knowledgeable. A god and a goddess.” Then he pulled gently and unfastened the clasp of my robe. The heavy costume slid off my shoulders. He kissed the place where the robe had lain. His lips made my skin rise in gooseflesh.

He bent his head and kissed my breasts, first the right, then the left. He touched them almost reverently.

“Even Venus is never portrayed with breasts this perfect,” he murmured. He held me gently, as if he were still undecided whether to pursue this course of action. After what seemed a long, quiet time, he said, “You are young and offer me a great gift. But I would not rob your husband of it.”

“I’m free to offer it as I will,” I cried, suddenly afraid he would refuse me. “And fate is unlikely ever to grant me a husband I want!” Certainly not my brother—I had no wish to save anything of my person for him, or even to let him touch me. “You must be my husband!” I insisted. “Yes, Amun to Isis—” Let me hide my unbidden and impolitic desire behind the conventions of the costumes.

“Then, for tonight—” At last he pressed himself against me, and we sank down together on the pillows. He was lying on me, the heavy Amun robes weighing us down. I was yearning for us to join together. Everything was gone from my mind but this desire. I did not remember that I had been afraid, or sought information from the prostitute or Olympos, only that I wanted to be physically possessed by Caesar.

“—I will be your husband.”

“So be it,” I said, with all my heart.

And I gave myself to him, and our destinies merged. He became my lord and partner, I his queen and wife.

He was gentle and patient with me; it was I who was eager and hungry, as if he had created an appetite in me that had never existed before. I was caught up in it, picked up and transported to another world, as I had heard happened to sages; afterwards they returned to earth babbling about the visions they had had, indescribable, ineffable, transforming. Sometimes these holy men claimed to have been sucked up into the clouds by whirling winds and carried great distances; sometimes they departed only from the utter quiet of their own chambers. Always they were changed when they returned, and so I was, as well. I had touched and been touched by another human being, had allowed someone beyond all my guarded gates of privacy, into my very self, so that there were no boundaries left. What I had dreaded all my life as annihilation I now experienced as completion. My world changed utterly in that instant. I clung to him as if I would never lose him. I wanted that revelation, that moment of transfiguration, never to fade. But it would; it did. So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.

He slept. His body lay stretched on the bed, a linen sheet draped over his back as if he were just dozing from the baths. The Amun robe lay somewhere on the floor, discarded after it had served its purpose. I could tell from his breathing that he was asleep, his broad back moving slowly up and down, exposed to a dagger should I have one hidden. Pompey had been killed by the treachery of a Ptolemy, and yet here Caesar lay, sleeping peacefully at the mercy of another one. But he had gauged me right; not only would I never harm him, but I would kill anyone who tried to. I sat up for a long time in the bed, just watching him, listening to him breathe and move in his sleep.

I felt profoundly bound to him. The lovemaking over, my heart beating only at a normal pace, the heat of the moment replaced by cool watchfulness, I saw him not as an abstract Roman, or even as the famous conqueror Caesar, but as a lone man, an exile like myself. In the faint lamplight I could make out the lines on his back, the little bumps where his spinal cord lay like a rope under his flesh, even some scars. He had had a hard life the last few years; months of being out in the field, leading half-starving soldiers to attack his once brother-in-law, now his foe. No rest, no safety, betrayed by the very city he had won victories for, having to risk his life just to have his rights recognized…he had said that only his troops had kept him from being sacrificed by the Senate, when all was said and done. A weary man, an unappreciated man…an exile, like me. But he had ended my exile. I wished to do the same for him—if there was any way I could.

The enormity of what I had just done began to sink in. I had blithely handed him—the famous seasoned voluptuary!—my virginity. Did he even value it? Why had I done it? I tried to ask myself these questions, as if they mattered. They ought to matter. The “sacrifice” had been unnecessary—he had said he would take my side regardless. My coming to him in the rug had already won him over; it was I who insisted on sealing the bargain further by making him my lover. And now…I was supposed to be weeping with shame and loss, but instead I was feeling this unbearable, improbable happiness. It, and he, were so altogether different from what I had imagined.

I remembered the first time I had ever heard his name, in connection with Father’s debts and annexing Egypt. He had been Consul then—it was even before he had gone to Gaul. I had imagined him to be coarse, grasping, greedy, red-faced, and loud, growing more so as the years went on, so that by this time he would be almost a swine, in spite of his rapacious appetite for stolen artworks. I thought his bed behavior (one could not call it lovemaking) would be brutish and rough, like the field soldier he was. No one had prepared me for this vital yet oddly courteous and elegant man. And certainly no one had prepared me to find in his words and beliefs an echo of my own values and very self. We were alike, in our deepest substance, even though we were born years apart and on different sides of the sea, and of different peoples. He was much more my brother than were my real brothers.

And no one had prepared me to feel so fiercely loyal to him, so instantly bound to him. And as for the lovemaking…I was eager for more of it. I would refuse him nothing; I did not even want to.

I was supremely happy, perhaps the first time in my life I had ever been so. I laid my head down across his back and closed my eyes, letting his breathing lull me into a state where I could float and savor that peaceful happiness.

I must have slept, because when I opened my eyes it was quite light and he was up and looking out the window. He had already put his tunic on, but was still barefoot. I slipped out of bed and came up behind him, putting my arms around him. “You have stolen from my bed,” I said.

“Lest I should be chained there by my own desire in the daylight,” he said, turning to me. The eastern light showed his face, with lines around the eyes but otherwise taut and healthy.

“Is that wrong?” I asked. I knew already that being together in the daytime would be entirely different.

“It is most un-Roman,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t you know that such things are done only by the degenerate people of the east? But then, of course, you
are
of the east!”

“How could anything Caesar does be un-Roman?”

“There are those who like to prescribe Roman behavior. One must be careful not to run afoul of them, when their opinion still counts.” He gave his half-smile. “But later…well, one must admit their standards are questionable. They say adultery is permissible, but only in the dark!”

“Who are these Romans?” I was curious.

“Oh, Cicero, Cato, Brutus…but there is no reason for you to be concerned about their murmurings.”

“Nor you, while you are here.” I took his hand. But I could see his thoughts were already on the business of the day ahead. I dropped it and let him go to the other side of the room, where his clothes lay abandoned. He quickly put them back on. I marveled at how fast a soldier can dress himself.

“I had arranged for your br—” he started to say, when there was a knock at the door. “Enter!” he bellowed.

The doors were flung open, and in stepped Ptolemy and Pothinus. Now I suddenly understood why Caesar was up and dressed, and why I was not. I had nothing on but a sheet that I had wound around myself. That was how he had wanted it.

The visitors gasped. Ptolemy looked as though he were going to cry, and Pothinus, for once, was speechless. He bobbed his ibis-head up and down over his obese body. He stared at me, at the royal bed with its sheets and pillows still in disarray, and then at Caesar, smiling and self-possessed. He understood.

“It isn’t fair!” shrieked Ptolemy. “It isn’t fair! What’s
she
doing here, how did she get here, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair!” He turned and ran from the chamber.

“Great Caesar,” began Pothinus in a shaky, high voice, “we are most surprised by the presence of—”

“Stop that boy!” barked Caesar to his guards, who had crept up outside the doors during the night. “Stop him before he gets outside.”

But my brother knew all the secret passageways in the palace, and before they could even locate him, he had run out into the forecourt and then almost to the fence separating the palace grounds from the rest of the city. A large crowd was always there, and today was no exception. I watched from the chamber window as he rushed toward the people, yanked off his royal coronet, threw it to the ground, and burst into a howl of tears.