The Memoirs of Cleopatra (35 page)

It had been a long time since we had come together, but the body retains its secret and intimate memories. His body fit into mine, making one person. I had forgotten, yet not forgotten, what it felt like to have a part of him become one with me. But all the while I also knew him as separate from myself, a sweet distinction.

Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one’s human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death—in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.

I felt my hands on his back, and I tried not to scratch him, but I knew I was doing so. There must be more we could do, more, more, more—I wanted to drive it higher, ever higher.

Later I lay beside him, panting and coughing. I tried to focus my eyes and look into his face. It was younger than I had ever seen it.

“My dearest,” he finally said, “I thought never to feel this way in my lifetime.”

We lay in the tangle of sheets, soaked with sweat. They were growing cold, in spite of the warmth of our bodies. So quickly passion becomes something separate, not part of our real selves.

“I love you still,” he said wonderingly. “I love you here as well as in Egypt, in this shuttered room in Rome as well as in the open palace in Alexandria.”

It was only then that I realized he had thought of me as fixed in time and space, immovable, something to be found, like the pyramids—then left behind. Instead, I had followed.

“I am a real person,” I said. “I can live and breathe in different climates, different lands.”

“But I must confess, I did not think of you so. I thought of you—like a local goddess.”

I laughed. “One of those who inhabit a spring or a rock?”

He looked ashamed. “Just so. When I came to Alexandria—which now seems like a dream—you were a part of it. It is hard to reconcile that memory with you, here. Why”—he laughed at the idea of it—“I shall take you to the Forum! And yes, you shall meet Cicero and Brutus and young Octavian—and I shall prove to myself that you are real.”

“You have held me. You know I am real.”

“No. All this still seems like a dream.” His voice was low. “A darkened room. A surreptitious visit. Lovemaking with one lamp lit, and hushed voices. Tomorrow, in the daylight, I will think it all a dream I had while in camp.”

“I will see you in that daylight,” I said. “Only a few more hours.”

“And I will formally welcome you to Rome,” he said. “I shall be dressed in my toga—infernally uncomfortable garment!—and I will doubtless make a stilted speech, and try not to wink at you.”

“And I will try to ascertain whether you are excited beneath the toga.”

“I won’t be,” he said matter-of-factly. “My formal self will have taken me over.” He paused. “You realize that you are my own personal guest, rather than a guest of the Roman state? It seemed simpler that way. You do not have to make an official entrance, and it prevents the Senate from using you as a surrogate for me—insulting you when they wish to insult me, flattering you when they wish to flatter me. They are a thorn in my side,” he said bitterly. “They will use anything against me. I did not wish you to be their pawn.”

“Why do you bother with them?” I asked. “They seem to exist only to create stumbling blocks.”

He laughed softly. “I ‘bother’ with them—charmingly said!—because they are the legal rulers of Rome, and have been since the kings were thrown out over five hundred years ago. They are supposedly the watchdogs of our freedom, and they delight in being on the lookout for tyrants like me.”

“They are nothing but a nuisance,” I said. They hindered Caesar. What good were they?

“Spoken like a true Ptolemy!” He bent over to pick up his tunic, and in the low light I could see the marks I had made on his back. I had not meant to do it.

I licked my finger and traced over them.

He straightened up at the touch of my finger. “Calpurnia will be curious about them,” he said.

Calpurnia! Did he—I thought they were separated, or practically so. “I am sorry,” I said contritely, and meant it. I assumed she was a tight-lipped, austere old Roman matron.

“Poor Calpurnia,” he said, surprising me. “She spends most of her time waiting for me to return home. In the dozen or so years since our marriage, I have been away from Rome eleven.”

Was she young? It was possible. And he had been with her so little since then. She must feel herself still a bride. As a woman, I felt pity for her. Then I remembered Eunoe. I felt myself stiffen. “What of the Queen of Mauretania?” I asked tightly.

Deny it! I begged him in my mind. Say it was just slander on the part of Scipio!

“I was lonely,” he said simply. “And she set out to comfort me.” He sighed, like a man who had bought a bad carriage, one whose wheels did not turn properly. “There was one night, only one—that was enough! If I ever thought that it was being a queen that made you so desirable, that the thought of bedding a queen was what made it magic, then Eunoe taught me better. For that, you should be grateful to her. Then Scipio, eager to wound me, if not on the battlefield, then in the opinion of the world, put it out that it was an ongoing thing. Believe me, it was not. It served only to make me long more for you, the unique, the irreplaceable, the sole keeper of my desire—the one woman I wanted most to keep with me, and could not.”

So deep was my love for him that I believed him, knowing all the while that he was a great lover, and that great lovers excel at saying what a woman most needs to hear. Yet, even now, I still believe him. What we had together was extraordinary, more than mortal, and we both felt it.

I kept tracing the lines and circles of the marks on his back. He squirmed a little—from chill, or was I tickling him? He turned to me with a sigh, and kissed me. “I was ready to go, and now—”

He put his arms around me again, and they were tight with desire.

It was growing light before he dressed and made ready to leave.

“It is almost time for me to be back here,” he said. He bent over and put on his sandals. It was now light enough that I could see how many straps they had, and discern what shade the leather was.

“You can see him now,” I said. “You won’t need a lamp.” I took his hand and guided him over to the little bed in the adjoining room where Caesarion slept on his back.

I was startled to see a look of pain cross Caesar’s face, and his voice give an unguarded groan. He stared down at the boy, then got down on his knees to see him closer. Wordlessly he took my hand and squeezed it. He remained there, on his knees, looking, for a long time. Then he abruptly got up and made for the door. At the doorway he lingered, and looked at me sadly. “It is my very self,” he said in a whisper. Then he was gone.

I stood in the garden, by a stone fountain, and watched the sunrise. I had waited until I knew he was gone from the grounds, then I stole away from the room and ran outside. I could not bear to be in there any longer, to lie still and pretend to sleep and wait for others to stir. I could hear the sound of the birds, their songs a tangle of cries, a chorus that came before full dawn. It was not too early to join them outside.

The air was fresh, a slight coolness to it. Light mists were twining around the statues, the clipped hedges, the flower beds. Soon the sun would rise and dissipate it, chase away the blurred edges. I felt dazed, my head light. Exhaustion was setting in after the arduous journey, culminating in this glorious long night without sleep. I stood trembling by the fountain and plunged my hands into it, bringing up handfuls of water to splash on my face. I knew I was washing away his kisses, but I could not help it.

I sat on one of the stone benches and drew up my legs, hugging them. I would love never to disturb any relic of that night, never to wash my face or wear anything but this gown—fastened again now, and discreetly covered by a mantle—or move anything in the room. I gave a silent laugh at the idea of the bed remaining forever rumpled, with the sacred sheets undisturbed. It was a ludicrous picture, a ludicrous desire, but for those few moments I had it.

The light was growing stronger now, and the birdsong fading. What was it he had said?
My formal self will have taken me over
. The next time I saw him he would belong to the daytime world, to the world of Roman politics and proprieties. And we would present our gifts to one another, and he would invite me to his Triumph, and we would each entertain one another in turn. One head of state to another.

He returned at midmorning, riding up the steep path to the site of the house, with a large company of attendants. The sun glorified the white of his toga, making me blink. He sat his horse with the commanding posture that was so distinctively his; I had never seen him slump or even lean back. That was part of the reason he always seemed taller than he actually was.

Marching before him were his lictors, carrying those strange bundles of branches with axes that denoted power in Rome. There seemed to be an enormous number of them. Behind them was a company of soldiers—his bodyguard? His staff?

I, in turn, awaited him at the entrance to the house, seated on a small throne. (I had brought it all the way from Egypt, knowing it would be necessary for formal audiences, and also knowing it would not be politically wise to ask the Romans to lend me one!) I had attired myself in my usual audience clothes, nothing too elaborate, as this was ostensibly a personal visit, and besides, it was still morning. I felt that I looked wretched; the exhilaration of the night had worn off, leaving only fatigue and nervousness. I did not wish to see him. Not now; not so soon. Another day, perhaps!

He approached. I gripped the arms of the throne. He came forward from the mass of attendants. I could hear the sound of each of his horse’s hooves on the gravel. He sat looking at me. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever, no recognition. We were on the same plane, he on his horse, I on the throne at the top of the entrance steps. Then he dismounted, moving in one quick motion, and walked slowly up the stairs, never taking his eyes—his dark, impersonal eyes—off me.

This was a stranger, a foreign Roman official, surrounded by bizarre attendants carrying weird symbols of authority. I hated the axes. They all were turned toward me. He was different here, after all. Suddenly I was frightened of him. Why had I come, and put myself at his mercy—and Rome’s? The axes gleamed in the sunlight, grinning at me. I was a prisoner here.

“Greetings, Most Exalted Majesty,” he said in his elegant Greek. “Queen Cleopatra, you do us great honor to journey to Rome with the express purpose of attending my Triumph. You do me great honor to live as my guest in my garden home.”

He stood there, straight, his toga hanging in gracious lines. There was only the slightest hint of a smile on his face, such as he would have given to any visiting dignitary.

“I thank you,” I said, loudly enough that others could hear me. “It pleases me to come, and to thank Rome’s foremost general for preserving my throne and enforcing my father’s will for Egypt when usurpers refused to honor it.”

“I have brought a gift that I hope will please you,” he said. There was a stirring in the ranks, as they shuffled around to bring the object forward.

“I am pleased to receive it,” I said. “But you may speak to me in Latin if you wish. I have studied it for this journey.”

Now, for an instant, his face registered surprise. Why had I not told him this last night? he was wondering.

“You outdo yourself, most gracious Queen,” he finally said in Latin.

I was grateful that I could at least understand that.

The attendants brought forward a large rectangular wooden box, which they had lifted off a cart. They laid it at my feet, then pried its lid off. Caesar stood by approvingly.

It was a mosaic of the finest sort, the kind called
opus vermiculatum
, made with minute pieces of colored stone, meant to be transported and set in a larger floor within a border. The tiny size of the stones meant that the color variation and shading could depict almost any scene realistically. This showed Venus emerging from the seafoam. The colors of the sea were exactly those of the waters in the palace harbor at Alexandria. It was magnificent. How had he had it made so quickly? Then I realized he hadn’t. It had been looted from some site the Romans had taken. It must have been part of his own collection.

“I thank you. It is beautiful,” I said. I hoped my Latin did not sound laughable.

He inclined his head. “I am pleased that it pleases you.”

“And I have brought you a gift from Egypt,” I said, nodding to my attendants. They returned, wheeling a statue of Pharaoh Cheops in matte-black graywacke stone, a treasure that it had hurt me to part with. Every plane on it was perfect, buffed to an impossible smoothness, yet with no shine.

Now, again, just for that instant, his face showed an emotion: surprise and pleasure. His eyes, covetous of all beauty, widened a bit at the sight of it.

“The Queen of Egypt is most generous,” he said. “I thank you with all my heart.” He paused. “The Dictator of Rome would be most honored and personally gratified if the Queen of Egypt would come to his home for dinner in three days. This will allow me time to prepare. I trust it will not be too humble a dwelling for her to enter. It is in the Forum, near the Regia. As Pontifex Maximus, it is my official residence.”

Pontifex Maximus? What was that? It sounded priestly, and he scorned all religion, believing only in the goddess of fortune, who had made him her favorite son.

“The college of sixteen priests, pontiffs,” he explained. “A most ancient and sacred order, the state religion.”

How had he ever been chosen for that? “I would be pleased,” I managed to get out.

He nodded his head. The meeting was over. Suddenly I remembered that I had something else to present to him. “Great Caesar,” I said, “I have two other gifts to make to you. Pray, wait a few moments until they are brought out.”

Then we had to remain as we were, static, he standing, I sitting, silent. At length—it seemed like forever—my soldiers brought out the two pirates, shackled and bound to a yoke.

“Behold!” I said, and had the pleasure of seeing Caesar finally lose his composure as he recognized one of them.

The heavy bald man shook his chains and began cursing. “May you rot in the ground, may dogs bolt your flesh, you monster! This woman is as bad as you—you’re killers both! Had things been but a little different, it would be she in chains and you begging for her life!”

“What is this?” asked Caesar. “How did you get these men?”

“Answer me first,” I said. “Who are they? They attacked my ship as I journeyed here, and forced us into the Strait of Messina.”

“This one here”—he nodded at the big one—“was one of my captors on the island some thirty years ago, when I was held prisoner by pirates. He managed to escape when I returned for revenge.”

“He kept talking about his brother.” Without realizing it, I had lapsed back into Greek.

“His brother, the scum, was the ringleader. I slit his throat myself, as he was being crucified. He had always been entertaining and courteous to me, as only villains can be. The crucifixion was too cruel for him, so I ended it early.”

“And what about him?” I nodded to the thin one with the burning eyes.

Caesar walked over to him and stared at him, squinting his eyes. “Yes…this melts the years away. How are you, Philetas?”

“Free me and you’ll find out.”

“Free you, so you can kill me? I think not.” Caesar sounded amused and kindly. “So, you are still at it. Aren’t you a little old still to be a pirate? It’s a strenuous profession.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be a general?” his adversary sneered. “It’s a strenuous profession as well. I heard in your last campaign you were showing some wear. And then, all the enemies you make—it must make sleeping difficult, guarding yourself against all those who’d like to put a dagger between your ribs.”

“Like you?” He shrugged. “One gets used to it. Now, really, Philetas, I would think you’d be ashamed still to be a pirate! And not even a very successful one. It sounds as if the high point of your career was when you held me prisoner, and when was that—over thirty years ago? Now you’re reduced to attacking medium-sized ships around Sicily in—what sort of a boat was it?” he asked me.

“There were three of them, fast hemiolias,” I said.

“Leftovers. Outdated,” he said, dismissing them. “And all that killing you do, for so little return.”

“You’re the king of the killers. You’ve killed thousands and thousands in your campaigns in Gaul—uncountable thousands.”

“That was war.”

“It was pure ambition,” spat the big one.

“Well, then my ambition has been better rewarded than yours.” I detected a slight change in his voice; he was shaken by the sudden appearance of the pirates and their accusations. “And now you will have to write an end to your life, tally up your accounts.”

“Still playing a part?” yelled the big one. “Now you’re a philosopher? You played the jolly companion with us, then came back and killed us.”

“Did I not tell you that was what I would do?” he said. “Be reasonable, gentlemen. I merely kept my word.”

“Mark you, all of you!” cried Philetas, addressing the entire company. “This man is dangerous! He is not what he pretends to be! If ever you feared anyone, fear him!”

“Take them away,” said Caesar. “Take them away.” His voice was hard. Then he turned to me with a different one. “Thank you for this unlooked-for presentation. It gives me faith that in some fashion all the threads of one’s life are eventually gathered together, and answers are given.” He smiled a little uncertainly. “I will expect your company three days from now. Until then, please use this villa and the gardens for your own pleasure, and do not hesitate to send me word if there is anything you lack.” He turned and stepped smartly down the steps to his horse.

The lictors turned to precede him, their axes flashing. Soon the whole company had departed, the tramp of their boots dying out in the distance.

When I reentered the room, I saw it had been discreetly tidied, the sheets whisked away and replaced by fresh linens, windows opened, floors swept, and bundles of herbs hung to sweeten the air. All gone. The night had never happened. I wondered if any of the servants had seen Caesar come and go; probably not. He would have made sure of that.

Charmian had dressed Caesarion, who was playing in the middle of the floor with Ptolemy. They all looked well rested and eager to explore.

“What a company of soldiers!” cried Ptolemy. “And what were those things they were carrying? Those funny bundles of sticks with ribbons and axes?”

“I believe they are called fasces. They denote some sort of authority,” I said. I realized I badly needed an advisor on Roman customs and history, and I could hardly expect Caesar to take on the task himself. Whom could I find, without embarrassing myself?

“Everything here is so odd!” he cried, happy with the novelty. “The trees are all different, the language sounds ugly, and why do they wear those voluminous togas? Aren’t they hot in them?”

Just then two servants entered, bearing trays of food. Ptolemy ran over to one and crowed with excitement.

“What’s that? And that?” He stabbed his finger at each foreign-looking dish.

After eating, we wandered through the villa and its grounds. It was peculiar to have complete access to someone’s private retreat in his absence. He was there, in every decision that had been made about the furnishings, the plantings, the decorations, the comforts, yet he was not there, so I could stare or linger as openly as I wished. As a child I had always been entranced by the story of Psyche in the palace of the invisible Cupid. I had known it by heart.