Ancient Evenings (30 page)

“How beautiful is his destiny.”

Ptah-nem-hotep gave her no attention, other than to tap the table in time to the music. An Ethiopian with a bony body, and a flute longer than I was tall, came in behind the girl and began to play as well. While the girl sang, three other girls started to dance. Like the lute player, they were naked but for the girdle that concealed the hair at the head of their thighs. I could not keep from looking at their navels and the beauty of their exposed breasts. How bright were their black eyes in the brilliant reflection of the great candles. The lute-player sang:

“Place sweet oils and good odors in my head

“Lay flowers on my limbs

“Kiss the body of your sister

“For she lives in your heart

“Let the walls fall down.”

“Let the walls fall down,” sang Hathfertiti in refrain, and patted the buttock of the servant nearest her, even as the girl was laying flower petals around my mother’s plate. “You are darling,” said my mother to her, and the girl, reaching into a basket she carried at her hip, passed over to my mother a ball of wax with a delightful smell—roses and lotuses were in its perfume.

I began to understand that we were all to be covered with wreaths of lotus flowers, and that petals of roses would surround our new plates of alabaster, large and clear and milky-white, and I also understood that all of this, the girls, the flowers, the songs, and the intimacies of the servants—“You are so beautiful,” whispered the serving girl to my mother even as her hip was being caressed, while my serving girl whispered to me, “You are not old enough to know where I could kiss you!”—yes, these agreeable conversations (which I had heard at more than one feast) were not unusual, but tonight they offered a fine fever at just the moment when the pig was brought out to us by two black eunuchs, nude but for their cloths. Yet, tonight, these breechclouts had been studded with precious stones that could come only from the Pharaoh’s linen. The male servants carried the body on a great black serving dish and set it in the center of our table in the midst of a quick movement by the dancing girls that had much beating of feet, much undulating of their bellies, and a scintillating play of notes from the three-string lyre, the sounds coming in all the quick multitude of some altercation between the birds in the Pharaoh’s garden. I was now aware of animals crying out all over the place, a dog first.

Here was the pig. I was not ready for the sight. He looked alive and Fierce and like a man. I had seen wild boars in their cage, and they were ugly and full of spiky hair matted with filth and litter. Their snouts made me think of the stumps of thieves’ arms after the hands had been cut off or would have, if not for the two holes of the nostrils, as dull and stubborn as any two holes you could poke in the mud with your fingers. This pig, however, had had his hair shaved off, no, he was peeled, I saw, as I looked at him, and his under-skin, now nicely cooked, was pink. His two fangs were covered with gold leaf, his paws had been manicured, then fixed with silver leaf, his nose had been scraped, and painted pink, the buds of white flowers were in his nostrils, a pomegranate in his mouth, and the servants, revolving the platter to show all sides of this decorated beast to all of us, I was given a view of the spiral of his tail, yet before I could demonstrate my cleverness by commenting that the spiral reminded me of the snail, I was treated to another surprise: a small roll of papyrus had been inserted into the pig’s well-scrubbed anus.

“It is for you to pluck it forth,” said Ptah-nem-hotep to Hathfertiti. With a sweet wash of giggles from the servants, full of the delight that they were witnessing the rarest of sights, Hathfertiti gave a kiss to her left hand, and with a flick of her fingertips plucked the papyrus from its place.

“What does it say?” asked Ptah-nem-hotep.

“I promise to read it before the meal is done,” Hathfertiti answered with a droll look, as though to give the papyrus time to breathe.

“No, read it now,” said our Pharaoh.

So she broke its seal of perfumed wax, unrolled it, gasped with delight as a ruby scarab fell into her plate—then touched it for luck to the tip of her nipple before she set it down. She read to all of us: “Just a slave on the Night of the Pig, but may you seek My freedom,” to which my father and Menenhetet laughed. Ptah-nem-hotep and Hathfertiti did not. They stared back and forth with a tenderness so agreeable I wished to sit between them. It was as if there could be no end to the fascinating conversations they might have. All the while, my father looked on with pride, a happy, even a boyish look on his face as if by these attentions given to his wife, he was receiving an honor he had not wholly earned, while my great-grandfather kept a firm smile on his face until the corners of his mouth looked like two short fenceposts, and contented himself by rotating the great round black plate on which the pig rested, as though in this animal there were other messages to read.

That also gave me an opportunity to study our roasted monster, who looked like a pink hippopotamus just born, or some swollen dwarf, or now, turned so his head was toward me, looked human for certain, a priest, I thought to myself. I also began to giggle, for although dead, the pig-eye near me was open and almost transparent. It was like looking into a murky hall of marble, then worse—somewhere in the hall of marble, a beast stirred. Maybe it was the light of the candles reflecting from those pale dead green eyes, maybe the frozen straining gusto with which the jaws bit on the pomegranate, or even the voracious thrust of the nose, as if that painted snout were capable of breathing in not only the worst but the most powerful of smells—at any rate something in the immense calm and greed of this dead pig made me think of the High Priest Khem-Usha. I felt most peculiar, not a doubt.

“Cut the creature, and serve us,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

I could hardly swallow at first. My throat was numb with awe. The others, however, would show many expressions. My father, after the first bite, had an absurd glint in his eye as if he were trapped between pleasure and exposure—I had seen that look on his face once when I came into his room with my mother, for at that moment, he had his hands on a servant, one to the front, one to the rear, and both below her navel. In turn, my mother now showed a troubled expression as if fearful of dire consequences in all the comforts she tasted. Then I was so bold as to look at my Pharaoh, and He betrayed something like disappointment as if expecting a good deal more from the meat on His tongue. The music was playing loudly, but He silenced it. The dancers left, as did the lyre player, and the black slave with the long flute.

My great-grandfather had another expression altogether. He chewed the food slowly in his strong teeth, strong even for a man of sixty—I did not dare to think of one hundred and eighty!—and, as always, he took the measure of what he did, eating with strong regular motions of his jaws that produced the same soothing effect upon me as the rocking of my cradle and thereby brought back the kindness that lives in sleep side by side with the most terrible dreams. So I felt lulled by the way he ate as if no force could shift the center of his heart. That encouraged me to take a bite of my own food, but I almost gagged. For the meat was fat and soft and surprisingly intimate in its taste—something like the confidence of Eyaseyab’s tongue was in my mouth. The pig knew me better than I knew the pig!

I wanted more at once, more of this low and fatty meat, and recollected by way of a little shiver how I had felt once when tasting an atrocious medicine, its ingredients all secret—the worst taste and smell of anything I had ever known, and it made me vomit endlessly. I had nonetheless known in the peace that followed a smell that lived in my nostrils, soft and warm and sly, even a little dirty, but it was like the taste of the pig in my mouth now, and so I felt as if I were in communion with the Gods of wet corn, spoiled barley, moldering weeds, even the odor of roses when they are dead was near to me as I ate the pig and so I wondered if the pig was an animal not as alive as other animals or at least lived closer to death, or to say what I really thought, was stuck in its shit.

“Chew more slowly,” said my mother.

Now, with the redolence of my nose, I watched and admired the delicacy with which the Pharaoh ate, and took instruction from His movements on how to use my hands. His fingers flew over the food like birds’ tongues, and when He chose to pick up a piece of meat before Him, it was with one light precise pointing of His fingers. “I think,” He said, “we have had enough of this creature.” One of the servants made a sign. “Yes,” Ptah-nem-hotep declared, “it has the most contrary taste, Horus found the pig an abomination, and Set, of course, adored it. I find Myself ripped in two by such disagreement among our Lords.”

Now, black servants came in to remove our alabaster plates and what was left of the pig; I became intrigued with the deft fingers of these servants and the humor of their movements. It was then I recollected how furious our Syrian servants had become when my father acquired six black slaves trained for use at the table. It meant—even then I understood the importance—that my mother and father were now at a level of splendor equal to the Pharaoh’s near family, a few high Officials, and two or three of our outstanding Generals. We could afford Syrians to bring the food, and blacks to take it away.

By way of my mother’s teachings, I knew of course that the right hand was to be treated like a temple. (Indeed, as she said with a pout, I would never see a drawing of a noble Egyptian whose right hand crossed his body—that was only for workers and wrestlers.) No, the right hand was reserved for bearing arms and touching food, and therefore was to be washed in oil of lotus before every meal, whereas the left hand could perform those tasks we would not wish others to observe, particularly the wiping of oneself, in which practice I was not to linger. So I could see that this separation we made between servants who brought food and removed it was connected to the right and left hand. I knew our blacks were not happy in their share of the task. Often I would hear arguments with the Syrians, although such dispute could come to no more than grumbling since, sooner or later, the Overseer of the Kitchen would shrug and say, “It is the Master’s orders.” Still, I used to think the blacks were remarkable for the depth of the bad mood they could present, and sometimes I would even decide that the poorest black servant had more ability to call upon the foul humor of his Gods than anyone but Menenhetet, Khem-Usha, or my mother (who was kin to both in the power of her worst temper).

Tonight, however, the blacks were surprisingly cheerful, and soon burst into giggles. At one moment, I knew no reason for their mirth; at the next instant, I could have told it all. The Pharaoh was eating the very last of His pig using His left hand. How the blacks smirked.

“They love pig,” He cried aloud as they left the room. “They love pig in the lands south of us,” and He laughed and added, “yes, the blacker the skin, the sweeter is the taste of the pork, they say,” and He looked around the table. “Tell me stories about black people,” He demanded abruptly, “for I am fascinated with them. Their customs offer light.” He thumped His tail for emphasis, as if to tell us that the time had most certainly come to entertain Him, and for this I was prepared since my mother had already informed me that when the Pharaoh wished to be amused, we should be ready with our stories. They must gleam like swords or be as beautiful as the flowers of the garden.

“I have heard,” said my father, “that when an agreement is made on the exchange of property between black chieftains, one spits in the other’s mouth, bows, opens his mouth and receives the other’s spit in return. That is how they make the bargain legal.”

“Can you see?” asked the Pharaoh, “Khem-Usha and I in such a practice?”

He was certainly in a most peculiar mood, in misery, yet most excited. While no one spoke, the air was full of conversation, or so it felt. My thoughts were drawn to His thoughts, and never did I enter more easily into His mind. But He had only one word in His head: Poison!

He looked at us, and shook His head. “Let us,” He said, “speak of poison.” He smiled at my great-grandfather. “Tell Me, learned Menenhetet, of its nature.”

My great-grandfather smiled carefully. “It is a purity that does not cease,” he said to the surprise of all of us. Until now he had returned few attempts to bring him into the conversation.

“I like,” said our Pharaoh, “the manner in which you bring clarity to difficult matters. The purity-that-does-not-cease. Could one describe love in such a manner?”

“I could,” said Menenhetet. “I have often thought that poison and love may come from the same place.”

“Your remark is malignant,” said Hathfertiti.

“Not at all,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “There is something poisonous about the act of love.”

“The pig has put You, Good and Great God, into a foul mood,” said my mother.

“Oh, not foul,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “poisonous!” He thumped His tail once more, one sharp thump to reward the precision of His humor. “Yes,” He said, “poison is everything that we are not.”

“Remarkable,” murmured Menenhetet. “I must say Your mind is remarkable.”

“A compliment,” said the Pharaoh. “A true compliment from the old dog. Listen to Me, you ancient man, you’ve known them all, known My ancestors better than anyone, so tell us, was there one whose mind proved better than your humble Ptah-nem-hotep’s?”