Ancient Evenings (84 page)

We kept looking at one another, She on Her back, I on my knees, and I drew into myself all I could remember of the most reverent moments I had known—anything to hold me from shooting every white arrow at once—I saw the solemnity of Bak-ne-khon-su when he sacrificed the ram, and the grandeur of Usermare as He received the hands of the Hittites, and all such thoughts I took in upon my fires like smoke, my lust steaming on the hot stones of my will. I knew all the madness of the lion. “Would You like,” I said to Her, my lips as thick as if they had been beaten, nay, scourged, “would You like my obelisk in You, Queen Hat-shep-sut?”

“In my
cunt
, yes, in My
weeping fish
, oh, speak to My
weeping fish
, enter My
mummy
, come into My
spell, work your oars
, work your
spell, slaughter
Me,
shet, shet, shet
, oh, come into My
plot
, come into my
ground
, come to My
pool
, yes, fuck your
Ka-t
, fuck your
cunt.
”

Yet when I entered, Her breasts looking at me like the two eyes of the Two-Lands, all the reverence I had drawn into myself made me ache with a radiance equal to a rainbow in a storm. Having banked the fires of my balls, I entered Her with the solemnity of a priest who reads a service, and lay upon Her lips, but the lips of Her enclosure were so hot that my fires almost flamed over the river. Then all was calm again, and She was lying on Her back. My obelisk was floating on Her river. She made the sounds of a woman in birth,
aq
and
aqaq
, and yet with all the clarity of a greeting to enter, “
Aq
, please
enter
, come to My sunrise, come to My
sunset
, Oh,
aqaq, raid Me
, spy into My
entrance
, look on My
uba
, rest in My
Court, read the prayer
, rest in My
gate. Uba, uba
live in My
cave
, move in My
den, ri, ri, ri, mover of stone
, you are a
mover of stone, haa
, you
travel by sea, be My embarcation, haa
, My
entrance.
Oh,” she said, going suddenly still, “do not
burst into flame
, do not
burn up, haa
, paddle away,
khenn
and
khennu
, oh, slip into My
snare, hem, hem, hem
, crush My
majesty, hu, hu, hu
, let it
rain
”—I heard it all. She sang of the beauties of my testicles (which She held with fingers that had learned the tongueless art of the Nubian) She governed me with words of power, with
heq
and
heha
and
hem
, and as She sang to me, I entered the Land of the Dead that was in all the life of Her, and felt like a noble. She kissed me on the side of my mouth with those lips that had brought royalty to the head of my cock, and our mouths were on one another and our tongues met like woven-air and I felt Her voice on my ear, “
Netchem
and
netchemu
and
netchemut
,” She crooned, “Oh, what a merry fuck you are,
ri, ra, rirara
,” and on Nefertiri’s face was such tenderness that
rirara
rose in me and I could not enter enough into my
nefer
of my most beautiful Queen, my
nefer-her
, beautiful like rain in the fourth hour after rising, She was a Goddess, She was Her majesty, and She was shameless.
Tcham
, I fucked Her by
Her youth, Tcham, Tcham, Tcham
, by Her
Sceptre
and Her
youth
, and our hips moving together, She cried out, “
Shep, shep, shepit, shepit
, and all such words like
shepu
and
shepa
and
shepat
, Oh,
light
, oh,
radiance
, oh,
brightness
, oh,
blindness
, oh,
wealth
and
shame, vomit
and
shipwreck, shef, shef, shef, ram
into Me,
swell
into Me, give Me your
weapon
, give me your
power, shefesh, shefesh
, I have your
sword
, I have your
gift
, give Me your
evil
, give Me your
wealth. Khut, khut, khut, tehet, tehet, tehet.
Oh, by the
sacred backbone of Osiris
, give me
tcham, tcham, tcham, qef, qef, qef
, show Me to My Ka,
dead white, dead black
, I am a
fortress, ai, ai
, what
light
, what
splendor
, go deeper, you obelisk, fuck Me into glory, take Me to flame, I am
rich
, stop, I am
fire
and
light
, I am your
filth
, your
offal
, your
devils
, your
friends
, your
guide
, oh, good, good, good, give Me your
benben
, evil fucker,
nek, nek, nekk, nekk
, fuck me, slash me, murder me,
aar, aar, aar
, I am your
lion
, your
bird
, your
lock of hair
, your
sin
, I come, oh, I come, I come forth, I am the Pharaoh.”

And even as I was rising into a celestial city by a field of golden reeds, there to know a change as great as death itself, I heard the deep sounds of the bowels and the high sounds from the wind in my throat, the cries of my heart roaring in the water rising in me, and I flung myself out to fly to the heavens, or crash on the rocks, and saw the legions of the Land of the Dead and a myriad of faces, all the damned and perfected souls that Nefertiri could command, and rammed into the last gate of Her womb with the moan and groan of a peasant cock, the radiance of Amon blazing in me like the Hidden Sun of my mother’s belly, and She rebounded beneath like a beast, Her limbs storming over mine with the strength of Usermare as I was borne aloft, but not by Her so much as by the wrath of my Pharaoh Who lifted me high like a feather over the flame, and slammed me down like a rock, then gave me another blow and another blow of Her queenly cavern, my tomb. I gave out within Her while the storm still blew, and She washed over me. She came out of every great space that Usermare had left in Her. “She was much more powerful than myself.”

Saying these last words aloud, my great-grandfather Menenhetet fell from his chair to the ground, and there his body began to shake. His head rapped on the marble of the floor. Out of this seizure, he continued to speak, but now it was in the voice of Ptah-nem-hotep.

And as I heard the tones of my good King, Ramses the Ninth, so did the limbs of my great-grandfather quiet, and his body turn still. But the voice continued to speak out of his face, cultured and noble, weary and bemused as Ptah-nem-hotep Himself.

VI
 
T
HE
B
OOK OF
T
HE
P
HARAOH

ONE

“I cannot bear the limbs of this woman. She entwines herself too much about Me. I feel wrapped in the arts of the embalmer. Her flesh suffocates. Yet, I cling to her. My fingers search her depths. My mouth is sealed with hers.”

It was His voice. I heard it in my ear, the voice of Ptah-nem-hotep, as it came from the throat of Menenhetet, but I had dwelt for so long within the thoughts of my great-grandfather that these strange sounds came over my head in a babble.

A sweet smell rose from the patio, a perfume sweet to me as the scent of Nefertiri, and across the hours of the night I now remembered the scent of rose on Ptah-nem-hotep’s ankles when I kissed His feet. So I knew these thoughts were His. How else could such an aroma have risen? Yes, I was being carried in the sentiments of my Pharaoh, lifted on the odor of His perfume even as water will carry the colors of a dye, and now I heard the voice of my mother as well, for she and Ptah-nem-hotep were speaking, which is to say, laughing. I could hear them fondling one another, and the small slap of His hands on her hips, the proud little smack of her mouth on His ear as if He were not only the treasure of all treasures, but dear as a child like me. The same sound of possession was there. I even knew the moment when the harsh reserve of His voice was gone, and He no longer thought of the weight of her limbs, but of bliss, and it was then I knew that my mother had succeeded in carrying off His woes, His fatigues, even His distaste, had taken it into her heart out of the force of her adoration of Him, had softened His body with her caresses until He was like a field trodden for the seed, had lain with Him while His flesh, after every panic, had begun to breathe the calm of her pores—how well I knew this power of my mother!—and now it was the voice of Hathfertiti that came from my great-grandfather although I had no need to wonder what she might say. I heard her in my thoughts, and she was speaking at this moment of the day, seven years ago, when she and the Pharaoh made love.

She lied. I knew it by the honesty and simplicity of her voice. My mother could lie with such art that her lips trembled with truth, and Ptah-nem-hotep came near to believing what she said no matter how He remembered that they had not made love. Indeed, He could still recall the touch of His hand in hers. That was all His timidity had been able to muster on a day when His distrust of Hathfertiti had not been small. Even as a priest in the Temple of Ptah, He had heard of her license with her brother and grandfather. It was the gossip of Memphi. Of all the women who presented themselves to the Apis bull, she, the youngest, had been the most impudent. Now, His hands deep in her several treasures, He said to Himself that if gold were as malleable as flesh, her flesh was gold. For He was beginning to feel as if the best she might offer was yet before Him, just beyond His fingertips. So He did not deny her when she spoke of their act of love seven years ago on the banks of the pond after they had left the skiff of papyrus, nor did He even shake His head as she breathed into His ear, “My son was conceived in that hour.”

But then He turned her over, and His hands upon her breasts, His mouth on her lips, He began to laugh and said, “You are in error. I became Pharaoh without ever knowing a woman, and so I remained for all of My first year.” He began to laugh. “There,” He said, giving a good slap to her hips, “no one has known before you.”

“I knew it on that day,” she said. “You were so fine. I had never seen a young man who could stir me so. You know, I did not think of You as a King, but a priest.”

“Then how do you say we made love?”

“I must whisper it to You.”

I lived on the whisper. I did not wish to listen to the curious sounds that came like broken words from my great-grandfather’s dreams, although my mother’s voice was in them, but I was near enough to her—no matter how many courtyards might separate us—to know she told Him now that they did not make love on that day as they did tonight. The true love—for which one must be ready to die, she said, as she was now ready to die for Him—had no, not been made, He had not entered her, that was the truth. Yet, out of the sweet touch of the water sliding beneath the skiff through all of that golden afternoon, they had felt so near to one another when they returned to the shore, and she had stood beside Him with such joy, that He left His seed within her hand. She then anointed herself. His seed in her palm had been worth more than the seed of all others.

“And did you anoint yourself in My view?”

“I do not know. I did not hide what I was doing, but You may not have looked. We stared into each other’s eyes until we could have wept, just so much did I love You on that day. Your eyes aroused me more than the strength of other men.”