Ancient Evenings (93 page)

Usermare stood by the stone hawser on the Royal Quay as the Sacred Barge came near, and He caught the mooring rope. Even those who were too far away to see still cheered, and the ladies and nobles in the golden carriages stood to applaud. The High Priest standing by the palanquin that carried the silver shrine of Ptah sang a hymn, then broke the seal, threw back the bolts, opened the doors, and before the eyes of the crowd, brought forth the God, holding Him in his arms.

He was no larger than a doll, but Ptah had limbs that moved, and His black lips and golden chin could open and close upon His golden face. Courtiers from the ranks of Usermare came forward and laid fine wines and fruits and roast-meats and goose in a semicircle of plates about the High Priest of Ptah and the God he held on the Quay, while Usermare knelt, and said, “We, of the Temple of Amon, offer food and drink to the Great God Ptah.” The God stared back at Usermare and looked upon the food, and His golden eyelids blinked to give assent. Like all divine beings, He needed sustenance. He had now obtained it. For even as a God may create what He wishes by calling forth its name, so could He eat by gazing upon His food.

Then Ptah spoke to the people on the riverbank in a great voice that came from the heart and lungs of the High Priest who held Him, but it was truly the tongue of the God. The High Priest was in a trance and could move neither his eyes nor his limbs, yet the eyes of Ptah were open and His golden arms moved as He spoke.

“When I receive You,” Ptah said to Usermare, “My heart rejoices, and I hold You in an embrace of gold. I enfold You with permanence, stability, and satisfaction. I endow You with wealth and joy of heart. I immerse You in gladness of heart and delight forever.”

Now the High Priest of the Temple of Amon came forward to stand beside Usermare, and in his arms he held a large vase in the shape of the
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, and at the sight of the long neck of this vase entering into the heart-shaped body, people began to weep. The vase had the shape of a divine phallus and a godly vagina, and thereby spoke to the people of Thebes of the wonders of love they had known in the past. A cry of pleasure came up from the townspeople as water was poured from the vase onto the feet of the High Priest of Ptah. “Ahhhhhhh,” they shouted for the union of the Two-Lands.

The Good and Great God responded to the sight of the vase. To the benedictions of the God Ptah which were now repeated, “I immerse You in joy, I immerse You in rejoicing, forever,” Usermare now brought forth from beneath His skirt an erection of prodigious length. Already, it had pushed His garment forward like the prow of a ship, and, now, since He could not conceal it, He parted the folds of His skirt and showed it forth to the populace. No cheer heard in all the day was like that one. The best and most powerful sign of good luck for all of the Two-Lands was in this confluence between the Gods Ptah and Amon. Cheers that the Horus had been able to feel such strength and sweet emotion. Indeed, all who were holding sticks with a lotus attached, now turned the cup of their flower toward His erection, and all cried out His name with much love for this feat as He stood before them, their proud King revealed.

EIGHT

Pthan-nem-hotep now paused and looked with expectation at Menenhetet, who in his turn nodded profoundly. “It is as You have told it,” He said. “You have seen every sight. I witnessed only a few.”

“It is all true?” asked my Father.

“There is no error.”

“The last was as described?”

“That is certainly true. I never saw Him with a greater sword.” Menenhetet, however, now hesitated. “No, I did again, perhaps, in days to come.”

“There was no such description in the papyrus I studied. My knowledge comes from the understanding of Usermare that you have imparted, as well as by the rumor of the legends, I confess.” Now my Father ceased to speak and hugged me with pleasure. “I have told you of the First Day,” He said to my great-grandfather, “but you can instruct us in what I have not seen.”

“You saw every sight,” my great-grandfather repeated. “I remember those five days as a chaos. For in all we have said, I have not told enough of the fear that was also present at the Godly Triumph. While the Pharaoh is never more our King than on these five days, yet in that period, He is also uncrowned. He can wear the Double-Crown but it is not His, not for five days.”

“I know that,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

“Yes. But in our years, we believed it as no one does today. I can tell you that in all of Thebes there was a fear of which no one wished to speak—which is why there was such elation at the size of our Pharaoh when He stood before Ptah. Yet, despite such a good sign of His confidence, I can say that on that night, and for each night to come, there were few in the populace who did not fear their house might burn, or their wife leave. For that matter, with all the torches on the avenues and the bonfires at the crossroads, more houses burned than on other nights, and it is astonishing how many good wives were unfaithful. Fornication was everywhere. So I would repeat: the erection of Usermare may have been a gift to the city, but it was a curious one, since afterward, even old men walked about with their pride in front of them, at least by dark. Decorum was only to be seen in the processions of the day.

“All the while, beneath all other feelings was terror. I cannot say it enough. There had been fear until the last few days that the flood would come too high, but now, in the abatement of the waters, that fear was gone. Good enough! Who could enjoy a festival if the river was still rising? But no matter. Fright still came flooding out of us with every merriment. People would laugh and cry and laugh again while trying to finish one song, and drunkenness, even in the daytime, was everywhere. Besides, there were curious sights to behold. Great numbers of boys and young workers from the poorest quarters of the city had decided to shave their heads. You never saw such a riffraff of what might have been young priests, but were not. Even vain fellows, proud of their hair, had taken it down to the skull, then anointed their scalps with oil. They ran in packs, yet were most pious beasts and never attacked anyone. Often they marched in procession from shrine to shrine, or from temple to temple, or even made pilgrimages to the Court of the Great Ones, thereby adding to the legions of priests and nobles and merchants and soldiers and clerks and workers and general rabble who came in crowds on those hours of the day and night when they were let in to mill about the shrines and bowers and reed huts. Sometimes all of Thebes seemed to be in that gathering. Nonetheless, these platoons of bald heads were prominent everywhere, and often followed by a gang of unshaved friends who jeered at the oil on the others’ scalps, yet followed them like the wake of a boat, all the while reminding these shaved heads what they did last night with their sweethearts, or their boy friends. ‘Oh, how good we are today!’ the unshaved ones kept shouting. This was part of the unrest. Needless to say, the beer-houses were busy.

“Indeed, after the first procession, Usermare could not often leave His Throne Room in these five days, just so numerous were the ceremonies He granted to Nomarchs and deputations from foreign nations.

“Even the simple courtesy to greet the arrival of small processions from noble families kept Him most occupied. Only twice did He go back to the river to greet a God, once for Amon, and once for Osiris. The others were brought to Their bower in the Court of the Great Ones, and Usermare might leave the Throne Room to pay homage, but so many Gods arrived that some He never did visit. Besides, many hours of His day were engaged in changes He must make of costume.

“I do not know if it was inspired by the variety of cient skirts and cloaks and skins and mantles that He wore, but I never remember a time in Thebes when you could see as many priests in ostrich feathers, or bearing the head of the hawk or ibis, or walking about with the horns of the ram. The more exceptional the costume, the wilder were the cheers in the city. Through all these five days, the air of a great entertainment was always with us, and a small pandemonium followed a deputation from a town called Nekhen in Upper Egypt who debarked from their boat with a herdsman at the head wearing the hides of many wild animals, even part of a lion and part of the skin of a crocodile. On each side of this herdsman was a servant wearing on his own skull the furry head and jaws of a wolf, while to his buttocks was attached the tail. These two servants when asked who they were, would point to the leader who always replied, ‘I am the Herdsman of Nekhen.’ Then all three would dance about each other, and wave high sceptres.

“For some reason that no one could explain, these three people caught the fancy of the crowd. I do not know if it was the lion and crocodile skins the Herdsman wore (as if the beasts of the hills and the swamps were now approaching the Palace) but even when it was realized that all three must be priests of some sort, still they were cheered, and eventually, all three marched up the Grand Avenue to the gates before the Court of the Great Ones, entered, and were even presented to the King.”

“These Wolves of Nekhen were much honored,” Ptah-nem-hotep murmured, “as spirits serving Horus. I can tell you that he who was dressed as the Herdsman on this occasion was. First Scribe to the Vizier and not from upriver at all, but lived among us in Thebes.”

“Yet his face was wild on that day,” said Menenhetet. “It was a wild face for a scribe.”

“I have read what was done,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “but you saw what was not described.” He repeated, “I would like to know all you can tell Me of such matters.”

So my great-grandfather kept speaking, but now his thoughts began once more to enter me as quickly as his voice, and, being seated in such fine comfort between my mother and Father, I found this manner of listening more agreeable than any other.

I can tell you (came to me by way of my great-grandfather) that each day, the drunkenness of everyone increased, and with it the confusion of ceremonies. Thereby, it became less necessary to appear at one’s formal station in the retinue. For that matter, Usermare had gone back and forth to so many shrines in the Court of the Great Ones that even the most scrupulous of officers found it difficult to be always in the proper place, especially when our Pharaoh grew more impatient each day at delays in the formation of His processional marches. Moreover, much fever simmered in us at the heat of encountering so many Gods. It did not seem to matter, therefore, if you were not always in the proper carriage, nor running in perfect position behind Him. Besides, I was in tumult, and hardly able to think.

On the second night, therefore, I deserted the Court of the Great Ones and wandered through the city, stepping over the bodies of drunks, and listening with sadness I had never felt before not only to the sounds of psalms rising from the temples but was also tender to the moans of tethered animals as if their pain or plain beast-misery at being hungry were my own. So, too, was I moved to concern by the cries of children, and even made happy by their shouts in the late evening as they played (with all the excitement children know as the Gods of evening move in from the horizon) and at last, as it grew late, I listened to the slow oncoming sound of men and women making love to one another. (For that also came to me from every alley in every quarter and warren of Thebes.) I could no longer hold back all that was most painful in me, and I thought of Nefertiri. But then there had been no moment I had not thought of Her since the afternoon of the First Day when the waters from the vase shaped like a
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had been poured to the ground, and Usermare stood forth in majesty. I was shaken twice then, and by two convulsions: For even as the multitude of the crowd uttered up the sweet moans and harsh cries of their own most triumphant hours of love, so was I captured by my despised allegiance to that godly phallus—yes! I wanted to be used by Usermare again. What a destruction of self-esteem to say it to myself! Yet, having said it, I was near again to Nefertiri, and knew how much I had held in myself through these miserable days of serving a Hittite Princess I could not comprehend. My loins ached for Nefertiri. I had an erection of my own. I could hear Her saying, even as the water poured from the vase, “You are My slow fire, My lucky name, My union, My sweetness, My
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,” and heard myself groan with all the others and could not take my eyes from the Pharaoh’s full erection. So I shivered twice. Since then, I had wandered through the ceremonies and through the city, and by this second night was ready to look again for an entrance into Her bedroom, but now guards were everywhere about Her Palace, and besides, much as I wanted Her, I felt no hope. My senses were too thick. I was drunk three times over each day and never sober before I began again. I was near to stumbling and my voice was hoarse, and only Her voice in my ear was keen, stirring my limbs and warming my body more powerfully than the wine. I fell asleep that night in my own bed alone with my hands on my loins to hold the pain, and that is a poor posture for a man over fifty who is still called a General.

In the morning I slept late and then went to the Robing Chamber where Usermare came out dressed in no more than a short white kilt with a bull’s tail attached, a golden necklace for His chest, the White Crown of Upper Egypt for His head, and His staff with its several lotus blossoms. When I saw that He was holding in His other hand a square of fine stiff papyrus with gold leaf piping on the four borders, I knew that He was about to dedicate to Amon a field that belonged to Nefertiri, a fine plot near the river. Since the gift was from Her, I can tell you that no matter how I had gorged on meat, and drunk too much wine, even my toes came alive at the thought that She must finally make Her appearance. Indeed, She must. The field had been given to Nefertiri by Usermare on the day of Their marriage. Now, it was being given back. On the day She saw the Vizier, She had even told me that their conversation had concerned this ground. “It is the perfect gift for His Godly Triumph,” She said then, and I knew it was Her protection against being ignored entirely for all the five days and nights. Her intentions were successful. I had also heard Rama-Nefru asking Usermare why He was obliged to be alone with Nefertiri while dedicating the land to the Temple. “It is Her field,” He said at last, “and I cannot, in courtesy, ask You to be there in that hour,” at which Rama-Nefru walked out of the room.