Ancient Evenings (94 page)

It is an indication of how bloated I had become with pity for myself, and all its pollutions of misery, that I did not think enough of this occasion in advance, nor see how it might offer an opportunity to have a word with Nefertiri. When the hour came, therefore, I found myself at the wrong end of the procession. On this day, Nefertiri’s sons were among those honored by carrying His Golden Belly, and I, in the colors of Rama-Nefru, was many carriages back. As we came near the field, a lovely grove with the rarest shade trees on the bank of the river, indeed, an idyllic place for the Temple to Amon that would soon be built, I was obliged to dismount at some distance from Usermare, and only then saw Nefertiri approaching from another direction in a large covered sedan chair mounted on a carriage and drawn by six splendid horses. She stood up while the priests and royalty invited to this most exclusive service applauded Her passage, but, by an instruction to Her coachman, She came to a halt on the side farthest away from us, enough away indeed so that I could not catch Her eye.

Now, Usermare held up His papyrus and began the ceremony that would deed the land to the Temple.

“Do you know the name,” asked Ptah-nem-hotep, “of this papyrus?”

“I do not.”

“It is the Secret of the Two Partners. They are Horus and Set.” I could feel the pleasure of my Father at this knowledge. “No gift from the Pharaoh,” He said, “could be consecrated in those days without receiving the Will of Geb. That Will is embodied in any papyrus with golden edges.”

“I had forgotten,” said Menenhetet.

How much was stirring in my Father’s limbs! I could feel His desire to speak again in His ancestor’s voice. He stood up and began to stride around the four sides of the patio, even as Usermare must have been walking the four borders of this field returned to Him by Nefertiri. “I run,” I heard Ptah-nem-hotep say in the voice of Usermare, and it was such a great voice to hear, and came out of such caverns in my Pharaoh’s chest, that only a Great God would not tremble before it. “I run,” said my Father, “with the Secret of the Two Partners. For this is the Will given Me by Geb. I have seen His eyes. I know the fire in the cave. I touch the four sides of the land.”

Closing my eyes, I lay against my mother. I could hear a chorus from the riverbank, and I do not know across how many years such sounds came to me, but I heard that chorus sing:

“The Pharaoh passes the four quarters of the field.

“He touches the four sides of heaven.

“The field passes over to its new master.”

And in my Father’s voice, equal in my ears now to Usermare’s voice, the reply came: “I am Horus, Son of Osiris. Amon is My breath. Ra is My light. Amon-Ra is My Divine Light and Breath.” Now, Usermare was walking in the sunlight, and each breath He took was in the woven-air of the Gods. The field passed over from the Palace to the Temple, and the crowd gave a long sigh like a mother who is freed of the birth, and this sound I knew for I had heard it often in the servants’ quarters when a child was born.

Now, Usermare held up His staff of the lotus blossom and He could hear the voices of Egypt speaking to Him. The blessing of the Two-Lands descended. His erection came forth again and was immense. Now He walked to the far side of the field where Nefertiri was waiting in Her sedan chair, and He entered this carriage and closed the door so that none could see Him. But I heard His voice. It came to me through my Father’s voice.

“The Eye of Horus is between Her legs. It knows the caverns of the Earth.” I heard the sound of Usermare’s breathing. “The Backbone of Osiris beats upon the Eye of Horus. The Gods are joined.” Then I saw the image of the sun in the reflecting pool, and it burst between Her thighs.

In the next instant, I heard my Father mutter in the voice of Usermare, “I did not speak to Her. It was the Gods Who spoke.” My Father, exhausted by how closely He had lived in His ancestor, moved away from all of us and sat by Himself on another couch.

Menenhetet spoke aloud. In a small dry tone, he said, “Everyone who was on the border of that field saw Usermare close the door of the sedan chair. Nor was there uncertainty at what passed. All heard Nefertiri give a loud cry of joy. Her sobs of pleasure were rich, Her groans were deep. The Gods had most certainly been joined. By night, there would be no official, noble, or servant who would not have heard of this event, and as Usermare walked from the field, He knew the woe of every beggar in Thebes before the uncertainty of the night. All that was uneasy in the city about what was yet to come began to rise in the alleys.”

And I, sitting beside my mother, was much aware once more of the absence of Nef-khep-aukhem. That was like the wrath of a ghost.

NINE

When Ptah-nem-hotep continued to sit by Himself, and would not reply, my great-grandfather said to Him: “I do not know by what union of Your wisdom and my description You have come to such understanding of Your ancestor, but all is true. The words of Usermare-Setpenere were as You have described.”

My Father gave no indication He had heard. An exhaustion was on Him. I think that by the bold act of taking into His own throat the mighty voice of His dead ancestor, He had been like a timid rider who lets himself be carried in a gallop on a wild horse. Like all who have dared too much, he is speechless afterward. But my great-grandfather, as if tempting a convalescent with fine dishes, now began to speak. He said that as he stood on the field, knowing Usermare was with Nefertiri, the heart of his pain was most intimate. He had never been closer to Usermare’s thoughts. That, he said, was because he had talked earlier, if only for a little while, with Honey-Ball herself.

The gleam of the late moon on this night could be glimpsed again in my Father’s eyes. They showed interest, and He moved a little, and was aware once more of my mother—which I could recognize by the quickening of her flesh. My great-grandfather, encouraged, continued to speak, and I, in my turn, slipped back once more into that half-sleep so comfortable for me where I did not have to listen to every word, but knew, nonetheless, all that was told:

Yes, he declared, I saw Honey-Ball just before the Dedication of the Field, indeed I came upon her as I was walking by a line of many dignitaries from the nomes of the Delta. There, in the midst, appeared Honey-Ball with her parents and her sister. I was now presented to her parents, the father a man of obvious great wealth, patted and pampered by slaves. He had that smoothness of skin so much like plump buttocks which only the faces of the very wealthy obtain, and he was dark from the sun, and fat. Honey-Ball’s mother, however, was tiny, a jewel of beauty. There, between them, was Honey-Ball and her sister, neither as fat nor as beautiful as my own Ma-Khrut.

I bowed and kissed her hand. I knew by the absence of any stir in her father at the sight of me, that he knew little of us, or did not hear my name, but now to my longing for Nefertiri was added the disruption of seeing my old companion in this place so at odds with the roots of our memories. I did, as I say, no more than kiss her hand, and yet I knew then that in some fashion I would dwell with Honey-Ball forever. I might never see her again, or never intimately, my body would not enter her again, and yet I would dwell with her forever. It was not the happiest house in which I might choose to live, but it was the one that would be my home in time to come. That much I knew by the force of the wave of all that came washing back upon me, so that I almost swooned—or was it drowned?—in the suffusion of her influence on mine, and I felt the force of her power to protect all that she loved, and the great dull weight of her spirit as well. Her father, in the little we spoke to each other, had managed to inform me that no one in Sais ever raised a stone larger than the ones he could lift above his head when he was young. Such strength was in her. I remember as I walked away, that I knew a prodigious nearness to Usermare, as if He were by my side, no, better, I could have been back in the days when I walked in the Gardens with the pig’s snout between my cheeks. So I felt, and with more certainty on each step away from her, that Honey-Ball had been chosen often by Usermare since I left the Gardens.

That was another great commotion for me, but nothing to what I was to suffer out on the field when by way of the new powers Honey-Ball must have offered to me, I felt Nefertiri’s joy as She gave the eye of Her love to Usermare. Her womb come forth with the frenzy of many Gods, and I was knocked about in my heart.

Afterward, in the sorrow of early evening, as I wandered back to the Columns of the White Goddess, I could begin to feel the woe of Rama-Nefru. No sooner did I enter the walls of Her Palace, than Her thoughts also came to me, and they were more palpable than a scent. The end of Her love for Usermare was in all She thought. It fell upon me like a cold rain in Lebanon. The rooms about Her chamber were as mournful as if Her son were ill, but even before I saw Rama-Nefru’s face, I knew that the touch of my lips upon the hand of Honey-Ball had opened my mind to Rama-Nefru as well. If I did not know Her language, still I could be near what She thought. So I knew that She had gone back to living with Her own Gods. They came before Her—heavily bearded were Her Gods—and I recognized Marduk for He looked as I had seen Him on one of Her Hittite seals. There, in Her thoughts, She was visiting a grave in a place no one dared to go. Much wailing came out of the ground. I do not know if this was Marduk’s grave, but I saw the chariot of a God go by and the vehicle was empty. The chariot raced down a deserted road beneath a dark sky, and careened from side to side.

When Rama-Nefru summoned me, Heqat and I were obliged to wait at Her side while She performed a Hittite service. Into a bowl of water, oil was poured from a little jar and She studied the shape of this oil as it spread. Such shapes would be no different in Her own land, She said to us. “If I had never gone to Egypt, and knew none of you, but did the ceremony on this day at this hour, so would the oil have the same shape in the water. For it would say the same thing.” I did not tell Her how much I doubted this. The Gods in the air of each land were different, I knew. But She looked up from the bowl to tell us, “One of the little queens has given birth to a monster. The seed of My husband harbors monsters.” With that, She stared into my eyes. She would have done better to look at Heqat who gave a cry of fright since it was no one other than Heqat who had had the birth a few months ago.

Now, whether Rama-Nefru spoke without the knowledge of this monster and truly learned of it from the shape of the oil, or whether She wished, for whatever reason, to chastise Heqat, I did not know—Her mind had now become as empty as the Eye of Maat before the dawn—but She went on to say, “In My land, the birth of such a monster must hurt the fortunes of a King,” and soon enough, Heqat left, complaining of congestion in her throat. I wondered if the purpose of Rama-Nefru’s magic was to be alone with me, for She nodded, and summoned a servant who brought in a covered silver bowl. The lid, when removed, disclosed a sheep’s liver. So soon as he was gone, She took it out and laid it on a silver plate, whereupon She touched it in many places with Her forefinger, and looked for a long time at the lobes of this liver, all the while—as a sign of hospitality—concealing no thoughts from me.

So I knew She was remembering the animal as it had been when alive. Indeed, She had chosen this ram for its twisted horns. Before the sacrifice, She had even whispered a few words of Egyptian into the beast’s ear—it was, after all, one of our animals. “Will My baby become the Pharaoh?” She had asked. Now, the shape of the liver said to Her, “He will, if other Princes do not kill His Father,” or that was how I interpreted the message. For She saw Amen-khep-shu-ef plunge His knife seven times into the back of His Father while Usermare lay on a woman, yes, the woman was Nefertiri. But I do not know if these were thoughts Rama-Nefru obtained from the liver, or whether She chose to offer such sights so that. I might speak of them to the Pharaoh.

We sat in silence.

She said, “Did you know that the old dead Pharaoh, Ramses the First, the grandfather of My husband, was a common man?”

“I did not know,” I told Her.

“He died in the second year of His Reign. I think a common man dies of fright when he has to be King.” She nodded. “That has happened.”

“I have no knowledge of these matters,” I said.

“Yes, Ramses the First, the grandfather, was only a soldier. I learned about this from a papyrus in the Royal Library. He was a Superintendent of Horses. Later, He was promoted to Superintendent of the River Mouths, and then He was made a Commander of the Armies under Pharaoh Harmhab Who, I must tell you, was also no more than a soldier.”

“I knew that,” I said, “yet I did not.”

I could have told Her that nobody ever spoke of this Ramses the First Who came before Seti. One could tell stories of old Pharaohs like Thutmose and Hat-shep-sut, but They were dead long before any of us had seen the sun.

“Your Seti the First,” She said, “was a respectable King and He reigned for near to twenty years. Still, He is the son of an upstart. Such a son remains an upstart. So does the grandson. When I came to Egypt I did not know that Sesusi was the grandson of an upstart. I think My father would not have sent Me if he had known.” She sighed and pushed away the sheep’s liver. “I find My husband difficult to comprehend, don’t you?” Before I could begin to answer such a remark, She said, “I have never known a King who spends as much time with priests. I think that is because He is an upstart.”