Ancient Evenings (99 page)

“In truth, I was like a madman without Her. The fires on every street corner, and the smells of burning meat made me think again of the taste of human flesh. Near to thirty years came back to me from the face of one of our Nubian soldiers who said on the night of Kadesh, ‘The meat of a man gives a strong heart for fighting. It is good to eat meat that has talked to us.’ And now, as if not one of those thirty years had passed, I nodded in agreement with him, but it was death with whom I was ready to agree, death—more black and powerful than any Nubian—and I wondered if it were not like the gate to a great city. You did not have to travel up the Nile when you died looking for caverns that would take you into the Land of the Dead. On the contrary, you might march through a gate and horns be blown, many drums struck. Death might be like the streets of our markets. I had seen the first hours of death in many a dream when I wandered through the marketplaces of sleep. It must look like these alleys and the lights of the fire on the faces of the vendors selling meat. Trinkets were waved in my face from the hands of merchants and a whore was always whispering in my ear.

“I spent the rest of the night passing through brothels. If one speck of the meanest waste of the lowest Ka of my Great Queen had been left on my member, be sure I was now inflamed with every strength of the ram and the bull, and had not felt so much like a young soldier since I became First Charioteer. The prow of the Boat of Amon might as well have been moored between my legs for I was like my Pharaoh that night in the whorehouses and did not come back until dawn to sleep in the Steam of the Duad—for such was what we called our own Palace baths! The thousand lice who had invaded my body on this night—what with foul huts, coarse throngs, and whores’ sheets—soon fled in the vapors. I went back to my chamber, clean and drunk, to sleep at last.”

My mother most certainly interrupted here. “I could bear every description you have given,” she said, “because a woman in love will offer herself without stint. And make no mistake, Nefertiri, no matter how She might despise it, had a most uncontrollable longing for you. Yet, I cannot endure the hut She chose.” Now my mother began to tremble. “To lie down in a bed so filthy! What could She say to Her own head of hair?”

Yet it was not Menenhetet who answered, but Ptah-nem-hotep. His arm about her shoulders, as if she were already His Consort, He said: “For those five days, the people, on proper occasions, could come into the Court of the Great Ones, or mingle at the riverbank with nobles. If the Festival of Festivals was to award the Pharaoh new strength, then not only the Gods, but the beasts and people of Egypt, the plants, and the workings of the trades must pass before Him, even the pests. Is this not true, Menenhetet?”

“It is. On an ordinary day, one could not feel oneself a Notable if a single louse was in one’s nest, but, of course, no place was so clean as the Palace. Even the quarters of our servants had couches on which a Princess might sit. But for the Festival, it was different. I tell you, Hathfertiti, you have never known a Godly Triumph, so you cannot comprehend. For those few days, it was a mark of virtue to be, if even for an hour, infested with strange creatures. It showed you were deep in the judgments of Maat, and had mingled with the people. Even you, on so great an event, would suffer your pests with pride.”

“Never,” said my mother, and held the Pharaoh’s hand. “Never, I promise you. I could not lie down, not even with my dearly beloved, on a bed of vermin.”

“We need only wait twenty-three years to see if you are still unchanged,” my Father laughed, but she shuddered. “Never,” she said. “Why, until you spoke of that, I thought Nefertiri was much like me.”

“She was, and She was not,” said Menenhetet. “It is the mark, after all, of a Queen to be superior to Herself.” When my mother glared at him—which I never saw her do before—he looked back, but, a silence continuing, was the first to speak.

“By the time I awoke, we were well into the morning of the last day of the Triumph. I was weak from drink, excess, hot baths, and not enough sleep, but I was sober, and therefore felt apart from the others who were commencing to get drunk again. Like the surf of the Very Green, the air of this last morning may have been exalted with excitement, but even the priests were besotted. In the Court of the Great Ones, everyone mingled, and sounds of celebration came up from the city, together with rumors of fights in many quarters. Amen-khep-shu-ef, riding ahead, had arrived this morning with His Guard and the first legions of His army, bringing news of one more successful siege raised against the Libyans—one more town whose walls were gone!—and the people received Him like a Pharaoh. So I heard from every side, and you could see His men coming in to the booths of the Great Ones, some even praying before the shrine of their own nome Gods, or before Syrian altars or Nubian huts with who knows what rubbish inside? Some of His dirtiest troops were praying the most, while His Guard was everywhere with the ladies—I would not have wanted to be a rich merchant with a beautiful wife that morning.

“How the populace liked this Prince! As if my intimacy with His mother would be discerned by Him so soon as He saw my face, I took care to keep the people and the plazas of the Court of the Great Ones between us, and never had to be concerned with where He was. The happiness of the cheers told me. Indeed, in my much-used state, I even began to wonder if He had spoken again to His officers about me, for the passing looks in my direction from His Guard appeared even more evil to me than before.

“At midday, the Coronation of Usermare at His Godly Triumph began, although I do not know that I was able to follow all of that. It seemed to go on for much of the day and into the Collation that night when we finally celebrated the end of the Triumph with serious ceremonies and much entertainment following the contests and games of the afternoon. I remember there was a lot of betting over a race between four herds of oxen (who were called the Canopic Jars) and their herdsmen (the Four Sons of Horus)! We cheered them on to cries of ‘Go, Hep! Faster, Tuamutef!’ I do not know if it was the knowledge that Amen-khep-shu-ef’s troops would be entering the city all day, but sacrilege—‘The whip, Amset!’—was also in the air. Watching them race four times around the outer wall of the Horizon of Ra, I also roared with laughter. I was beginning to get drunk again. Everywhere, musicians were playing horns in your ear, a lovely plucking of strings, a frenzy of sistrums, and dancers performed by the river and at the meeting of every large avenue. In the fountain squares, and even in the Court of the Great Ones, wrestlers and jugglers were entertaining.

“Yet in the middle of all this, Usermare, as I say, was being crowned, and that I do not understand, for He had His Coronation in many a ceremony, over and over, and had had it already on the days before this.”

“Tell Me,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “of the one you saw, and I will speak of its purpose.”

“If I attempt to describe a ceremony that You and Your ancestor know better than I, it must have been, as You can understand, most moving to me. For when Usermare came out of the Throne Room on this day, those who were watching, and I was among them, gasped. ‘He is shining like the sun,’ I heard the man next to me whisper to his wife. As He seated Himself in the palanquin, a company of His Princes and Princesses came after Him, many carrying the standard of a God on high poles. Off they went. Priests walked before them burning incense. It was then that Amen-khep-shu-ef came marching up with cheers, and when He reached the Golden Belly, moved to the front of the right pole and supported it. His face was, therefore, the first to be seen, and ovations greeted both of Them, Pharaoh and Son, as Usermare was carried from plaza to plaza through the Court of the Great Ones to meet the God Min.

“Now this Min had been taken from His sanctuary and was also carried on a palanquin by many priests on each pole. Others fanned the God and threw bouquets and flowers before Him. The God Min, and the Good and Great God Ramses the Second, approached one another on a platform raised above the Court, and perfume was thrown before Them and incense was burned, while a cheer came up from all of us as the Gate of the Apis Bull opened. The animal came out looking like the Bull of Heaven. His horns were gilded and he was as beautiful as Usermare. He stood alone and defied approach. I do not know if it is a scent that bulls carry with them, but in my nose was the clear odor of cut grass lying on a field in the early morning. There were tears in my eyes. I was thinking of the forty women who opened their skirts to the Apis bull before Nefertiri opened Her thighs to me, and I wanted Her again with such desire that I feared my longing would enter the beast and agitate him. But on this morning as I soon could see, the animal had been given herbs to calm his fury, and after the first clatter upon his sight of all these people proved to be not fierce but tame, he joined the procession of priests who led him forth to Usermare. Now both the bull and our Good and Great God were introduced to Min, Who was presented in the opening of the cabin doors of His palanquin by His priests. From there Min was placed most tenderly on a small throne where He might be visible to all, but the sun shone so brightly on Him that you could see neither His features nor His form, only the molten ball of His light. All gasped, and Usermare covered His eyes with an arm. The bull moaned at the sight of Min Who was like a ball of golden fire.

“Now, I could see the God through the glare, and He had the body of Kheper the beetle, and lion’s legs, but a man’s face and a Pharaoh’s crown upon which were two ram’s horns, eight cobras, two discs for the sun and the moon, and two great feathers of gold as high as Himself. He also had a phallus of gold that came straight out from the side of His body, but so far that He had to hold it erect with one hand, indeed, it was as large as the phallus of Usermare, which says much, since the God in His height would not have come up to our Pharaoh’s knees if not for being placed so high on His throne. I can say that at the sight of this God and His phallus, so did Usermare also show an erection, and the bull, if he had not been drugged, might have joined Them. Everyone who carried a lotus flower on a stick turned the blossom toward Them, and I felt the earth swell with love and heard muted groans of desire beneath my feet. Many in the crowd felt the same, for one could see erections beneath the skirt of many a man, and more than a few women fainted. Indeed, in this sun, feeling such desire, I was near to the most agreeable incontinence myself. No matter what I had done the night before, I could feel my share of the Nile rising.

“ ‘All praise to Amon-Ra,’ said the priest, thereby informing us that this God Min, Lord of our Festival, and the most splendid divinity of our harvest, was Min-Amon, and so one more manifestation of the million and one of Amon the Hidden and Ra the Light, and now as the God and Pharaoh looked upon one another, Usermare into the eyes of Min-Amon and Min-Amon into the eyes of Usermare, so the presence of Amon-Ra was over all, and the bull, despite his herbs, gave forth a bellow full of the echoes of a field beneath the sun and of many caverns in the hills, while the priest began a long hymn to Amon-Ra.

“I still hear it—every word. If Usermare had never ceased to be our Pharaoh, not for one of these five days, still a hand was on our heart and on the heart of all of Lower and Upper Egypt. In the Two-Lands we knew with every breath that a catastrophe could come upon us in any of these five days when Usermare was our Pharaoh, yet was not. We knew He must be crowned again in order that His strength be doubled for His years to come. Yet how could He be crowned at His Godly Triumph, unless, for these five days, He had relinquished the Throne?

“So, the true return of the Double-Crown to the head of Usermare came nearer as we heard the hymn of the High Priest to Amon-Ra, and we cheered in assent and knew a high holiness in our chests, our navels and our loins. The High Priest said: ‘Praise be to Amon-Ra, chief of all Gods, the beautiful One, the giver of life and warmth to all beautiful cattle. You are the Bull of the Gods, the Lord of Maat, the Father of Gods, the Creator of men and women, and You are the Maker of animals. You are the Lord of all things that exist, producer of wheat and barley, and You make the herb of the field which gives life to cattle. The Gods acclaim You, for You have made what is below and all things that are above. You illumine the Two-Lands and You sail over the sky in peace. You make the color of the skin of one race to be different from that of another, until there is all the varieties of mankind, but You make them all to live. You hear the prayer of he who is oppressed, and You are kind of heart to all who call upon You. You deliver those who are afraid from those who are violent, and You judge between the strong and the weak. You are Lord of the mind. Knowledge comes out of Your mouth. The Nile comes forth at Your will. You are the Governor of the Ancestors of the Underworld. Your Name is Hidden.’ ”

I could feel an unrest in my Father that increased with every word from Menenhetet’s voice. “Can it be,” asked Ptah-nem-hotep, “that these were the words spoken to Usermare?”

“I remember them so.”

“Please resume your hymn,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

“These were the words of the High Priest,” repeated Menenhetet,” ‘Hail, Only One,’ he said. ‘Men came out of Your eyes, and the Gods from Your mouth. You made the fish to live in the rivers and gave the breath of life to the egg and to the reptiles that crawl. You allow the rat to dwell in its hole and the bird to sit on the green tree. Your might has many forms. You have spread the sky and founded the earth. You are the Lord of grain and bring the cattle to graze in the hills. Hail, Amon, Bull Who is beautiful of face, Judge of Horus and Set! You have created the mountain and the silver and the lapis-lazuli.

“ ‘O Amon, Your rays shine on all faces. No tongue can declare what You are. You steer the way through untold spaces over millions of years and hundreds of thousands of years, You travel across the watery abyss to the place You love, and all this You do in one little moment of time before You rest, sink down, and make an end of the hours.’ ”