Ancient Evenings

  Then we were in the harem, and the trees were so many, and the grounds that full with flowers I could recognize and others I had never glimpsed before I thought there must be more blooms here than grew in all of Egypt, such reds and oranges and lemons and golds and golden greens and flowers of many colors with violet and rose and cream and scarlet and petals so soft as they came into Menenhetet’s thoughts that the sweet lips of the little queens might have been whispering on my cheek, never had I seen such color before, nor these black-and-yellow bridges with silver balustrades and golden posts crossing the ponds which wandered through. A green moss covered the banks, as brilliant in the soft light as any emerald. It was the most beautiful place through which I ever wandered, and a perfume came from the flowers and the fruit trees until even the blue lotus had a sweetness of odor. Since it usually had none, I did not know why I could sniff it until I saw black eunuchs on their knees painting the blue lotus with scented oils, perfuming the carob trees, and the sycamores, even the roots of the date-palms whose fronds, above, deepened the shade of the garden. One could not even see the sky for the branches and leaves of the low fruit trees and the lattice of the grape arbors, and this shade gave back the lavender light of evening as one sits within a cave.

  Everywhere, birds flew from tree to tree and glided above the royal palms. There were ducks of every color in the ponds, bronze-hued ducks with wings of saffron and garnet, and a black swan with a bright red beak who was called Kadima, the same as the name of one tall black Princess, Kadima-from-Nubia, one of the little queens.

  Never had I seen so many birds. Flying above our deserts and our river, they must have glimpsed the green eye of these gardens from a heaven away, and they came in such a splendor and confusion and outright gabble of voices that I could not have heard Menenhetet if he had still been speaking, for all of them, the geese and the cranes, the flamingos and the pelicans, the sparrows, the doves, the swallows, the nightingales and the birds of Arabia (faster than arrows but no larger than butterflies) covered the lawns and the swamps and the branches. One breathed in the hum and flutter and drumbeat of birds’ wings until their power to speak tore out of my chest like a breath I could hold no longer, and flocks of them flew up in a cloud of wings while others settled to the ground. Overhead, above the palms, other birds were fighting, and the cry of these battles also came down to us. Kingfishers soared, falcons soared, ravens went through their turns, while below were all the flights of smaller birds, full of messages for one another, as if all that would yet happen in our harem and our city was being told by one bird to another. There were hours when the Gardens were as noisy as a marketplace.

  Then as if the flowers knew how to calm the air, a peace intent with the sound of many a small sweet bird would come to us, and one could feel the cool of the day, and the murmuring of water. Now we could listen to the flowing of a brook whose stream was lifted from the Lake of the Gazelle. Beneath the songs and disputes of the birds came a steady pumping from one shaduf above another, lifting water from the pool to a stream bed that led down to another pool, a splendid sound as it reached my ear on this late night, as comforting to me, on all these borders of sleep, as the unhurried beating of my own heart, for no sound was more virtuous than water being lifted by the strength of slaves.

  The streams were beautiful. The waters flowed over glazed clay bricks and over precious stones set within the bricks. The streams reflected the colors of the stones. I saw waters red as ruby, and violet streams, and a golden waterfall where the stream tumbled over plates of gold. I saw brooks with a bed that was mother-of-pearl, and one grotto was rosy as the setting sun, although here the shade was deep. By this bank, beneath the scent of an orange tree, one could see, since no lights were on the water, how the fish would pass. None was larger than my finger, and they would all turn at once if I inclined my wrist, these silver minnows looking like moonlight in the water. I could have sworn they cooled the garden with their silver light.

  By one pond were no trees, but a lawn, green as the moss, and watered through the day by the black eunuchs. Too hot at noon, it was cool by twilight, and the little queens would sit on small golden chairs their servants had brought, and watch the passage of Kadima. The swan chose to pass at twilight as if she too wished to watch how the sky would draw in the night, and the birds came to settle. Then the eunuchs slaving at their shaduf could cease to turn the pumps and the water-pails moved no more. The little queens would lift the leaves from bowls of fruit. The smell of a pear ready to be tasted would join the scent of the flowers, and the feathers of the swan lifted and left ripples in the darkening air. So I knew we were in the hour when the little queens would begin to stir, some to go down to the lake to bathe, others to return to their houses, their servants and their children. Before long, the sound of lutes could be heard in every corner of the night and the laughter of their games. Some little queens were commencing their nightly beer-house. Menenhetet would walk through the gardens, following the stream from one pool to another, and the water, now that no eunuchs were turning the pails of the shaduf, made no murmur, and all the surface was dark but for the one brook whose bed was lined with gold. There, in the moonlight, shallows were bright as burnished copper, and Menenhetet, passing by the stream, would look at the silver minnows, the music all about him in the darkness, and the merriment of the beer-house. Standing by the gold bed of the stream that flowed from the Pool of Beloved Wisdom to the Pool of the Blue Lotus, he shivered at the babble of sound that came from the little queens. There was a disloyalty in their voices he could not name, an affection for each other that held no sound of awe for Usermare, as if there were happiness at His absence! Disloyalty stirred then in Menenhetet, and his breath became hushed as the water. He was ill with desire for the little queens. It was vivid as shame to be alone among so many women with not even a boy about older than ten, but then by that age, the children born here were off to the priests for schooling. All he heard were the voices of women who had no husband nor friend nor any lover but the Good and Great God Usermare. Worse. About him were all the plump eunuchs with their black muscles enriched by the air of their easy life. Thereby they were appealing to all—the hundred women and Menenhetet—attractions powerful to his senses. His loins ached, his throat was gorged, and his mouth was so hungry he would not look through their windows at the beer-house these little queens were making. In the dark, like the horse that hears a murderous beast in the rustle of a leaf, he started at each breeze. At this hour, there were eunuchs everywhere in the gardens, fondling one another with their fingers and their mouths, giggling like children, and the flesh of Menenhetet was inflamed. A desire for satisfaction came to him like the urge for carnage that follows battle. Yet he could never go near a eunuch. They gossiped like children. Every officer would hear of it. To be near a hundred queens and lie down with a eunuch. Menenhetet walked the gardens as if we were the ghost of a sentry who cannot give up old soldierly duty.

  In the morning, it was easier. The little queens sang as they brushed each other’s hair. They searched through one another’s chests for clothes to exchange. They played with their children, gave orders to their servants. Since they could not leave themselves, their cooks were sent to the market for food, and scolded on their return for any flaws in the onions and meat. At the height of the day, the little queens ate at each others’ houses and exchanged gifts of fruit and oil, then decorated each other with flowers, or sang new songs. They trained their pet greyhounds, their cats and their birds. They told each other stories of their families, and taught their children of the Gods of their family’s nome, and the names of the Gods of the planets, and of the five senses and the four winds, and the Gods of the hours of the day and of the night. And in the late afternoon, after the little queens had slept through the heat of the day, they would meditate on their books of magic or mix their perfume. They would offer prayers and some would visit other little queens.

  At twilight, they might go to the pavilion to wait for Userma
re. On nights when the moon would be full, He was likely to arrive at just that hour when the light would rise upon His Chariot, and Menenhetet would watch from the tower gate as the Royal Runners raced ahead of Usermare through the street, then fell to the side and kissed the stone lions as the doors flew open. Then He rode in, leaving behind the two platoons of the Royal Guard, the fan-bearer and the standard-bearer, the mace-bearers and the lancers, and they, in turn, bowed to an escort of Princes and dignitaries who wheeled in their chariots and returned to their homes through the streets of Thebes, standing beside the grooms of the chariots in the near-dark, their bodies jolting to the clatter.

  He was now inside. There were times when everyone knew He was coming; other nights He surprised all but the wisest of the little queens. Yet once within, nobody could say His mood. He delighted in presenting Himself as stern when He was pleased, or might be charming to a little queen and then leave her to weep in her chamber through many a night. “Leave now,” He might tell her, “your breath is impure.”

  Sometimes, when early, He would sit by the pavilion and feed Kadima as she went by, and on that lawn He would often remain, talking first to one little queen and then another, well into the night. Sometimes, it was only after the rise of the moon that he would select a woman and go to her house for the rest of the night. Of course, He might select so many as seven women and there had been festival nights when He celebrated with twice seven, but on a night much like others, it was not common for Usermare to appear too late. So the little queens who waited eagerly for Him when He did not come, having been given signs by their Gods that the occasion was favorable, were obliged now to assume that other Gods had intervened, or had prayers been spoken in an unclear voice? They would raise a hand for their servant to carry away their golden chair and, furious with the perfume they had chosen, which could also have betrayed them, would walk down to the lake and wash in the moonlight, bathing away the scent of its failure.

  There were little queens who might dress every night with attention, yet never be spoken to once by the King. Then, as Menenhetet came to understand, they were at last like defeated soldiers and did not try to charm the King again for many months but would stay in their homes and teach their children and wait until another season had come. If they failed on Flood, they might even wait through all of Sowing and Harvest until the fields were bare again. Some never tried a second time. There were little queens who had lived for ten years in the Gardens of the Secluded and never saw His Splendor—it was enough if they could serve as friend to a little queen who was, for a while, a Favorite. Of course, Favorites changed.

  In the dry season, after Menenhetet had been Governor of the House of the Secluded for many months, Usermare arrived one night so late at the gardens that the disappointed women were already bathing in the lake. He was drunk. Never before had Menenhetet seen him so. “I have been drunk for three nights on kolobi,” said Usermare, “and it is the strongest brandy in all of Egypt.” Here I opened my eyes long enough to see Ptah-nem-hotep nod as if the drink came into His mind with all its fiery virtue at the moment it came into mine. “Yes, drink kolobi with Me,” said Usermare as He came through the Gates, and Menenhetet bowed and said, “No honor is greater,” and gulped it out of the golden goblet passed to him. Usermare asked, “Is the kolobi hard to swallow?” When Menenhetet did not reply, He said, “Does what I say have an evil smell? Drink!”

  On this night, Usermare went down to the lake. It was a place He had never visited for so long as Menenhetet had been there, and thereby He surprised the few little queens who were bathing in the moonlight. Indeed they were frolicking before the eunuchs who waited on the shore, holding their robes. Now, they gave a squeak and a cry and the splashing sound of bathers trying to hide themselves. Usermare laughed until one could smell His brandy in the air.

  “Come out of the water and amuse Me,” He said. “You’ve played long enough.”

  So they emerged, some more beautiful under the moon than they could ever be in the light of the sun. Some were shivering. A few of the most timid little queens had not been near to Usermare for the longest time. One woman, Heqat, named after the Goddess of Frogs, had been, on occasion, His companion, and another, the fat one, Honey-Ball, had even been a Favorite until her toe was cut off. Now, she bowed before Him but with a flash of her eyes so intense that even in the night, the white of her eyes was whiter than linen. Although Honey-Ball was very fat, she carried herself as if she were the greatest little queen of them all, and did not look fat at this moment but powerful. Her hips were like the hips of a horse.

  Then they were all out of the water, and their eunuchs put forward golden chairs so that they might sit about Him in a semicircle, but Usermare asked, “Who will drink the kolobi with Me?” and of them all, only Honey-Ball reached forward her hand. He gave it to her and she drank and handed back the cup and Menenhetet poured more kolobi for the Pharaoh.

  “Tell Me stories,” said Usermare. “I have been drinking this brandy of Egypt for three days, and I would have done better to swallow the blood of a dead man. I have awakened each morning with a blow in My head from the ghost, but I do not know which ghost, although I could swear he is a Hittite, is that not so, Meni? Hittites carry axes,” and He cleared His throat, and said, “Once in the mountains of Lebanon, I came to a valley that crossed another valley and in the center was a hill. From that hill four streams flowed. There, I have told you a story. Now tell Me one.”

  The smell of His brandy lay on the night air, full of the wounds of the grape. Usermare had lungs to breathe the flames of fire itself, but the little queens sat with throats full of unseen smoke. Heavy was their fear of the invisible fire of the brandy.

  A little queen named Mersegert, small in size and loud in voice, was the first to answer. Named after the Goddess of Silence, she was the noisiest in every group. Where others might be silent, she would, when in panic, rush to speak, and now she tried to tell a tale of a poor King who wandered with his horse in the dark because the stars were covered. “O He-Who-brings-great-pleasure-to-the-altar-that-is-between-the-thighs-of-all-beautiful-women, listen to my tale,” said Mersegert in her funny voice that came from the nose like a reed pipe. “This King was unhappy and poor.”

  “Of which country was he Monarch?” asked Usermare.

  “Of a country that is far to the East,” said Mersegert.

  “Get on with the story, but tell it loudly. Your voice is best when you do not lose it.”

  “In the darkness, this King could not see,” she said. “He knew no direction. Yet the sky was visible beneath the hooves of his horse. It could not be seen above, but below, the stars were shining. The King dismounted from his horse, and lo, he was standing on the sky. The stars were beneath his feet. So he knelt and picked up one star, and saw it was a precious stone and had a God in its light. That told him to look for many more stones, and by their light, he was able to return to his kingdom, and was rich again.”

  Usermare broke the air with a loud hiccup. Everyone laughed at Mersegert.

  “I want a better story. It’s dark down here. We could use a few precious stones.” He squinted at each of the women. “Who have we? I see Harmony and White Linen and Hippo—” He gave a nod to Honey-Ball and a few of the little queens giggled at the name He had just given her—“and Nubty and Amentit, and Heqat and Creamy. And Rabbit. Rabbit, do you have a story?”

  Rabbit was the tallest of the little queens and among the youngest, and shy. She merely shook her head. “Oasis, what have you to tell Me?” He asked. That was Bastet, named after Bast, the Goddess of all cats, but her eyes were beautiful and looked like two wells, so everyone called her Oasis.

  She sighed. She had a beautiful voice, and used it well, and spoke of the nine full moons before a child could be born, and the nine gates through which it must pass in the belly of its mother. Usermare-Setpenere was, however, so bored that He interrupted Oasis to say, “I do not want to hear any more,” and took another drink of the ko
lobi. A silence came forth.

  “Heqat,” He said, “it is your turn to amuse Me.” He burped again. The queens giggled. The sound might lap at the edge of His fire and soothe it. Tonight, however, He had had so much of the kolobi that they laughed in great doubt, not knowing if their mirth was soothing His temper, or inflaming it.

  “Great and Noble Two-House,” said Heqat, “I would wish to tell a story that does not displease You.”

  “Tell no stories of frogs, then. You are too much like a frog yourself.”

  Usermare always spoke to Heqat in just this manner. It was apparent He could not bear her appearance. She was the ugliest of the little queens, and for that matter would be the ugliest in many a group of women. The skin of her face was splotched, her neck was thick, and she was imperfectly formed. Her skin exuded a moisture. Menenhetet had not a friend among these little queens who would tell him the truth, but several of the eunuchs offered up their tales, and if they could be believed, for they giggled even more than the women, it was true that once a year, on the height of the flood, the frogs would pass through the Gardens and swarm over the floor of every house. Then, on one of those nights, once a year, Usermare would go to her apartment and spend hours with Heqat in the darkness. Afterwards her place reeked from the labors of love. The eunuchs knew, for they would clean it, and on such a night two years ago, there had been a hailstorm, and half-formed frogs were found on her patio dead and dying and looked like men and women wrongly formed, a host of them come forth from the slime. On hearing this story, Menenhetet had thrust his arm through the air as though to wield a sword against the words of the eunuchs, for he wished to sever the image of Usermare and Heqat in such repulsive acts.