“ ‘It is done,’ He said.
“She said: ‘Chop down Your trees. Make them into chests for Me.’
“The Pharaoh was not happy, but He sent for His best carpenters, and, while He watched, and She watched, they cut down the twin cedars. Both fell at once, and as they did, a chip flew from each tree and one entered the heart of the Pharaoh. It killed Him.”
Nefertiri was silent. “What of the other chip?” I asked.
“It leaped,” She said, “from the second cedar into the mouth of the Queen, and She swallowed it. Nine months later, a new Pharaoh was born.” She looked into my eye, but no longer was She like a stranger. I knew that all the thoughts I had had about my life in the stench of the beer-house were not far from the thoughts She had known in the clothing of a servant. She, too, was ready to die.
So She stopped scratching and lifted the skirt Herself. Yet She still carried on as if She were a servant and would offer no more than Her buttocks. On this poor cot, full of the rustling of dried reeds under the stale cloth, it was like making love in old straw with all the odors of the farm, and there was no other way She would allow me into Her but by Her third mouth. In the middle of all the vigor this took, I could not pass the gates, yet with every push upon such a door, the expression on Her face would change until I saw another Ka of Her Fourteen. Great changes truly appeared in the contortions of Her face until even by the light of this hut, I could see the prodigious ugliness of Heqat, and Nefertiri was so excited and so beside Herself, that I wondered if Her powers were confused, especially if Heqat could enter Her. Then, as if Her thoughts had certainly heard mine, there came into the cruel twist of Her mouth all the evil I used to see in the face of Honey-Ball when the most malignant of her curses were cast, and both of us gripped each other in the onset of appetites so low that, whether by Heqat or Honey-Ball, I felt as if we were both ugly, and I hated the Gods, and wished to despise Them.
It can only have been by the balance of Maat that I was now given in the midst of these stubborn efforts a sight of Usermare on Rama-Nefru’s purple bed, and Their love, in contrast to ours, was as radiant and as narrow as a beam of light, nothing, I may say, of the deep measure, no matter how ugly, that we could know here, no thunder of delights for His mighty phallus, but the string of a harp in the moment it is plucked, and Usermare quivered in Rama-Nefru’s finest light. Maybe it was finer than I could bear, for so little of me was as yet in Nefertiri, not much at all by the dry hinge She offered, that I withdrew, and tried to enter Her other mouth there between Her legs, but She would not allow me. “No,” She murmured, “not when you are made of bronze,” and forced me off by presenting Her buttocks once more. This time, I obeyed what I saw in Her face and turned around to kissing Her there, my tongue plunging like a second sword so that I must have stabbed Her many times and this brought forth so many royal groans that like a servant girl She kissed me back, and in the same place—I knew heaven then!—we were a two-headed beast for a while. She knew much of this kind of magic.
Then I could enter Her at last, although for the use of Her royal buttocks, Amen-khep-shu-ef would have done better I think as the lover. Back of the first gate was the lock of another, and She was like a siege with many walls. Still, I traveled up Her third mouth, push by push, equal to equal, and if it was Her vagina I wanted, my desire had hardly disappeared. Honey-Ball once told me how women entered by the third mouth feel the anger of Set stir in themselves, and cannot respect the man. Of course, we must respect most those who can kill us, and no woman is ever going to die trying to give birth when the cream of the man has been left in her bowels.
“I want the other,” I said to Her, and She replied, “You will not enter that place again until the beer froths in your mug.”
So I fucked Her by the ass, and saw all the faces of Heqat and Honey-Ball. Her nostrils were much contorted and She grunted like a beast, maybe this one of Her Fourteen Ka had never known such pleasure before! I beat upon Her subborn throne while the incense of every perume I had sniffed at every ceremony of the last four days passed through my head like birds, full flights of birds, and then I was left again with all the smells of sweat and swamp true to us now. We knew each other by all the odors of this hot twilight in this dark hut. I do not know if so much of Her own true odor had ever come forth before. She was much excited, more excited this time by Her asshole than by Her cunt the last, and again She began to speak but only at the end, as it all came nearer, so did She speak. Now, it did not matter that I was in Her by this low mouth, She was no longer a servant but my Queen, and “Oh,” She said, “you are so wicked, you are in My sha. You are on My field, you are on My estate, oh, you swim in My swamp. Sesh and sesh. Write on Me, inscribe Me, sesh and sesh, You are My mud and My maher, My canal, My ooze, you are a devil of a man, sweet kheru, My swamp, My robber, My enemy, oh, go deep into the rot, stick it deep, touch the dead, oh, khat, khat, khat, put it in My quarry, put it up My tomb, give it to My ancestors, fuck Them all, give it to My ass, My ass,” and She came forth with a shriek as loud as the cry She gave on the field dedicated to Amon when Usermare plunged into Her—She came forth, but it was like torture, and, by half, extorted. She was shaking beneath. I felt Her pain in my belly and thighs, and the relief She knew from releasing the pain. Then She slapped me across the face for daring to feel so close. I do not know if love of such a squalid nature would ever be known in my family again until … And here Menenhetet came most abruptly to a halt.
Our thoughts also stopped, then staggered forward and came into our heads again. For by the expression on my mother’s face and on my Father’s, it was clear that they had seen what I had seen—which was Hathfertiti and Nef-khep-aukhem making love in this manner. Was that a payment on my first father’s curse? I know that Menenhetet, with all his wisdom, had nonetheless come near to saying what must never be said—how intimate my mother and first father had been! I know my mother now gave Menenhetet one long look, not empty of enmity, to say how much she felt that he had just betrayed her.
But Ptah-nem-hotep, as if stepping back from a wave by the riverbank lifted by the passing of a barge, only said, “Please go on.”
TWELVE
Menenhetet took his breath, and continued. But, now, I listened instead to his voice, as if my thoughts were no longer so certain they wished to see into his thoughts. “Yes,” he said, “we were done, and She did not wait long to leave. At my offer to accompany Her, She refused, even said I must not follow, and in truth, we had the reek of each other that makes the heart cry out to be alone. So I did not mourn Her departure, and on leaving the hut was in so peculiar a state I did not wish to return to the gates of the Palace, but wandered instead through the city, its crowded alleys like a thicket. I kept breathing all of Her that was left on me until there was little to smell. She was truly gone, and I missed Her, even lusted after the odor of us both, like the lair of that beast which had been the two of us, yes, so exceptional was my condition (for again I felt death come near each time I used my elbows to beat a way through the crowd) that such danger was tender in my nose and offered a sweet fear to my chest, like the night on New Tyre when I stepped out of my window onto the bed of the secret whore of the King of Kadesh. Now I did not want the night nor that seductive presence still in my nostrils to cease being with me, and so I mourned the crudity of my acts with Nefertiri. For I loved Her again, loved all the sensuousness and delicacy of Her lovely appearance on that day I first came to serve when She had greeted me with the quiet but splendid sympathies of a Queen, and yet yearned for Her more after today, as if Set and Geb and all the eight Gods of the slime also held us together, and so I would know Her again, and more powerfully, and I felt once again the marriage of Her desire and mine.
“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 ey
es. 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.