The Memoirs of Cleopatra (103 page)

He smiled, looking as though I had passed a test. “And you will see more than that,” he assured me.

After dinner I was taken to a small house nestled near the first pylon, still within the temple grounds. I had barely noticed it at my first entrance; now I wondered why. It was not unobtrusive.

The moment we crossed the threshold, Nakht’s manner changed. He became deferential, as if he were entering the presence of one greater than himself. He had not acted so with me. Who was this, to invoke such reverence?

“Goddess,” he said, “here is the wisest man in Egypt, he who presides over the sacred texts of the gods. He knows all their movements, knows how they began in ancient times, and where they are going.”

At first I saw nothing. The room seemed to be empty. It was neat and clean, with little chests stacked one on top of another, and pots holding scrolls lined up on the floor. Then there was a shuffling. Something moved in the far corner.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stirring. The sound was of dried stalks stirring, and a faint odor of dust and storage rose. A man, the color of old wrappings, lurched off a stool.

“Ipuwer, this is our Queen, Cleopatra, the Goddess Beloved of Her Father, come to us.”

The man seemed to grow taller and taller. I saw then that it was his skin itself that looked like wrappings. He was so old it hung like draperies, and it was a dull brownish yellow.

“Ipuwer is directly descended from the first high priest of Heliopolis,” said Nakht. “In my youth he was high priest, but he retired some thirty years ago to devote himself to the study of the origins of the gods. He was the keenest stargazer. Then his eyesight went.”

“And I turned to the inner lives of the gods. No longer able to see them in the heavens, I find them within us, around us. I hear them whisper.” His own voice was a whisper, rustling, out of practice after long disuse.

“Wise one, do they answer when you ask questions?” I asked. “Or must you wait for them to decide to speak?”

“Usually I wait,” he conceded. “As you can see, I have spent many years at it.” He spread his thin arms, and I could see that the flesh had withered and hung in folds.

“He knows the secrets of Re,” said Nakht. “And he understands the burning eye, the sacred cobras. He keeps them.”

“What, here?” I had not seen cages. Surely he did not mean
here
, in this room!

“Yes, they are here,” he answered my spoken question. “But not in cages.” As well as my unspoken. “Do not move, and they will come to you.”

No wonder Nakht had been so guarded and respectful! Snakes! Loose in the room! I remembered Mardian’s pet snakes, and I had always taken their part, claiming I liked them, but they had been in wicker cages. This was different.

I looked down at my feet. I saw nothing.

“Stand still, and wait, my daughter,” Ipuwer said. “And you, Nakht, may depart. The Goddess must be alone with her own.”

Don’t leave! I wanted to say. But I could not. Nakht bowed and backed out of the room. I heard the fall of the curtain as he left.

“Yes, we must wait,” Ipuwer repeated. “And while we wait, sit down beside me on this bench. Would you like to see the oldest scroll of all?”

He bent down and extracted a thick one from a jar of its own. Carefully he laid it on the little table, then delicately opened it a little way. I could hear it cracking.

“This tells the story of Re,” he said. “When the first priests discovered the truth, they wrote it here.”

Could it really be that old? I stared at the curling paper, wondering if it could have survived that long, even though it was brittle and faded. He was spreading it out tenderly when a smile of transport suddenly took hold of him.

“Ahh,” he said. “She is here.” He looked as if something wonderful had happened to him—the way another man would look if his wife had just had a wished-for son. Slowly he raised his arm and I saw, clinging to it, a big dark snake.

“Edjo,” he said, his dry old voice a caress. “Protective goddess. You know who has come, do you not? Your own.”

The snake seemingly paid him no heed, but twined around his arm like ivy around a tree.

“Is there no question you have to ask, my child?” he said to me gently. “I think I could answer it. The gods reveal much to me.”

“I—I—” My throat was stuck fast. Yet I knew he spoke the truth. Did I dare ask? And would they part the curtain of the future and divulge what lay behind it? “I would ask the gods…I would know…if they will look with favor on Egypt, on the east?”

The man closed his eyes, while the snake crept up his arm and onto his shoulder. It then draped itself across his neck. Just then Ipuwer spoke; I almost closed my eyes, unable to look at the snake, which surely would strike him, annoyed at the movement of his throat.

“The gods grant that Egypt will endure, even to the end of time,” he finally said.

“As it is now? Free? And what of the west, what of Rome?”

Now he waited an even longer time.

“As for Rome, the gods of Egypt are silent,” he finally said. “And they have indicated that although Egypt will endure, they themselves will be silent after a certain time. They will speak no more.”

“Will they still
be
, or does their silence mean they are not?” I had to know. How could Egypt endure without her gods? She would not be Egypt if her gods did not survive.

“I do not know,” he said. “They do not say.”

The snake had coiled around his neck, and now its head was burrowing down under his robe. I saw another movement: a second snake was on his lap.

“You must not fear them,” he said. “They are creatures of Isis, dear to her. And they confer immortality on her chosen ones. I see them as my friends.”

“Friends?” I felt a faint stirring near my foot. Isis, I prayed, please keep your creatures from my person. I knew I could not move suddenly or try to push them away or they might strike.

“Death comes to us all, but the sacred asp brings it in a beautiful guise,” he said. He stroked the first snake’s back. “The hood spreads, the little teeth bite, and death steals over us quickly, painlessly.”

“Painlessly?”

“Indeed. Of all poisons it is the gentlest, the kindest. It takes you quickly, and leaves you looking asleep. No blood, no bloating, no writhing. Just a little sweat, a falling asleep, a serenity…I have seen it myself.”

Yes, Mardian had mentioned the bite of the asp as a pleasant poison.

“How many have you here?” Were there baskets and baskets of them?

“I have never counted,” he said. “A great many.” He removed one and put it on the floor. “There.” He smiled. “I told you they are my friends. But for you, for the Pharaoh, they can be more than that. Their bite can be the instrument of death decreed by Anubis at the appointed hour. They are manifestations of the Lady of Power, the goddess Isis, wearing the crown of Lower Egypt.”

My fear was ebbing away in the calm, droning voice explaining all this. He seemed to exert some spell whereby I felt safe, even among the snakes, against all common sense.

“It was long ago revealed to me, by the stars I have studied, that my life would last until I beheld the Pharaoh who is also Isis. Now I have. It is today. Now I can—indeed, must—depart.”

Before I could realize what his words meant, he grabbed one of the asps and clasped it to his neck. The creature did not like the rough handling, and spread its hood immediately. Instead of releasing it, he pushed it harder. A hideous hissing ensued.

I dared not move. I could not grab it. All I could do was watch while it sank its teeth into his neck, wriggling and trying to free the other part of its body. He had closed his eyes as if receiving great pleasure. Finally he released the snake and let it drop onto his lap.

I felt one of the snakes moving over my foot. I held as still as possible. But I whispered, “Good sir, what have you done? I must call a physician!” But I knew I was trapped in the room with the snakes; any hurried movement toward the door would make them strike me, too.

“No. Do not keep me from my god,” he said. “Do not move.”

I was forced to sit absolutely still while he dreamily described the feeling of numbness creeping up his neck, the coldness, the paralysis. Then his words stopped. I could see the sheen of sweat that lay on his face.

I had no way of knowing when he actually died; it was very subtle. And he was right, it had been gentle. He looked happy, and as if he were alive.

How long was I to be a prisoner in here with a dead man and snakes? Surely not all night! Surely Nakht would return!

The time stretched out like a thin wire. I had the opportunity to review my entire life, to pray and compose myself for death, but I could do nothing but strain for deliverance. I wanted to live, and I was not concerned with the particulars, with my mistakes or future plans beyond the instant I would escape from this fetid chamber.

The curtain rose. A young priest peered in, and immediately sensed what had happened. “So he has departed,” was all he said. “Our revered father, who—”

“Get the snakes away!” I said. “Get them away!”

“Oh. Yes.” He acted as if it were a peculiar request. He dropped the curtain and disappeared, then returned with a cage of mice, which he released on the floor. The snakes all rushed in that direction, almost tying themselves up in knots.

I made my escape, and dashed from the room. “Isis!” was all I could gasp out. My heart was hammering like a rowing-master beating out an attack speed. “O dear Isis!”

The young priest stood in the courtyard and raised a high, quavering wail; other priests streamed toward him, seeming to understand exactly what had happened. At length Nakht strode toward Ipuwer’s doorway, stopped and led the others in prayer. The litany droned and rose in a dull surge of voices.

Then he summoned two priests, who stepped forward and entered the chamber, seeming not to feel any danger. I was still stunned, unable to believe what I had just witnessed. The old, mummylike man…the snakes…the suicide…

They emerged carrying the limp body of Ipuwer. His sticklike legs swung to and fro, with surprisingly large feet dangling from them, encased in sandals that looked too heavy for him to lift. His even more withered arms barely gave the men anything to grasp. On his face the same peaceful smile remained that I had seen spread across it when he first felt the snakes.

“Our holy one has departed,” said Nakht. “He must be prepared for the journey to eternity.”

By that I assumed he must be sent to the embalmer’s. Only after the priests with their burden, followed by the other priests, left the courtyard, did Nakht turn to me.

“You have granted him the desire of his heart,” he said.

“So you knew he was going to do this? And you subjected me to it, and to danger?” I could not forgive him.

He looked hurt. “No, indeed, Goddess, how could I? I did not know when Anubis would summon him! I only knew he had wished to live until the woman Pharaoh, the daughter of Isis, would rule. He spoke of it, how she would crown the line of Pharaohs, and e—glorify them.”

He had meant to say “end them.” Was that what they foresaw? Was I to be the last Pharaoh? “I have ruled now for sixteen years,” I said. “There is nothing new in that. You must be honest. He meant until he
met
the woman Pharaoh, the last Pharaoh. Is that not what he meant?”

“I do not know, Goddess,” he said. “I do not know what he meant. But it was easy to foretell that he would perish by snakebite. After all, he lived surrounded by them. They say anyone who handles snakes eventually gets bitten.”

What a prosaic interpretation! Yet true.

“How old was he?”

“Over ninety,” Nakht said. “I believe I heard him say once that he had lived as priest, studying the holy mysteries, through the reigns of six Pharaohs—counting yourself.”

“Six Pharaohs…our reigns must have seemed like the passage of the stars through the sky, quickly rising and quickly setting.”

“Yes, to one stationary in the world, that is how it must have appeared. Come, the night barque of Re has set out beneath the earth. It is time to rest.”

There were no longer any shadows; the sun had set and the first stars were emerging. The air, warm and scented from the flax fields and wildflowers, stirred against our skin, touching it tenderly. In the villages, people would be walking, meeting by the river, savoring this last sweetness of day as it extinguished itself. But here in the temple, which followed the movements of the sun, it was time to lie down in silence and darkness.

Now I wished I had not agreed to stay. But it was too late.

The chamber I was taken to was large, immaculately clean, bare. It was reserved for guests of the highest order; therefore it sometimes stood empty for years. A bed, itself unremarkable except that it was called the Bed of Dreams, waited to share my night hours. In one corner a very old statue of Isis stood on a pedestal, keeping watch over the chamber. A snake curled around each of her arms, spiraling upward like bracelets.

Two small lights flickered at her feet. I was alone in the chamber, with no one to undress or attend me. I could not remember the last time I had been alone; although I often longed for it, tonight I felt abandoned. The cold, hard bed waited, and I steeled myself to lie down on it.

Utter silence surrounded me. I was accustomed to sound during the night: the sea itself moving in the harbor below the palace, the faint voices of people in the city streets, sandaled feet passing outside my door, distant music from other quarters. Here, nothing. I felt as though I were Re, making my passage through the twelve hours of night under the earth. Indeed, the long, narrow bed felt like a barque.

Here there were no distractions, no lute-player to flavor the hours delicately with music, no Iras or Charmian to come help me pass sleepless hours, no letters to read or reports to digest. Here there was only myself, watched over by Isis as the night deepened.

What I had witnessed today…what I had heard…I did not know which was more disturbing: the old priest killing himself with the asps, or what he had
said—
about the gods of Egypt falling silent, and then seeing the last of the Pharaohs. Could he be believed? Or was he just a mad old man, dwelling too long in the temple, becoming as enfeebled as the wobbly setting sun he worshiped? In the sacred stories, Isis had tricked the weak sun into revealing his name, Re. It was Isis who had outsmarted him, challenged him. And it was Isis who had resurrected Osiris through her own determination. Isis did not accept defeat; no matter how hopeless the circumstances, she fought with all her skill and might, and triumphed.