The Memoirs of Cleopatra (46 page)

“So much knowledge in such a light frame!” he said. “I have enjoyed working with him; I am almost sorry to see the project at an end.”

“Perhaps you’ll discover an error and have to call him back,” I said, but the expression on Caesar’s face told me he did not find this amusing.

“Any mistake in it will be held against me,” he said. “Such seems to be the mood of my enemies. They would never credit it to an innocent mathematical miscalculation.”

“You seem to feel you have a great many enemies—perhaps too many to merit your policy of clemency. Either win them over completely, by wooing them more than you have been willing to do, or else eliminate them,” I said.

“I can do neither,” he said. “It is against my nature. They must be true to their nature, and I to mine.”

I shook my head. “This is too lofty for me,” I said. “I understand and revere one trait above all others: loyalty. All the rest is flimsy stuff, and crumples before it.”

“It is more complicated than that,” he said condescendingly.

“I am not sure it is,” I countered. But, seeing that he refused to listen, I realized that he needed diversion, not a lecture. Perhaps he was too tired to reason very clearly—certainly he had strained himself to the breaking point for months. Was a prolonged rest now possible? “Come,” I said, “I have completed my own project. Let me show you.”

He shrugged impatiently. “No, I haven’t time.”

“It does not involve your leaving this villa,” I assured him.

Now he looked a little more interested, but still not pleased. “Is it a report?” he asked. “I cannot read it here. But I will take it back—”

“No, it isn’t a report! Nor is it poetry that you must read and pretend to like, or maps you must study, or any exercises of the mind,” I said. It is something you professed to wish for.”

“I will see it,” he said resolutely, a man who knew when to shoulder a burden.

“Come,” I said, taking his hand. “Follow me, and close your eyes.”

He put his hand in mine, that hand which had been raised so often in battle, and surrendered it into my palm. I led him into the “eastern” chamber, and only when we were standing in its center did I let him open his eyes.

He looked around, blinking. “I—what is this?” he finally said.

“You requested a place in Rome where one could lounge and dream daytime dreams,” I said. “The requests of the Dictator are law.” I sank down on one of the cushions and tugged at his hand. Reluctantly he allowed himself to be drawn down.

“Now, take off this toga,” I said. “It is not meant for lounging.” I began to unwrap it.

“Stop! That is the office of a servant,” he said.

“Why? It is most enjoyable.” And I was enjoying unwinding those lengths of cloth that bound him up in awkward propriety. Perhaps when it came off, he would be a freer creature. “No wonder the Romans have no comfortable places to rest or sit; their clothing does not permit it!” With a yank, the last few feet of cloth flapped free. “There!”

He was laughing now, perhaps for the first time that day. “I can remove my own sandals,” he said, as I tried to untie them. He set them neatly at the edge of the carpet. He was wearing a plain linen tunic underneath the more finely decorated toga, and it was loosely belted.

I plucked at it like a lyre string. “I have heard that this has been your trademark,” I said. “Now, why was that?”

“Who told you that?” he asked, leaning back against one of the cushions and propping his feet up on a Syrian hassock. His face had softened and his dark eyes, tired before, were alert.

“I read it,” I confessed. At the time, I had not seen the significance of it. “Supposedly Sulla the Dictator warned people to ‘beware of that boy with the loosely belted clothes.’ ”

He snorted. “Oh. That. It was just one of his attacks. Loosely belted tunics are supposed to denote loose morals. But at the time he said it, I was a model of propriety, almost a virgin. Like dear Cicero, he liked to butcher a man’s character by insinuation.” But the eastern pleasure room was melting his edge of anger. “Cicero once said almost the opposite about me, harping on my neatness rather than on my slovenliness. He said, ‘When I see his hair so carefully arranged, and observe him adjusting it with one finger, I cannot imagine it should enter into such a man’s thoughts to subvert the Roman state.’ ”

“He is obsessed with the Roman state,” I said. “But let us leave it behind, so it does not enter here. Cicero, Sulla, the Senate—put them as firmly aside as you have put your sandals. For now.”

I touched his shoulders, and finding them strained, I massaged them until the tenseness melted a bit.

“There is no need for you to do these things,” he protested. “I have servants at home—”

“Whom you probably never let touch you,” I said. “Is that not true?”

“When I have time—”

“You never have time,” I said. “But this is a magic hour, set aside from all the rest. Like your extra days to be added to the calendar.” I continued to squeeze his shoulders with all the strength in my hands. “Now submit!”

With a great sigh, he flopped down on his stomach, turned his head on the cushion, and let me rub his shoulders. His eyes closed in contentment.

He let me pull his arms free of the tunic so I would not rub the linen against his flesh. With the yellow afternoon light streaming into the room, and he half asleep and not counting the time, for the first time I was able to look at his skin and his broad back and see each line, each sinew, each scar. For a soldier he had surprisingly few scars, although I supposed that the back was the place where a survivor would have the fewest.

I nudged at his shoulder and succeeded in getting him to turn over. He flung one arm over his eyes to shut out the sun, and continued his light sleeping. Now on his chest I could see more scars, some of them perhaps from a boyhood mishap, others perhaps from a deadly battle. They were indistinguishable now; they all looked alike once they had turned white and receded into the flesh. The cut given by a playmate in jest, the slash given by a Gallic foe, reduced to equality by time and scar tissue. I supposed each of them had a history; I had heard of old soldiers comparing wounds.

I loved him so, even his past was precious to me. I found myself kissing each mark, thinking,
I would have had it never happen, I would wish it away
, taking him further and further back to a time when he had known no disappointments, no battles, no wounds, as I erased each one. To make him again like Caesarion. Yet if we take the past away from those we love—even to protect them—do we not steal their very selves?

He stirred, murmured, and slowly pulled his arm away from his eyes. I felt his stomach muscles tighten as he sat up. He took my head in his hands and drew it up.

“No more of that,” he said. “I cannot accept such homage. It is not worthy of a queen to bestow it.”

I looked long and hard at my reflection in the surface of his dark brown eyes. “I am not doing you homage,” I finally said. “If you do not know that, then you are ignorant in the ways of love, in spite of all your women.”

“Perhaps I am,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I am.”

My desire for him seemed unbounded; I felt that no matter what I did, I could never adequately express it or satisfy it. I leaned over and kissed him, touching his face with both my hands, lightly. But at the touch of my mouth on his, he changed from the languid, relaxed creature on the cushions to a hungry man. I felt his hand grip my thigh and close on it. His other arm went around my back and pulled me forward so strongly that I lost my balance and toppled off my knees. Together we fell back against the mound of cushions.

The square of sun on the carpet by our heads was giving off a hot radiance. His skin felt as lusciously, soothingly warm as that square of sunlight. I put my cheek against his shoulder and rubbed it. Skin against skin was both comforting and exciting at the same time.

How long it had been since I had lain against him! Since my arrival in Rome, we had had few private hours. There had been no time, and we did not wish to give scandal. There was scandal enough in my being in Rome at all with Caesarion, living in Caesar’s villa.

He rolled over and forced my head back on the carpet, kissing me so deeply and forcefully I could hardly get my breath. Yet I did not care; the dizziness just heightened my desire, making my head spin and loosening all my natural modesty. I seemed to float out into another world as removed from my real self as this room was from everyday life.

But was that not why I had created it—to float free from that ordinary life?

With a soft groan of longing, I pulled off his belt. It was loosely knotted and came untied easily.

“Sulla was right,” I whispered. “Loose clothes are causing you to be ravished.”

“Of course Sulla was right,” he said. “One’s enemies often know one better than one’s friends.” He buried his face in my neck, kissing it as if it were the most delicate, airy pastry, or easily bruised petals. The soft touch of those lips lightly brushing my skin caused stabs of almost unbearable desire in me.

Now I was the unpracticed, impatient child. If I had had my way, I would have ended it within minutes, before the sun had moved very far on that square of carpet. But he, who had made quick striking his most personal characteristic in war, seemed in no hurry to conclude this campaign, the one being fought in the soft cushions, mattresses, and carpets of the east. He pursued me, he teased me, he ambushed me, he brought me often to the brink of engagement, then postponed the final reckoning until he decided the conditions were, at last, perfect for his purpose. Then…I cannot describe it, only remember it.

We slept. For me, it was a drowsy sinking into a formlessness that rivaled the pillows; for him, it seemed deeply restorative. I awoke before he did, and I was surprised at how soundly he was still sleeping. The light had moved, elongated, and softened. It must be late in the afternoon.

I closed my eyes and let myself lie there, thinking. We had such little time together, and it was flying by. Yet all I could do now was lie still, my legs curled up under me, my head resting against his, and listen to his breathing.

The light no longer held any geometrical shape at all when he finally awoke, seemingly without any transition. He turned his head on the cushion and looked at my body lying beside him, as if he were seeing an unexpected terrain.

“We are still here,” he said in wonder. “I thought it was a dream, and I would awaken on my camp bed.”

“No, my love, we are far from any field camp.” I raised my head up and rested it on my arm.

“More’s the pity,” he said. “I think we could be happy there.”

“Fighting a war?” I asked, surprised. “Arising every morning, never knowing if it is our last together?”

“It gives a certain heightened sensibility to one’s day.” He smiled and moved on the cushions, reaching for his tunic. He put it on in one quick movement. “This is how one dresses in the field.”

“So quickly that the eye can hardly follow.”

I hoped he was not going to leave. Yet I expected it. His time was so short. At least he would be somewhat more rested. It seemed very little for me to be able to give him.

He sat up, cross-legged. But he did not put on his sandals. “To have you here is a great treasure,” he finally said.

“I must return to Egypt,” I said. The Triumphs were over; Egypt’s status as official Ally and Friend of the Roman People had been ratified, and Caesarion had been recognized. There was no reason to stay longer. But I had delayed saying the words. “My place is there.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. Yet…if you could just stay longer.” Before I could argue, he raised his voice and hurried on. “It is almost past the sailing season. You would have to leave tomorrow in order to travel safely. And—I have not wanted to admit this, hardly even to myself, but—I will have to leave Rome and fight another campaign.”

“What?” I could not believe the words I had just heard. “You have just celebrated four Triumphs.”

“Prematurely, as it turns out.” His voice was grim. “For several days I have wrestled with the almost certain knowledge that I will have to take the field in person again. This time in Spain—where I fought only four years ago.” He shook his head. “It seems to be an open sore that collects and spews every disaffection within the Roman world. Insurrection, mutinous troops, disloyal towns—and now the remnants of the party of Pompey: the wreck of Scipio’s army, the traitorous Labienus, my former general, and Pompey’s two sons. It is my misfortune that they escaped from Africa. And that they have been able to link themselves with an army mutiny.”

“But it isn’t necessary that
you
go,” I said. “You have other field commanders.”

“I sent two already, and they cannot hold the territory. Their forces are too small. Gnaeus Pompey, who managed to crawl ashore, has been welcomed by the mutinous troops, and has raised eleven more legions himself. My governor has been expelled. No one can prevail against Labienus. Only I. After all, I taught him what he knows. He learned well.”

“But you could lose everything—even your life. You cannot leave the work in Rome undone! Send someone else. There are many generals; there is only one Caesar with a plan for Rome.”

“I have already sent others. Now I must go.” He waited an instant before adding, “Please wait here for me. I will return as quickly as I can.”

“What if you don’t return?” I hated my words, but I feared for him. His luck, his fortune, could not favor him forever.

“I must go,” he repeated. “Will you stay here while I am away?”

“For how long? I cannot stay indefinitely.”

“If I fight a winter campaign,” he said, “by February it could be over.”

“Oh, so you have planned it all already!”

“It planned itself. Each war has its own boundaries of time and necessity. Now, will you answer me?”

“I will stay,” I said, “until the seas open again in the spring. But more than that is not possible.” It was with reluctance that I gave this promise. The thought of staying on in Rome without him was not pleasant. But my word was my word.