Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “The navel string is already prepared. The portrait of Meni standing in the water has been commissioned to an artist most esteemed in the circle of my friends, and he will also do a painting of the sails that will catch the breath of evening in the delicate lungs of my son.” His voice had taken on the self-indulgence of Hathfertiti’s voice, her arch pleasure in hearing the full sounds of herself. “Of course I’ve had so much to do that the work never gets begun. I hear the tomb is a mess and all broken into and shit upon. Poor Meni. How, I wonder, are he and Old Guano getting along?”

  I laughed. I had rarely heard such mimicry. If once I mocked the Gods, and fornicated with priests, it was never with ease equal to this. I was beginning to see the stimulations of my condition: to be dead yet more alive than before—that was as intoxicating as a night when you are ready for anything.

  “Tell me of Khert-Neter,” I said in a merry tone, as if asking for another drink.

  The old ravaged face, wrinkled as the shell of a turtle who has walked through fire, now showed a High Priest’s love of ceremony. “Strengthen my breath,” he said in his cavernous voice.

  A transformation came to him with these words, however. The dirt about his body began to look like silver dust, and his right arm was raised toward the heavens. His eyes stayed in solemn contemplation of the ground. Yet, next, he winked at me. I was shocked. He seemed to delight in flinging my thoughts about in all directions. “We need,” he said, “to prepare you. After all, you have forgotten what you know. That is common to the Ka. It keeps a poor memory of our most sacred customs.”

  But his shifts gave me no time to recover my wit. Now he spoke in ceremonious tones again. “O Lord Osiris,” he began, and touched his forefingers to his thumbs as though to form two eyes: “I have passed over rivers of fire and through geysers of boiling water. I have entered the dark night of the Land of the Dead and gone through the seven halls and mansions of Sekhet-Aaru. I have learned the names of the Gods at the door to each hall. Hear of the difficulty of this beautiful young man whose Ka would accompany me. How can he obtain the patience to learn the names of the three guards at the door to each hall when his memory is infirm? Know the hazards. The Doorkeeper at the Fourth Hall is named Khesefherashtkheru, and the Herald who examines those who die in the night only replies to the sound of Neteqaherkhesefatu. And these are but two of the twenty-one names which the Ka of this boy must learn if he is to pass through the gates of Sekhet-Aaru.” My great-grandfather paused, as if to contemplate those names. “Yes,” he said in a voice of much resonance, “I, who am Osiris Menenhetet One, have survived Your judgment, Lord Osiris, so give ear to my prayer that You spare the Ka of this young man from such fires, for he is no other than the splendid Osiris Menenhetet Two, my great-grandson, son of my granddaughter, the Lady Hathfertiti, who was my concubine in life and kept in carnal knowledge of me through the years of my death, may the scorpions continue to serve me.”

  I was bewildered. The prayer was devout, yet not like any I knew, and I was much confused by the remarks he had just made about my mother.

  “I could tell you more,” he said. “I can say the prayers for repulsing the serpent and spearing the crocodile. I can give you the wings of a hawk so you may fly above your foes. Or show you how to drink the ale in the body of the God Ptah. I can reveal the gates to the Field of Reeds and teach you to come forth from the fishing net. Yes, I will do all this if I am your guide.”

  I was drowsy before the need to sleep. That ancient subterranean voice invoked so many names. I might mock those names, but to call upon such a host in so short a time left me weak. Now I realized that the strength of my Ka seemed as short-lived as the confidence of a child to stay on its feet when first it learns to walk. I had an impulse to prostrate myself before him.

  Yet he was never more repulsive. I could dine in every royal garden of the Nile with the tales I might tell if I survived this night. He was ludicrous in the extreme, this dusty old man with his deep cold voice, lonely as the loon, and yet imbued with confidence—figure the absurdity of his speech when he broke wind from his buttocks with every God he named, a cacophony of claps, pips, pops, poops, bellows, and on-booming farts, and all—by the look of his expression—of the most delicious obscenity. He gave a little aristocratic greeting of his wrist to each monster, divinity, or ogre he invoked, as though he contained carnal knowledge of them all and so could drop salutes of thunder from the ramparts of his old canal. The tomb stank; once from the litter of all those spoiled wrappings, and now from the storm of his speech with all the sulphurs of his breath and the break-winds of his body.

  “Do you know anything that is true of my life?” he asked.

  I replied, “You tortured prisoners, prayed to the filthiest Gods, and feasted on substances no one could tolerate.”

  “I prayed to Gods Whose powers were so fearsome that others shunned Their works. And ate many a forbidden substance. The secrets of the universe are there. Do you think I became Overseer of the Lord God Osiris by daring too little?”

  “I have no trust,” I said, “in the idea that you are the Overseer of Osiris. I witness no superiority to your knowledge.” But the remark was too bold. I shivered even as I spoke.

  He smiled as if our conversation had passed wholly into his domain. “What do you witness?” he remarked. “You do not know the story of Osiris. You do not even remember what you were taught by the priests.”

  I nodded unhappily. I did not. I could think of tales I had been told in my childhood about Isis and Osiris and others of those Gods from Whom we all began, but now, as if the depths of such stories were as lost and far apart from me as the wrappings of my organs in their Canopic jars, I sighed and felt as hollow within as a cave. While I could not say why I thought this was so, it seemed to me as if nothing could be more important than to know these Gods well, as if, indeed, They could fill all that was empty in my marrow and so serve as true guides to the treacheries I would yet have to face in the Land of the Dead. For now I remembered an old saying: Death is more treacherous than life!

  When Menenhetet, however, nodded back at me in mockery of my need, I felt obliged—in some last rally of my pride—to speak my most determined criticism. “I cannot believe you are an emissary of Osiris,” I told him. Your stench would repel the nostrils of the God.”

  Menenhetet One gave a sad smile. “I have the power to offer any smell you desire.” And in the silence that followed, he was clean as perfume and sweet as grass. I bowed my head. Osiris, most beautiful of the Gods, must have concern for me if His Overseer was Menenhetet One. What an appeal to my vanity was such a thought.

  Therefore, I asked my great-grandfather if he would tell the story of Osiris and of all the Gods Who lived at the beginning of our land, and to prove I was sincere, I moved across to sit by him. He smiled, but did not welcome me in any other way. Instead, he reached into a fold of his long dusty skirt and, one by one, removed a number of scorpions, each of which he held in turn with a practiced and tender hand. One scorpion he placed upon the lid of each eye, two at the gates of his nostrils, one for each of his ears, and he laid the last scorpion on his lower lip, seven scorpions for the seven orifices of his head. Then he gave one more nod, grave as a stone.

  “In the beginning,” he said, “before our earth was here and the Gods were not born, before there was a river or a Land of the Dead, and you could see no sky, it is still true that Amon the Hidden rested within His invisible splendor.” Here, Menenhetet raised a hand as if to remind me of the elegant gesture the High Priest would use in the Temple when I was a child.

  “Yes, it is from Amon that we know our beginning. He withdrew from the Hidden to come forth as Temu, and it was Temu Who made the first sound. That was a cry for light.” The solemnity of the priests by whom I had been instructed in my childhood was upon me, and my limbs had no power. “The cry of Temu,” Menenhetet said, “quivered across the body of His Wife, Who was Nu, and She became
our Celestial Waters. Temu spoke in so great a voice that the first wave stirred in Her, and these Celestial Waters brought forth the light. So was Ra born out of the first wave of the waters. Out of the great calm of the Celestial Waters was born the fiery wave of Ra, and He lifted Himself into the heaven and became the sun even as Temu disappeared back into the body of His Wife, and was Amon again.” Menenhetet exhaled his breath. “That is the beginning,” he said.

  I was feeling the same respect I used to know when priests spoke of the first sound and the first light. “I will listen,” I told him.

  So soon as I uttered these words, however, he removed the scorpions, replaced them in the fold of the skirt from which he had brought them forth, and began to talk in another tone of voice, as if the solemnity of what was said in the Land of the Dead could not endure more than one part in seven against our most solemn hours in life. For now, with hardly a warning, he became most disrespectful of the Gods, even scandalous in what he had to say as if They were all his brothers in a large and disreputable family. With all I had heard of his capacity for sacrilege, I could still not believe how obscene the story of Osiris soon became.

  Nor was I prepared for how long it would take. Before we were done I would be obliged to know Them well.

  II

  THE BOOK OF THE GODS

  ONE

  Like an old man whose throat is a pot of phlegm, Menenhetet began to cackle at these foul jokes awaiting us. “Put a divine lady before Ra,” he said, “or a slippery old sow—it was all equal to Him. He liked them all. His only problem was to find a wife cool enough to bear His heat. So He settled on the Goddess of the sky.” Menenhetet began to choke in laughter once more. “Ra could change the shape of His prick to any of the forty-two animals: ram, ox, hippo, lion—just pick the beast!—but He once made the mistake of telling Nut that He did not like to make love to a cow. So She chose to live in the body of one. It is always that way with marriage.” He nodded. “Whenever She could, Nut rushed down to the mud-baths with Geb. What a wallow! Revenge is never so dear to a woman as when her perfidies go right up her husband’s nose. Ra was so infuriated that for the next five nights, five children were put into Her womb. Ra and Geo were on Her so constantly that the earth steamed and the sky was covered with fog.”

  Now Menenhetet ceased talking. A sadness came upon his face, as if the matters of which he would next speak could not be called amusing. “Now, whether,” he said, “these five offspring were fathered by Ra (whose children They were immediately declared to be) or belonged to Geb, will never be known, but by one or the other, Nut gave birth in the first hour to Osiris, and in the second, Horus was delivered; on the third, Set burst out of His mother’s side, thereby creating a rent in the sky through which lightning could strike. Isis came out in a dew of moisture, and Nephthys, born last, was given the Secret Name of Victory for She was the most beautiful. She would yet marry Her brother Set, even as Isis was wed to Osiris (although it is said of Isis and Osiris that They were already in love with one another within the womb). Under such circumstances, how can one ask who was half sister and brother?”

  Here his voice came so close to my ear that I did not know any longer how his knowledge was imparted. When I closed my eyes, the story even seemed to belong for a little while to me, and, indeed, I could hear the voice of Ra.

  “I look upon My children,” He shouted, “and do not know if They are Mine, or crawling things from the caverns of Geb. I am damaged even as I damn Them, for I cannot say whether I curse Them unfairly, or not enough.”

  The three brothers, Horus, Osiris, and Set, and the sisters Isis and Nephthys lived in a house full of bad omens. Even as children, They played at treachery and dreamed of murder. The curse of Ra passed into the marriage of Isis and Osiris, and the marriage of Set and Nephthys.

  Yet what a difference between them. Isis loved Osiris and found Him more attractive than Herself, whereas Nephthys was miserable. Set’s body scorched Her belly. Under the fire of His temper, She felt the stones of the desert. “How can My name be Victory,” asked Nephthys, “if My womb burns when He enters Me?” But Osiris was as cool as the shade of an oasis. His fingers were tender when He passed a dish. There came a night when Nephthys betrayed Her husband with Osiris.

  Now, Set had a plant which bloomed each night on His return, yet this evening the plant was limp.

  “Lift your face,” said Set, “for I am here.”

  In response, the plant fell dead. Now Set knew that Nephthys was with Osiris, and when She came back, He could see that the night with His brother had been more beautiful to Her than any hour with Him. Then, Nephthys confessed that She had conceived, but with a joy in Her voice He never heard before. The hatred of Set began to grow upon this shame. He fornicated with Nephthys every night, and the thought of Osiris whipped His hips to a gallop. He worked so hard to crush the creation in Her belly that the mother began to feel loathing for what She carried. In the hour of birth, Nephthys wept, and could not look at the baby’s face. Conceived in beauty, the creature came out as misshapen as the depredations of Her womb. A face of mean ferocity was presented, and it gave off a low odor—Anubis, the God with the head of a jackal, had been born. Nephthys carried this Anubis to the desert, and exposed Him. But Her sister, Isis, was determined that the infant should not be lost. If Anubis was the proof of Her husband’s most treacherous hour, still Isis knew that the infant should not be lost.

  Menenhetet now said aloud, “Whoever is born out of treachery must not be slain against his will.”

  “Why would that be true?” I asked.

  “Because demons are conceived when people die in rage.”

  I did not like what he said. In what manner had my own end come? To hide my uneasiness, I told him, “You are reputed to have killed every slave who would not work.”

  “That was in the gold mines, and I did not kill them. They died of overwork. Besides I never said I did not wish to deliver demons,” replied Menenhetet One, and shivered. Like the sound of water readying to boil were the whispers of his voice. Yet I still saw all he had to tell, and most clearly. So I knew that Isis, hunting with dogs offered the scent of linen stained with the birth, soon found the baby. Menenhetet One sniffed at his finger, and a scent of sour blood passed over to me. He merely smiled at this passing display of his powers.

  “Isis,” he said, “trained the child to be Her guard. Now, Anubis is the jackal who holds the scales of judgment. Before Him, the dead must appear. Have you forgotten that as well?” When I made no sign, he nodded. “In one pan is placed the dead man’s heart, on the other is laid the feather of truth, and woe to the dead if the scales do not balance. Anubis can judge such things. His first day had no more promise of long life than is given to a feather. You may come before Anubis yet.” Menenhetet smiled, but when I offered nothing, he merely shrugged, and took up his account again. “Contemplate the murderous rage of Set,” he said. “His wife’s bastard was still alive. Set swore a vengeance that would never weaken no matter how many years He had to wait, and they were many. For Osiris was not only the first King of Egypt, but the greatest. He had taught us how to grow wheat, and make beer from barley, how to cultivate corn, raise good grapes and ferment good wine. He even taught us how to ferment the fermentation and find the seven powers and spirits of the soul in a cup of kolobi. But then, Osiris began to travel over the Very Green to pass on this knowledge to more ignorant lands and it proved foolhardy. He was so worshipped at every court that by the time of His return to Egypt, He had become too aware of His beauty.

  “In the first month of His homecoming, Set invited Him to a great feast, and excited the vanity of Osiris by telling Him of a magnificent chest that He had built to fit the body of the God closest to Temu.

  “Set called for the chest to be brought, and commanded the seventy-two Gods of His Court to lay within it one by one. The box fit none of Them. Nor did it match the proportions of Set. At last it became the turn of Osiris, and He was a perfect fit. �
��You are so beautiful,’ said Set, as His brother lay down. Then He slammed the cover. Seven of His warriors sealed it with molten metal.

  “Now they carried the chest to the Nile and lay it on the water. It floated away on an afternoon when the sun was in the sign of the scorpion. And Osiris was gone.

  “When Isis heard of this, She let out a cry that became part of the shriek men utter when they behold their own wound, and She began to search for the coffin in the marshes of the Delta and in the swamps.”

  And I, as if suffering an equal blow, now moved and sat with the side of my face against the cool wood of poor Meni’s burial case, poor Meni indeed! Who, but myself! As Menenhetet One continued to tell his story, I think I must have crawled out along a branch of sleep and fallen from there into another sleep since I only came back into the passage of his voice after the coffin of Osiris had floated all the way down the waters of the Nile and was out at sea on a voyage to Byblos by the shores of Lebanon. There I heard the smack of the last wave as the box was lifted by a swell into the branches of a little evergreen growing out of the rocks on the beach. Yet that poor shrub, twisted by every wind, began to thrive as soon as Osiris came to it, and its trunk grew right around the coffin and rose to prodigious height until the King of Byblos saw it and thereupon had the tree cut down and made into the central pillar of his new palace.

  To this shore came Isis, led by Her seven scorpions, and when She arrived at the court of Byblos, and the Queen received Her, Isis smelled of a fragrance sweeter than any garden.

  To this Queen, Astarte, the first measure of rank was superb appearance. She only wished those as lovely as herself to come near. Therefore, she welcomed Isis; indeed, they cherished each other so tenderly that Isis could even ask the Queen to beg the King to cut down the pillar, and thereby free Her husband from the coffin. It was a monumental request. The greatest room in Byblos would be destroyed. From the day, however, that he had felled the tree to build the chamber, this King, Melkarth, had become secretly fearful of the silence in his palace. So he agreed.