Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  “What seems good to us, is woeful to Them,

  “What feels bad for us, They say is good,

  “Who can know Their thoughts?

  “They are as concealed as the waters.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” I asked of Heqat. “Do the Hittites speak of Egyptians?”

  “Oh, no,” she told me. “ ‘They’ are the Hittites’ Gods.”

  Of course, Heqat was not a Hittite herself, but a Syrian. Nonetheless, the two countries were much nearer to each other than to Egypt, and she had much to tell about Rama-Nefru, and did. She spoke to me with the intimacy of those who had served the body of Usermare-Setpenere together, so I had not been talking to Heqat long before I learned a good deal.

  In my loneliness, I was ready to see more of her than ever I did in my days in the Gardens, and soon discovered that this ugly little queen was also lonely here. She had no home to keep, nor advice to give, nor gossip to hear, and no beer-house with the other little queens, only her attendance on Rama-Nefru. So we spoke often and she taught me about the Hittites. They were much different from the Assyrians, I was soon told (I had always thought they were nearly the same) but, no, the Hittites came down to Kadesh from the North, and had only been living in that country for the last four or five Kings. All the same, they had learned a lot from the Assyrians and dressed like them, even as the Libyans and the Nubians knew how to imitate the Egyptians. Only these Hittites, said Heqat, were more a vagabond people. They had also learned from the Mittani and the Babylonians, the Medes, all the others, although—with all said—they were most like the Assyrians.

  I could not believe how odd they were. Whenever they had to live through many years of trouble they would decide to cleanse their cities of ill fortune. At such times, mothers could not scold their children, nor masters castigate their servants, and all lawsuits were forbidden. They burned cedar in huge bonfires at the crossroads, and psalms were sung at night. They would also repair all the damage and wear on the old temples. I learned that this was very important, since they thought the weakening of the timbers in an old building also showed a weakening of the bonds between the Gods and the people. Then Heqat tried to tell me about a code of laws that the Hittites copied from a king named Hammurabi, but I could not believe such statutes. Hammurabi ordered death as the penalty when a proprietor of a wine-shop dared to shelter an outlaw, and he had other laws that said you could burn a priestess if she went into a wine-shop. A wife who stole something from her husband might be executed. Yet if she stole something from a neighbor’s house, they could only cut off her nose! After a while, I began to follow the reasoning. If a woman was in a fight with a man, and crushed one of his testicles, they cut off one of her fingers, but if both testicles were damaged, they tore out her eyes.

  Now, despite herself, Heqat showed her teeth. I knew it was at the thought of a wife who could smash her husband’s testicles. I gave her wine and began to laugh with her, but I kept up my questions. I wanted to know more about the Gods of these Hittites, for when it came to serving one, I thought I had better know Her lords, and what She might call on.

  Ugly women, however, are very clever at knowing what it is you really want from them, so when I asked too much, Heqat continued to laugh. She told me I would never remember Their names. Too difficult.

  “The Assyrians have a God named Enlil,” I told her. “I don’t see why I can’t remember that.”

  “His name in Hittite is Kumarpish. He is also called Lukishanush.” Now she began to tease me. The Hittites, she said, had a Goddess Ashkashepash, and near Kadesh, in the land of Rama-Nefru, they had local Gods with names like Kattish-Khapish, and Valizalish and Shullinkatish. “It is not a religion to try to understand,” she said. “You could never sit long enough to listen. You see, there is also the God Maznulash, and Zentukhish, Nennitash and Vashdelashshish.” Now she laughed boldly in my face like a little queen. I must have shown my displeasure, for she thought to soothe me by saying that there were so many prayers and exorcisms the study was hardly worth the work. Besides, she whispered, she didn’t know that their Gods did as well for them as our Egyptian Gods for us. The Hittites had many epidemics and where was the happy family? It was a wet country much of the time with evil demons under every roof. They were simply not as cheerful as the Egyptians. In truth, they were so gloomy that they grew long noses. In winter these noses even had a drop of water on the tip. Of course, they had a lot to cry about. After all, they believed the Gods wanted people to slave for Them. And disaster waited everywhere. In fact, their Supreme Deity, this Enlil, who was as great as Amon, was called the Lord of the Storm.

  If I was frowning, it was not because I thought they had no right to give their Gods such peculiar names as Vashdulashshish—although they didn’t!—but for the simple reason that the more I heard of the Hittites, the less I could understand of Rama-Nefru who was so fine and pale in Her beauty, and so delicate a lady, at least so far as I knew. So I asked Heqat if our Princess—I was not yet ready to say our Queen—was of a spirit to share such gloom, and Heqat only said, “These Hittites have two natures. You may think She is a silly young girl with lovely hair,” Heqat went on, “but She is thoughtful, and frightened of many matters you would never notice.”

  “Tell me of one.”

  Heqat had her own charm. She liked to give you the feeling that if you liked her, she would not keep to herself all that was true on a matter. “When She looks at the Great Door of a temple, She does not see it as you do. That door is like a God to Her. When it is open, She sees a God’s mouth.”

  I thought of how the air within a temple held other spirits than the air without. Perhaps I could come to know Rama-Nefru.

  “Of course, She is not much like other Hittites,” Heqat added. “Sometimes Her spirit is as light as woven-air. I think Her parents must have conceived Her in the dew. Do you know, Her moonblood lasts no longer than the dew?”

  I decided that Heqat knew little of Rama-Nefru. How could an ugly woman understand the beauty of a young Queen? Once again, I was obliged to wonder, as did everyone in the Garden of the Secluded, why Usermare made love to Heqat once a year, and the gossip of the eunuchs came back to me. A plague of snakes and toads always passed over the Gardens afterward. In the morning, there would be slime on the ground, and everyone would think of the eight ugly Gods of the first slime, of Nun and Nunaunet, Kuk and Kauket, of Huh and Huahet, and of Amon and Amaunet, all there at the Beginning which was so full of wind, darkness, boundlessness and chaos, long before there was Nut and Geb and Osiris and Isis. Then the world was nothing but blind frogs and snakes and wet mud and the great seas. This Heqat must have Gods who came from there, otherwise, why was she so ugly?

  All the same, I liked her better now than when I knew her before, and while her face might be no better to look at than a sick toad, speak of doors, her eyes were two, and you could look into them and see many gardens. Her eyes were luminous, and all of the loyalty she would give, if you valued her first, was in them. Be certain that I gave her many an idea that I valued her. My confusion at being brought to this Hittite palace in the midst of Thebes was so profound that I searched for a little understanding the way a man in the desert will be good for nothing but to look for water.

  We had conversations so rich that Heqat told me at last of one secret I could even bring back to my first Queen. It was that Rama-Nefru most certainly believed Her illness had come from Nefertiri. The first morning that She was ill, there had been two small punctures on Her neck. When I suggested it might have come from Her necklace, Heqat shrugged. “Or a cobra,” she said. Then she leaned forward and gripped my knee. “My friend,” she went on, “Ma-Khrut may speak to the Gods, but there are Hittites who summon dead people.”

  “Is Rama-Nefru one of them?”

  She would not say. She seemed not to have heard.

  “If Honey-Ball is wise,” she said, “she will call forth no more spells.”

  It was then I had an idea why I was in the Palace o
f the Columns of the White Goddess. Could it be at the suggestion of Heqat? I know I did not tell her how little I could speak to Honey-Ball these days. Let all who were in this place continue to believe in our nearness to one another.

  FIVE

  Late that night, after my last talk with Heqat, I went to see Nefertiri. Given my knowledge of the ways of Her Guard, I succeeded in reaching the room where She slept, and even had the notion of slipping into Her bed. However, there was no question of that. She was still awake and Her disposition was not friendly. “You reek of the Hittites,” She said.

  I was pleased at Her cruelty all the same, and hoped it was a sign of the loss She felt at not having me near.

  I did not stay long. I did not wish to be near Her when interest was not present. My desire had been so great, and would again perhaps prove so large that I must never attempt even one caress with this Queen if my blood was not full of the thought of Her. Therefore, I did no more than speak of what Heqat had said, at which She frowned.

  “I do not care about Rama-Nefru anymore,” She said. “She is an empty woman. You could observe Her for years and have nothing to bring back to Me.” Then She pinched my cheek as if I were an old and trusted servant, no more.

  There must have been some force in my expression of which I was not aware, for She relented. “You are very dear to Me,” She said, “but I cannot concern Myself now. The celebration of the Godly Triumph is too near. For such a Festival, one does not think of husbands nor of lovers, but of what one will wear.” She smiled. “Tell Heqat that her friend will not have to worry about Honey-Ball, but about Me.”

  I left with much numbness of feeling, but had time to reflect, once back on the other side of the Eye of Maat, that nothing could be more painful for Nefertiri in these days of preparing to celebrate His Godly Triumph than Her own position, and with the sigh of a most unhappy lover, found my rest. There is no slumber without truth, even some unhappy truth, and mine was that Nefertiri would think only of Usermare in these days. I must acquire the patience to wait. Yet how much I also felt a brute hardening of my feelings because Nefertiri felt so little for me as to be this capable of restraining Herself.

  By morning, however, some of my confusion had lifted. Having, at last, recognized that I would be at these Columns for weeks, if not years to come, a stampede of restlessness came to rest in me. I was not only resigned to living without Nefertiri, but strengthened (by the vow I took on awakening) that I would have Her again, whether it be days or months, and so I could breathe at last and look about me, and even enjoy my conversations with Heqat. As a consequence, I began to feel the presence of Rama-Nefru in many a corner of Her Palace, and took the first comprehension of Her practices. If I was still not to see Her for a day, and another, and several more again, She seemed nonetheless much nearer to me, and I was intrigued by Her methods. Any servant in the Columns of the White Goddess who was able to read could be certain of receiving from Her at least one message a day written in Her language for Hittite servants, or in our Egyptian signs for all others. These messages usually said no more than, “For protection against colic, feed Peht-a-Ra from the yellow herb that is in the southeastern corner of My shade garden,” “Examine all the maids for lice,” or “Be certain to sing outside My window—I love your voice.” (This last was sent to my gardener—much to his terror!) There was even, “I will soon have need of you!” which came to me every day. That She had been able to learn our sacred letters left me much impressed, and it was agreeable that She would choose only the finest papyrus, and then roll it, and seal it with wax.

  Her seals, I soon came to see, were a special aspect of these Hittites. Rama-Nefru had many such seals in Her collection, Heqat told me, and they were all of stone, little cylinders, no longer nor thicker than one’s finger, but I could see by the picture made upon the wax that they were remarkably carved. I did not know how the artist could cut such fine little scenes of Gods and Kings out of lapis-lazuli and serpentine, or from jasper and agate or chalcedony. I began to think of that blond Princess alone in Her room writing on papyrus, then choosing the proper seal. Each time I broke open the wax on one of Her messages, I felt as if tiny Hittite Gods collected immediately about me like clouds of gnats.

  Then, one day Her message said, “Visit Me this morning.” I did, and we talked for an hour in Her garden and more on the next day. I discovered that for one who looked as delicate as Herself, She was a most practical woman and loved to gossip. Where, at first, I had thought She coveted me because I had been so close a servant to the other Queen, now I began to wonder if She was not more interested in my days as Governor in the House of the Secluded. She never spoke of Nefertiri, but wanted to know all I could tell Her of the Gardens, especially of Usermare’s children in that place, and which of the little queens were His favorites. She had heard it all from Heqat, but wished to be told again by me, and once, laughing, I complained, “You know it already.” She answered fiercely, or so it seemed from the funny uses of her accent, “We have a Hittite saying: Learn with one eye, learn with the other. Then, see with both eyes.”

  I could not be certain, but I soon began to suspect that Her love of gossip had its purposes. She wished to learn which, if any, of the children in the Gardens might have a chance to ascend to the Throne. Soon, we grew more intimate for part of the pleasure of Her company was that you never had to speak to Her as a Queen, but as a Princess, to be certain, even a spoiled Princess, but enough in need of intimacy to put on no airs. Truly it was not unlike Heqat and myself speaking to each other. It was then I teased Her by saying, “You care for nothing but that Peht-a-Ra become the Pharaoh.” Her eyes gleamed.

  “You cannot enter the thoughts of a foreigner,” She said. “You will never know when I am telling the truth.”

  “No, I cannot enter,” I said. It was true. From Her pretty face with its small features, no thoughts escaped.

  “I am weary of My wig,” She said. “Do you mind if I take it off?”

  When I bowed, She did. Her poor head was bald but for the few blond hairs that grew like the fuzz of an infant upon Her scalp. Yet I knew why She had removed it. She was more beautiful without, and most strange. A fragile Goddess. Did She wish me to carry word back to Nefertiri that Usermare might find Her more delightful now than before? Yes, like all who gossip, She had no reticence about Herself.

  “In Egypt, if you are the Queen,” She said to me once, “then you are also a Goddess. Is that not so?”

  “The Pharaoh is a God,” I said, “and His Consort is a Goddess.”

  “I do not know why. My father, Khetasar, is not a God. He is only a King, I can promise you. Enlil does not speak to him as a God. Enlil tells him what to do. And then he does it. I am not a Goddess but a woman. What do you think of that?”

  Oh, I didn’t know, I told Her. She must speak to Usermare.

  “He does not want to talk of that. He wants to make love.” She giggled. “I think I am the only woman in the world who can tell Him, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ Isn’t that amusing?” She spoke with Her head to the side as if She had a tame crocodile for a husband, and did not know what to do with it.

  I was thinking that whether She was a woman or a Goddess, She had certainly performed a few wonders in Her life. I recollected that when She first arrived in Egypt as the gift of King Khetasar, Usermare had been so rude as to put Her in the harem He kept at Fayum, which was where He kept the little queens who aspired to be invited to the Gardens of the Secluded. Yet Rama-Nefru had been brought back to Thebes as Usermare’s Third Great Wife. I, and everyone else, assumed She had performed wonders upon His body that no other woman could discover.

  Yet She certainly did not carry Herself that way. When alone with Her, I never thought of myself as a man, nor of Her as a woman. We were friends. We lived to gossip with each other. Once, after I made a reference to Fayum, She said to me, “I never had anything to do with Him there. I said, ‘I won’t let You hold My hand. My father sent Me to You as a Queen. I
will not allow You to come near in this filthy place.’ ”

  “What did He say?”

  “He said He would throw Me in a fire. I said, ‘Please do. You have no respect for My father and none for Me. I’m better off dead.’ ” She giggled. “Actually, I was hoping He would send Me back to Kadesh. Instead, He took Me here. Who would have expected that?”

  “No,” I said, “it is not true. Heqat tells me You adore Him.”

  “That’s for you to find out,” She said.

  “I cannot,” I said. “I cannot enter Your thoughts.”

  “Not until the day you do,” She said.

  When Usermare would visit, which was usually in the late afternoon, She would receive Him in Her bedroom, whose silks were all of a purple-lavender to match the purple of Her walls, and indeed, I thought often of the silk sheets of the bed on which I had once made love to the secret whore of the King of Kadesh. I did not know as yet which pleasures Usermare looked to find with Her nor how often She would go over to His House of Adoration (where I had seen Her on the morning He passed the Golden Bowl to me) although I was beginning to wonder whether She spent as many nights with Him as once I thought. When He visited Her, it was usually in the late afternoon, and frequently He would invite Heqat and myself to sit with Them, although He would talk to Her as if alone.

  I knew the vanity of my Good and Great God—I had seen Him by so many of His Fourteen Ka that I could walk about Him as if He were a statue. Yet now I saw another face. He was much delighted in Rama-Nefru’s cleverness (and His own) and I think He did not wish Their words to be given only to His fellow Gods but also desired Heqat and myself present as witnesses. He took a great delight in how artless She pretended to be. Even the way She would scold gave Him pleasure. What novelty to be upbraided before us. He was like a giant stallion who neighs with delight at a sly use of the reins by a most skillful new rider.