Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  “You were not a virgin.”

  “No,” said Hathfertiti, “I was not. But no one ever seduced me in such a fashion before. Tell Him.”

  “I cannot speak of this matter,” said Menenhetet.

  Nor could I look at him. I had never seen a wounded man. I did not know how a soldier would hold himself after a spear had entered his chest, but Menenhetet was gray and most exhausted. In the course of this night, he had risen many times from his fatigue and come upon new vigor in each uncoiling of his knowledge, but now he looked as if his blood were gone.

  “The first time Menenhetet came to me,” said Hathfertiti, “I do not know what was used. But he seduced me with a drink, and I became inert. He took his pleasure—which was then his greatest pleasure—to make love to me as if I were a dead woman beneath. A dead woman brought him nearer to his purpose, I suppose, than a live one.”

  “It was not like that,” said Menenhetet.

  “No,” said Hathfertiti, “it wasn’t. It was a ceremony. When I grew up, you did not need to seduce me with a drink. I had come to like what we did. You taught me to accompany you into your caverns.” She said this last word in so thick a voice, and so full of anger that I did not know if she were speaking of a buried shrine or a deep pit, but she was furious. “That is where his trances would take me—into the deep part of the stream. Into caverns. I never learned anything better than the fear of what crawls in the dark.” Now she turned to Ptah-nem-hotep and said, “I do not wish to conceal these matters. While in my trances, I would hear my grandfather speak to Honey-Ball and to Usermare and Nefertiri, and that was well, but then he was also in communion with the eight Gods of the slime. I was the filth between his fingers, and he made a mockery of my poor marriage to Nef-khep-aukhem. Let me tell you the worst. They were not caverns we entered, but tombs. I know what it is to make love in caverns that are filled with the reveries of the dead.” How startling was the wisdom of my mother! She knew that this must repel our Pharaoh less than it would bind Him to her.

  “I cannot endure another minute of this conversation,” said Menenhetet, “my hopes are extinct,” and he stood up and without bowing left the room, although, like an old man, one could hear him falter down the stairs of the patio in the darkness before the dawn. That was the last time I saw my great-grandfather among us.

  FIVE

  So soon as he was gone, however, I could no longer see very well. My mother and Father still sat on either side of me, but they had become as shapeless as smoke, and the pillars of the patio were not visible. I felt as if I were on my knees before a man in some vault of stone, and could choose—by no more than the inclination of my heart—to rest in the damp of this tomb as easily as I could go back to my parents.

  Yet, almost at once, the force of their presence commenced to quiver through every turn I took in the folds of my spell. Now, I could see their faces near me in the night, and then I knew that my thoughts were close again to my mother’s thoughts. Silently, she was speaking to Ptah-nem-hotep—I heard the anguish in each silence! “Do You love me?” she asked. “Why have You chosen me?” And these questions burst forth to be followed at once by her unvoiced lament: “I have lost my husband on this night, and now I have lost the man who was my father, my lover, my God, my dearest enemy, the friend I feared the most, my guide to the Gods. He was all of this to me. Yet I love You, and have so adored You for seven years that I am ready to give him up. In truth, I drove him away. Yet You are a cold man. Do You love me? Can I trust You?”

  Ptah-nem-hotep now replied with His thoughts. They passed through my body as if each of these unvoiced words were hands to lift and carry me. “On the day, seven years ago, that we went out on My skiff to hunt, My stick hit more birds than ever before. With you beside Me, I needed only to cast up the throwing-stick and no flight could escape untouched. No woman had ever done as much for Me before. None did again until this night. So I love you. You will be My Queen.”

  “It is true,” thought my mother, but now her thoughts were so secret that only I could hear them. “He is a weak man who would be strong. There is no ardor like the devotion of such men when you can satisfy them.” Aloud, she said, “Let us go. Let us lie down together.” What she did not say even to herself, yet I heard her better than herself, was that He would never lose His desire for her since His taste, as she could see, was for secrets, and the more He learned of the worst things she had done, the more would He be delighted.

  They stood up then and embraced, and my Father picked up my body. I do not know if it was the loss of the couch, but I felt a vertigo. Much disorder was in the air, and I felt the heavens stir in my stomach and wondered if there would be convulsions in the sky.

  Then I knew the cause for such disturbance. It passed into me directly from my Father’s arms. Khem-Usha had come onto the patio. I saw him through one half-opened eye which I closed on the spot, not wishing to see him at all, and near asleep, drifted through voices that came upon me like crocodiles thrashing in water too deep for my feet to reach. Maybe they would swim off and I would know no more.

  But I heard (no matter how far away I might be from all these voices) that there were troops outside the Palace. “They belong to Nes-Amon,” I listened to Khem-Usha say, and then, “You can use my militia. I have called them out tonight.” There was much discussion, and my mother was in all of it, full of harsh but decisive opinions. I could hear her tell my Father, “If Your Household Guard is not supported by Khem-Usha’s men, You will have no Royal Troops. They will go over to Nes-Amon.” Much more argument came here, and quick voices—I heard my Father say, “No, that is intolerable, I cannot grant you such powers”—and they argued, and my mother said, “You have no choice, You have no choice,” no, He had no choice, “You do not,” said Khem-Usha, and they talked more. “No,” I heard my Father say most clearly, “No, Menenhetet will not be the Vizier, no, I do not have such an intention.” Then, there was less disturbance and more peace in the air. I could feel myself being handed over to my mother and carried by her in the first light of the dawn that glistened like a thread of silver across my closed eyes whenever I attempted to open them, and in the distance, I heard shouts commencing, and the din that comes from much purpose and much confusion meeting quickly with one another. I knew by the smell of goat dung and old charcoal fires that we were now in the servants’ quarters where Eyaseyab was sleeping, and then I heard my mother say to her, “Take care, take the greatest care. There may be trouble.” Now I was in the plump arms of Eyaseyab, and knew her like the pit of my own arm if not for her odor which was as strange and strong as a man’s, yes, a man had been on her tonight, that I knew by his odor. He smelled like a beast who lived on a rock by the sea, and then I thought about such odors no more for I was set down on a mat, and her finger, out of old habit, teased the hair behind my ear. I wondered if she would lie down beside me and take Sweet Finger into her lips again, but even as such warmth began to stroll through my thighs, I heard a curse from the next room and a man came in. It was Bone-Smasher. By the way he walked, I knew that Eyaseyab belonged to him, and would no longer think of those two slaves, the Hebrew and the Nubian, who used to fight for her in the servant quarters of my home—was it now the home of Nef-khep-aukhem?

  I do not know if it was my sweet feelings that had inspired Bone-Smasher, or whether his strong feelings left me feeling sweet, but now. I could hear them making love, and that was different from all I had learned tonight. Here they did not speak, but growled often, and then he roared and she gave cries so shrill only a bird of the brightest feathers could have uttered them. I felt as if I were home again for I was back with the sounds of the servants’ quarters, indeed all the animals were waking up in the dawn, and other servants were making love in their huts. You could feel everything stirring over the earth, water being lapped, seed gobbled, the animals crying out to the baying of other beasts across the stalls. I remember thinking that servants made love without the presence of the Gods, and thereby it was war
mer here, and for all I knew more satisfying than the love of those I knew, although there might be less light when they came forth. Yet I wondered if it was not like tasting the most wonderful soup. You could feel it enter the domain of your belly, one fine territory after another. Immersed in the crooning voice of Eyaseyab after all was done, listening to her soothe the man and herself by the caress of her hand on his back, I fell asleep, yes, fell asleep after all this night without a true sleep, and had no dreams, although there seemed to be many shouts in the air and men running.

  When I awakened, my mother was by my side to inform me my great-grandfather was dead. “Come,” she said, “let us take a walk.” There were now soldiers on every path of the Palace and in every courtyard, and I saw the disorder of a day that would not be like other days when every soldier you passed looked away. Now they stared at everybody twice and were never on one foot longer than it took them to shift to the other.

  My mother did not weep as she told me, but there was a look of great solemnity on her face and her eyes were empty so that when she paused and did not speak, it was like looking at the head of a statue. “Your great-grandfather,” she said, “would certainly want you to know how he died and with what courage.”

  He had been apprehended, she told me, by the troops of Khem-Usha. They had found an old and distinguished man sitting on the same gold chair that served for Ptah-nem-hotep’s seat when we first came before the Pharaoh on His balcony. Now, pinioned, and under guard, Menenhetet had been led into a chamber where Ptah-nem-hotep and Khem-Usha sat together with Hathfertiti. Our Pharaoh, however, had had him unbound, and said: “For this night, you were My substitute. You were the heart of the Two-Lands, and the Gods listened to you. That will be Your glory. For You were a Pharaoh, indeed, on this night, and this is as it should be, and satisfies Maat, since as I look upon it, I know that You could never have become My Vizier. I could not trust Your ambition. I can, however, honor Your genius.”

  Saying this, my Father had handed over to Menenhetet His own short knife.

  My mother said: “I was terrified. By the look on your great-grandfather’s mouth, I believed he would bury the knife in Ptah-nem-hotep’s chest. Khem-Usha certainly thought so. I saw fear on his face. Do you know, to offer that knife was one of the bravest acts I have ever seen. But it was wise as well.”

  Menenhetet had bowed, and touched his forehead to the ground seven times. Then he went into the next room to perform the last ceremony of the substitute. He took the knife and cut off his ears and his lips and his loins, and then, in great suffering, he began to pray. There was much loss of blood. Before he fainted from the ferocity of the pain, he cut his throat.

  My mother shuddered, but her eyes were full of light. “No man but Menenhetet could have endured such a death,” she said.

  As I heard the story, the gold of the midday sun darkened into purple, and I felt as if I, too, were dying. The eyes of my mother continued to gaze at me, yet the longer I looked into them, the more her eyes came together until it was only one eye I saw, and then one light, and that was like a star in a dark sky. All that I had seen before me was gone. I was on my knees in the depths of a pyramid and down a long shaft came the light of a star reflected in a bowl of water.

  Now, I could no longer see the star. Only a navel before my eyes. It was the withered navel of the Ka of Menenhetet and I was back in all the stink and fury of the old man’s phallus in my mouth.

  SIX

  I was a young man of twenty on my knees, and all I knew of the boy I once had been, receded from my heart. I was here in my Ka, and no more than my Ka, and for the second time this night the old man began to come forth. Or was I merely enduring the first time over again? Could this be the suffering of the Ka?

  Then all of him came forth, and in great bitterness. His seed was like a purge, foul and bitter, and I would have liked to vomit but could not. I had to take into me the misery he felt, and all of his urge for revenge upon my mother.

  So, with his phallus still in my mouth, I knew the shame of Menenhetet. Now, the Ka of my great-grandfather weighed upon my Ka as Usermare must have weighed on him.

  I also knew his exhaustion. It came down upon me like a cataract. In none of his four lives had he found what he desired. That much I knew, and then I swallowed, and all the venom of his Khaibit came into me—from my great-grandfather’s seed came the pure venom of his Khaibit. That would now be my knowledge of the past.

  I would live by the guidance of his shadow. My Ka would have to choose its way in the Land of the Dead by the light of his Khaibit. If his stories were untrue, I would not know what was before me. To recollect one’s past was the need of one’s Ka, but such wisdom must be evil when owned by another.

  So I did not know whether to trust what I would see, and yet, not knowing, I began, nonetheless, to recall what happened to my parents and to me after the last night of my great-grandfather’s life. Of course, I had no choice. How could I not follow what came to me? It concerned nothing less than the events of my life after Menenhetet was gone—was it fifteen years from the day of his death to mine? That is what I seemed to remember (had death come upon me when I was twenty or twenty-one?) yes, my life had certainly continued into an early death—witness the land where I was now. And I even felt one pang of sympathy for the modest fashion in which Menenhetet had told us of his second life and his third life. For I could not see any more of my own.

  But my great-grandfather, exhausted by the fury of his coming-forth, now placed himself beside me gently, and sat back against a wall of this alcove in the massive tomb of Khufu (with its empty sarcophagus—yes, that, too, I now recalled!). Side by side, our buttocks on the floor, we began to stare into the darkness until the wall across, not five paces away, began to shimmer. I saw sights that were like colored paintings on a temple wall. Yet each time such an image became clear, it was as if I looked into the bowl of water where I had seen the star and stirred it with my hand, for many waves spread out from each light. The pictures moved as if they lived within my head just so much as on the wall, and finally I could not know how I saw it—everything moved so often. Then I decided that to look at the living from these tombs of the dead was even more confusing than to see what happened through the memory of another. In truth, it was like reaching for a fish. One’s hand would never go where one’s eye could see, and the water bent one’s arm and darted away.

  To show how little I could trust what was offered to me, the first sight proved disgusting, and I did not wish to believe it. The face of Ptah-nem-hotep came before me slyly eating a very small piece of flesh from the mutilated body of Menenhetet. That was what I saw, and as if the wall could speak, or at least give resonance to the feelings of those who moved upon its surface, I knew the Pharaoh’s passion for wisdom was more desperate now that Menenhetet was dead. As His teeth chewed on the fearful meat, it was all believable to me. It certainly explained why He changed so greatly over the remaining years of His life, and why I could not remember Him now as a good parent. Eating that morsel my great-grandfather must have altered Ptah-nem-hotep gravely, left Him mean. Lacking the courage of Menenhetet, He could only acquire ruthlessness.

  My mother spoke then within my ear and said, “You are wrong to think harshly of your Father. Taking your great-grandfather into Himself has bound the Pharaoh to our family.” She had no more than to say such words, and much came before me: I saw Them together often, my Mother, now indeed the Queen, and beside Him on His throne. Then I recalled that not one year passed from the Night of the Pig before She gave Him a son, my half brother, yes, She was much His Queen and there at every great ceremony He conducted. He was present now at many more festivals than before, and whenever the Concubines of the Gods offered a song to the Pharaoh, my Mother, like Nefertiri, shook a sistrum. They were not unhappy in Their first year.

  I also began to remember, however, that They often quarreled. While it could never be said that They ceased to delight in each other’s flesh (and indeed wer
e a court scandal for the length of the hours They spent with one another) still, They were never content with one another’s little manners, and like most married people fought invariably over the same matter. For years I could hear Them quarrel about the shop of Nef-khep-aukhem in Memphi.

  Indeed, so often must these quarrels have taken place that my memory revived sufficiently for the pictures to cease for a time. Thoughts of Nef-khep-aukhem came back to me instead, and I recalled the outrage he aroused in Ptah-nem-hotep on that morning when Khem-Usha’s troops occupied the Palace. For in the course of bargaining with the High Priest on that dawn, Ptah-nem-hotep learned that Nef-khep-aukhem, so soon as he had left the patio, hastened directly to Khem-Usha’s chambers in Memphi, and there gave much information to the High Priest about my great-grandfather’s ambitions as well as the Pharaoh’s increasing sympathy for them.

  This story having come back to me from the outraged lips of my Mother, She thought it likely that neither the troops of Khem-Usha nor of Nes-Amon would have moved that night if not for Nef-khep-aukhem. The truth, as my Mother would have it, was that Nes-Amon did not assemble his men until he heard the sounds of Khem-Usha’s militia getting ready in the dark.

  This treachery put my new Father into a greater rage than any other event of that dawn. Then, Nef-khep-aukhem, thinking it wise to collect his reward from the High Priest so soon as possible, made the error of appearing at the Palace too early. Ptah-nem-hotep declared to Khem-Usha that the way to commence a true equality between Pharaoh and High Priest was not to begin by taunting Him with the presence of his treacherous Overseer. Indeed, my Father resented such arrogance so much that Khem-Usha, comprehending how dear was this point, pretended for a time to be obdurate in his loyalty to Nef-khep-aukhem. Thereby, he gained many concessions in the exchange before agreeing that the former Overseer of the Cosmetic Box be banished from the Palace. Indeed, my Mother declared that if not for Her intervention, Nef-khep-aukhem would have been killed.