Twilight in Babylon

by Frank, Suzanne

  Shama dropped his fan and bowed his head.

  Puabi stood silent for a moment, then drew a long, shuddering sigh. “Watch Kidu for me, Shama. He’s no more trustworthy than his predecessors.”

  Shama dug in his waist pouch for the herb that would ease Puabi’s head. He dumped it into her beer and stirred, then handed the cup to her. “Why do the gods not smile on me?” she asked. “Why saddle me with weak men who are no more worthy of this role than oxen?

  “I brought this man from the barbarous hills, I fed him and clothed him with my own hands, I endured his animalistic urges until I could train him how to congress with a woman—” Puabi threw her hands in the air. “I taught him how to speak beyond grunts, how to read.” She shook her head in disgust as Kidu’s snoring grew heavier and louder.

  “Remove him from my sight,” she said to Shama. “And get me a bath.” Shama turned to summon the acolytes who could carry Kidu. “If this continues, Shama, these drugs, this insolent behavior, then Kidu must go,” she said. “He is on the last of my patience.”

  * * *

  The afternoon was divided up into disciplines. Mathematics, for calculating field areas; geometry, for figuring canals and irrigation schemes; medical science, to know how to care for one’s livestock; and accounting, to keep one’s taxes straight and correct. Each session was taught by a different “Father.” Afterward, the Tablet Father motioned for Chloe to come with him. They sat on the side of the building—the awning’s shade was too narrow for his bulk. He looked over her feeble attempts to write.

  “Do you know why you make the list? It’s the first of many you will make. Do you know why?”

  “I’ll use these words the most?”

  He sighed and leaned back. “I was less than enthusiastic about your coming to the Tablet House,” he said. “You saw why, at the start of the day. Now…” He shook his head. “You don’t even know the most basic concepts.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “To learn those most basic concepts.”

  He glanced at her sharply. “Doctrine of the name. It’s the foundation of the commonwealths between the two rivers. It’s the reason we have writing. No one else does.”

  No one else in the world? Or no one else in Iraq? Chloe waited quietly. Sooner or later he would tell her. Until then, sweat would just continue to pool beneath her.

  “When you name something, you bring it into being; it becomes self-aware. When you know its name, you control it. To make these lists and identify these things is to take mastery over the world in which you live.”

  Chloe nodded.

  “The First Father called the names of the creatures, and thus he reigned over them as lugal.

  “Now when you write something,” he said, “you make its life longer, permanent. As you wrote it, it will exist for as long as the writing lasts. It is the call of the scribe. To summon into being and identification and submission, all that is.”

  “A large task for a mere human.”

  “It is our job to organize for the gods, to administer their estates—this world.”

  She swallowed a yawn, but nothing got by his eagle glance. “Your work is awful. Knead it blank and write it again.” He got up, and she made to follow suit. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll trust you not to fall asleep.”

  He went back inside, and Chloe yawned so widely she was afraid her jaws would come unhinged. It was hot still and hours before twilight. Why did I think I wanted to do this, she wondered. Was I drunk? School, in any time, any place, is hard. That’s why so few go and even less survive. Wasn’t primary school, secondary school, junior high, high school, and college—fifteen years of formal education—enough?

  She looked at her hesitant marks in the clay and quickly transferred the information to the dust beside her. She dunked the clay into water and kneaded it until it was soft and pliant. Then she picked up the stylus and started again.

  “Human, male.”

  * * *

  Ezzi was trembling, trying desperately hard to stop. Asa stargazer stood behind him, and the throng of stargazers, exorcists, diviners, and asu, stood behind him. The ensi looked like the goddess Inana, though Ezzi wondered if the goddess was cross often. The ensi certainly was.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she asked.

  The lugal stepped forward. “I mentioned there was a sign in the heavens,” he said. “The stargazer is here to discuss it.”

  “Where is Kidu? Where is en Kidu? Shama, go find him.”

  “Ensi,” the lugal said.

  She cut him off. “Nothing, until the en arrives.”

  Ezzi looked around the room while they waited. It was enormous, with colorful cone-studded walls and light, colorful carpets. The furniture was gold; he’d never seen such a thing before. Was it made of solid gold or was it just gilded?

  A man came in, blond and big. His eyes were half-open. The ensi beckoned him to sit, then she sat on his lap. “Now you can talk.”

  The en nodded off against her chest. She couldn’t wake him.

  The lugal spoke again. “The stars proclaim something dire for our commonwealth,” he said. “Asa will tell you.”

  Asa stepped forward. “The gods require you, ma’am.”

  She sat up straight, jolted the en awake. “What do you mean?”

  “Three signs, ensi. The first was the blood moon.”

  “We beat the drums; the demons fled.”

  He nodded. “The second sign was the flooding of the northern marshes.”

  “Every season there is a flood.”

  “Ma’am, Ur lost almost all of its seasonal slave labor. In addition to countless head of cattle, buffalo, and taxpayers. I believe there was one survivor.”

  “What’s your third sign?”

  “The sky is going to turn to night, in the middle of the day. The gods are not happy with us.”

  Puabi looked at the lugal. “What does this mean?”

  “Ma’am,” Asa answered, “the gods are finished with you.”

  Part Three

  The Tablet House

  Chapter One

  Cheftu’s fingers glided down the form next to him. She murmured in her sleep and shifted closer, her bare flesh against his. After months of living in the Jerusalem caverns, waiting, hoping, he was here; he was with Chloe.

  He looked around the room, hazy in predawn.

  Where were they?

  It didn’t matter; they were safe. He’d found her, le bon Dieu be praised.

  He kissed her shoulder as he prepared himself for any changes he might see. Though Cheftu’s love for Chloe never ceased, it was always disconcerting when they changed times, and her appearance became that of another woman. He never changed, thank le bon Dieu. The woman beside him rolled onto her back and pulled him close. He braced himself while he waited for her to open her brilliant green eyes.

  “Wake up, ma chérie,” he whispered in his native French, one of the many languages they shared. “We are safe.”

  Her eyes opened. The gaze that met his was black and blank.

  “What did you say, en?” she asked.

  In Cheftu’s mind, the words—words he’d never heard before—were communicated by pictures. My personal logograms, he realized. He stared at the woman, noticed she was fair-skinned, with a cap of black hair, and grotesquely overgrown eyebrows.

  A series of images assaulted him; this woman, covered in mud and weeping in his arms; blood and stink, and his own torn shouting; a sense of loss that was searing and a sense of belonging that was wrenching. He knew this woman; he owed her his very life.

  Her gaze was sharp. “Were you waking me with song, my love?” she asked. Her touch moved from his shoulder to his buttocks. “Or were you calling another woman’s name again?”

  “Chloe?” he said, just in case, if the chance existed, she was somewhere in that body. “Chloe?”

  “Are you a bird this morning, my love? Last night you were…” She whispered in his ear, and Cheftu blushed at he
r words. She reclined, her smile sated. “I am pleased with you again.”

  What had happened? Was he in the wrong time? Had all the prayers and supplications been for naught? The woman kissed his chest, as she hummed Chloe beneath her breath.

  He couldn’t believe there wasn’t reason behind his being here, in this specific place. The woman wrapped strong legs around his waist—perhaps not this exact specific place. Bon Dieu, I do not know where I am, or what manner of man, but please don’t let me sin, Cheftu prayed. He tried to sit up, but she tightened her grip.

  “Where are you going, en? The dawn is for loving. It’s a double hour before our obligations.”

  Oh God, I don’t want to be unfaithful to my wife. And Cheftu’s body, for all that his mind wrestled with, knew it was morning and she was willing. Moreover, the affection he felt for this woman was almost overwhelming. She meant a great deal to him, but she wasn’t his wife.

  Thank God.

  But no other clue to his identity was within sight. “Forgive me,” he said cautiously. He pictured the emotion and hoped it translated to her strange tongue. “I must intercede with the gods.”

  Cheftu rose from the bed to remove himself from error or temptation. The woman turned onto her side and propped her head on her bent elbow. Her skin was like polished marble, contrasted with black eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and a substantial display of body hair. Egyptians had a preference for a smooth body, and Cheftu shared that feeling.

  “Of course you must intercede,” she said. “But with me. Everyone else can wait,” she said with a smile, leaning back, running her hand down the curves of her breast, waist, and hip. She was exquisite, and she knew it. “I’m the one. Now come kneel between my feet and intercede.”

  He fought the desire to do just that, to lose himself in her. “First, I must—” What was the word? “Relieve myself.”

  She lay flat and waved toward him. “I’m starting without you then,” she said, touching her own body with purpose. “Don’t tarry.”

  Escape.

  He went out the door of the bedroom and found himself in a waiting room. Though his need hadn’t been real when he spoke, now it was. There didn’t appear to be any curtained area, a chamber pot, or a marble seat. Just a lot of potted palms.

  For the first time, Cheftu glanced at his own skin.

  He was golden brown above the waist and below his thighs, but elsewhere he was ivory. Paler than he’d ever been in his life. What was he? Who did she think he was? Where was this place? He wanted to leave, but was this his home? How did he get here? Where were his clothes? When she addressed him the first time, what had she called him?

  En.

  Was that his name, or a title? He stared at the dirt in the potted palm, and concentrated. In his mind he rifled through all the records of languages he knew. There was no definition for en. He could be the gardener; he could be the king.

  “Kidu,” she called. “Oh, Kidu.”

  His feet propelled him toward her, and Cheftu halted at the doorway. His head almost touched it. A low doorway. His “lover” was quite enraptured with herself, calling the name again and again. Perhaps he was Kidu?

  He had to get out of there, despite the protests of his mind and body.

  Then the realization stabbed him: he was not himself. He wasn’t Cheftu the Egyptian scribe, physician, courtier and lord: He wasn’t François, his birth name in Napoleon’s France, a child of humble origins born with a gift for languages. He wasn’t any of the men he’d masqueraded as in these past years: mage, diplomat, alchemist, slave. He had stepped into someone else’s body and life.

  And Chloe was just… gone.

  He turned away from the woman, his body fully aroused, his mind fully shocked.

  A face appeared before him.

  Cheftu started.

  It was a man, bent with age and wiry with muscle. His gaze moved from the woman in the throes of passion to Cheftu, completely aroused and standing in the next room. The man didn’t say anything, but he peered intently up at Cheftu’s face.

  Instinctively, Cheftu brushed at his chin. I have a beard. Bon Dieu. The woman was growing louder, becoming a nuisance to Cheftu’s thoughts, which already careened around madly like a dog with a foaming mouth, acting as a further goad to the part of him who longed to share in her ecstasy. “Clothes,” he said to the old man. He didn’t care about appearances or anything else. He had to think, to… reason out what had happened.

  To get away from that woman.

  The old man handed him a kilt—that itself was recognizable, though the pattern, cloth, and design were not. Cheftu felt heat in his cheeks as he fought to make it lie flat, especially under the old man’s amused, questioning gaze. When Cheftu’s fair skin was covered completely, he hurried to the door.

  The next room smelled like smoke, and he saw the implements of opium; then he recognized that his head ached, and why his mouth was bitter with bile. Cheftu closed the door behind him, shut away her loud cries, and opened the door to questions.

  Three men, in similar kilts, also with beards, scrambled to stand upright and formal in the passageway. They were obviously confused by his presence, considering the woman’s cries, but they bowed to him and mumbled greetings. He nodded acknowledgement and walked down the hall. It was dark, with oil torches affixed to the walls. He had no idea where he was going, or where he’d been. He was astounded at how much effort it took to move his body away—he literally pulled with every step.

  “En Kidu, en Kidu,” a man called. Cheftu halted and turned on his heel. The man smiled and pulled out a slab of clay. “Good day, sir. Would you like to go over the day’s activities?”

  The faces of the other men were turned in his direction. Curious.

  “Of course,” Cheftu said. “Walk with me.” I must be Enkidu. En Kidu?

  “Certainly, sir,” the man said. “Where are you going?”

  “I need some fresh air.”

  “Then perhaps… outside?”

  “Excellent choice,” Cheftu said. “Lead on.”

  The scribe, if that’s what he was, turned around and walked down the hall, then turned again. Cheftu’s first sight of his new world was blue sky and palm trees. And a breeze that hinted at a scorching afternoon.

  They walked in silence to the threshold, and Cheftu took in the view.

  Sunlight poured on the city, and Cheftu was blinded by ribbons of reflection. Water. Rivers? No, they were irrigation channels. Two-story buildings cast shadows across straight, gridlike streets lined with green palms. An impressive wall enclosed the structure where he was, and directly below him were gardens with flowers, trees, and fountains, just touched by the sunrise. It was a sophisticated town.

  He saw no people.

  He looked to the south and saw a bay, shimmering silver, in dawn’s light. More irrigation channels branched off a broader river that ran through the western part of the city. The smell of garbage, ash, and incense burned his nostrils as he stood. This place was completely foreign.

  Steps led down from this platform, and steps led up. Cheftu turned to look behind him, and gaped at the building he’d just left; colorful stages with ramps, steps, and archways, leading from one color and level to another. A man-made mountain. From this perspective, he couldn’t see the top. He knew, somehow, that it was a blue temple dedicated to a sky deity.

  A sky deity in an unknown land with a language he had never heard. He’d never even heard its like—it bore no similarity to the Semitic tongues of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Persian. Nor was this India, for he knew Prakrit and its written derivative, Sanskrit. To his left, the bay stretched away to become a sea. The organization of this city looked almost Greek. But they spoke nothing like Greek or Latin, or any of its offspring tongues: French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or the other Indo-European- languages he knew, like German or English.

  The people were not Chinese, nor was their language—at least none of the six dialects of Chinese tha
t Cheftu knew. The land was flat, the people unfamiliar, the place unrecognizable. He felt a ball of fear and fury rise up in his chest; why have you brought me here. The rage was incoherent and apart from him. Fierce, nevertheless.

  It was Kidu’s emotion, but Cheftu shared it.

  This world was not one he knew or had known.

  “So tell me,” he said to the scribe in this language that was borrowed from the other part of his mind, formed by the strange combination of gluing syllables together. “What does my day hold?”

  * * *

  Chloe yawned through the first few hours of class. This was only her second day, and she was exhausted! We’d get so much further with coffee. She wondered if there were any coffee beans around. Or leaves—wasn’t that how the first Arabs discovered coffee? Their sheep ate the leaves? It didn’t matter, her sheep weren’t that useful.

  The heat, the droning, the smoky air, the flies—her head felt as though it were on a string not a neck. It took massive effort to face forward with open eyes.

  None of the nine–to nineteen-year-olds seemed to have this problem.

  She looked at her attempted homework.

  “Prepare your tablets. We’re going to have an examination,” the Elder Brother, said. The Tablet Father was away on business, so the rumor went. His superior skills were being used to figure the new, postflood, taxes.

  The boys got in line, dunked their damp clay, and mashed it smooth. Chloe dodged the splash fights. Five of the boys were disciplined, and the rest of them tittered as the clay dried on the miscreants’ faces.

  “We begin,” the Elder Brother said. “Example one: human, male parent of male parent.”

  The translation was fairly easy for grandparents, for it was a prefix in English, too. Take a parent, removed once from your immediate family, and they became grand. In… whatever these sideways pricking marks were, the answer was the sign for human, a determinative, then male parent twice. Easy enough. Thank God she’d slaved over her homework.

  “Slave.”

  Chloe drew the determinative, then bit her lip. Slave, what was the sign? A human owned by another human? No. A human in debt? A human from someplace else? She skipped to the next question.