The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  He stood before me in the robes of the god. In the darkness his face was hidden, but his physical presence filled the robes and did them justice.

  He bent down to kiss me, the first time anyone had ever done so. I almost flinched at his touch, it was so foreign to me to let anyone come that close. He touched my hair, bringing both hands up to do so; he embraced me gently, he kissed my neck. Each action was so slow and deliberate that it felt portentous, as if he were unbolting a sacred door or unsealing a shrine. He took my hands in his and guided them to embrace him as well, as if he knew I needed to be taught. And touching him, even just his shoulders, felt as forbidden as his touch on me: unpermitted, shocking, alien. Not only was he a stranger, but now I seemed a stranger to my very self. And yet…it was as if I did know him, in some fundamental, reassuring way. My fear evaporated, its place taken by eagerness and excitement.

  He reached down and picked me up, more easily than Apollodoros had. I felt his arm bones, and I wanted them to be dedicated to me, to protecting me, to fighting for me. He took only two steps over to the bed.

  The robes of Amun were heavy and smothering. Now he must throw them off. But no; he insisted on stripping off his military gear in a ritualistic manner, and lying naked beneath the robes.

  I removed my gown in turn, and was glad to do so; once becoming, after the hard journey it was dirty and smelled of the rug and the bottom of the boat. With unsteady hands I drew the Isis robe around my shoulders and over my back.

  “Ah.” He put out a hand and touched me, as if in wonder. Had I not known better, I would have believed he had never seen a woman’s body before. “You are beautiful.” And I knew that tonight it was so.

  Bolder now, I touched him, feeling his muscled chest, so different from the eunuch Mardian’s—the only male I had ever embraced. I ran my hands over his shoulders, exploring like a child in a new room. He seemed amused.

  “You must teach me,” I whispered into his ear, freely admitting my lack of knowledge. I trusted him absolutely, a curious thing.

  “Can Amun teach Isis?” he said. “No. They are both fully knowledgeable. A god and a goddess.” Then he pulled gently and unfastened the clasp of my robe. The heavy costume slid off my shoulders. He kissed the place where the robe had lain. His lips made my skin rise in gooseflesh.

  He bent his head and kissed my breasts, first the right, then the left. He touched them almost reverently.

  “Even Venus is never portrayed with breasts this perfect,” he murmured. He held me gently, as if he were still undecided whether to pursue this course of action. After what seemed a long, quiet time, he said, “You are young and offer me a great gift. But I would not rob your husband of it.”

  “I’m free to offer it as I will,” I cried, suddenly afraid he would refuse me. “And fate is unlikely ever to grant me a husband I want!” Certainly not my brother—I had no wish to save anything of my person for him, or even to let him touch me. “You must be my husband!” I insisted. “Yes, Amun to Isis—” Let me hide my unbidden and impolitic desire behind the conventions of the costumes.

  “Then, for tonight—” At last he pressed himself against me, and we sank down together on the pillows. He was lying on me, the heavy Amun robes weighing us down. I was yearning for us to join together. Everything was gone from my mind but this desire. I did not remember that I had been afraid, or sought information from the prostitute or Olympos, only that I wanted to be physically possessed by Caesar.

  “—I will be your husband.”

  “So be it,” I said, with all my heart.

  And I gave myself to him, and our destinies merged. He became my lord and partner, I his queen and wife.

  He was gentle and patient with me; it was I who was eager and hungry, as if he had created an appetite in me that had never existed before. I was caught up in it, picked up and transported to another world, as I had heard happened to sages; afterwards they returned to earth babbling about the visions they had had, indescribable, ineffable, transforming. Sometimes these holy men claimed to have been sucked up into the clouds by whirling winds and carried great distances; sometimes they departed only from the utter quiet of their own chambers. Always they were changed when they returned, and so I was, as well. I had touched and been touched by another human being, had allowed someone beyond all my guarded gates of privacy, into my very self, so that there were no boundaries left. What I had dreaded all my life as annihilation I now experienced as completion. My world changed utterly in that instant. I clung to him as if I would never lose him. I wanted that revelation, that moment of transfiguration, never to fade. But it would; it did. So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.

  He slept. His body lay stretched on the bed, a linen sheet draped over his back as if he were just dozing from the baths. The Amun robe lay somewhere on the floor, discarded after it had served its purpose. I could tell from his breathing that he was asleep, his broad back moving slowly up and down, exposed to a dagger should I have one hidden. Pompey had been killed by the treachery of a Ptolemy, and yet here Caesar lay, sleeping peacefully at the mercy of another one. But he had gauged me right; not only would I never harm him, but I would kill anyone who tried to. I sat up for a long time in the bed, just watching him, listening to him breathe and move in his sleep.

  I felt profoundly bound to him. The lovemaking over, my heart beating only at a normal pace, the heat of the moment replaced by cool watchfulness, I saw him not as an abstract Roman, or even as the famous conqueror Caesar, but as a lone man, an exile like myself. In the faint lamplight I could make out the lines on his back, the little bumps where his spinal cord lay like a rope under his flesh, even some scars. He had had a hard life the last few years; months of being out in the field, leading half-starving soldiers to attack his once brother-in-law, now his foe. No rest, no safety, betrayed by the very city he had won victories for, having to risk his life just to have his rights recognized…he had said that only his troops had kept him from being sacrificed by the Senate, when all was said and done. A weary man, an unappreciated man…an exile, like me. But he had ended my exile. I wished to do the same for him—if there was any way I could.

  The enormity of what I had just done began to sink in. I had blithely handed him—the famous seasoned voluptuary!—my virginity. Did he even value it? Why had I done it? I tried to ask myself these questions, as if they mattered. They ought to matter. The “sacrifice” had been unnecessary—he had said he would take my side regardless. My coming to him in the rug had already won him over; it was I who insisted on sealing the bargain further by making him my lover. And now…I was supposed to be weeping with shame and loss, but instead I was feeling this unbearable, improbable happiness. It, and he, were so altogether different from what I had imagined.

  I remembered the first time I had ever heard his name, in connection with Father’s debts and annexing Egypt. He had been Consul then—it was even before he had gone to Gaul. I had imagined him to be coarse, grasping, greedy, red-faced, and loud, growing more so as the years went on, so that by this time he would be almost a swine, in spite of his rapacious appetite for stolen artworks. I thought his bed behavior (one could not call it lovemaking) would be brutish and rough, like the field soldier he was. No one had prepared me for this vital yet oddly courteous and elegant man. And certainly no one had prepared me to find in his words and beliefs an echo of my own values and very self. We were alike, in our deepest substance, even though we were born years apart and on different sides of the sea, and of different peoples. He was much more my brother than were my real brothers.

  And no one had prepared me to feel so fiercely loyal to him, so instantly bound to him. And as for the lovemaking…I was eager for more of it. I would refuse him nothing; I did not even want to.

  I was supremely happy, perhaps the first time in my life I had ever been so. I laid my head down across his back and closed my eyes, letting his breathing lu
ll me into a state where I could float and savor that peaceful happiness.

  I must have slept, because when I opened my eyes it was quite light and he was up and looking out the window. He had already put his tunic on, but was still barefoot. I slipped out of bed and came up behind him, putting my arms around him. “You have stolen from my bed,” I said.

  “Lest I should be chained there by my own desire in the daylight,” he said, turning to me. The eastern light showed his face, with lines around the eyes but otherwise taut and healthy.

  “Is that wrong?” I asked. I knew already that being together in the daytime would be entirely different.

  “It is most un-Roman,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t you know that such things are done only by the degenerate people of the east? But then, of course, you are of the east!”

  “How could anything Caesar does be un-Roman?”

  “There are those who like to prescribe Roman behavior. One must be careful not to run afoul of them, when their opinion still counts.” He gave his half-smile. “But later…well, one must admit their standards are questionable. They say adultery is permissible, but only in the dark!”

  “Who are these Romans?” I was curious.

  “Oh, Cicero, Cato, Brutus…but there is no reason for you to be concerned about their murmurings.”

  “Nor you, while you are here.” I took his hand. But I could see his thoughts were already on the business of the day ahead. I dropped it and let him go to the other side of the room, where his clothes lay abandoned. He quickly put them back on. I marveled at how fast a soldier can dress himself.

  “I had arranged for your br—” he started to say, when there was a knock at the door. “Enter!” he bellowed.

  The doors were flung open, and in stepped Ptolemy and Pothinus. Now I suddenly understood why Caesar was up and dressed, and why I was not. I had nothing on but a sheet that I had wound around myself. That was how he had wanted it.

  The visitors gasped. Ptolemy looked as though he were going to cry, and Pothinus, for once, was speechless. He bobbed his ibis-head up and down over his obese body. He stared at me, at the royal bed with its sheets and pillows still in disarray, and then at Caesar, smiling and self-possessed. He understood.

  “It isn’t fair!” shrieked Ptolemy. “It isn’t fair! What’s she doing here, how did she get here, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair!” He turned and ran from the chamber.

  “Great Caesar,” began Pothinus in a shaky, high voice, “we are most surprised by the presence of—”

  “Stop that boy!” barked Caesar to his guards, who had crept up outside the doors during the night. “Stop him before he gets outside.”

  But my brother knew all the secret passageways in the palace, and before they could even locate him, he had run out into the forecourt and then almost to the fence separating the palace grounds from the rest of the city. A large crowd was always there, and today was no exception. I watched from the chamber window as he rushed toward the people, yanked off his royal coronet, threw it to the ground, and burst into a howl of tears.

  “I’ve been betrayed!” he yelped. “Betrayed, betrayed!” Then followed a paroxysm of weeping.

  Two burly Roman soldiers, the sun glinting off the brass on their breastplate straps, ran out of the palace after him, grabbed him from behind, and dragged him back into the palace.

  My blood felt chilled. I had just had an unrehearsed—and therefore all the more revealing—demonstration of who held the real power here. Common Roman soldiers had laid hands on the King of Egypt, and treated him like any naughty village boy. I must not lose Caesar’s favor, lest they do the same to me.

  Behind me, Pothinus was still trying to talk. “Forgive him, he is…unpracticed in ruling,” he whined. “He cannot hide his feelings.”

  Caesar was standing, one lean arm resting on the back of a chair. He had not bothered to go over to the window to see what would happen to Ptolemy. He knew what would happen. He just looked at Pothinus, and it appeared that he was not going to bother to answer him.

  “Shall I decide to allow him to be your co-regent, most exalted Queen?” he asked, in that deadly quiet public voice I was becoming accustomed to. But it was not the voice he used in the dark of the night.

  “I prefer not,” I said.

  “But your father’s will wished it so,” Caesar persisted. Was he teasing me? What did he mean to do? “And did you not take as your title ‘Cleopatra, the Goddess Who Loves Her Father’? Then, of course, you should honor his wishes. Would you care to proceed with the marriage to Ptolemy?”

  The thought of yoking myself to him in any way was politically repellent; yet that was nothing compared to the possibility of his ever touching me as Caesar had. “I could not bear it,” I said.

  Ptolemy was led in, crying and scowling. The two soldiers supported him by his bony little shoulders.

  “Ah! The bridegroom himself!” said Caesar. “Come, dry your tears. It is not fit to weep on your wedding day.”

  His tears dried up in surprise. “Wh-what?” he sniffled.

  “It is my judgment, as executor of the late King’s will, that we must abide by the terms of it. You will marry your sister Cleopatra and reign as joint monarchs in time-honored fashion.”

  He couldn’t be doing this! How could I have trusted him, or hoped for justice from him? Had all my impressions of him been wrong? Now it seemed he was as devious and cruel as the rest of his countrymen. I was stunned.

  “And then, together, you will raise the money you owe me. As you may recall, I have assumed responsibility for collecting what the late King still owed the Roman Republic.” He nodded matter-of-factly.

  That man! So he was just greedy, after all. “You cannot be both judge and beneficiary,” I said coldly. “Choose which way you will be satisfied—either as high judge or as debt collector.”

  He shot a look at me. His eyes were flat and betrayed not anger but resolution. “I will be satisfied both ways, as it pleases me. So make yourselves ready for your marriage, under whatever form you choose, and then we shall have our reconciliation banquet.” He waved his hand at Pothinus. “Prepare for it. It should be a huge fete, held in—what was that hall with the gold rafters and the porphyry columns?—and serving at least two hundred guests. Do all the things you Alexandrians excel in. Dancing girls. Acrobats. Magic tricks. Gold plate. Rose petals on the floor. You know what better than I. Yes, the people must see that we all embrace and love one another.”

  They stood as if they had been mummified, as stiff and wrapped as Osiris.

  “Well?” said Caesar. “I have told you what you must do.”

  The mummies bent their heads and withdrew.

  I whirled around to Caesar. “How could you? I thought we were allies!” I was intelligent enough not to scream, You even called yourself my husband! Had he forgotten that? But I knew Caesar did not forget.

  I felt angry, betrayed, seething. I had had only hours to bask in the momentous thing that had happened in the night, and already it was gone. And for what? So I could be made a new sort of prisoner?

  Sternly I took myself in hand, one part of my mind speaking to the other. You came from Ashkelon, risking your life to gain an audience with Caesar, I reminded myself. And you succeeded. You had a private interview with him, and he agreed to set you back on the throne and enforce his will on your brother and his band of pathetic advisors. They seemed so wily and formidable, but now that Caesar is here, they are swept aside like schoolboys. They are nothing. I have got what I came for—political security. If I wanted more than that after meeting him, then I was a fool.

  Caesar was standing, leaning on the handles of the chair, his head bent. I saw that the top of his head was balding. Amun in the daylight was no god. And I no goddess, just a woman who wanted a man in the oldest of all ways, but it was new to me.

  “And so we are,” he said.

  It took me a second to realize what he was answering—my secret cry, as well as my spoken words.
“Then make me sole Queen!” I said. “Why must I tolerate him?”

  “It is not for long,” he said. “But for now it must serve.”

  “Why?” I cried.

  He looked at me, a long, searching look. “Cleopatra—how I love the way that name sounds on my tongue!—you know why. And you know that legalities must be followed, if only to be discarded later.”

  “So there must be this public reconciliation?” I knew I sounded as pouty as Ptolemy, but I could not help it.

  “Yes,” he said briskly. “You and Ptolemy will be proclaimed joint monarchs, the army can be demobilized, Pothinus can be disposed of—” He stopped as if he had just remembered an insignificant fact. “Did I tell you I banished Theodotos? That was his reward from me.”

  Banished…swept away…in the twinkling of an eye…. Yes, he did swat people as I had swatted the fly in my tent. And he did not even get a mess on his shoe. Just a wave of his hand and the person disappeared. Forever.

  I laughed out loud with joy.

  “Now, that’s my Cleopatra!” He crossed the room swiftly and took me in his arms. “And no—Ptolemy will never be your true husband. I am he. As I promised.” He kissed me, bending down to reach me. “We are alike, you and I,” he said in so low a voice I could barely hear the words. “I know it; I can feel it. At last I have found someone who is exactly like me. I do not think I ever want to part from you. We are two halves of a pomegranate, and each section fits perfectly together.”

  I clung to him. I believed his words, because I wanted to, and thought I understood their true meaning.

  The banquet was in readiness. Pothinus had followed Caesar’s orders, and had prepared a feast for all the court dignitaries: the chief scribes and librarians, the state treasurer, the priests of Serapis and Isis, the commander of the Household Guard, the envoys and courtiers, the most celebrated court physicians, poets, rhetoricians, scientists, and scholars. The gold-covered rafters indeed gleamed their distinctive mellow sheen in the lamplight, and the floor was covered in rose petals brought by sea from Cyrene, where the best roses grow. Wherever you stepped, the drowsy sweet scent was released in the crushing underfoot.