Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  Only in the Temple of Isis, on the eastern side of the palace promontory, where the sound of the sea echoes through the hall like the noise inside a fragile seashell held up to the ear, was there any peace for me. From the portico I could see the shining aquamarine water with its decorative white froth trimming the waves like lace. The crying of the wind, imitated by the seagulls, seemed to be calling to me. Inside the shaded hall, the statue of Isis, as white as new-cut ivory, stood inviting me to draw near.

  There, at the feet of the goddess, the only mother I had ever really known, I could rest my head and lay aside my pretense. She saw everything, she knew everything, and I could trust her: things we long for in our earthly companions.

  Isis! My mother! I feel myself to be a child, lost and alone. . . .

  Long ago my mother had vanished into that beguiling tender blue of the harbor, resigning me to Isis's care.

  I am small, very small. I only come up to the statue's base, and I reach out and touch it, my fat little hands curling with sorrow, offering a sad bunch of wildflowers to the goddess, terrified of her. "This is your mother now," the old nurse says, but she is white and remote, and I can barely see her face. I want my own mother's face back, her high coloring, her red lips, her greenish eyes. I put out my hand again and see, overlaying it, my mother's hand, her slender fingers flailing in the water and disappearing.

  cry to the goddess, I am yours--take me, too, I want to go with her. But the goddess draws me up, takes my chin, whispers, Child, my child, death is not for you. You are mine, and will be my hands and eyes, my executor, my incarnation--forever and ever.

  I had forgotten, my memories perhaps sealed by her power--until now. As I stand in her shadow, it all returns, only now I am taller, my hands--slender and ringed now, like my mother's--reaching to the goddess's knees, my mother's face faded beyond recall, Isis and her serene beauty the only mother I know.

  What would you have me do? I ask her. Only you can guide me. Shall I resist? Am I to die soon? What of my children? Where will they go, what will you do with them?

  O Isis--you who control fate, you who open and close the doors of our journey, tell me whence I go, where and why. Tell me. I am ready to hear.

  And, faint as the sea-whisper, the murmur of the tides lapping at the base of the temple, I hear the sound of doom: Only a little while more, a little distance yet to go, and bravely borne, and you may lie down beside me.

  Beside her. My mausoleum was beside the Temple of Isis, with an adjoining passageway. So.

  As long as men come to worship me, as long as women come to pay homage, to lay flowers and wash with the sacred water, so long will they pass your earthly remains and honor you, too. You, my true daughter, will be part of me and those who love me, until the crack at the end of the world--the end of our worlil. . . .

  It is over, then? It does not seem possible, but it is only the statues who abide forever. Even Alexander lies as still as dust under his canopy, and he was younger than I.

  But only six years younger! I am thirty-nine! Too young; it has gone too fast, far too fast to be over!

  Octavian--Octavian is also six years younger than I, exactly Alexander's age; no, not quite yet, not until next September will he attain Alexander's age. And then . . .

  Is it to be then? I asked Isis. Is it to be then, but not before?

  And she told me, Yes. Then.

  But I wanted to change it, would change it. Was it truly written, or could it be rescinded? If the gods admired or applauded our efforts, did they not have the power to change even what is written? They had pitied Psyche, and her great struggle earned her a place on Mount Olympus, a drink of ambrosia converting her with a sip from mortal to immortal. And Hercules ... his labors had made him a god after all.

  Only those who struggle are worthy of a reprieve. And so I had learned nothing, except what was waiting to be changed by my own determination. How easy to submit, how great the reward for resisting! Thus the gods encourage us to rebel, by their own inconsistency and approval of our daring.

  'They told me I would find you here."

  I barely heard the voice; it was low and came from the portico. I turned to see a black outline, someone standing, leaning an arm against the column, black against white.

  "Who intrudes upon me?" I demanded. I wanted no human beings in this sacred space.

  He removed his hand from the column and walked toward me, still just a black bulk, moving deliberately, slowly. . . .

  "You do not recognize me?" Antony's voice framed the words in sorrow and disappointment.

  He was alive! He was here, refuting death itself! I ran to him and flung my arms around his neck, which I had thought never to do again.

  The black-sailed ship ... the sarcophagus ... the speechless funeral... all the tormenting images I had wrestled with gone, shriveled like the wraiths of imagination they were. His breath was warm, his flesh solid--this was no ghost.

  "O thanks! Thanks be to all the gods!" I cried. He, too, had defied their orders, and now he lived and was here. He had turned his back on the Roman dictum.

  "I had to see you again," he said. "I could not leave with our parting as it was."

  He bent down and kissed me, holding me to him fiercely. My soul sang at his touch, at his restoration.

  "I cannot hold you close enough," I said. Above us Isis looked down, her face expressionless.

  We would return to the palace. He would see the children. How happy he would make them! They would not face the loss I had, that hot, still day in the harbor. I would tell him of all the preparations, the news.

  "And now I can bear it," he said, pulling away from me. "To have parted properly is fitting."

  "I do not understand." Surely he had not come all this way to ... I turned and looked at Isis. Was all this her will, a cruel trick?

  "I will live here, but not with you," he said. "I am no fit company, no longer worthy to reside in the palace. I will dwell in solitude, in a small house--the meaner the better--on the harbor, awaiting the inevitable approach of. . . the victor."

  "But--" I searched for words. This fit no pattern. It made no sense, answered no requirement of honor. "Surely you have some other purpose! Why did you return, then?"

  "I told you--to see you."

  "But you will cause me great pain. How can I live in the palace, alone, knowing you are in the city, refusing to come to me? And the children! How can you explain--how can I explain--to Alexander and Selene that their father is here, but will not see them? They are frightened, confused! They need you!" What madness had entered him?

  "I am no longer Antony," he said. "It is better that they do not see me. Let them remember me as I was. Let them cherish the medals--mementos of a great soldier! Not this man--not this man!" He extended his arms, brushing them down over his chest, then holding them out in resignation.

  "You are their father!" I said sternly. "Children care less about medals and honor than you imagine. They crave only the life and presence of their father or mother." My mother, sinking beneath the waves, abandoning me . . . but she had not done it on purpose. "You are cruel!" When he still stood unmoving, I cried, "The gods will punish you for this! Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable! You couldn't help Actium, but this is your own doing! And you will pay for it!"

  He was not to return to the palace, but turn his back on it and on us, letting his quarters remain empty . . . never to act as husband and father again.

  "Antony died at Actium." His voice was low.

  "What is standing here, then?" He looked real enough to me.

  "A shadow, a dark double."

  "Then let it come to us."

  "It is not worth the having," he said.

  "If this unfeeling man is the remnant of Antony, then you have spoken true!" I cried. "This is not Antony, who was above all kind and generous! This is more like Octavian! Has he taken you over? Hardened you into a version of himself?"

  "Let me depart in peace!" he said. "Remember me as I was!"r />
  "It is impossible. Whatever our last glimpse of someone, that remains with us. Oh, Antony--" I held out my arms to him. "Come back with me. Let us stand together, wring some last pleasure and victory from our days--"

  But he had turned away, his cape trailing out behind him, descending the temple steps.

  I bent my head over the base of Isis's statue and wept. He had invaded my interview with the goddess, returned from the dead, teasingly, only to depart.

  What shall I do? What shall I do? I implored her.

  Let him go, she answered. Now there is only you. You, and I. I will riot flee, or fail to uphold you in your need. Give yourself to me. Your need of mortals is over.

  It was sunset before I left the temple; the rose reflection of the red glow on the horizon coated the columns, threw slanting rays across the floor, bathed Isis's face in living hues. The tide had receded, and ugly black rocks revealed themselves, nibbled by the waves.

  I was exhausted, as if I had fought a mighty battle. I dreaded returning to the palace, to all the questions and scrutiny, but unlike Antony, I would make myself face them.

  My arms ached from the brief embrace, bringing forgotten sensations back to me. The feel of his lips on mine--now I must forget them again, and forget them in anger and disappointment. Better for me was the parting in Paraetonium! I hated him for this surprise, this titillation. And I could never forgive him for wounding his children so. Even the Roman way would have left me with more respect for him! Then I would have been sorrowed; now I was shocked and betrayed.

  Heart, we must forget him utterly! I told myself sternly as I marched back to the palace. How to face Mardian and tell him . . . ?

  I need not have worried. It was Mardian who had spoken to him, had told him where to find me. He was waiting anxiously.

  "Did he . . . ?"

  "Yes!" I cried, anger and sorrow struggling like gladiators within me.

  "And where . . . ?"

  "He has gone off to--I know not where! He says he will live alone--not coming to the palace. Oh, Mardian!" I embraced his comforting bulk. Dear Mardian, my stalwart, ever-constant friend.

  "He is a broken man," he said. "Don't judge him too harshly."

  "But the children! How can he--?"

  "He is ashamed to face them." He guided me back into his most private room. "He has had another blow."

  "What?"

  "He did not tell you?"

  "No. He said nothing, just a sort of formal farewell."

  "Ah." Mardian gestured for me to seat myself on one of his soft couches.

  As I did so, sinking into the welter of pillows, I felt profound relief. I had been standing for hours. "What has happened to him?" I cared terribly. I wanted to protect him against any more lashes.

  Mardian picked up a slender glass pitcher and, without asking, poured out a sweet drink of honey and fresh-pressed grape juice for us. He handed me a goblet, and I took it gladly. "Scarpus arrived a few hours ago," he said. "It seems that Gallus and his men finally reached Cyrenaica, where Scarpus's former legions were waiting for them. They joined forces, and Antony decided to go to the camp and make a personal appeal to his former soldiers there. He would stand outside the gates and address them."

  No! What a humiliation! But that he would undertake it showed he was not beaten yet.

  "But what happened?"

  "Scarpus was standing with him, and as he told it--it was pitiful. Every time Antony raised his voice to speak--and you know how he has trained it to carry great distances--Gallus gave the order for the trumpets to sound and drown him out. It went on and on like that for hours. Finally the day ended, and Antony had to depart unheard."

  An actual shaft of pain shot through me. Enough, enough! I begged Isis. Lay no more upon him!

  "And then he came here," I said.

  "Apparently so."

  This last blow must have unhinged him. He could only crawl here in shame--like a dog seeking a safe place to lie down and die. Oh, if only I had known this when he was standing before me!

  "He did not relate this to you?" said Mardian.

  "No." He had probably felt there was nothing to relate. O Antony! "No, he said nothing."

  "What did he do, then?"

  He looked at me. He kissed me. He said farewell.

  I shrugged. "Muttered a lot of nonsense about living alone, watching for Octavian--" Now I felt tired, defeated. I, too, sought a safe place to lie down. I did not want to return to my rooms, where the children would come in, where Iras and Charmian would be. I understood how Antony felt, if only fleetingly. "Mardian--may I be your guest tonight?" I did not have to explain it to him.

  "I would be honored," he said. "It has long been prepared."

  As my chief state minister, his quarters rivaled mine in size and, I daresay, surpassed them in sumptuous appointments. He had an eye for beauty and the means to indulge it; the customs officials were well versed in his tastes, and whenever a cargo of Syrian pearl-inlaid tables, Indian camphorwood chests, or Coan silk bed-hangings put in, they invariably set aside a sample for him. The result was a series of rooms dripping with decoration, with no empty spot on wall, floor, or table. The only exception to this was his workroom, which was as spare as a hermit's cell.

  A hermit's ... as spare as Antony's, now?

  "I believe in keeping only the pertinent papers to hand," he explained once. "All the rest of the clutter just confuses the mind." "How, then, do you live in all this?" I would have found it stifling. I must have space to breathe, and to rest my eyes.

  "Ah , once outside the workroom, I find my senses need caressing " he said.

  He led me down a corridor, past rooms glittering with treasure like a merchant's den, and to the very last chamber, a corner one that overlooked both the sea and the palace gardens. I could see my mausoleum from the window, and Isis's temple, too, violet against dark blue in the deepening night. They made me shiver. There were the steps where Antony had walked away. Where was he now? I looked in vain for any movement in the shadows beneath the portico.

  "Here, my dear, you may stay as long as you wish." He indicated the chamber, its cushioned benches overflowing with embroidered throws, the enormous bed enveloped in filmy curtains.

  "You know you are safe saying that, for I must be back in the audience chamber by morning," I said. I reached up and touched his smooth cheek.

  He laughed. I had always liked his laugh, and now found it as familiar a friend as he himself. "But you need not, if you do not wish to. I can attend to it."

  "I know that." He had turned out to be that rarest of things, a cherished friend who was also the best person for a high position. "But I will be there, you know. I do not shirk." I turned toward the bed. "You have provided so much here, I feel negligent in planning only to sleep." My eye had caught the piles of scrolls, the paintings, the game boards of inlaid ebony, the musical instruments, all waiting for the guest.

  "I can send a singer in to lull you to sleep," he said. "I have a very fine one, from Lycia--"

  "No. Silence will be sweeter," I assured him. I waited a moment. "I went to Alexander's tomb today," I finally said. "Do you remember--?"

  "When we first met there? Yes. You thought I was hogging him!" He laughed, that lovely laugh.

  "Mardian, it was different today. He wasn't different, but I was, the world was--never go back there!"

  "Well, I haven't been in many years. You know how it is--when you live someplace, you never see the famous sights, except when you're a child and get taken there. I daresay--"

  "No, I mean it! It was oppressive, frightening." I wanted to explain it to him--or perhaps to myself.

  "You've never been frightened of anything, as long as I've known you," he said stoutly. "And now you say a tomb has unnerved you?"

  "No, not the tomb itself, just... the end of things." It was more difficult to put into words than I expected. "Don't return there, I beg you."

  He shrugged. "I was not planning to." His hand swept around
the room. "Now, here, I have provided pillows stuffed with the down from baby swans' necks.. .."

  I lay on the bed, my head sinking into the plump pillows--sacrifice of the young swans--my view of the chamber misted by the thin blue silk curtains drawn around the bed. How secure I felt here, how protected by the layers and layers of luxury. Perhaps that was what they were for, to cushion Mardian against the outside world. Perhaps that is all money ultimately does--cushion us against the world, smooth out its rough texture for us.

  To have a friend like Mardian at a time like this was a healing balm. I, like Antony, needed a restorative place of withdrawal, but I would not linger here. Just for tonight... just for tonight. . . Dear Mardian. He never failed me.

  The shadows thrown by the three suspended oil lamps made patterns on the walls, and it was easy to see people in them, profiles, stories. The shades . . . the shades of Hades . . . how alive were they, what did they remember, what did they feel? I would soon know. Even to be a shadow on a wall, like these, was better than to be nothing. I did not want to be extinguished, did not want to die. Thinking about it so carefully ahead of time made it worse, but to be struck down suddenly was no better. As men we think, and garland our deaths with thoughts, like flowers bedecking a tomb. To be robbed of that opportunity is to die like a beast. Still. . . the beasts do not poison their last hours with morbid thoughts, so which is preferable?