Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  The darkness began to glow. Slowly we could see what He had prepared. Each cage was covered with a transparent linen. From the interior, behind each veil, appeared the lights of little stars who flitted back and forth, a myriad of lights in every cage. We gasped in pleasure, then applauded. What untold difficulty to capture so many hundreds of fireflies! How soft were the features of my mother by such a light, and, oh, the wealth of her love. We sat in a darkness lit by golden stars.

  TWELVE

  “By the light of these fireflies,” said my mother, “what is Your request?”

  “But I have none,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

  “In our family,” replied my mother, “we look to return a delight for a delight. What would You desire of us? It is Yours.” I could not bear the boldness in her eyes as she looked at Him.

  “I can think of many pleasures,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, but He laughed as if to turn her away. “Let Me content Myself with expressing one desire. I would say I have contemplated it for years.” As if, on reflection, this was certainly true, He nodded, and said, “The light of these mites makes Me think of the campfires of ancient armies.” There was a quick exclamation from my father at the charm of this thought. Ptah-nem-hotep nodded again. “Yes,” He went on, “I would ask of the General, your own grandfather Menenhetet who has much impressed Me with his thoughts on time, that he tell us the story of the Battle of Kadesh.”

  “I do not know,” said Menenhetet slowly, “when last I have spoken of that day.”

  “I can only inform you,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “that I see this battle often. The heroism of My ancestor, Ramses the Second, appears in My dreams. So, I say, should you wish to return a delight for a delight, yes, tell Me of the Battle of Kadesh.”

  My great-grandfather took a pause, and bowed. “As Hathfertiti says, it is the custom of our family.” He looked no happier, however, than a thundercloud.

  When he did not say another word, my mother’s voice came forth. “Speak of the battle,” she said, and there was an annoyance in her tone as if Menenhetet would spoil much if he did not take care.

  Then we were all silent before the current of ill-will in my great-grandfather. His face had the unspoken clamor of the sky before a storm, and I could feel the force of this bad feeling pass directly into my mother. Ugly as I knew his thoughts would be, I was not prepared for such bitterness. “The degenerate who sups on bat shit has been invited to spill a few secrets,” were the unspoken words that went from my great-grandfather to my mother.

  “Know that I take pleasure to see you in My house,” said Ptah-nem-hotep into the silence.

  Menenhetet bowed again.

  “I can speak,” he said, “in four voices. I can address You as the young peasant who became a charioteer and rose to be General-of-All-the-Armies, commanding the Divisions of Amon, Ra, Ptah, and Set during the reign of Ramses the Second; I can inform you how in my second life I was the youngest High Priest of Thebes during the old age of the same Ramses the Second. Equally, I can speak of the third Menenhetet, who became the wealthiest of the wealthy. Born in the reign of Merneptah, he lived through Siptah, Seti the Second, and other such Pharaohs as Setnacht. Now, if You desire, I can speak as I am here, Your Menenhetet, a nobleman, a General, and later a doctor of renown. I can tell, should You wish to hear, of the plot against Your Father, or of the brief and miserable thrones of Ramses the Fourth, Ramses the Fifth, Ramses the Sixth, Ramses the Seventh, and Ramses the Eighth, who have all been lost to us in twenty-five years, even as Your Majesty may reign longer than all of Them together.”

  I had often been told that the greatest mark of respect a man could give himself was to speak in a full voice on the worth of his rank and achievements. But my great-grandfather’s speech was so short, it seemed rude, and then he startled us even more by his next words. They departed from every custom on how to address the Pharaoh. He now said: “Twice-Divine House, You speak of being happy to see me. This is, however, the Night of the Pig. So I will dare to say that until tonight, You have not invited me to Your Court in the seven years of Your Reign. Yet, now, You inform me that Your finest pleasure would be to hear an account of Your ancestor, Ramses the Second, at the Battle of Kadesh. My tongue is sour in my teeth. I waited for seven years with more in my heart than any man in Your realm. My ruler never called on me.”

  Hathfertiti made a choked sound.

  A clear tone came, however, into our Pharaoh’s voice, as if at last He had before Him a man who spoke his thoughts. “Say more,” He commanded.

  “Good and Great God, You will abhor what I say.”

  “I wish to hear it.”

  “Of those in Your Court who laugh at me, You are the first.”

  “I am not.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “No, it is true, I do not laugh at you tonight. I have laughed at you on other evenings.”

  “The echoes,” said Menenhetet, “of such good humor have come back to me.”

  Ptah-nem-hotep nodded. “I know no one in My Court,” he said, “who does not in some manner respect you. They certainly fear you. Nonetheless, you are the source of much derision. Do you have no idea why this is so?”

  “I would like to hear Your voice give me the reason.”

  “The secret habits of our esteemed Menenhetet have been described as disagreeable.”

  “They are revolting,” my great-grandfather replied. “I am known as the degenerate who sups on bat shit.”

  “There,” said my mother, “he has spoken it aloud.”

  “Bats,” said Menenhetet, “are filthy creatures, hysterical as monkeys, restless as vermin.”

  “Who can disagree?” said our Pharaoh. “It may be easier to speak of you with derision than comprehend your habit.”

  They looked at one another in the silence of men who have been saying too much.

  “Do you do this,” asked the Pharaoh, “in the practice of magic?”

  Menenhetet nodded. “I wished to use what was learned in other lives.”

  “And did you succeed?”

  “There was a time when I could not give up the pursuit of curious questions. So I refused to draw back from the voice that told of revelations to be found in the unspeakable odium of bats.”

  “You went forward?”

  “For a few weeks, many years ago, I pursued the question, yes. I supped once, then twice on that loathsome paste. It offends me now to speak of it, but I found it necessary then, and I was given the answer I was looking for. It was smaller than I hoped, and that should have been the end of it, but the trusted servant who aided me in the preparation of the ceremony saw fit to tell one friend. No man can be trusted altogether. By the next night, all of Memphi was agog. I do not think there was a noble lad who did not hear of it. I, who wished to use what I had learned …”

  “To what purpose?”

  “To enrich,” said Menenhetet, “the marrow of our failing lands.” When our Pharaoh looked at him in some surprise, my great-grandfather held up his hand as if he were for a moment our Monarch. “I do not speak,” he said, “of prayers that ask the river to rise to a good height. That is for priests. I speak of matters I do not wish to explain. It would take a knowledge of my four lives to begin to comprehend certain ceremonies”—here, at the look of displeasure on Ptah-nem-hotep’s mouth, as cruel in its curve as the edge of a sword (so that I realized at once and forever how the desire to torture others came quickest to our Pharaoh when His curiosity was aroused, then balked) my great-grandfather shifted in the confidence of his manner long enough to say, “A man who would deal in strange ceremonies, and employ words of power, finds that he must address himself to one God more than others. To that God is sent not only the large part of his rituals, but his thoughts. So I sought to be the agent of Osiris, since He has spoken to me in the Land of the Dead. Only He, I believed, could enrich the marrow of our failing lands.”

  Now, no one was able to say a word, and the dignity of my great-grandfather was like the composur
e of a statue.

  Who but Ptah-nem-hotep could enter such a silence? “I,” He said, “am the Pharaoh Who reminds you most of Osiris?”

  “Yes,” my great-grandfather replied, “I would say it is so.” He was watching the light of our Pharaoh’s eyes (for even in the soft glow of the fireflies, a light was there to see).

  “That is interesting. Please go on. I would like to hear of the injuries done to you by My Court.”

  “I do not wish to complain in Your Presence, but I will say that the little treachery of my servant went far. The desired effect of the ceremonies I undertook was undone by the derision of Your nobles. To my intolerable shame, I knew much but could do little.”

  “A magician,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “ought to be able to overcome much ridicule.”

  “The Gods listen to mean thoughts. They are obliged to. None of us is without magic when we speak to the Gods in a dream.”

  “Yet no more than one faithless servant, you say, is the reason for these terrible stories.”

  “I would not make that claim,” said Menenhetet. “I have done many things of which pious people—and those who are less than pious—would not approve. But in the public mind, two foul suppers equal all the rest. It is a great pity. There is so much I would teach.”

  “Yes, I believe that. You may have been much slandered. Although I wonder. Is it,” asked Ptah-nem-hotep, “no more than these stories about the bats that stick to you, or is it—and I will be as frank as the license of this night—is it not the subject of excrement itself that captures your thoughts? I have heard it said that as a doctor, your cures were extreme.”

  “I have led,” said Menenhetet, “by my own understanding of such matters, an upright life. I have no fear of any subject, not when I can speak to a Pharaoh as wise in His understanding as Yourself. No,” he said, “no, I feel no shame in telling of these mysteries. It is others who cannot bear to listen.”

  “I know I cannot,” Hathfertiti told him. “The evening will be marred.” She said it in so strong a voice that my great-grandfather looked at her with all the force of his eyes, and the strength of his will went back and forth with hers until she could stare at my great-grandfather no longer. It was his hour.

  “If you would speak,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

  “I will,” said Menenhetet, and inclined his head to Hathfertiti. “We do not know,” he said, “how such thoughts came to Egypt, but for a long time we have concocted our medicines of monkeys’ dung, the pellets of snakes, goat balls, the manure of horses, cow flop, bird droppings, even the matter of our own honey-pots.” He paused. “There came a time when I was obliged to ponder the qualities of the food we eat. Not only do we take our strength from it, but what we cannot use, or what we do not wish to use, is cast out. Excrement is full of all that is too despicable for us, but it also may contain all that we cannot afford to take into ourselves—all that is too rich, too courageous, or too proud for our bearing. If this is the Night of the Pig, then I say to You that more honesty, generosity, and loyalty to Your service is going to be found in the turds of Your nobles, grand ladies, and Your High Priest, than comes from the words in their mouths. For whichever food will nourish hypocrisy is quickly absorbed by Your royal friends, but every virtue You might wish them to guard for You is passed through.”

  “Well said,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “None of this is wholly strange to My ear.” Indeed, His voice was so thin that He must have shared some of my great-grandfather’s bitterness. There, in the lovely light of the fireflies, He argued, however, with the question. “Can you,” He asked, “ignore the wisdom of the common people? They certainly regard clean linen as a sign of rank. Whoever is immaculate can take a stick to a fellow who is filthy. We even speak of a man we do not respect as equal to dung. Yet, your logic intrigues Me all the same. I cannot dispute it instantly. It is so curious. If our excrement carries away not only the worst of us but also the best, how could you find any virtue in the bowels of a man of noble character? By your argument, the meanest poisons ought to come out of him first. In that case, is the reverse not also true? Doesn’t the poor man offer gold by way of his rear end? Why has the common wisdom of Egypt not brought everyone rushing to the meanest latrines of the foulest beggars? Think what wealth, bravery and generosity has to be found in the evacuations of such wretches.”

  Now, Hathfertiti roared with laughter.

  My great-grandfather was, however, undisturbed. “Yes,” he said, “like the Lady Hathfertiti, we laugh at shit—but then, we always laugh when a truth is suddenly disclosed and as quickly concealed. The Gods have tickled us with the truth. So we laugh.”

  “You do not answer the question, my great-grandfather,” I burst out suddenly.

  “Are you interested?” asked the Pharaoh.

  I nodded profoundly. The room rang with laughter, and I wondered of which truth I had just given them a glimpse.

  “Yes,” said Ptah-nem-hotep when everyone was silent again, “I, too, want an answer.”

  “I would agree,” replied Menenhetet, “that a noble man would reject every foul temptation in his food. So, indeed, his leavings can offer nothing but mean poisons, and that would always be true if it were not that some noble men live with a terrible shame. When offered the opportunity to take a great chance, they do not dare. After all, one cannot welcome every trial presented by life, or the bravest of us would soon be dead. Yet, on the consequence we must recognize that each time a difficult choice is avoided, the best part of a noble man chooses to depart by way of his buttocks.”

  Ptah-nem-hotep looked again at my great-grandfather. “I still do not understand,” He said in a voice that mocked the subject as much as it betrayed His interest, “why the turds of riffraff are not coveted then by My Councillors? How could anything, according to you, be more invigorating for such people than a bath in the worst slops?”

  “Your Councillors know better. The poor and wretched have the power to put a curse on their excrement. Otherwise, not even shit would belong to them.”

  “I am most impressed,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “by this last remark.”

  “It was so well said, my Lord,” said Hathfertiti. Her voice had turned coarse, and I wondered whether it was the conversation, the wine, the beer, the pig, or all of it. She was certainly less respectful to my great-grandfather, and wanton when she looked at the Pharaoh. Several times I tried to enter her head but could see little more than an uproar of naked bodies as bawdy as wrestlers in a pit. Then I recognized the face of Ravah in the swarm, and Ptah-nem-hotep, and my father, and great-grandfather, were also there, my mother among them naked and with her mouth open.

  THIRTEEN

  Even by the pale light of the fireflies, I could see that Ptah-nem-hotep was not calm. If at first I thought the cause for His disturbance was equal to mine, and neither of us could forgive my mother for her outrageous inclinations, I soon recognized that my great-grandfather’s conversation must have had as much effect on Him. In either case, my Pharaoh’s mind was now concerned with buttocks. In His thoughts, they were all about Him. Then they became one great pair that turned into the face of Khem-Usha.

  At this moment, my Pharaoh stood up, and, to everyone’s surprise, beckoned to my great-grandfather. “Come,” He said, “there is a room I would show you.” For a moment, I even thought He would invite me as well. His eyes seemed to stare again into mine with great love—or so I believed—but then He stepped out with my great-grandfather, and, much to my mother’s vast annoyance at so sudden a departure, was gone.

  She stood up as soon as they had passed between the pillars, and walked about like a panther tethered to a stake. I had once seen such an animal in my great-grandfather’s gardens, and on the instant he was thrown a piece of meat, the beast would snatch it in the air. So was my mother ready to tear at my father in the moment he said, “I speak not to upbraid you …”

  “Do not speak,” she said.

  “I must tell you.”

  “Is the chil
d asleep?” asked my mother.

  I gave a sad whimper, as from a dream, which was not so false, for I always felt sorrow larger than myself when they would fight.

  “You do not see,” said my father, “how women throw themselves before Him every day. He is bored by such excessive attentions.”

  “I do not throw myself. I offer myself. And I do it to delight you. For if I succeed, what will give you more pleasure than to know for the rest of your life that every time you come forth into me, He will also be there?” She came to a stop in her pacing. “Doesn’t that moisten your little heart? Say you do not want the Pharaoh to know me for a night.”

  “Please be silent. The air has echoes.”

  “Everyone knows I am prodigiously faithful to you.” My mother gave her coarse laugh.

  My father whispered. “I tell you to remember that you are a lady. I do not recognize the woman I see tonight. You laugh so crudely.”

  “Is that your true speech? I may do what I want, but until I do, please act like a lady.”

  “I do not think that is what I wish to say.”

  “Yes, it is. You say it very well. You speak as well as I used to speak when we were first married. You see, old friend Nef, you stole my good manners, and left me yours—which come from your father—that horrible man. If I am too crude for your taste, it is because I, a Princess, made the mistake, when young, of liking you.”

  After such a speech, my father was silent; indeed, he was always silent after their quarrels. They ended with my mother victorious and carrying herself like a Queen, but then, my father was so sly in his defeat that I often wondered if he did not make himself indispensable to my mother. Could she ever feel so powerful with anyone else?

  Still, on this night, my father surprised me. He returned to the quarrel after it was lost. “I think you are stupid,” he burst out. “You are doing it all wrong. Admit, at least, that I know Him well. He is a Good and Great God, but He lives with many burdens. So He is not drawn to women who are much pleased with themselves. Such women are overbearing in His eyes.”