Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  Then in a voice of much authority she began the invocation that would bring the Ka of that Pharaoh forth.

  While Menenhetet lay on his back, his head against the altar, and her foot upon his chest (so that he looked up at a body and face as fierce and massive as the great Pharaoh who had been the Father of Usermare) Honey-Ball began to recite a poem:

  “Four elements

  “In their scattered parts,

  “Will bring their hearts

  “To these events.

  “May the Ka of Seti come to birth,

  “May the Ka of Seti know our earth.

  “Air, water, earth, fire,

  “Seed, root, tree, fruit,

  “Breathe, drown, bury, birth,

  “Air, water, fire, earth,

  “O Seti, come to me.”

  She said it, and Menenhetet, lying beneath her, repeated it, their voices in unison, and the lines were said many times. As she spoke, she lay pinches of incense on the burning pots beside his body until the room was heavy with smoke, and the heat of her heart rose higher. Her voice moved through air so thick her breath shifted the smoke like clouds.

  “O You,” she said, “Who were the greatest of Pharaohs and the Father of the Great Usermare, and are twice the greatness of this Pharaoh, Your Son, Who is called Ramses the Great, know, then, the sound of my voice that calls to You for I am Ma-Khrut, the daughter of my father, Ahmose of Sais, who was born in Your Reign.

  “Great Seti, Greatest of all Pharaohs, let Yourself be known by Your Power, by Your Rage, and by the Glories of Your Reign. For Your Son, Usermare-Setpenere, has torn down Your Temple in Thebes. He has turned to the wall all the great words that are spoken of His Father Seti. In these Temples, praise for His Father is silent. The stones have been choked. If You hear me, may Your First Ka descend upon me like a tent.” She was silent. Then she said: “O Seti, come to me.”

  She spoke in the clear and perfect tongue of a Pharaoh, her left hand pointing out before her North to the altar, North to the lands of Sais on the Delta, and Menenhetet felt the Ka of the dead Monarch descend upon her like a tent of the lightest linen, and she-in-the-Ka-of-Seti stood with her foot upon him. He saw the green circle on the floor, and it burned with the red of the amulet on the altar. The cries of birds came across the silence of the sky from the time of Seti, and Menenhetet sat up so that the hand of the Father of Usermare could grasp his hair, and indeed his hair was seized, and he felt the great force of the Father of Usermare in the hand that was on his hair, and it lay like the weight of a bronze statue upon him.

  Then Menenhetet heard the voice of the Ka of Seti speaking to Isis: “O Great Goddess,” said this voice, “You are the mother of our grain, and the Lady of our bread. You are the Goddess of all that is Green. You govern all clouds, swamps, fields of wheat and every meadow of flowers. So, You are stronger than all the Temples of Amon.” Now a mist arose from the altar, and a smell of the sweetness of the fields was in the air.

  “Great Goddess, hear the shame of Seti the First. For His Son moves the stones of His Temple. The blocks of marble are turned. The glories of Seti are turned to the wall. What has been to the front is now to the back.”

  “It is true,” said Menenhetet.

  “Old odors stir from these stones. They speak from the earth that has buried them. Let these stones fall upon Ramses. Let His Heart be crushed by the stones of Seti.”

  Waves went out from the Ka of Seti and passed through Menenhetet. Waves went out through the wind and through the water, waves of flame, and great contortions of the flesh, and all of it was in the hand above his head.

  “Your mouth commands Ra. The Moon is Your Temple. All mountains come down to You.”

  On the altar, the amulet was glowing with a molten light white as the fires of metal. Now, Menenhetet could not breathe. The altar trembled and tottered and crashed like the stones of the temple of Seti. The cry of a captured bird shrieked in his ears. Now, Menenhetet was shaken by a great fury and the Ka of Seti passed from her to him, even as the altar had fallen, and although he had been told by every one of her instructions that he must remain motionless at the end to aid her in thanking Isis (and thereby assisting Her departure) and then must stand up to thank the Ka of Seti, Menenhetet made a sound instead like a beast, and the Ka of Seti that was in him became as fierce as a wild boar. There, beside the shattered altar, he mounted Honey-Ball and made love as he never had before, and she was sweet beneath him even as Menenhetet came forth in a voice loud enough to wake Horus of the South (so that in the morning, more than one little queen would say the serpent of all evil must have traversed the Gardens last night) and Menenhetet knew that the hands of the thousand and one Gods Who surrounded Usermare were no longer joined. For in the sound of his own great roar was the voice of Seti thundering in wrath at the overturning of the stones in His Temple, and again Menenhetet made love in a fury to Ma-Khrut, and turned her about so as to know her by each mouth, the Mouth of her Flower, the Mouth of her Fish, the Mouth of the Pit, and gave both of his two mouths to her so that she knew him well. Beyond the walls of the Secluded, in the great plazas and gardens of the High Palace and the Little Palace, out to the city of Thebes itself, and down to the river, he could feel the wrath of Seti enter the mutilated stones of the new temples, and Menenhetet knew that Usermare was disturbed in His calm, like the water of the sea before a storm.

  Yet when all was done, Honey-Ball said, “I do not know what happened. The Ka of Seti the First was not supposed to pass from me to you.”

  Through the night, she was much agitated by the unforeseen turn of the ceremony and greatly depressed through all of the following morning.

  SEVEN

  By the next evening, however, there was no one in the Gardens who had not heard what had come upon the Pharaoh. Visiting the Palace of Nefertiri in the middle of the day, He had been eating with His Queen when a butler spilled on Him a bowl of steaming soup. The servant fled to the kitchen pursued by the King’s Guard who, hearing the Pharaoh’s roars of pain, proceeded to beat the poor steward so brutally that he died before the sun went down. Among the Secluded, there was no end of talking on this matter, and Honey-Ball laughed with the sweetest gaiety Menenhetet had heard in her voice for many weeks. “The powers of Isis work directly,” she said.

  Not two days after the accident, Usermare commissioned the writing of a great number of papyri with magic words until not even the Royal Scribes could make a count on how many amulets were being prepared.

  Menenhetet, at the prompting of Honey-Ball, took one of his rare trips out of the Gardens and went to visit the great chamber where the Scribes of the Court were at work. Five hundred sat with their palettes and paint-boxes writing letters to brother-scribes of the Temples, of the House of Gold, the House of Grain, of the Troops, scribes of the Law Courts, scribes, when you came to count them, of every royal purpose in every province of the kingdom, the great chamber like a temple itself, for there were no walls, only a roof, and many pillars, and the scribes not only worked, but went back and forth to gossip with each other until Menenhetet began to see much in their activity that was like the flurry of birds carrying messages to the Gods and beasts as they flew between air and earth. How few in comparison were the thoughts of Ma-Khrut. Yet how powerful they had been!

  On this day, gossiping with a few of the Chief Scribes, Menenhetet learned that the production of His Amulets was no longer sufficient to satisfy the Pharaoh. Much disruption had come upon the Scribes’ Chamber. Many of them, accustomed to composing letters to officials in far-off nomes, were most uncomfortable with this new craft.

  When Menenhetet told her, Honey-Ball laughed again. “The powers of Isis also work slowly,” she said, and added that much in the mind of Usermare must be distraught. For the thought of unpracticed scribes making amulets was absurd. Exactitude of procedure was crucial to any papyrus being so prepared. No amulets were better than those they made in Sais where she had learned the art, and in that city they used
to say one error in an amulet could taint twenty others. The scribes who had just been put into service were good only to keep inventory of cattle or tell you the number of geese sacrificed for a festival—they were scribes. She gave her giggle of derision—they were like monkeys to her, or eunuchs. If they could never speak the word that was silent, how could they make amulets?

  Then Menenhetet told her of the exceptional story he had heard that afternoon. It came from Stet-Spet, known as Pepti, who, being the Scribe of the House of the Secluded, was also, of necessity, a eunuch, indeed the only scribe who was, and that made him an incomparable gossip. Having no children of their own to protect, eunuchs were always ready to talk about all forbidden things, but then, the same, he said to Honey-Ball, was true for scribes. Spending much of their lives in one room, scribes felt natural envy for those whose duties took them to lively places, and so talked about their betters prodigiously. What then, Honey-Ball agreed, could be said of a man who was both a eunuch and a scribe? They laughed together at this. Actually, they would not mock him to his face. Stet-Spet was no one to have for an enemy. Only a few years ago, he had been one of the lowest of the Royal Scribes of the Superintendent of Agriculture, yet his wish to rise out of the ranks had been so ardent that he asked for the operation that would make him a eunuch, and survived the purulence which followed upon wounds in such swamplike parts of the body. Menenhetet respected that. It was not easy for an Egyptian. They were less hardy than Nubians and not always able to endure the atrocious infection of castration. However, the opportunities to be a Chief Scribe had been so few, Stet-Spet once told him, that he rushed to request the operation so soon as he learned that the former Scribe of the Secluded, an aged and exceptional Nubian, had begun to show the final signs of going blind.

  Now, Stet-Spet worked in the Gardens, which is to say he had the best task of all scribes. He ate at the homes of all the little queens and could have lolled in the harem more than he worked, but no detail of his office became too small for him. So he heard about every love of each little queen for another little queen, and even knew the pet names they gave each other. The women, in turn, had put on him a new name, Pepti, inasmuch as the old one, Stet-Spet, meant Trembling-Pole. If they even thought of his operation, they would titter too much when speaking to him. Of course, being a eunuch, yet feasting at so many homes, Pepti grew fat until he was as heavy as Honey-Ball. It was said that no two people equaled either of them in wisdom, but that of the two, Honey-Ball was wiser. Pepti’s knowledge came to him by the nature of his task. Since no lady in these Gardens would ever fail to inform the Scribe of the Secluded that she had received the seed of Usermare on the night before (the date to be scrupulously set down in his records so that no question could arise of the time of conception) Pepti had a list of every little queen chosen by Usermare in the three years he had been Scribe to these Gardens. No little queen could rise or fall, therefore, in the esteem of the Pharaoh without Pepti’s knowledge.

  He also had heard what happened to Menenhetet in the House of Nubty. Pepti had it all by morning—aiiigh, Kazama! He had been told by Heqat and Honey-Ball before they even went to sleep, inasmuch as they were at his house to record the coming-forth in them of Usermare’s seed. Of course, Pepti did not keep the story to himself, and a laughter cruel as the coils of a silver snake twisted through the Gardens. The eunuchs put a hand to their lips as they passed their Governor. Menenhetet would think of the Scribe of the Secluded telling this story, and see the fat belly shaking with mirth, yet he could not hate him with the burning light that is the foundation of revenge. Menenhetet knew the story would have been told no matter how. Besides, such stories quickly became old in the Gardens and rotted like fallen figs. Moreover, he did not dare to make an enemy of Pepti for then the Scribe might tell the eunuchs to spy on him. So, he kept his manner pleasant. For that matter, being the only high officials in the Gardens, they were obliged often to converse over the records. All purchases made in the market by eunuchs had to be marked by the Scribe and examined by the Governor.

  Afterward, Pepti would gossip with Menenhetet. Pepti gossiped with all. A story not told was equal to food not eaten. So on this morning when Menenhetet passed through the Chamber of the Scribes and met the eunuch talking to old friends, he offered a ride in his chariot. Pepti, speaking just below the din of their clatter over the stones of the paved squares and the ruts of the dirt roads, was able to insinuate his voice between the cries of every merchant and worker in the market of Thebes, and so Menenhetet heard more about the bowl of soup. The meal, it seemed, had been spoiled from the onset, for Amen-khep-shu-ef had returned to Thebes that morning after a surprisingly quick and successful campaign in Libya. He had even been present with Nefertiri when Usermare entered, and then the Prince had sat close to His Father without proper invitation, and so disrupted the air that no one was wholly surprised when the bowl was overturned. Usermare even cursed His son for the burning sensation upon His chest and left, His skin beginning to blister beneath His gold and enameled chestplate. Without pause, He had crossed to the Palace of Rama-Nefru. The Hittite was now certainly His favorite—so the Scribe assured Menenhetet. Several little queens had told Pepti that the name of Rama-Nefru was heard more often on His lips in the coming-forth than the name of His First Queen. Moreover, He had not spoken to Nefertiri since that night, nor the Queen to Him. Nefertiri had chosen to go into mourning for the servant who had been beaten to death. It seemed he had been with Her many years. Of course, it was a frightful rebuke to Usermare. And Amen-khep-shu-ef was most menacing with His presence these days.

  Now, when told of this, Honey-Ball was much impressed that Usermare had been so deranged, and she spoke of summoning the Ka of Nefertiri’s butler. When Menenhetet asked how the Ka of any servant could be of use in dealing with Usermare, Honey-Ball told him that sudden death, when unjust, gave much vigor to the Ka, no matter how common the person. So she would call on the servant.

  But even as she was contemplating this, Menenhetet choked on a bone, and it lodged so deep in his throat that his eyes grew as large as eggs. Honey-Ball called at once for her servants, and Castor-Oil and Crocodile carried him into the middle of her circle of lapis-lazuli.

  With no further preparation, Honey-Ball cried aloud, “O bone of the ox, rise out of his belly! Rise out of his heart! Rise out of his throat! Out of his throat. come to my hand. For my head reaches the sky, and my feet rest in the abyss. Bone of God, bone of man, bone of beast, come to my hand.” The bone disgorged from his throat with his vomit, and he could breathe again, but Honey-Ball began to vomit as well. Gods Whose name she did not know had attacked the servant of her heart, Menenhetet.

  Later that night, he felt strong enough to return to his home but when alone was miserable and decided to go back, yet, on the path, felt so weak that he could hardly climb the tree to her gardens, and once inside, found her morose and puffed up as if she had been weeping since his departure.

  “My purposes have been twisted,” she said. “I knew it on the night when the Ka of Seti passed over to you.”

  When Menenhetet spoke of his remorse at disobeying her instructions, she replied, “No, it is not your fault but mine. I forgot about the creature.”

  He had never spoken of the pig, although he always supposed it came from her. “Did you send it,” he asked, “so that I would come to you?”

  She nodded. She sighed. “He does not belong entirely to me. He was also fashioned from the evil thoughts of Sesusi. Now the creature may upset every one of our ceremonies.”

  Having spoken this aloud, he knew she must perform the service quickly.

  Taking a small square of clean linen from one of her ebony boxes, she carefully wrapped the piece of bone that had lodged in his throat, and laid it in the hollow belly of a carved ebony statue no larger than her hand, but it had the face of Ptah, the crown of Seker, and the body of Osiris. Quickly, she placed this on her broken altar, and built a fire of dried khesau grass. Then she took from the bodic
e of her gown a small mound of wax, and made of it a figure of Aapep.

  She said: “Fire be upon you, Serpent. A flame from the Eye of Horus eats into the heart of Aapep.” The blaze on the altar leaped to the mouth of the ceiling, and the heat in the room was great. Menenhetet sat cross-legged in the pool of water that flowed from his skin, while Ma-Khrut uncovered her bodice to show her great breasts. By this light, they looked as red as the fire. “Taste of your death, Aapep,” she said. “Back to the flames. An end to you. Back, fiend, and never rise again.” Now she lay the wax figure of Aapep in the fold of a papyrus on which she had just drawn a serpent daubed with the excrement of her cats. Then she laid the offering into the fire of the altar, and spat upon it and said, “The great fire will try You, Aapep, the flame will devour You. You shall have no Ka. For Your soul is shriveled. Your name is buried. Silence is upon You.”

  Menenhetet’s own throat was still swollen from the bone, his eyes ached, his lungs were choked. In his head, he knew the wrath of many Gods, but he did not complain. He did not dare. Legions of Gods collided on fields he could not see. He could even smell some of the dead and wounded in the smoke of the cat dung on the khesau grass. The battle was joined, and he was an ignorant soldier, but he would never desert Honey-Ball in such an hour. “O Eye of Horus,” she cried, “Son of Isis, make the name of Aapep to stink.” And Menenhetet smelled the dead and wounded Gods in the foul breath of the smoke. When Honey-Ball embraced him her lips were slippery like snakes, and her breath was as foul as the smoke. His sore and injured throat began again to retch.

  She stepped forward to the altar, and said, “Arise, Pig of the Forbidden Meat. Enter the Circle. Reek of the Seven Winds.” Then she sang in seven voices, each voice uttering one sound, each voice lower than the one before, as if she descended a ladder into a pit where the Pig was kept. “I,” she sang, until her lyre, hanging from a cord on the wall, began to quiver, and “ee” she sang until he could hear her bowls of alabaster rattle, “ay” and his teeth ached, “oh,” and his belly moved, “oo,” went into his groin, and on “you” the ground stirred beneath his feet. In the lowest voice of all, in a sound of much contentment, lower than the throats of the beasts who lived in the swamps, she sang “uhhh,” and at the end he heard one clear grunt, and felt the stiff hairs of the Pig’s snout nuzzle him between the cheeks in the way it did those nights when Menenhetet walked alone through the Gardens.