Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  She was annoyed to be thwarted, yet after a silence, said, “May I ask any question?”

  I was fearful, but I looked back into Her eyes and nodded calmly.

  “You will not think it is a silly question?”

  “Never.”

  “Very well then,” She said. “Who is this Horus?”

  “Oh, He is a Great God,” I told Her.

  “Is He the Only One? Is He the First First?”

  “I would say He is the Son of Ra and the Beloved of Ra.”

  “So He is the same as the Pharaoh?”

  “Yes,” I said, “the Pharaoh is the Son of Ra and the Beloved of Ra. So the Pharaoh is Horus.”

  “He is the God Horus?” She asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then the Pharaoh is the Falcon of the Heavens?” She asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And He has two eyes that are like the sun and the moon?”

  “Yes. The right eye of Horus is the sun, and the left eye is the moon.”

  “But if Horus is the child of the sun,” She asked, “how can the sun be one of His eyes?”

  My legs were crawling with ants. So they felt. I did not like to talk of these things. I knew my arm, but I was not an artist and could not draw my arm. She needed a priest to tell Her. “It must be so,” I said. “The Eye of Horus is also known as the Pharaoh’s daughter, Wadjet, who is the Cobra. The Cobra can breathe fire, and kill all of the Pharaoh’s enemies.” I was tempted to tell Her that while I had not seen the fire of the Cobra at the Battle of Kadesh, I had certainly felt it.

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” She answered. “It is like a rope that is twisted.”

  “Well,” I said, “that is because They are Gods. The Pharaoh comes out of the Gods, but the Gods also come out of the Pharaoh.” When I saw the dying look of any hope that She could follow me, I said quickly, “I do not know how that can be, but it is so. That is how it is with the Gods. Amon-Ra is He-Who-begets-His-Father.”

  “But who is Osiris? Is He Amon? There!” She said. “I have not dared to ask that question in all the time they have kept Me in Egypt.”

  “Osiris is not Amon,” I said, and was pleased I had something clear to tell Her. “Osiris is the Father of Horus, and He is also the King of the Land of the Dead. His Son, Horus, because He is also the Pharaoh, is the Lord of the Living.” I should have been silent, but to the understanding I now saw in Her eyes, I added, “And to Osiris belongs all the trees, all the barley, and the bread and the waters, also the beer because the fermentation of the grain is halfway between the living and the dead.”

  “I thought all the grain belonged to Isis.”

  “That is also true,” I said quickly. “It belongs to Isis as well. But then Isis and Osiris are married.”

  “Yes,” She said, “but what belongs to Horus if He is the Pharaoh?”

  “I cannot tell You of all the things, but they are many. I know the Eye of Horus is oil, but it can also be wine, and sometimes it is eye-paint.”

  “You say He is the Son of Osiris?” She asked unhappily.

  I nodded.

  “But if Horus is the Son of Ra then He is the Brother of Osiris, not the Son,” Rama-Nefru said.

  “Well, He is also the brother,” I agreed. I could no longer see the avenue below us. A haze was over my eyes. Whether it was from the return of my former confusion, or from the many waves and currents I felt between my ears at the thought of all the Gods I must yet name, I do not know, but I felt faint, so faint that no matter how rude it might seem to leave Her standing alone, I squatted suddenly and rested my buttocks on my heels. Whereupon, She also squatted and continued to look at me eye to eye.

  “We must go back to the beginning,” I said. “Before Ra, there is Atum, His grandfather. Atum had two children, Shu and Nu, but we also call Nu, Tefnut.”

  “Shu and Tefnut,” She repeated.

  “They gave us air and moisture.” I could see that She repeated this to Herself as well. “From Shu and Tefnut were born Ra and Geb and Nut. The last two are the earth and the sky. Geb and Nut made love to each other.” I started to cough. “Some say,” I muttered, “that it is Ra Who made love to Nut.” Now, I continued to cough. I did not wish to interrupt myself but was obliged to. “They do not know the father,” I said, “but Nut’s children are Isis and Osiris, and Set and Nephthys, and also the God Horus. He is the brother of Osiris, except that He is also all the other Gods as well—Shu, Tefnut, Ra, Geb, Nut, Isis, Osiris, Set and Nephthys.”

  “Then how is Horus the Son of Osiris?”

  “Because Horus died. He fell from a horse. So He had to become the Son of Isis and Osiris in order to be born again. That was after Osiris was killed by Set. Yet Isis was still able to make love to Him.”

  “My legs are weak,” She said. “I will never learn all of this.”

  “You will,” I said.

  “I won’t. You talk of many Gods. But we are standing on the tower of the Temple of Amon and still you do not speak of Amon. Nor of Ptah. Sesusi is always telling Me of His Coronation at Memphi in the Temple of Ptah. I thought this Ptah was a Great God.”

  “Oh, He is,” I said. “He comes out of the earth. In Memphi, they do not believe it was Atum in the sky at the beginning but Ptah. They think everything that there is rose up out of the waters with the First Hill, and this First Hill belonged to Ptah. Out of the First Hill, the sun was born. In that way, Ra comes from Ptah, and Osiris does also, and Horus.”

  She sighed. “There are so many. Sometimes I hear of Mut and Thoth.”

  “They, too, can come from Ptah.”

  “They can?”

  “Well,” I said, truly perspiring—the faintness would not go away—“They really come from the moon.”

  “Who?”

  “Mut and Thoth. And Khonsu.”

  “Oh.”

  “The moon is the other Eye of Horus.”

  “Yes.”

  “The first eye, as I said, is the sun. You can see it in the kernel of corn. The kernel of corn is shaped like an eye.”

  “Yes.”

  I did not tell Her that the Eye of Horus was also the vagina. I did, however, explain how the two ladies of Upper and Lower Egypt, Wadjet the Cobra and Nekhbet the Vulture (who was also the White Goddess) were in the Double-Crown that sat on the Pharaoh’s head. Even as the Pharaoh Himself was Horus, but also Horus and Set.

  “How can He be Horus and Set?” She asked. “They fight each other all the time.”

  “They do not fight each other when They are in Him,” I explained. “The Pharaoh is so powerful that He makes Them live in peace.”

  She sighed again. “I cannot understand any of these matters,” She said. “I grew up in a land that has four seasons. We speak of spring and summer and fall and winter. But you have only three seasons in Egypt, and it never rains. You have a flood instead. You do not have our beautiful spring when we see the new leaves.”

  “No, it is simple,” I told Her. “Here, all the Gods are like the other Gods. That is because They can join with each other. Sekhmet is a lioness, and Bastet is a cat. A cat as beautiful as Mer-mer. But Hathor can be either. Yet, when She wishes, Hathor is Isis. And all our Gods can be entered by Ra. Even Sebek, the crocodile from Fayum.”

  “Is it the same with Amon, when He is Amon-Ra?”

  “No, that is different,” I said. “Amon-Ra is the King of Gods.” But I did not like to talk about Amon while standing on His Temple.

  “Let us go back,” She said.

  So we returned along the Great Avenue of the Temple of Amon which led to the palace grounds, and She was silent. She did not speak again until we were back in Her chamber in the Columns of the White Goddess. Then, Her gloom was deeper. I do not know if the curse of Heqat was upon me, but the rooms of Rama-Nefru were still heavy with the last unhappiness of Usermare, and I felt the ugliness of Heqat in the restlessness of every joint and folding of my body. It came upon me with much woe that with all I had tol
d Rama-Nefru of the greatest Gods, I had never spoken the name of Kheper and He might be among the greatest of all. Yet when I thought of how He was born in the darkness of dung and inhabited the blackest holes of the earth, I did not think I could explain to Her that the beetle also had wings and could fly, and so knew all worlds.

  “Tell Me about the moon,” said Rama-Nefru. “Who is that God?” Her skin in the lavender shadows of these rooms was as pale as the moon. “I suppose,” She said with a pout, “it is your Eye of Horus.”

  “No,” I said, “the Eye of Horus is the moon.” I was feeling hungry by now, and not at all sweet-tempered myself. “Osiris is the God of the moon,” I said, “and so is Khonsu.”

  “Khonsu? Did you say His name before?”

  “He is the son of Amon and Mut.” I despaired. I had yet to tell Her of Amon and Mut. “Of course, Thoth,” I said hurriedly, “is also the God of the moon, but some say it is the vulture Nekhbet. For Whom Your palace is named,” I said again. “When it is Their desire, any of these Gods can serve as the God of the moon.”

  “Do They all go there at once?”

  “I do not know,” I said. “No one ever asked such a question of me before.”

  She called to a servant who brought us roast goose in a sauce of peppers that must have come from Kadesh for it had a fire in its taste that was not from our swamps or deserts. Then we drank it down with beer.

  “It is not so complicated,” I said.

  “Please don’t say that anymore,” She told me.

  “In the forests of Syria,” I said, “you can have five kinds of trees. Each one comes from a different God, yet on one hill you can find all five. And there must also be a God of the hill. So the five Gods of the five trees may also be part of the God of the hill.”

  “That is true,” She said and yawned sweetly. “Do you like our peppers?”

  I nodded. I did not wish to cease teaching. I felt as if I were beginning to understand it myself. “At Yeb,” I said, “up by the First Cataract, there is the God Khnum. He has ram’s horns. He guards the Nile. Yet He also lives down at Abydos near the Temple of Osiris where He is the husband of Heqat—not Your Heqat, but the first one, the great Goddess Who is the first frog. Khnum can also live in Ra. And in Geb. Each one of these Gods will let Khnum think with Their thoughts. Of course, that helps Them to think with the thoughts of Khnum. There are times when They need to, because Khnum is the potter who makes our flesh out of clay.”

  “You have told Me so much,” She said. “You are a wonderful teacher.”

  I thanked Her, and said I was not. She put on Her blond wig. This morning, at the Temple, to conceal herself, She had worn a black wig which She had removed so soon as we were back in Her chamber. While we ate, She wore no hair. But now She put on Her blond wig.

  “You have told Me of so many Gods,” She said, “yet you do not really speak of Amon.”

  “Oh, Amon,” I said. I swallowed more beer. “Amon is the Hidden,” I said. “He is behind all the Gods.”

  “Is He always there?” She asked.

  “Always.” Indeed, I decided not to tell Her that if you said the wrong thing, you could feel Him hearing it in the air.

  “Always?” She repeated.

  “He was there at the beginning with the wind. He was the first of the eight blind Gods who were the frogs and snakes in the slime, but even in that darkness, He was the air.” I never liked to speak about the air, or even say the wrong thing. The air that was in your ear was Amon. I was glad at this moment not to be like Usermare and know the hand of Amon on my heart.

  “I have heard,” She said, “that Amon used to be only a little God here in Thebes. He was just the little God of the city of Thebes. But when the greater Gods could not agree on who was most great, They chose Him. Now, He is the Great God.”

  “That is also true,” I said. “Both are true. That is why Egypt is the Two-Lands.”

  “You are more a priest than a soldier,” She said.

  I bowed.

  “Amon is the God of the air?” She asked.

  I bowed again.

  “Then He is like our Enlil.” She smiled. “Our Enlil enters into all trees, and then the branches wave at us when He passes.” She finished Her beer and pondered the empty mug.

  “Do you think your Gods are different from ours because you have so few trees?” She asked. “In My land, we have so many.” She spoke of Her own land as though the perfume of the cedars of Lebanon were in Her throat. So I did not trust Her voice when She began to speak now in praise of Egypt. Nor did I treat Her like a Queen. For when I saw Her looking at my beer, I wiped the lip of the mug, and poured what was mine into Her empty vessel (which I would never dare to do with Nefertiri, not even if there came a morning when I would know Her by all three mouths). Rama-Nefru, however, drank with pleasure, and Her eyes were saucy. “Do you know,” She said, “there is much that is splendid in your country. My father says that there is no land so elegant as Egypt, and I agree. He says you all make traps to snare the Gods. That, he says, is how you Egyptians do it. When you make one of your little pieces of jewelry, or any of your little wonders, it is so beautiful that the Gods are delighted and come down from the sky to touch it.”

  I did not know of what She was speaking, but She picked up Mer-mer who had passed in front of Her nose, tail up. As I looked at this cat I could understand how Rama-Nefru was thinking not only of our pools and gardens, our jewelry and our woven-air, our plates of alabaster and our golden chairs, but of this cat as well, raised from one generation to another until one knew that the Goddess Bast could never leave this animal inasmuch as Mer-mer might be the most beautiful creature in the Two-Lands. Rama-Nefru made love to her now, tickled her, laid Her cheek upon her haunch, grasped her tail, tapped her paws, fluffed her fur, and then lay back upon the couch and allowed this creature to walk upon Her. The voice of that sensual contentment which is deeper in cats than in any man or woman came from Mer-mer, and she hummed with her nose in Rama-Nefru’s throat.

  But then, as she explored the chin of her queen, Mer-mer’s lips were met by the mouth of Rama-Nefru who kissed her. I do not know if it was the odor of the beer, but on that instant, Mer-mer scratched Her across the cheek, and quick as the first act, the second was done. Rama-Nefru flung her against the wall. At first I thought the beast was dead. Then she scuttled away.

  “You can go now,” said Rama-Nefru to me. “You do not know how to teach.”

  I passed through the adjoining chamber. It was still heavy with the wisdom that lies on the breath of the swamps, and in that purple light, I wondered whether Rama-Nefru might yet chastise a few more of our Egyptian Gods.

  SEVEN

  The thud of the cat against the wall was heard so clearly that I realized I had been present with my great-grandfather as he recalled these events, and I knew that Ptah-nem-hotep heard the same sound for a shudder went through His body. My mother was the most agitated. Her disturbance passed through me as if she had been slapped, and she begun to speak most quickly and eloquently.

  “I do not know,” said my mother, “what can be more untrustworthy than this thin desire of Rama-Nefru toward Usermare. It is like a blade of grass ready to be torn in half. But then I distrust even more the much misplaced passion that Nefertiri has shown for Menenhetet. A Queen must never betray the Pharaoh. Why, the treachery of Generals has cost Egypt less.” My mother nodded at the force of this. “An offering of such value,” she told us, “should have been given only to Usermare.”

  “Your loyalty to My dead ancestor delights Me,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “but, surely, that is not the true cause of your concern.”

  “No,” she confessed. “It is that I did not expect there would be another woman in Egypt who knew as much as me,” and with these words, both laughed with much delight in each other, while Menenhetet looked at them. I had to wonder at his thoughts. For none came forth to me.

  “Tell us,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “are you in accord with what you
hear?”

  Menenhetet touched his forehead to his fingertips, as if giving the short bow of a Vizier intimate with the Pharaoh’s works. “I have spoken so much on this night,” he said, “that now may be the hour for me to listen.”

  “It is a night for celebration,” said my mother. What she added next was so wise, however, that my great-grandfather’s thought leaped out of his mind, and I knew he had just said to himself: “She will yet make a good wife.”

  Holding my Father’s arm across her body, my mother said to Him, “I would be pleased if You would tell us more about the Festival of Festivals.” I could perceive her wisdom. No suggestion was closer to the liking of the Ninth than to return in this hour (rich in the light of His union with my mother) to the Godly Triumph of His ancestor, Ramses the Second. Indeed, I could not believe how powerful, sensual, and comfortable was the face of my Father in the late moonlight upon this patio. His voice was now as composed as His face, a rich full voice, to be certain, and He could even speak of His ancestor with a tone of equality, or so seemed the response of the air about us. For in everything He said was the hope that one day many years from now, twenty-three years from now, He would have His own great jubilee to celebrate the first thirty years of His Reign, and it would be like this. Since my Father spoke with as many gifts in His voice as a painter has colors in his box, so did the feathers of every bird and beast come to my eyes, and I saw the jewelry of the nobles and the passage of the crowds through the markets of Thebes on the royal route Usermare took after leaving the Throne Room.

  Of course, my Father had not been a student in the Temple at Memphi for too little, nor lived in the spirit of Ptah, the Great Craftsman, without acquiring the power of well-chosen phrases to invoke the shape of all that is before us no longer. Nor had He failed to learn how the powers of men greater than ourselves can be acquired not only by emulating their feats, but also by living to the full in the hours of their ceremonies. So my Father confounded us with His knowledge of Usermare on the days of His Godly Triumph. What study He had given to this! He told it to us now, hesitating only at the superior knowledge of my great-grandfather before some occasional small matter.