Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  Then Ptah spoke to the people on the riverbank in a great voice that came from the heart and lungs of the High Priest who held Him, but it was truly the tongue of the God. The High Priest was in a trance and could move neither his eyes nor his limbs, yet the eyes of Ptah were open and His golden arms moved as He spoke.

  “When I receive You,” Ptah said to Usermare, “My heart rejoices, and I hold You in an embrace of gold. I enfold You with permanence, stability, and satisfaction. I endow You with wealth and joy of heart. I immerse You in gladness of heart and delight forever.”

  Now the High Priest of the Temple of Amon came forward to stand beside Usermare, and in his arms he held a large vase in the shape of the sma, and at the sight of the long neck of this vase entering into the heart-shaped body, people began to weep. The vase had the shape of a divine phallus and a godly vagina, and thereby spoke to the people of Thebes of the wonders of love they had known in the past. A cry of pleasure came up from the townspeople as water was poured from the vase onto the feet of the High Priest of Ptah. “Ahhhhhhh,” they shouted for the union of the Two-Lands.

  The Good and Great God responded to the sight of the vase. To the benedictions of the God Ptah which were now repeated, “I immerse You in joy, I immerse You in rejoicing, forever,” Usermare now brought forth from beneath His skirt an erection of prodigious length. Already, it had pushed His garment forward like the prow of a ship, and, now, since He could not conceal it, He parted the folds of His skirt and showed it forth to the populace. No cheer heard in all the day was like that one. The best and most powerful sign of good luck for all of the Two-Lands was in this confluence between the Gods Ptah and Amon. Cheers that the Horus had been able to feel such strength and sweet emotion. Indeed, all who were holding sticks with a lotus attached, now turned the cup of their flower toward His erection, and all cried out His name with much love for this feat as He stood before them, their proud King revealed.

  EIGHT

  Pthan-nem-hotep now paused and looked with expectation at Menenhetet, who in his turn nodded profoundly. “It is as You have told it,” He said. “You have seen every sight. I witnessed only a few.”

  “It is all true?” asked my Father.

  “There is no error.”

  “The last was as described?”

  “That is certainly true. I never saw Him with a greater sword.” Menenhetet, however, now hesitated. “No, I did again, perhaps, in days to come.”

  “There was no such description in the papyrus I studied. My knowledge comes from the understanding of Usermare that you have imparted, as well as by the rumor of the legends, I confess.” Now my Father ceased to speak and hugged me with pleasure. “I have told you of the First Day,” He said to my great-grandfather, “but you can instruct us in what I have not seen.”

  “You saw every sight,” my great-grandfather repeated. “I remember those five days as a chaos. For in all we have said, I have not told enough of the fear that was also present at the Godly Triumph. While the Pharaoh is never more our King than on these five days, yet in that period, He is also uncrowned. He can wear the Double-Crown but it is not His, not for five days.”

  “I know that,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

  “Yes. But in our years, we believed it as no one does today. I can tell you that in all of Thebes there was a fear of which no one wished to speak—which is why there was such elation at the size of our Pharaoh when He stood before Ptah. Yet, despite such a good sign of His confidence, I can say that on that night, and for each night to come, there were few in the populace who did not fear their house might burn, or their wife leave. For that matter, with all the torches on the avenues and the bonfires at the crossroads, more houses burned than on other nights, and it is astonishing how many good wives were unfaithful. Fornication was everywhere. So I would repeat: the erection of Usermare may have been a gift to the city, but it was a curious one, since afterward, even old men walked about with their pride in front of them, at least by dark. Decorum was only to be seen in the processions of the day.

  “All the while, beneath all other feelings was terror. I cannot say it enough. There had been fear until the last few days that the flood would come too high, but now, in the abatement of the waters, that fear was gone. Good enough! Who could enjoy a festival if the river was still rising? But no matter. Fright still came flooding out of us with every merriment. People would laugh and cry and laugh again while trying to finish one song, and drunkenness, even in the daytime, was everywhere. Besides, there were curious sights to behold. Great numbers of boys and young workers from the poorest quarters of the city had decided to shave their heads. You never saw such a riffraff of what might have been young priests, but were not. Even vain fellows, proud of their hair, had taken it down to the skull, then anointed their scalps with oil. They ran in packs, yet were most pious beasts and never attacked anyone. Often they marched in procession from shrine to shrine, or from temple to temple, or even made pilgrimages to the Court of the Great Ones, thereby adding to the legions of priests and nobles and merchants and soldiers and clerks and workers and general rabble who came in crowds on those hours of the day and night when they were let in to mill about the shrines and bowers and reed huts. Sometimes all of Thebes seemed to be in that gathering. Nonetheless, these platoons of bald heads were prominent everywhere, and often followed by a gang of unshaved friends who jeered at the oil on the others’ scalps, yet followed them like the wake of a boat, all the while reminding these shaved heads what they did last night with their sweethearts, or their boy friends. ‘Oh, how good we are today!’ the unshaved ones kept shouting. This was part of the unrest. Needless to say, the beer-houses were busy.

  “Indeed, after the first procession, Usermare could not often leave His Throne Room in these five days, just so numerous were the ceremonies He granted to Nomarchs and deputations from foreign nations.

  “Even the simple courtesy to greet the arrival of small processions from noble families kept Him most occupied. Only twice did He go back to the river to greet a God, once for Amon, and once for Osiris. The others were brought to Their bower in the Court of the Great Ones, and Usermare might leave the Throne Room to pay homage, but so many Gods arrived that some He never did visit. Besides, many hours of His day were engaged in changes He must make of costume.

  “I do not know if it was inspired by the variety of cient skirts and cloaks and skins and mantles that He wore, but I never remember a time in Thebes when you could see as many priests in ostrich feathers, or bearing the head of the hawk or ibis, or walking about with the horns of the ram. The more exceptional the costume, the wilder were the cheers in the city. Through all these five days, the air of a great entertainment was always with us, and a small pandemonium followed a deputation from a town called Nekhen in Upper Egypt who debarked from their boat with a herdsman at the head wearing the hides of many wild animals, even part of a lion and part of the skin of a crocodile. On each side of this herdsman was a servant wearing on his own skull the furry head and jaws of a wolf, while to his buttocks was attached the tail. These two servants when asked who they were, would point to the leader who always replied, ‘I am the Herdsman of Nekhen.’ Then all three would dance about each other, and wave high sceptres.

  “For some reason that no one could explain, these three people caught the fancy of the crowd. I do not know if it was the lion and crocodile skins the Herdsman wore (as if the beasts of the hills and the swamps were now approaching the Palace) but even when it was realized that all three must be priests of some sort, still they were cheered, and eventually, all three marched up the Grand Avenue to the gates before the Court of the Great Ones, entered, and were even presented to the King.”

  “These Wolves of Nekhen were much honored,” Ptah-nem-hotep murmured, “as spirits serving Horus. I can tell you that he who was dressed as the Herdsman on this occasion was. First Scribe to the Vizier and not from upriver at all, but lived among us in Thebes.”

  “Yet his face was wild
on that day,” said Menenhetet. “It was a wild face for a scribe.”

  “I have read what was done,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “but you saw what was not described.” He repeated, “I would like to know all you can tell Me of such matters.”

  So my great-grandfather kept speaking, but now his thoughts began once more to enter me as quickly as his voice, and, being seated in such fine comfort between my mother and Father, I found this manner of listening more agreeable than any other.

  I can tell you (came to me by way of my great-grandfather) that each day, the drunkenness of everyone increased, and with it the confusion of ceremonies. Thereby, it became less necessary to appear at one’s formal station in the retinue. For that matter, Usermare had gone back and forth to so many shrines in the Court of the Great Ones that even the most scrupulous of officers found it difficult to be always in the proper place, especially when our Pharaoh grew more impatient each day at delays in the formation of His processional marches. Moreover, much fever simmered in us at the heat of encountering so many Gods. It did not seem to matter, therefore, if you were not always in the proper carriage, nor running in perfect position behind Him. Besides, I was in tumult, and hardly able to think.

  On the second night, therefore, I deserted the Court of the Great Ones and wandered through the city, stepping over the bodies of drunks, and listening with sadness I had never felt before not only to the sounds of psalms rising from the temples but was also tender to the moans of tethered animals as if their pain or plain beast-misery at being hungry were my own. So, too, was I moved to concern by the cries of children, and even made happy by their shouts in the late evening as they played (with all the excitement children know as the Gods of evening move in from the horizon) and at last, as it grew late, I listened to the slow oncoming sound of men and women making love to one another. (For that also came to me from every alley in every quarter and warren of Thebes.) I could no longer hold back all that was most painful in me, and I thought of Nefertiri. But then there had been no moment I had not thought of Her since the afternoon of the First Day when the waters from the vase shaped like a sma had been poured to the ground, and Usermare stood forth in majesty. I was shaken twice then, and by two convulsions: For even as the multitude of the crowd uttered up the sweet moans and harsh cries of their own most triumphant hours of love, so was I captured by my despised allegiance to that godly phallus—yes! I wanted to be used by Usermare again. What a destruction of self-esteem to say it to myself! Yet, having said it, I was near again to Nefertiri, and knew how much I had held in myself through these miserable days of serving a Hittite Princess I could not comprehend. My loins ached for Nefertiri. I had an erection of my own. I could hear Her saying, even as the water poured from the vase, “You are My slow fire, My lucky name, My union, My sweetness, My sma,” and heard myself groan with all the others and could not take my eyes from the Pharaoh’s full erection. So I shivered twice. Since then, I had wandered through the ceremonies and through the city, and by this second night was ready to look again for an entrance into Her bedroom, but now guards were everywhere about Her Palace, and besides, much as I wanted Her, I felt no hope. My senses were too thick. I was drunk three times over each day and never sober before I began again. I was near to stumbling and my voice was hoarse, and only Her voice in my ear was keen, stirring my limbs and warming my body more powerfully than the wine. I fell asleep that night in my own bed alone with my hands on my loins to hold the pain, and that is a poor posture for a man over fifty who is still called a General.

  In the morning I slept late and then went to the Robing Chamber where Usermare came out dressed in no more than a short white kilt with a bull’s tail attached, a golden necklace for His chest, the White Crown of Upper Egypt for His head, and His staff with its several lotus blossoms. When I saw that He was holding in His other hand a square of fine stiff papyrus with gold leaf piping on the four borders, I knew that He was about to dedicate to Amon a field that belonged to Nefertiri, a fine plot near the river. Since the gift was from Her, I can tell you that no matter how I had gorged on meat, and drunk too much wine, even my toes came alive at the thought that She must finally make Her appearance. Indeed, She must. The field had been given to Nefertiri by Usermare on the day of Their marriage. Now, it was being given back. On the day She saw the Vizier, She had even told me that their conversation had concerned this ground. “It is the perfect gift for His Godly Triumph,” She said then, and I knew it was Her protection against being ignored entirely for all the five days and nights. Her intentions were successful. I had also heard Rama-Nefru asking Usermare why He was obliged to be alone with Nefertiri while dedicating the land to the Temple. “It is Her field,” He said at last, “and I cannot, in courtesy, ask You to be there in that hour,” at which Rama-Nefru walked out of the room.

  It is an indication of how bloated I had become with pity for myself, and all its pollutions of misery, that I did not think enough of this occasion in advance, nor see how it might offer an opportunity to have a word with Nefertiri. When the hour came, therefore, I found myself at the wrong end of the procession. On this day, Nefertiri’s sons were among those honored by carrying His Golden Belly, and I, in the colors of Rama-Nefru, was many carriages back. As we came near the field, a lovely grove with the rarest shade trees on the bank of the river, indeed, an idyllic place for the Temple to Amon that would soon be built, I was obliged to dismount at some distance from Usermare, and only then saw Nefertiri approaching from another direction in a large covered sedan chair mounted on a carriage and drawn by six splendid horses. She stood up while the priests and royalty invited to this most exclusive service applauded Her passage, but, by an instruction to Her coachman, She came to a halt on the side farthest away from us, enough away indeed so that I could not catch Her eye.

  Now, Usermare held up His papyrus and began the ceremony that would deed the land to the Temple.

  “Do you know the name,” asked Ptah-nem-hotep, “of this papyrus?”

  “I do not.”

  “It is the Secret of the Two Partners. They are Horus and Set.” I could feel the pleasure of my Father at this knowledge. “No gift from the Pharaoh,” He said, “could be consecrated in those days without receiving the Will of Geb. That Will is embodied in any papyrus with golden edges.”

  “I had forgotten,” said Menenhetet.

  How much was stirring in my Father’s limbs! I could feel His desire to speak again in His ancestor’s voice. He stood up and began to stride around the four sides of the patio, even as Usermare must have been walking the four borders of this field returned to Him by Nefertiri. “I run,” I heard Ptah-nem-hotep say in the voice of Usermare, and it was such a great voice to hear, and came out of such caverns in my Pharaoh’s chest, that only a Great God would not tremble before it. “I run,” said my Father, “with the Secret of the Two Partners. For this is the Will given Me by Geb. I have seen His eyes. I know the fire in the cave. I touch the four sides of the land.”

  Closing my eyes, I lay against my mother. I could hear a chorus from the riverbank, and I do not know across how many years such sounds came to me, but I heard that chorus sing:

  “The Pharaoh passes the four quarters of the field.

  “He touches the four sides of heaven.

  “The field passes over to its new master.”

  And in my Father’s voice, equal in my ears now to Usermare’s voice, the reply came: “I am Horus, Son of Osiris. Amon is My breath. Ra is My light. Amon-Ra is My Divine Light and Breath.” Now, Usermare was walking in the sunlight, and each breath He took was in the woven-air of the Gods. The field passed over from the Palace to the Temple, and the crowd gave a long sigh like a mother who is freed of the birth, and this sound I knew for I had heard it often in the servants’ quarters when a child was born.

  Now, Usermare held up His staff of the lotus blossom and He could hear the voices of Egypt speaking to Him. The blessing of the Two-Lands descended. His erection came forth again and was i
mmense. Now He walked to the far side of the field where Nefertiri was waiting in Her sedan chair, and He entered this carriage and closed the door so that none could see Him. But I heard His voice. It came to me through my Father’s voice.

  “The Eye of Horus is between Her legs. It knows the caverns of the Earth.” I heard the sound of Usermare’s breathing. “The Backbone of Osiris beats upon the Eye of Horus. The Gods are joined.” Then I saw the image of the sun in the reflecting pool, and it burst between Her thighs.

  In the next instant, I heard my Father mutter in the voice of Usermare, “I did not speak to Her. It was the Gods Who spoke.” My Father, exhausted by how closely He had lived in His ancestor, moved away from all of us and sat by Himself on another couch.

  Menenhetet spoke aloud. In a small dry tone, he said, “Everyone who was on the border of that field saw Usermare close the door of the sedan chair. Nor was there uncertainty at what passed. All heard Nefertiri give a loud cry of joy. Her sobs of pleasure were rich, Her groans were deep. The Gods had most certainly been joined. By night, there would be no official, noble, or servant who would not have heard of this event, and as Usermare walked from the field, He knew the woe of every beggar in Thebes before the uncertainty of the night. All that was uneasy in the city about what was yet to come began to rise in the alleys.”

  And I, sitting beside my mother, was much aware once more of the absence of Nef-khep-aukhem. That was like the wrath of a ghost.

  NINE

  When Ptah-nem-hotep continued to sit by Himself, and would not reply, my great-grandfather said to Him: “I do not know by what union of Your wisdom and my description You have come to such understanding of Your ancestor, but all is true. The words of Usermare-Setpenere were as You have described.”