Twilight in Babylon

by Frank, Suzanne

  She walked up to her room, her palm-frond bed. Familiar things.

  Sometimes her own mind didn’t feel very familiar.

  Chapter Five

  Guli woke to the sound of banging on his door. His palm-frond mattress, which had fallen in less time than he’d expected, left him trapped between the four braces of the bed frame, scrambling like a bug to get on his feet.

  His guests didn’t wait for him to open the door.

  “Perhaps this is why you can’t pay us back,” his creditor said as he stepped into the room. Two men stood on either side of the tradesman. Unlike him, they were sailors with brawny arms and wide chests. Viza crossed his arms and looked at Guli. “You rest past dawn, as though you were the en!”

  Guli managed to get up and greet the owner of his shop—by default—if business didn’t pick up. “I’m not late,” he said to Viza. “Payment isn’t due until the first of the year. You swore by Enlil!”

  Viza snapped his fingers, and a scribe ran in, with an armful of tablets. “Give Guli a copy of the new agreement,” he said.

  “I don’t read.”

  “Of course not,” Viza said. “Read him a copy of the new rules.”

  The scribe squinted at the clay.

  Guli felt a rush of cold down his back, as if he were wearing his kilt backward during the winter. This was not a good omen.

  The scribe cleared his throat and read, in an obnoxious high voice: “I, Guli, who borrowed sixty minae of barley to lease a residence in the fashionable weaving district for my salon, Guli’s Karum of Style, will repay the generous and majestic citizen Lord Viza at the prescribed 15 percent. If by the first quarter of the first year I have not made a payment, I will relinquish my residence and submit to being a gardener for Lord Viza.”

  “I didn’t sign that,” Guli said. “And I didn’t lease a residence in the weaving district. If I had, if would be full of weavers getting their hair done!”

  “This is the new agreement, Guli.”

  “You can’t change the conditions after we made a covenant,” he said. Guli was a former offender of the commonwealth; he knew his laws.

  “I am Lord Viza, you sniveling sifter of shit!”

  The two men turned on Guli’s house.

  “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Shut up, or I’ll have them work you over,” Viza snarled.

  One of the sailors upended Guli’s palm-frond trunk and spilled his receipts onto the floor. “Wait! You can’t touch those!”

  With big, bare feet, the sailors stomped on his receipts, smashing them to bits. To pieces. To dust.

  Guli watched as the lease of his house, the loan of the furniture, and the purchase of several asses’ tails was converted to powder. Lord Viza stepped closer. A small man with a nasty scar on his head, he didn’t even wear the cloak of an Old Boy. “Sign the new agreement, Guli.”

  “No.”

  “Sign it,” the little man said. “I have three witnesses waiting. Sign.”

  “This is not legal, or ethical.”

  “Who is going to believe a convict over a freedman?”

  Already Guli didn’t have the currency; he wasn’t going to come up with the rental rate and 15 percent. He didn’t do figures, but that would be a lot of earnings. In the months he’d been there, he’d barely made enough to keep in beer and bread. He ripped the seal from his neck, the carved ivory cylinder that proclaimed to one and all that he, Guli, was a worthy client of Ur.

  As a symbol for his name, Guli had designed a seal with the goddess Inana seated, and Guli brushing her heavenly hair under the sun of Shamash. He had been so proud to own it, to be free and noble. A client.

  His dreams were drowning in the pitiless black eyes of this little, easy-to-break man.

  “Sign it,” Viza said. “Now.”

  The two sailors were hunched over Viza’s shoulders like vultures. Guli looked at the clay tablet, freshly drawn up. The dust of the past contracts was part of the floor now. If he followed his inclination, he could smash in Viza’s face. The two sailors would beat him up. They would all end up in court.

  Guli would lose hope of ever owning a seal again.

  Biting back the spit he had saved for Viza’s face, Guli rolled his seal over the moist clay instead. Viza handed the original to the scribe and gave a copy to Guli. He rolled the image of himself, dressing Inana’s hair, across it again. Viza handed that copy to the scribe, for the official files. The last piece he gave Guli was almost dry—it didn’t matter. Whenever Viza wanted to change it, he’d just break into Guli’s house and grind it to dust.

  This was the life of being an honest man. It stunk like the shit in the palms. This reeked worse, because at least that was clean refuse, used for a purpose.

  “Keep it,” Viza said. The scribe wrapped the other two copies in clay, and Guli sealed them, too. “We’ll see you in a few weeks with the first payment?” Viza said. The whole motley crew turned to leave.

  Ulu poked her head into the open door. “Guli, are you… open?”

  Viza smiled at her. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said to the three women trailing her; the ale-wife, her daughter, and some pockmarked priestess. Viza looked over his shoulder at Guli. “Glad to see business is doing so well.”

  He got out of the door before Guli crushed his seal in his hand.

  “Should we come back another time?” the ale-wife asked. “We just heard you were open and wanted to be your first customers.”

  Ulu’s form of apology.

  His gaze wandered over the broken chairs, the torn-up pots, and the dust of his receipts. “What did you need?” His voice as flat as the Euphrates. The tongs for making curls were broken; the device for smoothing waves was shattered. “All I can do is cut.”

  “Cut! That’s what we wanted!”

  “Exactly!”

  “Cuts, and can you do a wash?”

  One decent pot remained for washing; presumably they hadn’t pissed in his well. “Sure,” he said. “Cuts and a wash I can do.”

  “I’ll run out and get us some breakfast brews,” the ale-wife said.

  “Don’t—” Guli started; he didn’t have the currency to pay.

  “There is a competitive tavern around here,” the ale-wife said. “I have heard rumors of her mash and want to try it. If you take some, it would help me out.”

  “Professional opinion and all,” the priestess added. He’d seen her at the tavern, too, speaking of professionals.

  Ulu’s hand on his back was soothing, insistent. “We’re your friends,” she whispered. “Help us grow in our humanity by helping another human.”

  Guli looked at the ground of his shop, the house he’d worked so hard to find. “Thank you,” he said to the ale-wife. “I’d love a beer.”

  * * *

  The sheep were wide-awake at dawn, dancing with glee. The grass is green, the sky is blue, who needs anything else when I have ewe? The pun wasn’t recognizable to the girl, but the intent of it was.

  The goat was very interested in her new sash, but she kept his teeth off it as she checked the sheep for any cuts or wounds, any sign they weren’t healthy or wouldn’t feed well today. The lambs had grown so much, in just a few days. “I’ll come back more often,” she promised them. They were, after all, her family.

  A quick flash of her receipt at the shepherd and she was out of the grazing area and walking back into the city.

  A noise reverberated through her, across the bricks of the archway and down into the ground. Thunder. A train. A 747. As soon as it started, it stopped. People continued to walk around, though many were touching their ears. Chloe walked five more steps, and it began again.

  An earthquake? The fury of the gods? She looked at the sky, which was cloudless and clear. It stopped again.

  “No fear,” a man shouted, “it’s the drums, practicing up for the New Year.”

  No sooner did he say that, than the drums started again. The noise got in her breastbone, made her
teeth ache. Chloe hurried down the main street, and turned on Crooked Way.

  The noise was muffled by the door to Ningal’s house, and even quieter after she closed the door to her bedroom. The basin water was a little warm yet, so she washed her face with a cloth, then washed her hands clean of sheep smell. She wanted to curl up in the bed, beneath the new, pretty blankets, and dream of the god with the golden eyes.

  Cheftu.

  In her dreams he talked to her, he touched her, his kisses were like fire to her deepest core. In her dreams there were no words she didn’t know, no expression was closed to her. Or to him.

  In her dreams, she was his perfect consort. Moon to his sun, night to his day. He was the god of healing, she the goddess of war; he was the teacher of understanding, she the promoter of information; he made words from pictures, she made pictures for words.

  In her dreams.

  Instead, she smoothed oil over her head, straightened the sash of her dress, put on her bangles, and went back out. She had a lugal to corner.

  Nimrod met up with her by the steps that led to the commonwealth’s offices. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “I was so surprised—”

  “Just don’t throw up on him. Or pay attention when he shouts.”

  “Is he going to shout?”

  Nimrod scratched his untamed, shaggy beard. “When he realizes he’s in this trap, he’s going to shout a lot.”

  Chloe stepped into the office first.

  “You little she-dog—” the scribe muttered.

  Nimrod stepped in behind her and stood there like a hairy, panting bear, cutting the scribe off. “My father, the lugal, is in?”

  “His door is closed,” the scribe choked out. “Sir.”

  “Good,” Nimrod said, taking Chloe’s arm and striding past the man. He knocked once, then opened the door.

  “What is this? En—”

  “Father, I believe you’ve met Chloe.”

  Oh yeah, he’d met her. He began to enumerate how and why and when. Loudly.

  She tuned him out; it was obvious Nimrod did, too. When finally the lugal had stopped shouting and had reseated himself, Nimrod reintroduced her. The lugal’s expression toward his son wasn’t pleasant, but Nimrod didn’t seem to care. “You wanted to corner the animal in his den,” Nimrod said to her. “You have fifteen minutes. I’ll be outside.”

  Minutes. The word translated exactly to fifteen sixty-second- intervals, or a quarter of an hour, an eighth of a double hour. These people know minutes, part of her mind marveled. Who are they? Who am I? Where the hell is this?

  The lugal was a big man, handsome and meticulous in a way Nimrod was exactly not. He adjusted his Old Boy cloak. “What is it you want, female? Why does my own son catch me in my office?”

  “I want to attend the Tablet House.”

  He blinked.

  “Female humans don’t go, I’ve been told,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean they can’t. Or rather I can’t. I want to learn how to read and write. I’m a human, it’s my choice to learn, but you have to grant permission. At least according to what Justice Ningal said.”

  The lugal drummed his table. “This isn’t a good time for a request.”

  “I’ve thrown up on you—for which, by the way, I apologize. I guess those oysters from the Scampi Stand were bad—so there is really not a good time for me to ask something of you, regardless of my request. Truth?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it. Pursed his lips and drummed his fingers some more. “Theoretically—”

  “Yes?”

  “Why go the Tablet House? Shouldn’t you have mewling brats or something? A husband or a job? What did your mother do? There are some nice opportunities at the new weaving factory. I could speak to the forewoman on your behalf.”

  “I want to learn to read.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “What do you need to know?”

  She picked up a tablet from his desk. “What does this say?”

  “It’s a proposal from the silversmiths’ karum, about trade.”

  “I want to know that.”

  “You do, I just told you.”

  “You could have told me anything. I don’t know.”

  “I’m the lugal. I’m elected by the people and held to the standard of Enki, Enlil, Inana, and the council of the gods. I find it offensive you would even consider I’d tell a falsehood.” His brown eyes were snapping mad.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I trust myself more. I should be self-sufficient. Everyone should be able to read.”

  “First a female human should read, and now all of humanity? Who would work the fields? Geld the bulls? Sail the ships!” He sat forward and stacked his tablets. “Get out of my way, girl. You speak nonsense.”

  “The Tablet House session starts week after New Year’s. I want to learn.”

  “Seduce some Tablet Father and have him teach you. There is no need to waste the time of a host of young and impressionable future clients and gentlemen.”

  She hadn’t expected to win today—not right off the bat. What does that expression mean, she wondered at herself. But she’d made an impression. This was going to be a war of attrition. She wanted to go to school more than he didn’t want her to go. It was just a question of patience. Who had more.

  “Thank you for your time, lugal.”

  She opened the door, ignored the scribe, and smiled at Nimrod as she walked out. The drums didn’t even bother her on the way home. One piece of advice had been useful—she could get someone to start teaching her.

  Two someones came to mind, immediately.

  * * *

  The Festival of the New Year began for everyone in Ur at the same moment: The black-leather kettledrums that had been practicing for three days struck in earnest and in concert. Every temple had at least two; the larger and more prestigious the temple and its gods, the more kettledrums they had.

  Ur vibrated.

  Outside the city, the animals cried in alarm.

  Outside the commonwealth, others looked toward the horizon, expecting angry gray clouds and the continued fury of the gods. Inside the other cities, the citizens couldn’t hear the kettledrums, because they had their own.

  At breakfast, Ningal, Kalam, and Chloe sipped beers and tried to enjoy the relative calm in between the striking of the drums.

  “This is why,” Ningal finally shouted, “it is best to get drunk on New Year’s and stay that way for the whole week.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Chloe shouted back.

  Kalam made notes on his tablets and drank his beer without comment.

  * * *

  Nirg and Nimrod were in their marital bed. The solemn intonation of the drum was too slow for Nimrod, and the rhythm of it was wrong for Nirg. In the end she went to the kitchens and brought back curds and honey. Even when there was no sex, or bad sex, with Nirg there was always food.

  Lea, in her own bed, with nothing except a statue of Pazuzu for company, poured a beer libation to the king of demons and asked for either a pregnancy or a lover. It didn’t matter which, but she was bored. As the wife of the lugal’s son, her mother-in-law didn’t want her working in the factory. Lea didn’t know anything except weaving, and missed the women she used to work with—before Nimrod saw her and carried her into his rooms, seduced her through honey-soaked days until she couldn’t refuse him. Then his father found out her father had no money, and the feud began. Since Nimrod had already taken her as a bride, however, not much could be done.

  The man had a weakness for fair hair; thank Pazuzu there weren’t that many blondes in the city, or she would be praying for a wealth of lovers or a litter of children. Lea drank the rest of Pazuzu’s libation offering and hid her head under the pillow. She hated New Year’s.

  Ezzi had just taken to his bed when the drums began. The stars had gone for the night, and he had finished his last, careful notations. Nothing had changed with the new s
tar. It seemed to be alone, unconcerned with the motion of the other flocks in the sky. Ezzi could be the one to name the twenty-sixth star. He could think of nothing else except the glory of that day.

  The drums banged on; he guessed that glory probably wouldn’t come this day.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Ulu let herself in the front door. Too much beer and three different suitors had made her day fantastic, if half-forgotten. The drums wouldn’t be too joyful in a few hours. For gods who turned the whole world to a slab of clay because it was too noisy, it made no sense they would demand noise on New Year’s, but who was she to ask. As Ezzi delighted in reminding her, she was a whore.

  A prostitute. A well-paid, well-endowed, talented female companion.

  She belched.

  A whore who wanted her chamber pot and a few hours of quiet in which to sleep. “Though I might have to go to the marsh to get any quiet,” she groused as she walked through the courtyard and up the steps to her apartments. Ezzi’s door was shut; no light shone through the cracks. She scanned the roof for her son’s silhouette, but he wasn’t there.

  Of course, it was just past dawn, so he would be finished with the stars by now.

  Ulu belched again, then opened the door to her apartments and shut it behind her.

  Guli was already on his first two clients of the day. Thanks to Ulu’s word and a few extra minae of barley, he was back in business. Prostitutes from four corners of the city were in early. Today would be the busiest for them, before the population got completely soused and before the temple priestesses—whores, these women called them—were “released” on duty.

  This was a prostitute’s golden day.

  One was getting her hair straightened; one wanted a cut; one was getting her body waxed—no hair at all? The last girl wanted to be a redhead with… matching equipment. Guli mixed the dye and hoped to Inana he had enough, for she was a broad woman. He pitied the man who didn’t bring enough to pay her; she could break him with her hands.

  * * *

  “Most majestic one,” they greeted him. Shama bowed his head and accepted the dual-horned crown of the ensi. The drums tolled in his stomach as he knocked on the copper-plated doors.