Twilight in Babylon

by Frank, Suzanne

  Are you thinking of your family? Chloe wondered about the woman who walked past her. You think you’re doing this to save your children’s lives, to give them a chance to live in a better world. Chloe knew this, she understood even, but she also fought against the modern knowledge that eclipses occurred regularly. Would the people of Ur always send a group to their death at an eclipse?

  Puabi’s handmaidens, painted in ritual gold, just like Chloe was, walked through the antechamber and climbed down a ladder into the burial chamber. The rest of the women sat down on the mat-covered floor of the main room. The lutenist strummed, and the priests organized the front of the room to make space for the oxen-drawn sledge. Two more women climbed down the ladder. I’m next, Chloe realized, and fought not to cry out. She stepped from the sledge, and one of the soldiers helped her descend the ladder. Chloe would lie on the bier, the three maids by her head, feet, and side.

  Chloe dipped her fake cup in the poison and walked to the bier. Carefully she stepped up and sat down. She would have to play dead until the priests came back and killed the oxen. After everyone else was deceased, Chloe would be alive.

  Chloe watched the three handmaidens embrace. Already their expressions were vacant. I’m so alone, Chloe thought. Music flowed, muffling the noises of people sitting down, arranging jewelry and bodies. Oh God.

  “We are assembled, ma’am,” a soldier called to her.

  This is my only line, Chloe thought, and took a deep breath. “Drink,” she called to them.

  The politicians and priests had spun the story so well that the people who were sacrificing themselves thought they were going on a cosmic caravan to the gods, not to death. How do you do one and not the other? Chloe asked herself. Has anyone thought it through?

  They drank, in one movement, then they all lay down. As Cheftu had promised, the cup drained away the poison. Please let this all work, Chloe prayed. Please oh please, I’m not ready to die. Cheftu was out there, praying the same thing, she knew. Ningal had said she would feel some narcotic effects, but she would be able to move, at least for up to a quarter of a double hour. Translated: thirty minutes.

  After the eclipse had passed, the oxen would be slaughtered. Then the priests would seal up the tomb, a process that was going to take a few days and, depending on the outcome of the eclipse, possibly include a few more human bribes for the gods. Chloe had to be up and out of here before then. She was on her own until she reached the well beyond the western wall. She had to go through the original death pit, beneath this one, to get there.

  The drug was taking effect on the others: One by one, the small sighs and sniffled tears, the whispers and words, then finally the lyre–players died out.

  Chloe sat up, her heart pounding, her palms wet. The racket above would drown out any noise she would make. One of the maids was kneeling by the side of the bier. Carefully, Chloe took off her flower-studded crown and set it on the ground. She approached the girl. The female was still breathing, but barely. Her pupils were dilated, and her body was heavy.

  Chloe tugged on her arm. Nothing. Chloe knelt and took hold of the girl in a fireman’s carry, then staggered the two steps over and laid her down on the platform.

  She landed harder than Chloe intended. Now the woman’s eyes were closed. Chloe didn’t know if it was the drug, death, or unconsciousness.

  Oh God, I’m going to be in here with all these dead people.

  Chloe put on the handmaiden’s wreath, then draped more of her beads on the unconscious woman’s body and left Puabi’s cylinder seal. She stepped back to gauge the effect, and almost stepped on the girl’s cup. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped those stiffening fingers around it.

  It took a while to do everything, longer than she’d planned; Chloe was feeling the effects of the drug, the antidote. She collapsed onto her knees, then keeled over. According to Ningal, her body would be paralyzed, but she would be completely awake. To the priests, it would appear her breath had left and not returned. Her eyes wouldn’t even react to light.

  This really is shades of Romeo and Juliet, she thought.

  Chloe’s body was falling asleep, it prickled the same way, and she couldn’t move a muscle anymore. Her bones felt soldered together. She swore her heart was slowing down audibly.

  The ground above throbbed with the drumbeats.

  They ceased.

  Chapter Five

  Total blackness encased the land. Bright daylight became pitch midnight. Screams and shouts rose from the multitude as night seemed to hold its own. Birds ceased their song; animals were silent. The air was cool, like the breath of the grave. Then, on the edge of the black sphere, a flash of red, next, a sliver of sunlight. More and more. The cold shadow of judgment rushed away from the commonwealth, back into the sky. The sun was accepting the bribes of the moon. Waves of light moved across the ground and buildings; the net the gods had cast on Ur was lifting.

  The gods were appeased.

  Ezzi stared at the hole, the one that had swallowed his mother. The one he had put her in. What is good in one’s sight is evil for a god, he reminded himself of the adage. What is bad for one’s mind is good for his god. Ezzi had merely acted under direction from his gods, and for the good of his commonwealth. Ulu wanted to do it, to show some sign of nobility in her life. He’d been a sacred vessel—nothing more.

  “How do we know it won’t happen again?” a soft voice asked. The question fired like thunder in the silence. “What assurance do we have?”

  Everyone looked at the en, Kidu. He raised his hands, and gave the ritual response.

  “Does our house last forever?

  Do contracts last forever?

  Do brothers stay in business equally forever?

  Does division in the land last forever?

  Does the river forever rise up and bring floods?

  The dragonfly leaves its casing, just for a minute of heat on its face.

  Since Before, there has been nothing that lasts.

  The dead are the same, whoever they are.

  Despite their position, they sleep beside one another in the earth indistinguishable once they have embraced their destiny.

  A destiny decreed by the court of gods, by the judge of destinies. Death and life they write in the Tablet, but the days of death they hide from us.

  We never know beyond the moment.”

  The people bowed their heads. Music no longer rose from the shaft. For those journeying below, it was ended. For those above, the journey through days of loss was just beginning. The en, together with his coterie, took the lugal’s golden-hafted blade and walked down into the earth.

  As he disappeared from sight, priests with carts of dirt and enormous pots of freshly mixed clay drew up to the hole.

  Had Ulu felt any pain? Ezzi wondered. The drug was supposed to be the most pleasant of them all; in fact, Puabi was well-known for her love of it. The new ensi would be crowned at the end of the following week after a hasty election. Of course, the new ensi would be Puabi under a different name. Life would return to normal. If the gods were mollified. Ezzi looked at the sky. With so many deities to please, had the humans of Ur forgotten someone who would enlist demons to torture them?

  I did nothing wrong, he protested. Nothing. I served my commonwealth. The greater good of the people. He’d even served the gods, for his actions had led to saving the ensi’s life. He was a tool, by merely following his own desires.

  Priests brought up the huge copper pot from below. The masses hissed as it was rolled in. Was the poison still there? Would others be asked to give their lives for their families? The priests wheeled the pot past the standing watchers and into the inner court.

  An audible sigh.

  “What is Kidu doing down there?” Ezzi whispered to Asa.

  “Killing them,” the stargazer said. “Completing the sacrifice.”

  * * *

  The smell was everywhere. Offal. The remnants of the human body as its functions ceased. Chloe wanted to retch, bu
t she didn’t have the control. Instead, she concentrated on not getting sick—dying in her own vomit, minutes before she was rescued, would be more ironic than she could stand.

  They clanged as they walked down the shaft, the priests and Cheftu. The ox bawled, then there was a gurgle, a loud clatter as the ox sagged. Another cry, another dead ox. They crashed to the ground. “I will arrange the women,” Cheftu said to the men. “Bring the rest of the donations. You, come with me.”

  Her eyes were open, but Chloe couldn’t focus, just stare into the flickering darkness. She listened as Cheftu and another, who held the lamp for him, moved among the people, sprinkled the bodies with dirt. She heard the whisper of the lyre as they moved it. Clods falling to earth. A brush against wood. Was it the chest or the sledge they had just passed?

  Metal, the music of dirt on shields. They must be by the soldiers. A row of women lay opposite them.

  “Sir, I think she might still be alive!” the priest whispered.

  They couldn’t have seen Chloe; the floor of the antechamber was roof level to this room. They were too far on the other side to see down to her.

  She heard necklaces grate against each other. They were checking out someone else. “Just the final throes of the poison,” Cheftu said. “She is dead.”

  Chloe smelled the refuse of the oxen. She would have to be careful of so much gross stuff when she moved around. No footprints, an essential detail, just in case someone came back. Though Cheftu’s plan was going to make it nearly impossible for a return visit.

  They were moving toward her, into the grave of Puabi.

  “I’m out of amulets,” Cheftu said. “There are some more in the bag.”

  “Where’s the bag?”

  “By the sledge. Just pass me the light.”

  Down the ladder, jewelry clinking, then soft sounds as he walked across the floor.

  She felt the heat of the flame, saw light moving.

  He touched her, but it felt as though his hands were on heavy wool over her body. He closed her eyes and turned her on her side, arranged her arms at right angles, her legs in the fetal position, her head facing north. “Thank you,” he said to the other priest, and she felt small weights laid on her shoulder and leg. Dirt cascaded onto her, not much, but heavily symbolic.

  She wanted to jump up and scream, protest that she was alive.

  Thank God for the drug, which restrained her.

  They moved to the other two servants, then the new Puabi-substitute. Chloe smelled the heat of the dust that rose from the ritual of dirt. The least deserving person, Puabi, got to live. And she’d get credit for female education. Ironic.

  Then the men were gone, climbing out of the pit and walking across the antechamber.

  A little more rustling, then the huffs of the priests.

  Chloe couldn’t distinguish the noises, but she knew there was a ton of gold, a wealth of inlaid furniture, trunks’ worth of clothes and foodstuffs, to be moved in, all of it a bribe for the gods. Gods who had to be fed and clothed and who could die and get sick were not her idea of divinity, but to these people, the gods were exactly like them, only with longer life spans.

  And more control.

  “Is there more, en?”

  “No, hand me the wine.” Cheftu’s voice was too low to distinguish the words, but it was reverent, and Chloe wouldn’t be surprised if it carried the Last Rites. That would be just like him, to slip in Catholicism over a pagan human sacrifice. Her eyes filled with tears; that was one of the reasons she loved her husband so.

  Dirt, falling into the shaft the sacrifices had walked down. Drums above, beating softly. It must be almost night now; the numbness was starting to wear off. Chloe opened her eyes in slits. Darkness, except for the faint light from the shaft that was being filled with clods of dirt. They fell like heavy rain. They were burying her alive.

  Thank God her voice was frozen—if not, she might have cried out, instinctively. She was here with dead people, and would be for a long time. Dirt continued falling, but it would take hours to fill the shaft deep enough to ensure her safety.

  But she had to move now, get up the rickety ladder while she still could, before even that dim light was gone. Chloe creaked upright, disturbing dirt and amulets. It felt as though a lead weight sat on her chest. The dozens of necklaces around her neck and falling to the floor were heavy ties, chaining her to the earth. She was going to throw up; the bile was in her throat. Chloe swallowed it down again and again.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the near darkness, and she wished they hadn’t.

  The attendants were dead. The sound of earth falling was steady, comforting. Those were live people doing that work. She tucked the cup into her belt.

  It seemed to take hours to climb the ladder. Chloe couldn’t feel her hands or her feet very well. The stink of released bowels gagged her. Finally, she grabbed the edge of the roof/floor and dragged herself over it. The ladder swayed and would have crashed, but she caught it.

  She eased it against the wall, then lay down to catch her breath. She was shaking like a palm in a wind storm. Nauseated still. Chloe sat up and looked around.

  The landscape was curves. Mounds of colored wool between her and the shaft. Soon, beneath those cloaks, new life would start to breed.

  Twelve hours was the time between death and full-grown maggots. God, why do I know that? I wish I didn’t. When her Mimi had first died, Chloe’s nightmares had been of the body as it rotted.

  Which poet had written “To His Coy Mistress” and discussed the futility of the woman preserving her virginity because she would ultimately be invaded by worms? I hate him, Chloe decided. Which poet was that?

  Who wrote about the fly buzzing as she died? Some New England poet who had been a recluse and an invalid. Never married, always wrote about death? Emily… what, what kind of Emily?

  Brontë. Talk about a family obsessed with death. Jane Eyre and fire. Heathcliff with Cathy’s ghost banging on his window.

  Was there anything in high-school literature that wasn’t about death? Old Man and the Sea—death. For Whom the Bell Tolls—a lot of death. Death in the Afternoon—no-brainer there. The Great Gatsby—who’s left standing? The Jungle—gory death.

  Are we a nation obsessed?

  She heard a deep inhalation and froze.

  Ohmigod, someone else is alive.

  She curled into fetal position—like the rest of the corpses—and listened hard.

  Dirt falling was loud when you were trying to hear a small sound, like the shift of a body on reed matting or the first jangle of jewelry as a human moved.

  If someone else is alive—what do I do? We didn’t plan on this, Cheftu. Do I take the person with me and make the escape for two, not one? Do I… what do I do? I can’t kill them. They deserve to live as much as I do.

  A clatter of jewelry; so loud that the priests halted shoveling.

  “Should we go down there?” one of them asked. He was whispering, but the shaft acted as a megaphone.

  Oh please no, Chloe thought. The numbness had mostly worn off—her heartbeat was probably audible, and she had body heat. Plus, her pupils would most likely react. Pass out, I have to pass out. How can I pass out without hyperventilating? How can I hyperventilate quietly? I’m not in the correct location? I’m out here on my own!

  “Think someone survived?” one of the priests said. “The en checked everyone.”

  “Sounded like they got up, banged into something.”

  “Ask the en.”

  “Why have you stopped?” Cheftu’s voice was clear, it carried well.

  “Something in the pit, sir. It sounded like movement. Clangs and clatters.”

  “The bodies settling,” Cheftu said calmly. “As the corpses stiffen and relax in death, there will be noises. Especially around the sledge, with the oxen and the weight of the gifts. The sacrifice has been made, you needn’t worry.”

  “Of course, sir,” one of them said.

  “I want this shaft fille
d to the roof of the pit as soon as possible. We need to offer drink and food offerings in two double hours. We’ll have to lay a clay floor first.”

  “Of course, sir, we’ll hurry.”

  “The gods will bless your diligence. Your work is just as vital as those who gave their lives today.”

  The dirt started to fall again—double time.

  Chloe almost wet herself with relief. Could those sounds just be settling, like he said? Her heartbeat was so loud. I mustn’t be jumpy, she told herself. I can’t hiss or scream or even make a peep. Jewelry clanging is one thing—if the shaft is a megaphone down, it might be one going up, too.

  Obviously these diligent priests were listening.

  Why couldn’t Cheftu have found some drunken slackers for this job instead?

  She dared to peek. The dirt was falling very slowly. Two double hours—four more hours to lie here. With the dead. Then, to move among them, slide back the chest, and escape into the tomb below.

  A sigh.

  Chloe held her breath when the priests paused, but then there were four shovelfuls of dirt falling, one on each side. The light trickling down was fainter. Cheftu was going to keep them there all night. Which is really good, because I think I’m going to lose it if this takes longer.

  Think words. Logograms and phonetic signs and the seven hundred other syllables that were this language. That would occupy her mind, and it was getting easier to manipulate, but Chloe needed to draw the symbols. Which required moving. Moving. She didn’t dare move. No one was watching, but still, she was in easy view for someone sticking his head down into the shaft.

  Her body prickled with a thousand needle points. Feeling returning.

  Where in history is this; that question should keep her busy for hours. The clues were innumerable, but she was an idiot when it came to chronologies and dates, and didn’t know where to put them. In all her memories, she couldn’t place the cone-shaped mosaics. It was hard to believe the place would become Iraq. The soldiers in the Gulf War had talked about nothing besides sand, sand dunes, dust storms, and the parching sun.