Last Days With Cleopatra

by Jack Lindsay

  He hadn’t the power to deny what she had said; he merely repeated, “It would break your father’s heart, and you know it would.”

  “He’ll never find out,” she retorted viciously, “unless you tell him.”

  “I shan’t tell him if you’ll promise not to see this boy again.”

  “I won’t promise anything. You can’t be so cruel. I love him. I can’t leave him now.”

  Olympos was stricken with a fear. “You haven’t gone too far...made yourself common...with him?”

  “No, no. How could you think such a thing? He hasn’t even kissed me. Except on the cheek and forehead.”

  She spoke so vehemently that he believed her; he wanted to believe her; he couldn’t believe anything wrong about so dear a girl.

  She waited a while, then spoke coaxingly. “You’re not going to say anything to father, are you?” He made no answer, not because he meant to give her away, but because the situation was baffling; and she sprang up. “Listen! If you say a word, I’ll kill myself, I will!” Her eyes blazed and her voice trembled throatily with passion.

  He was frightened, sorry that he’d taken upon himself to intrude on this world of young love so foolish, so filled with a defiant pathetic power, so very sweet. Better to have closed his eyes. Now that he’d dragged it all out into the open, it was his duty to betray the lovers, to stop things. But he couldn’t. He would ruin their lives if he did, even though they themselves were already going the way to ruin. That way was their own choice, and they’d be able to bear its miseries better than his interference. It would be best to take the chance and to keep Daphne’s confidence; perhaps he would then be able to help her when the collapse came, as come it must.

  “ I won’t say anything...if you’ll promise to be truthful with me, and to come to me if you’re in trouble of any kind.”

  She threw her arms round his neck. “You dearest old thing. I knew you loved me. Of course I’ll tell you everything.” She kissed him on his clean-shaven cheeks which had the apple-rosiness of an unshrivelled old age.

  “And you won’t let him kiss you...anything at all?”

  “No, no, no.”

  Olympos recalled that the boy had said that he only wanted to be beside his dear one, and, since he didn’t know who Olympos was, he had had no reason for lying. Olympos tried to think back into his own youth. The girl he’d met near the Bourina Spring in Cos, in his student-days, her mouth stained with mulberries and her eyes violet. Babies in the eyes. Kore, he’d called her, girl-doll, the same word as was used for the spring-maiden who rose from the blossoming earth. Kore, girl-doll, baby in the eyes. What had happened to her? She had married somebody, a stupid girl—with the cool shadows of the spring in her eyes, how could she have been stupid? It was hard to remember. The physician had better be chaste, moving among polluted humanity. He loathed sores and filth; the contact with such things had made him contract into himself; chastity had come like a cold shower of disgust, a remote tenderness; and his heart had remained unthawed till Daphne began growing up, a motherless girl, his niece. Nothing must stain her.

  He didn’t know if he’d really acted for the best. But what did such a qualm matter when he’d done the only thing he could do.

  “When Victor’s free and we have the estate that he’s been promised, we’ll have a special room for you,” Daphne was prattling on. “I’m so glad you like him. I knew you would.” She spoke lightly, her heart chilled with fear.

  *

  She went next morning to the place where she was to have met him, but no one came. Victor was not yet let out, and he had fallen into a fatalistic mood in which he preferred to let the worst happen than to confide in Borios. He had no great hopes that Daphne would be lingering beyond the wall; but even if she was there, the last thing he wanted was to send Borios to her while he himself was laid up within. Moreover, in his pessimism, he wasn’t unpleased that she as well as himself should be suffering. What would come, would come.

  Olympos visited him, but made no personal inquiries, even shut him up when approaching tentatively the subject of love once more. He told himself that he didn’t want to play the spy on Daphne, to distrust and test her story; but his heart failed him at the thought of perhaps catching her out. He was rather grumpy, and soon went.

  Victor was hurt, and then forgot him; and next morning strolled out into the garden, without any belief that he’d find Daphne there, his mind busy with the letter that he’d have to write. But she was there; and as soon as he saw her on the seat, he knew that he’d been sure of finding her, that he would have been anguished if he hadn’t found her waiting. He felt that she had been waiting on the seat all the while, for two days and nights, and saw nothing strange in the agitated tender way she hastened to meet him, in the fact that she took his wound for granted and didn’t ask him why he was two days late. They clasped hands.

  “Are you feeling better?” she asked, and then remembering that she wasn’t supposed to know, went on. “What happened to you? why is your head bandaged?”

  But her flustered voice made him realise that she’d known all about his injury; it brought back to his mind all the words rehearsed in reply to her imagined reproaches.

  “You didn’t seem surprised. You knew.”

  “I heard some people talking about a page of Antonius being struck with a stone. So I guessed it must be you, as you hadn’t come to meet me.”

  He looked at her with searching eyes. “You met Borios and he told you.”

  “I didn’t. I haven’t seen him at all. Go and bring him here. What lies has he been telling? You must bring him here to face me. I’ll make him own up.”

  “He hasn’t said anything,” replied Victor, convinced. “I only couldn’t see who else it was.”

  “Only some people in the street...”

  She seemed distrait, and that woke his suspicions again. He tried to recall the overwhelming flush of pleasure which he had felt at the first sight of her on the seat.

  “I’m free for days.”

  She looked away, shiftily. “Are you? Can’t we go somewhere and talk? Somewhere quiet.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “somewhere out past the Cemetery, or down by the Lake.”

  “That’s too far. Can’t you think of somewhere else?”

  She stared harbourwards. The Pharos could be seen towering above the summer-houses and the façade of the Theatre, dominating the scene as it did everywhere in Alexandria except on the Sarapeion or Paneion.

  He caught her eye. “Let’s go up to the top of the Pharos. There’s sure to be privacy on the top balcony.” He spoke in depression and turned away without taking her arm.

  She caught timidly at his sleeve. “Victor, darling. I haven’t said how happy I am. I thought you’d been killed...” Her voice broke.

  At once he was ashamed. Of course she hadn’t made an emotional display this morning; she’d got over her shock and her elation long before; she was tired, like himself, and wanted to rest from the strain. He lifted his smiling face towards her softly troubled eyes in which lurked a ghost of pain that eluded him.

  “Forgive me. I love you. I’m only ugly when I fear you don’t love me.”

  “But I love you always. I’m only afraid of the same thing.”

  They stared trancedly into one another’s eyes, pleased that each was so jealously aware of the other, yet wondering how those barriers of uncertainty could be swept away. How foolish, how unnecessary, the barriers were; such pain they caused, such pointless pain.

  Then arm in arm the lovers set off for the lighthouse.

  *

  To reach the great mole they had to pass through the Exhairesis, the walled-off quay district. At the gate stood sentries ready to enforce the demands of the customs officials who, while counting and rating all the merchandise that entered or left, also kept an eye on the porters, lumpers, and sailors. A double discussion was going on. A merchant’s clerk was insisting that he’d been overcharged for a consignment of terr
a-cotta figures, and a negro slave was being searched. A gold coin, a parrot’s feather, an ivory toothpick, an unidentifiable bone, and a worthless piece of pottery had so far been discovered secreted about the negro and were ranged at his feet, but to all questions he smiled and blandly replied that he had no knowledge of the articles. How then had they come to be found on his person? He merely replied that that question was for the officials to answer. What else were they there for?

  Victor tipped a clerk and was ushered through, although he had no business-pass; and he and Daphne made their way through the yelling, shoving streets. A dry stench of stale spices and hay tickled their nostrils, soured with sweat odours. A diarrhetic camel, with green slime thick on its hind quarters, was pushed against a waggon, narrowly missing Victor; and the waggoner shouted with rage, claiming damages for his dirtied cover. The lovers stared at the camel, an animal seldom seen in Egypt. Asses and trucks were everywhere—intent porters furiously steering their course through the crowd, browned sailors with earrings or flaring scarves, and countless clerks with inkhorn slung round shoulder and complete with pens and scroll. Though the main customs work was done at the gate, everything was checked and re-checked. For since practically the whole of Egypt was state property with agriculture and industry state directed, there was an enormous bureaucracy needed to keep the machinery of production and distribution in running order; and since it was considered an axiom that most government officials were untrustworthy, checks were multiplied and goods were counted on all possible occasions to obviate pilfering. Since the officials were nearly all rivals for promotion, they cordially detested one another and were far more likely to spend their time in seeking to expose their colleagues than in collaborating together against the government. Such was the theory at any rate; and the complex gradations of service, inspectors and sub-inspectors, went far to make the theory work out effectively.

  Despite the crush, the terrific activity of everyone, the zeal of the officials, the noise, and the general lack of all apparatus for relaxation, there were in the dock area almost as many painted women as sailors; and among the warehouses were to be found the dingy warrens of the parasites, smoky beer-shops and laystalls of Aphrodite. Daphne stared the women down whenever she had a chance; and Victor, unaware of her occupation, hoped that she wasn’t noticing such florid blemishes on the dusty scenery. A stunning crash of timber from a warehouse on the left awoke the itch of pain in his wound, and he tried to hasten. But there were no means of hastening through such a crowd, particularly with a girl on one’s arm. Over the quay-roofs rose the mast-tops, twigs of a barren forest.

  At last the outer gate was reached, and another tip secured a quick exit on to the Great Mole which led to the island of limestone where the Pharos was built. The lovers walked lightly, with a sense of space, ease, and melodious quiet after the crush of the quayside, along the solid causeway grounded on the bed of the sea. Halting, they leaned against a mooring-post and looked back at the crowded city buildings that seemed all flatly pressed on one another in a death-squeeze, ringing with the last squalls of crushed animal life. Then they looked at the ships along the quays, filled with all the commodities known to man, sacks of grain pouring down a deck-opening into the hold, bundles of papyrus, crates of glassware or sham jewelry, furniture gilded and stuck all over with carved tortoise-shell, packages of linen of all qualities from rough canvas to transparent film for courtesans, carpets and tapestries, luxury-goods of ivory, delicate surgical instruments, unguents in pots neatly labelled, rare products from the East made up more attractively—silks, spices and scents—everything that Alexandria, the greatest manufacturing town in the world, produced. On the left of the lovers lay the Great Harbour, on the right the more exposed Harbour of Happy Return; and through one of the two water-passages in the Mole a barge was paddling and poling from the Great Harbour into the other. The lovers watched the barge emerge from almost under their feet, and then walked on, the sea-breeze cooling their faces. They heard one of the sailors on the barge singing the harbour-song to Isis:

  Hail O Star of the Sea,

  Mother of god and wife,

  Virgin-mother of god,

  Saviour of human life.

  “What’s that written on the lighthouse?” asked Daphne, pointing to the inscription, originally gilded, that ran across the top of the lower section.

  Victor shaded his eyes. “Sosistratos, son of Dexiphanes of Cnidos—he was the architect,” he explained, and went on reading, “To the Saviour Gods on behalf of Sea- Farers.”

  “You can’t read it from here.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “But I can’t see a word.”

  “My sight must be clearer.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t. You made all that up.”

  He began walking faster. “All right. See for yourself when we get nearer.”

  He didn’t like to admit that he’d known what the lettering was, and wasn’t himself sure if he’d read it at the distance or merely stated what he knew was there; but she caught the nervous smile on his face and guessed the truth.

  “You’d read it before.”

  “That’s true,” he said with a laugh.

  She interrupted. “You couldn’t see it at all.”

  “I could half see it, but perhaps I couldn’t have read it if I hadn’t known the words.”

  “You couldn’t see it at all,” she answered fiercely. “Don’t you dare to deny it.”

  He moved his tongue round his lips. He didn’t want to quarrel, but he couldn’t agree with her unless she was right; it wasn’t that he objected to lying, he told as many lies as other people, but he couldn’t merely agree to keep her quiet. She would know at once. He tried to hedge.

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “You know I am.”

  The bar of resistance snapped inside him. “Of course you are. I couldn’t see it at all.” He laughed again, more gaily. “Don’t be angry.”

  She looked very angry for a moment, then smiled too. “I don’t mind, since you’ve told the truth.”

  They were nearing the island now, and forgot to look at the inscription and to verify Victor’s reading. At the end of the causeway was a fort, garrisoned with lounging soldiers, which caught their attention; and when the sentry asked Victor his business, Victor dropped a coin into his palm and winked. The lovers walked past the barrier and mounted the viaduct that led to the entrance of the Pharos, supported by rounded arches. The ground of the island was uneven, and it was necessary for the ass-trains to climb easily to the entrance. The viaduct sloped upward, till the last arch was tall enough to let an elephant through, if an elephant could be fancied loose on the sea-lashed rocks. Round the Pharos ran a wide platform built of great blocks of hewn calcareous stone clamped together with iron, the crevices filled with molten lead to seal the joints. The western end, where the sea broke most tempestuously in a winter-gale, was piled with the largest blocks; and, descending some stone steps, the lovers walked about the spacious enclosure and wandered to the edge, to look down into the water that bubbled with foam and swept along the rocks with slow shouldering strength. Then the water cleared, pellucid depths of green sunlight, and the lovers could see down to the sunken reef. They leaned warmly on one another, pressed against the lip of stone, and tried to make out the colours of the rock-growths and the swaying sea-anemones, the flittering fishes that so quickly merged with the other sandy shadows, the rippling masses of weed, the water-ghostly shape of jelly-fish.

  Then they drew back, both suddenly surfeited of that silent world of the under-sea where death was a darting, twisting shadow, suckered tentacles of horror, or cold nibbling teeth. Yet the depths of slanted green light, the ceaseless dance of foam-patterns, held their minds, subdued their chatter, and made them clasp hands with a pressure that hurt and was yet not tight enough, as they went up the steps.

  Standing at the door, they looked up. The Pharos seemed immensely high. The first section, square-built though taper
ing slightly pyramid-wise, was some 30o feet high; upon this base was reared an eight-sided tower, about half as high again; and above this tower stood the round-shaped lighting-chamber, which, with cupola and topping bronze statue of Poseidon, was as tall again as the tower. The walls were composed of blocks of nummulitic limestone, ornamented with marble and bronze; and the columns were of granite from southern Egypt.

  The door-keeper, like all the other officials in charge of gates or doors, showed a great interest in Victor’s business till he was presented with some coins: after which he developed into an anecdotalist whom the lovers could silence only by leaving in mid-sentence. They were aided in this by the arrival of a train of mules loaded with firewood, resinous branches of fir, for the fire-chamber above; and they walked hastily on; for once the mule-train got ahead, they would have to wait indefinitely. The ascent was a stairless spiral slope that wound round the inside of the building, with rooms on either side; and the paving-blocks formed the ceiling of the part of the spiral underneath. In the rooms were clerks noisily computing the fuel-charges and the costs for repairs as well as checking all arrivals and departures of shipping in either harbour, for they had windows that commanded the whole of the sea-front. There were also armouries, for the Pharos could be converted into a fortress against a naval attack.

  On went the lovers, and behind them came the mule-train plodding up the ascent: which had been made stairless for this very purpose.

  The lovers reached the level space at the top of the first section, and peeped over the rampart decorated with wavelike scrolls and statued with large tritons blowing conches at each corner. But to escape the mules they hurried on again, up the narrower second section, and reached the parapeted height immediately below the fire-chamber with its eight tall pillars and great rearing statue of bronze. Here they were safe from the mules, who would climb straight up to the store-rooms under the fire-chamber. They looked over the parapet, dazed somewhat from the quick climb. Below them the water stirred and crawled flatly, and the city seemed to have shrunk; but the Sarapeion showed up more boldly. The manikins on the quay could be seen rushing about in an activity rendered insensately futile by the veils of distance.