“Whether you want it or not, you have to take it. If you do not, then Egypt is lost, and Caesar’s line dies.” I yanked on his tunic. “What do you think I have done it all for? Why have I lived my life as I have? For Egypt, and then for you and your inheritance. Don’t make it all a useless sacrifice!” I had not reckoned on the object of all my efforts being recalcitrant. But I should have. People are unpredictable. What an irony, if he didn’t want it, or refused to take it! “I think you are made of stern stuff,” I finally answered. “I think you are the son of Caesar and Cleopatra.”
“I wish I weren’t!” he cried. “It requires too much of me! I can never fulfill your ambitions or your sacrifices. And as for my father—I’d rather be the son of a mortal! Someone who made mistakes, who lost a battle or two, who used the wrong word occasionally!”
“Someone like Antony,” I said. “But you have had him for a father, the only father you’ve ever known. The gods were kind.”
“And now he’s gone, too! Why does everyone desert me?” He burst into tears. “Don’t leave me!” He grabbed me and held me so tightly I could hardly breathe. His sobs may have been a child’s, but he had the strength of a man in his arms.
This was horrible, worse than I could have imagined. I shouldn’t have told him now. There is never any affair of state that justifies a mother deciding to kill herself, not in a child’s eyes. When the events forced it, that was another matter….
“Very well,” I managed to get out. “I will do nothing violent. But I will then insist that you leave Egypt as the time approaches. Seek safety elsewhere, while I take my stand against him. Will you do that?”
He finally dropped his arms and let me go. “Leave Egypt?” he said.
“We cannot both be here,” I said. “Surely you understand that. I will face him, but only if I know he cannot harm you. And before you depart, I will proclaim that you have come of age and that the Egyptians now have a man to lead them. That will make it easier for Octavian to recognize you. Will you agree to that?”
“In exchange for your life, yes.”
“Alexandria will resound to one last celebration, then,” I said. “It will be like days gone by.”
He clasped me to him again, still trembling. “Don’t leave,” he kept saying. “Don’t leave me.”
Finally he let me go. Shaking myself free, I decided another moment had come, although I had not planned it. I placed in his hands the special box I had kept for Caesar’s letters to me. No one but I had ever read them. But he needed them.
“These are your father’s letters to me,” I said. “No other eyes have ever looked upon them. But you should read them; you are included in them. And I think you will find that he made mistakes. There are even some words crossed out. He chose the wrong ones sometimes.”
“That’s only because he was writing in Greek,” said Caesarion, half smiling.
Surrendering the letters was like opening a door into my soul. But he needed them more than I did.
“I love you, Mother,” he said. “Forgive me if I would rather have you than your throne.”
I forced myself to laugh and make a joke. “Then you are not a true easterner, for we are renowned for killing our parents to get their crowns.” But I had been proud of the fact that my children were not like the other Ptolemies in that regard. “It must be your Roman blood.”
The next step in my plan likewise went awry. I wanted Olympos to recommend and procure the best poison for me. He, too, was horrified.
We had been talking of other things; he had been most insistent that I needed to eat cucumbers and lettuce and melons to offset the privations of Actium, where there had been nothing fresh.
“I could tell just by looking at you that you were practically starving,” he said, settling down on one of my couches and putting his hands behind his head.
“Why, because I could wear some gowns that had been too tight?” I asked. “I was pleased about it.”
“Women! Vanity! Would it interest you to know that starving doesn’t improve anyone’s looks, no matter what gown they can fit into? Your skin had lost its color, your hair was dull, and your face had a pinched look.”
“Well, I’m better now,” I said. “There’s plenty of food here.” All the food that had been held up in Egypt, never reaching us.
“Better, but not well.” He cocked his head. “We have to get you back to your fighting form, the better to seduce Octavian when he arrives.”
“Very funny.”
“Well, it’s worth a try. He must be tired of Livia by now. Another married Roman strays into your orbit….” He rolled his eyes. “They say he’s partial to Corinthian vessels. Perhaps you can hide in one, and pop out.”
What would I ever do without Olympos? “You know what they say,” I said. “Never play the same trick twice. That’s too much like the rug.” I paused. “No, I have a new scene in mind. But I need your help. I want the best poison you can procure.”
The smile faded from his face. “You want to poison him?”
“No. Not him.”
I had never seen Olympos taken entirely by surprise, naked emotions playing on his face. I saw it now. “No!” he said. “No, I can’t believe you would ask that of me.” He jumped to his feet.
“Dear friend—” I rose, too.
“No! I said no!” Horror and anger were fighting within him. “I cannot!”
“If you cannot, who will?” I asked. “I am afraid it may prove necessary, and then I will be driven to—to ugly measures, unless you help me.”
“I cannot use my skills that way,” he said. “And even if I could, I could never aid you in—You are my friend, my lifetime companion, dearer to me than—than—”
“All the more reason why you should spare me suffering! Or do you want me tortured? Taken to Rome and killed there? Or forced to use knives or swords? Oh, pity my situation!” Now I felt trapped. I had betrayed my intentions to him without obtaining any help with them.
“The Cleopatra I know would face her enemies, not avoid them.”
“Oh, that I intend to do,” I assured him, for it was true. “All that diplomacy, charm, sacrifice may win for me, I will venture. But if they fail, I need to know that I will not be humiliated or tortured. I need to know I control my own last fate.”
“This is premature. After all, Octavian is in Rome. Everything is quiet. Wait and see.”
Why could he not understand? “We know what is coming,” I said. “We must prepare.”
He looked at me acutely. “You said diplomacy, charm, sacrifice. Just what do you have in mind?”
“I will flatter Octavian, surrender my crown to him, ask him only to pass the throne on to my son. That’s diplomacy. I will hide my treasures, threaten to destroy them unless he agrees. Already I am gathering them into one spot, where I can set fire to them. That’s sacrifice. And then, when I finally see him, I will remind him of Caesar’s love for me, his respect. He will not dare to insult his ‘father’s wife.’ That’s charm.” That was my tentative plan. I had no wish to die. But I was ready to. That was the difference.
“What if, when he sees you, he responds to your…charm in some other way, and demands some demonstration of it?”
I had thought of that. It was unlikely; enemies do not usually arouse lust. But conquerors routinely took women as part of their victory. And to take Antony’s woman would be the final triumph over his foe, the greatest insult he could tender.
The thought was repugnant; I did not know if I could bear it, not even for Egypt, not even for Caesarion. The poison would be far better. But that might have to be afterwards; in fact, it would be obligatory afterward.
“I would get drunk first,” I said. “And I assume you would have no scruples about providing me something to add to the wine to wipe out all my memory afterward.”
I suppose that was the answer he wanted. It showed I wanted to live. Let him think it—as long as he got the poison!
“You stop at nothing,” he said, with grudgin
g admiration.
“I am desperate,” I told him. “Don’t fail me!”
“I didn’t save you when the twins were born, only to murder you ten years later.” He shook his head. “I won’t get poison.”
“Then you are crueler than Octavian!” Well, I would manage without him. I would think of a way. But I still needed some other assurances from him. “I want you to promise something else, then.”
“Not until I hear it first.” He crossed his arms across his chest.
“I want you to take the two copies of my life story out of Alexandria. Put one in the base of the great statue of Isis in her temple at Philae; take the other to Meroe, and the Kandake.”
“Meroe! You want me to go all the way to Meroe?” His voice rose in protest.
“I think, after Octavian arrives, you will feel the need to travel.” I smiled at him. “Do you promise? It is all I ask.”
“All? Do you know how far it is?”
“Yes. I have been there, remember? You will be glad enough to leave Alexandria for a year or so. And when you return, Octavian will be gone.”
“And you? Where will you be?” He was still suspicious.
“Taken off to Rome, since you will have it so,” I said. No use to discuss it further now. “Do you promise to take the scrolls?”
He sighed. “Yes. I suppose so.”
“No, do you promise? Do I have your word?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can trust it, I know.”
The year rolled relentlessly on, sliding into the darkest time. It was no darker outside than in my mind, where hate, fear, worry battered my heart. I continued training Caesarion, showing him the archives, the inventories, and trying to teach him the valuable arts of ruling: how to select administrators, how to compose correspondence that achieved one’s aims, how to reward good servants and discern cheating ones. I spent hours with Alexander and Selene, telling them stories of Antony, lest they forget their father. I gave them the medals, recounting the battles where they were earned. I included Antyllus, in some ways the neediest of them all. He had come alone to Alexandria, a stranger, to take his place with unknown half-siblings. He had no mother, and had been taken from the house of his stepmother. I ached for him, the ache made worse by picturing Caesarion soon in his place. No father, no mother, no stepfather…well, at least Antyllus knew Octavian, I thought grimly. Surely Octavian would take him in and treat him kindly. My littlest, my last baby, now five years old, I played games with, enjoying his quick laughter, his chubby hands, his lack of questions that I found too painful to answer.
Mardian appeared one day, looking unusually glum. He had received a message.
I sighed. “What is it?” One bad thing followed another, like the waves rolling in relentlessly, smashing against the breakwaters. There was now no news that could be good; there was only bad and worse. And the worst: that Antony had…
“The ships,” he said, handing me the letter. “Malchus.”
I had thought I was past disappointment, but reading that Malchus had ordered my ships burnt was crushing. And he had waited until they had been laboriously hauled across the sands and safely launched in the Red Sea before descending on them and torching them.
“O ye gods!” I cried. “Now all my enemies rise up!” Malchus had harbored a grudge against me ever since I had taken his bitumen rights.
“Now that Didius is…has…” Mardian coughed delicately.
Quintus Didius, the Syrian governor, had gone over to Octavian a month ago, with his three legions.
“What about him?” I asked.
“To prove his new loyalty, he has unleashed Malchus on you. Malchus could not have struck without his permission.”
“Of course not.” So the ships were gone. No escape by way of that route. I was inured to it now, to all these losses and setbacks. My only goal was to keep going, and hope for a miracle to reverse the incoming tide. Octavian was mortal. There were still shipwrecks, fevers, accidents…. All it would take was one. And that was in the hands of the gods, and they were more likely to grant it if they applauded our resolute efforts here below. No one, man or god, likes a quitter. And so I soldiered on, alone.
79
There was only one place left that promised me solace. Antony’s vacant rooms were a palace of torment; the children’s quarters, with their high, resounding noises of life, were only a spur reminding me of the solemn charge with which I was entrusted; Mardian’s reports of Egypt’s prosperity were almost galling; and Olympos and I now played a game of cat-and-mouse about my intentions.
As I went out into the city, I could not help assessing what the Alexandrians—volatile, pleasure-loving, and yes, superficial—would be capable of withstanding. A siege? Doubtful. Bombardment? No. And certainly not for the sake of a disgraced Roman general. For me? Perhaps. They watched me carefully as I was carried through the streets in my litter, their dark eyes glittering. They were assessing me as I was them.
Octavian made deals. He would offer them terms to preserve their glorious city; and there was part of me that was grateful, knowing my city would live on somehow, surviving me.
The white tomb of Alexander beckoned, as it had to me all those years ago. In the glistening building that housed his remains—cool in its passageway under the dome—sounds were hushed and the light that penetrated was scattered and gentle. The utter stillness was what struck me now, whereas when I was a child it was the gleaming gold, the sword, the breastplate. Now I realized that I could never grasp what death truly meant, how it could change movement into absolute stillness and rigidity, but that if Alexander, that most restless of men, could lie so still…
Instead of comfort, it was horror. I would never go there again, and I emerged blinking into the sunlight, craving any movement I saw—the scurrying of a lizard, which now had power Alexander had lost forever; the waving of a workman’s hand; the stumbling of a donkey on the pavement. I entered my litter, and felt the thudding of the footfalls of my bearers, alive, moving….
Only in the Temple of Isis, on the eastern side of the palace promontory, where the sound of the sea echoes through the hall like the noise inside a fragile seashell held up to the ear, was there any peace for me. From the portico I could see the shining aquamarine water with its decorative white froth trimming the waves like lace. The crying of the wind, imitated by the seagulls, seemed to be calling to me. Inside the shaded hall, the statue of Isis, as white as new-cut ivory, stood inviting me to draw near.
There, at the feet of the goddess, the only mother I had ever really known, I could rest my head and lay aside my pretense. She saw everything, she knew everything, and I could trust her: things we long for in our earthly companions.
O Isis! My mother! I feel myself to be a child, lost and alone….
Long ago my mother had vanished into that beguiling tender blue of the harbor, resigning me to Isis’s care.
I am small, very small. I only come up to the statue’s base, and I reach out and touch it, my fat little hands curling with sorrow, offering a sad bunch of wildflowers to the goddess, terrified of her. “This is your mother now,” the old nurse says, but she is white and remote, and I can barely see her face. I want my own mother’s face back, her high coloring, her red lips, her greenish eyes. I put out my hand again and see, overlaying it, my mother’s hand, her slender fingers flailing in the water and disappearing.
I cry to the goddess, I am yours—take me, too, I want to go with her. But the goddess draws me up, takes my chin, whispers, Child, my child, death is not for you. You are mine, and will be my hands and eyes, my executor, my incarnation—forever and ever.
I had forgotten, my memories perhaps sealed by her power—until now. As I stand in her shadow, it all returns, only now I am taller, my hands—slender and ringed now, like my mother’s—reaching to the goddess’s knees, my mother’s face faded beyond recall, Isis and her serene beauty the only mother I know.
What would you have me do? I ask her. Only y
ou can guide me. Shall I resist? Am I to die soon? What of my children? Where will they go, what will you do with them?
O Isis—you who control fate, you who open and close the doors of our journey, tell me whence I go, where and why. Tell me. I am ready to hear.
And, faint as the sea-whisper, the murmur of the tides lapping at the base of the temple, I hear the sound of doom: Only a little while more, a little distance yet to go, and bravely borne, and you may lie down beside me.
Beside her. My mausoleum was beside the Temple of Isis, with an adjoining passageway. So.
As long as men come to worship me, as long as women come to pay homage, to lay flowers and wash with the sacred water, so long will they pass your earthly remains and honor you, too. You, my true daughter, will be part of me and those who love me, until the crack at the end of the world—the end of our world….
It is over, then? It does not seem possible, but it is only the statues who abide forever. Even Alexander lies as still as dust under his canopy, and he was younger than I.
But only six years younger! I am thirty-nine! Too young; it has gone too fast, far too fast to be over!
Octavian—Octavian is also six years younger than I, exactly Alexander’s age; no, not quite yet, not until next September will he attain Alexander’s age. And then…
Is it to be then? I asked Isis. Is it to be then, but not before?
And she told me, Yes. Then.
But I wanted to change it, would change it. Was it truly written, or could it be rescinded? If the gods admired or applauded our efforts, did they not have the power to change even what is written? They had pitied Psyche, and her great struggle earned her a place on Mount Olympus, a drink of ambrosia converting her with a sip from mortal to immortal. And Hercules…his labors had made him a god after all.
Only those who struggle are worthy of a reprieve. And so I had learned nothing, except what was waiting to be changed by my own determination. How easy to submit, how great the reward for resisting! Thus the gods encourage us to rebel, by their own inconsistency and approval of our daring.
The Memoirs of Cleopatra Page 127