“But then, because her life was cut short, she ran out of time to reveal her work on her own terms. This is why her legacy, her true legacy, has been lost to us. And why we have never found a single document of hers. Until now.
“The nardo document is the first writing in existence in the hand of Queen Cleopatra the Seventh. I believe it reveals the true source of her power over the most influential men of her era.”
After his lecture, Jeff steps down from the podium. The audience begins exiting the lecture hall, buzzing with conversation about the rapid advances the Nobel laureate has recently made in superheavy isotope technology. Several eager audience members approach Jeff to shake his hand and express their interest in his work.
“Impressive,” I hear a man say as he walks past me. “Wilson can’t possibly be very old.”
“He’s forty,” another voice responds.
An elderly woman approaches Jeff and lays a hand on his shoulder. “You should start a biotech company, son,” she says.
Jeff smiles politely and shakes her hand. “Thank you, Dr. Bower.” A number of heads turn to witness the dialog between Jeffrey Wilson and Sara Bower, who has just cured HIV.
But Jeff’s smoky blue eyes are on me. He steps away from Sara Bower and approaches me.
“So what did you think, Doctor?” he asks.
“Brilliant,” I say, and I cannot control my grin. “Except for the colossal fuck-up.”
“Excuse me?” Jeff exclaims, drawing back in surprise. His face is bright red, but he is smiling. “What colossal fuck-up?”
“I know you’re a chemist and all,” I say, “but I have to assume you at least have a couple of biologists on the payroll. They should know better than what you just said.
“Tell me something,” I say with a cocked head. “How are those anthrax studies coming along?”
Jeff frowns. “We’ll get there.”
“I know a thing or two about anthrax,” I say.
“Um, yeah, I realize that.”
“How are you targeting a specific biological and pathological niche when no specific biological and pathological niche has been defined?” I ask.
Jeff pulls me aside and lowers his voice. “You’re right! The cells are killing me. Or rather, I can’t kill them!”
I laugh. It is the most confusing paradox in anthrax research. Despite the devastating effects of anthrax in the body, there are really very few human cell types that can be killed by anthrax. Until only somewhat recently, the only cells known to be susceptible to infection were a few types of immune cells that in no way could produce the symptoms of anthrax when infected.
The biological terrorist attacks of 2001 and beyond triggered a massive increase in funding for anthrax research. This increase in focus led to the demonstration that additional cell types can respond to anthrax infection, but research in these cell types is still incomplete. The total picture is still a mystery.
Except to me.
“You just bluffed to an audience of five thousand scientists,” I say, grinning. “Ballsy.”
“I didn’t bluff!” Jeff says. He is still red in the face, but laughing. “I said we’re working on it, and we are. We’ll get there! Just wait!”
I shake my head. “So your lab is going to single-handedly solve this puzzle that the Department of Defense has been struggling to solve since 2001?”
“YES!”
“You’re one of those guys who won’t ever ask for directions, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just that you’re the type of person who won’t accept anyone’s help.”
“How do you know that? You don’t know me!”
“Oh, I think I do. It’s like looking in a mirror. But what if I told you I already know the answer? What if I said that I have proven the complete mechanism of action for anthrax in an entire panel of new cell types?”
“I’d think it’s a huge bummer that the woman I was just thinking of inviting out to dinner turned out to be a total crackpot.” This time, he is the one with the smug grin on his face.
“Oh, really? So then, you’re convinced that you can solve it, but it’s absolutely impossible that I could have?”
“Pretty much,” he says, but he jumps back as if I might hit him.
“OK,” I say. “I’ll make you a deal. Take this crackpot to dinner, and I’ll bring some of my recent data with me—the stuff I am not yet discussing in public. But first, what are the stakes? What do I get if I’m right?”
“Dessert?” he offers, and I refrain from asking what delectable treats are on the menu.
Alyssa Iacovani’s intelligent green eyes were unblinking as she waited for my response to her revelation.
“So you’re telling me,” I finally said, “that Cleopatra was the person who wrote this? That she was the person who discovered this… medical phenomenon? That she was some kind of doctor? That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it?” Alyssa smiled, and she motioned with her arm to direct me toward an exhibit room. As she pushed the door open and we stepped inside, she gestured broadly around the room.
“Allow me to introduce you to the queen,” she said.
The room’s display was entitled The Ptolemaic Dynasty. It began with a mosaic. The faded, heavily damaged piece depicted an ancient battle, centered around a lone soldier on a horse.
Painted below the mosaic was a brightly colored full-scale reproduction of the same image. The accompanying description identified the soldier as Alexander the Great, founder of the city of Alexandria, Egypt.
A beautifully illustrated timeline gracing all four walls told of the legacy that followed. Key events were annotated in Italian and English alongside painted images of the players involved.
I walked along the walls and allowed my eyes to absorb the dynasty as it flowed from Alexander the Great through Ptolemy I and eventually to Ptolemy XII.
After Ptolemy XII, there was Cleopatra.
A slender figure in a black sheath dress, she wore upon her head a crown of horns with an orb between them. Centered on her forehead above dark, seductive eyes was the small poised head of a snake, its body wrapped horizontally around her head, partially hidden by her lustrous black hair. An additional snake graced each wrist, these of gold.
The thick eyeliner extending far beyond the corners of her eyes accentuated their warm almond shape. The queen’s lips were full and the deepest red, and one hand brought a single purple grape toward them. The other hand was wrapped loosely around the bunch.
“This room,” Alyssa said from behind me, “I did not put together.”
I turned to look at her.
Alyssa glanced at the image of Cleopatra and rolled her eyes. Then she began to motion with her hands across the images on the walls. “The timeline is accurate, at least.
“Cleopatra was the last Egyptian ruler from the Ptolemaic dynasty, but she was of Greek descent. The empire was created by Alexander the Great, who bestowed the kingdom upon a fellow Macedonian, and one of his most trusted generals, who became the first Ptolemy king. Cleopatra’s father was Ptolemy the Twelfth.
“There are two images missing from this wall—those of Cleopatra’s two brothers. They did not live long enough to rule the kingdom for any significant length of time.
“When her father died, he left the dynasty to Cleopatra and to her brother Ptolemy the Thirteenth, with instructions that they marry and rule jointly. They did this for a brief time.
“But Cleopatra was not satisfied with the arrangement, so she raised an army against her brother and husband. This effort initially failed; Ptolemy overthrew Cleopatra’s army and exiled her from Egypt.
“During this exile is when she took up with Julius Caesar. The year was 48 BCE. Caesar arranged a false reconciliation of the estranged couple so that he and Cleopatra could murder her brother. One year later, after Cleopatra married her even younger brother—Ptolemy the Fourteenth—and became the Egyptian queen once again, she gave birth to Ca
esar’s son. Shortly thereafter, Ptolemy the Fourteenth died of a mysterious illness—probably poisoning by Cleopatra. Thus, she managed to secure the Egyptian monarchy exclusively for herself twice in one year.
“In short, this was a highly ambitious woman.”
Alyssa paused to lead me from the timeline display and into an adjacent room. This one showcased several collections of ancient coins.
“After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra was summoned by Mark Antony, a friend and comrade of Caesar’s, who believed that Cleopatra might have now played a role in Caesar’s murder. After meeting with her, Antony abruptly pardoned her, placed her back into power in Egypt, and impregnated her with twins. He later married her. As I said, this was a highly ambitious woman. She also clearly had an effect on men that has never quite been paralleled.”
Alyssa led me across the room as she spoke, reaching into her pocket to withdraw the hefty keychain from her office. “I’m sure you are familiar with the rest of the tragedy, which culminates in the suicides of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, the end of both the Ptolemaic dynasty and the Roman republic, and the rise of Octavian—who became Augustus, the first Roman emperor. I’m sure you have also heard the idealized, romanticized version of this story, in which Cleopatra is a woman of such beauty and charm that she effortlessly manipulates these powerful men as if they were schoolboys…”
We arrived at a display case in the corner of the room, and Alyssa unlocked it. She raised the glass lid and withdrew a small coin. Placing the coin into my free hand, the hand not holding the document translations, she said, “Katrina, I give you the seductress, Cleopatra.”
My jaw dropped.
On the coin in my hand was an image of a face in profile. The figure might have been a female, evidenced primarily by the hair. The most prominent facial feature was one of the longest, most hooked noses I had ever seen. The mouth hung partially agape, and the lower jaw dangled downward as if the figure were disgusted. The expression on the androgynous face was something akin to stupor.
“This coin was minted by Cleopatra during her reign,” Alyssa said. “It is the image she wanted to portray for posterity, and it is probably the most accurate likeness of her ever generated.”
“That’s Cleopatra?” I blurted out. “She’s hideous! I was expecting Catherine Zeta Jones, and you’ve given me the bastard child of Sandra Bernhard and Howard Stern!”
“Peculiar, isn’t it? I guess that’s what two hundred fifty years of inbreeding will do for you.”
“But… surely the standards for beauty were different in her time?”
“Yes, they were,” she acknowledged. “But ugly seems to have endured through the ages. Even her contemporaries agreed that Cleopatra was not attractive. There were some—Octavian, for example—who never understood what Julius Caesar and Mark Antony saw in her at all.
“So you tell me: What is more likely? That in one of the most misogynistic societies the world has ever known, the beauty and charm of this woman could seduce that era’s two most powerful men, leading to the collapse of two empires? Or should we, at last, at least consider her mind?”
I am carrying a briefcase full of documents when I arrive at the eighteenth-century Tuileries Quarter restaurant Jeff has selected. He is waiting for me at the reception desk in a navy blue sport coat that sets off the blue-gray of his eyes. A neatly pressed pair of tan slacks complements both the jacket and the sandy brown of Jeff’s thick hair.
“Beautiful place,” I remark.
We are led through the restaurant, the delicate scents of French cuisine wafting through the air, to a window booth overlooking the Seine. Beyond the river stands the Eiffel Tower.
A bottle of Bordeaux arrives.
“When was the last time you were in Paris?” Jeff asks me.
I cast my mind back. “I guess it’s been a few years.” I take a sip of my wine before adding, “Also for a conference. You?”
“Same. And how long have you lived in San Diego?”
“Quite a while. I went to grad school there and sort of fell into a job after that. I’ve been there ever since.”
“So that means about… ten years?”
I smirk as I realize he is flattering me while also setting me up to reveal my age. “Try fifteen,” I say. I have just learned this morning in the lecture hall that Nobel laureate Jeffrey Wilson is only forty—just three years older than I am.
Jeff takes a sip of his wine. For a moment, he looks deep in thought. Then he says, “I’m quite familiar with your work on anthrax. You developed a treatment for a particularly virulent form of it. Made a killing when you sold it to the Department of Homeland Security…”
“It is well established that Cleopatra’s power stemmed from both her wealth and her knowledge. But I think the latter has been grossly underestimated.”
I blinked and returned my gaze to Alyssa, the walls of the coin room once again surrounding me.
“The image of her as a sexy, wanton seductress is nothing but Hollywood propaganda,” she said. “Even Plutarch described Cleopatra as nothing special to look at, but bewitching for her intelligence, her wit, and her almost magical knowledge of languages.
“In fact, she was the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to speak and write both Greek and Egyptian. This is quite significant. Greek was the language of educated Egypt, including the Ptolemaic rulers who, of course, were Greek. Egyptian was the language of their subjects. The fact that the kings did not speak the language of their subjects at all strongly underscores the harsh class structure that existed in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cleopatra—uniquely—could communicate directly with her subjects.
“Yet, for two millennia after her death, we could not find a single document written by her. Not one. The only definitive writing in her own hand was a one line signature of approval—‘let it be so’—scrawled in Greek on one official document. I believe that signature matches the handwriting of the nardo document.
“We have extensive records of her power and of the dynasty under Cleopatra and her predecessors, and of course we have abundant information regarding her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and the ends of the eras in both Egypt and Rome. But there is one thing we still don’t have, and that’s what I have been looking for.”
“Evidence that she was a doctor,” I said.
To my surprise, Alyssa shook her head adamantly. “Wrong. Hard proof that she was a doctor is what we’re lacking. We have a frustratingly ample collection of evidence, not the least of which is her choice of patron goddesses. You see, Cleopatra adopted the persona of the ‘New Isis,’ thus formally and publicly associating herself with…”
“The ancient Egyptian goddess of medicine,” I said under my breath.
Jeff and I forego the third day’s sessions of the conference in Paris. With both of our presentations behind us, as well as a promising first dinner date, we decide instead to tour the Louvre together.
It is raining, a steady, gentle rain, and a cold breeze is billowing through Paris. I am wearing a long, thick wool skirt over leggings and boots. A heavy coat, a hat, and warm gloves complete my cold-weather ensemble.
When I arrive, Jeff is already waiting for me at the glass pyramid that marks the entrance to the museum. He, too, is in a thick coat that falls to his calves. He flashes a grin, and I flush at the memory of the way he smiled at me the first time I saw him. And I wonder if I will ever be able to look at this man without imagining him in the nude.
We are walking through the Louvre’s Egyptian rooms when we meet the goddess Isis. We descend a staircase toward the sarcophagus of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses III, and there she is.
The pharaoh’s three-thousand-year-old sarcophagus is the central feature of the small room. The staircase is centered between the flanking walls, leading tourists entering the room directly to the foot of the sarcophagus.
Carved in exquisite detail into the wood at the feet of the deceased pharaoh is a single commanding figure. Her delicate arms reac
h out to both sides as if to embrace the mourners approaching the tomb she protects. Feathering down from her arms is a majestic span of wings, straight along the tops in parallel with her arms, then tapering down below her waist.
The symmetry of Isis aligns with that of the sarcophagus. Her body is as vertical as a staff, and the wingspan projecting outward calls to mind a symbol I have seen thousands of times over the course of my career. Isis is represented as a caduceus, the ancient symbol of medicine that has endured to this day.
“Would you look at that,” Jeff remarks.
“Incredible,” I say.
“The nardo document was originally written in Egyptian.”
Returning to the present, I realized that I was still holding the coin. The androgynous image of Queen Cleopatra seemed to laugh at me.
“You must understand,” Alyssa continued, “that very few people of the educated class even spoke Egyptian. But Cleopatra did. I believe this document is just one of a vast collection of her writings that were rumored to exist but are now lost. I think she deliberately hid them—”
“Why would she do that?” I interrupted with irritation. “If Cleopatra was as ambitious as you say, and she stumbled upon a treatment for a deadly disease, wouldn’t it dramatically increase her power to expose it? Why would she write a document like the medical text you uncovered only to hide it?”
Alyssa shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “That’s a big piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit, but I’m trying to understand it. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that, throughout her life, Cleopatra was in the habit of hiding things.” She frowned and shook her head again, and I wondered how many times she had mentally dissected that same stubborn puzzle piece.
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