Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  But that was to no avail. Sometimes I felt that Caesar was nearby, was watching me, and I knew that he--he who had had the weakness of the falling sickness--would understand my state and sympathize with it. Other times I felt that he had vanished entirely, leaving me naked and abandoned in the universe much more thoroughly than if I had never been held close to him at all. Then I knew it did not matter what I looked like. He was gone, and would never behold me anymore.

  Days passed; and because I was not dead but alive, and because life--if it is life--eventually stirs, I was gradually reborn, emerging from the weightless, timeless darkness that'had held me.

  On the deck again, the light seemed too intense, and stung my eyes; the winds too sharp and raking against my skin; the blues of the sea and sky artificially bright and stabbing. I had to shade my eyes and narrow them in order even to endure the sight of the horizon where the two blues met. There was nothing else to be seen--no land, no clouds.

  "Where are we?" I asked Charmian, that first day when I leaned against her as she guided me up on deck. My voice sounded shaky and faint.

  "In the very middle of the sea--halfway home."

  "Oh." On the way to Rome I had followed our route so eagerly, willing the winds to fill the sails and blow us there as fast as possible. Now I had no idea how long we had been at sea, or when we would arrive, nor did I care.

  "We have been gone from Rome almost thirty days," she said, trying to spark some interest and sense of time in me.

  Thirty days. That meant Caesar had been dead for almost forty-five. That was all any date meant to me--did it come before or after Caesar's death? And how long before or after?

  "It is already the beginning of May," said Charmian gently, trying to orient me.

  May. This time last year, Caesar had still been away from Rome. He had already fought what turned out to be his last battle, at Munda, in Spain-- and almost a year to the day afterward he had fallen to the daggers of the assassins. This time last year, I had been waiting for him in Rome.

  But he had not returned to Rome for a long time. Instead, he had gone to his estate at Lavicum and written his will--the will that named Octavian his heir, and failed to mention Caesarion at all.

  At the memory of it, I felt an emotion stirring, like the head of a fern breaking the ground after a winter's sleep. It was spindly and pale, but it was alive, and uncurling.

  It was grief, regret, and anger all mixed together. It would have taken so little for him to have formally named Caesarion as his son, even if he left absolutely nothing to him; even if he had reminded the executors that under Roman law he could inherit nothing. It was Caesar's name that his son needed, his paternal recognition, not his property. Now, forever after, his enemies had the opportunity to claim that Caesarion was not Caesar's own-- after all, the Dictator had not mentioned him in his will! Eyewitnesses to the occasion in Rome when he picked him up and acknowledged him as his own would forget, would grow old, die, while the historical document of the will remained, and lived on and on.

  Oh, Caesar, I cried inside, Why did you abandon us, even before you abandoned us?

  I remembered how joyous I had been to welcome him back, all the while unknowing of his actions at Lavicum. He had been so sensible, so rational, in giving all his reasons for why he could not formally acknowledge Caesarion. But just a word in the will--a few precious words, that would have cost Caesar nothing, but the lack of them would cost us dear!

  Weak and shaky, I returned to the cabin. Enough daylight for one day.

  My mind became nimble and restless long before my body. It did not want to be forced to return to the dream world, the nightmare world, but began to feed on more substantial things: wondering what had happened in Rome since I had left, wondering what news had been received in Alexandria. Perhaps, in Egypt, they did not yet even know about the Ides of March.

  When I left Italy, messengers were still en route, overland, to notify Octavian. What he would do was anyone's guess. But what could he do, really? He was still a schoolboy in Apollonia, and Caesar's offices were not hereditary. Lawyers could see to the estate. There would be little purpose in his returning to Rome. There was no place for him there. He was too young to assume a seat in the Senate, and he had no military skills, so could not take command of troops. Poor Octavian, I thought. His political future looked bleak.

  At least he would be rich. Caesar had left him a fortune. There are worse fates than being a wealthy private citizen, I thought. But I knew he had loved Caesar and would grieve for him.

  And Antony--what had happened to Antony? He was attempting to step into Caesar's shoes and take command of the state, steady it, and then unseat the assassins from their cozy perch, so that he could exact revenge. But what had actually happened?

  What difference does it make to you now? I told myself. You are finished with Rome. It died for you with Caesar. Had Caesarion been named in his will, then we would still be a part of it. But he did not, and we are not. No more Senate, no more Cicero, no more Forum, no more Antony, no more Octavian. It is gone, over, done with.

  I felt immense relief at that thought. I never wanted to set foot again in the city that Caesar had loved, and which had betrayed and murdered him.

  I remained weak and thin, seemingly unable to regain any strength. My distaste for food, my lethargy and fatigue, continued to hold me in their grip. The captain and my attendants set up a comfortable folding couch for me on deck, in hopes that the fresh sea air would help me. Bolstered with pillows and sheltered from the sun by a giant canopy, it was all an invalid could wish for. The spray of the passing sea danced around me, flicking me lightly, while I reclined listlessly.

  "We are passing between Crete and Cyrene now," the captain told me. "We have passed the halfway mark on our journey."

  Cyrene. Where the roses, and the fast horses, came from. Caesar had loved both.

  That night, as I made ready to lie down in the all-too-familiar bed, I sighed when Charmian opened the tiny window to admit a little air and drew the coverings over me.

  "I am weary of this illness, whatever it may be," I told her. She was still dutifully bringing me food to tempt my appetite, and I was feeling increasingly guilty in turning it away, day after day. I was very thin, and my mirror revealed a face with cheekbones that stood out as never before, and oddly pink-tinted, translucent skin.

  " 'Whatever it may be'?" she said. "I think we both know well enough what it is, my lady."

  I just stared at her. What did she mean? Was it something that others could see, while I was ignorant of it? Leprosy? Some clouding of the faculties that is obvious to everyone except the victim? "Do you mean I have a disease--an identifiable disease?" I tried to keep my voice calm. Only in thinking I had some fatal malady did I come to realize how much I wanted to live after all.

  "Yes, a very common one. Come, stop pretending! It isn't amusing, and I don't know why you have kept it up so long. Making me take care of you, make special dishes for you--really, it's been tiresome."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Please, stop it! Why do you pretend you don't know?" "What?"

  "Stop this game! You know very well you are with child!"

  I just stared at her. They were the last words I had ever expected to hear out of her lips. "Why--do you say that?"

  "Because it's obvious! You have all the symptoms of it--and remember, I can see your face, and you cannot. Your face looks like it did the first time."

  I burst into bitter laughter. How ironic, how cruel! The gods were mocking me, were mocking Caesar and me both. Was it true? Yes, in an instant I realized it was. I bent down my head and wept.

  Charmian knelt beside me, stroked my hair. "I am sorry, I did not mean to be harsh. It never occurred to me that you hadn't considered it--but then, your mind has had such a shock that you have been disoriented. And you have lost all sense of time. Forgive me!"

  Great sobs burst from me. How could new life survive all that death? It seemed
obscene, unnatural.

  If only, if only ... it had happened in the course of things while we were in Rome, how different everything would have been. All Rome would have seen it was his. Now even he would never see it.

  Onward the ship ploughed, cutting a great white wake behind it. The sails filled, bearing us eastward, straining the mast as if impatient to arrive. Free of the grip of the waters near Italy, the ship seemed to have grown more buoyant, as if the stern hand of Rome had extended out even into the waters surrounding her, grasping everything that swam or sailed past, holding them immobile.

  I even felt my own spirits rising like bubbles bursting forth from deep, sunless water. The surface of things--that was what I sought, what I needed now. Let me have simple, straightforward people, let me have unembellished dishes, let me have constellations in the sky that I already knew--stars that were old friends, standing in their accustomed places, so I knew where to find them.

  After her outburst to me, Charmian had been overly contrite, and scurried around pampering me more than ever. But I assured her it was not necessary; I had taken no offense, since what she had said was true. I was sorry that I had been such a difficult mistress for so long, lying like a stranded jellyfish on my bed.

  I made an effort to avoid that from then on, but it took an enormous act of will. This pregnancy was very different from the first. I remembered how healthy and energetic I had felt then--dashing out to watch the fighting in the Alexandrian War, providing space and refuge for the military staff, spending the nights with Caesar. In all the tumult of the war, my condition had passed almost unnoticed.

  The war . . . thanks to that war, I had an Alexandria to return to. It had been secured for me at great cost; I must not let that cost be in vain.

  The captain predicted that we would arrive the following day, as he stood by me one moonless night on the deck. Waves sounded all around us, but were hard to see. Only the stars illuminated the sky. And I saw no Lighthouse.

  "We are still too far out to sea," the captain said. "And from a great distance, the Lighthouse lamp looks like another star. But by dawn you should be able to glimpse it.">

  "This has been a good voyage," I said. "I thank you for bringing us safely across the open water."

  "Open water has its own dangers, but coming into Alexandria is always tricky, with the reefs and island. That little narrow channel between the Pharos and the breakwater is difficult to steer past, especially when the prevailing north winds are strong. I don't have much room for error."

  Yes, but death could also occur on a flat sea, in a calm harbor, when the water was soft and greenish blue. Water was unpredictable. "I have faith in you," I assured him.

  Long before dawn I was up on deck, waiting for my first glimpse of Alexandria, watching for her to emerge from the formless gray of the horizon. And she arose, glimmering pale and white like a mist, floating above the flat land. The Lighthouse looked like a temple, its fire winking.

  Home! I had returned! My city awaited me!

  Enormous crowds lined the shores of the eastern, palace harbor; the captain had flown the royal banner as we approached, and people came running. On the long voyage, lying in bed, I had imagined the city so many times that seeing it now was no shock. It was the people who were unfamiliar. They were subtly different from Romans, at least as a crowd. Was it the absence of togas? More bright colors? More skin colors and languages?

  We descended the gangplank to tumultuous cries of welcome--less thunderous than the shouts at Caesar's Triumphs, but loud enough from a crowd that was tiny by comparison. Sweetest of all are the shouts for oneself--I had not had any of my own for two years now.

  "I return to Alexandria with joy!" I cried, holding my arms aloft, reaching toward the sky, thanking Isis for my safe return. 4And to you, my people!"

  They roared back. In Rome, I had almost forgotten what they sounded like. The shouts for Caesar were not the same.

  The gates swung open, the palace grounds beckoned--delicate white temples and pavilions; gardens with sapphire-blue flowers bordering the long water channels. The grass was long but still pale, early green.

  How had I left it all for so long? Here was paradise.

  "Iras! Mardian! Olympos!"

  They were all standing on the palace steps, my dearest ministers. One by one they descended, knelt, and then rose.

  "At last!" said Mardian. "You cannot know how I have longed for your return."

  "What he means is that he is tired of carrying all the duties of the government," said Olympos. His voice had its familiar sardonic tinge--sorely missed, dear to me now. "He grows as round-shouldered as any scholar in the Museion from the weight of it."

  "Then you must go to the Gymnasion and build them up," I said. "I don't intend to let you put the burden down entirely."

  I had learned that lesson from watching Caesar: the task of governing was too difficult to'be carried by one person alone. I was fortunate that, unlike him, I had ministers I could trust.

  "Your Majesty," said Iras, her face shining with a smile. "It has been a very long two years."

  Her formality was in such contrast to Charmian. I realized that by coming with me to Rome, Charmian would forever be closer to me than anyone else; she had shared that difficult passage with me, and now would be the only one to share any memories of it.

  Standing a little distance behind them was a dark, handsome face. Epaphroditus! I was shocked to see him there, as if his primary business were here now, instead of in a warehouse on the docks.

  "Welcome home, Your Majesty," he said, stepping forward.

  "I am pleased to see you," I said. And I was; when had he decided that palace business was not beneath him?

  Inside the palace, the familiar drained away, and I was seeing it all anew. The many small changes in it, the kind we make . In the course of everyday living, rendered it foreign. Was this corridor always so dark? Were there always torch holders here?

  Was this how a dead person would feel if he came back to his own home a little while after his death? I felt like my own ghost, walking those corridors again.

  Caesar s house ... the room that had been mine, had been ours . . . would it already be changed, alien to him? This table gone, fresh paint on the west wall, the mosaic moved . . . Cleopatra gone....

  Stop, I told myself. Stop, stop. Picture that room no more.

  I was standing in my own old room, the filmy curtains stirring with the harbor air, the blue-tinted, diffuse light filling the chamber. It was pristine, as only a place can be where no one lives. Without human beings, things remain untainted and perfect, stretching on into eternity without a wrinkle, until nature puts an end to them with an earthquake or fire. And then it is a clean, blameless end.

  I shook my head. What disturbing visions I was having! "Dear Iras," I said, to break the spell, "have you received any letters from me since the winter?" If she had, then that ship had beaten ours, and we had sailed almost as soon as the seas permitted it.

  "No, my lady," she said.

  "Then you will read it when the news is old. Is not a letter that arrives after its author a peculiar thing?"

  "Not as peculiar as a letter that arrives from a dead person."

  Caesar! "Have you had word--" I began, then brought myself up short. How absurd. He would not have written me in Alexandria, when I was by his side in Rome. Was I going mad? "--from anyone in that state?" I attempted to make a joke out of it.

  "No, my lady/' she said gently. From the look in her eyes, I knew she guessed what I had thought. "Perhaps you would like to rest now."

  The bed did look inviting. The horror of Rome, the long sea voyage, my pregnancy--all had drained me, until I was in the weakened state that could long for a bed in the daytime. But I must not begin that way; I must not present such a picture of myself at this crucial time. "Of course not!" I said lightly, my limbs aching. "What sort of person would sleep at noon?"

  "Any person who needs to," she said pointedly. "But, my
lady, what would you have told me in this letter--this letter you have outraced?"

  I could not bear to repeat the news over and over. "I will tell it once, and wait until everyone is gathered to hear it," I said. "For I need to know what news has reached Alexandria, as well."

  The remainder of the day I spent reacquainting myself with my own palace, lingering over the views from the upper windows opening out onto the sparkling harbor, running my hands over the marble inlays on the walls, standing in my workroom where the shelves were laden with brass-bound boxes containing old correspondence, copies of decrees, inventories of furnishings, and summaries of tax and census rolls. Even though the full archives were elsewhere, a precis of the kingdom's business was here.

  My ministers had kept me as well appraised of events in Egypt as was possible, but the long delays in communication meant that I would have to spend several days studying summaries and catching up. I was devoutly thankful that harvests had been good and no catastrophes had happened while I was away.

  Perhaps, while I was with him, some of Caesar's luck had accrued to me as well.

  I had called a meeting for twilight--hoping I could endure until that hour. This day, beginning with my early rising to see Alexandria, would be extraordinarily long. A bath and a change of costume helped; I was happy to use my deep . Marble tub again. Floating in the scented water, I looked out on yet more water in the harbor below me. The tub was positioned behind an ivory screen, between the bedchamber and the rooftop garden. Even though it was poised just above the sea, the palace used pure rainwater for its. baths and washing, and for this deep tub it was first heated and then cooled slightly, with perfumed oil added to it. I saw the soft sheen of the oil on the surface of the water, making little iridescent ripples, soothing balm for the senses. It seemed preposterous that such comfort, such innocent luxury, could offer itself side by side with a world of violence and death--and still have the power to please us. At bottom, we are appallingly simple creatures.