The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Chapter 49 : Calpurnia was already there, on the curving steps of the round Temple of Vesta. She loo

Calpurnia was already there, on the curving steps of the round Temple of Vesta. She looked almost pleased to see me, her sister in this strange way, her companion in loss.

"They are on their way here," she said. "They took his--they took him away this morning. Look! See where they will lay him!" She pointed to a huge bier, made to look like the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Under its columns an ivory couch, covered with purple and cloth of gold, waited to receive him.

A low sound filled the air, as musicians began to play dirges and solemnly beat their drums around the bier. The people joined in, moaning and swaying.

Torches were lit all around the Forum, ringing it with golden light. I could see the procession now, making its way toward us. A sigh went up from the people.

The decorated litter, borne by ten magistrates, wound its way to the waiting bier. Then it was placed reverently on the ivory couch, and the men stepped back. Antony appeared and mounted the bier, resplendent in his consular robes.

First a herald recited in ringing tones all the decrees pa.s.sed in Caesar's name by the Senate and people of Rome, including the oath of loyalty they had all sworn. At this the people gave a groan. Then he recited Caesar's wars and battles, the enemies defeated and the treasures sent home, the territories added to Rome, the thanksgivings voted to him.

Antony then stood beside the bier, and began intoning the sonorous funeral chant. The people took it up, moaning and moving back and forth.

The chant finished, Antony then began to speak, with the loud, resonant voice and oratory for which he was famed.

"Caesar, Caesar!" he cried. "Will there ever come another like you to Rome--you who so tenderly loved it like a son, cherished it like a wife, and honored it like a mother? No, no, never, never, never!"

He looked around at the entire crowd, his head held high. "For the G.o.ds, Caesar was appointed high priest; for us, Consul; for the soldiers, Imperator; and for the enemy, Dictator. But why do I enumerate these details, when in one phrase you called him father of his country, not to mention the rest of his t.i.tles?"

He turned and gestured toward Caesar, lying on the ivory couch. "Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, this hero and G.o.d, is dead, alas! dead not by the violence of some disease, nor wasted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor caught up inexplicably by some supernatural force, but no! he who led an army into Britain died right here within the walls of the city as a result of a plot!"

His voice rising, he swept his right arm in an arc, indicting everyone before him. "The man who enlarged its boundaries--ambushed in the city itself! The man who built Rome a new Senate house--murdered in it! The brave warrior--unarmed! The promoter of peace--defenseless! The judge--beside the court of justice! The magistrate--beside the seat of judgment! He whom none of the enemy was able to kill even when he fell into the sea--at the hands of the citizens! He who so often took pity on his comrades--at their hands!"

He turned back to Caesar again and cried out to him, "Of what avail, Caesar, was your humanity, of what avail your inviolability, of what avail the laws? Now, though you enacted many laws that men might not be killed by their personal foes, yet how mercilessly you yourself were slain by your friends! And now, the victim of a.s.sa.s.sination, you lie dead in the Forum through which you often led the Triumph crowned. Wounded to death, you have been cast down upon the Rostra from which you often addressed the people. Woe for your blood-bespattered head, alas for the rent robe, which you a.s.sumed, it seems, only that you might be slain in it!"

His voice broke and tears streamed down his face.

Just then someone near the bier shouted the line from a well-known play by Pacuvius: " 'What, did I save these men that they might slay me/' " And it sounded as if the voice were coming from Caesar himself.

Suddenly, Antony s.n.a.t.c.hed up Caesar's b.l.o.o.d.y toga and held it aloft on his spear, twirling it around. The torchlight showed the stains--turned black now now--and the gaping holes in the garment. "Look there! See! See! See how he was brutally slain--he who loved Rome so that he has left his gardens to you, as well as bequests of money. This was his reward for loving you, the people of Rome!" He waved the toga like a battle flag, and a great cry arose from the crowd.

They rushed forward in a shouting ma.s.s, yelling about Caesar. Suddenly, as if by magic, they were hauling furniture toward the bier--benches, stalls, chairs, staves--and turning it into a funeral pyre.

"Here! Here in the Forum!" they screamed, piling up the furniture. Antony hastily jumped down off the platform just as the first torch cartwheeled through the air and landed on the pile. It flickered and caught, and then a rain of other torches followed.

People rushed toward the roaring fire as it reached upward to Caesar. Caesar! My heart stood still as I saw the flames licking up around his couch, and he lying motionless on it. They tore off their clothing and heaved it into the flames. The official mourners, who had worn his four Triumphal robes, tore them to pieces and cast them into the fire. Soldiers ripped off their valuable breastplates and threw them in, and women flung their jewelry, as if they were all sacrificing at some primitive bonfire to the G.o.d Caesar.

Thus the people proclaimed him a G.o.d long before Octavian did.

People fell on the ground, sobbing, beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, wailing. The smoke rolled in billowing clouds, blocking out the stars; sparks flew upward in the darkness, each a new star, flaming and dying.

A group of people differently dressed stood by the flames, swaying and chanting. I learned later that these were Jews, who knew Caesar as their partisan and friend. He had obtained many privileges for them, and they were to mourn by the ashes of the funeral pyre for days afterward.

We watched, transfixed, as the great sacrifice was consumed in the night. The G.o.ds accepted it. And I relinquished Caesar into their pitiless hands.

HERE ENDS THE THE THIRD SCROLL. THIRD SCROLL.

Chapter 35.

THE FOURTH SCROLL.

In the fetid, close cabin of the heaving s.h.i.+p that plowed its way through the high seas, I was torturously reborn. Weak and sick, I lay on the bed that bucked and jumped and afforded no rest day or night. But I did not care; it was impossible to be more miserable than I was, no matter where I lay or what surrounded me. I felt that I could lie forever on that foul bed, entombed in the dark. I was dead, as dead as Caesar.

The tight cabin, the lack of light, the smell and sound of water, all were a hideous repet.i.tion of my journey in the carpet to meet Caesar four years--a lifetime--ago. Now I was being borne away from him, knowing that no journey on earth could ever bring me to him again. Then my heart had raced with the gamble of it; now it beat feebly with the blow of defeat it had been dealt. And as day followed day, and the water-seeping, moving cabin held me prisoner, I felt I was enfolded in a birth ca.n.a.l, moving back toward a womb, toward oblivion and nothingness.

I did not eat. I did not wake--or perhaps I never really slept. And I did not think. Above all, I did not think. But the dreams! Oh, the pursuing dreams that curled around me. I kept seeing Caesar, seeing him first as alive and strong, then seeing him engulfed in flames as he had lain on his bier. Then I would scream, or mumble, and Charmian would be beside me, taking my hands, quieting me. And I would turn away, close my eyes again, and be taken back by the dream-demons.

I had not collapsed in Rome. Somehow I had got through those days that now seemed more like a nightmare than the real nightmares besetting me. But I had little memory of them. After the funeral, nothing has a clear edge to it. I left, that is all. I left as soon as I could, without actually running from the Forum directly to a departing s.h.i.+p. Only when I was safely aboard and saw the sh.o.r.eline of Italy receding in the distance did I go to the cabin, lie down, and die.

Charmian would sit by me, enduring the dreadful cabin day after day, reading to me, trying to interest me in something besides the all-absorbing world in my dreams. She and the cooks prepared dishes to be as tempting as possible under the circ.u.mstances--fresh-caught fish stew, boiled peas and lentils, honeyed cakes. They all looked, and smelled, revolting to me, and would make me sick. I would hang my head over the side of the bed and retch, even though I had not tasted them.

"You will waste away," Charmian would chide me, taking one of my wrists and circling it with her own hand. " "ls this a royal arm? You could not even lift it if you were wearing the bracelet of the Kandake." She would attempt to joke. " "I know your ancestor Ptolemy the Eighth and several others were obese, but must you do penance for it this way? To turn yourself into a skeleton?" She appealed to my pride. "What if Caesar could see you now?"

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 pa.s.sed; 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 a.s.sa.s.sins. 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 Lavic.u.m 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 doc.u.ment 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 Lavic.u.m. 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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 pa.s.sing sea danced around me, flicking me lightly, while I reclined listlessly.

"We are pa.s.sing between Crete and Cyrene now," the captain told me. "We have pa.s.sed 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 appet.i.te, 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 G.o.ds 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sured 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--das.h.i.+ng out to watch the fighting in the Alexandrian War, providing s.p.a.ce and refuge for the military staff, spending the nights with Caesar. In all the tumult of the war, my condition had pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sured 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 sh.o.r.es 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. 4 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sage with me, and now would be the only one to share any memories of it.