Ancient Evenings (28 page)

There were two behind each of us, and five or more for the Pharaoh, and their murmur, “Life, Health, Strength,” to every service they gave, whether to fill a goblet, remove a plate, serve a new plate, or present us with a little more of the same dish, became so constant and reassuring as the sound of crickets in my family’s garden. Again I knew that all was safe, as at home, where I had come to know that I could sleep so long as the ringing of insects did not cease, for their onslaught upon the silence was nonetheless a sign that nothing was worse than it had been the night before, and therefore the power of sleep which hovered in the darkness could settle down again on me. So did I enjoy the constant smacking of servants’ lips, as if they would like to put themselves into the gusto of the flavors.

There were snails to begin, not larger than any I had seen before, but with a sauce of onion and garlic and some green herb so aromatic that I could smell the perfume of the Pharaoh’s pines. I felt the herb ooze up my nose and leave the inside of my head agog with hollows, but then that was to be expected: my mother had told me that the name for all such herbs was
ooze-up
, even as frying onions could be called
ooze-out
when the smell traveled from room to room, and red-pepper was
ooze-spice
to some and
ooze-in
to others.

I liked the snails. We ate them on little pointed sticks of ivory with a tiny ruby on the end shaped like a Pharaoh’s hat, and, cut with five small lines into the thin and precious stick, were two eyes, two nostrils, and a curved line for the mouth that did not look unlike the face of Ptah-nem-hotep if His face had been very thin, a jest I realized, a comic face for the Pharaoh. Seeing my surprise, He said, “These are used only for the Feast of the Pig. Tonight, you may laugh at Me. Tonight is your night.”

“My night?” I felt bold enough to answer.

“On the night of the Feast of the Pig, the youngest child of the Princes comes first. Speak when you wish, dear child.”

I giggled. The meal was only begun but the ooze-up had cleared my head until I felt as old and wise as my great-grandfather, a great empty wise head was what I felt between my ears, and the touch of the toothpick entering the shell and piercing the flesh of the snail made me feel like a warrior stepping forward into a cave where fires were burning and the meat of the beast waited for the flash of my spear.

“Do you like these snails?” asked Ptah-nem-hotep, and Night of the Pig or no, my parents replied instantly, both at once, to assure the Good God that never had they tasted meat of the shell so succulent. To which, Ptah-nem-hotep replied that the snails in the oval pond at the end of the Ramses II Promenade in the Long Garden were carefully sheltered by date-palms on one side from the sun, yet the pond was open at night to the moon, and thereby were the snails bathed in moonlight. Perhaps that is why they were eminently flavorful.

“Yes, they are so good, I would think your servants might steal them,” said my great-grandfather, even as a few more were laid on his plate.

Ptah-nem-hotep shook His head. “The penalties are severe. Once, a maid took a few, and My father had one of her nipples cut off.”

On any other night, my mother could probably not have spoken, but now she gasped. “Surely, You wouldn’t do the same?”

“I detest the thought, but expect I would have to enforce such punishment.”

“For one snail?” Hathfertiti persisted.

“I was a child at the time,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “yet I have not forgotten how My father opened His palm to show Me the punishment. She was a young girl, and her nipple was no larger than my little fingernail. I was ready to blubber in misery, but My father merely flicked it off His finger into the pond. Later, He told Me such severe justice had been required to remove the pall of theft from the place. Otherwise, the snails could have sickened. As you see, they’re robust little creatures today, and oh, the lovely flavor of oil and onions and ooze-up. I sometimes think I can’t have enough, but then I’m just a poor fellow on the Night of the Pig.” He gave a merry laugh that made His fine curved lips look as alive for an instant as the flash of a horse galloping by. Or, was it a hawk coming down in a swoop? Animal and bird both raced through my head on the ooze-up. I tried to look at my mother but my eyes turned away from the boldness of the look she gave back into His eyes. If Ptah-nem-hotep carried no jewelry this night, my mother did not come near to doing the same. While she wore only a saffron-colored gown with no pleats and only one strap so that her right breast, the larger and more beautiful, was exposed, and had colored her nipple red, a rose-red from a rare scarlet dye, of a madder root I think, to match the narrow cloth of madder-red she wore about her throat in the style of a girl of the markets, she also wore a ring on every one of her nobly provocative fingers, and a light gold crown in the shape of a snake curled around her head with two green gems for eyes. How beautiful did that look against her black hair and her dark oiled shoulders. Now she turned her dark eyes on the Pharaoh.

Receiving the full bounty of her look, Ptah-nem-hotep seemed pleased. “Men-ka, My pet,” He said to me, “do you know the first duty of a host?”

“How could Men-ka know?” protested my mother, but I noticed she took the Pharaoh’s name for me, even though my pet name, until this moment, had always been Meni.

“Men-ka,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “the duty of a host is to amuse one’s guests. So I wish to entertain you with an explanation of each dish set before us.” He pointed to the empty shells in my plate. “As for example, these little palaces.”

I nodded comfortably. I did not know what He meant, but it was the Night of the Pig, and everything made sense.

“You are a deliriously intelligent boy,” He said. “Now follow Me with care, or I will cut off your nose.” My father laughed at this remark. It was the first sound any of us had heard from him.

“Yes,” said the Pharaoh, “I will cut off your nose and give it to your mother’s husband.”

My father laughed prodigiously.

“Do you like the color of purple?” Ptah-nem-hotep asked of me.

I nodded again.

“It is the color worn by the Kings of Syria and the Hittite Kings, and some of the Hebrews, and many of the Assyrians. In Egypt we think they are absurd in their passion for this color. There is even one town they fight over all the time. That is because the only good purple dye comes from there. Do you believe this?”

I nodded.

“It is the town of Tyre, and famous for a spiny snail. The inside of the shell has a purple that makes a superb dye when crumbled into powder. In Tyre, therefore, everybody collects snails. Little girls, and men half as old as your great-grandfather which is very old indeed, and midgets and giants all collect snails. They bring them in, and they crush them, and they pay no attention to the snail meat.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they are tired of the taste. I suspect it is because it takes so long to pluck the meat out of each shell and the dye is worth much more. They are too rich and greedy in Tyre, you see, to take the time. They just squash the snails between stones, and wash them, and squash them again, until the purple begins to run. That purple settles in the vats and still has slimy little bits of snail left in it.”

My mother gave vent to one of her sounds of disgust.

“Yes, it is revolting,” said the Pharaoh. “Yet they extract a purple that brings ecstasies to the eyes of Eastern Monarchs. They call it royal purple. That is the color of Kings, they say in the East, but we are wiser and know it is the color of madmen.” The Pharaoh roared in delight and thumped the leopard tail. “Bring on the next dish,” He said.

His eyes were full of lights at the surprise in my face when only one servant came back bringing two metal bars, not as long as my hand, not as wide as two of my fingers, nor as thick as one, and Ptah-nem-hotep set them apart on a lovely alabaster plate.

“Look at this,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “It is black-copper-from-heaven.” He handed the plate to my great-grandfather.

Menenhetet’s dignity was too perfect, however, to allow him to serve his own curiosity. Quietly, he passed the plate to me.

“Let the boy have it first,” he said.

“You do not know the pleasure you will miss,” remarked Ptah-nem-hotep.

I, on my side, did not know how to touch this black-copper-from-heaven. Was it warm or cold? My fingers flickered up to the surface of one bar, danced away—it felt like any other metal, red copper for example. I lifted the bar and laid it down. It was heavier than copper, and somehow I knew it was harder. I slid it about on the plate.

“Try both bars,” said Menenhetet.

“Why do you tell him that?” asked Ptah-nem-hotep.

“If all that my Pharaoh wishes to show us can be found in one bar, He would not have them bring us two.”

Ptah-nem-hotep nodded in approval, and I felt enough courage to pick up each piece by my separate hands. Then I smelled the first bar. It had a cold odor that came from far away. As I brought the other up to my cheek, I felt again this cold stirring into the breath I took through my nostrils. Some life like none I had known before began to tremble in the metal. It was as if I listened to the quivering of a heart in each piece. That life was in the tips of these small bars of metal as they came near my nostrils, and then I cried out in fright and in joy, for I heard the Gods speak. Their silent command must have been uttered since the two pieces of black-copper-from-heaven pulled my hands together, and met with a click. They were married, and now stuck to each other although there was nothing to keep them together that I could see.

My father took both from me on the instant, then was obliged to surrender his prize to Menenhetet. Hathfertiti cried out with delight as she watched. “You are a magician,” she murmured to Ptah-nem-hotep.

“I do nothing,” He said. “The magic is in the metal itself.”

“But where does black-copper-from-heaven come from?” she asked.

“A shepherd saw a ball of fire fall through the sky. It lay in the desert like a dead horse. He found it too heavy to move, but there were ragged pieces he could break off. These bars have been made from those pieces. Who knows what speaks in them?”

“Can You silence their force?” asked Menenhetet.

“For a time. These bars had to be heated in order to be beaten into shape. Then they were inert. But when an unshaped piece of black-copper-from-heaven which came from the same ball of fire was laid next to our bar, and the two were kept together, why, like members of a family, they must have prayed in the same direction. I can tell you that the bar gained such life from the rough piece it can now give life to other pieces that have been beaten.”

They went on speaking of these peculiarities of black-copper. Ptah-nem-hotep told how a drop of water, left on the bar, dried with an orange-red spot. The water had not turned to blood, however. It was rather that the surface of the black copper changed into a weak red copper powder that could be scraped from the bar. Who could comprehend why the Gods desired that?

I ceased to listen. I had heard about the Gods every day of my life and had seen Them everywhere—in the tail of a cat for instance, since only a cat can listen with her tail. I saw a God in the eye of a horse when it galloped by, and the same God was in every beetle, for their movements were faster than my thoughts. There was certainly a God in any cow. Where else could one come close to such a powerful knowledge of peace? There were Gods in flowers, in trees, and the Gods could always be found in statues for Their strength could rest in the stone. There was even a God in the wild boar. I could feel the God Set and know proper respect for His wrath when I smelled the wild boar in its cage. Such Gods were, however, not so frightening to me as this black-copper-from-heaven which moved past my nose. I had come near a God—or was it two Gods?—Who lived between the flash of lightning and the silence before thunder, and I was not at ease. My stomach still shivered from the touch of one metal on the other, yet I felt hungry.

Now, the servants returned with a small purple fruit for each of us. That is, I thought it was a fruit, but as it was set down in its small golden bowl I saw it was cabbage instead, a purple cabbage—I did not know there were such—and it smelled very sour.

“Beware of the vinegar,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “That is sour enough to give wrinkles to the mouth, but perfect for clearing your thoughts of the ooze-up.” He raised His cabbage and took a bite as from a pomegranate. “A dreadful food,” He commented.

“Why do you serve it?” asked Hathfertiti.

“Pigs thrive on cabbage. I thought we should acquaint ourselves with the habits of the friend we shall soon meet.” Now He played with a few leaves. “Actually,” He said, “this is superior vinegar and made from the best of My wine. I like a good vinegar, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said my father.

“No,” said Hathfertiti.

“Small reason for you to like it,” Ptah-nem-hotep stated. “Vinegar appeals to those who are full of pity for themselves.”

“How can that be so?” asked my mother.

“It speaks of its disappointments. Just think of some poor wine that nobody drinks. It is obliged to sit in its jar until boredom makes it sour. What fury I taste in such vinegar.”

“You have a fine palate,” remarked my great-grandfather.

“An exceptional palate. I have a talent for eating, no, not for eating, for tasting. Here, take this cabbage away. It’s sluttish.”

“You are in an exceptional spirit tonight,” said Hathfertiti.

“I am like this once a year.”

“Once a year,” said my father devoutly.

“Do you enjoy the vinegar?” asked Ptah-nem-hotep.

“It is powerful, but true to Your description,” said my father.

I had not liked the cabbage and did not eat from it; and liked the next dish less, for it was quail and uncooked. The skin had been removed, and the bird seasoned, then the skin put on again as a blouse, but when I ate it—perhaps it was the salt, a garlic salt with a fierce ooze-in from another spice—the cold life not yet cooked out of the bird managed to fly up one nostril and out the other. I had to close my eyes. Then I could see twenty quail, like twenty black dots in a cloud who became twenty white dots in a cave, now they were black again. I began to laugh at the thought my nose wanted to pee, then I sneezed.