Twilight in Babylon (45 page)

Cheftu kissed her. “None whatsoever. Forgive me for allowing him to treat you that way. How was your journey?”

“Strange. Eerie. Like being in the womb of the earth.”

“Did the others feel that way?”

Chloe opened her eyes. Thought. “You know, I didn’t see anyone else. I wandered for a while, but I never actually saw another person.”

Cheftu must have heard something in her voice. “Are you well,
chérie?
”

She chuckled. “I think I understand why that place has a reputation for being the gate to hell, or purgatory, or wherever. There was definitely a strange feeling, like something invisible was watching.” She shivered, and he pulled her closer.

“You are safe now. I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“Don’t be silly, I just let my imagination run away with me.”

Cheftu turned onto his side, his arm tight around her waist, his breath on her neck. “I love you,
chérie.
”

“I love you, too. Good night.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Chloe lay awake, her memory replaying the cavern. The millions of staring plaster eyes, the water that came from nowhere and wasn’t drinkable, the old standards, the misshapen paintings, the echo and chill of the place. She didn’t believe that Kur was a physical place that could be reached from the surface of the planet, but she certainly understood why the marsh girl and everyone else around here did. That cavern was freaky.

“The poor man is the silent man in Sumer.”

“We’ll be in the marshes for the next stretch of the journey,” Nimrod said. “In mashufs. Women will travel in the middle of the group, men surrounding them. Watch the surface for crocodiles and snakes. Pay attention to the movements of birds and test the depth of any water you step into before you step.”

Chloe knew the reason for his precautions—marsh dweller was synonymous with outlaw. And if they didn’t get you, then nature would.

The other women, most of whom had been city dwellers all along, looked terrified. Chloe couldn’t explain it, but it seemed as though part of her was being packed up and another part was being assembled. To her, it seemed her vision grew sharper, her right arm stronger, her movements more sinuous to blend in with the grasses, the reeds, and the river. The marsh girl’s instincts lived inside her body, the girl’s knowledge of the plants, the animals, and their behaviors was information in her brain. She was the marsh girl.

And the marsh girl was her.

The marsh waters were low this late in the season, so the
mashufs
—really, very skinny canoes—were lightly loaded, so they moved easily. Chloe didn’t remember many details about the marsh girl’s life, but the images were consistent. Images and feelings were all she really had.

A heron poised for flight, with twilight behind him, confirmation that sun would return on the morrow. Though, Chloe thought, in this place if the sun skipped a day or two, people would just be relieved for a break in the heat.

Not funny to joke about, when she considered how they reacted to an eclipse.

Someone was buried under the name Puabi, or as it could be read, Shub-ab.

Chloe pushed her
mashuf
through the long grass and shallow water, watching the birds, the fish, the crocodiles, and other amphibians whose names she’d never known in any lifetime. It was a peaceful, if not a quiet place.

In the distance she saw the huts of the marsh dwellers. Formed of reeds that were arched together and tied, they looked a lot like greenhouses in the modern U.S. Or petite aircraft hangars. The sides were decorated in woven patterns, and each family’s was different.
I wonder what the marsh girl’s had been,
Chloe thought.
I wonder if I picked up some reeds and started weaving if I would discover that I have that knowledge.

Water buffalo wandered in the water. Mothers, with babies tied to their breasts, washed their clothes in the water and watched the string of
mashufs
glide past.

How many more miles of this?
Chloe wondered. And she pushed off again.

*      *     *

Twilight filtered down on the village; Chloe could only see it on the palm that slanted over their reed house. Cheftu twined his arms around her waist as they sat in the doorway. “You’ve been quiet.”

“In separate boats, there wasn’t much to say.”

“Did your marsh girl come from there, that territory we sailed through?”

“No,” Chloe said, and rested her hands on his forearms. “From some village between Uruk and Ur. West and north, I think.”

The palm tree’s bark looked stained with gold, then salmon, and plum, then, finally, night fell. “I always thought twilight was the end of the day,” she said.

“To us it is.”

“Is that because our thoughts were based on thinking in a straight line? If this is A, then B has to happen?”

He kissed her forehead. “I never analyzed it.”

“Neither did I, until it dawned on me how safe it is to have twilight be a beginning instead of the conclusion.”

“Cute pun,” Cheftu said, and kissed her cheek.

“Unintentional, but thanks.” She wasn’t looking outside anymore, but inside. Her mind, she seemed more aware of its mechanics than ever before. How did she shift seamlessly from being the marsh girl to being her modern self? What mechanism slipped from dealing with politics and religion to knowing which birds were good raw and which weren’t? Small things, like knowing what plants were poisonous, how to climb a palm tree, how to read the seasons.

Things, that for all her well-trained body, modern information and technical skills, she would have died without knowing. How did all the mental cogs and wheels work?

“Are you ready to dine?” Cheftu asked.

“Do you like this life?” she asked. “Living as a well-to-do vagabond who is feted and celebrated wherever he goes?”

“In my country, it is the way the wealthy and titled always lived,” he said. “The people were only concerned with pleasing themselves.”

“Does it bother you to be indolent?”

He laughed, and she turned to watch him. His face was so beautiful, and now he was gilded from head to toe. “I grew accustomed to being rich and lazy quickly.”

They exchanged a quick kiss, then hurried out to join the others for dinner.

*      *     *

“Hydrogen peroxide!”

Cheftu looked at her as though she’d blasphemed.

“That’s what that stuff was, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for me to remember.”

“What are you babbling about?”

The heat and the endless marching had worn both their tempers thin. They were headed north again; the river ran south, so they were back on their feet. Long days of walking, for Nimrod feared they’d miss being able to dry bricks before the rainy season hit in their new, unnamed, location.

Chloe couldn’t remember what rain was. Cool and wet? Not possible. “In the cavern, the gate to the underworld. Somewhere inside, there was a fountain of hydrogen peroxide.”

Cheftu turned on her, his eyes wild. “It foamed?”

She nodded.

“Bitterly cold?”

She nodded.

He started laughing, gasping for air, holding his belly, slapping his thighs—she pushed him into the river. He came up, still laughing. He climbed up the bank with the occasional giggle. Chloe stood, her hands on her hips, fighting a grin.

“Next you will tell me you saw two pillars, one of brick and one of stone.”

“No, I won’t tell you that.” Though it was true.

He laughed again. Finally, she sat down. Obviously they weren’t walking for a while. The sheep gnawed on the grass and watched Cheftu with big brown eyes.

Then he stopped. Abruptly. “If that is truth,” he said, “then the other must be truth.”

“The other is?”

“Ningal of Ur is three hundred years old.”

Chloe walked away.

*      *     *

“Repeating that it is not possible does not change the fact that it might be possible,” Cheftu said as they walked along. “We’ve heard tales from almost everyone about longevity in numbers that seem—”

“Like lies?” Chloe said.

“But there is consistency. I find it difficult to ignore.”

Chloe swatted a sheep into line and frowned at the ground. “Ningal? You met him, Cheftu. Three hundred years old? It’s not possible!”

“I believe,” he said over his shoulder, “you once called me Horatio and told me there was more in heaven and on earth than I could conceive?”

“I hate it when you quote me,” she muttered. “Especially when I’ve misquoted Shakespeare.”

“Why should it being true bother you so much,
chérie?
”

That thought occupied her for at least an hour.

They stopped for lunch, pitched a tent to nap under, ate in silence, then nodded off. When Cheftu woke up, Chloe was staring at the river, frowning. “I don’t know which way is up anymore,” she said.

He pointed to the sky.

She didn’t laugh.

“Do you need to have this answer?” he asked.

They packed the tent, gathered the sheep, and walked on. The river channel they were following led east, toward the mountains, though they were going to stop far before then.

Twilight fell, and they pitched their tent again. Somewhere behind them, the other Urians spread out with flocks and children, set their fires, and fried their fish. Cheftu cooked, Chloe was intent. She thought all through the meal she scarcely touched, then looked up at the sky until he took her hand and led her to the tent.

With soft kisses and touches, he made love to her. Silent, gentle, easing her to sleep. He was soundly asleep when she spoke.

“I do.”

“Do what?” he said, groggy.

“I do have to know which way is up, I do have to know what I believe. This new information, these stories, how everyone is convinced people lived longer before the Deluge, that everyone on earth is from the same family—” She sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Why can’t you let it be, and be apart from it?”

“I’m an American. I believe in instant gratification and having all my questions answered.”

He was still pondering this when she spoke again.

“That’s an exaggeration, but it’s sort of true. I come from a world where our need for concrete answers is so consuming that we’ve developed an entire system to prove to ourselves that the way we feel is how the ancients felt. We’re not alone, we tell ourselves. We’ve been here before.”

“A system?”

“Archaeology. You’re responsible,” she said. “At least Napoleon is.”

“From what you tell me of history, Napoleon is responsible for much,” Cheftu said disparagingly. “What satisfaction do you require,
chérie
? What answers will help you know again, which way is up?”

“How can you not know? How can it not eat away at you. I don’t understand.”

Cheftu sighed, sat up, and drew her to him. “We are similar, we know, but very different in some ways. I think, maybe, this is our upbringing. You fight, always.”

“I do not.”

He chuckled. “You do. Oppressors, institutions, ideologies, difficulties. You need to strive against something. I… I guess I accept.”

“Fatalism,” she hissed. “I’ve resisted that my whole life.
Inshallah.
God wills it. Why does God get blamed when we’re too damn lazy to defend ourselves or pursue what is honorable?”

“For one person to feel like you do is good, he inspires the rest and something can get done. But for every man to feel this way is chaos,
chérie.
Eventually, one must learn that there are opponents too big to fight. One will just wound oneself, dashing against the rocks.”

“That reasoning is why France had an aristocracy for so long,” she snapped.

“It is,” he said. “That is why Egypt was so amazing a place to me. A man could make anything of himself, regardless of where in the hierarchy he was born.”

“This place reminds me of the States,” she said. “Do people, humans, always make the same mistakes? Will we never learn?”

“What lesson do you want us to learn, Chloe? What is the thing eating you inside?”

“Which way is up,” she said, then turned into his chest. His fingers played in her hair as she cried, sobbed, and railed against her unnamed tormentor. Cheftu held her and wondered.

He looked out at the night sky; for him, that was proof enough of everything. The heavens revealed a benevolent Seigneur, an intricate, unfathomable plan, and a mind, artistic and otherwise, that reveled in beauty, organization, justice, and mercy. All of the best in male and female humans, granted by a Creator who was both male and female divinity, who was in fact, whole.

Cheftu was startled and soothed at the thought.
Have I become a pagan,
he thought,
living in these places and these times? Or have I finally turned to see what is there, instead of seeing only what I was told to see?

Chloe slept finally. He cradled her head and blessed
le bon Dieu
until he saw dawn streak the sky with orange, bronze, and blossom red, melting away the navy. He looked at the sleeping woman in his arms and knew a moment of perfection. In this moment, Cheftu was complete: contented with his god, his world, and his wife.

“He who possesses much silver may be happy; he who possesses much barley may be happy; but he who has nothing at all may sleep.”

“It is grim, isn’t it,” Nimrod said to them.

“He’s the reaper of the dead,” Nirg said. “Even in the mountains we know that.”

Shapir, a harbor city on the Tigris, was dedicated lock, stock, and
mashuf,
to Nergal, the god of the dead.

Their first indication had been the boundary stones, portraying Nergal, complete with scythe and hood, as a warning that invaders would die an eternal death. It was a small city, and Chloe could see why. Despite its great access to the rivers—from Shapir one took a boat straight to Kish, for here was where the rivers connected—it was a creepy place.

“It smells like hell,” she muttered.

“Sulfur,” Cheftu said. “Bitumen, too.”

“Are we staying here?”