On a Balcony Read online

  So one looks at the stars and wonders what to call them. For since nothing has a name, what then shall we call it? Whatever we call it, it is difficult to suppress the impression that there is something up there rearranging all the pieces, so that one comes back to play the same game on a constantly shifting board that looks, but is never quite, the same. But that something is certainly not a god. It is only something that does not happen to share Man’s opinion of Man, and teases him the way we would tease a snail, merely to pass the time.

  It is better, realizing that, to ignore the stars. Better far to love the sun, for the sun makes us feel ourselves again, if those are our selves.

  Unfortunately the sun does not shine twenty-four hours a day and in particular it does not shine on loneliness.

  But the moon, shining down on the pools in the garden, showed him, at last, the approaching figure of the Queen.

  Eight

  By this time she thought herself invincible.

  And why should she not? As the second most important person in the Empire, she was the source of power and favour. She had her court. She had made herself indispensable to Pharaoh while at the same time keeping her thoughts apart from him. She knew every nook and cranny of his mind, he of hers only what she wanted him to know. Therefore she could afford to be gracious.

  She overlooked one thing, which was, that though women, like cats, enjoy boredom and derive great strength from it, men do not. So she did not try to feed his interest. She merely tried to provide diversion. It was a fatal error.

  None the less, for a little while diversion worked quite well. For a little while, and a little while only, it usually does.

  She knew he was annoyed that Tiiy had had another son. Equally she knew he did not want a son. Yet she knew she must try. He was not so strong as she. Immortality was all very well, but he could not live for ever. So there, in the garden, she seduced him. It was not very difficult to do.

  But there were too many distractions. The boats creaked at the jetty. The stars seemed to have a frictional smell. The shrubs and bushes rattled. When he was nervous, sounds were louder to him, she knew, and more full of danger. It would not do there in the garden. She persuaded him to go to the new palace, at the southern end of the town, where he had built a pleasure lake in miniature, much like that at Thebes. Here they would spend the day and the night on the water.

  She was mistaken to attempt to hold him by sexual attraction. She soon saw that. For physically they got along so well that they bored each other.

  Their sexual relations, indeed all their relations, were a form of vampirism. They sucked each other dry. But from being exchanged so often, that energy had weakened and run down. Even when she was attempting to excite him most, and with success, she could feel boredom underneath her finger-nails.

  And watching her, from that infinite distance which prevented him from ever forgetting himself with anyone, he saw her bald head, for she had removed her wig, and wanted to giggle. He had at last discovered the terrible joys of having mental reservations about things about which we seem to have none. But he did not realize yet that she was as bored with pleasing him as he was with being pleased. Really, the royal masseurs were as efficient and moved him as little. And the very fact that she could arouse him, against his will, made him the angrier with her, since he hated to do anything involuntarily.

  Still, in a way she succeeded. She was with child again. She was to be with child three times more, and they were all girls. By her he could have nothing but girls, and meanwhile in Thebes Smenkara and now Tutankaten were patiently waiting.

  It did no good that after each birth she explained that they did not need sons, being as they were invincible and eternal. It was all nonsense. Of course he was eternal. But that would not prevent him from dying. He could not very well be eternal without a son. He began to watch her. It was something he had never done before. He had only looked at her, as one would look in a mirror, to admire.

  When she sat with him on that double throne, to receive the court, she had a special way of running her pink tongue around her gums, and her small, regular teeth were intensely white. It was a gesture he had watched on those cats she kept in the garden. And when they appeared at the balcony of audience, almost naked, to accept the plaudits of whatever nobles were to be rewarded for nothing in particular that day, he could not help but feel now, as she put her arm so casually around his waist, with what extreme care she arranged her hand and fingers, always to look her best. And having cleaner, sharper features, being physically more in focus than he, even when she hovered in the background, it was she who dominated the scene. In a sheet of highly polished marble, the sheathe of a column, he had noticed that one day. It was not amusing. Also she saw too much of Meryra.

  She saw all this, or sensed it, it disturbed her highly, and after the birth of each catastrophic girl, she tried to amuse him. But what could she amuse him with? The only thing that amused him, apart from chariot driving, was the fine arts. They went off to see the glass-works.

  But there, again, they always had to come back from seeing the glass-works, and there were times now when he would not see her. That worried her. He said he wished to be alone with his god. But that was sheer impertinence. She knew there was no god. It was almost as though he were becoming tired of her, and at the thought of that she panicked.

  *

  In this way another two years went by. One speaks of them as though they were alone. On the contrary, they lived in the midst of great pomp, saw three hundred people every day, and were under the constant vigilance of their domestics, any one of whom might be a spy and probably was. For that matter, even the servants had their own spies. The butler bribed the tiring woman to learn what her mistress would eat that day, because the chief cook bribed him.

  And really, now she was beginning to feel trapped in it, this panoply was inexorable. She was tired of these eternal trumpets and processions. The sistrums now sounded like a thousand scorpions angrily sliding down a greased chute. And it was quite dreadful to have only one hymn to the Aton. It could not be cut, it could not be speeded up, and it was endlessly long. She had not listened to it now for three years. She stood there, graciously sweating in the furnace of the inner temple courtyards, where one did not even have the distraction of an audience, and recognized only certain phrases, by which one knew the ceremony was one-eighth, one-third, one-half, two-thirds, three-fourths, seven-eighths, and so on over. The last section in particular was virtually unendurable. The fraction counting then became very fine. In the morning worship, which was hers alone, she at least introduced the mercy of a sunshade. This was stored for her at the entrance to the inner shrine, and of all the secrets kept from Ikhnaton, it perhaps was the best kept.

  She sensed that he should not be left to himself, and yet ceremonial swept her away from him. Someone should be with him in the morning, for in the morning he brooded. But as the Great Royal Wife she had to undertake the sunrise oblations. By the time she returned to the palace, he was already preparing for the noon service; and after the noon service they both had to appear in audience, at which nothing could be said of a private nature, after which they separated to change for the evening service. And after the evening service came the evening entertainment.

  And since he had set up the convention that in public they must always appear fanatically devoted to each other, even now when they seemed to loathe each other, they still had to keep up the pantomime of being devoted, gracious, inseparable, fondling, and always smiling, with the added irritation that the father of his country must always be surrounded by his six daughters, who were playful as rabbits, and if they did not scream, squeaked, which was equally unsettling to the nerves.

  She would beam at their flat sexless little bodies and hate the sight of them. She induced them to be acrobatic. It was just possible that under some severe physical strain, a pallid set of male organs might unexpectedly plop down to save both her and the dynasty.

  It never
happened.

  Nor did they like her, and she knew how vengeful royal children could be. Maketaten was Ikhnaton’s favourite. She preferred Ankesenpa’aten, as being more tractable. Meritaten, the eldest, hated her, and the other three were too small to bother with.

  So she went on smiling and waited for some chance to speak privately. Nowadays she had headaches and her eyeballs hurt. Never mind, she must go on smiling. The evening entertainments were apt to go on far into the morning, since Ikhnaton did not like to be alone at night. Sometimes it was three or four before they were over.

  Once they were over he would lock himself up with Pentu. For Meryra had faded into the background. A god can dispense with a high priest, but with his doctor, never. Even Osiris, after all, had had to be picked up and sewn back together again. Pentu held the keys of life and death. Sometimes he was closeted with Pharaoh for hours, and at those times no one else was admitted.

  The god might be ageless, but Ikhnaton was now thirty-four. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep him young. His chest was weak and his bowels uncertain. He was much given to flatulence and to falling down. A fit, being little more than divine inspiration, was harmless. But a persistent hacking cough was another matter.

  These days he lived chiefly on meat and fruit and an emulsion of water, cinnamon, and honey. He simply gorged on meat, of which he was fond, in particular on that coarse-grained joint cut from the thigh of calves, cooked with the bone exposed at each end, as a sort of double handle. Unfortunately fowl, the approved food of invalids, merely made him vomit. The thigh cut he could keep down, if he swilled enough honey and water, but he did not chew properly, so the meat increased his flatulence. Also so much meat eating gave his breath a dreadful stench.

  She could not help averting her face, sometimes.

  And more than anything else he made her angry. He had almost ruined her body with six daughters, and now he would lie with her no more. Her touch seemed to revolt him.

  Had no one ever told him how revolting his own body was? He was like a slug with legs. The face, it was true, being like her own, though disturbing, and given at times to a slight dribble from the mouth, which he could not control, and which embarrassed him horribly, was beautiful. She was twenty-eight. She was much younger than he. She took good care to be. When her cosmeticians had worked all day, and she was in a good humour, she might still have been fifteen.

  Alas, the dawn service of the Aton was too early for the application of cosmetics. And the sun in that inner courtyard was mercilessly bright. Without make-up her skin, she could not help but notice, looked coarse. As she lifted her wrist, to cast flowers upon the altar, she could see how wrinkled the skin had become at the wrist and knuckles. It was not much, but she had only to look at her children to know that it was not youth, either. And the bright glare from the walls made her squint. The Aton was giving her crow’s-feet. Her maid said not, but alone at her mirror she counted five. Her breasts, too, needed more massage than formerly. They felt lighter, and yet the skin was loose. And though she had managed her pregnancies capably, the striae along her belly were unmistakable.

  It was appalling. It was also unfair. She was still beautiful. Was it her fault that she was no longer a child? Did Ikhnaton actually believe he was still twenty? Did he no longer look in any mirror? In need of reassurance, she turned towards Horemheb.

  Now that Ay had taken him up and the two men were friends, Horemheb had become a better courtier. He went through his paces with the bored finesse of a favourite pupil, but only when his presence was required, for he still took his army duties seriously. She let it be known that she was worried about disorders in the northern part of the city, the quarter over which she presided. True, two in the morning was perhaps an odd time to become worried about such concerns, but it was the only time she could be certain that their meeting would not be spied upon.

  Reached by a long frescoed hall stretching north from the palace was a compound of buildings used only for larger public entertainments. It had not been occupied for a month, and was now safely deserted.

  Preceded only by one serving girl, a deaf mute with a lamp, she threaded her way through the darkness, and came at last to the great hall, a room perhaps eighty feet long and forty wide, supported every six feet by a wooden column. On each side aisle a row of raised fishponds supported water-plants, now in flower, and these brushed against the marsh life murals.

  Here she found Horemheb sitting on a dining couch with his legs spraddled, gazing down at the pavement by the light of four or five gently hissing lamps.

  No doubt it was a pavement of absorbing interest. Indeed it was a masterpiece. Along its edges dogs and cats hunted fish and game through an endless series of sedges. Down the central path alternate rows of painted Asiatic and African captives waited to be walked on. In the deceptive light of the lamps their rolling white eyeballs rolled more than ever. But masterpiece or not, he should not have gone on looking at it rather than her.

  At first she thought he was stupid, since that was always her first thought about anybody not obviously clever. Nor could she very well throw herself at his head. As a matter of fact, she could not even see his head, for he kept it lowered. She sat down, but it was she who had to do the talking.

  So she ploughed ahead, discussing what she wanted done in the northern suburb. She called for wine. She even became a little rattled. For she was strongly attracted to him. She caught herself trembling. He had a by no means disagreeable smell, and he was certainly healthy. She saw his biceps, where the light from the lamps caught them. They were not so developed as those of a professional wrestler, but they were very fine. She wondered how it would feel to be held by them. Besides, to have Horemheb attached to herself would make her position at court much stronger.

  Having been given a problem to solve, he went on talking in that even, deliberate, slightly puzzled voice of his.

  “Must we go on talking about that,” she demanded at last.

  “I thought that was what you wanted to see me about,” he said, and gave her a quick glance, before looking down again. “I wonder if a painted captive is the best an army can do any more.”

  It was ridiculous. She caught the undertone of quiet amusement in that voice, and for some reason it made her blush.

  “Don’t you know why I asked you to come here?”

  “I know the reason you gave,” he said. His hand paused for an instant, holding its wine cup.

  Irritably she swept the wine cup to the ground. The lamps flickered in the unexpected draught and then were still. The dark-brown wine spread over the faces of the captives, but here and there the floor must be oily. Over those places the fluid parted and the eye of a captive showed through.

  “Men would sometimes like to make love to me,” she said, to her own surprise.

  “I can quite believe it,” he said easily. “And were you an ordinary woman, no doubt they would do so. May I go?”

  It was almost as though he had slapped her. And yet instead of making her angry, it made her sad.

  “Yes, go,” she said, and watched his retreating back. The hall was empty. She sat there until the lamps began to splutter, and then made her way to the garden. She would cross it to her own apartments, and the night air might restore her calm.

  The question was, would he speak of it? She was sure he would. He had always hated her, and not everybody can refuse a queen. It would make a good anecdote in barracks.

  Seeing a figure slip out of the Harem wing, she went forward to challenge it.

  It was Ikhnaton. He would not speak to her. He brushed right by. In her own apartments she soon found out the reason. He had been making his own experiments in the harem. He had got farther than she, only to be humiliated the more. Without those special skills she had developed to rouse him he was impotent. It was quite certain. He could never have heirs.

  She had the girl sent away. In the morning, however, when she would have talked to her further, the girl was missing. No one
was ever to hear of her again.

  In the same week, without comment, he gave orders that the painted banqueting hall was to be shut off from the rest of the palace and boarded up. That really disturbed her. No doubt Horemheb had talked.

  Yet it was a pity to shut off that hall. It was the first step down, the first sign that the glorious and eternal reign was shrinking.

  *

  Two days later he sent for her. It was unexpected. He wished her to participate in a ceremony at one of the public altars, in the desert between the cliffs and the town. She could scarcely believe she was taken back into favour, and yet she seemed to be. Perhaps he was lonely. After all, he had to talk to someone. His voice even became a little animated, as they paced down the double line of courtiers on either side of the carpeting which led to the altar.

  She watched his intent face and it made her thoughtful. She had made a mistake. After all, they had been married for almost ten years. She could not be girlishly attractive for ever. Therefore maybe theology was the better way to hold his attention. Certainly nothing else ever had.

  It happened she was right. Ikhnaton had turned back to the only fascination he had ever known, the one that made his isolation not only excusable, but valid. Theology filled up the cracks.

  In one form or another the worship of the Aton now took up every moment of the day. It had to, if Ikhnaton was to be kept from thinking. Every moment must have its ritual purpose, to conceal the fact that it had none of its own.

  The household rose at dawn. No household in the city but had its obligatory altar. Pharaoh worshipped standing up, and sat down on his throne only in order to be worshipped. He went to the temple early, for he took some amusement from arranging the flowers. He did not do so himself, of course, but he liked to stand near by and tell others where to put them and how.