On a Balcony Read online

  However of this indulgent attitude Ay showed nothing, for he had early learned that it was wiser to keep one’s affection for others to one’s self, since they are not apt to understand it, nor is there any reason why they should.

  It was Ay’s duty to inform the prince of those ceremonies which a personage of importance would be expected to endure during the next few weeks, for a personage of importance is not the same as a non-entity. He cannot be expected to find things out for himself.

  Amenophis, needless to say, had not bothered to see his son, for he found him too distressing, and neither, for that matter, had the prince shown the least interest in seeing his father. They would meet on the day of the coronation, three months from now, but in the meantime the great deal that had to be done would be done by Ay.

  The apartments set aside for the prince, which Ay had never seen before, were at the north end of the palace. He found what he saw surprising but on the whole informative.

  He had always assumed, since that was what the court thought of him, that the prince was a weakling and a booby. Now he saw that this was not so. It was merely that the prince was physically weak, had a strong mother, no interest in sports, and the wrong kind of intelligence. He clearly had a stubborn, feral mind. To talk to him was to talk to some decadent animal, a lemur say, with its great liquid giddy eyes. The impression was bewildering and somehow frightening.

  But then the full mouth under those eyes would twitch shyly at the corners, not without irony, and Ay would feel that the world had righted itself again. There was nothing wrong with the prince. It was only that he was ignorant of the right things and entirely too knowledgeable about the wrong ones.

  For instance: “If I am Pharaoh, why then must I take directions from the High Priest?”

  A difficult question to answer, requiring more knowledge of history than it would be wise to display before the vanity of a ruling prince, and a devout one at that.

  Or was he devout? At times it was hard to be sure. For example: “Then if this idol is only a device for delivering the opinions of the High Priest, why is not Amon also a device for maintaining their power?”

  They were talking about that scene, at the end of the coronation, when Pharaoh must enter the Holy of Holies and commune with the god alone. They had been talking about it, to be precise, for the past five days.

  Which was how Ay discovered that the prince was afraid of the dark, though he did not say so, and afraid too of death, almost as though the fear of death were a form of claustrophobia. He was too young to be afraid of death. There would be plenty of time for that later, when he was old enough, should he live so long. For really he was very frail. His toughness was not of a physical sort.

  All of which made him more human, somehow; and looking around his apartments, Ay could see the reason for such fears. On this neglected shambles the prince had somehow imposed a curiously fastidious order, that had about it something rather sad. For example, when Ay shifted a curved wood stool from its aligned place, the prince would put it back again; which in turn led Ay to notice that the furniture was all arranged just so, into a pattern. The Royal Nurse, Ay’s second wife, had told him, when he asked her about the prince, that even as a child he had not been able to sleep without a night-light, or until the furniture had been arranged just so.

  Which, Ay supposed, was because there had been no one to comfort him. Now there would be many to do so, and Ay saw no reason why he should not be the first. Therefore, if the prince chose to prattle of the Aton and the descent of kings, then Ay would prattle of them too, though that did not mean that the formalities of the coronation could be ignored. Instead, they the more had to be insisted upon.

  “And it is dark in there?”

  “I have never been there. It cannot be pitch dark, no.”

  “And the image touches me?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “And then what happens?” asked the prince. His face was taut. Unfortunately Ay did not know what happened then. But each day, once the prince was co-regent, he would have to go to the temple and anoint the god in that dark room. Not literally each day, of course, but whenever the god had a message to deliver.

  “My father does not do that.” The voice was curt and sharp.

  “Your father is ill.”

  “None the less, the priests come to him, not he to them.”

  “Even he had to go to them once,” said Ay, anxious to get on to other matters. When he left, the prince was playing blind-man’s-buff with his younger brother Smenkara.

  Really, that was ridiculous. It touched Ay to see how lonely the boy was in his quarters, to be reduced to playing with a child.

  *

  The prince saw the matter differently. As far as he was concerned, he was about to become a god, and the prospect pleased him. His father was a god, he was going to be a god, and his children, if any, would be gods. On the whole he felt that that made life much simpler, restored his own, at any rate, to a proper perspective.

  For it is not so difficult to be a god. All one needs is a mother, no father (none of the saviour gods ever have a demonstrable father, no matter what the Amon priests might say. He was the child of the sun god, Ra, not of Amenophis III), and the recommendation of at least one politically astute high priest. Of course certain conditions have to be met. A god goes away. He is either admired and not loved, or loved and not admired, but then few men manage to be both. A god is never what his worshippers worship, which, if he be both god and worshipper, is apt to make him difficult to deal with. Also, there comes a time when he finds it all rather ridiculous, for whether he be mortal or immortal, still, he must die.

  So ultimately a god fails, for a god is the person we see in the mirror who never sees us. In other words, it is not so pleasant to be a god. They would deserve our sympathy, had we any to give them. No, it is not difficult to be a god. But it is hard to be worshipped. It is even harder to be loved. That destroys us all.

  We want to stand naked in the rain. The patter is reassuring. It is like silver finger-tips in the middle of the night. We want to say: I am. But those who need us will not let us be.

  And so we say: farewell. I am never now. I was.

  And this, alas, is true of all of us.

  But then, again, the prince did not see it that way. For despite his interest in the family cult, he had as yet no inkling of the particular god he was destined to become. Godhead, in the sense he meant it, was only the old dynastic game the family played so well, which was only to be taken seriously in public. So he merely saw the amusing side, and tried not to think of the dark.

  For to someone with a love of beautiful things, and a sense of self-importance that had been starved for years, the amusing side was certainly very amusing.

  First, he could send for people and they actually came.

  He could commission works of art, and it is always pleasant to have one’s portrait done. His face had suddenly become extremely important. The Queen supplied her personal sculptor, a man called Bek, who modelled his face in plaster. The sessions were stormy.

  Bek turned out the standard portrait of a pharaoh, heavy-faced, fine-planed, slightly amused, and utterly impersonal. Though careful not to touch the now royal person, he took exact measurements. That was another of the amusements. As a child, he had been at the mercy of anybody’s fingers. Now he was to become Pharaoh, nobody dared to touch him, and that was restful, for he hated to be touched.

  “No. No,” he said. “Not like that. More truth, more ma’at.”

  Bek looked hurt. He was a good sculptor and he had been turning out that face now for twenty years. Nobody had ever complained before. He submitted that pharaohs were supposed to look like that.

  “I am I. Not my father. People should worship me,” shouted the prince, seized the modelling stand, and went to work. What he achieved was lop-sided and shapeless, but it undoubtedly looked different. Bek took the hint.

  Thus entered into the history of the period a
new meaning for that treacherous word, truth. It was an illustrious word. It meant justice, proportion, harmony, symmetry. It was a way of looking at the world with which no one had ever quarrelled. Now for the first time it acquired in addition its modern meaning: truth is the way I look at things: truth looks like me.

  Above all, truth was asymmetrical and always bathed in light. This meant that Bek had to alter his modelling, so that his faces should never reveal deep shadows. And this he did, for he had a job to keep.

  When Tiiy saw these new portraits she made no comment. She was not an aesthetician, and art as a branch of propaganda deals only in expensive images of oneself for other people to look at. Out of good taste one never looks oneself. She had a flair for spotting good cabinet work, and that was that.

  She had other concerns. It was time to arrange the prince’s marriage. And in view of his previous marriage, it might be necessary to explain to him the exact process by which it was possible to produce heirs.

  When she appeared with the princess Nefertiti, the prince was in the midst of what could only be called a wardrobe conference. This startled her. But then it was only to be expected, so she smiled indulgently. Her smile had improved in the last few days, and was now a perfect expression of that withering tact by means of which she intended to go on running the government.

  The princess Nefertiti had seen her brother seldom, and his apartments never. Boyish, slim, with a narrow pelvis, which might or might not make childbearing difficult, she looked around her, and was very glad her mother was there. For now, without saying anything, or even altering her expression, she could indicate to the prince that they were both in league against their mother, and so, however tentatively, manage to establish an initial bond with him, as a spider casts out one thread, from which to depend the net that is already latent in its body.

  For Nefertiti did not underestimate her body. To be childlike, and yet maternal, would, she thought, do best.

  Tiiy did not like her daughter, either. She thought the two of them well matched, which they were, much more than she could have imagined possible.

  For as well as being shy, saw Nefertiti, the prince was a little absurd. Not only was he physically embryonic, but his body seemed to have been made by somebody with no creative imagination and a shortage of raw material. Physically he would have to be cajoled on the one hand, and dominated on the other. No doubt he would feel as inadequate as he looked, but at least he would be physically undemanding, and that, in turn, she might find somewhat dull. Such things were not necessary to her, as they were to her mother, but though Nefertiti had a strong stomach, she saw there would be times when she would have to think of other things.

  Involuntarily she found herself looking at Horemheb’s calves, for he, too, had made himself a part of this visit. He was totally unconscious of them, and this for some reason made them the more appealing. They were large, taut calves that swelled from the lower leg, as she preferred, rather than sticking out like wooden balls, and they were covered with black down whose tips had a golden sparkle whenever he shifted about in the sun; whereas the prince had the white underbelly of a stranded ray and no calves at all. Despite herself, these brown egregious calves drew her attention. Perhaps they were another reason why she loathed her mother so.

  While she watched the calves, the prince was watching Horemheb’s navel, as he stood on a dais, listening idly to his mother, who was a short woman and was a step below him. He had not meant to watch it, but it was easier to look at than was Tiiy. It held him hypnotized.

  He liked Horemheb precisely because Horemheb was his mother’s lover. This was a form of hero worship not unknown to the cerebral, a mixture of wistfulness and vicarious self-indulgence. If I were not what I am, which of course I like best, but which is a tremendous responsibility, the argument goes, it would be delightfully relaxing to be a simple, unspoiled animal like that. And besides, he is fond of me, and that is flattering. To the prince, Horemheb was a large loyal dog of his own age, and he had an immense desire to dig his fingers into that fur and grip hard, when he was sad and wanted to cry.

  Meanwhile he was hypnotized by that navel. Thebes was the navel of the world, and that was understandable, for since the dominant god lived there, then all acts and decisions came from there. The navel of a man, however, was somewhat different.

  Instinctively he looked down at his own navel, which was little more than a crease, or structural flaw, as though he had been snapped off his placental cord like a seedpod rather than a child. Horemheb on the other hand had a flat stomach, and in it his navel was like a concave nipple. It was dark; it was warm; it was deep; and no doubt it had a very special smell. Really, in the womb people must ripen like fruit, detach themselves, and fall uneaten.

  The prince very much wanted to stick his finger in it. When he was a child, his nurse had said, if you stick your finger in your navel, it will suck your whole body in, and you won’t exist any more. It was a gesture he still made nervously, whenever he wanted to hide. Looking at Horemheb, he did it now. He scarcely heard what Tiiy was saying. With an effort he shifted his glance and caught Nefertiti’s eye. She smiled.

  He could not say that he cared for that smile. It knew too much. But he found himself smiling back at her. With a thrill it occurred to him that they had read each other’s minds. He looked at her closely. She looked different from the others, as he did himself. She was supple, where Horemheb and Tiiy were a little simple and inconvenient.

  Still, they were to be married, and he did not altogether like that.

  *

  He liked it still less when a few days later Nefertiti came to see him alone. But he need not have worried. She came for a purpose, equipped with a good deal of thoughtfully gathered evidence. It was to his vanity she would appeal.

  The prince was already married once, to Tadukhipa, a Mitannian princess, a gibbering hottentot who had arrived at court three years before with three hundred ladies-in-waiting, an indifference to daily bathing, and an entirely new way of applying kohl. She was sequestered somewhere in the ramshackle harem, and nobody ever saw her, but as the application of kohl was as exacting as it was difficult, she was far from bored, and cost no more than would have a permanent ambassador. The marriage had been a matter of diplomacy. The prince had not been expected to go to bed with her. Still, the matter had caused gossip, for he had not shown the slightest interest in the three hundred ladies-in-waiting, either, nor, indeed, so far as anyone knew, in anyone, of any sex. He was rumoured impotent. She had heard innumerable rhymes on the subject, all specific and none polite. Perhaps he had heard them, too. Courtiers, having nothing else to do, are often cruel.

  Nefertiti therefore judged that the prince would be more concerned with appearances than with facts, and it was the appearance she intended to give him, even if occasionally they would have to produce a child. She did not mind. Her interest in venery was slight and practical. For the rest, they would play out a game together, in return for which she expected him to grow grateful and fond. Public display they could manage very well. And really people were naïve in these matters. If it was something they wanted to believe, they would always take the appearance for the fact.

  In these circumstances, their first nuptial interview was undoubtedly odd. She knew even then that promiscuity has nothing to do with the emotions. One reaches out in the night for a body as one would reach for a glass of water. It is a thirst or a habit, but in itself quite meaningless, as meaningless as abstention is in those who feel no thirst. In the prince she saw a new, a charming, a diverting, an altogether surprising, and perhaps a generous toy.

  When he came to her apartments it was very late. He came not with excuses, but with arguments. That, too, she had expected.

  The bedrooms of the palace were distressingly small. They had one door to the corridor, covered by a curtain, a lower level and an upper level. The bed was on the upper level. It was a large sway-backed wooden litter which both rustled and creaked. The room had n
o window but one high up in the wall. It was almost certain the attendants would be listening in the corridor. It was therefore necessary to whisper.

  The attendant showed the prince into the room, left him there with one or two castor-oil lamps, and withdrew. He stood in the middle of the room like a forlorn moth, and then fluttered towards the dais. There was a silence, followed by a flurry down the corridor.

  The prince was rather improbably wearing the short loincloth of classical sculpture. His body, far from being majestic, looked as defenceless as freshly risen bread-dough and had about the same swelling curves.

  He began with the arguments. She listened with the liveliest attention, and such is the power of monologue that he soon became persuaded she was agreeable to talk to. In no time they were giggling together as happily as twins.

  It is necessary to remember that in those days, before the invention of original sin, venery had none of that air of perpetual novelty which makes it so beguiling to the unimaginative, the bored, or the puritan. One could then love or not love as one wanted to, but whereas a discreet matter-of-factness made the business easier to accomplish, at the same time the absence of guilt robbed it of half its charm, for it either had to be done well or not at all. Without a sense of sin to reinforce his pride, your bumbling amateur felt more at a loss then than now.

  However, there is such a thing as shrewd beauty, and this Nefertiti had possessed from birth. It was time to rescue the prince from his own arguments.