Egypt's Sister: A Novel of Cleopatra Read online

  Omari placed the jug on the floor, then withdrew an oversized sword from a sheath at his belt. He swung the blade and slapped the jug, but the clay did not break. The young king cast a questioning look at Theodotus, who made a subtle gesture: do it again.

  Again Omari swung, and this time the jug cracked, sending a trickle of red wine toward the newlyweds’ feet.

  With that, the wedding was concluded. The coronation, however, had only begun.

  A proper coronation, Father explained as we walked home, might take up to a year, for the new king and queen would travel throughout Egypt, visiting all the major temples to present themselves to the people. “Some cities require special ceremonies,” he said in the patient tone he adopted for complicated subjects. “In Thebes, for example, Urbi and Omari will meet the priests who care for the Buchis bull, which is revered in that city. Memphis will require the circumambulation of the White Walls. The new king and queen will walk in a procession around the city, accompanied by the gods and the priests. Since lifeless idols cannot move themselves, the stone gods will be carried by carts. . . .”

  I bit my lip, my thoughts racing ahead of Father’s explanation. Would Urbi invite me to accompany her on the journey? Many members of the royal household would go with her, and as her closest friend, I assumed she would want me by her side. And not only for her sake did I wish to join the caravan—I had always wanted to sail on the Nile, see the ancient pyramids, and marvel at the Valley of the Kings. Surely these were experiences we should share.

  My father must have seen the light of hope in my eyes. “Do not count on traveling with her, daughter.” Reproof lined his voice. “Your friend is now queen, and she has responsibilities you could never imagine. Give her time to find her footing. And do not be hurt if she is too busy to think of friendship in the weeks ahead.”

  “Chava could never go on such a trip.” Asher scowled. “How could she keep Shabbat when surrounded by Gentiles? And how could she participate in rituals that involve false gods? She could not.”

  I shrugged away their concerns, certain that Urbi would make allowances for me as I had always made allowances for her. She would need company on the journey, and she would not want to talk to Omari or his counselors. She would want to talk to me.

  Besides, HaShem had promised that I would bless her, and how could I do that if we were separated for an entire year?

  So I waited, confident that Urbi would not forget her closest friend.

  I waited patiently, and with every passing day I told myself that Urbi would soon send a message about my joining her on the journey south. I stood at the harbor and watched slaves load bundles of brilliant purple sailcloth, sure she would send an escort to fetch me. I had quietly packed a trunk and hidden it in my room, not wanting Father or Asher to see the visible evidence of my hope.

  On the night before Urbi’s leave-taking, I dreamed of boarding the ship and hearing Urbi say, “You could not have imagined I would be willing to leave you behind!”

  Though Father advised against it, on the morning of the royal couple’s departure, I bade Nuru accompany me to the harbor. At the largest dock, in a theatrical display, Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy XIII stepped out of ornate litters and approached the long, low royal galley. A line of guards kept us observers at bay, but I was close enough to see beards of seaweed on the pilings and slaves running up and down the deck. The purple sails rose and snapped overhead, then the mainsail unfurled and blocked out the sun.

  Looking uncomfortable and awkward, Urbi and Omari stood on the dock and faced us, a noticeable space between them. Urbi’s dark hair had been covered by a braided Egyptian wig, and on her head she wore the traditional double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Her brother wore the nemes, the striped headcloth with front panels falling onto his boyish chest. Both Urbi and Omari carried the crook and the flail, traditional symbols that served to tie this Greek pair to a long line of pharaohs who had risen from shepherds and nomads, the original occupants of the land.

  The crowd cheered as the royal couple turned to board the ship. I tried to call Urbi’s name, but my throat constricted on a sudden wave of emotion. She had not looked for me in the crowd. She had sent no messages during the days of preparation. She had not even sent a letter explaining why she could not take me on the journey.

  Had she forgotten me already?

  I returned home with a heavy heart and sank onto a couch in lonely silence. Nuru retreated to the shadows.

  I lifted my hand and idly traced the scar across my left palm. I wanted Urbi to be queen. I knew how keenly she felt the responsibility vacated by her father, and how hard she had prepared for her royal role. Despite being the second daughter, she had been born to be queen and would be a good ruler. When her father died, my heart had thrilled to know that Urbi would finally be able to fulfill her destiny.

  On the other hand, if being queen meant she would rarely have time for me, how could I cope? I had always spent six days out of every seven with Urbi, and I knew her personality, her likes and dislikes, her habits and her quirks. I knew that she went barefoot in the palace and loved to read about her ancestors. I had seen her imitate a monkey’s walk and I had watched her laugh until she cried. We had told each other stories, and we had asked a slave to judge who was best at burping. We had shared nearly everything two girls could share.

  What was I to do without her? How was I supposed to pass the time while she was away?

  I could read, of course, but who would I talk to when I was weary of reading? With Urbi gone, I had no one to visit. The girls I knew from the synagogue were all married, most of them with babies. Father was probably hoping I would visit them and fall in love with domestic life. He might suggest that I try to learn a new language or brush up on my Hebrew . . . because he could always find an unmarried tutor who would be willing to teach his daughter.

  I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of Father’s slow steps. Keeping my head down, I braced for a rebuke—hadn’t he warned me not to go to the harbor? Hadn’t he said that Urbi’s life would change? Hadn’t he been hinting that I should focus on finding a good husband and establishing a home of my own?

  I flinched when Father placed his hand on my shoulder. “I could use your help, daughter.” He tugged on his beard as he smiled. “Would you read my work and mark any errors in the copy? I am afraid I am too familiar with the work to be a careful reader.”

  That afternoon he unrolled a scroll containing the first of his testaments of the patriarchs. I read the Greek slowly, beginning with the testament of Reuben, followed by the testament of Simeon. Father was a skilled writer, but even he made the occasional mistake. My heart lifted as I made a note of each error, grateful to know I was not the only imperfect member of the family.

  After two weeks of reading about the patriarchs, Father called me into his library and asked me to sit. “I am beginning a new work,” he said. “An exhaustive study of the recorded names of HaShem. I would like you to help me search the Tanakh and compile a list.”

  He tried to behave as though he did not care whether I agreed or not, but an almost imperceptible note of pleading filled his voice. He wanted my help, and as long as the work did not involve an unmarried man from the synagogue, I thought I might enjoy the effort.

  “Where do we start?”

  “Here.” He unrolled an elaborate Torah scroll and pointed to the first book of the Pentateuch: B’resheet. Genesis.

  “And what do I do?”

  “Start reading. And when Adonai refers to himself as something other than the name, make a note of it on a separate parchment. Look here.” He turned the scroll and pointed to a passage in Genesis. “YHVH Yireh means YHVH will provide. But the name refers not to daily needs, but to a substitutionary blood sacrifice. Adonai provided a ram to take the place of Abraham’s son.”

  “So that should be the first name on my list?”

  “Yes.”

  “Simple enough.”

  I took a sheet
of parchment from a drawer, found a pen, and sat before the scroll, ready to read.

  Reports about the new sibling-loving gods trickled into Alexandria. The noble families buzzed about the news, for though they had not loved their former king, they held high hopes for the brother-sister couple.

  According to the first report, the people of Thebes had enthusiastically embraced Urbi and Omari. When the moon reached full, all the priests in Egypt converged on the city, where Cleopatra, “the Lady of the two Lands, the goddess who loves her father,” boarded a boat carrying a new sacred bull—one with a white body and a black face—and sailed to his temple on the west bank of the Nile. She presided over the new bull’s inauguration and oversaw the installation of the bull’s recently deceased predecessor into the Bucheum, a cemetery for the mummified remains of sacred bulls.

  In every report, we heard that the Egyptian people adored the queen because she revered their ancient customs and spoke to them in their own tongue. Apparently she charmed everyone who met her.

  “The native people love and accept her,” Father said one afternoon as he read a message from a friend, “and no wonder. She is the only Ptolemy who has ever mastered the native language.”

  Of course she was. Urbi spoke Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Egyptian, and Troglodyte, and those were only the languages I knew about. She had never met a challenge she could not master.

  I ignored the implicit rebuke of my linguistic laziness and pressed Father for more information. “Will she be returning soon?”

  “She must still go to Memphis, where she will walk the White Walls and visit the Apis bull,” he said, rewrapping the scroll around its spindle. He shook his head. “Is it any wonder our forefathers created a golden calf in the wilderness? How could they do otherwise, given the Egyptian fascination with bulls and cows?”

  “About Urbi.” I drew his attention back to the subject of my concern. “After Memphis, will she be coming back to Alexandria?”

  Father shifted the focus of his gaze from some interior vision and looked at me. “I do not know, Chava, and perhaps you should not be so concerned about the queen’s affairs. How are you coming with the names of HaShem? Have you finished a complete list yet?”

  I sighed, recognizing his dismissal for what it was. “No, Father. I will get back to work . . . since I have nothing else to do with my life.”

  Urbi had been away six months when Father decided to host a sacred study in our home.

  I had to admire his ingenuity—most studies of our sacred writings were held at the synagogue, but men and women were separated there, and my father had a particular reason for not wanting the men to be separated from me. So he announced that on the first day of every week, he would lead a group of young men in a discussion of the Five Megillot, or Scrolls, concentrating on the prophet Dani’el.

  “Why Dani’el?” I asked.

  “Why not?” He grinned at me and fingered his lush beard. “When one bears the name of a great prophet, why shouldn’t he study the prophet’s words?”

  So on the first day of every week Urbi remained away, I prepared honey water and fresh fruit for the six or seven young men who entered our house, smiled at me, and sat on couches around the reflecting pool as they discussed Dani’el. I directed the slaves who served them, and I couldn’t help but overhear. From time to time, as they posited points and counterpoints, I thought about Urbi, knowing that she would have loved to participate in the discussion. No matter the topic, she had never shied away from an argument, and being the only woman in the room would not have bothered her.

  “From the going forth of the command for the answer and for the building of Jerusalem until the anointed one,” one young man read from the Septuagint. “And who is the anointed one?”

  Father lifted a brow. “The Hebrew word is masiah, a term that could refer to a priest or a king. Or, perhaps, a man who is both.”

  “Zerubbabel,” one youth suggested. “Did he not return us to Temple worship after the exile?”

  “Onias,” another man countered. “Was he not murdered for his righteousness? Dani’el writes that the anointed one will be destroyed.”

  “But the timing is wrong,” another man said. “The command to rebuild the Temple came from Cyrus, did it not? That was five hundred thirty-nine years ago. Seventy-seven sevens have already passed, and we have seen no masiah.”

  “The Word of HaShem does not lie,” Father said. “So you have made a mistake. Cyrus sent men to rebuild the Temple, but the city was not built until much later. So perhaps we should consider the command to the prophet Ezra, which was given four hundred ninety-one years ago—”

  “Seventy sevens,” a student interrupted. “So where is our anointed one?”

  “Chava.”

  I flinched as Father interrupted my eavesdropping. “Yes?”

  “Some more fruit, please—the grapes, if you have them. Or figs.”

  “At once, Father.”

  And as I walked away, I heard his muted remark. “An obedient daughter becomes a dutiful wife.”

  I clenched my fists in frustration. Why would Father rather see me married than happy?

  Eleven months after Urbi’s marriage to her brother, riders entered the city with news of the royal couple. The next day, Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII would enter the city in a grand procession, and all of Alexandria was invited to watch.

  I had hoped to meet Urbi before the grandiose royal welcome, but though my family was on a list of people granted permission to watch from a balcony of the great library, we would not be allowed to meet with the royals. “Only citizens will be allowed to greet the king and queen,” we were told when a messenger arrived with our invitation to observe from the library. “And Jews are not citizens of Alexandria.”

  So we watched from a distance as the royal parade entered the city through the Sun Gate and progressed to the wide Canopic Way. The procession passed the Agora, the library and museum, and the Mausoleum of Alexander the Great. Lions and tigers in wheeled cages rolled over the gravel streets, eliciting applause and cries of wonder. I found myself at eye level with a pair of restless giraffes in a wagon. After the animals, a group of royal relatives and Alexandrian officials strode over the streets, bristling with an unconscious awareness of their status. Behind them, on two white horses, rode Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII, Egypt’s king and queen.

  Finally, Urbi had come home.

  During her long absence, I had managed to convince myself that she did not write me before the journey because she knew my father would not want me to go. So she said nothing in an effort to keep from causing me pain.

  But now that she was home, nothing would stand between us. We could be together again almost immediately, and she would tell me everything that had happened during our separation. We would talk for weeks, we would laugh, and she would share secrets that no one else in Alexandria could know. . . .

  I watched the parade turn at the eastern boundary of the Royal Quarter and head toward the palace.

  As Father and I left the library and walked toward our neighborhood, I resisted a strong urge to break away and run to the dock where I could find a boat and row to Urbi’s palace on Antirhodos Island. “I cannot wait to see her,” I said, unable to control my enthusiasm.

  “Not today.” Father held up a warning finger. “She is certain to be exhausted from her journey. Let her rest for a week or two. Let her—”

  “A week or two!”

  “Urbi is no longer a girlhood friend, Chava. She is Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Let her enjoy time away from curious onlookers and meddlesome priests. Even a queen needs time to rest. Especially one who has not known the blessing of a regular Shabbat.”

  “How can I call her Cleopatra? The name doesn’t suit her.”

  “You must call her by her royal name, for that is who she is now. To call her anything else would be disrespectful.”

  I blew out a breath. I understood his point, but she would always be Urbi to me.
<
br />   Though the idea of waiting taxed my patience, after six days a royal messenger appeared at our door. When admitted, he bowed before me and offered a scroll.

  I broke the seal and read the note within. “Urbi invites me to dine with her,” I told Father, looking up. “I am to go to the palace at sunset on the morrow.”

  A twitch of a smile broke through his beard. “Perhaps it is time you learned what life as a queen is like.”

  I made a face as soon as Father turned back to his work. Why should Urbi’s life be so different? When we were children and the king went away, Urbi and I read manuscripts from the library, learned our lessons, and shopped in the marketplace. Queen Cleopatra might not be able to sneak out for shopping as we once did, but why should anything else change? The underlings who ran the government during her father’s absence could run the government now. Egypt had been blessed with abundance, Father was fond of saying, and an overabundance of supervisors who told people what to do and how much tax to pay for doing it.

  Being queen, I assured myself, meant that Urbi would give spectacular banquets and build amazing palaces. And, as always, she would want my help.

  Chapter Six

  I spent all day preparing for my first audience with Queen Cleopatra. As delight bubbled within me, I dressed in my finest chiton and adorned it with a silk himation on which a talented artist had painted peacocks in gold, blue, and green. I slipped gold loops through my earlobes while Nuru pulled my curly hair back, tied a ribbon around my head, and then tucked the length of my hair into the ribbon, resulting in a demure roll at the nape of my neck. This, she assured me, was the newest style of Alexandria’s noble ladies. After having traveled so far into Egypt’s primitive territories, I thought Cleopatra might enjoy being reminded that Alexandria was the most sophisticated and elegant city in the world.

  I dressed carefully, running through a mental list of all the news I wanted to share with my friend. Though I had missed her terribly, my life had not been totally stagnant. I had made considerable progress on Father’s manuscript about the names of HaShem. And on several occasions, Father had invited Yosef, son of Avraham the butcher, for dinner and a discussion about the prophecies of Dani’el. They talked until my ears hurt, and I knew Father had an ulterior motive.