ONE

My mother, however, showed no sign of fear. Indeed, her manner was near to frivolous, and this displeased my Father. The end of Menenhetet’s recital lay heavily upon Him. He sighed with no small sound, the sorrows of these events passing through His lips, and even looked upon His fingers in curious contemplation, as though to measure how much His hand could hold.

Then, He and my great-grandfather began to gaze at one another with something shamefaced in their expressions. Neither man seemed pleased in this hour, nor yet ready to confess it. My great-grandfather certainly looked twice weary, once from the exhaustion of his story, and again from the doubt that the sum of all he had had to say on this long night would achieve his ends.

Nor was my Father satisfied. The last taste had failed to bring contentment. On the contrary, He was wishing for more. “I asked,” He said, “to be told of the Battle of Kadesh, and when that was done, I requested you to go on. You have been gracious, and have done so, and I believe you held nothing from Me.”

“It may be,” said Menenhetet, “that I told too much.”

“Only when you spoke,” remarked my mother with a mean and lively spite, “of your largest intentions.”

“No, you gave us all that must be told,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “and I respect you for it.”

Menenhetet bowed his head gently.

“I would even meet your honesty. Your thoughts, revealed in their true shape, have taught Me much about My Kingdom. Yet now I long for you to make Me a little more familiar with your other lives.”

My great-grandfather looked most uneasy. “It would not be worth Your patience,” he said. “By the measure of my first life, they do not offer as much knowledge.”

“Oh, I will have none of this,” said my Father. “My ancestor, Usermare, left you Master of the Secrets of the Things that Only One Man Sees. That is a fine enough title for Me. I speak to you without concealment: In times of weakness, a Pharaoh must search for understanding that no one else can have. Otherwise how would His Reign survive?”

“I did not deserve the title. Others knew more.”

“You are tiresome,” said Hathfertiti. “Why do you not please the Pharaoh?”

“I would,” said Menenhetet, “if I knew how. I do not comprehend my second life, however, with the clarity of the first. My first mother saw Amon as I was conceived. But what was in the heart of Nefertiri? Sometimes I think the most powerful passion that a beautiful woman can feel, when she is proud and very spoiled, is to watch her lover die.”

His words were sent as directly to my mother as an arrow, and would, at another time, have agitated her, but she was keen in this hour. The evening had served her well. “What a cruel remark,” she said. “I think Nefertiri felt more love for you than was proper. And the consequences were dear for Her. To lose one’s navel and one’s oldest son …” She shuddered with no small effect.

“Yes,” said Menenhetet, and gave his own sigh. Again, I felt his fatigue. “I have spent many years,” he said, “pondering a matter I cannot comprehend. Who can say whether Nefertiri saw me on that last night with love, or merely paid too great a price for some curse from Honey-Ball, who, I promise you, had to feel most murderously betrayed by her poor seats on the Night of the Collation. I think such thoughts when there is little to cheer me. Yet I also know hours when I tell myself that the Gods thought well enough of Menenhetet to let him be carried in the womb of a Queen.”

“Oh, yes,” said Hathfertiti. “Your true wish is still to become a Pharaoh, even if you have always failed.”

My great-grandfather looked back at her carefully and shook his head. “You make too much of an hour when I saw that as my hope.”

“Why, you delight in such a thought,” said Ptah-nemhotep. “Dear Menenhetet, do not deny your desire. Even now, I saw the light leap into your eye when Hathfertiti spoke of such a wish.”

“It would be sacrilegious,” replied my great-grandfather, but I do not know if he had the strength to dispute his granddaughter and the Pharaoh at once.

In any case, Hathfertiti mocked him. “Sacrilegious?” she said. “How can you be this pious? Has the taste of bat shit left your mouth altogether?”

“At every moment,” replied Menenhetet, “you act more like a Queen.”

Yet when Ptah-nem-hotep only laughed with pleasure at this remark, as though to suggest it was not impossible, Menenhetet must have decided to retreat. “I would,” he said, “attempt to tell You of these other lives, for it is my pride to remain tireless in Your service, but the effort to bring back such memories has already proved exhausting. As soon shift the stones of one’s tomb! Indeed, I aspire to less than You think. To look backward is to weary oneself, and the task of remembering my former lives has become my true craft. I would even say that much of my fourth existence has been spent in debilitating trances.”

Here, my mother gave a passionate and furious laugh. “Not all of it was learned in misery,” she cried out.

“There were,” Menenhetet admitted, “other routes to my recollections. But they do not exist any longer.”

“No,” she said, “they do not.”

My Father’s annoyance was increasing. “It is near to dawn,” He said, “and we have stayed up for so long that we may as well wait for morning. I do not have an Eye of Maat in which to bathe and greet the appearance of Ra, nor is the Palace, I fear, nearly so grand as it must have been in Thebes before Usermare moved His Court here, but nonetheless, we have our baths. There we can relax from the agreeable labors of this night. Shall we move now, or wait a little longer?”

“I would prefer to stay,” said my mother, “on this patio. I love sitting with our son between us.”

“Well, then,” said Ptah-nem-hotep to Menenhetet, “I will say again that I appreciate the prodigious effort of your honesty, and can promise that it counts for much.”

“Indeed,” said Menenhetet, “for how much?”

“Oh, shame!” said my mother, except that she did not speak aloud. I only heard her thought.

“It would count for all,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “if one question did not remain. When a man as capable as yourself becomes a Vizier, he also comes so near to the Double-Crown that he can capture it. Especially in times like these. How can I trust that is not your desire? I tell you I would be happier if I knew more of your second life, and your third. You are still a stranger, you see?”

“The echo of what I say,” said Menenhetet, “begins to weigh more than all I can say.”

“You are an old and stubborn man,” said Hathfertiti.

“Moreover,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “you have no choice.”

“I have, as You say, no choice. So I must do my best,” said my great-grandfather, but his shame was not absent at how his pride had been snatched piece by piece, and his lips were thin with anger when he began to speak