Carmen Boullosa - Cleopatra Dismounts

She took a step backwards and gave an order. “Convey her inside!”

The warriors of Cyrene obeyed. Surrounded by them, I passed through the gateway. The people had gathered to welcome the Amazons and as I came in, they filled the air with cheering. By my side walked the handsome general, Lucius Severus. “This is Cyrene, Your Majesty. The city takes its name from a nymph of Thessalia who was ravished by Apollo. He was dazzled when he saw her dominate a lion without using weapons. She gave birth to Aristaeus, the great hunter whose son Actaeon died in terrible fashion after seeing Artemis bathing.”

They led me to the fountain of Cyre, below the Temple of Ceres, in the center of the citadel. There I drank water and listened to prayers. Priests offered propitiatory sacrifices over fires. They interpreted entrails, as the soldiers guided me along. We skirted a high wall, then passed under a narrow arch in it that allowed only one horse to pass at a time. On the capitals of the columns were beautifully sculpted reliefs representing a battle of the Amazons. The masses were not allowed to enter this august patio. It was surrounded by leafy old banana trees. In the center, on a round platform, a group of sculptures, the work of a master craftsman, dominated the space. It represented intertwined Amazons fighting invisible foes. The scene was doubly impressive because the spectator found herself in the place of the foe. It both excited and terrified at the same time. The sculpted figures competed with the living Amazons in both beauty and vitality.

And they had something extra that the living women did not possess. The stone from which they were carved seemed to defy the laws governing everday stone. Though it was hard, it had a softness that accorded with the femininity of the Amazons. This femininity acted as a corrective to their strength. It did not move but it created the impression of Amazons leaping on their enemies with warriorlike fury. When I looked at the faces, I fell silent. They seemed to be seeing me there with their eyes of stone. If the Amazons I’d met had impressed me with their beauty and boldness, these Amazons in stone were truly — and I say it without any hesitation — sacred.

Two beautiful slaves, dressed in white Greek robes and sandals — they stood out strikingly beside the stone sculptures — opened the blue, studded door into the palace.

The handsome general dismounted and said, “Queen of Kings, it was an unwarranted privilege to escort you here. It is something I will tell to my sons, and my sons to their sons, and their sons to their sons. I, Lucius Severus, son of Sempronius, I who was born from the womb of Thaesis of Oxyrhynchus, one day walked beside the great Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, Isis on earth. Her horse and mine trotted side by side in the streets of Cyrene. Only a hand’s distance away from me I saw her offer a prayer to the gods. I saw her moisten her lips with the water of the goddess.”

He stretched out his hand to me and caught me, as I jumped down from my horse.

“This, too, I will tell my children, and my children will tell it to their children, and their children will tell it to their children, that for an instant I held in my grasp the great Queen of Egypt as she dismounted.”

He said all this with such charm that I could not be offended by his long-winded flummery. He was certainly very good-looking, his proud head crowned by the thickest, darkest hair. His lips were well-defined and there was something Italian in his profile. Caught there in his helpful arms, I could not escape a naughty twinge of desire. But as I moved away, I was forcefully reminded of the pathetic deer that Hippolyta had shot. Perhaps because he had mentioned Cyrene, the nymph, whose son the goddess had transformed into a stag when she caught him watching her bathe and who was devoured by his own hounds.

“Careful!” I told him. “Staghorns may appear on your forehead, and he didn’t even touch the goddess. .”

“I’d defy the fury of my merciless hounds,” he murmured suavely in my ear, “to go riding again with the queen.” Then he knelt humbly at my feet.

The herald in scarlet and gold approached and announced, “Cleopatra, enter the palace of the king. We will not enter. Our duty was to bring you to this door. In the upper room they await you. There they will welcome you as a queen deserves to be welcomed.”

I crossed the threshold. They closed it behind me. I halted to let my eyes get used to the gloom. The broad gallery with its lofty ceiling was lit only by a light at the rear. The far wall was crossed by a staircase with wide steps that began at the left and ended at the far upper right. On the first step I looked upward. After the first easy ascent, the staircase climbed steeply up into the white tower I had seen from outside the city walls. I went up the first flight. Each step was so broad it took me three or four paces to cross each one. The first flight led to a splendid room. It was empty. Its size equaled that of the gallery below and the ceiling was equally high, but here the light was brighter. The doors of the balcony that overlooked the outskirts of the city were ajar. I took a peek. To the left, in the direction of the sea, the four centaurs turned into stone the previous night were picked out by the evening sun as they supported the great slab of stone. The sides of the cliff were like a vertical wall, pure stone, like a quarried facade. On top of the slab there was a clump of trees, silhouetted against the fiery evening sky. The god had awoken and cast off his cloak of mist. I saw him clearly, as if he were only a few paces away. The erection that men have when they awaken was visible even at this distance. I saw it advance in profile, like a bizarre companion; it headed toward one of the stone centaurs. On its back sat an unclothed woman. The god turned his back on me as he turned his front to her. Then he extended his arms. He rubbed himself against the torso of the centaur, his hands up high so as not to touch her. “He’s penetrating her!” I thought. “Once, twice, in he goes.” There was no doubt that the woman was Orthea. “There he goes again!”

I lowered my gaze. I was so embarrassed! “Lucky Orthea,” I was thinking, as the god continued on the job, his arms still aloft. “He doesn’t want to touch her, or he’d set her skin on fire.” The god’s body shuddered and he lowered his arms quickly, leaning against the torso of the centaur. “He’s ejaculating,” I said to myself “He’s feeling wobbly with all that pleasure, and he has to hang onto something.” Then I felt, I literally felt, a current of cold air sweep over me, a current so cold I felt like vomiting, but so strong it made me shudder just like he did. I stretched out my arms to support myself against the window frame and I breathed out. Then I understood. The god, too, needed to breathe out and his cold breath must be freezing his beloved to the bone. He sank down to his knees. The woman was now a white stone, the centaur a glow of red. The god let out a howl. His howl crossed the vast distance. Another charge shot through my body, piercing me like an arrow of pain. I turned my eyes away from the hill. By reciprocating her desire, he had killed her and he was in tears over it. He had had his fun, just as the Sirens had had theirs chomping on the body of Acusilaus. Now he was weeping where they had refused to weep. “Does it make much difference?” I wondered. The god groaned once more but it failed to move me. My sympathy was with Orthea.

At my feet, twenty paces from the wall, the Amazons were gathered. The well-fed pack of dogs frisked nervously around them, circling. The Amazons were gorging on raw meat. Fresh blood dribbled down their arms. They were not aware that Orthea’s desire had been satisfied, with fatal consequences. They had not heard the lament of the god, too busy gobbling down the deer meat.