Carmen Boullosa - Cleopatra Dismounts

There was no sign of the dogs. They had all fled the abhorrent scene.

I felt sorry for my double, the pearl. She had no place in this society. As if in response to my thoughts, I saw her in the distance, slinking away toward the wooded riverbank. In her arms she carried an enormous bouquet of yellow flowers; her loosened hair drifted behind her as she fled. For a moment I considered racing toward her, calling her, snatching her up onto my horse, and rescuing her from this fearful world. Then I remembered it had been her decision to leave me and I returned to my retinue, without saying a word about what I’d seen. Not one word about the horse, nor of its penis, nor of the Amazons’ bodies stained with its blood, nor of the plunging of the second castrated horse. What I did say was, “We’re going back. They are in no condition to receive us. We’re going straight back to Cyrene. I’m sorry, Demetrius, but there’s no alternative.”

Demetrius read my distraught expression and raised no objection. We retraced our steps and met with our men on the crossroads to Barca. I was deeply upset. I could not rid my mind of the sight of those women, both bleeding themselves and, as if that were not enough, splattered with animal blood.

I couldn’t eat a thing for the rest of the day.

We made good time to Barca. By the time night had fallen, we were on board the merchant vessel. At all costs we wanted to forestall any rumor of the true identity of the good ship “Cyrene.”

I could hardly catch a wink of sleep but before I did finally drop off, I had changed my opinion radically about the Amazons. I would not take them to Alexandria with me or even let them come in the rearguard. They would not form part of my army. Anywhere. They would not be counted among my allies. I found them repulsive. To take them with me would be to guarantee the destruction of all I held dear. They represented barbarism, disorder, the absence of self-control, death to urban life and respect for law, and they would ensure my downfall. I wanted to build an empire; they wanted to ban fire in the oven, to fracture all forms of social order, set up gods to control the city markets, and install altars in city squares, in the gymnasiums, perfumeries, exchanges, arenas, meeting places, pharmacies, barbershops, and of course in all the temples so they could practice their rites there.

The world for them was the fragmented chaos I had dreamed of before Charmian woke me. They despised everything I wanted to uphold and maintain in an orderly Alexandria. The only way to keep them as allies was to discover some land where mankind had never set foot and send them there.

This passed through my mind, as I eventually drifted off to sleep, but I was resolute in my decision, even before expressing it in words.

As we sailed, we worked on getting me in to see Caesar. Immediately after reaching Alexandria, Apollodorus and I passed a small launch, the type merchants used to furnish the palaces of Bruckheion with recently unloaded merchandise. Apollodorus would take me to my palace wrapped in a carpet that supposedly we were delivering to Caesar as a present. The palace servants recognized Apollodorus and they informed Caesar’s staff that the gift was undoubtedly from me. Curious, he agreed to see the gift and hear the personal message that came with it.

Once in the presence of Caesar, it was my job to convince him of the value of an alliance with me.

The palace servants were loyal to me. But in case of any problems, this was the ideal place to rescue me from. We knew the palace inside out. Those who lived there worshiped me, but we also brought with the merchandise enough soldiers to carry out a rescue mission.

To use the words of Apollodorus, we were playing at making me invisible. Hidden inside the carpet, I escaped the vigilance of Ptolemy.

It was while on board the ship, I had learned that Josephus and the good-looking Severus had bathed the pearl Cleopatra in wine. They did not share Charmian’s reverence for her. “We couldn’t run the risk of having your double running around,” Josephus would explain to me. “Severus’s idea was to bring her as gifts from you a variety of showy presents, beautiful objects of gold, clothes, foodstuffs, along with a bath of aromatic waters. He passed it off as a special preparation from the queen to fend off fatigue and increase beauty.” Then four pygmies from the court of King Carneades had bathed her, right in front of Severus. The bathwater contained a considerable quantity of wine hidden in the spices and perfumes.

“When we were planning it,” Josephus told me in a whisper, “Severus told me that once there was nothing but the dissolved pearl in the bathtub, he would drink the bathtub empty, right down to the final drop. His dream was that he’d tell to his sons, and his sons would tell their sons, and their sons would tell their sons that one night Severus got drunk drinking a replica of the beautiful Cleopatra.”

You all know how my plan to see Caesar worked out. I followed it exactly and I arrived in Caesar’s presence on the shoulders of my loyal Apollodorus. Caesar was quite smitten with his good looks and Apollodorus used them to predispose Caesar in my favor before unwrapping the present. Then I seduced him and made him love me. It was the only way to secure him as an ally. “If the goddess thought of it,” I said to myself, “so that Dido would not be tempted to betray her son, what’s wrong with me trying it too?”

But now that I recall for the last time my stay with the Amazons and my return aboard a merchant ship to Alexandria, I realize that on that trip I made a decision to relinquish my status as a goddess, as Isis on earth, in order to lower myself to the level of a colt, my hooves beating the plain to the rhythm of my gallop, in the pointless race that lovers run in bed. I dismounted from the splendid horse the gods had bestowed on me, to turn myself into part of an animal. It was on board the merchant ship where I opted to switch my two goddess legs for the four legs of a lowly beast. Now I wouldn’t take a step by myself. Always I had to have a lover. I became addicted to needing a partner in life; I lived in enslavement, self-abasement, and hysterical self-deception, as I became part of the animal with two backs and four legs that travels along moaning, without achievements, without getting anywhere in the world. Without progress, expending immense effort, but forever circling round the same old point, excavating its grave in the process. Good-bye to the face of the sun that strides toward the kingdom of light and sanity! Now eyes will see only another pair of eyes, like the lowest of the beasts, believing to find in them a divine insight into the reality of things!

I forgot the time I galloped on a bull. As I enjoyed my ride, as I pleasured myself on its body in my journey over the sea, I blinded myself. I failed to see Proteus, the monster who inhabits the island of Pharos, take the shape of a terrifying lizard with the mane of a dragon, curled up on its own tail. I saw nothing when he transformed into an agile tiger with a mottled coat. I didn’t even see him wave good-bye to me. I was blind to such a marvel as this! The pity of it!

What happened to me was what happened to my mirror image. Didn’t I too dissolve? Didn’t I swig down my own throat the dream of what I was going to be? Didn’t I end up like Acusilaus in the jaws of vicious Sirens? Or like the pearl Cleopatra in the mouth of the good-looking Severus? Didn’t I do that to myself, when I inveigled Caesar into an alliance, in order to get back what rightfully belonged to me? To be what I am, I opted to see myself through the eyes of a man. I drank my self. But do you think I gobbled and guzzled my self without help? Apollodorus, Apollodorus, my loyal friend, my accomplice — forgive my honesty — it was you who urged me toward this act of self-devouring! While our boat was retracing the steps of the bull across the seas, thanks to you, I was undoing all the fine work that the gods had delicately planned, their scheme to endow me with a glorious place in history.