Creation (16 page)

According to custom, you make your choice by dropping silver into a woman’s lap. She then rises, takes your arm and leads you into the temple, where hundreds of wooden partitions have been set up to create a series of doorless cells. If you can find an empty cell, you couple on the floor. Although spectators are not encouraged by the eunuchs, good-looking women or men often attract a considerable audience—briefly. The circumstances are such that precipitous speed tends to be the rule in Ishtar’s service. For one thing, to disguise the all-pervading odor of sexuality, so much incense is burned in braziers that not only is the stifling air an opaque blue but if one stays too long in celebration of the goddess, one is apt to turn blue oneself.

While most of the foreign men stripped to the skin, we decorous Persian youths removed nothing, which particularly amused the Greeks. In no time at all, we made holy three girls of what we took to be fairly high rank. They seemed to be pleased with us. But when Mardonius asked his girl if she would see him again, she told him quite seriously that if she did, she would be forever damned by Ishtar. Besides, she was married. She then thanked him politely for what he had done.

The girl that I chose appeared to be highly embarrassed by the whole thing. She told me that she was only recently married. Originally, she had wanted to serve Ishtar while she was still a virgin but her mother had advised against it. Apparently, too many Babylonian virgins have had unfortunate experiences at the hands of rough strangers. So she had waited until now. All in all, she said, she was glad. We straightened our clothes after the brief sexual act that had so much amused a pair of blond northern men who kept saying, in bad Greek, “But how can they do anything with all those clothes on?” We ignored them.

“The terrible thing,” she said, as we made our way to the courtyard, “is getting some sort of illness. There is really no way of knowing who you’re going to get. My mother did tell me that if a really filthy-looking man came near, I was to make awful faces and drool like an idiot. On the other hand, if I saw someone who looked clean, I was to smile. I’m certainly glad that I did.”

I was flattered, as she intended. As we stood in the courtyard, clearing our lungs of all the scented smoke that we had inhaled, she told me that “the really ugly women have to come here day after day and, sometimes, month after month, waiting for a man to buy them. I’ve even heard stories of families that were forced to pay a stranger to take the woman. That’s wrong, of course. Quite unholy, too. But not as unholy in the eyes of the goddess as not doing it at all.”

We parted amiably. The experience was thoroughly enjoyable until, a week later, I realized that she had given me lice. I shaved off my pubic hair, something that I have done ever since.

The area around the temple of Ishtar is given over to houses of prostitution of a secular rather than religious sort. Usually these establishments are to be found above wine or beer shops. They are almost all owned by women; in fact, the low-class women of Babylon are freer than any women in the world. They can own property. They do much of the buying and selling in the markets. I have even seen them working alongside men in the brick kilns or removing silt from the canals.

After we left the temple of Ishtar, we were taken in hand by an aide to the satrap Zopyrus. He acted as our guide while, at a discreet distance, Xerxes’ guards kept us in view.

In Babylon the main avenues run parallel to one another. Smaller streets intersect them at right angles. I have seen similar cities in India and Cathay, but nowhere else. The effect is quite splendid, particularly when one stands in the shadow of the ziggurat and looks down the long straight busy avenue to its terminus, a low iron gate that marks the river’s bank.

One broad highway was lined with every sort of diseased person. As we came into view, they shouted out their symptoms. According to our guide, “Babylonians don’t trust physicians. So the sick people come here. Whenever they see someone who looks knowledgeable, they tell him their particular illness. If he knows of a cure, he’ll discuss it with them.”

As we watched, quite a number of passers-by did indeed stop to talk to the sick, and tell them which herb or root might prove to be effective.

“Democedes would be shocked,” said Xerxes. “He thinks of medicine as an art.”

“Witchcraft, more likely.” Mardonius made the sign to ward off evil.

At the foot of the broad staircase that leads to the top of the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth, we were met by the high priest of Bel-Marduk. A bad-tempered old man, he was not in the least impressed by Persian princes. Great Kings come and go; the priesthood of Bel-Marduk is eternal.

“In the name of the lord Bel-Marduk, approach.” The old man extended his hands toward us. As Mardonius started to take the hands, they were promptly withdrawn. Our guide never did explain to us what we were expected to do. I don’t think that he knew. The high priest made us an incomprehensible speech in the ancient language of the Babylonians. Then, abruptly, at the first level of the ziggurat, the old man left us.

There are one thousand steps to the top of the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. At the halfway point we stopped, sweating like horses. Below us was the city, precisely squared by the high walls and divided in two by the dull river that enters the city between fortified banks. Like a desert mirage, the green cloud of the high gardens floats above the dusty dun-colored brick of the city.

Our guide explained to us the intricate system of canals that not only irrigate what is the richest earth in the Persian empire but also makes for easy transportation. Water that goes where you want it to go is the cheapest form of travel, even if you travel in a circular Babylonian boat. Incidentally, no Babylonian has ever been able to explain to me why their boats are not only round in shape but remarkably inefficient.

Breathing hard, we continued to the top of the ziggurat, where two sentries stood guard at the door to a small temple of bright yellow brick.

“What’s that?” asked Mardonius.

“A shrine to Bel-Marduk.” The guide seemed reluctant to tell us more.

In my capacity as religious authority, I asked to know what was inside. “After all”—I was disingenuous—“if there is any sort of image to the god, we must do it proper honor.” Zoroaster would have been horrified to hear his grandson speak so respectfully of a deva. On the other hand, he would have approved of my perfect insincerity. He always said that we live in a world not of our own making.

“There is no image of any kind. You have already seen the only true image of Bel-Marduk.” That morning our guide had taken us to the great temple, where he had shown us a huge solid-gold statue of a man standing next to a massive gold table on which, as prescribed, we placed flowers. The right hand of the statue was smoother and brighter than the rest because that is the hand which each king of Babylon has been obliged to hold in his own two hands for no one knows how many centuries. In a low voice I had said a prayer to the Wise Lord, requesting him to strike down the idol. Twenty years later, my prayer was answered.

The guide’s evasions about the shrine atop the ziggurat aroused our curiosity to such an extent that Xerxes finally said, “We shall go in.”

Since there is no quarreling with the Great King’s heir, our guide spoke to the guards. Grimly, they opened the door to the shrine and we entered a windowless room that was pleasantly cool after our long climb. A single hanging lamp revealed the room’s only contents, a large bed.

“Who sleeps here?” asked Xerxes.

“The god Bel-Marduk.” The guide looked unhappy.

“Have you ever seen him?” I asked.

“No. Of course not.”

“But do the priests see him?” These questions always interest me.

“I don’t know.”

“Then how,” asked Mardonius, “do you know that the god actually sleeps on that bed?”

“We are told.”

“By whom?” Xerxes gave the man the full gray Achaemenid stare. The effect is most unnerving.

“The women, Lord,” whispered the guide. “At sundown, each evening, a different woman is brought here. She is chosen by Ishtar, the wife of Bel-Marduk. At midnight the god comes to the woman in this room, and possesses her.”

“What does he look like?” I was truly curious.

“The women cannot say. They dare not say. They are forever silent. That is the law.”

“A very good law,” said Xerxes.

When we returned to the new palace, Mardonius ordered the governor of the city to present to us the two priests who tended the shrine at the top of the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth.

When the priests arrived, Xerxes asked, “Who really appears to the woman in the shrine?”

“Bel-Marduk himself, Lord.” The priests answered in unison.

When they had given Mardonius the same answer three times, he sent for a bowstring of the sort that strangles in an instant. When the question was posed a fourth time, we learned that each night of the week Bel-Marduk is impersonated by a different priest.

“Exactly what I thought.” Xerxes was pleased. “Tonight,” be said graciously, “I shall relieve one of your priests of his task. Tonight I shall be Bel-Marduk.”

“But you are not a priest.” The guardians of the ziggurat were horrified.

“But I can pretend to be Bel-Marduk just as easily as any priest can. It’s all a matter of costume, isn’t it?”

“But the priest
is
Bel-Marduk. He becomes the god. The god enters him.”

“As he in turn enters the girl? Yes. I get the point. A circuit of absolute holiness is created.” Xerxes was always very good at this sort of thing. “Rest assured that the god will enter me, too. After all—and I tell you this in confidence, by way of reassurance—my father has taken the hands of Bel-Marduk.”

“Even so, this is sacrilege, Lord Prince.”

“Even so, this is my will.”

Xerxes then told them that Mardonius and I would also join him at the shrine. Although the priests were horrified, there was nothing that they could do. Wriggling on their bellies, they begged us at least to appear as gods. Xerxes would be dressed as Bel-Marduk, the lord of all the gods, while Mardonius would be got up to resemble the sun god Shamash and I would be dressed as the moon god Nannar—a deva worshiped at Ur. The priests then implored us not to speak to the woman—no doubt on the grounds that Bel-Marduk never speaks Persian to his Babylonian brides.

This is as good a place as any to note that the Babylonians worship sixty-five thousand gods. Since only the high priest knows all sixty-five thousand names, he is obliged to spend a good deal of time teaching their names to his heir apparent.

Shortly before midnight we climbed to the top of the ziggurat. Our costumes were waiting for us, and the sentries helped us dress. They must have been specially chosen for the sacrilege because they were most good-humored, unlike the sullen guardians of the day.

I wore on my head the silver disk of the full moon. I carried in my hand a silver staff mounted by a crescent moon. Mardonius was crowned with the sun’s gold disk. Xerxes wore chains of gold; he also carried a short golden ax, necessary equipment for the ruler of sixty-five thousand unruly gods.

When we were ready, the guards opened the door to the shrine and we stepped inside. On the bed lay a girl even younger than we. She was extremely pretty, with obsidian black hair and dead-white skin, very much in the Babylonian style. She was naked except for a linen sheet of the sort that corpses are wrapped in. After one wild look at the three resplendent high gods of Babylonia she showed the whites of her eyes—and fainted.

In low voices, we discussed what to do next. Mardonius thought that the girl might revive if Xerxes joined her on the bed. Xerxes agreed to honor her with his body. I was delegated to pull back the linen sheet, which I did. The girl was not only beautifully formed but she had managed to faint in the most enticing of poses.

Eagerly, Xerxes got onto the bed.

Mardonius was mischievous. “Babylonians make love without their clothes.”

“Not their gods.” Xerxes was embarrassed.

“Especially their gods. After all, you are the first man. She is the first woman. You haven’t invented clothes yet.”

As I have noted before, not only do Persian men never undress in front of one another, they are never seen entirely naked by their wives or concubines—unlike the Greeks, who are modestly clothed in front of their women, except at the games, and shamelessly nude with one another. But this was a singular moment. After all, never again were we to play at gods in Babylon, where nude flesh is omnipresent, even atop the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. We were, also, young. Xerxes removed his clothes. I was struck by the extraordinary beauty of his body. Obviously he took after the perfectly proportioned Cyrus rather than the somewhat short-legged, long-torsoed Darius.

Without self-consciousness, Xerxes mounted the now entirely conscious girl. As Mardonius and I watched the two figures in the lamp’s glow, they did indeed seem to be the first man and first woman on earth. I must confess that there
is
something very odd about Babylon and its ancient ways.

When Xerxes was finished, he dried himself with the linen sheet, and we helped him to dress. Then, impressively, Xerxes raised the ax of Bel-Marduk. But before he could speak, the girl smiled and said in perfect Persian, “Farewell, Xerxes, son of Darius the Achaemenid.”

Xerxes almost dropped the ax. The quick-witted Mardonius said, in the Babylonian tongue, “This is Bel-Marduk, girl. And I am the sun god Shamash. And there stands the moon god ...”

“I know who all of you are.” She was astonishingly self-possessed for thirteen years of age. “I’m Persian, too. Or half-Persian. I’ve seen you at Susa, Lord Prince. You too, Mardonius. And Cyrus Spitama.”

“Did the priests tell you who we were?” Xerxes was grim.

The girl sat up in bed. “No,” she said. She was quite unawed. “My mother is a priestess of Ishtar, and this is her year to select the girls for the shrine. Today she told me that it was now my turn to be taken by Bel-Marduk, and so I was. It was simply a coincidence.”