Sarah (25 page)

The thought should have satisfied and reassured her. But it didn't.

Her cheeks burned with a resentment she could not suppress. She pursed her lips in anger. Anger with Abram, anger with Pharaoh! Anger at their insulting indifference, anger at their eagerness to cross swords and impress each other and everyone else with the brilliance of their ideas.

Pharaoh furrowed his elegant brows, breaking the masklike austerity of his face.

“No body or mouth?” he asked in astonishment, his voice both suspicious and incredulous.

“He has no need of them. His word is sufficient presence,” Abram replied, in a mellow tone, calm and amiable.

Abram sure of himself and without fear. Not even fear that Pharaoh might spurn the beauty of his wife who was now his sister! And now Pharaoh was standing up, leaving his royal seat, brushing against Sarai like a forgotten shadow, and going right up to Abram, who was a whole head taller than him.

“So your god created the world?”

“Yes.”

“All worlds? The world of darkness and the world of light, the world of evil and the world of good, the world of the dead and the world of the unborn?”

“All worlds.”

“Ah . . . And how?”

“By His will.”

Sarai, in her humiliation, did not dare confront the eyes of the courtiers. She was about to withdraw, disappear, flee to some other part of the palace. But at that moment Pharaoh turned, and looked her up and down, with a more intrigued expression. His irises were tinged with green and bronze specks, his full lips curled mockingly. His muscles rippled, forming moving shadows on his bare chest with its dark nipples. Despite her anger, Sarai found him handsome, attractive, although strangely inhuman.

“How can a world be created by will alone? It must be engendered, given birth. How can a lone god accomplish what can only come from copulation? I think you're wrong, Abram. Our scholars have thought long and hard about these matters. According to them, Atoum came into existence by himself. Splendid, dazzling, but incomplete without a woman to give birth. So he masturbated and cast his seed into the void. From it was born Chou, the air you breathe. Atoum took his penis in his hand again, and created Tphenis, the humidity of the world. Only then, from Chou and Tphenis, were born Geb, the earth that sustains our steps, and Nout, the sky that sustains our gaze. And today I, Merikarê, use my will. But only to choose where I deposit my seed and engender life.”

He smiled. All around, the courtiers laughed and clapped. Still smiling, Pharaoh raised his right hand to demand silence. He tipped his hand like the point of a spear toward Abram.

“I like you, Abram. A man whose god only reveals himself through words cannot be a barbarian. My father, Akhtoés the Third, also knew the power of words. He made a scroll for me with his teaching. On the scroll it is said, ‘Be an artist in words to attain victory, the tongue is the sword of the king. The word is mightier than any weapon, and words are superior to all battles.'”

A murmur of approval went through the hall. Pharaoh went back to his seat. But this time, as he passed Sarai, he startled her by taking her hand in his thin, hard fingers and drawing her close to the royal seat before letting go of her.

Pharaoh's voice rang out, imperiously. “Music, entertainment, and food!”

THERE was enough food to feed an entire people. There were female singers with plaintive voices and supple, lascivious hips, and dancers who swayed and whirled, twisting their spines into the shapes of wheels or tops. There were magicians turning rods into snakes by throwing them to the floor, releasing horrible spiders into the air, pulling doves from between the breasts of the ladies of the court, lighting fires in basins of pure water, bending the blades of daggers with a mere look.

Pharaoh ate little, enjoyed himself abstractedly, and continued talking to Abram about his god, the cities of Akkad and Sumer, wars, the land of Canaan. But while he ate, enjoyed himself, and talked, he rarely took his eyes off Sarai, although he did not address her until Abram said that she knew how to write in the Sumerian manner.

He ordered fresh clay to be brought, along with some of the styli his scribes used for writing on papyrus. Carefully, Sarai inscribed several words, making little conical strokes that crossed and recrossed.

Pharaoh pointed to a star shape. “What does that mean?”

“The god-king.”

“And that?”

“
Shu
, hand.”

“What does your sentence say?”

“‘The god-king with strong, gentle hands.'”

Pharaoh barely smiled. With the tips of his fingers, he touched the raised words on the tablet lightly, and printed his mark below them. Then he stroked the back of Sarai's hand with those same fingers, and she felt the damp coolness of the clay on her skin.

“Can you dance as well as you can write?” Pharaoh asked.

Sarai hesitated. She glanced at Abram, but he was turned away from her, conversing with a courtier. So, without a word, she stood up. A gong resounded, and the music came to an abupt halt. The dancers stopped and moved aside to make space for her. The courtiers ceased their hubbub to look at her. Abram, too, turned now to stare at her.

She stood facing Pharaoh, and raised her arms to shoulder height. Gently, her hips began to sway. She bent her arms, one hand below her face, the other above it. She slid forward and stamped her foot. She moved to the side and stamped again. The musicians picked up the rhythm of her steps and began plucking the strings of their harps in time to her dance. The sounds of a flute and an oboe rose, undulating like Sarai's hips.

She closed her eyes, unconsciously becoming intoxicated with her own grace, carried away by the joy of taking Pharaoh by surprise and making herself irresistible to him. She had not forgotten the dance of the bull. Her body bent and swayed, offering itself with the same entrancing suggestiveness that had once aroused the beast. Now it was Pharaoh's heart she was inflaming.

She knew she had succeeded when she clapped one last time and came to a halt, her chest panting, and nothing moved in the hall. Pharaoh rose and approached her. The pupils of his eyes had grown bigger, more vibrant. She thought he was going to touch her, but he turned to Abram.

“Abram,” he said, his voice no longer as light, “I grant you land for your flock and grain for your people until the pastures of Canaan become green again. Tomorrow, Tsout-Phenath will take you back to your people. Your sister stays with me. Perhaps she will be my land and my grain.”

The Truth

T
he predawn cold jolted Sarai awake, touching her bare chest like an icy hand. She sat up in bed.

Behind the transparent drapes, the bedchamber was lit by the weak reddish-brown light from the naphtha fires that flickered on the terrace.

She came completely to her senses.

Pharaoh stirred beside her.

He was no longer only Pharaoh. He was a naked man, with smooth cheeks and a soft body, sleeping in a huge, shadowy bed shaped like a boat. He had short, curly hair like a child's. On his powerful shoulder, Sarai could see the mark that her teeth had left there in the night, during her transports of pleasure.

She wanted to stroke the mark, to kiss it. She managed to restrain herself. Her eyes misted over.

She looked down at her own belly, her thighs, her breasts. There were no marks on them. But deep inside, her body was still feverish with the pleasure that Pharaoh had given her. An absolute pleasure that had overwhelmed her, terrifying her at first and then fulfilling her.

How could it be?

She shivered as the memory of his caresses came back to her. She pushed the memory aside, but now the thought of Abram assailed her. She dismissed it violently. At that moment, she hated Abram. She never wanted to see him or hear his name again.

Yes, if Pharaoh wanted her, felt as much pleasure with her as she felt with him, why shouldn't she remain Abram's sister for all time?

She even hated Abram's god!

Her throat tightened with shame. She hid her face in her hands, and huddled with her thighs against her chest.

But the tears did not rise to her throat, because just then Pharaoh's hand came to rest in the hollow of her back, then moved up to the back of her neck. She shuddered, and fell back against him with a moan. She touched his smooth cheeks, already hungry for his mouth, for the suppleness of his long body against her hips.

Hungry for Pharaoh's desire that burned in the gold of his irises and feasted on her body until her pleasure drove her consciousness away.

DAY had barely broken. Sarai was standing behind the transparent drapes. Through the loosely woven threads, she watched the shadows fade from the gardens and lakes.

She did not want to be in bed anymore. Did not want to be near Pharaoh. Did not want Pharaoh's desire.

She was trying to think of nothing. To feel nothing.

If only her flesh, still burning from his caresses, could become as cold as stone!

She thought of the handmaid Hagar, of the scar on her back.

If she ran away, would they shoot arrows at her?

But where could she run to?

Was there a single space in Egypt where you could escape Pharaoh's eyes?

She gave a little laugh, bitter as a mouthful of bile. “Pharaoh knows everything!” she murmured.

PHARAOH woke suddenly, with a groan, and sat up, his mouth open.

“Sarai!”

He opened his arms in the great boat of his bed.

“Sarai!” he called again, in a commanding voice.

“Here I am.”

He saw her standing by the drapes, naked and cold.

“I've just had a bad dream!” he cried. “Your people's famine was becoming my famine. Snakes and crocodiles were swarming in my lakes. My wives were rotting in my arms and a voice called out to me that you weren't Abram's sister, but his wife.”

Sarai approached the bed and Pharaoh. She brushed his cheek, then pulled the big sheet off the bed and wrapped herself in it. “It's true. I am Sarai, Abram's wife.”

“What have you done to me?” Pharaoh screamed.

Sarai moved away from him, calm and relieved. Watching Pharaoh's hands, to protect herself from his blows.

“Why?” he screamed again. “Why lie to me like that?”

“Because Abram was afraid you would kill him in order to make me your wife. And I, too, was afraid you would kill him.”

Pharaoh gave a nasty laugh, like a spit. “Afraid?”

“Yes, afraid of Pharaoh.”

Pharaoh sneered. He touched the bite mark on his shoulder lightly, and stood up. He was about to approach her, but changed his mind, and shook his head. “So Abram's God Most High isn't mighty enough to protect you against fear?”

Sarai lowered her eyes without a reply.

“You were mistaken, you and your husband. Pharaoh isn't going to feed you to the crocodiles. As my father wrote, ‘Do not be wicked. Feed the poor man, for a rich people does not rise in revolt. Become great and lasting through the love that you leave behind.' Repeat those words to Abram.”

He fell silent. His face became impassive, already resuming Pharaoh's mask of indifference. But he crossed the space separating them and took Sarai's face in his hands.

“As for you,” he breathed, his mouth against hers, “I shan't flog you or stone you. I want your perfect body to stay in my mind. And you, too, will have to live with the pain of our memory.”