wanted to tell me something but could not find the way to say it.’
She poured the cat from her lap, rose, and walked a little way along the room, remembering and pacing, the two things working together.
‘The next morning, the women returned together, with many robes and jewellery. They were silent. Something was happening. They dressed me in layers of gold and white clothing. I was wrapped up like a gift. A High Priest came with my father, the women left the room, and he gave me instructions. What to say, what not to say, when to speak and when to remain silent. I looked at my father, who said, “This is a great day for you, and for all our family. I am very proud.” Then he picked me up, my mother kissed me goodbye, and he carried me out of my home.
‘I remember the sun and the noise along the crowded ways. All the litters and chairs had been cleared so there was just me and my father on the avenue, riding in a chariot. I could hear the birds singing in the air above the noise of the crowds, who all seemed to be paying their respects to me. To me! I held my father’s hand tightly. We were driven to the palace. But the further we left my home behind, the more I began to feel like a piece of furniture on a cart and less like a princess in a fable.
‘We arrived at the palace and I was carried through court after court, chamber after chamber, all crowded with dignitaries and officials who bowed as we passed. My world retreated and disappeared behind me. I remember I was set down beside a curtain. My father said to me, “Here you stand on the threshold of a great future. I am passing you forward, now, to your new life.” I think I tried to wrap my arms around his neck, to cling on to him, but he prised my fingers gently away, held my hands and said, “Remember your promise. Be brave. And never forget I love you.” I believe there were tears on his face. I had never seen my father weep.’
Nefertiti stopped speaking for a moment. The memory seemed to overwhelm her.
‘I would have cried out then, but I saw something strange: passing along the corridor, as over-burdened with clothing as I was, the slight figure of a young man. He raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were thoughtful. What happened in that moment? Understanding, recognition, complicity? I knew we knew each other and that our lives were entwined in some profound way. Then a ribbon was tied over my eyes, and the world vanished.
‘The noise in the chamber on the far side of the curtain suddenly hushed. I heard a chime and chant of words, the rattle of sistra, an announcement, then my father’s hands gently pushing me forward through the curtains and into the chamber. I looked beneath the ribbon at the ground and saw lotus flowers and fish, and I walked across this painted water. Hands received me at the end of this long walk, and they turned me around. My head was raised, the ribbon untied, and I saw a blur of people, hundreds of them all staring at me, their eyes moving over every detail of my being. I was so heavily clothed I could not have raised my own hand to my eyes, yet I felt naked, stripped down to my last skin. I dared to look quickly to my side. The boy’s face, a long, serious face, glanced quickly at me, a partner in all this strangeness. I felt a small gladdening in my heart, which was tight with fear. Some of my spirit returned to me.’
She stopped her pacing. Her sad smile was charged with all the loss and strangeness which that girl, alive now inside this woman as she spoke, had suffered. I wanted to make it all right. I wanted to console her.
‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ she said suddenly. ‘I don’t require your pity or your sorrow.’
She continued to pace again, as if each careful step returned her to the story.
‘I remember little else. I suppose the ceremony was concluded satisfactorily; I suppose the audience dispersed to their dinners and their gossip and their criticisms. I followed my new husband down a different hallway, not the one through which I had been brought in but into a different part of the palace. I remember looking at him a few steps ahead of me, hobbling on his crutch. I liked it-the way he had turned the difficulty and effort into a kind of grace. I imagined I could see him smiling, secretly, for my benefit. I remember I thought of him, kindly, as weak; as the one sheep the hunting lion would pick out from the flock and kill. So you see, I was the more deceived.’
I did not press her on that point. Not yet.
‘Ahead of him his father, the Great Amenhotep, led the procession. I had imagined him as a great hero, the builder of monuments, and a close friend of the gods. But who was this old man huffing and sighing under the troublesome burden of his heavy body, and complaining of the terrible pain in his teeth, and cursing the heat of the day?
‘We arrived in a private chamber, and I found myself surrounded by my new family. Amenhotep turned to me, took me by the chin and turned my face to examine it like a vase. “Do you know, child, how much talk and contest and disagreement have preceded your arrival among us?” I kept my gaze on him. In my mind all these impressions and thoughts blew about me as in a storm. I felt I was a leaf dragged into the course of a mighty river, the river of history. “You will soon understand how things are. Did you hear the poets calling out your praises?” Again I shook my head. “Be worthy of those praises.” He was stern; his breath was bad. I remember even now his sad face, his bald head, the ruins of his teeth. But I liked him. His wife, Tiy, my new mother, said nothing. Her face was like a stone.’
She came and sat down again, and drank a little from the goblet of water I offered her. Then she continued her story.
‘Once the sun was low on the horizon on that changing day, I was led into a chapel of a kind I had never seen before. Unlike the dark temples, this was a sun court illuminated by the rich light of the setting sun. At a certain moment a gold disc set into the wall caught the exact angle of the late light, and blazed. Led by Amenhotep, we all raised our hands to this sudden fire until, as the moments passed, it diminished and died, and the sky turned dark red, dark blue, then black. The old man said to me: “Now you too have received the great gift of the one god.” And he hobbled away. To me it was the last of the many incomprehensible revelations that came to me on that one day.
‘That night, I was taken to my husband’s chamber. I did not know what to expect and I think neither did he. We both looked at each other, uncertain and afraid, and for a time after the last adviser and diplomat and lady of the chamber had left, neither of us spoke. Then I noticed a papyrus scroll upon a table, he noticed my interest, and we fell to a discussion. The first night of my new life we talked. And my new husband told me another story. Different from any I had ever heard before. He told me the story of the Amun Priests and their great possessions, their gardens and fields, their huge estates employing thousands of officers, armies of serfs, legions of servants. I imagined a great green fable of a pleasant land, but he said I was wrong. That the land might be rich, thanks to the gods, but that men and Priests, despite their fine words of praise and worship, were interested always and only in power and treasure. And in stealing it. He said, “My father has not allowed this to happen. He told me it was our sacred duty to preserve the order of the Great Estate from this dangerous unbalancing by the power of the Priests of Amun.” ’
She smiled. ‘I was very young. I thought everything was a question of right and wrong. Now, of course, I have little choice but to think of the world as a game of checks and balances, between the Priesthoods and the people, the army and the Treasury, of negotiations and compromises backed up with the threat of force and death. But then, I thought it was simply a question of right and wrong.’
I allowed myself to speak. ‘I remember. Amenhotep forced the reconciliation of the two greatly opposed Priesthoods under a new agreement. It was an astute manoeuvre. And with that new balance of power achieved he began to build the great new works of Thebes. This was our childhood.’
‘Yes. Our childhood.’
‘So why did things change? Why the Great Changes?’
She looked at me. ‘Why do you think?’
‘I know what I heard. That the Amun Priests grew richer still, that their granaries held more grain than those of the King. That the poor harvests and the arrival of new immigration were starting to create problems.’
‘And something else. Something was missing. And the thought, when it came, leaped far beyond this previous reconciliation to something even bolder, even more radical. What is the one thing all peoples, no matter where in the Empire they are born, have in common? The supreme experience present every day to the eyes of all living beings?’
The Aten. Light. In whose blaze all other gods had now been overshadowed. This was a turning point for us both. I waited to hear what she would have to say.
‘You are wondering: how is it we arrived here? Why did we choose to build the city here, away from Thebes and from Memphis? Why did we choose to make ourselves gods? Why did we risk everything in the world to bring forth these changes?’
