Inanna, page 20
“Only you can know where your duty lies,” I said. But then I burst out: “Gilgamesh, how do I stop it?”
He laughed. “You must stop being so very, very careful,” he said. “Is that not obvious?”
He went away, whistling, and Enkidu followed after him, with one last glance back at me on my bench.
Why was Gilgamesh whistling, when I was so unhappy?
That was the seventh time.
* * *
That afternoon, in Ninsun’s temple that was now my temple, the priestesses read to me from the old clay tablets that they kept beneath the floor of the sanctuary. I should have been listening, because I liked the stories from the first days. Instead I was thinking: What will happen if I refuse to serve these women, if I refuse to do as they ask? Would they really have me dragged to temple?
Then there was shouting behind us, and all at once Gilgamesh was there, in the most holy of places, so large and dangerous in the tiny space. He had changed into his bronze armour, and was carrying an enormous flint axe.
My chief priestess, Lilith, leaped up. “Gilgamesh, what are you doing?”
Gilgamesh was looking at me, smiling. “Inanna, I am going to teach you that lesson that you asked for. Follow me!”
I followed him out through the small cedar door into the shaded yard beneath the huluppu tree.
“Gilgamesh,” Lilith shouted, rushing out after us. “Stop it, Gilgamesh, stop this right now. What do you think you are doing?”
We stood there under the blissful shade of the old tree.
“What are you doing?” Lilith repeated. Her voice was low now, her body stiff with rage.
“I’m chopping down your tree,” he said.
“This tree belongs to the gods, Gilgamesh,” Lilith said. “Gilgamesh, it belongs to your mother. You must not touch it.”
Gilgamesh rested the head of his flint axe down on a tree root. “Well, there is another god here, a high god, even. Let me consult with her.”
He came close to me. “Goddess,” he said, getting down with some difficulty, in his heavy armour, onto one knee. “I’m going to chop down this tree and make you a throne out of it, and perhaps also a bed and a new door. Shall I do it?”
I looked up at the gorgeous canopy, and regretted already its loss, but I said: “I would like a new door.”
Gilgamesh stood, picked up the axe, and swung it, in a huge arc, into the ancient huluppu tree. The axe bit into the living bark with a sickening thud. Then he wrenched the axe out, and swung again.
Lilith dropped to her knees to watch him, tears streaming down her face. She turned to me.
“Inanna, this is a holy tree,” she said. “The god An brought it in from the river when my great grandmother was a little girl, and it has given us good shade and fruit for a hundred years since. The lady Ninsun loved this tree above all others, and would sit here in the shade of it, and sing to us all. It is a holy tree. Inanna, tell him to stop.”
“You should go to my husband Dumuzi about it,” I said, “when he is back from Eridu.”
* * *
I watched Gilgamesh work for a while, the sweat running off him.
He turned and said, “This is going to take a long time. And it’s going to be dangerous, when it comes down. It could take down the wall.”
“I would like to watch anyway.”
As he cut his way steadily into the tree, I looked around me at the priestesses, and I wondered at how it was that, since that first bite of the axe, they had had no power over me.
Gilgamesh took a break from chopping, and after he had emptied his waterskin, he said: “You know, in some temples, even here, the goddess decides who will do the rite, if there is no husband there to serve her. They don’t all bother with a lottery.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “There is no reason to do a lottery; it is only custom, not law. And there are other ways of doing things. In some temples here, the priestess stands in for the goddess, and in others the goddess does the work, but she picks a different man each time, according to what is right for the world.”
“What a lot of different men I will need to find, if I change the custom here,” I said.
“Different men, one man, they do it differently everywhere. You must choose your own path.”
Lilith was sitting on the ground, in mess of leaves and branches.
“It may not mean anything at all to you, Gilgamesh,” she said, “but in this temple the lottery has always been the rule. So that any man or woman may be lifted up by the gods.”
“Don’t you talk to me about gods,” he said, looking very angry for a moment. He smoothed his face. “Anyway, it is now up to this goddess, Lilith.”
“Your mother will be angry,” Lilith said, her eyes upon her lap.
“There will be no lottery,” I said. “I will choose the man. This time, Gilgamesh, you will do well enough. You will serve this goddess in the next rites.”
I said it boldly, but then dropped my eyes, because I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. When I looked up again, Gilgamesh was looking down at his axe, and frowning, and I thought for a moment that he was going to refuse me. But he nodded and said: “Very well, goddess.”
Eight.
* * *
The marriage rite is laid down in the tablets and upon the wall of every temple, and must be adhered to very closely if the ceremony is to have its power.
There must be a god and a goddess, or a legal stand-in for each. First the god must kiss and lick the vulva of the goddess, in a certain way and for the proper amount of time, and then he must kiss and stroke her hands and feet, her sides and back, her buttocks and the backs of her legs, in the order that is laid down. Then they must lie entwined, as one, while the hymns are sung. The congregation sing along to all of the familiar old words: he is the honey that feeds her womb; he is the holy tree; she is the field that must be ploughed and then watered.
After this the god lies upon the goddess, then she must climb on top of him and move until she has had her pleasure, and then they must lie side by side, entwined once again. Only then can he release his seed into the goddess, so that all may be right in the world.
I should have shouted and screamed, as I always had with Dumuzi, to show that there was no difference between these men who served me.
But with Gilgamesh I found myself silent.
Nine.
* * *
We met once in private, in my small room in the palace. That was the tenth time. Gilgamesh had seemed unsure, but I had pushed for it, with a new boldness.
Harga, the captain of my guard, let him in. Gilgamesh and Harga looked hard at each other, just once, as Gilgamesh passed. Whatever Harga was thinking, he said nothing.
When the door was shut, I could not quite believe it, that I had him there, all to myself. But also I felt nervous. What might Gilgamesh want, without the temple carvings to restrain him?
That time, before we lay down, he said: “Inanna, you do not know me. Perhaps you think you do, because you are young, for a god. But you do not know me. Do not be confused by what this is.”
“What is it?”
“This is an affair. You are married to a god, and I am married to a god’s daughter.”
I had not known that. “To Enlil’s daughter?”
“It does not matter who. I am bound. And you are bound. That aside, there is the difference between us that is insurmountable, because I am not an immortal. I am but a mayfly to the everlasting sun that is you. I will be dead so very soon, while you go on living. The sun cannot put all its hope into one mayfly.”
“I can kiss the mayfly, though,” I said. “I can warm it.”
* * *
Afterwards I lay with my head upon his shoulder.
He picked up my left wrist and brought it almost to his nose, so that he could examine my mee closely.
“Why do you only have one mee, when I have seen half gods with armfuls of them?”
“This is the only one I have been given.”
“And what does this one do?”
“An called it the mee of love. But it has never worked.”
“It seems to be working on me,” he said, and lifted his head to kiss it. A moment later there was a frown upon his brow, as if he regretted his own joke.
* * *
On the third morning after my husband had gone, Gilgamesh came to find me in the courtyard at the palace. I could see he had something to tell me, but that my soldiers were standing too close.
“Can you read?” he asked. “I should have asked you before.”
“As well as any priestess.”
“Perhaps one day I will write to you.”
He paused, looking away across the yard, his head down. He looked as if he might say something else, but closed his mouth on the words. “I’d better check on my father,” he said.
Then he was gone.
That was eleven, and eleven was the last time.
* * *
The next morning I learned that the king, Lugalbanda, and all his household, had left in the night, and the entire royal bodyguard with them, two hundred men. Harga, the captain of my bodyguard, was the one to give me this news.
“And the son?”
“Yes, the son too.”
That day I did everything just as I always did. I thought all the time, He will come to my door; he would not really leave without me.
But he did not come.
* * *
My husband returned from Eridu with his sister, Geshtinanna, on his arm. He moved her into his rooms, on the far side of the palace from me. That night she sat with us at dinner, sleek and happy as an otter, and dressed in a robe so fine-spun I could see every hair on her body.
Dumuzi and Geshtinanna did not seem perturbed by the loss of Lugalbanda and his son, or even the soldiers who went north with them.
“You look tired,” Dumuzi said to me. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I hear Lugalbanda’s son ploughed you in the temple,” Geshtinanna said to me, with a hand on Dumuzi’s arm.
“He was very virile,” I said.
“But I hear he’s gone now,” she said. “They say he has a girl in Nippur that he cannot be without. A daughter of Enlil, by a priestess. They say she is the most beautiful woman in Sumer.”
I was about to say something clever, but I found I could not remember what I had been going to say.
Dumuzi smiled a little then. “My father will send new guards to us.”
I softened my face. “Did you see my mother, in Eridu?”
Dumuzi glanced at Geshtinanna before answering.
“No, I didn’t see her, but I’m sure she’s fine. I believe Ninhursag has been to see her. No doubt we will see them all when my father visits us here.”
“I thought you said she was living with Ninhursag?”
“Maybe she was,” he said. “She’s well, Inanna.”
My mind turned back to Gilgamesh.
I had seen him eleven times. But it seemed I might never see him again.
* * *
When I went back to my room that night, I sat on my bed, dressed, unmoving, my hands still in my lap, until the servants came in to light the lamps.
CHAPTER FOUR
NINSHUBAR
In the near-dark before dawn, I crawled up onto a mess of mud and reeds, somewhere along the coast to the west of Eridu. Or was I to the north? For a while I simply lay there, cold, breathing in the dank smell of the vegetation, and listening to the extraordinary rasping-barking noise all round me: almost deafening. Could this cacophony be frogs?
While I’d been in the water, I hadn’t realised how much I was bleeding. Now I could see I was bleeding from so many gashes and scratches that it was hard to work out what was not bleeding. The side of my head, which had been getting better while I was in the dungeon, was now in sharp agony, as if the bone of my skull was pinching inwards. I had thought I was at sea, but when I accidentally swallowed some water, it was sweet. Was I upriver?
Eventually I got up onto my feet on the reeds and mud, keen to see what was beyond the reeds I was surrounded by, but I took one step forwards and fell into deep water again. Whatever scrap of solid land I had been clinging to, I could no longer find.
I thrashed my way out into the open water again, trying to get clear of the reeds, and then bobbed along through patches of clear water as day broke over the marshes. The reeds were all around me and so tall that I could see nothing beyond. Would I die here, treading water, and with no idea which way to go?
Then I saw a sort of beach of mud: praise be to all the fates. To the red moon. To the spirit of the cheetah. Praise be.
I thrashed over, elbowing and kneeing my way up onto the bare mud bank. Then for a while I lay down on my front, head turned to the side, my cheek in the dankest, slipperiest mud. Only breathing. Only resting, to the deafening music of what must be all the frogs that could possibly be alive in the world.
* * *
I woke up and an old woman in black hessian was standing over me, a rope tight round her forehead, a huge bundle of reeds on her back.
“Are you dead?” she said, in Sumerian, but in an accent that I had never heard before. “Are you a ghost?”
“No, I am alive. I think I am alive.”
“Are you a demon?”
“I don’t think so.”
She frowned down at me. “You look like a demon.”
“I’m a human,” I said. “Look at how I’m bleeding. Do demons bleed?”
She pondered that. “Maybe they do.”
“If I am a demon, I am not a threatening demon. I am only injured and in trouble.”
She looked around us, then looked back down at me.
“If you can get up and follow me, I can take you to my house. But if you try to hurt me, or steal from me, I will kill you with this knife.”
She pulled a knife from beneath her wrappings: a lovely flint blade.
“You are safe with me,” I said.
“A demon might say that.”
“Yes, possibly.”
I got up, very stiff, cold as the breeze hit me.
I followed the woman in black through the marshes, as I had once followed Dulma through the slave market.
We had not gone many steps when I saw an old wooden canoe in front of us, pulled up on the mud. The woman heaved her reeds into the bottom of it, and then pushed it onto the water.
“You get in.”
She gestured for me to sit in the floor of the canoe. This I did, very nervous, though. It was a small boat, and it waggled wildly from side to side as I climbed in. I sat with my buttocks on the reeds, and my knees splayed against the sides of the canoe, a hand gripping hard on either side.
The woman was old, but once she had seen me get in, she hopped in very lightly herself, apparently with no fear of tipping us over. She pulled up a long pole that had been tucked down inside the canoe, and, balancing on a little plank, she pushed us off and out into deeper water.
I tried to reposition myself and she turned round and barked at me: “You stay still!”
After that, I stayed still, or as still as a human could while still breathing, and still casting her eyes around a little at the reeds, and grey-flecked water, and the pink-purple sky.
The old woman, meanwhile, seemed to move around very freely as she dug her pole into the water, pushing us along through the endless sea of reeds. I watched her very closely: it is always best to know how to do things.
For a long while she poled along, humming to herself a little; was she humming along with the frogs?
I sat, very uncomfortable, gripping hard, and very aware that I was far too big for this little boat. As I looked down at myself, I noticed for the first time that I still had my star of Nammu hanging around my neck.
We came at last to a strange sort of island. It was like a raft made of reeds, but with an arch-shaped structure on top. As we drew up, I saw that the structure was a simple sort of hut, made of reeds that had been bundled together. The old woman drove her canoe straight into the little island, and hopped off. On all fours, I climbed off. The island sank heavily beneath me, and I would have fallen off backwards, except the woman grabbed my wrist, pulling me forwards hard. Standing, I found that with each step I took, the reeds beneath me sank heavily, causing water to pool my feet.
“Is this a raft?”
“It is my house,” she said. “You are very welcome.”
* * *
I had to stoop down low to get into the hut.
Inside: heavy gloom and smoke. Rugs. A fire burning on the reed floor, between the rugs. At the far end, two round-eyed children, both naked.
“You sit,” the woman said, pointing to the brightest rug.
I sat down upon this rug, looking over at the children, and them looking over at me.
The woman handed me a blanket next, and then leaned out of the doorway and with a quick and professional motion, filled up the kettle over the edge of the raft.
This she put on the fire to boil.
I was watching her and then I thought, I must lie down now, whatever convention demands.
I must have slept. I dreamed of the Potta, and that I was about to set out for him at last.
* * *
It was dusk when I woke. The kettle was boiling, with the woman and the children sitting around it. For a while I felt confused, and out of place. A flea appeared on my hand, directly in my eyeline, and then hopped away.
I saw the woman and children were looking at me. Out of politeness, then, I did not make any fuss about the flea that had been on my hand, or indeed about all the other fleas that now seemed to be hopping all over me.
However, I said to the old woman, perhaps sooner than I might have otherwise: “I must be on my way soon.”
“Where are you going?” She was sitting in a squat, poking at a pot over the fire.
“I’m going north, I think,” I said, “but perhaps I am going south.”
“Eat, then, while you decide.”
I smiled, my scabbed lips cracking. It took a great deal of strength not to start clawing at my body, but I did discreetly brush one flea from my left arm.
At this point the smell of the stew reached me, and overwhelmed me. Whatever it was, it smelled good: meaty and salty. I did not care what was in it: I did not want to know. If it was frogs, I would eat frogs. She saw me looking at it, and scooped some into a small clay bowl. This I took and I ate very quickly with my fingers. I did not even flinch when a flea hopped into my bowl, only scooping it up with the rest of it.
