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The Gods Abandon Cleopatra

Toney Dimos

    “They are at peace now,” said Briseis, whispering to her nephew Jason. Father Markos, the village priest of Karitaina, doused the coffin of Jason’s mother Theodora and baby stepsister Eleni with holy water. Theodora had received her wish to be buried with her dating her 18-month-old daughter in her arms. “She knew she and the baby would leave together,” Briseis would say to Jason, while they sat by an open fire with coffee and fresh lemon cake. Jason, only 16 years of age, had been away at boarding school on the island of Spetses, sent there by his stepfather Michalis.
    “Do you see now?” said Leda, the sister of Michalis in a seething voice, “She was cursed – you never should have married her.” Michalis stoically ignored his sister, watching the casket of his wife and child being covered in earth. Since childhood, Michalis had coveted Theodora. His family were wealthy landowners in Arcadia. Yet, when it came time to marry, Theodora defied her father’s wish to marry Michalis, and, instead desired Jason’s father Adonis, the strapping son of a shepherd. Only after Adonis failed to return from Alexandria, had she relented and remarried to Michalis. During their brief marriage, Leda had bullied Theodora into sending Jason away to Spetses, while suffocating the vitality of her sister-in-law over time.

    When Adonis had said goodbye to Theodora and Jason, he promised he would send them to join him in Alexandria upon establishing himself there. “You are the man of the house now, my son,” said Adonis to Jason, firmly squeezing his son’s left shoulder. He kissed Theodora goodbye, and she whispered to him not to forget the night prior when they had made love furiously.
    Decades earlier, Adonis, as a teenager, had ventured to Virginia to work for a Greek from Asia Minor who had become a tycoon in tobacco. It was the Gilded Age, and Adonis marveled at the success of figures such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt. At night, he would read battered copies of Moby Dick and Whitman to improve his English. Yet, after years in America, Adonis felt nostalgia for Arcadia, and returned to the Peloponnese. He married Theodora, and Jason was born within a year. In time, Adonis became restless again and sought new shores to improve the prospects of his family. He had met a man named Ptolemy during a sojourn in New Orleans whose family from Leros had accumulated significant interests in cotton and grain in Egypt. He had told Adonis to contact him, if he ever decided to venture south across the Mediterranean.
    Upon arriving in Alexandria, Adonis headed directly to the office of Ptolemy. He had saved the calling card he had given him years prior, which listed the address on the Rue Lepsius. Once there, he showed Ptolemy’s clerk the card, who told him to wait. Within a few minutes, Ptolemy appeared, saying “Φιλο μου!”
    Adonis smiled.
    “After all these years since America, you made it to Alexandria.”
    “Indeed, I have,” said Adonis. “I’m looking for work to help bring my family here.”
    “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” he said, glimpsing at the wedding band of Adonis. “Come, I have a place for you to stay and get cleaned up. Tonight, you’ll come to my home and have a feast with my family, and we’ll talk about work later, ενταξη?”
    “Of course, κύριος Ptolemy.”
    “Please, please, call me Ptolemy.
    “Μάλιστα.”
    In the evening, Adonis arrived at the mansion, dressed in a new suit of clothes provided by Ptolemy’s tailor. At the dinner table, sat his new employer at the head with his wife and son at his sides. Adonis sat next to his son across from Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy. For the entirety of the meal, she maintained a haughtily dismissive attitude toward Adonis, refusing to acknowledge his presence. The others at the table noticed her behavior but said nothing. When Ptolemy called for a toast in honor of his daughter who was to marry the son of a prominent family of Greeks in London with ties to the Crown, Adonis raised his glass of Champagne and said “χρονια Πολλά!” Cleopatra, though, ignored his gesture, looking to toast with her mother.
    In time, Cleopatra visited one afternoon the trading office of her father. Adonis, who proved a quick study, was working diligently on a shipment of cotton to Italy. She walked past his desk without acknowledging his presence. Cleopatra and Ptolemy quarreled in his office, although Adonis couldn’t decipher the reason. While her father wasn’t looking, Cleopatra would gaze at Adonis longingly. When Adonis looked up from the ledger and caught her eye, she brusquely turned away with a scowl.
    After kissing her father goodbye, Cleopatra made her way to Adonis. She reached into her purse and left a small package on his desk without acknowledging him. Adonis picked up the parcel trying to determine the contents. He looked over to the office of Ptolemy who was preoccupied with a proposal for a venture with some Greeks in Libya. Adonis considered opening the package from Cleopatra, then deferred it for after work.
    In the afternoon, Adonis nursed a whiskey at a café. A Greek gentleman in a straw hat was alone at a back table sipping cognac and coffee, while reading Gibbon and scribbling notes on Syria and the Seleucids. Upon opening the package from Cleopatra, Adonis found a folded letter inside a hand-stitched volume of poetry. The note read:

    Dear Adonis,
    This volume of poetry is something rare and special written by someone from Alexandria. Please accept it as a gesture of my love for you.

Always,
C

    Stunned at the revelation from Cleopatra, Adonis lit a cigarette and ordered another whiskey. He paged through the volume of verse, unable to entirely focus. He thought of writing to Theodora to assuage his mixed emotions. Instead, he found himself rereading the note from Cleopatra, replaying in his mind all their interactions.
    Despite the gift, Cleopatra continued to treat Adonis with ostensible disdain until one crisp evening in the autumn, when Adonis, after locking the office, following a late night of work, found Cleopatra on street waiting for him. “What do you think of the poetry?” said Cleopatra.
    “They are quite beau-...” said Adonis.
    “Yes, indeed,” she said interrupting him. “So, why are we here?”
    Adonis looked at her perplexed and began to open his mouth, when she cut him off again, saying “What are we doing here?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “That’s all you have to say?”
    “I’m a married man.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “And, you are to marry...”
    “I don’t love him.”
    “But, your fa-...”
    “He is dying.”
    Adonis said nothing.
    “Well?” said Cleopatra.
    “You can still marry...”
    “You idiot!”
    “Why do you insult me all the time?!”
    “Because I love you!”
    “You shouldn’t say something like that. Think of your father, family.”
    “Are you afraid of my father?”
    “I respect him and am grateful for all that he has given me. Soon, I’ll be able to bring my family here to the city.”
    Cleopatra moved closer to him, and whispered seductively, “Is she as young and beautiful as me, Adonis?”
    “If it weren’t for your father, I’d strike you for your words.”
    “And, what if I were to tell him you had?”
    Adonis glared at Cleopatra, as she walked away from him.
    By Christmas, Cleopatra overwhelmed the last vestiges of resistance Adonis could muster. They met secretly for trysts. She relished laying with him in sweat-drenched sheets, as the Islamic call for prayer echoed. As they shared a cigarette post-coital, Cleopatra told him that her fiancé would be coming in a few days to take her to Cairo for the New Year. “He thinks I’m a virgin, Adonis,” she said, “and is expecting to be the first and last man to have me.”
    “What will he do if he believes you are not?”
    “I don’t know,” said Cleopatra, “but if we marry, it won’t be a problem.”
    “I told you, your father...”
    “My father, my father, yes, yes...”
    “He wants you to marry into that family for serious reasons.”
    “Which he will not live to see...”
    “That’s blasphemous.”
    “Are you still afraid?”
    “I will not betray your father.”
    “Haven’t you already, αγάπη μου?”
    Adonis slapped her across the face in response to her impudence.
    Cleopatra took pleasure in his wrath, licking the blood from her lip. “My father will always love you, Adonis,” she said, as he closed the door behind him to the bathroom in their boudoir.
    After midnight on Christmas Eve, Cleopatra sat at her father’s bedside. Her mother and brother were away visiting family in Santorini due to return in the morning. She and Ptolemy chatted over Mastica. He was becoming increasingly feeble in his debilitated state and told her that her husband-to-be would be taking over the business. “Do you think he is capable?” said Cleopatra.
    “More than capable,” said Ptolemy.
    “I think Adonis would be better.”
    “Cleopatra μου, I know that you have fond feelings for him, and he works very hard, but it’s out of the question.”
    “And if I don’t love him?”
    “Who?”
    “The man you want me to marry.”
    “Who do you love?”
    “Adonis.”
    “Adonis?!”
    “Yes, Adonis.”
    “It is out of the question.”
    “Why?”
    “He is married already.”
    “He loves me.”
    “Impossible. The future of your family depends on your marriage, do you understand?”
    “Yes, father, I do,” said Cleopatra, sensing her father would never come to see the matter from her perspective.
    “Please, now, I must rest.”
    “Of course, father,” said Cleopatra.
    Around two in the morning, after the servants had retired to their quarters, Cleopatra returned to her father’s bedroom. She found him in a serene slumber. She watched him sleep for a few moments, gently brushing his hair to the side from his forehead with the back of her hand. Kissing him tenderly on the forehead, she said “Σ’αγαπώ,” before placing a pillow over his nose and mouth. As her father, in his weakened state, struggled to breathe, she applied all the pressure she could muster until the final signs of life had been smothered.
    The next morning Cleopatra feigned horror and sorrow when the maids told her they found her father cold in his bed. That evening Cleopatra wept profusely, as Cassandra held her close to her bosom. “Now, now, my child,” she said to Cleopatra, “you can stop shedding those crocodile tears.” Startled by her mother’s words, she raised her head to look at Cassandra. “I know what you did to your father,” said Cassandra coldly.
    “Wha-...” said Cleopatra, as she felt her mother wrathfully smack her across her face.
    “Don’t dare to deny or lie to me.”
    Cleopatra said nothing, harnessing all her resolve to not retaliate.
    “I know you’ve been seeing Adonis.”
    Cleopatra began to open her mouth, when her mother cut her off saying, “You better get him to marry you.”
    Cassandra brusquely left her daughter alone in the salon to stew in scornful pride.
    A week after the funeral of Ptolemy in a family plot in Leros, Adonis and Cleopatra traveled to Cyprus and were wed in a civil proceeding with Cassandra as the only witness. On the voyage across the Mediterranean back to Alexandria, Adonis stood alone on deck watching the sunset. The momentary sense of serenity he felt was interrupted by Cleopatra. “I thought I might find you here,” she said. Adonis failed to reply, his remained fixed on the horizon to the West.
    “I told you we would be together, didn’t I?”
    He remained silent.
    “Now you are in control of the business. You’ll do things my father could never imagine.”
    “You think?” said Adonis.
    “I know so,” said Cleopatra. “It’s our fate to be together.”
    Adonis turned from the sea and looked his new wife in the eye for a few moments and then said, “God will abandon us for this.”
    “No, Adonis,” said Cleopatra, “the gods are with us.”

    “He was there, I saw him,” said Adonis, looking out the window of the Grand Hôtel in Luxor.
    “Preposterous,” said Cleopatra, “It’s impossible your son could be in Egypt. Where would he get the money for the passage?”
    Adonis looked at her scornfully. “I tell you it’s him – I saw him in Cairo and in Sudan. It’s him.”
    Cleopatra looked away dismissively, as Adonis scanned the horizon. In fact, he wasn’t seeing a mirage, though. Jason had arrived in Egypt as a stowaway on a ship from Hydra. He had been stalking his father and his new bride throughout their honeymoon from Alexandria to Khartoum. She had insisted that they delay taking a honeymoon, until a year had passed since her brother’s demise out of respect. Initially, Adonis felt torn between the family he had abandoned in Arcadia and the love he felt for Cleopatra. In time, though, Arcadia and his life there had become a fleeting memory.
    From a distance, Jason envied the bliss and splendor his father enjoyed with Cleopatra, while he and his mother struggled to merely survive in their village. He never had seen Adonis look at his mother with such tenderness. During their honeymoon on the Nile, Cleopatra, an amateur Egyptologist, worked on a history of the land to rival Gibbon’s Rome. She shared with her new husband perspectives from the Pharaohs, Moses, and Herodotus; through Alexander, the Hellenistic dynasties and the Holy Family fleeing Herod to the martyrdom of St. Mark. Adonis found her insight into the writings of Philo particularly imaginative. Upon returning to Alexandria, she insisted on taking Adonis to the museum holding ancient papyrus strains of text from Homer and Plato as well as works in Hebrew and Arabic recovered from the ruins of the great library of the city.
    On the evening they visited the space, the newlyweds stayed until the museum closed. Afterwards, with a full moon above, they walked together to the Athenaos café. The belly of Cleopatra revealed six months pregnancy. A block before arriving at the café, Jason crossed the street, intercepting them. He pointed a revolver at the head of Adonis. “Please, no!” said Cleopatra, covering her stomach with her left arm, reaching toward Jason with her right hand.
    “Do you know who I am?” said Jason.
    “You’re my son, Jason,” said Adonis, raising both of his hands.
    “No, he’s not,” said Cleopatra. “He’s an imposter!”
    Enraged by her insolence, Jason turned the gun to her, pointing the piece at her stomach. “No, please, my son!” said Adonis. “Don’t!”
    Jason’s eyes began to well with tears, as he cocked the trigger of the piece. He took three long breaths and then looked at his father’s pleasing eyes completely vulnerable to the judgment of his son. He looked back at Cleopatra who gazed into his anguished eyes, daring him ostensibly to pull the trigger. A moment passed between them, and Cleopatra realized he could not. In that instant, Jason turned and ran away, eventually tossing the weapon into the Nile during his escape to Bactria through Aghia Katerina in Sinai, Ethiopia, Somalia, and across the Red Sea to Yemen.

    In the aftermath of their confrontation with Jason, Cleopatra and Adonis left Alexandria for Olympos, Ephesus, and then Samos to put the tumult behind them. They celebrated Holy Week on the island with some of Cleopatra’s extended family. Though rumors persisted about the circumstances of the death of Ptolemy, they embraced her and Adonis, particularly given the imminent arrival of their unborn baby.
    On Easter Sunday, Cleopatra’s water broke at the dinner table. She let out a roar that startled everyone at the table. Cleopatra sensed something was amiss as she went into labor, though she refused to believe it. Smoking a cigarette, Adonis apprehensively paced outside of the room Cleopatra was fighting to give birth. Inside, the doctor and midwife looked at each other ominously when they saw the feet of Cleopatra’s baby appear first from her womb. She continued to wail in agony pushing with all of her being. “What’s wrong?!” she said. “Why isn’t the baby out?!” The doctor gently whispered to her that there were complications with the delivery, and that he must perform a Caesarian to bring her child into the world.
    Once the screams of Cleopatra ceased, Adonis knocked on the door of her room, attempting to enter. The midwife immediately stopped him. “No! No! You mustn’t!” she said.
    “Why? What’s the matter?” said Adonis.
    “You mustn’t, please,” said the midwife, her voice cracking.
    “What’s wrong?!” said Adonis. “Cleopatra! Cleopatra!”
    “No! No! Please!” said the midwife.
    She escorted Adonis to the entrance of the building, explaining to him that the baby, a son, had been stillborn. “What does that mean?” said Adonis. “I want to see my son and wife, please.”
    “You can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “The baby is stillborn.”
    “What is that? No, I want to see them.”
    “Your son is dead. You can’t.”
    “What?”
    “And Cleopatra is very weak and needs rest.”
    “That’s not possible, no,” said Adonis with tears beginning to stream down his cheeks.
    “Please,” said the midwife, “she needs time alone now. Go to the church and pray for her.”
    Adonis looked at the midwife, wiping the tears from his eyes and nodded in agreement. The midwife clenched his arm tenderly, encouraging him to leave. He walked alone toward the church when he came upon a small beach. Adonis stopped and gazed at the waves thrashing against the shore. Transfixed by the violence, he walked slowly into the water until the sea covered him as a final act of contrition.

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