Free The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George Page A

vigilance toward me.)
    So for the next two years, while Father’s exile stretched on and on, we sneaked contentedly around Alexandria, studying the ancient language as contained in the scrolls in our great Library, occasionally having a recital of poetry in Egyptian. We also—extremely daringly, we thought—went into the Jewish Quarter and observed their synagogue, the largest in the world. (Was everything in Alexandria the largest in the world? To me, at the time, it seemed so.) So large was it that a man had to be stationed midway down the auditorium to signal with a flag what part of the ceremony was taking place, as those worshipers in the back were too far away to see or hear.
    Alexandria had a very sizable Jewish population; some said there were more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem. That always puzzled me, since their great leader Moses had led them out of Egypt long ago, and they were ecstatic to be delivered. Why had they wished to return? In the Greek translation of their holy book—written here in Alexandria—it said that their god had forbidden them to return to Egypt. Why did they disobey?
    We went fishing in the papyrus marshes of Mareotis, the great lake that extended all along the back of Alexandria and then many miles to the west. Another time we got permission to visit one of the lesser embalming shops that clustered like flies outside the western walls of the city, near the tombs. Although Egyptians no longer had the elaborate monuments of former days, people who could afford it still preferred to be embalmed. Greeks had traditionally been cremated, but here in Alexandria these customs, like so many others, mixed, and many Greeks sought the embalming table of Anubis. The shops were busy, and on the day we went, the jolly proprietor had three mortal remains to make ready for the journey to the west.
    “It should properly take seventy days,” he told us. “Forty for the natron-drying, and then there is the wrapping, and—but now we have a quicker service. Everyone is in such a hurry now. Especially the Greeks. The pace of Alexandria extends even to her dead.”
    He showed us the various styles of coffins; many were covered with hieroglyphics, and I was proud that I could read much of it.
    Oh, we did many other things—we collected perfumes and unguents, which Alexandria exported. There was Balm of Gilead, crushed and incorporated into a jelly; a perfume from Mendes called “The Egyptian” that had balanos oil, myrrh, resin, and cassia; one called “Metopion” that had oil of bitter almonds scented with cardamom, sweet rushes from the sea of Gennesareth, and galbanum. Oil of lilies was strong, and combined with other oils and fats to make a popular ointment. We tried to make our own by melting fat and adding crushed roses and a few drops of lotus dew, but it did not smell very strong. The perfumers of Egypt have no equal in the world, and they guarded their secrets well. No shop admitted us to look on as they worked.
    All these preliminary activities were leading up to what we really hoped to do: visit the pyramids. They were situated not far from Memphis, where all the branches of the Nile come together and the Delta ends. It was a long journey from Alexandria, some hundred Roman miles down the Canopic branch of the Nile. We should have asked permission, and notified someone. We knew that, even at the time. But such is the nature of children longing for adventure that they would rather die than invoke the safety and protection of an adult. And it gave me such pleasure, for once, to give them the slip.
    Of course it was necessary to have an adult along, and Mardian’s uncle Nebamun, a low-ranking chamberlain at court, reluctantly agreed to take us, but only because he wished to return to Memphis himself and see his relatives.
    We told our attendants that we were to be going away, on a safe, quiet visit to see the Nile as it began its flooding. Living in Alexandria, we were not on the Nile