Ishtar Read online

  At Ishtar’s main temple, there was a brick altar in front of her statue. Sometimes she sat there observing, unmoving. Leading to this room there was a long hall, lined with rooms for the Sangaresses. The temple was made of mud brick, dusty inside, but cool when it needed to be. Mosaics covered the walls and roof. Women made this art, painstakingly cracking the tiles, sticking them together. I watched them as my work dried and it was remarkable to see; none of us washerwomen believed it could form a picture. But it did: Ishtar, naked at the gates of the Underworld.

  Music and singing filled the temple, so there always seemed to be happiness, regardless of the reality. There were eunuchs, serving Ishtar as well as any priestesses could. And there were virgin worshippers, ready to serve. There was some opposition to this from those who didn’t worship Ishtar. Those who disliked Ishtar’s temples said, “You damage your city because you damage the family. You are neither stable nor predictable.”

  There is an Akkadian proverb which says, “The one who does not support a wife, who does not support a son, is a dishonest person who does not support himself.” The family was holy and we in Ishtar’s service were considered by some to be against that. Families looked after their own. A settled family caused less trouble. So the preservation of the family was vital to a society and took precedence over individual needs. Wise King Shulgi knew this.

  But all roads led to the temple area. Ishtar, or at least, the cult around her, was at its most powerful. In homes, housewives built their own shrines, and I believe their husbands did not complain. Any wife who loved Ishtar loved to lie with her husband as well.

  An adulterous wife once lingered in Ishtar’s temple much longer than she needed to. Yes, she came to take a man, as all married women must do for their marriage to hold, but this woman did not want to leave. By law, her husband could choose her punishment, up to and including death.

  Her husband loved her so much that the punishment he chose was for her to spend a year in Ishtar’s temple before returning to him. He knew that this would be pleasant for her, that it was no punishment at all. He took pleasure from it himself, and I told him details, things which made him sweat and brought the breath fast in his lungs. I told him that his wife said to every man, “Come, cross my bed post. Climb into my bed.”

  He loved to hear such details.

  Ishtar’s advisors told her to banish these women, who loved the physical nature of Ishtar’s temple too much. Before she did so, Ishtar took the time to understand the women. She sat with them as they laughed at their husbands’ lack of virility. “No beard below,” they said.

  “What of the men who visit them?” I asked about the banished women. “These women did not make love to ghosts.”

  “They can’t help themselves. They are men.”

  I knew she had not loved since the passing of Sargon and the death, long ago, of her poetess daughter. King Shulgi, so bright in the eyes, so clear in his head, drew her to him, although he didn’t plan this. He didn’t know of her past; he was not religious, nor superstitious.

  Ishtar couldn’t be understood in simple human terms. We knew her a thousand years, my mother, my grandmothers and I, and still I could not predict what she would do. She was always conflicted; did she protect or destroy? She was better than some about allowing the poor people a voice, but still, as washerwomen have believed for many centuries, mankind will fail unless we are given the chance to speak.

  She was so changeable, capricious, in love. What made her love a man also made her hate him. All lovers felt such emotion, but with Ishtar, all things were exaggerated

  Shulgi was not difficult to seduce. Gilgamesh — with his fear, his knowledge of her — took much to bed. But Shulgi spent a lot of time with the sangars because he loved books. In their library they had seventy-two volumes called The Illumination of Bel. They had geographical lists and maps of the known world, they had catalogues of animals, plants and minerals; they had calendars and grammatical works and books of words and training books for the scribes.

  But Ishtar distracted him. For all his wisdom, he was as shallow as any man in the things which attracted him; he began building a tower at the age of ten, thinking this would earn him a place eternally in the minds of men.

  Ishtar darkened below her eyes with guhlu, made from burnt camphor, and wore a pendant of carnelian which hung between her breasts. She reddened her nipples simply by touching them. Her pubic hair was lush, her genitals swollen. These things a man could not resist.

  He was wise enough still to see that in marriage she would give him strength and power. He said he had a divine right to rule, given to him by Sin, god of justice and truth. He did not know this was Ishtar’s father. But he knew that the goddess of war and love would help him to become great.

  He made a simple promise in the ceremony. “To cover her with cloth and hat.” We laughed, the other servants and I, because Shulgi made the vow surrounded by his vast wealth.

  We did not laugh too hard, though, because Shulgi was a good man. He laid roads between his cities and he always protected the interests of the downtrodden. He straightened the highways, enlarged the footpaths. Travel was vital to trade and communications, he said. The easier the travelling, the better the trade.

  It opened up the land for expansion, made it easier for people to return home for visits. He built rest-houses for travellers, pleasant places where experienced minds could meet and solve problems.

  He dreamt of the Silk Road and other great lands. He dreamt of a land far beyond Kemet, the land of the backwards river. He didn’t like to sit still, he liked to travel. It was not the journey; it was the destination.

  He put the destitute to good use. Doing jobs others didn’t want, like handling the dead. He’d been building a tower since he was ten, one he hoped could keep the whole population safe in case of danger. Solid and high, it was. For many years they built, and for many years people thought this was Shulgi’s folly. Who would live in such a tower, reaching for the sun?

  Ishtar found him fair and his interpretation of the law open and intelligent. He was not war-like, and when he smiled at her it was because he was amused or happy.

  He began the process of writing down the law. Ishtar could not see this, but I knew it: writing down the law was another reason why she weakened. More laws meant fewer wars. Fewer people praying to her for help. He said his laws were approved by Sin. I thought that Ishtar was jealous of her father, of the respect he gave him. But Shulgi adored Ishtar and would listen to her, every word she said, foolish or otherwise.

  “He is so wise,” she sighed to me. She slept more often these days, and sometimes only got out of bed because I wanted to wash her sheets. “You didn’t know Tammuz, but your ancestress loved him, washerwoman. I thought he was a wise man but how we learn! Now I know Shulgi and I see that nobody before him had his wisdom.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I remember when I was the wise one. I made the good choices.”

  He was not always kind, though, when his dignity was offended. The men who broke treaty with Shulgi were cursed. “As the mongoose hates the snake, so shall your wife hate you.” The curse brought infertility, locusts, man-eating lions.

  Treaties were respected after that. This held us all well when the storm came.

  It was so dry in the year before the rain that people arrived to beg with their eyelids open, too dry to close them. First we had to give them water, let their bodies absorb it, before any words could be spoken.

  “If only there would be rain,” people said.

  “The storm is coming,” the seers said. “Then you will beg for the rain to stop.”

  We had known since the last storm, a thousand years ago, that another was coming. There were people who watched the sky every day for signs. Some children were paid in sugar to watch the reed marsh for turtles. It was said that if a turtle left the marsh for the river, the reed marsh will dry up. If the river dried, that was a sign of a great storm to come.

  Shulgi had his builder
s work to make the city walls unshakeable. He talked of the weather which weakened Akkad, drought and dry storms. He talked of the coming flood, had talked of it since he was a child. He had them pile rocks and sand around his tower, strengthening it. There was no time for rest.

  I asked Ishtar, “Can you call on your army? Or are they only for times of war?” She had shown me her stillborn army, safe now in the caves of a mountain three berus journey away.

  “Only for war. And for me,” she said.

  He knew what work lay ahead of him and his people, not just preparation for the flood, but for the time we knew would come after, the long years of ubbulu, the drying of the field. Mud and debris would keep the grains from growing and make life uncomfortable for us all.

  All cooperation was needed to build the city higher: “A place for those who contribute and their wives and children.”

  Though the wives and children helped too, gathering the materials, cooking the food. The washerwomen had less to do because people did not change their clothing very often. They fell instantly into exhausted sleep, woke, two, three hours later and rose in their clothes to go back to work.

  Ishtar stood with her face tilted to the sky, her eyes closed. She sniffed, her nostrils flaring as they usually did when she was angry. “Can you smell it? The sky should not smell like that. Smells like the storm a thousand years ago. Zu stole the tablets of destiny then; perhaps I can steal them back if I can find them.”

  When we saw bright, shining light flying through the sky, we knew it was almost time.

  When the Black Wind came, I felt as if my nightmare walked with me. The storm raised black dust and it blocked the sun, the clouds, the sky. All was dark. The animals, confused, slept. They ceased production in their daze. How were they to know the time of day? To know when to eat or sleep?

  Ahead of the storm, a pack of wolves ran in a great dust-raising mob. Their howls could be heard from half a beru away, and as they ran they snatched up food in their jaws: snakes, small dogs (kalbum), and in the villages, an abandoned baby here and there.

  When people accepted there was a flood coming, there was a great exodus. Many left to set up elsewhere, as if elsewhere would not flood.

  “Abhu. Abhu,” the wagon driver called. He would transport people to high ground for half their earnings. Many were frightened of him. Abhu meant not just travel on earth, but travel to the Underworld. It meant death. The wagon driver liked his passengers frightened. They complained less, he said.

  As the water continued to rise and it became obvious that this flood was different, panic set in. People began calling on Shulgi to make the rain stop. He was no Adad, god of the thundercloud, who could bring rain to a friend, and destructive storms to an enemy. What could Shulgi do?

  Flood water smelt different than other water. It was full of the things it had washed in its path; the houses fallen, the horses drowned, the children. These things flavoured the torrent like soup.

  Initially, children played in it as it rose, laughing at the idea of water where it shouldn’t be, in the school rooms, the tents. But as it rose higher and higher, more were lost. They were lost laughing.

  King Shulgi, wise and fair, let all of us and our families into his high tower. All of us who worked for Ishtar. Some high-born shouted, red-faced at the idea of a washerwoman, a carpenter, and a refuse-taker filling space while the high-born drowned.

  “Who do you imagine will rebuild the city and keep it clean?” Shulgi asked.

  Was there ever a king as wise or fair? If I could sneak into his room dressed as Ishtar, keep her clothes unwashed so I took the smell of her with me, I would. Imagine the child we would grow, Shulgi and I.

  If we survived this storm. It rose above the lower floors of his tower. We could hear it lapping below, a gentle, destructive sound.

  It was the hungry who died first. Those who only had enough for the next meal, perhaps, and once that was gone they scrabbled for the next. The hungry and the poor had no stores. Stores gave you time to rest from thinking about food.

  Shulgi had thought there would be room for all inside his tower, would prefer the tower he began building at ten. None were to be left behind, but the population had grown faster than he could build. He could never keep up. He could not save them all; in fact, he saved very few.

  Ishtar was angry with Enlil, blaming him for the flood. “Is this him again? Last time he did this on a whim, tired of the roar of Man. Has he ever come close and heard the words spoken? It seems a noise from afar, but each voice has merit.”

  My mistress preferred mortals to gods. She said they had more of interest to say.

  When Enlil failed to respond, she called for Zu, the god of storms, but he did not come either. “He is too frightened to face me. He knows that I will take him to the floor and he will shake with desire, and I will take back the tablets of destiny. At least he is not a fool, but he has no courage.”

  Oh, the water. Such endless pounding. It made my head ache. The moistness in the air rotted our clothing and turned the places between our toes green. We were lucky in our tower; we could watch as people drowned, as cattle and sheep drifted past.

  The flood waters around Ishtar boiled. She could boil the Tigris, make beer and wine bubble over, and so she thought she could boil the flood to steam. Instead, she was filled with such a deep inner chill she could do nothing but shiver.

  When the rain finally stopped, they sent out a bird from the top of the tower to find dry land. A wise move by Shulgi. It came back with a twig from one of our ancient trees.

  Shulgi said, “My grandfather sat at this tree and learned our family’s history from his grandfather. It is a very old tree.”

  We knew then that we only had to wait until the water subsided, and we could rebuild our city.

  After the storm, Shulgi spent many days and weeks surveying his land, riding on his chariot. He was enlivened by the flood, and the people loved him.

  On his way out he looked to the left; on the way back he looked to the other side. He was not superstitious but sensible; he liked to make sure he observed both sides well.

  The people liked to see him out this way, amongst them, for him to see the suffering and to perhaps give them aid.

  He saw the land owned by soldiers from past wars. This land he did not worry about. The land he was interested in was that owned by aristocrats, who had used their connections to sangarhood — to the priests — to gain land. These he thought were undeserving.

  Ishtar was not likewise impressed by land ownership. She knew how easily it could be taken away. She could render these wealthy, lying men homeless by sending Shulgi to war with the sangars, stealing their power.

  But Shulgi did not like those who hadn’t earned their land.

  ****

  At fallow fields women wept for Tammuz. Ishtar said, “I am no longer responsible for him. Ten thousand lovers he has had since me. Each one of them can die for him and travel to the Underworld to replace him.”

  After the great storm, people cursed Ishtar for not saving them. They said that Ishtar drowned alone and that her body was found, battered and marked, once the water subsided. I knew better. I was Ishtar’s washerwoman; I knew all.

  Ishtar said to me, “What do they want from me? I am not all. I am only Ishtar.”

  She no longer gave me clothes to wash. She said she did not need me, that she was done for, and all she had to do was sink into the dirt and dissolve. It was the fact that she was almost forgotten, I thought. I adored her and always would, but others no longer cared.

  “You have your army,” I said, knowing that my love alone was worthless. “They need you and will respond to your every move.”

  She nodded at that, but there was a slight twist to her mouth. “Men not even born,” she said. “That is what I am left with for lovers.”

  I washed her clothes nonetheless, made sure she had fresh garments, should she choose to wear them.

  And one morning Ishtar was gone. I was glad
to see she took the clothes; it meant my life was worthwhile, that I had not wasted it. She left behind a jewel for me. She didn’t tell me where she was going.

  Without her, Shulgi sickened. He read too much. He read of a disease and thought he had it, then the next. He lost blood, and his urine contained crystals, and his stools were liquid. The priests did what they could. I did what I could, keeping his clothing clean, making sure disease didn’t pass that way, but to the great grief of the people, Shulgi died.

  Ungoverned, people soon turned to anarchy.

  The land where Akkad sat was taboo for centuries.

  ASHURNASIRPAL: 883 BC

  THE WASHERWOMAN ASHURINA

  The first Sumerian king ruled for twenty-eight thousand years, his son for thirty-six thousand years, but that makes no sense in books. Or in the scrolls or tablets. Time was different until they wrote it down.

  People lived shorter and shorter lives. Once we would have easily seen three hundred. Now we were lucky to live to one hundred. As the number of people grew, we lost our ability to stay alive. Perhaps there were only a certain amount of years to go around and now they had to be shared by many people.

  Is history propaganda or truth? Only Ishtar knows, and she is prone to lying. I know too, but who would ask me? I am nothing more than a washerwoman. Though that is something to be proud of, now more than it once was.

  “What is it like to live forever?” I asked Ishtar.

  “Don’t you know?” She touched my cheek. She would not have touched the washerwomen of long ago, but she was less of a goddess now. Less of everything since she woke from her long sleep in the mountains. Now we were more equal than once we were. “Haven’t you lived with me all these centuries?”

  I wasn’t sure if she really believed this, that she didn’t know me from all those who have gone before me, or if she was playing with me.

  She said, “You get tired. But each life is its own. Each new place is a life, each new friend. As long as you change, you do not get bored.”