Part 8
That night, I dreamed of gaping fish that carried coral fans: our sail became a net that filled with fish of reddish hue, then sank, to be towed to sea: all night a gentle sea rocked us, the dipper above our rocky shore.
In the morning, while the bay lay limpid, before I could finish eating, our men dove and chopped. As I lazed, birds spiraling, someone hollered and floundered toward our boat and I rushed to the side to see a sailor with a green cup, treading water, offering me his prize.
So the men had not been excited for nothing.
Phaon was as pleased as his men. Hunkered on the deck beside me, he nicked the green of the cup’s rim and uncovered gold, the gold gleaming. I’ll remember his hands as he passed the cup to me.
Who made it, how old is it, how long was it below? we asked each other, as I held the cup, our deck swaying.
The crew’s crazy conjectures and laughter went on, as they went on diving.
It was hard for them to give up and sail for home: stars pegged our rigging and flipped over glassy combers: fish leaped: we watched as great white crests rose: we slept and woke, our deck slanting, boom groaning.
Phaon woke and we talked, of our separation and reunion.
“You will be gone a long time!”
“Perhaps my trip won’t be so long.”
“Let’s come back to the old wreck.”
“Will you dive?”
“I tried...”
We whispered and saw the dawn, a dawn that had streamers of rain splotching the horizon, pelicans one after the other in long files, our island in the offing, quite black.
I was sleepless most of the night, getting out of bed, restless because of the warmth, standing by my window, waiting for a breeze, the stars out, Mercury but no moon, the stars and the crickets and a nightingale and the sea, and someone, somewhere in the house, moving, then silence. I was thinking of him, wanting him, and I began a poem, changed it, rephrased it, thinking, my body needing his body:
Slick with slime to satiety he shoots forward
playing such music upon those strings,
wearing a phallus of leather,
such a thing as this enviously,
twirls, quivering masterfully,
and has for odor the hollow mysteries,
orgies for leaving, orgies for coming;
the oracle comes, comes with companions,
comes with mysteries, lover of mine,
displays this randy madness I joyfully proclaim.
I started the poem once more...such a thing as this enviously, that’s suitable... twirls, quivering masterfully...hollow mysteries...there are good things...
Dawn came and there were the sounds of pigeons, gulls, servants coming and going, girls whispering...the laughter of girls.
The bay lay almost black and Phaon’s ship was quiet, its mahogany rails shining, someone leaning over, utterly motionless. I looked about for a moving bird or a boat. Huddled on the wharf near me, a man slept, toothless mouth open, nets over his legs and thighs. A similar mesh covered the water, as far as I could see.
Wanting to say good-bye, I stood to one side beside Atthis and Gyrinno, chilled, afraid. The slow unwrapping of the clouds irked me: a number of men arrived and carried bundles aboard, their motions slow, their laughter irritating. Was man always oblivious?
Then, from at sea, voices came, shifting uneasily, an oar creaking between unintelligible words, a dog whining, a girl coughing. Loneliness filtered from the sky and depths.
The man still leaned over the rail...
“Off with the ropes.”
“Everyone’s aboard.”
“Let’s sail.”
It was Phaon’s voice: “let’s sail”: and he called to me, called to all of us: I heard Libus and Alcaeus: I heard the oars: as the ship headed seaward, Atthis hugged me and my loss was in that receding figure at the stern, sail climbing the mast behind him: had I shouted good-bye?
Bitterness struck me: again I knew I had no right to such a mood. Better to have a fling at Charaxos, there on the wharf, in his white clothes, sullen, bellicose, his friends snubbing me as we walked past.
Home seemed meaningless.
Had Alcaeus felt this way, on his return?
I knew he had and knew he had had ample reason and threw back my head, as I opened my door, and walked to my room alone, determined to think clearly: but it was no more than a resolve and the loneliness of those sea voices came and that voice, saying: “Let’s sail.”
My ocean window called me.
Was that his ship, that mere dot, that point of wood under banks of cloud?
I couldn’t keep back my tears: what was it, his spirit, his dignity, his thoroughbred body? No, it was the conjunction of these and the very thought, this summary, increased my sense of loss. He was warmth, impulse, reason for living. Words! And he was more than words!
By now the dot had disappeared and against the clouds, birds wheeled and drifted and scattered raindrops fell, scenting the air. I went out and let them wet my face and take away the sting and then closed the shutters of my room and lay down.
Rain has such music.
I let it lull me to sleep, sleep, in the morning, warm, in my bed, a day or a year...sleep...was it from the depth of the sea?
That night a storm engulfed us, ransacking our trees, banging our shutters, moaning over the roof until Atthis got into bed with me, thoroughly scared.
“Don’t be afraid, darling.”
“I am...I am...Aren’t you?”
“No...maybe a little.”
“What about Phaon?”
“He’s far at sea by this time.”
“But isn’t that bad, to be far at sea?”
“I don’t know...hush.”
I resented her pliant body and scented arms and hair: yes, at sea, Phaon must be battling gigantic combers: his cargo might shift...his sail might... When Atthis hugged me, I felt stifled and yet, as she quieted and the storm continued, I was grateful I could comfort her. If I could not have Phaon, I, at least, had someone who loved and needed me.
Rain and wind knocked open the shutters and I rose and closed them and dried my feet and got into bed again.
Floor tiles had chilled me.
Rain cuffed roof and sides of the house... I heard the surf growing wilder, sloshing over rocks, climbing the lower cliffs, rising and falling onto itself with a hiss.
I straightened my hair on my pillow, knowing I had hours to wait: I said, you’ve seen a lot of storms, sleep. Your island isn’t in danger. But, nothing could keep me from thinking of his boat and its struggle. I named off members of his crew. I named their families.
Phaon’s cousin was with him—a wretched re-initiation, after those hideous days on the raft.
I heard Anaktoria and Gyrinno talking in the next room.
I thought of the madman, living with Alcaeus, walking about with him: I’ll make something of him, Alcaeus had said to me, the face revealing that his madness had not left him.
Joy and exaltation are the triumphs...
today is the imminence...
even shadows have their fire...
the stars burn...
O, sea rover, fight...
The storm split roofs and hurled boats ashore, uprooting trees, damaging walls.
Slowly, the old town pulls itself together.
Old town—you have seen many storms during your centuries. Is it true, you let this one slip past you and sent it to sea? You should have kept it! You can withstand battering better than a small ship! Is it true, what the fishermen say, that many were drowned?
Men and boys go about town, picking up tiles to load their baskets.
Driftwood clutters the beach.
Men were hurling stones, grabbing them off the beach and throwing them. I heard them hit Pittakos and saw him stagger, his flapping rags jerking, his arm flung over his eyes. Silent, feet wide apart, he stayed his ground.
Alcaeus, facing the sea, lidless-eyed, roared and lunged about, arms extended, yelling:
“Kill him...kill him...let me wring his neck!”
Beside him, the madman off the raft, howled and hurled stones.
About a dozen men were circling Pittakos, most of them blabbing defiance, closing in.
I rushed to Alcaeus and squeezed past him, to cry out... I told them to stop, asking them to stop in the name of our island, our town.
“Get back,” Alcaeus warned.
I faced them, feeling their hate: it bubbled through me, seemed to ooze from the sand, from the sea, from antiquity: the hates of my ancestors, hatred of tyranny and unfairness.
No one threw: they watched me, as I walked toward Pittakos: maybe they thought I had a stone.
“You get back,” I cried. “Go home, before they kill you, Pittakos. Get back everyone...go home.”
Nervously folding and unfolding his robe, Pittakos backed away. A hand went to a spot where a stone must have struck. I felt no pity but stepped closer.
“I don’t know what caused these men to turn on you... I don’t want to know...go home, before it’s too late.”
Without replying, he shuffled away, a sandal off.
“Is he going?” asked Alcaeus, finding me, hand on my shoulder.
“Let him go,” I said, facing the others.
Grasping Alcaeus, I forced him to walk with me, muttering to him, seeing Thasos, dropping his stones with a guilty grin.
I wanted to forget the faces but I knew most of the men: young, bearded faces, most of them friends of Alcaeus, some of them his soldiers.
“Don’t lead me,” Alcaeus protested.
“You need to be led.”
“You came at the wrong time.”
“What’s to become of you?”
“Let me go,” he said.
“I’ll see you home. Here, Thasos, take his arm. Thasos, were you mad?”
“We should have stoned him.”
“Why?”
“He quarreled with Alcaeus—spat on him.”
Alcaeus leaned on me and I sensed his weariness as if it were mine: he was breathing hard and had to rest, stopping again and again. Behind us, his madman wandered, his Pamphilus.
“I’m too old for this kind of horseplay, it seems.”
Thasos and I were saddened by his tragic features; we frowned; minute wrinkles had enlarged and deepened; his hands trembled; his mouth was open. He seemed in the past, with his men, galled, waiting: What is memory for, I asked myself, to crucify? Shut off from the day, is this the best memory can do?
When I sat with him at home, I said:
“What was the quarrel about?”
“First, some water.”
Thasos brought us water. The cool of his gourd helped.
“Pittakos has stolen from the city...again...I came at him with the facts...I know the truth...many of us know.”
We remained silent a while, my hand in his.
“It’s an old truth—for us,” I said.
“Very old,” he said.
Presently, the madman entered, carrying himself stiffly, chalk faced, chastised. Oblivious of us, appearing more normal than any time I had seen him, he talked with Thasos, regretting the incident.
Soft-talking men, inside an inner room, brought home to me the. innocence of our own lives, how based on impulse, how like kelp, twisting, sinking, headed for shore, dragged to sea: we are mad, we are sane, or between: we exert ourselves and the world seeks revenge; we accept and earn ridicule and belittlement: we affirm ourselves and alter our lives and the lives of others: war is such an affirmation.
Innocence? Why not call all life innocent because dependability can not be assured. And, if life is innocent, then what is there but compassion and patience and kindness and beauty and love?
“It would have been better if they had killed him,” Alcaeus said, rubbing his hands over his face.
I said nothing.
“I could have him murdered,” he said.
“Alcaeus...wait...”
“Wait? How much longer must we wait?”
“He’s old.”
“Are we children?”
“He knows what’s happening.”
“No—not even yet.”
“That couldn’t be.”
I saw Pittakos by the sea, spray dampening his clothes, his mouth to the gulls: I saw him, hand over eyes, legs spread; I heard stones hitting him... I could take no more and saying good-bye to Alcaeus, I walked home, eager to be alone, for now the town seemed withdrawn, callous, incomplete, a failure. I touched a hollow in a wall and picked a leaf and, where a street opened on the bay, looked and looked: the sea’s salty taste acted as a philter and years of contentment and ease surged about me, trying to reinstate themselves: my girls met me and we went home together, sharing our innocence.
Just the other day, I dreamed of Serfo’s place, his fabrics around me, things from Assyria, Egypt and Persia. Some of the cloth blew against me, light as a Sudanese veil. Atthis had a length of it in her hands, a twisted flowered piece yards long.
“I’ll make ribbons for your hair,” she said.
Alone, I sank into patterns, colors and textures. Something brushed my cheek, a winged bull in gold on blue cotton... I saw an imperial snake in green on white silk, a mighty roc in black on grey wool... I heard friends asking prices, Anaktoria, Libus.
I heard mother say:
“This is the best, this one, darling, with temples and shields on it, this blue, soft blue! Don’t you love it? Here, take it in your hands, press it to your face.”
I saw ships and listened to their keels...sailors unloading bales...wasn’t that a remnant on the water?
A suffusion of light envelopes the Venus de Milo,
revealing the contours and texture of her hair,
face, breasts, belly, and drapery.
Voices sing Homeric hymns.
A woman, as lovely as the Milo,
disappears in the golden light
beneath the Mediterranean.
Villa Mytilene
W
as it three years ago I met Atthis—five years ago Anaktoria? Was that another dream? I am not sure.
Awake, I thought about my girls and now much they love me and make my house a house of grace. I must have beauty: I must have peace: and they are peace and beauty. I recalled how and when I had met each and loved each one for her special qualities. Each had a place in my heart, gold on cotton, green on white...the sea was at each meeting and at each good-bye... I count my years but the sea has no calendar.
Sometimes I feel the sea thinks for us, its pensiveness communicates at dawn, its meditation at night, its probity sifting through the day. A stormy emotion—the sea. A period of tranquility—the sea. Fickleness— the sea. I could not be happy without its communication. For all its pervasiveness it seems on the verge of a secret: looking down through the waves I sense it, I sense it at night, when phosphorescence steals shoreward or when rain obliterates and there is no visible ocean, then, still, still it communes, insinuating mystery, legends from caves, legends stronger than any coral, barracuda and stingrays roiled under, sinking farther and farther.
As we eat, in the dining room, Atthis prattles about her new parrot, mimicking it.
Her glances, charming, rounded, sensual, inconclusive, ask for love.
Her mimicry, spoken somewhat under her breath, takes in the townspeople, theatre folk, the Athenian star, Alcaeus, Gogu, the girls. But, because it is kindly and feminine, the fun carries far.
Her eyebrows have grown to meet over her nose and the fuzzy little bridge gives her added years. Her breasts are larger, shoulders fuller. She could be a priestess: the face solemn, the lips pert; then laughter ruins everything and she is simply girl, joyous life, asking for love.
Dressed in thin summer best, she pokes her neighbor with her sharp sandal and before I can say a word a scrap follows.
As I went downstairs, I put my hand between the lion’s jaws, stubby, mossy stone, oldest part of the house. Lingering, I watched leaves puff down the steps. By the fountain, I absorbed water shadows, warmth around me, an insect swimming toward a spot of sun.
A village girl brought me a bouquet of white roses, saying:
“You must let me join your hetaerae.”
She wore a twisted blue wool skirt, of darkest color, and no blouse. Standing erect, she offered her flowers and then spun around and fled: I could scarcely take in the clean-cut features, pointed chin, red mouth and new breasts.
I can’t imagine who she is or where she lives but I must find her.
My working hours are longer and as I review my work I find it good: that is a sign of maturity: maturity is the seal I strive for and yet as I work I fear a loss of spirit: maturity is seldom daring and to be daring is to open doors: maturity, then, is balance: is it also the decorum people accuse me of? Parasol, tilted at just the proper angle? Mask, worn at the right moments? As I came home yesterday from the play, I remembered a winking mask, rather like one in my room: was that derision?
I saw a young man on the street who startled me. Though he didn’t glance at me, I thought I had seen him in Samnos: ax beard and sullen mouth were the same; he had the same slouch, the same filthy clothes. Watching him, I recalled that Samnian fellow, his pleas and questions:
“...tell nobody I’m here...but I want to know about home...tell me the news! You see I’ve been here for three years...to escape the war...there are three of us...we came here on a raft...tell us...”
The frenzied talk was vivid as this derelict walked down our street.
In Samnos, I had sympathized with my countryman for his voluntary exile was no easier than an enforced exile: I drew him out and later met his friends, all hungry for news, all in rags, living from hand to mouth, scared. It was their fear that worried me and I urged them to make friends and forget the past, to marry and begin life in Samnos. I arranged contacts for them...
But, was this one of them sneaking along, hoping for luck? Pittakos, the wise, the clement, would have him lashed to death by nightfall, if someone discovered him. My pledge of secrecy is a pledge I’ll keep. As I sailed home from Samnos, I thought of these men and was proud of their folly.
Roses are in bloom on the hills and violets are in flower around my house. Kleis will be married soon, so I am doing things wrong. I try to tell myself this is her happiest time and struggle to write a poem for her wedding. Her natural gaiety is infectious and yet, and yet...
We will have quite a ceremony, Libus, Alcaeus, Gogu, Nanno, Helen, my girls, sailors, half the town, Pittakos and rogues...Rhodopis and Charaxos...no, harshness is not in keeping with a wedding.
I can hear the male chorus.
I hear the surf...
Below us, the ocean eats at its rocks, above us lie the hills, around us stir the branches of the olives.
Peace: sacred grove, we dedicate these two: give them luck: a light will fall: the chorus will resume: a wreath will be hung.
Shall I play my harp?
Who is the god of illusion? Love? How is he to be kept alive through many years and many disappointments?
I shall try to help. Song has that gift, a gift nothing else has: to give the lost or hold it in suspension.
I feel utterly ridiculous, the greatest hypocrite: that is how it seems as I urge Alcaeus to curb his resentment for Pittakos.
I have tried reason but it isn’t reason that moves Alcaeus. When he feels my sympathy, he listens: if he conceives of us as he used to be, his hatred subsides. Let him feel alone, he thunders, bends toward me, drags his fingers through his beard and sputters:
“To hear you talk, I’d think you were never mistreated by this man!”
“But you know better.”
“You’re a traitor to yourself!”
“That’s not true. You want to have him killed and I say we lose through violence. I’m no traitor to myself—or you. You can be traitor to justice.”
“Let’s not say anything about justice, when we’re fighting tyranny.”
I recalled days with Aesop and said:
“I wish he was here, to advise us or hear our problems. I think I know what he’d say.”
“What?”
“There’s a way out of slavery... I didn’t kill my master.”
Slavery—there are all kinds.
It is a kind of slavery to long for Phaon and another kind to remember Aesop and another to hope. Perhaps Aesop would rebuke such thinking and say: Slavery is not in ourselves but in the misused power of others. Surely that is the commoner kind but I find slavery in myself and my girls and my island and my books.
Well, here is a story Phaon told me:
“Years ago, a slave broke into a temple on a deserted island and found lamps burning. On a rug lay a naked man, asleep. He’d been lying there for centuries, guarded by someone, the lamps filled and the wicks new.
“The King of Freedom, were the words on a shield beside him. His yellow hair streamed across the rug. Above him, a mask, fastened on the wall, spoke:
“ ‘Shut the temple...let the lamps burn...make no noise...take a hair from his head...go.’
“The slave shut the temple, carefully.
“Years later, in prison, he bent over to examine the golden hair he had kept and it burst into flame and became a torch which he used to light his way to freedom.”
His flames and heat are fuel
For seaman’s muscles, his sea eyes,
Devil of laughter and devil moods,
His sinking-rising delicacy.
The initial union is relief
Of olives and cypress, breasts, birds,
Stinging and perspiration’s siege,
Roots climbing out of centuries.
Beauty, the wedding is over and I am alone with my lighted lamps and moonlight across the sea, night’s indifference.
Beauty, Kleis was happy...many of us were happy.
After the ceremony, Pittakos approached me, shuffling, dressed as I had never seen him dressed, in fine white clothes. His hate was gone, that was something I saw at once: I was seeing another man. Speaking guardedly, hands folding and unfolding his robe, he said:
“...They would have stoned me. What can I say...to make amends? You stopped them from killing me... You...you helped me...”
I grew confused. Remembering Alcaeus’ threat, my hatred surged and I thought: Can he expect me to rub out the past because of an accident on my part? Can he ask such a thing?
Do you think that I have changed—that I went out of my way to save you?
My own harshness pained me. I had seen him at a distance, during the ceremony, and had resented his presence; as I played my harp and sang he remained near, boggling his head.
Our sacred grove, filled with people, trees streaked with fog, was still in my mind. I could see Kleis smiling and hear the wedding chorus, the flutists, the barking dogs, the cries of gulls.
Glancing overhead, I noticed them, passing, gliding, saying with their grace things I tried to say in my writing.
Pittakos turned away.
I could not say a word but stepped forward.
“...Pittakos.”
He regarded me doubtfully.
“Yes.”
Then I started to walk away.
“What can I say? I’m old... I can’t erase errors. Sappho, I... Last night I stayed up all night...it was more than thinking: I looked at the past. I’ve been mistaken. Though we’ve lived here, in this town, we know only lies about each other...”
Shuffling, he made off.
All were there in the grove: Alcaeus, baffled; Libus, pale and aloof; Anaktoria, gay; Atthis, dreaming; Kleis, my herder... We ate together, drank, sang... The sun drank the fog and sunset ribboned the ocean.
I shall remember goats wandering through our grove, tinkling their bells...the mask-maker carrying my harp for me...trying to sing in toothless ecstasy...I shall remember the altar fire and wreaths of flowers, their incense and coloring... remember, too, the farewell of my pair, their backs and shoulders as they headed for their house on the headland, a small place among figs and tall white poppies, their world—not mine. I must remember it is their world. When Kleis flings her arms around me I will rejoice. At the same time, I must accept the fact that their marriage is their particular freedom.
May it be a satisfying freedom.
Mother’s lamp, as I write, is nearly empty: she would have liked the wedding ceremony, the chorus singing my poem: terra-cotta lamp, do you remember her wedding? Did you burn for her ecstasy or were you snuffed out before the groom carried her to bed?
It wasn’t long ago I was married: how I walked, my head high, the embodiment of innocence and grace: I thought life would be easy!
The wind puffs through my room.
The ocean whispers.
Charaxos and Rhodopis attended the wedding, staying apart with a group of their friends, no one dressed for the occasion. Since the man who had forcibly made love to her was there, I was disconcerted. I was ashamed. My face burned. What could I do? Would they interfere? But they seemed preoccupied, merely onlookers, most of them young men and women.