Part 9
When they sauntered away, I enjoyed the wedding.
Someone among them, a stranger perhaps, gazed back at me, reminding me of Cercolas.
Cercolas, my mother, Aesop—each summons a series of images. When each one died, I thought: How can I go on? Now my thought is: What has replaced them? Husband, mother, friend... I am forever altered by their absence, emptier, lonelier. I seek them in others and yet never find them.
It matters to me how they died.
I am still troubled that Cercolas died on the battlefield. And it is tragic that Aesop died, beaten by a mob. At least, mother died beside me, comforted as much as human comfort is possible.
Death should not catch us unaware for then it cheats us doubly. Surely, it is hard enough to die without dying in some tragic way. Each of us deserves a last dignity.
Shall I tell Alcaeus that Pittakos came to me after the wedding?
I may never tell him because he will suffer more for knowing. It seems to me telling him could accomplish little. Hard as it is, unfair as it is, I must keep this to myself. Of course, some would disbelieve. And if Pittakos sees fit to remain silent, he and I will be better off. Lives will be less complicated.
Even unmolested, he has not much time ahead. We must be far-sighted and choose a leader...
Homosexual lovers in bed,
making love in the moonlight.
The light falls on their flesh,
faces, hands, legs, their passion:
laughter and soft moans and
the ocean below the villa.
Sappho rises and ponders her body,
stands by a window, facing the Aegean.
I took my lyre and said:
Here, now, my heavenly
Tortoise shell, become
A speaking instrument.
O
ne by one, the poems have fitted into my book, so slowly time seems to have had nothing to do with its completion. Yet, my ninth book is done. When I had finished my sixth, I thought: this is all. When I finished my eighth, I felt I need go no farther. Will there be a tenth? What will make it distinctive?
Phaon lives in this book, insatiability floods everywhere: lyric by lyric, our smoldering hearts reveal our happiness.
When I shared lines with him, he laughed at their frankness, eyes dancing. He remembered some of them, and shot them back at me, to tease.
I have sent selections to Solon: what will he write me? Will their crudeness be too much for him? I think not. He has savored love.
My Egyptians are copying the book—conspirators, no doubt, mumbling lines to each other, shaking heads. I’d like to slip into their shop as they work, to overhear them: would I laugh or recoil? Probably I’d be annoyed. Well, tomorrow I must go to the shop and see how they are doing.
I have not thought of a title.
Villa Poseidon
I sought Anaktoria and together we spent the night.
In spite of her comfort, I could not get to sleep. Her arms around me, she lay motionless.
During the afternoon, we arranged flowers, taking them from the garden. A rainbow appeared over the bay and arm in arm we watched it, its arc faintly reflected on the water. Her myrrh was everywhere, her spirit too: the things she said were right: family traditions are a part of her and she adds just enough fantasy.
For a while, we practiced archery, her shooting more accurate than mine. A lost arrow sent us near the sea. Then games...games...what would life be without games and laughter!
Watch the dice in her fingers!
She’s a magician of tricks and youth, my Anaktoria and, oddly enough, I can never bring it all together; it is too effervescent, too delightful: the moment swells over us: then, another moment, even while we are eating together, growing sleepy together: ours is a gift that has come from our island without men, years of femininity.
Someone sent me the doll Aesop had when he died, his Cretan doll. It came from Adelphi; badly wrapped, I opened it in my library, laid it on my desk, amazed to see it, startled, fingers fumbling. Someone had wanted to be kind, but it wasn’t kindness to send it. What faded colors, what worn cloth, how had the doll gotten this old? It had suffered another kind of death.
With the doll in my arms, I smelled the incense of his house, dinner on the table, fresh fruit piled before us: the broad bracelet he wore bothered him and he shoved it higher on his arm: silent tonight, he listened to what we had been doing during the day: he had such heart for Alcaeus and me.
I could not keep the figure but packed it away. Its evocative intimacy, its forlorn quality...they would serve no purpose I could think of. I was glad Alcaeus could not see it. Yet, I felt I had rejected Aesop.
A sweltering day was made worse when Gogu had a seizure near Serfo’s shop. Serfo and Libus carried him inside and I found them working over Gogu, kneeling beside him, Serfo’s slave fanning the sick man, swaying his palm frond low, Libus’ face tense and canvas-colored. Serfo turned his barbaric features, square-cut beard and blazing green eyes, on me, resentful when I placed a damp sponge on Gogu’s head, when I suggested we pull him farther away from the wall. He growled and backed off, to care for some customers.
“Is it Gogu’s old trouble?” I asked.
Libus nodded, his hands comforting the man. When Gogu’s teeth chattered and his head and shoulders shook, Libus restrained him, hands on his shoulders. When he spoke to Gogu, I could detect an immediate response. The slave brought water and poured it for Gogu and Libus got him to drink: the frond dipping closer, rising and falling. “Libus— Libus,” he said, and sighed, thin lashes over upturned eyes. The black hitched his broadcloth and sighed too.
The room was windowless and cool, lit from overhead. A pigeon cooed on the roof. For a while I sat near Libus but when Serfo offered drinks, we went into his shop where he displayed ivory figurines on his dusty counter, Amazons, ibis, Etruscan warriors and sacred cats, none bigger than my hand.
“The cats are from Luxor,” Serfo said.
“Will Gogu be all right?” I asked, hearing his rapid breathing.
“He’ll be all right by evening,” Libus said.
So we examined the collection, Libus questioning their antiquity: I pointed out the yellowing and flaking: he held an Amazon in the doorway, dust cracks mottling her face and armor, the texture of his hands obvious as well.
He seems to be holding me in his fingers, as small. I felt the flakes of time—my life flaking, like Gogu’s, less lasting than the ivory.
The hours I spend with Libus and his sister are hours of talk and wine, at his small house, in its garden of figs and olives, poppies in bloom along the paths. Their place, nearer the bay than mine, absorbs the bay’s placidity. The furniture stresses comfort. His mosaics reflect his regard for ease...scenes of old days and old creatures.
I was glad when Libus gave up staying with Alcaeus; I had missed those visits to his home where Helen has taught me designs for my loom and reaffirmed what patience really is. She has read to me, acquainting me with books I would never have found...
Libus talks and toys with a loop of beads, in a thoughtful mood, his hands, as they move, remind me of their healing quality and his voice has that same beneficence, distinctly personal, meanings having extra meaning most of the time.
Helen’s face has none of his ephemerality but has, instead, a country wholesomeness I love. She chats about flowers she has grown, seeds she keeps in jars, promising me a selection.
Their poppies, grey-leafed, sea-bitten, have large centers and bees loll on the petals and the sea lolls beyond them.
Why is it the hours loll here? I have seen whales from their garden, sporting near beds of kelp, their blue backs like so many watery hills. I think something lures them offshore...another something makes Libus’ servants sing more than my servants.
A gigantic sea-rock assumes the face of a crying woman when the fog comes: some say she cries for our dead in the wars, some say it’s for those lost at sea: I have often seen her, head bowed: she faces the town, staring: the sea sound is her weeping; perhaps it is the weeping of many women: if I walk by that deserted spot at night, with the fog about me, I cling to Atthis or Exekias. No woman goes alone there, when the fog is about.
The moon has set and
The Pleiades have gone;
The night is half gone
And life speeds by.
I lie in bed, alone.
Going to see Alcaeus, I met Kleis and she threw her arms around me and kissed me, saying:
“Mama, dear, it’s good to see you! How I miss you!”
I tried to hide my pleasure but my heart sang and I held her close, my body remembering hers, fingers slipping around the back of her neck, staying in her hair.
Pushing me aside, she exclaimed:
“Mama, let’s go to your house and be together, like old times. Shall we?”
How easy to consent—and we walked home, arms around each other, gulls over us, shadows skimming roofs, dusty cobbles asking for rain: I wanted to remember her chatter, each inflection...
I would see Alcaeus tomorrow. I needed time with my own...
Pittakos stoned...Aesop stoned...the mob’s disgrace...
Year after year, is there greater calumny than our own communal perfidy? Is there greater stupidity? One man starts it, then five, then ten, manacled together.
For our island’s sake, I’m glad I cheated death.
Like old times, we sat at our looms and Kleis showed me a periwinkle design, whispering confidences, saying he was good, saying the house was good, the sea...she put her faith on the loom, the thread of it going beyond life. Mother must have heard me say such things, reflecting the same hope. Finches gathered in the olive trees as we worked. I asked time to stop and let us have the day last, at least longer than evening and the shepherd’s bells.
Charaxos brought him to my house, a castaway, I thought, dreg of the worst sea. Charaxos stood behind him in Cairo red, the sun blazing over the town, as the castaway bowed, holding together his rags, eyes wandering, skin and bones, nose snuffing at his hand, his mouth lower on one side, a canine look on his face.
Muttering, he fished in a sack tied about his waist and offered me something.
I hesitated to take it, feeling Charaxos’ curiosity—or was it gloating? I grew afraid as the castaway insisted, wagging head and hand, Charaxos silent; forcing myself, I bent and peered at his hand...seeing a drachma.
I saw it had been pierced for a chain...taking it, I made out the letters my mother had gouged...in the metal...yes, it was her drachma.
I wanted to run, throw down the coin, send Charaxos away, turn aside the castaway. I wanted to crumble on the steps and bury my head in my arms and deny existence.
“Come in,” I managed.
And the men entered.
Together, we sat down and I asked:
“Where did you get the coin?”
“At Cos...”
“You are from Cos?”
“Yes, I came from Cos.”
“He came on one of my ships,” Charaxos said.
I could not look at either man.
“He came from Cos,” I said.
“Phaon died on the island...he and others...thrown on the beach...we have rocky shores...he was injured in the big storm...you see, we found him, my wife and son and I. He gave us the coin and sent me to you...he...”
So, he died after that storm, I told myself, and I got up, wondering where I could go: I saw the castaway’s blazing eyes and torn clothing and the greedy face of my brother:
“Stay at my house...as long as you like,” I said. “I will send servants to look after you. I will...”
What will I do? I asked myself.
Will I take the coin and sleep with it? Will it burn my bed? Will I place it on my desk or hurl it out my window? And I opened my fingers to see if the bronze was on fire.
Now, you have seen me grief-stricken, I thought, as I gazed at Charaxos. You may go and tell your friends. Tell them, Sappho is beaten. Tell them...
I excused myself and retreated to my room.
Far at sea, I saw a dot: Phaon’s ship, and I opened my hand and laid his drachma on the windowsill.
Beauty, is he dead?
What has been gained by taking him from me?
Shall I go to Xerxes, and hold him to his promise? Couldn’t there be a mistake? Better to find Xerxes and say to him, “Remember your promise,” and take his powder. This is my inheritance, from parents, Cercolas, friends, this degree of misfortune, final degradation. Was love a mirage, or this?
Libus sat beside my bed, his hands alleviating the pain that dragged at every nerve: his hands warmed me, crossing my back and shoulders, assuaging with their mirage the storm that seemed everywhere inside me, bursting my throat, my brain, my chest, shattering my reason.
Yet, as he helped me, he reasoned:
“I hoped he would be back early enough for Kleis’ wedding...he said something to me about getting back early... I hoped you two would go on...you know all of us watched you...our hearts were yours...it was like that.
“I’ve always thought your pride deserved love, Phaon’s kind, free of politics. Yes, I know Alcaeus was sufficient, years ago; then our island women adopted you; then Phaon. It was his luck to give you what you needed...”
“My coin didn’t bring luck to him,” I said.
“A coin means what? Metal can’t tell us about life...only we can tell...to one another...”
“What have I told you through the years?”
He paused a while, hands motionless.
“Beauty...”
“And now?”
“Another kind...in the making. I know your ancestral line...losses become gain...I recognize bravery.”
His hands and thoughts continued their palliative, now the fingers, now the voice, as servants replaced lamps and closed windows, moving as slowly as if below the sea, finally to leave us alone again, the ocean’s voice mixing with the crickets.
“Kleis will bring Phaon back to me,” I said.
“Theirs is a curious resemblance...I agree.”
“What will happen to his house?”
“It will be hers,” he said.
“But she’ll never live in town.”
“No...she won’t change her ways.”
“Have you ever liked his house? I haven’t.”
“No,” he said.
“Libus, why doesn’t Alcaeus come to me?”
“He’s not thinking of your problem.”
“He doesn’t know about Phaon?”
“He knows...but can’t come.”
“Shall I go to him?”
“Wait...for a while,” he said.
My girls seldom leave me: Atthis, Gyrinno, Anaktoria, each brings flowers and gifts, bringing them surreptitiously or with a hint of jollity—sometimes compassion. Old Exekias pats my hands, kisses my skirt or turns away, tears unchecked.
Atthis, cheek against mine, murmurs her love. As we walk through our garden she says:
“I miss him too... I loved him too... We placed a wreath for him... We three have made a shrine in the woods...”
Gyrinno appears in the night, as I lie sleepless. Unable to mention the tragedy, she whispers hoarsely that she loves me and wants to help: Is there anything she can do for me?
Anaktoria has probed deeper:
“You must take care, Sappho. You must do nothing strange, that would harm us. We can’t have you obsessed by melancholy. Let us look after you.”
Eyes streaked with tears dim and I see him, imagine his body sprawled between the rocks of Cos and I hear his voice speak my name: I see our Leucadian cliff and know I could throw myself down, die as he died among the rocks, far below.
Then, I find Kleis as I work at my loom, and her voice, revealing her sorrow, eradicates the drama of self: the curse of death needs soft hands and blonde hair and blue eyes and tender mouth... “Mama, darling...”
Sometimes I try to brush aside feminine ties, but there they are, tightening about me: snatches of song come to me: I see women with babies at the fountain; vineyards creep over the hills, ascending through fog, under the wings of gulls, moving toward me, closer and closer: they are my father’s vineyards, the vineyards of Alcaeus, Phaon’s vineyards, Libus’, Anaktoria’s; the bone flute, the whole island is in them, in the spring leaves and autumn leaves, in the stark vines of winter: the weeping rock moves through them, the defeated fleet, the red rooftops of home, the bare hills, olive trees: I see a woman, called Sappho, leading a child, named Kleis: I hear shepherd’s bells, and the silence of dawn spills up from the ocean’s shore: a porpoise and a whale, beyond a belt of kelp, churn points of light and shadow: home, home is the red tiles and my mother’s lamps and the view where the vineyards snuggle to sleep for the night: this is my in- heritance, to keep as long as possible, that is what I tell myself, compel myself to feel.
Kleis has the grape leaf woven in her loom and as she weaves she faces me and smiles and I know how much love is in that smile.
Sappho stands by the seaward window in her library...
carved ivory racks hold books, ancient papyri,
Egyptian clay tablets, copies of hymns.
Blue from the bay inundates the library, her face,
obliterates the books.
Alcaeus, an old man,
holds a tattered manuscript.
Mytilene, Lesbos
S
uddenly, he stood in front of me, in my library, dressed in black, beard soiled, deep wrinkles underneath his eyes.
“Alcaeus, I didn’t hear you and Thasos.”
“Exekias let us in. Are you working?”
“No...sit down.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
He leaned on Thasos: I felt that he hadn’t been sober very long; he leaned forward, almost stumbling.
“Can I sit down?”
“Here, here,” said Thasos, helping him, laying aside a package.
Silence troubled us.
I watched Thasos go and then Alcaeus said:
“I understand your loss. I understand what has happened to you. Phaon’s death has overpowered you. I put it badly...but we have shared...be patient...I understand...Sappho; I have brought you my Homer. Remember, when I got it years ago? Remember? I want to share. I should have given you this before...What good is it to me?”
“Alcaeus.”
“Where is the book?”
“The package Thasos left?”
“Yes...take it...open it...”
I opened it, remembering how we had thrilled long ago, and, after a while, reaching out to him, grateful, hoping I could make him sense my gratitude, I kissed his forehead and his hands, his hands motionless, the sightless eyes confusing me.
He went on slowly:
“I’ve come to share my strength...it’s a poor strength, drunk, blind, but it does go on. You, my dear, are blinded by grief. Let me tell you your grief can’t be as bad as mine. Or, if it is, let’s share...share...we’ve shared before...I’ll take your dark away...hide it in mine...lose some of your burden at least.
“Sappho, let me help.
“Accept the old book, find hope in it... I have kicked aside death on the field...look at my eyes and then look at yours...you need no mirror.
“He’s dead...dead by the sea...you have your love of beauty to uphold you. Let it live! Give it new life! Soon enough death will claim both of us, but, till then, let’s find comradeship...come to my house tomorrow, read to me...
“Will you?”
I nodded, then remembered he could not see and remembered his gift and his grace and knelt by him and put my head in his hands and pressed between his knees, as he patted me, chuckling a little.
“I’ll come tomorrow, Alcaeus,” I promised.
“Good.”
“I know your lot is worse than mine... I must find courage.”
Beauty, I thought, beauty, what can I say to help this man?
“Yes, tomorrow; then I’ll tell you, Sappho... I’ll tell you what I’ve learned, living in my black sea. How my ship drags anchor. What I’ve heard. I’ve heard some strange things. I can sense someone moving, almost before he moves, a shift of air, let’s say.
“Watch me play jacks with Libus, old soldiers at their fun. I could cheat you...if you gave me half a chance.”
Again that chuckle.
The book lay open and his great arms lay across his lap, fingers up. My father had owned that book. With age it had come unsewed and hung in tatters: the smell of age was there: I rubbed my fingers over pages...
Quickly, he said:
“I like to feel those pages... I wanted to write a book as full of life...give back the thunder of the storm...look how the bugs have eaten the book...see that ripped page...well, where will you keep your Homer?”
And he smiled.
“Shall I read something?”
“Yes...now!”
Turning the pages so he could hear them I searched for a favorite passage.
I read as slowly and as distinctly as possible, allowing each word time.
Cercolas, mother, Aesop, Phaon...gone. When shall I go?
I have been unable to write for days. I have nothing to say...there is only emptiness.
Yesterday a nightingale sang, a song of tattered leaves, scraps of Nile, bits of Euphrates, papyrus against night, against impending doom, against depression. Tender notes whispered insanity. Other notes urged self-pity. Others shattered—with sheerest delicacy—any hope of contrition.
A feather drops...a pause. One could die during such a pause.
All of us wait—life waits!
A bubbling deceives the spirit, a trill alienates the heart. Something summons the past, other songs on other nights, other songs of other people, the bone flute, of course.
This was not a bird, not a beak, not a feather but sail and spar, rigged to go at dawn, course along many shores.
“Beauty, you’re frail. Your bones are able to carry next to nothing and yet your song travels, spreading as if a pebble had dropped on water...”
I walked under olive trees along the coast, following grassy paths, the breeze with me until I met Gogu, carrying a piece of kelp and a shell. At first, he did not seem to recognize me. How thin, how sick he is! Shadows of the olives shadowed him. When he spoke, I hardly listened. Each of us is going the same way, I thought, and so we parted and stillness put its loneliness about me. The words he had said mixed me because I had not listened, mixed with my love-memories, adding incoherence.
Why was Gogu carrying kelp and a shell? Why was I walking where I had often walked?
In a hundred years, this path has changed little: the trees have become more gnarled, the shadows darker, the air quieter.
The marble shrine at the end of the path crumbles year by year and yet remains about the same: I can remember it when another brought me: Phaon remembered it: and now, memories are re-dedicated and burned, their ashes under my sandals, under my fingers and heart.
The best of life is illusion, I do not doubt. The best of Phaon may have been illusion.
Ah, the nettles of desire, the sleeplessness, the gnawing of regrets in my skull. These are emotions we can not share but must suffer alone till dawn, the dipper proving we are children.
I believe that we, as human beings, prove nothing: there is really nothing to prove except kindness and decency: all else is more illusion.
I take my harp but there are no words to accompany the notes. I urge Atthis to sing: play, darling, help me forget...let me see your face as I love to see it. Move your head with that fragile alacrity. Stretch your bare legs under your dress.
As I open the shutters in the morning, I miss him...the ocean has grown much, much wider.
My favorite olive tree says nothing to me.
Alcaeus wrote me:
“I know I can help you. Come over for the day. Courage, friend.”
The note repulsed me. What could he know of Phaon, of man’s cleanliness and beauty!
I did not answer. Instead, I climbed the hills with Atthis and Anaktoria, to lay a wreath at an altar that has been our shrine for a while.
The sea was rough and the wind was rough.
Tears overcame me at the altar and I made them leave me: I hoped to die there: I wanted my bitterness to kill me: Why couldn’t it happen? Why couldn’t there be this finality?
I pulled flowers from the wreath and wrote his name on the ground. A thrush hopped close by. The wind, gusting from the bay, scattered blossoms and I found Atthis beside me, kneeling to comfort me. We had shared so much, the three of us, days and weeks, grief and joy. She and Anaktoria got me to eat, under pines sheltered from the wind; she and Anaktoria fixed my hair.
Their sad faces made me long for happiness for their sake, and I tried to see beyond myself. There must be a trick that I can use to deceive others.
The placid sea carries a few boats,