Voices from the Past

  Alcaeus would revel in this gale and go out in it andlet the rain lash him and then he would come and take mein his arms.

  The storm will rage all night and the gutters spew, andI will rage at my solitude, a solitude that grows andgrows.

  Growl on, spew on, beat and tramp—tomorrow’s sun willreturn and the sea’s eye will glitter and I will gazeacross the bay—and Alcaeus will not be here.

  My feet are cold and the lamp is weak and the wax hard,and I must go to bed.

  ?

  Yesterday, the wine workers gathered at a nearbyvineyard, old men and girls, in tattered clothes, somelazy, some hard-working, pressing the grapes, many ofthem my friends. Spade-bearded Niko directed thepressing, sitting at the base of an oak, wearing astained robe, his voice low. Women carried hampers ofgrapes loaded with purple clusters, the women’s skirtswet with dew, the grapes mottled with damp. Clouds madethe day cool. Someone toyed with a flute, the mentreading, emptying husks over sandy soil, now and thenpausing to talk under the oak, the circular press lettingout its red, everyone tasting. Many amphorae were broken,before they were finally filled and capped.

  I wanted to help. How sweet the smell flooding my nose.

  ?

  Atthis has been my girl-child today and we havestrolled together up the long, long path to the outcrop,beyond the temple. Atthis and tall white marble columns,with their busy apricot-breasted swallows, have assuagedmy loneliness. How lonely we become, as we grow older,even when there is someone to share. The key to self getslost; self-assurance diminishes. Once, it was onlynecessary to dash around the garden or throw back one’shead and laugh...

  Yellow-headed Atthis, lazy-eyed, sitting on the stepsof the temple ruin, wove a flower wreath for me and Iwove one for her. Then, returning home, we bathed at ourfountain, splashing each other, the sun on us and theslippery marble. Afterwards, we lay down and slept, and Idreamed of a ship at sea, her mast broken, her tangledsail and rigging dragging.

  Will the war never end?

  ?

  Fog, as grey as a shepherd’s cloak, ruffled the bay fora day and a night. Then, stabbing us, came clarity, andinside that clarity, centered in it, a brown intaglio, asmall wooden carving, first one ship and then another.Our fleet had sailed back to us! I watched from theterrace, unable to speak. Atthis ran up to me. Anaktoriacame. Gyrinno came. Boys yelled. Old men rushed past thehouse. Dogs barked. Someone banged a drum. Suchclamoring!

  But was it joyous news, I asked myself? Why were thewomen in a knot at the corner? Why hadn’t fast rowersraced to tell us? Had the fog tricked the fleet?

  Changing my clothes, putting on new sandals, I walkedto the pier and the seagulls screamed and we waited andwaited. People surged all about, saying wild things,shrieking—then, ominously, fell silent. Their shouts werebetter than their silence. The ocean seemed too calm, asif it had been smothered by the fog or dreaded thearrival of our fleet.

  I had pictured the ships as fast moving, bright onbright water.

  As the first one approached, I saw no happy faces, nolifted hands, no raised shields, no plumed helmets at therail, no flags.

  I heard an oar drag and in that sound I heard the raspof death. If Alcaeus is dead, I will take poison—and Isaw myself going to Xerxes, our Persian chemist, andasking for the powder. We had agreed, years back, duringanother crisis, that he would allow me this gift to freemyself, if I must. His yellow face vanished, as I watchedan anchor plunge slowly and saw the sail topple into thewater and heard a man cry some name.

  Shouts went up.

  A chorus began.

  Voices caught our song, way out at sea, assuring usthat these were not phantoms.

  Alcaeus?

  Ten years ago, almost ten—ten years ago, he had leftMytilene, the wars sweeping him away. Ten years we hadlived with fear creeping about our island. Ten years—howmy fingers trembled. I saw those years, there on thewharf, saw them in the gulls’ wings, in the distraughtfaces about me, my girls’, my friends’, my neighbors’. Wehad all waited for this homecoming. And now, now ourfleet was gliding toward us, grey-hulked, no flagsraised, oars shuffling like sick crabs.

  Was it defeat or half-victory? Who, among our men, waslost, dead, or wounded? Gull on the masthead, apple atthe end of the bough, what can you tell us at suchcrucial times? For an infinitude, the oars paced, a boatswung, another boat anchoring alongside, the armor ondeck flashing, the waves gulping at the gulls.

  I turned away, moved back.

  And then I saw someone helping Alcaeus ashore—woundedor ill—and old, old, I thought.

  Beauty said to me: This is only change.

  And I said: But what is change?

  And I slipped away, not daring to meet him, hopingsomeone would shout a name and confirm that this wasanother, not Alcaeus. But no, I knew. A woman knows a manshe has loved, however battered he may be. I turned towatch his blundering progress.

  The chorus had dwindled—only those at sea, the far offcrews, still carried the hymn. I could not remain anylonger. I hurried home, past his house to mine, wonderingwhat kind of haven it could be, wondering what peoplewould say at my flight. Yet this was not flight; it wasmerely a postponement, waiting for a sign, a chance toprepare myself. Alcaeus...must I send someone to him?What must I do? Go to his home? Shall I be there for himwhen he arrives?

  At my door I turned and retraced my steps to his house,the laces of my sandals making a sound I had never heardbefore, the gulls wailing, the sounds from the wharfintermingling and incomprehensible.

  And I was there when he came with his servant, an uglyParthian, helping him. Yes, I was there and put out myhand to touch him, hearing his troubled breathing, seeinghis torn and disheveled clothes, his rank beard, andknowing he was ill. I remembered the dream, the ship withits broken sail. And I remembered our love and I said tohim:

  “Alcaeus...it is I, Sappho...”

  He squared his shoulders, his cloak slipping away. Hisarms went out to me, then dropped to his side.

  His eyes had the marble core of nothingness in them.

  Appalled, I could scarcely stand. O God, what is thisthat can happen to a man? Why has it happened? His armsin bandages, his eyes forever bandaged by the dark.

  “Alcaeus...”

  He heard my whisper and shuffled backwards, bumping hisservant; he moved forward then and gripped me hard,twisting my flesh, his great muscles rising in his hands.

  “Take me to my room... You haven’t forgotten the way,have you?”

  I took his arm and the Parthian opened the door andservants bowed about us; yes, I took his arm and silentlywe climbed the stairs to his room, his clothes roughagainst me, his sea smell around me. We passed hislibrary that held the books he had loved. We passed hismother’s room, where she had died. We passed where lightfell around us, though no light entered his eyes.

  “You are in your room,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “Beside your Egyptian chair.”

  “Can I sit down on it?”

  “Yes, it’s ready for you.”

  Grasping the heavy frame, he lowered himself and thetaut leather squeaked. I placed a pillow behind him anddrew a fur across his knees, then sat next to him. Thedoor had shut itself and we were alone. We listened toeach other’s breathing and his hand sought mine andclimbed my robe to my face and the coarse fingers felt mycheek and I felt them reach my heart, with the pastroaring around me like the recent storm.

  I couldn’t speak. I felt that the war was foreverbetween us and I hated those years, those battles, thelines on his face. My hate was there, between us. Then,then, tears came to his eyes. Silently, he wept. And Idrew him to me.

  I heard the wind cross over his house.

  Voices shuffled below us in the courtyard, the excitedvoices of the caretakers, the idle, the hangers-on. Icould imagine their leers, their whispers. I lifted hisface toward mine and kissed h
im, his heavy beard stickingmy mouth.

  There was a sob—a broken gasp. How ill he looked, howtired...

  “You must lie down, Alcaeus. Come, I’ll help you.”

  And when he was settled, I brought him water.

  “Water...there hasn’t been much water these last fewdays at sea...”

  ?

  So he had come home, “homeward from earth’s far end,”on the shield of blindness. I saw him next day and thenext, but he seemed strange, withdrawn. I found two ofhis servants but he wasn’t interested.

  I thought of him as old. But was he old? Age was in hisscars, in his streaked hair and beard, the hands liftingand settling awkwardly.

  Warm under the stars, the daphne fragrant, his seaterrace tiles smooth underneath our feet, we sat alone,some rooster vaguely saluting the night, the movement ofthe surf faint, almost lost. I crushed some daphne in mypalm, remembering their four-pronged flowers,remembering—remembering Alcaeus after his field games,his javelin and discus throwing, his flushed face, hiseyes lit, his mouth hungry for mine. Remembering—was heremembering, too?

  “There was no daphne where I was,” he said, his voicesullen. “It would have been better to have died there,than come home like this.”

  “It’s spring, Alcaeus, don’t talk like that,” I said,and wondered what spring might signify to him.

  He did not speak for a while, then quietly, as thoughto himself, or from another world, he repeated lines wehad loved:

  “The gods held me in Egypt, longing to sail for home,for I had failed to seek their blessing with anoffering...”

  His voice had not changed, I realized with a start.Surcharged with new meaning, it entered my being, as hewent on about the galleys and the old men “deep in thesea’s abyss.”

  The phrase haunted me because it was he who lived in anabyss.

  As days passed, defeat was all that we heard in ourtown, not outright defeat, but capitulation—retreatcombined with truce, truce necessitated by deception. Orwas it confusion? The soldiers I met, after their drunkenreunions, spoke of the war with bitterness. Ten years,they said. Ten years, for what? And how many of us cameback? Those who had been away longest consideredthemselves outcasts and those who had returned during thewar complained, unable to recognize their families.

  Standing on the wharf, I familiarized myself with thefleet, its remnants, anchored forlornly in the bay, boysswimming around the hulls, the decks bone dry, hawserstrailing, a door off its hinges, the cordage so rotten agull might topple a spar. Disgust in my mouth, I tastedthe waste of life, Alcaeus’, my own, my friends’.

  What is life for, but love?

  And love sent Atthis and me along the beach, stretchingour legs, running, dashing in and out of shallows,finding periwinkles, the day even-tempered, goatsnibbling at wild celery, their bells lazy, a fishermanwaving at us as he cast his net, clouds over themountain. I noticed Atthis against the luminous water,her fragile face trusting life. Her yellow ringlets in mylap, she sang to me and then, eyes shut, fingers in thesand, she seemed to steal away.

  “What are you thinking about, darling?”

  “You...”

  “What about?”

  “You and Alcaeus—you are so troubled for him.”

  “Then you have seen him?”

  “Yesterday. And I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “Because what is there left for him—and you?”

  “I can’t answer you, Atthis. Time answers suchquestions.”

  I sense my old loneliness, a loneliness that wasdistorted like a ship’s rib, tossed on the beach, warpedbecause of bad luck.

  “His arms have been injured, too,” Atthis said.

  “They will get better, in time...” And I heard time inthe receding wave and felt it in her ringlets and in herhands.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said and I saw myself mirroredin her eyes. And it occurred to me that Alcaeus and Iwould never again be able to exchange notes, those hasty,affectionate scribbles. Would he ever again dictate hisbawdy poems, lampoon dictators and brag about war? Hadpen and desk become his enemies?

  Many things occurred to me, there on the sand, asAtthis and I talked softly.

 

  Sappho’s garden, terraces of roses, shrubberyand cypress,

  has the ocean below: moonlit, she standswhite-robed

  close to marble statuary:

  a nude Hermes, a bust of Aphrodite,

  a niobe, an athlete from Delphi.

  Sappho sits down on a bench and fingers alyre.

  Mytilene

  T

  onight, I have returned to my poetry, for the solace andsound of my pen. Here in my library, time will bedefeated for a moment, at least. The sun’s last raysstream in, so yellow, they might be made of acacia. Thecooling light covers my desk and bookshelves andrelinquishes its hold of my vase. A fragment clings tothe amphora Alcaeus gave me long ago. Its dancing,singing men seem somehow out of focus; yet it seems Ihear the flute and lyre of the ceramic players.

  I dreamed I talked with Cyprus-born...

  No, that is a poor line.

  Maybe this is a better theme for tonight:

  But I, I love delicate living, and for me,

  richness and beauty belong to the sun...

  ?

  There was a symposium and Gyrinno danced for the guestsand afterwards brought me news about Alcaeus, how he leftthe party and wandered to the beach. There he quarreledwith Charaxos, both armed with sticks and staggeringdrunk. At first, Gyrinno garbled the news, mixing it withthe symposium’s talk of war, the defeat, the hatreds ofmany kinds, including punishment and forfeit. It musthave been a sorry meeting, this reunion of our warriors.Gyrinno reached me drenched with wine the men hard thrownon her. Other girls had been treated the same.

  Welcome home—men!

  When I had soothed Gyrinno and bathed and perfumed andpowdered her, I went to the beach, thinking I might findthem. Yes, they were there, quarreling on the sand, mylover and my brother, kicking their naked shins ondriftwood, their servants standing by, only halfinterested and half awake.

  “Charaxos,” I began.

  “Ah...I rather expected you.”

  “Sappho?” called Alcaeus.

  “Get up, both of you.” I moved past the servantsindignantly.

  “Just leave us alone,” growled Charaxos.

  “Leave a blind man with you, when it is you who isreally blind?”

  “Let’s not resume our quarrel,” said Charaxos.

  “When have we stopped?”

  “Please go away,” said Alcaeus, “I can take care ofhim, myself.”

  “I’ll not go! I intend to see you home!” And I orderedthe servants to separate them and leave me with Alcaeus.

  Mumbling, he followed along the shore, walkinguncertainly, but keeping out of the way of the inrushingwater. Where rocks littered the beach, he allowed me tohelp him, and was soon apologizing.

  “I haven’t been home a month and already I act thefool. What right have I to criticize anybody? So hebrought home a slave woman. Haven’t I had my share?”

  I did not interrupt, preoccupied as I was with guidinghim. Besides, my anger with Charaxos was too old, toodeep-seated, too complex. It was not a subject to pursueon the beach, with the wind carrying our words and thebreakers drowning them. This was, I preferred, a privatequarrel.

  With Charaxos and his men following a distance apart,we made a pretty picture, hiccoughing through Mytilene!Its silent streets were topped by a new moon; Venusseemed swallowed by a single window. Why were we in suchcontrast?

  Laughter and outworn songs...swaying andshuffling...until the shutting of my door.

  Alone, I sit beside my lamp to consider its flame, thewhy and wherefore of its integrity, fragility. Shadowsare commonplace when we ignite a lamp. Yet, without alight, there are profounder shadows.

/>   ?

  I hear that Alcaeus goes out alone, forbidding hisservants to follow. Everyone has become uneasy.

  Today, he dismissed his secretary. So poor Gogu hassought me out to explain what happened.

  “Someday he will do me in. He has threatened this oftenenough!” He was trembling so hard, he could hardly speak.It is no wonder Alcaeus calls him a “stick of driftwood.”He has an abandoned air that begs to be found and pickedup.

  “The least word, the least word upsets him. And youknow how Alcaeus can rant!”

  “Yes, well...”

  “He says our great fight at Sigeum was lost throughsheer carelessness. Of course, he blames the otherofficers...”

  But then, Gogu has never held anyone’s interest orrespect for long. Who but Alcaeus would have hired anepileptic, in the first place? Almost everyone hasrescued Gogu, at one time or another, from the surf, thewine shop, the brothel or the forum. How does this knobbyskeleton manage to survive and endure?

  “You will speak to Alcaeus? You promise?”

  I promised. The dread of having Gogu permanentlyabandoned is worse than imploring Alcaeus to take himback. Besides, his scholarship is often surprising, andAlcaeus can use his help.