Voices from the Past Part 21

Poseidon

641 B.C.

Then, what is love? Isn't it sharing a personality never encountered before? I think it is this kind of interchange and it is exploring someone's thinking, with and without words. With Phaon, it is sharing the sea, the oarsman's hands, the swimmer's legs, yarns on the beach in the firelight. With Alcaeus, it has been our friends, our families, our town, our writing, our exile-years of knowing each other. The differences between Phaon and Alcaeus are so many it would be foolish to try to list them. Comparison gets me nowhere.

I suspect that love is too subtle for any a.n.a.lysis: love is so subtle it escapes while we look. Being in love is rather like being someone else, laughing some- one's laughter, tasting someone's wine, dreaming someone's dreams. I feel that close to Phaon. Together, we share the fire, the fire that wakes us in the night, that flies into our eyes, the fire that makes my mouth tremble, that makes me laugh in my mirror, that makes me test my perfume bottles and sends my girls for new powder.

I steal to him-with dignity. I crush him to me, dignity gone. I lose, I gain. I cringe, I lunge. Phaon, you are my body, in me, wanting you, wanting... We are the wanters, haters of nights that keep us apart, haters of time.

Its roaring deafens me: I, I didn't hear you. I, I was wrapped in thought. I was making love...I was reliving the sea, I was in the boat. I was planning our next meeting...I was singing... Darling, I was saying.

Riding donkeys, Phaon and I set out across the island, to visit his sister, riding all day in slow stages, to reach her hut and sleep there. I thought we would never find it, but that was my thinking. Phaon led us through a jumble of hillside rocks, through little valleys, right to her door, a hut of rocks and straw, her shepherd's crook beside the door.

Kleis is so unlike my Kleis.

She seems able to speak without words, perhaps because words are not very useful to her since she lives alone. She nods and smiles, her smile serene. Small, dark, light-boned, she appears out of the past, no sister of Phaon, unrelated to our island. I had not expected her to be so unlike us. Using her particular mys- tery, she made us comfortable, made us feel at home, a gesture now and then, a word, some roasted seeds, another word, as we talked. Her delight in having us was obvious, coming from deep inside. She has wonderful wind-swept sight, from the rapture of lonely skies, her communions. She is priestess of self- contained youth. She shared her food and we shared things we had brought.

Phaon talked of his sea trip, the Mytilene raid, his voice in accord with her qual- ity.

As our relationship deepens, I am more and more aware of his quality. It is best seen in his slow, slow gesture. Or in a spontaneous grin ending in a chuckle.

It is in his carriage-his calculating look. His qualities are older than mine, sea- soned by the primordial: his speech is older, in vocabulary, accent, intonation.

Kleis and I sang after supper, the supper fire burning.

Her sheep were near us, m.u.f.fled, shuffling contentedly.

Venus hung over us.

How unlike my Kleis, in her singing and her songs: her songs are songs mother knew: they made me tremble and I wanted to clasp her to me: Phaon had forgotten most of them but joined us sometimes. We sang of lovers and wanderers.

She, the daily wanderer, was less a wanderer than any of us: her natural re- sources were always at her spiritual command.

Kissing me good night, she said:

"I love you for coming."

Going back home, we poked along, talking and resting at likely places. We stopped in an orange grove to eat, water rippling by us in an irrigation ditch.

Cross-legged we ate cheese and dates and drank wine Kleis had given us, the summer smells around us, flowers, so many kinds of flowers in this place. Lying beside me, Phaon told me more about his life:

"...We met a storm off the Egyptian coast, the wind rushing us, tearing our sail. I was at the rudder when the sail split. I ordered my men to huddle in the lee and mend the sail. How we shipped water. The bow crashed. All of us thought we'd go down but they kept on with the mending, folding the fabric, squeezing out the water, wiping rain and spray from their faces. I've never heard a fiercer wind, raging off starboard...

"When we had the sail mended I had someone take the rudder and helped hoist. A wave bowled us over. It was nearly dark and the rain slanted toward me.

Out of the side of my eyes, I thought I saw something on the sea, a man, a tall man. I said nothing but worked hard: I couldn't talk or yell in that sea. Part way up the mast, I looked down. Nothing. In spite of wind and rain, we hung our sail and swung out of the troughs. Back at the rudder, I saw him, saw him moving, white, tall, through the whipped tops of the rollers."

Villa Poseidon

641 B.C.

My girls still carry on about the pirate raid.

Gyrinno found a short sword and brought it to me.

"Look, I showed it to Archidemus and he says it's from the Turks. Those are rubies on the hilt, he says. Feel them. See...see..."

Her fingers tremble with excitement.

Her breath catches:

"What if they'd broken into our house? It would have been awful. Aren't you proud of Phaon?"

The whole misadventure leaves me cold. I think of the burial of our dead. I see the blood rushing down the neck of the wounded man. There was blood on Phaon's sword. He and Alcaeus had bellowed over their victory. Victory?

I pushed away the pirate's sword, and said: "It would be better if there were no pirates."

Gyrinno is disgusted.

What is wrong with man? Is man's piratical weakness an instinct? Women don't go in for piracy. We know the value of living and appreciate life's perilous- ness. We give birth to kindness...each baby is kindness itself.

I HAVE FORBIDDEN GYRINNO TO KEEP THE SWORD: SHE MUST GET RID OF IT, GIVE IT AWAY, THROW IT AWAY, I DON'T CARE.

Rain, rain, rain.

The girls appreciate my happiness since a sense of grace envelops me.

We weave and the rain falls, so gently, our looms fronting the windows and sea. I am weaving a white scarf, quite blemishless.

Weaving has always been the most delightful pastime: I sit and weave and the wool goes in and out: I can see nothing in front of me or I can see my whole past, or tomorrow, or Phaon, the ocean, my house, the faces of my girls...

I work silently sometimes, planning, composing. The art of weaving thoughts must have begun with the loom. The rain falls, and weaves its sounds. Atthis and Anaktoria sit on either side of me, Anaktoria singing to herself. She is dressed in white and Atthis wears blue.

Across the sea a wedge of rain scuds, slowly approaching our island. Shep- herds are in their huts. Seamen are ash.o.r.e. It is a time for all to rest.

At the bridge in town where I had watched the migratory flight of herons, I met Alcaeus. He was perched on the rail, cane crossed over his legs, waiting for Thasos. Glad to see me, he pulled his beard, fragrant and carefully oiled. I found him cheerful. He talked about a Carthaginian ship, in harbor because of broken oars, after sideswiping another boat in a thick fog. As I listened his face altered: it was as if he were in pain or remembered something tragic. Interrupting my comment, he asked:

"What's he like? Is he tall, this Phaon?"

I described him, touching his arm to lessen his resentment.

"So...he's not the soldier type!"

"Must he be?"