Voices from the Past Part 40

"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 surrept.i.tiously or with a hint of jollity-sometimes compa.s.sion. 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 hoa.r.s.ely 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: s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 sh.o.r.e: 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 inheritance, 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.