Voices from the Past Part 5

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 guests and afterwards brought me news about Alcaeus, how he left the party and wandered to the beach. There he quarreled with Charaxos, both armed with sticks and staggering drunk. At first, Gyrinno garbled the news, mixing it with the symposium's talk of war, the defeat, the hatreds of many kinds, including punishment and forfeit. It must have been a sorry meeting, this reunion of our warriors.

Gyrinno reached me drenched with wine the men hard thrown on her. Other girls had been treated the same.

Welcome home-men!

When I had soothed Gyrinno and bathed and perfumed and powdered her, I went to the beach, thinking I might find them. Yes, they were there, quarreling on the sand, my lover and my brother, kicking their naked shins on driftwood, their servants standing by, only half interested and half awake.

"Charaxos," I began.

"Ah...I rather expected you."

"Sappho?" called Alcaeus.

"Get up, both of you." I moved past the servants indignantly.

"Just leave us alone," growled Charaxos.

"Leave a blind man with you, when it is you who is really blind?"

"Let's not resume our quarrel," said Charaxos.

"When have we stopped?"

"Please go away," said Alcaeus, "I can take care of him, myself."

"I'll not go! I intend to see you home!" And I ordered the servants to separate them and leave me with Alcaeus.

Mumbling, he followed along the sh.o.r.e, walking uncertainly, but keeping out of the way of the inrushing water. Where rocks littered the beach, he allowed me to help him, and was soon apologizing.

"I haven't been home a month and already I act the fool. What right have I to criticize anybody? So he brought home a slave woman. Haven't I had my share?"

I did not interrupt, preoccupied as I was with guiding him. Besides, my anger with Charaxos was too old, too deep-seated, too complex. It was not a subject to pursue on the beach, with the wind carrying our words and the breakers drowning them. This was, I preferred, a private quarrel.

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; Venus seemed swallowed by a single window. Why were we in such contrast?

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

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

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

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

"Someday he will do me in. He has threatened this often enough!" 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 picked up.

"The least word, the least word upsets him. And you know how Alcaeus can rant!"

"Yes, well..."

"He says our great fight at Sigeum was lost through sheer carelessness. Of course, he blames the other officers..."

But then, Gogu has never held anyone's interest or respect for long. Who but Alcaeus would have hired an epileptic, in the first place? Almost everyone has rescued Gogu, at one time or another, from the surf, the wine shop, the brothel or the forum. How does this k.n.o.bby skeleton manage to survive and endure?

"You will speak to Alcaeus? You promise?"

I promised. The dread of having Gogu permanently abandoned is worse than imploring Alcaeus to take him back. Besides, his scholarship is often surprising, and Alcaeus can use his help.

So later, I invited Alcaeus and some friends to supper.

We sat around the courtyard fountain and listened to the harpists playing under the burning lamps. Libus, Nanno, Suidas-they are good company for Alcaeus. He seemed more like himself again, joking and talking. Again he lampooned Mimnermos and mimicked "that strange-smelling country poet from Smyrna." But I detected a morbid note, a self-hostility that cut him more than it did those he scorned.

Will he ever write again?

He left early, insisting he would find his way home by himself. A soldier, reduced to being treated like an irresponsible infant-of course he resented it. But I know he did not return home. Instead, he has rambled into the hills again.

Now the others are gone. And I wonder, looking towards the slope, what it is that Alcaeus hopes to find, a new life?

I shall not be able to sleep indoors tonight. My bed will have to be under the trees. Perhaps the wind can bring me some special message.

The banquet honoring the warriors was held last night.

Alcaeus had his collection of war shields displayed on his dining room walls. Of hide and metal, in various shapes, they united the room and its glazing lamps and candles. I felt myself the focal point of a painted eye on a circular hide, as I sat by him. I could not recall such an a.s.sembly in years: Scythian, Etruscan, Turkish, Negro. Bowls of incense sent threads to the ceiling.

Wisps floated in front of me where a man in Egyptian clothes, headband studded with rubies, sat beside his courtesan.

Alcaeus made his way to the dais, when everyone was seated, about fifty of us. Hands resting on a table, arms healed and ringed with copper bands, he leaned forward, waiting for silence. His hair had been freshly curled, and his beard trimmed and brushed with oil. I was troubled, thinking he might be impudent or truculent.

Instead he spoke gravely and it was difficult to believe he could not see us. I thought he glanced straight at me.

"Tonight, friends, there will be no tirade, no poetry.

I wish to pay my respects, and offer my thanks for our return to our island. I know how beautiful it is..."

There was a murmur of appreciation.

"Soldiers have a way of talking out of turn," he went on, reminding them of the gossip that had come to his ears, shameful talk that made faces blush with guilt and anger.

"It's time for me, as their commander, to speak. Very well, I will!" And his voice thundered across the room, to make sure that none would miss or mistake its message.

Was this the Alcaeus who had joked and sported and sung ribald songs, as the popular friend of young men who were proud, rich, playful and naive? Here was someone speaking out of experience...