Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (14 page)

Down on the oasis floor we come to a small lake of clear water caused by a spring bubbling up from under the earth.
 
Desher rejoices by rolling on its reeded banks, stinking of green.
 
Isidore’s stallion would rejoice in Desher but by my quick hiss, nothing comes of his expectations—as well it should not.
 
Desher was born, as was Ia’eh, in a cold desert far from this heated place, one high and windblown and harsh.
 
Isidore’s horse is thick of neck and of leg; his head coarse and his rump huge.
 
A mating between two such as these would offend Epona, the Goddess of horses.
 
It would offend even the ass of Apuleius.

My feet in cool water, I look up at the Temple of Ammon clinging to its rock as a lizard would cling.
 
Simple in shape, small in size, humble in aspect, it stands some distance from the mountain of mud dwellings, surrounded on all sides by palms and the dusty debris of palms.
 
My history tutor said the oracle existed before Egypt, but about the Temple itself, she confessed she did not know.
 
Too many stories told, too many beliefs to unravel, and each, like Isidore’s gospels, a contradiction of the other.
 
Now that I see for myself—ignoring the fluted columns added so much later to make it “Greek”—it is old indeed.

There is a second temple sited in a second grove, not of palms but of date and olive trees.
 
This one, attaching itself to the first by a precarious causeway two thousand years ago, is covered with graffiti.

Andromeda came to the Temple of Siwa only to be cast into the sea where sea serpents found and ate her.
 
Hercules once came to make sure of his chances before fighting Bursiris.
 
Perseus came before he took the head of Medusa.
 
The Spartan Lysander came twice.
 
Who would come twice if he were disappointed the first time?
 
Here as well came Hannibal.
 
Pindar wrote of this strange and lonely place.
 
Hidden inside the temple is said to be the only copy of his poem.

Is it any wonder Alexander sought it out, or that Olinda offered it as hope?

Since Isidore has yet to speak to me, I say nothing of this, content that my heart quickens.
 
This is what I have come for.
 
If by coming here, my sister’s life is saved, the journey which has lost me precious time at her side is worth every moment it lasts.
 
Light fades from the day.
 
Shadows grow and stretch.
 
There is only now, and tomorrow, and then I rush back to Lais.
 
If she means to die, she will not die without me.

Leaving our horses tied so one cannot reach the other, we make the long climb up narrow stone stairs and the whole way I cough out palm dust.
 
The top is flat and on it the Lotus Eaters have built their mud houses, abutting them against the sides of the temple.
 
Above the door of the temple is carved the face of Medusa, worshipped by the women of Libya as a serpent goddess.
 
And this we also find: the temple door is shut and barred.

Banging on the door produces nothing but noise and an indulgent smile from Isidore.
 
Nothing in Alexandria is as old as this temple.
 
It was ancient when Alexander stood here.
 
Did he too bang on the door?

No time to waste, I must get in.
 
There are no windows.
 
I think to circle the building.
 
There is no circling the building.
 
The sides facing north and west are merely extensions of the sheer rock rising up from the palms far below.
 
To follow the wall south from the columned front door takes me to another wall that extends to the southern edge of the rock.

So here we are, come all this way, and other than a few poor feathered Libyans peering from the doors of their homes of mud brick and rock salt, there is no one to greet me, to allow me near the oracle, not even to collect the “donation” which of course I brought, as much as might be required.

“Someone will come in the morning,” says Isidore, who has spoken only when he must since becoming silent.
 
“So unless you mean to batter down the door, or somehow slip through the openings high in the wall, you must be content to wait this night.”

He is right.
 
I cannot batter down the door.
 
I look up.
 
By Thoth!
 
Far above are two narrow openings over the door.
 
Could I scale the sheer wall, slip through the slits?
 
I calculate the possibility.
 
The rope Desher carries is too short.
 
But were it not, though I am slender, the slits are more slender still.

“Come,” says Isidore, “There must be a caravansary.
 
We will eat and we will rest.
 
At first light, we will return to the temple.
 
If there is still no one to allow us entrance,
then
we will break down the door.
 
In one way or another, you shall see your oracle.”

Isidore speaks to me!
 
How glad my heart.
 
And how sad.
 
I do not wish to care.
 
I have only so much left to give now that I give all to Lais.

~

It is the men of Siwa who wear woven cords around their heads and through them place long thin feathers.
 
It is the men who curl their beards and simper as they hide behind doors.
 
But it is both men and women who are varied in race.
 
Long banished here are Romans, Greeks, Persians, even sky-eyed men of the north.
 
The women of whatever race are bold, and strangely lovely.
 
Though I am without stature here, and Isidore’s robes and cross mean nothing, all at the inn greet us with smiles and bows as deep as would be granted Alexander.
 
They tell us the guardian of the Temple of Zeus Ammon lives on the far side of the oblique mountain.
 
She shall be summoned this night.

The room we are then offered is communal, there is no other kind.
 
Dozens sleep on pallets scattered over the floor.
 
Isidore and I cannot stay in such a room for all who spend the night are male.
 
So yet again, we make our beds under a grouping together of palms.

Isidore might be asleep.
 
He might not.
 
I am awake and sorely tired of our silence.
 
One who believes is like a lover; he would hear nothing ill of his beloved.
 
Isidore is such a lover whose beloved is Christ.
 
“Isidore,” I whisper, “I have a thoughtless tongue.
 
Forgive me.”

He is awake.
 
I hear him turn on his mat to face me as I continue flat on my back.
 
I hear him say, “I forgive you.
 
The brotherhood is not what you think.”

“It is not?”

“It is much maligned.”

The brotherhood
is
what I think it; all know this.
 
But Isidore is archpriest, and shielded by Theophilus.
 
He would know only that part that does good in the world.
 
Did he not rush away to help the suffering on the day of the shaking of the earth?
 
Again my reasoning soothes me.

In an oasis far from where Lais lies dying, I would solace myself by speaking of stars, of the nature of man, of the mind, of the Divine Proportion described by Pythagoras.
 
Is it not, I would say to Isidore, a beautiful symmetry that a line divided according to Euclid’s mean and extreme ratio will prove the larger segment to be in the same proportion to the smaller segment as the line itself is to the larger segment?
 
And should one fold the smaller segment onto the larger segment: two more segments with this same ratio will appear, and so on and so on forever!
 
Adding word to word, I would rush on.
 
To look on the human face or to hold a human hand, to lay one’s head as a bride on another and listen to the beat of their heart, to gaze at the wings of a moth or the petals of the lotus, to behold the shape of a shell or be transported by the flow of musical notes—if God has spoken, surely this is that language.
 
In short, I would hide in a tangle of words.
 
But Isidore has so moved his divinely proportioned hand that it now touches mine.
 
I do not move.
 
He lifts my hand to his lips.
 
I allow this.
 
He kisses my palm.
 
This also I allow.
 
And within me something stirs.
 
It is not mind.
 
It is not heart.
 
It is the heat of the body, and it speaks to me the way hunger speaks and its speaking grows louder until it becomes a drum in my ears.
 
Isidore touches now more than my hand.
 
He has raised himself from his side so that he leans over me, pushing the folds of my
haik
away from my shoulders.
 
And still I allow this.
 
In truth, I raise my body towards his, my mouth towards his, my sex towards his.
 
And when I feel his naked mouth on mine and his sex through cloth on mine, I understand what I feel.
 
I understand what it means.
 
Reason no longer controls what I do.
 
It is feeling that compels this allowing.
 
I feel more than I have ever felt, save grief as my mother died so that Jone might live, or horror as Lais arced over her bed as the Goddess Nut arcs over the earth.

Isidore’s smell is as pepper, his beard tastes of salt, but I allow him even this.
 
What more shall I allow?
 
All that I believe of myself is fading and all I did not know of myself becomes blindingly bright.
 
How long before what I allow goes so far that I cannot disallow it?
 
I
want
what comes.
 
I want it.
 
But who is the “I” that wants this thing that animals do, that is done from the highest to the lowest?
 
Where is the “I” that does not want this, that has never wanted this, that knows what will come of it?

Isidore lies atop me now, his length against my length, and his clothing has come away as has mine.
 
We glisten in the heat we make.
 
My skin slides over his—and I will give myself to him.
 
Isidore’s mouth is as near my ear as mine was near to the ear of Lais.
 
“As I have vowed celibacy,” he whispers, “my vows have proved easy.
 
With you, I deny them all.
 
This is the true reason I followed.”

Can I say the same to him?

He raises himself on his arms, arms that are twisted with muscle.
 
He looks down at me, at my face, my neck, my breasts, my belly, the maiden sex his own strength pushes against, and with a groan he pulls me over on top of him so that I now lie looking down at his face.
 
He is beautiful.
 
Even the strong smell of his sweat is beautiful as is the blank need in his eyes.
 
I desire what he would do to me.
 
I desire what I would do to him.
 
But the answer is no, I cannot say the same to him.
 
And there is this: I do not trust what he says.
 
I do not trust what he does.
 
He wants nothing more of me than his stallion wants of Desher.

“Stop, Isidore.”

But he does not stop, rather he raises his face to my neck and I feel his teeth just as I feel the tip of his member begin to slip inside my body.

“Stop!”

The teeth and his phallus dig deeper.
 
The slightest push, and my maidenhead is gone.

“As you are my friend, you will stop.”

But he will not.

The knife that is as hard as he, as long as he, the one I’ve slipped under my mat is in my hand.
 
It rests now against his throat.
 
“I will kill you, Isidore, I swear this.
 
If you take from me what I would not willingly give, I will take your life from you.”

“You lie to me as you lie to yourself.
 
You are not unwilling, merely afraid.
 
And you will not kill me.”

With a quick movement of his arm, a movement I would be prepared for if not for the tumult of my senses, Isidore twists away my knife, and with one mighty grip of his arms, he flips me over and under him, and then he is fully inside me.
 
I gasp with pain.
 
I gasp with a feeling that is not as I expect it to be.
 
I am filled with what is not me, is not welcome, is not pleasurable.
 
As he has nipped me with his teeth, I sink mine in his shoulder so he might pull away in pain, but he does not—not until he goes rigid with some strange sensation, a sensation I do not share, not until he shouts out in private ecstasy and I am suddenly on my feet staring down at him, my sex wet and dripping with what is him, not me, and I know that although he is one who can listen for hours as I speak, he is also nothing more than a man who wants what a man wants.
 
I see now why he is
Parabalanoi
.
 
It is in him, this taking away.