Ithaca (30 page)

“I'm sorry we argued yesterday.” I need to say that before the day begins.

“Did we?” She shrugs. “It doesn't matter.”

“I love you.”

“And I love you.” She looks up at me, puzzled.

I come and sit on the bed next to her. “What's the matter?”

“I had another dream. Of Odysseus. He was here.” She looks down at the bed. “He was right here with me. He was
old
.” She shudders suddenly. Through her nightdress, I can see how thin my mother is. In the morning light she looks ill.

“It was a dream.”

“He said . . . he said, ‘Why did you wait for me?' I didn't know how to answer. He was sick, I think. His poor face all scarred, and he had a limp. It was Odysseus, though. I know it was him, and I woke in a sweat.” She shivers, hugging herself. “Maybe he's dead, that's what the dream's telling me. On an island somewhere. Or in Egypt.”

“No!”

She looks bitterly at me. “You were the one who told me he's dead.”

I say, “There's something I must tell you. Odysseus isn't dead. He's here . . .”

“No!” The violence in her voice startles me. She lifts one small hand and presses it hard against my mouth. “No!” And
she goes on, spitting out each small, hard word separately. “I—don't—want—to—hear.” Slowly she releases the pressure from my mouth.

“Mother . . .”

“People say these things. They'll say anything. ‘I saw him in Crete.' ‘He's on a ship.' And then you say, ‘He's dead,' and now, ‘He's alive.' I—don't—want—to hear any more. It's just stories, stories. Everyone uses his name for themselves. ‘I saw Odysseus. I want money.' He isn't here.” She shakes her head, her hair flying wildly. “I saw Odysseus leave. I know him. He hasn't come back.”

“Mother, please, you have to listen.”

“No!” Penelope squeezes her hands over her ears and shuts her eyes tight, folding herself into a ball like a child frightened of the dark. I put one hand on her neck. I can feel it tense. With her eyes still closed, she says, “Today I'll choose a man. A new husband. It's time.”

“No!” She doesn't respond. I shake her arm. “You mustn't.
Please
.”

No answer. I plead with her, but she won't speak again. It's no use. For a moment Penelope saw the world as it was, but the shadows are pressing around her again. I leave her in the end, but before I go I stoop to kiss the top of her head. There are grey hairs among the black, I notice. My mother is growing old.

Full of foreboding, I close the door and make my way down to the hall. It's full. The young men have dressed for Odysseus's funeral. Their hair is oiled. They wear brightly colored shirts, sashes bound around their waists, and leather cloaks with embroidered hems. Some have ornamental daggers thrust into their sashes, others, swords in richly-embroidered scabbards.

I beckon to a servant. “You'll find Eumaeus waiting by the main gate. Tell him to come in.”

I nod to Eurymachus, who's wearing a green silk shirt studded with bronze medallions. A moment later Eumaeus sidles into the hall and makes his way to the corner. There's still no sign of Odysseus. Antinous, in crimson, is inspecting the jewels that encrust his fingers, with a knot of admiring men around him. Some are studying the table already set out for the feast, piled with wine jars and trays of bread. Others are slouched on the benches or leaning restlessly against the tables, drumming their fingers, playing with sleeves and tassels. Peacocks. Or prize-fighting cocks. Show birds dressed for display, strutting, preening, always eyeing one another for the fight. I'm thinking,
It's what Odysseus must have been once.
It's what I was born for. I see Odysseus come in at last, wearily pausing on the threshold to look at the brilliantly dressed young men assembled for his own funeral. His head is down. Slowly he makes his way around the walls to a column and settles beneath it, his beggar's satchel on his knees. He doesn't look up at me.

My mouth's dry, and I beckon over a servant with a pitcher of water. I remember how high, how young my voice sounded when I addressed the town meeting. That mustn't happen.

I swallow the cup of water gratefully and climb on a bench. “Guests!” It takes a moment to silence the hall, but at last I have their attention. “I would ask you to show respect for my father today.” Faces look up at me, skeptical, bored, a few assuming the solemn expression they think appropriate for a burial. “Today we will light a pyre in memory of Odysseus. You all know how hard this will be for my mother, Penelope, so I have decided there will be no grand procession down to the beach. We would rather divide the procession into small groups. Antinous, we would be grateful”—I stress the
we
—“if you would lead the first party down there. I will come later, with my mother and the remaining guests.”

It sounds reasonable enough, doesn't it? A couple of the men nod. But Antinous is frowning. “Why?” he says in a loud, harsh voice. “Odysseus was chief of Ithaca. He deserves a show. We should go together.”

“This is as my mother wishes it.” My mouth is dry.

Voices start to break out. I glance at my father, but Odysseus is staring at the ground like he's in a trance.

“Please!”

I have to persuade them, I
have
to. This was the best plan we could come up with. If things go well, we have a chance of overcoming half of them before the others figure out something's wrong. But already it's coming unstuck.

“No!” Antinous is snarling, in a rough bark quite unlike his usual voice. There's something wrong with him. He's pale, and his whole body is quivering. Does he suspect something? “We'll stay together.” His small, sharp eyes dart around the hall.

“Please . . .” I'm trying to speak above the hubbub, but another voice stills all of us.

“No one's going to the shore.”

The silence is immediate. I look around. Penelope is standing on the stair landing. Is it her words that have hushed everyone, or her appearance? I expected her to come prepared for a funeral, wearing black, with her face whitened and ashes in her hair.

Instead, Penelope is dressed as a bride.

Her gown is white. There's a twine of bay leaves in her hair. A thin gold chain hangs around her neck.

“No one's going to the shore,” she repeats, her voice clear and determined. Suddenly she points at the wall. I don't know what she means, to start with. Then I realize she's pointing at Odysseus's great bow. “Bring that to me.”

A servant unhooks it, and the bow is passed from hand to hand across the hall. As it reaches Penelope, the bright sunlight
in the doorway shivers, and the square of sky above the hearth dims suddenly. Everyone feels the cold breath of air flowing into the hall. Servants hurry to light torches in the brackets around the wall.

Penelope takes the bow, taller than she is, and turns it over in her hands. Its wood is dark, the ivory horns at either end yellowed with age and smoke. The string hangs loose between them.

“Today,” she says, “I'll choose the man I'll live with.” Her hands caress the smooth wood of the bow. “I'll marry the man who can string this bow.”

A murmur of surprise and confusion fills the room. I look for Eumaeus but can't see him. Penelope speaks above the commotion. “Odysseus could string this bow. I won't take a lesser man than him. If no one can string it, I'll die alone.” As she speaks the words, she looks straight at the tramp by the woodpile.

And that's when I realize she knows. She knows it's Odysseus; she's known all along. This is the ending Penelope needs. We made our plans, but it's hers we'll follow. The ending that will close sixteen years of pain.

A test not for the others but for Odysseus.

G
ive it to me.”

Antinous strides across the hall, the other young men parting for him. No one questions his right to try the bow first. He seizes it from Penelope, his face set, and weighs it in his hand. Suddenly he gives an odd little giggle and rolls up his sleeves. He plants one foot firmly in front of him, sets the lower horn against it, and curls the fingers of his left hand around the grip.

For a moment he stands, rocking on his toes. The torches around the walls flicker in the cold gusts that steal through the door. No one speaks. Delicately Antinous untwists the string with his right hand and, still holding it, sets his hand halfway
up the bow's haft. He lowers his face, rocking farther and more slowly, as if he's trying to recruit strength from deep within his bulk. A growl emerges from somewhere inside him, rising in pitch until it becomes a high wailing, almost like a woman's lament. Suddenly his body hardens and convulses. The bow whips and gives a great creak as he bends it back, hand drawing the string to the top of the shaft. I can hardly watch. He's done it, I think. He's strung the bow. Antinous's face is purple. The tendons on his arm stand out like ropes. His fingers scrabble for the horn at the top of the bow, trying to hook the string over it. But there's something despairing now in his shriek. His right foot stamps the floor, seeking a better purchase, and as it does, the bow gives a great kick. Like an animal wriggling from a hunter's grasp, it leaps into the air. Antinous's voice becomes a wail and dies. He staggers back against the wall as the bow clatters to the ground, unstrung.

Before anyone can move, Antinous lunges forward again. His fingers scrabble at his belt. Suddenly he has an axe in his hands. He raises it high over his head, but just as he's about to bring it down on the bow, Eurymachus grasps his wrist.

“Stop.” His voice is cold and calm.

Antinous glares at him. The two men's faces are only a hand's breadth apart.

“Others can try this test.”

A mutter of angry agreement runs around the hall. Slowly, still glaring at Eurymachus, Antinous relaxes, lowers his arms, takes a step back. Eurymachus picks up the bow. He keeps his eyes on Antinous as he takes up his stance, left foot braced against the lower horn. He bends the bow a couple of times before trying to string it, grimacing as he senses the hardness in the wood. Old wood, stiff as the tree from which it was cut, unyielding.

The torches flicker again. A cold breath sweeps through the hall like the tongue of death. Penelope shivers. Some
of the young men draw their cloaks around them as a few fat drops of rain fall into the hearth, making the fire hiss. But Eurymachus seems unaware of the sudden chill. He fixes his eyes somewhere in the distance, to the left of where Antinous still stands. A frown of concentration creases his handsome face. He dips his body to the right as he scoops up the string, as if he's dancing with the bow, coaxing it, seducing it. There's no preliminary posturing. Suddenly he tenses, and the string slips easily up the bow's polished shaft. Eurymachus's hips swivel as he brings it close to his face. For a moment I think he's going to kiss the yellowed horn as the string drops into place.

But the string stops dead two fingers short of the notch. It's as if, having curved the bow so far to his will, Eurymachus has suddenly hit resistant metal beneath the pliant wood. He straightens his back, yielding nothing, and urges the string another finger's breadth toward its goal. He's muttering to himself now. His eyes are closed; his narrow shoulders begin to rise. Then suddenly, carelessly, he throws the bow aside and walks away. The crowd parts for him. Eurymachus goes to the door and stands with his back to the hall, looking out.

No one speaks.

After a moment another man steps forward. It's Agelaus, the brute who was in a knife fight over Melantho the day Mentes arrived. I don't know much about him except that he comes from one of the islands in the east of Greece and is said to be rich. A black beard covers the lower part of his face. His rounded shoulders curve into arms as thick as branches, ending in red, jointless hands that grip whole bones of lamb when he eats. I know he's a wrestler. Once, when they were all wrestling on the beaten earth to the side of the house, I saw him take on all comers, one by one, and fight them to a standstill. He didn't want to let the last man go but threw him again and
again, expressionless, until the other man's face was a mask of blood, one eye was gone, and his arm hung broken at his side.

Jerkily, Agelaus unhooks his cloak and drops it on the floor. Wiry black hair covers his arms and shoulders. He picks up the bow and shakes it, like he's punishing a puppy he wants to train, then wriggles his shoulders, sets the bow's horn against his foot, and begins to heave. I catch the puzzled look in his face the moment he realizes the bow's stronger than he is. Maybe he never fought anything stronger than himself. He strains. The bow gives nothing back. Instead of bending, it starts to bend Agelaus, sliding his fingers back down the haft until the bow rises straight and Agelaus bows before it, hands on his knees, panting and groaning with the effort.