Memoirs of a Bitch (7 page)

“Never mind. I'll listen just the same.”

Menelaus didn't come home that evening. He sent a herald to tell me he was going to sleep in the barracks with his soldiers. And that I must look after our guest. The counselors saw me receive the herald and looked at me for news. There was no hypocrisy or corruption at the court of Sparta. My father Tyndareus had taken care of that. The counselors waited confidently so they could assess me against the sharp edge of their bitter experience. There had to be something missing in their mad queen, the incestuous, the deceiver.

Achilles was standing at my side, motionless in the bright sunlight of day that sharply divided him into light and shadow. There was something lacking in the son of Peleus, he was mad, wild and a deceiver.

“We'll give a banquet,” I announced in the silence.
The counselors shook their heads. Spartans. Achilles smiled.

The opaque sky tore itself open in a sunset of fire. Achilles watched, standing under the olives. I slithered down the loose hillside to join him, silver bracelets tinkling on my wrist. He never even turned, but I knew he was smiling.

“I can hear the tinkle of jewelry, Helen of Sparta.”

“You hear well, Achilles of Phthia,” I smiled back, imagining the sun playing on the stones in my comb; for the first time in ages, for far too long, I was ready to be admired. But when he did look around no smile brightened his dark face.

“Achilles of nowhere. And, my queen, I'm afraid they're coming for you.” I turned. A slave girl was slithering awkwardly down the path I had just taken, her white dress tinted pink by the light. Before I could answer, Achilles walked away with his back to the sun. Wait, I wanted to say, but the word stuck in my throat. He was moving so quickly I had no chance of catching up with him. Marked with impatience and a dark shadow of heavy premonition in the triumphant light of the dying day. A light made bloody by glory.

The sunset was silently fading into black velvety night when I poured a libation to the gods to start the banquet.
I was wearing my white diadem, and ranged around the table as if sculpted in stone were the gray wolves of my father's council, his tacit tribute to the weakness of my husband. I could almost hear them snarling: look at this woman daring to raise a cup to the gods; Helen's just like Leda, and after this nothing would surprise them. I grasped the black cup by its two handles and lifted it to my lips. The last drops must be poured on the ground for the gods. Let their mute will be done.

The banquet started. Against a sound like the dismal humming of furious bees, a heavy pall of mistrust. A suitor returned. An absent king leaving his queen on the loose. They were curling their lips in scorn, I could see that. Menippus, who had been captain of the guard for more years than I could remember, was assessing Achilles with a look previously reserved for my mother's lovers. And beneath the contempt in his eyes was an indefinable fear. They said Achilles had grown up among monsters and had devoured lions, and Menippus was an old man who believed the stories he heard. But his fear meant nothing to me. Nor did their fear and contempt mean anything to Achilles. I dimly remembered Diomedes under those same lights, but it was a faded memory from long ago. The dissolving mist of an unreal past, meaningless on an evening like this. Achilles saw me watching him, and meeting my eye, slowly tilted his
cup over the edge of the table. Drop followed drop to the floor. Honoring a promise. Menippus watched and knitted his brows. But I was the only one who understood. I smiled in the pink light; I had already poured my own offering to the dark god.

When I reached my room, Achilles was already there. Sitting by the window, half lit by moonlight. Sitting by the window, sharply divided into light and shadow. I stood for too long, motionless in the doorway, watching him, assessing the strange harmony of his face. I could hear the muffled hammering of my heart deep inside me. Then I rushed to him with futile joy, my hand held out as though terrified he would vanish from under my very fingers. He said nothing but his hands opened like rough flowers on my arms and hips and around my waist. The night belonged to me, in no sense a concession or a gift. And a second farewell, one I could never have hoped for. He was on me and inside me, and my heart melted no less than my limbs as I fell backward.

It was sweet to feel his weight on top of me afterward. His head, and our four arms. We had no need of words. We just needed the moonlight pouring on our two bodies, and the peace. We were like ivy in sunlight shamelessly
winding itself around branches, his hair on my mouth, his head on my heart.

“I shall die young.”

“You'll never die.”

“By the sword. Not in bed. Uncomforted. Biting the dust.”

“That seems a bad way to die.”

“Those gods I don't believe in swear in their oracles that sparks of glory will be mixed with the dust.”

“What do you believe in, Achilles?”

“In this present moment burning through time without ever being able to return. In your warmth caught here and now in my hand. In this life living long after our lives are over.”

“I shall die alone.”

“Two bad deaths, then, Helen of Sparta. It would be better to make an end now.”

“In this eternal moment.”

“But leaving us behind.” His eyes searched for mine. Those eyes whose black pupils shone from within irises dulled by the light. We waited together for the dawn. It was only at first light that sleep wrapped us in its gentle shadow. But in that night and in that light there was too much cruel beauty for us to close our eyes. I could have stopped there. I should have. But meanwhile the moon sank below the sharp edge of the world.

Dawn brought rain, a soft rain from light clouds. The air on the damp sheets tasted of water when I opened my eyes. Raising myself on my elbow, I looked at Achilles. He was stretched on my bed like a sleeping lion, arms and shoulders relaxed, skin dark as honey. His smooth fair hair on the pillow. Achilles, Achilles. I softly whispered his name, and as if hearing me he shook, a long shiver from neck to hip that I caught in the palm of my hand. I lay down again beside him, my hands on his shoulder blades. “My love,” I murmured, not even knowing who I was addressing. Rain rustled outside the window like a falling veil. I turned to look at the rain and saw a long empty shadow among the trees. “My love, my love,” I whispered, but the shadow vanished. Made of stuff of dreams. I lay down again and rested my head against
the back of Achilles. I was safe there. Rain caressed the roof and I slept.

I don't know what time it was when I woke because there was no sun, but Achilles was already dressed, sitting by the window, watching me. Pushing away the sheet I sat up. I did not want to smile.

“I'm going today.”

I nodded. “When?”

“As long as it takes to bridle the horses.”

“I'll come see you off.”

His eyes were the deep distant color of musk that sad morning. And in the far distance a clap of thunder ripped the weak fabric of the sky.

“You didn't come the other time,” he said.

“But I know this will be the last time.”

He came to sit on the edge of the bed. I watched his eyes, which at that moment were almost blue. Like steel. I could have spent all the time still left to me motionless like that with my arms on my knees. Watching him. He seemed about to speak, but kept quiet. Stroked my cheek with his fingertips. Then he leaned forward. I waited with my eyes open for his kiss, but it did not come, leaving an empty space between us. Then he got up and went away.

*

The horses were pawing the shining stones of the courtyard. Nine horsemen as always for Argos, Phthia and other princes and kings leaving Sparta in dust settled by rain. Achilles in the lead, his arm raised in farewell. Hair wet and darkened, eyes expressionless. I raised my arm in response from the top of the steps, my lips pursed. Though I did not know it I was sure this would be our last farewell. He pulled on the reins and turned his horse. And the riders vanished through the gates toward where the mountains of the Peloponnese were hidden by persistent drizzle. I bit my tongue, wanting to believe that the pearls of water on my eyelashes were rain. I'm made of stone. The door behind me was guarded by two young soldiers with identical faces, colorless in the weak light under their bronze helms. When I took a step toward them they beat their lances on the ground. Saluting their queen. Not a madwoman, not an adulteress, just Helen of Sparta, whatever the wolves of the council might think. Beyond the soldiers, in the corridor, was a dark shadow, an emptiness. I walked toward it.

Menelaus returned that night, and the sequence of unchanging days and evenings began again. I try to remember those first years of my marriage, my husband's face on the pillow and the exact quality of his voice. But I can't. For me, Menelaus only inhabited the edge of days
lived on my own. Perhaps it is only now that I realize he was afraid of me. Ashamed of himself, and with a pathetic, empty pride in the throne he had only been able to occupy as my husband. Brother of the king of kings, but born to be second. And I, as the bards loved to sing, was the most beautiful and also the craziest queen in Greece. There certainly were things to be afraid of.

When the coming of winter brought the wolves down from the mountains and turned the courtyard white with snow, my evenings became empty vigils by the brazier. I could hear again the words of Achilles:
Don't burn
. A man had come from far away and told us at table that Diomedes had married Aegileia, Princess of Argos. Diomedes lost. The childhood I never had finally came to an end there, in those flat words. As if I had ever believed Diomedes would come back. As if it had ever made sense to hope for it. I could feel the memory of him I still held inside me, depressing my spirit as it took its farewell and left me, as I watched him disappear. I locked his voice and face behind iron gates deep down in my soul. To prevent them from returning to wound me. From the corner of my eye I could see my unclear reflection in the mirror. Hair pulled together under a gold circlet. Dress of heavy blue wool. I was beautiful that day but Achilles was far away and could not see me, the
wrong side of mile after mile of rough impassable sea. He could not know that I had obeyed his word, and that even in those gray nights I was searching inside myself for springs to nourish what had brought him back to me. But he had also gone again leaving no trace, and in spite of my fiery spirit I had not been able to follow him. Or had not wanted to. I looked through the window at the countryside sunk in gray and black. At the veiled night sky, its stars blotted out by snow. I placed my hand on my stomach. And there, under my open palm, I could feel a tiny tremor. It was too soon, I must have imagined it, but I knew then that Achilles had not left me. I wanted to smile, but the air was too full of sadness. A sort of melancholy suspense. Grow little Achilles, I whispered to my belly, grow and come to rule Sparta. It's my kingdom, and I shall leave it to you. I can do that. I'm not like all these men, some easy-going and some severe but all weak. No. I'm like your father. Strong. I'm made of stone. And of fire.

From the moment he heard about the child, Menelaus left me alone. Happy, stupidly satisfied by what he saw as a job well done, he would come to my room in the evening and sit watching me weave or spin. Or, with his hands clasped together, just gaze out of the window at the Peloponnese blanketed in snow. When he began to feel sleepy, he would stretch his arms, then interlace his fingers on his stomach. I did my best to ignore him, because I knew what was likely to follow. In my irritation I would work feverishly at spindle or shuttle, twisting the thread into impossible shapes. My whole body would stiffen on my chair. But it was useless. He would sigh, every evening the same sigh, the deep exhalation from tranquil lungs of life successfully achieved. Then he would get up and move stiffly toward me on creaky legs.

“Helen,” pathetically, as if afraid of frightening a small domestic animal, “Helen,” he would say again, coming closer, his voice even softer. Then his neck would stiffen in a desperate effort to control himself, his eyes fixed on my work as if seeing it through a thick blanket of fog. Then his hand would land on my shoulder and roughly caress the back of my neck. I would close my eyes, put down my work and shrink away from him toward the window. I could not bear the moment when he would bend over and lay his grateful head against my ripening belly. Other men, most men, ignore their wives when their children are gradually maturing toward the light of day. I should have been happy with this kind man who never raised hand or voice against me, but just liked to listen to what he imagined to be his son swimming slowly in his natal waters and who never humiliated me by going with slave girls; but I loathed him. I loathed him, because I could see in his smile the imprint of the weakness that had scarred his life, the total influence of the shadow and weight of his brother; the expression he wore when he sat on the throne of Sparta, the satisfaction of a man who thinks he has won himself a rise in status. I remembered the pride of Diomedes and the majesty of Achilles. I could have destroyed this man with a single blow of the scissors lying beside me on the window ledge. He never realized how much I hated him,
Menelaus, it was something he could not imagine. He had always given me everything I wanted unasked; I only had to say the word and the treasury would have been emptied to buy purple and gold.

But Helen was no Leda, I was not like my mother, and despite the fact that I was queen of Sparta, and every day faced in the mirror a woman I did not know when I combed my hair and dressed it in ribbons interlaced with silver, yet I had myself woven the woolen clothes I wore, and never let my silent slave girls waste their time in idleness. So I wove and spun and listened to the growing son of Achilles that Menelaus would always believe to be his. But it got harder to keep the fires of memory burning as the curve under my clothes swelled, and I found myself beginning to ask whether the weight below my ribs might not after all be his, whether all that conscientious panting had not in the end brought him victory. The mere thought took my eyes to my scissors and sent fresh poison streaming through my veins, and this at least kept apathy at bay. I waited. The dark winter lengthened into a year with no spring or summer, in which the few jewels on the trees were destroyed by cold on branches swollen with useless pollen. While in the yards priests cut the throats of lambs to find out why the earth was so angry, I stroked the closed corolla of my womb and waited for it to begin opening. When
I heard the lambs bleat I shuddered, and pressing my hands over my ears I could clearly hear the voice of Achilles at my side:
the useless oracles of the gods of the sky; animals, animals is all they are and all they will ever be, because they refuse to take responsibility for this useless blood.
He was right, Achilles, the gods were nothing more than dumb idols in whose names these lambs were suffering, so I gave orders that no more should be sacrificed. Madwoman, blasphemer, they probably called me, but I didn't care, strong in the conviction that my heavy body belonged to Achilles. Meanwhile nature held her breath in a year that refused to behave as men expected it to, though there was no premonition of disaster in that immobility, only a slow patient waiting for a gentle goddess to finish her work. Nature was there in every blade of grass, in every cloud, and knew where she was going. I had not grown heavy in vain. My sealed corolla would open to the light of a new summer.