The Penelopiad (3 page)

Whatever was behind it, Odysseus cheated and won the race. I saw Helen smiling maliciously as she watched the marriage rites. She thought I was being pawned off on an uncouth dolt who would
haul me off to a dreary backwater, and she was not displeased. She’d probably known well beforehand that the fix was in.

As for me, I had trouble making it through the ceremony – the sacrifices of animals, the offerings to the gods, the lustral sprinklings, the libations, the prayers, the interminable songs. I felt quite dizzy. I kept my eyes downcast, so all I could see of Odysseus was the lower part of his body.
Short
legs
, I kept thinking, even at the most solemn moments. This was not an appropriate thought – it was trivial and silly, and it made me want to giggle – but in my own defence I must point out that I was only fifteen.

And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.

But perhaps that is too crude a simile for you. Let me add that meat was highly valued among us – the aristocracy ate lots of it, meat, meat, meat, and all they ever did was roast it: ours was not an age of haute cuisine. Oh, I forgot: there was also bread, flatbread that is, bread, bread, bread, and wine, wine, wine. We did have the odd fruit or vegetable, but you’ve probably never heard of these because no one put them into the songs much.

The gods wanted meat as much as we did, but all they ever got from us was the bones and fat, thanks to a bit of rudimentary sleight of hand by Prometheus: only an idiot would have been deceived by a bag of bad cow parts disguised as good ones,
and Zeus was deceived; which goes to show that the gods were not always as intelligent as they wanted us to believe.

I can say this now because I’m dead. I wouldn’t have dared to say it earlier. You could never tell when one of the gods might be listening, disguised as a beggar or an old friend or a stranger. It’s true that I sometimes doubted their existence, these gods. But during my lifetime I considered it prudent not to take any risks.

There was lots of everything at my wedding feast – great glistening hunks of meat, great wads of fragrant bread, great flagons of mellow wine. It was amazing that the guests didn’t burst on the spot, they stuffed themselves so full. Nothing helps gluttony along so well as eating food you don’t have to pay for yourself, as I learned from later experience.

We ate with our hands in those days. There was a lot of gnawing and some heavy-duty chewing, but it was better that way – no sharp utensils that could be snatched up and plunged into a fellow guest who
might have annoyed you. At any wedding preceded by a contest there were bound to be a few sore losers; but no unsuccessful suitor lost his temper at my feast. It was more as if they’d failed to win an auction for a horse.

The wine was mixed too strong, so there were many fuddled heads. Even my father, King Icarius, got quite drunk. He suspected he’d had a trick played on him by Tyndareus and Odysseus, he was almost sure they’d cheated, but he couldn’t figure out how they’d done it; and this made him angry, and when he was angry he drank even more, and dropped insulting comments about people’s grandparents. But he was a king, so there were no duels.

Odysseus himself did not get drunk. He had a way of appearing to drink a lot without actually doing it. He told me later that if a man lives by his wits, as he did, he needs to have those wits always at hand and kept sharp, like axes or swords. Only fools, he said, were given to bragging about how much they could drink. It was bound to lead to swilling competitions, and then to inattention and
the loss of one’s powers, and that would be when your enemy would strike.

As for me, I couldn’t eat a thing. I was too nervous. I sat there shrouded in my bridal veil, hardly daring to glance at Odysseus. I was certain he would be disappointed in me once he’d lifted that veil and made his way in through the cloak and the girdle and the shimmering robe in which I’d been decked out. But he wasn’t looking at me, and neither was anyone else. They were all staring at Helen, who was dispensing dazzling smiles right and left, not missing a single man. She had a way of smiling that made each one of them feel that secretly she was in love with him alone.

I suppose it was lucky that Helen was distracting everyone’s attention, because it kept them from noticing me and my trembling and awkwardness. I wasn’t just nervous, I was really afraid. The maids had been filling my ears with tales about how – once I was in the bridal chamber – I would be torn apart as the earth is by the plough, and how painful and humiliating that would be.

As for my mother, she’d stopped swimming around like a porpoise long enough to attend my wedding, for which I was less grateful than I ought to have been. There she sat on her throne beside my father, robed in cool blue, a small puddle gathering at her feet. She did make a little speech to me as the maids were changing my costume yet again, but I didn’t consider it to be a helpful one at the time. It was nothing if not oblique; but then, all Naiads are oblique.

Here is what she said:

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge
your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a
solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes
where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand
against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away
a
stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half
water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it
.
Water does
.

After the ceremonies and the feasting, there was the usual procession to the bridal chamber, with the
usual torches and vulgar jokes and drunken yelling. The bed had been garlanded, the threshold sprinkled, the libations poured. The gatekeeper had been posted to keep the bride from rushing out in horror, and to stop her friends from breaking down the door and rescuing her when they heard her scream. All of this was play-acting: the fiction was that the bride had been stolen, and the consummation of a marriage was supposed to be a sanctioned rape. It was supposed to be a conquest, a trampling of a foe, a mock killing. There was supposed to be blood.

Once the door had been closed, Odysseus took me by the hand and sat me down on the bed. ‘Forget everything you’ve been told,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, or not very much. But it would help us both if you could pretend. I’ve been told you’re a clever girl. Do you think you could manage a few screams? That will satisfy them – they’re listening at the door – and then they’ll leave us in peace and we can take our time to become friends.’

This was one of his great secrets as a persuader – he could convince another person that the two of them together faced a common obstacle, and that they needed to join forces in order to overcome it. He could draw almost any listener into a collaboration, a little conspiracy of his own making. Nobody could do this better than he: for once, the stories don’t lie. And he had a wonderful voice as well, deep and sonorous. So of course I did as he asked.

Somewhat later I found that Odysseus was not one of those men who, after the act, simply roll over and begin to snore. Not that I am aware of this common male habit through my own experience; but as I’ve said, I listened a lot to the maids. No, Odysseus wanted to talk, and as he was an excellent raconteur I was happy to listen. I think this is what he valued most in me: my ability to appreciate his stories. It’s an underrated talent in women.

I’d had occasion to notice the long scar on his thigh, and so he proceeded to tell me the story of
how he got it. As I’ve already mentioned, his grandfather was Autolycus, who claimed the god Hermes was his father. That may have been a way of saying that he was a crafty old thief, cheat, and liar, and that luck had favoured him in these kinds of activities.

Autolycus was the father of Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, who’d married King Laertes of Ithaca and was therefore now my mother-in-law. There was a slanderous item going around about Anticleia – that she’d been seduced by Sisyphus, who was the true father of Odysseus – but I found it difficult to believe, as who would want to seduce Anticleia? It would be like seducing a prow. But let the tale stand, for the moment.

Sisyphus was a man so tricky he was said to have cheated Death twice: once by fooling King Hades into putting on handcuffs that Sisyphus refused to unlock, once by talking Persephone into letting him out of the underworld because he hadn’t been properly buried, and thus didn’t belong on the dead side of the River Styx. So if we admit the rumour about
Anticleia’s infidelity, Odysseus had crafty and unscrupulous men on two of the main branches of his family tree.

Whatever the truth of this, his grandfather Autolycus – who’d named him – invited Odysseus to Mount Parnassus to collect the gifts promised him at his birth. Odysseus did pay the visit, during which he went boar hunting with the sons of Autolycus. It was a particularly ferocious boar that had gored him in the thigh and given him the scar.

There was something in the way Odysseus told the story that made me suspect there was more to it. Why had the boar savaged Odysseus, but not the others? Had they known where the boar was hiding out, had they led him into a trap? Was Odysseus meant to die so that Autolycus the cheat wouldn’t have to hand over the gifts he owed? Perhaps.

I liked to think so. I liked to think I had something in common with my husband: both of us had almost been destroyed in our youth by family members. All the more reason that we should stick together and not be too quick to trust others.

In return for his story about the scar, I told Odysseus my own story about almost drowning and being rescued by ducks. He was interested in it, and asked me questions about it, and was sympathetic – everything you would wish a listener to be. ‘My poor duckling,’ he said, stroking me. ‘Don’t worry. I would never throw such a precious girl into the ocean.’ At which point I did some more weeping, and was comforted in ways that were suitable for a wedding night.

So by the time the morning came, Odysseus and I were indeed friends, as Odysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myself had developed friendly feelings towards him – more than that, loving and passionate ones – and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is not quite the same thing.

After some days had passed, Odysseus announced his intention of taking me and my dowry back with him to Ithaca. My father was annoyed by this – he wanted the old customs kept, he said, which meant that he wanted both of us and our newly gained
wealth right there under his thumb. But we had the support of Uncle Tyndareus, whose son-in-law was Helen’s husband, the powerful Menelaus, so Icarius had to back down.

You’ve probably heard that my father ran after our departing chariot, begging me to stay with him, and that Odysseus asked me if I was going to Ithaca with him of my own free will or did I prefer to remain with my father? It’s said that in answer I pulled down my veil, being too modest to proclaim in words my desire for my husband, and that a statue was later erected of me in tribute to the virtue of Modesty.

There’s some truth to this story. But I pulled down my veil to hide the fact that I was laughing. You have to admit there was something humorous about a father who’d once tossed his own child into the sea capering down the road after that very child and calling, ‘Stay with me!’

I didn’t feel like staying. At that moment, I could hardly wait to get away from the Spartan court. I hadn’t been very happy there, and I longed to begin a new life.

The sea voyage to Ithaca was long and frightening, and also nauseating, or at least I found it so. I spent most of the time lying down or throwing up, sometimes both at once. Possibly I had an aversion to the ocean due to my childhood experience, or possibly the sea-god Poseidon was still annoyed by his failure to devour me.

Thus I saw little of the beauties of sky and cloud that Odysseus reported on his rare visits to see how I was feeling. He spent most of the time either at the bow, peering ahead (I imagined) with a hawk-like gaze in order to spot rocks and sea serpents and other dangers, or at the tiller, or directing the ship in some other way – I didn’t know how, because I’d never been on a ship before in my life.

I’d gained a great opinion of Odysseus since our wedding day, and admired him immensely, and had
an inflated notion of his capabilities – remember, I was fifteen – so I had the highest confidence in him, and considered him to be a sea captain who could not fail.

At last we arrived at Ithaca, and sailed into the harbour, which was surrounded by steep, rocky cliffs. They must have posted lookouts and lit beacons to announce our approach, because the harbour was thronged with people. A certain amount of cheering went on, and a lot of jostling among those who wanted to see what I looked like as I was led ashore – visible proof of the fact that Odysseus had succeeded in his mission, and had brought back a noble bride and the valuable gifts that came with her.

That night there was a feast for the aristocrats of the town. I appeared at it, wearing a shining veil and one of the best embroidered robes I had brought with me, and accompanied by the maid I had also brought. She was a wedding present to me from my father; her name was Actoris, and she was not at all happy to be there in Ithaca with me. She hadn’t
wanted to leave the luxuries of the Spartan palace and her friends among the servants, and I didn’t blame her. As she was not at all young – even my father would not have been so stupid as to send a blooming girl with me, a possible rival for Odysseus’s affections, especially since one of her tasks was to stand sentinel every night outside our bedroom door to prevent interruptions – she did not last long. Her death left me all alone in Ithaca, a stranger among strange people.

I did a lot of secluded weeping in those early days. I tried to conceal my unhappiness from Odysseus, as I did not wish to appear unappreciative. And he himself continued to be as attentive and considerate as he had been at first, although his manner was that of an older person to a child. I often caught him studying me, head on one side, chin in hand, as if I were a puzzle; but that was his habit with all, I soon discovered.

He told me once that everyone had a hidden door, which was the way into the heart, and that it was a point of honour with him to be able to find the
handles to those doors. For the heart was both key and lock, and he who could master the hearts of men and learn their secrets was well on the way to mastering the Fates and controlling the thread of his own destiny. Not, he hastened to add, that any man could really do that. Not even the gods, he said, were more powerful than the Three Fatal Sisters. He did not mention them by name, but spat to avoid bad luck; and I shivered to think of them in their glum cave, spinning out lives, measuring them, cutting them off.

‘Do I have a hidden door into my heart?’ I asked in what I hoped was a winsome and flirtatious manner. ‘And have you found it?’

At this Odysseus only smiled. ‘That is for you to tell me,’ he said.

‘And do you have a door into your heart as well?’ I said. ‘And have I found the key?’ I blush to recall the simpering tone in which I asked this: it was the kind of wheedling Helen might have done. But Odysseus had turned, and was looking out of the window. ‘A ship has entered the harbour,’ he said. ‘It’s not one I know.’ He was frowning.

Ithaca was no paradise. It was often windy, and frequently rainy and cold. The nobles were a shabby lot compared with those I was used to, and the palace, although sufficient, was not what you would consider large.

There were indeed a lot of rocks and goats, as I’d been told back home. But there were cows as well, and sheep, and pigs, and grain to make bread, and sometimes a pear or an apple or a fig in season, so we were well supplied at table, and in time I got more used to the place. Also, to have a husband like Odysseus was no mean thing. Everyone in the region looked up to him, and petitioners and those seeking his advice were numerous. Some even came in ships from far away to consult him, as he had a reputation as a man who could undo any complicated knot, though sometimes by tying a more complicated one.

His father, Laertes, and his mother, Anticleia, were still in the palace at that time; his mother had not yet died, worn out by watching and waiting for Odysseus to return and, I suspect, by her own bilious digestive system, and his father had not yet quitted the palace in despair at his son’s absence to live in a hovel and penalise himself by farming. All of that would happen once Odysseus had been gone for years, but there was no foreshadowing of it yet.

My mother-in-law was circumspect. She was a prune-mouthed woman, and though she gave me a formal welcome I could tell she didn’t approve of me. She kept saying that I was certainly very young. Odysseus remarked dryly that this was a fault that would correct itself in time.

The woman who gave me the most trouble at first was Odysseus’s former nurse, Eurycleia. She was widely respected – according to her – because she was so intensely reliable. She’d been in the household ever since Odysseus’s father had bought her, and so highly had he valued her that he hadn’t even slept with her. ‘Imagine that, for a slave-
woman!’ she clucked to me, delighted with herself. ‘And I was very good-looking in those days!’ Some of the maids told me that Laertes had refrained, not out of respect for Eurycleia, but from fear of his wife, who would never have given him any peace if he’d taken a concubine. ‘That Anticleia would freeze the balls off Helios,’ as one of them put it. I knew I should have reprimanded her for impudence, but I couldn’t repress my laughter.

Eurycleia made a point of taking me under her wing, leading me about the palace to show me where everything was, and, as she kept saying, ‘how we do things here’. I ought to have thanked her for it, with my heart as well as my lips, for there is nothing more embarrassing than to make a slip of manners, thus displaying your ignorance of the customs of those around you. Whether to cover the mouth when you laugh, on what occasions to wear a veil, how much of the face it should conceal, how often to order a bath – Eurycleia was an expert on all such matters. That was lucky, for my mother-in-law, Anticleia – who ought to have taken charge
in this way – was content to sit silently and say nothing while I made a fool of myself, a tight little smile on her face. She was happy that her adored son Odysseus had pulled off such a coup – a princess of Sparta was not to be sneezed at – but I think she would have been better pleased if I’d died of seasickness on the way to Ithaca and Odysseus had arrived home with the bridal presents but not the bride. Her most frequent expression to me was, ‘You don’t look well.’

So I avoided her when I could, and went around with Eurycleia, who was at least friendly. She had a fund of information about all the neighbouring noble families, and in that way I learned a great many discreditable things about them that would be useful to me later on.

She talked all the time, and nobody was the world’s expert on Odysseus the way she was. She was full of information about what he liked and how he had to be treated, for hadn’t she nursed him at her own breast and tended him when he was an infant and brought him up as a youth? Nobody but
she must give him his baths, oil his shoulders, prepare his breakfasts, lock up his valuables, lay out his robes for him, and so on and so forth. She left me with nothing to do, no little office I might perform for my husband, for if I tried to carry out any small wifely task she would be right there to tell me that wasn’t how Odysseus liked things done. Even the robes I made for him were not quite right – too light, too heavy, too sturdy, too flimsy. ‘It will do well enough for the steward,’ she would say, ‘but surely not for Odysseus.’

Nonetheless, she tried to be kind to me in her own way. ‘We’ll have to fatten you up,’ she would say, ‘so you can have a nice big son for Odysseus! That’s your job, you just leave everything else to me.’ As she was the nearest thing there was to someone I could talk to – besides Odysseus, that is – I came to accept her in time.

She did make herself invaluable when Telemachus was born. I am honour bound to record that. She said the prayers to Artemis when I was in too much pain to speak, and she held my hands and sponged
off my forehead, and caught the baby and washed him, and wrapped him up warmly; for if there was one thing she knew – as she kept telling me – it was babies. She had a special language for them, a nonsense language – ‘Uzzy woo,’ she would croon to Telemachus when drying him after his bath – ‘A google woogle poo!’ – and it unsettled me to think of my barrel-chested and deep-voiced Odysseus, so skilled in persuasion, so articulate, so dignified, as an infant lying in her arms and having this gurgling discourse addressed to him.

But I couldn’t begrudge her the care she took of Telemachus. Her delight in him was boundless. You’d almost have thought she’d given birth to him herself.

Odysseus was pleased with me. Of course he was. ‘Helen hasn’t borne a son yet,’ he said, which ought to have made me glad. And it did. But on the other hand, why was he still – and possibly always – thinking about Helen?