The Praise Singer (15 page)

Midylos said, “He has gone to see the doctor.”

“What happened?” I asked. “He se?emed quite well this morning.”

“Yes, it was sudden; while you were singing. He leaned on me-Theas was still busy over the games-and said he felt giddy, and one of his legs was prickling. While we were leaving he fell down, and some men helped me carry him out of the crowd. He tried to speak, but the half of his face was numb. It sounded like ‘Rhenaia,’ and that seemed best. Theas has taken him over, and I came for you.”

“Yes. Yes, let us go at once.”

“Look, that’s the way to the ferry. Only big ships are using the harbor now.”

“I know. But there is something I must. . .” The kithara seemed to cling to me, like a frightened child. I forget how far I went out of our way towards the Kean lodge, before I found a man I knew and trusted, who promised he would get its case from the warden of the lodge, and put it in safekeeping. If I had not met him, perhaps I would have gone to the lodge myself. I cannot tell.

Most of the ferryboats were idle, waiting on the Delos side to take people back to their lodgings after the festival. I had never before been over to Rhenaia. Its living is mostly fish, between the festivals. Anyone who can afford it has built a room onto his house, to make something at the Delia and the summer Apollonia. Some rent their houses out and just sleep in their boats. We crossed where the channel is narrow, alongside the Chain of Polykrates. He had the notion of offering the whole island as a dedication to Delian Apollo, by tying it, so to speak, to his feet. It was just like Polykrates. Most of the chain was under water, hidden by weed; our boatman cursed it as a danger to the ships.

The feast had emptied the island. The jetty seemed forsaken. Theas’ little boy said, “Uncle, where does the doctor live? Can I see Granddad?”

“When he is better.” Midylos murmured to me, “He thinks the world of Leo.” The child bore his name, and was Theas to the life as I first remembered him.

As we tied up, a boy got up from the shadow of a bollard, and limped towards us. “Is either of you gentlemen Simonides, Leoprepes of Iulis’ son?”

“I am; where is he?”

The lad’s face brightened. He did not look poor, just bored and lonely. “In the shelter, sir. I’ll show you the way.”

“What?” I said. He had used the word for a soldier’s bivouac or shepherd’s hut. I turned angrily to Midylos; but he laid finger on lip and shook his head. I understood. All the lodgings had been paid for, by people who would be back at night to sleep. To a sick man they might offer hospitality; not to a dead one, who would leave the place defiled. Rhenaia, it seemed, had a proper place for that.

The boy said, “Are you famous, sir? Your mother said so. And Melesias gave your father a new bed. This way, sirs, it’s not far.” He led us on at a lurching trot. He was clubfooted; I expect his kin had not cared to show him at the feast.

The death-house was past the harbor, along the shore; a stone-walled hut, with a roof of driftwood held down with stones. No one was wailing, so I knew he was still alive.

A man was sitting outside upon a boulder. He looked round at us; by the time we came up, he was grinning like a pi-dog that scents meat. He was the man who had been ready to stay away from Delos, in case anyone arrived to die. Pythagoras’ followers, as they told me when I visited their city, do things like this as an offering to the gods. This fellow was not one of them.

I suppose the plain dress of Keos had not promised well. At the sight of my robes he almost dribbled. Anything he could do for the poor old gentleman . . . not that it was easy with so many folk away, but hospitality to the stranger . . .

We walked past him. The doorway had no door. Only the family was there, but there was barely room inside. I could see my mother kneeling by my father, and hear his heavy breathing. A cold, damp stink of old sickness and death crept out. Little Leo did not ask again where Granddad was; he started to back away.

Philomache peered out. Midylos beckoned her, and she took the child by the hand. “Come, let?’s look on the beach for something pretty, to give to Grandpa when he’s better.” He went with her silently, not deceived but thankful to be gone.

Her leaving made room inside. My father lay with his feet to the door, on his new bed. The boy had spoken truly; the straw was fresh.

I stood by my mother and looked down. Theas’ cloak was rolled under his head for a pillow. Half his mouth had dropped, so that he seemed to gaze at me with an angry and sour disgust. In the prison of his face his eyes had moved, and were fixed on me. I knelt and took his hand. It felt cold and dead. The straw smelled of the urine his body could not contain.

“Father.” What more? I was as dumb as the child had been. “I am sorry, Father.” The good side of his mouth moved, and it seemed that he spoke my name.

“This won’t do, Father,” I said. “We must find you something better.” Then I remembered that despite my splendid clothes, or rather because of them, I was the only man there who carried no coin at all. My money was at the Kean lodge, in the warden’s keeping.

He could move his head a little. He turned his eyes towards a block of stone that served as the only table. There was a cup on it; my mother lifted it to his mouth, and raised his head. He swallowed some, though more was spilled; then he looked hard at her, and his eyes moved to me. I said, “He wants more”; but with every inch of face he could make work, he seemed to say, “You fool!” He looked at Theas, and his loose mouth mumbled again. I could not catch the words; but I saw Theas go white. He bent down and said, “You are my father. You know I cannot do it.” He turned to me, his face telling me everything. “And nor can Sim, Father. You know that.”

Indeed, I had been slow. This should have happened to him at home on Keos, where old custom met his need. He would have had no trouble there in getting what he wanted, and a friend to give it.

Theas said to me, “Sim, you know Delos. Would there be someone there?” He spoke quite simply; we were all Keans.

I shook my head. “Doctors, yes. But they’re servants of Apollo. They have to take a vow never to give such things. ‘Even if it is asked of me.’ That’s in their oath.”

My father said, “Keoth.” It was the best he could do, and clear enough.

“Yes, Father,” Theas said. “Just rest now. We will take you home.”

He shut his eyes. I expect that saying so much had been hard work. I went outside with Theas. The custodian came fawning up. I silenced Theas with a look-he had just got a buffet ready-and whispered, “You had better give him something. I came just as I was.” The man spat on the copper piece and looked at me with scorn. The lame boy, who had stayed not for gain but because he had missed the festival, sat bright-eyed on a clump of sea-grass.

Theas and I looked at each other. Men from anywhere but Keos would have found much more to say. “No ship will leave Delos before tomorrow,” he said. “But if that is too late, he will have had his wish.”

“But now, today? He is lying here like a dog.”

“That creature asked five drachmas for a bedstead. None of us had enough. He won’t give credit. He charges for water, too.”

“I’ll go get my money from the lodge. Dressed like this, I expect some boatman will trust me.”

“They burn the bed after, or so he claims . . . Yes, go, Sim.” As I was turning, he added, “And don’t take what Father said to heart. His mind’s half gone, or he’d have known you couldn’t do it.”

“I know. Shall I see him first? No, tell him where I’ve gone, if he can understand.”

I began to walk back along the foot-track towards the harbor. I was nearly there, when I heard a call, and saw the boy behind me, waving his arm. From pity for his deformity, I paused to let him come up. “Sir,” he called, “I think your dad has died. I just heard the ladies wailing.”

As he spoke, I saw Theas running to overtake me. The boy waited and watched. He had missed the feast, but in the end he had had his moment. As Aischylos told me, in most tragedies the Messenger is a much-sought role.

A?fter a while, I remembered to take off my festal wreath. I wore one so often that I could forget it like my clothes. The boy picked it up from the ground, and, sitting down, teased out the braid from among the laurel.

We had not gone far before we could hear the women. I said, “After I left, did he speak again?”

“Not to make it out. I think once he said, ‘Sim,’ and I told him where you were. I don’t know if he understood. Soon after that his breath rattled, and then he died.”

The child was sitting where the boy had been. His eyes were great with terror; he looked at us without a word. Theas picked him up and held him firmly, saying, “We are all going home soon. Be good now, and I’ll tell you about it later. Granddad is with the shades, where the heroes go.” The child was still silent, but I saw his face was soothed. Theas ruffled his hair, and set him down. Then we went on towards the wailing.

They had closed his eyes, and bound up his jaw with Philomache’s hair-ribbon. He looked his own man once more. His mouth was straight again, keeping its own counsel. Whether he judged the gods, or us, or himself, was a thing he did not confide. I remembered Pythagoras, and wondered what life he would choose next time, if a choice was offered him.

My mother and sister were beating their breasts as women do. Their wailing throbbed with the blows. I envied them. Had I been a barbarian, I too could have had my part. Women can float away upon lamentation, like birds upon the air, or fish in rivers. Later they must return and know their grief; but for a while they are freed, as the poet is by the song.

If I had gone back before I left for the ferry, I would have seen his death. He named me; perhaps it would have told me something. As it is, I ask myself, even now, why it was not until I came that he asked for hemlock. Was it just that I knew Delos, and might be able to find it? Or did he think I would give it more willingly than the rest? Or to be humbled before me, was that the last stroke, too much to bear?

We burned him at evening, on a platform near the death-house, whose stone is blackened with old fires. Shipmasters will not balk at carrying a funeral urn; but not even Laertes would have taken a corpse on board, his crew would have refused to sail. I went back to Delos to take off my choral robe, and put on what I had come in. We sheared our hair; even our traveling clothes were too gay for mourning, and we sprinkled them with dust.

I had brought oil and incense for the pyre; its driftwood and flotsam crackled and sparked with salt. The flames turned blue, and did not hide the blackening body; but they were fierce and quick. Before long the core of the pyre fell in, and he fell with it, sticks of bone among sticks of wood.

Something offended my nose, more than the burning. The warden of the death-house stood at my elbow. “If you have business to attend to, sirs, I can collect the ashes, and put them up for you nicely. The mourners before have always been very satisfied.”

I must have whipped round on him like a snake, for he cringed away; then he yelped, as Theas got him in a wrestler’s lock. “You carrion crow! If you lay one claw upon our father’s pyre, I swear I’ll rekindle it and throw you on.” “With a rock on your belly,” I put in, “to hold you down.” As he went off, I divined that Theas had been as glad as I to drive out this scapegoat laden with our guilt. Theas had lived a blameless son, and his father’s pride. I expect that his need was no less than mine, and maybe more.

When I went back to the Kean lodge, evening was falling, and the rocks of Delos glittered with sparks like fire. Theas was seeing to the urn, Midylos to the women and the child. Laertes would sail at first light, and I only went to gather my things together. I meant to sleep on board, rather than deal with scores of polite condolences. My boys would not know what to say, and my presence would spoil their holiday. The flute-player would look after them.

No one was about; Delian evenings are merry. I had found m?y kithara safe, and was on my way out with my things, when a man came up dressed for a party. Having heard the news, he apologized for this unseemliness. When all that was proper had been said, he told me that after the dithyrambs were over, he had been sent to look for me by Hipparchos, to ask me to supper at the Athenian lodge. He and Hippias had expressed great pleasure with my ode, and with its praise of their honored father.

“Please thank them for their kindness. Who won the contest?” He looked surprised. I said, “I have been on Rhenaia.”

“Of course, of course; forgive me. As I heard, it would have been yourself; but you sent the judges word that you were obliged by piety to incur pollution. So they gave the prize to that young man, Lasos.”

“They did well; he has a gift. I heard part of his piece and would have liked to hear it all. Wish him well from me, if I should not see him.”

As I learned later, he got the message and was pleased. Nothing looks more foolish than a petulant loser.

The man went back to his party. He must have had a friend among the judges, to hear that I could have won. I said in my heart, “He has wronged me, even in his death.”

I walked towards Laertes’ ship, thinking how I might have gone home in the state galley, crowned with victory.

As I walked along the jetty towards the mooring, an oldish man approached me. I thought, Another fool with whom I must exchange civilities; but I put on a good face, and waited for him.

“My dear Sim!” I recognized the Kean accent. “I hear the good Leoprepes is dead. Give my sorrowful respects to your excellent mother, and all the family. You have lost an upright man, as I can myself bear witness. It was ten years ago, or maybe fifteen; at any rate, it was the year of the sheep-sickness. Before the start, I had bought fifty from your father; and when some thirty died, I was at my wits’ end. I had counted on the lambs, to pay off a loan; it seemed I would have to pledge myself in bondage. Then your father’s steward came. He brought word that fifty of your father’s flock had died, and he had no doubt that those he had sold me must have had the sickness on them. He would take back those that were left, and return me the price of them all. Then and there, his man paid it me. He did not even demand to see the hides of the dead beasts. Just the silver, paid in full. My luck turned soon after, and now we do pretty well. But I have often thought that but for your father, I should be a thrall today . . . Did he never tell you this?”