And then Isme realized: how odd she must look to these people. She had been too busy mapping out their differences from herself to recognize that they were doing the same with her but in reverse.
The main differences that Isme could detect was their clothing and the strange coloration of their skin. They seemed pale and shimmery, like fish pulled from the water, or perhaps like Isme’s own belly button, which was curled, and the insides of the whorls were whitened compared to the rest of her. Doubtless in the night these women shone like the glow of the moon in the darkness.
And as for their clothing, they seemed bizarrely luxurious: for they wore woven cloth, the kind that took months to make with the shearing of animals and the stringing of thread and the interlacing of the weave to make one single swath.
Isme wondered why people on the mainland did not simply use animal skin, like she and her father did. Glancing down at her own garment, the sewn patchwork of deer hide tied with a belt, she felt relief for herself by comparison, for in the day’s heat her thighs and arms were exposed and not bundled in sticky sweaty cloth.
Besides, it seemed wasteful. Their bodies would dirty the cloth which took so many people so long to make. Cloth was better used for storing things and carrying them about, like the cheese her father had brought back from the mainland.
At last, seeing that Pelagia’s cheeks had reddened at the boy’s remark as though she had been slapped, and that she remained quiet, the boy atop the animal spoke:
“Well-met, Isme. I am Lycander, nephew to Eutropios.”
He gestured at the women. “These are Pelagia, Cymone, Dareia, Eudokia, and Hypatia. They sing and dance before and after troupe performances, and at symposiums as personal bards. And sometimes even at the baths.”
Isme watched, fascinated, as all five of the other women joined Pelagia in having red cheeks. She wondered if they were ill. Cautiously, she said, “Singing and dancing—that sounds like a pleasant pastime. We could all wish for such good work.”
“Oh,” said one of the women, whose name Isme had already forgotten. She looked comically surprised, and the others mirrored her. “Lycander, she is so generous!”
Isme felt as if she had been walking in the water by the seashore and all at once the land underfoot had given way to nothing but sea, leaving her floundering to stay afloat. She wanted to ask what this comment meant, how she had been generous, or even what generous meant to these people—but her father’s words held her back…
Listening is better than speaking, he had said.
Still, how was she to learn how to behave like these people when she could not understand a simple conversation? Perhaps asking a question counted as listening as long as the answer was longer than the question itself.
However, she was interrupted—perhaps saved—when another woman arrived. She was a head taller than Isme, but was wider, too, in a way that Isme had not seen before. Her father Epimetheus also was wide—but that seemed to be simply the shape of his body, strung with muscle. This woman looked like a seal at the end of summer, smooth and sleek and bubbling with fat under the skin.
Her hair was not dark like Isme’s or the other women. Instead, it was like the pale strands of sand from the beach, strung into strings. In a startled moment, Isme realized that this was what the stories spoke of: hair of gold. She was also much paler than the other women, as pale to them as they were to Isme, and had a dark cloth that she held stretched taut above her face like a branch of a tree to shade from the sun.
This woman observed Isme and said, “Well, looks as though Artemis has lost another one of her hunting nymphs.”
Immediately the other women tittered, sounding like birds early in the morning. Isme frowned, unsure why they were laughing. Still astride the animal, the boy Lycander rolled his eyes and said, “I want no part in bickering women.”
He nudged the animal in the side with his heel and it jerked under him in surprise, then with reluctance ambled off toward the front of the procession.
Still mystified, Isme hoped to correct this new woman’s error, saying, “I am not a nymph of Artemis, although that would be a great honor, of course.”
“Of course,” said the new woman. But the way she said the words indicated to Isme that she did not agree with them. It was as though this woman did not consider running with Artemis to be an honor. This left Isme even more confused.
“Would it not be an honor to serve a goddess?” She asked, but in her voice, without realizing as she spoke, she found herself indicating that the answer was yes.
“Until she finds a reason to cast you out,” said the new woman. She pawed at the cloth she held over her face, but the movement—while graceful and clearly calculated—reminded Isme of a squirrel lathering its face with spit.
Still, Isme was distracted by the golden bangles around the woman’s wrists, which jingled and winked in the sun. None of the other women were adorned so.
“Why would the great Artemis cast out one of her followers?” Isme asked, still not following the direction of the conversation.
“I imagine for the same reason she threw out Callisto,” said the new woman, and the tittering of the women now standing behind her grew louder. Some kind of bug whizzed by Isme’s ear, and she jerked a hand to swat the creature away. The noise was very similar to that these women were now making.
But at least now Isme had some sense of what this new woman was saying: the story of Callisto. A tale of one of Artemis’s nymphs, forcibly seduced by Zeus, who then lied to her mistress and companions until the imminent birth of her child could no longer be hidden. Cast out, Callisto raised her arms before Artemis to plead for mercy, and then she and her son were transformed into bears that were hung into the night sky as constellations—a terrible tale, tragic and wonderful and beautiful all at once.
Yet the behavior of the gold-haired woman suggested that she thought Isme did not know the tale—that a sort of insult was being offered which she expected Isme to not understand. And Isme did not understand—mostly, she was confused where the insult was.
She said, “Even so, to be Callisto is a great blessing.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “I imagine a country bumpkin would think so.”
“Well, they are in the stars, aren’t they?” said Isme. “Being a star would be better and more beautiful than walking in the mud here on earth with a cloth over your head.”
More tittering by the other women, but this time Isme thought they were loudest of all. Some even sounded congratulatory—and they struck their hands together, and struck their thighs repeatedly, slapping flesh sounds that boomed.
Isme watched, fascinated, as the new woman’s face began to redden just like the other women’s faces had—except, on her complexion the redness was vibrant, like the bloom of a new flower, extending from one ear all the way across her face to the other. Even her lips darkened. And Isme thought: this must be what the stories mean when they call women “Beautiful.”
Then, gritting her teeth, the woman hiked up the long trail of her garment and strode past Isme without looking at her, as though this was a terrible insult to bestow.
And Isme found that it was an insult: for she wished very much that the woman would have looked directly at her so she could see that lovely face closer.
A call came from the caravan front. “Walk, walk! Move again!”
Isme turned, but the gold-haired woman was already striding forward and all she could see was the cloth that covered the back of her head. It was woven through with lovely patterns that looked like vines and grapes and was dyed much more colorful besides. As Isme stared the woman did not turn or look back.
Someone grabbed at her arm, and Isme started, jerked her head to see Pelagia had linked together with her at the elbow. Pelagia said, “That’s the first I’ve seen a newcomer get the best of Kleto in insult matches. You play the country bumpkin well—you must teach me this sweet and innocent act of yours.”
Mystified, Isme could only nod as
she was drawn onward.
Perhaps that had not been a total disaster, she thought. The other women seem to accept me. I suppose that is why she is holding on to me, anyway. But then her eyes trailed over the back of Kleto’s head, and she felt cold—yet, glancing up into the sky showed there were no clouds to cast shadows overhead.
~
Isme found the road was far less pleasant than walking in the woods or through scrub-grass or along the sands of beaches. The mud and filth were mortifying—and when the animals pulling the carts defecated, she was required to step through the leavings. Bugs swarmed and soon she was being bitten by insects she had no name for.
The other women did not seem to mind the trail as much. Instead, they kept scanning the land, as though expecting at any moment robbers would come bursting out of the trees surrounding the muddy path and would leap upon the whole caravan, overcoming every protector and carting the women away over their shoulders. Strangely, as Isme observed them, some of the women looked almost hopeful at the prospect.
Kleto did not turn or address them, not even once. Isme found the back of her head was the most fascinating thing on the trail.
They paused for breaks, and the women would start to talk. Lycander would come riding his animal and stand amongst them, perhaps to guard, but Isme also suspected he wanted to listen to them speak. She understood—they certainly seemed fascinating.
Much of the talk was of things that Isme could understand: stories. They discussed names and events that Isme knew, but in a way that she had never encountered on the island with her father. The lens of these stories was that of performance. They did not discuss Oedipus and his horror at the revelation of who his mother was: they discussed so-and-so’s performance of Oedipus versus such-and-such’s contrary artistic decisions, apparently in different iterations of an Oedipus play.
And so Isme could follow what they were saying but not join the conversation at all. She had no idea who so-and-so or such-and-such were. Actors, she supposed. She knew little of this world.
She found herself twisting her fingers together, pinching the webbing between thumb and forefinger to avoid tapping her fingers or otherwise drawing attention, for she worried that inability to discuss these things would make her position more precarious, and she was not willing to risk the goodwill she had earned. Especially because she had not quite understood how she earned it.
The only other person who did not join these conversations was Kleto. She sat opposite from Isme among the women, and those few glances that Isme managed to steal revealed that Kleto’s eyes were on the horizon, gazing out at the wide end of the world.
The look on her face was such that Isme would have guessed that she was praying to Atlas. But such a prayer that Isme would have shuddered to hear: she looked like someone asking Atlas to toss the world into the void so that it fell and cracked like an egg.
~
Night descended before Isme realized the sun was setting. She had spent too much of the day looking down, trying to avoid stepping in the muck. Even so, her feet were filthy in a way they never had been on the island.
Everyone else wore something over their feet, sandals of some kind or at least a bundle of leather tied with a string. She resolved to make shoes like this for her own feet at the nearest opportunity.
Epimetheus came after the caravan halted at late evening. He handed Isme a full bladder of water, and she realized that she had drunken all her water over the course of the day. They were moving away from the sea. She could feel this in the air: as though the moisture was not from the sea, but from the sweat evaporating on their new companions. Isme did not know what to think about the land further inland. She supposed that it was unfair to judge the land based on traveling with this uncomfortable group.
“I will be sleeping with the men up front,” said her father. He leaned in and whispered, “Stay with the women. If one of them leaves, do not follow her. And do not go anywhere with any of the men...” And he paused, considering before continuing, “In truth, Isme, do not let any of the men get close to you this night. And if any of them grab at you, then scream as loud as you can.”
“Why would any of them grab at me?” asked Isme. But then she filled in the answer by herself, remembering the stories: her father was worried about these men playing at Zeus looking for a new son. And she asked, “Should I also be worried about animals?”
“Animals—?” her father blurted out, confused, and then he seemed to understand where her mind had gone. He said, “I doubt that any of the gods are disguising themselves as these nags tonight. But you needn’t worry about that. Worry about the ordinary men and leave the worrying about the gods to me.”
Isme thought of stories where fathers or mothers had tried to protect their daughters from the gods. Locking Danae away only to have her visited by a shower of gold. Placing guards around Persephone only to have Hades himself split open the Earth to swallow her up. Daphne fleeing from Apollon and crying to her father the river god for help. Compared to being turned into a tree, Isme supposed that she would rather become the mother of some divine half-breed.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Isme said. She felt as though she should reassure Epimetheus, he looked so worried. “If any of these men try something terrible, I will make him regret it.”
And she meant this, too. Her father’s warning from earlier still rang in her mind, his words—you will never match a man for strength, learn to use guile, out-think to outfight—but thought she knew where to strike; the eyes, or the genitals.
But her father fixed her with a glare. He said, “Of course, fight. But yell even if you do fight.” Surprised at his insistence, she nodded, and he softened. As he left for the front of the line, he said, “Stay with the women. You should be safe here.”
~
Isme tried to obey. She nestled with the other women and found herself invited into the pile of bodies. They all had the same idea: keep warm without a fire using nothing but sharing themselves. She found that sleeping with more than one person by her side was more comfortable, and their woven cloth was excellent for blankets. She drifted off before the moon began to rise.
The moon was halfway across the expanse when Isme woke in the darkness. For a moment she was disoriented, still mostly asleep, and the presence of others pressing on her with their own breathing seemed like she was swimming in the water of the sea but it was warm and alive. Then she recalled: she was lying on bodies. Living ones, not the cold dead shadows from the beach.
Shaking her head, she noticed the slumbering animal of Lycander in the grass on the other side of the mud path. It was asleep, but still standing up, head bowed as though doing obeisance to Lycander, who lay asleep in front of it, the leather line tied around its head looped around his wrist.
She became more awake when she realized why she had woken at all: despite having walked all day in the heat and sweated from every pore in her skin, her bladder still pressed against her insides. Holding back a groan of frustration, Isme struggled to unlock herself from the tangle of bodies and rose to her feet. Her father had said to remain with the women, but he had not said anything about this, so she supposed that she had no choice but to do what she had always done. She turned and walked into the woods.
The trees there felt unfamiliar, as though not trees at all. The moon was struggling through wispy clouds, reducing her ability to see, especially with the spare branches of these not-quite-trees. Isme straightened afterwards and crept back towards camp, but found that she was walking for longer than expected.
Had she been turned around? Craning her head back, Isme tried to remember the position of the moon in the sky when she had set out into the woods. That was the way to navigate back in this darkness. Believing that she had remembered correctly, or at least hoping so, she turned to her left and began walking again.
That was when she heard it: the stealthy sound of footsteps.
Pausing, trying to orient sound in the dark, possibilities ranged t
hrough her mind. Some man in camp might have seen her leave and followed. She had not brought her staff and had no idea how far she had steered herself off course. Perhaps she should yell just in preparation. That might convince him not to try anything.
But what if it was not a man? Gods roamed the woods, too. Of course, if that was so then running was her only option. She doubted that shouting would deter a god.
These options—run, or shout—circled in her brain. As she stood in indecision, the footsteps began again and trailed closer, but still stopped out of sight. Or—that was not quite right. Based on where the sound had stopped, whoever was walking should have been standing right behind her, yet there was no one there.
And then Isme realized.
“You are still here?” She asked, praying for there to be no answer.
Before her, empty woods replied: “Did I not promise I would follow you always?”
Then Isme was running—without thinking, feeling only muscles burn in the cold air, hearing only her heart beating against her eardrums—she fled blindly, she hoped toward the camp. The darkness was oppressive, heavy, like a hand on her shoulder—
When she collided with something hard, Isme’s first impression was that she had struck a tree that was uprooted and moving in the night. But then as she lay prone and still, she felt the tree breathing and the warmth of someone pressed against her side, the two of them sprawled over and stunned by the collision.
“What is this? Who are you?” came the voice of the other person, and despite only hearing it once Isme found it unforgettable. The new woman from earlier—Kleto, the beautiful one. Isme regretted that in the dark she could not see her face.
Not thinking, Isme asked: “What are you doing in the woods?”
The only response from Kleto was to gasp. And that sound was enough to press some sense back into Isme’s brain: surely, this woman would be furious with her, for the collision if for nothing else, and for all Isme knew the voice in the woods was still following, and who knew what the voice seeing them together would do or be. Then, feeling herself chased twice, Isme flung herself upright and scrambled forward until she was at the camp.
Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) Page 6
