Pulling back, Isme said, “Father, I think some of these women are slaves—they played the lyre and sang, and said that they served in symposiums.”
Her father frowned, said, “Isme, we cannot interfere with mainlanders. We must find my brother and learn to absolve your blood guilt before the world ends. These people will probably not survive anyway—the darkness and earthquake will create a new world. That probably means everything will be destroyed.”
And Isme started, reminded that these people would possibly all die soon. Each end of each world was a cataclysm. Something turned in her belly, but she nodded.
~
What followed were the long days. Every morning, Isme would wake in the tangled pile of women, then she would rise and spend the day walking, would pause for rest and eating when the sun got to his height, and then at the time when the sun let his head fall over the horizon, back she would go to the pile in the night.
Years later, looking back, Isme surmised that she learned as much from those days as half again she had learned from years with her father. Except this time she was not learning how to survive the end of the world; she was learning about the people from this old world that would perish soon.
Pelagia spent most of the first few days riding on a wagon, Isme walking behind her a little to the side so if the animal dragging the load defecated, she would not immediately step in the fresh droppings. She had learned that these animals were called horses—they were not what she imagined from the stories. When she had heard about horses in the stories she had conceptualized in her mind a large deer with beautiful hair like a woman and a tail like a fox. By contrast, these horses were long-faced and rather dull-looking. Although they did swing their ears to you in an endearing way whenever you spoke to them, regardless of what you said.
At first Pelagia only whined about how much pain she was in. Eventually the swelling in her ankle went down and then she began to talk. It took Isme almost a whole day to realize that Pelagia was speaking about ordinary and boring things; mindless chitchat. But for her this was all new and therefore fascinating.
She learned about merchants in cities, who would try to haggle terrible prices from foreigners, sometimes as much as three or four times what the locals paid. She learned that money, which had appeared in her father’s stories, was what many people valued most in the world. Pelagia even appealed to Lycander, to show Isme what money he had, whereupon Lycander had drawn a bag from where it was tied on his blanket and pulled out a long thin stick about as wide as Isme’s fingernail.
“So the wild woman does not know the mark of civilization,” Lycander had said, and Isme thought that the stick looked like a spear for a mouse. “This is an obol. Six obols make a drachma, and sometimes you’ll see those as a coin, a circle, instead.”
“I see,” said Isme, although she did not see. Lycander seemed aware that she was pretending to understand, because he waited. And then Isme decided to admit, “I don’t understand why these little sticks are so important.”
“Because you can buy things with them,” said Pelagia, sounding eager. “You can buy cloth, or new shoes, or food and water—”
“But why?” said Isme.
Pelagia laughed. “Well, because the merchant wants the money. When he has them, he will buy things that he wants with them.”
Isme frowned, and Lycander said, “That is not what your question meant, is it?”
“No,” Isme admitted. “I meant, why do you buy those things?”
“Because we need them,” said Pelagia.
“But you can just make them,” said Isme. She lifted a hand, gestured at the forest. “There are animals in there, and you can eat them. You can grow what you need. And from the animals you can make cloth to wear and shoes to walk in.”
“But who wants to do all that?” said Pelagia. “Hunting and farming is hard. This way, we don’t have to farm or hunt for food and clothing. We earn money and just buy it.”
Isme thought to herself about the way Pelagia had cast up her arms in the forest and cried that the robbers were not any worse than any of the men she and Kleto had known before. And Kleto’s luminous eyes, turning on Isme, as she said ‘What do you think happens when our songs and dances are over and—?’
And Isme thought, They must do such things for money. I imagine that money must cause all sorts of evils in this world.
Lycander reached over with his foot and nudged Isme’s shoulder. “Wild woman, don’t look so serious. When women look so concerned, I start to think that they’re practicing for funerals because maybe someone will fall sick and die.”
This was apparently a joke, because Pelagia started laughing.
There was also a laugh from Isme’s other side, but while the voice was familiar Isme had never heard it make such a sound before. Whirling her head so fast that her hair lashed her cheeks, Isme saw that Kleto was walking abreast of her, and smiling, saying:
“If anyone wails for you, Lycander, it would not be us.”
Lycander looked hurt, but a twist against the corner of his lips told Isme he was feigning. He said, “Now how could you say that about your dashing rescuer?”
“I say it very well,” said Kleto, “When the only reason we were in trouble in the first place is because our rescuer was not looking after the women, as was his job.”
Lycander nodded, “Certainly such a man should be punished.”
“Certainly,” said Kleto. “This night, he should be forced to pretend to be Prometheus, failing his duty to Zeus and being lashed to the mountain forever.”
And on the banter went. Isme liked to listen to them, and had many opportunities. Such conversations were common while on the march. They produced wonders in the evenings, when there could be no fires lit because that would tell robbers to come, but in the dying light of the sun Lycander and the performers would put on practice shows, often dictated by the topic of previous conversation.
In those hours between night and dusk, Isme would snuggle close to her father, watching the stories that she had always been told on the island come to life. It was Apollon against Marsyas, Athene besting Arachne, the hunt for the Minotaur through a maze constructed of people pretending to be walls, and Perseus running around with a gorgon’s head but the body still attached, and when the other onlookers shouted that did not work, the illusion was broken, Pelagia grinned, her hair still held in the other actor’s grip, and said, “Well, if you’re volunteering to be a more accurate beheaded head, please feel free to take my place.”
At night Isme would be back in the tumble of women. Sometimes the last thing she saw before she fell asleep was Kleto’s eyes, blinking lazily, staring up at the stars. Somehow she always thought that Kleto’s eyes were lit from within like embers.
Isme had always known about the end of the world. She knew that for a new world to begin, first the old one must be destroyed. But while Isme knew the people in the old world would probably die as well, she had always considered this in the abstract, something distant and unrelated to herself, like watching the waves far out from shore. But now she had names and faces that went with them.
I hope the next world will not come quite like this one did, thought Isme. If there was another flood, then everyone would die. But darkness and an earthquake… perhaps there will be many survivors. Perhaps even these people will live.
Before long, Isme had lost track of the days. Then the time came that Kleto nudged her shoulder and said, “Look, here is Hermes, welcoming travelers coming and going.” Isme started at the image of the god’s head on a pillar, his erect phallus pointing toward arrivals. They were arriving at Delphi.
ELEVEN.
~
Their caravan met others on the road. An endless press of people, so many that Isme began to lose track. She tried to hang back with the women that she knew, but this was hardly any help when women in other caravans would call out and chatter. Overwhelmed by people, she kept her head down. All her travel over those days and still she s
truggled to understand synchronized speech, preferring to talk to one person at a time, or perhaps at most three or four. That was—herself, Kleto, Pelagia, and Lycander.
Underfoot, the trail that had been winding through all of the hills and forest began to stretch, branches of other roads meeting theirs, widening and widening like streams flowing into a river. More people now than ever. And then the trail began to move upwards, all of these endless numbers of people huffing with the effort of climbing, the path no longer smooth and level.
Cresting over a hill, Isme felt her eyes widen as the vantage point allowed her to see the mainland itself for the first time: great gaping peaks in all directions, except for a divot in between two rows of them, which she would have called a ditch, but no ditch was as wide as this, which would have taken days to cross. She had never realized that the world could be so big—except for the ocean, of course.
Kleto nudged her shoulder. “First time at Mount Parnassus?”
Isme merely glanced at her, but this was a mistake—it seemed that every time Isme took her eyes off Kleto, she forgot how beautiful the other woman could be. And this time, she was captured much like the first glimpse: for Kleto, surrounded by these lands, looked nothing less than some minor goddess roving the countryside.
Swallowing with her dry mouth, Isme nodded.
“It will not be so bad,” said Kleto. She seemed breezily unaware of her appearance, which Isme knew was a lie, because Kleto was always careful with her looks. Kleto, the actress. She added, “We will perform for all these people. Plays, symposiums, music on the street. The whole world will hear us—aside from the Priestess at Delphi, we will be the reason why everyone is here.”
“You mean, ‘you’ will be, not ‘we,’” said Isme. “I am no actress.”
“Nobody is really an actress,” said Kleto. “Actors are the ones who perform on stage. We women must be content on the sidelines. But—” and she drew herself higher, “The real performances are the ones when the audience is so close that they can see every small error you make. Actors on stages are too far away.”
Isme heard hoofbeats as Lycander rode past, just in time to hear Kleto’s jibe. He said in his wounded tone, “What’s this? Women besmirching the theater, the mighty living temple of the gods? Poor Dionysos, to have such enemies for his art! Poor Apollon, to have his tune and poetry ruined by women’s chatter!”
“Dionysos favors us,” replied Kleto, tossing her head, and under her usual scarf, the outline of her golden hair could be glimpsed. Isme regretted that it was not free, so that Kleto could toss her head like Lycander’s horse. “You men can keep Apollon.”
“Of course,” Lycander said. “You women are always rejecting poor Apollon. The god of logic, music, and light—of course you find him completely repellent!”
“Yes,” chided Kleto. “We much prefer our wild revels full of dancing and wine. So we ought to go up on stage instead of you in honor of Dionysos.”
Lycander nudged his horse, calling, “Careful, woman, I have to play one of you later tonight, and who knows what I’ll tell everyone about your revels—licentiousness, murder, cannibalism—we all know quite well what happens to men at your little parties! For myself, I prefer to stay away and keep my head rather than be a second Orpheus!”
Isme started, hearing her birth father’s name. But Lycander was already riding away, and when she glanced at Kleto, she saw the reason Kleto had gone silent: a small smile with upon her face, like a woman who had just finished a good meal.
Having observed these interactions for some days now, she knew this was not unusual. Nor was it strange when Kleto’s eyes returned to some sense and immediately found her own. Kleto said, “You must see him perform. I mean truly perform, not just jest. You would think he was a kind of woman, more so than any of us.”
I doubt that, thought Isme, gazing at Kleto’s lovely earnest face, but said, “I’ll try.”
“There is something else you must try, too,” said Kleto. Isme saw the way her face remained lightened, like they were continuing to joke, but something in her was claiming that this was an act, although that something was also always claiming that Kleto was acting, simply because Kleto always was.
Seeing Isme’s attention upon her, Kleto continued: “You simply must try singing with us. Even if only once.”
Isme’s limbs tightened, like there were strings connected to her wrists through her arms to her shoulders and from her ankles to her hips, and they all had just been pulled taut. She made excuses, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t… sing in front of people.”
This was a poor lie, for she had sung to the robbers. And yet her singing then had to be what Kleto was thinking of: for Isme had the suspicion that Kleto knew there was something other than chance or fate that had caused the birds to spurt into the room and scatter the men like seeds. As long as one accepted that premise, it was easy enough to recognize that Isme’s voice was the most likely cause. And from there it was easy to surmise that Isme’s secret extended far beyond occasionally summoning birds.
Isme had thought about this throughout these days of walking. Her father’s promise hung about her head like the bugs that she had begun to ignore. Only if someone risked her life for her—that was the condition needed for her to reveal her voice. Kleto satisfied it—after all, she had faced down those robbers so Isme and Pelagia could escape.
Yet that situation had been forced. Kleto had no choice either, since she had been captured too. And so Isme’s promise held her back, her own voice still echoing, I promise, I promise…
As it echoed now, with Kleto carefully observing Isme’s face. As it continued to echo when Kleto seemed to accept Isme’s poor excuse and said, “Everyone gets stage fright. But sometimes we have to face the thing that we fear the most in order to grow.”
That was the kind of moral that appeared at the end of a story, thought Isme. The kind where things ended badly for the hero, but in such a way that one could not help but admire him. Still, Isme preferred her own story to have a happy ending. So she said, “Of course. But singing really isn’t that important in my life anyway.”
Kleto raised her brows, but just barely. Isme thought, I simply must get better at lying. Nobody who had heard her sing would believe that singing was nothing to her; and, given everything that happened, those long years alone on the island with her father, learning of her heritage, and the men on the beach—
No. Isme knew that her singing was the most important thing. Perhaps even more important than the coming end of the world.
Kleto shrugged, said, “All I’m saying is, give it a try.” And then she moved along.
Isme stood for a moment and watched her walk, before a fear like being left behind came to her, sneaking up the ladder of her spine. Glancing at the way the path had come, the line that marked the edge of the woods which receded into mountainside as the caravan proceeded along, Isme hurried to catch up with Kleto.
She had not heard the voice in the woods for days, but she also had not been alone.
~
Her father came not long after they arrived in the town. Epimetheus looped her by the wrist and drew her away, telling her, “Say a goodbye to your new friends.”
Isme was surprised at his choice of words. She glanced hesitantly at Kleto and Pelagia. Friends. Yes, she realized, this was what the stories meant when they used that word.
“You will see us later,” said Kleto, and without any more words stalked away. Isme stared after, wondering if she should follow and demand what Kleto meant by this—because, unsuited to the mainland as she still was, even she knew this was rude.
As though she could tell what Isme wondered, Pelagia scooted closer and said, “You really will come see the performances, right? There will be celebrations for Apollon when the Oracle of Delphi is opened. It’s only open for a few days each year, so everyone from Greece is here—and of course we must all celebrate.”
The women may not be on stage, Isme thoug
ht, but they will be there during the theater. Glancing at her father, who nodded at her, she said, “I will.”
Pelagia reached out and wrapped her arms around Isme’s middle. She was only a little bit taller than Isme, so this was not stifling, although Isme could not help but tense. She heard Pelagia whisper, “You simply must come. I have never seen Kleto take so to a stranger met on the road. Although,” and she sighed, “It’s best you have your own ways, rather than joining us as a singer.”
Isme did not get the chance to reply. When Pelagia pulled away, Isme thought that she saw a glimmer in the corner of her eye, and then Pelagia had run off in the steps of Kleto. Isme was left to wonder if all goodbyes were like this.
Turning, she followed her father as he wove into the city, knowing without him saying that she should stay close by his side around people.
After all, if the last few days had proved anything, it was that her father’s stories—brutal as they were sometimes—were nothing compared to reality on the mainland.
~
The city in the lower parts of Mount Parnassus that shared the name of Delphi but did not house the Oracle itself. Instead it was a trading post. Isme knew as much from her father’s claims about the place, since he had once told her that he had been to Delphi and she had begged for insider information.
The town lay inside a low wall, perhaps the height and a half of an average man, constructed as much from wood as stone. It seemed like every other step was a gate instead of wall—Isme guessed that the town did not have much to fear from raiders, because who would dare attack a place so blessed by the gods?
Inside the city was a jumble of sounds and sights whirling and flickering before Isme’s eyes, so many people churning like fish in a school, chasing about. The noise of so many people talking was like the low roar of an endless wave that never receded. Men dressed in cloth, everywhere. Animals dragging or carrying and sometimes complaining under their loads. Small children shrieking.
Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) Page 13
