Odysseus: The Return

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  A wave as high as a mountain struck the left side of the ship. It swept away the benches and crashed into the mast, which collapsed onto Antiphus’ head, killing him. It slammed down into the keel, snapping the beam in two and snatching away Perimedes who was still shouting my name. It plunged straight into the heart of the hurricane, dragging my helmsman with it, where the harpies, monsters of windstorms, were waiting to tear into him with their talons. The ship’s prow flooded with water and sank, dragged down by the gold and silver of Troy – accursed plunder! I saw nothing, I had no sense of where I was, I was swallowed into the depths and tossed out again without understanding why, until I realized that I was clinging to a piece of the mast of my ship. I had heard her cry out as she was going down, cracked in two. That’s right, because ships have a soul and a voice and when they sink they salute their commander with a last mournful wail before dying.

  10

  I DO NOT KNOW how long I spent at the mercy of the waves and the wind, how many blinding bolts struck the sea around me. I was enveloped in terror and burning anguish, knowing that I had lost all my comrades. I had watched as my perfect ship, in splinters, sank into the abyss. There was nothing around me but darkness. My salt-scorched eyes could no longer distinguish anything but masses of water surging over me, one after another, with roaring crashes. Water was everywhere outside and inside me: it penetrated into my mouth and nostrils, it cut off my breath. I was sure at every moment that I was drowning and that, sucked into the sea’s deep gyres, I was on my way to joining my shipmates in the abyss.

  All at once, I saw a piece of the ship’s keel beam surfacing near me and I tied it to the mast with one of the leather stays still attached to it. Then I hoisted myself up onto that unexpected refuge and hung on to it with all my strength. I would not give up, would not surrender to the cruel blue god, my ruthless enemy. He’d have to come out of the sea himself to get me.

  Perhaps the god heard my challenge because I soon realized that the current was heading towards the narrows where I had lost six of my men and this time it was dragging me into the whirlpool. This certainly meant the end for me. The fast current caught the mast and the beam that I still rode, clinging to them for dear life, and began spinning me faster and faster, closer and closer to the centre of the vortex. The water pulled at me with such force and speed that I could see all the way down to the black sand of the sea bottom. At any moment I would be dashed into the maelstrom and would become, after all my struggles, food for the fish.

  And yet, as I was about to close my eyes and prepare for the end, I spotted a branch, belonging to an age-old fig tree, that was stretching out over the whirlpool. Just as the abyss was about to suck me into its depths, I rose to my feet on the keel beam and made a leap. I managed to catch the branch. It cracked. I grabbed the one next to it, obstinate in my unwillingness to leave this life. From there I tried to heave myself up onto a bigger branch but my muscles were cramping and my strength was going. I looked beneath me to see that the whirlpool had closed up. The water reversed its current and the keel beam of my ship was spat to the surface. I let myself drop and swam with desperate force until I could grab the mast and the stay of entwined leather. I pulled myself up until I was sitting astride it and seized the broken fig-tree branch that had fallen with me, using it as an oar, following the current that now, since its direction had reversed, was pushing me into the open sea.

  Every time the sea let me catch my breath I cried out for help. I shouted to men, to gods, to monsters. I don’t know why but I still hoped that my goddess could make out my voice in the din of the tempest; that she would hear me and that the heart in her chest would be moved to help me.

  Finally, after days and nights, a ray of sun broke through the clouds.

  All around me the sea extended all the way to the horizon. Infinite, smooth. I saw nothing but water, and the wind, once again, was driving me away from my home. I don’t know how I managed to keep on top of the mast. I was cold, hungry, thirsty, there was not a muscle in my body that wasn’t hurting, but I was sitting on a piece of the ship which had faced so many dangers with me, soaked with the sweat of my comrades. I would die before I left her.

  The current and the wind took over and pushed me on day after day. I was caked with salt and I couldn’t even keep my eyes open any more. The sun burned my back and my shoulders and covered them with blisters. I was skin and bones. I was sure that my time had come. I was about to die. The blue god had spared me only so he could inflict a slower and more painful death. I began to let myself go.

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes it was dark. I thought I was in Hades but my hands were touching sand and pebbles, my nostrils smelled the fragrance of earth.

  I sat and then struggled to get to my feet. I was barely able to stand. I turned my back to the sea and could not believe what I was seeing: lush plants laden with ripe fruit, fruits that I’d never seen in my whole life. I ate and drank until I was no longer thirsty or hungry. Then I collapsed, exhausted, and fell into a deep sleep.

  The rays of the sun woke me. The reflections of the water were dancing on the leaves of the trees looming over my head. A brightly feathered bird looked over curiously as he hopped along the shore, a glossy green serpent slipped slowly down the rough bark of a centuries-old tree. Where was I? In a place inhabited by men who eat bread or in a lawless, uncultivated land without villages or cities?

  The sea lapped at my feet with a long, warm caress. That same dreadful, thousand-souled monster, ruthless and frothing, that had broken my ship and killed all my comrades.

  The memory of them surged into my mind, their faces, their hands grasping the handles of their oars or their spears, men of infinite resources, valiant warriors, bold sailors, tireless. I had taken six hundred of them with me on twelve ships when I was leaving Troy and I would never bring a single one of them back home with me, if I ever returned myself. I would have no booty to divide up among the families who had lost their sons. I had nothing to offer to their memory. All I could do was shout out their names. I called out to them in a powerful voice so they could hear me all the way in the dark house of Hades, then I pushed the keel beam tied to its mast out to sea, my only gift for the men snatched away by the storm. I watched for a long time as it drifted away.

  I built myself a shelter for the night using the knife that was still buckled to my belt, an excellent bronze blade crafted by a smith of Corinth for my father. I cut the trunks of young trees and made stakes to drive into the ground, and I used palm branches to make a roof. I even made a small door so that wild animals could not enter while I slept.

  The next day I set out to learn what I could about this place, walking along the coastline so I would never lose sight of the sea. When darkness overtook me, I spent the night in the shelter of a rock with my knife at my side, ready to jump to my feet if I had to. Years of war had taught me to feel the slightest movement of the air. I saw nothing recognizable about that place – it was the same sensation I’d had on Circe’s island and in the land of the cyclopes. The sea, I guessed, had carried me far, far west, perhaps not far from the point where it mixes with the waters of the river Ocean.

  I walked on for many hours but my exploration was still not complete. I stopped to light a fire and to eat some of the numerous birds’ eggs I’d found at the edge of the forest. I was getting stronger, but with every step I took one thing became clear to me: I would never get over the loss of all my men. No joy, perhaps not even embracing Penelope and Telemachus, could ease the distress I felt, that deep sorrow that still pains me today. The words of Laertes would never leave me: ‘A king is the father of his people.’

  The next day I crossed the northernmost area, where I found wild rabbits and tubers, along with fruits and nuts of different kinds that I’d never seen before. I wouldn’t die of hunger. I would cut myself a fishing pole, and make a line by braiding my own hair. The curved thorns of a plant I’d found with beautiful yellow flowers could be used as hooks. I would craft a bow for hunt
ing from a pliant branch. Plant fibres could be stripped and twisted to fashion a bowstring and I could make arrows by sharpening the slim, hard reeds that grew on the shore with my knife. I spent the second night and the third in makeshift shelters: caves and crevices that I happened across. I never saw a hut or any object crafted by human hands, I never met a woman or a man. Nonetheless, every now and then, I sensed an invisible presence as if someone were watching me. It wasn’t my goddess, surely. I didn’t get that sensation of a chill that made me shiver.

  How would I be able to build a boat so I could set out to sea again? Certainly not with my knife alone. I needed something more like an axe or a saw. Difficult, but not impossible. The only thing I wasn’t lacking was time.

  At the end of my journey, as the sun was setting on the fourth day, I ran across the shack I’d made. In my heart I had hoped that that would never happen. I’d hoped that I was on part of a larger land mass, not a prison surrounded by the sea. I had met no one on my travels and had seen no trace of a human presence, but I wasn’t ready to give up and I decided I would go inland to see if there were any inhabitants to be found. In the following days I scoured the island from different directions. I saw no trails that had not been made by animals, no villages, no buildings of any kind. Not a human footprint.

  I was alone.

  That had never happened to me before, in my whole life. Those days taught me that it is better to face dangers, worries, even suffering, while surrounded by friends and comrades, than accept the inertia and tedium of complete solitude. At that point, I had no one but myself to count on, on my strength and on my wits. I would have to find a way to build a boat, load it with food and drinking water and then wait for a westerly wind to take me home. It was said that the blue god would go off to the land of the dark faces when the weather worsened in our lands and on our seas. I would have to decide which was the greater danger, taking to the sea alone or risking Poseidon’s wrath once again.

  Perhaps fortune, or Fate, or my goddess, would guide a ship to the island where I found myself . . . I would ask to be taken on board, I could offer water to drink, food and nourishing plants in exchange. But I’d never sighted another ship since I had crossed the wall of fog – I’d only ever seen the ghost of one and I wasn’t even sure of that. In any case, I would not sit and wait, I know what it means to have no one to talk to. One way or another, I’d go to sea.

  SOME TIME LATER, returning to my shelter after having visited the last unexplored part of the island, I found the shack almost destroyed. The palm branches were scattered everywhere, only the bare stakes remained. And yet there had been no strong wind or other signs of a storm. The weather was fine, it always was; the sun shone but it didn’t burn. It had only rained once, at night. I’d listened to the raindrops pattering on the palm leaves, but I hadn’t got wet at all. As I was falling asleep I felt like I was in my own bed among the olive branches with Penelope, under the covers smelling of sweet lavender, listening to the rain on the roof.

  It must have been some animal.

  I rebuilt my little house, tying the branches to the stakes more securely and fixing the stakes to poles which I drove deeper into the ground. Then I turned my attention to making a bow and some arrows, along with a rough quiver made of wicker, and a bag to wear on my shoulder, fashioned from braided palm leaves. I was ready to go hunting and I set out for my first foray, which lasted a whole day. I returned that evening with a rabbit, one of those birds with the garish feathers and long tails, and three stork’s eggs. They could have been the makings of a small banquet, but I had no wine, no bread, no olive oil, nor anyone with whom to exchange a word.

  Hard not to cry.

  I don’t know why, but I had taken to counting the days I spent on the island by making cuts in the bark of a wild fig tree. A milky fluid seeped out, and after a day or two, a small scar was formed: one, two, three, four . . . Fifty-three.

  I was getting used to being alone. Sometimes, when the sea was rough, I went up on a rocky promontory and shouted to be heard over the crashing of the breakers; other times I ran along the beach and scared seabirds into flight. I’d made myself a sling and I’d learned to use it well. I had plenty of time to practise. When the sea was flat, I tossed white stones on the surface of the water, counted the skips and calculated the distance. None of those activities amused me or gave me pleasure, but they quietened my incessant brooding and shut out the thousands of images of my past life. The sounds, the screams, the clamour, the rustling. The whispers. A mortal silence would descend into my heart, while everything around me was alive and had a voice, noise, music, colour, light.

  Days afterward, I discovered that the little shack I’d built had been wrecked again. But this time . . . there were footprints on the sandy soil. Why now and not then? What I saw upset me and countless thoughts went through my mind. I followed the prints: they were small and quite distinct, left by the bare feet of a boy or a young woman. They vanished when they got to the smooth, sparkling beach. When I lifted my eyes, I saw a figure sitting on a flat black stone that emerged from the sea where the waves died out. But all I could see was a black silhouette against the light of the sun.

  I approached slowly, a hand on the hilt of my knife.

  A woman. A marvellous beauty, golden hair, eyes the colour of the sea. The veil that covered her was liquid as water, shiny as the sun.

  ‘Why are you destroying my house? I have no other shelter.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know who I am?’ Her voice was like a girl’s, fresh and silvery.

  ‘No mortal woman could find herself in a place like this, alone on a wild island at the ends of the earth, looking as perfect as a flower in its first bloom.’

  ‘You know how to recognize a goddess, then.’

  ‘How long have you been watching me?’

  ‘Since you arrived.’

  ‘Why, wanaxa, have you not appeared to me before?’

  She smiled. ‘When you got here you were horrible to look at, thin and dirty. I waited until you had your strength back and I could see whether you were handsome or not.’

  ‘What about you? Are you what I see or is it a trick?’

  ‘I’ve chosen this semblance to be pleasing to you. I’ll be thus for as long as you’re with me.’

  ‘I beg you, wanaxa of this land, don’t mock me, for I have suffered long and hard, on land and at sea.’ I did not tell her that a powerful god was persecuting me – she didn’t need a new reason to reject me.

  ‘I am Calypso, daughter of Atlas, and I inherited this island from my father. And you are Odysseus, king of Ithaca, destroyer of cities. Your fame has reached this remote land.’

  She descended from the gleaming black stone and walked towards me. The waves that were ebbing and flowing wet the hem of her gown. She took me by the hand and led me to a place I had never seen, although I was sure I’d explored every part of the island.

  It was a cave in a small promontory jutting into the sea. Above the cave grew plants of all kinds, many of them blossoming in yellow, pink, white and bright-red flowers. The branches cascaded down all around the entrance.

  ‘This is my house,’ she said.

  ‘This is a trick,’ I replied. ‘It wasn’t here before. I covered every bit of this island and I never saw it.’

  ‘It’s always been here. It’s you who didn’t see it.’

  I didn’t want to contradict her. It’s not good to contradict someone much more powerful than you.

  She stepped in front of me and entered first. I followed her and was taken aback by the wonder of what I saw. The bottom was covered with dry sand, the rock walls shone with shades of red and ochre. A strange light fluttered all around, dancing on the walls. There was a little pool to one side with water so clear I didn’t notice it until it rippled as I walked by. The rock ceiling was studded with large quartz crystals that reflected the light in myriad ways and colours. At the centre, close to the pool, a square boulder rose out of the sand. It served as
a table, with wicker chairs placed around it.

  ‘I see you receive guests,’ I said.

  ‘Never. It’s only to give me the illusion that I’m not always alone here.’

  I thought of Circe. What destiny had befallen these perfect, incomprehensible, immortal beings? I thought for a moment that they must be the last denizens of an ancient race that was dying or perhaps the first of a new race that hadn’t yet formed.

  ‘Is that why you brought me here? Because you want someone to keep you company when you sit down to dinner?’

  She smiled and continued to the far end of the cave. There she showed me her bedchamber. A bed of flowers. Resting there must be like lying down in a spring meadow, I thought. She took off her gown of water and sun and lay upon the flowers. I took off what was left of my own clothing and lay down next to her. At first Calypso was tender, so delicate that I could barely feel the touch of her hands, but then she became stronger, voracious. Her embrace was so fiery that I didn’t think I could bear it. But how to slip free from the embrace of a goddess? When I entered her, penetrated her womb, I felt like I was dying, being devoured, sucked of every sap of life. I felt I’d lost my words and my sight. I’d become a part of her. I had no mind or thought, I was delirium itself. In her I melted like snow in the rays of the sun. I could not perceive the confines of my body, couldn’t hear the beating of my heart. Then everything vanished.

  That act of love was an act of annihilation. I understood now why Circe had wanted me in her bed instantly, and how my refusal had saved me from total slavery. But here I hadn’t happened upon that youth with the sun in his hair who gave me a warning and a magical herb to make me invincible. Here I had melted, like metal in the crucible, in the embrace of Calypso, the goddess hiding on the island at the ends of the earth.

  From then on I became a single thing with her. I don’t know if it was love or what it was. I only know that the attraction between us was so strong, so intense, that it verged on violence. For years she was my only desire, my only obsession; and I was that for her. I had been transformed: never had I been so strong, so acute in perceiving what was happening around me. The air I breathed, the smell of the island – the flowers, the sea, the grass, the sand, the forest – was the scent of her. She was the island and the sky above it and the sea that embraced it. The entire island was our alcove and only sometimes did we make love in the cave, on the bed of flowers. Wherever desire seized us, the island was our bed, a drape of soft linen beneath us.