Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  Rowed ashore, we splashed through ankle-deep water, stepping onto that beach I had once thought never to see again. Gentle little waves were lapping on the shore, which was empty. Nothing remained from the invasion-no huts, no fences, no ship debris. It was as if the Greeks had never come.

  Now that I was closer, I could see the blackened stump of what had been Troy in the distance, looking like a dark thumb or a mound. Nothing moved around it. The tumulus marking the tomb of Achilles reared across the plain. It was not as tall as I remembered. Wind and weather must have worn it down.

  Nothing was left of the miserable house where I and the other captives had been held, but I knew exactly where it had been. And here, on the beach, I could point to the place where they had piled up the treasures they had ripped from Troy, a tottering heap of bronze and linen and pottery. Seagulls strutted there now, and foamy waves washed over it, their bubbles winking and glistening in the sand, ephemeral jewels, imitation of the stolen Trojan ones.

  “Where to, my lady?” My attendants looked around, puzzled. “This way?” They pointed to Troy.

  “No. Not yet.” I would circle it, visit the plain, sit by the banks of the Scamander, trudge back to the foot of Mount Ida: first see all that had surrounded Troy, edge my way toward it until I had the courage to confront it, behold my dream.

  How quickly the fields had recovered. As we walked through them, pushing aside waist-high grasses and wildflowers, I looked in vain for any remnants of the hundreds of bodies of men and horses that had once strewn the fields. I would have thought such a field of death would never vanish. But vanish it had.

  This part of the plain flooded in winter, but crowding upon it, at its outer edges, plowed fields and vineyards began. I could see crops growing green under the warm sun, see farmhouses. Here and there oxen were plowing. Carts, half filled with produce, waited in the fields.

  On to the foothills of Mount Ida. We passed the springhouse where Troilus had been slain, passed the troughs where once again women were washing, the distinctive slap of their clothes against the stones singing in the summer air. They laughed shrilly as they sprayed one another playfully with water.

  The ground rose, and stony outcrops told us we were nearing Mount Ida. Would the hot and cold spring fountains still be there? We rounded a bend and I saw them, the stones crumbling, but the hot water still tumbling out, with its cold twin gushing beside it. Behind it wound the beginning of the path up the mountain. The path I had traveled twice with Andromache.

  “A moment,” I told my guards. I had to draw away and think of her, wherever she had gone. Oh, Andromache, I pray that you are content. Happiness is impossible, but contentment, yes, that is within reach. I picked a stem of white wildflowers and scattered their blossoms in her honor.

  I turned back to my guards and then in the distance I saw the little house from my dream. It was of stone, its tiled roof neatly shining, and surrounded by olive trees. Who was in it? Why had I dreamed of it? Yet I knew my special sight had granted me the vision, and I must honor that.

  “There.” I pointed at it. “We go there.”

  It seemed to recede before our eyes. It was much farther away than it looked, sitting surrounded by its fields and masked by the olive trees guarding it. Nothing stirred in the noonday sun; no dogs barked or laborers looked up. But it was too well kept to be deserted. Someone lived there.

  We entered the welcome shade of the olive trees, their branches shivering in the slight breeze. The house was in shadow. I told them, “Wait for me.” I must go alone-to what, I did not know.

  The door was a stout one of painted wood. I knocked on it once, twice. If the door did not open, I would wait. But the dream must not be denied. I was compelled to follow it. I had come all this way to do so.

  It did open. A woman stared out at me. I had never seen her before. “What is it?” Her voice was sharp.

  “I do not know,” I said. I could give no other answer. I should have prepared one. How foolish.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “I am Helen of Sparta, late of Troy.”

  Now the door swung open wider. She gaped at me, frowning. “It is even so?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I pulled my head covering off my hair. But that gesture no longer guaranteed recognition. Helen, the Helen who had called a thousand ships to Troy, would be eternally young. She was in stories and poems, so she must, perforce, be so in life.

  She kept looking at me. Then she yelled, “Gelanor! Gelanor!” and rushed from the door.

  I was left standing in front of it. Now I knew why I had dreamed of this house.

  An elderly man came to the door. At first I did not recognize him, nor he, me. Then we burst into laughter and fell into one another’s arms.

  “You are alive! You are alive!” I was choked with sobs. I clutched him to me. “I sought you in the streets of Troy, I went to your house, oh, I did everything I-”

  “Hush,” he said, laying his finger on my lips. In that gesture we were lovers, as we had always truly been in some deep sense-lifelong comrades forged in a bond of utter trust and loyalty. “I know you would.”

  I pulled back from him, looked into his dear face, the face I had thought lost forever. “How did you know that?”

  “Because I knew-know-you.”

  Stirrings and foot-tappings around us reminded us of the presence of others.

  “Yes,” said Gelanor, pulling away. “I wish to present my wife, Phaea.”

  “Wife?” I said. “Truly, you must tell me how all this has come about. I last saw you in Troy, the night before the horse was pulled inside. I know nothing since.”

  “Come in, take a place at our hearth,” Phaea said. “So many years means that it will be a long tale on both our sides.”

  Their little house was tidy and had unusually large windows, making it bright inside. At first glance I did not see anything that would tell me Gelanor lived there-none of the boys’ junk and treasures he used to collect. Perhaps that belonged to the old life that had perished in the Trojan flames. Or marriage had changed him.

  Phaea handed me a cup of broth. For an instant I hesitated to drink it, as if by doing so I would shatter a spell, for all this still seemed like a dream. To eat or drink was to embrace where I was as real, bind me there. Defiantly, I sipped it, suddenly aware of my hunger. It was rich with the taste of lamb.

  “Now, Persephone, you must remain with us. You have eaten something.”

  Gelanor cocked his eyebrow in that old way. We had been thinking the same thing. It made me smile. They let me finish the broth before telling their story. She spoke a version of the Trojan tongue that was difficult for me to follow. But I was delighted that I could understand as much as I did.

  Phaea was the daughter of a herdsman in the area. They had been forced to supply the Greeks with meat; a neighbor who had refused had been killed outright. Secretly they had also provided meat, milk, and hides to the Trojans, but risked their lives to do so. As long as the southern gate was approachable they were able to enter that way, but as the Greek hold on Troy tightened, they were barred from the city.

  In the final attack on Troy, they had kept well away, praying they would be spared. Their home was not far from the temple of Apollo-the one beside the springhouse-and they intended to seek sanctuary there if necessary, as that temple was neutral ground between the two sides. Not that the Greeks always honored such things. They hid in their house until they saw the victorious Greeks gathering on the seashore, then they ran for the temple.

  Inside the temple Phaea had found Gelanor, dazed and suffering from burns. He was sitting in the underground chamber, his arm draped over the feet of the Apollo statue, staring dully at the opposite wall. At first she had been afraid he was either dead, with his eyes still open, or mad. When he turned his head, his expression was so dreadful she thought this poor man would have done better to die. She brought him food and, when the Greeks had gone, took him from the temple and nursed him back to
health in her family’s home.

  For a long time he did not speak, and her father thought he had lost his wits. He lay in bed, staring, and, even after he was walking again, seemed not to be able to perform even simple tasks. They could not trust him to herd the sheep. They assigned him to gather olives and apples near the house. He could manage that.

  “All this while he did not speak. I did not even know what his language was. I did not know if he could understand us.”

  “It was your Dardanian dialect,” Gelanor said. Beneath the teasing I understood the pain of that time. “Such a silly accent!”

  She leaned over and playfully pushed him. “It is the most noble of accents. Did not Aeneas and his kin speak as I speak?”

  “What happened to Aeneas?” I could not help but interrupt their banter.

  “He has never been seen again,” she said.

  “I saw him alive, fleeing down the street in Troy,” I said. My Trojan language was reviving. “I called to him, but he did not answer. I was told by Ilona, when we were miserable prisoners on the beach, that his wife Creusa had died. But beyond that I know nothing.” Aphrodite had promised to save him-but had she?

  Gelanor sighed. “There is so much we shall never know, endings that we cannot pursue. But mine is simple: Phaea and I were married-after her father was satisfied that I was not half-witted-and we have lived here in peace for many years. I have felt myself to be, in some way, a guardian of Troy. Of what is left of it.”

  “I am glad for your happiness, dear friend. And Evadne?”

  He shook his head. “I think she did not survive that horrible night. So few did.” He paused. “And you? I know you were dragged away by Menelaus. But beyond that I have heard nothing. I feared he had kept his promise to his men to kill you in vengeance.”

  “Menelaus was not a man of vengeance,” I said. “In that he was out of place amongst the Greek leaders. He had a tender heart, but they made him ashamed of it. He promised to kill me once we returned to Greece, but we did not return directly there. We spent many years trying to return. Seven of them were in Egypt. Then we returned to Sparta. There I have been, all the remaining years.”

  He gave a cry, a protest. The old Gelanor spoke. “Oh, how did you endure it?” he said. “To return there, to live with Menelaus-”

  “You are not the only one with potions, my friend. In Egypt they taught me how to mix an elixir that protected me from all feelings. And thus I endured those years. But that is over. I left those potions behind. I am longing to feel . . . all that I need to feel.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I could not allow myself to for a very long time. And it will be worse for you. How could you dare to come back here?”

  I looked at him. “How could I not?” I shook my head. “It is my heart, my very self. Am I not Helen of Troy?”

  They provided a bed for me to rest, and for several days I lived with them, all three of us pretending we were simple people, herdsmen and farmers, with nothing beyond that weighing upon us. We had never known anything but the slow passage of seasons here on the edge of the Plain of Troy, never had any concern beyond when the sheep needed to go to higher pasture or whether the beaters had left too many ripe olives on the branches. Would that not have been lovely? But had it been true, we would not have been ourselves and we would have betrayed the cry of vanished Troy, all those ghosts calling to us.

  LXXX

  At last I commanded the courage I needed to go to the city of Troy. I must see it all, must revisit it. Gelanor and I set out walking across the plain, leaving behind his household in its sheltered grove. I noted that he moved briskly, for an old man-for that was what he now was. I smiled, remembering Priam and Nestor and how old I had thought them, when they were younger than we were now. But they had looked old, I thought, and moved as old men. Surely we did not!

  Gelanor directed me toward the shadows of Mount Ida. “First we must go here,” he said. “If you would see all, you must see this.”

  For a long time I did not know where he was taking me, but I was content to follow him. I was still dreading the final sight of ruined Troy, and anything that served to postpone it I welcomed. We passed through groves of olives, their silver leaves all a-tremble, and fields of barley, bowing under the hand of the passing wind.

  Finally we rounded a bend in the path and I saw something white gleaming before me. It was large and square. Around it dark cypresses waved, telling me it was a tomb. I felt Gelanor take my elbow to brace me.

  “The last casualty of the war,” he murmured. “Few come here. She would want you to.”

  I saw wilting flowers at the base of the tomb, dried enough that I knew he was right; these were old. “Who . . . ?”

  “Polyxena,” he said. “That poor, useless sacrifice.” He stopped and looked at me. In that instant, I saw the old Gelanor, spirited and questioning. “In this lies all the evils of that evil war.”

  I approached the tomb. There were carvings there, but I did not look at them. Instead I knelt and laid my hands on the cold stone. She lay in there, a morsel to feed Achilles’s hunger and vanity. I bent, letting my forehead touch her tomb. “Polyxena,” I murmured. “Yours was the greatest sacrifice of all.” She had gained nothing from the war, not a single shining moment, and yet she had lain her neck bare like a doomed lamb. There were so few witnesses to her death. Would she be honored? Or would the injustice extend to people coming to Achilles’ tomb in ignorance of hers? Paying homage to him and ignoring her?

  We made our way to the tumulus of Achilles, some distance away. Tufts of grass covered it, and there was a discreet altar at its feet. Gelanor circled it, allowing me to take it in in its entirety. It dwarfed poor Polyxena’s.

  “People come here to sacrifice and pour libations. In the years since his death, his reputation has grown.” He shook his head. “Hector does not have a tumulus. But when we go into Troy, or near it, I will show you what has happened with Hector. There is a statue of him, and people sacrifice there as well. In fact, statues are sprouting all around Troy-it’s the Egyptian influence, all those statues-and the heroes of the war are being honored. It is a good thing. For Troy must-it must!-live on in the memories of men. There was too much bravery, and too much suffering, for it to vanish without remembrance.”

  “Paris?” I dared to ask. “Did his tomb survive?”

  Gelanor shook his head. “It was too near to Troy. The fire, the destruction . . .”

  I gave a cry of despair. Not even a tomb!

  He put his arm around me. “Did you not have a private place, a place that you can reclaim?”

  Such places were all inside Troy. All consumed. I shook my head. And then, slowly, I remembered. That day we had gone out with the horses. He had taken me to the quiet place by the banks of the Scamander.

  “We did not have the chance to spend much time outside Troy,” I said. “But there was one place-we were only there once, and I never thought there would not be others, as time went on-I paid little attention-”

  “Find it,” he said. “Remember it.”

  I nodded. “I will try.” I thought hard, but I could not pinpoint the place. “Perhaps I can find it again in a dream,” I said. “But before that, Troy. You must take me into Troy.”

  He looked at me with that old hard examining look. His eyes might be circled with wrinkles, but his gaze was as strong, as searching as ever. “Are you ready? Are you sure you can endure it?”

  “No,” I whispered. “But I must try.”

  Together we approached the ruins of Troy. They loomed larger and larger on the plain as we walked resolutely forward. The first thing I saw was: no walls. The mighty, high walls of Troy had fallen. A bit of their lower courses were still there, only a third of their original height. They guarded only jackals and cawing birds. The towers had vanished. Their stones were scattered like forlorn children at what had been their bases. And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. That dreadful phrase that kept playing through my mind, that had com
e to me unbidden years ago.

  “Come.” Gelanor was picking his way amongst the stones. Where the mighty south gate had been there was only a gaping hole, and we stepped through it easily. It was nothing like my dream, where everything was intact but deserted. Here all was ruin-blackened, broken, destroyed.

  I shielded my eyes. “Take me away,” I said. “I can bear no more. Troy is truly dead.” And I wept for it, only sorry that my weeping could not be deep enough, could not express the sublimity and the loss of Troy.

  He guided me gently through what was left of the streets, the streets that had once been alive and thronged with people. Only when we were outside, sitting beside what was left of the walls and the Scaean Gate, did he say, “You are wrong. Troy lives.”

  I bent my head over my knees, crying. “No. You have seen it. Troy is gone, swept away.”

  “And now begins to live,” he said. “I tell you, the story of Troy will live long beyond these pitiful, fallen stones.”

  “So many cities, so many kingdoms, have risen, fallen. Troy is just another.”

  “I cannot believe that the extraordinary deeds and persons of Achilles, Hector, Paris, and you will disappear. These were different than all those others. Different from Theseus and the Minotaur, different from Jason and his Argonauts, beyond the destruction of Andromache’s city of Thebes.”

  I smiled. At that moment I felt so much wiser than he. “Dear friend,” I said, “they all felt thus-felt they, and their valiant deeds, could never vanish.”

  He had one thing left to show me. He did not tell me what it was until we mounted the steps of a small marble temple modestly hidden behind a grove of sacred plane trees, well out of sight of the ugly mound of dead Troy.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “I think it is what you have been seeking,” he said. “Are you ready to behold it?”

  I looked into his gold-flecked eyes, squinting now with the lowering sun. “You are always full of riddles,” I said. “Can you not speak plain for once?”