Snakehead

by Ann Halam

  People cleared a path as I led her to the hearth, where there was a bright fire in spite of the heat, as tradition demanded. She took her place. I joined Moumi, Papa Dicty, the matriarchs and their consorts at the high table—an honor I would have been glad to surrender.

  Children were getting underfoot. Aten and Moni the Naxian were nearby, with their household. My dear friends were perched up on the bar counter, relatively cool and with a great view of the singer. There were festive lamps hanging in a row above the bar. I could see Kore’s profile, and her slender hands clasping her knees. She was wearing blue, a two-brooched dress with a border worked in silver, like starlight in the midnight sky.

  Mando sang for two hours, mostly seated. Sometimes she’d get up and dance a few steps, with sweeping, ancient gestures. If it was a modern song that we all knew, she’d beckon to us, letting us know we were allowed to join in for the chorus:

  Oh, the red rose madder, oh, the blue hyacinth,

  Oh, the yellow powder stain of the lilies in my garden!

  But there’s none so pure as the little white convolvulus,

  The little wild white convolvulus, who grows where she shouldn’t

  Who grows where she shouldn’t!

  Who blows where she shouldn’t!

  All over our fields!

  This is a very naughty song, if you take the words the way we islanders take them. Everyone was laughing, nudging and winking at each other (there’d been plenty of drinks earlier). I saw Kore laughing too, her burden swept away by the power of the music. I wanted to be beside her, but I couldn’t leave my place. At last Mando gave us “Dark Water,” the funeral song. She sat down for this: leaning forward, her hands planted on her broad knees; and seeming to look through us, through the hearth’s flame-shadows, into a vast, lonely distance.

  Why are the mountains dark and why so woebegone?

  Is the wind at war there, or does the rainstorm scourge them?

  It is not the wind at war there, it is not the rain that scourges

  It is only Charon passing across them with the dead

  He drives the youths before him, the old folk drags behind

  And he bears the tender little ones in a line at his saddle bow

  The old men beg a grace, the young kneel to implore him

  “Good Charon, halt in a village, or halt at some cool fountain

  That the old men may drink water, the young men play at stone throwing

  And that the little children may go and gather flowers”

  “In never a village will I halt, nor yet by a cool fountain

  The mothers would come for water, and recognize their children

  The married folk would know each other, and I would never part them”

  The audience was completely silent. Partly, that was out of respect for the ritual song for the dead. Partly, it was Mando’s power over our emotions. Death will not be like that for me, I thought. Not me, because I’m immortal like my father.

  I didn’t care what being immortal meant. I never thought about it, and I didn’t want to think about it now. But the sadness drew me in. I understood, as if for the first time, that Moumi, Dicty, everyone I loved, would cross over the dark water, and I would be left alone. I would call after them but they wouldn’t know me. I would never see them again. Pain struck me, as real as a twisting knife.

  I saw that Kore had slipped down from the bar and was standing behind it, head bent. She can’t bear to listen, I thought. She has too many sad thoughts.

  The singer let the last long notes drain out of her and relaxed, reaching for a hefty tot of the finest Naxos Kitron liqueur. The whole room sighed together, tears were wiped and they all shouted for “Dark Water” again. I couldn’t understand it; once had been plenty for me. Mando smiled smugly, knocked back her Kitron, scratched herself under the arms, and then she carried us away, once more, into the heart-opening darkness of grief. But what was Kore doing?

  I watched as she finished covering one of Palikari’s scraped-wood tallyboards, her hand gripping a stylus, and grabbed another: as if she was making out some huge, impossible account for an Achaean millionaire, and it was a speed test. Pali and Anthe were peering over her shoulder, and looking at each other. I managed to catch Anthe’s eye. She lifted her hands, helpless and mystified. Kore was oblivious.

  I hardly noticed when the song ended, until the applause burst out. I was caught up in the strange little drama going on by the bar. Somehow it scared me, and I didn’t know why. I quickly rearranged my face, and whooped and cheered and pounded my palms together. Everyone shouted that the singer had surpassed herself. Foreigners threw coins, which is not a good idea in a crowded bar. Mando stood, and bowed, sat down again, and called for another drink.

  Kore was still working away. Palikari suddenly had the presence of mind to drop down from the counter and stand in front of her. Papa Dicty must have been watching too. Before the applause showed any sign of letting up, he stood, and spread his arms. “How beautiful it is that we remember the dead in our midsummer festivities. I have always thought that’s a very moving Serifiote tradition. Now, the crowd in here is unsafe, so please go out to the terrace! We can thank and praise the incomparable Mando more pleasantly outdoors, when she’s had a chance to catch her breath!”

  The people obeyed without protest; they must have been glad to get some fresh air. We cleared the dining room, and the kitchen-yard crowd trooped after them, Palikari and I politely encouraging the stragglers. Dicty took a lamp from the high table to the bar, and looked over Kore’s shoulder.

  “You can read and write?” said the boss softly.

  She barely glanced at him. “Yes … Please excuse me, Papa Dicty, I’m trying to remember the meter, one more line …”

  “That’s a strange kind of script. Who taught you, my dear?”

  Her hand was still flying. “It’s a new kind of writing. I worked it out: I use different symbols to mean sounds, not things. It’s much better. You can use it for poetry, not just accounts. You can use it for any language you like.”

  “Great Mother,” said the boss.

  He sat down hard on a bar stool, as if someone had knocked him on the head.

  Kore dropped her stylus and leaned back, wringing her hand: it must have been aching. Moumi, Pali, Anthe and I crowded close. We looked at the little dancing marks, and then at each other, in blank astonishment.

  We kept accounts at Dicty’s, with the usual signs for different kinds of goods. We stored our yearly figures on clay tablets, and we thought that was pretty special. We knew of Eygptian writing, of course. But no one, no one could read and write in the islands these days—not this way, setting down thoughts and ideas. For us the skill had been utterly lost since the Great Disaster. It was rare beyond price, anywhere in the Middle Sea.

  The king of Serifos was the first threat that leapt to my mind. If he found out about this! But even then I knew that Polydectes was not the danger.

  “Great Mother,” said Dicty again, in a hollow tone.

  The tallyboards were rough, flaky scraped wood. They weren’t meant to last; we used them for kindling when they were done with…. I could not make Kore’s marks stand still. They seemed to whirl, and melt into each other. It was like a language so foreign it sounds like water running, or the twittering of birds.

  Papa Dicty was frowning, thinking hard. He stood up again.

  “Could you read what you have written, Kore?”

  “Of course.” She began to speak, slowly, her eyes on the board.

  It was astonishing, and eerie. I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. She got through the first, ominous lines of the funeral song, then she looked up and saw us all standing there openmouthed. I saw the horror dawning on her face.

  She had given herself away. She had revealed a secret that marked her like a shining brand. Was that what made her look so terrified?

  “You had to do it.” Anthe took her hand. “You couldn’t help it, I know.”

&
nbsp; “Here, what’s this caper?”

  It was Mando. She’d been sitting there on her stool all along. The singer got up and trod heavily across the room, mopping her dripping mascara with a table napkin. “What’s that on those tallyboards? Some kind ’er spell? What are you all looking at? Has this girl stolen my song? Lemme see. How’s she done that?”

  The funeral song was not Mando’s property. It was older than the ocean. It had different words on every island, even for every singer. But on Serifos nobody was allowed to sing “Dark Water” the Mando way unless she taught them; and she was very choosy.

  “No one can steal your songs!” cried Papa Dicty, sweeping the tallyboards out of sight. “The girl knows a few lines of the lyric. Why not, most people do. It’s your glorious art that makes the song! But listen, Mando dear, I was thinking. I want to make you an extra gift, to celebrate a superb performance. I’ve decided I will tell you the recipe for my wheat ribbons, and I’ll give you a ribbon press.”

  Mando seemed to expand. Though she dressed like a farmhand when she wasn’t singing, she was said to be extremely rich. She made sure she got paid, but the fame her shows brought meant far more to her. Papa Dicty’s wheat ribbons! What news to tell the crowd! She bowed, with dignity, then took his hand and kissed it. The harsh, blunt farmhand accent vanished.

  “Papa Dicty, you truly honor me. Well, well. I think I was in good tone tonight. May I excuse myself, gentlemen and ladies: I must go to my audience.”

  Mando left us, like a court lady’s very solid ghost. Kore came out from behind the bar, and drew a deep breath. “I can’t stay. I’ll have to leave. But I will explain.” She walked quickly, chin up, out into the yard. Anthe made a move to go after her.

  “Don’t,” said Moumi. “She’ll tell us the truth. Let it wait until morning.”

  “I’d better join the people on the terrace,” sighed Papa Dicty. “Or it will look strange, and impolite to the singer. There’s a good chance that nobody noticed what Kore was doing, or understood what they saw, and a good chance that Mando will only remember the wheat ribbons. Let’s hope that’s the case.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Moumi.

  The three of us stayed where we were. Palikari whistled, shook his head, reached for shot cups and poured a steadying tot of Kitron all around. Anthe downed hers at a gulp. Her hair, too curly to be tamed for long, was coming out of its stylish ringlets. “Why did she say, I can’t stay? Does she think we won’t protect her? I don’t understand why she’s terrified. She can read and write, it’s a wonderful thing!”

  “It’s too wonderful,” said Palikari grimly. “There were informers in here, there always are, and I bet they were watching our mystery girl. She’s given herself away. Someone will know who she is, a girl who can read and write: as good as if she’d shouted out her real name (whatever it is). The king is going to demand that we hand her over, like a piece of loot. He’ll force us to defy him, and you know what …?” He stopped, set his teeth, looked at the floor and muttered, “Maybe it’s high time!”

  “Did she say it’s a new kind of writing?” I asked.

  No answer. The lamps were dying, so we could barely see each other’s faces. Moonlight from outdoors spread cold white sheaves across the floor. There were eyes in the dark, down beside the hearth. The spirit that lived there had curled up into a quivering ball of limbs, like a threatened spider.

  My friends wanted me to face up to the king of Serifos, before he could strike the first blow. I couldn’t blame them if they thought I was afraid of Polydectes, the way I was reacting to this new crisis. But I wasn’t.

  It wasn’t the king who would take Kore from me.

  I could see things other people couldn’t. I could see hearth spirits and water nymphs. Now I knew, like thunder after lightning, why I had felt that strange fear as I saw her driving away with her stylus. It wasn’t because my darling possessed a dangerous, covetable skill. I had seen the finality of doom in her eyes when she looked up from the tallyboards where she had written the “Dark Water” song.

  She was god-touched. And tonight, in this room, in the flickering lamplight, her fate had tracked her down.

  Kore did not explain herself. When I came down at first light, she was helping Koukla and the maids clear up after the big event. At the household breakfast table, after we’d served our guests, she made an announcement. “I am sorry for what happened,” she said (as if she’d broken a tray of crockery). “I regret my outburst. Please forgive me and let’s not speak about it.”

  “That’s all right, my dear,” said the boss. “Could you pass the honey?”

  Papa Dicty didn’t speak either. He spent most of that morning with Mando, teaching her the wheat-ribbons recipe. Then he asked me to help him in the furnace yard, and we made a press for the singer as promised. I was bewildered by his calm; he’d seemed so staggered by what Kore could do. But it came to me that he’d been strangely quiet since the night she arrived. Or since we’d come back from our last trip to Naxos—I wasn’t sure which was more significant. The boss had said nothing, done nothing about the threat we all saw—except that he’d moved the refugees, immediately, just on a rumor. He was waiting for something. What was he waiting for?

  I didn’t ask. Part of me didn’t want to break the silence.

  Palikari was convinced there would be trouble. “I’m not laying blame,” he said darkly. “All right, maybe no informer spotted her last night, but look at the staff who went home. Any one of them could have overheard us, and talked by now, not meaning any harm, just gossiping. The waitresses, the maids, the undercooks. What about Koukla and Kefi? A runner can reach the High Place in an hour; the king’s bullies could be on their way!” Kefi was our timid mule boy, Koukla our stalwart laundry-woman. They were family; the fact that he’d think of distrusting them showed how upset Pali was.

  “My dear Palikari,” said Papa Dicty, “I hear only one person talking carelessly, and it’s you. Set your mind at rest. The king, as you rightly say, knows very quickly what’s going on in Seatown. If he’d wanted to kidnap our new waitress, he’d have been here long ago.”

  Pali was not convinced. Kore was no longer just a mystery fugitive. She was treasure, and the king would snatch her from us. As far as Palikari was concerned, the only question was whether we could expect a sneaking raid, or a full frontal attack.

  I knew he was wrong, but he infected me. I was full of itchy alarm.

  The singer left us. Seatown’s own musicians brought a chariot decked in flowers to fetch her away (really a handcart: no one in Seatown possessed a chariot, or the horse to go with it). They harnessed themselves and hauled her, with more sweat than romance, through cheering crowds, to set her on her way. The festival continued, and two days passed. Then Dicty sent me to check on our caïque, which was kept for us by a loyal friend, in a cove up the east coast.

  We weren’t supposed to maintain a seagoing vessel. That was why Papa Dicty had given up his fishing boats and moved into the taverna business. Polydectes didn’t want the boss to have independent means of leaving the island, or of sending for allies. But though we’d made a show of doing everything the king asked, of course we had an arrangement, in case we needed to leave Serifos in a hurry. I set out in the cool of the morning, taking Dolly with me, and using the public mule track. We went to one of the east farms, where I left the mule with our steward and cut across country on foot.

  Before noon I’d reached the two-hovel “fishing village” where our friend Bozic kept the boat for us. He was a Mainlander, but not an Achaean. He came from far to the northeast. He was a bit of a smuggler, but trustworthy. We agreed that he would bring her to the coves north of Seatown, where there were plenty of places where a small vessel could lie hidden. We went over the signals, and the plans that had been worked out long ago. Then I ran back to the farm, where I picked up Dolly and a load of fresh peas, soft fruit and leaf vegetables.

  We walked home at a mule’s pace through the summer eveni
ng. My shoulders were prickling for arrows … but it might still be a false alarm. I’d been sent to prepare our escape route before, and the danger had passed.

  Not this time.

  Koukla met me in the kitchen yard, in tears, with the news that Anthe, and Palikari, and Kore had all three disappeared. They’d been gone for hours, they must have been taken by the king, they must be dead!

  “Where’s the boss?” I demanded. “Where’s my mother?”

  “They’re indoors, Perseus. The shock, it’s been too much for poor Papa, his head’s turned, he’s behaving as if nothing’s wrong!”

  I rushed indoors. The boss was working as usual. He told me at once that Kore was safe. She’d been “missing” since midafternoon, but it turned out she’d gone to visit the Enclosure. Holy Mother had sent word that that’s where she was.

  “What about Pali and Anthe?”

  “Ah,” said the boss. “Now that may be a problem.”

  We were surrounded by the clamor of the busy kitchen. Waitresses hurried from the dining room, shouting for squid, honey-baked mullet, wheat ribbons with lobster sauce, greens in lemon and oil. The spit boy shot up to Papa Dicty’s station, sweating and red in the face. Dicty inspected a platter of roast meat slices, approved it with a nod; the boy sped to deliver it to the undercook who was making up orders.

  “I’d like you to look for them, Perseus. They’ve been gone too long, and they told no one where they were going. Take Kefi, so you can send him back with a message if need be. You might go upstairs a little way. But no farther than the cemetery.”

  Upstairs meant the way to the High Place. That road was forbidden to us. The boss was as good as telling me to break the truce. I felt as if I’d been dunked in ice melt. So this is it, I thought. This is really it. I saw the island of sand, long ago: Serifos gouged by warfare. I thought of the darkness rushing in….