by Pat Barker
But if Achilles was content to mark the moment of his greatest triumph with a renewed outpouring of grief, Agamemnon was definitely not. Not only did he announce a great feast in Achilles’s honour, but actually came in person to escort Achilles to his compound, attended by many of the other kings. There was a good deal of drinking, back-slapping and laughter as they strolled up and down the yard. Achilles did his best to laugh with the rest of them, but he seemed dazed, as if he didn’t know who these people were or why he was expected to talk to them.
He looked hollow, I thought. All that killing, all that revenge…Perhaps he’d managed to convince himself that if he did all that—killed Hector, defeated the Trojan army, broke Priam—Patroclus would keep his side of the bargain and stop being dead. We all try to make crazy deals with the gods, often without really knowing we’re doing it. And so there he was—he’d done it all, kept every promise—but Patroclus’s body was still just a body. An absence.
But he had to go to the feast. Any “invitation” from Agamemnon had the force of a command. And besides, they were, officially, friends.
After Achilles departed with the other kings, the Myrmidons settled down to their own celebration. Iphis and I were kept busy carrying round jugs of wine, until Automedon abruptly ordered us back to the safety of the women’s huts and told us to bar the doors. He knew there was a wild night ahead.
I couldn’t sleep. Partly, I suppose, it was the noise, the cheers, the singing…but also the thought of Hector lying out there on the muddy ground, mutilated and alone.
After a while I got up, selected a sheet of pure white linen, pulled my mantle close round my face and crept out to the stables. Though I’d made scarcely any sound, the horses knew at once I was there. One kicked its stable door, others started weaving and turning; I saw glints of eye white here and there along the rows of tossing heads. The corpse was lying in the middle of the yard—so badly broken, it hardly retained the shape of a man. I made myself go closer. There was just enough light to see by, though after one quick glance I was glad to look away. I spread the linen sheet gently over his poor ruined face and tiptoed away, leaving him alone under the indifferent stars.
37
Yet more wine; with much stamping of feet and cheering, the cups are raised again.
Why was he born so beautiful?
Why was he born at all?
He’s no fucking use to anyone!
He’s no fucking use at all!
Men at the surrounding tables bang on the boards with cups and fists, but those sitting close by beat time on him, slapping his arms, his shoulders, his head, his thighs—any bit of him they can reach. They can’t get enough of him, they can’t stop touching him, but his whole body aches from the fighting. There isn’t an inch of him that doesn’t hurt.
And the feast seems to go on for ever. He wants to go home—or what passes for home now Patroclus isn’t in it. He needs darkness and silence at least. But still huge jugs of strong wine are carried from table to table and every few minutes somebody else jumps up and proposes a toast. Achilles drinks and drinks again, because he has to, because there’s no choice. Laughing, sweating faces dissolve into a blur…There’s some sort of joke doing the rounds, people keep nudging each other, whispering…Can they persuade him to have a bath? That seems to be the gist of it. Look at him! Look at the state of him, look at his hair…! He forces a grin to show he doesn’t mind, he’s taking it in good part. But then, abruptly, he stands up. “Need a piss,” he says, when somebody asks where he’s going, but all the way to the door he’s surrounded by men wanting to slap him on the back and congratulate him. They buzz around him like hornets, landing playful punches on his arms and chest. All of this hurts, and deep inside, where there should be joy and laughter, there’s only a sunless pit.
Outside, he leans on the wall of a stable block and watches his piss trickle over the flagstones at his feet. The lighted hall’s a little over to his right, but he knows he doesn’t want to go back in. It’s nearly dawn, for god’s sake, surely he’s done enough? Anyway, they’re all so drunk there’s a good chance he won’t be missed. So he sets off to walk back to his own compound along the beach. Waves seethe and fret around his feet, the sea’s ragged breathing echoes his own. Inland, campfires are blazing all around the curve of the bay. He knows he’d be welcome at any one of those fires, and yet he’s never felt more completely excluded, more alone, in his life.
Agamemnon, just now, pretending to share his grief for Patroclus…Bastard was over the moon when Patroclus was killed, because he knew it would bring Achilles back into the war…Nothing else would have done it. No, if he wants to be with anybody tonight, it’s his own Myrmidons, who at least share his sense of loss, but then, as he gets closer to his ships, he realizes he doesn’t want them either. No, he’s better off out here on his own…Might even sleep here, on the beach. Why not? He’s done it before.
Swim first? Everybody seems to think he’s overdue for a bath. Perhaps they have a point? He lifts his fingers to his face and smells the fish-scale stink of dried blood, then raises his arms and sniffs his armpits. Oh my god, yes, they have a point. Without bothering to undress, he walks straight into the sea. Waves slap against his thighs, groin, belly, chest, each swell lifting him up and letting him drop until, at last, a wave bigger than the rest closes over his head. He lets it drag him down; down, down, into a green, silent world, his world—or it might be, if it wasn’t for the searing pain in his lungs. Surfacing with a shriek of indrawn breath, he turns on his back and floats, letting himself drift to and fro with the tide.
There’s a sprinkling of stars, fading fast as the sun’s power starts to gather on the rim of the world. He’s crying, salt water trickling into salt water, pissing again too—he feels the stream briefly warm at the top of his thigh—everything streaming out of him, the grief, the pain, the loss, until finally he achieves a kind of hollow peace.
Back on dry land, the grind of his feet climbing the shingle shuts off every other sound. He seems to be weaving from side to side. Drunk? Is he drunk? No idea, can’t remember how much he had to drink—certainly didn’t eat—only something’s wrong, he feels…weird, as if he’s being stretched out very tight and thin. Never mind, whatever it is it’ll pass. Hector’s dead, that’s the main thing. It’s over. He repeats the word every time his right foot hits the pebbles. O-ver, o-ver, o-ver. Hector’s dead; Troy can’t survive without Hector—and the decisive blow in the entire war has been struck by him.
He scrabbles about in the corners of his mind for some faint echo of the praise heaped on him by the other kings, but it’s not there. Killing Hector isn’t enough. He knew that the minute he did it. What he really wanted to do was eat him—there aren’t many people he’d say that to, but it’s the truth. He’d wanted to rip Hector’s throat out with his teeth. That’s why he’d dragged the corpse three times round the walls of Troy, knowing Priam was watching, and even that was no more than a pale substitute for the taste of Hector’s flesh on his tongue.
Sleep. He sits down, feeling the sand silky under his fingertips and then—digging deeper—hard, damp and cold. His eyes are sore, his lids scrape painfully across the iris every time he blinks. Even this far away from the camp, he can hear drunken singing, his own men, carefree around the campfires, stuffing themselves with food and drink. He could still join them—drink till he can’t stand up, among men he loves and trusts. Or, if not, there’s a soft bed waiting for him, fires lit, bread and olives on the table, a jug of wine set ready to pour…But no Patroclus. No, he’s better off out here, with the sting of salt water sharp on his cracked lips and his chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the sea.
He lies back, wiggling his shoulder blades to make hollows in the sand. Black spikes of marram grass score the sky like the strings of a broken lyre and immediately he thinks of his lyre that he can’t play anymore—hasn’t played once since Patr
oclus died. Leave it, leave it. He blinks several times, a big baby fighting to stay awake, and abruptly falls into a sleep that’s as sparse and threadbare as the light.
A few minutes later, gagging, mouth wide open, tongue dry, struggling to speak, he’s awake again. Or is he? He can see the slopes of shingle and the clumps of marram grass waving above his head, but the dream hasn’t stopped. Patroclus is bending over him—and not some etiolated ghost either, but the man himself, as strong and vigorous as he’d been in life. But antagonistic, almost hostile, as in life he’d never been.
You’re neglecting me, Achilles.
No, he tries to say, but can’t. Can’t speak. Can’t move either. He tries to reach out to Patroclus, but his hands won’t work.
You never neglected me when I was alive but you do now.
He wants to say: I fought Hector for you!
You haven’t even buried me! Do you know what it feels like to have flies laying eggs in your skin?
Who’s speaking here? Is it this…thing kneeling beside him, this image that looks achingly like Patroclus, or are these thoughts his own? And yet Patroclus looks so real; he’s even wearing one of the robes he used to wear. Tall, strong…The light’s changing on his face, as the sun begins to rise.
Burn me, Achilles. The dead won’t let me in, they won’t let me cross the river, they say I don’t belong there, but I don’t belong here either. Give my body to the fire, bury my bones in the golden urn your mother gave you. It’s big enough for two. Let’s lie together in death as we did in life.
Fuck “lie together in death,” he wants Patroclus in his arms right now. He tries again to reach out, but his hands still won’t move.
Remember how we used to sit together after dinner and make plans? I can’t think of it now without crying…
So let’s cry together, he wants to say. Let’s sit down and howl like wolves over everything we’ve lost.
And suddenly, the bonds that have kept him dumb and paralysed drop away. With a cry he reaches out for the living man he sees in front of him, but Patroclus’s spirit slips between his fingers and vanishes, with a little, squeaking cry, into the ground.
There’s nothing left. Nothing at all. But he was there. To the end of his life, he’ll believe Patroclus came back and spoke to him. Rolling onto his knees, he quickly scoops out a hole in the silvery sand, clawing his way down to the dark, moist layer underneath. Then, with both hands, working feverishly, he builds a miniature burial mound to mark the place where Patroclus was. He knows once the body has been burned, the spirit can’t return.
But Hector’s dead. He clings to that—that’s a real, solid achievement. And yet, in this strange, liminal space, caught between sea and land, between life and death, he actually begins to doubt it. If Patroclus is alive—and he’s just seen him, he’s just heard him speak—is Hector really dead?
That’s what he needs to do now: see Hector, piss on whatever’s left of him, and then give Patroclus funeral games fit for a king.
Slowly, he walks back to the camp. The darkness is thinning fast, but still the feasting goes on, men with glazed eyes staggering about too drunk to recognize their own mothers. Wrapping his damp cloak round him, he slips silently between the huts, making for the stable yard. Once there, he stops. Hector’s body lies in the filth where he left him, only now it’s covered up. Somebody’s thrown a sheet over it. He can’t believe any of his men would do that, and yet who else? A slave wouldn’t dare.
As he moves closer, he’s caught in a tide race of impressions. What he left here was a bag of broken bones, but the body under the white sheet has the length and shape of a man. His eyes see the change, but his brain can’t accept it. Somebody’s been playing tricks; this isn’t Hector’s body. It can’t be. Slowly, very slowly—he’s ashamed of how much courage it takes—he bends down and pulls the sheet away.
Hector’s face, flawless, as if he were alive, gazes up at him. The eyes are open, but apart from that one detail he might be asleep, at home in a royal bed with his wife, Andromache, by his side. Achilles can’t stop staring at the eyes. His fingers itch to close the lids, not to have to go on looking into that blank vacancy, but closing them would be a mark of respect—he won’t do that, he’d sooner gouge them out. In fact, he does neither, simply straightens up and looks around the yard as if expecting to see the culprit lurking there.
Nobody. The stables are deserted, everybody’s feasting round the fires. But in any case, he’s being stupid, because no human being could have done this. It has to be the work of the gods. Well, then—FUCK THE GODS. He throws back his head and yells his defiance. All around the yard, horses’ heads toss, hooves trample, shadows chase each other across the walls…Achilles shouts and shouts again, his war cry ringing round the yard. He won’t be beaten, not even by the gods. As soon as the sun’s up, he’ll tie Hector’s body even more tightly to his chariot and drive full tilt round the camp, and this time he won’t stop till every bone’s broken, every feature smashed…Nobody’s going to cheat him out of his revenge, not even a god.
38
Women don’t attend cremations, so I wasn’t there when Patroclus was burned, though I heard about it later from Alcimus. Alcimus had started talking non-stop, stammering over the words, almost as if he daren’t pause long enough to think. He loved Achilles, but he was afraid of him too, and—increasingly, I think—afraid for him.
Achilles kept his word, everything he’d promised Patroclus he did. He cut the throats of twelve Trojan youths, dragging their heads back by the hair and pulling his knife across their throats as quickly and cleanly as if they’d been goats. He killed Patroclus’s horses too and threw them on the fire, followed by his favourite dogs, the two that had lived with them in their hut. So much blood, Alcimus said, he wondered how they’d ever get the pyre to burn, but burn it did in the end.
From the doorways of the women’s huts, we saw flames and sparks leaping high into the night sky. I put my arms round Iphis, who was standing beside me, and led her back inside. “What’s going to happen to me now?” she kept saying. And I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know. Iphis had been kind to me when I first arrived in the camp. At least, now, I could repay some of her kindness.
During the funeral games, the women were kept busy behind the scenes, preparing food and wine, but we didn’t serve drinks at dinner. It’s the Greek custom for young men to wait on their elders at such times. Nor were we officially present at the games, though we crept out of the huts now and then to watch some of the contests. Achilles was everywhere, judging races, awarding prizes, so tactful, so adept at resolving minor disputes before they escalated into full-blown quarrels that I scarcely knew him. He seemed to be turning into Patroclus. Only the eyes were still Achilles’s eyes, inflamed and difficult to meet.
Mainly, I stayed in the women’s huts in Achilles’s compound. Sometimes, I’d invite the other “prizes” over to share a meal and a jug of wine. I remember, on one of those occcasions, looking across the room and seeing Tecmessa deep in conversation with Iphis. You could hardly imagine a greater contrast: Iphis, so pale and delicate; Tecmessa, red-faced, sweating profusely as she attacked a dish of lamb and herbs. No two women could have been more different and yet, in one crucial respect, they were alike: they’d each grown to love their captors. That raised an uncomfortable question for me. I’ll be honest, I despised Tecmessa, and yet it would never for a second have occurred to me to despise Iphis. I wondered whether my contempt for Tecmessa was anything other than blind prejudice against a woman who’d so often patronized me. I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure. I only knew I liked Iphis, even loved her, and perhaps it was easy for me to understand why she’d loved Patroclus because I’d grown to love him too.
I’ve said Achilles awarded prizes—oh, and what prizes they were! Nothing was too much for him to give in memory of Patroclus: armour, tripods, horses, dogs, women…Iphis
. He made her first prize in the chariot race. We had no warning. When Automedon came to fetch her, we were sitting in one of the women’s huts, mending clothes. She tried to hold on to me, but relentlessly Automedon worked her fingers loose and dragged her out into the yard. All the women followed and watched as she stood there, shivering in a cold wind off the sea, waiting to find out who her new owner would be.
It was a thrilling finish. All the men shouted and cheered as Diomedes crossed the line and, laughing in triumph, reined his horses in. Face streaked with dirt from the track, he jumped down and walked across the yard to greet Achilles, who pointed to Iphis as the prize. Diomedes tilted Iphis’s head from side to side, exactly as Achilles had done to me, then nodded, satisfied, and turned to embrace Achilles. They stayed like that for a long time, their hands on each other’s shoulders, talking and laughing together, while in the background one of Diomedes’s aides took Iphis by the arm and led her away.
As the crowd opened up before them, she turned and looked back, straight at me: one last, agonized glance, and she was gone.
* * *
——————
The funeral games ended with the chariot race, the captains and the kings departed and Achilles was back to presiding over dinner, alone. Once, I’d followed every move he made, registered every minute change in his expression; now, I was afraid to look at him. This man had twice said, once to my face and once in front of the entire army, that he wished me dead. I didn’t think he’d kill me, but I did think he might sell me on to a slave trader. Any importance I’d once had as his prize of honour was long gone. So I kept my head down, filling first one cup and then another, up and down the long tables, till I could escape and go to bed.
The men were subdued; Achilles’s grief cast a pall over the gathering. I didn’t feel sorry for him. And though I grieved for Patroclus, even my grief for him was marinated in bitterness. Yes, he’d been a good man, yes, he’d been kind to me, but he’d been cremated with all the honours due to a king’s son. My brothers had been left to rot.
