The Laughter of Aphrodite

by Peter Green

  It has taken me a good part of my life to understand just how much my mother and I detested one another. For her, I think, the antipathy began with my conception rather than my birth. She was a fiery, poverty-stricken aristocrat, with an itch for organizing people. She married my father in a fit of political idealism which hardly lasted beyond the honeymoon: her ideas on the subject were practical, direct, and (as I can now see) to my father’s way of thinking regrettably brutal. My father was a great reader and talker, whose prime aim in life was the evolution, by peaceful and legitimate means, of a benevolent aristocracy—an idea which, perhaps, seemed a little less impractical then than it does now. My mother, I think, secretly hankered after the good old days when Mytilene was ruled by the Penthilid clan, with young bloods going round the streets clubbing the opposition into silence wherever it raised its vulgar head. Not that she had any time for the Penthilids themselves, despite their impressive genealogy: one way and another, she was decidedly hard to please.

  At any rate, she must have taken it very hard when Melanchros’ seizure of power in Mytilene—backed by the merchants and businessmen, who disliked upper-class attitudes to trade—found her not only miles away in Eresus, but also eight months pregnant. The storms and scenes, I am told, were really memorable. My mother spent a good deal of her life under the impression that she could bully or cajole the world into doing what she wanted: but on this occasion at least, nature proved a match for her. She swore at my father for his inaction (though she could hardly have expected him to ride off and depose Melanchros single-handed); she swore at the steward when he brought her the month’s bills (she was, among other things, quite extraordinarily close-fisted with money, at least as much on principle as through necessity); she broke a full pitcher of water over the cook’s head after some idiotic argument about pepper; and she insisted on picking olives—to show the slaves how slow they were, she said— the day before her confinement. The result, of course, was an extremely difficult birth, which took far longer than it should have done and broke even my mother’s iron will.

  Some of this I pieced together, years later, from Praxinoa, who had known the midwife and had got the whole story out of her before she died. But there was not much I needed to be told. Only that my mother had, at last, thrown her self-control to the winds and screamed, screamed, screamed as though she would never stop. For that alone she can never have forgiven me. That I was born a girl rather than a boy, small and puny, bruised by my mother’s tormented struggle with her own body—all this must have paled into insignificance beside the shame of her surrender to pain. Yet she felt obscure guilt, too, of the inner, corroding kind that is never openly expressed: guilt that I was so small, so swarthy (as though this had been willed by her in the womb), guilt at her own hatred and resentment, guilt that she had borne me at all, and thus proved herself human, fallible, subject to the common frailty of her sex. My dogged, unbreakable love for her must have been maddening almost past belief.

  Morning broke ominously today, with long ribbons of scarlet-shot grey cloud on the horizon: while I was writing the wind got up again, and rain came whipping down in silver gusts through the orchard. A high sea, white crests driving on the rocks. Where will he be now? Past Andros and Euboea: that much is certain. Looking out at the bleak, black-charged sky, with its threat of autumn storms to come, I find my mind turning to the grim challenge he must soon face: the long haul south of Cape Melee, across those treacherous, deceptive-quiet, reef-strewn wastes of water, where in a few moments murderous gales can spring up, even on the clearest, calmest day. Poseidon, great Lord of the Waters, be merciful to him: grant him a peaceful passage and safe landfall, all that his heart desires.

  I obstinately (but understandably) continue to think of my father as a very tall man. In fact he was of middle height, it seems, and slightly built. He wore his thick, fair hair rather longer than was fashionable, even in those days, and passed for something of a dandy. When I try to picture him I remember three things above all: the brilliant clarity of his grey eyes, the length and delicacy of his fingers (surprisingly white in so sunburnt a man) and the sweet smell I caught from his beard when he kissed me, a smell of violets and something else, something I could not identify.

  He was always very gentle with me: even at that age I could sense the difference in character between him and my mother. He seldom raised his voice, and never, so far as I know, lost his temper-- least of all during one of my mother’s incandescent tirades, when he would become steadily quieter, more reasonable, more patient, the longer the scene lasted. Once I thought this an admirable trait: now I am not so sure. The portrait of him that hangs before me as I write shows a handsome young man, with a dreamer’s eyes: but there is something elusive and irresolute about the mouth, and I cannot, I must confess, look at the picture for long without experiencing a vague uneasiness. There is (as I am at last coming to realize) more of my mother in me than I ever supposed: I can see now, dimly, what lay behind those storms and tantrums and bursts of violent aggression. For the first time in my life, the thought of her stirs me to compassion rather than hatred or resentment.

  If Pittacus were alive still he could tell me so much about those days. If he wanted to. Or if he decided, for once, that the truth might be more amusing than his aphoristic half-lies and Nestorian platitudes. Truth lies at the bottom of a well. And there is the well, the image springs unbidden to my mind, that deep wide well with the stone coping and moss-stained wooden shutter, under the big plane-tree beyond the kitchens. Close by—yes—there is the hen-run, and two of our dogs are somewhere, on the midden perhaps, fighting over scraps. A midsummer afternoon, with the sunlight slanting down into those green mysterious depths, a wavering reflected disc of light below me, my head and shoulders silhouetted on its surface.

  Then—I remember—as I gazed down, lost in my green dream, another head appeared beside mine, and for an instant I froze, my two worlds in collision. Slowly I straightened up, blinking. Another little girl was standing there: a gangling, leggy seven-year-old with freckles and short, boyish hair. Her hands were scratched and filthy, and her dress had a badly mended tear in it.

  “Hullo,” she said. “Didn’t hear me, did your

  I shook my head.

  “I could have pushed you in, you know.” She sounded very matter-of-fact about it. “I’m a Thracian scout. Papa says never trust Thracian scouts, they’ll knife you in the back for a week’s pay. What’s your name?”

  I told her. She had odd hazel eyes, not quite matching: one glinted green in certain lights, the other could pass for brown.

  “I’m Andromeda.” She put out her grubby hand and clasped mine firmly. “How old are you?”

  “Five. Nearly six.”

  “I’m seven.” She pulled her hand away—I hadn’t been quite sure what I was meant to do with it—and scratched her short black curls vigorously. “What do you like playing?”

  This question took me unawares. The truth of the matter was that I played almost entirely by myself: Charaxus, at three, was too young to play with, Eurygyus was only one, and my mother did not encourage neighbouring parents to let their offspring loose in our gardens. The idea of venturing outside on my own had simply never occurred to me.

  “I don’t know,” I said lamely. “Just playing.”

  “Not much fun hanging over a well,” Andromeda said. “Pooh, it smells. Did someone die down there?” When it became clear this question was going to remain unanswered, she picked up a stone and shied it, with remarkable force and accuracy, at our big rooster, who was sunning himself in the back yard. He gave an outraged squawk, and vanished. I was impressed, despite myself.

  “Who taught you to do that?” I asked.

  “Papa, of course.”

  “Oh.” It occurred to me that this was not something I was likely to learn from my own father.

  “Come on,” said Andromeda, tugging at my arm, let’s go out.”

  “Out? Where?”

  “Down to th
e sea, of course.”

  “But—” I was about to say I wasn’t allowed out, and then decided this would sound rather silly. “They might see us.”

  They.

  “Oh no they won’t. Papa’s very busy talking to your mother and father indoors. We can slip out the back way.”

  “All right,” I said, weakly, and we did. We paddled, and climbed rocks, and threw stones at a piece of driftwood that Andromeda said was an enemy ship. She hit it nearly every time.

  “I wish I was a boy,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “More fun. Besides, girls can’t fight”

  “Do you want to fight?” I asked. We were lying side by side on the sand, in the shadow of a big rock, both temporarily exhausted: it was very hot indeed.

  “Yes,” she said, and her visible eye glowed green, as though someone had put a pinch of salt in the flames. “Of course I want to fight. Don’t you?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Oh well,” Andromeda said magnanimously, “you’re only five.” But she sounded disappointed.

  “What sort of fighting, anyway?” I asked.

  “Here. On the island. We’re going to kill the other side in Mytilene. You mustn’t tell a soul. It’s a deadly secret.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I overheard Papa one day.” Andromeda giggled. “I hid in a cupboard.”

  This really left me speechless.

  “Then I had to sneeze, and of course Papa heard. He was so cross, you wouldn’t believe. He beat me ‘half silly, right in front of all those men. Then he made me swear I’d never tell anyone—”

  “But—”

  “Oh, you’re different. You don’t count. I mean, your Papa’s in the secret too.”

  For a moment the world seemed to stop. The white, heat-drained sky hung over me, huge, menacing. I felt sick with fear. When I tried to get up, everything wheeled round me. I swallowed, staggered, put out one hand to steady myself. Andromeda stared at me.

  “Feeling all right?” she asked. I nodded. How could I explain? The idea of my father being involved in any sort of violence, let alone killing people, was unthinkable. And where there was killing— no, no, no. “We’d better get back,” I said. “They’ll miss us.”

  “All right.” She sounded suddenly bored, indifferent.

  But when we slipped in cautiously through the garden-gate my mother and father were both there, strolling to and fro under the shade of the great pine-tree beside the fountain, and with them another man, a burly, broad-shouldered, muscular, bearded giant whose bellowing laugh echoed through the garden.

  “That’s Papa,” Andromeda whispered. We looked at each other. I felt terrified.

  “Do you think they’ve missed us?” I whispered.

  “Sure to have,” Andromeda said cheerfully.

  “Oh dear—”

  And at that moment they saw us. The strange man seemed to take in the situation, with all its implications, at once. He looked from us to my parents and back again. Then he strode across and scooped up Andromeda, with a bearlike hug and a ringing smack on the bottom. She shrieked with pain and delight, and wriggled on to his shoulders.

  “So you two have made friends, I see,” he said. Close to, he was enormous, with thick black hair on his legs and forearms, and a wide, flat nose like a boxer’s. He was sweating heavily and smelt of stale wine.

  My mother came forward, bristling. But all she said was: “‘The child’s a problem. You can see that for yourself.”

  The man ignored this remark completely. He said: “Cleïs, would you mind introducing me to this charming young lady?”

  “Who—what—oh, you’re impossible,” my mother protested; but there was a warm, teasing note in her voice I had never heard before. With her strong, sculptured features and high complexion she was always a striking woman: now suddenly she looked beautiful as well.

  “This is my daughter Sappho,” she said.

  The giant put out one huge hand and enfolded mine very gently.

  “I hope for your better acquaintance,” he said, and twinkled. “If you take after your mother, I shall have to walk warily with you.” (In after years I was to remember that phrase with a certain ironic relish.) From her perch on his shoulders Andromeda grinned at me conspiratorially.

  My mother said, with a flash of her normal spirit: “I can’t think what the nurse was doing, letting them run loose like that—”

  “Now, Cleïs, love,” said the giant, “you’re not to waste that splendid temper of yours on wretched house-slaves. Save a bit of it for those who appreciate you.”

  There was a faint burr to his voice, a rough edge that teased and eluded me. Even at five I had an incoherent feeling that his alien accent, his hairiness, the general impression of coarse, perspiring vigour, added up to what my mild-mannered father would describe as “not quite a gentleman”—his most positive term of condemnation.

  “What’s your name?” I blurted out, quite forgetting my manners; Andromeda must have had more effect on me than I knew.

  The giant grinned. “My name,” he said, as though to an equal, “is Pittacus. Rather outlandish, don’t you think? They know it better in Thrace than on this island.”

  “But that,” said my father drily, “will soon be remedied.” He had been standing by, very silent and watchful, during this little exchange, his eyes on each of us in turn. The three of them exchanged quick glances.

  “Well, now,” Pittacus said, “we must be on our way. We’ve a long ride ahead of us.”

  “But I thought you’d stay the night,” my mother said: you could almost see the colour and sparkle draining out of her. “Oh, Pittacus—you’ve only just come, and in the heat of the day—your horse is done in—and think of the child—”

  “Andromeda,” said Pittacus, “is a glutton for punishment: she makes me feel positively self-indulgent sometimes.” He glanced up. “Well, poppet: can you face another long ride today?”

  She nodded vigorously. The greenish glint showed in her right eye; there was a secretive, adult quality about her that I found most disconcerting.

  “That’s that, then,” said Pittacus. I’m sorry, Cleïs”—he took both her hands as he spoke—”I really am. But one way and another it’s advisable, you know. Until—” He left the sentence in mid-air.

  “Until what?” I asked, innocent-curious.

  “Until—next year,” he said, and grinned. “Next year we’ll all come, and you can play with Andromeda as much as you like. You might teach her to read while you’re at it; your mother’s been telling me what a prodigy you are.”

  I flushed with vexation and embarrassment “All right,” I said awkwardly.

  “In any case,” Pittacus said, “you may be coming to Mytilene before then. How would you like that?”

  “To live, you mean?” I turned to my father, who nodded. “If all goes well,” he said.

  “But I don’t want to live in Mytilene,” I said in dismay. “I want to stay here.”

  They all laughed, and Andromeda loudest of all. Then we walked through to the stables, and a groom brought out Pittacus’ big, stocky black stallion with the white blaze on its nose, and he swung himself easily into the saddle, his hands gathering up the reins as though they were an extension of himself, and he part of the horse. The sun was behind him over the stable roof, filtered through the leaves of the plane-tree, and for a moment he looked like a centaur. I had never seen a centaur, but I knew this was how they must be.

  He settled Andromeda in front of him, shook hands with my mother—a little more formally than I had expected—and then turned to me.

  “Good-bye, Sappho,” he said. “We shall be good friends, you and I and Andromeda.”

  He was Chiron, the wise Chiron.

  “Good-bye, Chiron,” I said breathlessly.

  He paused, and looked at me in a way I have never forgotten.

  “I accept the compliment,” he said, “and the omen. Thank you, my dear.” He sp
oke as to an equal. I remember thinking, in a puzzled way, But I should be afraid of this man. He’s going to kill people. He wants to make Papa kill people. Why doesn’t he frighten me? Yet all I could feel was the sheer comforting warmth of his presence.

  Looking back, from my own middle age, on his extraordinary subsequent career, I think a good measure of the success he achieved can be attributed to that almost physical sense of strength and security which radiated from his presence. People wanted to trust win; they could not help themselves. Besides, when this first meeting of ours took place he was still a year or two under thirty, and had not yet developed those exaggerated tricks of speech and behaviour which his enemies were so quick to pick on wl3en they wanted to ridicule him.

  “Good-bye, Scamandronymus,” he said gravely to my father. “Till our next meeting.” (And that was oddly formal, too, because hardly anyone, except on official occasions or at first introduction, called my father anything but Scamon—the accepted, traditional abbreviation of his really tongue-twisting name.) Then Pittacus was gone, with a clatter of hooves and a raised hand, galloping eastward, the sun slanting behind him, into the thyme-patched gorges where rocks rear like angry purple Titans, along the mountain track that sidles down, eagle-haunted, to the smooth waters of the inland gulf. Andromeda and I waved at one another till we were out of sight.

  Odd, how of all the crowding small complexities and incidents that filled my childhood, I remember that scene so clearly. It may be that I have given it fresh colours in retrospect, as an artist will discreetly touch up some cracked and fading mural. But I do not think so. Even then I had—perhaps more continually than in later years—that blinding intensity of. vision in which every separate leaf, twig, pebble, dew-drop, blade of grass, the play of sunlight on water, the springing pelt of a stroked cat, thin, liquid music heard on a summer hillside—lark or shepherd’s flute—the dazzling intricate miracle of a single spring flower: all impressed themselves on my senses with such intensity that often the awareness became agony rather than joy, I had to shut my eyes and stop my ears to the endless, radiant clamorous assault of the world about me.