by Peter Green
Our eyes meet.
“I know,” I say, and the pretensions are stripped off me like the shell from an egg; I am left exposed, vulnerable, ashamed.
“Be kind to her. Be patient.”
“Yes. I promise.”
“It’s a difficult time. For all of us.”
“Of course. Lady Ismene—”
“Yes, my dear?”
I glance quickly at Praxinoa: she is standing by the doorway, her face heavy and impassive, contemplating the half-finished tapestry.
“No—it doesn’t matter.”
I can hear Mica’s returning footsteps on the stairs.
Ismene says: “If you ever feel you want to talk to me—”
I feel a sudden overwhelming urge to pour out all my secrets and fears to this warm, tranquil, understanding woman, who would never be shocked or angry at any confession. But there is no time, and the words will not come: they have been thrust down too long into the dark, inarticulate recesses of the mind.
Mica has tied a yellow ribbon in her hair: she is clutching easel, paints, a new square of box-wood, a bundle of brushes. A young house-slave (not much older than Mica herself, to judge from her appearance) comes panting in behind her. With Praxinoa’s assistance, the artist is gradually relieved of her various burdens.
“Come on,” Mica says, catching me by one hand, “I know where we’ll go—” and now her mood is infectious. I find myself caught up in it, and we run giggling down the corridor (so solemn with its family portraits and yellowed busts) towards the courtyard and the stables: I glance back once over my shoulder and see Ismene turn back slowly to the big tapestry on its frame.
Outside the air is warm and murmurous with bees: down in the corn-field I can see the reapers bending to their task, the tall brown ears falling, the flash of a sickle in the afternoon light. They are singing as they work, an old, simple tune of a, few phrases only, repeated again and again, its pattern shaped by the rhythm of their work, its haunting plangency distilled from a thousand harvests. Down the rose-walk Mica goes, feet flying, and through the low gate to the orchard.
Here there is a dapple of sunlight and shadow, and the workers do not sing: they are silent, absorbed, swaying on tall ladders, half-hidden among leaves, each with a deep basket over his or her arm. The trees are old, crotched and gnarly, with here and there a heavyladen branch propped up on a fork of olive-wood. There are apples, pears, quinces. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves: the atmosphere is slow and tranquil, so tranquil that even Mica slackens her pace and walks silent beside me.
In a small open space is the biggest and oldest apple-tree I have ever seen in my life. It must be well over twenty feet high, with a scarred, massy bole as thick as three men’s bodies; here and there gum has trickled and hardened on its surface, and its lowest horizontal branches are well out of my reach even when I stand on tip-toe. The pickers have not reached it yet; everywhere great clusters of red apples are visible through the leaves.
But what first catches my eye is not the tree itself. From one of the biggest branches—some time ago, to judge from the way the ropes have scored deep into the bark—a child’s swing has been hung, with a simple wooden seat. As we approach, the afternoon sun is shining through the foliage in our faces, gilding each leaf with Hesperidean fire. The swing curves up and back in a smooth arc; the diminutive figure clinging to the ropes, hair flying, seems all air and spirit, a dryad’s child, intangible, evanescent.
Then we are under the tree, away from the transfiguring sunlight, and the child in the swing is human after all, a small, grave, brown creature who wears a crocus-coloured dress and looks somehow awkward, a changeling, with her fringe and her great grey eyes and her delicate fingers curled about the coarse twist of the ropes. She is, perhaps, seven or eight years old: her dark auburn hair is coiled round her head in a neat plait. The swing slowly comes to rest: she surveys the stranger with cautious appraisal. I feel that a sudden gesture of any sort could send her arching away into the sun, leaving the swing empty behind her. Then, tentatively at first, she smiles, and her whole face becomes radiant, transfigured. It is as though she has captured the sun and drawn it into herself, so that all light and warmth proceed from her. She slides off the swing-seat and stands there, suddenly awkward, not knowing what to do with her hands and feet. There is a greenish smudge on one cheek.
“Hullo,” she says.
“What’s your name?”
“At-Atthis.” She stumbles a little over the second syllable. “Is Mica going to paint your
“You’ll have to sit dreadfully still.”
“I don’t mind. I like doing that.”
“Do your She considers me, the grey eyes very serious under their incredibly dark lashes. “So do I sometimes. When I want to think.”
Mica says: “What do you think about, silly?’ Her voice is affectionate, warm, teasing. She is obviously very fond of Atthis, despite the difference in their ages.
“Oh, things. If I sit very still I can see right through the sky.”
“And all the colours and shapes change,” I say quietly.
Atthis looks at me. “Yes. You really understand, don’t your
Mica says: “We’d better start on the painting, Sappho. There isn’t all that much light left.” The sudden irritation in her voice is unmistakable.
“All right.”
She poses me carefully at the foot of the apple-tree, sitting with my legs folded under me and to one side. I am still holding the roll of poems.
Mica says: “You should have a pen too.” Her whole tone and bearing change when she is painting, or about to paint: become confident, adult, incisive. The small slave-girl, who has been giggling quietly with Praxinoa, is sent scampering back to the house for a pen.
So I sit there, quiet and at peace, holding the pen to my lips in the stylized gesture of a poet seeking inspiration, while Mica works at her portrait. Her powers of concentration are remarkable: she only glances up at me occasionally, and, as far as I can tell, never makes a mistake. Atthis is lying in the grass, elbows spread, chin resting on her cupped hands. Sometimes she glances at Mica or me, but not often. She is more absorbed by the tiny insects scurrying to and fro around her. None of us says anything: a compArionable silence enfolds us.
Presently two pickers—middle-aged men with close-cropped, greying hair and beards, their faces of the same seamed, leathery texture as their arms—come down the path to our tree, carrying ladders and baskets. They, too, catch the atmosphere: they smile, say nothing, prop up their ladders, and climb quietly into the sun-dappled green foliage overhead. Slowly the shadows lengthen across the orchard. Now and then a twig drops from a high branch, there is a crackle and a rustle, the tiny shudder as- some more than usually resistant apple is prised loose. Mica’s shoulders hunch with urgency: she must, she will, beat the setting sun.
More footsteps: slower this time, easy, relaxed. Phanias comes strolling down the grass path, a tall figure in light summer riding-cloak and soft white doeskin thigh-boots. He must be rising forty, but there is no trace of grey in his hair or beard. He wears his hair long, in the old-fashioned style, pinned at the nape of his neck with an ornamental gold clasp. His belt is broad, and studded with gold rosettes; a hunting-knife in a plain leather scabbard hangs from it.
At the sight of him Atthis is transformed. She springs to her feet, arms outstretched, and Phanias, laughing, swings her up on his shoulders. (There flashes into my mind a sudden memory of Pittacus and Andromeda—how many years ago? nine? ten?—in our courtyard at Eresus.) Awkwardly I get to my feet to greet him, smoothing out my pleated dress. Mica is so absorbed she has not even noticed his arrival. She glances up at me, bites her lip in vexation.
“Oh, Sappho—you’ve moved!”
Phanias stoops to kiss the top of her head. She whirls round.
“Papa—I’m so sorry—I didn’t—”
“Hush, lamb. Don’t fuss.” He is looking at the portrait: his eyes flick up to me and back ag
ain.
“It’s good, Mica. Very good.”
Something, somewhere, is wrong: his voice has a worried edge to it.
“Really, Papa? You really like it?”
“It’s very good,” he repeats, and comes across to me (Atthis still perched on his shoulders) and takes both my hands in his. But he has not said he likes it.
“Sappho, my dear child, you become more charming every day. Odd how seldom talent and good looks seem to agree. The Gods are jealous creatures. You must tell me how you disarmed them.”
This polite speech he has to deliver bent forward in a rather awkward posture: I am so tiny, he is so tall, and he has forgotten to let go of my hands. I reflect (but do not say so) that if I could really disarm the Gods, I would prevail on them to make me a foot or so taller.
I smile, lower my eyelids modestly, and draw back from him in a kind of half-curtsey. Atthis gives me a quick, mischievous grin. Mica, her painting abandoned, is a nervous twelve-year-old again, and a stab of pity for her goes through me.
“Can I see it, Mica?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s finished—”
“Yes,” Phanias says, though whether to her or me I am not sure, “yes, it’s finished.”
I study the portrait for a moment in silence. It is a brilliant likeness, done with most delicate colour and line; yet the more I look at it the more uneasy I become. It is as though I can see the skull articulated beneath the painted flesh. There is an unidentifiable element there—is it in the eyes? the lips?—of coldness, hardness, a quality which makes me think of smooth marble, or the wintry sea. The smile is, at first sight, warm and amused; the lips sensitive, tender. But that alien element persists. It is as though Mica, all unknowing, had painted a ghost in my body. Suddenly I find Aunt Helen’s words echoing through the emptiness of my mind: The gifts of the Goddess can be dangerous ones. You will find that out, in time, and you must do it alone . . . Some part of your inner self is forfeit, now and for always. No, I tell myself. No. This is dangerous nonsense.
“Mica, it’s wonderful. I adore it.”
“Oh, Sappho.” She lights up with happiness. Yet her face has a white, drained look: it is as though she had gone through a serious illness.
Phanias says: “Some portraits, some of the best, are grown into.” He is studying me thoughtfully.
My fingers curl and clench: it is only at this moment that I recall the true reason for my visit. I hold out the roll of poems to him: “I would consider it an honour if you—” The phrase is a secret sign: I have learnt it by heart, but he swiftly cuts me off half-way through it.
“Oh no, my dear: the honour be mine.” His heavy eyebrows come together: is he mocking me? “You forget how well qualified I am to assess talent in the young.” No, not mocking: there is a great sadness in his eyes, the sadness of a man who sees the future and is powerless to change it.
“Well,” he says, “we had better be getting back to the house. I fear your mule-driver is a restless character, Sappho. A touch of discipline would do him no harm.”
At the orchard-gate he pauses and looks back, gazing—as his grandfather must so often have done—down the slope of the hillside to the half-reaped corn-fields, to the laden fig-trees and trim rows of vines, with the sunset-crimsoned sea behind them.
“It looks so permanent, doesn’t it? So unalterable.”
I nod my agreement.
He says: “Nothing is permanent.” His long, lean fingers have been playing with an apple-twig: abruptly, they snap it through. “We can only do what we must, knowing it may not be enough. Do you understand me?” He speaks as though no one else were there.
“I understand you, my lord.”
“Then you should understand, too, that—for what it is worth—you have my gratitude.” He turns from the gate and moves into the fragile perfection of the rose-walk, with its pergolas and arbours, carrying Atthis on his shoulders: once or twice she has to duck her head. Mica blinks, rubs her eyes with doubled-up fists. I see the scatter of freckles below each knuckle. “I knew it’d happen,” she says.
“What?”
“A headache. A really terrible headache. It happens every time.”
“Every time you paint a picture?”
“No.” She struggles with her knowledge, fumbling for words. “Every time I get one right. But that means—oh, I can’t explain—letting go, surrendering. It sounds weak. But it isn’t, Sappho—it hurts more than anything—” She breaks off, yawns as though she would never stop. “So tired—Sorry. Just tired—” Then she turns, like a sleep-walker, and follows her father up the shadowed path. Praxinoa and the little slave-girl, their arms full of painting gear, look at me, hesitate. I nod, and they go on.
I am alone, for a moment, by the orchard-gate. Our big apple-tree is still visible, head and shoulders above the rest. The two pickers come by, slowly, with full baskets, their ladders over their shoulders: they grin and nod as they pass me. Suddenly I see, glowing in the last low rays of the sun, one perfect, burnished apple, hung in a cluster of dark leaves from the very highest branch. Inexplicable happiness surges up inside me.
Perhaps they forgot it? No, I tell myself, with a glance at those broad, purposeful, retreating backs; no, they wouldn’t forget. It’s the one they couldn’t reach, that no one can reach—
And I turn and run, skirts flying, up the rose-walk, into the house, my heart brimming over with an exultation I cannot begin to understand.
Pittacus said, tapping his desk with big, spatulate fingers, not looking at me: “I know this must be an unwelcome visit, Sappho.”
“I would rather not discuss it.”
“We have to work together. We were friends once. As far as I’m concerned we still are.”
I made no comment on this.
“My dear,” Pittacus said patiently, “you have sooner or later to face the fact that most men in the world—let me put it delicately for your benefit—worship at the shrines of Aphrodite and Dionysus, very often in conjunction. You are a poet—and, from what I hear, a devotee of Aphrodite yourself. You need to learn the meaning of passion.”
“Not like that.” My voice was little more than a whisper. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it.” I felt horribly aware of his gross physical presence: that coarse-pored nose, the great lumpish shoulders. The room had a stale, feral smell about it, like a wild beast’s den.
As though sensing my reaction, he got up and threw the shutters open, letting in a stream of fresh morning air. He sighed and stayed a moment with his elbows resting on the sill, staring down at the harbour below. A big Black Sea grain-ship was being unloaded—I had seen it on my way up—and I heard the creak of block and tackle, the whoomph! as a netful of sacks settled down on the quayside, the sound of voices, shouting in outlandish dialects. The fresh smell of tar drifted up to me on the breeze.
He said: “I love this house, Sappho. I love living here, at the heart of things.” He made a curious shaping gesture with his hands, as though smoothing a pot on the wheel. “Can you understand that? I love to walk down in the warehouses, and see those sealed bales and jars, the merchandise from every corner of the world. I love the dry smell of chaff in the corn-chandlers’ store; the mixed aroma of figs and olives and salted fish in the market. I love to sit over a cup of wine in the potters’ quarter, and listen to sailors’ talk. I love to watch the silversmiths at work in their booths, and the ropemakers, and smell fresh clay, and feel the beat of the fire at the forge when iron is being hammered out on the anvil.”
He watched the grain-ship for a little, lost in thought: he seemed to have half-forgotten me. At last he said: “I learnt a lot in the Troad, you know. Important things.” He picked up a small jade figurine from a side-table, an Egyptian cat, smooth with much handling, and turned it over in his fingers as he talked. It struck me then that the whole room was littered with such objects—a reddish, rounded stone picked up from the beach and used as a paperweight; a variety of little votive image
s, many exquisitely carved in ivory; a globular, greenish bottle with a silver stopper—all of which were equally satisfying to eye and hand.
Pittacus said: “Makers are important.” He turned and grinned at me. “Which means, you are important We do right to call a poet a maker. But we are wrong to ignore his fellow-makers.” He gestured out of the window. “Grain, timber, hides, wine, oil, rope, pots—these are real, these are made, grown, shaped, fashioned. These are the fibre and fabric of our lives.”
He began to pace to and fro, with his heavy, nervous, impatient tread.
“What happened in the Troad? What did we achieve? Nothing. A futility. We lost good men, spent hard-won money, and for what? An idiotic squabble, empty talk of honour. It took Periander half an hour to make fools of us all. That taught me a lesson I shall never forget.”
“But you were a hero—” I exclaimed, stung out of my indifference, my sulks forgotten.
“Do you really believe that? I saw one possible way of saving time and expense. I took a calculated risk.” He shrugged half-humorously. “Sometimes I think Hesiod has more to teach us than Homer. Was there ever a more monumental testament to man’s pride and folly than the Trojan War? I ask you.”
“You can’t believe that. It’s shameful, dishonourable. Tradesmen’s talk—”
“There are worse things to be in this world of ours than a tradesman, my dear. You can’t eat honour, and the world has changed quite a lot since they buried Achilles; I’m by no means sure we should be proud of possessing his tomb.”
I said, beside myself: “I despise you.” It was true; and yet his words had made me uneasier than I cared to admit.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, and sounded as though he meant it. “I would like you to trust me, my dear.”
“Why?”
He paused for a moment, considering. “May I give you a piece of advice?” he said at length. “Don’t worry: I’m only too well aware you aren’t likely to follow it.”
