Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria

by Ki Longfellow

  I intend all I do for my sister to be ma’at, in perfect balance, as was she. “Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.” This was said by Hesiod who enjoyed many wonderful thoughts. Therefore, Lais will rest in the Cave of Poets with Enheduanna of Ur, with Sappho, with Pindar, with Simonides of Ceos, with Stesichorus, with Telesilla…the list is wondrously endless.

  Minkah’s hour has passed. We arrive at the caves.

  As he prepares himself, removing his cloak, uncoiling the rope of hemp from Ia’eh’s saddle, I ask that I might choose where best to honor her.

  “That choice is your right.”

  Something causes me concern. “You would say more?”

  “The cave is deep.”

  “But you took down much larger jars.”

  “I am strong, and I had help.”

  “I am strong, and I have you.”

  Minkah, who knows me well, does not argue. “What we do, we do for Lais. If we fall, we fall.”

  “And if we fall?”

  “We shall remain with the poets and Lais will sing as we die.”

  “Where is the harm?”

  “There is no harm.”

  I lay aside my cloak, unpack the large bag Desher has carried as well as she has carried me. Around my waist I tie the rope I too have brought. I tie it also to Minkah’s rope.

  Minkah is stronger; on his back he will carry my sister’s jars secured in a padded satchel and the satchel will be tied to his body so that it does not swing out as he climbs. Our two lanterns apiece are tied to an arrangement of woven reeds, left hidden in a niche of rock for just such a return. These weigh little and fit over our shoulders in a most cunning way. This is also how we carry water.

  “How clever these, Minkah.”

  As he goes first and I follow, the color of his cheek tells me how pleased he is I know he has made them. In moments, the memory of our coming here strips away the years. Once, day after day, books arrived in their hundreds to be placed in twelve chosen caves. Twelve labors of Hercules, twelve disciples of Jesus, twelve ordeals of Gilgamesh, Odysseus sailed twelve ships, Osiris walks with twelve retainers, twelve notes in the chromatic scale…and this only the smallest part of twelves. Twelve numbers the Zodiac.

  The cavern we enter is flooded with winter sunlight for half its distance, and I follow with care for this is a cave he alone explored. Far above bats rustle and squeak, on either side the cave stretches out, farther in one direction than another, and as the cool of the day becomes cooler here, so too the light of the day grows dimmer and dimmer. Louder than the bats are the crickets, a din on the ears.

  Minkah ignores obvious tunnels, avoids as best he can the bat droppings swarming with tiny black beetles. We cover our noses and mouths with thick cloth against the bitter stench, but there is nothing to stop the watering of my eyes. In moments, my leather riding boots—not even I would go barefoot here—are damp with the droppings of unnumbered bats and the yellow grease of crushed beetles.

  He stops. “Here, we must light our lantern. One only, for the second lantern will be needed later.”

  This chills me more than the cooler air, but I make no sign. I will follow where he leads, endure what he endures, so that my sister’s poems find the place that awaits them.

  Farther into the dark where even bats do not venture, Minkah steps with care round an outcrop of rock half the height of Pharos, then drops to crawl through a tunnel created by fallen rock. When finally we stand again, we are in a low cave full of what seem the carved columns lining the Street of the Soma, but are more as melted tallow in their twists and turns. Minkah points at a small grouping of stones. “These are here to mark the way. Though they seem as random as sand, they are not.”

  My Egyptian is long called Companion by a group secretly formed, one Synesius pleaded with me to secretly teach, for some, though they call themselves Christian, hunger for the old wisdom. And how bright he is, how much he learns. I may have only one living sister, but I have a twice-brother of idea and of family. Touching his arm near the scar he no longer hides, I say, “They are seven which remains aloof from other numbers. Not only do these mark the way, but declare that as the true shape of a heptagon eludes, neither will the library be found.” Minkah stares at me for so long I am made uncomfortable. “Do I err?”

  “Theon is right to be filled with pride at fathering such as you, and right to be afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Your mind humbles all others.”

  I now stare at Minkah until he too is made uncomfortable. “My father fears me?”

  “I was wrong to say so. Come. It is only now that we face true danger.”

  Squeezing through a tight crevice of jagged rock which tears at my clothing, catches at my hair and the flat basket of reeds on my back, we come out onto a narrow ledge, less than that which encircles the lighthouse. Here, shoulder to shoulder, we must face the wall for balance and touch. Behind us, above us, below us, is nothing. If not for our lanterns it would be blacker than black, for black has a sense to it, a shape. This is an immaculate darkness in which the mind could lose its way. Into mine comes an image of the gentle Didymus who lived without light, whose world was heard with the ear, inhaled through the nose, felt with the hand—was it as dark as this? Here, the world of light has never reached. Tricks are played on the senses, time fades, even dimension. To know for certain which is down is to fall.

  I press my hands harder against the cold uneven rock. “You came here! You dared this?”

  I am smiled at by lantern light. As Minkah grows older, he grows more comely. I wonder now on a spit of a ledge lit only by our two small lanterns whose light is helpless against the power of the dark, does he remain without the company of women? If Lais causes this, she would not be pleased—and she would tell him so. My sister was not of the body, but Minkah is. As am I. Does he deny his as I deny mine? If so, are we fools?

  “Not alone. There were others: Synesius, a few Companions, friends of the streets of Rhakotis who dared it with me.”

  “Then these must know where we have hidden the Library!”

  “Each came blindfolded. Each left blindfolded. Even Synesius. None were told what we carried. Do not move. It is time for our ropes. When I call, you will follow me down.”

  “The first time, how did you know you would find a bottom?”

  “I did not know.”

  What is there to say to that? But Minkah is already gone, slipping over the ledge by his rope, a loop of which is passed round a thick thumb of stone. Mere moments later, he calls…it could not be terribly far to the invisible floor below. I, too, slip over the ledge, held steady by both Minkah’s rope and my own, only to find myself swinging in space. “Minkah! Once down, how do we climb up?”

  “Do as I showed you, use the rope as a ladder.”

  And then, I too am down, balancing on broken rocks, clinging to the rope that remains fastened to the ledge high above.

  “Light your second lantern, Hypatia. We are here.”

  I gasp, though not with dismay. I am filled with wonder. All around are the great sealed jars, and in them, our books, our precious books. There is more. The walls are covered in images: men who are hunters, women who ride strange beasts, animals of every sort, birds, wheels, hands, feet, what seems to be writing. I am struck dumb by the sight, my arm holding up my lantern as close as I can so I might see as much as I can.

  Minkah speaks through my awe. “Choose where to place the poems of Lais.”

  “But who did this? Who painted these things?”

  Shrugging, Minkah removes the jars from his basket of reeds. “Who can tell who? Or when? Or even why?” The earthen containers now sit on a flat bit of rock that shines in the light of my lanterns. On each glazed jar is painted a rose of five petals, and under this white rose of innocence and wisdom is written the name of Lais, all done by the finest hand. And where shall they now spend what might be eternity? By that grouping of poets, o
r that one? There are too many and our time here is measured by the oil in our lanterns. Lais will decide.

  The moment I think this, my eyes alight on a small cave within this large cave. There! The three small jars of Lais will rest before a grouping of nine, the number of eternity, making the twelve that is divine balance. Caring not which poet is in which jar, I know only which poet lives in the jars newly placed here, and that is knowing enough.

  As we turn away, beginning the difficult climb back up the rope, I speak this last thing to Lais, my voice echoing. “You will be found, sister, for nothing of beauty is ever lost.”

  ~

  Riding out of the desert, Minkah and I follow a path through the catacombs in the City of the Dead towards the gate in the southern wall of Alexandria. Near it flows the River Draco, no river at all, but a sharp turning north from the Schedia Canal. Near the canal and the gate there is a small shrine to Bastet, gentle protector, the cat-headed daughter of Ra, now forced to honor a Roman soldier, Adrian of Nicomedia, so moved by Diocletian’s Christian martyrs he too was martyred. This I know because of Jone.

  Before leaving our house, Jone quoted her choice of scripture to Father, to me, to Minkah, to Ife who of us all listened with interest, to my much valued Jewess Rinat who though offended still smiled, to the lads in the stables and the women in the kitchen. As in any teaching, there is that which is taught those few who can “hear,” and that which is taught the many who cannot “hear.” If there comes a time Jone has ears, so far as I know, it has not come yet.

  Jone heard no word of farewell from Father. To compensate for what could not be excused, I babbled, treading on her heels as she left, only to see a small gathering of women awaiting her as they stood on a celestial map—Father had retiled the atrium floor with tesserae of colored stones to honor Lais who well loved his stars. And just as our father had no word for Jone, these had no word for me. My sister, our little mouse, now lives in a house for Christian women near the school Didymus once led. All are either widows or virgins. What it is she does each day I do not know, nor how she supports herself, for we see her so seldom and she asks for so little. Though I receive no reply, I dictate one letter a week. In it, I recount all that occurs in the house of her father, sign with both my name and his, and send off a grateful Ife as messenger. Is my use of Father’s name an error? To commit an error is the root of the word “sin,” a word that lives in the mouth of Jone as a bell lives in a bell tower. If I “sin,” it is with all good intent.

  Minkah and I pause in our return from the distant caves to water Ia’eh and Desher. As we too need water, we have both dismounted to drink from the well near the shrine of Bastet.

  I breathe into Desher’s soft nostril; telling her of my love in this way. She breathes into mine. Minkah, speaking to Ia’eh as I speak to Desher, touches my arm as he passes. It horrifies as well as thrills. Long asleep, my body awakens. When there is time, I shall think about this. But not now. Not now.

  Near the well—set in the shade of a misty-leaved tamarisk tree, one that grows more in stone than dirt—a sound comes, faint as allusion, yet I know it instantly. It comes from the shrine and does not repeat, yet I am away from the well, making for the door of the stolen shrine. Behind me follows Minkah.

  A cat has birthed her kittens in this dark deserted place, but only one of five lives. Colored as grasses in summer, striped as the lake through reeds, this last life wobbles far from its siblings, calling for its mother, bumping its nose on the cold stone walls. That four are dead, that one will not live out the day, means the mother too is dead for no cat would abandon her kits. I sweep up the last alive, hold it in the palm of one hand, coo to it. Its eyes are unopened, its open mouth makes only a squeak. Its ears have yet to unfurl. It is frightened and lost. It starves.

  This kitten is mine. It has waited for me in the shrine of Bastet. It knew I would come. I know this as I know my name. I know it as I know the name of the kitten that will become the cat who called out to me.

  The moment Lais died, Paniwi leapt through her window. “The Bringer” belonged to Lais and she left with Lais. With the passing of these six years, I am now called by a cat of my own. Whether male or female, I cannot tell, but to find it when it would die is an omen of great import. The omen suckling the tips of my fingers is Nildjat, meaning “the contemplative cat who peers into the realm of the spirit.” It is Miw for the name Lais once called me by.

  There is written on a Royal Tomb in Thebes: “Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed…the Great Cat.”

  My great cat will be as a cat and speak for the gods.

  Slipping my gift into the soft leather bag that hangs from Desher’s saddle, I mount quickly. “Hurry, Minkah. Nildjat Miw must eat.”

  ~

  Spring, 400

  If Minkah is away, Father calls on me. Having lived so long in bed, his arms and legs have shriveled. His back has weakened. Olinda, who now comes for an hour once every week, tells me an unfading redness covers those parts of his body touching his bed. If only he would rise again, dress again, walk again—but he will not.

  Of Father’s sixty-five years, full nine have been spent on his back. He continues to work, but produces nothing of worth for his mind seems as his back. I cannot force him to do what he would not, but I can make him move in his bed. The papers I would show him, I place just out of his reach. The new inks I bring him, the books he calls for, the food he would eat, all these are just far enough away so he must sit up to snatch at them. Olinda instructs me, saying even these small movements do much to keep him in health. I would keep him in health. My mother is gone, Lais is gone, Jone is gone. I would not lose my father.

  Today I bring him my cat.

  “Ah,” he says, “what is this?”

  We watch her make her way up to what there is to see of him: his grizzled head. Female, Nildjat Miw grows quickly, remains yellow, seems to acquire more stripes with the passing of each day. As for her voice, it is extraordinary. It is loud and it is varied. She talks as she climbs.

  “She found me, Father. She called out.”

  “How fortuitous for you. Listen to her! She is as you were. As a babe, our house knew no silence.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Hah! There was never a babe like you. Lais was born in grace and had no need to speak. Jone,” and even now, he cannot hide his distaste, and even now I pretend not see it, “barely spoke a word at any age. Who knew what went through her mind? Who knew if she had one? But you! From birth you expressed yourself unceasingly. Your grasp of words increased as drops of rain increase in storms. By one, you spoke in both Greek and Latin. Six months later you added the Egyptian of our servants. Your mother saw the genius that guides you.”

  Transfixed not only by what he says, I sit silenced as memory rushes back like water flooding a field. I remember my cradle. I remember my mother’s warm breast. I remember that I could think and that my thinking was wordless but full of images, vibrant and filled with import. I remember I caught at the words I heard, hoarded them for the day I would speak. Though I could not form words, I could wordlessly sing, knowing melody before I knew speech. I remember believing all could do this, and as I learned month by month, year by year, that they could not, I remember fear.

  Father is tickling the belly of Nildjat Miw. How shameless she is. “Damara saw the spirit which fills you, the single star that fell as you were born. Reaching out for you in your cradle, she saw, hovering near, a being made of clouds.”

  “You have never said this before.”

  “Have I not? I thought I had.”

  Nildjat has reached Father’s beard and there she bats at it as she bats at balls of fluff she finds on the floor. Father laughs.

  A letter awaits me from Augustine which includes a finish to what he first gave me, his Confessions, but so long as Father laughs, I would not leave here.


  Autumn, 400

  Minkah the Egyptian

  Theophilus summons me.

  This day was bound to come. I am still Parabalanoi.

  Pah. I see he has given himself a finer house than the one he’d stolen before it—in Alexandria, it is never wise for the rich to draw notice. Also not good to find it sited three streets away from the House of Hypatia. It sits at the edge of the canal and all day long ships from the Great Harbor seeking the lake, or ships from the lake seeking the harbor, come and go. He can’t miss a thing. The floor is tiled with fish. The ceiling is painted with birds. Medusa covers a wall. In the reflecting pool stands a statue of Hestia, Goddess of the hearth.

  What excuse was used for this theft?

  Houses are not all he steals. How long before Hestia is repainted and called “Mary, the mother of God”? But what will he do with Medusa?

  I wait in an antechamber. There is a monk robed in brown who stands outside the door. There is a brown-robed monk who stands inside the door. A third monk in brown guards the entrance to the room where Theophilus holds court. In pose, they are as Roman sentries, though they carry no weapons I can see. This does not mean they carry no weapons. One has a face like jackal-headed Anubis, another like the bottom of a pot, the last is as lovely as a cherub. Each is a man of faith, but I would be loath to disturb them, not all three at once.

  Someone else, no doubt also summoned, is with the bishop. I hear now and again a word exchanged, now and again the thump of a fist on a desk, or a wall. Whoever Theophilus is with does not please him, nor is he who visits, best pleased. I cannot hear what they say, but I can easily sense how they feel. Anger, frustration, threat. But who threatens whom? It seems first one, then the other. Suddenly the bishop’s door is thrown open, and this is so unexpected, the pot-faced monk drops his knife.

  Isidore of Pergamon. I might have guessed. Come from money, well-spoken, well-read, well-liked by some, nicely made in body and face, though no beauty, like me, he is Parabalanoi, as brutish as the worst of us. And yet his hands are never bloodied. Many mutter against him. Does he think himself too good for such things? Or is he a coward? I choose coward with a weak stomach. If not for Theophilus, Isidore would long ago been found in an alley, his testicles stuffed in his mouth.