Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria

by Ki Longfellow

  Looking about at the faces of my guests, I am decided. Under my roof the Companions may continue as pleases them. I shall be pleased to remain as Hypatia. But there will be a new Hypatia, born in the drowning sea, born from reading Valentinus and Seth of Damascus, born as she wandered as Io, born from seeing herself in Synesius’ Dion…a new Aspasia who holds in her home a salon open to all: rich, poor, men and women. As I hope these things become eventually mine, I will ask only for sincerity, intelligence and grace.

  Orestes tells us he finds his position in Alexandria much easier than expected. “Politics is lucrative. An amazing amount of civil servants do the actual work, yet I am the one well paid. Though it is tedious, and when not tedious, dangerous. For instance, in Constantinople, Atticus poses as a learned bishop but is as a prattling child. Our emperor is a prattling child—oh, fire and rancid fat, excuse me, Aelia Galla Placidia.”

  Helping herself to more oysters, Galla laughs, “But my brother’s son is a prattling child.”

  Relieved, Orestes speaks on. “Neither bishop nor boy rules the East. Flavius Anthemius rules. If he did not, the empire would sink as fast as a block of cement in a cesspool.”

  My love, on his couch, is half drunk and half sober. That part of him half-sober, asks what I would ask if he were not faster. “And the danger?”

  “In a word—Pulcheria. Only thirteen, yet already an oddity exceeding any. The royal court is as quiet as a tomb, as pious as the word heresy, and as dim as the mind of Atticus. There, the eyes weep with incense, the throat chokes with it, the senses dull. The sister of Theodosius II swears eternal chastity, forcing her younger sisters to swear also…and neither knows the meaning of the word! If Pulcheria is not praying, she is praying, for all that she does is a kind of prayer. The idiocy of Atticus has driven her mad, or madness is her birthright, oh Cocytus!” Galla, who has been making faces at Felix who has been making faces at her, waves this away. “But mad she is, and the madder she grows, the madder grows the empire. Or would, if not for Anthemius.”

  Synesius raises his cup. “A long life to Anthemius!”

  We all raise our cups, even Galla whose nephew is emperor and whose niece is “mad.” “Long life to Anthemius!”

  “As for Alexandria’s bishop,” continues Orestes, silencing all on the spot, “the man is a politician through and through. One knows where one stands. So long as Theophilus is bishop, good sense and self interest will reign.”

  “Long life to Theophilus!”

  We have finished the savories. We have finished the cheese and the olives. Nildjat Miw and Galla have finished the oysters. A servant enters bearing a bowl of steaming something or other. “Ah,” says Pappas, ever a slave to his belly. “What is this? What have you prepared for us, Hypatia? The smell intoxicates.”

  I have no idea what I have prepared, save this: it must contain the juice or the seed or both of my sister’s pomegranates. I glance at the servant as she sets the bowl in the middle of the table. One glance is enough for her to feel free to speak. “Mistress, cook made a pudding dressed with pomegranate sauce. There is a sweetness that comes from an Indian cane.”

  All at my table say, “Ah!” as each holds forth a small glass bowl for a share of this exotic sweet, but Minkah is more eager than any, so eager his small bowl is first there, tapping the larger bowl which sends it sliding across the table and into the lap of Felix Zoilus. Felix is up on the instant, hopping in place, his crotch a mass of pudding and hot pomegranate sauce, and we are treated to a string of fabulous expressions, most I have never heard in my life—so inventive!

  As one, all stare at Minkah. He acts the drunk. He acts out a drunk’s contrition—and suddenly I know he is not contrite. He is not drunk. What he has done, he has done deliberately. No one will taste of Jone’s gift.

  I laugh. I clap my hands. I call for Cook to devise some other treat. All laugh with me. All think it great fun, even Felix who must change into a tunic of a long dead servant. None other would fit him and this one barely.

  As we wait for a second sweet, I catch the eye of my lover. Neither fools the other. We know, he and I…Jone is not to be trusted.

  My evening is ruined. As is, yet again, my heart.

  ~

  And yet, later with Minkah, how intense the pleasure! A touch with hand or mouth, a look in the eye or the scent of a secret part of the body—intoxicates.

  My body arcs with pleasure. That Jone is as she is, for this moment, does not matter. All that matters is the cup of his fingers lying spent beside mine, the slick of sweat on his belly, his sated member slowly curling in sleep as sweet as a newborn.

  ~

  Jone, youngest daughter of Theon of Alexandria

  I listen and I listen for word, but none comes. I call out to the Virgin, even to God Himself, but no one hears Jone.

  Two weeks pass and Hypatia lives on, not even fallen ill. Yet our Holy Bishop, who only this morning was as he ever is: demanding, fearsome, busy with a dozen schemes at once, and not yet old, has gone to bed complaining of pain in his gut.

  I do not live in the House of Theophilus, nor does Cyril or his mother Theophania. But Theophania had pestered her brother for days. She would eat at his table. Cyril, who would eat anywhere, rolled his eyes at his mother’s impertinence, but finally Theophilus had said: if you must, come! and off they went. No more than an hour later, just as I had settled in to read Didymus the Blind, came a reader, the lowest of the low in clerical office, looking for me. “Me?” I asked him. For answer, he pushed me and pulled me into the House of the Bishop of Alexandria right past the outer room where Theophania paced and Cyril sat, taking up the whole of a couch. Why are they not at table, dining?

  I called out to mother and son, “Why me?” Both looked at me in much the same way I looked at them—we were all three astonished. And then I was shoved into the presence of the Patriarch.

  For three hours now, Theophilus has twisted his face full of pox and his body grown gaunt and his limbs grown thin into every conceivable shape. I have held a bowl over and over as he vomited. I have held a second bowl to catch the content of his bowels. How much does he contain? What is wrong with him? Does he die? If he is dying, where is the archdeacon? I call for slaves to empty bowls. I call for incense so I do not lose my own dinner. Why are Cyril and Theophania outside? Do they not heed his cries?

  He moans as he clutches his belly, tears of torment leaking down his face, his beard soaked with sweat. I know this torment of the bowels, it plagues me, though his seems so much the greater. And then he grows quiet. Holding my breath in order to avoid his, I lean over him. Has it passed, whatever torments him? His eyes are closed. Will the poor thing rest? Quietly I turn away. If I am quiet enough, I might leave. His chamber reeks of vomit and feces. I reek of his vomit and feces. The robe I wear will need to be soaked for a day or more to clean it.

  My hand is reaching for his door handle, when he calls out to me. Our Mother in Heaven, if I did not know, I would never guess this the voice of the powerful Patriarch of Alexandria.

  “Jone.”

  “Yes, Holy Father?”

  “Come back here.” I sigh, but take care he does not see me sigh, returning to seat myself on the stool I have used throughout. “I am dying, Jone.” I would deny it, but he denies me the effort of denial. “I was not dying this morning, but I am dying now. A whole life lived, and it comes to this?” I shake my head. Though I have thought of death often, it has never been my death. I cannot imagine such a thing as my own death. As for his, what has he come to? “Not once did I dream I would die in this way. Where is God? Where are his angels? Where my solace and my reward—and where is my church? I’ve chosen the site. I’ve drawn the plans. This year I would lay the first stones. Will it be built? Will I be honored as I should be? Do I care? I find I do not care. Shall I tell you, poor thing that you are, what has gone through my mind?” If he will tell me, he will, though I wish he would not. I sit quietly. “Hypatia.” I am now as still as he will be
when he dies…which for the first time this night I hope will be soon. “Your sister troubles my dying as she has troubled my life. Why else forbid Isidore her and her Isidore? Why else did I banish my favorite? All think it because of Origen. Pah! His heart was full of Hypatia and would not empty itself of her! Only one thing is left me. That I could know Hypatia.”

  My God, my God, my God. Is there no end to this! I have thought I could feel no more. I have thought my hatred had limits. I find it does not. Long ago, Isidore who I loved, loved Hypatia. I pined for Minkah, but Minkah loves Hypatia. For weeks Cyril has waddled into her lectures and when he comes home there is a look about him I have seen before. Am I nothing? Do they think I feel nothing? Did Father cast me aside and assume I felt nothing! I feel everything! And all that I feel is as bile to me.

  Theophilus, dying, desires Hypatia? I will tell him of his precious Hypatia. He would take her with him to the hell that awaits him? Then he shall take also the one thing that might prove worse than hell.

  I lean close. I do not gag at his stench. I do not take my eyes from the vomit that coats his wrinkled lips or fills the marks of his pox like mud fills potholes. I say this to him. “The books exist, Theophilus.”

  His eyes, dim, yet wet with a foolish desire that does not die as he dies, grow suddenly bright. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that all the books you thought burned are not burned. They were taken away, book by book, out into the desert, and there they are now, in jars, protected and safe. Hypatia did this. My sister Hypatia has saved the books. They live, Theophilus.”

  He stares at me. If I know hate, so too does he. “You knew this? You knew—”

  “I knew.”

  “And you never told me?”

  If he knows love, I too once knew love. “I would protect Minkah the Egyptian.”

  “By the sack of Satan! You name Minkah!”

  The news is too shocking. The books exist. He cannot accept it. He cannot reject it. He reaches for me, the fat gold rings on his long thin fingers slipping down his knuckles, the jewels on each slimy with the sweat of his dying, and in that moment I know why I am called here this night. I am called because I am as close as he will ever come to Hypatia. And now he would kill her, as I would kill her, but as he cannot, he would kill me.

  But before his will can be done, Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria has one last terrible spasm, and is dead. It is ugly, his dying. It has been painful and loud and satisfying. And it is just in time.

  I do not shut his eyes or his mouth or cover his face. I do not straighten the great gold medallion stuck through with rubies and emeralds that lies on his sunken chest in a puddle of vomit. I walk from his room as a cat would walk from a room: indifferent, indolent, in search of its own pleasures. I leave him as all leave me.

  Cyril is asleep on the couch, his fat red mouth puckered and his snore like mallets on stone. Bald as an Egyptian, Theophania is also asleep, slumped on a chair, her legs splayed out as if she gives birth, her head bent at an awkward angle. Her braided black and orange wig lies on the floor. I would kick it into a corner, but I am no longer a child. I pass the open door to a great dining room. Theophilus has served his pest of a sister and his uncomfortable nephew a goodly meal.

  Beside each plate is a pomegranate. All three have been sliced in half. Only one has been eaten. God listens to some.

  Late Fall, 412

  Minkah the Egyptian

  Theophilus is dead. From the Moon to the Sun Gate, from the sweet lake to the salted sea, Alexandria is in shock. Nothing ailed him. He had no accident.

  He would not be at all surprised to note the many who offer up thanks at his passing. He might be surprised to find that I, Minkah, was not among them. Theophilus stood between Hypatia and his Christians. But would it surprise him to know Hypatia mourns? Would it please him? My beloved attends his funeral in all sincerity. I go only to protect her. All know a handmaid of Cyril’s attended him on the night he died. All know her name: Jone. Not all, but many know her as daughter of Theon and as sister to Hypatia. These are suspicious.

  But this is as nothing beside the horror of Cyril, son of Theophania, now Bishop of Alexandria.

  Cyril is unwanted, unloved, and feared. Christians, at least those who believe in the right of succession by high office, expected as Bishop Archdeacon Timothy. Cyril would have Cyril as bishop. The city only now calms after three brutal days of terror. Cyril’s black mantles threatened Timothy and the supporters of Timothy. Fires were set, women raped then gutted, men knifed, the heads of children were smashed against walls. Even as Prefect, Orestes could do little as Abundantius, his Military Chief Commander, commands only a single detachment. Abundantius could not be everywhere, arrest everyone, save more than a few.

  On the 18th of October, accompanied by riots all over the city, Archdeacon Timothy lost an election his by popular right and Cyril “won” what he had no right to win.

  Bewigged and bejeweled, his mother, now thinner than an eel, sleeker and more slippery, immediately clapped the robes of office around her son’s great bulk, crammed the pharaohnic hat on his enormous head, handed him the golden scepter of office to seize in one fat hand, the golden staff to grip in the other, and there he sits now, stuffed into the throne of Saint Mark.

  The son of Theophania is thirty five years old. He may live for years. For too many, they will be years of pain and tears and loss.

  But while Alexandria is terrified, a small group of men are made jubilant. Of these, most are my good friends, the ever pestilent Parabalanoi, or Isidore’s associates, the increasingly malignant monks of the Nitrian Mountains. With Theophilus dead, the Parabalanoi reforms itself around Cyril. These renew their vows. Those who would not, do not. I do not, nor does my friend, Felix Zoilus. Does Isidore? Long since, he left the thugs of Theophilus to join the thugs of Nitria who love Cyril. Under Cyril, will Isidore become again Archdeacon? Better to ask: how much will any man pay for position? In my experience, he will pay his very soul.

  None wait long for fear to coalesce into terror. Any who had ever ignored Cyril, or laughed at him, or did not agree with him, or who had opposed his reign as bishop…all who he did not agree with, or felt contempt for, or threatened by, or believed inferior to his Christian “truths,” were either killed or banished. Of those killed, no trail led back to Cyril. Those who were banished were banished openly.

  Cyril turns first on his fellow Christians, primarily the Novatians. As my darling does not call herself pagan, these do not call themselves Novatians, but rather the Pure, the Katharoi. Believing their faith corrupted when those, under threat, denied the Christ and sacrificed to idols, they resist Cyril who welcomes apostates back into the church. Say the Pure: what insult to those who willingly died appalling deaths rather than deny their faith! The Katharoi are mathematicians, philosophers, men of letters. They supported Timothy against Cyril. They attend the lectures of Hypatia of Alexandria. They now pay dearly for each of these crimes. Cyril closes their churches, robs their treasuries, drives their bishop and his flock from the city.

  I hear Cyril will soon turn his thoughts to the Jews.

  And I, Minkah, prepare for the day he looks farther afield.

  The life of man turns and turns again, wheeling like the stars from sign and to sign, and every sign known in advance. If times are good for some, they are bad for others. But whether good or bad, they will reverse themselves as inexorably as the moon in its course. For Cyril, times become very good, and for those who pant out his praises. For all others, times become very bad indeed.

  No longer under the protection of Theophilus, nothing but death could force me from Hypatia’s side.

  ~

  Summer, 413

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  Though it causes the Companions no end of silent complaint, my salon is a great success. And if its luster pales when compared to that of Aspasia of Athens, it seems a success to me and I am content.

  Because women attend, men do not. T
his turns out a blessing. Aside from Lais, in all my life I have spent little time with my own sex. To do so now is a revelation. With these, I am merely a guide. I am taught as I teach. The talk of women is not the talk of men. It is freer, less contentious, more eager to speak, a great deal more eager to listen. It holds within it touches and tastes of Lais.

  Beginning only with Catherine and Olinda and Galla—until Aelia Galla is called back to her willing captivity, for all see she is anxious to return to King Ataulf, her Visigoth abductor—we grow quickly in number. First come the wives and daughters of Companions, then those of rich men, and then come women I scarce knew existed. Women free of men, women who have traveled from place to place, women who live by their wits. These last amaze and humble me. My world was ready made for me; I am cocooned by it. These have made the world their own. And they have sought me out. One heard me in Athens, one in Ephesus, several in Antioch, one in Constantinople. I question them closely, find homes for those in need, offer stipends.

  No matter that Alexandria trembles before Cyril—surviving so much, surely she will survive the ambition of one fat man—I am happier now than I have ever been.

  As we talk, as we sip wine, as I read to them from Seth, from Valentinus, from my own unfinished pages, as I am asked this and asked that, and as I ask of them, Nildjat Miw prowls among us, as large as a caracal. On the tip of each ear grows a curved tuft of dark hair and her color is as shaded sand. If I thought it possible, I should imagine she is a caracal. She grows no less vocal.