Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  I extended my hand. The boy set the snake in my palm. The small creature curled into a ball and lifted its small head as if to look at me.

  The boy smiled up at me and spoke.

  Sal translated, “He says it wants to help you.”

  I looked at the little creature. “Sorry, but I think it will take longer than you have,” I said, gently setting the creature back down on one of the warm stones.

  The lad grinned and led onward. We moved into the temple and travelled the ruined hallways of the ancient hospital. Like any other English child, I had wandered around my share of ruined medieval haunts, but this was totally different. The structure was ancient. It both awed and unnerved me. I remembered feeling the same magical sensation the first time I’d flown over Stonehenge.

  The boy chatted, Sal occasionally translating details of interest. I was mostly quiet as I absorbed the enormity of the experience. I understood then why Richard Payne Knight and the others wanted to haul the ancient world back to London. There was something magical about being able to touch the past. I reached out to feel the stone walls, my fingertips stroking the rough stones. How many people had come before me to this ancient place? What had they been searching for? I closed my eyes, just for a moment, and tried to envision the place as a bustling place of healing. The thought of it touched me deeply.

  The boy led us to a part of the wall that was lined with deep niches. In one niche, a working fountain poured water from an image of Pan into a half-moon shaped basin. The lad scooped up a drink with his cupped hand, encouraged us all to do the same, and then waved us onward.

  We all drank, Celeste muttering a little prayer to Pan, and then Sal and Celeste followed the boy toward the eastern side of the terrace, closer to the cypress grove over which the Bacchus hovered. I sat on the stone retaining wall around the spring.

  I waved to Sal. “I’ll catch up,” I called.

  He nodded.

  It was terribly hot in the late afternoon sun. My stomach was feeling nauseous. I swore to myself I would never take an injection of morphine again. A breeze coming off the sea cut the heat, but I was sweating nonetheless. I took off my cap, dipped my hand in the water, and mopped down the back of my neck and splashed water on my face. The startlingly cool water had a minty taste, and I could smell fresh mint in the air. I looked around to see both mint and basil growing in large clumps near the fountain. I took another drink of water, wet my face, and put my cap back on. I then followed the direction toward which I had seen the boy lead Sal and Celeste.

  I worked my way back through the ruins, passing through the arched hallways of the ancient structure, listening for Sal’s voice. I found myself in an area the boy had not yet shown to us. I was in the courtyard of a temple. At one end of the temple were the remains of a sculpture. Its body was charred, and its head and arms were missing. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I approached the sculpture to see that is was, in fact, the sculpture of a woman. Was this all that was left of the Aphrodite? I looked upward and caught sight of the bow of the Bacchus. If the kaleidoscope’s coordinates were exact, then this was not the statue we hunted. Our statue would be east of here. I looked around to see a set of crumbled stairs leading downward into a mostly collapsed hallway that led underground—and east. I went to the stairwell. Someone had cleared the fallen rock. If I kneeled down, I could enter the ruin. That is, if I wanted to enter. Then I noticed one of the smaller golden colored Aesculapian snakes working its way over the rocks into the underground passage. The space looked tight and dark. The snake turned and looked toward me, pausing for several moments before it slithered into the darkness.

  “Fantastic,” I muttered.

  Someone had left a small white candle at the entrance. A fellow opium eater and chemist who lived on the Strand had given me a small box of his experimental sulphur timbers which I always carried. I struck up my nerve, lit the candle, and entered the underground passage.

  My imagination had me going, and I expected the place to be squirming with snakes. To my luck, only the small, golden snake was moving on the ground before me. The place had suffered at the passage of the hands of time. Rubble was everywhere. The roots of trees overhead had grown down the hallway walls. Many of the walls had completely caved in. Yet I could still see some of the ancient beauty of the place. On one wall, I saw the faded colors of a still-striking painting of a goddess in an ocean setting. Where the soil had not encroached, small white tiles and mosaic patterns appeared on the floor. The passage was dark and winding. Small rooms, many entirely filled by earth, sat just off the hallway. One room, which had remained untouched by time, had a number of stone bathing tubs. I followed the hallway until it reached a “T”. I flashed the candle around before me and worried about getting lost. The flame’s light caught the glowing scales of the snake, which had turned left.

  “I guess you’re leading,” I said, knowing just how crazy I sounded, and followed along.

  Here the ruins were even more collapsed. In order to follow the serpent, I had to climb over a tall pile of rubble. I had just about made up my mind that I’d had enough risking my neck looking for an old piece of stone when I saw light ahead. Thinking the temple wall must be open to the outside, I went forward.

  A golden hue illuminated the end of the hallway. The glow bobbed on the hallway wall, almost as if it were sunlight refracted by water. The temple snake kept a steady path toward the light.

  I turned at the end of the hall and sucked in my breath in awe. The temple was not open to the outside light. Instead, a statue, shimmering brilliantly from the dusting of gold that covered it, filled the room with liquid light. The statue was celestial, but it was not the statue I sought. I immediately understood that I was in the temple room of the god Asclepius. The statue in gold was the god of healing.

  Boasting a broad chest, curly hair, and draped robes, Asclepius was an imposing figure. He leaned against a staff around which two snakes had entwined. The golden dust on him gave the statue a lifelike hue. At Asclepius’ feet, water poured from the open mouth of a marble serpent into a basin. The snake climbed up the statue, twisting around the god’s staff, until its head rested on the god’s shoulder.

  I took off my hat and knelt before the statue. Given my upbringing, I was not a religious girl. And I had never before sensed the divine except at the edge of an opium high. In those moments, where I sometimes lingered too long, the wind of the otherworld had blown ever so lightly upon me. Standing there, however, in that ancient place, I felt…something. The forgotten god’s eyes, still outlined with faded paint, seemed to look down at me. And they seemed to pity.

  I leaned my head against the basin and wept. At once, every terror I carried inside of me welled up and wanted to be let loose. I wanted to be rid of my mother. I wanted to be rid of Nicolette. I wanted to be rid of Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Oleander. I wanted to be rid of the drinking, and the opium, and the emptiness. I wanted a real life. I wanted to be something different. Couldn’t I be Lily Stargazer, airship racer, but not have to be an opium eater? Couldn’t I have just one man in my life who loved only me? And couldn’t that person be Sal, who I knew in my heart, I loved? Why had I always let others’ decisions unmake me? Why did I have to feel so broken?

  I felt stupid sitting in that place weeping like a child. I tried to pull myself together, but I couldn’t. I looked up at the old god, and in that moment, I had the strongest hallucination of my life. The god leaned down, cupped water from the fountain inside his hand, and put the drink to my lips. I sipped the water, startled by the warmth I felt from the statue, as if it were flesh. The water, ice cold, chilled my throat. I felt its coolness slide down my body to my stomach. I closed my eyes. The god then put his wet hand on my forehead, spoke a word I did not understand, and stood again.

  In that moment, I knew I had to stop running from myself. It was time to accept the past for what it was and move on. I had to quit my habits. It was time to have a real life.

  I took a deep breath a
nd opened my eyes. I was startled to see that the room around me was dark save the small candle I had brought with me. The gold on Asclepius was gone. I stood and wiped the tears from my eyes. I lifted the candle and looked at the statue. Faded paint, now just a shadow, had once given color to his lips and shaded to his eyes. Otherwise, now, he was only marble. The room was dark as night, and the snake that had led me there was gone.

  From the other end of the underground temple, I heard Sal’s voice. I lifted the small candle and went back to the hallway. Before I left, I looked back once more at Asclepius. I was not certain what had happened, what I had seen, but I knew something within me felt different. I’d had my share of drug-induced hallucinations, but this was not the same thing. The tangy taste of the cold water still lingered in my mouth, yet the basin at Asclepius’ feet was dry. I smiled at the marble statue, now seemingly cold and dead, and went after Sal—and Aphrodite.

  Trying not to stumble over the shifted stones, I followed bits of light toward the other end of the temple. I could hear Sal’s and Celeste’s voices but could not make out their words. The hall turned toward the east. As I got closer, I noticed that the stones on the walls were carved with the anemone flower, apples, doves, and swans.

  I then heard Celeste exclaim excitedly.

  I entered the room behind them. Sal and the boy were holding up lanterns as they gazed at was, without a doubt, the Aphrodite of Kos. While time had worn away her paint, she was a statue with classic beauty. Celeste had said the Kos Aphrodite was draped, but it seemed that Praxiteles had done little to hide the erotic curves of the Goddess of Love. His carved draping of the goddess accented her round hips, full breasts, and long legs. Her lips were slightly parted as she gazed at a mirror she held in her left hand. In her other hand, which was carved to appear to hang loosely before her pubis, she held a marble replica of the kaleidoscope.

  Sal turned. He gazed at me with a look of wonderment in his eyes.

  “Chasing Aphrodite,” Celeste whispered with both awe and frustration in her voice. “All my life I have been chasing Aphrodite.”

  “Well, in Kos, we have found her,” I said, my eyes still locked on Sal’s.

  Celeste, just realizing I was there, looked at me. “This is the Kos Aphrodite. The Knidos is not here. What should we do now?”

  I looked at Sal. “Indeed. Now what?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Four hours later we were sitting in the moonlight enjoying dinner with the young boy’s family. The small boy, whose name was Selim, had insisted we come home with him. After some debate as to whether or not it was safe—for them or us—we agreed. It turned out that the family owned a vast olive and almond farm. Their rustic yet beautiful villa sat nestled into the hillside.

  We had stayed in the temple with the Kos Aphrodite until dark. Sal, who had studied the sculpture with great scrutiny, had fallen into near complete silence as his brilliant mind went to work. In the temple, he had examined the carving of the kaleidoscope, the Aphrodite’s mirror, her face, and even her bracelet. He took notes while Celeste sat in prayer at the base of the Aphrodite’s feet. It was unlike Sal to be so silent. Sal loved to teach, to narrate as he worked, but he’d lost himself in the puzzle of the kaleidoscope. I sat on a small patch of an ancient mosaic and watched him. I, too, was distracted, but by my hallucination. I felt emotionally exhausted. I gazed up at the Aphrodite. The statue was beautiful, but in the end, it was just a statue. Her cold marble eyes gazed into the mirror she held. I wondered how she saw herself. I put my head on my knees and tried not to think about how I saw myself.

  After it had grown dark, we left the temple and walked with the boy to his farm. The child led the way, clicking at his goats as he blazed a path. Sal took my hand and kissed it gently.

  “My Lily,” he whispered in the darkness.

  The small act almost made me burst into tears.

  At the boy’s farm we were met with great curiosity. Once Sal explained that we’d come to look at the ruins, we were welcomed. The large family, from which the small boy was only one of many children, was a loud, happy, and excited crew. The father, Yunus, even knew a little English. The women of the group eyed me with stunned curiosity when Sal explained to them that I had piloted the airship to Kos.

  “You are flying that ship?” Yunus asked. He gazed toward the horizon where the red lamps on the Bacchus were still visible.

  I nodded. “I’m a pilot.”

  Yunus looked thoughtful but said nothing more.

  The older boys, a good looking lot with dark hair, had clustered around Celeste and were eyeing the courtesan hungrily, inexplicably pulled toward her. Their mother shooed them away.

  “Please,” the boy’s mother, Emine, had said, then led us to their el fresco dining terrace under the stars.

  She seated us at the long dinner table. Soon Emine and five girls—no doubt Selim’s sisters—had loaded down the table with wooden bowls filled with olives and platters of feta cheese, lamb roasted with rosemary, and a large round of bread with a yogurt and oil porridge baked into its center.

  Yunus led the table in a toast. “To our guests,” he called.

  “To Aphrodite,” Celeste added.

  Yunus laughed. “Yes! To Afrodit!”

  Everyone at the table cheered and soon we were delighted to a feast.

  As we ate, the discussion turned to the ruins. As it turned out, the shrine of the Kos Aphrodite had recently been damaged. Originally, the shrine had boasted a domed roof with a skylight. A tremor a few years earlier had caused much of the roof to collapse.

  “But we protected her. We laid planks over the roof. We keep her safe,” Yunus explained. He was proud of the statue. It was part of Koan history. From how many villages just like this one had the Dilettanti simply come in and taken what they wanted? What right did they have?

  “This opening in the roof, how large was it?” Sal asked.

  The man stood. “Like this,” he said, extending his arms to make a circle. “Like a barrel,” he added.

  “Was it directly above the statue?”

  Yunus nodded. “When rain came, or sun, it fell only on her. It was beautiful.”

  I looked at Sal. His mind was busy, but he put his arm around me and pulled me close.

  It was a beautiful night. The outside patio where the dinner table sat was partially enclosed by a wisteria arbor. The sweet purple blossoms perfumed the air. I was leaning my head on Sal’s shoulder, fighting off a headache, and watching the couple’s two smallest children playing with a nearly feral kitten when Emine asked a question.

  “My wife…she is wondering if you have children,” Yunus asked.

  Sal looked down at me and stroked my cheek. “Not yet,” he said then kissed me on the forehead.

  Before his answer would have either amused or terrified me. I gazed deeply into his eyes. His gaze was loving and serious. Things between Sal and I had changed forever. Sal smiled then turned back to Yunus.

  “Does your wife have a looking glass?” Sal asked him.

  “Yes,” he replied curiously.

  “May I purchase it from you? I need something at least this big,” Sal said then framed his hands to show he was after a mirror no smaller than the lid of a hat box.

  The man exchanged a few words with his wife who looked perplexed. After a moment, she shrugged and went back into the villa. She returned with a wood framed oval mirror that looked like she’d taken it from the wall. She handed it to Sal.

  Sal looked it over, nodded affirmatively, then set it aside. He dug into his pocket then slid a very generous amount of lira across the table to Yunus. The farmer began to protest, but Sal waved his hand gracefully to dismiss any argument and said nothing more.

  It was not long after that we decided to head back to the ship. Yunus led us through the darkness to the ancient healing temple and our airship. When we arrived, he’d looked up at the Bacchus with wide-eyed fascination.

  “Come have a look,” I offered.


  I could see from the starry look in his eyes that he truly wanted to see the ship, but he was cautious. And in the end, maybe a man with a home full of children was wise to be cautious. “No, but thank you. Please come see us again before you leave,” Yunus said.

  “Thank you for everything,” Celeste said, kissing Yunus on both cheeks, causing him to blush. She climbed back into the airship.

  Sal and I too parted ways with the kind man who stood in the dark holding a lantern aloft to illuminate our steps up the ladder. Sal, climbing up behind me, hauled the mirror on his back.

  Once on board, I leaned over the rail and waved to Yunus. “Thank you,” I called.

  The man waved, and I watched his lantern bob through the night back toward his villa.

  Roni’s crew, who had been sleeping when we returned, looked relieved to see us alive. Sal let them know we would be anchored in this location for a while longer. They seemed satisfied with that and then went back to sleep.

  Celeste went to the bow of the ship and leaned against the bulwark trying to catch a glimpse of the temple on the other side of the trees. Sal headed into our quarters with the mirror. I went to the wheelstand and checked all the instruments then climbed into the basket to check the burners. Everything seemed to be in working order. I busied myself to keep my mind off of what was really bothering me. It had been several hours since I’d last taken any laudanum. And I could feel it. I climbed back down to the gondola and sat down, my back against the wheelstand. I gazed up at the starry sky. My head was aching, and my hands had started shaking two hours before. I didn’t want to take more laudanum. The craving was horrible. I knew that if I waited longer, I would start sweating and feeling nauseous. I also knew that if I ate opium I would feel better, and I would forget again. But for the first time, I did not want to just forget the past. I wanted to be finished with it. If I kept burying it under opium, it would never end. I gazed up at the stars. The sky above the ancient world looked different from the sky above the London. Somehow the sky above Kos seemed wiser.