Memoirs of a Bitch

by Francesca Petrizzo

  13

  Agamemnon and Clytemnestra stayed the next day and the day after that. Used to taking orders from his older brother, Menelaus was silent and thoughtful, letting the King and Queen of Mycenae give a banquet each evening at the expense of the Spartan treasury. Parties and singing, my sister wearing new jewelry every day, shouts and cries in the night. My own marriage consisted of nothing in the opaque night but the brief panting of Menelaus, who seemed to be quickly tired even by making love. When I dressed I made little effort for him apart from wearing his necklace, and felt happy when my plain unpainted face revealed to my mirror that I was exhausted from lack of sleep.

  It irritated me to see my sister dancing, carelessly swinging her stomach and laughing all the time. I could not laugh. Music no longer had any power over me, and my lips were automatically stretched in fixed smiles that deceived no one but Menelaus. Agamemnon bared his teeth and raised a full cup of wine to toast my life, ruined by his actions. The red lips behind his curly black beard were like the leer of a demon from the underworld.

  It was only when the queen’s belly had grown so heavy that she could hardly walk, that one gray morning Agamemnon gave the order for departure.

  “The boy must be born in Mycenae,” he announced, harnessing his carriage. He saw himself as a simple man, did Agamemnon, using no coachman and doing the driving himself.

  Clytemnestra, her rapidly swelling figure glittering with gold, was barely capable of leaning forward to say goodbye to me. “We’ll meet again soon, little sister,” she said, displaying her canines with her eyes shining. It took two female slaves to lift her into her litter. Then with a languid gesture she informed her husband that she was ready to start.

  “Right you are, my queen,” cried Agamemnon in his deep, kingly voice. A sharp jerk on the reins, and they were off. Standing on the steps, I watched trotting horses raising the dust yet again.

  The courtyard was empty. Now the new king of Sparta could smile, free at last of the shadow of his tiresome brother. But the sky was full of clouds and his queen’s face as cold as stone.

  I forgot my kingdom, the Sparta of my ancestors beyond the palace walls. It no longer existed as far as I was concerned. But Menelaus was happy; he liked going down into the streets and enjoyed the approval of his people. Little Menelaus, ridiculously small among tall warriors chosen for their fine figures. Yet they learned to respect him, and even became devoted to him. They admired his fairness, his sense of justice. The fact that he was a warrior. All they had known of me was my madness. They had never been my people. They learned to ignore the sad queen who never ventured beyond her garden. I passed my days under the olive trees of my childhood, leaving my spindles and looms on the ground. I had a retinue of slaves who never spoke in loud voices, barely even whispered, and the wind from the Eurotas swept their whispers away. The sound of the river, where I never swam anymore, became the backdrop of my boredom. A dull, colorless existence, over before it had even begun. They had stolen my life, leaving no one for me to fight. Helen was dead, twice dead, and it was too late for her to be born again. No prince would climb over the walls. No gods inhabited the altars any longer. And no sun from the sky could penetrate my clouds. I crushed leaves beneath my feet as I walked in blood-red sunsets and danced with my ghosts among the trees. My longing for my soldier came back to dwell in my heart, and I often thought I could see him in the dim light at the end of corridors. I was navigating gently on a slow sea, borne up not by desperation, but by the still death of every hope I had ever nurtured. The swing had been removed from the garden. It was as if Diomedes had never existed.

  It was during this uncertain time that Achilles came again.

  The slow monotonous succession of unvarying days had engulfed me; boredom thickening my blood and sapping color from my life. My hair had become loose and dull and I no longer bothered to comb it. But Menelaus noticed nothing. I didn’t even have the strength to begin hating him as I had expected to. My husband was just the man who sat on the throne of Sparta administering justice, trained in the stadium with his special guard, and came to my room at night for a few brief moments of rough and tedious pleasure. I ignored him, he was just part of that gray sequence of repeated events into which I had fallen unawares and couldn’t be bothered to fight against. In any case, there was nothing left worth fighting against. As those who had shaped my life saw it, all that remained for me now was to bring into the world an heir for the son of Atreus, and when I had achieved that, my life would have no other function. But from the mountains, out of the rising sun, came galloping the men of Phthia.

  He came looking for me in the garden just as he had once before, such a long time ago. In that dull world he put Menelaus in the shade and shone like gold. Achilles. I put down my shuttle.

  The voice of my husband spoke from behind him. “What a pleasant surprise, prince. You must be our guest for as long as possible. I know you have met the queen before …”

  I lifted my eyes to meet his. The same unbearable color.

  “Allow me to show you around Sparta,” Menelaus went on. “I think I’ve got used to my kingdom by now, even if there’s never enough time; it’s rather a special city, of course …”

  “I’m sure Sparta needs your attention, and I should hate to get in the way of your duties. If the queen is agreeable, I’ll just stay in the palace.” The voice of Achilles was calm and peaceful. I never experienced his legendary wrath. But it was a strong voice, not that of a general or a king, but expecting obedience. Menelaus stepped back as if he had been punched. Achilles continued to watch him, as if indifferent to my own response. I kept still, looking at my shuttle lying on the grass.

  “If our guest would like to stay,” I said, “we would be discourteous to deny him.” My voice was flat and my heart beating very softly. I had no idea if it was still able to beat any faster. In the silence that followed I was conscious of the birds singing in the garden.

  Menelaus cleared his throat. “Whatever you like. I’ll be back before evening.”

  I ignored him as he walked quickly away across the grass. Far off, beyond the gate, the guards beat their lances in salute.

  Without looking up I gave a command in a low voice: “You may leave.” A swish of dresses was enough to tell me that my slave girls had obeyed me, leaving their looms abandoned on the grass like mute traces of a catastrophe that never happened. Achilles sat down beside me, his honey-colored hands pushing the shuttle out of the way. I looked up. Green flames, Diomedes had once said, flames from the gods of the underworld. The flames that now came from the eyes of Achilles were hard and compact, in color somewhere between blue and gray. Like a wall. As if they were searching for an answer to I knew not what question.

  “You seem exhausted.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re still the loveliest woman in the world.”

  “No one cares about that anymore. Certainly I don’t.”

  “But I do.” He took my hand. I looked at my fingers, thin and pale against his rough palm. Weather-beaten by the sun and wind of his distant island. I did not close my fingers.

  “I’m about to go away. My father wants me to go to Scyros, to his friend Lycomedes. To finish my education, he says. But the fact is he’s ashamed of me. He thinks I’m mad.” He closed his eyes, as if waiting. As if giving me a chance to agree or disagree. Either to say nothing, or to say yes, King Peleus was right.

  “That’s what they say about me too.”

  He smiled. “That’s why I am the one who should have married you, Helen of Sparta. Just say the word and I’ll take you away even now.”

  I looked down. “Menelaus doesn’t deserve that.”

  He laughed. “No, it’s you who don’t want it, Helen. You’d rather fade away lamenting for what they’ve taken from you.”

  I felt my eyes grow hard. “Is it wrong for me to mourn for my life?”

  “Don’t let them destroy you.” His eyes were stronger than mine, and he lifted my c
hin to force me to look at him. “You’re too beautiful to fade away.”

  I pushed his hand away. “I’m just property, nothing but merchandise for your pleasure. If only I could just be an ordinary woman …”

  “I’d have come looking for you even if I’d known you were dressed in rags. Even if you were a hundred years old. Your spirit is what I need, Helen, and I can see that a spark of it still exists. Your beauty would be meaningless to me without that spark. That’s why I’m here today. For that brilliant gleam I’ve known in no other woman.”

  I looked up. “I’m made of stone.”

  He smiled. “Which is how I know you’ll never let that fire go out.”

  I let his words enter me, gradually dispersing my fatigue. A spirit of fire. To my surprise he picked up the shuttle and rewound the thread.

  “Come on, queen, get on with your work, and while you’re working you can talk to me. Tell me what happened after I left.”

  I took the shuttle from him and leaned it against the loom: “I went to bed early, Achilles. There’s not much to say.”

  “Never mind. I’ll listen just the same.”

  14

  Menelaus didn’t come home that evening. He sent a herald to tell me he was going to sleep in the barracks with his soldiers. And that I must look after our guest. The counselors saw me receive the herald and looked at me for news. There was no hypocrisy or corruption at the court of Sparta. My father Tyndareus had taken care of that. The counselors waited confidently so they could assess me against the sharp edge of their bitter experience. There had to be something missing in their mad queen, the incestuous, the deceiver.

  Achilles was standing at my side, motionless in the bright sunlight of day that sharply divided him into light and shadow. There was something lacking in the son of Peleus, he was mad, wild and a deceiver.

  “We’ll give a banquet,” I announced in the silence. The counselors shook their heads. Spartans. Achilles smiled.

  The opaque sky tore itself open in a sunset of fire. Achilles watched, standing under the olives. I slithered down the loose hillside to join him, silver bracelets tinkling on my wrist. He never even turned, but I knew he was smiling.

  “I can hear the tinkle of jewelry, Helen of Sparta.”

  “You hear well, Achilles of Phthia,” I smiled back, imagining the sun playing on the stones in my comb; for the first time in ages, for far too long, I was ready to be admired. But when he did look around no smile brightened his dark face.

  “Achilles of nowhere. And, my queen, I’m afraid they’re coming for you.” I turned. A slave girl was slithering awkwardly down the path I had just taken, her white dress tinted pink by the light. Before I could answer, Achilles walked away with his back to the sun. Wait, I wanted to say, but the word stuck in my throat. He was moving so quickly I had no chance of catching up with him. Marked with impatience and a dark shadow of heavy premonition in the triumphant light of the dying day. A light made bloody by glory.

  The sunset was silently fading into black velvety night when I poured a libation to the gods to start the banquet. I was wearing my white diadem, and ranged around the table as if sculpted in stone were the gray wolves of my father’s council, his tacit tribute to the weakness of my husband. I could almost hear them snarling: look at this woman daring to raise a cup to the gods; Helen’s just like Leda, and after this nothing would surprise them. I grasped the black cup by its two handles and lifted it to my lips. The last drops must be poured on the ground for the gods. Let their mute will be done.

  The banquet started. Against a sound like the dismal humming of furious bees, a heavy pall of mistrust. A suitor returned. An absent king leaving his queen on the loose. They were curling their lips in scorn, I could see that. Menippus, who had been captain of the guard for more years than I could remember, was assessing Achilles with a look previously reserved for my mother’s lovers. And beneath the contempt in his eyes was an indefinable fear. They said Achilles had grown up among monsters and had devoured lions, and Menippus was an old man who believed the stories he heard. But his fear meant nothing to me. Nor did their fear and contempt mean anything to Achilles. I dimly remembered Diomedes under those same lights, but it was a faded memory from long ago. The dissolving mist of an unreal past, meaningless on an evening like this. Achilles saw me watching him, and meeting my eye, slowly tilted his cup over the edge of the table. Drop followed drop to the floor. Honoring a promise. Menippus watched and knitted his brows. But I was the only one who understood. I smiled in the pink light; I had already poured my own offering to the dark god.

  When I reached my room, Achilles was already there. Sitting by the window, half lit by moonlight. Sitting by the window, sharply divided into light and shadow. I stood for too long, motionless in the doorway, watching him, assessing the strange harmony of his face. I could hear the muffled hammering of my heart deep inside me. Then I rushed to him with futile joy, my hand held out as though terrified he would vanish from under my very fingers. He said nothing but his hands opened like rough flowers on my arms and hips and around my waist. The night belonged to me, in no sense a concession or a gift. And a second farewell, one I could never have hoped for. He was on me and inside me, and my heart melted no less than my limbs as I fell backward.

  It was sweet to feel his weight on top of me afterward. His head, and our four arms. We had no need of words. We just needed the moonlight pouring on our two bodies, and the peace. We were like ivy in sunlight shamelessly winding itself around branches, his hair on my mouth, his head on my heart.

  “I shall die young.”

  “You’ll never die.”

  “By the sword. Not in bed. Uncomforted. Biting the dust.”

  “That seems a bad way to die.”

  “Those gods I don’t believe in swear in their oracles that sparks of glory will be mixed with the dust.”

  “What do you believe in, Achilles?”

  “In this present moment burning through time without ever being able to return. In your warmth caught here and now in my hand. In this life living long after our lives are over.”

  “I shall die alone.”

  “Two bad deaths, then, Helen of Sparta. It would be better to make an end now.”

  “In this eternal moment.”

  “But leaving us behind.” His eyes searched for mine. Those eyes whose black pupils shone from within irises dulled by the light. We waited together for the dawn. It was only at first light that sleep wrapped us in its gentle shadow. But in that night and in that light there was too much cruel beauty for us to close our eyes. I could have stopped there. I should have. But meanwhile the moon sank below the sharp edge of the world.

  15

  Dawn brought rain, a soft rain from light clouds. The air on the damp sheets tasted of water when I opened my eyes. Raising myself on my elbow, I looked at Achilles. He was stretched on my bed like a sleeping lion, arms and shoulders relaxed, skin dark as honey. His smooth fair hair on the pillow. Achilles, Achilles. I softly whispered his name, and as if hearing me he shook, a long shiver from neck to hip that I caught in the palm of my hand. I lay down again beside him, my hands on his shoulder blades. “My love,” I murmured, not even knowing who I was addressing. Rain rustled outside the window like a falling veil. I turned to look at the rain and saw a long empty shadow among the trees. “My love, my love,” I whispered, but the shadow vanished. Made of stuff of dreams. I lay down again and rested my head against the back of Achilles. I was safe there. Rain caressed the roof and I slept.

  I don’t know what time it was when I woke because there was no sun, but Achilles was already dressed, sitting by the window, watching me. Pushing away the sheet I sat up. I did not want to smile.

  “I’m going today.”

  I nodded. “When?”

  “As long as it takes to bridle the horses.”

  “I’ll come see you off.”

  His eyes were the deep distant color of musk that sad morning. And in the far distance a clap of
thunder ripped the weak fabric of the sky.

  “You didn’t come the other time,” he said.

  “But I know this will be the last time.”

  He came to sit on the edge of the bed. I watched his eyes, which at that moment were almost blue. Like steel. I could have spent all the time still left to me motionless like that with my arms on my knees. Watching him. He seemed about to speak, but kept quiet. Stroked my cheek with his fingertips. Then he leaned forward. I waited with my eyes open for his kiss, but it did not come, leaving an empty space between us. Then he got up and went away.

  *

  The horses were pawing the shining stones of the courtyard. Nine horsemen as always for Argos, Phthia and other princes and kings leaving Sparta in dust settled by rain. Achilles in the lead, his arm raised in farewell. Hair wet and darkened, eyes expressionless. I raised my arm in response from the top of the steps, my lips pursed. Though I did not know it I was sure this would be our last farewell. He pulled on the reins and turned his horse. And the riders vanished through the gates toward where the mountains of the Peloponnese were hidden by persistent drizzle. I bit my tongue, wanting to believe that the pearls of water on my eyelashes were rain. I’m made of stone. The door behind me was guarded by two young soldiers with identical faces, colorless in the weak light under their bronze helms. When I took a step toward them they beat their lances on the ground. Saluting their queen. Not a madwoman, not an adulteress, just Helen of Sparta, whatever the wolves of the council might think. Beyond the soldiers, in the corridor, was a dark shadow, an emptiness. I walked toward it.