Memoirs of a Bitch

by Francesca Petrizzo

  He smiled, but his face was no longer beautiful, and not because of the light. “Come here then. And do your duty.”

  “No.”

  There were bound to be other occasions. Times when the features of Paris would seem superimposed on those of Menelaus, till it was difficult to distinguish between them. But now he just stayed there, waiting for me. Sitting on the edge of the bed with the hooded eyes of a sulky adolescent. I stayed standing on the other side of the room with my shoulders against the wall.

  His shoulders slumped. “Have your own way.” He blew out the oil lamp and pulled up the coverlet. I waited until his breathing assumed the slow, regular rhythm of sleep. But I did hear the word, in the darkness and silence of that starless night. Less than a sigh yet more than a sword stroke: “Bitch.”

  Stairs were gliding by under my feet; the edge of each step nothing more than the graduated margin of a dream. An unreal wind laced with pearls of rain, and an unreal coarse shawl around my shoulders as in the old days in Sparta. Up and up I climbed, to the lonely summit of the citadel and the solitary tower behind the temple of Apollo. The sentinel nervously watching the Greeks regroup far off on the beach never noticed me passing, and I found the door open and slipped inside and up the spiral staircase behind him. When I pushed open the trap door at the top of the stairs to step out on to the tower, the wind tore ferociously at my hair and grabbed my shawl and the hem of my dress, forcing them to dance. Clinging to the rough stone balustrade, I could see Troy spread out below me on every side like a slow flow of lava, one continuous terrace down to the plain where no Greek fires could be seen. The sea was black and the sky livid in the brutal, inconstant light as a round full moon tried to hide behind shreds of cloud. The wind was driving away the rain but could not touch the darkness invading my stomach and head alike, a sickness. Then two protective arms opened to shield me, two hands pressed on the wall beside mine.

  “Helen.”

  “Hector.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know.”

  “But I didn’t, not till today.”

  In the silence that followed, while his loosened hair mixed with mine in lashing our skins in the wind, I tried to understand. “Thank you.”

  He said nothing more but stood with me watching the storm, until beyond the edge of the sea, grasping the edge of the world with leaden fingers and exhausted light, dawn broke. Then I turned to look at him, and found his dark eyes the door to somewhere too far away and gloomy for me not to be afraid.

  Paris had been right: Priam would not let them out of the city. The gates were closed, and messengers sent to all Troy’s allies. The king was in no hurry. His granaries were full, his wells deep, and his coffers heavy with gold. Hector drilled the army at the double on the streets every morning. And on that day, the second of the war, I told Callira to take all the stuff Paris had allowed to accumulate over many months in my room, and remove it to his rooms on the other side of the palace. Then I settled alone with my dear slave in my own apartment with its view over the garden near the royal women’s quarters. Under the leaden sky I built a pyre for all my clothes, for my new dresses for each day. While Callira made sure all this linen and purple burned to ashes, I sat before my mirror and combed my loose hair with my fingers, and washed away every last trace of makeup in a basin of water.

  9

  The siege. Passing time can be counted on stones and in flesh and blood. And in the dirty water on the shore beyond the Greek camp, and among the rocks and sand of the plain. Along what began as a fence made from rushes, but as the days pass has grown into a wall of close-planted saplings as Agamemnon refuses to withdraw. Winds blow over the shore, rippling the sea, ruffling curtains and hair and calling to the soldiers, come, come with me before it’s too late. The winds whistle around the keels of ships drawn up out of the water, and stroke the sails lashed to their mainmasts. The winds blow but no one follows in their wake because that is how the kings have decided things shall be, because they refuse to go away. This year the Phoenician merchants only got as far as the island of Tenedos, then saw the siege and turned back without a word. The Hellespont is closed and guarded by dead men, because those standing there in the unending wind are like dead men, as are those who peer over the walls of the city watching them. All stuck fast, fixed forever in a time warp that has no intention of ending, in a spring that turns to summer and autumn with no one coming or going. Greece is far away and the last winds come and go, tracing a path over the waves that none of those on the beach make any move to follow. The winds press on to Greece and there is no sign of Troy’s allies; they make no move, waiting for the greatest power in Asia Minor to crush by herself the Greeks formed up outside her walls.

  Priam issues no orders, Hector runs around and around in circles inside the walls, and Troy waits. Paris is no longer sleeping with Helen, murmur the courtiers, their tireless bored gossip unaffected by the war. Can he have grown tired of her? whisper the female slaves as they bend over their looms. Have you noticed she no longer dresses her hair or wears any make-up, and spends more and more time climbing the steep path up to the temple of Apollo? To Cassandra? The wind swallows their whispers as clouds pile up and the breeze turns to a piercing blast, ripping clothes and penetrating the skin. This gossip inside and outside the walls no longer matters. It is no use to anybody.

  The passing wind collects dust and builds it into what seems like yet another siege machine set up against the walls of the city. It is the beginning of the end, but the people don’t see that; both inside and outside the walls they are still waiting. The gray sky swallows their voices and the rain of returning winter dispels their images while the forests roar and whisper on Ida. Soon, quite soon, they will start shouting. But not yet. This is only the beginning of winter, and in her dark rooms Helen orders braziers to be lighted. By their red glow Cassandra smiles with perfectly sane eyes as she takes the thread Callira holds out to her, and begins with the two foreign women to weave the first warp of a long cloth.

  10

  Cassandra had come to me at the end of summer, once it was clear that Agamemnon had no intention of going home. This siege bore no relation to any other; sieges usually came and went with the winds, but not the King of Mycenae, whose army could be seen gathering wood and building huts to replace their tents. Settling down obstinately to a stay under the walls. One day, when yet another storm was fighting to survive the pale, cold sun, to usurp its place, when it was clear summer had slipped by, Callira came to find me in the garden to announce an unexpected visit.

  Cassandra approached me with the same strange smile on her lips as that day when the sea had first filled with ships and the sky with clouds. Without saying a word she held out her hand; it was slender and delicate, and I saw that the nails on her tapering fingers had been bitten to the quick. She lightly touched the long lock of hair hanging artlessly against my shoulder.

  “So you too have grown tired of complicated hairstyles, Helen from Sparta?”

  “Yes, long ago,” I said. “And you …?”

  “Why have I come?” She looked away, at the little lake where wet ducks were shaking out their feathers. “Let’s just say, Helen, that what I see and what I would like to see are two different things.” She sat down on the damp grass, pulling her simple woolen shawl around herself. The dark shadows under her magnificent dark eyes told of sleepless nights.

  I caught my breath. “So you’ve never …?”

  She raised her clear eyes and looked at me. “I’ve never hated you. But the gods speak through me, and I can’t control that.”

  “The gods are mute,” I said drily. But Cassandra was still smiling.

  “Maybe I’m just mad, like you think. But none of us can ever know our own beginning or ending. Sit beside me.” She held out her hand, curving her lips in that enigmatic smile. I feasted my eyes on her tormented fingers but she followed my look and pulled her hand back, studying it as if seeing it for the first time.


  “Terrible, I know. I often bite my nails. Sometimes it calms me.” She looked up again, smiling.

  I swallowed. There was something I had long wanted to ask her. “That day when you saw me for the first time …”

  “I remember nothing of that. I never saw you come through the gates; I was already possessed. It was dark when I came to again in Hector’s arms. At home.”

  “In the temple of Apollo?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must love your brother very much.”

  It was as if I had kindled a light in her eyes. A secret glitter, like pearls hidden under sand. “Hector is part of me. I shall weep grievously when he dies.” A shadow of sadness veiled her smile, but the light in her eyes was still there.

  My knees felt weak and I sat down on the ground. “When will that be?”

  “Oh, fairly soon. In a few years. But don’t worry, he won’t suffer much. And soon after that I shall join him where waves break eternally against the shore and all shadows are long.”

  Absently, I watched her eyes lose focus on the grass while her tortured fingers lingered, fragile and sensitive, among the stems. She lifted a drop of water like a diamond on her fingertip and offered it to me. I bent down and licked it. It tasted cold.

  “Paris doesn’t come to you anymore, I think.”

  A pang in my heart, but it faded. From deep down had surfaced the memory of that day at Amyclae: the woman in the bows and the metallic Greek sea reflecting unkept promises like a mirror. I shook my head.

  “You’re already not suffering anymore, and you wonder why,” said Cassandra slowly, watching me.

  “How do you know?”

  “One doesn’t have to be a seer to know you live with ghosts, Helen. But it’s of no importance. Not to me, at least.”

  She smiled again, and her ruined beauty was agonizing, a rose withered by early frost before it could flower. She stood up, not bothering to shake the grass off her dress, and looked down at me, a princess despite her simple dress and unkempt hair. Hector’s flesh and blood.

  “You know the way.”

  I had no need to ask what she meant. She slipped away, the hem of her tunic just touching the ground. She seemed hardly to be touching the ground at all.

  Cassandra was right. I did know the way, and I often used it. Callira made the most of these visits by going to see Glaucus, their previously occasional meetings now a daily comfort to both. My Hyperborean friend smiled when I teased her about a possible wedding; smiled and set off with quick steps for the lower city. While I went upward, to the temple of Apollo with its green serpentine pillars, where snakes slid over the floor without biting and silent girls in golden veils made daily sacrifices. I spent whole days lost in its mellow penumbra watching Cassandra direct choirs and receive offerings. And pronounce oracles. She would never do this on demand, but sometimes without warning her slender wrists and long neck would stiffen, and without a word she would grasp the nearest support, her eyes fixed on places no one else could see. The voice I heard at such times, the tortured scream of a dying animal as on that first day, was not her own voice. Her normal voice was low and warm, profoundly resonant. Like Hector’s, and it carried the same authority.

  By now I was eating meals in my own room, and no longer taking part in court ceremonies. Everything had been said on the subject of my disappearance, and Callira, angrily avoiding my eye, had told me that Paris was making no secret of the fact that he much preferred the court ladies. What did I care. I had simply mistaken an immature infatuation for the great love of my life. Sometimes I saw him cross the courtyard, his handsome body in useless shining armor, and all that was left in my heart was ashes.

  11

  The door of the temple opened. I thought Callira had come for me. Motionless for long periods, I would lose all sense of time, my nostrils full of the soft scent of sandalwood and my eyes lulled by the oblique light from the skylight just above the altar. More and more often, Callira had to come call me; silently placing her soft hand on my shoulder.

  Hearing light steps behind me, I smiled. “I’m late, I know,” I said softly. “But don’t worry, I shall come at once.”

  No answer. I turned. Hector was facing me from the shadows.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered in confusion, “I thought you were someone else.”

  He said nothing, his eyes shining. He was wearing a leather cuirass and his hair was gray with dust.

  “Maneuvers?”

  He nodded and glanced toward the altar. It was the hour of evening prayer and Cassandra, her hands on the red-striped marble, was murmuring in an undertone with her eyes closed.

  “Don’t let me disturb you,” Hector said, turning to open the door again. Through it I could see blue sky and a red sunset, day and night embracing in the calm of evening. I picked up my shawl and followed him out. The forecourt in front of the temple was deserted. He was already at the foot of the steps when he heard me shut the door and turned to look back. The light was clear, almost summery despite the nip of cold, and I wondered at his bare arms as he watched me from his always unfathomable eyes. Seen from above they were dark wells in which it would have been only too easy to lose myself. A long moment passed before I spoke. “Priam still doesn’t want anyone to go out.”

  “No.”

  I hesitated, then went down the steps to join him on the forecourt. My eyes took in the slopes of Ilium, the smooth stretch of roofs reaching up to the abrupt crest of the walls. The plain beyond the Scaean Gates was a no-man’s-land of dry, wrinkled earth. Soil gave way to sand just before the Greek wall, with their ships lying like lost insects at the edge of a sea already in shadow. There was no menace in the abandoned sloping shapes of the ships, the men around them hardly visible.

  “I’ll come with you to the palace,” said Hector suddenly, his voice breaking the silence like a trumpet blast.

  I shook my head. “Callira will fetch me. There’s no need.”

  He nodded, but didn’t move. He too was looking at the sea. There was a hard edge to his voice when he added, “You don’t come to court anymore.”

  Now it was my turn to be laconic and sad. “No.”

  He looked at me. “I thought you came to Troy because you were bored.”

  I met his eyes. “I thought I’d come for love. But I made a mistake. And boredom’s not something you can cure by changing your home.”

  I turned to go but Hector stopped me. I felt him touch me for the first time. Not from duty or courtesy. But to hold me back. I smiled. “What’s going on, Hector of Troy? Has the imperfect lust of men affected even you?” He seemed to have missed the irony in my voice. He was breathing heavily but didn’t let go. When he spoke his voice broke. “Don’t laugh.”

  “Why not? Like Paris, you’d take me, then go off when you got tired of me. But you’ve come rather late. Perhaps you should have come to Sparta that time with the delegation.”

  I pulled my wrist away from him and set off down the path with a springy step as if I was a child again, feeling strangely weightless as the horizon began to sink behind the uneven line of houses. Hector caught me up.

  “I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.” His voice was hoarse, his hands hanging by his sides.

  “I don’t find that easy to believe,” I said savagely.

  “Then you’ve only known worthless men.”

  He was serious. There was nothing superficial about Hector, there could not be if he was to live and die the way he did live and die. A spirit of earth, not of fire. I started walking again, and he followed. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck, every fiber in me conscious of that tense body walking slowly behind me. It was strange to think I had been so quick to follow him out of that door, attracted by the promise of the sky and his silhouette against the clear light. He was beautiful, Hector, as I realized with painful clarity when he left me at the palace gate, his strong, perhaps rather too tall, body moving away from me with firm if not entirely well coordinated steps. No, n
ot all the men I had known had been worthless, but Paris had made me bitter in heart and body.

  Don’t worry, Helen. There’s plenty of time. Hector’s not in any hurry.

  I started abruptly, still leaning on the door jamb, intently searching what was now a clear night. It sounded like Cassandra’s voice, but I couldn’t see her. The wind rose, and I wondered if those constant gusts might not be carrying away my reason. Then I remembered Hector’s eyes, and forgot everything else.

  In my apartment, Callira had already lit the braziers.

  12

  Winter runs through cold rooms padded with woolen shawls, while outside in the icy biting wind of Troy, the Greek defenses are covered with shining frost. The frozen dew is white on chariots left in the open, and winds have closed the Hellespont. And the allies of Troy, complaining of the cold, have still not come. Priam nods, hanging his head as if he still believes in them. No more Bactrian dancing girls, and no braziers to dispel the foggy clouds of condensing breath. Paris sleeps in a different bed each night, and Helen the bitch no longer has anything to say at all.

  13

  The path up to the temple was swept by furious gales, sharp-edged shields of cold wind that slashed one’s ankles like knives. I pulled my shawl over my head to stop the wind loosening the knot holding my hair in place and fumbling inquisitively under my tunic. The slender Aricia was waiting for me at the gate, her big loose mantle attacked by icy gusts; I ran up the steps and once we were inside it took our combined strength to close the door. The crash of wood echoed through the empty temple like a dismal drum; Aricia trembled and loosened her cloak, and beckoned me to go with her toward the warmer dormitory area.