Flowers of fire and leaves of smoke blossomed in the clear morning air as the Greek ships went up in flames, and with them their hopes of getting home. I could not hear Hector’s triumphant cry as he watched the ships burn, but a profound and painful suggestion of it reached deep into my vitals. As I clung to the bastions, blood raging furiously in my veins for this victory at the edge of the sea, one day of victory after nine years of war, I could imagine the face of Hector the exterminator before me, ferocious joy twisting the features under his helm, the raw power of his arm scorched with dust and blood and sweat, holding his breath as he raged and fought, Aeneas beside him, leading the Trojans like two demons of the underworld, forgotten figures from beyond the grave at the head of their warriors.
According to Aeneas, it was now that Patroclus came forward, with the Myrmidons of Achilles dropping back as the routed Greeks were forced to face their enemies on two sides; and I can see the Myrmidons in their black armor amid the smoke and dust, struggling against an oppressive cloud of victorious Trojans; and I see Achilles, marked with the same terrifying signs of blood and fear as Hector, death not far behind him. The voice of Aeneas did not tremble when he reported this; and it was later, in the evening, when the Scaean Gates had been closed and the disaster had happened and triumph had been transformed into defeat as Cassandra had so clearly predicted, that Aeneas in the hall in Troy told the story of the cries and blood of battle as the armies fought inch by inch with no longer any definite front line; hand to hand, sword to sword, one single slaughter, a massacre with no room to hurl a javelin and only short daggers able to perform their underhand work. The outcome to be declared only later when it was over, after an exact count among the towering heaps of the dead; it was in this formless chaos that Hector found himself face to face with Patroclus.
I never met Patroclus so I cannot remember him, but I can see him with Hector’s eyes as just another soldier; and I can feel the feeble resistance of his flesh to the point of Hector’s sword, just one more dead man weighing down a blade already blackened by the blood of others.
I can see him with Hector’s eyes, but I weep for him with the voice of Achilles, because I did know Achilles, and knew him as a great and passionate lover; and it is as Achilles that I hear Aeneas, Greek words failing him, describing how Achilles saw his friend and cousin fall; and with Achilles’ ears I hear the soft, strangely dull thud as the inert body of Patroclus hit the ground, trapped in bronze armor too big for him, a father’s armor too heavy for the immature body of a son going to war. Patroclus left Greece as a child in the retinue of his cousin Achilles, and it will be in the voice of Ulysses, later, that the gentle young face of Patroclus will emerge, a face so different from that of Achilles, his young eyes desperate to see approval on the faces of those around him, heroes already famous, experienced veterans of many wars. Patroclus was very young, and like all young men was excited by war. Convinced that somewhere among the dust, spilled blood and entrails, could be found that scrap of straw, that useless bauble, that object of foolish desire: glory—an empty and sinister word to my ears. It is with Patroclus’s eyes that I see Hector, Prince of Troy; and with Patroclus’s legs that I run to meet him with my sword drawn.
No, I never knew Patroclus, but I can see him in my imagination and weep for him in my heart, because when he fell he took my own destiny with him, tipping the scales and causing the wrath of Achilles to overwhelm the Trojan army. Poets will tell the tale and no one will believe them, but I listen to Aeneas re-creating the anger of the Myrmidons at the loss of their child companion, so innocent despite his sword and armor in the midst of that siege conducted by men specially born to fight that unique war. A victory turned into defeat; with the sea ever further from Aeneas’s eyes as Hector orders the retreat; and the dust settles as the Greeks recover their nerve and launch themselves into the breach with the Myrmidons at their head, pushing the Trojans back beyond the port and across the plain, while the open Scaean Gates welcome fugitives and Paris’s bowmen are the first to reach safety. Seen from the walls, the settling dust is like the calming of an angry cloud. The dead are still lying there, too many of them; and the sand lining the long road through the Greek camp has turned to a black pulp, while the ships are consumed by flowers of fire that close their petals in a gentle yawn. It is no surprise that the birds in the forests of Ida are silent, while there among the mass of bodies close to the shore Patroclus lies sleeping forever, his childish face hidden by the rim of his helm, his arms flung wide. A muse weeping over his body, but the dead have no eyes to see her.
23
It was as if there were no stairs under my feet. I devoured them four at a time in the urgency of my fear, my heart hammering until I could feel the cobbles under my sandals and found myself by the Scaean Gates which had just been closed. The Trojan army was gathered in the square just inside the gates, friends and brothers behind the same mask of dust and sweat, swords lowered and shields hanging loosely from tired arms.
Hector had been the last to come in and was nearest the gates; the great crest of his blood-smeared helm unmistakable. I ran to him, letting nothing physical or mental hold me back, thrusting aside soldiers who stared at me in astonishment, until with the last of my strength I fell into his filthy arms. He said nothing, not even taking off his helm, just held me close with trembling arms. His armor pressed painfully against my skin which was scantily covered by expensive clothes, but I did not complain. When he finally drew back I searched the eyes in the shadow of his helm, but they were empty.
“He was a child,” he murmured, shaking his head. “The blood of innocents has to be paid for.”
I heard him say that in the shadow of the Scaean Gates. He said it as though it were obvious, a prophecy I had not been aware of when I had seen those gates closed nine years earlier. It was the end, and Hector was already speaking with the muffled conviction of a voice from another world, with no weeping or lamentation. I reached out to grasp his massive wrist, needing to feel its warmth, its assurance of life. But his warmth seemed superficial, under the skin nothing but an empty shell. He held my gaze, but with nothing but acceptance and resignation in his eyes. Cassandra had been right.
“Hector!” It was the unmistakable voice of Andromache. We turned to see her standing a little way from the cobbles, where the crowd was now beginning to disperse. She had raised her veil and was carrying her child in her arms like a shield. There was nothing childish in her face anymore. Hector looked at her for a moment, and my fingers gently loosened their hold and released him. He gave me a look of gratitude which I acknowledged with an almost imperceptible nod. A couple of paces and he was with them, taking the tiny proud woman and the child in his arms. The little boy burst into tears at the terrifying sight of the grim man. At that moment there was a strange silence as though a cover had been thrown over everything in the square, and the child’s weeping slashed it like a sword. Hector slowly took off his helm and placed it on the ground, and when Scamandrius stopped crying I could see that his eyes were turquoise in color, and as big as his father’s. Hector lifted him up high without speaking, as if offering him to some unknown god, the child watching him in silence. With the square now almost empty of soldiers, Hector finally gave the child back to his mother. His dirty dust-streaked hand lingered a moment on the child’s white cheek as he gazed into his son’s eyes.
A hereditary link impossible to express in words passed instantaneously between father and son, and I prayed that Scamandrius would develop and flourish, and grow up to fill Hector’s armor without ever wearing it, and live a long life in a world without war. But I had no idea which gods his father had consecrated him to, and it was not a subject I could discuss. Then Hector fixed his eyes on Andromache, and, with her eyes strangely unfocused and half-open lips, I thought for a moment she was about to speak, but if there were any words on the tip of her tongue she did not know how to get them out. Finally fear got the better of her proud features and she stayed silent. Hector bent a
nd softly, gently, kissed her on the lips. Then he turned away from her, and it was as if darkness had swallowed up the motionless woman and child, as if they were suddenly hundreds of miles away. Hector had already started saying his farewells, as if preparing to leave this world in calm and silence.
He came to me with his helm under his arm, and took my hand. We walked slowly past Andromache, whose face was once more hidden behind her veil, and walked hand in hand through the streets of Troy until we reached the citadel.
Above us the sun was shining; my white dress was stained with dust and the blood of other people, but I didn’t care. I walked with my head held high. Nothing to be ashamed of. Let others gossip and call me Helen the bitch, but on this day of bright sunlight I belonged to Hector. He said nothing, but walked with me through the city streets in silence, passing ruined buildings and flags of mourning faded by the sun. He never once looked back at the woman and child standing at the foot of the road, and I’m certain he never saw them again.
Cassandra threw herself into Hector’s arms without speaking. That evening she, Aeneas and Hector came to eat in my room overlooking the garden. Callira served us in silence then disappeared into the shadows on her way to the barracks and her Glaucus, who next day would be facing a new battle and a new war. The lights were low and the night clear, and as we ate Cassandra sometimes looked up and gazed at Hector, only to drop her eyes again a moment later. I can’t remember what we said, but we kept our voices quiet, though that of Aeneas was occasionally choked by sudden anger. We finished our meal, Hector eating the most, then walked in the garden under the stars. Hector and Cassandra led the way in silence, side by side. Aeneas grabbed my arm and forced me to stop.
“D’you think it’s going to be tomorrow?”
I looked up at the sky; the stars were brighter than I had ever seen them before. When I nodded, Aeneas shook his head violently like a recalcitrant horse. Barely able to keep his voice under control, he exclaimed, “How can you stand it? How—”
“We can’t share our personal destinies with others, Aeneas,” I said, in a voice as grave and dreamy as Cassandra’s when she was prophesying. “I know this sorrow will echo down the centuries.”
He pursed his lips. “That’s not much comfort.”
I shrugged. “One day, sooner or later, we shall all flee into the shadows and be together. On the far side of death.”
He looked at me. I looked back at him, but his eyes were like stones. “But you will weep.”
I smiled. “One cannot be too wise.”
He nodded slowly, and we walked on in silence. A long way ahead of us, the black shadows of Hector and Cassandra were growing steadily longer in the moonlight, as if soon we could all vanish completely.
24
The sky was a handkerchief, a veil, a shield, a helm over our heads. The stars were tears or perhaps traces of distant fires. But I was seeing everything through eyes full of tears unable to fall, as if I was underwater. I held on to Hector’s hand like a rock discovered by chance in the storm during a shipwreck; with the world revolving relentlessly as we lay stretched out on the fresh grass of the lawn. Hector neither spoke nor moved, and our locked hands were our only contact, our only anchor in that cold underwater world. The light from the sky was clear and bright but seemed almost sorrowful, and the pungent bite of the air had made me curl up for warmth and protection against his great body, but I did not move under those stars that seemed at the same time both distant and extremely close as their sharp light pierced my clouded eyes.
Aeneas and Cassandra had left us long before—when I had watched Cassandra looking at Hector, I knew she was seeing him for the last time—and after that Hector and I lay on the grass, ruffled children too tired to pull ourselves together and go to bed, two fallen trees.
“Helen.”
I didn’t answer or turn my head, but convulsively squeezed his hand.
“Helen.”
The world became even more opaque as the curtain of water swelled under my eyelids.
“Helen.”
I did not sob, but the salt water brimmed over, streaming silently down my face into the dewy grass.
“Helen.”
Finally I turned my head, searching for his eyes. The sky was cloudless. It was the second night of autumn, still and limpid; as if a god had gathered us like water in the hollow of his hand to watch us weep. And tremble. Hector’s eyes had never been deeper, never before so far away. And I realized that I would have been happy to stay there, under those stars, until the end of time. Looking at him.
When his hand stroked my cheek, I was lost. The night seemed infinite under the mantle of its dark goddess, and I knew no more; I had even forgotten my own name in the cold air. I don’t remember falling asleep, only his body pressed against mine; and when I woke again the light had turned gray and he had already gone.
Hector died on a sunless day. He died alone, because none of those who loved him were there to help him fasten his armor or pass him his shield. No one stood at the gate to watch him set out, no one took him his horse. Perhaps he looked back for the last time at the palace that had been the home of his ancestors, of his family, of his race, his son and me. Perhaps he was thinking about us all when he turned away for the last time, or perhaps he was thinking of nothing, with his mind as empty as the white sky. Empty because everything was ready now, all finished and arranged, now all that remained for him was to take his horse and go one last time down the road.
I know he will have walked with a calm step. I know he will have looked at Troy spread out before him, half-destroyed by the earthquake but still beautiful. His own Troy. My mother. That’s what Hector called the city. My mother. The stones were her bones. When he reached the Scaean Gates he won’t have hesitated. He will have ordered them to be opened. The guards would not have dared disobey him: he was their commander and their prince. He waited in silence with unseeing eyes for the gates to be opened, not looking back or up at the sky, because that was not where his gods lived; they lived in the forest, in water, earth, and stone, and when they spoke it was like the whistling of the wind, they needed no prayers. Hector’s gods sang in the Scamander and the Simoeis on either side of the plain, and in the rustle of leaves in the woods of Ida; they sang while the powerful reflection of the sands beyond the gates spread before his eyes, while he slowly lowered the helm to cover his powerful features and serene expression.
The sentries saw him go out alone, his horse moving with a calm, light step as though it already knew where it had to go.
Achilles was ready, still and silent, bronze against the stained bronze of the sand. He was waiting in his chariot for Hector, in full panoply even before the sun rose. Later the guards reported that Hector had stopped twenty paces from his adversary, and that for a moment they had looked at each other, he and Achilles, without speaking because they had no need of words. Rising above the war, they fixed themselves forever in the memory of humankind. Two champions; the best warrior from each side, and if kings had backed them up, the war could have ended then and there. But loyalty was not something Achilles understood and Hector thought only of redeeming his guilt, his responsibility for shedding the blood of an innocent; and he was right—the life of Patroclus carried a price branded on our skin in letters of fire.
The two men looked at each other, and recognized in each other’s eyes the black features of the Fate that had always pursued them. Hector dismounted from his horse and took up his spear. Achilles got down from his chariot and unsheathed his sword. I’m a woman and I’ve never fought. I don’t understand about duels, and would have understood nothing of this one even if I’d been there to see it. But in the eyes of those who told the tale afterward, there was a kind of sacred dread.
“They were two gods, lady,” the simple soldiers said, shaking their heads.
If they had been gods, in that perfect moment they would have fought forever. But they were men, one looking for revenge and the other for expiation. Hector fell t
o the ground. Achilles turned his horses, and left him on the sand of the plain.
25
I remember Hector’s body. A single wound, the point of the spear inserted between neck and shoulder where the skin is soft and death quick and painless. I remember I washed him and dressed him, plaiting for the last time his thick locks of dark hair. I remember his amber-colored skin lightening as the blood drained away, his features becoming fixed in the eternal rigidity of death. His body was so beautiful, even in death. Everything was beautiful about him, my last, lost love. I remember the subdued weeping of Andromache beside me, and the terrible eyes of Cassandra resting for the last time on her favorite brother. I remember all this, but I can’t remember myself; the guards say the Greek bitch ran through the streets and out of the still open Scaean Gates, and threw herself down in the sand of the plain beside Hector as he lay dying.
Instead I have an incurable scar on my heart, the memory of his deep dark eyes still gleaming in that weak light, the touch of his hand that could no longer grasp mine, the taste of blood on his lips when I bent to kiss him for the last time.
I know he looked back at me for a few moments from the threshold of death; he knew I was there but perhaps he thought I was a dream, or maybe death’s final messenger. I remember the slow uneven rattle of his last breath like surf on the shores of a distant sea, a gray veil descending over his eyes, and a hand that must have been mine closing them. I know all this, and I remember the sudden deafening silence of the sky curving over the Trojan plain and the black wall of trees that was backdrop to the end of my dreams; I see again the cloud of dust swallowing the chariot of Achilles who never looked back. I know all this, but I can’t see myself, because my memory contains nothing of myself but a motionless empty blackness. As if looking on from a great distance I can just see a woman dressed in white kneeling in the dust beside a dead body, her face as distant as the faces of the gods; I see her throw back her head and tense her throat, and hear again her desperate heart-rending scream.
Memoirs of a Bitch Page 15
