Boys of Summer

by Steve Berman

  A mummy. His knees had pulverized its pelvis, one fist broken into its rib cage. Glittering like mica, tiny flakes of fossilized skin and flesh clung to his own lean, desiccated arm. Impelled by dream logic, instead of leaping up with a shout of horror, running away, he bent closer to search out traces of his tears on the cadaverous face. Black as pitch, lacquered by time and dehydration to the glistening imperviousness of chitin or obsidian, the craggy surfaces and angles appeared unmarked, as if the tears evaporated before they struck. The air was that dry.

  Slow-rising fear made him wish to flee, but flight seemed impossible. With a tremor of dry nausea, he saw marks on the mummy’s glistening black cheeks, stains where varnished skin appeared to be decaying, crumbling from black glass to brownish powder. It was only a moment—if there was time in this place—before the bruises were disturbed further, from within.

  Threads or tendrils like writhing fingers poked through dissolving skin, white flushed a sickly pink at the blunt tips, wriggling, reaching.

  He wanted to pull back but could not.

  They had heads, the tendrils, like minute serpents, coiling, seeking. But then, one after another, the heads split open and unfurled tiny leaves, ghostly pale, yearning for a light more nourishing than they would find in this dim desolation.

  Reassured somewhat that the tiny shoots were merely terrible, inexplicable, not malevolent, distracted by thirst and his consuming need to move on, he hardly noticed the continued flaking away of fossilized skin around the mummy’s eyes. But as pallid seedlings grew and leafed out with unnatural vitality, a kind of radiance bubbled up within stony sockets, stirring dust and mica into minute whirlpools, and the broken, vine-cumbered mummy regarded him with brown eyes he seemed to know.

  *

  There’s some stickiness because Sam saw part of what happened when Luke and Levent jumped into the Aegean. Sam’s pretty amazingly laid-backly okay with his kid being a fag (polar opposite of Luke’s mom), but he’s not going to stand for Luke going all colonial predatory on somebody who’s essentially their employee. Who can’t say no. Eventually Luke manages to work his dad around to crediting the True Story of how Levent came to be embracing Luke in deep water off the stern of the Esin, but it’s still sticky.

  Of course Luke doesn’t let on to any of the subtext. Like how much he absolutely does want to jump Levent’s bones. After the fact, it occurs to him maybe Levent wanting a friend in Berkeley (going to Berkeley) might undermine the colonialism argument, but he isn’t going to bring it up again. Wary of being seen to admire Levent, all nautical and active and sexy as the Esin sails south, he buries his head in his iPod and a book Perla loaned him about the local ancient civilizations. He can’t concentrate, though, because he keeps catching corner-of-the-eye glimpses of Levent’s long legs and handsome big feet and wondering why, if it was such a pleasure to hold him, Levent had let go.

  Can’t concentrate until his eyes catch on a line describing exactly the horrible place in his dream: the endless ochre desert in half light, low sepia sky, distant peaks that might be palaces or ziggurats half seen through clouds of dust. No water anywhere, the unceasing whisper of unheard voices. He’s never opened this book before—how did it get into his head?

  He flips back a page, two, searching for context. There’s a cross-hatched drawing of an ancient artefact, a broken stone slab engraved with the image of two women in elaborate costume standing either side of a bare-chested man (a crack runs through his face, ruining it) whose long lance or spear pierces the body of some huge animal. Luke can’t make out what it is and the caption doesn’t tell him: the women are named Ninnin and Llad, the man Dimuz.

  The pages-long passage that follows is translated from a series of fragmentary records collated into The Story of the Rivalry of Ninnin and Llad. It’s an academic translation, painful to read, impeded by square brackets around multiple possibilities for uncertain words, curly brackets around hypothetical reconstructions of missing phrases, footnotes full of scholarly quarrels. Luke figures out right away the sepia place is the land of the dead where Llad rules, but it’s heavy going between the indirect ancient manner of telling a story and modern interrogations. After maybe a quarter hour’s struggle, he gives up—he’s on vacation!—and slaps the book shut.

  But still, how did Llad’s terrible kingdom get into his dream? Was it a dream? He truly doesn’t remember falling asleep or waking, no transitions or interruptions in the Esin’s skipping progress.

  Luke looks up. No sign of Levent, possibly just as well. His dad lies flat out, oiled and basted, baking brown. Perla’s propped on her elbows beside him, reading her own book.

  Decisive for a change, Luke sits up. Putting the iPod to sleep and pulling out the earbuds, he says, “Perla?”

  Her big sunglasses turn. “Yes, Luke?”

  “You’ve read this, right?”

  Perla nods, but Luke already knew it. It’s a standard text. Her real life doesn’t have anything to do with ancient Anatolian history—she’s a financial adviser—but she minored in archaeology at her mom’s university.

  “I’m feeling really vay-cay-stupid. There’s this myth, I guess, translated from original sources, that I can’t make sense out of.”

  Interested, Perla sets her book aside and sits up. One of the things about his stepmom, in the four years Luke’s known her, is that she has a higher opinion of his intelligence than he does. “Which one?”

  “The Rivalry of Ninnin and Llad.”

  She nods again. “Not Lycian—older. Probably Sumerian origin, though the Mesopotamian myths are interestingly different. Ninnin’s a version of Innana, Llad Ereshkigal.” Then she seems to see Luke’s expression and laughs. “Sorry. Not helpful, huh?”

  “I just want to know the story.”

  “Okay. You’re right. That translation isn’t meant for readers. So Ninnin and Llad, they’re goddesses and sisters. Llad, the older one, watches over the dead in the underworld. It’s not like our Hell, all burny and fiery and eternal torments—really, it’s kind of worse.”

  Luke shudders, remembering. “Yeah, I got that.”

  “It’s like endless boredom until you wear away from the tedium, and it’s everybody who ever died, not just the bad seeds. No Heaven to balance it out.”

  “I don’t believe in Heaven,” Luke protests.

  “You’ve been arguing with Roger, have you?”

  “I don’t talk to Roger.” Uncomfortable, Luke stares at his hands. “I’m really glad to be here with you guys now instead of back home.”

  “Luke,” Perla says. “A: Don’t listen to Roger. He’s an ignorant bigot terrified of a world bigger than he’s willing to understand. B: You’re here because your dad and I wanted you with us. No fear, I’ll let you know if you get in the way. And C: Did you figure out Ninnin and Llad’s a gay-pride story?”

  “Huh—what?” Whiplashed, Luke swallows. “And, uh, thanks.”

  “Luke,” Perla says again, but doesn’t go further.

  After an uneasy moment, Luke prompts, “Llad’s the goddess of the dead…”

  “And her little sister Ninnin”—Perla sounds relieved—“well, Ninnin’s responsibilities aren’t so well defined. She’s a fertility goddess. One of her traditional epithets is mother and daughter and sister of passion. Somehow she comes into possession of a baby boy named Dimuz, it’s not clear how, nor why she decides it would be better for her sister to raise him in the underworld instead of her doing it in the high houses of the gods.”

  “A baby in that place?”

  “It doesn’t seem to warp him much, but you can’t expect psychological coherence in ancient myths. Dimuz grows up to be the most beautiful young man ever, a noble paragon in every way those people valued, and when he’s around your age Llad sends him back to Ninnin in the upper world. Inappropriately, at least according to our way of looking at it, she tries to seduce him. He spurns her.”

  “He’s gay?”

  “They don’t come out and say it. Didn
’t have the words. He prefers to spend time with his men friends, warring and hunting and drinking and so forth, and there’s never any talk about him enjoying temple prostitutes or other women like all the other heroes. So, yeah, most open-minded scholars read Dimuz—the Dimuz in this story, there are others where it’s not so obvious—as the least ambiguous strictly homosexual figure in the ancient record.”

  “Score!” says Luke.

  “Luke, sometimes you’re just too adorable to tolerate.”

  From his prone position a few feet away, Luke’s dad says, “I know, right?”

  “Shut up, both of you.” Luke’s squirming inside his skin.

  Perla and Sam both laugh. Sam gets up to sit by his wife. “Enough embarrassing the kid,” he decides. “Get on with the story.”

  Grinning, Perla leans against him. For just a second Luke’s envious of them for having each other. Acceptance and positive reinforcement are all very well—no, spectacularly excellent (Roger and his mom glower in the back of his mind), but he wants somebody to lean against. Levent. He imagines this ancient gay culture hero, Dimuz, might be as handsome as Levent.

  “Ninnin decides it’s her sister’s bad influence that turns Dimuz away from her,” Perla is saying, “so, rashly, she goes down to the gates of the underworld. Even though she’s an immensely powerful goddess, she has to abide by the rules: she can’t enter death in all her living, divine glory. The demon guardians strip her of her splendid clothing and jewels and send her off into the endless desert as naked as any of the uncounted dead souls wandering there. It takes almost forever for her to walk to Llad’s palace. By the time she arrives she’s just like the other dead, remembering nothing of her life or who she was, only that she desperately wants something. Llad doesn’t recognize her.

  “Meanwhile, back in the real world Ninnin’s absence is having terrible effects. Without her divine vitality, an unending chilly drought overcomes the land. Crops and animals die. Famine spreads. The remaining gods become alarmed. They decide only Dimuz can fetch Ninnin back from death and rescue the upper world, so they carry him off from whatever good time he was having to the gates of the underworld.

  “The guardians recognize Dimuz as their old playmate and their mistress’s ward, somebody who belongs, so they’re pleased to let him through with all his honor and glory and humanity intact. When he tells them why he’s come, they search out Ninnin’s fine clothing and jewels in their treasure house and adorn him like a queen. Then they send him out into death.

  “Because of who he is, it takes Dimuz much less time to reach his foster mother’s palace. He finds the shade of Ninnin right away. When he dresses her up in her own robes, she begins to remember who she is. He takes her to Llad, who agrees to escort her back to the world of the living. And then Dimuz reacquaints himself with the companions of his youth and proceeds to have himself a fine time.”

  “In Hell?” asks Sam.

  “It’s not Hell,” says Luke, annoyed by his dad’s interruption.

  “He’s a hero, having a fine time is the point of his existence.” Perla shoves Sam a little with her shoulder. “And like I said before, you can’t expect coherence or verisimilitude or plausibility in the fragments of ancient myth.”

  “Sorry.” Sam is contrite. “Go on.”

  “While Dimuz enjoyed himself, the two sisters made the long, weary journey to the high houses of the gods. All around them, the world came back to life—gentle rains fell, seeds germinated, baby animals romped. Both goddesses were dissatisfied. Ninnin recalled the burdens of her responsibilities in the world and felt a strange nostalgia for the restful unknowingness of death. Llad was confused, repulsed, by the vast vitality and multiplicity of the upper world as life returned to it. Ninnin was angry that Dimuz still didn’t desire her, preferred death to her, and Llad slowly understood that she, too, longed for Dimuz’s arms.

  “But they made the best of it because, being gods, they had no choice. Fascinating sidelight. We’ve got Dimuz, one of the first gay men in recorded literature, and also one of the earliest clear references to lesbianism: the text says quite clearly that Llad and Ninnin comforted one another during the nights of their journey and continued so even after they reached the gods’ precincts, because only she recognized her sister’s terrible longing for the man neither could have.”

  What Perla finds fascinating Luke thinks is squicky and demeaning, but she doesn’t take it further so he doesn’t say anything.

  “The thing is, with Llad not in the underworld, the balance of the universe is off again. Now the upper world is too alive. Without death, it grows fat, rotten with excess, diseased. The other gods become alarmed again. They petition the sisters of life and death to make things right. So they return to the terrible gates and call Dimuz. He laughs at their attempts to bargain with him—they’re gods, they only know how to demand—but ultimately agrees that if Llad returns to her place he’ll spend part of each year in life, part in death.

  “So Dimuz returns to his loves among living men—distant from but visible to the longing Ninnin—and then, after the season passes, goes back through the terrible gates into the welcoming arms of the dead, but not of death, Llad, permitted only to gaze on him from a distance, yearning.”

  “Whoa,” says Luke. “That’s really sad, in the end.”

  His dad nods—then brightens, with a sly glance at Luke. “For everyone but Dimuz.”

  “He is Adonis,” gravely says the last voice Luke expects, “Dimuz. The beautiful youth all women mourn when he goes into death. You tell the story well, Perla Hanım.”

  Looking over Luke’s shoulder, surprise unhidden by her sunglasses, Perla says, “Thank you, Levent Efendi. Yes, Dimuz is a version of Sumerian Tammuz, who’s the ancestor of Adonis. The Greeks tried to rationalize the stories, though, according to their view of the universe.”

  Finally, still jumpy, Luke turns his head. Beautiful almost-nude Levent, handsome as Dimuz, meets his gaze and smiles sweetly. “Roisin Hanım asked me to tell you she’s prepared a mid-morning snack.”

  *

  The Esin’s sharp prow cuts through the Aegean. Spray billows over Luke and his dad and stepmom when they return to the foredeck. Sails boom and ropes clatter. Altan Efendi bellows basso-profundo Turkish commands from the bridge and Levent leaps to obey, or Roisin Hanım if she happens to be in position and not encumbered by a tray of fruit juices for the Americans. It’s all very like the previous days’ sails except no longer so novel, so Luke can imagine himself becoming bored.

  Except he’s wondering just how much of Perla’s story Levent overheard. The gay stuff? And what was that about Adonis? All Luke remembers about that myth is that Adonis was beautiful, went hunting, got killed by a wild boar, and the wild anemones blooming at the time took on the color of his blood in mourning.

  Anemones. He hasn’t had a good look at Levent’s tattoos. They’re flowers—anemones? He’s pretty sure none of the blossoms are blood red. He’ll have to try to get closer (which he wants to do anyway, of course) because he’ll recognize anemones. Perla used to grow them in her garden before she sold that house to move in with his dad.

  It seems only a moment later—Luke deep in dopey fantasies of cavorting with Levent in a meadow bright with flowers, so he has to lie flat on his belly—when, under power, sails furled, the Esin putters between two small rocky islands into a round cove surrounded by high cliffs. Luke jumps up and runs to the rail. From the flying bridge atop the deckhouse, Altan Efendi lets out a bellow of satisfaction: no other Blue Voyage gulet is there before them. He has Levent drop anchor where the water is deep and blue, but only ten yards toward shore the bottom of the cove bellies up nearly to the surface, turning the water lemon yellow for another fifty yards before it ripples against the tawny beach.

  Luke’s antsy all of a sudden. He wants to plunge into the tempting water, rinse the scum of dream sweat and sunscreen from his skin. Wants to stagger onto solid land that doesn’t rock and roll underfoot, just for a
change, to find running fresh water and smell green growing things, not endless salt and himself.

  As if divining Luke’s impatience, from above Altan Efendi booms, “We will go ashore in a few minutes, genç efendim. Let my wife and Levent just finish loading our luncheon into the dinghy.”

  Startled by the voice breaking into his tunes, Luke looks up from the green-blue water and pulls one earbud out. The captain waves genially and Luke removes the other bud. “Can I help?”

  “I believe they have everything in hand.”

  Nevertheless, Luke grabs his book and sunscreen, the tray of juice glasses because it’s there, and wanders aft. Perla and Sam have already vanished—down to their cabin to pull themselves together or whatever. As Luke rounds the deckhouse, Levent is just lowering a big red cooler over the taffrail. He happens to glance up.

  Levent’s grin hits Luke right in the eyes and he stumbles, blinded. The tray goes flying. Luke hears an unlucky glass encounter the rare metal fitment and musically shatter. The other two merely thud on wooden deck. Somehow he’s on his knees and one stinging palm.

  The pang in his hand isn’t just impact. Before he can determine what it is or whether it should bother him more than embarrassment, someone has an arm under him, lifting him up, somebody’s concerned voice is saying something Luke doesn’t understand.

  “I’m sorry, I…tripped?”

  “It was my stupid fault, Luke,” Roisin Hanım is muttering, her brogue thick and melodious. “Some sailor I call myself, leaving things strewn about for the unwary to trip over. Sit up now, let me see.” She has him sitting back against the deckhouse bulkhead, she’s holding his hand in both of hers.

  “I’m bleeding,” Luke observes. It doesn’t seem to concern him much although there’s rather a lot of it pooling in the palm Roisin holds up, dribbling between numbed fingers.

  “Yes. An unfortunate encounter with broken glass.” Leaning over his hand, she’s being very calm. “Levent.”

  “Here.” Looking frightened but resolute, Levent sets the enamelled-metal first-aid kit on the deck, unlatches it. “What do you need, Hanım?”