Voices from the Past Part 30

Spills his cargo overboard...

The night closed their eyes,

And then night poured down

Black sleep upon their lids.

Alcaeus prefers the last two.

In a vase, on my table, a white rose opens and I see the face of Anaktoria.

The rose is the most perfect flower, some say. Of the two kinds, the garden and the rambler, I prefer the rambler, climbing through the night, bringing its fra- grance into my room, white in the starlight, ivory in the moonlight.

The sea and its waves are something we never forget yet never remember: how the surf leaps and splits into foam, how the foam cascades into white and divides into blue. From sh.o.r.e to sky there is blue, in patches like marble, areas like grey and porous granite, ribbons of blue that submerge in whorls.

How quiet the blue, how serene where afternoon sun polishes a path aimed for the sh.o.r.e, Cretan, Ethiopian, Etruscan, where men and s.h.i.+ps have sailed- their hieroglyphs ruddered by chance. The ocean is always chance, yet it is subdued, finally modulated by place and time. Wherever we travel, there is the element of chance, rain, storm, heat, cold, before us, deceptive, feminine, wrap- ping us in fog, cities, deserts, islands, birds, starry decks and windless watches.

We never remember the sea because it alters momentarily, making rainbows, spreading colonies of b.u.t.terflies, floating celery stalks, turtles, heaving sh.e.l.ls and driftwood-beaching itself with footprints that fill with seepage or disappear underneath the wave.

Cercolas and I had such fun, when we were newly married and rode our white mares, across the island and along the sh.o.r.e, sometimes swimming them.

When the oldest became sick, I put a pillow under her head and tended her until she died, on the beach, beneath the thatch of her stable.

Cercolas took the other mare, to die with him at war, I suppose it was. How can I know?

Our horses have gone, six or seven at a time, until there are only colts and old ones-I see them on deck and in holds, their white faces peering, yellow manes s.h.i.+ning: white, in memory of our mares, white as gulls. I wish I could hear their whinnying across the fields, as they race toward me.

Warriors brag about their fearless horses but I prefer mares that nip my hands and tug my clothes.

Music is a tree, a cave with sea water slos.h.i.+ng, a sh.e.l.l to the ear, a baby's laughter, the lover's "yes." I suppose it came from the flint, the arrow. Cercolas was music. Mother was music. The loom and harp are music. I have heard music in my dreams. I dream many kinds of music when I play the harp.

I like music best at night, under the stars; I like it when I lie down in the af- ternoon, aware, yet not truly aware; I like it when I am up the mountain, the wind harsh; I like it when I am on the sh.o.r.e, the beach fire low, sparks rising, the sea almost at rest.

I LIKE MUSIC WHEN I EAT, WHEN I AM AT THE THEATRE, OR ALONE.

LONELY MUSIC IS MARROW-WISE, AWARE OF SECRETS, REVELATORY IN SURPRISING WAYS, PRYING, BLURRING-ALTOGETHER DECEITFUL. I LIKE THE HARP BETTER THAN THE HORNS. DRUMS FRIGHTEN. THE VOICE IS BEST: ITS STORY IS MAN'S, THE SEA'S, THE MOUNTAIN'S, AND THE SKY'S.

How I used to laugh at rimes Alcaeus wrote against Pittakos:

Old Pitt, we found your cloak

Among the fish and fisherfolk;

We saw your mouth gape and perk

Whenever a blouse made something jerk.

I suppose Pittakos paid many a visit to the fisherfolk-he was young enough then. And Alcaeus was clever enough to wring every drop of satire out of P's doings. His foolery endangered many of us. What a disgrace Pittakos remains in office. How fine it would be if Libus were empowered.

Libus says:

"There aren't enough of us to overthrow this man...he's entrenched till he dies. It's better to wait. Look at Alcaeus, what has his fight gotten him? Part of his tragedy comes from his inability to overthrow this man."

Yesterday, when I visited Alcaeus, I s.h.i.+vered and pulled back. Alcaeus stepped forward and grabbed my hand.

"Come, darling, we're having a drink. Join us."

Libus signaled me to sit down: their dining room was full of phantoms; s.h.i.+elds glared; pennons dragged at me. With an apish grin, Alcaeus reeled across the room to b.u.mp against a table and chirp a drunken song.

It was rainy and dark and the melancholy afternoon and room closed in. You must pretend, I said to myself. Pretend he can see. Pretend there's nothing wrong...imagine...

As the three of us drank together, a scrawny, red-fleshed boy served us, downcast, looking as if recently beaten.

As we drank, the melancholy of Alcaeus' soul spread, seeping through taut throat muscles: intelligent things said with difficulty, good things said badly, reminiscences slightly distorted. What is more dismal than a damaged life, dam- aged beyond alteration, no matter how much we care? What more futile than communication at such a time?

I could not look at him but looked at Libus instead, his ephemeral face growing more ephemeral as he continued drinking, wrestling with his dogged silence.

Drink could not help... I fled home.

Mytilene

641

Three soldiers have been washed up on a raft, scarcely alive: all of them were taken to Alcaeus' house to recover, if that is possible. Libus wanted them there, to care for them. They are islanders and had been imprisoned over a year. For days they had been adrift, paddling, foodless except for fish and birds. I hear from Thasos that one of them, not much older than Phaon, throws himself against walls and stalks about babbling to himself, begging for water.

Alcaeus is in his element, determined to help these derelicts: he's captain again, in command: he's kinder and more resolute with this trio, which he be- lieves he understands: oh, I sympathize with these sun-blackened wanderers, these lovers of freedom who defied jailers. I, too, know what it is to defy, and what it costs.

I sent them food but I could not go to them.

Later, I changed my mind; I wanted to see them, to see what their failure had done to them, what their fight had cost. I decided I might be able to encourage them, so I brought Atthis and we asked Libus to let us in and we talked to two of them, giving them food and helping them eat and drink, and everything went well till the mad fellow heard us and hurled himself against the bedroom door and burst in, to collapse in a heap, jabbering, writhing, eyes rolled back.

Atthis jumped from her chair and cried: