Ithaca (20 page)

Odysseus heaved a great sob and buried his face in his hands. No one spoke. At last he straightened himself up, wiping tears from his eyes. “But I did, though. In the end. Pushed out to sea and paddled away. I could see their torches through the palm trees as they hunted me, but there was no moon—I'd chosen that night carefully. The terrace blazing with lights that shone back at me from the inky water. And the current slowly took me away. When the sun came up I was alone on the sea, no land in sight.” He sighed. “And there I drifted for sixteen days, sometimes paddling, sometimes not, sucking dew from my coat, trailing a line for fish. At night I lay on my back and stared at the stars. I wondered if people on Ithaca were watching the stars. That was all I thought about—that Ithaca I'd built in my head. In my mind, I wandered along every path, counted every stone in the wall of my house. I couldn't remember why I had ever left.” He frowned like a puzzled child. “Why would anyone leave Penelope? How had I gotten there? To that raft on an empty sea? I lay on my back and watched the stars. The Hyades and Pleiades, Cassiopeia and the Bear. Days went by. Brine filled my mouth, soaked my beard. The sun burned my skin black. My food ran out, my water. I could feel my tongue filling my mouth, swollen as a rotten fruit. The raft started to come apart, ropes creaking under my back. It felt like my
body was coming apart too, sinews stretched, skin decaying. I thought,
When the ropes give, I'll float on the waves like I'm a raft myself
. Flesh bloated and white like a dead fish. My face like a mask on the water, spray foaming through my eyes and mouth.

“Then, one night, I felt the raft lift to a wave, and knew the last storm had come. A raft of driftwood tied with creeper—I didn't have a chance. To be honest with you, I hardly cared by then. I lay on my back and watched the stars. Stars I'd seen from the mountaintop on Ithaca. Stars I'd watched from the camp at Troy . . .”

Odysseus didn't talk for a long time. Everyone watched him. Then he raised his head again. “But the storm didn't kill me,” he said. “It landed me on your island. And here I am.”

A
rete tried not to worry too much about Nausicaa. Her daughter had fallen in love before—quite often, in fact. Arete had been bothered when Nausicaa had spent the entire day in the courtyard with the stranger. She didn't like the way he had allowed the girl to bring him trays of food and comb his hair—that, she thought, was irresponsible in a man his age. Although she didn't go as far as her husband in disapproving of fighting men, she shared his view that they were violent, self-centered, and destructive, and she certainly didn't want Nausicaa running off with one.

But she had faith in her daughter's essential good sense. Romantic she might have been, fond of stories, given to
passionate enthusiasms and wintry sulks; but fundamentally she was a sensible Phaeacian girl growing up on a small island, princess of her little kingdom but utterly inexperienced in the world beyond its shores. That storm-tossed world—the world of fighters—was not for her, and deep down she knew it.

The arrival of that world, in the form of Odysseus, was troublesome. Like Alcinous, she had seen the stranger's charisma working on the inexperienced Phaeacians. His moody stare, his bunched shoulders and balled fists, the jut of his beard and tilt of his chin as he'd glowered around the hall: they had responded to them like small dogs when a wolf stalks into their kennel. He was bigger than anyone there. They knew it. He knew it. Alcinous, too, knew it, which was why he was so keen to get Odysseus off the island.

When he'd begun his tale—his wholly ridiculous story of witches, demons, giants, dead souls, and the rest—Arete had felt his charisma herself. Of course she knew it was all nonsense. She had seen enough of the world, before her marriage, to have come across fighters before, with their tales of gargantuan slaughter and impossible trials, storms that emptied the sea, battles that filled rivers with blood. Heroic exaggeration was their stock-in-trade. She had even heard the tale of irresistible singers—“sirens”—before, from a Hittite captain who'd sworn it had happened to his brother. Fighting men were all guilty of boasting. It was normal to them, a kind of game. Only the small-town Phaeacians fell for such yarns.

She didn't. She had felt the tug of Odysseus's voice, though. Felt the pull of those murmured words, words spoken so softly they might have been meant only for himself, except that they coiled around you and drew you in. That was how the magic worked. Suddenly you felt the salt spray on your cheek, the thump of fear in your own breast. Suddenly you were
there
with him, clinging to the raft, rigid with fear as the cold ghosts
slipped past you. That was what a talking man could do, and the magic of his words had worked on her too.

At a certain moment, though, Arete had begun to feel something else, something more detached. She had become aware, as if she'd been standing beside herself, watching, of Nausicaa's spellbound awe, of her husband's frown of concentration. Odysseus's words had flowed on, rising and falling like breakers on sand. But Arete had suddenly understood what it was she really felt for him, beyond her suspicion of his kind and her fascination for his tale.

Pity.

Arete knew men. She had grown up with brothers, raised many sons. She knew all the captains and merchants, sailors and navigators who dined at their table, put up with their boasting, laughed at their jokes. She was something of a mother figure to them. So she knew that Odysseus, behind that scarred exterior, behind the tumble of his words, was horribly damaged. She had seen the spear he had thrown and the spilled wine spattering the wall. She had heard, too, the cry of pain his throw had torn from him. He was hurt, and not only in his body. Something, she sensed, was cracked in him. To Phaeacians he still looked like a fighter. But she wondered what other fighters would make of him. To them, everything was about status. Odysseus had lost his ships, his men, his home. Would they even recognize the hero who conquered Troy? Would they see him in this bowed man with grey hair and lined face, this old man hobbling across their courtyard with his puzzled eyes and the leg that couldn't carry his weight? His boastful, silly stories had made his lost years sound like an adventure. Read between the lines, though, and they told a story of disaster, of bungled raids and bad seamanship, of misfortune that had ripped away everything he cared for and left him, at the last, drifting naked on a raft, without company or possessions, broken.

Arete didn't much like their guest. But she did feel sorry for him.

He had finished talking, but no one spoke. Nausicaa had tears in her eyes. Alcinous looked thoughtful. It was left to her to reach out and take their guest's hand.

“I'm sorry,” Arete said. “I'm so, so sorry.”

The puzzled eyes turned toward her. He seemed more hunched than ever, as if, in retelling his tale, he had relived it physically as well. Odysseus clutched her hand and gave a sob. His hand was rough as sandpaper, calloused and warped, as if the sea had bleached all the softness from it. Arete was reminded of the salt fish the merchants dried for long voyages, hanging fillets in the sun until they looked like scraps of leather. His cheek felt the same when he pressed her hand against it. Once it must have been soft, she supposed, beneath Penelope's touch. No more. If he ever reached home, would his wife recognize him? And if she did, would she even want this wreck of the man who sailed away sixteen years before?

Arete hoped so. She wondered what she would have felt if Alcinous had disappeared and returned like this. Not, of course, that her husband would ever go off to war, or seek adventure—he was far too sensible. But she knew she would have wanted him back, whatever his state. She hoped Penelope was the same.

She felt dry, sore lips press against the back of her hand. Odysseus looked up at her, tears welling from his eyes.

“I've failed them,” he said. It was as if he'd been speaking to her alone.

“Who?”

“Penelope. Telemachus.”

“You've done what men do.” She glanced at her husband. “Some men.”

“It was wrong to leave them. Wrong to go to war. Wrong to spend so many years on the journey home.”

“I thought bad fortune kept you away?”

He looked down. “I could have reached Ithaca if I'd tried. I'd have broken any enchantment. That's the truth. Now all I want is to go home.”

He gripped her hand so hard Arete almost winced. “You can't be sure what you'll find there. Remember what Laocoon said.” She didn't want to hurt him, but it was better he faced reality now. “Penelope may be with another man. Your son may have left home. He may be dead. You haven't been in Ithaca for sixteen years.”

“It would be sensible . . .” Alcinous cleared his throat. “. . . to find out what's happening there before you go back.”

Arete felt hot tears on her hand, and she reached up and touched Odysseus's face. “What will you do if you find her changed?”

It was a moment before he answered, and when he did, Arete could hear the depths of weariness in his voice. “I'll go in disguise, at first. If they've forgotten me, I'll travel on. I'm no coward. I can fight for some chief. I could be a sailor.” He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “What does it matter what happens if Penelope doesn't want me? I'll live out my days fishing on some island. I'll dream about Telemachus, dream about Penelope. Or I'll become a servant and sweep the courtyard in a great man's house. In the evenings I'll crouch by the fire and hear them tell stories about Odysseus . . .”

The firelight flickered on the sides of the hearth. With infinite compassion, Arete watched it play over Odysseus's ravaged face, scour the furrows in his cheeks, burnish his silvered hair.

“I never deserved them,” Odysseus whispered. “I see that now. My wife, my son. All I want is one more chance.” He
gripped her hand again, squeezing the fingers. “Please help me. Please help me to go home.”

Arete glanced at her husband. He looked almost noble, she thought, in the firelight. The good, sensible man she had married.

Alcinous leaned forward and laid his hand on the fighter's shoulder. “Of course we'll help you,” he said. “We're preparing a ship now. To take you home to Ithaca.”

I
n the great hall at Ithaca, Antinous took a draft of wine and closed his eyes.

He was troubled. Not badly troubled—things were not out of control. But badly enough to swear at a servant who was trying to clear the table around him, and to follow up the curse with a vicious slash of his table knife, which the servant only just escaped.

It was annoying to have been up all night. It was annoying to be unshaven—he hated being unshaven. It was annoying to be in dirty clothes and feel limp, sweaty cloth, when he was used to crisp linen. Most of all, it was annoying that Telemachus had still not returned.

He should have been here by now. Antinous's breakfast should have been a celebration and a chance to plan next moves. Instead, getting rid of the woman's brat remained unfinished business.

Antinous stabbed moodily at his eggs. They weren't quite runny enough. Or maybe too firm, one or the other. Either way, they weren't as eggs should be. For a moment he considered running into the kitchen to beat Melanthius, which would have offered some pleasure. But somehow, Antinous knew, his irritation ran too deep to be assuaged by beating an old cook. He needed bigger prey.

“What are you staring at?” There was a young man crossing the hall. Antinous couldn't remember his name.

“I . . .” The young man looked around with a start. “I wasn't staring.”

Antinous looked coldly at him. “You were staring.”

“I wasn't, I . . .”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No!”

“Then you were staring.”

“I wasn't . . .”

“So I'm a liar?”

“No!”

“So what,” Antinous said, the words icy, “were you staring at?”