Ithaca (5 page)

On the outskirts of town I pass one of Odysseus's old fishermen sitting on the porch outside his hut, stitching nets with a big wooden needle. Word of the town meeting, run ahead by one of Eumaeus's boys, is already spreading.

I stop. I wouldn't normally. “You're coming to the vote?”

He nods, pulls his thread to its full extent, and tugs. Some of the old islanders don't say much.

“How well do you remember Odysseus?”

“I remember 'im.”

The knot of worry tightens inside me. It isn't the response I want. Why haven't I noticed it before? All my life I've been certain of Ithaca's love for Odysseus. But why have I been so sure? My mother always said they loved him. So did Eumaeus, his favorite. But have I ever heard it from the other islanders?

“What do you remember best?”

The old man tugs at another knot, then tests the net by pulling at it with fingers like bronze claws.

“'E talked too much,” he says.

Sitting in the square later, as villagers slowly flock out of their houses, worry pulses inside me like a stubborn headache. I know my father is a hero. I've heard the storytellers' tales. I've seen his hunting bow on the wall at home—I've even lifted his sword in the shrine. But now, unexpectedly, there's another Odysseus taking shape behind that armored fighter. A shadow, a man with the same outline but a different core. Too clever, too good with words. A liar.

The meeting starts at midday, with the sun at its zenith, driving the square under the plane tree into deep black shade, people packing the benches around it. I sit with my back to the tree. Its roots coil and plait around me like serpents burrowing their way into the ground. There are no rules about who can attend a town meeting. Children scramble on and off the benches. Visitors are welcome—people even give them a respectful hearing if they choose to speak. Women heckle from the upstairs windows of the tavern. I've seen meetings turn in seconds from orderly debates into screaming matches, even fistfights. Speakers get booed off. Arguments cause family feuds that run for years. But this should be over quickly. All I'm asking for is a ship.

I watch Mentor, one of Odysseus's old friends, take his place in the front row, accompanied by his wife and four sons. I wish
my mother were here, but she stopped attending meetings a year ago, and I couldn't bear to add my troubles to her sorrows. I watch widows dressed in black clamber up onto the tables at the back of the square. The sight of them makes me confident. These are the women whose husbands and sons sailed for Troy and never came back. Surely they'll support a mission to find them? Then I see some of the young men from the big house, Antinous and Eurymachus among them, swagger into the square and take their places around the gathering. Not together—at strategic points, which means they're planning something—and that makes something lurch inside me. Antinous gives me an airy little wave as he sits down. He's wearing a bright red cape, and carrying—his latest affectation—a little tabby kitten he found in the storeroom and tamed. His plump, bejeweled fingers are scratching the creature's ears as the gathering falls silent.

I stand up. A novice. I've never addressed a meeting before. Every eye on Ithaca is staring at me, and my legs are trembling—I can't stop them. I notice little things—a woman in a window at the back of the square, whispering something to her friend. Then I see all the other eyes again, waiting for me to start.

“Sixteen years ago . . .” A bad start. Voice croaky, and too quiet. “Sixteen years ago . . .” Bellowing it—too loud, sounding like a child.

And suddenly it's going wrong. I know it from the first word. People aren't listening. Mentor looks nervous, which makes me feel worse, and I hear my voice wobble. There's no clicking of fingers, no rumble of approval as I list everything Odysseus did for the island. Maybe I do have a gift for words, but not today, not here. When I rehearsed the speech in the orchard, I imagined people stamping their feet as I reminded them how Odysseus rebuilt the harbor; they growled assent when I talked
about the decision to go to war, wiped tears from their eyes when I mentioned Penelope. They even laughed at my only joke.

It isn't like that. I outline my plan for the journey, but by now the young fishermen at the back have lost interest and are whispering and giggling among themselves. My joke dies in silence.

I planned to wind up with an appeal to the islanders' sense of duty. Something tells me that's wrong. I always believed the Ithacans worshipped my father, but looking around the benches, I see that those familiar faces hold expressions I've never noticed before: bitterness, anger, resentment. It's as if I've never looked at them properly, as if they've suddenly turned into strangers; or as if they always were strangers and have suddenly turned into what they are—people.

“So what I really wanted to say,” I end up, “is I need to go and find my father. My mother needs it. And I need you to help me. Please.”

It sounds flat and I know it. Mentor claps twice. No one else does. I lean back against the tree, shirt soaked in sweat, exhausted. For a moment there's silence, then suddenly everyone's shouting at once.

It's an old woman who wins the floor. She lives in a hut at the end of the beach. I don't know her that well, but she's stabbing her shriveled finger at me and screaming, “Three sons . . . he took all my sons.” Another woman follows, her voice rising to become the lament of the old beggars you see clustering the market gates—“No husband to care for me, no sons to look after me in my old age . . .” And sitting under the plane tree in the middle of a town meeting, I suddenly understand: Odysseus was the chief who took their men to war and never brought them back.

It's as if the floodgates have opened. A young fisherman stutters about the four brothers who never came back from the
war, and he has everyone in tears. Eumaeus is sitting there in blank shock. Mentor, my father's old friend, does his best to change the mood. Face flushed with anger, he makes a long speech about the duty the islanders owe their chief. There are a few abashed faces around the square, but people keep interrupting. Eumaeus speaks gruffly and inaudibly. To my surprise, Eurymachus lifts his hand and makes a short, polished speech urging the islanders to give me their support. As he sits down, he catches my eye and gives a sympathetic shrug.

I'll still get my ship—surely I will. Eumaeus didn't doubt the vote for a second. But suddenly another voice rises above the hubbub, smooth, unctuous. Antinous is on his feet.

“My friends,
please
. . .”

In Greece, we show deference to guests, and that even extends to town meetings. Voices hush. People go back to their benches. Antinous is left standing, red cape flung over his shoulder, the kitten clutching his sleeve.

“Here's my reason,” he says, “why we should discourage Telemachus from this journey. Because we love him. Telemachus, we want you here, close to us. We don't want to lose yet another of our sons. Telemachus . . .” His jeweled finger points straight at me. “Don't go!”

He's got their attention now. He makes a joke; they laugh. His fingers pluck points out of the air. People in the back rows are nodding. Was this how my father used to do it? Steer a meeting as you'd steer a boat.

“And there's one more thing,” Antinous finishes, “for which we should thank Telemachus. Thank him, I mean, for calling this meeting.” His face becomes suddenly solemn. “He's reminding us Ithaca's been sixteen years without a chief. A
long
time. This town has managed its affairs well . . . but for sixteen years Ithaca has been lucky. No enemies, no invaders—that won't last forever. And when trouble comes, this island will
need a strong leader. Strong and experienced, a man who's seen the world, who's traveled, who knows how things work. I think what our boy is saying to us, what he's
really
saying to us, isn't about Odysseus. It's this . . .” And Antinous's voice drops to a whisper. “I need a father. Ithaca needs a chief.”

I never saw this happening. How has Antinous twisted it around? I'm paralyzed. It's Mentor who rescues the situation.

“Vote!” he booms, standing up so abruptly that his stool clatters over behind him. “Vote!”

Eumaeus takes up the chant. It's a custom of town meetings that anyone with any kind of authority, or even just a strong murmur of encouragement behind them, can demand a vote at any time. So numbers are called, for and against. Hands are raised in the shade of the plane tree. There's no longer any doubt about the result. A dozen votes, no more, for offering me a ship, and the rest of the meeting solidly against me. The tavern-keeper's boys begin rolling wine barrels out into the square.

I stay seated against the trunk of the tree. I can't move. This time yesterday I was scared to leave Ithaca. Now, suddenly, it's become my prison. I
can't
leave. The sea is like a fortress wall—uncrossable, with my father beyond it.

Mentor comes over to me with his sons behind him, and Eumaeus as well. We stand in silence, shocked, beaten.

“Yer don't need to leave,” Eumaeus says. “Yer dad'll come anyway.”

“No!” I'm startled by Mentor's tone. To be honest, I've never much liked Mentor. He's stiff, full of his own importance, and doesn't have much sense of humor. But he crouches down next to me, and he's literally trembling with emotion. “He
must
go.” He sounds passionate. I didn't think he could be passionate about anything. “You
must
. You
will
. I'm not a rich man, but I have some money set aside. Enough for a ship.” His mouth twitches. “A small ship.”

“But what about your sons? It's their money.”

“No! We'll go to Pylos together . . .” He raises one hand, seeing I'm about to object again. “Odysseus was my friend, the best chief this island ever had. If he's still alive . . .” And suddenly there are tears in his eyes. “. . . if he's still alive, I want his son to bring him home.”

So here I am, two days later, clutching the gunwale of Mentor's ship, staring across fretful waves at the rocks of Pylos, Nestor's territory, and wishing I were dead.

You'd think Odysseus's son would be a sailor. Perhaps I'm not his son. I used to think that: that it was all a mistake and there was some other kid somewhere—taller, braver, tougher—who was actually Odysseus's boy. Anyway, Odysseus was famed for his travels across the seas, while I'm hanging over the rail, vomiting like a sick dog.

The wind rose just a few hours ago—rose from nothing to a vicious storm that turned the Ionian Sea into our enemy. Waves batter the boat's hull. On the farm, back home, I've seen cattle stampede through a gate, their black, humped backs jostling together in a frightening torrent. The waves remind me of those stampedes, only vaster. Their expanse seems incomprehensibly huge—a broken landscape stretching all the way to the horizon. The sailors are cursing at their oars—they dropped the sail when the wind rose. Mentor's grimly clutching the steering oar. And I just want to die. My stomach's heaving with each lurch of the boat. The wind's shrieking in my ears, echoed by the gulls who glide past the mast, shrieking like demons. I'm soaked to the skin, and my bare feet are slipping in the mass of seawater and tangled rope that fills the bilges.

To take my mind off it, I think of the frantic twelve hours before we left Ithaca. I did get some consolation from the townspeople as they left the meeting. Quite a few came up to wish me well.

“If you'd asked five years ago, we'd all have joined, but we won't find the men now.” That was typical. “Time to move on.”

All of that made me feel a little better. But there was one encounter I still don't know what to make of. The square was almost empty. Mentor was bargaining with sailors to make up a scratch crew, while the innkeeper dragged benches back indoors. I was just going to return to the big house when a girl came up to me.

I knew who she was. She lives with her mother in a tiny cottage hidden behind a wall at the top of the town. There's always been something strange about those two. No husband and father to bring back food, yet the cottage is freshly whitewashed and they both dress well—better than most of the townspeople, actually. They've always kept to themselves. The girl's a bit older than me, but I've never seen her mix with the town children. As she came up to me, I was wondering if I'd ever actually spoken to her. All the same, there was something familiar about her face.

“You'll find him, won't you?” She spoke before I could, and suddenly I saw she was crying. No sound, just noiseless tears pouring down her cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away.

“I'll do my best.”

“You
must
.”

Suddenly the girl reached into a fold of her dress, pulled something out, and pressed it into my hand. Before I could say anything, she was gone, walking across the square and disappearing into the alley that led to her home. When I opened my hand, I found a little carved wooden owl. A carved owl
exactly like the offering Odysseus left on the altar the day he sailed for Troy.