Sappho (38 page)

Sappho shed tears, but Atthis took pleasure in this, repeating again and again that she could not be eased by Sappho.

At daylight Atthis fell, exhausted, into sleep, but Sappho was turned to stone. She herself, by the power of the priestesses of the snake, had induced this madness. She, teacher of song and all things that were gentle, had thought by gratifying the girl in new ways to tie her more closely. Instead, she had set a fire she could not put out.

And her hetaerae were witness to what had happened. They knew. They laughed. They whispered. Would they leave her? How? In a body, all at once? She was so intent on inflicting these lacerations on herself that only gradually did awareness reach her. She sensed that somewhere there was activity; she caught innuendos uttered with a thickened tongue. Was it the imaginings of an overwrought mind, or was something amiss?

“Apollo,” she said, “your throne is truth,” and went out of her house. To her surprise she saw that it was morning. Every door stood wide, but no one was about. The hetaerae were gathered in the center of the courtyard, in various stages of dress, and their glance was upward where Gongyla's small feet drooped above their heads, a sandal fallen to the ground.

Nothing stirred but the draperies which the wind moved on the dead girl. Sappho stood stripped of all her powers, even that of speech.

It was Kleis who spoke, her tone ordinary, conversational even. “O immoderate, immoral, this is your doing. Why the gods chose to speak through you to humankind, I do not know. Perhaps it is another joke they play on us.” She faced her mother squarely. “With what meter will you fix a broken neck? How rhyme those dangling, slender ankles that one could put one's fingers around? Gongyla could not destroy her love for you, so she destroyed herself. Hail and farewell, Sappho. I go to the caves to live among the snake priestesses. And when you think of it, remember it was you who sent me there.”

Sappho had no answer for her daughter. Her gaze reverted to Gongyla. “Cut her down,” she said through stiff lips. “Can't someone cut her down?”

*   *   *

Sappho needed forgetfulness and prayed her Way-Muses to intercede with Memory. But Memory would not be trifled with and branded every detail into her. Her hetaerae did not condole with her over Gongyla. Neither did they allude to Kleis, lost to mysticism and drugs, who dwelt in the high mountains from which none dared retrieve her.

Sappho could not be reconciled to the thought of her child unkempt, half naked, with reptiles slithering over her. In her own body she seemed to feel their clammy coldness. What rituals did they practice in their caverns, their eyes blank with prophecy and knowing? She knew that at times lassitude from the poppy spread over them, while at others great strength was in their limbs from the satyrion they drank. To Sappho it seemed her daughter, like the little marble girl at whose feet she once had wept, was lost in time. Once she had a golden-haired child; now, the sisterhood of Dionysos outstretched its hand over her.

Of these things Atthis, too, did not speak. She seemed as innocent and merry as before, laughing, singing, teasing for games and stories, begging to learn the steps of a new dance. There was a child's heart in her breast. And in Sappho's breast there was no heart at all. She felt curiously numb. She saw before her Gongyla, whose draperies fluttered while she herself was still. She remembered Gongyla's caresses before the shade of Erinna intervened between them, watched again her dexterous fingers weave music on the lyre, heard the lilt of her voice.

She should never have allowed her to stay on. She had become a beggar outside the door, waiting for a crumb, feeding on a glance, a random smile. The gods had used them all for sport.

Gongyla was lost to her; but she must retrieve her daughter. Although she knew one did not strive against the priestesses of Dionysos, she knew that she must try.

She trudged alone to the mountain caves in the heat of noon, when mirages played in the dust before her in the guise of deep pools. When she reached them, they were parched and desolate. She stared about, befuddled. Then, gathering her resolution, approached what appeared to be a cave entrance. A voice from the shadows stopped her. “Turn back, Sappho.”

“My child,” Sappho implored. “I've come for my child.”

“You have no child. Kleis is no more.”

Sappho staggered. “What evil do I hear?”

“No evil. Kleis that was, has been initiated into our rites. Reborn, she bears a new name secret even from you.”

“She cannot be reborn. I bore her, I alone carried her, grew heavy with her, was torn by her, ate afterbirth. Kleis is mine, my flesh.”

The voice came sepulchral. “There is no more Kleis.”

Sappho fell to her knees and hit her forehead against stones. “Have pity!”

“Did you have pity for Erinna, for Gongyla, for your own daughter?”

“Who are you, that you speak so? I know your voice.”

“Long ago, during my novitiate, I came to you, and was afraid to raise my eyes to yours.”

“I remember—your name is Doris—you came to order songs for Dionysos. We had wine.”

“It was a great house, and you a great lady. But I tell you, Sappho, the wantonness that drives you past yourself will crush you. It is that which will be remembered.”

It was true then—the terrible dream—the terrible curse. Her name would be a stench in the nostrils of humankind.

The voice came again. “I pity you, but I cannot help you.”

“And Kleis, she that was Kleis?” The question was wrenched from her.

“She is in a world of delusion. When she rouses, she will be well.”

“The gods help her and me. Father Zeus, All-Father!” she cried. But what can a man know? “Hera, Mother, it is to you I turn!” She prostrated herself, accepting all.

*   *   *

Her hetaerae did not desert her. They played and sang more beautifully than before. But their eyes rested on her with concern. Sappho emerged from the depths of depression, feverish in her desire for fun and good cheer. She was determined that a carnival atmosphere prevail.

Gongyla was dead. That was sad, but so were her father, mother, and her husband dead, Erinna and little Timas. Her own future was uncertain, and the portents evil. What was to be done? One could not forever bow one's head to the ground. She resolved not to mourn for things lost and people gone from her.

When she woke beside Atthis she looked at the sleeping face as though it were distant from her, the round softness of the cheeks, the lashes that curled against them. Forgetful of what love had done to her, remembering only its sweetness, Sappho murmured, “She loves me well.”

And she sang softly that Atthis might be softly wakened:

I loved you, Atthis

with all my heart,

before you yet suspected it

The girl sat up and rubbed her eyes. And into Sappho's mind came another song:

Like the last red apple

sweet and high;

high as the topmost twigs,

which the apple-pickers missed
—

O no, not missed

but found beyond their fingertips

“I have never heard that song.”

Coldness gripped Sappho's heart; she should have sung something else.

Atthis said shrewdly, “Who did you make it for? The song about apples?”

She had sung it first to Gongyla. But Gongyla was gone. Music couldn't reach her. Without answering, she inclined her head toward Atthis and drank a kiss. “Are your thighs ready to receive me?”

Atthis often acted the child with her. “You were on me all night,” she complained.

“Look,” Sappho slipped her hand beneath the pillow, “I have a token for you.” She pretended to find a chain of silver and lapis lazuli. Atthis exclaimed at the beauty of the workmanship and allowed Sappho what she wished.

When they were replete, each with the other, Sappho sang again:

The glad daylight reveals you.

And I know that by your beauty

I may claim you

For eye is the carrier of the disease of love

“Disease is not a nice comparison,” Atthis objected.

“No?” She herself thought it apt. “Well, well.”

*   *   *

The hours with Atthis brought the time of payment. They brought Gorgo. The young woman kicked awake the eunuch who guarded the door of the House of the Servants of the Muses and demanded to speak with Sappho of Lesbos.

Sappho, hearing the commotion, came out. Immediately on seeing Gorgo she erased the frown from between her eyes and made all her features smooth. She had not seen her since she retrieved her daughter from Andromeda. However, she sensed a new boldness about her.

“I am here, Lady,” Gorgo said, “with condolences for the death of the lovely Gongyla.”

The sarcasm, Sappho knew, was a portent of evil.

“I wonder,” Gorgo went on in the same insinuating tone, “and I am not alone in wondering, what malady of the soul drives one to such an act?”

“You have a message for me, Gorgo?”

“Do you suppose it could be seeing herself supplanted in the affections of her lover?”

The sparring was over. “Speak,” Sappho rapped out, “what you have come to say.”

The two women faced each other's anger. “Andromeda, that mistress of spells—”

“Andromeda, that sow—”

“The woman may not possess the rarity of a nature such as yours, O Sappho, who love all things delicate. Permit me to ask, was it delicate to see your hetaera hanging by a twisted neck?”

“That remark is not permitted you, Gorgo. Nothing is permitted you.”

“In that you are mistaken. All is permitted me. It is simply a question of what I want.”

The nails of Sappho's hands bit flesh. Aloud she said coolly, “You have something to tell me?”

“It is concerning your trip to Samos.”

An intimation of what was to come gripped Sappho. “I was in Samos, yes. It was on the occasion of the freeing of Aesop.”

Gorgo allowed a small smile to lift her lips. “All that great Sappho does is of interest. Even in the fastness of our hills we heard of your journey, and that you held several conversations regarding marriage with a fellow guest, a young man from Sardis.”

Sappho articulated with difficulty. “What do you want, Gorgo? What does Andromeda want?”

Gorgo continued as though Sappho had not spoken. “As a result of these conversations, one of your hetaerae, the lovely Anaktoria of Miletus, was sent as a bride to this same Lydian. And it seems the lady Atthis, whose dearest friend she was, does not even know that you so kindly arranged this.”

“What will stop your tongues?” Sappho asked frantically. “Gold, coins, jewels? Name it!”

Gorgo fitted a smile to her lips. “Perhaps we do not wish anything at all, but to see Sappho of Lesbos at our feet.”

“Then I prostrate myself.” And she fell on her knees before the girl. “I kiss your feet, even hers, if that will satisfy you.”

Gorgo withdrew disdainfully.

“Andromeda will let you know what it is she requires. Perhaps it is nothing at all.”

“No, please … You will have whatever you want. Only…”

But Gorgo had left.

From the beginning Sappho had feared this, yet she was stunned. “The gods incline toward
her
sacrifices rather than mine,” she cried, tearing her hair. In a frenzy she sent her servants for myrtle branches to drape the walls of her home, for of all trees and flowering things Aphrodite preferred the myrtle. She rededicated herself to the goddess: “In all things I am your servant.”

For the precursor of the wile-weaving Kyprus-born …

She could not finish her thought, and the next moment was calling on Peitho, goddess of persuasion. Though she promised to burn the fat thighbones of a white she-goat on her altar, she knew she could not be helped. She went inside and shut herself in her room. “We do not know the things we are going to do,” she said through clamped teeth as she paced, returning each time to the same spot because it was nowhere.

The day passed and the stars went forward. “Keep watch and be watchful,” she told the servants. But she did not know how to guard against her fears. Nymph of the braided tresses, she said silently, they will surely tell you.

What to do?

In the morning she hid her disordered pulse, her mad heart, and went with Atthis to pick yellow gillyflowers by the stream.

“You did not send for me to come to you last night,” Atthis said musingly.

“I was working on a song I thought you'd like. Listen.”

How especially she loved your singing.

And how among the Lydian women, she shines

“You sing of Anaktoria.” Atthis slipped her hand into Sappho's. “I no longer think of Anaktoria. How could I?”

Sappho hardly breathed. Could that be so? She clasped the girl about the knees. “The music of life is brief.”

Atthis was surprised at these unexpected words and at the sentiment.

“Swear to me,” Sappho said desperately. “Swear by the dread waters of the River Styx…”

Atthis laughed. “Why make such a dreadful oath? You know I will do anything you want.”

Sappho rushed on without hearing her, “… to love me, to hold me dear in the face of … no matter. Look, I have brought rings of amber for your toes.”

“Put them on.”

And Sappho did, while Atthis wriggled her newly adorned feet in delight.

“You swear, then, to love me always?” Sappho asked anxiously.

“I cannot help but love you.”

“It must be a great oath, Atthis. I call on Zeus, I call also Earth, Sun, and the Erinyes who dwell below to take vengeance if you swear false.”

The dimples left Atthis's face. “Sappho, you have never spoken to me like this.”