“That’s your mother’s story. Not mine.” Arkadios eased his arm under her sling so that her broken arm was held securely. “The night you were born, I had the worst headache of my life. You’ve had headaches, haven’t you?”
“Yes. You get them from the sun.”
“Sometimes. But I think my head hurt because your mother was in labor. Her screams rang through the house. There was nothing I could do to ease her pain. I left the house hoping that by the time I got back, you would be born. But every time I came back, your mother was still in agony. My head went on aching.”
“Did I hurt your head?” Melisto asked apprehensively.
“No. You must listen when I talk and not talk back, Melisto. Be still.”
“I will,” Melisto promised. She raised her hand to stopper her mouth and remembered in the nick of time that thumb-sucking was babyish.
“You weren’t born until the second night. By that time, the whole household was waiting, listening and praying. At last I heard the sound of a baby crying. I gave thanks to the gods. The midwife brought you to me.”
“And I wasn’t a boy.”
“No. But I took you in my arms — you were wet and wrinkled and screaming your head off, and here’s the strange thing: my headache went away. I remember the moon was full that night, and I carried you to the window. I looked at you in that strange blue light, and you stopped crying and looked me full in the face. I was filled with joy.”
Melisto said wonderingly, “You were happy?”
“Yes. I hadn’t known how happy I would be. It made me think of Zeus, the father of the gods. There was a time when Zeus had a headache, too. He suffered so much that Hephaistos had to split open his head with an axe. And when he did, out sprang Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and the patroness of our city.”
“Athena,” whispered Melisto.
“Yes. I believe Zeus loves Athena more than all his sons. More than Hermes, or Apollo, or Herakles. I believe the poet Homer thinks so, too. I remember what I said to myself: This child will be my Athena.”
Melisto waited transfixed, until she was sure Arkadios had finished. Then she wriggled closer. “Tell it again.”
EXHIBIT 6
Bronze strigil, fifth or fourth century BCE.
The bow shape of this bronze strigil is characteristic; so is the groove inside the curved blade. The strigil, or scraper, was used to clean the body after exercise. Greek athletes anointed themselves with olive oil at the gymnasium. After their workout, they applied more olive oil and used the strigil to scrape the skin clean. Dead skin, dirt, oil, and sweat accumulated inside the groove and could be dislodged by running the blade through the thumb and forefinger.
Aristocratic athletes were often scraped down by an enslaved person.
1. WATER/MOONLIGHT
The summer Lykos died was very hot.
The horses stood in the shade,
tortured by the flies.
Sometimes Georgios gave me a bucket and sponge
and told me to rinse them off.
They came to me willingly,
shuddering with happiness
as water streamed over their coats.
The water made a sheen on their skins
and light ran down the water.
I wondered: was there a man alive
who could draw that?
Light on water,
water on skin . . . ?
Even a god couldn’t draw that.
That long hot summer
I went on drawing horses.
I remember how dry the dust was
when I rubbed them out with my hands.
The horses were proof of my idleness —
dangerous:
so I had to rub them out.
I was getting better at making horses.
I once told Sokrates about the beauty of horses.
One horse can be better than another,
not because it’s faster, or stronger,
but because of the way it’s shaped.
Haunches and crest, angle and arc —
I couldn’t find the words. I sounded stupid.
But Sokrates,
he knew what I was talking about.
He said
maybe there’s another world,
where there’s a real horse,
a perfect horse,
and all the horses in our world
are copies of that perfect horse.
All our horses
come from that pattern —
except a copy
is never as good
as the real thing.
The best horses are the ones that stick close
to the real horse.
That’s why some horses are more beautiful than others.
I asked him where that other world was.
He said he didn’t know.
He was the wisest man I ever met,
but he was always saying that: he didn’t know.
The summer Lykos died,
I wondered about other worlds. I wondered where Lykos was.
The underworld, I knew that much,
but what’s it like there?
At night I couldn’t sleep.
I thought about how Lykos said:
Nobody ever gets out of anything.
He couldn’t get out of dying,
and that scared me stiff,
because I might die, too.
I was afraid Lykos might be a ghost.
The ones who die young,
they’re likely to be ghosts,
because they’re not satisfied.
I felt sorry for Lykos,
but I didn’t want to see his ghost.
At night, I’d squeeze my eyes shut
so I wouldn’t see him. But then I heard things,
the straw rustling, or a horse snorting out dust,
and that was worse.
Those were long nights,
when it was too hot to sleep,
and I thought about ghosts.
One night I got up and went to the river.
Under the moon,
the river was moving,
white where the water caught on the rocks
and curled into froth.
I went to the shallowest place.
I walked into the wet. And farther in
till my knees tingled with cold.
The pebbles were hard under the arches of my feet,
the mud soft on my toes.
I walked deeper
till the water was up to my chest.
There was one place close to the bank
where the river curved,
and a tree root snagged into the water.
I clutched it, lifted my feet,
felt the river pull against my skin —
I held on to the root,
swayed,
rocked myself in the cold current.
I knew if water covered my face,
I could drown. So I held on tight.
I went back the next night and the next.
Each night I tried to swim.
I gripped that root, and bobbed, and thrashed;
I didn’t like the water on my face,
or up my nose. It made me snort and choke.
I pawed
