“How can you sleep, Achilles? You were my loyal friend in life, but not in death. I am left wandering outside the gates of Hades; the shades of dead heroes and kings will not let me enter, because you have not burned my body. Give me your hand for one last time. You also have a fate that awaits you, but promise me that you will preserve my ashes in the same golden urn that is meant for you. Do not let me lie far from you!”
Thus spoke Patroclus in the dream. Achilles reached up to embrace his friend, but there was nothing to embrace. This emptiness was so palpable that it woke him, just as silence can sometimes be louder than howling wolves.
The day dawned behind Mount Ida, shimmering like a bride on the way to her wedding. Agamemnon kept his promise. His men were already busy felling young and mature oaks, then chopping them into logs that would burn easily before piling them up in the place Achilles had chosen.
Then Achilles ordered the Myrmidons to put on their armor and harness the horses to the chariots. They led the parade, followed by thousands of foot soldiers, like a brown cloud. The bier was carried by four great warriors, and the body was covered in hair. All of the Achaeans, who were known for wearing their hair long, had cut their locks and thrown them on the corpse.
Achilles was supporting his friend’s head so that he could personally hand him over to death. When they reached the pyre he cut off a lock of his own thick golden hair and placed it in Patroclus’s stiff hands.
Many wept, and they would weep until the sun went down on their grief, but Achilles asked Agamemnon to send the troops back to their ships to have their evening meal.
Only Patroclus’s closest friends stayed behind. With great sadness they lifted his body onto the pyre, which was almost twelve feet wide and twelve feet high. They then slaughtered a large number of sheep and oxen. Achilles smeared the corpse with fat from the animals and piled their flayed bodies around Patroclus. He added urns filled with oil and honey, followed by four horses. But that wasn’t enough. He cut the throats of two of his nine dogs, which he was in the habit of feeding at his table.
But the worst, the most shameful task remained. A short distance from the pyre were the twelve young Trojans Achilles had taken from the river. They had been watching the proceedings with growing terror. When they were little they had no doubt dreamed of becoming heroes, admired and loved by beautiful women, being the subject of songs and exciting tales. Now they were sitting on the soft sand with their hands and feet bound, close to one another yet not together. Each was thinking about his own family or his sweetheart. Each was thinking about his own death. They would have no grave, their living bodies would turn to ashes. That was what they were thinking, and they wept quietly. They knew that nothing and no one could help them.
Not many people are adept in the art of cutting the throat of a goat or a sheep. Even fewer can slit the throat of a human being with one stroke, but Achilles could, and he was the cruelest of them all. One by one the young Trojans were brought to him as he stood there, legs wide apart, his sharp sword in his hand. He wanted to look them in the eye. He wanted them to look him in the eye. He wanted to be the last thing they saw.
And he was.
Their blood spurted over him, but he continued, possessed by an unholy rage. Even some of the older leaders thought he had gone too far, but they said nothing.
Finally he picked up two burning torches, one in each hand, and shouted as loudly as he could so that his dead friend would be able to hear him: “Hail to you, Patroclus; may you enter the Kingdom of the Dead. I have fulfilled all the promises I made to you. Twelve young sons of noble Trojan houses will keep you company in the flames. But not your murderer. The dogs will feed on Hector.”
It was the strangest thing: The fire refused to catch, and the dogs wouldn’t touch Hector’s corpse.
The gods must have loved him very much, Achilles thought, feeling something that was close to sympathy for the man he had defiled so grossly.
The lull didn’t last for long. Suddenly a strong wind blew up; this was quite common along the coast of Troy. It had gained speed as it passed through the narrow sound farther up and came in fierce gusts. Sometimes they lasted for only a few minutes, sometimes days and nights on end. This time the gale went on for hours, causing the fire to burn with great ferocity. Achilles watched over the blaze all night, wetting the ground with wine to prevent it from spreading. From time to time he sat down and wept loudly.
When the morning star rose in the sky, the pyre had collapsed and the fire was almost extinguished. The wind abated, but out at sea the waves were still high. Achilles was exhausted after all the slaughtering and his long vigil, and he lay down for a while. Slumber came to him, padding softly like a cat, and he was asleep before he even knew it.
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Miss decided to stop there for the day.
“We will let Achilles rest for a while. Tomorrow is another day,” she said. She was tired. So were we.
Dimitra and I left together, but instead of going straight home we went via the square. The German captain was sitting with the mayor, while Wolfgang and Erich were at another table.
They were losing the war, and it showed. Their uniforms hadn’t been pressed and there were holes in the soles of their unpolished boots.
In some ways we felt sorry for them.
“They’re not much older than us,” Dimitra said.
At that moment Miss appeared, and the two young men both got to their feet. She smiled and joined them.
She suddenly looked happy.
But as she’d said, tomorrow was another day, and no one knew how that day would go.
Dimitra stared at her as if she were under a spell.
“I wish I was as brave as her,” she said.
We didn’t stay long in the square. When we were about to go our separate ways under the mulberry tree, Dimitra said no one was home at her house. Her mother was visiting her own mother in the next village, and her father was in the taverna.
I heard what she said and I knew what she meant. Did I dare to go with her? I was in love with someone else. I was in love with Miss, who was sitting outside a café with two German pilots. She wasn’t in love with me, but that was her problem. Not mine.
So I went home. My mother was waiting for me; she had seen the poster about the two hundred prisoners who had been executed, but something told her that her husband wasn’t one of them.
Who was she trying to convince? Me or herself?
“I’m sure you’re right, Mom. Dad’s alive. Just like you and me.”
She’d had me when she was eighteen years old. She was thirty-three now, and I almost felt as if we were the same age.
“Mom, I’m in love,” I said.
She leaped to her feet.
“With Dimitra?” she said, her voice full of warmth.
When I saw her happiness, I didn’t want to cloud it. I didn’t say “yes” and I didn’t say “no.”
Instead I just said, teasingly, “Who knows?”
MY GRANDMOTHER HAD MADE a decision. She was going to set off and find out where my father was being held, if he was still alive. She couldn’t allow her daughter to live in a state of uncertainty. My grandfather tried to persuade her to stay home.
“It’s too dangerous out there, my Maria,” he said.
He was right. In the final days of the war, Greece was a slaughterhouse. The Germans executed people, their Greek collaborators executed people, the resistance movement executed people. However, my grandmother said she could no longer watch her daughter wasting away in sorrow.
She was small and skinny, my grandmother, always in a black dress. Toothless, with breathing difficulties and a cough. But off she went. Her provisions consisted of an onion, a few olives, and a piece of bread. My mother and I said goodbye to her early in the morning.
“Grandma is a saint,
” Mom said. For some reason I’d counted the olives she’d taken with her. Seven small wrinkled olives. Back then I had no idea that I would never forget it. That as a grown man many years later, I would always have seven olives with my breakfast. No more, no less. But on that particular day I was in a rush to get to school to hear the next part of Miss’s story.
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Achilles hadn’t finished mourning. In spite of all the animals he’d slaughtered, in spite of the twelve young Trojans he’d sacrificed. Their mothers’ wailing and lamenting could be heard across the plain and caused many hard-bitten warriors to pause for a moment and consider the insanity of war and Achilles’s immeasurable grief. There was one last thing that could be done: funeral games in memory of the deceased.
There were plenty of prizes, everything from gold to women with multicolored girdles. There were competitions in boxing, wrestling, running, spear throwing, and chariot racing. The outcome was the same as it always was when the Achaeans competed among themselves: cheating and disputes, false accusations, dirty tricks, insults, and corrupt officials.
Odysseus managed to bring down mighty Ajax in a wrestling bout by kicking him on the legs—which was forbidden—and came second in running even though he was the oldest. He had taken a short cut. Only in boxing was the victory crystal clear, because the winner simply killed his opponent with a series of repeated blows to the head.
Agamemnon won the spear throwing without even competing, because everyone knew he was the best, but to his credit he gave the prize to his herald.
At least the games provided good entertainment for the troops and a welcome break from the battle.
Evening came, and the men returned to their ships and tents to eat and sleep.
Achilles didn’t want to eat, and he couldn’t sleep. Briseis was waiting in his tent, but he lay on the shore tossing and turning, weeping and howling, then got up and wandered around as if he were trying to get away from himself. He thought about all the occasions when he and Patroclus had fought side by side, running through enemy lines or sailing on stormy seas.
That was how he spent the night, and when dawn came he tied Hector’s body to his chariot and drove three times around Patroclus’s funeral mound. This made him feel a little better, and he went back to his tent to rest. He stank of blood, sweat, and horse.
Briseis could no longer keep quiet.
“I don’t recognize you. For days now you have wept and killed, killed and wept. You have defiled Hector, who did what you should have done: defended his people and his city. He was your equal, but the gods were on your side and you defeated him. You ought to let his wife and son, his mother and father, his friends and the people of Troy see him again, say their goodbyes, mourn him, and burn him on a pyre as befits a man who gave his life for them. It is a good thing to be gracious in the hour of defeat, but it is even better to be gracious in the hour of victory. I have heated the water. Go and wash yourself, and come back to me as the man I know. You have not lain with me since my return. Vengeance is more attractive to you than I am. Last night when I slept for a little while, Zeus came to me in a dream and spoke very clearly: ‘Tell Achilles that it is not human to grieve so much. Life comes and life goes. His too. Tell him to return Hector’s body to his family and his people rather than leaving his corpse rotting by the ships. Otherwise he will arouse my anger, and neither he nor anyone else, mortal or immortal, wants to do that.’ ”
Achilles listened to her, not because he wanted to but because he couldn’t help it. Her clear voice washed away the noise of battle, the animalistic affirmation of all the killing. He wanted to be a man again, the man she recognized.
“I will do as you wish,” he said, stepping into the warm water. Briseis washed him from top to toe as his mother used to do when he was a child.
In the arms of a woman we all become little children, he thought before falling into a deep sleep.
Briseis took this as a sign and didn’t waste time hesitating. She dressed in a soft, shimmering black robe that reached down to her well-turned ankles. A servant saddled up the horse Achilles had given her, a young stallion from Argos, city of the swift horses. She set off for Troy with the sun at her back. As she approached the Gate of the Shadows she could hear the sound of weeping and wailing from Priam’s palace. The guards led her to him.
He was sitting in the great hall with the members of his family who had been spared by the war so far: his younger sons and daughters, his daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren. Paris was the only one of his grown-up sons who was still alive, but he was with the army.
Helen wasn’t there either; she was alone in her room. How could she bring herself to be with the others? How could she possibly console Andromache? Did she even have the right to try? The guilt and shame grew in her heart like a tumor. So many people had died because of the love she and Paris shared. She couldn’t eat, drink, sleep, or wake up properly. Even Paris’s caresses disgusted her. His hands felt as repulsive as snakes on her body. When she was still living in Sparta, she had once seen the skin of a snake. It was exactly like the reptile itself, but the snake was gone. That was how she felt now, as if she were leaving her body and her senses.
The old king’s face, smeared with earth, ash, and tears, had stiffened in a mask of grief and horror. The women around him mourned their husbands, the children their fathers.
“Are you bringing more bad news, my daughter?” Priam said to Briseis. He had known her ever since she was a little girl; her father had been a good friend of his. She was a king’s daughter who had become a captive and a slave.
“My king, I bring a message from Achilles. He has agreed to hand over Hector’s body to you, and he will accept the gifts you offer him in return. But there is one condition.”
“I will do anything,” Priam said.
“You must go to Achilles’s tent alone. You may take one elderly unarmed servant to drive your chariot, but no one else. He promises that he will not lay a hand on you; he has changed his mind and wants Hector to be honored as befits him. Take the sturdiest cart with the most ornate wheels to convey your gifts to Achilles and your son’s body back to the city. You have nothing to fear. He has enough sense not to harm a defenseless old man.”
Priam wanted to set off immediately, but thought he ought to discuss the matter with his wife first. She was totally against the idea.
“You have no reason whatsoever to trust that murderer,” she said.
But Priam had made up his mind.
“If I can just see my most beloved son one last time, I don’t care if I die in the attempt.”
He wasn’t only grieving; he was also angry. Suddenly it seemed to him that all his other sons, and indeed all the other Trojans, had no right to live when the best among them was gone. He sent everyone out of the great hall; it plagued him to see them, to hear their whining voices.
“You are not warriors! You are better suited to life as dancers, or sheep and goat thieves! Get out of my sight!”
They had never seen Priam so furious, and slunk off with their tails between their legs. He calmed down a little and ordered the cart to be prepared and laden with all the costly gifts he was going to take to Achilles. There was gold and silver, there were exquisite bowls and amphorae, finely woven fabrics, and a pair of beautiful horses that he himself had raised.
He was about to leave when Hecuba emerged from her room with a golden jug of sweet wine and exhorted him to offer a libation to almighty Zeus.
Priam softened. He had lost most of his sons, but they were Hecuba’s sons too. In fact they were more her sons than his. She had carried them in her body, fed them at her breasts, comforted them when they hurt themselves. One thing was certain: His pain could not be greater than hers.
A serving girl brought fresh water from the spring. Priam washed his hands, poured wine onto the altar in the middle
of the courtyard, then prayed with his gaze fixed on Mount Ida, which was visible in the distance and hid the rising sun.
“Glorious and almighty Zeus! Send me your eagle, your black messenger, as a sign of Achilles’s goodwill. Let it appear from the right and fly over my home, so that I may face my son’s killer with trust in my heart.”
As he finished speaking the great bird soared across the sky from the right, to the joy of Hecuba and everyone else.
And so Priam and his servant left the city, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad was going to befall them. They rode for many hours; the mules pulling the cart were patient but not swift. The horses drawing Priam’s chariot were swift but not as patient. It was time to let them drink and rest. The two men also slept for a little while, and in his dream Priam saw black dogs tearing Hector to pieces; that strong body was no more than a bloody rag. He cried out in his sleep, waking both himself and the servant, who asked what was wrong. The old king had tears in his eyes and couldn’t bring himself to explain.
“We must hurry,” was all he said.
It was late and very dark when they reached the Achaean camp. The surly guards refused to let them pass, but the servant persuaded them with a handful of gold coins.
Everywhere was in darkness. The army was sleeping, gathering strength for a decisive onslaught on Troy now that Hector was gone. But in one tent—the largest of them all—a light glowed.
Priam left his servant to watch over the horses and the cart laden with gifts, then he took a deep breath and walked into the tent.
Achilles was feasting with a group of comrades. They had eaten and drunk, bragged shamelessly, and shared coarse jokes. Briseis was the only woman present, and the old king didn’t hesitate.
The Siege of Troy Page 13