The Oracle of Cumae

by Melissa Hardy

  “It was Phoebus Apollo who fell in love with me—the sun god. And not that silly Roman sun god either. Not Helios. He was but a poor cousin to Phoebus Apollo, the Greek god of the sun. Magnificent. Fundamental. If he had been a man, I would have said, ‘What a man!’ But he was not a man, now was he? No, he was not. He was more. And he was my lord. Because I am a Hellene, after all. A Greek. Cumae was a Greek settlement, an outpost. From Cumae we Greeks spread east and south, throughout the boot of Italy and into Sicilia. But as for me, my home was Cumae and I had the most cunning little cave hollowed out of the rock beneath the acropolis, beneath the temple to Phoebus Apollo and it was there that I prophesied the fates of kings and kingdoms in riddles and conundrums—there that I met with Aeneas and Tarquin and all those other fools.

  “Finally, after much flirtation and dalliance, it came down to this: Phoebus Apollo offered me anything if only I would be his. And he was in a position to give me anything, not to mention that he was amazingly good looking, ladies, and, being the sun god, full of fire! We were at the seashore at the time—the Tyrrhenian Sea—and I scooped up a handful of sand and said to him, ‘Give me as many birthdays as I hold grains of sand in my hand.’

  “‘But don’t you want eternal youth as well?’ he asked, and I…I was young and foolish. I just laughed at him and shook my head and fluttered away down the beach, beautiful as a butterfly, thinking as I bounced along how fetching I must look from behind (for I must advise all of you that, whether going or coming, the view when it came to little me, was always delightful). I was determined to remain a maiden, you see, for no Oracle is not, and besides, I liked myself as I was. I did not wish to turn into a wild boar or a sea urchin. Not for a moment of ecstasy.

  “The upshot of all this was that, despite repeated attempts on his part to convince me otherwise, I never surrendered myself to him. I have remained a maiden to this day, if a person without a body can be said to be a maiden. The curious thing was that although I did not grant his wish, he granted mine. He gave me as many years of life as there were grains of sand in that fistful of beach I had scooped up from the seashore. I don’t know how many grains of sand there actually were—at least twenty-five hundred, for I am that old and more—but, being a god, I suppose he must have had a pretty good idea. Or perhaps he just came up with a number. Guessed. It is hard to know what a god knows. They play their cards close to their chests.

  “As for why he granted my wish…that I didn’t understand for many, many years. I thought it was because I was his favorite, his darling. I thought it was because I was special. Then, finally, I understood. It was his revenge on me.

  “The years came and went, and I grew old and withered and stooped and crabbed—the way all old women do. The difference was that eventually old women die. Death puts an end to their shrinking. But not mine. For me there was no end. And you can only shrink so much, after all. Centuries came and went and, with their passage, I grew smaller and smaller until some nine hundred or so years ago, I disappeared altogether. All except, for my voice.”

  Lady Sibylla fell silent for a moment, as if overcome with the misery of such an existence. Or, possibly, for effect.

  “Go on, Lady!” Mama encouraged her. “We are hanging on your every word!”

  “Yes, please! Please go on!” the Montemonaci joined in. “Your story is most fascinating!”

  “Ah, well.” The Oracle sighed. “If only I had asked for eternal youth to go with my years! If only I had not been so arrogant! True, the fire of a god’s touch did not set me ablaze and consume me in an instant of unbearable rapture. Neither was I transformed into a tree or a bird or a star or an estuary. I was not so lucky. I was not so smart. For that would have been the preferred way to go. I see that now—if I can be said to see, but I do, you see. I see each and every one of you. I see the house. I see the wine press. And that is very odd because, of course, I have no eyes. How can I see without eyes? I have no earthly idea. Suffice it to say that I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve kicked myself for not following Apollo’s suggestion, for not asking for eternal youth to go with all those years. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  Lady Sibylla paused. It was a poignant pause, soaked in regret. Then she continued, “If I am wise, Montemonaci, and you of all people on earth know that I am, it is a wisdom born of rue. Of remorse, of deepest regret. That is the mother of wisdom—what might have been, what one passed up, what is gone and will never again be. I made a bad choice and as a result, here I am today, a disembodied voice shut up in an old Phoenician jug, at the mercy of men whose understanding of how the universe is ordered is no better than that of termites and swallows. Were it not for you good people—the Umbellini and the Iannazzi and the Stracchi and the Di Nardi and the rest of you, who have, over the years and the centuries, become my people, my paesani…”

  At this the Oracle, overcome with emotion, broke off, unable to continue. Sniffling and choking sounds emanated from the jug.

  We all looked at one another, wondering what we could possibly do, what in the world we might say that would bring comfort to an Old One.

  “Make way! Make way!”

  The crowd parted to allow our parish priest of Sant’Agata a passage through. A short, misshapen man in a rumpled cassock, Padre Antonio was thickly built with powerful hands, sparse hair, and eyes that looked like marbles in their thick cataract casings. He carried a cane, so as to better navigate a world that he perceived only as a series of blurred shapes. “Do you recognize me, Milady?” His tone was deferential, his voice soft.

  “Is that…is that little Antonio?” the Oracle asked.

  “It is!”

  “I remember! You were that boy! The one they call ‘bold.’ The one who stole Enzo the Tinker’s eye patch. Oh, but your poor mother was undone! Beside herself. Tell me. Did your eyes ever un-curdle?”

  “It’s him! It’s him!” the children cried. “The bold boy! Padre Antonio is the bold boy!”

  The priest shook his head. “No, Milady, they never did.”

  “But a priest, Antonio? How could you betray me by joining the ranks of those sworn to destroy me?”

  Padre Antonio shrugged. “What is a village without a priest? If I hadn’t stepped forward, the bishop would have sent a stranger into our midst, someone who did not know our ways, who didn’t understand the fealty we owe to you. Before Padre Ignatio died, he and I talked it over. We thought it was a good solution. After all, what kind of farmer would I have made—a blind man? But no matter, Milady, I will always be on your side no matter what, and what I wish to tell you is this: We are deeply honored by your presence among us and look forward to restoring you to your rightful place.” At this he executed a clumsy, lopsided bow and shuffled backward.

  “Thank you, Antonio,” the Oracle said with a catch in her voice. “Thank you, everybody.” Then, moments later, once she had recovered herself, “But you know, when I think about it, there really is no pressing reason for me to return to the mountain just yet. After all, I’ve been a long time underground and it would be good to see the sun and to have some company other than foolish snakes. Perhaps I shall stay the summer or maybe into the fall. Let’s play it by ear.”

  There was a moment of silence, then someone (who knows who it was) began to clap, followed by someone else and someone else. Those who were lying down sat up, and those who were sitting down stood up, and children were hoisted onto shoulders, and babies were held aloft. In a matter of moments everyone in Montemonaco was clapping and cheering and throwing their caps into the air. The dogs were barking excitedly and lunging about, and everyone was crying, “Bravo! Long live the Lady Sibylla! Long live the Oracle of Monte Vettore!”

  My mother turned to my father and I saw her mouth the words, “Exactly what I did not want to happen! Mark my words. We’re in for it now!”

  The following day, unbeknownst to anyone else, my mother consulted the Ora
cle in private regarding a love potion. “I hope you will not take offence, dear Lady, but I wish to bind my eldest daughter to Prior Bacigalupo,” she said. “It’s probably unnecessary; the man appears smitten. But Montemonaco is far from Casteldurante and, you know—out of sight, out of mind.”

  “I am astonished that you should wish to form a liaison with the sort of person who goes around blowing up the homes of elderly persons much his superior and whom he does not know,” Sibylla said stiffly. Then, “Is he so very rich, then?”

  “So it would seem,” replied my mother.

  The Oracle sighed, “Well, in that case…perhaps your Concetta will make him miserable. That would afford me a degree of comfort. For starters, you’ll need some hair from their heads. Hair is essential for a binding spell.”

  Mama retrieved from her apron pocket a handkerchief folded into four quadrants. She carefully unfolded it, revealing a small lock of oily black hair. “I took the precaution of relieving him of this while he was sleeping off the mistà that first night,” she said, feeling rather proud of herself. “Just in case.”

  “And your daughter’s hair?” asked the Oracle.

  “I harvested some from her hairbrush.”

  “Well, then, this is what you must do.”

  Mama took careful notes, frequently asking the Oracle to repeat herself, especially when it came to the words that she must intone, for these were in Etruscan, a language so ancient that it predated Latin and was understood by no living being.

  Late the following Friday night (for the spell to work, it had to be cast on a Friday), and long after everyone in our household had gone to sleep, my mother rose from her and my father’s bed. Taking a candle and a flint, she made her way to the oak cabinet, from which she retrieved a stone mortar, her notes, and the rest of the ingredients she had set aside to affect the spell. She stole outside to the pergola. It was a clear night, always good for magic, with a sliver of bright moon dangling as if from a thread in a deep blue, star-spangled sky.

  Lighting the candle, she set it on the table next to the oven and peered once again at her notes. She tied the hairs she had plucked from Cesare’s head together with those she had retrieved from Concetta’s brush. She placed the bundled hairs, a single bay leaf, and a pinch of verbena in the mortar and set the mortar’s contents afire with the candle, all the while intoning the proscribed charm: “Ca suthi nesl amcie titial can l restias cal ca rathsle aperuce n ca thui ceshu lusver etva capuvane caresi carathsle.”

  “I hope my pronunciation wasn’t too far off,” she worried, then shrugged. “Well, if it was, it’s too late now.” She stood there in silence for a few moments before wiping the mortar clean, stuffing her notes into her apron pocket, and returning to the farmhouse and my father’s rumpled, dream-drenched bed. Little did she know that the hairs she had plucked from Concetta’s hairbrush did not in fact belong to her elder daughter, but to an interloper, a thief. In a word—me.

  When at length Cesare Bacigalupo arrived at our doorstep a second time, he bore with him many gifts—sugarplums and sweetmeats for my brothers, ribbons and trinkets for Concetta and me, a box of fine cigars for Papa, and for my mother, a black lace mantilla. He wore the same clothes as on his previous trip—black lederhosen, white shirt, red tie, and green felt hat—on the grounds that a man who has come courting must look his best and that the lederhosen not only showed what were, in his opinion, quite shapely calves off to good advantage, but also distracted viewers from the widening midriff that was his secret despair. In his breast pocket nestled a little velvet box containing the diamond ring his father had presented to his mother on their engagement and his grandfather to his grandmother and so forth.

  As for what was in his heart, who could say what exactly that was? Shortly after he had left Montemonaco, he had resolved to return and ask for Concetta’s hand in marriage. However, for several weeks now, he had been bedeviled by thoughts and dreams not of Concetta, but of her grubby, boyish little sister—of me. He knew that this was wrong—in fact, that it was ridiculous! He couldn’t so much as remember my name, much less summon an image of my face in his mind. And yet he could not stop thinking about me. Upon setting out on this journey, he had thought to while away the days sorting out exactly what his intentions were—and to whom they were directed. To get it straight. Despite his every effort, however, all he had succeeded in doing over the last several days was to further confuse himself, so that by the time he reached Montemonaco, he had no more precise an idea of his heart’s desire than when he had left Casteldurante.

  Cesare’s arrival was greeted by my family with a degree of excitement that bordered on sheer hysteria, fueled by my sister and my parents’ burning desire—and their absolute expectation—that the purpose of his journey was to ask for her hand in marriage. My mother had managed to keep the fact that she had cast a spell on the Prior a secret from Concetta, not wishing to raise her hopes unduly or to imply that her charms in and of themselves were insufficient to attract so worthy a swain. But Mama had not lasted a day before confiding in Papa.

  The Prior was immediately entreated to join the family for dinner. When he agreed, Concetta and my mother fell to preparing the meal as if they were going to war, ferociously dismembering two rabbits that my father had snared that morning, wedges of onions and fennel and bits of carrots flying in all directions.

  While this culinary frenzy was going on, Concetta kept stealing sideways glances over her shoulder at Cesare, who sat with Papa in front of the house. Whenever she happened to catch his eye, she bit her lip and blushed as red as a rose.

  As for me, also in the dark as to my mother’s recent magical machinations, I dutifully followed her barked instructions, but with considerably less enthusiasm than Concetta. After all (or so I thought), none of this had anything to do with me. Little did I know that Cesare, despite his every effort, was having enormous difficulty keeping his eyes off of me, never mind how very pretty Concetta was and how receptive to his advances she clearly would be.

  And it was not only his eyes. His thoughts circled me as incessantly, as compulsively as water circles a drain down which it is being sucked. While Concetta was stealing glances at him, he was stealing glances at me, his hungry eyes devouring my unruly mop of hair, my brown and slightly grainy complexion, the stubbiness of my fingers, the grubby nails bitten to the quick, and the flatness of my chest.

  Dinner, when it finally materialized, was so fraught with pent-up emotion and expectation that Cesare at first found himself unable to eat, then horribly unable not to eat, with the result that he had to go to the latrine and take off his corset, which he secreted in a nearby hazelnut bush.

  Finally, after dinner, Cesare said to Papa, “I say, old fellow, why don’t you and I go for a little stroll?” He could not for the life of him understand why he was so nervous. After all, what were the chances Papa would turn down his proposal? None, surely. After all, Cesare was a wealthy man with much to offer. Where in this remote and desert place would there be a suitor who could offer his daughter so much? Retrieving his red handkerchief from his pocket, Cesare mopped his dripping forehead. Why was he sweating so profusely? Why did his hands tremble and his teeth chatter and his bare knees knock? What in Heaven’s name was wrong with him?

  Papa and Mama exchanged a quick conspiratorial glance. She nodded. He smiled. “A fine idea!” my father agreed. “There’s quite the view of the valley from just beyond the olive grove. On a clear day, one can see the Adriatic.”

  “You don’t say!” Cesare sounded worried.

  My father shrugged. “Today it’s a little hazy, but who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Tucking a bottle of mistà under his arm and two of the fine cigars the Prior had given him into his pocket, he picked up two glasses and ambled off toward the olive grove in his bow-legged way with Cesare weaving alongside him, looking more stunned than drunk.

  When they were out of earshot, I elbo
wed Concetta. “Your lover is fat!” I hissed. I’m afraid I was a little envious of my sister at that moment. Not because I wanted the Prior for myself, but because I thought she was getting far too much attention.

  Concetta flushed angrily. “He is not!”

  “Is so! That big belly and those spindly legs! He looks like a giant pigeon.” And I imitated Cesare’s strut-waddle, feet turned out, chin tucked under, chest thrust out.

  Concetta slapped me on the shoulder—once and quickly, so that Mama wouldn’t see. “You’re just jealous! You’re mad at me because you’ll never, ever in a thousand years have so fine a suitor as Signor Bacigalupo!”

  “I hope I don’t! What on earth would I do with such a pompous ass?”

  “Shush! Enough of that kind of talk!” Mama snapped. “As for you terrible little boys…” Seizing her broom, she brandished it at my brothers. They were engaged in a free-for-all, pummeling one another and shrieking. “If you don’t stop this dreadful commotion at once, not even the Queen of Heaven would hold me accountable for what I will do to you!” She rushed into their midst, swinging the broom like a club. The boys scattered, whooping and laughing.

  By this time, Cesare and Papa had reached the olive grove. Papa gestured for the Prior to sit on a rock wall, then took his place beside him, placing the bottle of mistà between them. “See!” my father said, pointing to the valley down below. “That is Ascoli Picene and there, to the south, Folignano. Look! You see that river there? It is the Tronto. And that boil of blue mist? Ah, yes, fine sir, now that is the Adriatic Sea.”

  But Cesare was too distracted to fully appreciate the view. Not only was his belly churning in a faintly menacing way, he had, over the last several minutes, also become aware of a distinct ringing in his ears. This ringing not only made my father sound as though he was speaking to him from the bottom of a deep well, it also made the Prior woozy. It’s the altitude, he told himself. But how could that be? He had experienced no such discomfort on either his first trip up Monte Vettore, nor up until that very moment. Determined to equalize the pressure in his ears, he pinched his nostrils and swallowed hard. When this didn’t work, he blew his nose. When that didn’t work, he tipped his head to the right and proceeded to whack himself just above the left ear with the heel of his hand until his ears popped.