Odysseus: The Return

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘He’s a handsome boy indeed. You should see him. He’s a little taller than his father was and well built with a thin waist and broad shoulders. His eyes are dark and deep like his mother’s, and he gets irritated like she does if you rub him the wrong way. I know him well and I can see right away if he’s feeling moody. If it’s one of those days, I take him over to see Philoetius, if he’s got a newborn calf, or we go hunting wood pigeons with a bow and arrow, or he’ll help me plant an olive tree. He likes to watch me while I’m working. He’s got a generous heart. He thinks of me as . . . I don’t know, an uncle. Someone he cares about. Every now and then he’ll bring a gift for me, carry it over himself. When he comes to dinner, once or twice a month, he never arrives empty-handed. He has an amphora of special wine from Same or Corinth sent over, or a wheel of goat cheese. The cloak I lent you last night? He gave it to me.’

  ‘So his father would be proud of him.’

  ‘You can say that again, more than proud. That boy is a treasure. What vexes him most, besides what he sees going on in his house, is never having known his father. You can tell he misses him awfully, especially now that he has these arrogant bastards invading the palace. A boy shouldn’t have to watch his mother cry without having the means to defend her.’

  I turned to poke at the fire so he wouldn’t see my face. A cloud of sparks rose towards the opening in the middle of the roof.

  ‘He’s never felt so alone as he does now,’ he continued. ‘The company of a swineherd is certainly not the best you could wish on a prince and a boy his age. His grandfather, King Laertes, left the palace long ago to live on his farm in the country. All told, it’s better he did. If he had remained, blood would be spilling.’

  ‘Doesn’t he remember anything about his father?’

  ‘He was too young when his father left for the war.’

  ‘Does he ever ask you about him?’

  ‘Oh, sure. What were Odysseus’ eyes like, what was his hair like, was he good with a spear and a sword, was he as clever as everyone says, what did he like to eat, did he like hunting wood pigeons . . .’ Eumeus went to the door. ‘It’s better that I go and put the piglets under the sows. I don’t trust the farm hands. They get distracted so easily. I don’t want any of the sucklings to be crushed.’ He went out.

  I spent the next few days with him, and every evening we’d stay up late talking and drinking wine for as long as the fire lasted. He recounted the complicated tale of how he’d ended up on Ithaca, one I’d heard ever since I was a child. How he’d been kidnapped by Phoenician merchants as a small boy. The son, back then, of a powerful and respected man, he was betrayed by his nurse, who had taken a bribe from the foreign sailors. I pretended to listen with great curiosity, and urged him on with my exclamations. We were good companions. It was a true novelty for him after the sole company of the stable boys who worked for him.

  Then one day at dawn, as soon as we’d got up, I told him that I could stay no longer, that I’d become as bad as the pretenders to the throne, living off his master’s bounty.

  ‘I thought I’d go to the palace and make myself useful there. I can serve at table. I know how to mix wine and carve meats . . .’

  ‘Are you crazy, old man? Don’t even think about it. Do you want to know what their servants are like? Boys from good families who they’ve brought along with them: educated, well-dressed, sweetly scented. They’d kick the life out of you, ragged as you are and reeking of the pigsty. Anyone who stays here longer than a day ends up smelling like a pig.’

  ‘All I know is that I’ve been here for days eating your bread and drinking your wine without being of any real help. I’m not so good at tending pigs. It’s like I told you: I was once a wealthy man, with servants and women and a magnificent house. But I want to thank you. I’ll never forget your hospitality. You took me in without even knowing who I was, you fed me and sheltered me from the biting cold. I may stink now but that’s easily taken care of. I’ll just stop at the spring near crow’s rock and wash.’

  Eumeus was about to answer when he abruptly held his finger to his lips. The dogs outside were signalling someone’s arrival.

  ‘Who could it be?’ I asked.

  ‘Listen, they’re not barking like they did with you. They’re yelping, it’s someone they recognize. There’s only one person they’d be so happy to see: the master’s son. It’s Telemachus! He’s made it back safely! May the gods be praised . . .’

  He ran outside. I heard shouts of joy, voices raised in greeting . . . the voice of a young man, strong and deep. It was the first time I’d heard the true voice of my son!

  They entered straight away and my heart leapt in my chest. I swiftly rose to my feet but Telemachus said: ‘Don’t get up, foreigner, Eumeus will find me another stool.’ I couldn’t believe that my son was talking to me. My son! I started trembling as I never had before and when Eumeus entered with a bundle of sticks and a sheep’s skin he looked at me and asked: ‘Are you all right, my friend?’

  I mumbled an excuse and left them. I couldn’t bear for my son to see me in that state. I went out of the small back door, rounded the stables and hurried to crow’s rock. There was a stream flowing from the spring where the flocks came to drink. I washed myself and my hair, combing through it with my fingers. As I was about to go back, I spied a long white tunic and a lovely cloak hanging on the branch of an olive tree. Who could they belong to? I put them on and returned to Eumeus’ house. My heart was pounding hard enough to suffocate me, even harder than when, biting my lip, I would wait unflinching for the order to attack the enemy army on the fields of Troy.

  As I retraced my steps I caught a glimpse of the shepherd boy, among the trunks of the centuries-old olive trees, taking his goats to pasture. It was my goddess, restoring the look and the vigour of a king in me, so I could face my son after twenty years gone.

  I entered through the main door so I wouldn’t have to bend in two. Eumeus, who was carrying a basket of bread, turned to stone at the sight of me. He regarded me without saying a word. Perhaps he couldn’t understand or perhaps he understood too well. But my eyes were for the boy. I needed to fill my heart with the image that I’d so often tried to dream up on those solitary nights in distant lands, in anguished exile, on the vast, insurmountable sea.

  ‘Who are you, foreigner?’ he asked me, seemingly amazed at my appearance.

  I prayed that my heart not fail me and took a step towards him. I’d been asked that question so many times and had answered in so many ways – a wanderer who has no country and no shelter is everyone and no one. But I – who had always had so many tales ready to tell – could not find a word to break the silence. The boy continued to look at me, curious and perplexed.

  I opened my mouth finally and said: ‘I am—’

  ‘He’s your father,’ said Eumeus. ‘He could never hide his emotion when he spoke of you – tears glittered in his eyes as they do now that you stand before him. And just before you came in, he mentioned a place that no foreigner new to this island could possibly know: crow’s rock. Now that he looks like a king or a god of the heavens, I recognize him without any doubt. He is your father, Telemachus. Your father has returned after twenty years!’

  I suddenly found my words: ‘It’s me, son. I know that you aren’t ready to accept me yet, to recognize me. I’m simply a foreigner to you, a stranger. How often I’ve tried to imagine what you were like. With every year that passed I tried to let you grow inside me, in my heart, in my eyes. And now that I see you I feel that I’ve never been separated from you. I never wanted to leave you, son, I did everything I could not to leave you. When from my ship I watched the shore becoming more and more distant, your mother holding you in her arms becoming smaller and smaller, my heart broke. I can’t believe I’m standing here in front of you.’

  I opened my arms and, after a moment’s hesitation, he embraced me tightly. We stood there, unmoving, without saying a word. Everything was silent, I could see nothing and no one. Even
Eumeus had disappeared. We wept, father and son, in each other’s arms.

  ‘THERE’S SO much we have to talk about, son!’ I said when my tears had run out.

  He nodded, smiling. He seemed happy and he was much more handsome than I ever could have imagined.

  ‘Tell me where you’ve been,’ I said. ‘And why you left without saying a word. Eumeus tells me that your mother nearly went mad when you disappeared.’

  ‘It was Mentes, chief of the Taphians, who convinced me to go. He showed up here twenty days ago, unannounced. I told mai to receive him and we conversed for a while. But my mother’s suitors were making such a ruckus, arguing at the tops of their lungs as the servants were taking the animals to the courtyard so they could be slaughtered for the banquet . . . the pigs were squealing under the knife. I was ashamed that there was no place I could talk peacefully to a guest in my house.’

  ‘Mentes . . .’ I’d never heard the name before. But I thought of Mentor. Where was he?

  ‘It was he who urged me to leave and seek news of you. I thought that, if I could be certain that you were dead . . .’ he stared at me intensely, ‘I would have raised a mound on the seashore and allowed my mother to remarry.’

  ‘You’ll have to raise that mound some other time,’ I said. ‘And then? What else did he say? And what was the chief of a tribe of pirates doing in Ithaca?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he tried to convince me that you were still alive and that he was almost certain that you would return. Soon.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  ‘No . . . I’m not sure. But I thought his advice was good. I thought that living in uncertainty, without knowing, was worse than finding out bad news. I sailed for Pylos, where I met King Nestor.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘His face is ageless but the war plainly left its mark on him. When I tried to confide my anxiety, my sadness, my rage, all he could say was: “Just think of me. I had to watch my son Antilochus die.” He told me that he was killed by a black king called Memnon.’

  ‘It’s true. On that day long ago when I went to Pylos to call the princes to arms, Nestor claimed that he would never be able to let his son go to war while he stayed behind. He couldn’t bear the thought of scanning the sea day after day awaiting the boy’s return, and he insisted on coming as well, with the result that he watched Antilochus, his favourite son, die. Destiny always waits for us where it knows we will pass, my boy.’

  Telemachus gave me a searching look, as if trying to find the signs of the truth that he had never known in the lines of my face.

  ‘What else did he tell you?’ I asked.

  ‘That after the war you and he left Troy with the first group, following wanax Menelaus, while the others stayed behind with Agamemnon.’

  ‘And did he tell you that after passing Tenedos I turned back with my ships?’

  ‘He did.’ I could tell that each of my words was increasing his certainty that the man before him was his father. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you head back?’

  ‘It has to do with the saddest and most bitter moment of my life. Let me enjoy this moment of finding you again after so many years, pai . . .’ I called him with the same name my father had used with me and it still warms my heart to think about it.

  ‘After you turned back, with the wind against you and the sea in storm, he never saw you again.’

  ‘It’s true. When I finally started off again, the same north wind carried me far from Cape Malea into unknown waters . . .’

  ‘Go on, please. Don’t stop.’

  ‘No, you go on. I’ll have time to tell you about my wanderings. What happened after you spoke to Nestor?’

  ‘Wanax Nestor urged me to continue to Sparta. Rumour had it that Menelaus had just returned from a journey which had lasted years; he might have had news of you. He had his son Pisistratus take me on a four-horse chariot. We flew like the wind . . .’

  ‘Pisistratus . . . he was barely walking the first time I went to Pylos with my father. And now he’s driving a four-horse chariot!’

  ‘Yes. We became friends. He’s a good lad, generous as can be, but I wouldn’t want to find him against me on a battlefield! In Sparta, King Menelaus welcomed me like a son. He embraced me and told me how greatly he esteemed you, what a friend you were. He said that he’d hoped to give you a city near the sea so that you could spend the last years of your life close to him.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘He said he’d been to Egypt, where he had consulted the oracle of the Old Man of the Sea. The oracle revealed a prophetic vision: you were alive, but a prisoner in a place surrounded by the sea, without your ship or your comrades. There was no hope that you would return. Great sadness overcame us all, but Queen Helen had good wine served and that cheered us a bit and helped us to forget our melancholy.’

  ‘What else did Menelaus tell you?’

  ‘I believe he’s plotting to avenge the murder of his brother. Perhaps you don’t know: no sooner had wanax Agamemnon returned from Troy, than he was killed by Aegisthus, Queen Clytaemnestra’s lover. Menelaus is helping his nephew Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, to avenge his father and reconquer Mycenae. I believe a great war is in the offing.’

  His words brought to my mind the great king of the Achaians as I’d last seen him, a sad, angry ghost at the gates of Hades, and my heart froze.

  ‘Queen Helen gave me a finely embroidered peplum to give to my betrothed. When I find one, that is! She was gentle and kind to me, but you can see that she’s still tormented by remorse for the war she herself set off by fleeing with Paris to Troy. Before I left, the king showered me with gifts and we returned to Pylos where my ship was waiting for me. I asked Pisistratus to explain to his father Nestor that I couldn’t prolong my travels. I knew that if I so much as stepped into the palace, he would never have let me leave! They all showed me such affection. Perhaps they were thinking of you, Father, how you’d never returned, when they showered me with gifts and with kindness.

  ‘Then something strange happened. As my shipmates were about to cast off, a man approached the ship. He was a stranger to me, a fugitive. He blurted out that he’d killed a man and the relatives were pursuing him to get revenge. His name was Theoclymenus and he was asking for passage on our ship. He also told us that he was a seer who could look into the future. I told him he could come aboard, and now he’s down at the port with the others.’

  ‘That was rash of you, pai, the relatives of a dead man can be very violent with anyone who offers him shelter.’ We were both smiling. I’d come back after twenty years and here I was already scolding him.

  ‘Perhaps he’d killed to defend himself or because he was forced to do so. He struck me as a noble person; his eyes were dark and piercing, and I was fascinated by him. During the voyage we talked about many things, except the one thing that really interested me: you. What I wanted to ask him was: Where is my father? Will he ever come back? When? Or has he simply disappeared without a trace? Must I resign myself to the idea that he will never return? The words never came out of my mouth. I suppose I was afraid that the seer would tell me a truth that I didn’t want to hear, and I suppose he sensed that.’

  We fell silent for a while. From outside came the grunting of the pigs, the laughter of the farm hands and the voice of Eumeus ranting at them.

  ‘Tell me about your mother,’ I said.

  Telemachus lowered his gaze and turned his head away. The question I’d asked him was hard on his mind and on his heart.

  He answered: ‘She has always remained faithful to you. At first, when Laertes my grandfather was still living with us, it wasn’t so bad. We tried to get used to you being away, we knew you were at war and that the war wasn’t over. We had each other. Phemius told me stories, my mother spent a lot of time with us. Grandfather would take me up to the woods on top of Mount Neritus . . . once we got to the peak, we’d sit close and he would cover me with his cloak to protect me from the wind. We would wait for the sun to set,
for the sky to turn pink, then red, and the sea the colour of wine, and then we’d make our way back home, guided by the lights behind the windows of the great hall. I wanted so much to ask him: “When will Father be back?” but I knew it was forbidden, a question that gave everyone pain – Grandfather, Mother, even mai. I learned to keep quiet.

  ‘Once, from the mountain peak, I spotted a ship in the distance. It was approaching the island, its white sail billowing in the wind. I couldn’t help myself, I stretched out my arm and hand to point it out to my grandfather, and shouted:

  ‘ “Atta’s ship, atta’s ship!”

  ‘He looked at me with shiny eyes the colour of the sea. He answered: “That’s not atta’s ship, my boy. When it comes it’ll be from the opposite direction and there won’t be one alone, but a great many.” That never happened again. Whenever I saw a sail in the distance I’d bite my lip and keep my mouth closed.

  ‘Then news came that the war had ended and the agony of waiting became ever more acute, more painful. Whenever any wanderer happened by the palace or any merchant landed on our shores, my mother would ask if they had news of you. One day a group of ships sailed up and moored at the great port. The warrior who came ashore had powerful arms and a wide chest, and wore a red cloak on his shoulders. I thought it was you, I was certain of it, and I ran to the wharf. But I realized that no one had recognized him and I understood it couldn’t be you. But he recognized me. “You’re Telemachus,” he said.

  ‘I replied: “How do you know my name? I’ve never seen you.”

  ‘ “I knew your father, King Odysseus. I was his friend. You look like him, that’s how I recognized you.”

  ‘ “Do you know if my father’s coming back?” I asked him.

  ‘ “Of course,” said he, “and he’ll bring you beautiful gifts.” ’

  Telemachus broke off. He couldn’t continue his story and my heart was heavy as well.

  ‘What do you remember about him?’ I asked.