house and move in with me; she hadn’t even said whether or not she was coming to
Olbia with me.When the stage in the divorce proceedings came where she had to
leave, she moved back to her father’s house, much to his dismay, since he’d
recently remarried himself, so there wasn’t a vacancy for another female in what
was anyway a pretty small, hand-to-mouth household. I went to see him and put it
to him that her attitude wasn’t doing anybody any good; everything was a mess,
and the baby hadn’t even been born yet. After huffing and puffing for long
enough to make sure money changed hands, he agreed with me and said he’d see
what he could do to talk her round — an ambitious undertaking in which he was
entirely successful, achieving with two short words (‘Get out!’) what I’d failed
to do with several long and extremely well-phrased letters. In my own defence, I
should add that she hadn’t actually read my letters, mainly because she didn’t
know how to read. As an Athenian, of course, I’d just assumed... Well, I learned
one valuable lesson from the experience though, as you’ll see in due course, a
whole bunch of others were entirely wasted on me.
So Theano moved in, and things got very awkward. Now you, my worldly wise young
friend, will tell me that anybody with the sensitivity of a stale bun would
have realised long before this stage in the game that it wasn’t entirely
realistic of me to expect her to throw herself into my arms, in a passionate but
respectful manner (as befitting someone of her inferior social standing) and
thank me with shining eyes for rescuing her from a life of wretched drudgery and
lovelessness. And really, I wasn’t expecting that, exactly. Neither, however,
was I expecting a sharp blow on the side of my head from a hard-thrown pottery
cup.
‘What was that for?’ I asked, dabbing at the point of impact with my forefinger
to see if it was bleeding. ‘It was just a suggestion, that’s all.’
‘Go to hell,’ she replied.
I frowned. What we had here, I perceived, was a communications problem.
And no wonder. Bear in mind, please, that I was brought up in a traditional
Athenian family, and that my mother died when I was quite young. Consequently,
I’d never had much occasion to talk to women when I was growing up, and then my
wife died young too so I didn’t learn the language at that stage in my life,
which is when most men find themselves assimilating this uniquely challenging
skill. Also worth bearing in mind is the fact that I’d spent a very significant
part of my adult life talking to men (and on a competitive basis, at that). I
was, by any standards, a good debater, skilled in the logic-based, fundamentally
adversarial form which discussion or argument among men generally takes. I
imagined that you discussed things with women in basically the same way.
Wrong.
I suppose it’s a matter of upbringing as much as anything else; if we taught
little girls how to conduct a structured, logical argument in the same way we
teach little boys, maybe we wouldn’t run into these ghastly problems we tend to
come across on those occasions when we find ourselves with no choice but to try
to have sensible discussions with women. In practice in normal everyday life,
such a need arises so rarely that it wouldn’t begin to justify the amount of
effort involved, so we don’t bother. Upper-crust trophy wives need to be able to
talk intelligently, as do the really high-class prostitutes; otherwise it is
indeed a prodigious waste of time and resources.
(I’m aware, Phryzeutzis, that things are rather different here, and that men and
women share their lives, rather than living parallel lives under the same roof,
as we tend to do in Athens . I’m sorry to say, it’s an indication of how
primitive your culture really is. You see, the same symbiotic relationship does
indeed occur in certain sections of society in Greece ; but only among the very
poor and backward, where it’s necessary for the women to labour in the fields
alongside the men, doing the same sorts of work, which means that husband and
wife are in each other’s company pretty much all the time. Once you get away
from this basic subsistence level of society, though, you find the regular
pattern emerging; men go out to work in the morning and come home at dusk,
having spent the day alone or with other men; women stay in the house and do
women’s work, visit each other, and so on. That’s why, incidentally, if you look
at the paintings on Greek pottery and woodwork and the like, the men are painted
reddish-brown and the women are all white, or a very pale pinkywhite; men spend
all day in the sun, women scarcely ever leave the house. I wouldn’t worry about
it, though. As your society develops and matures, so you’ll gradually come to
adopt more enlightened attitudes, patterns of behaviour and, finally, patterns
of speech.)
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I can see we need to talk about this. So why don’t you
calm down and get a grip and then we might be able to work out just what it is
that’s bugging you so much.’
She made a curious sort of angry squealing noise. ‘I don’t want to calm down,
thank you,’ she replied. ‘And I know perfectly well what’s “bugging me” without
any help from you, Mister So-Damned-Clever Athenian.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘You are.’
I sighed. A less patient man would have given up long since, but I’m not like
that. ‘You’ll have to try to be a little more specific if we’re going to make
any progress here,’ I said. ‘See if you can’t narrow it down a bit. Just what is
it about me that makes you lose control and start throwing things? My face? The
way I eat soup? The sound of my voice?’
She glared at me. ‘All of them,’ she said.
I scratched my ear thoughtfully. ‘Odd,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking and acting
and sounding the same all my life, and yet that’s the first time anybody’s ever
slung the crockery at me. Can you account for that?’
She shook her head. ‘They do have crockery where you come from?’ she asked.
‘My dear girl, we’re the biggest producers of fine-grade tableware in Greece .’
‘Then I can’t understand it,’ she replied. ‘I’d have thought an arrogant,
interfering, manipulative, self-centred bastard like you’d have been dodging
flying plates since you were old enough to crawl.’
I was amazed. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What on earth are you talking
about?’
‘Oh, go to hell,’ she said.
‘That’s not an answer,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if
you want me to accept—’
She banged the wall with her fist. ‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ she said,
‘except get out of my life and stay out, before you do any more damage. Can’t
you understand that? I don’t like you, and you’re a menace. Because of you, I’ve
been thrown out of my own house and my father’s house, I’ve lost my husband and
I’m pregnant. If you can suggest a way that things could possibly be worse,
short of having me lose an arm o
r go blind, it’ll be one hell of a tribute to
the power of your imagination.’ She scowled at me, then added, ‘Oh, yes, I
forgot. Just to round it all off to perfection, you propose to make it up to me
by whisking me miles away from home and stranding me in the middle of nowhere,
in a log cabin surrounded by savages, to spend my days as your combination
whore, brood-mare and skivvy. That’s surely an offer no girl in her right mind
would ever dream of refusing.’
She put her hand down on the table not far from the little oil-jug, and I
instinctively jerked my head away. It’s a well-known fact: once they get a taste
for throwing things, they find it quite difficult to stop. She noticed and gave
me a look so full of scorn it’d have wilted cress. ‘It’s all right,’ she sighed.
‘I’m not going to hurt you if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘Oh, but you have,’ I replied immediately (even I can spot an obvious cue when I
see one). ‘Hurt me, I mean.’ I shook my head sadly, the very model of injured
benevolence. ‘Just try looking at the situation rationally for a change, instead
of letting all those rampant female emotions take you for a ride. We start off
with a convenient, amicable business arrangement — one which you first suggested
yourself, if you’re capable of remembering back that far. All right, so things
got a bit out of hand and you found yourself in an awkward position — not
something you couldn’t have anticipated, unless you had a really weird
upbringing, but I suppose you decided to ignore the risk, figuring it’d never
happen to you; some people have the ability to do that, and up to a point I
almost envy them. I can’t, but I’m a born worrier. Anyway, along comes a
problem, quite properly you come to me for help—’
‘I never—’ she interrupted. I ignored her and raised my voice a little.
‘You come to me for help,’ I repeated firmly. ‘I consider the position and come
up with an eminently practical way of dealing with it, and what do I get in
return? Obstructiveness and hostility, that’s what, in addition to all the
expense and embarrassment I’m already being put to on your behalf. But that’s
all right,’ I went on. ‘I do understand, it’s a really difficult and unsettling
time for you, you’re frightened and upset and so you lash out — at me,
naturally, the way a child in that sort of situation would take it out on its
parents, the people who’re responsible for it and take care of it. It’s a
perfectly natural reaction, I’ve observed it many times with frightened kids,
and since I’ve more or less taken over that role in your life—’
At this point she made a loud, unpleasant noise, somewhere between a scream and
the squeal of a pig with a burned nose. ‘Shut up, will you?’ she yelped. ‘I
don’t care how bad a state my life’s in, I don’t have to listen to this. And to
think, I found you attractive because I liked the sound of your horrible whining
Athenian voice!’
‘Theano,’ I said; she jumped to her feet, but I was a little quicker and caught
her by the arm. Unfortunately, it was the arm her loathsome husband had chosen
to practise his pyrography on, and she screamed with genuine, unpremeditated
pain. I let go at once, of course, but the harm had been done; the association
had already been formed in her mind.
‘Theano,’ I repeated. ‘Look, I’m sorry—’
Waste of breath, of course. She was out of there like a thrush that’s managed to
wriggle out from under the paw of an inexperienced fox.
I sat down, feeling unaccountably upset. Not by the rudeness and ingratitude —
I’m proud of the fact that I’m the easy-going sort, the kind who doesn’t take
offence unless it’s really unavoidable, and besides, there were all manner of
extenuating circumstances in this instance, as I’d been trying to explain to
her. No, what was bothering me was the fact that she was clearly still
distressed, even after everything I’d said to prove to her that I understood
exactly what was going on in her mind; which in turn suggested that something
else was bothering her, something I just couldn’t begin to grasp —
— And me a philosopher. Me, a scientist, a man who hunts the truth to its lair
and brings it struggling to the surface, a man who’d been studying his fellow
men — that, after all, was what my apprenticeship with Diogenes had been all
about — effectively since childhood. And here’s me, one of the brightest and the
best, unable to get inside something as simple as the mind of a Macedonian
peasant’s daughter.
I freely admit, it was an uncomfortable moment; like trying to pick up a rock
you’ve been able to lift since you were sixteen years old, and suddenly finding
one fine day that it’s too heavy for you. I didn’t like the feeling one bit, and
for a while I was tempted to let her go to the crows and take the problem with
her, so that I wouldn’t have to try to deal with it again. For two pins...
But there wasn’t anybody on hand to give me two pins, and my professional
conscience wasn’t going to let me turn my back on a problem just because it was
disagreeably awkward.
Instead, I went to bed. As it so happened, the book I was reading at that moment
was the collected works of Semonides, one of my all-time favourite lyric poets;
and the line which jumped up off the paper at me like a friendly dog as I pulled
down the scroll was:
‘God made women’s minds entirely separate from
True, I thought, and fell asleep.
She was back again by the time I woke up, of course; fast asleep on a couch in
the main room, with her hair still up and her shoes still on. I left her there,
dressed quickly and hurried out without any breakfast; I’d overslept, and a
quick glance up at the sky told me that if I didn’t look sharp, I’d be late for
school.
‘Today,’ I announced, ‘we’ll consider what I believe to be one of the most
significant military actions ever to take place between two Greek armies; and it
so happens that I’m extremely highly qualified to pontificate about this
particular slice of military history, because my own grandfather, the great
comic poet Eupolis of Pallene, took part in it. In fact, he was so deeply
involved in it that it’s a miracle I’m here at all.
‘I’m referring, of course, to the destruction of the mighty Athenian army sent
under the command of General Nicias to conquer Sicily in Syracuse towards the
end of the Great War between the Athenians and the Spartans. My unfortunate
grandfather was a soldier in the second expeditionary force that was sent out to
break the stalemate that resulted from the Syracusans’ entirely understandable
reluctance to meet an army as huge and ferocious as the first expeditionary
force — on its own it was one of the largest armies ever to leave Athens, and
once Grandad’s mob joined it, it was staggeringly big.
Too big, in fact; they didn’t bother to bring any food with them, and when they
joined their chums under the beleaguered walls of Syracuse , they found them
half dead from starvation. The only food to be had, in fact,
was the occasional
pumice-hard crust or shard of plaster cheese-rind slung over the ramparts by the
chubby and prudent Syracusans, either from basic compassion or a savage sense of
humour.
‘Well, after a couple of disastrously botched attempts to progress matters — a
night-attack on the enemy and a sea-battle, in both of which the Athenians
contrived to turn victory into heartbreaking defeat with that extreme deftness
and sureness of touch that we manage so well — the generals realised that they
had no choice but to raise the siege, fall back to friendly territory and get
something to eat. Now this clearly was no big deal; in spite of their losses,
the army was still enormous, and apart from the garrison of Syracuse itself, the
enemy had no field army of any description, let alone one big enough to last
five minutes against a force comprising half the male citizens of the largest
city in Greece who were of military age and owned enough property to serve as
heavy infantry. In other words, the march from Syracuse to Catana was going to
be nothing more arduous than a walk in the country followed by a slap-up dinner
at a friend’s house; what better way, in fact, to spend a day or so?’
I paused there for a moment and looked round. In spite of the family connection,
it was entirely possible that these born warriors already knew more about the
affair than I did (actually, most of what I was telling them was reheated
Thucydides; Grandfather Eupolis scarcely ever talked about the war, so I’m told,
except very occasionally in his sleep); in which case they’d be looking bored
or smug, and I could skip the rest of the narrative and get straight on to the
nice chewy conclusions to be drawn at the end. But no, they all looked
revoltingly fascinated and attentive, so I carried on with the story.
‘So off they marched,’ I said, ‘and to begin with they were cheerful and their
morale was high. But after a while they began to get a rather creepy feeling, as
if someone was following. So they stopped and the generals sent a few men to
take a look; and sure enough, trailing along behind them like the village dogs
following a sausage-maker on his way home from market was a rabble — I’m being
polite calling them that, even — a rabble of Sicilian scruffs and no-goods,
Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt Page 26