Stealing Athena

by Karen Essex

  Perhaps she didn’t have the strength and fortitude—the sheer gumption—to withstand the long years in the Foreign Service as the wife of a diplomat after all. Perhaps she should have turned down Elgin’s offer of marriage and wed a good Scottish lad who would have enabled her to give birth to their children in her own bed with Mrs. Nisbet holding her hand, and the doctor of her childhood at her side, and her beloved aunts in the next room. No, she must withstand these terrors in this strange land where, outside the walls of the embassy, no one understood her language, much less knew or cared about the customs and rituals and the very people she held dear.

  “Oh, dear God, help me!” she cried, fully aware that God might not be listening. How many futile prayers did women offer during childbirth?

  She saw that a maidservant was taking away the dreaded blood-soaked rags. Mary’s fears were warranted after all; she had started to bleed—perhaps, this time, to death.

  “Now, now, all ladies lose a little blood at this stage,” said the midwife. Dr. Scott poked his face over the woman’s shoulder and nodded at her with owl-wide eyes, though at this point, so deep into a long day of labor, he had drunk so much brandy that Mary could only assume that he did not want to be sober when he had to tell Lord Elgin that his wife was dead.

  The pressure down below was getting more urgent, and she could resist no longer. The contraction took her over, erasing all will to live. She bore it—what choice did a woman have?—and as it began to subside, she summoned her courage and pushed with all her might.

  “There! A little head is crowning. I see some nice brown hair!” The midwife spoke as if she were singing a song to a child.

  Mary breathed deeply as she felt the next swell of pain swallow her up. At this point, what did she have to lose? She hoped that the innocent inside her would survive and be taken care of nicely by her parents and by Elgin.

  “That’s it, Lady Elgin. Little Lord Bruce wants to see his little brother.”

  She would remember to have the Capitan Pasha execute this midwife, or at the very least have her tongue cut out so that she could not expose other women to her taunting.

  She pushed again, hoping that the harridan was right and that the baby was a boy. If Mary died, Little Mary would be sandwiched between two protective brothers, whereas if it were a motherless girl, she would be a burden to her older sister all of her life.

  That would not be fair. Oh please, dear God, she begged, let me live through this final labor and deliver us of a healthy baby, and then I will convince Elgin that it is Your will that we stop conceiving children. Surely the God who loves His children was too merciful to inflict this upon her again. It could not be normal that with a third baby, the labor would take the entire length of a day. Surely this was His sign to her that she must stop conceiving or she would lose her life and perhaps the lives of the children. She wondered if this pain was His punishment for the pleasures of the marriage bed, and if so, she wondered why it was only the women who had to suffer and die in the service of pleasure.

  But a contraction took her over again, obliterating any thoughts from her head. She let it wrap her inside its authority, taking her into the depths of a pain that she should not be able to endure. But it finally began to release her from its clutches, and with all her might and will, she pushed as hard as she could, not caring if her internal organs fell out along with the infant. She pushed so hard that she felt as if that had indeed happened. When she stopped pushing, it seemed that ice was breaking out over her face and chest, chilling her to the bone. She was too weak to call for a blanket, too exhausted to care whether the breath she was gasping for was her very last.

  “Well, if it isn’t a big fat healthy girl!”

  She caught a glimpse of the bloody creature as the doctor held it up. She worried that they were lying to her and it was dead. It looked like some pathetic war-ravaged beast. But as the midwife cut the cord, the baby issued its first cry—a howl, really, so strong that Mary was sure that the little creature would survive whether her mother did or not.

  “Someone send a messenger to Lord Elgin.” Mary heard Dr. Scott’s order, and she closed her eyes, ready to let herself be carried away into peaceful darkness—to die or to sleep, she didn’t care.

  But the horrible midwife patted Mary’s clammy face. “We’re not done, Lady Elgin. Have you forgotten? It’s only been a year since Little Mary was born! Remember what we must do next?” Damn this woman and her babyfied singsong voice. “One more push! One more and you’re done.”

  Mary mustered whatever strength she had to get the afterbirth out of her body so that she could rest. With one more push, she was done with it. Now, at last, she would be able to sleep. But instead her body began to shake. It’s so unfair, she thought. Her body was betraying her. She didn’t remember shaking after the other two births. Was this something new and dangerous?

  Dr. Scott looked concerned. Mary was shaking so hard that she could not make out what he was saying to the midwife, but she knew it was to do with the bleeding that followed the afterbirth. She was hemorrhaging. Perhaps she would die after all. The inside of her froze with the thought, but the outside still shivered uncontrollably. What would happen? She tried to dismiss her fears. What would the Lord want her to believe? She had lived a good life, and her children would be well cared for. It was all one could ask of a mortal lifetime. Many were not as fortunate as she. For the multitudes, life was short and brutal. She, Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, had lived a brief but privileged and exciting life. These were good thoughts to think as she felt the doctor push against the place inside her that seemed to be gushing obscene amounts of blood.

  What did it matter? The soul was eternal. Was that not what Reverend Hunt was always saying in his sermons? She had made fun of his dry, uninteresting preaching, but now she hoped that everything that he had said was true. She was thinking these thoughts when she faded out of consciousness.

  “MARY! MARY!”

  Elgin was holding the swaddled baby—beautiful and serene but for the squashed nose that Mary knew would soon straighten out.

  “She’s a champion!” he said, handing the child off to the nurse. “Well done!”

  Mary mustered a smile, though she felt nothing but exhaustion. Every inch of her body was weak. She tried to take in a deep breath, but found that she could manage only a shallow one. She attempted to lift her head, but found that she could not and rested it back against the pillow. She felt defeated. But even in this condition, she could not help but notice that something in her husband’s words was forced, as if he didn’t mean what he was saying about the baby.

  “Elgin, tell me, is there something wrong with the baby? I want to know the truth.”

  “No, no. Harriet—if you still wish to call her that—is as healthy as the finest horse, the good doctor assures me. And you need your rest, but you will be quite fine too.”

  “I lost blood.”

  “Yes, but not a dangerous amount,” he said, smiling weakly.

  She must not have been asleep for very long. It was dark in the room, but Elgin was still wearing his street clothes. She could tell from his odor that he had just come in and had not yet washed and changed for dinner.

  “Elgin, you cannot hide from me. I insist that you tell me what is wrong. I see it on your face and hear it in your voice. Is it the French? Has Bonaparte gone on the attack again?”

  “No, dearest Poll.” He stared at her as if making a decision about whether to spill his information. “Can you take a bit of news?”

  “Of course, my dear. What could trouble me now, after what I have been through only to find myself alive and my daughter healthy?”

  He took a letter out of his pocket and waved it at her. “I received word this afternoon. The Mentor, on its way to Malta, met with an accident off the coast of the island Kythera, situated at the south side of the Peloponnese. The captain and crew were saved, but all of our treasures from the Acropolis, and all of Lusieri’s beautiful drawing
s and molds that were on board, are at the bottom of the sea.”

  The gods are ironical in nature. Where had she just read that? Was it in one of the ancient sources? Her body was too weak to register an outward response, and her mind could barely comprehend the magnitude of what he had just said, much less the consequences. Were all of their labors and investment lost? Had they just rid the world of some of its greatest treasures? More immediately, what would this do to her husband? And, as a result, to herself? What would her parents say? These thoughts raced through her fatigued mind as she tried to formulate the best thing to say to him, but the exhaustion soon won over her desire to be either useful and comforting or angry and admonishing.

  “Elgin, dear, what are we going to do?” Mary said softly, trying to reach for his hand. But he saved her effort and took her cold hand into his warmer one.

  “Why, we must recover them at any cost.”

  Aboard the Diana, Winter 1803

  AS MARY VOMITED INTO a bowl, Masterman held back her hair and sleeves.

  “The only thing that changes is that more of my brats are added to the ships’ rosters,” Mary said wryly, once she collected her breath. “At least they do not get sick at sea.”

  “At least it’s the rocky sea and not the stench of the vessel that brings on the illness this time,” Masterman said.

  The Diana was the most luxurious vessel they’d traveled in, and Mary counted her blessings. She had often said that she would have given anything to get home to Scotland; now that the journey was under way, she’d made up her mind not to complain.

  “At least the captain is handsome and not a toothless dog of a pirate,” Mary said, continuing their game.

  “At least the crew is not dying of scurvy.”

  “At least I am not pregnant again.”

  “At the very least, that!”

  “At least we are going home.”

  “Aye, home.” Masterman sighed. “Milady, I did not think we would get out of there alive.”

  Mary laughed, but toward the end of their tenure in Constantinople, she had shared the sentiment. In October, a woman who lived at an inn near the embassy died of plague, and then the fresh drumroll of death began. The Elgin children and the new baby had been inoculated against smallpox, but this new disease swept in from Egypt when sea communication between Alexandria and Constantinople recommenced, terrifying the helpless population and invading every class and quarter of the city.

  Precautions were available, but they created tremendous work for Mary, who was trying to recover from childbirth in order to regather her strength and pack the contents of the embassy so that they could leave by the first of the year. Mary had the embassy fumigated every day. The thick smoke left a revolting acrid smell, but she was not going to take chances with her health and the health of her children. Bedsheets and linens were laundered daily, and anyone who ventured outdoors had to have himself and his clothing cleansed with vinegar. Once again, from her balcony, Mary watched the bodies carted away at midnight to be taken to Pera for burial. The plague spread rampantly to the Russian ships docked in the harbor, and just as the Elgins were to leave the country on the Diana, rumor spread that eighteen of that vessel’s crew members had perished in the epidemic. Travel had to be postponed until Elgin could investigate the story, which turned out to be false. Nonetheless, the city was losing almost one hundred of its inhabitants every day to the grim reaper, and one could not be too careful.

  On January 17 they were able to leave the city. Mary had bidden a tearful but happy goodbye to Hanum, for whom the Sultan had just built a magnificent palace, and to the Capitan Pasha, her own most loyal ally and admirer. She was thankful to be away from the disease that threatened her family. She would soon see her dear parents and plant her feet firmly on familiar soil.

  But once they sailed through the Dardanelles, the waters became excessively stormy, and her fantasies of a swift voyage home were quickly replaced by the reality of sea travel.

  “Mary, I’ve spoken with the captain,” Elgin said. “We will make good use of the bad weather and stop at Athens.”

  “Must we?” she asked. She knew what he was up to.

  “We must see to the safety of the marbles that remain at the docks at Piraeus,” he replied.

  “Are you not grateful that the captain of the Mentor refused to take them? Thank God we did not press the issue further. All the statues from the pediments, the tableaux of Athena’s birth and the contest between Athena and Poseidon—the last remaining works of Pheidias—would all be at the bottom of the sea with the rest.”

  “I am not about to give a man credit for inadvertent good acts,” he said.

  “I do not think that the captain deserves the credit, but only God, who works in mysterious ways.”

  “In any case, these very stones of Pheidias, whose attributes you extol, are of immense value. We’ve yet to find shipment for them, or for the colossal statue of Dionysus from the theater, or the Caryatid, among others.”

  Yes, Mary thought, and thank the Lord that she was not paying for the recovery of those massive stones too. The rescue operation of the Mentor and its cargo, which had been going on at her expense since October, was costing a sad sum of money, and with limited results. The drawings were lost forever. The statuary and the frieze pieces had sunk straight down to the seabed, which the Greeks were measuring at ten fathoms. Elgin had wasted no time—or money—in trying to salvage the marbles. He authorized William Hamilton to make a staggering offer to the Greek divers for the recovery. With winter coming, he made a contract with Basilio Manachini from the isle of Spezzia, in which a vice-consul’s nomination was dependent upon Manachini’s success in overseeing the rescues. Dozens of divers were hired and paid extraordinary sums to work through the autumn months when the waters grew more frigid with each passing week.

  Mary agreed to stop at Athens. It would be good to spend a few days off the boat. Bruce could play with the little Greek friends he had made over the summer, and Elgin would be pacified. But the storms made it impossible to dock. For two days they anchored in the Bay of Milo where the ship was battered by the winds—and Mary’s stomach with it—until landing was safe.

  Finally, they disembarked, settling at the same house where they had lived during the summer. At the first opportunity, Mary and Elgin went to Piraeus to inspect the stones that remained. Mary had long associated Athens with intolerable heat, so she was surprised to find herself wrapped in her warmest cape, with woolen hat and gloves against the wind, as they made their way to the docks. The winter weather was not temperate. The day was blustery and gray, and Mary pulled her wrap up high to cover her nose against the bitter sea breezes.

  William Hamilton, who had been overseeing the operation since his return from Alexandria, joined them.

  “Lord Elgin, I am able to greet you with good news in the extreme. I have negotiated with a sea captain whose vessel is being repaired at Piraeus. He has agreed to take the stones aboard his ship, the Braakel.”

  “Capital work, Hamilton,” Elgin said. “You rival my wife in negotiating with sea captains, and you are operating without her more alluring charms.” Elgin had become increasingly dismayed at navy officers’ attentions to Mary, even though he and his project had benefited enormously by her ability to pry favors from them. At recent suppers and balls where the sea captains were present, Elgin had buzzed about, blocking the men’s efforts to pay respects to Mary or to dance with her.

  They arrived to find Greek dockworkers digging the immense statues out of the sand.

  “I hoped that Your Lordship would not object to my methods,” Hamilton said. Elsewhere on the beach, the workers raked aside piles of wet seaweed.

  “This is a bizarre sort of excavation,” Mary said.

  “It is no excavation, madam. I had the workers bury the most valuable statues in the sand and cover them with seaweed. Lord Elgin’s nemeses are many. As you know, the French are everywhere in Greece and Turkey again. The native Greek
s despise the English now that Britain is an ally of the Ottomans, and we are afraid that they are in conspiracy with the French to steal the marbles. With Napoleon’s spies lurking about, we thought it best to bury the treasures until we found transport.”

  Massive ropes on pulleys were wresting a gigantic torso of a god out of the beach; headless, it rose up through seaweed and wet sand, like some monstrous titan being born.

  Hamilton paused to witness the bizarre sight before continuing: “Greek scholars in exile from around the world are writing letters of protest against the removal of the marbles. I have a letter from an Athenian artist in Venice who is putting about word that the Parthenon now looks like a noble lady who has been robbed of all her jewels.”

  “One simply cannot satisfy these Greeks,” Elgin said. “In Pericles’ day, they criticized him for decking out the city like some vain woman. Isn’t that the line from Plutarch?”

  “Yes, precisely.” Mary nodded, pleased that he recognized her greater proficiency with the ancient texts.

  “Now they are upset that the vain woman has lost her décor. If these Greeks wanted to protect their monuments, they should have revolted against the Turks centuries ago. I daresay the modern Greeks have nothing to do with their noble ancestors.”

  The winds picked up, kicking wet sand across the beach and into their faces. Mary turned her face away from the wind, her eyes stinging with the gritty invaders. She took out a handkerchief and wiped the grains away. Elgin, whose eyes had been inflaming again, cursed the winds. But the winds were indifferent; they howled and wailed and whimpered, carrying small drops of rain as they assaulted the shore. Mary huddled against her husband.

  Suddenly, one of the ropes around the torso of the god snapped and the statue fell against the beach with a hollow sound. It did not break. The Greek workmen, scarves wrapped around their faces to protect themselves from the wind, uttered muffled cries. They closed ranks, forming a hive of sorts, and talked nervously among themselves. Then they stood back, away from the fallen god, as if forming a wall of resistance.