Swimmer Among the Stars

by Kanishk Tharoor

  I call the number again. Listen, you have to call it off, I say, this is an intractable problem, a problem with no solution, a problem your people won’t be able to bribe away. Who is it? the voice asks. A colleague. Can he be persuaded of the virtues of the project? No, definitely no, she wouldn’t understand. You have ten minutes … persuade him, or make him go away.

  I return to Tracy. She has kicked off her boots and is crinkling her toes. I need you to go back to the hotel. I require time to myself, I say.

  What’s wrong? You’ve been alone long enough. Her arm is around my waist, holding me with a strange strength.

  If you asked this of me, I’d oblige you.

  I wouldn’t ask this of you. I wouldn’t avoid you. I wouldn’t look at you with such guilty eyes each morning. She puts both her arms around me. I want you to relax. You can talk to me. And Christ, if you can’t talk to me, just shut up and be with me.

  I don’t expect you to understand, Tracy, but I need some space. Please just leave me be. I’ll come to you later.

  She releases me. You’re intolerable. Go.

  I’m sorry.

  Go to the hotel. I’d like to be pouty and moody and sit in the mizzle and think sad thoughts. Go have space in your hotel room. Scratch your balls and watch EastEnders and wait for me to knock on your door tonight. Or not knock. She leans back on her elbows, hair lashing from her hood, lips set in a granite challenge. Her eyes look away from me to the big dark of the sea.

  Can I explain it to her? Maybe. I’ll say, It’s not theft, I found the sword, or, Perhaps it’s rightfully the property of the University of East Anglia, but what good will it do there, unknown in a basement? or, Why can’t we own fragments of your past, since you’ve taken so much of ours? She’ll call it petty revenge, and there is nothing so outmoded as revenge. It’s an argument, I’ll say, it’s an argument about how to be global. We want our own universal museums. She’ll shake her head: I had no idea you were such a nationalist. I’m not a nationalist, I’m just Indian. Fine, she’ll say, but why steal? Why not arrange loans? It’s not enough, we want to own it just as you own ours. Fine, she’ll say, but then why don’t you buy? You can legally buy artifacts for your whatever museum. At what extortionate price? And who would even sell? Nobody feels more entitled to their own history than the English. I’ll lift my chin. Can you imagine what would happen if we shipped the Sutton Hoo Helmet or the Staffordshire Hoard to India? There would be riots. National Trust volunteers clad in cardigans, armed with pitchforks. Maybe she would smile at that. I hope she would smile.

  No, she wouldn’t accept it. She would reject this conviction in objects, the worship of the unknowable past. After all, we have seen what lies beneath. For months together we have squelched in bogs up and down the country, hunched over in the rain, searching for the bones of the dead. When found, they emerge from small graves, brittle and coated with peat, more frightened than frightening. Often, the skeletal bits are joined by other things: shards of pottery, animal ashes, warped blades. Historians and geneticists take these pieces and build a shadowy world of mead halls and longships, a Dark Age of piety and blood that seems all the more surreal to her when faced with our daily universe of mud. She is alarmed by the speed with which one theory replaces another. She finds no solace in the indifference of bone, in the permanence of remains. She thinks the cliché that “nothing lasts forever” is false. Lots of things last forever, if only as reminders of their nothingness. But they aren’t nothing, I told her once. Yeah, she said, then let me know when they’re something.

  She looks at me now with the patient gaze I know so well, that even, unruffled way she examines our finds. I want to hold her. She thinks her diligence can unveil my secrets, too.

  I’m meeting someone, I say.

  Who? Who are you meeting?

  Someone else.

  She looks away and with one finger searches in the sand. You weren’t talking to your mother, she says.

  I wasn’t.

  Who is she? Who? She endures my silence and gets to her feet. Were you going to tell me?

  I didn’t know there was anything to be said. My fingers move behind her ear through her hair to the point where jaw meets neck. She holds my wrist for an instant and then throws it away. She stomps off toward the hotel in her socks. I gather up her boots. When I look up, she has paused in the distance. I think she is looking back at me, huddled, clutching her shoes. The stray beam of a car wheels over us. For an instant, it seems that she is growing larger, that she returns to me, limned and stretched with light. But in the sudden rush of darkness that follows, I know she is gone.

  I think of the original owner of the sword, the dead thane yet to be uncovered, slumbering somewhere else in the site, his skull peppered with rings that had held the braids of his hair, teeth sticking like chips of wood from the jaw, the torques circling loose and empty on the skeleton’s arms. There would be other objects besides. The tattered bridle of a favorite horse. The rusted clasps of drinking and hunting horns. The bones of others: a wife from Frisia, a consort from Birka, a slave from Cymru, the strangled privilege of other times and other places. All these things were once his and his alone, without question or remorse.

  Moments later, I hear tires crunching on gravel. My phone rings. I wait a few beats and then answer.

  THE PHALANX

  WESTERN ANATOLIA, 190 B.C.

  Seen from afar, the collision of brigades of spearmen looks almost gentle. The lines don’t rush into one another, but slow as they near, straightening. Losing shape means death in the clash of phalanxes. When the sides are just a few spear lengths apart, there is a pause, a collective breath, before the impact of shafts and shields. A general watching from above or from the side may know intimately what goes on in the fray, all the shoving and thrusting, but he cannot see it. At that distance, the violence of a phalanx is invisible. Its front ranks lock in place and begin to nudge the enemy. The men behind bob on their heels, unsure when they’ll have some killing to do. The largest phalanxes run fifty deep. The men at the very back plant their spears in the ground and strain over the shoulders of their comrades to see a battle happening far away.

  A red-bearded soldier turns to his neighbor, a clean-shaven man with a delicate mole on his upper lip. What do you reckon? he says.

  The usual, the other replies, ten minutes, fifteen tops. The two men stand lightly, with their knees bent, ready to push forward or step back as required. Hundreds of helmets crowd between them and the front, where men press against each other and squelch in the blood. The key to winning is making a breach in the enemy line. Once that happens, the enemy’s resolve crumbles and the tight ranks of spearmen unspool, scattering soldiers from the battlefield.

  I don’t think it will be easy, the red-beard says, look, back in the distance, they’ve brought their own elephants.

  Our elephants are much bigger, the man with the mole says, and more aggressive.

  Are they?

  Yes, I’m told North African elephants don’t have the same warlike spirit … apparently the climate makes them lazy.

  Still, it’s an awful lot of elephants.

  If you must worry, you should worry about their skirmishers.

  Why, are we being fired on?

  I’m not sure, but it’s only a matter of time before they try to spook us with javelins.

  What about from our side, the red-beard wonders, where are our skirmishers?

  The Elymaean bowmen or the Cyrtian slingers?

  Actually, I was thinking of the Mysian archers.

  Somewhere on the right flank.

  Those Mysians keep dancing boys in their camp.

  When did you go?

  I didn’t, but I heard from somebody else … He was passing by at night and he heard the sound of pipes and tamburs, and he saw these soft-limbed boys prancing around the fires.

  The further west you go, the man with the mole says, the stranger people get … We were all better off staying put in Syria.
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br />   A horn blares along the enemy line. A burst of the enemy’s battle chant reaches them before vanishing, like the finger of a wave. Somewhere to their left, the tail leader shouts at his men, urging them to sing a reply. Alalalalalai, the men cry, alalalalalai … we commend ourselves to the god of war.

  They’re putting up a fight, the man with the mole says.

  I told you, I told you they meant business.

  We’ve barely moved forward at all.

  You’re taller than me, what’s happening on the flanks?

  Climb on my shoulders and have a look.

  Don’t joke, the red-beard says, and kicks his neighbor.

  It’s all dust, my friend, all dust … I can barely see the end of our brigade … Oh, there to the right, if you must know, we’re guarded by three turreted war elephants.

  I heard the king is leading the horse cavalry today.

  He’s always “leading” the cavalry.

  It’s a fine sight, isn’t it, when he rides out in the lionskin of his ancestors and barrels through the lines.

  Half the time, he’s chasing down irregulars, leaving the real fighting to us.

  What I wouldn’t give to be in the cavalry and not this damn phalanx.

  You’ll never be rich enough to serve in the cavalry.

  I can steal what I need, the red-beard insists, all of it, armor, lance, horse, even the money for a squire.

  Then what’s the problem?

  You know what it is.

  Hah … oh yes, you can’t ride.

  No, I just don’t do horses.

  Ride a donkey then.

  Every time I get on the animal, the thing knows I’m unworthy of it … it always chucks me off.

  The first javelins and arrows race out of the dust and thud around them. The men in the back rows lean their long spears forward, making a thicket over the men further front. They feel the percussion of missiles knocking against this latticed roof, the bolts splintering, dropping timidly on helms and cuirasses. Inevitably, some arrows fly through and hit home. The men shift in their rows and adjust to fill the opened spaces.

  I’m telling you, the man with the mole says, we should pull back to the Taurus.

  If the king’s armies don’t take this land, then Rome will have it.

  Well, then let Rome have it … we have enough provinces to take care of.

  I didn’t think you were so naïve … this land will be a buffer for the king’s core provinces.

  We should just build a wall.

  A wall?

  Yes, to keep out the Romans and all these western tribes and warlords.

  That doesn’t strike me as very practical.

  You know the story about the king’s great forebear Alexander, how he built a wall to fence off the barbarians and demons at the edge of the world.

  Well, that was then, this is now.

  Right, and now we run the risk of dying here because the blessed king thinks he’s a Persian emperor.

  Shut up and push. Alalalalalai! Alalalalalai!

  The men hitch the shields to their shoulders and press whoever is in front of them. The phalanx compresses into its densest form, a rectangle of packed flesh and metal. Over a thousand spearmen bear down on the enemy brigade. It steps backward slowly, absorbing the pressure. Somewhere in the dust ahead there are men stepping over bodies, stabbing under and over shields, their grunting faces kept from the grunting faces of their foes by the enamel of two bronze plates.

  The front rank is where ambitious warriors aspire to be, the only place where others will notice their merit and remember their actions. Those men spit and shove and gasp for air, pinned by the forces of two irreconcilable directions. The youngest soldiers stand just behind the front rows, gulping hard, their knuckles pale. Veterans of varying degrees of worth form the rear. Their main role is to make sure the youngsters in the middle don’t flee. They also set the rhythm of the pushing, that great occupation of the phalanx. Only if all the men push together will their straining be of use.

  The forward momentum slows and then stops. They’re not breaking, the red-beard says. The youths in the middle crane their necks back and yell, Stop it, stop pushing so hard, you’re crushing us … Can’t you see it’s not working? The phalanx loosens and resumes the work of prying for gaps in the enemy line.

  You would think a brigade so deep wouldn’t have this kind of trouble, the man with the mole says.

  These Romans must be good at pushing back, the red-beard says, strong fellows.

  I suppose.

  I heard from somebody that in their victories, the Romans are often outnumbered … they know how to win against the odds.

  That’s what everybody says, it’s rarely true.

  Isn’t that what the Romans did to the king last year?

  Rumors and legends … bards always say X stood bravely against Y, outnumbered five to one, and X still came out the victor.

  Maybe that’s just the mark of good tactics, or maybe some peoples are in fact stronger than others.

  Nonsense, it’s guff, bunkum … you know how war works, the winning side is the one that has more people pushing.

  The red-beard splits in a smile. So you’re predicting a glorious day for us, he says. One day, you’ll go back home and you’ll tell your kids, “I was there, at Mağnisa.”

  Oh shut up.

  “I was there at the back of the phalanx with all the old scoundrels and we pushed, oh how we pushed, until somewhere ahead of us, the flower of Rome wilted and the legionaries ran away.”

  You know I don’t have kids.

  Well, your wife might at this point.

  Very funny.

  And you’ll tell your wife’s kids, “That was a rare day, a fine day, the day Antiochus, King of the East, stopped the tyrannical advance of Rome.”

  Yes, yes, well the irony is that if we somehow come out on the winning side today, you will go home and actually talk to your brats just like that.

  It’s true, I might … don’t blame me for having some esprit de corps.

  The man with a mole turns to his red-bearded neighbor. In the dust and swelter of the phalanx, it can be difficult to hold the gaze of a person even so near. Their helmets hang low over the brow, shading the eyes. How come you’ve never told me their names?

  Whose?

  Your children’s.

  They are young, still too young to have their names spoken with any confidence.

  Is that the custom where you’re from?

  The red-beard shakes his head. It is just my custom.

  At what point then would you feel ready to talk about them?

  Children should talk about the deeds of their fathers … fathers should not talk about their children.

  The tail leader begins to sing a war hymn. All the soldiers of the rear join in and the chant floods forward, where it crashes into the din of the front line. Up there, the occasional would-be hero jumps over the shields and tries to disrupt the enemy line. He ends up stabbed and beaten into the trough of gore separating the two armies.

  Poor fools, the man with a mole says, we outgrew that kind of bravery years ago … courage is probably the most overrated virtue.

  Well, it takes courage to be where we are.

  I don’t know … we probably won’t have to thrust a spear in anger today.

  Still, we’re here, on the battlefield, where anything can happen, our lives at the mercy of the fates.

  The ancients had it right … Gilgamesh and Humbaba, Rustam and Sohrab, Hector and Achilles … the ancients made war the arena of heroes … it was about the glory of the leaders, who wanted the war in the first place, who had everything to gain and everything to lose … a battle was decided by that individual contest; it wasn’t about the multitude, mobilizing the peasants, emptying the towns, flinging us poor sods at each other, a people against another people.

  I thought there were thousands of men fighting at Troy.

  If our leaders were truly great men, it would just be
the king and the Roman general, in single combat, and they’d leave the rest of us out of it.

  You’re acting as if you have no stake in the fight.

  Exactly, I have none.

  But that’s not true at all, you have as much interest as I do in the spoils of war.

  Hah, the “spoils of war.”

  Think about all the bracelets and earrings you can bring back to your wife … maybe you can even find her a slave or two.

  She has enough baubles.

  After so long away from her, you’d probably do well to give her some more.

  Why do you always bring up my wife?

  Because it’s funny that somebody as restless as you is married.

  Well, what do you expect … we’re all married until we aren’t.

  A wind gusts through. For a moment, the roiling dust clears. The battle spreads out before them in wavering lines, bristling hedgerows of spearmen, archers shooting, slingers pelting volley after volley, elephants stomping, messengers galloping behind with news from the far wings of the melee. And yet even in the midst of this frenzy, there are so many men fidgeting in their spots, doing nothing at all. The wind relents and the dust closes on the phalanx, hiding the rest of the field.

  You know, Socrates served in a phalanx.

  Who?

  The philosopher, lived in the west ages ago … even you’ve heard of him.

  A philosopher in the phalanx, why not … we have musicians, tinkers, weavers, masons, sheep traders, poets … may as well chuck a philosopher in there, too.

  Socrates compared his commitment to philosophy, that search for truth, to the commitment men have to each other in the phalanx, the perseverance and resolve, fight till the end, all that.