A Sea of Sorrow

by Libbie Hawker

  “I have acquired all manner of useless knowledge. My brain is like a sponge in the sea. It cannot help what it absorbs. For whips, I spent some time in Hyperion’s chariot, which took a lot of effort to master, let me tell you. But I suffered a happier fate than poor Phaethon. Zeus did not strike me down, but rather…” His voice had trailed off.

  “But rather?” had prompted my younger son, Nausinous.

  I could almost hear Odysseus shake himself from his reverie. “But rather he hurled his bolt at some other naughty men, to teach me a lesson.”

  “What lesson?”

  “That theft is wrong, and carries its own punishment.”

  Unhappy with moralizing, Nausithous was dissatisfied with the answer. Directly he had asked, “But where do you come from?”

  Odysseus had blinked. “I come from a woman. Alas, she was no goddess, as your mother is. But every mother is a goddess to her son.” He had chuckled. “A goddess, and a demon. She was born of the wind, my mother, and could crack your cheeks with a single bellow.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Odysseus had drawn a drowning breath. “Dead, I imagine. I dreamed I met with her in the Underworld. She was none too pleased with me, I’ll tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, for the fault of all sons—I stayed away too long from her. So let that be a lesson to you, boys, lest your mother haunt your dreams.”

  Another time, while they were firing clay figures at a kiln, I heard Nausinous insist, “But who was your father?”

  “Sysiphus,” Odysseus had replied carelessly. “At least, he was as hard-working in teaching me, and his pains were just as fruitless.”

  “But you know things!”

  “I know things, but I had to learn them for myself. You both are much better pupils than I ever was. I always have to learn by doing. But here’s the secret. Become good at something. It doesn’t matter what you learn, so long as you learn to learn deeply. Once you have mastered one thing, you can master anything.”

  Once, as Odysseus was cursing the uncooperative earth they were trying to upend, Nausithous asked him, “What kind of soil does your home have?”

  “Rough and rugged,” my Odd Zeus had grunted. “And don’t think I can see through your questions. Keep digging.”

  “Where is your home?” pressed Nausithous, obediently thrusting his spade.

  “Where every man’s home is—in that place where lies his heart. And since I bear my heart with me, caged in these rough and rugged ribs, my home is here,” he lifted a handful of soil, then threw it, “and there, and wherever I set foot.”

  Then the boys were proud, because Odysseus’s home was here. They did not understand, as I did, his meaning. So strong was his love that he brought it with him wherever he went. Only he had caged his heart.

  I wept that night so bitterly that my breath came in tiny, desperate gasps. My love’s heart was a prisoner. And I held the key.

  Which made me the jailer.

  Dinner that night was as lively as ever. Odysseus chatted, posing riddles and puzzles to us all as if he plucked them from the sky. “Do you know why gold is such a pale metal?”

  Grinning, Nausinous fed him the dutiful, “Why?”

  “Because it is scared to death of those who will own it.” He tapped my one son on the head, then turned to the other. “I talked to Aeson today, down by the wharf. Asked him how his fishing went. He said, ‘What we caught, we threw away. What we didn’t catch, we kept.’”

  Though I feigned indifference, I was as confused as my sons. They tried several answers until he hinted by scratching himself. “Lice!” they roared, and he laughed, and they with him. Even the servants were mirthful. Such a gift, laughter. One he used so carelessly.

  That is unkind. He was generous. Such is the nature of true gifts. The gifted find their talents natural, and uncostly. For them, there is always more laughter. It is only us mere mortals who fear the day the laughter ends.

  ‘Mere mortal’. I am descended from a goddess, who was herself birthed by a Titan. My subjects call me “divine lady” and “holy queen”. I am revered. But just one look at that ebony-headed conjurer of smiles and one could see true divinity.

  If only I had been allowed to see the man.

  I glimpsed him, from time to time. In moments when he thought me asleep, or when caught unawares, staring off into the West. Then I could see past the Trickster, catch fleeting sight of the scarred and haunted sailor.

  The scars were terrible. There were scars from swords and scars from scourges. Scars from spears, and scars from fire. They left a history imprinted on his skin, written in a language I could read, and he would not translate. Not for my sons, who begged the stories of glorious deeds in far-away lands. Not even for me during those nights when I lay tracing those scars with my fingers, my hair draped across his arm, my body nestled against his. His scars promised a story he never told.

  He hinted, of course. His trickster nature could not help but drop tantalizing clues. I remember once, when Nausithous was perhaps thirteen, he asked about war. “Is it not a man’s duty to be a soldier?”

  And my Odd Zeus had answered him with a fable. “I remember once, a quarrel between the Horse and the Stag. The Stag taunted the Horse, and raked his flanks with those fine antlers. Enraged, the Horse came to a Hunter to crave his aid in being revenged upon the Stag. Agreeing, the Hunter said, ‘If you desire to conquer the Stag, you must permit me to place this piece of iron between your jaws, so that I may guide you with these reins, and allow this saddle to be placed upon your back so that I may keep steady upon you as we follow after the enemy.’ Well, naturally the furious Horse agreed to the conditions, and so the Hunter soon saddled and bridled him, and together they overcame the Stag. Then the Horse said to the Hunter, ‘Now, get off, and remove those things from my mouth and back.’

  “‘Not so fast, friend,’ answered the Hunter. ‘I have now got you under bit and spur, and prefer to keep you as you are at present.’”

  The story finished, Nausithous had puzzled at it. “What does that have to do with soldiering?”

  “The moral is, if you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs. Though soldiers fight for their own glory, they are inevitably fighting someone else’s war.” His face had clouded, and he had shaken his head as if casting off a gnat. “But enough of horses and wars. Shall we have a race?”

  Races. Contests. Sport. That was how he quelled in them the desire to go off in search of adventure. “Adventure comes to all,” he would say. “And the best adventures need not be soaked in blood.” And they would plead for his tales, and he would laugh and invent some new story.

  Tonight, he was in a riddling mood:

  A natural state, I’m sought by all.

  Go without me, and you shall fall.

  You must do me when you spend,

  And abuse me when you drink to no end.

  What am I?

  My boys offered guess after guess. It was surprising to me that I knew the answer. Knew, but did not say. But then, “balance” was on my mind.

  The most important portents come from within. Being divine, my priests had taught me from childhood to know myself, listen to moods, instincts, body, mind.

  Harmony on the island came from harmony within its queen. For seven long years I had been happy, and the island had prospered. But of late I was disordered, out of joint. Unbalanced.

  I thought of Pandora, and her jar. In some tellings, she opened her treasure and released evil to the world. But those are tales meant to vilify women. Pandora was the giver of life, the font of all things. Her jar was meant to be opened.

  But not the jar of Odysseus. At least, not to me. Free with all in him, save that one inch that is his composure.

  I had seen him come close to losing his magnificent self-possession. Each year, on the eleventh day of Cancer, as Orion rose as a whole in the morning, he was ever testy and short. And once when a negligent mother l
eft her babe to wander into the road before a team of horses, he berated her with such vehemence that I thought he might flay her alive with just his tongue.

  But such lapses were rare. The remaining time he was preternaturally calm—calmer than I, who had railed at undeserved faults about the making of the food or the quality of the stitching. I wept before him, and he soothed me, without ever asking what the matter was. For he was too wise, and surely knew.

  I cried because he would not weep before me. If he would only weep, then I could be sure of him. If he would only share his pain, then would we be true partners.

  Instead he gave me smiles, and broke my heart. Oath-breaker. He cannot help it.

  But then, I never asked for more. It was our silent compact. I had given him life. In return, he served me, he whose brilliance outshone mine like the sun does a lamp. With that damning smile, he had given me all I did not know to ask for—architecture and poetry, crop rotation and irrigation, walls and wells. He had trained my sons to be better men than any. He had done everything in his power to make Ogygia prosperous and independent and happy.

  Everything, that is, save one. He ever refused to advise about sails, or hulls, or even knots. His knowledge of the sea he kept to himself. Lest, I think, he be tempted to use those skills and leave.

  I was his test. Could he keep his vow to me? The strain was invisible, unless one knew to look. He tested himself, tasked himself. Could he keep his oath? Could he prove his fidelity to anyone?

  And if I was his test, then to what end was he testing himself? For whom?

  It is the role of a goddess to accept prayers. To be the object of veneration. To receive duty, and homage, and reverence. So why was it galling to be the vessel of his fidelity?

  Because I was not its source. I was an object, but I could not object. While I could call him mine, I had no cares.

  For seven long years I had held him. Seven is a lucky number, they say. They did not say that eight was wholly unlucky—only because it followed seven. Coming after luck, even greatness is shallow.

  “Balance!” cried Nausithous, and my Odysseus clapped his hands and pointed at the cheering boys.

  Lifting my cup, I drew his attention. “I have one.”

  His brows raised, he turned his soulless smile to me. “Lady my queen? We should be indebted.”

  “‘We hurt without moving. We poison without touching. We bear both the truth and the lies. We are not to be judged by our size. What are we?’”

  “Words,” said Odysseus at once.

  “Yes. Words.” No, I could not fool him. But perhaps I might yet surprise. In an easy yet formal tone, I said, “And another?”

  His cheating smile broadened. “Please.”

  “‘When you need me, you throw me away. When you are done with me, you bring me back. What am I?’”

  This took him only a moment longer than before. “An anchor.”

  “Just so. Now, one last. A man plucked up from the waves, always fearful yet ever so brave, out of anguish he once made an oath…” Throat tight, I had to draw in a breath. “…from which he must now free us both.”

  It was worth the hurt, worth seven years of hurts, to see the smile struck from his face. “Your majesty.”

  My turn to smile. “That is not the answer. Who is he?”

  He answered without any expression, an utter blank. “Odysseus.”

  “Just so. But I believe we require a fuller answer.” I raised my voice, employing the carrying tone of the goddess. “Before you finish with your anchor here, Odysseus Wave-Rider, we wish words from you. Words of truth. Tell us who have loved you, on this, the eve of your departure, who is Odysseus, that we may have him to inspire us in your absence.”

  Shock rippled all around the table, around the hall. One servant dropped her bowl. Another began weeping. My younger son’s skin turned to ash. My grown son’s mouth opened, then shut. Tears stood forth in his eyes.

  But Odysseus’s eyes were dry. I could imagine his heart was pounding in his breast. For the first time he smiled at me, not with his lips, but with his eyes.

  A goddess cannot weep. A queen cannot show despair. A woman cannot break her pride. To be granted that thing I wanted most, and to know that only by depriving myself of love had I been made worthy of love, was an exquisite pain. One that I would gladly suffer for all my days and nights to come.

  He rose from the table, my faithless champion, as a bard might before launching upon an epic tale. “In keeping with the evening, I shall unriddle myself with a riddle:

  The ancient giant from the east

  Was slain by man and by beast

  And laid to rest upon his pyre

  To feed a ravenous desire.

  He’d swallowed a woman whole

  Then, feeling hungry still, he tried

  To swallow a horse, and thus he died.

  “The answer, my friends, is Troy. And that is just the beginning of my tale.” Wetting his lips, he spoke his full name for the first time. “I am Odysseus, King of Ithaca, son of Laertes, great-grandson of Hermes through the thief Autolycus, husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, champion of Athena, enemy of Poseidon, friend of Achilles, confounder of Troy, sire of horses, slayer of giants, dismayer of witches—and the debtor to Calypso, goddess of shelter, redemption, and deliverance.”

  Gasps. Cheers. Applause. When I could, I said, “You must do more than that. It is time, I think, to hear your story.”

  Within minutes word went round, and all the palace flooded into the open-air court to hear his tale, which he told with all the gusto of an actor donning a forgotten mask, or a harpist touching a lute for the first time after a long illness.

  It began with the abduction of a princess called Helen by the great hero Theseus. “If one can abduct the willing. For her flight was but a taste of what was to come.” He laughed at his advice to the girl’s father about which man this beautiful but willful woman should wed—none other than Menelaus, brother to Agamemnon, king of kings. “Would that I had been less forthright, and had insisted she marry a farmer with dirt on his heels instead!”

  For Helen had run off with the next handsome man she found—not her husband. “Of course, the truth of her flight was not made public. No, as with Theseus, Agamemnon insisted she was abducted. For it provided him with the perfect excuse for a war. A great war. The war to end all wars. Which is said of every war, until the next one.” He paused, then shook his head as if to clear it of gnats.

  “They came for me at once. Let me tell you, a reputation for cleverness is far more troublesome than one of strength. There are a hundred strong men for every clever one, and the truly clever does not let on that he is so. No, he plays the brute, and only acts when compelled. My pride was my downfall, sharing my supposed cleverness with all and sundry. I even tried to clever my way out of this.”

  “How?” demanded a breathless Nausithous.

  “By feigning madness,” he said, and had us all laughing as he put on a lively show of insanity. “It was a shock to everyone in the palace at Ithaca, let me tell you. But the moment I heard what Helen had done, in that instant did I begin to babble, and drool, and stare, and rave. For I knew what was coming. When Agamemnon and his besotted brother came for me, they found me jerking along behind a plow hitched to an ox on my right hand and a mule on my left.”

  “You showed them unbalance,” I said, as it was on my mind.

  He bowed to me. “Just so, your majesty. For further proof, behind me I was sowing salt into the earth. I wonder if it will take seeds, even now. But, to the tale! Agamemnon and Menelaus nearly left me there. However, they had collected another clever man already.” His brow darkened with real anger. “Palamedes. He plucked my infant son from my wife’s arms and put him in the path of the ox. I had to pull up and dive to rescue the boy myself. Thus I gave away the game, and had to go.” His face underwent a sea of emotions, coming to rest on regret. “Palamedes paid for that. I lured him with his great vice: gold. He was accus
ed of intriguing with the Trojans.” He looked down at his hand. “I was the first to cast a stone at his execution.”

  A silence fell, uncomfortable for the depth of its honesty.

  “But why not go?” asked Nausinous suddenly. “A war, and a great one at that?”

  Odysseus looked at my son with genuine disappointment. Even after seven years, the lad longed for war and glory. Then my Odd Zeus laughed at himself. “My own folly, for thinking that youth should be wise. Why not go? Because an old trot with ne’er a tooth in her head had predicted that, should I go to that war, I would not return home for twenty years.”

  “How long ago was that?” asked Nausithous.

  “Seven thousand two hundred and forty-eight days ago,” he said.

  Silence fell as men did the math. Nineteen years and ten months, give or take.

  “But you could have left!” cried Nausithous. “You could have left, and been home years ago!” His eyes turned accusingly to me.

  With slow gravity, Odysseus answered him. “I had sins to expiate. But more. A king must be more than clever. He must be wise. He must be more than himself. As a leader, I failed, often. Time and again my own men turned against me. The fault was not in them. I had to prove myself capable of being what I ought, and not what I wanted. My time here has made me the best of myself. And I have watched a wise and selfless ruler set me an example.” He bowed to me. I was having trouble drawing breath, and he rescued me by ruffling my sons’ hair, thus drawing everyone’s gaze. “And, as I missed fathering my own son, I felt the need to see two young men into their manhood.”

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I said, “Go on with your story. What of this Menelaus, who loved so deeply, and found his affection unreturned?”

  “He was a fool to chase her,” said Odysseus feelingly. “Force does not bring love, only obedience. Better to prove her unworthy of his love by letting her go.”

  Slowly, with care for each word, he rolled out his story, from the long years of siege to terrible victory to failed voyages. We all sat rapt, and even the air seemed to still to listen to him give voice for the first time before us all that had befallen him. He spared himself nothing, reciting the names of each and every man whose life he had failed to save. He even listed men who had died through no fault of his. Telling the story of Elpenor, who broke his neck while on a witch’s roof, he paused long enough for Nausithous to object, “That wasn’t your fault!”