Jocasta: Wife and Mother

by Brian Aldiss

  Karimov came to fame by way of an ancient play which he resurrected, Kusmak Kum. The play carried nationalist themes and was several centuries old. It exhibited hierarchical ways of life and centred around the struggle of a man against his destiny. Part comedy, the old play ended in tragedy. The final act, heavy and lugubrious, was cleverly staged and sumptuously costumed, the principal actors being clothed in deep crimson robes.

  The play was a great success. Karimov took it to Moscow, where it was also well received. It found favour too with the president of Karimov’s country, who awarded him the title Hero of the State.

  The acclaim went to Karimov’s head. He decided on a grand project. He would use the Kusmak Kum costumes for a joint production of Oedipus Rex and Antigone, the two dramas to be played one after the other.

  The president was invited to the opening night.

  He became furious. He ordered that the plays be stopped forthwith. He saw in the actions of Oedipus and Creon a criticism of his own rule. The theatre was immediately closed. Karimov’s family was disgraced and immediately fell into the harshest poverty, for no one dared come to their aid. Karimov was tried for treason, convicted and sentenced to death.

  Even today, Sophocles’ plays have the power to challenge rulers.

  I

  Karimov stood on a bench in his cell and peered out at the world beyond. The barred window was set high in the wall.

  He looked out at desert and the expanse of the inland sea, which at this season lay lifeless, with scarcely a wave touching the shore. Desert and sea appeared to tremble in the heat. Heat congealed in Karimov’s cell as if it would cook his brain within his skull.

  He had only to endure. After the enervating length of the afternoon, the sun began to sink lower in the west. The worst of the heat died. The prison warder entered the cell. He brought with him a jar of water, pitta bread, a large bone with some meat adhering to it, and a handful of dates. These he set down on the bench.

  ‘It will be at eight o’clock tomorrow morning,’ he said. He eyed Karimov narrowly, to see how he took this announcement of his forthcoming death. He was an old sun-shrivelled man, worn out by the menial and degrading work of the prison service. It was with sympathy that he watched Karimov sink down on the bench beside the food, wipe sweat from his eyes, and sigh deeply.

  ‘So … not much longer,’ he said.

  ‘No, not much longer, sir.’

  After a pause, Karimov asked what would happen to his body. The warder told him that the prison staff would bury it. This brought a little relief to the doomed man; it meant that his family would not have the expense of a funeral. He dared not ask where his grave would be. Despite himself, he sank his head into his hands.

  ‘So this is the fate of a Hero of the State,’ he said, forcing a bitter laugh.

  The warder agreed. ‘Better to be insignificant like me, sir, to speak truth. But I brought you a book, something to read to pass the time.’ This was not the first time he had shown sympathy for the prisoner. As he spoke, he withdrew from a pocket of his outer garment a battered volume, the corners of which curled like a sandwich gone stale.

  As he proffered it, he said, with a note of apology, ‘It’s rather old. I got it off another prisoner we had here in this very cell. Of course, I know the title is forbidden in our country, but I don’t suppose you will mind that in your situation.’

  Karimov made no move to accept the book. The old warder laid it carefully on the end of the bench, next to the dates. He nodded silently, as if he had said enough, and backed out of the cell. The key turned in the lock.

  Alone again, Karimov said to himself, over and over, ‘Eight o’clock tomorrow morning, eight o’clock tomorrow morning,’ as if it were a kind of mantra. Finally he checked himself and took up the book. It was a copy of Sigmund Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

  The condemned man broke into pained laughter. He fell to the floor and laughed until the laughter turned to cries of pain.

  ‘“Everyday Life”! What in hell’s name is everyday life? What “everyday” could that possibly be …?’

  There in the foetid confines of his cell, during the last night of his life, Jon Rahman Karimov dreamed a powerful dream. Although he had been condemned as a traitor of the state, he still retained an image of himself as noble and courageous. He had spent years as a conscript in the national army, had fought an enemy and had been wounded. His life had been hard and masculine. But his buried self, his anima, took the form of a woman, young and immortal. The woman was dark-clad Antigone of Sophocles’ ancient story.

  Out from the walls of Thebes by the south gate walked dark-clad Antigone, and into the countryside. Briefly green it was at this season, before the sun had scorched everywhere to brown. It was the season of fecundity.

  Old women squatted at their blue-painted doors, chattering as the sun went down. Birds darted over their heads, taking food to their nestlings. The Trojan wars were over at last. The drone of bees vibrated on the still air. Their hives, with their painted walls, stood nearby. The women cast hostile looks at Antigone as she went past, and their conversation died.

  She walked down to the path by the onion fields, where she laboured every morning. A farmer driving a flock of goats passed, averting his eye. It seemed to her that even the goats gave her a wide berth. She came to an olive grove, and there she stood, resting a hand on a branch. Many kinds of flower, white, yellow, gold and blue, petitioned the bees at her sandalled feet. Shading her eyes, she gazed longingly across the dazzle of river among its reeds, thinking that somewhere there might be a place where her origins were unknown, where she might live as an ordinary person.

  She was still young and golden-haired; a string of beads looped by the nape of her neck contained her long tresses. In her face was an elfin quality more beautiful than beauty itself. Her expression was guarded, even in repose. Her feet were calloused from years of wandering with her father; but Oedipus was dead. Her hands were coarse from the recent work she had undertaken in the shelter of her uncle’s city. Her inner world was hers alone, just as she shared her body with no man.

  Living had been hard through the fratricidal wars now concluded. Youthful though she still was, Antigone felt herself to have experienced already as much misery as was an older woman’s lot. Her mother had been buried in an unmarked grave. Her father lay in a sepulchre, having found peace at last. To herself she said, gazing into the distance, that all men should have proper burial. It was a law of the gods not of man.

  She spent a while alone in the olive grove, benefiting from its solitude. Nearby, raspberries grew wild. She supposed that the raspberry patch had been tended by someone who had gone to fight in the wars and never returned. Cramming some of the fruit into her mouth, she made her red lips still redder. Holding some of the fruit in her hand, she began her return to the oppressions of the city in which she had been born.

  One of the women at the well, a scraggy woman in a torn dress, called abuse at her. Antigone responded in kind.

  ‘You and your damned family!’ one woman called. ‘My father was killed because of you lot!’

  Antigone spat for answer.

  ‘You incest-brat! My lover got a spear through his chest fighting your rotten battles – and that from your brother Polynices, damn you!’

  Antigone flung a lump of donkey dung in their direction. The women jeered all the more.

  Gathering her black skirts about her lean thighs, Antigone hastened towards the Theban gate. As she went, she pretended not to see the unburied body lying by the ramparts. Yet the breeze carried a scent of carrion to offend her sensitive nose. She heard the bluebottles, angry with life about the corpse. Her head was held high as she trotted past, proceeding under dappled shade, where gnats danced in the filtered rays of sunlight.

  Above her dark head, squirrels chattered like disembodied spirits. Superstition brushed her mind as she feared what they might be saying about her.

  As she was nearing the guard at t
he gate, the shadow of a bird crossed her path, speeding over the grass. Looking up at the omen, she saw a large black crow, about to settle in a nearby tree. It clung to a high twig and stared down at her. ‘Caught!’ it seemed to cry. ‘Caught!’

  Through the gate and into the city, she hurried to her own stone house. It was no bigger or better than anyone else’s house. By the door inside stood her field implement, a hoe with a cracked shaft, bound up by a strip of blue material torn from the hem of Antigone’s garment. She went to kneel by her little stone altar, troubled by the ill omen of the bird’s shadow, and prayed to the goddess Aphaia.

  Afterwards, she prepared and ate some saganaki, but the cheese was not of the best. Then she sat silent, hands folded in her lap, to await the night, the time when the dead are buried – or else rise up.

  II

  In the wooden palace, high above Antigone’s cottage, sat Antigone’s uncle, King Creon. He too waited in his room, the wooden walls of which were draped with rugs and trophies. His beard was prematurely streaked with strands of grey, tokens of the burden of ruling unruly Thebes. He had dismissed his courtiers to sit alone at the window, gazing out at the city’s patchwork of rooftops. An occasional whiff of the corpse outside the ramparts rose to him, giving him more satisfaction than repugnance. Creon kept his face free of expression.

  Queen Eurydice entered, with a slave following, bringing in a supper for the king. Creon rejected it with a gesture, but drank some dark red wine from a silver goblet.

  Eurydice put her pale hand momentarily on his shoulder, withdrawing it without speaking.

  Creon rested that night for no more than half a watch. His confused sleep mingled with that of Jon Karimov in his condemned cell, distant though he was in space and time. Their two uneases became intertwined. Images surfacing from bygone memory transferred visions of Creon’s sister to Karimov’s mind. Snores became camel bells. Creon’s laboured breathing heaved to the sound of armed actors singing in chorus. Into Karimov’s sleep filtered a parade of chariots and sieges, blurring into the unceasing struggle for existence which had been the lot of both men. For one brief moment, he lay with Jocasta. Then there was blood in a ragged puddle on the dusty earth. Once again, Eteocles and Polynices fought each other for possession of Thebes, Eteocles defending, Polynices attacking. But all confused and on a darkening stage.

  Creon sat up in bed, his sweat cold on his body. Once more, he was forced to play out in memory the civil war to that day when his two nephews, Polynices and Eteocles, fighting hand to hand, had killed one another, to fall face downwards in the trampled dirt beyond the city gates. This was what glory had come to – scavenging hounds, the stink of corruption, maggots teeming in dropped jaws.

  It seemed to Creon then, staring into the darkness, that the terrible curse which had afflicted his sister Jocasta’s family was worked out. Jocasta herself, Oedipus and their two sons – all were dead. The daughters, Ismene and Antigone, only remained. Ismene was elsewhere. He had only to deal with Antigone, stubborn Antigone. When he had achieved that, the Furies would be placated. Karimov too, staring into the darkness of his cell, let his mind wander. He saw his wonderful Tragedy of Oedipus playing in Moscow and even beyond that, playing in the West, in Budapest, Berlin and Milan; his family enjoying wealth beyond their dreams; he himself acclaimed wherever he went. Then he realised it was an hour before dawn and his personal Furies returned. He cowered under his blanket, using Freud’s book for a pillow.

  Impatient with sleeplessness, Creon arose. He summoned a slave, who brought him a bowl of rosewater wherein he washed his face and hands. He sighed to think of his obligations. Having finally gained control of his war-torn city, he had passed many just but harsh laws in order to restore peace. One of his edicts had offended Antigone and set her against her uncle.

  Thebes was no longer what it had been. Much of it lay ruined. Many houses had been burned during the armed struggle.

  Creon now had the city under military law. Soon, rebuilding would start. Now his latest decree had gone out about the city. Every citizen knew of it. There was to be a grand ceremonial funeral for the hero Eteocles, who was to be buried in state. Indeed, Creon himself, with Eurydice and Haemon standing beside him, saluted the corpse of the saviour of Thebes as soldiers conveyed it to its final resting place.

  Eteocles was buried with honour. Not so his treacherous brother Polynices. The edict announced that Polynices’ body was to be left where it had fallen, outside the city gates, unburied, there to rot – just as Jon Rahman Karimov seemed to feel his body rot in the stinking confines of his narrow cell, in the final hours of his existence.

  Creon’s edict proclaimed that anyone who attempted to bury Polynices’ body would be accounted a traitor to Thebes and executed without further ado. When he had bathed and dressed himself, the king left his wife to sleep and went to his son, whom he roused from slumber. He spoke briefly with Haemon, who was affianced to Antigone.

  Early though it was, supplicants were already waiting for audience, the crippled along with the healthy, widows with their children. They stood silent in a hastily constructed corridor, segregated from the rest of the building.

  The palace was not as it had been in Oedipus’ day. Much of the lower floor had been converted into a barracks for loyal troops. The dwelling where once Semele had lived was now an armoury, presided over by a dark man with large moustaches.

  When he had eaten his breakfast, Creon attended to the quarrels and complaints of the supplicants. He dealt out advice and, occasionally, new-minted silver coin. Later, he presided over the newly instituted court of justice. It was noon before he was free to go with a bodyguard to where Antigone had her home.

  His niece lived in a poor quarter, somewhere between the palace where she had been born and the south gate of the city.

  The sun blazed in the narrow street, filling it with harsh light, bleaching its walls. Owing to the war, many houses had not been maintained; their old walls were cracked and tainted, their roofs needed new thatch and tile. Creon ordered his bodyguard to stand sentry outside Antigone’s door. He knocked once, before stooping and manoeuvring his considerable bulk through the entrance. His eyes did not adjust to the diminution of light as rapidly as they had done in his youth.

  ‘Antigone, stand before me,’ he ordered.

  Antigone rose from where she had been working at her hand loom; she bowed and stood submissively before her uncle. She was aware of her slightness against the barrel of the king’s body: in this disproportion lay masculine power.

  ‘You have grown scraggy, my dear,’ he said, not unkindly. He produced from under his gown an object wrapped in cloth, and presented it to her. ‘Here’s a leg of boar to nourish you.’

  Antigone took it and laid it upon her bed. She said nothing, merely gazing up at him.

  She lived in little more than a hovel. The walls of this small room had once been painted blue. Much of the paint had peeled away. On a string attached between two rafters, a faded garment hung to dry. On a table by the bed lay a knuckle of bread and a pat of goat’s cheese. Creon took in these details rapidly.

  He even knew where the cheese had come from. Antigone had an older friend, a woman called Zenna, who worked with her in the onion fields. Zenna had lost a son and daughter in the war. They had sided with Polynices. Zenna nourished motherly feelings towards Antigone. The cheese lying on the little table had been Zenna’s gift.

  Creon knew these things. His spies were paid to keep a watch on people.

  He spoke without preamble. ‘I wish to examine your hands, Antigone. Show them to me.’

  She brought her hands up and held them out submissively, as if she were still a child. Her hands were narrow and brown. The palms were hard from labour, the fingernails short. She wore no rings or bracelets. Creon turned the hands over and about as if they were stones under which he was expecting to find a scorpion. He saw particles of soil lodged under the nails.

  ‘You have been digging, Antigone?’
/>
  ‘At dawn I tended my vegetable patch as usual.’

  He looked down at her, sternly but not unkindly. He sighed, and ordered her to go with him.

  ‘Must I, Uncle?’

  ‘You must.’

  They walked together slowly down the narrow street. The bodyguard was dismissed. Doors slammed as they went. Creon placed an arm about Antigone’s shoulder in an avuncular way, to which Antigone made no protest; nor did she seek to divest herself of the arm. As they went, a rat scuttled into a gutter.

  ‘What a disgrace,’ he said, as if meditating on the past. ‘What a disgrace …’

  The city gate was open and guarded. He directed her through it.

  ‘No, Uncle, please. I don’t wish to see the corpse.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, girl, it’s only your brother Polynices, lying there rotting. Can’t you smell him? In your eyes or up your nose, what’s the difference?’

  Now he had secure hold of her arm. He practically dragged her over to where the body lay unburied, with wasps and bluebottles tumbling about it. As the ill-matched pair approached, heavy scavenger birds moved away, clucking with disgust at having to leave their feast.

  ‘Can you recognise him?’ Creon asked, sneering.

  In fear she replied that she could. But of course she could. The previous night, when the owl ceased to call and all nature was hushed, the shade of Polynices had come to her bedside, he, the slain Polynices.

  The very manner of his coming was terrifying. He seemed to arrive from a long way off, walking as if through sheets of ice, taking a long time about it. She, the small sister, sat up on her bed, watching in horror, unable to do more than prop herself on one elbow and stare pale-lipped at that steady approach.

  The shade was lit from within, as if it was made of frosted glass. Its armour likewise. Its wounds, its sickly congealed blood, made it more dreadful. Its face, in which its eyes darkly blazed, was of a ghastly pallor.