by Io
“He died at an advanced age, unpunished.”
“And the other?”
“The other was a leader, he used his soldiers
for...” I burst out: “Stop, I don’t want to hear these gruesome stories
anymore!”
Hades nodded to the boatman to be quiet and leaned against the stern.
“Not me either. These souls don’t come into my realm for this reason.
They don’t have access to the pure waters of the river Lethe, to forget their past life in order to be reborn, and they are unworthy of judgment. Their only use is to satiate Cerberus, they are not worth anything else.”
Cruel and balanced. The Justice of the Avernus was an absolute concept, without mitigating any of the many that existed in the world of the living. I began to tremble, despite the thick, heavy mantel. I murmured, in a faint voice,
“Children... the victims of that man, they have entered, true?”
“They play in the meadow of the asphodel, with their parents.”
I thought of the pale petals of the star-shaped flowers, growing on long spikes, on rough terrain. They had a sweet scent and their roots were able to resist the rocks of the mountain pastures, where very little
was able to grow. They blossomed easily, without need of blessing. They were the salvation of the poor shepherds and the hungry, during famines.
“You mean the Elysian fields?”
“No,” said Hades, “the Elysian fields are reserved for superior souls, who have helped to make the world a better place during life. The meadow of asphodel is for those who have committed no evil, but have not distinguished themselves by doing good.”
Perhaps sensing what I thought, he added,
“It’s not an ecstatic place, but pleasant. You will find most of the mortals there.”
I felt that the boat was turning, and that the current had changed. I had lived long enough on the bank of springs and rivers, to understand that we had entered another stream, but I did not have the strength to ask, or even to look. In that realm without sun, where unknown stars flickered on a livid purple sky, I could expect only more strangeness.
Hades took the cloth from my arm. He lowered it over the side of the boat, and for a moment I feared what he had warned me about would happen, that souls would seize and drag me in .. I impulsively grabbed his arm, and I felt abysmally stupid when he turned to look at me, amazed. I let go of him as if he had become incandescent.
“The dead... the submerged...”
He stood back up with the cloth wet with hellish water, which he pressed on the mark made by Aristeus’ bite. I felt a wonderful coolness, and the painful throbbing of the wound vanished completely. Seeing me puzzled, he explained,
“The waters of the Styx have great powers. Charon is always trying to chase away the nymphs who come to bathe their children, to give them invulnerability. But he is getting old, even him.”
The ferryman gave a particularly sharp stroke with the oar. His voice was so ugly that I could not tell if he was angry or embarrassed when he said,
“That Teti was too quick, sire. But did not get wet all over, not really! Ah, she will notice, all right!”
Hades looked at the horizon while the boatman slopped away the gray water. He did not laugh or insist, but I had the impression that behind his subordinate’s back he was amused. I had to admit to myself that I preferred that way of doing things than my father’s course mockery. No one was offended, the peace was not disturbed, but the atmosphere had become a little lighter.
Hades nodded at the cloth I was holding to my arm,
“Bathe your flowers also, if you want them to remain fresh in the Underworld.”
He stood looking at me while I did as he told me. Then, coldly, as if it did not concern him, he asked,
“You were worried about me?”
I blushed and did not answer. He said out loud not only was it stupid, seeing that Hades was the god of those souls, but even a contradiction. He was my kidnapper. I would have to have given him a shove to knock him down, if ever.
I rested on the bottom, so as not to see any thing else. “I’m tired ... is it far from the landing?”
“We still have to cross the Cocytus and Phlegethon,
then get to the Judgment, to reach the wall of tears. On the other side there are the Elysian fields and my realm.”
“Judgment?”
“The court of judgment, what you feared. It is chaired by Aeacus, Minos and Rhadamanthus, the sons of Zeus. They were just in life, and they are just with the dead. Who is not absolved goes to Tartarus.”
A short pause. I soon learned that for him to make conversation was more tiring than splitting the ground and ruling the underworld.
“That’s where my armor was forged. So it is always cold; in this place the damned will never know heat. It is eternal death, forged in the place where you die for eternity.”
Tartarus, thanking the topographical benevolence we were leaving behind. My father told me about it, mostly he bragged about how he had defeated the Titans, imprisoning them there down below. The realm of Hades really seemed boundless.
I said, discouraged,
“It looks like there is still a long journey. I did not realize the Underworld was so vast.”
“It is larger than any other place. If you’re tired, rest as well. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
There was nothing else I could do, and because I felt really exhausted, both physically and mentally, I stretched out on the bench, wrapping the mantle around me. The wood was hard (and where did wood grow in the afterlife? Did it come from the souls of the dead trees? But I could not really do any more. I put my head down, with my hands together under my head, like a cushion, and slipped into a restless slumber.
I was so tired that I could not even move when Hades, with that gentle power that seemed so strange, the king of the Underworld, moved me to let me lay my head on his leg, so as not to be in such close contact with the wood of platform. Through half-closed eyelids, I saw that he had taken one of the flowers out of my hair that the horses had not wanted to eat. It was a narcissus it seemed almost redundant. Strengthened by the waters of hell, the flower was in full bloom, and had not withered. Hades twirled it between his fingers, with an unreadable expression on his face.
I went to close my eyes for fear he realized that I was not sleeping. I was still unable to bear an interaction with him, for the moment. I wanted this,
I had understood, it was impossible not to understand him; but everything else, including what I wanted, was still unknown to me.
Immersed in his scent and his warmth, feeling safe in a totally meaningless way, considering where I was, I relaxed enough to doze off.
When I awoke, I smelled the perfume of flowers.
The Realm of Alabaster and Obsidian
Once, during one of the many times when I was having fun teasing him – trying, because he never gave me the satisfaction – I asked him why he had attacked me that day, on the banks of the Pergo.
I would not have fled if he had spoken to me; he had saved my life. I would have been happy to see him, although Cyane and the other nymphs would have been scared anyway.
“It was necessary.”
Concise as ever, but when he sensed that I wanted to bother him, he became even more cryptic, and forced me to question him endlessly, which he answered promptly, until I got tired or until, with the last reply, I closed my mouth.
I defeated him once, and that one time changed the world.
“I would have come with you,” I pointed out, “you would have had to insist a little, but I would have come. you know that.”
“Naturally,”
he replied, I prodded, “Many things are a given, my husband. I was quite frightened, that day. You were violent and brutal.”
After I got to know him well, those two names were so much out of tune, in reference to him, so I had finished speaking almost smiling. He had put me in a trap, as always.
&nb
sp; Hades was unperturbed. At that precise moment, I remember, he was holding a scroll and slowly unrolled it, to read it, while at the same time to give it the necessary attention; but I still found his attitude annoying. Sometimes I shouted to stop him doing something else and to look at me when I spoke. He gave into me
Then, the next time, again he had to do a job that had nothing to do with me. Soon I gave up trying to make him understand what irritated me, and I found it easier to stop being irritated. Maybe I could change the god, but it is impossible to change man.
He replied with his unassailable calm,
“You would not have been my victim if I had persuaded you, but my accomplice. You would have drawn the wrath of your mother, the wrath of Demeter; you’d have been cursed from the earth, forever. You are the spring. It was not worth the risk.”
“What if I had decided to hate my kidnapper?”
Hades had given me one of his rare, almost imperceptible smiles. It cut to my heart, as always, and as always, by the one who I was teasing, I became the one who was being teased.
“You’re very sure of my devotion to you, Lord of the Avernus.”
“Certainly. On the other hand you know about mine, so we’re equal.”
I didn’t talk to him until evening, when he took me in his arms and I had to give in, for his and my safety.
I hated to speak about us with that flat tone, as if they were bare facts. What had happened was what had happened. We were what we were. There was nothing else, for him. In the face of death, everything becomes easy.
But the myth, you know, wants the fire, and lightning, and the madness of the gods that revolt against the world, disregarding the lives of mortals. None of this exists, in the bare facts. Madness there was, and there were many mortal lives shut off, flames smothered by his fingers, but they were the causes and consequences, not myth.
For this, the myth tells it very differently to what happened, since when I got off Charon’s boat and they got on, the time when everything changed.
The beginning and the end, however distorted, are known. Everything else belongs only to me.
The light was dim, but extraordinarily strong, so I had to shade my eyes with my hand. I let myself be guided by Hades, leaning on his arm, because now I was even beyond astonishment; although I was awake, I was living in an almost dreamlike state.
Had I thought the kingdom of the Underworld was strange? I had not seen anything yet.
The wall of tears was a black barrier, dark onyx behind us. I didn’t understand how the boat had passed through, because it rose up to infinity and infinity ran along the sides, precluding anything there was on the other side. While I reawakened, I heard Hades explain why it had that name because those who were on the other side knew that they had arrived one step from paradise, to have missed it by a hair.
Now, I walked there in the middle. The Elysian fields could be seen on the horizon, and the horizon was a kaleidoscope of colors, the reds and yellows and pale pink of dawn, or the first sunset. The sweet slopes of the hills were inflamed with color, and the meadows seemed to glow with that unearthly light, the source of which was impossible to detect. There was no sun, and he never explained how the sky could have those beautiful colors, with clouds that looked like rags on fire, the sloping groves in shimmering colors, all shades of green and silver, up to the streams flowing between one hill and another. They could be crossed with a leap and the banks flourished.
With a whinny of joy, Hades’ horses galloped down the walkway, at the risk of overwhelming the few souls who had arrived, and they flew passed me to reach the blessed pastures. I saw them bucking and chasing each other, happy as foals, before lowering their heads to begin to graze to their contentment on the grass of paradise.
The souls reacted in a way that was not much different. A woman jumped ashore from the boat, fell to her knees, got up and ran towards Hades. For a moment I thought she would have thrown her arms around him, and I was aware of the flash of anger that burned in me at the idea; but the woman fell to the ground to prostrate herself, words flooded out in a language I did not recognize. However, it was impossible not to understand that they were blessings. The other souls became aware and knelt in the same way, mumbling thanks.
Hades looked around as if he had not understood what he saw.
“Get up. If you are here it is not because of me, but you. You can choose to be reborn, after drinking the pure water of the river Lethe, or to live eternally in the Elysian fields. And you don’t owe this privilege to anyone but yourselves.”
Then, without a gesture of farewell, he turned his back on the blessed souls and set off down the path.
I started to follow him – not that I had any alternative – but I felt a little hand in mine, and I lowered my eyes. A little girl, ethereal as air, but bright and plump, with pigtails and freckles, looked at me blissfully.
“We can be born again, if we want to?”
I said, hesitatingly, “Certainly... because you don’t like it here?”
“A lot,” the girl replied, “but I would like to go back
home. Mummy will be crying.” I had no doubt. Mine too, at that time,
had to be prostrate and helpless. Cyane had definitely told her what had happened, and to learn that their only child was taken by the god of the dead is not very reassuring news for a worried parent.
With deep shame, I must admit that this thought had fleetingly crossed my mind, just before fading. I was in paradise, and on the same level as the souls that had arrived with me, I couldn’t think of anything else.
“You’ve been a good girl, if you got this far,” I said gently, “but I don’t know how you could go home. Maybe you should wait for your mother, when she also comes...”
“It may never happen.”
I winced. Hades, not seeing me next to him, had returned. His shadow stretched to the shore, and I realized that I too projected one. The souls, however, crossed the Elysian fields without their bodies.
“It is said that your mother will gain paradise,” he continued, with his voice flat, devoid of empathy, “if you want to see her again, you will need to be reborn. But you will not remember that you were her daughter, and she will never think that. You will live another life.”
The little girl grasped my hand stronger. Unlike the damned that I had seen on the Acheron, her soul was warm. “But I will still be with her?”
“She will have another son, or another girl.”
“Will I be there?”
“Partly,” said Hades, “but you will not replace what
you represented for her. You’ll be another love, not the return of the previous love.”
I was surprised, and a lot, to hear the Lord of the Underworld speaking like this, that without a flutter of an eyelid he tore the souls from Cerberus and sent them to languish forgotten in the bottom of the infernal rivers. For the blessed he had other concerns. Or maybe, I thought, for them there was another reality, and he was limited to showing it to them.
“You’ll have to drink water from the river Lethe, and be reborn from her belly, if that is your wish.”
The little one was not interested in metaphysical questions; like all children, she clapped her hands and hopped excitedly, because she understood that she would get what she wanted.
“Oh, yes! Where do I have to go?”
Hades raised his arm to indicate a path that branched off from the main one, and the little girl, with a squeal of joy, ran in that direction. Before disappearing over the hillock, she turned to raise her hand in greeting and waved frantically. I waved back, happy for her, Hades watched blankly until she was gone.
“You’ll find a few children in the Elysian fields,” he said, as if what had happened had only been useful in showing me something, “mostly, they want to return to their parents. Or, anyway, they want to have their parents with them.”
“It’s natural.”
“Let’s go.” He passed the blessed souls without even looki
ng at them,
despite those who threw themselves to the ground looking at him with adoring eyes. It was clear, they gave the impression of not having understood one jot of what he had told them. He did not take the credit for having brought them there; they had arrived on their own, living the way they had lived.
I followed him deep in thought, wondering how many of the Olympians would have given up such an act of adoration, not only because they deemed themselves as deserving.
“Here are the magnolias.”
He stopped beside a grove, so quickly that I almost bumped into him. In his cloak, I was addicted to the smell, but there it was very strong. When I looked up, I saw the magnificent white flowers, with soft and elongated petals, opening onto large goblets shaped like a crown. Wild bees busily coming and going, along with the largest and most colorful butterflies I had ever seen. There were even birds that were unknown to me, glittering like jewels, small, coming and going among the petals. They were wonderful. But the flowers were the best spectacle. It was as if the trees, always dark and depressing, held apart all the smoothness, luster, splendor, to create their flowers. Tentatively, I held out a hand, and one of the flowers broke away, falling into my palm. The scent made me sigh.
“They are so beautiful.”
Hades continued on his way. What he had to say and show he had said and shown.
There was no need for him to say anything more, when we got to the palace, which overlooked the Elysian fields and thus, by extension, the entire underworld.
The towers and pinnacles were silhouetted against the dawn, behind walls as white as enamel. The gates were black. As Hades passed, they opened eerily silent. The gardens were blooming with plants I did not know, the flowers were following my movements, they revealed their names, strange and exotic; bird of paradise flower, lotus, yucca, bougainvillea, hibiscus, solandra. What irony, having to get to the Underworld to find out how extensive was the variety of life that blessed the world.
As we passed under the alabaster arches, so shiny that they dazzled, I was suddenly aware I was going into his home. He had kidnapped me, had brought me where he wanted to take me, and in realizing this I stopped.