Ithaca

by Patrick Dillon

  I say, “Why are so many of the men injured?”

  It’s something I noticed last night and again as we passed through the house. One of the men stacking tables in the hall had a scar under his eye. Others were missing hands. One man, who pushed open a door for us, had lost both legs and pushed himself around on a little trolley, his hands wrapped in bloodied linen rags.

  Polycaste gives me a pitying look. “Why do you think? The war. They came back like this. Everyone was scarred by the war. What’s wrong with you? Isn’t Ithaca full of veterans too?”

  I say, “No one came back to Ithaca. They all disappeared.”

  “Oh.” Polycaste looks away. “I hadn’t thought.” After a moment she goes on, “There are loads of them ’round here, veterans. All the villages are full of them, the farms. Lots of men took to the hills. Eight years fighting in Troy, they couldn’t get used to ordinary life again. Seeing women, living with children. Some became bandits. Some just scratch a living out of the forest. You’ll see them if we go to Sparta together.”

  “Sparta?”

  “That’s my father’s plan. Hasn’t he told you yet? He will. There was a story last winter, of a war veteran living in a little village up there, a shepherd. They were snowed in for a month. When the snow melted they found he’d killed his whole family. Wife, three children, just killed them. I suppose it’s still in their heads, killing people.”

  Suddenly I realize how remote Ithaca is. I always thought it was the center of the world. It isn’t. It’s a backwater dozing in the far west, cut off from everything on the mainland. All over Greece people are living through the aftermath of the endless, bloody war. For us on Ithaca the war is just an absence—the absence of the men who never came back. Everywhere else, it’s real and you can see its marks—in wounded limbs and scarred memories, in slave girls, in veterans pushing themselves around on trolleys, hands wrapped in bloodied cloth.

  In things people don’t know how to talk about.

  We get back to the great hall about noon, as bells ring in the villages around the house and cicadas shrill in the olive trees. The sun has turned the courtyard into a furnace, but it’s still cool in the hall. The fire has dwindled to a single sputtering log, kept aflame only for ritual’s sake. A slave comes forward with a cool jar of water and a linen cloth to wash the dust from our hands and faces.

  Nestor seems refreshed by his night’s sleep. He lifts his cheek so Polycaste can kiss it, then gestures to a door in the side of the hall and leads me into a small office with a single window too high to see out of. Unlike the great hall, it contains no luxury. It’s plain and simple, with no furniture but a couple of chairs and a wooden table.

  “My thinking-room.” Nestor eases himself painfully into one of the chairs and gestures the servant to leave. “No clutter. We must talk.” But he doesn’t. For a moment he just looks up at the deep blue outside the window. Following his gaze, I can see swallows darting across the sky.

  “You know how this will probably end?” he says at last. He looks at me, and there’s something piercing in his filmy eye, a flash of the wisdom he’s famous for. “It’s more than likely your father is dead. You must know that. If you have a fraction of Odysseus’s brains, you’ll know that.”

  He falls silent again, for a long time, then sighs. “We’ve heard rumors, of course. I’m sure you’ve heard rumors in Ithaca. Odysseus was seen in Africa. He drowned in a storm off Cape Tenaros . . . There are any number of fates one can imagine. A storm? A mutiny? A quarrel with people ashore? You would think, wouldn’t you, that after eight years of fighting together, the Greeks would be united. Nothing could be further from the truth. There were jealousies and resentments in the Greek camp that will endure for generations. Leaders who felt they weren’t shown enough respect, contingents who didn’t get the booty they thought they deserved. In some ways, you know, winning is far harder than losing.”

  Easy to say. I think of the desolate slave girl from the night before.

  “So maybe Odysseus went ashore on some island for water and food, and ran into a fight,” Nestor goes on. “Or he was blown off course. Or he lost his way. There are as many possibilities as there are rumors: the sea holds many perils. But nothing worth acting on. You could spend a lifetime chasing rumors.”

  “I know he might be dead,” I say.

  “Good.” Nestor rubs his chin thoughtfully. “You’re right to search, though. It’s better to be sure. Nothing saps courage like uncertainty, and from what I hear of affairs in Ithaca, you will need all your courage. Who is looking after Penelope while you are gone?”

  “The servants.”

  His mouth tightens only slightly, but it’s enough to make me wince. My mother, alone in her room. Antinous.

  “Can you fight?”

  “No.” I can’t see any point in lying.

  “A pity. Somehow you must learn. If any of my sons were here, they would teach you.”

  I say, “Tell me about my father.”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” I’m almost certain he expected the question. Again I sense that piercing gleam in the old man’s dull eye. “I wonder if any of us can really know our fathers—really know them. We see them through veils of . . .” He lifts one withered hand. “Awe. Resentment. Love. We spend so much of our time trying to be different from them—”

  “I don’t know what he’s like,” I interrupt. “I don’t know how to be different.”

  “A fair point.” Nestor’s chin sinks to his chest. He seems weary, suddenly. “What have you been told about Odysseus?”

  “What the storytellers say.”

  “There’s truth of a kind in stories. Our greatest hero. A fighter. A strategist. All true.” He pauses, his voice fading. “But not the whole truth, of course.”

  “Someone told me he was a liar.”

  For a moment I can hear the swallows shrieking outside the window. The old man slowly shifts himself on his seat, like he’s looking for a comfortable position and not finding it.

  “Who?”

  “Mentes, a friend of his from Africa.”

  “Mentes? The African? I heard he died. But listen . . .” Nestor looks closely at me with a pained expression on his withered face. “There is no whole truth about a person. People are too complicated, they have too many sides . . . I will tell you the trouble with Odysseus. Your father was eloquent—a talker—and people distrust talkers. They distrust words, and Odysseus was a master of words. A liar? Yes, some people called him that. I prefer to call him a storyteller, a spinner of yarns. That was how we survived eight years of hell . . . yes, hell. Can you imagine what the war was really like? Forget the storytellers. Agamemnon was no leader. Our best soldier, Achilles, refused to fight, and the rest of our men were no match for the Trojans. Odysseus kept us going, because he always had another idea, another tale that would save us all, a god who would come to our rescue, a spy who promised to open the gates for us. Scheme after scheme . . . Lies? Most of them, yes, but he believed them before we did.

  “That mad scheme of the horse . . . there was only one chance in a thousand it would succeed . . . It was Odysseus’s plan, of course—who else could have come up with it? We went along with it because to hear Odysseus speak, to see him in the assembly, you would feel all objections fall away. That was Odysseus’s genius: people believed him.” Nestor shakes his head. “While they were with him. Afterward, of course, the doubts crept in . . . ‘Was that really true?’ Your father was a complex man. Not everyone liked him. Not many trusted him. Brave? Yes, when he’d convinced himself of some harebrained scheme. At other times a coward for whom the rest of us had to cover up.” He sighs. “I’m assuming that, as his son, you’re no fool yourself, which is why I am talking to you as if you were a grown man, not a boy of sixteen who has never learned to fight.”

  Nestor falls silent. Questions crowd into my mind—a lifetime of questions. But one look at the old man’s face stops me from asking them. Nestor is too exhausted to troubl
e with more questions.

  “Why do you want to find him?” he asks after a pause.

  “For my mother’s sake.”

  “Now I think you are lying.”

  “For mine, then.”

  “And what will you do if you learn nothing?”

  “Declare him dead, raise a funeral pyre, and let my mother marry again.”

  “The best thing, perhaps. But whatever happens, it won’t be easy. Listen to me, Telemachus. Don’t judge your father too harshly. Odysseus was just a man. Better than some, no worse than others.” He lifts one finger. It has a chief’s ruby ring on it. “And here is another piece of advice. Don’t set too much store by finding Odysseus. You think that finding your father will explain everything about you. It won’t. I barely knew my own father. Hercules killed him . . . and later, Hercules became my friend. It’s a strange world. I’m one hundred and ten years old—imagine that. For decades I enjoyed how people honored me for my age and wisdom . . . now I sometimes think I understand nothing at all. They still flatter me. I pretend to enjoy it. I’m too tired to explain it means nothing to me. But enough.” He lifts one weary hand. “Now I must tell you what to do next. Listen.” He reaches to a tray, pours a little water into a cup, and sips it.

  “When Odysseus left Troy he was healthy and had good ships. He was planning to return straight to Ithaca, via Pylos. He would have had to sail around the south of Greece, where two capes jut into the sea, Malea and Tenaros. More ships are wrecked on Malea and Tenaros than anywhere else in the seas. I have sailed around them myself and always been fortunate . . . but if your father was wrecked, it was probably on one of those points. Both lie near Sparta, Menelaus’s kingdom. You must go to Menelaus in Sparta.”

  “Menelaus!” Menelaus is the brother of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks. Since Agamemnon died, Menelaus is the richest and most powerful king in Greece. It was Menelaus who began the war after his wife, Helen, ran off with a Trojan prince. When the war ended, he took Helen back to his palace at Sparta. If I go to Sparta, I’ll meet Helen herself.

  “Think,” Nestor goes on. “Menelaus and his family, the Atreids, control the whole east coast of Greece. If anything happens in the east of Greece, they know of it. Besides, Menelaus has traveled since he left Troy—to Crete and beyond, to Egypt. He has agents everywhere. News reaches Sparta. If anyone on earth knows Odysseus’s fate, it’s Menelaus.”

  Nestor stops and clears his throat. “My daughter Polycaste will accompany you. I won’t deny I have my own reasons for sending a mission to Sparta.” He smiles wearily. “If you are truly as astute as your father, you’ll guess them soon enough. Pylos is small and peaceful. Sparta is large and hungry for war. Friendship alone prevents the Atreids from gobbling us up. I have not visited Menelaus since the war, and I should have done. I am too old to travel now, but Polycaste can go in my place. She cannot cross the mountains without a companion. There—you will be doing your father’s old friend a favor by going.”

  He blinks like a little white owl. I’ve tired him—it’s time I went. But before I can leave, Nestor lays a soft white hand on my wrist. It seems to weigh nothing. It’s almost a bond to my missing father—these feathery fingers that once clasped Odysseus’s hand.

  “Odysseus was my friend, Telemachus.” He sounds oddly husky. “So many battles together. So many arguments in the Greek council. I can hear his voice now . . .” His eyes half close as he remembers the voice I’ve never heard. For a moment I think he’s fallen into a reverie. When Nestor speaks again, his voice is so low I have to lean closer to hear him. “I can’t offer you anything more than advice, Telemachus. But my prayers will be with you. Good luck.”

  Polycaste and I set off the next day on two mules, with a third to carry our baggage. The plan is to travel to the edge of Nestor’s realm and pick up a guide to lead us across the mountains to Sparta. Mentor will stay in Pylos with Nestor. All this is decreed by the old chief, who allows no alternatives. I wonder why he is so insistent that we travel alone. Maybe it is a test of some sort—for Polycaste, or me, or both of us.

  On the first day we travel through gentle hills covered with olive groves and little farms. This is Nestor’s country, and everyone knows Polycaste. Children run after us when we ride through villages. A farmer draws us water from his well in an ancient leather bucket. When the sun is at its hottest, we shelter for an hour or two in the shadow of an outcrop of rock, but we don’t talk much. To be honest, I’m scared of Polycaste—scared of her caustic tongue and quick boredom. In the evening we drop down to the shore of a bay with some fishermen’s cottages and a little tavern clustered around a beach lined with fishing boats. We kick off our shoes and paddle in the soft, silky water while the mules are led away to a shed at the back of the village. On the far side of the bay are mountains, the highest I’ve ever seen, way higher than Mount Nirito at home. When we look to the right, past a headland, we can make out open sea; to the left, where the bay ends, is the smoke of a little town.

  “That town’s where we’re going,” Polycaste says. “Over there”—she points out to sea—“is Tenaros. The mountains run all the way back along the peninsula and inland. We have to cross them to get to Sparta.”

  “Have you ever been to the town?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s outside my father’s territory.”

  We eat fish grilled over olive branches on the beach and sleep on piles of nets in a low shed that reeks of fish oil. Its rafters are hung with spare oars, masts, and rolled-up sails. Another day of travel brings us to the outskirts of the town.

  A rough ditch signals the boundary. Beyond it, the track runs across beaten earth marked with the outlines of houses. It feels like the town used to be bigger. Starved-looking children stare at us from shelters made of bent branches, but they seem too apathetic to chase after us or even beg for food. Our mules pick their way cautiously through heaps of debris and the ashes of old fires. The track dips down, then climbs over leveled banks of flattened earth.

  “There used to be walls,” Polycaste says. “Ages ago. My father told me.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was sacked.”

  “Who by?”

  “People in boats. A long time ago. Trojans, maybe.” She shrugs. “Enemies.”

  From outside a low, unpainted cottage, an old man watches us approach. Scrawny chickens peck at the dust under his bench. A dog lies at his feet, its head on one side. It bares its teeth as we halt but seems too exhausted even to get up and bark.

  “We’re looking for Nauteus,” Polycaste says.

  The old man carefully looks us over, like he’s trying to memorize our appearance, then says, “He’s sick.”

  “Where will we find him?”

  “Up by the stronghold, next to the cistern, but I told you, he’s sick. Everyone’s sick.”

  As we ride away, he shouts something after us. It sounds like “Watch out for . . .”

  “What did he say?”

  Polycaste shrugs. She leads the way along narrow streets, past houses that mostly look abandoned. There’s an open space that might once have been a market square, and a taller building, its roof recently patched, that could have been a temple. Apart from two mules tied up outside a house, there’s no sign of life. The town is nothing like the bustling little villages in Nestor’s world.

  Polycaste pauses in the square. To the right, a track leads down to the beach. To the left, another climbs upward toward a ruined tower. She guides her mule toward the tower, and almost immediately the road widens around a circular stone structure whose walls are choked with weeds. There’s a cottage next to it with fishing nets hanging from the eaves. A bench stands outside the door, but the shutters are closed. Polycaste frowns, then clambers down from her mule to knock at the shutters.

  A woman’s voice answers. “Who is it?”

  “I’m looking for Nauteus. Nestor sent me.”

  “He’s sick.”

  “Is this his house?”

&nbs
p; The door opens and the woman appears. She’s gaunt and stooped, not old, but so bowed by work that she looks much older.

  “I’m Polycaste, Nestor’s daughter. My father told me to find Nauteus. He said he would guide us through the mountains to Sparta.”

  “Nauteus is sick,” the woman says. Her eyes flicker suspiciously over us from a face burned almost black by wind and sun. “He was vomiting all night. I offered a jar of oil at the temple, but he’s no better.”

  There’s something imperious in Polycaste’s expression. “He has to get better,” she says. “He has to take us to Sparta.”

  “He isn’t taking anyone anywhere. The way he is now, he won’t see another night. Then where will I be? No man to look after me, no one to feed my children, no one to bring us food . . .” Her voice is starting to take on the whining, chanting tone of professional beggars.

  I swing myself off my mule and pull a loaf from the sack on my saddlebag. “Here’s some bread for him.” The woman’s lament stops abruptly. She eyes the bread greedily, but I don’t let her take it—not yet. “Is there anyone else who can guide us?”

  The woman shakes her head. “Everyone’s sick. There’s no luck in this town. The fish went away, the trees died, the animals died . . .” She’s starting the beggar’s drone again. Her black eyes don’t leave the little loaf of bread. “People say some god hates us, maybe Poseidon. We gave him too poor a sacrifice one year and he’s hated us ever since . . .”

  “Do you know the road to Sparta?”

  The woman falls silent, still staring at the bread. “There’s only one road,” she says at last. “Over the mountains. There are tracks in the forest, but only one road.”

  “Where can we stay the night?”

  “Not here. If you have any sense, you’ll go back to Pylos. Take the young lady home to her father.”

  “I can look after myself,” Polycaste says.

  The woman gives a short laugh. “I wouldn’t spend the night here. It’s dangerous. You’ll get the sickness.”