Amber and Clay

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  “You saw what happened!” Lysandra insisted.

  Thratta echoed, “I saw what happened.”

  Melisto shifted onto her back and sat the doll on her chest so she could look into its face. If she thought about the doll and only about the doll, the other thing would go away. She fingered the doll’s foot, which was sharply pointed; the doll would be an uncomfortable companion in bed. Nevertheless, Melisto would sleep with her. If she didn’t, the doll’s feelings might be hurt. She wondered if she could tie the doll to the tortoise in the garden. That would be funny, if she could make the doll ride the tortoise.

  She smiled at the thought and shut her eyes. She slept.

  When she woke again, the room was dark. Outside, birds were singing the dawn chorus. Melisto’s mouth was dry. Anxiously she sucked her tongue and licked the roof of her mouth. She croaked, “Thratta?” but the room was empty. Thratta must have gone to the fountain house for water. Usually Melisto went with her: it was her favorite time of the day.

  Melisto shifted to see if her arm had stopped hurting. It hadn’t. The bandage around her head itched, and her very bones were sore, as if they had been shaken inside her skin. Her stomach growled.

  Something sharp dug into her side. She fished the doll out from under her and gazed through the dim light at the painted face. The doll was as lovely as she remembered. She held it to her breast and started to get out of bed. Her foot knocked against something hard: there was a clink, and the floor was wet. Thratta must have left a cup of water beside her bed. She had knocked it over.

  The thought of water increased her thirst. She would go down to the kitchen and tell one of the slaves to give her something to drink.

  She adjusted her arm inside its sling and passed through the room where the women kept their looms. When she came to the stairs, she stopped. She remembered hurtling down them. All at once, she felt dizzy. She sat on the top step, hugging her doll. She did not cry, but panted, breathing in short gasps.

  A murmur of voices came from below. One was her father’s. Melisto leapt to her feet. Her bandaged arm upset her balance and she swayed, almost dropping the doll. She imagined the poor doll falling head over heels down the stairs and tightened her grip on it. “Father!” she cried.

  Her father’s shape appeared below, thickset and powerful. In an instant he mounted the stairs and stood beside her. “Melisto, what are you doing out of bed?”

  “I was thirsty and there was no one to wait on me. Thratta’s at the fountain house.” She lifted her elbow, showing the bandaged arm. “I fell down the steps this morning. No, yesterday. My arm broke, but it didn’t come off. And I bled,” she added proudly. Now that her father was there, she was not frightened. “I bled a lot.”

  Arkadios laid his fingers against her cheek. “Your mother told me. I spoke to her last night, before I went out. I looked in on you, but you were asleep.”

  Melisto leaned toward him, sniffing. “Were you at a drinking party?” She always sniffed him when he came home late. It was their joke, the way she could detect the slightest trace of alcohol on his breath.

  “Yes, but the wine was mostly water. My friends and I had politics to discuss.”

  “The Spartans,” Melisto said, hoping to impress him with her grasp of state affairs. “Have you thought of a way to kill them and sink their ships?”

  “Not yet. That’s a nasty bruise on your face. Does your arm hurt much?”

  “Yes, but not as bad as before. When the doctor bandaged it, it hurt.” Melisto rolled her eyes at the memory. “And when I fell down. Mother said, ‘I’ve killed her!’ because I bled so much. And she cried.”

  “You tripped over her gown,” Arkadios prompted her.

  “Yes, I ripped it. And I fell. Now I’m thirsty and I want something to eat.”

  “Come to the kitchen then.”

  Melisto hesitated, cowed by the stairs.

  “Do you want me to carry you down?”

  “No. I’m not a baby,” Melisto said scornfully, and wished she could take the words back. It would have been a great treat to be carried downstairs by her father. “I can go by myself.”

  She squeezed the doll against her left side and started the descent, two-footing each stair. When she reached the bottom, she exhaled.

  Arkadios laid his hand on the crown of her head. “That’s my brave girl.”

  Melisto glowed. She followed her father into the kitchen and stood like a good child, without speaking. Her father told the cook to prepare a meal for her: a bunch of grapes, a cup of water, a chunk of bread and a pool of honey to dip it in. He carried her cup and bowl out into the courtyard and sat next to her on the wooden bench.

  She drank first, gulping the whole cup of water. The grapes were easy to eat one-handed, but the bread was more difficult; she could not tear it into small pieces and ended up with honey smeared all over her face. She stretched her tongue to its limits, licking her chin and lips.

  Once her appetite was satisfied, she turned to watch her father. Arkadios sat with his head thrown back, his eye on the brightening sky. Even with the doll across his knees, he did not look foolish. He was dark, well muscled, and battle-scarred: a warrior and a citizen. Melisto imagined that Zeus must look exactly like him.

  She touched his hand to get his attention. “I have a new doll.”

  Smiling, he passed it to her. “So I see. I told your mother she was foolish to spend money on a toy in times like these, but she insisted you needed a new doll. She was very frightened when you fell.”

  “She cried,” Melisto repeated. “When there was all that blood.”

  “Your mother is good to you,” said Arkadios, but Melisto scowled. How could her father know so little? She thought of Lysandra’s hands, with their sharp nails and pinching fingers. She thought of the sore patches on her scalp from the times her mother twisted and yanked her hair. All at once, the world darkened. The thing she had forgotten swam to the surface of her mind. She heard the sound of the tearing dress and the ugly snarl on her mother’s face as she whirled around, hand upraised. Lysandra had struck hard and on purpose, knocking Melisto backward into the empty air. None of it had been an accident. Her mother had meant to hurt her.

  Melisto bared her teeth. “She’s not!” she fumed. “She’s not good to me, she’s bad to me, she doesn’t even like me, because I hurt her when I was born — ”

  Her father’s face was startled. He didn’t understand, and she couldn’t tell him. Some demon had tempted Melisto to step on her mother’s dress: that, also, was true. In a spasm of wordless rage, she snatched the doll and swung it upward, smashing it down on the edge of the bench.

  Crack! The doll’s foot flew into the air and fell to earth. It landed on the grass: pure white and perfect. Melisto gasped. She had broken her beautiful doll. She was bad even to herself. She crooked her elbow over her face and sobbed. Arkadios had never whipped her; that was Thratta’s job. But he had seen her break her new doll. He would have to whip her now, and he was strong. She began to shake all over.

  Arkadios moved deliberately. He slid one arm under her knees and eased her into his lap. The movement jarred Melisto’s arm, but she scarcely felt the pain. Her father loved her. Burrowing, she tasted his smell: sweat, wool, masculinity. She gulped back her sobs, determined to show that she would be good, if he would just go on holding her.

  “Melisto, I want to tell you about the night you were born.”

  Melisto lifted her head. She had heard the story of her birth countless times. It was a bad story. “I know all that,” she objected. “Mother tells me. The pains went on for two nights and a day, and I hurt her because I have a big ugly head like an owl. And after all that trouble, I was a girl.”

  “That’s your mother’s story. Not mine.” Arkadios eased his arm under her sling so that her broken arm was held securely. “The night you were born, I had the worst headache of my life. You’ve had headaches, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. You get them from the sun.”
<
br />   “Sometimes. But I think my head hurt because your mother was in labor. Her screams rang through the house. There was nothing I could do to ease her pain. I left the house hoping that by the time I got back, you would be born. But every time I came back, your mother was still in agony. My head went on aching.”

  “Did I hurt your head?” Melisto asked apprehensively.

  “No. You must listen when I talk and not talk back, Melisto. Be still.”

  “I will,” Melisto promised. She raised her hand to stopper her mouth and remembered in the nick of time that thumb-sucking was babyish.

  “You weren’t born until the second night. By that time, the whole household was waiting, listening and praying. At last I heard the sound of a baby crying. I gave thanks to the gods. The midwife brought you to me.”

  “And I wasn’t a boy.”

  “No. But I took you in my arms — you were wet and wrinkled and screaming your head off, and here’s the strange thing: my headache went away. I remember the moon was full that night, and I carried you to the window. I looked at you in that strange blue light, and you stopped crying and looked me full in the face. I was filled with joy.”

  Melisto said wonderingly, “You were happy?”

  “Yes. I hadn’t known how happy I would be. It made me think of Zeus, the father of the gods. There was a time when Zeus had a headache, too. He suffered so much that Hephaistos had to split open his head with an axe. And when he did, out sprang Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and the patroness of our city.”

  “Athena,” whispered Melisto.

  “Yes. I believe Zeus loves Athena more than all his sons. More than Hermes, or Apollo, or Herakles. I believe the poet Homer thinks so, too. I remember what I said to myself: This child will be my Athena.”

  Melisto waited transfixed, until she was sure Arkadios had finished. Then she wriggled closer. “Tell it again.”

  EXHIBIT 6

  Bronze strigil, fifth or fourth century BCE.

  The bow shape of this bronze strigil is characteristic; so is the groove inside the curved blade. The strigil, or scraper, was used to clean the body after exercise. Greek athletes anointed themselves with olive oil at the gymnasium. After their workout, they applied more olive oil and used the strigil to scrape the skin clean. Dead skin, dirt, oil, and sweat accumulated inside the groove and could be dislodged by running the blade through the thumb and forefinger.

  Aristocratic athletes were often scraped down by an enslaved person.

  1. WATER/MOONLIGHT

  The summer Lykos died was very hot.

  The horses stood in the shade,

  tortured by the flies.

  Sometimes Georgios gave me a bucket and sponge

  and told me to rinse them off.

  They came to me willingly,

  shuddering with happiness

  as water streamed over their coats.

  The water made a sheen on their skins

  and light ran down the water.

  I wondered: was there a man alive

  who could draw that?

  Light on water,

  water on skin . . . ?

  Even a god couldn’t draw that.

  That long hot summer

  I went on drawing horses.

  I remember how dry the dust was

  when I rubbed them out with my hands.

  The horses were proof of my idleness —

  dangerous:

  so I had to rub them out.

  I was getting better at making horses.

  I once told Sokrates about the beauty of horses.

  One horse can be better than another,

  not because it’s faster, or stronger,

  but because of the way it’s shaped.

  Haunches and crest, angle and arc —

  I couldn’t find the words. I sounded stupid.

  But Sokrates,

  he knew what I was talking about.

  He said

  maybe there’s another world,

  where there’s a real horse,

  a perfect horse,

  and all the horses in our world

  are copies of that perfect horse.

  All our horses

  come from that pattern —

  except a copy

  is never as good

  as the real thing.

  The best horses are the ones that stick close

  to the real horse.

  That’s why some horses are more beautiful than others.

  I asked him where that other world was.

  He said he didn’t know.

  He was the wisest man I ever met,

  but he was always saying that: he didn’t know.

  The summer Lykos died,

  I wondered about other worlds. I wondered where Lykos was.

  The underworld, I knew that much,

  but what’s it like there?

  At night I couldn’t sleep.

  I thought about how Lykos said:

  Nobody ever gets out of anything.

  He couldn’t get out of dying,

  and that scared me stiff,

  because I might die, too.

  I was afraid Lykos might be a ghost.

  The ones who die young,

  they’re likely to be ghosts,

  because they’re not satisfied.

  I felt sorry for Lykos,

  but I didn’t want to see his ghost.

  At night, I’d squeeze my eyes shut

  so I wouldn’t see him. But then I heard things,

  the straw rustling, or a horse snorting out dust,

  and that was worse.

  Those were long nights,

  when it was too hot to sleep,

  and I thought about ghosts.

  One night I got up and went to the river.

  Under the moon,

  the river was moving,

  white where the water caught on the rocks

  and curled into froth.

  I went to the shallowest place.

  I walked into the wet. And farther in

  till my knees tingled with cold.

  The pebbles were hard under the arches of my feet,

  the mud soft on my toes.

  I walked deeper

  till the water was up to my chest.

  There was one place close to the bank

  where the river curved,

  and a tree root snagged into the water.

  I clutched it, lifted my feet,

  felt the river pull against my skin —

  I held on to the root,

  swayed,

  rocked myself in the cold current.

  I knew if water covered my face,

  I could drown. So I held on tight.

  I went back the next night and the next.

  Each night I tried to swim.

  I gripped that root, and bobbed, and thrashed;

  I didn’t like the water on my face,

  or up my nose. It made me snort and choke.

  I pawed the water, scooping it back —

  Then there was one night, one moment

  I felt the water hold me up.

  It could bear my weight.

  I could rest on it!

  I wouldn’t sink.

  I wouldn’t drown.

  After that it was easy.

  By the next full moon, I could float on my back,

  stroke through the water, kick myself forward.

  I stared straight up at the face of the moon,

  and my mind went blank.

  Most of the time, during the day,

  my mind was full of struggling things:

  anger at the heat,

  fear of Georgios,

  missing Lykos,

  drawing horses.

  But when I floated, it was clear

  like clean water,

  white as the moon with her single eye.

  I’d been afraid Lykos might haunt the river.

  I’d been afraid of drowning.

  What I hadn�
�t been afraid of

  was getting clean.

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  But night after night, that hot summer,

  I swam in the river. And it made me clean.

  And that’s what sealed my fate.

  2. WATER/DAYLIGHT

  Every slave knows his master.

  No master knows his slaves.

  Our master: Alexidemus. We knew he was vain,

  quick-tempered,

  and unjust.

  He was generous with food, and a glutton.

  He was pious and feared the gods.

  On sacrifice days, even the slaves

  got a gobbet or two of meat.

  He hated stinginess

  and was proud of his horses.

  He was the son of that Menon of Pharsalos,

  who fought in the Persian Wars.

  Everyone said the master

  wasn’t the man his father was.

  He knew that, and it gnawed at him.

  We knew all his tender points.

  If there was a slave woman he wanted,

  we knew of his desire

  before he did. If he ate too much,

  and his bowels ran loose and black,

  we knew that, too.

  He was kyrios, lord of the household,

  and our master.

  He could have been worse.

  His younger brother, Thucydides,

  and his sons,

  Tycho and Timaeus,

  shared the house.

  There were also some girls.

  We didn’t know them.

  They stayed indoors.

  I don’t mean to bore you,

  telling you all these names,

  but what I’m trying to make you see

  is that we needed knowledge,

  and we gathered it,

  and when we found it,

  we passed it on.

  Menon was the master’s son,

  and I ought to have known —

  even Lykos warned me.

  One morning he came down to the stable

  with his cousin Tycho. Georgios saddled their horses

  and off they went.

  Menon was a bruising rider,

  fearless,