Amber and Clay

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  I stood with my heels against the wall.

  I wasn’t sure he knew I was there.

  Every minute that passed,

  I wanted more to leave;

  I clenched my hands and held my place.

  He sent his wife home. She sobbed and clawed her face.

  One of his friends,

  a beautiful young man named Apollodorus,

  knelt before him crying. He never stopped.

  Sokrates reached down

  and gathered up the young man’s hair,

  running his hand through the curls,

  the way you finger-comb a horse’s mane.

  He chided Apollodorus for weeping,

  but I don’t think he minded.

  He talked about the soul with his friends. He insisted

  that death was freedom for the soul.

  He was sure he had nothing to fear. To die is to come alive again.

  He argued about it. He proved it.

  Then the poison came.

  The jailer who brought the cup was in tears.

  Sokrates was touched.

  I didn’t cry. I felt as if there were a bird caught in my throat

  something thrashed and flapped and shrieked inside me

  but it couldn’t get out.

  The jailer unlocked Sokrates’s shackles, so he could have a bath.

  Sokrates wanted to save the women

  the trouble of washing his corpse.

  Or maybe he was ashamed. Here in prison,

  he didn’t have the wind

  to blow the stink off him. He was gamier than usual.

  Either way, it was lucky for the women.

  He wasn’t gone long. He came back clean,

  reached for the jailer’s cup,

  and drained it. He’d had to pay for the poison himself;

  that’s the law. It cost him ten drachmas.

  Someone asked him how he wanted to be buried,

  and his face lit up with mischief.

  “Any way you like!

  if you can catch me!

  if I don’t slip through your fingers!”

  He did slip through our fingers —

  That was how I felt. The poison was quick.

  After he drank it,

  he circled the room — that’s what the jailer told him to do.

  I backed up close to the wall —

  His friends walked with him,

  around and around;

  he circumnavigated the room.

  I thought our eyes met once

  but his were glazed.

  I knew he was in pain,

  private,

  all-absorbing.

  Hemlock kills you from the bottom up,

  We watched as his gait became stiff.

  He no longer strode, but stumped;

  he was still asking questions as he lurched round the room.

  The jailer told him to lie down.

  He lay in bed; his breathing was labored;

  he stiffened and seemed to quiver.

  The hemlock mounted to his chest,

  and he yanked the cloak over his head.

  Just before he died, he made a great effort,

  and dragged back the cloak,

  he said something, loud but garbled.

  I caught the word “Asklepios!”

  the god of healing —

  that’s all I heard.

  That’s the last thing he said.

  He covered his face again,

  his breath coming in gasps and rattles. We held still,

  silent,

  except for weeping Apollodorus. We waited

  and waited

  and waited

  long past the last breath.

  His friend Krito uncovered his face;

  his eyes were fixed,

  his head thrown back, teeth bared.

  Krito closed his mouth and shut his eyes.

  I took to my heels

  and plunged out into the dark.

  1.

  The moon was up. I walked the streets gasping

  blinking

  breath whistling

  in and out. I would honor Sokrates;

  no slavish tear would fall —

  but that bird in my throat

  was beating its wings

  thrashing

  trying to force itself out. I headed

  nowhere

  turning corners at random. I heard carousing —

  the low laughter of shameless women,

  drunken aristocrats:

  rich men guzzling wine

  smacking their lips over their precious ideas,

  while the wise man lay dead.

  A dog barked. My sandal slipped —

  something rotten underfoot.

  An owl shrieked: Athena,

  keening for Sokrates.

  My feet led me homeward

  stop

  I stood in the courtyard.

  Zosima sobbing inside the house:

  Why should she care about Sokrates?

  He was my friend.

  Phaistus shouting: “It’s not what I want!

  By all the gods, Zosima,

  I’ve no wish to part with the boy! I’ll never find another like him.

  But we can’t afford him, and we can’t go on like this.

  I can’t risk my freedom.

  Every day I go on without a protector, we’re in danger.

  Someone could find out. We have to leave — ”

  “Then take him with us! He’s our son!”

  “No. He’s not.

  I wish he were. Listen —

  Simon’s promised:

  If I sell him Pyrrhos, he’ll take them both;

  he’ll take Kranaos off our hands.

  The old man will be cared for;

  does that mean nothing to you?

  After a lifetime of toil, he’ll die in a bed

  and have a proper burial.

  Pyrrhos will learn to make shoes. That’s not a tragedy.

  People need shoes, and the work’s not hard —

  it’s easier than making pots.”

  “What has that to do with anything?

  Phaistus, you’re not selling our son!

  We can sell the donkey.”

  “By all the gods, woman! we need the donkey!

  We need a beast of burden. You’re close to your time.

  I don’t know how long we’ll be on the road,

  or how I’ll find work.

  I won’t have a kiln or a shop —

  I’ll have to work on a farm —

  the donkey will be a big help.”

  I’d heard enough. I turned

  and fled the courtyard

  away from the house

  anywhere. I couldn’t escape from my thoughts.

  Phaistus was selling me to Simon the cobbler,

  along with Kranaos.

  They’d be leaving the city:

  Phaistus and Zosima,

  and Phoibe, who was my friend

  and worth more than I was.

  I ran

  zigzagged around houses

  until I couldn’t run,

  I clamped my hands to my knees

  and gulped air. My throat was dry.

  I’d come to a dead end,

  a narrow space between ugly houses.

  I had nowhere to go but home.

  I pivoted. Followed my feet,

  found my way back;

  the courtyard was silent, the argument over.

  Zosima must have given in.

  I went in the shed. I wanted to sleep.

  To crouch in a dark corner

  and never wake up.

  Clop. A hoof on the hard clay floor;

  the floor I’d shoveled and packed down: Phoibe sidled over

  sniffing my hands, hoping for a treat,

  wanting a scratch along her spine. Through the dimness I saw

  her long-lashed eyes

  dark as vi
olets,

  the pale soft fur around her muzzle.

  she nickered: a question.

  My mouth twisted and I wept. The tears washed down

  my cheeks my neck

  Phoibe. Her little hinny.

  Phaistus, Zosima,

  Sokrates.

  Everyone I cared for,

  everything: the moist clay breathing between my hands

  the toys I’d learned to make

  lost. gone.

  the things I’d learned: worthless.

  every scraping of joy or hope

  would be taken away

  and always would.

  I dropped down in the straw

  choked and sobbed and blubbered;

  what was the use

  of trying not to be slavish? I was a slave.

  I would always be a slave.

  A hand on my arm. A shock of pain —

  A spark in the darkness. Sparks

  like rubbing wool on a cold day —

  my hair on end

  I looked —

  and you were there, Melisto, kneeling beside me: solid and clear as amber. I saw you: the freckles on your cheeks, the creases in your dress: jagged lines like brushstrokes of darkest ink. I saw the scars on your arm, fernlike and branching.

  I snarled like a dog: “Who are you?

  Why do you follow me?

  What are you doing here?”

  Your eyes widened. You were sitting cross-legged, like a boy: you flipped up one knee and swung your leg sideways, nesting your ankles together. You spoke commandingly, as if you were a god:

  “I’ve worked it out —

  how to set you free! It’s like a triple knot.

  We’ll untie it together.

  The first knot’s worked loose by itself. You can see me;

  you spoke to me!

  Now there are two knots left.

  “When I lived, I was Melisto, daughter of Arkadios.

  My father’s a citizen. He’ll serve as your master’s protector:

  Then Phaistus won’t have to lose the shop or leave the city.

  You won’t be sold

  “ — but we need to bargain for your freedom,

  and you’ll have to convince my father, so

  “ — we’ll go to Brauron, to the Sanctuary of Artemis.

  Together. You have to come, because I can’t carry things.

  Your mother sent me;

  your mother, Thratta;

  she was my nurse.

  She loved you more than all the world.

  I’m meant to set you free.”

  I caught only a scattering of words. My mind was deadened by shock. I was aghast. You were a shade, but you flared like a torch: saffron, marigold, molten bronze. The straw around you glittered like gold. The scars on your skin were ruddy, like glazed Athenian clay: incised by the hand of a god.

  I cast my mind back to the first time I saw you.

  You were my age then.

  “You kept growing and got older.

  I stayed the same age.”

  I hadn’t opened my lips. You answered my thoughts. The other times, when I saw you, the light shone through you: you shimmered like dust motes in the air. But that night, the night of Sokrates’s death, you were as solid in your flesh as I was. I blinked. You didn’t disappear. I put out my hand to touch your tunic. There was a crackling sound in the air. My hand jerked back.

  “I was struck down by Zeus’s lightning.

  I don’t think it was a punishment,

  but of course, I couldn’t survive.

  I think you couldn’t see me before

  because you didn’t want to. I was impossible,

  so I was invisible. And I was of no use to you.

  But tonight your heart is broken;

  you long for the dead to come back;

  you see beyond the world of the living:

  you’re at the end of your wits.

  The time has come for me to set you free.

  “Your mother laid a curse on me,

  binding us together —

  She’s gone now. I don’t know where she is,

  whether she’s among the living or the dead.

  I only know she told me to free you.

  It’s been three years.

  I couldn’t make you pay attention to me.

  But now I see a way. My father will help you,

  only you’ll have to persuade him.

  You’ll have to convince him that you’ve seen me.

  You’ll need proof.

  So we have to leave the city. Tomorrow, at dawn.

  It’s a journey of two days:

  Two days there, and two days back.

  I can guide you.”

  You spoke like a god, but also like a spoiled child of the ruling class. You were used to giving orders and getting your way. It flicked on the raw.

  “I can’t just leave because you say so!

  A slave can’t just go on a journey!

  I’ll be caught and beaten, branded as a runaway.

  — What do you know about my life?”

  “I’ve watched you for three years.

  If you need permission to go, ask Zosima.

  She’ll help you.”

  “What can she do? She can cry all she likes;

  she can’t change anything!

  Phaistus is the master of the house.

  A woman has to obey her husband.”

  “They have to. But they don’t.

  Haven’t you noticed that?

  Zosima loves you.

  Give her the thing she wants most in the world,

  and she won’t deny you.”

  I scarcely remember the rest of that night.

  I know I made you repeat

  repeat

  repeat

  the tale of how my mother bound you,

  how she looked when she knelt in the graveyard;

  I made you repeat everything she ever told you about me.

  I was hungry for stories about my mother —

  then I’d remember Sokrates,

  his body growing cold even as we spoke together,

  and I’d gasp for breath, and swallow,

  fighting for control. You sat beside me,

  hugging your scratched knees to your chest.

  I can’t remember all I said,

  I remember at one point, I went off on a tirade

  about how I didn’t want to make sandals,

  I wanted to make horses. I’d never told anybody that,

  not even Sokrates.

  I’d pause for breath and I seemed to see Sokrates,

  wearing his hairy old cloak,

  wading across the river

  between the quick and the dead,

  bound for the House of Hades.

  “I’m sorry about Sokrates. I know you loved him.

  I used to watch you together.”

  Then I was ashamed, because it struck me that this girl, this highborn girl, had followed me, watching me, for three years. I’d thought I was alone, and she’d been haunting me, staring at me, spying on me.

  “It wasn’t like that.

  I didn’t watch you every minute,

  I didn’t watch every time you blew your nose

  or scratched yourself

  or slept. It’s an uneasy thing, being a shade.

  I can’t tell you.

  I don’t belong to this world anymore,

  I’m half banished, and my attention drifts away . . .

  You know how when you dream, you’re interested?

  — except then you wake up, and there are only fragments,

  just a few things you remember. It’s like that.

  There’s always something dragging me, like an undertow,

  separating me from the world of the living.

  . . . I used to watch you work;

  I could follow that.

  When you were with Sokrates,

  you were happy and wholly alive,
r />   so you held my attention.

  I watched you on the Akropolis,

  when you were dizzy with wonder;

  I was with you that day in the slave market.

  I tried to make Phaistus take you. He smelled all right to me.

  That’s another thing. There’s things I smell and see and hear,

  things I know that I didn’t know before;

  but I’m never at home. I’m not right with myself.

  I’m afraid to die,

  to go down to the House of Hades —

  Even if your mother hadn’t bound me with her curse —

  I might still be here. I don’t want to leave this world.

  I’m like a sailor clinging to a wreck,

  I’m sure to go down in the end.

  “But in the meantime, there’s you,

  and this blessed curse that knots us together.

  I’m meant to help you, and I want to.

  You should sleep now. Tomorrow we leave Athens.”

  I didn’t believe her,

  but I was never more tired in my life

  so I slept.

  2.

  I overslept. Melisto was beside me,

  urging me to open my eyes.

  “Zosima’s gone to the fountain house!

  Hurry and wake up! She’ll be back soon!”

  . . . There was Phoibe, nibbling her bedding,

  the hinny beside her,

  and Melisto gleaming saffron gold

  in the predawn air.

  I rubbed my eyes,

  got up stiffly,

  and went out past the gate.

  The city was stirring:

  shadowy women carrying jars,

  the sky as dark as water.

  She was half veiled. I knew her by her gait,

  which was slower than usual. She balanced one jar on her head

  and cradled the other at her side.

  I spoke her name. “Zosima?”

  She stopped, swaying a little,

  balancing the water jar.

  I couldn’t see her face. I went to her,

  took the jars from her,

  and set them down carefully.

  Then I dropped to the ground,

  taking the pose of a suppliant,

  bowing my head and clasping her knees.

  She caught her breath sharply;

  I’d never touched her, not on purpose.

  I raised my head to speak

  and found myself talking to her belly.

  I knew something then:

  I’d been jealous of the child inside her;

  in the back of my mind

  I’d grudged the life of that child.

  “Pyrrhos?”

  She was bewildered. She touched the crown of my hair.

  My heart twisted in my chest.

  “Pyrrhos?”

  “I came to beg from you, Zosima,

  mistress, despoina.

  I have to ask a favor,

  and you’re not going to believe me — ”