The Penelopiad

by Margaret Eleanor Atwood

  I decided to make him wait: I myself had waited long enough. Also I would need time in order to fully disguise my true feelings about the unfortunate hanging of my twelve young maids.

  So when I entered the hall and saw him sitting there, I didn’t say a thing. Telemachus wasted no time: almost immediately he was scolding me for not giving a warmer welcome to his father. Flinty-hearted, he called me scornfully. I could see he had a rosy little picture in his mind: the two of them siding against me, grown men together, two roosters in charge of the henhouse. Of course I wanted the best for him – he was my son, I hoped he would succeed, as a political leader or a warrior or whatever he wanted to be – but at that moment I wished there would be another Trojan War so I could send him off to it and get him out of my hair. Boys with their first beards can be a thorough pain in the neck.

  The hardness of my heart was a notion I was glad to foster, however, as it would reassure Odysseus to know I hadn’t been throwing myself into the arms of every man who’d turned up claiming to be him. So I looked at him blankly, and said it was too much for me to swallow, the idea that this dirty, blood-smeared vagabond was the same as my fine husband who had sailed away, so beautifully dressed, twenty years before.

  Odysseus grinned – he was looking forward to the big revelation scene, the part where I would say,

  ‘It was you all along! What a terrific disguise!’ and throw my arms around his neck. Then he went off to take a much-needed bath. When he came back in clean clothes, smelling a good deal better than when he’d gone, I couldn’t resist teasing him one last time. I ordered Eurycleia to move the bed outside the bedroom of Odysseus, and to make it up for the stranger.

  You’ll recall that one post of this bed was carved from a tree still rooted in the ground. Nobody knew about it except Odysseus, myself, and my maid Actoris, from Sparta, who by that time was long dead.

  Assuming that someone had cut through his cherished bedpost, Odysseus lost his temper at once. Only then did I relent, and go through the business of recognizing him. I shed a satisfactory number of tears, and embraced him, and claimed that he’d passed the bedpost test, and that I was now convinced.

  And so we climbed into the very same bed where we’d spent a great many happy hours when we were first married, before Helen took it into her head to run off with Paris, lighting the fires of war and bringing desolation to my house. I was glad it was dark by then, as in the shadows we both appeared less wizened than we were.

  ‘We’re not spring chickens any more,’ I said.

  ‘That which we are, we are,’ said Odysseus.

  After a little time had passed and we were feeling pleased with each other, we took up our old habits of story-telling. Odysseus told me of all his travels and difficulties – the nobler versions, with the monsters and the goddesses, rather than the more sordid ones with the innkeepers and whores. He recounted the many lies he’d invented, the false names he’d given himself – telling the Cyclops his name was No One was the cleverest of such tricks, though he’d spoiled it by boasting – and the fraudulent life histories he’d concocted for himself, the better to conceal his identity and his intentions. In my turn, I related the tale of the Suitors, and my trick with the shroud of Laertes, and my deceitful encouragings of the Suitors, and the skilful ways in which I’d misdirected them and led them on and played them off against one another.

  Then he told me how much he’d missed me, and how he’d been filled with longing for me even when enfolded in the white arms of goddesses; and I told him how very many tears I’d shed while waiting twenty years for his return, and how tediously faithful I’d been, and how I would never have even so much as thought of betraying his gigantic bed with its wondrous bedpost by sleeping in it with any other man.

  The two of us were – by our own admission – proficient and shameless liars of long standing. It’s a wonder either one of us believed a word the other said.

  But we did.

  Or so we told each other.

  No sooner had Odysseus returned than he left again. He said that, much as he hated to tear himself away from me, he’d have to go adventuring again. He’d been told by the spirit of the seer Teiresias that he would have to purify himself by carrying an oar so far inland that the people there would mistake it for a winnowing fan. Only in that way could he rinse the blood of the Suitors from himself, avoid their vengeful ghosts and their vengeful relatives, and pacify the anger of the sea-god Poseidon, who was still furious with him for blinding his son the Cyclops.

  It was a likely story. But then, all of his stories were likely.

  xxvi

  The Chorus Line: The Trial of Odysseus, as Videotaped by the Maids

  Attorney for the Defence: Your Honour, permit me to speak to the innocence of my client, Odysseus, a legendary hero of high repute, who stands before you accused of multiple murders. Was he or was he not justified in slaughtering, by means of arrows and spears – we do not dispute the slaughters themselves, or the weapons in question – upwards of a hundred and twenty well-born young men, give or take a dozen, who, I must emphasise, had been eating up his food without his permission, annoying his wife, and plotting to murder his son and usurp his throne? It has been alleged by my respected colleague that Odysseus was not so justified, since murdering these young men was a gross overreaction to the fact of their having played the gourmand a little too freely in his palace.

  Also, it is alleged that Odysseus and/or his heirs or assigns had been offered material compensation for the missing comestibles, and ought to have accepted this compensation peacefully. But this compensation was offered by the very same young men who, despite many requests, had done nothing previously to curb their remarkable appetites, or to defend Odysseus, or to protect his family. They had shown no loyalty to him in his absence; on the contrary. So how dependable was their word? Could a reasonable man expect that they would ever pay a single ox of what they had promised?

  And let us consider the odds. A hundred and twenty, give or take a dozen, to one, or – stretching a point – to four, because Odysseus did have accomplices, as my colleague has termed them; that is, he had one barely grown relative and two servants untrained in warfare – what was to prevent these young men from pretending to enter into a settlement with Odysseus, then leaping upon him one dark night when his guard was down and doing him to death? It is our contention that, by seizing the only opportunity Fate was likely to afford him, our generally esteemed client Odysseus was merely acting in self-defence. We therefore ask that you dismiss this case.

  Judge: I am inclined to agree.

  Attorney for the Defence: Thank you, Your Honour.

  Judge: What’s that commotion in the back? Order! Ladies, stop making a spectacle of yourselves! Adjust your clothing! Take those ropes off your necks! Sit down!

  The Maids: You’ve forgotten about us! What about our case? You can’t let him off! He hanged us in cold blood! Twelve of us! Twelve young girls! For nothing!

  Judge (to Attorney for the Defence): This is a new charge. Strictly speaking, it ought to be dealt with in a separate trial; but as the two matters appear to be intimately connected, I am prepared to hear arguments now. What do you have to say for your client?

  Attorney for the Defence: He was acting within his rights, Your Honour. These were his slaves.

  Judge: Nonetheless he must have had some reason. Even slaves ought not to be killed at whim. What had these girls done that they deserved hanging?

  Attorney for the Defence: They’d had sex without permission.

  Judge: Hmm. I see. With whom did they have the sex?

  Attorney for the Defence: With my client’s enemies, Your Honour. The very ones who had designs on his wife, not to mention his life.

  (Chuckles at his witticism.)

  Judge: I take it these were the youngest maids.

  Attorney for the Defence: Well, naturally. They were the best-looking and the most beddable, certainly. For the most part.

  The Mai
ds laugh bitterly.

  Judge (leafing through book: The Odyssey): It’s written here, in this book – a book we must needs consult, as it is the main authority on the subject – although it has pronounced unethical tendencies and contains far too much sex and violence, in my opinion – it says right here – let me see – in Book 22, that the maids were raped. The Suitors raped them. Nobody stopped them from doing so. Also, the maids are described as having been hauled around by the Suitors for their foul and/or disgusting purposes. Your client knew all that – he is quoted as having said these things himself. Therefore, the maids were overpowered, and they were also completely unprotected. Is that correct?

  Attorney for the Defence: I wasn’t there, Your Honour. All of this took place some three or four thousand years before my time.

  Judge: I can see the problem. Call the witness Penelope.

  Penelope: I was asleep, Your Honour. I was often asleep. I can only tell you what they said afterwards.

  Judge: What who said?

  Penelope: The maids, Your Honour.

  Judge: They said they’d been raped?

  Penelope: Well, yes, Your Honour. In effect.

  Judge: And did you believe them?

  Penelope: Yes, Your Honour. That is, I tended to believe them.

  Judge: I understand they were frequently impertinent.

  Penelope: Yes, Your Honour, but …

  Judge: But you did not punish them, and they continued to work as your maids?

  Penelope: I knew them well, Your Honour. I was fond of them. I’d brought some of them up, you could say. They were like the daughters I never had. (Starts to weep.) I felt so sorry for them! But most maids got raped, sooner or later; a deplorable but common feature of palace life. It wasn’t the fact of their being raped that told against them, in the mind of Odysseus. It’s that they were raped without permission.

  Judge (chuckles): Excuse me, Madam, but isn’t that what rape is? Without permission?

  Attorney for the Defence: Without permission of their master, Your Honour.

  Judge: Oh. I see. But their master wasn’t present. So, in effect, these maids were forced to sleep with the Suitors because if they’d resisted they would have been raped anyway, and much more unpleasantly?

  Attorney for the Defence: I don’t see what bearing that has on the case.

  Judge: Neither did your client, evidently. (Chuckles.) However, your client’s times were not our times. Standards of behaviour were different then. It would be unfortunate if this regrettable but minor incident were allowed to stand as a blot on an otherwise exceedingly distinguished career. Also I do not wish to be guilty of an anachronism. Therefore I must dismiss the case.

  The Maids: We demand justice! We demand retribution! We invoke the law of blood guilt! We call upon the Angry Ones!

  A troop of twelve Erinyes appear. They have hair made of serpents, the heads of dogs, and the wings of bats. They sniff the air.

  The Maids: Oh Angry Ones, Oh Furies, you are our last hope! We implore you to inflict punishment and exact vengeance on our behalf! Be our defenders, we who had none in life! Smell out Odysseus wherever he goes! From one place to another, from one life to another, whatever disguise he puts on, whatever shape he may take, hunt him down! Dog his footsteps, on earth or in Hades, wherever he may take refuge, in songs and in plays, in tomes and in theses, in marginal notes and in appendices! Appear to him in our forms, our ruined forms, the forms of our pitiable corpses! Let him never be at rest!

  The Erinyes turn towards Odysseus. Their red eyes flash.

  Attorney for the Defence: I call on grey-eyed Pallas Athene, immortal daughter of Zeus, to defend property rights and the right of a man to be the master in his own house, and to spirit my client away in a cloud!

  Judge: What’s going on? Order! Order! This is a twenty-first-century court of justice! You there, get down from the ceiling! Stop that barking and hissing! Madam, cover up your chest and put down your spear! What’s this cloud doing in here? Where are the police? Where’s the defendant? Where has everyone gone?

  xxvii

  Home Life in Hades

  I was looking in on your world the other night, making use of the eyes of a channeller who’d gone into a trance. Her client wanted to contact her dead boyfriend about whether she should sell their condominium, but they got me instead. When there’s an opening, I frequently jump in to fill it. I don’t get out as often as I’d like.

  Not that I mean to disparage my hosts, as it were; but still, it’s amazing how the living keep on pestering the dead. From age to age it hardly changes at all, though the methods vary. I can’t say I miss the Sibyls much – them and their golden boughs, hauling along all sorts of upstarts to traipse around down here, wanting knowledge of the future and upsetting the Shades – but at least the Sibyls had some manners. The magicians and conjurors who came later were worse, though they did take the whole thing seriously.

  Today’s bunch, however, are almost too trivial to merit any attention whatsoever. They want to hear about stock-market prices and world politics and their own health problems and such stupidities; in addition to which they want to converse with a lot of dead nonentities we in this realm cannot be expected to know. Who is this ‘Marilyn’ everyone is so keen on? Who is this ‘Adolf’? It’s a waste of energy to spend time with these people, and so exasperating.

  But it’s only by peering through such limited keyholes that I’m able to keep track of Odysseus, during those times he’s not down here in his own familiar form.

  I suppose you know the rules. If we wish to, we can get ourselves reborn, and have another try at life; but first we have to drink from the Waters of Forgetfulness, so our past lives will be wiped from our memories. Such is the theory; but, like all theories, it’s only a theory. The Waters of Forgetfulness don’t always work the way they’re supposed to. Lots of people remember everything. Some say there’s more than one kind of water – that the Waters of Memory are also on tap. I wouldn’t know, myself.

  Helen has had more than a few excursions. That’s what she calls them – ‘my little excursions’. ‘I’ve been having such fun,’ she’ll begin. Then she’ll detail her latest conquests and fill me in on the changes in fashion. It was through her that I learned about patches, and sunshades, and bustles, and high-heeled shoes, and girdles, and bikinis, and aerobic exercises, and body piercings, and liposuction. Then she’ll make a speech about how naughty she’s been and how much uproar she’s been causing and how many men she’s ruined. Empires have fallen because of her, she’s fond of saying.

  ‘I understand the interpretation of the whole Trojan War episode has changed,’ I tell her, to take some of the wind out of her sails. ‘Now they think you were just a myth. It was all about trade routes. That’s what the scholars are saying.’

  ‘Oh, Penelope, you can’t still be jealous,’ she says. ‘Surely we can be friends now! Why don’t you come along with me to the upper world, next time I go? We could do a trip to Las Vegas. Girls’ night out! But I forgot – that’s not your style. You’d rather play the faithful little wifey, what with the weaving and so on. Bad me, I could never do it, I’d die of boredom. But you were always such a homebody.’

  She’s right. I’ll never drink the Waters of Forgetfulness. I can’t see the point of it. No: I can see the point, but I don’t want to take the risk. My past life was fraught with many difficulties, but who’s to say the next one wouldn’t be worse? Even with my limited access I can see that the world is just as dangerous as it was in my day, except that the misery and suffering are on a much wider scale. As for human nature, it’s as tawdry as ever.

  None of this stops Odysseus. He’ll drop in down here for a while, he’ll act pleased to see me, he’ll tell me home life with me was the only thing he ever really wanted, no matter what ravishing beauties he’s been falling into bed with or what wild adventures he’s been having. We’ll take a peaceful stroll, snack on some asphodel, tell the old stories; I’ll hear his news of Te
lemachus – he’s a Member of Parliament now, I’m so proud! – and then, just when I’m starting to relax, when I’m feeling that I can forgive him for everything he put me through and accept him with all his faults, when I’m starting to believe that this time he really means it, off he goes again, making a beeline for the River Lethe to be born again.

  He does mean it. He really does. He wants to be with me. He weeps when he says it. But then some force tears us apart.

  It’s the maids. He sees them in the distance, heading our way. They make him nervous. They make him restless. They cause him pain. They make him want to be anywhere and anyone else.

  He’s been a French general, he’s been a Mongolian invader, he’s been a tycoon in America, he’s been a headhunter in Borneo. He’s been a film star, an inventor, an advertising man. It’s always ended badly, with a suicide or an accident or a death in battle or an assassination, and then he’s back here again.

  ‘Why can’t you leave him alone?’ I yell at the maids. I have to yell because they won’t let me get near them. ‘Surely it’s enough! He did penance, he said the prayers, he got himself purified!’

  ‘It’s not enough for us,’ they call.

  ‘What more do you want from him?’ I ask them. By this time I’m crying. ‘Just tell me!’

  But they only run away.

  Run isn’t quite accurate. Their legs don’t move. Their still-twitching feet don’t touch the ground.

  xxviii

  The Chorus Line: We’re Walking Behind You, A Love Song

  Yoo hoo! Mr Nobody! Mr Nameless! Mr Master of Illusion! Mr Sleight of Hand, grandson of thieves and liars!

  We’re here too, the ones without names. The other ones without names. The ones with the shame stuck onto us by others. The ones pointed at, the ones fingered.