Alexander and Alestria

by Shan Sa

  I had always desired strong young men; they were like so many rocks strewn along my way, tackled with tact and determination. Born in different lands and brought up in different cultures, some understood the calendar of the stars, others counted using sticks or had their own strange way of saddling horses. Each of them harbored a hidden treasure, unwritten poetry, an understanding of the birth of the world. Once we were naked, our differences melted away. Male flesh is a wild land in which no civilization and no religion has ever taken seed. Two men together is a meeting with oneself; it is confrontation and physical gratification in step with each other.

  Alestria was not my reflection. I understood nothing of her body, even less of this growing belly. I did not seek gratification in her: I united myself with her strength, which perpetuated life. I found Alestria disconcerting; her metamorphosis amazed me, frightened me, and fascinated me. I kept taking her in my arms, breathing in the smell of her and touching her swelling breasts. Her hair was becoming dry, her cheeks blotchy, her lips cracked. All these flaws, like the impurities of the moon, served only to make her shine more brightly.

  I begged her to undress, and lay next to her, fingering this body in which another body was germinating. I pressed my ear to her stomach and listened to the rustling of a new world. I looked between her legs and wondered how my son would reach me through that tiny channel. I was gripped by a nameless fear, nauseous and vertiginous. I felt even more vulnerable and disarmed than my pregnant queen. I was afraid she might trip, afraid of conspiracies; I could not leave her side. I took her everywhere with me and settled her where my eyes could always alight on her. Her presence reassured me. She and our child, they were all that was left of my journey toward the future.

  Inside a man’s body I surrendered to a war of pleasure. The struggle was a game of balance, a dance of well-mastered movements. In Alestria’s belly I was absorbed, I became clumsy. I carried her heavy body on my back; she held me to her breasts swollen with milk. We flew together through the night. We flew together toward the dawn.

  ALESTRIA HAD STOPPED talking of going to the front. Alexander had succeeded in holding his queen back by giving her a child. She had stopped waiting for the king outside the city gates but stayed calmly in her tent talking to her belly. She spent her time sewing children’s clothes, but she was not gifted with a needle. She sewed so badly that her servants secretly unpicked her work and pieced it together again. Unaware of her ineptitude, my queen took pleasure in her sewing.

  Having always been distant with the warriors’ wives, she now started spending time with them and asking them about childbirth. Women were eager to give her advice, to offer her particular food and drink, and to shower her with flattery, which made her smile dreamily.

  The king interrupted his campaigns to watch over her. I saw the loathsome Bagoas prowling around our city once more. He had grown even fatter, his double chin gleaming amid the soldiers’ thin, honed faces. Alexander had brought back an army sickened and demoralized by wind, rain, and arrows.

  The city was abuzz with drumming, singing, and banqueting once more. The king and his men drank to the birth of his heir. Alestria wore a veil to receive their compliments, and I stood behind her, knowing she was tired and suffering.

  But Alestria was proud, and she wanted to please the man she loved. She stood close to him like a faithful sentry. Back in her tent, she fell asleep exhausted, but the king, who was always overflowing with ideas and energy, would not let her rest. He woke her so soon, asking her to go with him to inspect his army or to watch them in training: he was devising a new plan of attack.

  Worn down by such demands, she fainted. She was brought back to our quarters, and I, Ania, fussed over her to bring her round. She woke slowly, looking lost, as if she had been on a long journey. The king sent messengers to inquire how she was, and these boorish soldiers—who had been given instructions to see her with their own eyes—argued with me at the door of her tent. Alestria rose to her feet, changed her clothes, and asked to be taken to her husband. Alexander was a pitcher full of cool fresh water, and she wanted to drink it down to the last drop.

  Alestria’s belly swelled while her body grew thinner. It was such a small belly! Compared to the great mountains borne by other pregnant women, hers was a tiny hill. Unaware of its meager volume, the king and queen went into ecstasies every time they looked at it.

  They spent hours admiring that belly. Alexander stroked it and pressed his cheek up against it, speaking to her navel. Alestria lay smiling, and she too stroked it, answering for her belly. The king and queen conversed through that belly, both laughing and crying, both forgetting that it was abnormally small, both believing that from this minute hill a great man would be born.

  They argued over his name. They argued over each item of clothing he would wear. They argued over the choice of tutor: Alexander wanted to summon Aristotle, while Alestria did not want it to be a man.

  Alexander sought out midwives, not trusting any of the women in his entourage. The queen’s belly had become the focus of all intrigues and plots. Everyone knew that the birth of an heir would annihilate the generals’ hopes of acceding to the throne in the event of Alexander’s death. In the end he conceived the extraordinary idea of entrusting this task to Bagoas. I, Ania, screamed with indignation.

  Bagoas, that glistening worm! Bagoas, who slept with men to sound out how loyal they were to the king? Bagoas the informer, the spy, the torturer who was neither man nor woman? He would not touch my queen’s little toe! It would be I, Ania, I the Amazon, who drew this child from that belly, despite the curse of our ancestors.

  I CANNOT TELL you where I come from, my child. In the early days of my life, I crawled among wild horses, drinking a mare’s milk when I was hungry and thirsty. I pulled at her mane and heaved myself onto her back, then clung to her neck as she galloped. My first mother smelled of sunlight, grass, and dung. She licked me from head to foot and showed her yellow teeth when she laughed. Under the starry sky of the steppes she slept on her feet with me between her legs. She taught me that language is a music and that whoever opens their heart to the music understands the language of grasshoppers, butterflies, birds, wolves, and trees.

  One day nomads appeared on the horizon and chased us for days on end. One after another the horses were captured with a long rope, and I was taken to the chief’s wife. My second mother taught me to dress myself and walk with shoes. She burrowed me under a blanket with her children, and I escaped at night to sleep outside the tent under the stars. One evening I was woken by the thunder of hooves: horsemen brandishing sabers descended on our tents, killing the whole tribe in their sleep and stealing their horses and cattle. Hiding in a bush with my hands over my ears, I saw and heard nothing. I lived among the corpses until the day another tribe passed and put me up on a horse’s back, but I never stayed with my adoptive families after that, leaving them after one season. I was too afraid of seeing them massacred by the horsemen galloping out of the huge opening between the earth and the sky.

  One day I heard the legend of the Amazons who had no fear of men, and I wanted to be like them. I walked alone toward the north of the steppes. Three seasons later an Amazon discovered me and took me to their queen. She undressed me, pointed at the scar on my breast, and wept tears of joy. I do not remember where that scar came from. It looks like an iron branding or an animal bite. It is the secret inscribed by the God of Ice.

  I did not see my mother Talaxia very often. It was a time of great upheaval: the tribes on the steppes fought constantly with each other. After several seasons of drought, good pastureland was rare, and horses and cattle were starving. Men turned to pillaging.

  The queen disappeared frequently, and I was raised by Tankiasis, her serving woman, whom I called my aunt. It was she who fed me with goat’s and cow’s milk. Sometimes we had to break camp and gallop for days on end, pursued by our attackers. She tied me against her chest, and I rested my head between her breasts. Sometimes we were the on
es who launched an attack, and then she would tie me to her back. I could feel her muscles tensing and relaxing. I clung to her heat and sweat, listening to the war cries reverberating through her body, and dozing to the clash of weapons and the whinnying of horses.

  My aunt smelled of goat’s milk and chrysanthemums. In summer I liked to lick the salt from her skin while she fanned me with large leaves and sung me tunes of the steppes. When my mother returned, her mare’s hooves made the ground shake, and the pungent smell of unknown lands preceded her. She leaned over me and pinched my cheeks. She gave orders in her powerful voice, and all the girls started packing up: we had to leave. Every time my mother appeared, it was the sign for another departure. I was afraid of her; I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay between my aunt’s breasts, at peace, forever.

  My mother was strong and brutal, my aunt tender and gentle. Talaxia rode horses and fought with men. Tankiasis managed the girls and defended me. She brought me up to be intrepid and spontaneous as the queen, and tender and thoughtful as her serving woman. I am the fruit of two women who were sisters and lovers. I am the fruit of their love, which ended only when, one after the other, they left this lowly world.

  One day I saw my mother return with one breast pierced by an arrow embellished with green feathers. My aunt called for a large pyre to be built and for Talaxia’s body to be laid on top of it. With her hair awry and her body covered in sweat, she prostrated herself before that fire for several days.

  Talaxia and Tankiasis had met when they were still young. My aunt had been married to a tribal chief, one of many wives living on colorful soft carpets in a vast tent. She had left her husband and her child, betrayed her family, abandoned her servants, torn her beautiful clothes, and handed out her jewels. She left in the middle of a dark night, on the back of a mare belonging to a woman known as the queen of Siberia. Talaxia and Tankiasis loved each other and never left each other. But my mother was not faithful; she made other seductions and had countless lovers, both men and women. She brought home other young women frantic with desire and admiration for her. Tankiasis—who had given up her original name, her mother, her sisters, and her child—accepted all these hardships because of that extraordinary emotion called love.

  Tankiasis crouched before the pyre while the flames danced in her eyes. Her queen was no more: Talaxia, the indefatigable warrior, conqueror of men and women, would never seduce again. She had abandoned everything she had conquered, abandoned all her prey and her harvests, in order to travel up to the skies along that pillar of black smoke.

  My aunt stayed by the pyre until the last spark faltered and went out. She took the decision to stay for my sake, to finish her instruction, to teach me the silent prayers that respond to the call of the glacier. Then one morning she left without a trace. Tankiasis went to join Talaxia among the stars, leaving me with an enigma: What is love? Is it a song with no odor or color or melody, but which bewitches the living and the dead?

  My child, you carry in your veins all the patience of Tankiasis, who stitched every one of my garments, and the strength of Talaxia, who trained me on horseback. Are their souls rejoicing up there in the wind, the rain, and the zigzag of lightning? The fruit of their love has found fulfillment and now carries the fruit of a love with the king of warriors. You, my child, you in turn will bear fruit, and so the tribe of lovers will be perpetuated.

  Ania is afraid of love and suffering, but she will help me bring you into the world. She will raise you, and you will call her your aunt. She will teach you the secrets of the Amazons, and you will teach her to love the volcano, which is just as tall and ardent as the glacier.

  My child, you will be strong, courageous, and sensual as your father. You will be calm, reflective, and inspired as your mother. You will take command of the army when your parents grow old. You will continue to open up roads in a world where there are no roads. You will wear the laurels of warrior men and know the language of warrior women. You will be a tiger and a bird, a king and a queen.

  I am waiting for you, my child! Your father is impatient for you to be here! I can feel you moving, you kick so hard it hurts, you strike me with your fists, butt me with your head…you make my own head spin.

  My child, you leap and bite and tear my flesh!

  You cannot wait to be born, you cannot wait to sit in your father’s arms, you cannot wait to become a soldier and meet your queen!

  My child, I want all the treasures of this world for you, I want a life of battles for you, I want every bird and every horse for you.

  When strength withdraws from our bodies, when Alexander and Alestria leave, hand in hand, to join glorious souls among the stars, you will be our flame, our word, our eyes.

  My child, Alexandrias, sleep now. Sleep and have beautiful dreams, sleep and have a wondrous awakening!

  Sleep, my child, you shall be king of the steppes, forests, and plains, queen of deserts, rivers, and oceans.

  Sleep, my child, sleep peacefully. I pray that the God of Ice will send you a beautiful wife.

  IN THE HEART of the night the female’s arms and legs thrash like tentacles. Her vagina opens like a carnivorous plant and slowly spits out a head, a hand, a foot. A life emerges. Blood streams. And in the middle of it the whitish cord. I seize it. I look for the knife to cut it, but it slips from my fingers. I reach for it. The child is already coiling in the gelatinous cord and strangling itself.

  I wake with tears in my eyes. I, Ania, loathed the work of a midwife! I loathed myself for witnessing several births so that I would be ready for the queen! The Amazons were right to refuse this thankless task. Why was Alestria insisting on producing an heir when there were so many women crawling round Alexander who could have carried one instead of her? Why was she waging this pointless battle when other more experienced women could have won the fight for her?

  The door to my tent was torn open, and one of the girls of Siberia ran in.

  “The queen’s in labor!” she cried.

  I leaped up and ran barefoot to the queen’s tent. Alestria was lying on the carpet, racked by violent convulsions. She had torn her tunic and was thrashing and moaning, trying to get to her feet and falling back down onto her back.

  I asked for a fire to be lit and for water to be boiled. Two strong girls took Alestria’s arms, and two more pinned down her legs. The queen bit into a cushion and stifled her cries, but her sweat-soaked body and distraught expression communicated her pain to me. I examined her inside: there was a trickle of blood, but the channel was not yet open.

  It was daybreak. The blood had stopped flowing, but the suffering did not abate. She was trembling, and her eyes were wide and full of tears. The entire city had been drawn to the spectacle: women gathered outside the tent and, behind them, crowds of soldiers. Their commanders came to speak to me, but I waved them away impatiently. No one was authorized to come into the queen’s tent. A few days earlier Alexander had left the city in great haste, and no one knew where he was or when he would return. Without the king there, I was suspicious of every man’s motives. I, Ania, armed the girls of our tribe and positioned them round the tent to protect Alestria.

  My queen’s stifled cries cut me to the core. She fainted after each convulsion. The army’s best midwife came to help me. She palpated Alestria’s belly for a long time and then told me we would have to kill the queen to save the child, for out of the mother and the heir, there would be only one survivor.

  If only one of them was to live, it would be my queen. I had the madwoman thrown out of the tent.

  The sun sank in the sky. Now exhausted, the monster Alestria bore granted her a moment’s respite. I washed the queen’s body and covered her in a clean tunic. In the middle of the night the convulsions returned and the blood began to flow again. Having pulled the cushion to pieces, Alestria asked for a sheet to muffle her cries. It was not long before she lost her voice and, her mouth wide with pain, made a mewling sound. I fell to the ground beside her and prayed. Where are you, God o
f Ice? Save Alestria! Save my queen! Take my life instead of hers!

  Day took over from the night. My queen could no longer cry, she lay there panting.

  Ptolemy introduced a sorcerer renowned for his powerful magic, which had saved kings and princes of the Indies. With his wrinkled face, his protruding yellowish eyes and earlobes distended by earrings laden with diamonds, he looked like an old woman. He wore a pleated skirt around his hips, and his scrawny arms were covered in gold bangles set with rubies. He examined Alestria and told me he could save the mother.

  “Yes, my queen must be saved!” I told him. “Alexander will give you ten chariots filled with bracelets and earrings if you drive death from this tent.”

  The sorcerer boiled herbs, roots, and dried fruit in water. He sang as he stirred the concoction with a black spoon, and made signs with his free hand. Even the bitter smell of his infusion seemed to soothe the laboring mother. I ordered the sorcerer to taste his medicine, which could have contained poison, then blew over the bowl until the liquid had cooled before bringing it to Alestria’s lips.

  She refused to open her mouth.

  I shook her and begged her, wasting my breath trying to persuade her. Reluctantly, I cited Alexander’s love for her and the possibility of another child. But Alestria, the intrepid warrior, did not back away from death. She kept her teeth clenched, would not admit defeat. Haunted by the legend of the Great Queen, who died in childbirth, I wept streams of tears.

  Suddenly Alestria moved and opened her eyes. I ran over to lift her up and offer her the infusion. She looked at me tenderly, smiling and shaking her head.

  Gripped by anger, I threw caution to the wind and cried:

  “Let him go! He’s a monster! He wants to kill the mother and control the father. He wants to annihilate Alexander and Alestria in order to be the one king of every land! Condemn him. Turn your back on him. Look at the light and turn toward our god.”