Alexander and Alestria

by Shan Sa

  The passing days and various journeys were like flocks of birds scattering. I had neither the desire nor the strength to catch any of them. To demonstrate to the soldiers that Alexander had recovered, Hephaestion organized two attacks and arranged for them to be led by two men who looked like me. Then, urged on by the generals, he ordered a retreat. From the depths of my tent I heard Hephaestion’s words as he gave me an account of our position. He hopped from one foot to the other, turned circles, and spewed great spates of indignant words and exalted speeches. His despair and his bellicose excesses left me unmoved. I had absolutely no response to these futile events. I tried to communicate how I felt to him by smiling at him broadly: he sighed and withdrew.

  In Hephaestion’s eyes, I had been strong and I had grown weak. I could no longer fight or even think.

  In my own eyes, I had been weak and had grown strong. Hatred, frustration, jealousy, fear of being bettered, terror of being defeated…all these had disappeared. The bustle of this earthly world could no longer affect me. I had stopped suffering it. I was living.

  A woman came to me. She lay over me when my headaches made me moan, and her skin cooled me, her silence lulled me. She kissed me and caressed me. Even though I could not feel her touch, I experienced a sense of well-being from head to foot.

  A wall had grown up between myself and other men. We now marched in two different worlds.

  I could not say whether Alestria slipped into my universe or I, Alexander, penetrated hers. I read her thoughts, heard her music, and let myself be carried away by her dreams. Alestria, take me home to your land!

  ALEXANDER HAD TERRIBLE headaches that confined him to a darkened tent. Hephaestion gave him infusions to ease the pain, and the king slept even when his eyes were open. He could no longer fight, said nothing, and could only walk if he leaned on two guards. His hand could not find his mouth: it was Alestria who fed him. But Hephaestion, Cassander, Ptolemy, and Perdiccas needed Alexander to rule over his empire. They had agreed to put a look-alike on the throne. To give the lie credibility, they had made their peace with Bagoas: the eunuch’s presence beside the false Alexander silenced any rumors.

  The real king stayed closeted in the Amazons’ quarters. Alestria refused to continue playing the role of Roxana, Queen of Asia, so Hephaestion had to find a look-alike for her too.

  That night Alestria came into my tent and instructed me to pack our things. In the flickering candlelight I was struck by her glowing red cheeks and shining eyes, and recognized the smile she had lost so long ago. Alestria slipped away, and I packed in feverish excitement. She did not tell me where we were going, but I, Ania, her faithful serving woman, knew.

  I threw away the luxurious tunics, precious jewels, and embroidered sandals. I left aside the furniture, carpets, dishes, and incense. I lay down on the small bundle of bare essentials and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

  When Alestria came to find me, it was still dark. All the girls of Siberia were standing outside their tents in battle costumes and with their horses ready. I carried Alexander and settled him in an Indian carriage with a roof over it. His monkey, Nicea, hurtled out of the tent, climbed onto his master’s shoulder, and wrapped its arms round his head. Only Hephaestion came out; neither Bagoas, Cassander, nor Ptolemy was there to bid good-bye to their king. The two men looked at each other in silence for a long time, their eyes shining in the darkness. Hephaestion came over and laid his lips on Alexander’s.

  Alestria was at the head of our little troop, and she gave the signal to leave. I, Ania, was driving the chariot, and I urged my horses into a trot.

  There, before the empty tents, Hephaestion stood like a figure turned to stone and was soon reduced to a smudge diluted by the night.

  The gates to the encampment opened, and we, the Amazons, the daughters of the glacier, flew away.

  HEPHAESTION HAD CHOSEN his fate and I mine.

  Our kiss sealed it: I yielded Pella, Athens, Memphis, Babylon, Suse, Ecbatana, and the countless Alexandrias to him. Let him have the burden of the empire. Let me have a new life.

  The roads carved out by Alexander the Great twisted and climbed and wound back down again. Caravans created clouds of dust, and soldiers patrolled up and down. Garrisons the size of a whole village took us in for the night, mistaking us for humble traders. The officers there led a debauched life, surrounded by slaves, prostitutes, and courtesans. The soldiers drank so much through the night that they were still drunk in the morning. We moved on, getting away from their rowdy bustle, and rode through the mountains for days. I listened to birdsong and the whisper of waterfalls. The valleys were carpeted with wild flowers, I could no longer smell their fragrance, but they touched my heart. My body swam in a limpid lake; my skin quivered. We reached the plain, with its tall grasses and ever-shifting clouds. I let myself be tied to my wife with a wide belt, my arms around her waist and my head on her shoulder. She urged on her horse, and I galloped with her. The wind whistled, and the sun burst into showers of golden light. I felt so tall my head skimmed the very sky, and my feet made the earth shake beneath them.

  An army appeared on the horizon: warriors in helmets raising their bows. The women around me could not contain their joy. Ania was heading up our little troop, and she galloped toward them like an arrow. The soldiers threw their helmets in the air, dropped from their horses, and ran toward Alestria. As they jostled to touch my wife’s legs and feet, I realized they were actually young women. Alestria jumped down, and the girls milled round her, kissing her and raising her high in the air. Then they followed her over to my carriage and peered at me curiously, touching my hair and shoulders and chattering with excitement. They picked up my monkey, who struggled to break free, screaming in fear. This made the girls laugh, and their laughter washed through me like a warm current. My every muscle relaxed, and first I smiled, then drew my lips right open and burst out laughing.

  “Alexander is laughing!” Ania cried in Persian. “He has recovered!”

  Alestria ran over to me, looked at me, and wept with joy.

  ALESTRIA’S TRIBE LIVED to the rhythm of good pastureland. The girls rose with the dawn and went to sleep when the sun set. They shared all forms of manual work and took turns putting on armor to fight as warriors. They laughed and sang a great deal. They gave Nicea a small horse and taught him to gallop, and they trained some gray mice to make a circus for my entertainment. On feast days they gathered round the campfire in the evenings and drank alcohol made from flower roots; then they became even more cheerful and playful, dancing like will-o’-the-wisps. I joined in their games and gradually regained the use of my hands. By concentrating on every note, I managed a form of singing and pronounced a few simple words.

  On our travels we found little girls abandoned by their parents, while young warrior women with barely a wrinkle on their faces would leave us to go and die. These young women knew from the stars when the end had come for them. They took a potion that numbed them to pain and left on horseback without telling anyone. When the horse returned to camp alone a few days later, it signaled a period of mourning. Ania explained that the Amazon would ride until she saw a river, then she would dismount and lie down on the bank. She would let vultures and other scavengers eat her body while her soul rose up to the skies to become a star.

  And so it was that, reading the constellation in the vault of the sky, Alestria decided to take me on a journey. Spring had come round again. We set off, following the wild geese, with Alestria riding beside me, Ania driving my chariot, and Nicea on my shoulder. Every morning the reddening sun rose, and every evening the moon waxed larger. We came across a whole army of caribou with massive antlers, hundreds of thousands of them, surging toward the north. Our little stream joined that great river, and it bore us along in its frenetic galloping.

  The tall grasses disappeared, succeeded by dry earth covered in pebbles and bare rock. A dark line of trees stretched out on the horizon. Still surrounded by the caribou, which never stopped to rest,
we penetrated deep into a forest of pine, tall and upright as lances. A few days later some warriors blocked our way. They had black hair adorned with feathers and wore animal skins sewn with shells.

  Alestria went over toward them and came back to me with a beaming smile on her face.

  “The Great Mother is expecting us!” she cried. “She read in the stars that the queen had returned with the king.”

  Caribou led up ahead and followed on behind, while these new warriors escorted us. Having crossed a wide, shallow river, I came for the first time to the land of the volcano, where birds and stags came to drink and sing their song. The Great Mother, queen of the People of the Volcano, came to greet us in a chariot pulled by dogs with blue and yellow eyes. She led us through her kingdom, a series of villages scattered about a vast plain that sloped down toward the ocean.

  The sea wind whipped up blue-black waves, and on the horizon, I could see a chain of white glaciers. A flock of birds wheeled above, calling, then diving down into the water and reappearing with fish in their beaks. All at once gray monsters with great wide jaws emerged from the waves, spewing jets of water that shimmered with rainbows as they fell back down.

  The People of the Volcano constituted a tribe governed by the Great Mother. They elected their queen from among the women who had had many children, who had, in turn, produced many grandchildren. Unlike the Amazons, who disliked old age, the People of the Volcano only trusted those who reached a great age. The Great Mother had blue tattoos on her cheeks and a beard on her chin. Alestria told me that the women of the volcano lived a long time; hence their wisdom and their gift for reading the stars. But the Great Mother did not decide anything: every full moon she held feasting during which the village chiefs would have their discussions. She would put in a word only if there were disagreements.

  We waited for winter to return and cover the ocean with thick ice; then we spread grease over our bodies and wrapped ourselves in warm furs. We packed away our tents and utensils onto the sleds pulled by dogs. With the Great Mother up at the front and the entire tribe behind her, we launched ourselves onto that white continent, facing into the wind and the snow.

  As we slid on, I forgot to count off the days. The sun had disappeared behind the glaciers and no longer rose. Beams of green, orange, purple, and white light carved through that endless night, tearing open the black sky. Wolves howled in the distance, setting off furious barking competitions among the dogs. Nicea wriggled beneath my coat and shrieked with them.

  White bears sitting on blocks of ice watched us pass. Silvery foxes flitted across the snow and hid behind large white rocks. The People of the Volcano hunted hares and creatures with thick fatty skin and bristly mustaches and that, when glimpsed in the distance, looked like mermaids.

  A black volcano with a glowering red summit loomed through the misty darkness. Soon I could make out its lava flow: scarlet waves and crimson sparks edging down its flanks and spilling into the sea. We camped on the red and black rock, dotted with patches of snow. The men set to work extracting blocks of metal from mines and transporting them to the foot of the volcano. On the other side, where the earth’s blood flowed, a series of reservoirs had been dug into the slopes as well as canals to deflect the lava. By opening successive sluice gates, the People of the Volcano made the incandescent flows run over metal positioned in the upper reservoirs. They directed the molten metal toward reservoirs lower down, and these in turn spewed the red-hot liquid into molds in the shape of swords, bludgeons, and sickles.

  The women gathered the tarnished black blades, beat them out, and dunked them in the snow. The Great Mother led these ceremonies, invoking the souls of warriors of the glacier to be incarnated into these weapons, which grew light, razor-sharp, and indestructible. So it was that the Amazon girls had been able to fight men since time immemorial. So it was that Alestria had broken through Alexander’s shield when we confronted each other for the first time.

  We returned to the land mass when spring came round again.

  The Great Mother pronounced an oracle, and the men started cutting down pine trees and building boats. The women went down onto the beach and dug in the sand with their weapons, creating a wide channel sloping up the beach. The gray whales, great floating islands bearing whole populations of shellfish and seaweed on their backs, resurfaced and dazed us with their wailing song. Summer returned, and caribou spread throughout the kingdom. On the day singled out by the God of Ice, the men launched their vessels on the sea. In among the whales they found the queen with red and yellow markings, and they threw spears and stones at her.

  The whales were quick-tempered. When their queen was angry, she spewed columns of water and stirred up giant waves that overturned the boats. But the People of the Volcano carried on harrying her. Maddened with rage, she gave chase to her attackers, setting off up the channel and throwing herself onto the shore.

  The death throes of the queen of the ocean were accompanied by celebrations. Out among the waves the other whales circled, singing their mournful song for many days and nights before electing a new queen and heading off toward the south. The whale meat was salted and kept for lean years. Her skin became roofing for huts; her grease, oil for lamps; and her bones, pillars bleached by the wind, formed a gigantic alleyway along which, I was told, the God of Ice would come.

  Autumn came round again. The grasses turned yellow and dried out, the birds flew south, and the caribou set off once more. On clear evenings when the stars twinkled in the sky, the Great Mother stood by the fire and sang:

  The Amazons, the whales, and the People of the Volcano

  Are descended from Mount Siberia.

  Our god created the glacier.

  Our land warmed up.

  The glacier became a mountain.

  Then the snows fell.

  The wintry mountain became the glacier again.

  The glacier dissolved and turned into a lake.

  The lake disappeared when a volcano rose up.

  The mountain clan had descendants.

  Two peoples crossed the ocean.

  We no longer know their history.

  Three species of birds fled the great freeze.

  Five species of flower came down to earth.

  Infinite are the warrior spirits wandering the skies.

  Infinite are our invisible sisters who return to our bodies and souls.

  The Amazons will disappear.

  The People of the Volcano will die out.

  The whales will cease to sing.

  The black weapons will be forgotten.

  But warrior souls shall carry on.

  I, Alexander, the warrior from the other side of the mountain, could not feel my queen’s gentle caress. I could not tell her how much I loved her. I drank in her body, embraced her soul, lived in her eyes, in her laughter, in her happiness at having me by her side.

  When the migraines struck me, she lay over me, and her cool skin soothed the blazing pain.

  I spoke to her with my trembling hands. I loved her with my heart, which fought against death for her sake. I had offered her war, kingdoms, and endless traveling; she had offered me whales, white cranes, and a volcano spewing the blood and ash of life.

  Come with me, Alestria. Let us fly toward the light shining down from the glacier.

  Come with me, my queen. Let us fly toward the sun.

  Come with me, invincible soul. Let us fly toward the centuries that shall sing forever of our names, our exploits, and our glory.

  ALEXANDER AND HIS monkey were always cold, so we wrapped them in thick layers of fur.

  Alexander had difficulty speaking. He could not feel when he was being touched. But with simple gestures he told me how grateful he was to the arrow that had transformed his fate.

  Alexander and Alestria held hands and spent their time looking at the glaciers. They woke to watch the sunrise and gazed in rapture at the sunset.

  Alexander and Alestria loved each other intensely for thirty-six moons. A
lexander left one morning in spring. Alestria came back to the steppes with me and dictated these words to me in the language of birds.

  Alestria disappeared one morning, and her horse returned.

  I, Ania, the faithful serving girl of the queen of the Amazons, wrote the end of this book. The following day I rose at dawn. I drank the potion prepared the day before and gave some to Nicea to drink. He climbed onto my shoulder, and I walked out of the tent.

  I urged my horse into a gallop. Following my queen’s instructions, I shall bury these pages of stone in a cave. I shall close the mouth of the cave.

  I shall stop when we come to a river.

  There is a white eagle in the sky.

  Guiding me to the summit.

  To you, boy child of the future, I give these words written in the language of birds,

  To you, intrepid warrior, I give our freedom and our galloping,

  Watch over our sleeping,

  Watch over our seasons.

  To you, young girl who reads the stars,

  To you, young girl who deciphers the book of birds,

  To you, little girl who fears neither suffering nor death,

  I give the secret of our souls,

  The secret of love,

  The secret of strength.

  About the Author

  SHAN SA is the author of several acclaimed novels, including Empress and The Girl Who Played Go (winner of France’s Goncourt Prize). Born in Beijing, she moved to Paris in 1990. She is also a celebrated artist who has had prominent exhibitions in Paris and New York.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY SHAN SA

  The Poems of Yan Ni (poems)

  The Red Dragonfly (poems)

  Snow (poems)

  May the Spring Return (essays)

  Porte de la Paix Céleste (novel)