Sappho's Journal Read online

  Growl on, spew on, beat and tramp—tomorrow’s sun will return and thesea’s eye will glitter and I will gaze across the bay—and Alcaeus willnot be here.

  My feet are cold and the lamp is weak and the wax hard, and I must goto bed.

  ?

  Yesterday, the wine workers gathered at a nearby vineyard, old menand girls, in tattered clothes, some lazy, some hard-working, pressingthe grapes, many of them my friends. Spade-bearded Niko directed thepressing, sitting at the base of an oak, wearing a stained robe, hisvoice low. Women carried hampers of grapes loaded with purple clusters,the women’s skirts wet with dew, the grapes mottled with damp. Cloudsmade the day cool. Someone toyed with a flute, the men treading,emptying husks over sandy soil, now and then pausing to talk under theoak, the circular press letting out its red, everyone tasting. Manyamphorae were broken, before they were finally filled and capped.

  I wanted to help. How sweet the smell flooding my nose.

  ?

  Atthis has been my girl-child today and we have strolled together upthe long, long path to the outcrop, beyond the temple. Atthis and tallwhite marble columns, with their busy apricot-breasted swallows, haveassuaged my loneliness. How lonely we become, as we grow older, evenwhen there is someone to share. The key to self gets lost; self-assurance diminishes. Once, it was only necessary to dash around thegarden or throw back one’s head and laugh...

  Yellow-headed Atthis, lazy-eyed, sitting on the steps of the templeruin, wove a flower wreath for me and I wove one for her. Then,returning home, we bathed at our fountain, splashing each other, thesun on us and the slippery marble. Afterwards, we lay down and slept,and I dreamed of a ship at sea, her mast broken, her tangled sail andrigging dragging.

  Will the war never end?

  ?

  Fog, as grey as a shepherd’s cloak, ruffled the bay for a day and anight. Then, stabbing us, came clarity, and inside that clarity,centered in it, a brown intaglio, a small wooden carving, first oneship and then another. Our fleet had sailed back to us! I watched fromthe terrace, unable to speak. Atthis ran up to me. Anaktoria came.Gyrinno came. Boys yelled. Old men rushed past the house. Dogs barked.Someone banged a drum. Such clamoring!

  But was it joyous news, I asked myself? Why were the women in a knotat the corner? Why hadn’t fast rowers raced to tell us? Had the fogtricked the fleet?

  Changing my clothes, putting on new sandals, I walked to the pier andthe seagulls screamed and we waited and waited. People surged allabout, saying wild things, shrieking—then, ominously, fell silent.Their shouts were better than their silence. The ocean seemed too calm,as if it had been smothered by the fog or dreaded the arrival of ourfleet.

  I had pictured the ships as fast moving, bright on bright water.

  As the first one approached, I saw no happy faces, no lifted hands,no raised shields, no plumed helmets at the rail, no flags.

  I heard an oar drag and in that sound I heard the rasp of death. IfAlcaeus is dead, I will take poison—and I saw myself going to Xerxes,our Persian chemist, and asking for the powder. We had agreed, yearsback, during another crisis, that he would allow me this gift to freemyself, if I must. His yellow face vanished, as I watched an anchorplunge slowly and saw the sail topple into the water and heard a mancry some name.

  Shouts went up.

  A chorus began.

  Voices caught our song, way out at sea, assuring us that these werenot phantoms.

  Alcaeus?

  Ten years ago, almost ten—ten years ago, he had left Mytilene, thewars sweeping him away. Ten years we had lived with fear creeping aboutour island. Ten years—how my fingers trembled. I saw those years, thereon the wharf, saw them in the gulls’ wings, in the distraught facesabout me, my girls’, my friends’, my neighbors’. We had all waited forthis homecoming. And now, now our fleet was gliding toward us, grey-hulked, no flags raised, oars shuffling like sick crabs.

  Was it defeat or half-victory? Who, among our men, was lost, dead, orwounded? Gull on the masthead, apple at the end of the bough, what canyou tell us at such crucial times? For an infinitude, the oars paced, aboat swung, another boat anchoring alongside, the armor on deckflashing, the waves gulping at the gulls.

  I turned away, moved back.

  And then I saw someone helping Alcaeus ashore—wounded or ill—and old,old, I thought.

  Beauty said to me: This is only change.

  And I said: But what is change?

  And I slipped away, not daring to meet him, hoping someone wouldshout a name and confirm that this was another, not Alcaeus. But no, Iknew. A woman knows a man she has loved, however battered he may be. Iturned to watch his blundering progress.

  The chorus had dwindled—only those at sea, the far off crews, stillcarried the hymn. I could not remain any longer. I hurried home, pasthis house to mine, wondering what kind of haven it could be, wonderingwhat people would say at my flight. Yet this was not flight; it wasmerely a postponement, waiting for a sign, a chance to prepare myself.Alcaeus...must I send someone to him? What must I do? Go to his home?Shall I be there for him when he arrives?

  At my door I turned and retraced my steps to his house, the laces ofmy sandals making a sound I had never heard before, the gulls wailing,the sounds from the wharf intermingling and incomprehensible.

  And I was there when he came with his servant, an ugly Parthian,helping him. Yes, I was there and put out my hand to touch him, hearinghis troubled breathing, seeing his torn and disheveled clothes, hisrank beard, and knowing he was ill. I remembered the dream, the shipwith its broken sail. And I remembered our love and I said to him:

  “Alcaeus...it is I, Sappho...”

  He squared his shoulders, his cloak slipping away. His arms went outto me, then dropped to his side.

  His eyes had the marble core of nothingness in them.

  Appalled, I could scarcely stand. O God, what is this that can happento a man? Why has it happened? His arms in bandages, his eyes foreverbandaged by the dark.

  “Alcaeus...”

  He heard my whisper and shuffled backwards, bumping his servant; hemoved forward then and gripped me hard, twisting my flesh, his greatmuscles rising in his hands.

  “Take me to my room... You haven’t forgotten the way, have you?”

  I took his arm and the Parthian opened the door and servants bowedabout us; yes, I took his arm and silently we climbed the stairs to hisroom, his clothes rough against me, his sea smell around me. We passedhis library that held the books he had loved. We passed his mother’sroom, where she had died. We passed where light fell around us, thoughno light entered his eyes.

  “You are in your room,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “Beside your Egyptian chair.”

  “Can I sit down on it?”

  “Yes, it’s ready for you.”

  Grasping the heavy frame, he lowered himself and the taut leathersqueaked. I placed a pillow behind him and drew a fur across his knees,then sat next to him. The door had shut itself and we were alone. Welistened to each other’s breathing and his hand sought mine and climbedmy robe to my face and the coarse fingers felt my cheek and I felt themreach my heart, with the past roaring around me like the recent storm.

  I couldn’t speak. I felt that the war was forever between us and Ihated those years, those battles, the lines on his face. My hate wasthere, between us. Then, then, tears came to his eyes. Silently, hewept. And I drew him to me.

  I heard the wind cross over his house.

  Voices shuffled below us in the courtyard, the excited voices of thecaretakers, the idle, the hangers-on. I could imagine their leers,their whispers. I lifted his face toward mine and kissed him, his heavybeard sticking my mouth.

  There was a sob—a broken gasp. How ill he looked, how tired...

  “You must lie down, Alcaeus. Come, I’ll help you.”

  And when he was settled, I
brought him water.

  “Water...there hasn’t been much water these last few days at sea...”

  ?

  So he had come home, “homeward from earth’s far end,” on the shieldof blindness. I saw him next day and the next, but he seemed strange,withdrawn. I found two of his servants but he wasn’t interested.

  I thought of him as old. But was he old? Age was in his scars, in hisstreaked hair and beard, the hands lifting and settling awkwardly.

  Warm under the stars, the daphne fragrant, his sea terrace tilessmooth underneath our feet, we sat alone, some rooster vaguely salutingthe night, the movement of the surf faint, almost lost. I crushed somedaphne in my palm, remembering their four-pronged flowers, remembering—remembering Alcaeus after his field games, his javelin and discusthrowing, his flushed face, his eyes lit, his mouth hungry for mine.Remembering—was he remembering, too?

  “There was no daphne where I was,” he said, his voice sullen. “Itwould have been better to have died there, than come home like this.”

  “It’s spring, Alcaeus, don’t talk like that,” I said, and wonderedwhat spring might signify to him.

  He did not speak for a while, then quietly, as though to himself, orfrom another world, he repeated lines we had loved:

  “The gods held me in Egypt, longing to sail for home, for I hadfailed to seek their blessing with an offering...”

  His voice had not changed, I realized with a start. Surcharged withnew meaning, it entered my being, as he went on about the galleys andthe old men “deep in the sea’s abyss.”

  The phrase haunted me because it was he who lived in an abyss.

  As days passed, defeat was all that we heard in our town, notoutright defeat, but capitulation—retreat combined with truce, trucenecessitated by deception. Or was it confusion? The soldiers I met,after their drunken reunions, spoke of the war with bitterness. Tenyears, they said. Ten years, for what? And how many of us came back?Those who had been away longest considered themselves outcasts andthose who had returned during the war complained, unable to recognizetheir families.

  Standing on the wharf, I familiarized myself with the fleet, itsremnants, anchored forlornly in the bay, boys swimming around thehulls, the decks bone dry, hawsers trailing, a door off its hinges, thecordage so rotten a gull might topple a spar. Disgust in my mouth, Itasted the waste of life, Alcaeus’, my own, my friends’.

  What is life for, but love?

  And love sent Atthis and me along the beach, stretching our legs,running, dashing in and out of shallows, finding periwinkles, the dayeven-tempered, goats nibbling at wild celery, their bells lazy, afisherman waving at us as he cast his net, clouds over the mountain. Inoticed Atthis against the luminous water, her fragile face trustinglife. Her yellow ringlets in my lap, she sang to me and then, eyesshut, fingers in the sand, she seemed to steal away.

  “What are you thinking about, darling?”

  “You...”

  “What about?”

  “You and Alcaeus—you are so troubled for him.”

  “Then you have seen him?”

  “Yesterday. And I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “Because what is there left for him—and you?”

  “I can’t answer you, Atthis. Time answers such questions.”

  I sense my old loneliness, a loneliness that was distorted like aship’s rib, tossed on the beach, warped because of bad luck.

  “His arms have been injured, too,” Atthis said.

  “They will get better, in time...” And I heard time in the recedingwave and felt it in her ringlets and in her hands.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said and I saw myself mirrored in her eyes.And it occurred to me that Alcaeus and I would never again be able toexchange notes, those hasty, affectionate scribbles. Would he everagain dictate his bawdy poems, lampoon dictators and brag about war?Had pen and desk become his enemies?

  Many things occurred to me, there on the sand, as Atthis and I talkedsoftly.

 

  Sappho’s garden, terraces of roses, shrubbery and cypress,

  has the ocean below: moonlit, she stands white-robed

  close to marble statuary:

  a nude Hermes, a bust of Aphrodite,

  a niobe, an athlete from Delphi.

  Sappho sits down on a bench and fingers a lyre.

  Mytilene

  T

  onight, I have returned to my poetry, for the solace and sound of mypen. Here in my library, time will be defeated for a moment, at least.The sun’s last rays stream in, so yellow, they might be made of acacia.The cooling light covers my desk and bookshelves and relinquishes itshold of my vase. A fragment clings to the amphora Alcaeus gave me longago. Its dancing, singing men seem somehow out of focus; yet it seems Ihear the flute and lyre of the ceramic players.

  I dreamed I talked with Cyprus-born...

  No, that is a poor line.

  Maybe this is a better theme for tonight:

  But I, I love delicate living, and for me,

  richness and beauty belong to the sun...

  ?

  There was a symposium and Gyrinno danced for the guests andafterwards brought me news about Alcaeus, how he left the party andwandered to the beach. There he quarreled with Charaxos, both armedwith sticks and staggering drunk. At first, Gyrinno garbled the news,mixing it with the symposium’s talk of war, the defeat, the hatreds ofmany kinds, including punishment and forfeit. It must have been a sorrymeeting, this reunion of our warriors. Gyrinno reached me drenched withwine the men hard thrown on her. Other girls had been treated the same.

  Welcome home—men!

  When I had soothed Gyrinno and bathed and perfumed and powdered her,I went to the beach, thinking I might find them. Yes, they were there,quarreling on the sand, my lover and my brother, kicking their nakedshins on driftwood, their servants standing by, only half interestedand half awake.

  “Charaxos,” I began.

  “Ah...I rather expected you.”

  “Sappho?” called Alcaeus.

  “Get up, both of you.” I moved past the servants indignantly.

  “Just leave us alone,” growled Charaxos.

  “Leave a blind man with you, when it is you who is really blind?”

  “Let’s not resume our quarrel,” said Charaxos.

  “When have we stopped?”

  “Please go away,” said Alcaeus, “I can take care of him, myself.”

  “I’ll not go! I intend to see you home!” And I ordered the servantsto separate them and leave me with Alcaeus.

  Mumbling, he followed along the shore, walking uncertainly, butkeeping out of the way of the inrushing water. Where rocks littered thebeach, he allowed me to help him, and was soon apologizing.

  “I haven’t been home a month and already I act the fool. What righthave I to criticize anybody? So he brought home a slave woman. Haven’tI had my share?”

  I did not interrupt, preoccupied as I was with guiding him. Besides,my anger with Charaxos was too old, too deep-seated, too complex. Itwas not a subject to pursue on the beach, with the wind carrying ourwords and the breakers drowning them. This was, I preferred, a privatequarrel.

  With Charaxos and his men following a distance apart, we made apretty picture, hiccoughing through Mytilene! Its silent streets weretopped by a new moon; Venus seemed swallowed by a single window. Whywere we in such contrast?

  Laughter and outworn songs...swaying and shuffling...until theshutting of my door.

  Alone, I sit beside my lamp to consider its flame, the why andwherefore of its integrity, fragility. Shadows are commonplace when weignite a lamp. Yet, without a light, there are profounder shadows.

  ?

  I hear that Alcaeus goes out alone, forbidding his servants tofollow. Everyone has become uneasy.

  Today, he dismissed his secretary. So poor Gogu has sought me o
ut toexplain what happened.

  “Someday he will do me in. He has threatened this often enough!” Hewas trembling so hard, he could hardly speak. It is no wonder Alcaeuscalls him a “stick of driftwood.” He has an abandoned air that begs tobe found and picked up.

  “The least word, the least word upsets him. And you know how Alcaeuscan rant!”

  “Yes, well...”

  “He says our great fight at Sigeum was lost through sheercarelessness. Of course, he blames the other officers...”

  But then, Gogu has never held anyone’s interest or respect for long.Who but Alcaeus would have hired an epileptic, in the first place?Almost everyone has rescued Gogu, at one time or another, from thesurf, the wine shop, the brothel or the forum. How does this knobbyskeleton manage to survive and endure?

  “You will speak to Alcaeus? You promise?”

  I promised. The dread of having Gogu permanently abandoned is worsethan imploring Alcaeus to take him back. Besides, his scholarship isoften surprising, and Alcaeus can use his help.

  So later, I invited Alcaeus and some friends to supper. We sat aroundthe courtyard fountain and listened to the harpists playing under theburning lamps. Libus, Nanno, Suidas—they are good company for Alcaeus.He seemed more like himself again, joking and talking. Again helampooned Mimnermos and mimicked “that strange-smelling country poetfrom Smyrna.” But I detected a morbid note, a self-hostility that cuthim more than it did those he scorned.