Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (23 page)

An hour later the captured Emperor of the West was kneeling before the Emperor of the East, when, suddenly, a soldier leapt forward to strike the horrified head of Eugenius from his horrified body.

Or so Alexandria was told by its bishop.
 
This much was certainly so: Theodosius once again ruled both East and West.
 
Truth is, the steep valley in which all this took place was well chosen.
 
The sudden strong winds that blew up to blind the army of Eugenius were common, and came always from the same direction.
 
Theodosius would know this.
 
His only mistake was to meet up with Arbogast before the winds.
 
But how easy to bedazzle the ignorant with his praying and his “miracle.”

Theophilus is, for the moment, quiet.
 
Maybe I will discover why I am summoned.
 
And maybe not.
 
A bishop is as forgetful as the next man.
 
I wait, thinking: the god of Emperor Theodosius gave with one hand, but took back with the other.
 
He took the wife of Theodosius.
 
He took her child.
 
In the city of Milan, four months after his victory over the foes of his faith, he took Theodosius himself by disease.

And yet though Theodosius is dead and his sons are weak, Christians rise again.
 
Raids on the lives and property of Alexandrian Jews and pagans, still confined to the poor, will escalate.
 
Alexandria has more temples to burn, more heresy to stamp out, more false doctrine to quell, more lives need ending.

How far would I go?
 
I might be persuaded to harm Theon of Alexandria.
 
I might even be persuaded by oath and by threat to go so far as to kill the old boil, even do away with a few of his friends.
 
Lucky so many have fled Alexandria.

Would I tell of the books?
 
Would I reveal the maps?

Here my absorbing thoughts—the vile deeds of my fellow man, who I am no better than, never fail to amuse and disgust me—are interrupted by my employer, reanimated.
 
I recline on a couch in the “borrowed” house of the Bishop of Alexandria and I would be wise not to drift off again.
 
He leans too close, saying, “Have you seen, Minkah, have you heard?
 
I build a church on the site of the Serapeum.”

“Indeed?”

Again, I have made this man laugh.
 
“So dry, so Egyptian.
 
But then, what do Egyptians, whose gods are animals and endless in number, know of faith?”

“As much as you, I imagine.
 
Without men, there are no gods.”

I tempt his quick temper.
 
This fake Pharaoh—increasingly obvious as the costumes of bishops become increasingly ridiculous and freighted with stolen symbol—mistakes the deities of Egypt as separate and simple, never noting they are all One, the elegant play of each aspect of the “dazzling darkness” from which they emanate.
 
And if I myself could not express my beliefs, Hypatia would do so, just as Hypatia helped phrase these thoughts I now think.

Men like Theophilus prey on the weakness of fear.
 
In this moment I could kill him as easily as I would Theon—no more than the quick slash of a blade.
 
But to what gain?
 
I do not fear him; I fear his power.
 
There is a difference.
 
He might die, but his power will not.
 
There will come another to seize it.
 
And after that, another.

Theophilus humors me.
 
“I admire you, Minkah.
 
I admire the risks you take.
 
As for my church, I intend it to honor John the Baptist.”

“Good choice.
 
Bound to be popular.
 
But without the head, will there be bones enough to cherish and to grow rich from?”

My fine bishop, rising, stiffens from his toes to his smile.
 
“As said, I admire you—but then, I’ve admired many who are now dead.
 
You will keep to your place and when I have need of you, you will come.”

He has made himself clear.
 
So too have I.
 
Neither fools the other.

“You, of course, know Isidore.”

Finally.
 
We come to the reason I am here.
 
“Yes.”

“I would know where he goes, what he does, who he speaks to.
 
He will not steal from me again.”
 
Isidore, a thief?
 
I am not surprised.
 
But to steal from his benefactor?
 
“I have need of the money he claims he holds back for the poor.
 
You will keep me informed of Isidore.”

“Naturally.”

Sent on my way, I smile: things have come to that, have they?

I walk straight into Peter the Reader—proving, if nothing else, a dark cloud hovers over this day.

Here is the man who first saw who I was.
 
Without work, without shelter, without prospects, caught reading a history of Troy—not one that compares to a thing Hypatia might read but certainly one Jone once devoured—it was Peter with a mouth as twisted as his mind who offered me up to the
Parabalanoi
.

Before that day, I was already a thief.
 
Ever since, I am much less.
 
Peter saw I was nothing, that I would never be other than nothing.
 
Buying me drink, he spoke of the good works I would do, the prestige I would garner, the money I would earn.
 
The man knew a perfect dunce when he saw one.
 
He knew rage.
 
He knew how useful the rash and ignorant young.
 
I was pointed as deftly as an arrow at a target for none are so easily goaded to unthinking action as tormented powerless males.
 
And so I swore my oath, like many come before, only later to learn, like many come before, what it was I was sworn to.
 
By this, I learned also the truth of myself.
 
I did not leave when I knew the truth.
 
Instead I discovered how much I would do for pay.
 
Later, I learned even the pleasure of it.

Peter the Reader, dressed head to foot in black, his white misshapen face made whiter by the black of his cowl, is a fanatic of the worst sort.
 
He does what he does not for money or for a pleasure born of revenge, but for what he calls god.
 
If I know his god, and I do not, but if I did, I can’t imagine he wishes anything from someone like Peter but distance.

He does not let me pass.
 
“You gladden my heart.
 
How long has it been?”

With Theophilus, a man of ironic humor, I might slip close to truth.
 
Peter is not ironic.
 
As for humor, it would crack his jaw to smile.
 
I must be as deceitful as he.
 
“I am kept busy, Peter.
 
We each have our part to play.”

“I know your part.
 
You play it well.”

“Thank you.”
 
And with this, I would be away, but he has more to say.

“Better than most, old friend, you must know a time comes when that woman’s tongue will stop wagging.”

Yet again, Hypatia is threatened.
 
I take a step towards Peter, who takes an awkward step back—I see my reputation holds—when another voice stops me, one that turns my head faster than the crack of a chariot whip.

“Minkah!
 
That I should find you here!
 
I never once thought—”

Piss!
 
Like lion eating hyena eating genet eating rat, there is something each man fears.
 
I hold out my hand.
 
“My dear Jone.”

Jone would hold out her own hand, but pulls back with unfeigned modesty.
 
“You’ve been with the bishop?
 
I have an audience.
 
I’ve tried for so long to see his eminence, and now, he calls me—so here I am, baffled but eager.”

“Indeed.”

And I make my escape.
 
But not before noticing that Jone has grown less, by which I mean she has shed fat.
 
With the loss of width in her face, I see a hint of Hypatia there, a hint of Lais.
 
But in the eyes lives neither.

~

Jone, youngest daughter of Theon of Alexandria

He calls me Jone.
 
He calls me “my dear Jone”!

When I was only a child, I felt myself in love with a priest called Isidore.
 
But what does a child know of love?
 
I am no longer a child.

But that Minkah has the acquaintance of our beloved bishop and that he, so exalted, knows Minkah!
 
That he also knows Peter is a lesser pleasure, yet still a pleasure.
 
I do not like Peter.
 
I know no one who does.
 
But neither I nor anyone else questions his faith.

When did I first pray that Minkah would find God?
 
I have not missed a day since.
 
At night in my bed I imagine him a priest and I his
diakonos
.
 
I would so gladly act his servant!
 
I imagine he becomes a saint and I his patroness.
 
I do not imagine him as husband, yet there are dreams that come…oh, but of those, I cannot speak, not even to myself.

But what am I thinking?
 
Without meaning to, I find my chin has risen, that my eyes widen as if I might brazenly stare around me, that an upward curve threatens my mouth.
 
I rid myself of such posturing.
 
The Patriarch awaits me.

As is right, I am offered no chair.
 
As is right, the bishop does not stand in my presence.
 
I am a woman.
 
He is a man.
 
Is there anything else to say?
 
As is right, a second woman of faith is present for decency, standing near the door with her hands folded and her eyes lowered, and as is right, both she and I are silent.
 
Bishop Theophilus will speak when he is moved to speak.
 
As is right, whatever it is he says, I shall agree to.

He has his back to me.
 
In the bright light of the window, he shines as our Lord must have shone in sun or shade.
 
He speaks before he turns.
 
“As you came in, Jone of The House of Women, did you see a young man, an Egyptian?”

“I did, father.”

“You know him, do you not?”

“For many years, father.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He is a good man.
 
He honors my father, he protects my sister.
 
I have heard nothing ill of him.”

The bishop turns.
 
Would it be blasphemous to say his face causes me fear?
 
I remind myself that many are called to the Lord.
 
Who am I to question who is called and who is not, or that their faces are filled with the marks of pox, that their jowls sag like the jowls of caged apes, that their noses are purple and smell of vats in vineyards?

“Do you see him often?”

“No father.”

“Why not?”

“I live now with Christian women.
 
I have so much to do each day: distributing alms to the poor, tending the ill, finding ways into the homes of pagans so I might speak to a woman there who is said to be seeking us—”

“All, of course, worthy.
 
But I wish something more of you.”

“Yes, father?”

“You will visit your home again.
 
Once a week will do.
 
You will carefully watch the young man you saw leaving my home.
 
And once a week you will return here and tell me what you have heard and what you have seen.”

I do not ask why.
 
It is not my place to ask why.
 
But I think I know.
 
Minkah is being tested for something.
 
Could it be as priest!

“I shall do as you wish, father.”

“Of course you will.”

Early Autumn, 401

Hypatia of Alexandria

Jone visits the house again…how slender she is, and taller!

My serious little sister finds her room as it was.
 
As I keep an altar to Psyche, Goddess of the soul, Jone keeps an altar to a man hung from a
tau
cross as Osirus was hung from a tree.
 
Jone’s Christ is not made of silver but of wood and seems no more than all other godmen, save for this one thing: he spoke of love for all.
 
There is little of this to be found in the church formed in his name, yet…it interests me.

When she is with us, she eats quietly, reads quietly, is in bed by the setting of the sun and up long before it rises.

But she is here and that is all that matters.

~

That which I would not say to others, I tell my yellow cat.

“I am no longer young, Miw.”

Nildjat Miw opens an eye.

“Thirty years.
 
Imagine.
 
Thirty summers, thirty winters.
 
And still not a woman.”

Miw, a well seasoned female—who could miss the call of her suitors?—opens another eye.

“It is time I learned the art of love-making.
 
To know only the palms of Siwa is to know nothing.”

Miw shows an eyetooth.
 
She agrees.

“But where shall I learn this skill?
 
I am not as you, taking any old thing that climbs over my wall.”

Nildjat Miw stares at me.
 
I know what she thinks for I think it myself.

“No, I cannot.
 
Though for years he sleeps under my roof and disturbs my rest, he is forbidden me.”

Miw sneers.

“You are wrong.
 
I have long since shed the notion he is unworthy of me.
 
If any, I am unworthy of him.
 
But he is my brother and loves me not, Great Cat, and that is that.
 
I shall begin with an older man, one who does not need me and would not brag of his conquest.
 
After that, we shall see—but none who is married and none a student.
 
And never with a priest.”

Nildjat Miw produces a noise I think a laugh.
 
One would never guess from their bearing, but cats have a fine sense of humor.

~

Before taking a lover, I visit the Cyrenian family of the devoted Synesius to buy what is source to their wealth: wild silphion.
 
A lover will take enough of my time, two lovers twice as much.
 
A child would require all of my time.
 
Silphion will prevent conception.

The man I choose first is Hero of Carthage.
 
As he is only a visiting geometer and in all ways suits my needs, I accept his invitation to dine.
 
And so forth.
 
Next I choose the young son of a wealthy merchant.
 
This one is as lovely as an athlete, his skin golden and hairless.
 
And so forth.

Augustine gave up physical love for his god.
 
I, who only now taste this love, find giving pleasure does not lessen, but advances the heart.
 
I am a Greek and a lover of life and of wisdom.
 
My mouth, my sex, opens as mind opens when understanding comes.
 
As for receiving pleasure, ah…if I were Nildjat Miw, I might purr—but only for so long.
 
Physical love is pleasurable, yes, but like Augustine and his god, does not compare to the pleasures of the mind.
 
And then there are complications.
 
The heart is not simple; some bring their heart to my bed.
 
Even so, if I continue as I’ve begun, I shall become a Nildjat Miw of love-making.

“Miw?
 
Is it wise to take so many men?
 
Is it cruel to choose one over the other?”

I hear her answer as she brushes against me.
 
Men are like cats.
 
In this way, Hypatia is a cat
.

~

I return from the bed of yet another man to instantly seek Nildjat Miw.
 
As Lais’ room is now mine, this is where I find her, stretched out on the wide white ledge my sister once dreamed on.

“I have horrid news, cat.”
 
Seeking solace from both Miw and the Etesian wind in from the northern sea, I climb up beside her.
 
“Theophilus builds a church on the site of the sacred Serapeum.”

Nildjat Miw circles in my lap.
 
Miw is nothing like Paniwi.
 
Paniwi lurked.
 
Paniwi leapt.
 
Paniwi caught and she killed and she offered all to Lais.
 
Nildjat Miw is content to listen to my talk of men, to mrrrrrr and growl and yeeeooow in response.
 
The gleam-footed Xanthos carried Achilles on his back and spoke with a human voice.
 
Hesiod’s Hawk admonished his dinner, the Nightingale.
 
Miw would be better a poet’s hawk or a hero’s horse for no cat makes the noises she makes.

“The past is so easily lost, Miw, so quickly forgotten—what of the spirits of water and fire and air and earth that danced in these places?
 
What of the search for meaning?”
 
Miw kneads my belly and I feel her claws though she keeps them sheathed.
 
“I ask Christians: where are your questions?
 
Where are your great doubters, those who lead us all to discovery?
 
I am greeted by pity.
 
They say: how is there doubt when Christ has brought certainty to the world?
 
What have you been eating, Miw?
 
Gah.
 
But Lais would pat my hand, she would smile.
 
She would say, ‘Lament not.
 
Nothing is forgotten.
 
This too will pass.’
 
And I would reply, ‘Just as the good that follows will also pass.’
 
‘And that,’ she would counter, ‘is the way of the world.
 
Light follows dark as dark follows light.’
 
‘But why?’ I would cry out.
 
‘Why not, beloved?
 
Take joy in the splendid game.’”

Miw jumps from my lap as I stand.
 
I need to wash away Ambrose, my first, but I think not my last, Jew.
 
My skin needs scraping and oiling.
 
With the loss of the Caesarium, I lecture somewhere new.
 
There is less room for my chariot and horses, but it will do.
 
Assigned one of many halls attached to the Agora, from it I can see the Court of Law, a confusing cluster of varied shops, and the street where once a huge hole gaped into which Isidore of Pergamon and I also gaped.
 
My students overflow into the courtyard.
 
One more and I will need to speak in a public park or on a wide white beach.
 
No matter.
 
I will teach until I am made to stop teaching…and when that day comes, I shall not retreat to my bed.
 
In his bed, Father grows old.
 
He grows foolish.
 
Is this what Beato the astrologer saw?
 
I have not met Beato again.
 
I do not know.

Nildjat Miw ever at my feet, I look out over the fine fat faces of the rich, youths from Antioch to Milan to Narbo to Segovia, all honking like geese to attend me.
 
The smell grows worse.
 
Full half are Christian therefore told that bodily cleanliness is sign of a pagan, and to bathe is a monstrous sensuality not suited to faith.
 
By Hygieia, Goddess of health and cleanliness, we shall all sicken here.

Any who can find a copper coin and a seat might attend this lecture.
 
Some have found seats but offer no coin.
 
Yet I am paid.
 
So many are here who know little, if not less.
 
That any learn at all is a gain to the world, and therefore to me.
 
In public I am humorless, knowing it is thought a sign of wisdom.
 
Humor and light-heartedness is reserved for my secret Companions who laugh with wisdom.

Not at the front, but at the back stand a row of monks, each robed in black, each face shadowed by a black hood.
 
Each seems already dead.
 
These are new faces, strange faces, closed faces.
 
Not one is a student of mine.
 
Pausing as if I must think some great thought, I count them: eight.
 
Eight is the octopus.
 
It is the spinner, the spider, the weaver of fate.
 
Eight is transformation—but into what?
 
One of the eight wears no cowl.
 
His face is as white as lime.
 
In it twists his mouth and in it his eyes are curses.
 
Who could forget this man?
 
He is that one called Peter who stood before me in the burning Serapeum and called me the devil’s daughter.
 
But he too must be spawned by a demon, for how else did he escape the temple when no other of his kind did?

Before I speak, clad in my philosopher’s
tribon
, seated on my philosopher’s chair, I lean down so I might speak first to Nildjat Miw.
 
“Shall we die this day?
 
I am not yet ready to die.”
 
My yellow cat shivers.
 
Is this an answer?
 
Or a flea?

I have decided to speak of numbers, beginning with 1, the Monad, and ending with 10, the Decad, so that those who listen might understand what Plato meant when he wrote:
Numbers are the highest degree of knowledge.
 
It is knowledge itself
.
 
Tablets appear on laps.
 
The hall settles.

I hold up a finger.
 
“People once counted in this way: one.”
 
I hold up two fingers.
 
“Two.”
 
I spread my arms to include them all from first row to highest, from right aisle to left aisle, to those who scowl near the door.
 
“Many.”
 
There are smiles at such simplicity, which in truth is not simple at all, but a leap of great imagination.
 
“Sumerians counted in this way: man, woman, many.”
 
The smiles are now broader and this because the word “woman” is spoken as if such a one deserved counting.
 
“One, which is the cosmic unity
All There Is
, and Two, which is duality sent out from the singularity of One as joyous expression, are the parents of the illusion of Many.
 
As the foundation of number, is this not simple?
 
A thousand years ago, this was written in the
Isha Upanishad
of India.
 
‘Where shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded, who sees everywhere the Oneness’?
 
I tell you, as the master and mystic Lao Tzu would tell you, there is nothing to be gained by complexity but bewildered confusion.
 
There is nothing to be found in an overabundance of information, but intimidation.
 
I have no wish to confuse or intimidate.
 
I myself am confused enough.”

There is one who laughs and so loudly I look up, to find looking back—Isidore!
 
The skin of my cheek burns.
 
My mouth dries.
 
Eight monks in black.
 
Eight spiders weaving.
 
Eight years since last I set eyes on the favorite of Bishop Theophilus.
 
On his right sits Synesius long since returned to Cyrene to breed horses and dogs.
 
But if in Alexandria, Synesius is a constant—after all, he is first among Companions.
 
On his left sits the brother of Synesius, the captious Euoptius of Cyrene who is not a Companion.
 
Euoptius strives to blacken my heart by sneering.
 
He fails, for I see only Isidore.

I find I am speaking no longer of number, but of Pythagoras of Samos to whom number was god.
 
I find myself saying, “Pythagoras studied in Egypt for twenty two years, learning all it could teach him.
 
They say he could appear in two places at one time, that urging fishermen to cast their failed net again, it came back silver with fish.
 
A white eagle spoke his name.
 
He healed the sick, made young the old; like the Buddha, he could remember lives he had already lived.
 
And when he taught, he would teach only those who could listen, and by listening,
hear
.
 
But before he taught them, they must endure years of silence.”