Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (30 page)

Minkah would marry Hypatia?
 
I am ill enough to vomit.

My belly clenches as a fist, my head swims as if I were on the
Irisi
.
 
I hate the
Irisi.
 
Under it sinks a deepness I swoon to imagine.
 
When I would speak I manage only a dry hacking retch.

There is no female as my sister.
 
There should be no female as my sister.
 
Nor one as Lais.
 
Demons took that one.
 
First they laid their egg beneath the skin of her belly, then they took her mind, and finally they took her body.
 
Sweet Mother of God, how came I to be born here?
 
How came I to be sister to these?
 
I raise my eyes to the eyes of Hypatia.
 
False.
 
False.
 
False
.
 
If I could see through, what would I see?
 
The deep under
Irisi
?
 
I hold up my hand, palm facing them both.
 
“Get away from me.”

I turn and I run from this house.
 
Even for the Holy Bishop, I will never return, never.

That it is now Minkah’s, I care not.
 
That Father is finally dead, I care not.
 
That Minkah would marry Hypatia, I will learn to care
not
!

~

Hypatia of Alexandria

I turn my face from the tragedy that is Jone to the horror that is Minkah.

Our Egyptian is a spy.
 
Father and father’s friends, even the Companions, what they have said and what they have done, this is known to the Patriarch Theophilus through the one I called brother, through the one I have loved though I knew it not.
 
The library!
 
Minkah knows every cave, every jar.
 
Could this mean that Theophilus knows every cave, every jar…even that which contains the poems of Lais our “brother” claims to have loved?

“Minkah?”
 
Even on my own ear, my voice falls as the linen pall over the face of my newly dead father.
 
It seems as lifeless as the drone of the prayers of priests to aid in his journey with Anubis.

“Yes?”
 
Minkah’s voice is every bit as dead as mine.

“Is the library still there?”

“It is as it was.”

“This you swear?”

He would move towards me, but as Jone, I hold up my hand, palm outward.
 
“I have loved you, Minkah.
 
I have placed my trust in you.”

“It was not misplaced.”

“You can say this, a spy for Theophilus?”

“I can say this.”

I cannot listen.
 
I cannot move.
 
I cannot understand even the need for nourishment.
 
I am as destroyed as Jone.

He takes another step forward.
 
“Hypatia!”

As he moves forward, I slide my chair back.
 
“Leave me.
 
I am homeless.
 
I am without father or sister or brother.
 
I am Hypatia and I do not know who I am.”

“You are not homeless and though I am not worthy to stay, I cannot leave.
 
Not yet.
 
You must hear me out.”

With all the pure black anger I have never allowed myself to feel or others to see, I turn on him.
 
I, who have denied myself rage, am filled with rage.
 
Lais, who most deserved Life, was murdered by life.
 
Those without reason silence in loud righteousness those with exalted understanding.
 
Jone was not loved as all deserve love and so cannot love.
 
There is no cure for this.
 
It is done.
 
I was taken when I would not be taken, yet still soothed my abuser—a woman’s curse, for women, like children, forever accept blame.
 
As for Father…the disgust he has caused me has weighted my belly with bile for years.
 
And now this.
 
This!
 
To find my friend, my brother, my love, betrays me!

I stand so suddenly my chair is thrown back.
 
I rush towards Minkah who does not step back.
 
What I would scream, I would scream in his face.
 
But just as I reach him, I pass him by, seeking to find the only place ever I found peace: the window ledge of Lais.

Nildjat Miw, anticipating, runs before me.

~

Minkah the Egyptian

Theon’s death has been my death.
 
Followed by her cat, her strange unquiet cat, I watch Hypatia leave me.
 
All around there is nothing but silence.
 
In all its forms, death rules this house.

If I walked, I would stagger.
 
If I sat, I would slump.
 
If I remain as I am, standing in the door to Hypatia’s room, as made of stone as Thoth or his sister Seshat, I might never move.
 
In all my life I have known what next to do.
 
I do not know now.
 
For years my confession has lived on my tongue.
 
I saw it there as clearly as if I were to take up a pen and write, not a poem or a comment, but a play.
 
I would imagine that it played out one way.
 
I would imagine it played out in another way.
 
Or in yet a third way.
 
At times, Hypatia would laugh at my exposure.
 
At times, she would cry.
 
Most often she would both cry and laugh.
 
Each time I would stand before her: humble, repentant, but charged with love.
 
I knew it would remain my love, not hers, but that was long ago accepted.
 
The point would be my declaration.
 
The point would be my honesty and her forgiveness.
 
In the plays I wrote but did not truly write, no matter how each began, how each clashed and rang with heated words, with rended cloth, with arrows of accusation, in the end, we should understand each other.

I was right.
 
We understand each other.
 
I am to leave this house.
 
And she has left me.

I loved Lais.
 
I love her still.
 
But that love was as Persian
opion
.
 
Lais was made of the stuff of dreams.
 
Hypatia is life.
 
Neither dream nor life are mine.
 
I am Minkah and though I would not, I must be as I was made to be: the stuff of nightmares.
 
There are these few things I can do.
 
I will have Olinda sent for so Hypatia might have medicines if they are needed.
 
I snatch up her father’s will where it has lain throughout.
 
I will burn the thing as it is now.
 
Those who were witness to it know me well.
 
They will soon know the last wishes of Theon for I will tell them what it is they have signed.
 
None would desire, any more than I, to see Hypatia disinherited.
 
None would desire Jone to be slighted.
 
All will keep their silence.
 
I shall write another will.
 
This they will hear before signing.
 
Hypatia will keep her house.

I will also do these things.
 
I will retrieve the map that is now hers.
 
And then I will write the play I never wrote.
 
In a letter to Hypatia, I will explain all, hide nothing.
 
It will be left along with the map on her table of green stone, and then I will remove my person from the house of the woman I love.

What I shall do next is not for me to know.
 
I am empty of life.
 
I am empty.

~

Jone, youngest daughter of Theon of Alexandria

I am no one but Jone and all that I love loves me not.
 
Even a dog longs for love.

I run from my sister’s house and into the great park which lies on the far side of the wide Street of Gardens.

Loving Mother of our Savior, hear thou thy servant’s cry.
 
Star of the deep and Portal of the sky!
 
Mother of Him who was from nothing made.
 

Over and over as a wheel rolls under a wagon, I pray:
Sinking I strive and call to thee for aid.
 
Sinking I strive and call to thee for aid.
 
Sinking I strive and call to thee for aid!
…until, lo! thanks to the Lord, I am blessed with the answer I seek and it stops me as I run.
 
“
And you must daily seek the companionship of the saints, so that you may find support in their words.
”

 
I have reached the small amphitheater within the park.
 
Someone lectures this day.
 
Few listen.
 
I hear nothing but a jumble of words.
 
I see nothing but a small dark man with a large white beard throwing out his arms as people nod or doze or eat what they have brought with them.
 
Oh, that so few listened to Hypatia, that they not overflow her lecture hall.
 
Why do they listen?
 
What do they hear?
 
Do they not sense the demon that sits on her tongue?
 
I turn on my heel and run back towards the street seeking the companionship of saints.

Those I pass stare at me.
 
Before God, I bear myself modestly and I am used to being stared at.
 
My habit is not light nor is it linen; it is woolen, hot and dark under the Alexandrian sun.
 
I cover my head.
 
I lower my eyes.
 
The mark of my faith and my chastity remains uncommon among those come from all over the world, each clad in the dress of their origin, speaking tongues I do not understand, thinking thoughts that blind them to the true God.
 
But those like me grow.
 
Where once the widows and virgins of Christ had only one house, now there are two and talk of a third House of Women in the city of Canopus.
 
We shall be seen one day, and we shall be heard and we shall save
all
though they know not they are lost, nor would they welcome the saving.
 
God asks—and who denies God?

A hand reaches out, filthy, diseased, to grasp at my skirts, but I pull away.

And if they refuse to be saved?
 
Why, then, they shall be cast down forever.
 
Though it seems harsh, it is not…for no soul is sent to Satan before the offer of salvation.
 
The choice is not ours, but theirs.
 
Praise God.

Some step aside for me.
 
Some block my way.
 
One laughs aloud.
 
I do not mind.
 
Those who do not follow Jesus will find Jesus does not follow them.
 
This thought eases my way through the sweating stinking shouting crowd on the Street of Gardens.

I hurry to Bishop Theophilus.
 
I mean to tell him about Minkah.
 
I will say what I was all along expected to say, but did not.

Alma Redemptoris Mater, hear thou thy servant’s cry.
 
Come to my aid, come!
 
What I will do is more shaming than standing outside my sister’s door, more shaming than hearing the Egyptian I have loved declare he would marry Hypatia, more shaming than having heard Father named me not in his will.
 
I would stop.
 
I would turn away.
 
I would walk back to the house of the women I live with.
 
But I do not.
 
Instead I do not walk, but pick up my heavy skirts and run, directly past the ships that daily fill the canal, through the gateway of the courtyard of Bishop Theophilus without thought for the bald monk who guards the first door or for the monk who guards the second.
 
This monk’s left eye is much larger than his right eye; both widen as I pass.
 
The monks know me.
 
They are used to my coming and my going.
 
None stop my progress.

Our bishop is not in his great offices.
 
He is not in his fine garden.
 
He is not in the huge house at all.
 
I run here and there.
 
I cause a small commotion as I search for him, calling out.
 
But no matter where I go, he is not there, and in the end I am saved—by the sweet grace of the Mother of God, I am saved.
 
I, who could not stop myself, have been stopped by a Mother’s love.

What joy!
 
I am saved from myself.