Lost in the Funhouse (20 page)

“ ‘ “Hold on,” said deckèd Helen; I came to myself, saw I was blubbering; “I came to myself, saw I was beached at Pharos. Come shadeless noon, unless I dreamed it, the sea-cow harem flipped from the deep to snooze on the foreshore, give me a woman anytime. Old Proteus came after, no accounting for tastes, counted them over, counting us in, old age is hard on
the eyes too; then he outstretched in the cavemouth, one snore and I jumped him.

“ ‘ “ ‘Got you!’ I cried” I cried’ I cried” I cry. “ ‘ “My companions, when I hollered, grabbed hold too: one snatched his beard, one his hands, one his long white hair; I tackled his legs and held fast. First he changed into a lion, ate the beard-man, what a mess; then snake, bit the hair-chap, who’d nothing to hold onto.” ’

“ ‘Neither did the hand-man,’ observed Peisistratus, sleepless critic, to whom I explained for Telemachus’s sake as well that while the erstwhile hand-man, latterly paw-man, had admittedly been vulnerably under both lion and snake, and the hair- then mane-man relatively safely on top, the former had escaped the former by reason of the quondam beard-man’s fortunate, for the quondam paw-man, interposition; the latter fallen prey to the latter by reason of the latter’s unfortunate, for the quondam mane-man, proclivity to strike whatever was before him—which would have been to say, before, the hand-paw-man, but was to say, now, which is to say, then, the beard-mane-man, thanks so to speak to the serpent’s windings upon itself.

“ ‘Ah.’

“ ‘ “To clutch the leopard Proteus turned into then, then, were only myself and the unhandled hand-man, paw- once more but shielded now by neither beard- nor mane- and so promptly chomped, what a mess. I’d have got mine too, leopards are flexible, but by the time he’d made lunch of my companions he’d become a boar …”

“ ‘ “Ah.”

“ ‘ “Which bristle as he might couldn’t tusk his own tail, whereto I clung.”

“ ‘ “Not his hindpaws? I thought you were the foot-paw—” ’

“ ‘Just what I was about to—’

“ ‘ “Proteus to lion, feet into hindpaws,” I answered,’ I answered. ‘ “Lion to snake, paws into tail. Snake to leopard, tail into tail and hindpaws both; my good luck I went tail to tail.”

“ ‘ “Leopard to boar?”

“ ‘ “Long tail to short, too short to tusk. Then the trouble started.”(’)

“I replied to them: ‘ “A beast’s a beast,” I replied to her. “If you’ve got the right handle all you do’s hang on …” ’ ”

“ ‘ “It was when the Old Man of the Sea turned into salt water I began to sweat. Try holding an armful of ocean! I did my best, hugged a puddle on the beach, but plenty soaked in, plenty more ran seaward, where I saw you bathing, worst possible moment, not that you knew …” ’

“ ‘It’s Helen I’m telling, northing in our love-clutch on the poop. “I needed a bath,” she said; “I a drink,” said I; “for all I knew you might be Proteus all over, dirty Old Man of the Sea. Even when my puddle turned into a bigbole leafy tree I wasn’t easy; who said he couldn’t be two things at once? There I lay, philodendron, hour after hour, while up in the limbs a cuckoo sang …” ’ ”

My problem was, I’d too much imagination to be a hero. “ ‘ “My problem was, I’d leisure to think. My time was mortal, Proteus’s im-; what if he merely treed it a season or two till I let go? What was it anyhow I held? If Proteus once was Old Man of the Sea and now Proteus was a tree, then Proteus was neither, only Proteus; what I held were dreams. But if a real Old Man of the Sea had really been succeeded by real water and the rest, then the dream was Proteus. And Menelaus! For I changed too as the long day passed: changed my mind, replaced myself, grew older. How hold on until the ‘old’ (which is to say the young) Menelaus rebecame himself? Eidothea forgot to say! How could I anyhow know that that sea-nymph wasn’t Proteus in yet another guise, her counsel a ruse to bind me forever while he sported with Helen?” ’

“ ‘What
was
her counsel, exactly?’

“ ‘Peisistratus, is it? Helen’s question, exactly: “What
was
her counsel, exactly?” And “How’d you persuade her to trick her own dad?” “Everything in its place,” I said,’ I said. ‘ “Your question was Proteus’s, exactly; as I answered when he asked, I’ll answer when he asks.”

“ ‘ “Hard tale to hold onto, this,” declared my poopèd spouse.’ Odysseus’- or Nestor’s-son agreed.” I agree. But what out-wandering hero ever journeyed a short straight line, arrived at his beginning till the end? “ ‘ “Harder yet to hold onto Proteus. I must have dozed as I mused and fretted, thought myself yet again enhorsed or bridal-chambered, same old dream, woke up clutching nothing. It was late. I was rooted with fatigue. I held on.”(’   ‘) “To?”(’   ‘) “Nothing. You were back on deck, the afternoon sank, I heard sailors guffawing, shore-birds cackled, the sun set grinning in the winish sea, still I held on, saying of and to me: ‘Menelaus is a fool, mortal hugging immortality. Men laugh, the gods mock, he’s chimaera, a hornèd gull. What is it he clutches? Why can’t he let go? What trick have you played him, Eidothea, a stranger in your country?’ I might’ve quit, but my cursèd fancy whispered: ‘Proteus has turned into the air. Or else …’ ” ’ ”

Hold onto yourself, Menelaus.

“ ‘ “Long time my shingled arms made omicron. Tides lapped in and kelped me; fishlets kissed my heels; terns dunged me white; spatted and musseled, beflied, befleaed, I might have been what now in the last light I saw me to be holding, a marine old man, same’s I’d seized only dimmer.

“ ‘ “ ‘You’ve got me, son of Atreus,’ he said, unless I said it myself.”

“
⁽
‘
⁽⁽
“Me too.”
⁾⁾
’
⁾

“ ‘ “ ‘And I’ll keep you,’ I said, ‘till I have what I want.’ He asked me what that was,” as did Helen,’ and Telemachus. ‘ “ ‘You know without my telling you,’ ” ’ I told them. ‘ “Then he offered to tell all if I’d let him go, I to let him go when he’d
told me all. ‘Foolish mortal!’ he said, they speak that way, ‘What gives you to think you’re Menelaus holding the Old Man of the Sea? Why shouldn’t Proteus turn into Menelaus, and into Menelaus holding Proteus? But let that go …’ ” ’ ” Never. “ ‘ “ ‘We seers see fore and aft, but not amidships. I know what you’ve been and will be; how is it you’re here? What god teaches men to godsnatch?’

“ ‘ “ ‘It’s not a short story,’ I warned him.” ’

“ ‘I don’t see why it needed telling,’ Peisistratus declared. ‘If a seer sees past and future he sees everything, the present being without duration et cetera. Or if his clairvoyance is relative, shading into darkness as it nears the Now from the bright far Heretofore and far clear Hereafter, even so there’s nothing he needn’t know.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘Today, say, he knows tomorrow and yesterday; then yesterday he knew today, as he’ll know it tomorrow. Now to know the past is to know too what one once knew, to know the future to know what one will know. But in the case of seers, what one once knew includes the then future which is now the present; what one will know, the then past which ditto. From all which it follows as the future from the present, the present from the past, that from him from whom neither past nor future can hide, the present cannot either. It wasn’t you who deceived Proteus, but Proteus you.’ ”

I tell it as it was. “Long time we sat in the dark and sleepful hall: hem-holding Menelaus, drowseless Nestor’s-son, Telemachus perhaps. When windy Orion raised his leg over Lacedemon I put by groan and goblet saying, ‘I tell it as it is. Long time I wondered who was the fooler, who fool, how much of what was news to whom; still pinning Helen to the pitchy poop I said, “When shifty Proteus vowed he had all time to listen in, from a leaden heart I cried: ‘When will I reach my goal through its cloaks of story? How many veils to naked Helen?’

“ ‘ “ ‘I know how it is,’ said Proteus. ‘Yet tell me what I wish; then I’ll tell you what you will.’ Nothing for it but rehearse the tale of me and slippery Eidothea:

5

“ ‘ “ ‘Troy was clinkered; Priam’s stones were still too warm to touch; the loot was depoted on the beach for share-out; Trojan ladies keened and huddled, eyed us with shivers, waiting to be boarded and rode down the tear-salt sea. We were ten years out; ten days more would see our plunder portioned, our dead sent up, good-trip hecatombs laid on the immortal gods. But I was mad with shame and passion for my salvaged wife; though curses Greek and Trojan showered on us like spears on Scamander-plain or the ash of heroes on our decks, I fetched her to my ship unstuck, stowed her below, made straight for home.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Hecatombs to Athena!” Odysseus cried after us.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Cushion your thwarts with Troy-girls!” Agamemnon called, dragging pale Cassandra—’ ”

“ ‘ “Bitch! Bitch!”

“ ‘ “ ‘—by her long black hair. To forestall a mutiny I hollered back, they could keep half my loot for themselves if they’d ship the rest home for me to emprince my loyal crew with. As for me, all my concubines and treasure waited below, tapping her foot. Wise Nestor alone sailed with me, who as Supervisor of Spoils had loaded first; last thing I saw astern was shrewd Odysseus scratching his head, my brother crotch; then Troy sank in the purpled east; with a shake-plain shout, I’m good at those, I dived below to reclaim my wife.

“ ‘ “ ‘Call it weakness if you dare: unlike the generality of men I take small joy in lording women. Helen’s epic heat had charcoaled Troy and sent ten thousand down to Hades; I ought to’ve spitted her like a heifer on her Trojan hearth. But I hadn’t, and the hour was gone to poll horns with the vengeful sword. I thought therefore to knock her about a bit and then take at last what had cost such a fearful price, perhaps vilifying her, within measure, the while. But when I beheld her—sitting cross-legged in the stern, cleaning long fingernails with a bodkin and
pouting at the frames and strakes—I forebore, resolved to accept in lieu of her death a modest portion of heartfelt grovel. Further, once she’d flung herself at my knees and kissed my hem I would order her supine and mount more as one who loves than one who conquers; not impossibly, should she acquit herself well and often, I would even entertain a plea for her eventual forgiveness and restoration to the Atrean house. Accordingly I drew myself up to discharge her abjection—whereupon she gave over cleaning her nails and set to drumming them on one knee.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Let your repentance salt my shoeleather,” I said presently, “and then, as I lately sheathed my blade of anger, so sheathe you my blade of love.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “I only just came aboard,” she replied. “I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“ ‘ “ ‘With a roar I went up the companionway, dashed stern to stem, close-hauled the main, flogged the smile from my navigator, and clove us through the pastures of the squid. Leagues thereafter, when the moon changed phase, I overtook myself, determined shrewdly that her Troy-chests were secured, and vowing this time to grant the trull no quarter, at the second watch of night burst into her cubby and forgave her straight out. “Of the unspeakable we’ll speak no further,” I declared. “I here extend to you what no other in my position would: my outright pardon.” To which, some moments after, I briskly appended: “Disrobe and receive it, for the sake of pity! This offer won’t stand forever.” There I had her; she yawned and responded: “It’s late. I’m tired.”

“ ‘ “ ‘Up the mast half a dozen times I stormed and shinnied, took oar to my navigator, lost sight of Nestor, thundered and lightninged through Poseidon’s finny fief. When next I came to season, I stood a night slyly by while she dusk-to-dawned it, then saluted with this challenge her opening eyes: “Man born of woman is imperfect. On the three thousand two hundred eighty-seventh night of your Parisian affair, as I lay in Simoismud picking vermin off the wound I’d got that day from cunning
Pandarus, exhaustion closed my eyes. I dreamed myself was pretty Paris, plucked by Aphrodite from the field and dropped into Helen’s naked lap. There we committed sweet adultery; I woke wet, wept …”

“ ‘ “ ‘Here I paused in my fiction to shield my eyes and stanch the arrow-straight tracks clawed down my cheek. Then, as one who’d waited precisely for her maledict voice to hoarsen, I outshouted her in these terms: “Therefore come to bed my equal, uncursing, uncursed!”