Memoirs of a Bitch (22 page)

It took a moment for his voice to penetrate, and another before the buzz from us became a shout, with Paris the first to run past the huts to the shore. I squeezed Callira's wrist, and with her still supporting me I too passed beyond the blind walls of the huts, to see the sea open before me as never before in ten years of war.

Aeneas was right, everything had gone. The embankments designed to protect the ships from the tide had been leveled and nothing was left but the dismantled
keels of ships too rotten to be repaired. Apart from occasional washed-up scraps of plank and rope, the waves had already drowned the war wrecks in piles of mud, sand and stones. Soon no trace of the departing Greeks would be left. I looked around: one soldier was kneeling on the ground in tears. Others simply raised their arms to the gods.

I can't say what could be seen on Priam's face if not the madness, so similar to my own, in which he lived enclosed; but Paris ran into the sea, laughing like a child in the shallow water, pouring handfuls of it over his head, and a few of the courtiers who were his usual drinking companions followed.

Callira released my arm and I saw her walk slowly over to Glaucus, a figure much like the other men in armor, though to her unique and unmistakable. Surprised to find I could stand unassisted and was alone, I gazed at the sea. Paris caught my eye and laughed. For a moment in the warp of time the days were turned back, and he was once again the happy boy I had loved in Sparta. Splashing triumphantly, he came back to land, grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him into the water. The wind, now smelling only of salt and not of ashes and war, caught my shawl; and mixed with the laughter of Paris I heard another sound, something rusty and unfamiliar to begin with, but when it recovered its characteristic
ring and tinkle I recognized it. It was my own laughter: I was me.

Dancing with Paris I lost my sandals in the heavy sand but I didn't care, skipping about in the water in a way that had never been allowed to me even when I was a child. Suddenly the sky above my head had lightened and moved farther away, and there was nothing covering it but a few transparent scraps of cloud. Looking toward the beach I saw Aeneas; he had taken off his helm and put down his spear. Cassandra was leaning on his shoulder and smiling.

They didn't even need to lash the horse to a chariot to drag it inside the walls. Using their bare hands they dragged it through the Scaean Gates which would never be closed again. Heralds were sent along the streets to wake the people with trumpets, and the decimated population of Troy gathered by their hillside homes, on their faces the same unbelieving expressions as had been on our faces that day at dawn. When they saw the horse they believed the heralds had spoken true. I had never before heard a shout like the one that now tore through the air; the triumph of a thousand throats. The people were a hundred-headed Hydra with a single voice. The gods had spoken, and Troy was safe. Prince Paris, now heir to the throne, was borne aloft in triumph. The heroes lay forgotten in their graves and a shadow fell across my
weak smile. Remember those you have lost, I wanted to shout, remember the price you have paid for this day. But the living care only for the living, and the dead always have the worst of things. I turned my back on the glory that had been Troy and walked away.

I spent that day sitting among dead leaves in the forest. My legs gathered under me, my arms tensed, my fingers gently caressing the earth, the earth that covered Hector, and where Achilles also lay. They were my dead, and they were near me. The wind whispered softly among the trees. Death had drawn back, and my senses had grown sharper. The air was more fragrant than it had been for a long time, and slow calls reached me from the slopes of Ida, the calls of animals moving in the forest, their savage intensity far removed from me, untouched by human pain. If only I too could have vanished in the slow stream of unconscious, merciful nature; but the only consolation she could offer was this new caress of the earth, which I welcomed on my naked arms. It was night, already dark, when the owls began to hoot and the howling of a wolf made me stretch my legs and rise to my knees; smoothing down my skirt I looked around myself, and felt no fear of the empty forest.

The sun had set on the walls of Troy; it had set for the last time, though I did not know it as I walked slowly
down the path, and when I turned I saw that a breath of wind had stirred the leaves and smoothed away the last trace of me on the earth.

When I came out of the forest and could see them again, the stars were shining a long way off and the air was cold.

Luckily for me I did not go to bed and sleep. Others were rudely awakened with a sword at their throats, and many never woke at all, or closed their eyes, drunk with wine, and collapsed in the streets around the many bonfires; the Greeks took them by surprise and their lives ended there and then without them even being aware of it. They slipped from sleep to death and never knew the difference. But I was sitting in the garden when fire gripped the lower city, and when I saw the smoke I knew it was not just another bonfire. The air was heavy with ash and the smell of burned flesh, and when I heard the cries it was impossible to have any more illusions.

“Callira!” I called out loudly in a firm voice, my tiredness forgotten.

She answered from inside. “Someone's knocked over a lamp. Those drunks …”

But when she came to the door I could see terror in her face. Never, never all through those years of war and fear, had Callira ever hesitated. I stepped firmly forward and grabbed her wrist. “Tell me.”

In the gloom of the garden her eyes were enormous lakes of black shadow. I swallowed, speaking before she had a chance to: “The Greeks.”

She quickly nodded twice. “They're back … they're inside the walls! I was with Glaucus at the barracks, Prince Aeneas came to wake us, I had to run away …”

She looked back at the road leading to the barracks yard where the soldiers must now be taking up their arms, and I could imagine Aeneas falling them in at the gates of the citadel in an attempt to hold this last line of defense …

“It was Ulysses,” she said calmly, as though this were obvious. “They must have hidden themselves with their ships behind Cape Tenedos. We were stupid not to check.” We. Were stupid. Ten years of war. And this city lost. Yes, ours. Our own city. Helen of Troy.

“You've got to escape, Callira. You can't stay here with me. Maybe they haven't found the secret gate. Go that way; or rather no, first go to the temple. Cassandra's bound to have known what would happen. She must have organized an escape route for her priestesses.”

There were no more decisions to make, only paths to follow and destinies to accept. The city was lost. Menelaus would kill me with his sword. A merciful death, certainly. That would be the end; all I had to do was wait. Hector had ridden out through the gates, alone, one last time; Achilles had guided the knife in my hand. A glorious death and a loving death. Now it was my turn, and my death would be quick and just. Punishment for my betrayal and flight. Thirteen years of life stolen from Sparta and its eternal boredom. I had had everything, and now there was this fire. I firmly detached Callira's clinging hands. “If I am still your lady, you must do what I say. Just go.”

She was hesitating, I could see it in her face, but I too had the blood of kings in my veins and the throne had spoken through me. So Callira, slave and friend, my life companion, indeed the companion of all my many lives, let go of my arm, and with a desperation I knew only too well in myself, kissed my hand. “Please don't die,” she said.

“We all die sooner or later. But you run off now.”

I slipped a bracelet off my wrist and pressed it into her hands. She didn't put it on, but held it as if it were more precious and fragile than it actually was, and went on looking at me with her head turned, as though hoping or fearing that I might say something more. But I had
nothing else to say. At last she spun away and started walking quickly, and when she reached the garden gate she angrily threw it open. Then she was out and safe.

I went back in and closed the door carefully, then sat down on the bed. Outside in the garden the night was clear, but smoke from the fires was hiding more and more of the stars. Troy was burning; one huge pyre. But there would be no urns for the ashes of her dead, and no tombs. Just bare stone and collapsed beams. The gods had abandoned us. There were too many cries for one to distinguish them individually. I listened to my heart which was beating calmly, and my whole life was not passing before my eyes as they say happens to those about to die. Only fragments, shadows and the echoes of voices, and when among thousands of others a particular face reappeared, I knew. That I had come to the end of my road. Death was ready for me. He didn't smile, but I could see his face now. My ghost, my first ghost, was back. His shadow was as long and dark now at the end as it had been at the beginning. He sat down beside me on the bed, and waited.

When Menelaus broke down the door, I was ready. My hair was loose. I had unfastened the brooches of my peplos, which now gathered around my hips. Nothing to come between my wretched little husband and his murderous justice. I waited for his sword; I had learned
how soft human skin is against bronze. I may have been smiling, and when he opened the door, followed in by the fury and smoke of the sacked city and framed by the sinister light, he looked like a demon. But the epoch of the gods was over; now all that was left was man and his miserable work. My hands had been folded in my lap, but now I rested them on the bed. No more defenses, Menelaus. But I had spent too much time among great men to remember what cowards were like.

Once Menelaus had struck me. Humiliated me. And I, being strong and self-willed, had not known how to forgive. But now that Helen was smiling and welcoming her death and accepting without question his right to inflict it on her, it was now that Menelaus dropped his sword and threw himself on his knees at my feet, pressing his helmeted head against my stomach. I had to bend down to hear what he was murmuring, but all he was doing was asking my pardon.

I should have laughed; once I would have done so. But now that he was old from war and exhaustion I just took off his helm and cradled his filthy, sweaty head on my breast. It's all right, everything's fine. Fine, fine. When Agamemnon broke into the room with Ulysses and Diomedes, he was the one who laughed. A long derisive, contemptuous laugh. I looked up at him. He was no longer young. His hair was gray and his armor could
hardly contain his big stomach. No longer the cruel and fearsome king of my youth, no, just an old man now. I did not bow before the sneers of Agamemnon; on the contrary, I held my head high and smiled. His cruel laughter faded, and I knew at that moment that I would never again be ashamed before these men. I gently pushed Menelaus aside.

“Get up.”

He obeyed and I covered myself while the kings looked away. Only Diomedes kept on watching me. Even behind his helm his eyes were familiar, even after the passing of so many, too many years. But that had been at the beginning of the road that had led to this night and this fire, to this scar, to this infinite curse. The Greek race had been cursed, though they did not know it. Perhaps Diomedes had guessed; one who, like Achilles and Hector and me, had walked in the shadow of death.

“Take her out, Diomedes. Take her to the ships. Then my brother will have his wife back at last.”

Diomedes nodded agreement. Agamemnon, Ulysses and Menelaus went out, leaving Diomedes and me alone in the dark shadows. He didn't look at me, but took me by the arm. I did not turn to say goodbye to my life, and took nothing with me. Let the fire have it all. The light footstep I heard was my ghost drawing back. Not tonight, not yet. I followed the warrior in the crested helm out
through the door, into the ruins. Out through the fire and massacre, beyond that death, out of Troy. As we went down the palace stairs I reached for his strong hand, and my flesh remembered it, still knew it by heart. We walked, weeping in silence, away from conflagration and war and toward the sea.

There have been too many massacres and they have all been the same, born in blood and dead in blood, suffocated. The mixture of human entrails and black mud kneaded into the earth, and the screams of newborn babes hurled from towers will be heard for centuries. Let the bards tell the story if they want to: the massacre of Troy despite its desperate defense by Aeneas, and his final escape. Not me, no, I have seen too many horrors to accept this as well. I saw Aeneas ordering the retreat, he still had a small band of soldiers with him and he did not recognize me or even see me. But with the courage of common sense he turned and fled. I followed him with my eyes, but Diomedes was running and soon smoke separated me from Aeneas. An old instinct woke again in me to break away and escape one more time. But it
was too late. I was too old. Running away was no longer an option. It was all right for Aeneas, but my own last breath of freedom had fled with him into the smoke.

Run, Aeneas, run, on your face the dark conscience of all life that takes form and reason; run; you will lose Cassandra on the way, you will lose your only love, and few other fugitives will follow you, but they will be enough. Your destiny is different, Aeneas; its thread does not end here. But the rest of us are tied to this defeat and this distant, indifferent sky.

I reached the sea with Diomedes and we sat down on the shore. He took off his helm; his face was beautiful and fierce, marked by the years, full of an ancient sadness. My sad, sweet Diomedes. In the end I had needed to find him again to realize that the time I first knew him was when I should have rebelled. A soldier and a tart, once we could have made a strong partnership, but now it didn't matter anymore. This was the night of the fire, the last night of Troy's existence; no longer my sign or my destiny, no longer my war. I leaned my head on his shoulder, and there was no more to be said. We linked hands as the waves came in and broke at our feet.