The Lost Books of the Odyssey - By Zachary Mason Page 0,17
brushing my shoulder. My eyes had adjusted and I caught just a glimpse of her, and she was a fine thing, so very fleet. She didn’t lunge again but stood in a patch of moonlight where I could see her face, where amusement and threat were written in equal measure, but I showed no fear and she disappeared again, coming back moments later, a woman again, and insinuated herself into my arms. Hera* was never invoked and there were neither gifts nor priests but I suppose that was when we were married.
The next day I led her out through the valley and up through the mountains and soon after we sailed for Ithaca. I brought her to my father’s house and she was gracious with her new relatives but privately complained that the place smelled like centuries of dead wood and men, though I think that really she was just homesick. To please her, I built a new house, centered around our bedroom, in which I carved our bed out of the wood of a wide-trunked, still-living olive tree, its fruits falling onto our roof each summer. She did not want it said that she was strange or that she clung to the old ways, so we kept the bed a secret, even from the servants.
The next morning I take my armor from my pack and cast away Nohbdy’s cloak and name. I find a stream and shave with my dagger. I stride into town in the center of the road, very much the master. There are no guards at the gates but a maid sees me coming and flutters inside. In the empty, newly white-washed courtyard another maid is weeping hysterically, surrounded by three others, one of whom is gripping her shoulder and speaking to her in a low, brutal whisper. They see me and fall silent, their faces blank. I go into the great hall and there is Penelope, a head shorter than me, green-eyed and pretty in her red dress, smiling demurely. She embraces me and says all that is right and sheds a tear of happiness as the maids energetically scrub the already pristine flagstones behind her. One maid hurries past us on her way to the midden with a sack of scraps from the slaughter-room. The cloth sack is soaked through and a second maid runs behind her to wipe up the trail of red droplets.
The celebration lasts into the night and our reunion is entirely convivial. I tell Penelope about the war and my many exploits, already feeling myself becoming a bore whose only conversation is of battles long past. She seems not to notice when I skim over Circe and Calypso, and for my part I take no notice when her own history becomes light on detail. In the evening Telemachus appears, back from hunting, and greets me respectfully. I kiss him and turn his face this way and that in the light, pleased beyond words to see him.
Ithaca Town gradually comes back to life. There are a few squires inquiring into the whereabouts of their fools of sons, gone missing, and dour farmers impertinent enough to bring me dark insinuations, but they are quickly dealt with and soon there is peace. Almost overnight I cease to be the clear-eyed wanderer and undoer of men and become, as my circumstances require, the level-headed lord of a small island, settling disputes about sheep and planning with my engineer to dredge the harbor. Penelope is attentive and I am happy to be back with her, though of course I would not tolerate the slightest insubordination, let alone infidelity.
Telemachus is an excellent young man. He can throw a javelin farther even than Achilles could and outruns his peers without breaking a sweat. He is affectionate, loyal and fiercely protective of his house. In him, the preeminence of my house and line are secure for generations, though for all my satisfaction it sometimes gives me pause to see he has his mother’s eyes.
*The name Autolykos is usually translated “The Wolf Himself.”
*Hera, the wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, was always invoked at weddings.
DECREMENT
In the lassitude after love Odysseus asks Circe, “What is the way to the land of the dead?”
Circe answers, “You are muffled in folds of heavy fabric. You close your eyes against the rough cloth and though you struggle to free yourself you can barely move. With much thrashing and writhing, you manage to throw off a layer, but find that not only is