quite bring myself to finally close the sea over his head or the jaws on his throat. Always I pulled him back, unwilling to let him escape into death. As his trials mounted (all of which scarred him, took some vital piece of him—I needed him alive, not whole), I saw that he must have some good reason to go on living, for, as I have often reflected, it is a simple thing to give oneself up to the sea. So I gave him an island like mine, not good for much but raising goats and men, and a wife of perfect steadfastness (the mirror image of the woman I knew so long ago).
I invented perils for his trip home—horrors rising up from the deep sea, the endless asphodel fields of the dead, sweetly singing witches to gull and bind him—but I could never quite bring myself to finally close the sea over his head or the jaws on his throat. Always I pulled him back, unwilling to let him escape into death. As his trials mounted (all of which scarred him, took some vital piece of him—I needed him alive, not whole), I saw that he must have some good reason to go on living, for, as I have often reflected, it is a simple thing to give oneself up to the sea. So I gave him an island like mine, not good for much but raising goats and men, and a wife of perfect steadfastness (the mirror image of the woman I knew so long ago).
In retrospect, it is obvious that “Nobody” was a nom de guerre, the alias of an anonymous raider. The choice of sobriquet suggests a man infatuated with his own cleverness. He carried himself like a warrior, but preferred getting me drunk to attacking me openly. His mind, I thought, must be like a city of a thousand twists and turns, founded on deceit, with never an open line of sight or a straight passage. Fluent in lies, he must have been the death of many men greater than himself. And he was loyal to his men, or so I liked to think, as it increased my pleasure in making monsters pluck them from his ships while he stood by helplessly, and in making their ghosts weep for burial.
The island farmers are less timid now that I am blind. They bring me fruit and salted meat and listen with more than polite interest while I tell my stories. Some parts of the tale have gelled over the years, though others I improvise or vary as suits the audience’s mood or mine—even now it gives me pleasure to invent new sufferings for him. For all that, my bloodthirstiness has lessened—I no longer groan in my sleep or dream of catching him and wrenching out his bones. The ruin where my eye was is not painful anymore, and my days are calm, even joyful. Sometimes I think I am grateful, that sight would be a distraction.
NO MAN’S WIFE
In his sojourn in the land of the dead Odysseus saw Penelope among the listless shades. With his broadsword he cleared a path through the muttering ghosts but she receded, seeming not to see him. He called out her name and chased after her, leaving his men behind, catching up with her in a dark glade full of asphodel where she sat at a loom weaving a long shroud. He made to speak to her but, remembering the ways of the dead, used his sword to dig a small pit over which he opened a vein.
She was drawn to the blood and drank, something like light coming into her eyes. “It is no kindness to bring the dead back to themselves. We are wretched but do not know it until you remind us. Why have you come to trouble me, stranger?” she said, looking up from where she knelt in the dust with red streaks on her white face.
“I am a traveler from Troy who has come a long way with Odysseus, your husband,” he said. “What cruel fate befell you that the deep-thinking hero must now return to a cold and empty hall?”
“You lie,” she said apathetically, “Odysseus is no more. When he had been gone ten years and a little more I went to Delphi to learn what had become of him. I gave the priest a silver bowl embossed with sphinxes that had been part of my dowry. He led me down into a cave dark