Valerio Manfredi - Odysseus - The Return

‘That’s not possible! He can even hear us breathing. How can we get close without him jumping to his feet and slaughtering us all?’

‘I’ll worry about that, but I’ll need your help. You are the man who will decide all of our fates. I’ll take aim but you’ll be right behind me. You’ll be the only one able to see the direction of the stake and you’ll direct the men standing behind you, helping me to thrust the sharpened trunk.’

He took a step back. I could see the bewilderment in his eyes.

‘Why me? I’m not capable of it,’ he protested. ‘I’ll make a mistake and ruin everything.’

‘Because you’re the one who has the strongest reason to do it. You have to avenge the companions who sought oblivion with you, and prove to yourself that you can gain command of your life again.’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I can’t. Take someone else.’

‘As you like,’ I said.

The other comrades were gathered around me and listening attentively. I could see hope and rage in their eyes, and I thought that we would succeed. All that day we practised every move, every step, every gesture. I explained when they would have to hold their breath, when they would have to let it out all at once.

‘Think of when you draw your bow,’ I told them, ‘and then of when the enemy you’ve pierced with your spear crashes to the ground in front of you and you yell out in victory.’

It was dusk when we heard bleating and a heavy step approaching the cave door. It filled us with dread. The boulder rolled inwards and the cyclops let his flocks in. The big ram came first, then the sheep and the lambs behind him. Their hulking shepherd opened the pen where the suckling lambs were kept and each one ran to seek out its own mother. When all the animals were back in their folds, the cyclops turned to us. I had no hopes that he’d be feeding on cheese or mutton. He would finish off all of us first.

He grabbed another two of my comrades, the first he could get his hands on. He killed them by dashing them against the walls of the cave, smearing the stone surface with their blood. Then he dismembered them both and ate them greedily. The time had come for me to act. I took the big wooden tub the cyclops used to curdle milk and filled it with the wine we’d brought from the ship inside a sack made of oxhide. It was the wine we’d carried off from Ismarus, sweet and strong. I held it out to him.

‘Now that you’ve eaten human flesh, drink!’ I said. ‘You’ll like this. It’s called wine!’ I exclaimed.

The monster approached and I saw his eye, as big as my own head, observing me. I did not tremble. I knew the life of my companions depended on me. Really, it felt no worse than when we were hidden in the belly of the horse and I heard the voice of Laocoon, the priest of Apollo, calling for the Trojans to set fire to it. The giant stretched out his enormous, hairy hand and seized the bowl, bringing it to his mouth. I watched as he gulped down the foaming red wine and my heart laughed inside my chest, because he was acting like a fool and he would fall into my trap. The monster let his voice be heard: ‘Give me more, it’s good!’ He banged the empty bowl down on the ground.

I gestured for my comrades to fill it again. Then we withdrew to the back of the cave, divided into two groups. The cyclops bent down, picked up the bowl and drained all the wine out of it without spilling a drop.

He belched loudly and then turned to me. ‘I’ve never tasted anything so good in my whole life. I’ve had my fill of sheep’s milk and goat’s milk but this drink is worthy of the gods. You haven’t told me your name yet. Tell me what you are called so I can repay you for your gift!’

I looked at the back of the cave, at its centre, at the empty space between the separate groups of my comrades, and I saw a shadow, on the wall, of an erect figure with spear in hand: Athena! You were back with me again, wanaxa, and all my fears dissolved. How had you found the way to slip into that godless and lawless land?

‘Beware!’ echoed a voice inside my heart. ‘Where there is the sea, there is Poseidon, who embraces all there is.’

I had to answer, and the goddess inspired me, I’m certain of it. ‘You wish to know my name? I’ll tell you my name. My name is No One. Everyone calls me No One.’

‘All right, No One, then I will eat you last. Let that be my guest-gift to you.’ He burst into thunderous laughter.

‘And you?’ I asked then. ‘What is your name?’

‘Polyphemus,’ he replied. ‘Because my fame is, and always will be, great. My father is Poseidon who surrounds all lands. He conceived me with a mountain nymph, Thoosa.’

Those were his last words for the night. He lay down on his bed of sheepskins and for some time he seemed to be staring at one of the two groups of my men, the one on the left. I signalled them to move about so they would attract his attention while I beckoned the other group to join me.

‘Do we have any more wine?’ I asked them.

‘Another tub full,’ they answered, ‘if he should wake up.’

‘He won’t wake up,’ said Trasimachus, the man who had refused to help me drive the stake into the monster’s eye.

I turned to look at the cyclops. He would belch now and then, and a reddish stream dribbled from the side of his mouth, a mixture of wine and blood that made me sick. When his breath had deepened and his body relaxed into unconsciousness, I gathered all my men around the fire, adding branches to stir up the flames.

‘This is the most auspicious moment to act,’ I said. ‘Bring the stake here — we’ll harden the tip in the fire.’

‘Maybe it’s better to wait,’ said Trasimachus, the flower-eater.

‘He’s deep asleep now. Things could change later.’

‘Nothing will change,’ he replied. ‘I added the essence of the red flowers to the wine. We have all the time we want.’

‘So you never stopped.’

He bowed his head and did not answer.

‘Do you mean to help me now?’

‘I have helped you, and now I will grind that stake into his eye. I will avenge my companions.’

‘Let’s go then. After we’ve struck, we’ll all have to run for shelter. The pain will drive him mad.’

The tip of the spike was red and the rod hard and compact as the best olive wood. We seized it and approached the monster, climbing up on an outcropping that rose over his bed. I had taken a brand from the fire to light our way. When we were directly above the cyclops I signalled to my men and we lowered the burning stake until it was hovering directly above his eye. I glanced at Trasimachus and he nodded back. He was ready.

The cyclops turned in his sleep, then lay on his back again. The red tip was coated with a thin layer of ash. I gave a signal and the stake was lowered. Now the point was just a hand’s span from his eye. I laid the firebrand on the ground. I raised one hand and kept the other solidly on the stake.

‘Now!’ I shouted. All my comrades moved as one and the tip descended at the same moment in which the eye opened. There was no expression in it; it was blank and staring, as yellow as the eye of a cetacean from the ocean depths. The red-hot tip sank into his eyeball and, with the help of Trasimachus and the others, I ground it in. His lashes caught fire and blood gushed forth in streams, sizzling in the flames.

‘Go!’ I yelled again, and we scattered in every direction, seeking shelter in the hiding places each one of us had already chosen. I’ll never forget that blank, astonished expression: the eye of a fish. I realized then that what he told me must have been true. That he was the son of the blue god, the lord of the depths.

Polyphemus lurched to his feet with a piercing scream. He pulled the spike out of his eye socket, which looked like a black hole, and flung it away, yelling so loudly that the walls of the cavern shook. He was calling for help. Then he started making grabs for us, fumbling all around, knocking everything over, destroying the pens of the animals who scattered everywhere, terrified. But the tremendous pain overwhelmed him in the end and sapped away his energy. He fell to his knees and moved his hands from his head to his brow, moaning.