Alasdair Gray - Old Men in Love

Hunger and dread make sleep difficult within this seaside city but no lamps are lit at night: they would burn oil that is part of a precious, dwindling food supply. Above and around it myriads of lights glitter from the height of the Milky Way down to the dark fields outside the city walls, but the vast random constellations differ from evenly spaced lower lights which also flicker more, being watchfires of a besieging army.

By a hilltop fire a soldier huddles within easy reach of his short sword, round shield and heap of fuel. He dozes when the flames are high, wakens cold when they sink and, yawning, feeds the fire with sticks and handfuls of dry goat dung. He sometimes glances at a comrade standing on a low limestone ridge behind him. Both soldiers verge on middle age but the first seems younger, being thinner with a trim beard. His face, melancholy in repose, has fine lines suggesting many different expressions, for it is an actor’s face. The other soldier — short, pot-bellied, bushy bearded — is almost menacingly ugly, his partly flattened nose having the tip tilted like the snout of a small pig. With wide-open mouth and eyes whose fixity suggests total absence of mind he faces east to where a dark sea reflects the lowest stars.

Two more soldiers arrive on the ridge, the foremost carrying a bundle of branches. Jumping down beside the fire he drops them on the fuel heap and in a voice that sounds aimed at many people declares, “While scavenging yonder I bumped into one of our gallant Ionian allies. Like the rest of his nation he’s a bit of an idiot — you are an idiot aren’t you?” he calls to his companion who stands staring curiously at the ugly soldier. “Yes, a bit of an idiot but a thoroughly decent chap, also a farmer like me when he’s at home. He gave me a nip from his flask so I asked him back here for a bite and a heat.”

“He’s barefoot without a cloak,” says the Ionian, still staring at the ugly soldier, “and not even shivering.”

“O yes he’s tough! And given to fits like that, but only when there’s nothing else to do. How long this time?”

The question is for the seated soldier who mutters “Since the moon went down.”

“Is he religious?” asks the Ionian.

“Not more than the rest of us. Some folk say a lot less.”

“Because he looks…you know…a bit like the priestess on the tripod when the god goes into her.”

“It isn’t a god he’s got inside him. It’s a demon!”

“What kind?”

“A little one that gives him advice.”

The Ionian cups a hand behind his ear, brings it close to the ugly soldier’s chest and says slyly, “It isn’t doing that now. I can’t hear a word.”

“Leave him alone — it’s his way of thinking!” cries the seated soldier impatiently.

The Ionian climbs down beside the farmer who, having warmed his hands at the fire, rummages in a pile of satchels under the ridge. Pulling out a string of onions and grey lump of cheese he lays them on a flat-topped boulder, contemplates them gloomily, draws his sword and hacks the lump into smaller lumps. With a gesture inviting the Ionian to do the same he wrenches off and bites an onion and crams cheese into his mouth. They stand side by side for a while, stolidly chewing and looking downhill across lower watchfires to the dim walls of the lightless city. Perhaps exasperated by a coarse mouthful the farmer swallows it and growls, “Why doesn’t that stupid little state surrender?”

“Why don’t we pack up and go home?” says the seated soldier. “You tell him,” the farmer orders the Ionian who slowly clears his mouth then says, “I don’t go home because my government ordered me here. It sent me because it’s afraid of your government.”

“If that’s your attitude hand over that flask,” says the farmer grumpily. The Ionian brings a bulging goatskin from under his cloak. Seizing it by the neck the farmer loosens a cord there, tilts his head back, squirts a jet of wine into his mouth and swallows. Ignoring a hand the Ionian has stretched out for the flask he points the neck at him and declares, “You have just said a very ignorant thing. You referred to my government. I don’t have a government. I am the government your government is afraid of — I and all the free citizens of Athens. That city refused to pay us the tribute we need to defend Greek civilization. We discussed this defiance thoroughly and voted for war. That is why your government sent you and your kind to help the free men of Athens attack Potidia.”

“I voted against attacking,” says the seated soldier.

“So did he I believe,” says the farmer, indicating the ugly soldier with his thumb, “but you’re democrats so you obey the will of the majority, otherwise the Athenian state would fall apart.” He drinks again from the flask then murmurs to himself, “Good stuff,” still ignoring the outstretched hand of the Ionian who says, after a moment, “I heard that Pericles governs Athens.” “Nonsense! He’s rich enough to be useful so we elect him to do some important jobs and sometimes take his advice. We can get rid of him any time we like.”

“He’s been head of state for thirty years,” says the seated soldier.

“He’s not a tyrant! He’s not even popular! He’s a pompous, cold-hearted selfish snob who loves nobody but himself and a foreign prostitute! But he’s the best man for the job because he knows what we want and gives it to us.”

“If you ever visit Athens,” the seated soldier tells the Ionian pleasantly, “you will find everyone with prominent jobs are like those in any other Greek city — they are rich.”

“Blethers!” says the farmer hotly. “The rich have more time than the rest of us to do public work, but at every parliamentary session our president is picked from the electoral rolls by lot, so ANY Athenian citizen has a chance at being president. If the Alopeky District wasn’t here on military duty, tomorrow I could be president of Athens, or that stonemason, or a comic showman like you. Why are you grousing? Do you hate our political constitution? Do you want to live under another?” “No,” says the seated soldier.

In a following silence the farmer sees his companions watching the ugly soldier. Annoyed by the loss of their attention he says roughly, “Ignore him. He can stand like that for hours. He carves marble into statues and the twiddly bits on top of columns. You need toughness for that.”

He swigs from the bottle again and mutters, “Not very good statues. Too stiff and mathematical. Nothing at all when compared with the best modern stuff. The great statue of Athena on the Parthenon, seventy feet high. Sailing toward the city on a clear day you see the head in the golden helmet, the shining point of her spear come up over the horizon before you see anything else, and when you stand at her feet and look up…she breathes! No other nation in the world has a goddess like her.” 3

Finding himself still ignored he taps the Ionian’s shoulder with the flask’s neck and says pleasantly, “Listen Ionian, I am going to cheer you up. I will prove to you. By dialectics. That your father. Is. A dog.”