Peter Carey - Collected Stories

Homer turns wearily in his bed, attempting to turn his back on the beach. If only he could remember where he was sending these men he could put everything to rights. But he’s lost. His memory has broken its anchor and is drifting loose and he’s stuck with this contingent of soldiers who lie on a foreign beach and drown the noises from their dreams with false laughter.

The seas shimmer.

A large white fluffy cloud in the sky threatens to solidify, to become granite. Homer, moaning, tastes the rock between his teeth.

Diomedes leans on his elbow. His flesh is smooth and unmarked. His wounds have been healed by Homer. Diomedes is a good soldier, tough and strong, delighting in discipline and comforting himself in the superiority of his leaders. Homer’s spite has not been visited on him. He is a strange contrast to the battle-scarred veteran who lies by his side.

“Are you awake?” he asks the veteran.

“Yes,” says Echion, “I’m awake.” He is staring at the granite cloud.

“Do you like your girl?” Diomedes’ voice is uneasy. He wishes to be continually assured that everything is excellent. He is young and Echion is old.

Echion smiles. He finds his friend’s concern for the quality of the girl amusing. “Yes, I like my girl. Do you like yours?”

Diomedes doesn’t look at his girl. It seems as if he wasn’t asking about the girl at all, that he wanted to know something more important. “Yes,” he says, “I like my girl.”

He picks up one of the purple seeds and examines it minutely. For a moment it seems that he is about to ask another question, the real question.

“Tell me,” Echion says gently, “tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Nothing,” says Diomedes, “I was just thinking how good it is that we both like our girls.”

2.

Later, while Diomedes was asleep, Echion dug sullenly in the sand and puzzled at his problem. His problem nagged at him continually. It was something so stupid it made him angry to think about it. But he couldn’t leave it alone.

Echion’s problem was that he had forgotten the purpose of their mission. It was stupid of him. It was so stupid he couldn’t even ask any of the others. He had once made the mistake of broaching this subject with Diomedes and Diomedes, his closest friend, had flared into a wild temper and called him a traitor and a weakling and many other things which, his eyes brimming with tears, he came later to apologize for. He had, he said, been having bad dreams. They had upset him. He was sorry. Echion had forgiven him instantly but they had not discussed the matter since.

As for the matters of the dreams, Echion had considered talking about that but he thought better of it. He had also been afflicted by these dreams. He had mentioned them to Odysseus, who had taken such a keen interest in them that he had become suspicious.

Echion now abandoned his sand-digging so that the girl could scratch his back more easily. He gazed out at the small flotilla of canoes from which brown bodies fell into the water. Probably, he thought, probably they are collecting food for a feast. The voices of the divers wandered across the water like memories from a hundred years ago and Echion was suddenly homesick and yearned for the voice of a wife he could hardly remember and the arms of a child whose name he had forgotten.

“Where did he go?” It was Diomedes again.

“Who?”

“Odysseus.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was thinking about Odysseus. I wondered where he was.”

“I suppose,” said Echion, “that he’s talking to the blind man.”

Diomedes sighed. “Do you like your girl?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Echion, “I like my girl. Do you like yours?”

“Yes, yes I do. Do you want to swap?”

“I don’t care. Do you want to?”

The sky was full of clouds like a melted jigsaw puzzle, “I don’t know,” said Diomedes, “I was just thinking about Odysseus.”

3.

Reality returns to Homer’s fever only to take his sight and go away again. Light falls on his blind eyes like coloured rain on a tiled roof.

He is walking down a street in the country of his fever. Odysseus is pursuing him. The street is uneven and littered with small stones. He stumbles continually. He worries about his dignity. The street is full of unseen foreigners. Hands touch him. It is difficult to understand the intention of the numerous small pinches and sharp tugs he is assailed by.

He fears that Odysseus has passed the limit of his endurance and gone mad, that he carries the knife that will kill them all, Homer and the battle-weary population of his mind.

He is assailed by strange smells, rotten fish mixed with acrid smoke. Someone is burning something foul and the strangeness of the smells and the impudent touches of these unknown hands cause him to panic.

He turns, first left, then right, and then sits, quite suddenly, in the middle of this foreign street.

The hands are trying to drag him up. He is angry and afraid and also irritated that these ignorant people should dare to touch him, Homer. The voices in his ears are uncultured and angry. They shriek curses at him. He cannot understand the language but knows what they are saying. They know of his mistreatment of Odysseus and the men. They have a list. His crimes are all numbered. They plan to kill him.

He curls up on the ground, as helpless as a child, and waits for the first rock to strike him.

And then he hears the sound of Odysseus’s voice speaking in the language of the country of his fever. That Odysseus should have learned this language without his knowledge seems a vicious betrayal. Odysseus is shouting. Slowly Homer realizes that he is ordering the people to leave him alone.

Odysseus is going to rescue him.

“I am blind,” says Homer suddenly. “I am blind. I can’t see.” He pretends that Odysseus is not there. The prospect of being rescued by Odysseus is humiliating. Homer pretends to rescue himself. “Get away from me,” he says, “I’m blind.”

“They can’t understand you.”

Homer composes himself and attempts to look as if he is totally in charge of the situation, sitting in the middle of this filthy street in his good clothes.

“Who’s that?”

“You know who it is.”

“Oh, Odysseus, is it? Sit down, Odysseus, I’ve been expecting you.”

“You’re stopping a funeral procession,” says Odysseus. “Come over to the side and let them get through.”

Homer doesn’t like the sound of his voice. It’s made from steel, like a dagger.

When they’re sitting by the side of the street, Odysseus says, “You’ve been running away.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. I’ve been waiting for you for hours. Have you brought everything?”

He hears a rustle of cloth as Odysseus squats beside him. “Are you still ill?”

Homer can feel the face peering closely at his. He puts a hand out and pushes the face away. For an instant he is in a room in Greece and the smell of hot broth is under his nose.

“I’m better now,” he says. “Fever is not a very pleasant thing for a man.”

“It’s possibly worse,” says Odysseus, “for the creatures of his imagination.”

“It’s been a hard time for all of us,” the poet says, “for me, for you, for the men. Is Echion still causing trouble?”

“He was never causing trouble,” Odysseus speaks patiently. “I’ve explained it to you before. I don’t know why you want to misunderstand me.”

“I can’t have men who spread rumours.”

“He remembered his dreams, that’s all. He wanted to talk about his dreams.”

Homer thumps his staff on the street. “I won’t have men talking about their dreams. I can’t afford the risk. You can’t either. Once they know, they don’t want to do what they’re told,” he sighs. “Sometimes I’m sorry I told you.”