John Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon

At the end of the week he’d asked for, the leaders met with Solon again at Philombrotos’s house. He arrived late again, and this time he was carried in on a litter by four of his slaves. He hadn’t slept all week; I doubt that he’d eaten. He looked terrible. The leaders said nothing, but you could see they were distressed. This sick, decrepit thing that could barely wave its arms was to lead the Greeks to victory! But they waited to hear what he would say. He told them his plan, and it was that afternoon that I myself joined his army. I watched Philombrotos as Solon, with much ambiage, unfolded the scheme. The old man squinted in acute embarrassment. He could see that it would work, but I knew he would rather be dead than have beautiful Athens so deflowered. When the vote came, he abstained, and when he left, afterward, he did not speak to the others.

I saw Tuka in the entry hall. “Praise me,” I said at the top of the steps. “I’m going to be a soldier.”

“You’re crazy,” she said. She stared at me hard, then laughed. “Are you going to talk them to death with metaphysics?”

“I may not be much with a dagger,” I said, “but I’m sneaky.”

She laughed again, but now she knew I meant it. I was looking up with new eyes at where the Akropolis scraped the clouds.

After a moment she took my hand. She said, “You can’t. I forbid it.”

“It’s out of your hands,” I said. “I’m a citizen of Athens.”

She went on looking at me, then glanced back at her slave as if for help. None came. Tuka shook her head. “You haven’t a chance. How you do overestimate yourself!”

I was angry. “I’ll pick on someone little,” I said. “I’ll see who’s wounded and sneak up and get them from behind.”

She turned away. The slave went on watching with eyes full of darkness.

I started out and Tuka called to me. I kept going.

Two weeks later I fought the only battle of my life. (We trained like fools, that two weeks. Most of the men, though all of us were young, were veterans. All I learned was to be scared to death of good soldiers.) Word went, by a supposed renegade, to Salamis, to tell the Megarians that, according to our ancient custom, the chief women of Athens were at Kolias, giving sacrifice to Keres, unattended except for their slaves. The Megarians could capture them with ease, for pleasure or ransom. The Megarians bit. We moved the women and children out and, clean-shaven, dressed like girls, we danced and played by the shore until the Megarians arrived. They came pouring out of the ship like unleashed hounds, and we danced and smiled and tightened our fists on our daggers. We got them all and hardly lost a man, but it was horrible, a matter for shame. The one that came for me was a big, handsomish man that thought he would have me right there on the sand. I opened up his kidneys with both hands on the dagger, and the look on his face was like a child’s, shocked, betrayed. He pushed me away — there were people fighting all around us, bumping against us, stepping on us — and he lay twisting and kicking in a circle and I couldn’t get the dagger out. Blood spattered all over and soaked up in the sand and people slipped in it. I tried to strangle him, but even dying he was ten times stronger than I was. He pushed me away as if I were unimportant, an annoyance, like a swarm of gnats, in the way of his dying. I was crying so hard I could hardly see — a dead Megarian lay across my left leg — but I got a rock and lifted it over him. When he saw what was happening he lay still a moment and gave up. I killed him. He look of indifference shook me to the heart. Then I lay in the sand and sobbed and yelled obscenities at Tuka. I believed I saw her, shining like a mountain, naked, smiling at me, her slave in the distance. A strange experience. When the battle was over we sailed for Salamis, still in our women’s clothes, all bloodied now, and took it. I didn’t fight in that one. I was unfortunate, which no doubt saved my life. When I jumped to the rocks from the ship I broke my leg.

I was in bed for two months. Tuka came to see me and talked to me very soberly, softly, about how a girl shouldn’t let the boy she loved go to war without her blessing and promise. I wasn’t impressed, she was still old Philombrotos’s daughter. But the rustle of her skirt as she crossed the room, the small shy weight of her hand on my arm, frail as light, made me feel I was bleeding to death inside, hopeless, wicked, unpardonable. I was painfully, totally aware of her, as though her barely perceptible scent had replaced the air I breathed. I hated myself passionately, and, in my despair, blamed it all on her as I would on the gods if they were nearer. (I had lied to her about the broken leg — she thought I was a hero.) She said, looking away from my eyes and smiling, sly, that when I was well she had a gift for me. I got better at last, despite my wish, and agreed to meet her near a huge old olive tree behind the vineyard where we used to play, to collect the gift I bathed and dressed myself elegantly, swearing and growling at myself all the time (the mind is a tricky instrument), and, clenching my teeth and exaggerating my heroic limp, I went out to meet her by the tree. She was lying a pool of sunlight, naked as a goddess. Her slave sat at a distance, with her back turned. Sudden, searing shame overwhelmed me and, beating on the ground with my fists, I told her of my lie. I was unworthy. She calmed me, drew down my face to her breast I collected.

O gods, gods, gods! Was ever anything alive so cruelly mistreated? I’m being driven insane, and there’s no one I can turn to. I thought it was more damn flibbertigibbet when I read what he wrote, his plan for me. But he means it! He’s going to unhinge me!

Yesterday we saw a murder, right before our very eyes — some fellow sneaking across the field, trying to stay out of sight in the tall grass, coming toward the prison — toward one of the cells farther down — and all at once there’s these two men on horseback galloping straight at the man out of nowhere, Spartan soldiers, and I heard the grass whizzing and the noise of the hoofs and I saw the man on the nearest horse twist — that’s all I saw — and when they’d gone by there was a javelin standing like a leaning signpost, and nothing, not even the javelin, was moving. It was as if I’d been staring at the thing for hours, but that was a trick my mind played, because the riders reined up and turned back and I watched them get down and lift up the body and sling it across one of the horses, and then they remounted and rode off.

“Agathon!” I said. I sort of choked it out. But he was standing right behind me, he’d seen it all. It was as if he’d been expecting it.

He shook his head and went back to the table. “It’s going to be a long, hard winter, Peeker.”

I went ferocious for a minute. I sort of jumped at him and grabbed his crutch and I was going to club him with it. “Winter, winter, winter,” I screamed. “That’s all you can say. It’s crazy! Even if it’s a fucking metaphor it’s crazy.”

He was waiting to be hit.

I felt angrier than ever. The room went blood red. “People die right in front of your eyes and you just fart around, tell stupid shit-ass stories about girls and old dead politicians, and people are actually dying! There’s some things a human being doesn’t have to stand!”

He rolled his eyes up at me. I had the crutch up to brain him. He said, “Nonsense.”

I swung down. I don’t know what happened because I just flipped out zero, a tingle across my brain and then nothing, as if it was me that was hit — Apollo maybe. I don’t know. I never saw anything like it. When I came to he was sitting on the bed, holding my head in his lap and patting me as if his mind was a million miles away. I shook my head. It hurt like hell, but I couldn’t find a lump when I felt around for one. I remembered I was going to kill him and I felt awful. He was a good old man, though he stunk to heaven, especially up close. I started crying, and he started patting me again. I said, “Master, I’m going crazy.”