John Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon

Tuka also won and lost. The pain of jealousy was over, for the moment anyway, and now, clear-minded, she could see the jealousy and the attack on Iona as they were, and she was depressed. It was true that she had hurt Miletos, and though she wasn’t the cause of his grief, she was to blame. And it was true, she knew, that Iona had been fond of her, that they really might have been like sisters, whatever that meant, if it weren’t for Dorkis and me. It could have been very good for all of us. But Dorkis was a lover, not only a man with busy hands but a man who did in fact fall in love, though he did nothing about it — and so, alas, was I. So that whenever we came together, the four of us, there was no escape from the heart-swapping game, tiresome and futile, doomed to frustration and anger because of our natures. She understood, now that her attack on Iona had ended it, that we’d had nothing from the start, only a grand potential that was, like all grand potentials, illusion. She walked abstractedly through her days, carrying with her, in everything she did, a dreary sense of loss, the loss of a thing that had never existed. She missed them and wished she had never known them. Secure at last in her possession of me, she wondered what it was that she’d fought so fiercely to possess. We began to have long talks about our childhoods, saying everything that came to mind, talking quietly, almost wearily, as if turning old happiness over and over, hunting for what had seemed so good in it.

“Do you love me?” she would say sometimes. “I mean, if you were free to sleep with someone else, would you?”

I would laugh.

I heard, during this period, of Klinias’s death’ (My first news was the arrival of the book.) I took the whole thing as though I’d been expecting it, and I wondered idly how old Solon was now. I could recall very clearly how happy I had been with Klinias, and how alive he made me feel. Tuka mentioned that she had slept one night with Konon. It was like something I had read somewhere; interesting, nothing more. Poor Klinias, I said absently. She nodded.

But my lethargy, at least, did not last much longer. I woke up a few mornings later with the thought of Klinias’s book. It was mine, it came to me. I owned it. I got up, dressed, and began to read through it, and as I read my fingertips began to tremble. I read faster and faster, excitedly, wildly. What a book it was! I’d forgotten! When, toward noon, Tuka said, “Good morning,” interrupting me, I looked up at her in rage.

I think something’s wrong with Agathon. When he shits the smell is too horrible to believe — it’s like after asparagus or something. And this morning he fell down. It scared him; I know because when I went over to help him he hit my hand away. “Let me be!” he yelled. “Boys should respect their elders!”

“Are you all right?” I said. “Is your hip broken?”

“I’ll dance on your grave,” he said.

But it wasn’t natural, his simply toppling over like that. It made me think. He’s been sleeping late, and taking naps all the time. He never used to do that. He has this thing about using every moment. And the rat bites on his toes and fingers don’t heal the way they should. That may be just his age, I suppose — like the rat bites themselves. Rats never bite me. I feel their noses the minute they touch me, and I slap them away, even in my sleep. But old people’s nerves aren’t sensitive, and their reactions are slow. His hands and feet look like something that’s been fed to the chickens.

This afternoon when he was at the table writing he fell asleep without even knowing it was coming on: just bent his head down and drifted off, sleeping on his nose. He still had the pen in his hand. I called the jailer, and after a while he came.

“I think my master’s sick,” I said.

He looked in, making a face at the smell.

“Dead?” he said.

I shook my head. “He’s just asleep. But he never sleeps in the afternoon, or anyway he never used to. He fell down for no reason this morning.”

The jailer looked at me, doubtful. I suppose they tell him a lot of crazy things.

“Listen,” I said. “I really think he’s sick. Honest. I’ve got to get him out of here. He’ll die or something.”

The jailer thought about it, scowling, and at last he shook his head slowly, as if saying it was hopeless. I looked back at Agathon, sleeping on his nose, with his long hair going out on the table in all directions, like ropes from a tent. “Please,” I said — because it panicked me: he really did look dead—“you’ve got to help me. Get a doctor. Make the ephors come.” He was shaking his head, slow, hopeless, and, it seemed to me, not quite indifferent “This then,” I said, and glanced at him, wondering if I was right. “Pass the word to the Helots. They know him. They’ve got doctors.”

The jailer turned his face away, looking at the mountains.

“He’s sick,” I hissed. “He may stink like a sewer, but he’s human. And he’s sick.”

Life is full of mysteries. I found two more of my rats dead this morning. That’s not one of the mysteries, of course. Some simple sickness that terminates in death. The usual business — summer, winter, day and night. The mystery lies in my jailer’s reaction. I’ve underestimated the man. When he came with my breakfast I held up my three dead rats by their tails, putting on, for his benefit, the saddest face possible and granting him the glimpse of a tear. He frowned, at first, disgusted by my feeling for a fellow creature. But when I placed the three corpses beside my plate (it was a means of taking my mind off the food), his frown changed to a thoughtful look. (Coming of spring.) It had no doubt come even to his attention that too many dying rats can be a bad omen. If the disease they have is communicable to man, my situation is not exactly enviable.

“Poor devils,” I said. Peeker rolled his eyes up and covered his face. He knows when a speech is coming.

“Alas,” I said, “riding the golden chariot of our prosperity, we neglect to give proper attention to the humble rat. Only in miserable circumstances — this cell, for example — do we pause to reflect on their lot. Like us, the poor rat is born into a world he never willed and can only in minimal ways control. He suffers the agonies of youth — the squalling indignity of his first nakedness, the inexplicable rules of harsh parents — he matures into the age of love and saddles himself with some whimpering, nagging, winsome female — he declines into middle-aged sickness and mournful confusion — and at last, bewildered and shivering, he dies, to be forgotten.” I clasped my hands and lifted them to my forehead. “Ah, Zeus, what’s it all for?”

Peeker banged his fists together on his ears.

Suddenly, miraculously, as the sun in all its splendor breaks from the hood of clouds that encloses the brow of Mount Taygetos, my jailer spoke. “Some disease,” he said. My eyes widened, my mouth dropped open. I turned to stare at him.

“They have some disease,” he said.

Imagine the mouth of a cave speaking! Imagine sober opinions emitting from a horse!

“God bless you, jailer!” I cried, leaping up. “You can talk!” I walked to the door without my crutch, as if the miracle had cured me.

He glowered at me, deeply offended, but now, seeing that the rules were broken, it was a whole new game, he spoke again. “The dishes,” he said, and pointed.

“Of course!” I cried. “God bless you! Of course!” I snatched the dishes from the table.

He took them with lips curled back from his teeth and banged them on the outside wall, getting rid of the few bits of filth we hadn’t eaten. He strode away.