John Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon

Whoever told me the story of the lightning believed that the gods had shown favor to Lykourgos. Favor? Blasting him to bits? Yet perhaps it’s so.

Whoever told me cooled my forehead with her palm afterward. — Hers, yes. I remember that. I wanted to reach up and catch the hand, bring the stranger down to me, but all my body was inert. I could only reach up with thought, hungrily, laboring to identify the kind dark shadow above me. I strained to speak, but my mouth was as stiff as the door of a cell. Was it Tuka? Can that be possible? Yet it was, I think. It was my wife. The room grew darker. The stranger-wife bent closer, as if to whisper something in my ear, but I could hear nothing any more, couldn’t even feel the hand if it was still on my forehead. I strained every muscle of mind to seize and enclose her, own her. A searing anguish went through me; I lost consciousness. Hours later — there was sunlight in the room — I awakened, or else I dreamed I awakened, in a room filled with flowers.

Dying. I understand my panic. No worse than that of a child poised on a diving board. Hike your skirts up, Agathon, love! Point your fingers!

Whooee am I scared!

I must think of some last, solemn, sententious word.

Cocklebur.

Ox.

And so, after three days on the river and at sea, traveling by night and fog, I arrived safe, with the gods’ help, in Athens. I was sick on the ship, and I believed I had the plague. But no fever developed, and now five days have passed since the death of Agathon, and I’m still without a fever; in fact, thriving. I begin to believe I have mysteriously escaped.

A beautiful city — noisy with merchants’ splendid carts, booming with mingled languages, theologies, political persuasions, and bright as a pinwheel with canopies, tents, great piles of produce, baskets, trinkets, the swirl of dancing girls and jugglers…. But never mind that.

I had a hell of a time getting someone to tell me where Agathon’s wife might be found. No wonder, of course. I was dressed in rags, my face still gray from my sickness on the boat, and I spoke with a foreigner’s cockled tongue and a strange store of words. But I was successful, finally. I found an old peddler, an escaped Helot with one arm, and after I’d followed him through the streets half the day while he hawked his wares, he saw fit to lead me to her house — that is, palace. The former home of Philombrotos, a shrine now. She keeps a few large rooms in back, helped by her two old servants. She has no slaves. Here too, at the steps of the palace, they tried to turn me away, and, when they failed at that, ignored me. At last I got one of her two servants to listen, not that I knew who the servant was at the time. “I have a message for Agathon’s wife,” I said. “—From Agathon.” The old woman-servant glanced at me, full of suspicion. She had a face like a broken hoof. I pulled the parchments from their protecting rag and showed her. I guess she must have thought I was crazy. A long message to be bringing from Agathon! She went away without a word, and I didn’t expect her back. However, she came. “This way,” she said. I followed her.

We went what seemed miles down enormous sunlit hallways, chamber growing out of chamber — guards everywhere, government officials, janitors polishing the marble floors and the great, painted chairs where once Philombrotos and Solon and Pysistratos sat. There were busts of Philombrotos everywhere, dignified as all-wise Apollo, and there were documents he’d signed, implements he’d used, bas-reliefs of his life. Here in his own house he dwarfed even Solon and the great Pysistratos. We came at last to a closed door. The old woman lifted the iron hook from the wall, opened the door, and bowed, sending me in, then following. The door swung shut behind us like the door of a tomb. “Wait here,” she said.

I waited an hour. A huge room beautifully furnished and, as far as I could see, never used. There was no dust, no decay. Only an aseptic lifelessness: motionless planes of light thrown over the gleaming floor from the alcove to the west where another small statue of Philombrotos stood, motionless carpets, chairs and tables draped in white, and over in the darkest corner of the room — I started as if at a ghost when I saw it — her harp: motionless, silent. I went to it, touched the wood. The gold and walnut shone as if with knowledge. It should be draped in protective cloths, I thought, like the tables and chairs. Did she sometimes still play it, all alone in the covered, abandoned room? I touched a string, just a brush of my fingertip, and the way the sound filled the room made me duck in alarm.

And then at last there were footsteps, far away, then nearer. They paused, outside the small door to the left of the harp, and after what seemed a long time, the door opened toward me. She remained in the heavy shadows of the doorway, examining my rags. At last she said, “I’m Tuka.”

“I’m Demodokos,” I said.

I thought about her voice. It was shy. Soft. She seemed somewhat younger than the others — Agathon, Iona.

“I don’t think I know you. Should I?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve been Agathon’s disciple these past three years.”

A pause, then: “How is he?”

“He died three days ago.”

In the shadows I saw her white arm move, pressing her hand to her chest. Then she said simply, “I see.” And, after a moment, as if for my sake, “I’m sorry.”

Another long silence. It came to me at last that she had no intention of coming into the room, into the light, where I could see her. She was right I looked awful, and I was prying. I said, “I brought you this,” and held out the scroll.

She hesitated, then extended her hand to accept it. Her fingers showed no sign of distaste for the foul rag that covered it. “Are the others lost?” she asked.

I had to snatch a moment before I connected. I said, “It’s not part of the book he had. That was destroyed. This is something he wrote in prison. — Along with, I’m afraid, some shit of mine.” As soon as the word was half out I wanted to grab the back of my neck and punch myself. I hurried on: “I would have separated my part out — I should have, I guess — but I thought…” What did I think?

“Don’t apologize. Thank you.” She half turned, about to leave. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Don’t think about it!”

“No. Wait here, if you don’t mind. I’ll send Persaia.”

She withdrew, leaving the door open, and I waited. In a few minutes the old serving-woman returned, more suspicious and hostile than ever. She nodded and ushered me through the small door and down another long hall — this one bare, uncarpeted, unfurnished except for a bust of Philombrotos and a statue of the goddess of cities, Pallas Athena. We came to a large white room that overlooked the garden and, beyond that, the vineyard. I could see the little slope, the stone tables and benches, where Tuka, half a century ago, had hurt the child on the wagon. It was a smaller and much more gradual slope than I’d expected. Beyond the vineyard, where the hill fell away, the sky was so blue it looked dyed. The old man, her second servant, looked up toward me from the hedge. He looked angry.

“She wants you to stay here,” the serving-woman said, and before I could stop her she left. Stay for food? I wondered. Stay for the night? I could only wait and see. I looked out, hunting for familiar signs, but except for the slope of lawn, the tables, and the vineyard, nothing was where it should be. Klinias’s hut — it should be beyond where the gardener pruned the hedge — had apparently been torn down long ago, and I could see no sign of the roundhouse or the well that Agathon had talked about I sat down. The room was bare except for a couch with heavy, musty-smelling pillows, two carved chairs, once very fine but now in disrepair, and a table with a pitcher and a bowl. It was weird. Philombrotos must have been rich as Kroesos. What had she done with all the money?