Cupid (17 page)

Auster picked her up and Psyche was off to the mouth of the underworld.

Every time I get to this part of the story, it reminds me of all the times I've had to go to the underworld. Everybody who wants to be an adult has got to go to the
underworld. The underworld in the story is a physical place. Or is it?

Stories are interesting in that way. Sometimes when a story says a rose is a rose, it is a rose. But then, there are times when the story says a rose, and the rose is not only a rose, it is also something else. When I think about the underworld, I think about the feelings inside myself that I might not want to look at too closely, or even admit that the feelings are a part of me. But going to the underworld also makes me think about the times in my life when I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I knew I had to do it. Those are the times like what both Cupid and Psyche are going through right now. Neither one of them can be the person they used to be. But they are not yet the person they are going to be. They don't even know who that person is. Neither Cupid nor Psyche can become new people—and by that I mean adults—until the childish part of themselves dies.

Cupid had been lying in bed like a dead person in a casket. Psyche had been lying in the basement like someone put in a grave. Cupid's "death" was close to an end, but Psyche's was not yet complete. These deaths and underworlds are not the same for men and women. I could try to explain that, but the story is jumping up and down on my foot and pulling on my shirt because it wants to know what is going to happen to Psyche. Isn't that interesting? Even a story doesn't know how it is going to turn out because who knows what a storyteller will say once he or she gets going
good. Sometimes even I don't know until I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

Auster held Psyche close to him. "Hold on tightly," he told her as he flew swiftly above the clouds.

"Why are you flying so fast and so high?" Psyche wanted to know, remembering the slow, leisurely flights she had taken with Favonius.

"If I were to fly this fast below the clouds, I would destroy the dwellings and palaces of mortals. And my brothers and I honor the others' realms and use our destructive powers only within our own realms.

"The other reason I must move swiftly is because we have far to go. Taenarus is at the very edge of the southern realm. Beyond it there is only cold and snow and ice."

Psyche remembered that when she was a child, travelers had come to the palace and told stories about other lands. There was one place in particular where it was always cold and the earth was covered with something one traveler had called snow and ice. Psyche had thought the traveler made up the story to gain favor with her father, who had been known to reward handsomely those whose tales he especially enjoyed.

She wanted to ask Auster if he could fly over this
landscape where neither dirt nor plant existed, but she did not want to get distracted. Aquilo had given her very detailed instructions as to what she should and should not do, what she should and should not say in the underworld. She would better use the time of the flight to go over everything one more time. There was no room for failure. If a mortal entered the realm of the dead and erred in the slightest, he would remain there forever, a living being among the countless shadows, which was all that remained of the dead. And this time she knew that no one would come to rescue her. She was on her own.

Psyche did not know how long they flew, but she noticed when Auster began descending.

"Are we getting close?"

"Yes."

"I can't see anything. It's like we're flying inside a cloud."

"Taenarus is always shrouded in fog," he told her. "It is from the vapors rising from the entrance hole to Pluto's realm. But hold on tight. I'll see what I can do."

Psyche had barely tightened her grip when Auster began turning in wide circles, faster than he had flown before, so fast that Psyche had to close her eyes to keep from getting dizzy.

"There!" he called out.

Psyche opened her eyes. The fog had not dissipated entirely but was much thinner now, and she saw a long piece of land jutting out into a sea as gray as sorrow.

"Is that it?" she shouted to Auster.

"Yes. That is Taenarus."

"Does anyone live there?"

"No one. The land is very rocky. But even if it were not, who would want to live in this place and, day after day, watch the shadows of those who have just died go into the hole with a sadness only the dead can know?"

Coming from a land where the sunlight seemed to dance with the blue waves of the sea, Psyche never imagined that a place so desolate could exist. The ground was covered with stones and boulders, but at the very edge of the peninsula, where its tip extended into the sea, she made out a large hole out of which smoke came steadily in a quiet, thin stream.

"Is-is that the way to the underworld?" she asked, shuddering as she pointed at the hole.

"It is," Auster replied solemnly.

Psyche turned her head away, not wanting to look, but in doing so she saw a procession of people walking along the rocky shore and toward the peninsula. Slowly she realized that these were not people. They were shadows, long and dark like the shadows cast by the sun, except these shadows were upright, shoulders bowed and bodies slumped.

As Auster flew lower, Psyche heard moans coming from the shadows.

"Are those—?"

"The dead," Auster replied, knowing what she was asking.

"Why are they moaning like that?"

"They moan because they are dead."

"But I thought when you were dead it was like being asleep except you could never wake up."

"No. The dead live but without any of the joys of the living. Death is an eternity of sadness."

Psyche blanched as she thought about the times recently when she had wanted to kill herself.

"You must be careful of the shadows. They are waiting for Mercury to take them to the ferry. He does not like this part of his job, but the shadows do tell him all kinds of interesting gossip. And they will seek to entice you with their words. Do not listen. They want nothing more than to persuade you to change places with them. When someone takes his own life, it is because a shadow persuaded him to change places."

Psyche gulped. "I'll not let that happen."

"I hope not, dear Psyche. All the deities are on your side, you know."

"I didn't know. Juno and Ceres did not act like it when I appealed to them for help."

"That does not mean that you do not have their sympathies. You do."

Auster set her down gently a short distance from the hole that led to the underworld.

"Well, here you are," he said. "Remember all that Aquilo told you. If you do, everything will turn out well. You have the two pieces of bread soaked in honey water?"

"Yes."

"And the two coins?"

She pulled them from her pocket.

"Put them in your mouth. That is where Charon will take them from."

Psyche smiled at Auster's concern. "Do not fear. I remember everything I was told. I will be all right."

"Well, then, I will let you go. I will be waiting to return you to Olympus. In fact, all four of us will accompany you in a triumphal return."

"Thank you, Auster."

Psyche felt rather than saw Auster leave. Then she took a deep breath and turned toward the gaping hole from which wispy smoke came. As she made her way slowly over the sharp stones, she realized that she was not afraid, because she knew what was going to happen. She would bring Venus her box of beauty, and then, if the goddess would not relent, Jupiter would make her.

And with that thought, Psyche saw that she had arrived at the hole, and without hesitating, she entered the underworld.

Immediately after she stepped through the thick fog shrouding the entrance to the underworld, Psyche found herself on a road as broad and smooth as the one
that led from her father's palace into the village. The road went down in a gentle and barely perceptible slope. Though she could not see any torches or lanterns, the way was lighted, not brightly, but more than enough for her to see where she was going.

She walked for some time until, ahead of her, she saw a donkey loaded down with wood and hobbling on three legs. As she came closer, she saw the donkey's owner, a crippled and bald old man in drab and dirty clothes, leaning heavily on a cane. Just as she started to walk past, the load of wood on the donkey's back suddenly fell to the ground.

"Princess! Princess!" called out the man. "Please, help me! As you can see, I am crippled and I cannot pick up all this wood and put it back on the donkey. It won't take much of your time, Princess. Please help an old, crippled man."

Aquilo had warned her about him and the lame donkey, saying, "Do not stop or even speak to the old man." Yet Psyche wanted to. What harm could there be in helping a crippled old man?

"I see you have a kind face, Princess, and a good heart. The gods will reward you if you help me."

The sight of the old man and his piteous voice brought tears to Psyche's eyes. She put her hands over her ears and ran as fast as she could. The crippled man's voice followed her with words of abuse: "I was wrong. You have no heart! May the gods curse you and your children and their children and their children and on to the end of time!"

When Psyche was at a safe distance, she turned and
looked back. The load of wood was no longer strewn across the ground but stacked neatly on the donkey's back, and the old man was now young and standing as straight as the pillars in a temple.

"He almost tricked me into changing places with him," Psyche said to herself sofdy, amazed at how close she had come to doing exactly what she had been told not to do. "I must be more careful."

She had not walked very far when the road became even wider and she thought she heard something. Psyche stopped and listened. Water. The River of the Dead!

There was a bend in the road, and when Psyche went around it, she saw ahead of her what looked to be hundreds, maybe thousands of shadows walking back and forth along the bank of the river.

"These pathetic shadows were people who were so poor when they died," Aquilo had told her, "they were not buried with a coin beneath their tongues to pay Charon, the ferryman. They are condemned to walk along the banks of the River of the Dead for one hundred years before Charon will take them across."

Hearing Aquilo talk about them was one thing. Seeing them was entirely another. Aquilo could not have prepared her for the continual sounds of their moaning, and their loud cries begging Charon to carry them across. Psyche knew she must get away from the shadows as quickly as she could, or her heart would break with pity.

She walked swiftly and confidently toward the ferry and
Charon. The crowds of shadows on the banks of the river parted as she came toward them, and their moans and pleadings ceased as they gazed at her.

"The goddess of love has come to the underworld!" said one, and quickly the word spread up and down the riverbank that Venus was among them. And the shadows dropped to their knees in adoration.

Psyche ignored them and kept her eyes fixed on Charon standing at the bow of his ferry, a long pole in his hand. He was tall and looked to be as old as the waters he rowed back and forth across. His face was covered with a long, white beard, but she could not make out more of his features because the hood of his long gray cloak was pulled low over his head.

Cyane had warned her to be very careful. Charon had been tricked several times into carrying living mortals across, and Pluto had punished him severely.

"Hercules used his great strength and forced Charon to carry him across," Cyane had said. "Pluto had Charon kept in chains for a year for that mistake. When Orpheus went into the underworld to bring back Eurydice, he charmed Charon by playing beautiful melodies on his lute. Aeneas bribed Charon by giving him a golden bough. Theseus also went to the underworld. No one knew how he had tricked Charon into carrying him over, but Theseus was Theseus. Was there anything he could not do?"

Psyche was not strong like Hercules, nor was she musical like Orpheus, or wise like Theseus, but if Charon had
been impressed with Aeneas's golden bough, how could he resist the beauty of which Venus herself was jealous, the beauty that had captured the heart of the god of love?

Charon was known for his ill temper. Who wouldn't be if they did nothing except carry shadows across the River of the Dead from morning until night—and down there, who knew which was which; Charon certainly didn't. Having to listen to the moans and pleas of those without a coin to give him kept Charon in a bad mood. "If they would just shut up for the time it takes the sand to run from the top half of the hourglass to the bottom." Year in, year out, century after century, Charon had to listen to them. If he had not been a god, the sounds of their despair would have driven him mad.

Even worse was the fact that, for millennia now, he had collected a coin from every shadow he rowed across. He was the wealthiest of all the deities, even wealthier than Erebus and Nyx, his parents, who were better known as Darkness and Night. He had so much money that he kept having to add rooms on to his palace so he would have a place to put all the money. But what good was it having more money than anyone who had ever lived if he had no place to spend it! For eons he had begged Pluto to at least let him use some of his money to build a bridge. Shadows could swim across the river, or not. He couldn't care less. But Pluto said it would be ritualistically undignified for shadows to walk across a bridge and into his domain. Undignified! They were dead!

Such was the nature of the silent conversation Charon was having with himself when he saw Psyche approaching the ferry. He knew immediately that she was far from dead. He also knew that he should not take her across: Pluto might put him in chains again. But if a year in chains was the price he had to pay, at least he would have the image of this woman to keep him company.