Helen of Troy (31 page)

My first thought was, She knows! My second was, But there is nothing to know, it is all in my mind and heart. No one can see into that. My third was, How can I answer this? I gave the predictable, giveaway reply: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

She got off her stool beside the loom. “Oh, please, Helen. You are talking to me. Leda. Leda. I say Leda, not Mother. You understand.”

Yes, I understood. Leda, the name forever linked to the Swan. I nodded. I was exposed. At least it was by my mother, by someone who had faced something similar, and before any damage had been done. Nothing had been done! I assured myself.

“Zeus is different,” she said. “A husband will tolerate Zeus. It cannot be helped. But . . .” she blushed. “Oh, to think I must discuss such things with my daughter!”

“Mother . . .”

“Even with Zeus, it was not easy,” she said. “Things were never the same again with your fa—with Tyndareus. They try to forget, they try to overlook it, but how can they? Could you overlook such an . . . excursion . . . by them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. Women were expected to, I knew that.

“But this Paris! A child, and the child of foreigners, possible enemies. Oh, I can see how he might dazzle one’s eyes—but Helen! Think!”

I cannot think, thanks to Aphrodite, I thought. I can only feel. I smiled feebly at her.

“I know things have not been . . . passionate with Menelaus. In the past Aphrodite was angered at Tyndareus; perhaps she is taking revenge on him through you. Such is the behavior of the gods. But I beg you, sacrifice to her, seek her favor. She will listen to your request.”

No, the cruel goddess only listens to her own desires, I thought. For some unknown reason she has come down to me and enveloped me. She fulfills her secret reason, I suffer. Such sweet suffering! I sighed, and Mother looked sharply at me.

“Oh, Helen!” she said. “Do not cast yourself away on this . . . boy!”

I was tempted to say,
At least he’s human, and not a swan!
But I held my tongue. Instead I embraced her, clasping her close to me. “Mother,” I whispered, “it is both a pity and a joy that we are so much alike.”

“Helen, no . . .” she murmured against my neck.

“Would you take it back?” I asked her. “That is the only real question.”

“Yes! Yes, I would! It changed too many things.”

“Then you would make me not to be.” I was stunned. If that would truly be Mother’s choice, then I had been cast away, too, like Paris.

Thus Paris had already caused me to sever a deep link to my family, in my own mind. So far it had not happened outside that realm of the mind, my sad farewell to my mother. Outwardly everything was preserved like figs floating in honey; inwardly the substance was altered, translated into something utterly different.

I waited in the shadows of the colonnade around the forecourt. The shadows were short: it was noon. I nervously fingered my bracelets, distressed about what Mother had said.

Hermione came strolling up, hand in hand with her favorite attendant, Nysa. As always, the sight of her buoyed my spirits. Her long hair spilling out of the little fillet she always wore, her ready smile, touched me. Daughter of my heart. Can any daughter truly know what she means to her mother? Perhaps I had been hasty about Mother; perhaps she would not really have forgone the encounter and erased me. But why had she said it? If it was to quash my feelings for Paris—

“Paris!” Hermione squealed, much more delighted than she had been at seeing me.

But he was closer to her own age . . . a boy! Mother called him a boy!

“Hello, little friend!” Paris was kneeling in front of Hermione, his golden head bent. “I am eager to see these creatures that you hold so dear,” he said.

“Hello, Paris,” I said. Without standing, he raised his head and looked at me. Our eyes locked together. His were a deep amber, the color of a certain kind of brown honey that glows if held up to the sun.

“We are to go on an adventure together,” he said, rising to his feet.

“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “Hermione will lead us.”

Hermione must be with us. If we fled—why was I thinking of this?—she must come with us.

Flee. Leave Sparta and flee? But I was the queen. The queen did not flee. Why was I even thinking of this? He had not asked me to flee.

But what else can happen? I thought. He cannot stay on here as a guest.

No, no, it is impossible! I shook my head.

“Mother, you look possessed!” Hermione giggled. “You are shaking and jumping when there is no reason.”

Possessed. Yes, I was possessed.

Paris laughed, a golden laugh. “Come, I am eager to see your pets.” He steered her away, so that she was looking down the path, before he turned back to look at me.

The way through the palace woods quickly seemed as secret as the hidden pen itself. Tall trees closed overhead, their tops whispering. Early spring flowers poked up through the forest floor, white against the shade, where they would bloom and fade unseen. I let Paris and Hermione go far ahead of me; I wanted them to get to know one another. I prayed that she liked him.

But why? Helen, why? It can have no purpose.
Yet the fearsome roar of Aphrodite in my soul was as loud as . . . as loud as a waterfall I heard off to one side of the path.

I slowed my steps and turned to see where it might be. The sweet sound of flowing water always drew me. There seemed to be a grotto of some sort in the dim light ahead. Strange I had never discovered it in all my wanderings.

A breeze was murmuring with cool breath from that direction as I approached. I saw a gushing spring tumbling over rocks to empty into a deep oval pool, where its ripples spread out to stony edges. All was green, black, and white—green plants, black pool, white spray. And then, movement: the flash of human flesh.

Lovers were hidden here! I almost laughed at my own shock. Was I still so innocent? If I moved, they would surely see me and freeze. Feeling benevolent, I did not wish to disturb them. I was content to wait to make my escape. I sat down and held my breath. My only concern was that the path to Hermione’s pets might branch off and I would not know which to choose. Oh, let these lovers be quick about it! I thought, then chastised myself for being so uncharitable. Their voices drifted over to me, amplified by the pool.

“I feared you would be cross,” the woman was saying. There followed a silence.

Then, “No, I am happy. Happy beyond my telling. The gods smile on me at last, if they grant me a son.” That voice—it was that of Menelaus!

“Or perhaps two. I think there may be two in my womb.” I did not know this voice—or did I?

“That is too much to hope for! I am content with one.” Oh, it
was
Menelaus! No mistake.

I saw a stirring across the pool; bushes moved and I glimpsed an arm, a back. I could not think. I backed away, hoping they would not see me. But the bushes had closed over them again.

I stumbled back onto the path, running now to catch up. Menelaus. Menelaus and some woman. Who? It must be a palace servant, a slave girl. That girl who lingered at the feast, who brought Menelaus the locking box for his sea-journey.

Instead of horror, or betrayal, or lamenting,
How could he? Why?,
my first feeling was a rush of relief. I was free. Menelaus and his slave girl had set me free. Had Aphrodite arranged that as well? How well the goddess knows everything about us!

I ran and ran and eventually caught up with Paris and Hermione. I stopped and caught my breath.

“How you run!” said Paris, looking at me. “Your tunic flying out behind you, white against the deep shade of the forest—you could be a wood nymph.”

“Mother was a runner,” said Hermione. “When she was
young,”
she added.

“And how long ago was that?” asked Paris, winking. “A long time?”

“Before my wedding, when I was fifteen, I raced—and won. But once I married . . .” I shrugged.

“You could still beat them all,” said Paris.

“I will never know,” I said. We continued on the path. Menelaus! I could not cast the image from my mind. Everything I knew, everything I assumed about him, had been turned into disarray.

Then, suddenly, I was angry with him. Why must he add this complication? Then, just as suddenly, I started to laugh, and Paris and Hermione turned around. I had been overtaken with wild love, longing, desire for a foreign prince, and I blamed Menelaus for making things difficult?

Had any other queens fallen into a mad passion for a stranger? I could not think of any; but then, I was not thinking well. Phaedra’s passion for her stepson Hippolytus—also brought about by cruel Aphrodite—was within her own family. I could think of no other examples of what might befall us. Poor Phaedra killed herself, and Hippolytus was killed by Poseidon. But I would not kill myself, nor would Paris commit suicide. Why should we?

“Hurry up!” Hermione was gesturing. “And stop that silly laughing, Mother! If you don’t stop, I won’t let you see them!”

“Yes, my dear.” I joined them on the path. “My daughter, you have ventured far from the palace.”

“I wanted a secret place,” she said. “And my uncles hunt throughout the forest, so I had to find a place where they would not come. A place where no game could be. It’s a stony place, a place only tortoises would like.”

“Yes, they do like stony places,” said Paris. “There are many of them around Troy.”

“Near the sacred mountain of Parnassus there are many large ones, and they are all sacred to Pan,” said Hermione solemnly. She seemed so wise and old. Oh, my child . . . but are you old and wise enough to survive what must come? I was thankful she was as clever and mature as she was, beyond her years. But even so . . .

“We must make an excursion there someday,” said Paris. “I myself am longing to see this famous Parnassus.” He added softly, “There are so many things I wish to see. I think I could live forever and not be content, as there would still be things unseen before me.”

“Here we are,” cried Hermione. We rounded a bend in the path and came to an improvised pen made of branches and logs. She leaned over the edge and her voice rose in happy excitement. “Oh, oh! You have been naughty!” She climbed over the fence and disappeared from our sight. But Paris and I sought each other, drinking in one another’s image. His face filled my eyes, my soul, my mind. I could not take my eyes from him. He was looking back at me, silent. Already we did not need words.

Hermione’s head popped up. “Here he is, my prize one!” She was clutching a large tortoise with a scarred shell. “His name is Warrior!”

I looked at the creature. When faced head-on he looked disgruntled. His beady black eyes, set far apart, stared straight ahead with Olympian disdain.
It is all the same to me, what you do,
his expression implied. I wondered fleetingly whether a god inhabited him. The gods are all like that, I thought. They look at us, but they are never moved.

“And why do you call him Warrior?” asked Paris. He seemed genuinely, infectiously, interested.

“He battles the others,” said Hermione. “They hit each other like rams, and try to turn each other over. He just keeps on and on; he hammers away and always wins.”

“Perhaps you should have named him Agamemnon, after your uncle,” I said.

“Or Achilles,” said Paris. “That youngster—oh, he cannot be any older than I—who has already got such a reputation for fighting.”

“How have you ever heard of Achilles?” Could he mean that aggressive child who had come with Patroclus and the other suitors?

“Oh, in Troy they are much preoccupied with noble deeds at arms,” he said. “It is a passion in Troy. And this Achilles has made a name for himself, even reaching across the sea.”

“For what, I cannot imagine,” I said. “He was a horrid child.”

“Horrid children make the best warriors,” he said. “That is why I shall never make a great one. I was not horrid enough.” He laughed, and all the joy of a summer noontide was in it. Was I in love with him, or with his glad grace, his bask in the sunlit side of life? There are such people, rare people who promise to open the portals of secret joy to us.

“Here are more,” she said. “Come and look!” We leaned over the side of the pen and saw a carpet of moving creatures. They were all different sizes—some as small as an oil lamp, others large as a discus. They all wore a pattern of yellow and black, but no two bore the same markings.

“Why do you like them so?” asked Paris. “I must confess, I never thought about them one way or another.” He climbed over the fence easily and bent down to stroke the head of a venerable-looking one.

“I don’t know,” Hermione said. “I found one in the garden and he was so . . . I don’t know, calming. I could sit and look at him for a long time. He seemed so . . . wise. Like nothing could ever bother him or upset him. I want to be like that!”

I longed to ask,
What upsets you or bothers you?
But Paris said, “We all wish to be like that.” Perhaps we must not examine too closely, look too hard, at another. Even at our own child.

“Even grown-ups?” asked Hermione.

“Yes. Especially grown-ups,” Paris assured her.

Hermione gathered leaves and flowers for the tortoises, putting them in a big heap. The creatures moved slowly over to them and began eating, their leathery jaws clamping down on the greenery. It was very hard not to laugh. Finally I said, “I am sorry, my dear, but I do find these animals amusing.”

Hermione stroked one’s back. “I’ll never let them use you for a lyre!” she promised it.

The way back was lazy; we strolled along. I kept thinking of Menelaus and the slave girl, wondering how long this had gone on. My anger and amusement had drained away, and only curiosity remained. Aphrodite must have led him into it, as she had me. Perhaps it was her delayed punishment of Father for her grudge against him. We would never know; we could only accept. We had no power to do otherwise.

As Hermione walked along, head held high, I said, “Good, Hermione, that is the way queens walk. Isn’t it, Paris?”

He cocked his head. “My mother doesn’t have so much spring in her step,” he said. “Of course, she’s older.
Much
older. She’s had nineteen children, sixteen who live.”