Odysseus: The Return

11

I did not go in. I didn’t want to disturb an encounter whose very nature excluded me. I went to sit on my reef in the middle of the sea. The tide was low enough for me to walk out with the water at my waist. I sat there watching my shadow, which the sun kept lengthening over the sea as it descended towards the horizon. How could it disappear in the west only to reappear in the east after the night had ended? And why did its path become longer and longer, only to become shorter and shorter? Perhaps because the steeds that drew the sun’s chariot ran more swiftly or more slowly on their fiery charge? Only divine horses could measure their power so perfectly that light and shadow always expanded and retracted in such a constant manner.

I’d never asked anyone about that, neither Circe nor Calypso. Perhaps not even they had the answer. I turned just once towards the cavern as the sky was blazing with the colours of the setting sun. I saw a seagull flying out. She was still there, alone. The youth with the sun in his hair was gone.

Calypso came and sat next to me. Her shadow stretched out on the water next to mine.

‘How often will I come here to watch the sea, how often will I call your name, Odysseus!’

‘Why are you saying such things?’ I asked as she came closer. I could feel the heat and the scent of her body.

‘A messenger of the gods came to visit. The great father Zeus has ordered me to let you go.’

‘What does that mean? I could have left whenever I wanted to. I could have built myself a raft.’

‘You would never have succeeded unless I let you. Didn’t you know that? But now the time has come. I had so hoped that the gods had forgotten this island and me living on it. Someone surely interceded on your behalf. These things never happen by chance.’

‘My goddess!’ I thought in my heart, but no word came out of my mouth.

‘Yes, her. She’s jealous,’ replied Calypso without making a sound. And then she made her voice heard: ‘But come now, come with me. The tide is very high.’

She embraced me and rose in flight. She held her arm around my waist and we ascended together, turning as if we were dancing. We crossed the sea and flew over the island. I could see it all: the coves, the spiky rocks climbing towards the sky, the flower-filled valleys, the torrent that ran down the mountainside in a cascade of white foam and a mist of colours, as if the rainbow gaze of Iris the messenger were crossing it.

‘Was it she, colourful Iris, who brought you the message?’ I asked Calypso.

‘No, it was another messenger,’ and saying thus, she began to spin and our dance became closer, faster, more inebriating. I saw beneath me infinite flocks of birds seeking shelter for the night. I heard their calls as we passed through the red clouds of twilight. We cut through their swirling paths like a kite diving after its prey. I could never even have imagined such a thing. Then she let me fall. I plunged downward, the current of the air so strong it felt as though it was tearing out my hair, and then Calypso appeared close to me again. She looked into my tear-filled eyes and we rose up together. Our lips sought each other and our bodies did as well, with infinite, ardent force. We were enveloped by the ambrosial sweetly scented night. The rays of the stars wounded me like swords. And the creature I was embracing was miraculous. She let me fall again. It took my breath away, the wind whipped my tunic against my back so hard that it hurt. Then Calypso carried me up again. We soared through the leaves of the trees like the wind, the scent of the air redolent of soil and sky.

We fell again, and she let go of me. I couldn’t feel her any more, couldn’t touch her. She would not hit the ground. Nothing was impossible for a god. I would die.

I was lying on the bed next to her. She was nude, golden, shot through with light.

‘We made love all night,’ she said.

‘I dreamt that we were flying through the sky, over the river, above the trees, among the stars. .’

‘I wanted you to feel what it’s like to be immortal before you sail towards death.’

‘Are you saying that the gods are allowing me to leave so they can kill me at sea?’

‘I only want to say that you’re mortal and every day brings you closer to the end.’

‘How much of my time have I spent here on this island?’

‘Seven years.’

‘Seven years?’

‘Haven’t you counted the cuts on the trunk of the wild fig tree?’

‘I can’t count them any more. The scars left by my blade have clotted into a single wound.’

Thus I had drawn closer to death. Without knowing it, without counting the days, the months, the years. The gifts of the gods, even the most beautiful ones, are always paid for in tears.

‘Rest now. You have a long journey ahead of you.’

And so I slept there, next to her, inebriated and exhausted. I knew that my leaving would not be painful for her. The lustrous gods never weep; they are happy unto themselves. I, instead, found myself free to begin thinking again like I used to. Of the past and of the future, of food, water and the wind in my sail.

Calypso helped me. I found logs lying on the beach, ready for me to use, cut from a tree with lightweight wood that I knew would float well, along with tools and long ropes made of palm leaves. I bound the logs together, working eagerly, sweating like a craftsman eager to finish his work before the master comes looking for it. I cut a square block of cypress wood with the axe I’d found, made a hole in its centre and secured it to the middle of the raft as a base to support the mast. Then I cut the ends off the logs in decreasing order on either side of the central one, which I left full length, and assembled them to form a kind of prow. I split other logs, fashioned planks to form the sides, and then drove wedges cut from the cypress tree between the planks to secure them in place.

My mind went back to when I had built my own wedding bed snugly between the branches of an olive tree, to my youth and the hopes I had then, and a sadness flooded my heart, but I was not sorry about what I had done in my life. I’d experienced what no man before me ever had, I had visited unknown lands, met the shades of the pale dead heads. I had loved and hated. And yes, I had kindled tremendous hate as well, and perhaps would do so again if I survived, but I had left my mark on land and sea, I, son of a small island, son of a bitter destiny.

Then I loaded up the supplies that lovely Calypso, who remained hidden from me, had left on the beach: water, strong red wine, foods of every sort and honey and fruits and tubers and more rope and wood and cloth. I fashioned a yard and hung it from the top of the mast, and then attached a sail woven by the goddess of the cave. I sweated for four days without ever stopping and on the fifth day my work was done.

The time had come to say farewell.

I found her standing before me, in all her sublime beauty. She looked deeply into my eyes and advised me to always keep the stars of the Bear and the Herdsman on my left as I sailed, without ever losing sight of them. I could not make myself meet her gaze; it was like looking at the sea from a high cliff a moment before jumping into the void.

‘Divine Calypso. . it is love that I’ve felt for you every day and every night that I’ve spent on this island. If I were a vagabond, a man without ties, I would stay here with you until you tired of me. You can’t understand what I feel because you are an immortal goddess and you need no one. . but I must return, I have to see my family and my home again. My heart drives me to do so.’

‘I do understand. For as long as you’ve been with me, I’ve lived in your time, not in my own, which doesn’t exist. I’ve loved your eyes that change colour when you smile, your lies, even, and your marvellous stories, the words that sounded like spring rain on the flowers and on the waters of the sea. . I would follow you, if I could, on this raft, over the crest of the wave, wherever the wind carries us.’

I thought I saw tears glittering in her eyes and liquid pearls falling down her perfect cheeks. I know that’s not possible, because the gods do not weep. But she wanted me to believe her, and nothing is impossible for the immortals.

The wind was favourable and it swiftly distanced me from the island but we kept our eyes on one another, I from my raft and she from her stone in the middle of the sea until the broad back of the never-sleeping sea rose to hide us from each other’s sight and separated us forever.

My boat slipped over the waves much more quickly than I could ever have imagined. The sky was clear and the wind constant. I had taken my fishing line and hooks, as well as a string net that I dragged behind the boat from a rope tied to the oarlock at the helm. I pulled it in every now and then and found scores of fish wriggling inside, bright and silvery. I ate them raw because no fire could have remained lit so close to the water and the spray of the frothy waves. I always kept a firm grip on the helm, by day and night. When the urge to sleep overwhelmed me, I would lash the oar to its lock and lie down on a little platform I’d built at a corner of the raft. There I kept the covers that Calypso had given me, there I would close my eyes and rest, but only for the briefest time before returning to my place at the oar. When darkness surrounded me on the infinite, deserted sea, my gaze would turn to the Bear and the Herdsman in the sky, as Calypso had ordered me.

As the days passed I became increasingly weary. My limbs ached and my eyes burned as if they were full of sand, but I tried to keep them open as long as possible so a sudden storm would not take me by surprise. When, exhausted by my long vigil and the strain of handling the raft alone, fatigue got the better of me, I’d let myself sleep but I never allowed myself total unconsciousness. I was sleeping but aware at the same time. For as long as I could manage it.

Once, in a rare moment of complete abandonment, it felt as though I were walking down the beach on Calypso’s island and I heard her voice in my heart. She was saying: ‘Poseidon, the blue god, will soon make his return from the land of the burnt faces.’

I jerked awake and understood my goddess’ secret warning: with the return of the spring, Poseidon would leave the company of the Ethiopians. He’d enjoyed the hospitality of those simple, innocent people over the winter months, as was his wont, but now he was likely to be on his way back to his own sea. Would he spot me? Would my tiny raft attract his attention? I went straight to the helm and released the steering oar from its lock so I could govern it with my own hands. I grasped the yard line in my left hand to be able to turn the sail into the direction of the wind. I’d used my knife to carve a notch in the mast for every day gone by. Seventeen cuts that formed no scar on the dry wood.

I had been sailing for seventeen days and sixteen nights with the same, constant wind and I had never sighted a single ship or boat. As I scanned the horizon in the hope of making out some sign of human presence, I thought I could see the outline of a land mass emerging from the waves. An island or the extreme tip of the continent? My heart started pounding. Could I put my misadventures behind me? Was my ill fortune ending? After all, hadn’t the prophecy proved true? Here I was returning late and broken after losing all my comrades. What else could my implacable enemy possibly want from me?

Alas, I was wrong. His ire was not yet spent.

At first I heard the sound of distant thunder, a low rumbling. Then a black cloud started to advance from the north, on my left. A sudden burst of wind made the mast groan and creak in its base. It made a quarter-turn and the sail swung almost fully in the direction of the wind. The raft veered to the right, the left side rose from the surface of the sea, the right sank and water flooded inside. Although I had taken such care to bind the logs tightly, they started knocking against one another.

The sea swelled, the waves whipped up higher and higher, lightning tore through the black cloud that covered the sky and thunder crashed over my head with a deafening roar. Night descended black all around me and I knew I was lost. My heart shouted: ‘This is the end! I’ll never manage to save myself this time. It would have been a thousand times better to die on the fields of Troy, fighting under the sun with my comrades of a hundred battles, clad in blinding bronze. The gods trifle with me!’

I yelled out, into the furious sky and sea: ‘Come on then! Kill Odysseus! What are you waiting for? You have wind, lightning, thunder, billows! Don’t you have the guts? I’m alone, naked, nothing but a puny man. You’ve taken everything from me, take my life! There’s nothing else left.’

The titanic forces were listening. A gust of wind arrived screaming, flew from one cresting wave to the next, sliced through the foam and sent it spraying like thin mist into the black air. It hit the sail full force, cracked the mast and carried them both far off like a winter leaf in a stormy night. A swell came rushing in, tall as the walls of a fortress, crashing into the raft and disintegrating it. The logs burst apart, with only a few ropes holding them together here and there.

I was thrown into the sea and sank into a vortex that dragged me down deeper and deeper, into an abyss of darkness and silence. I could not make my way to the surface. I was losing my senses and any notion of my existence. And yet, some mysterious force breathed life into my limbs, my arms moved, grasped, reached, stronger and faster, until I burst out of the whirlpool.

I spat salty water, floundered, found myself once again in the terrifying roar of wind and sea in the eye of the storm. As I was pulled upwards by a gigantic wave, I saw below me what was left of my raft and I began to swim with all my strength to reach it. I grabbed the last remaining side rail and hoisted myself aboard. Four logs were still held together by the ropes and pins wedged into the wood, and I caught my breath. I breathed in deeply, waiting for my heart to slow its furious pounding.

I do not know how much time passed as the wreck of my raft, without a steering oar or a mast or a sail, was carried away on the seething waves. I had no idea of where I was. Tossed in every direction, I felt that my bones were surely broken. I was bleeding everywhere and my skin was scraped raw. Then something happened that left me so astounded I forgot the fury of the hurricane. From the water shot a black coot, like an arrow loosed from a bow. It alighted on the railing. The wind ruffled its feathers, white at the neck, and promised to blow the bird away at any moment. That tiny creature resisted as though it had the claws of an eagle. In its beak was a length of lightweight cloth. A voice sounded in my heart: ‘Wrap it around your loins and throw yourself into the sea.’

My goddess, finally!

I tried to get closer, pulling myself hand over hand along the railing and shouting: ‘It’s you!’ I stretched my fingers out towards the water-soaked cloth. As soon as I touched it, the coot let it go, rose up in flight and then dived back into the water. It disappeared.

‘What did you say?’ I shouted. ‘I’m to throw myself into the water, with this? Is this a trick?’ I stayed on the raft, biding my time, watching and waiting until I could make out the stretch of land that I’d spotted in the distance before the storm had come. I understood that what my heart had heard was the truth. My goddess had shown me the way and given me help to get there. The little that was left of my raft took the full brunt of a violent wave and shattered into pieces. I dived into the sea and swam for some time under water. I needed to hide, to vanish. My enemy had to be convinced that revenge had been served. I would emerge now and then only to dive back under. In doing so, I could see that I was getting nearer to the coast.

When I was rather close, I became alarmed first by the churning sand on the seabed and then by the sight of a wall of rock bristling with jagged points, pinnacles and sharp spurs. I realized that the sea was dashing me against a reef. I’d be cut to pieces. So my trials were still not over. I was very close by then, too close. A wave a bit stronger than the others flung me against the rocks. I hung on hard with my bare hands, but the undertow snatched me away again. The skin of my hands was scraped and I was bleeding profusely as the sea dragged me off. The salty water burned my raw flesh like fire. I screamed with pain but did not give up my unending fight against cruel destiny. I swam along the coast to get clear of the reef, seeking a less hostile spot to get ashore, but the light of day was fading and soon it would be night. I was seized by anguish; I realized that if the reef continued at any length I would become lost, my strength would fail me and after so much struggling I would drown. But then I remembered that the coot had brought me a piece of cloth to wrap around my loins; my goddess had wanted me to know that I would be saved.

All at once the sky opened and tattered holes in the clouds let through the rays of the setting sun, allowing me to get a clear view of the coast. The cliffs were lower and the reefs were thinning out, and when the sun was no more than a red slice on the horizon beneath a dark swarm of galloping clouds, a low, sandy beach opened up before me. The limpid waters of a river glistened and flowed into the sea. I could feel fine gravel under my feet, and then sand. I was touching bottom. I began to walk, slowly at first and then more quickly until I was out of the water and on dry land.

I’d been in the water for what seemed like an endless time, but my throat was parched. I put my head into the river and began to drink in long gulps. I felt alive again. I stood up and prayed: ‘Oh god of this river that has welcomed me and sated my thirst, you whose waters have saved my life, accept my gratitude and have pity on me, your humble servant, tossed up onto this land by the sea after having lost all I ever had.’ I fell to my knees and wept, sobbing, shaken to the very core of my being.

When I got up again a voice sounded in my heart: ‘Return what I gave you. Walk backwards to the water’s edge, remove the cloth and toss it behind you into the sea!’ It was the coot. He had come to take back the miraculous cloth that had led me to safety. I did what my heart ordered. One step after another I walked backwards towards the lapping waves. They had shed their devastating power and were gently dampening the sand. I took off the cloth I’d wrapped around my loins and, without turning, threw it into the water behind me. I heard the cry of a bird, then nothing.

I was naked, like the day I was born in the palace up on the mountainside. I no longer had a single ship, warriors or weapons, nor treasure plundered from a conquered land. I was alone, without a companion and without a rag to cover myself. I was crusty with salt, my beard was long and my hair was tangled, and yet, for the first time in many years, I felt free. As if I had been born into a new life.

I walked to the edge of an oak forest

and advanced among those ancient trees, treading on the thick layer of dry leaves that rustled under my feet and then, when my knees would no longer hold me up, I lay down, covered myself with leaves, gathered more under my head to serve as a pillow and I stretched out to rest on that dark, unfamiliar soil. Just then the moon was rising from the sea.