Odysseus: The Return

Epilogue

It took me many more months to cover the last stretch of cruel winter. Every moment of every day was filled with remembering. It barely seems possible that I could relive every instant of my life so intensely, so vividly. It was as though my mind had diffused and expanded my experience to fill that void, so that nothing could exist outside my body. Nothing but myself occupied the limitless space that surrounded me.

I navigated alone, without a single comrade, with only an oar to remind me that I had once crossed the sea, that I had fought impossible monsters and creatures. Nothing on this journey had reawakened the forces that in the past had enabled me to carry out my endeavours; there had been neither glory nor meaning in the only combat I’d been forced to engage in.

I felt like I’d become another person, in another place and in another world, and this pained and alarmed me. I felt my roots being yanked from the earth I knew by a force that I could not defend myself against. Every yank wounded me, spilling blood, not shining sap. My past life seemed alien to me; something that had evaporated with my passing. Changeable creatures, unfamiliar divinities confined to remote, unreachable places. . places of magical beauty, blissful islands ruled by divine sovereigns, storms of wind and lightning, raging mountains of water: all this faded away in those twilights when the sun never set, in those delusive, tremulous lights that fluttered in the night sky. I was the only thinking animal that could live in that desert of white.

Then this morning, when I opened my eyes and stretched my numb, aching limbs, I found myself immersed in fog. I was lost in a milky fluid that barely let me discern a globe above me that looked much more like a pale moon than the sun that brings light to mortal men. I couldn’t even distinguish the features of the ground that surrounded me, nor remember what it looked like before I fell asleep. But then the sun rose high over the horizon, and soon the fog began to dissolve, revealing a tall sparkling rampart beaded with pearls of pure light, and I thought: can this be the wall of ice that Calchas spoke of?

Is what I face truly the last obstacle? Will I overcome this one too? Can I manage to break through this barrier? Suddenly, I’m not sure why, I know that I can.

The wall is in front of me now: blinding glare that stings my eyes. I have to defend them with strips of cloth, ripping the merest slits in them so I can still see. I’ve had to tie the oar to my belt with shreds of leather and drag it after me. The climb is ever more arduous. The sharp ice lacerates my hands, the trail I leave is of scarlet stains on the immaculate white. How and when will I find the victims to sacrifice to the god of the abyss? When and how will I meet the man who will ask the question that will finally free me of my curse? I look behind me every now and then. My breath is ragged, the prayers I murmur to my goddess a cry of pain and hope. I gaze back at the horizon I crossed so long ago and then move forward again, towards the icy crest.

Slowly, gritting my teeth, I climb up and up. As I near the summit, I’m certain that a revelation awaits me on the other side and I try to imagine what I will see.

I’m just a few steps away from the peak. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. I’m reminded of the snowy mountaintops we glimpsed in Arcadia so long ago, when as a boy I followed the hero Laertes my father towards the sanctuary of the Wolf King.

I’m at the top! I drag the oar towards me and I plunge it into the deep snow so it casts a long shadow. The plain opens wide below, furrowed by raging torrents, blazing in the rays of the sun. I shout with all the voice I have in me, with all my strength, I shout to the men and the gods, to the wind and the peaks I see in the distance. I shout so that someone may hear me and show himself. I can no longer bear this solitude.

But my voice is lost in the silence.

I take up the oar with the butterfly carved into its handle, moulded to the hand of the fallen comrade who drowned long ago in a distant sea. And so I descend the wall of ice, heading towards the plain. The wind starts to blow again, impetuous.

All of a sudden, a roar. The snow in front of me seems to melt and a towering column of water erupts from the ground, rising higher and higher. Behind the transparent column appears a figure wrapped in a vortex. A deafening laugh resounds over all the earth, his eyes inscrutable, locks blue-green like the deepest maelstrom, body liquid as the swirling sea. .

‘Did you really believe that you’d arrived?’ Voice of thunder tapering off into a long gurgle, a distant roaring sea monster.

‘Did you really believe that you’d reached the end of your long journey? Where is the man, then, who looks at your oar and demands an answer? Where are the victims to be sacrificed to my spirit? Run! Run, glorious Odysseus, crafty and resourceful son of Laertes, run for as long as your breath and your life hold out, run, if you can!’

The earth swallowed him instantly and I can no longer say what I am seeing or not seeing, hearing or not hearing. All that remains is darkest despair. The wind has picked up, ever keener, and a shiver raises my skin under my tattered clothing. Is it the cold that is chilling me to the bone or is it the trembling inside me that I’ve yearned for so long, the quiver that tells me that my goddess is near?

‘Athena!’ I shout in my heart. ‘Athena!’ I’m surrounded by an infinite white expanse. The horizon is deserted in every direction — even the wall of ice has disappeared. The sky is empty, the light unflickering. Perhaps it is morning, perhaps evening. It makes no difference. But there it is, a black speck, far away in the distance. .

Where have I already seen this? When?

It advances towards me, swiftly, becoming bigger and bigger! I’m certain I’ve already seen this. Or did I dream it?

I don’t know how much time passes before, finally, he reaches me. Him. The Wolf King, on a swift, wheel-less chariot drawn by wolves that seems to fly over the snow. .

My dream at the sanctuary of Arcadia: this was what I dreamed!

‘Oh my goddess who touches me with a shiver, I beg you, reveal the meaning of this vision: is it he who will ask me the question? A hero racing swiftly on a chariot drawn by wolves?’ It stops, all at once and a voice in my heart says to me, ‘Draw closer!’ There he is, he has stepped out of the chariot and is standing beside it. He is staring at me and my heart leaps in my chest.

His hair is run through with silver threads, like mine, his beard is like the one that frames my face, on his chest hangs a ribbon of cloth with a little stone rose. . only his clothing is different: the bracelet he wears at his wrist and the boots he wears on his feet. The mystery opens before my eyes like a black cloud rent by the wind after a storm! The cloak on his shoulders is fastened by a golden pin, shaped like a deer in the clutches of a hound. My Penelope! The desire to weep is huge, I feel the tears leaving my eyes but I see them falling down his cheeks. .

‘Draw closer,’ says the voice in my heart, and I draw closer, so close that I am him and he is me and I am no longer. There’s only one man on that snowy expanse.

Here come other chariots, drawn by more wolves. They stop next to mine, next to his. Voices shout: ‘Commander!’ They are the voices of Antiphus, Sinon, Polites, Elpenor, Eurylochus, Euribates!

This is what I’ve found beyond the wall of ice: another time, another place, another where, another why, and another adventure with other comrades who I know but who don’t recognize me. What does it matter? I tie the oar to the chariot as the others laugh: ‘What will you need that for, commander? There’s not a boat to be found in these parts!’

‘What does that matter?’ I answer. ‘Onward!’ And I set my wolves off at a gallop, shouting other words in a language that is different yet similar. Mine, regardless.

What does it matter? I am what I am: a small king of a kingdom I no longer have. . son of a little island, son of a bitter fate. I, who have faced monsters and invincible heroes without trembling, I, who have been overcome by fear and fled, I, who have shouted the names of my fallen comrades and I who did not hesitate to cast them into deadly danger. . why? Curiosity, the invincible desire to push on, beyond the last limit and beyond the last horizon. I, who have wept, laughed, rejoiced, suffered, I who have loved and hated. I, who believe in my goddess, in my bride, in my land, and who flee from them all. I who am and who will be until one day, who knows where, who knows when, I’ll meet a man who asks me whether what I carry on my shining shoulder is a winnowing blade to separate the wheat from the chaff. On that day I will re-embrace my Penelope for all time, and my son, clad in blinding bronze. And I will reign over happy peoples. I, who am everyone and anyone.

I who am No One.