The Women of Troy

14

The next time I went to see Hecuba, the arena was being prepared for an archery competition and I stopped for a moment to watch the targets being set up: crudely painted faces of Trojan warriors left over from training sessions during the war. As many events as possible were being held in the arena because it was comparatively sheltered. Some games—archery and spear-throwing among them—would have been impossible at the training grounds up on the headland where the wind blew even more fiercely than it did down here. I’d turned away and was edging through the outskirts of the crowd towards Hecuba’s hut when the door opened and Calchas came out. We bowed to each other. I was astonished he’d bothered to visit Hecuba; he’d always seemed so totally focused on cultivating powerful men. For a moment, I thought he looked as if he wanted to stop and talk, but then he appeared to think better of it and strode off.

As soon as I entered the hut, I could see that Hecuba looked brighter. Her blankets were folded neatly at the foot of her bed and she was walking, though rather unsteadily, up and down the hut.

“Well,” I said. “Look at you.”

She actually smiled. “I’ll be glad to sit down though.”

I helped her back onto the bed. Not wanting to arrive empty-handed, I’d brought figs, grapes and white cheese and I was pleased to see Hecuba force a little down. There was a jug of wine already on the floor beside her. She was used to the fine wines of Priam’s court, but I noticed again that this rough, peasant stuff went down easily enough, bringing a slight flush to her cheeks.

“What did Calchas want?”

“Oh, what does he ever want? You can’t always tell, can you?” She seemed to be considering whether to say more. “That’s the second time he’s been. We had a good laugh—well, I did. You won’t credit it, but as a young man, he was really beautiful. You know, not just a bit good-looking—absolutely stunning.” She sighed. “Ah, well, some people should just die young, I suppose.”

I think I was rather shocked by her flippancy. The fact is, I couldn’t keep pace with her changing moods. One day she was on the beach, howling for Priam; the next, she mentioned him quite casually, as if he’d just gone ahead of her into the next room. I was nineteen. I knew nothing. It’s taken me nearly fifty years to be able to say: I understand Hecuba.

But I could see she was enjoying herself: drinking wine, eating cheese, gossiping…

“Everybody was chasing him—men and women. Not that he ever ran very fast.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “There was one night, Priam and I were coming back from dinner, and Priam spotted somebody ahead he didn’t want to see—one of his counsellors—oh, I can’t remember his name—never mind, nice man but my god he could go on! So, we did a detour through the bedrooms, and you know how they open off each other? Well, the door of one of them was thrown open and there was Calchas on all fours between two lords…” She giggled. “Plugged at both ends.”

“What did you do?”

“Oh, somebody had the presence of mind to slam the door. Priam laughed about it, but it was a bit much really. I mean, Calchas was supposed to be celibate. God, he was trouble…And yet you look at him now…Did you ever see such a stick?”

She was enjoying herself, regaling me with gossip from the Trojan court. “Holy Ilium” Troy used to be called, because of its profusion of temples—but it did have another side. I’d been dimly aware of that even as a young girl. So, Hecuba and I ate, drank and laughed—but I felt all the time there was something else, something she wasn’t getting to. We lapsed into silence for a moment, and then she said: “I want to see Cassandra.”

Perhaps because I’d lost my own mother at such an early age, I’ve never been able to bear the thought of mothers and daughters being separated. “All right,” I said, cautiously. “Though it won’t be easy. I doubt she’s allowed out of her hut.”

No reply. Hecuba was sitting with her head turned pointedly away, in her sulky, moulting-bird-of-prey mode. I was remembering Cassandra’s prophecy that her marriage to Agamemnon would lead directly to his death, to the fall of the royal House of Atreus and the destruction of the kingdom that had destroyed Troy.

“Do you believe her? I mean, about Agamemnon being killed?”

Hecuba shrugged. “She gets carried away. People always say it’s divine frenzy, but I could never see it. I think she just makes things up to suit herself.”

Difficult to believe your daughter’s a prophet: the little girl you potty-trained and sang to sleep at night.

“It’s all very precise, though, isn’t it? She says his wife’s going to throw a net over him while he’s in the bath and then hack him to pieces with an axe. Why would she do that?”

“Because he sacrificed their daughter to get a wind for Troy. They were all stuck there waiting, starting to fight among themselves—same as they are now—the whole thing was falling apart…So, he sacrificed her.” She’d been staring into space, but then suddenly she turned and looked straight at me. “I’d kill the bastard, wouldn’t you?”

“She says she’s going to die too.”

“I know what she says.” Her expression softened. “She was always frightened of nets when she was a little girl. We used to put nets over the children’s beds at night to stop insects getting at them, but she’d never let me put one over hers; she always used to scream and pull it down. I gave up in the end. Of course, she got bitten to bits. She was riving at herself all the following day. I just said, ‘Serves you right.’ I actually made her sit down and count the bites—forty-seven, forty-seven—but it didn’t make any difference, she still wasn’t having it.”

Such a mixture of emotions flitting across her face: regret, love, guilt, exasperation…Mothers and daughters have their battles, I knew that—though my own mother had died before I reached the awkward age and I had only happy memories of her. But the impression I was getting from Hecuba was of a really troubled relationship in which nothing had ever been put right.

“I need to see her.”

What could I say? “All right, I’ll do my best.”

The archery contest was well underway now; our conversation was being punctuated by roars and groans from the men outside.

When I left, I was confronted by a solid wall of backs. There was a tense silence as one of the contestants took aim, then a thud as the arrow hit the target, followed by a buzz from the spectators. Peering between the rows of backs, I saw the targets standing in a line and the painted faces of Trojan fighters torn to shreds. So much hatred; you felt it must’ve soaked into the ground beneath our feet.

I turned away and walked on.