Thoreau Bound, page 43
“And from that great revelation in Athens,” asked Pateras, “how did you come to return here?”
“In that moment, Father, I realized that though I had walked across this most beautiful section of the beach ten thousand times, I had never crossed these sands after the midnight hour. I had always been too busy at that time, between midnight and dawn, either reading, or painting a picture, or — too much of the time it was this — making love. How funny this hits me now: my obsession with sex prevented me from discovering the sexual utopia.”
“Kosmos,” said Pateras, “once again you are talking nonsense and smoke. When you speak from your own experience you are a genius, but every time you philosophize you sound like a raving idiot. Will you please sit down out of the way, next to Priestos, and allow us to continue with the joy of our play?”
Kosmos shook his head.
“Father, I will not sit down! I came here tonight to find bacchanalian revels of unbridled abandon. And until I see these wild sexploits, I will not move one dot on the Greek letter ‘i’. I will stand rooted to this spot like an olive tree, like a granite mountain, like the stubbornest ass in Crete!”
44
The Wool From An Ass
Staring at the face of Beatrice Loverly, I knew I had found my paradise at last. Her eyes glowed as she observed this great confrontation between Father and Son, Truth and Deception, Reality and Dreams. What did I want now? ... I wanted Beatrice to smile at me the same way she’d smiled during the very first moment when we’d met. Kissing her now, I reasoned, I might win her or lose her, but I would get her attention at the least. As I inched my face closer to her face, the perfect kiss was quashed. Beatrice raised her hand. Without turning her head to look at me, she pressed one finger gently against my lips.
The cicadas were singing now, the sea-waves slapped against the shore, the campfire crackled, bursts of godly laughter roared from the mouth of Pateras.
“Kosmos, you are seeking the perennial male fantasy: a cult of anarchy and sex. What you have found, my son, is a troupe of players who meet together in the wee hours of the mornings to perform. So if you insist on remaining here for eternity, then at least introduce us to your two friends.”
When Beatrice and I stepped from behind the wall and walked toward Kosmos and Pateras, the crowd first murmured “Xenos!” and then greeted the beautiful woman and man with shouts of “Yasu!” and applause.
Pateras took the hand of Beatrice in his left hand, and held my hand with his right.
“You have heard the word ‘xenos’,” said Pateras. That Greek word means ‘stranger’, and it means also ‘guest’. It comes from our ancient tradition of greeting strangers with the most perfect hospitality. Please sit here and enjoy our performance.”
Then he pressed my hand into the hand of Beatrice.
“I see here a man madly in love with a woman,” Pateras said, “and a woman who — ”
Penelope glanced at Pateras, and he changed his tone.
“ — a woman who will reveal her own mind when she is ready to make it known. Kosmos, are you ready to get out of the way?”
Kosmos crossed his arms.
“The moon will fall into your lap, Father, before I move one millimeter from this spot.”
“And you are so certain, my son, that all this is not a delusion of your romantic imagination that transforms grains of sand into a sacred worlds, wildflowers into Heavens, ordinary women into goddesses, and mice into miracles? ... Could it be, Kosmos, that the paradise you dream about finding is nothing more than what we Greeks call ‘onew pokeh’ — something that does not exist — wool from an ass?”
Six of the players ran and positioned themselves in front of the campfire. Three of them formed the body of a donkey, while the other three combed the donkey, and then searched the combs for the unattainable wool.
“Laugh at me if you must, Father” said Kosmos. “You can’t change my mind, not with force, not with farce, not with reason, not with ridicule. Here I will stand until this beard grows as long as the waves and as white as the foam of the sea.”
“Kosmos, do you doubt the words of your own true Father?”
“I doubt!”
“You think that a man who has practiced and perfected fifty-five years of flawless parenting — and has never told one falsehood to his son — would suddenly deceive him now?”
“I think!”
“You imagine that these exhausted, elderly and enfeebled senior citizens, some of them almost one hundred years old”— Pateras waved his hand at his troupe of players — “would have the energy and the desire to do more about sex than just talk and pretend?”
“I imagine!”
“You believe that there is more to this gathering than an innocent group of friends sharing their love of Greek literature and drama?”
“I believe!” shouted Kosmos.
“Do you know, Kosmos, what I must now say to cure you of this dear delusion?”
“Tell me, Father.”
Once again, Pateras joined the hand of Beatrice with my hand, and as he spoke his deep voice sounded like the sea.
“Let those love now, who never loved before,
And those who always loved, now love the more!”
A sea gull flew above and cried three times. Pateras looked into the eyes of Beatrice, then me, then Penelope, then his faithful son.
“Kosmos!”
“Father?”
“I say ... Welcome to Sextopias.”
At this word the troupe shouted a resounding cheer, the musicians in the troupe played a lively Greek folk song, and the remaining men and women joined hands and danced — shouting, singing, and laughing — around the light-giving fire.
Kosmos watched with childlike eyes, shaking his head amazed.
“Even at the very end,” he murmured, “I can hardly believe it myself.”
Penelope kissed his forehead as tears streamed down the man’s cheeks and fell softly on the worlds of sand.
45
Welcome to Sextopias
Cool night breezes caress the skin and make the senses quick. Music bursts from drums, wood flutes, lyres, bouzoukis, and the most moving instrument of all — the human voice. The fiery music makes them dance. Holding hands, the sixty-odd Sextopians — far more women than men — dance in a circle around the newcomers: around me, Beatrice, and Kosmos. One at a time, each of the dancers breaks from the dancing circle, approaches us smiling, and then welcomes us with handshakes, hugs, kisses, and warm words.
Like a child watching a circus clown, Kosmos stared wide-eyed and amazed. His face revealed his whole mind. Thousands of times he had sung and danced without thinking, but now he was thinking this: art and life were about to become one. What would happen, his wide-eyes wondered, if the joy of the dancer, the deep concentration of the painter, the passion of the musician, the truthfulness of the author — what would happen if these qualities were applied not to the arts that created things, but to human relationships and the arts of loving and being? ... Those cosmic eyes that dreamed of paradise now dripped with tears. Penelope, her hand filled with sprigs of furry sage leaves, wiped the teardrops and then kissed Kosmos on his ruddy cheeks.
My eyes, too, glanced gratefully at wondrous things: at the stars and the sea and the white beach sand; at the singing dancers; at the proud posture of Pateras; at the awe-filled eyes of Kosmos; at the stupendous bosom of Penelope. Yet these were fleeting glances, because my stares ascended to the radiant face of one wondrous woman: Beatrice Loverly. A woman of the world, her lovely face looked English, her red lips spoke seven European languages, her dark hair had been spun into silken French braids.
The gaze of Beatrice remained focused on the dancers as she watched me from the corner of her eye.
“These eyes of mine are not thy only Paradise,” she said. “This is quite remarkable, isn’t it, Thoreau?”
“What do you mean, Beatrice?”
“The way these people look at each other with so much joyfulness as they dance and sing.”
Kosmos placed his rough hand on my shoulder, pulled me a few steps away from Beatrice, and then spoke with his usual self-confidence.
“Love is a murky paradox,” he said, nodding at the woman I admired. “If you want to melt her, then ignore her completely and act like a block of ice.”
A moment later Penelope stroked my shoulder, glanced at Beatrice, and then whispered into my ear.
“Love is a clear glass of water, there is nothing more honest than love. Give her attention, that’s what every woman craves and needs! When you tell her how much you love her, she will fly into your arms and never leave.”
We heard a roar of laughter, a throng of people shouting the Greek words “Neh, neh, neh!” — “Yes, yes, yes!” — and then a man and a woman approached us, one holding a measuring tape and another holding a scissors and a skein of white cotton cloth. First Kosmos was measured, then Beatrice and I were measured separately, and then — for some reason unknown to me — we were measured together standing back-to-back.
Our backs and the backs of our heads were touching, as the measuring tapes twined around my strong muscles and the woman’s voluptuous curves.
“Beatrice,” I said, “Should a man and a woman speak to each other with complete and unabashed honesty?”
“Of course they should, Thoreau,” she replied. “But only if they are genuine friends. A man and a woman in love require a certain dash of deception to keep the love-fires burning.”
Her lips brushing accidentally against my cheek knocked the words out of my mind — I forgot what I had planned to tell her. Instead of saying something simple and sincere, I mumbled a quote from the great philosopher Plato.
“Even stronger than geometry is the intense power of Eros.”
Lady Loverly raised her ring finger, and the light from the campfire revealed her ring’s glittering gem.
“Do you see this significant diamond, Mr. Thoreau? It was given to me many years ago by my rich and abominable husband. Somehow he seduced me into thinking that the things money can buy are more powerful than geometry and Love combined. My dear friend, I am very married and you are very indigent. Have you forgotten that you and I inhabit two vastly different worlds?”
Novels by Dickens dispelled my distinctions of class.
“We travel in different circles but we revolve around the same point. Beatrice, let’s run away and live together like Percy and Mary, Lorenzo and Frieda, Henry and June.”
She smiled at this idea, and then her voice scolded me like an older sister, with just the right amount of compassion but too much good sense.
“Let us suppose for a moment,” she said softly, “that Beatrice the realist and Thoreau the dreamer yield to a foolish impulse and agree to spend one year together, revolving and intersecting. How would we live? Are you one of those exploiting men who sits at home and lets his wife work two jobs to support them both — a man who lives by the sweat of his Frau?”
As Beatrice crushed my hopes with these hard words, Penelope grabbed her hand. The Sextopian men and women had separated into two distinct circles. Penelope led Beatrice into the center of the women’s circle, where they both were hidden by the ring of women singing and clapping hands around them. The women shouted wildly as the British-flag dress of Beatrice flew into the air, and seconds later Beatrice emerged wearing the white chiton — the loose-flowing toga-like gown — that the Sextopian tailors had made.
Likewise, amidst boisterous shouting, Kosmos and I were drawn into the center of the men’s circle, where we both removed our clothes. As the men clapped and shouted sharp remarks, we dressed ourselves in the white chitons that fit us perfectly.
Pateras raised his hand. One of the Sextopians noticed this, and she ceased talking as she raised her hand, and soon another woman saw this woman’s hand raised, and one by one all hands were raised, all legs stopped moving, and all mouths ceased to chatter and sing.
When silence descended, Pateras opened both arms to the starry night sky.
“Ye gods on Olympus!” he shouted. “Fill my hour so that I shall not say, whilst I have done this, ‘Alas, an hour of my life is gone — ’”
The Sextopians chanted back: “Alas, an hour of my life is gone!”
And then Pateras continued his prayer —
“But rather, ‘Behold! I have lived an hour!’”
“Behold! I have lived an hour!” was shouted back louder than the waves.
A merry cheer resounded from the Sextopians, and then all eyes stared at their white-haired chief.
“I am called Pateras,” he said.
Another cheer rose from the crowd, which Pateras quieted by raising his hand.
“Most of you already know the Casanova of Crete, my son, Kosmos.”
Silence met this name, except for the sound of hissing onions sizzling in a frying pan.
“We have two guests more,” said Pateras. “This goddess on my right is Beatrice Loverly.”
Whistles and loud applause — especially loud from the Sextopian men — were changed to groans of disappointment when Priestos shouted:
“The wedding ring on that goddess’s finger is bigger than my nose!”
Pateras laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“She is married, and we may assume that her husband would like her to stay that way. ... Now please welcome our third guest this evening, standing on my left, a young Apollo who calls himself Thoreau.”
Whistles and loud applause — especially from the Sextopian women — changed to loud laughter when some of the women shouted aloud to everyone what each mind was thinking all alone.
—“He’s a fountain of youth — he makes old women feel twenty again!”
—“Thoreau, there’s nothing like experience — I bet you’ve never made love with a woman who is seventy-five years young!”
—“He’s long and thin and covered with skin!”
—“He is built like a statue!”
And at this, Beatrice Loverly made the crowd laugh more — and me as well — when she shouted:
“He is built like a statue, but statues have no heart!”
When the laughing and shouting died down, Pateras spoke again to his attentive audience.
“As you know, dear friends, we are what we have chosen to be: a school for sexuality and love. What is our business? To make a new world, a world where men and women can live in complete freedom and openness. It is dangerous work, this new-world making, and to survive in this business, you need to have iron balls. Unfortunately, mine are getting a little rusty.”
Laughter rang all around again, and then Pateras spoke more.
“And what do we teach each other at this school? ... Sincerity, Passion, and Tenderness. No one who completes our courses would have the heart to harm a butterfly, to pull a gun trigger, to eat an animal, to deceive a friend or lover, to say one word untruthful or unkind.”
Kosmos clutched my arm. With great emotion in his voice he spoke to me.
“Here, they are truly doing,” he said, “what I have barely been able to dream.”
Pateras now turned his warm glances toward Kosmos and Penelope.
“I have already told you,” he said, “that in our beautiful Greek language, we have a word ‘xenos’ which means two things: stranger and guest. And we maintain a three-thousand-year-old tradition that lets every honest stranger on Greek soil be treated with unsurpassed hospitality. In the time of Homer, during the first moment that a stranger arrived he was not asked to tell the tales of his travels and his life at home. Don’t think that those Homeric Greeks were not burning with curiosity, just like the Greek people today! No, our famous hospitality demanded that first, before the talking, the stranger-guest would be feasted with the tastiest foods. Here in our Sextopias, we have enhanced that old tradition: we eat before we talk, and before the eating, we enjoy that something which is even more essential than consuming food — ”
An old man in the crowd — the one they had called Priestos — exploded with mirth, falling down onto the soft sand in fits of laughter.
Smiling as ever, Pateras now glanced at me and Beatrice Loverly.
“Sextopians are a community of Cupids,” he said. “Whenever we see that Love is blind — that two persons who are perfectly matched for each other cannot realize that their intercourse should be more than friendly — then we play a game we have invented, a game we have named ‘Back-to-back.’ The object of the game is to escape from this thick cloth that we have measured with precision. You start by struggling furiously to get out. But in trying to get out, many couples have learned that it is much more fun — and mutually beneficial — to meet life with joyful acceptance, and to stay inside.”
The Sextopians shouted, laughed and chattered, while Priestos continued his fit of hysterical laughing, rolling around in the sand.
“But first,” said Pateras, nodding to Penelope, “we will need permission from one of our players.”
Penelope gently grasped Beatrice’s two hands, talked for half a minute, and then both women fell laughing into each other’s arms. Beatrice nodded her head to Pateras, and then some friendly hands guided Beatrice and me into the center of the circle of Sextopians, and positioned us standing back-to-back. One large white chiton — this one made of strong, thick cloth — was placed over our two heads, pressing our backs tightly together in a kind of girdle or straitjacket, a dress that fit so snugly we could hardly move.
Now Kosmos was led into the circle’s center, and Penelope stood back-to-back behind him. But at the last instant Penelope stepped aside, and she was replaced by an old flame of Kosmos: a large woman named Ligeia. The extra-large-sized chiton was pulled over the two of them, which pressed their backs together so closely and tightly that an olive pit could not have fit between.
“How do you play this game?” asked Kosmos.
“It’s very simple,” his father replied. “It’s just like big business and big government: You make up the rules as you go along. And have no fear — we will not allow you to be hurt, either in your body or your soul. If a moment arrives when the sweet fun turns sour, then I will intervene and set you free.”
