Thoreau Bound, page 44
“Penelope,” Kosmos said, to the woman pressed behind him. “We can get out of this if we concentrate and work together.”
From the start to the finish, the Sextopians enjoyed watching the game, and as one-by-one they realized that Kosmos had mistakenly believed that the woman on his back was Penelope — not the actual Ligeia — their mirthfulness knew no bounds.
The four-legged beast named Kosmos-Ligeia first lunged forward a few steps, then muddled backwards a few steps more, then stumbled as they swirled in a circle and staggered side-a-ways.
“If I can escape from my first two marriages,” said Kosmos, “then there is nothing in the world that can hold me. Stay calm, Penelope, I have a slick idea.”
The real Penelope had ducked down behind her friends. Kosmos now spoke to the Sextopian named Nikos, a neighbor in Dembacchae who had been helped by Kosmos many times. Nikos brought Kosmos a rectangle-shaped can of olive oil.
“The humble olive,” said Kosmos, “was a gift from the goddess Athena to the people of Greece, who were so grateful for that gift that they thanked the goddess by blessing our greatest city with her name. The wood from the olive tree makes ships for commerce and for war, while the olive branch symbolizes peace, and the fruit gives us the oil that makes Greek food divine. Elaeeolado: olive oil! ... This golden oil is good for everything. One bottle of olive oil can serve as your hair tonic, your skin moisturizer, your shaving cream. Add cider vinegar, and you have a salad dressing that doubles as a lotion to protect skin from the burning mid-day sun. When Socrates wanted to get clean, he covered his body with olive oil, then scraped the dirt off his skin with a stigil, a small tool made of wood or bone.”
The bundled-together Kosmos-and-Ligeia stumbled too close to the campfire, and a handful of Sextopians shouted, then guided them to a safer place. Kosmos raised the can of olive oil in his right hand.
“Even these metal containers that hold the oil,” he said, “are used in a hundred ways by the canny Greeks. Walk through any small town and you’ll see the olive oil containers used as flower pots, watering cans, mufflers, antennas, trash cans, cooking stoves, chairs, chamber pots, and grain bowls for feeding the mules.”
Kosmos raised his arms and then poured the entire canful of oil down his back, and down the broad back of Ligeia. Then with his mouth he grabbed his shirtsleeves — first the left, and then the right — and pulled his arms through the sleeves so that his arms were now pressed against his body under the shirt.
“Our mad-hero Herakles oiled himself before he wrestled that giant Anteus, so that the monstrous opponent could not crush him in his grip. And when the curiosity of Psyche urged her to take a peek at the sleeping Eros, it was an olive oil lamp that revealed his features to her, the same simple oil lamp that lights my nights for reading and for painting, and for seeing the body who sleeps beside me in my bed.”
Kosmos, who made every task into a game, was enjoying this activity immensely, smiling like the quarter moon.
“Now, Penelope,” he said to Ligeia, “just move your back and shoulders like a snake, back and forth like this.”
After a few minutes of squirming, Kosmos managed to slide his body, so that he turned around and now found himself pressed against Ligeia, legs to legs, breast to breast and face to face.
Beatrice leaned her head toward me.
“These Greeks know how to have fun, don’t they Thoreau! Do you think that you can wriggle around like Kosmos did, or would you like me to try?”
Kosmos jerked: Ligeia once more! Ligeia whose appearance always shocked him, like a man glancing in the mirror amazed at the size of his own paunch! He looked up to the night sky then shouted to the crowd.
“And if some cruel god destroys my ship again on the whine-dark sea, I shall endure it, because I have a patient mind. Already I have suffered many troubles in war and traveling, and this will be just one more.”
Ligeia laughed as she continued Homer’s tale.
“And as he spoke,” she sang, “the sun sank and darkness came, and these two lay themselves down inside her pleasure-cave.”
Wild cheers and applause followed when Ligeia leaned forward to kiss her partner, and then fell forward onto the sand on top of Kosmos. Priestos — after a nod from Pateras — opened his fishing knife, cut the entrapping cloth, and quickly released the woman and man.
The eyes of all turned toward the stuck-together Beatrice and me. Beatrice had succumbed to continual fits of giggles, yet between these outbursts she managed to speak.
“You know of course, Thoreau,” the woman said, “that I was merely joking a few moments ago when I implied that you are heartless.”
“There’s truth in every good joke,” I said. “Do you know what I’ve just realized? Tension in relationships is caused by uncertainty. Should we be lovers, should we be pen pals, should we be colleagues, should we meet once a month for tea? ... When I know the answer, then I can act with purpose and with poise. But the uncertainty stings me, injects me with a lethal venom known as worry, and makes me hesitate to choose a path. Who is the heartless man? He who takes no action when action must be taken. Shall we be friends, Beatrice, and enjoy the quiet pleasures of friendship? ”
Beatrice’s laughing stopped.
“But don’t you see, Thoreau, that this uncertainty creates suspense, and this suspense is the whole secret of the electricity between a woman and a man? You never know if this marvelous woman is going to like you, or to hate you, or to plummet into love with you, or to trick you into her bed, or to flirt with your best friend, or to yawn from utter boredom while you make love with her, or to bite your ear and whisper that you are the most exciting man on Earth. Why settle for the safe harbor of Friendship, when the Sirens taunt you to the unknown stormy seas of Love? Ten thousand psychiatric techniques all fail to change a personality, but Love transforms a person in one instant, and that is Love’s great miracle and mystery.”
“Beatrice, I’m a pauper and a dreamer, I have nothing but the clothes on my back — ”
She tugged my chiton and laughed.
“And every time a woman smiles at you, even the little you have doesn’t stay on for very long. Isn’t that true, dear boy?”
“Trust me, Beatrice, about this: while you are married, I will be a devoted friend to you, but I will not pursue you in a manner that is sexual or romantic.”
“You’re giving up already?” she said, shaking her head. “Thoreau, dearest, when you forget me, do not forget this advice: ‘Love and all good things are won by boldness and tenacity, there is no other way.’”
“I will never forget you, Bea. Will you seal our friendship by shaking my hand?”
“Thoreau, I am furious!”
“Angry at me, Beatrice? What did I —”
“So many women, so little time! Moments after you meet me at the Meteora you seduce a young American librarian —”
“Beatrice, I don’t remember telling you about — ”
“I heard it from Penelope, who heard it from Irene, who heard it from the widow Yentagabpolis, my dear. ... A week later you’re following a blonde on a bicycle, and you wind up sleeping with the ten wildest women on Crete — ”
“Believe me, Beatrice, that wasn’t all my — ”
“Next, with her mother watching, you make one less virgin in the world. A mere day after she leaves, you take advantage of two lonely German sisters —”
“Wait a second, Beatrice, I was trying to do something good —”
“And then there was that moonlit Matthew-Arnold evening when — after two hours of drooling all over my breasts and eating me up with your eyes — you insulted my sense and sensuality by refusing to spend the night with me in my hotel room!”
I shook my throbbing head.
“I wondered if — no, when — that stupendous blunder would come back to haunt me.”
“Did I miss any of your exploits, dear boy? One needs a supercomputer and a seXML database to keep an accurate record of your erotic life.”
“There were the two gypsies on the beach — ”
“Oh yes, the merry widows. And tonight you bring poor innocent Penelope to an isolated beach — ”
“Penelope is like a sister to me! For weeks I’ve been fighting her advances — ”
“And finally, using the flimsiest excuse of all — my husband! — you want to be my — Oh! those two infuriating words! — my ‘devoted friend!’, and then you spit me out into the compost heap like ... like chewed up pomegranate seeds! From the first day we spoke to each other you knew that I was married, and suddenly that matters now!”
Before I could compose my mind and a reply, Beatrice slipped her arm through her sleeve, then pinched my bottom again and again, pinching so hard it made me shout and jump. Penelope placed, into Beatrice’s free hand, a huge container of fresh Greek yogurt, which was then dumped on top of my head. Immediately, in a great show of female solidarity, six other Sextopian women passed various things to Beatrice — from seaweed to week-old soup — all of which were poured onto my shoulders, head, and hair.
The only escape was to fall forward, with Beatrice on my back, and begin doing push-ups. The Sextopians counted each one, and at push-up number sixty-eight Pateras knelt down beside me, made a small cut in the cloth-gown that joined me with Beatrice, and then ripped open the cloth to set us free.
When we stood up, Beatrice’s two gorgeous eyes glared into my eyes with unquenchable anger. Pateras placed his hands on our shoulders and then spoke to us with the utmost cheerfulness.
“In my whole long life,” he said, “I have never met a man and a woman who are more perfect for each other than you and you. Tonight you cannot see what this old man sees. But one day you will see it — let’s hope that on that day it’s not too late to save your relationship. Now let’s take a break, let’s drink something that will cool us down. And then my friends and I will show you how we amuse ourselves in this Sextopias. This next activity is unique. We call it: ‘The Great Art Lesson.’ You will like it, I am sure.”
46
The Great Art Lesson
Two naked women were walking four abreast.
Bountiful Beatrice and pendulous Penelope, returning from their short swim, stepped from the cool sea-water onto the warm sand-beach of Sextopias. Talking and laughing — completely at ease with their nudity — they were soon surrounded by a dozen gray-haired widows chattering in Greek. These energetic ladies rubbed towels against the bodies of Beatrice and Penelope, combed and arranged their hair, then dressed the two beauties in the white chiton-gowns. And when the two women walked toward the center fire dressed in diaphanous clouds, they looked tall and statuesque, like two goddesses. Goddesses who come to whisper wisdom into the unlistening ears of men.
While staring at Beatrice and Penelope, I somehow noticed that four husky Greek men were assembling a platform made from wooden crates. Soon the entire population of Sextopias were sitting on the sand in a semi-circle around this improvised stage. The stage now felt the footsteps of Penelope, who smiled, then said “Good evening,” and then unceremoniously removed her gown. At the first sight of her breasts — enormous, tanned, divinely shaped — the crowd cheered and clapped with boundless enthusiasm.
“Tonight, our model is Hera, who some of you know as Penelope,” said Pateras. “And like every woman who reveals herself, she enchants us with her indescribable beauty and her inimitable grace.”
Flowingly, Penelope moved her body into a seductive pose. The Sextopians sat silently and watched the wondrous woman — her face, breasts, hands, body, legs, and feet — with attention rapt and concentration profound. While music played, Pateras and Penelope improvised mandinada — dialogue songs.
“Beware of Art's benumbing charms!
After a night of joyous screams,
I grasped one live Medusa in my arms —
Is worth one thousand Helens in my dreams!”
“The Poet is a man like You;
He works, he plays, he dies.
But every thing he sees with Love! —
That's where the vital difference lies.”
Kosmos rushed to the stage and stood in front of Penelope, as if he were attempting to protect her from the crowd’s benevolent gaze.
“What kind of art lesson is this?” he cried out. “Where are the pencils? Where are the drawing pads?”
The Sextopians laughed; Kosmos looked up at Penelope then spoke.
“Did my heart love till now? foreswear it, sight! ...
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
Kosmos turned, faced Penelope, then grasped her calloused hands between his two creative hands.
“Penelope, matia mou, my darling!” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I tell you what?”
Kosmos kissed her hands.
“About this place, about my father, about your participation, about how beautiful you are, about this wild dimension of your personality?”
She freed her hands from his tender grip then placed them against her hips.
“Kosmos, I am following the advice you gave me, the advice you heard from your grandmother when she sat you on her knee.”
“Pickled by my own advice!” he shouted. “What do you mean, Penelope?”
“You said: ‘A lie you must never tell, the truth you don’t always have to tell.’”
With both hands, Kosmos grasped his grey-white hair. For a moment he turned around to look at the audience — who were relishing this encounter like a good comic play — and then he stepped back and studied Penelope.
“What a piece of work a woman is!” he proclaimed, in his booming voice. “In tits, how like — ”
But at this point the bawdy bard was silenced by boos and hissings from the crowd, who pelted him with kumquats, tomatoes, and grapes.
Pateras restored silence by stepping onto the stage and raising his hands.
“Kosmos, dear boy,” he said, “a hundred times the Sextopians have reflected and debated about how to speak about the human body parts. You see, just like our ancient Greek ancestors, we unashamedly enjoy our naked sensuality. The nude body and the acts of sexual intercourse are healthy and humanizing, we believe. Yet we must avoid the blunders of the Romans, who were coarse and brutal in their sex activities. They reduced sex to mere animality, and forgot to include the divine elements of humor, awe, and intimacy.”
Kosmos looked entirely perplexed.
“You go naked all the time here, and you make love like rabbits fed on carrots stuffed with aphrodisiacs — but you don’t say the word ... ” — and here he cupped both hands under his chest, and made a bouncing gesture with his hands.
Pateras laughed.
“We have a song, a song named ‘What To Call Them?’ ... ”
Up from the audience jumped a dozen males, who leaped onto the stage and then knelt before Penelope, chanting “What to call them, what to call them ...”
And when Penelope nodded, the singers harmoniously sang:
“Breasts sound anatomical,
Tits too brassy crude
Boobs to childish, comical,
Knockers outright rude.
“Love pillows too gentle,
Udders too bovine.
Call me sentimental —
And just let me call them mine!”
The singers sprang up then patted the back of Kosmos, who smiled as if to say that he was just beginning to understand. Pateras approached his son.
“Kosmos, we have no censorship here. You can say anything you want to say. Of course, if your words are over-ripe with folly or disrespect, then — well, you have seen what the reaction might be. Go ahead and finish your poem about the piece of woman, please.”
Kosmos, who had felt enough tomatoes and boos, stood for a moment helplessly, until Beatrice stepped onto the stage. The incomparable woman glanced at Penelope, and then she spoke an improvised poem of her own.
“What a piece of work a woman is!
How infinite in sensuality! how noble in forgiving men!
In breasts and body how perfectly seductive!
In words and deeds how unpredictable!
In kindness how like the goddesses!
In mystery how like the glowing eyes of night!
The beauty of the Universe! the paragon of Love!”
As the crowd applauded, Beatrice and Penelope exchanged kisses on their cheeks. Pateras glanced at his son, then spoke to Kosmos and the Sextopians.
“Kosmos,” he said, “as a painter you know that art is ninety percent seeing, and ten percent re-creating what you see. Here in Sextopias we are devoted to three arts: the arts of living and loving and making love. I have told you that we are concerned with education: education for life, the learning that is light years beyond what happens in the universities. Our learning is not for four or eight or twelve years: our learning begins at birth and does not end until the day you die. What is the foundation of every good education? It is this: learning how to see. How to look at every man, woman, child — and every living creature — with eyes of wonder and delight, and a heart flowing with joyful reverence.”
“Like Walt Whitman,” said Kosmos. “And like Homer, Cavafy, Wordsworth, and Goethe.”
“Yes, we are learning how to see the way a poet sees,” said the Father. “But those poets were solitary men, who wrote their visions to educate humankind, and to escape the agony of their loneliness. Here we have a community of women and men who are learning how to see so that we can be loving and creative not in art only, but in the day-to-day living of our lives.”
