A Cat At the End of the World, page 13
That’s a bit of a joke. But I saw how things turned dead after being named. I saw how humans, using words, wanted to tame all things, like they did with animals. That was an interesting invention because humanity had tried to describe the world in order to rule over it. All of it had been imagined, a bit of a joke. The world could be made out of words, but it couldn’t really be made out of words. That was their map of the world. Yet, they were still traveling on it.
Greeks In The Sky
KALIA SLEPT, BUT he knew they sailed on even as he slept; the waves had crept inside his dreams, the creaking of the wooden boards, bits of conversations carried by the wind, the whole ship slept inside him, and then he heard laughter from above. In his dream, a sky of female laughter opened up, laughter swung in the wind, he felt wings flapping nearby and was gripped by fear.
Was this Latra?
When he opened his eyes he saw flocks of big white birds around the ship, circling around and getting quite close, their shrieks like laughter. He saw Oikistes spreading out his arms as if he’d been expecting them.
“These are Diomedes’s friends who have been turned into birds!” he thundered.
He repeated, “These are Diomedes’s friends who have been turned into birds!”
It seemed there were others like Kalia who didn’t know those birds were Greeks from the sky.
“They are greeting us,” Oikistes shouted.
Kalia thought they were simply seagulls, just a bit different and bigger than those in Syracuse; there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, and they weren’t afraid. Kalia was worried about Miu who had been snoozing by his feet, but she had woken up too; she watched the birds with curiosity. She was sitting tensely, thinking either of hunting or running away. Kalia picked her up because he thought the birds could kill her with a single peck of their large beaks. They were approaching a lone island in the blue. He knew they were near their arrival point, but the island seemed small and he hoped that this was not their Distant Home, because it had already been taken over by the birds.
Perhaps the island will be bigger once we get closer to it?
They got close. There were actually two islands, Kalia now saw. But they didn’t look much bigger when they got very close. Kalia looked for Teogen, and saw him staring at the coast. Perhaps the city Teogen had imagined was made of tiny houses? Perhaps we’d build it very quickly. But that would be like a game, thought Kalia. He looked at Teogen’s serious face and understood that this would be impossible.
“These are the Isles of Diomedes,” Teogen said.
“Not ours?”
Teogen said that the Greeks who sail this sea must make a stop here. “This is the last thing we know,” he said. “An empty wilderness is ahead.”
They lowered a boat from the ship and some men boarded. It seemed that not everyone would have to go down. Kalia felt relieved. The islands were rock cliffs with bits of tufty growth, and there was a tall green tree at the top of the larger island, which gave shade.
“That is Diomedes’s grave,” said Teogen, “and his friends have been turned into guardian birds, you see.”
“I see,” Kalia said.
Several men had boarded the boat, Leonidas among them, and Oikistes was still looking around the dock. He saw Kalia and called him too. Kalia first thought that he was calling Teogen.
“Go on, quick,” Teogen said, “it’s a great honor.”
Kalia was surprised because the birds were flying above the ship, landing on the edge of the deck. It’s one thing if a small bird isn’t afraid of you, but if a big one isn’t afraid, even if it’s a friend of Diomedes’s, that’s something else. Kalia ran under the deck carrying Miu because no one was watching.
He found a young woman there—he saw it was Doris when she turned around—and she was squatting next to her goat. The goat stood on three legs, one was up in the air, as if broken. He saw Mikro, staring stiffly. But he stood on all fours. Kalia asked Doris to hold Miu while he was gone and said he’d give her a coin for it. “Stay here with Doris and Mikro,” he told Miu. She might have disobeyed him had he not put her on top of Mikro, whom she set about sniffing like a delicacy. He touched Mikro’s neck. When Kalia emerged from the lower deck, Oikistes shook his head disapprovingly.
The other ships had also dropped anchor; two settler ships set down a boat each. They went toward a bay. They took off their clothes and went naked into the sea. They washed. Kalia couldn’t swim and washed in the shallows. Others went in deeper, dove in. Then they climbed the steep hill. Kalia thought about Mikro, who hadn’t even looked at him. The birds followed them, some flying so close that he felt the waft of their feathers. Everywhere around them, on the ground, sat their nests with chicks inside them. The seagulls perhaps thought they were being attacked or that their island would be taken over, he thought, as they yelled near his ears.
They climbed up to the tree on the top, got into its shade.
Kalia looked at the birds swarming the boat, worried. He saw another man looking over at another ship in the same way and their eyes met. The man was older than the rest and was missing an arm. Kalia saw them dumping something from the ship and the birds flew around in even greater numbers.
They stood in a circle and a bowl with wine reached Kalia. He didn’t like the taste of it and drank only a sip.
Oikistes spoke. He was addressing Diomedes. Kalia had heard of him as a great hero, but couldn’t remember exactly what it was that he had done. Oikistes asked Diomedes for luck.
He told Diomedes that they were heading farther east, to make the first apoikia on this sea, said they were not scouting like last summer, but were now going to make a city, they had brought their animals, their vines, olives, carob and lavender cuts. He spoke for a while and mentioned the names of the many people who had sent their regards to Diomedes, names Kalia didn’t know, except Dionysius, who had sent a lovely ceramic bowl as a gift, filled with wine and inscribed: To Diomedes. Oikistes also left his gift, the bowl they’d drunk from.
Oikistes then told them they could pass on greetings to Diomedes sent by others from Syracuse, and Kalia heard everyone, individually, speak some names, so he also told Diomedes that Menda and Zoi sent their regards.
Oikistes pointed at Kalia and said, “Our children will come in many years and bring their report, powerful Diomedes, that Issa was built in stone. I may not be able to come, Diomedes, because our work will take long, but this boy will, if we are lucky, bring back news.”
He watched Kalia ceremoniously and earnestly. “Will you?” Oikistes asked.
“I will,” Kalia said.
“Bless us with luck, Diomedes, because we now go into the emptiness. We leave you gifts, we have fed your friends, we leave in awe of you,” Oikistes said.
The big white birds flew around them, climbed up in spirals, shot up almost vertically, as if in a wind whirl, laughing.
Scatterwind
THAT WAS MY first time there. I rarely went later, but overall I visited many times because I had a lot of time. I, Scatterwind, can tell you the place called Pelagos by the Greeks, is today known as Palagruža. There is no water on those rocks and no one ever settled there.
I had time to think about this: the Greeks had stopped at those jutting rocks before, traveling north toward Adria and Spina. Diomedes died in a great spot, a dry spot, and they could avoid strangers.
It’s true that all water—sweet or salty—looks the same to me because I don’t drink. You don’t think about certain things if you don’t have a body. That’s in the middle of the sea, outside of consciousness.
I recently recalled my oblivion. Because I had learned, by eavesdropping, that the liquid inside donkeys, cats, and humans is salty. Someone had said it: the internal sea. Those were scientists, at a symposium at Issa Hotel, but they spoke like poets. The internal sea, someone said—they didn’t see anything strange in it, because life came out of the sea. When life came out of the sea it brought with it a piece of the sea. Today’s symposiums are different. Everyone is sober.
I thought: the sea was already inside and that is why they can’t drink it. It would be too much. It is impossible to settle in Palagruža and Diomedes had chosen a good spot when he no longer needed water.
The sea produces music from which, I think, the joke started.
Secrets
WHEN KALIA GOT back on the ship, they let him go down and he found Miu huddled on Mikro’s back. Doris didn’t want to take the coin. She leaned her head against the head of the goat on three legs. Kalia stroked Mikro who looked at him only once, but it was as if he were looking through him. Maybe because there was so little light on the lower deck?
“They say it’s just one more day,” whispered Kalia.
He wanted for Mikro to see him and recognize him, but it was as if Mikro’s eyes were turned within. He thought that Mikro had closed himself inside his circles. Doris was, on the other hand, looking at him as if she had to talk.
“This goat has been with me from the beginning,” she said. “We moved around so much. I fed it, but it fed us more. I can’t do anything with grass and leaves, it saved my life. Me, my father, and this goat are the only beings left from our home. My brothers died for Dionysius. But he doesn’t want to keep the poor he owes so deeply in Syracuse.”
She looked at Kalia in the semidarkness, as if searching for someone.
“And he is right, because we hate him so much,” she said, wiping sweat off her brow. “Don’t tell anyone what I have said.”
Kalia nodded. They were far from Syracuse, but Doris spoke as if they were still close.
Doris’s eyes smiled sadly as if she believed him. She turned to face the goat again.
Everything is far, Kalia thought, and everything is here. He had that feeling again, as if he were here but also far, and he didn’t want to feel like this now. He had to suppress it. But still he saw himself, and everything else, floating in what resembled dream time. He clapped three times, remembering how Menda had done this once.
“Chasing away the ghosts of Syracuse?” Doris said as if not asking.
“No,” he said, “they’re too far away.”
Kalia now noticed how everyone was talking about Syracuse differently than when they were there. What Doris had said was a secret, but it could be spoken on the lower deck. Can he tell Doris about Miu and Mikro, the way she had spoken about her goat? He’d not be mentioning Dionysius, but he’d have to mention he was on the run. Menda told him never to say this, not even to those who were his friends because they’d look at him differently. He must never tell anyone because then he will create a shadow that would follow him—that’s what she had said. He remembered this “a shadow that will follow you” because he had to repeat it after her that night in the moonlight. “Slavery is a mark,” she told him. “It comes back when it is mentioned. Don’t ever mention it, even if it means forgetting me too,” she said. But what can he tell then? He’d like to tell Doris something. He had things to say about Syracuse. Menda was far, but also near. Everything was like that.
Miu nibbled his hand. Touching Miu in his arms, his cheek against Mikro’s neck, brought him back into the present moment. I’ll talk to them, he thought, when people go away. I have to pay heed to Menda’s words now that I’ve left her.
“My beloved friend,” Doris spoke softly. “Hold on a little longer, one more day.”
She then looked at Kalia as if she were in pain. “I know already,” she said. “I know already.”
Kalia didn’t ask what she knew.
“They will eat my soul, I know.”
Scatterwind
I WAS INTERESTED in friendship between the species, having experienced such friendships. That which people call feelings is a blurry thing that exists. While Kalia, Miu, and Mikro were in the stable I observed how everything had started with heat, from light without which there would be no heat. On Earth, it was in the way light was stored inside plants, then inside animals and humans, via eating plants, thus eating light in its raw form. Heat doesn’t vanish—it turns into feelings when light is digested. It can even turn into thoughts. People were the best light digesters, and they clearly understood that they had feelings and thoughts. The virus of language helped them with that. But other creatures also had feelings and thoughts, otherwise people would not be able to make friends with them. It would be impossible for them to have mutual understanding and form a friendship if they didn’t share the same foundations. Everything stacked up, I noticed, and all of life was a mutation of light. I had arrived there by accident, but I had time to think about this because I had somehow, via a mutation in the virus, caught feelings.
I don’t think it would be possible to think without feeling, because there would be no motivation for it. It is really unbelievable that I am alive. I have had this feeling for a long time now, which is why I am here, but I don’t want to take it for granted.
Mind you, when I think about it, the fact of others’ lives is no less strange. Everything can be explained in language—but how are they, these other lives, possible, I have asked myself from the start, ever since I first saw them.
Humans thought life was an exception. It seems to me that the exception, in itself, as an exception, is less likely than the general rule. It would be more likely to me that the general rule is life.
But, truly, there is also the possibility that there are exceptional things. That would be life among dead things. And the next miracle would be me. I have to admit—so many miracles in the pile—it’s a bit suspicious to me.
Apoikia
WHEN THE TOP of the hill floated out of the horizon and Oikistes shouted, “There is Issa!” there was much relieved murmuring, sighing, and some bursting into tears. Everyone looked toward the hill’s peak, glimmering in the reflection of the waves; eyes open like fish, palms sweating, they watched this place as if trying to fix it under the sky. The top of the hill danced along with the tip of the bow, as the deck boards quietly whined, and so close to the distant home, the whole ship panted like a dog.
Then, after a flash of joy, many eyes narrowed and many tongues licked their lips, fearing the stories and images from myths filled with surprises. Supposedly everything was as Oikistes claimed and as peaceful as it looked from the ship. But islands always look peaceful from the sea. Hopefully no human power had made a home there already, or Polyphemus, that some said lived in this sea, while others claimed that Odysseus had met him close to the shores of Sicily, which they found a lot less believable.
They were more worried about the people who lived along this sea, some of them had heard of the Liburnians, the fast ships and solid defense of this seafaring people. There were those who knew about Liburnian thalassocracy, their dominion on this sea, but those were the ones who knew more about the world beyond what they had seen, the ones close to Oikistes, and they had been strictly asked not to talk about it.
Oikistes had told them with deep conviction that Issa was a safe harbor and here would be no resistance. Even if there was, the army that followed them would suffice. Oikistes knew more, but except for him, Kleemporos, and Arion—who was on a different ship—no one knew anything about it. Because there had been an illness. They had told as much to Dionysius upon returning from their scouting journey to the island the previous summer.
They had stayed on the island longer than planned, and they were ordered to explore the bays, not just their shape and beauty but to look for underwater springs, and if they found them, they were to secretly negotiate with the Liburnian leaders, find one of them who would be willing to sell them land, because Dionysius knew he could not wage war at such a distance. That is how apoikias were built: the Greeks always wanted to come in peace. Not just because they wanted peace but because the building of apoikias was hard to implement while fighting a war far from home. It was too expensive and it was better to find greedy tribal leaders, offer them a good price, and pay for the land. People could complain about their leaders, which would raise the worth of the Greeks who were coming to replace those leaders. The leaders have sold us, people would say, down with them; and then Greeks turned up like gentlemen and purchased from those gluttons, but at least they might bring order. That was always the plan for the apoikias, and it was the only way for it to work well. And if the people rebelled against the Greeks, especially if there was an uprising straightaway, then the colonialists would die. The grand story would end immediately. It happens.
The previous summer there were ten scouts, seven guards, and three negotiators: Oikistes, Kleemporos, and Arion, and the latter knew many Liburnian words and was in charge of the guards. The guards were soldiers, but none of them could look like a soldier—they were presented as merchants who had lost their way in a storm. Magas was also among Arion’s soldiers, and he spoke Liburnian very well. He was probably the son of some Liburnian slave woman, but he always claimed to have learned the language from his nanny who had come from there. Okistes and Kleemporos were Dionysius’s commissioners, and Arion and his soldier Magas were a necessary evil, one could not do without them.
Oikistes didn’t even tell the whole story to Dionysius, as much as he had wished to complain about Arion—he had to adjust the story a little. Because if Dionysius had wished to probe, Arion could have revealed some compromising details. They were simple things: while they were scouting the island, there was an outbreak of illness. Kleemporos came running one day in the heat and said, “We’re getting out, they’re sick, some are dying.”
Oikistes did not doubt this and they had started toward the harbor when Arion said, “There are certain rules.”
“What rules, there’s a disease, let’s leave,” Kleemporos said.
“There are rules for when there is disease,” Arion said. “A simple rule: not to return to Syracuse.”
