Chapter 1 #2
He jumps into the shallows, hauling the boat up behind him.
He’s well-practiced at the movement and still sinewy with strength, but I can see that his bones are weary with age.
It pains him more than it used to; a dull ache in his back that never quite relents, old injuries that remind him they’ve never quite healed.
The dog follows, plunging gleefully into the water, splashing toward me on the beach, tail wagging.
It gives itself a vigorous shake, water droplets flying everywhere.
The man notices me for the first time and startles in horror. “Come back!” he reprimands the dog.
Unrepentant, it ignores him, looking at me with eagerness. I laugh and ruffle the fur on the top of its head, and it jumps up with delight, paws on my knees.
“No!” he calls, hurrying toward us. “Down! Away! Get back!”
But I’m scratching its ears and the creature is in raptures. It’s not a particularly handsome animal—its fur is patchy and brindled, dull gray and dirty white—but its eyes are bright and alert and full of curious mischief.
“I’m so sorry, miss—missus—lady,” the boatman says, flustered, finally seizing the dog and pulling him back. “Your dress.”
“My dress is fine,” I tell him. “Just a little damp.”
The dog nuzzles his hand, then wanders off down the beach. He stands, awkward and uncertain. “Forgive me for intruding,” he says.
“You aren’t,” I say.
He glances from side to side. “You’re here alone?” he asks, his eyes warm and shrewd.
I nod.
“I mean you no harm,” he hurries to add.
He thinks I’m a mortal woman, and that the power in this situation is his.
“I stopped here to rest,” he says. Again, he looks up and down the small bay, and I realize he’s staring at the steep rocks behind me.
No wonder he anticipated solitude here; it’s only accessible by sea or sky.
“Please,” I say, “don’t let me stop you.”
He squints. “But how…?” he begins, and then catches himself. “May I offer you something to eat?” he asks. “I have only a little with me, but let me share it with you.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He unwraps a package of vine leaves, and the salty tang of brine wafts on the breeze.
Crumbling cheese, a dense hunk of bread and a handful of olives.
Not enough for him to share and still satisfy his own hunger, but he urges me to take it nonetheless.
He eats hungrily, with satisfaction, then brushes the crumbs from his beard and speaks again.
“I’m sailing on to the port at Paphos,” he says.
“Can I take you there?” His face is creased with concern, and I can see he fears for me here alone with the treacherous rocks at my back and the wide swathe of sea before me.
“What business do you have in Paphos?” I ask him. “Or are you returning home?”
“I’m visiting the sanctuary of the goddess,” he answers. He dips his gaze to the ground, humility cloaking his yearning. But the longing emanates from him, just like it did from my priestess, stirring my soul. “I want to make offerings to her.”
I smile. “Yes,” I answer. “Please take me with you. And,” I say, extending my hand so that he can help me to his boat, “on the way, you can tell me what you would ask of Aphrodite.”
His name is Phaon, he tells me. It’s clear he’s starting to suspect I am not what I seem.
It’s often the sailors and the fishermen, out on the water for long days at a time, at the mercy of Poseidon’s whims, who share stories like this: how they rescued a stranded goddess in disguise and won her favor.
The mortals know by now when you come across a lonely old crone, extend the hand of hospitality and you might find yourself the recipient of divine gratitude.
Insult her, and pay a price greater than you can ever imagine.
I’m not interested in wrath and punishment.
I’m no Zeus or Athena, intent on tricking and testing the piety of humans as an entertaining diversion.
My questions are sincere, and it doesn’t take much to coax his secrets from him.
He’s unused to conversation, he says, as there is rarely anyone for him to talk to.
“No wife?” I ask him. “There’s no one waiting for you at home?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I never…”
I widen my eyes. “You never married?”
He sighs, looking out at the distant blue horizon, leaning back as he pulls the oars in regular strokes through the water. “No,” he says.
“But how can that be?”
He shrugs. “I was shy as a young man.”
There’s something more, I can feel it. He’s self-contained, quiet perhaps, but shyness isn’t the problem. I wait for him to go on.
“And I was unremarkable,” he says. “My brothers were strong and handsome; they made marriages that pleased my father.”
Maybe he wouldn’t be considered anything much to look at by some, but he has a twinkling warmth in his eyes and a generosity of spirit that I think makes him very appealing. “I can’t understand why you didn’t.”
“Well,” he says, laughing ruefully, “I never did anything that pleased him.”
My heart twists. There’s no bitterness in his voice, but I can hear a lifetime of loneliness unspoken in his words. “You didn’t just want to marry,” I say, “you wanted to fall in love.”
He glances up at me, startled. “I always thought—”
“That love would find you,” I finish.
He looks down. The dog, until this moment captivated by watching the water over the side of the boat, pads toward him, resting its head in his lap. “It did,” he says quietly. “Once.”
“You lost it.” My voice is soft.
“How do you know?” he asks. “I’ve never spoken of her…not for years.”
“I have a sense for these things.” I smile, gentle and encouraging.
He shakes his head. “It was a long time ago.”
“But you haven’t forgotten.”
“I should have,” he says, and his voice catches unexpectedly. “I should have left it behind.”
“Tell me about her,” I coax. “You’ve held her in your heart all this time. Perhaps when you speak it out loud, you can let her go.”
He glances away, toward the blue expanse of the wide sea.
“Did she tell you no?” I ask. Another, more horrible thought strikes me. “Did she die?”
“Neither,” he says. He hesitates. “It’s strange—strange to be talking about this, strange that you’re here, that you’re asking.” He doesn’t dare ask the question that hovers on his lips. Who are you?
“Has no one ever asked before?”
“We kept it a secret.” The words come quickly now, as though he can’t hold them back any longer. “I promised her I’d never tell as long as we lived. But who knows now if she’s alive or dead?” A shadow crosses his face.
“I promise you,” I say, “that your secret will be safe with me.”
He nods. “Her father would never allow it,” he says. “We grew up in the same village; we were in love for as long as I can remember. But we were still so young—children, really—when he found her a husband.”
“And?”
He blinks, the sheen of tears in his eyes, tears he won’t let fall. “And,” he says, “that was it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He took her away, across the sea. We never even had the chance to say goodbye.”
I stare at him. “That was the end?”
“I saw the ship sailing away,” he says. “He’d come from Athens—that was all I knew.”
“And you never saw her again?”
“No.”
“And you never loved anyone else?”
This sigh comes from deep inside his chest. “I couldn’t.”
“Is that why you’re visiting the sanctuary?” I ask. “To ask Aphrodite to help you forget her at last? To find someone else?”
A flush tinges his worn cheeks. “I wondered,” he says, “if it might not be too late.”
I nod, satisfied. “I’m sure,” I tell him, “that it won’t be.”
—
When we reach the harbor, he helps me to disembark and I reach into the folds of my robe. I hand him a pot, a rough little trinket shaped of clay with a clumsy lid.
“No, no,” he says, waving it away. “I won’t take any payment.”
“You must,” I say.
He pauses, then takes it in his hand.
“Open it.”
He lifts the lid, and the smoky fragrance of myrrh swirls into the air. “Thank you,” he says.
I lean closer to him, whispering into his ear. “Rub it into your skin.”
He doesn’t hear the cracked voice of an old woman. He hears me: the melodious tone of a goddess.
I watch as he dips a finger into the ointment and brushes it cautiously onto his forearm.
Before our eyes, the wrinkled skin smooths. The flesh that sagged is now firm and taut, gleaming like bronze in the sinking sun.
I hear him gasp before I vanish, disappearing like a dream.
For Phaon, today is the start of something new; fragile and radiant and shimmering with a rainbow of possibilities.
I can never resist a beginning. It’s always my favorite part.