Page 86 of Circe

It was impossible to tell, in that mild voice of hers, if the comment was pointed. If it were, I supposed she was entitled.

She said, “He told me how you helped him on his way. He would not have survived without your advice.”

“You give me too much credit. He was wise.”

“Sometimes,” she said. Her eyes were the color of mountain ash. “Do you know that after he left you, he landed with another nymph? Calypso. She fell in love with him and hoped to make him her immortal husband. Seven years, she stayed him on her isle, draping him in divine fabrics, feeding him delicacies.”

“He did not thank her for it.”

“No. He refused her and prayed to the gods to free him. At last they forced her to let him go.”

I did not think I imagined the trace of satisfaction in her voice.

“When your son came, I thought perhaps he was hers. But then I saw the weave of his cloak. I remembered Daedalus’ loom.”

It was strange, how much she knew of me. But then, I knew about her too.

“Calypso fawned over him, and you turned his men to pigs. Yet you were the one he preferred. Do you think that strange?”

“No,” I said.

It was nearly a smile. “Just so.”

“He did not know about the child.”

“I know,” she said. “He would never have kept that from me.” That was pointed.

“I spoke with your son last night,” I said.

“Did you?” I thought I heard a flicker of something in her voice.

“He explained to me why you had to leave Ithaca. I was sorry to hear it.”

“Your son was kind to bring us away.” Her eyes had found Trygon’s tail. “Is it like a bee’s venom, that stings only once? Or like a snake?”

“It could poison a thousand times and more. There is no end to it. It was meant to stop a god.”

“Telegonus told us that you faced the great lord of sting-rays himself.”

“I did.”

She nodded, a private gesture, as if in confirmation. “He told us that you took further precautions for him as well. That you have cast a spell over the island, and no god, not even Olympians, can pass.”

“Gods of the dead may pass,” I said. “No others.”

“You are fortunate,” she said, “to be able to summon such protections.” From the beach came faint shouts: our sons moving the boat.

“I am embarrassed to ask this of you, but I did not bring a black cloak with me when we left. Do you have one I might wear? I would mourn for him.”

I looked at her, as vivid in my doorway as the moon in the autumn sky. Her eyes held mine, gray and steady. It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

“No,” I said. “But I have yarn, and a loom. Come.”

Chapter Twenty-two

HER FINGERS RAN LIGHTLY over the beams, stroked the threads of the weft like a stable master greeting a prize horse. She asked no questions; she seemed to absorb the loom’s workings by touch alone. The light from the window glowed on her hands, as if it wished to illuminate her work. Carefully, she took off my half-finished tapestry and strung the black yarn. Her motions were precise, nothing wasted. She was a swimmer, Odysseus had told me, long limbs cutting effortlessly to her destination.

Outside the sky had turned. The clouds hung so low they seemed to graze the windows, and I could hear the first fat drops begin to fall. Telemachus and Telegonus gusted through the door, wet from hauling the boat. When Telegonus saw Penelope at the loom he hurried forward, already exclaiming over the fineness of her work. I watched Telemachus instead. His face went hard and he turned away abruptly to the window.