Page 100 of The Song of Achilles

“Oh?”

“We sail tomorrow, and leave many Greek dead behind us. All of them are properly buried, with a name to mark their memory. All but one. I am not a pious man, but I do not like to think of souls wandering among the living. I like to take my ease unmolested by restless spirits.”

Pyrrhus listens, his lips drawn back in faint, habitual distaste.

“I cannot say I was your father’s friend, nor he mine. But I admired his skill and valued him as a soldier. And in ten years, you get to know a man, even if you don’t wish to. So I can tell you now that I do not believe he would want Patroclus to be forgotten.”

Pyrrhus stiffens. “Did he say so?”

“He asked that their ashes be placed together, he asked that they be buried as one. In the spirit of this, I think we can say he wished it.” For the first time, I am grateful for his cleverness.

“I am his son. I am the one who says what his spirit wishes for.”

“Which is why I came to you. I have no stake in this. I am only an honest man, who likes to see right done.”

“Is it right that my father’s fame should be diminished? Tainted by a commoner?”

“Patroclus was no commoner. He was born a prince and exiled. He served bravely in our army, and many men admired him. He killed Sarpedon, second only to Hector.”

“In my father’s armor. With my father’s fame. He has none of his own.”

Odysseus inclines his head. “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.” He spread his broad hands. “We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?” He smiles. “Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”

“I doubt it.”

Odysseus shrugs. “We cannot say. We are men only, a brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please. Patroclus may be such as will rise in the future.”

“He is not.”

“Then it would be a good deed. A deed of charity and piety. To honor your father, and let a dead man rest.”

“He is a blot on my father’s honor, and a blot on mine. I will not allow it. Take your sour wine and go.” Pyrrhus’ words are sharp as breaking sticks.

Odysseus stands but does not go. “Do you have a wife?” he asks.

“Of course not.”

“I have a wife. I have not seen her for ten years. I do not know if she is dead, or if I will die before I can return to her.”

I had thought, always, that his wife was a joke, a fiction. But his voice is not mild now. Each word comes slowly, as if it must be brought from a great depth.

“My consolation is that we will be together in the underworld. That we will meet again there, if not in this life. I would not wish to be there without her.”

“My father had no such wife,” Pyrrhus says.

Odysseus looks at the young man’s implacable face. “I have done my best,” he says. “Let it be remembered I tried.”

I remember.

T HE G REEKS SAIL, and take my hope with them. I cannot follow. I am tied to this earth where my ashes lie. I curl myself around the stone obelisk of his tomb. Perhaps it is cool to the touch; perhaps warm. I cannot tell. A C H I L L E S , it says, and nothing more. He has gone to the underworld, and I am here.

P EOPLE COME TO SEE his grave. Some hang back, as if they are afraid his ghost will rise and challenge them. Others stand at the base to look at the scenes of his life carved on the stone. They are a little hastily done, but clear enough. Achilles killing Memnon, killing Hector, killing Penthesilea. Nothing but death. This is how Pyrrhus’ tomb might look. Is this how he will be remembered?

Thetis comes. I watch her, withering the grass where she stands. I have not felt such hatred for her in a long time. She made Pyrrhus, and loved him more than Achilles.

She is looking at the scenes on the tomb, death after death. She reaches, as if she will touch them. I cannot bear it.

Thetis, I say.