The Dogcatcher’s Kid
By
Ramsey Mark Elias
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Ramsey Mark Elias
All Rights Reserved.
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The truth is inside all of us.
When hidden, it will ask the questions necessary for revelation.
Table of Contents
Prometheus, Cadmus, Socrates
The Dogcatcher’s Kid
Primer on References
Prometheus was a Titan, meaning that he was one of Greek mythology’s old gods. He preceded Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of the Olympian generation. The only gods older than the Titans were Mother Earth and Father Sky themselves.
Prometheus, whose name meant “foresight,” sided with Zeus and the Olympians when they battled the Titans. He did so because he foresaw that the gods would win. Later, he betrayed the Olympian gods and gave fire to mankind. Prometheus knew that humans were weak and feeble and without fire, they would be totally helpless against the predators, the cold, and the darkness of night. So Prometheus stole a burning branch from Mt. Olympus and brought it down to share with mankind. As punishment, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a mountaintop where an eagle would come everyday and eat his liver. Titans were immortal so the injury would never kill him. Instead Prometheus’ liver would grow back each night so the torture could be repeated the next day.
Prometheus is one of the most referenced figures in mythology because of his internal conflict, his gift to humanity (often interpreted as technology), and his free will in the face of fatalism.
Cadmus was a Phoenician prince. It’s a bit hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to Cadmus. It has been said that he founded the city of Thebes, also that he invented the alphabet. Different accounts place him in Greece, Lebanon, and Syria as early as 2000 B.C. and as late as 750 B.C.
In the mythical stories, an oracle told Cadmus to follow a certain cow around until it lie down to rest. And on that spot, Cadmus was to build a city named Thebes. One day his companions went to fetch water and were slaughtered by a dragon. Cadmus, in turn, slew the dragon in retribution. Then Athena, the goddess of wisdom, told Cadmus to sow the dragon’s teeth in a field. Once the teeth were sowed, armed soldiers sprung out of the ground. Cadmus threw a single stone into the crowd of soldiers, which caused a misunderstanding. Then, the rather intemperate soldiers fought one another until only five were left. Those five men would go on to help Cadmus build and rule Thebes.
The cover of this book is a painting by Maxwell Parrish, done in 1908, entitled Cadmus Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth.
Socrates is known as the founder of western philosophy. That means that every time you question what is real or what is contrived, every time you wonder what makes you an individual or what defines you as a human being, every time you discuss right and wrong, and every time you realize that the older you get, the less you know – every time you think any of those thoughts, you are walking the path that Socrates first tramped. If you came to Socratic thoughts on your own, without any prodding or prompting from others, then congratulations! You have a good, solid mind. Rest assured of that, even when your philosophical grip feels tenuous.
Socrates said, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” His method of teaching, the Socratic Method, was based upon asking the pupil questions rather than dictating instructions. He called himself a “midwife” of theories and truths, meaning that instead of disseminating lessons, he helped his students “deliver” what was already inside of them. Hence maieutics (derived from the Greek word for midwife) is based heavily upon the idea that the truth is latent within every human being.
Sadly, Socrates isn’t as well documented as his students, of whom Plato stands out.
Part One: Symmetry
“It all started with a tiny little seed,” he told the kid. “And it started to grow, up into the sky and down into the ground too. She spread out her limbs and held on with her roots. Then she was able to grow taller and wider, until it is what you see today.”
“It used to be small?”
“Oh yes, very small,” the dogcatcher said. He gave the boy a minute to consider that. “Do you remember last winter? The big snowball we rolled near the forest? How it didn’t melt because the sun couldn’t reach it?”
“It was in the shade.”
“That’s right. The shade. But what about today in that same spot?”
The kid looked over. “Today it’s sunny there.”
The dogcatcher nodded. “Well, the tree had to grow this way,” he pointed with his pole, “so it could see the sun in the summer, and that way so it could see the sun in the winter. And in every other direction for all the days of the year and hours of the day. And also for balance so she wouldn’t fall over.”
“Ahh…” the kid marveled, his head craned up at the massive oak.
“Look how those branches spread out. The ones we can reach are as strong as the ones at the top.”
With a hint of mischief the kid asked, “Which one is the best branch?”
“Is this a riddle?”
“No. I just wonder if you have a favorite.”
The dogcatcher laughed. “I think each branch is as good as the next. They all got here the same way and they are all part of the same tree. Being a leaf over here or a leaf over there? I don’t think it makes a difference.”
Chapter 1
Sister Maria held her baby in one arm and knocked on the door of the dusty little church. The rain pelted her face as she waited and considered, one final time, what she would name her son. It would either be Giovanni (after the boy’s father) or the old, antiquated name the midwife had chosen. Maria was surprised that a venerated woman like the midwife would make such a bizarre suggestion. But what Maria didn’t understand was how much the midwife liked stories.
Especially being a Greek in Greece – at the very bosom of the Earth – where mankind flourished throughout the ages, the midwife couldn’t help but romance about its legends and heroes. To her, it was a disappointment that babies didn’t spring out of the ground like cabbages. A goddess could have sewn rows of them into the dusty hillside, splitting the ground open with swipes of a mystical spear.
The midwife never related her flights of fancy to anyone. She, more than most, knew where babies really came from. She was a very practical woman, despite her active imagination. A veteran nurse and a stalwart of the village. In the Mediterranean, her heavy, scraggly hands were the common mark of hard working septuagenarian widows. Even now that her family took care of her, it was her habit to toil with the harvests and cooking. At seventy, her posture was compromised but her body sound, and she often waved her arms about or bounced spryly on her toes when telling a story.
Every mother in the village knew the midwife, and each had felt those same thick knuckles brushing their cheek, and gently petting their hand. During labor, they had each looked into the her eyes and seen the comfort, strength, and solace that flowed down from the very beginnings of womanhood, going back to the first time a woman watched another overcome fearful pain.
Whether it was her soft words or her stoic face, the midwife didn’t know, but in those hours of delivery she became as sturdy as she was meant to be. She was beyond surprise. Immune to panic. She held up the entire house.
“Breathe, sister,” she chanted. “Breathe.” So long as they could keep breathing, they could keep pushing. And so long as they would stay pushing, the midwife would stay chanting.
Once the child was out, however, the old, barren woman usually had very little to say. “Keep him swaddled and off his belly,” she simply advised. “The rest will come naturally.” (A visitor to their village could tell, by looking at the discernibly flat spot at the back of everyone’s head, that the midwife’s advice had been followed.)
But Maria’s baby was different, and the midwife had plenty to say. He didn’t respond to the bombardment of light, or that first bite of cold air, or the pain of delivery, or the fear of new sensations. Instead, this child – as soon as he emerged – locked eyes with the old lady and shook his head in the most deliberate of ways.
It wasn’t good.
In his mother’s womb, the baby had been dreaming of his own demise. It was a premonition of terrible, bloody death. Hot breath and bristling fur pawing all over him. Bites, scratches, and agony that would dwindle down into an elusive, reoccurring moment of finality like a man nodding off in a chair. Of course when the baby was born, he had no words to describe this terror. And no way to escape it. He simply felt the most primal of all fears: being prey.
The midwife was taken aback by the baby’s gaze and the afflatus it implied. For the first time in a long time, she panicked. No child deserved to suffer with all that fear, but there was simply nothing to do about it. He had already arrived. He would have to endure whatever the world had in store for him. It was over.
The midwife did her duty and handed the child up to his mother’s breast. “A son…Keep him swaddled and off his belly. The rest will come naturally.”
Maria held her red, hairy little son. He already had thick dark eyebrows. She said, “So far, the things that come naturally have only gotten me in trouble.”
The midwife took another look at Maria’s condition – her brutally clipped hair and the scratches marring her neck and shoulder.
Maria had consorted with an Italian soldier. The Italian occupation was long gone, but the Greek villagers – particularly the islanders – had never forgotten. They hated the foreign soldiers spending their leave in the towns of the Dodecanese, but neither side ever instigated violence. At least on each other. Lines had been drawn and an uneasy truce had ensued. When Maria and Giovanni became lovers, the line was crossed. Giovanni simply went back to his ship, but the villagers ganged up and made an example of Maria. They tore her clothes off and sheared her hair. They treated her worse than Giovanni ever would have. They punished her like an animal for doing nothing more than following human instincts.
The midwife patted Maria’s forearm. It was not the first time she had seen this sort of unpleasantness in her work. Throughout the Great War and then World War II she had seen mothers nearly killed by the fury of the invading soldiers. And sometimes, like this, there was even greater fury when the townspeople responded to voluntary coupling.
The midwife was far beyond all that finger-pointing. No matter who the mother was, or what the conditions of her pregnancy, the midwife performed her ancestral, sororal duties with the warmth and patience of a grandmother. In those modest times in Greece she had seen it all, in a manner of speaking. To her, each and every laboring woman was a niece and a daughter. Maria was no different.
“Never mind what has come before. Caring for this boy will come first. Let everything else wash away.”
“How will I?” Maria pleaded. “I am the shame of shames to my family! I will never find a husband to take care of us. Not even the father…”
“A soldier?”
Maria nodded.
“Good. That means you can forget him. He will be off playing his games forever! Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing, and dancing sooner than of war.”
A laugh escaped through Maria’s tears.
“Homer said that,” the midwife smiled. “The ancients had all the wisdom a Greek will ever need, you know. And a woman will always find a way to feed her baby. We don’t need philosophers to tell us that.”
“Thank you.” Maria looked at the midwife’s modest black garb and suddenly a plan hatched. “Thank you, sister,” she repeated.
The next morning Maria gathered what little she had: a swaddling board and blankets, needles and thread. She snuck in through her family’s gate and into kitchen. She knew her mother would not be there. It was empty. This was the place that fed and protected her throughout her whole life. Now, with her son clung to her chest, the light seemed somehow different. Her footsteps echoed louder. The familiar smells of her mother were fresh, but distant.
Maria moved as quickly as she could. She took two loaves of bread and a round ball of goat cheese drying in a cloth.
On her way out of town, clutching her bound infant in one arm and looking over her shoulder, she looked behind a certain house. It belonged to a woman – one of the many women – who had mobbed her and shorn her scalp. Maria could remember her crooked teeth, the furious spittle just inches from her face. And her coarse black mourning dress. “You old witch,” she said.
Here, at her clothesline, hung the infamous dark dress. Black shawls accompanied, waving in the breeze. Young Maria wasn’t afraid though. She had grown up since they overcame her. She had changed just in the short walk from her mother’s kitchen. She stole what she wanted off the clothesline and then lingered. “You old witch,” she said.
Maria took the rocky path out of town and down to the port. She found a skip, fully loaded with its cargo, about to set off. She really didn’t care where. And with Greek hospitality being what it was, the lone sailor boarded the curious young woman – and her baby – without a question.
She knew it was risky to take the boy to sea, but her violent memories pushed her out of the town. Now that she had broken its hold, she felt to get as far away as she could – dashing out like a comet across the sky. As the deck began to lob and buck, Maria remembered the tranquility in the midwife’s eyes. She didn’t flee to it for comfort. But instead she felt the same strength shining out of herself, and filling the empty air above the sea. Suddenly the winds of the ocean weren’t a hindrance, but hands urging her on. Maria planted her feet firmly into the ship and pressed her face into it all.
Back in the village, the old midwife realized that young Maria had absconded. She smiled to herself for a while, then realized that she had an additional duty now. She had to tell the villagers what she had seen: a baby had been born with foresight from another world. He could only have been sent by the old Gods. It was just like the myths of old! She told as many people as she could; the boy would one day bring some great thing – a torch – to mankind, just like his namesake. Everybody stopped to hear her tale.
The midwife had always been revered in the town. She was not taken to speaking fantastically. This was a woman who touched the lives of every villager, sometimes quite literally, catching them with her capable hands on their way into the world. And she had never looked for any attention like this before; most of her days she wore a humility that matched her mourning dress. So when she finally – after all these years – spoke up about this singular phenomenon and asked the villagers to listen to her, they did what any honest, God-fearing people would do.
They turned to each other and said, “The old lady has lost her mind. Oh well.”
* * *
Within three hours Maria and the baby landed on the northern shore of Samos. Maria was, oddly, a little disappointed. She had expected a bit more difficulty in her escape.
“Is this as far as you go?” she asked.
“For now, yes. I have to drop off this load of tomatoes here and pick up the eggs. Then I sail for the northwest shore, to Karlovassi.”
“Will you take us there?”
Furthering his filoxenia – Greek hospitality – the sailor answered, “As you like, miss.”
When they landed in Karlovassi, she still felt as though the journey was too short. There had been quite some time when men changed the cargo, but the distance didn’t seem far enough. And it was daylight yet. But the sailor had moored his boat for the evening and walked off into the sweating port convivial. He would spend the night there, drinking liquorice-flavored Ouzo that turned white when mixed with water – lion’s milk, they called it – and visiting one of the local sweethearts. No matter what condition he was in, though, he always made his way – sometimes through the most meandering of paths – to sleep on his boat.
Maria looked into her burlap sack and saw that she still had two more clean kerchiefs for the baby, and about half the bread and cheese. She walked west along the rocky northern shore, pausing to feed or clean the child as he needed it. He was still exhausted by his first days of life, and luckily wasn’t giving her much of a fuss.
She passed through sparse streets until the path grew dark and she reached the edge of the town. The cliffs and mountains rising to her left looked forbidding, but as she considered the lively town below, she knew that she was probably safer in the dark and away from the crowds. Also, with the plan she had in store, she wanted to be seen by as few people as possible.
She unwrapped and swaddled baby again, then laid him on the ground beside her. It was time to sew before the light was completely gone.
Maria followed the midwife’s instructions and placed a clean kerchief in her undergarments twice a day. Sitting on the gravel like she was, Maria was happy for the extra cushion.
The sun was gone now, and its last light faded away. Sewing black cloth with black thread in the dark – it was turning out to be hard work. She had never inspected a nun’s habit before, and now she had to make one by touch. She pricked her fingers more than a few times, but of course the blood wouldn’t show on black. Mercifully, she finally finished. She took the last few scraps of cloth and ticked them into her camisole – which was fitting much tighter now – to soak up the milk leaking from her tender breasts.
When morning struck she finished her bread and her cheese and still wanted more. And she was thirsty. That couldn’t be understated. She hadn’t had water since a fountain on the way out of Karlovassi.
Now Maria changed her baby into a clean kerchief – barely dry after the previous day’s wash in the sea – and rewrapped him. Her arms felt weak, like she had been carrying him all night, through her dreams and back. And the ground had been an unforgiving bed – so foreign without a pillow of some sort.
She was beginning to wish she had stayed in town after all. Needless to say, Maria felt she had gone far enough. The very next town she arrived in would be her final stop. So long as it had a church.
Suddenly, the wind started whipping against the rocks and a storm began. She hastened up the hill and saw dwellings gathered at the top. The modest blue dome of a blanched church house rose in the distance, overlooking the rocky shore. She went straight to its door and pounded to be heard over the sheets of rain.
A young priest answered in a flourish. It was not what Maria expected. She could only hope that a younger man would prove even more gullible. “Father,” she panted. “I found you at last! Is it you? Are you…? Father…?”
The woman’s arrival disarmed the priest and made him somehow happy to be himself, even in such a storm. Faced with this unusual, more literal version of a person in need, he dropped his normal severity. “Father Nikolas is my name, yes. Come in, my child. Are you alright?”
“Yes, Father Nikolas. Thank the lord. I am now. If you only knew how far I’ve come to find you!”
“Catch your breath, Sister.”
She sat down on a bench at the back of the church, and wiped the water from her baby’s face. Father Nikolas watched, wondering what the strange connection between the nun, the baby, and himself could be.
“Thank you, Father Nikolas. I am Sister Maria. I come from a convent near Athens.”
“Yes?” urged the bewildered priest.
“Father, I was walking to my convent three days ago when I found an old man alone dying in the street! What a tragedy!” Maria crossed herself.
“A man dying in the street! And nobody to help him?” Father Nikolas raised his palms to the sky. “God save those Athenians!”
“I went to offer him my aid… and a prayer, of course. He folded back his cloak to reveal this baby! Before he died he told me to bring him to a certain parish here on Samos, to Father Nikolas. He said the child would be safe here under this roof.”
“Here? To Petalides?”
Maria had never heard that name before. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life. “Yes father,” she said. “The man said ‘Petalides,’ I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
“But, there must be some mistake. This is not an orphanage. How am I supposed to care for this child?”
“I can assist with that, Father. Our convent had an orphanage and I know exactly how to care for babies. Do you have the room for us here?”
“Well, yes. Of course, it is just me. I am alone in the parish. I give the sermons and the Eucharist on Sunday and I teach the children. I could use the assistance of a nun, I’m sure... But tell me… who was this man? And how did he know me?”
“I cannot say for certain, Father. Perhaps he was one of your flock? A man who left the village and went to Athens?”
“Jonas? Was it Jonas? A man of about forty-five?”
“Perhaps, father. Did he have family here?”
“Yes, he does.” The priest sighed. “We’ll have to tell them the sad news.”
“No, then it couldn’t be him,” Maria answered frantically. “It couldn’t be Jonas. The man I met said that he had no family here.”
“It is all very mysterious. This is a small town.”
“Yes, Father,” she assured him “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
The priest looked at her askance. “Indeed… Does this child have a name?”
Before Maria had fled her hometown, the midwife had asked one favor in exchange for her roof and services: to name the child for the foresight he had. ‘He knows something, Maria. He is looking ahead,’ the midwife had said. ‘Everyone must know. Do this for me. Please.’ Maria would have done anything for the midwife. But she hated the name the midwife suggested. It sounded ridiculous and old. Maria wanted to name him Giovanni, after his father. Even if it was a xenoi name.
If things went according to plan, neither Maria nor her child would ever return to the village. The midwife would never know what the baby was called, one way or the other. Maria didn’t have to keep her promise. And so she did what any woman in her position would have done with that strange request.
“He is named Prometheus,” she said.
Father Nikolas darkened. “Oh. That won’t do at all, will it?”
Chapter 2
Maria was alone now in her new quarters. She unwrapped little Prometheus …Prometheus?...still asleep, and lay him on the bed to rest. As for herself, Maria was too nervous to sit down. Instead, she practiced trying to look like a nun. She started by imitating the way they walk. It was especially difficult because of the soreness leftover from childbirth. And the pads in her undergarments made her feel like she was wearing diapers. She paced up and down her new room – a modest bedroom attached to the church. It contained only a sturdy table and the bed, which was stuffed with hay and horsehair. A small window faced the northern shore and a single door opened to the churchyard. Now that the storm had passed, the last warm drops of rain were rolling off the roof and past her window.
She noticed that her smile and her gait seemed tethered to each other, as if her mouth were the reins and her legs were the donkey. It seemed silly, but without a mirror, she just had to feel her way through it. First, she tried a gliding step, but it felt far too contrived. Her face wasn’t moving – not even to blink. So she tried adding a bounce to her step. Exuberance shone through her smile. That was no better. Finally she settled in to a measured pace. Her eyes tried to form an expression to match. That expression was one of carefree interest. The problem was that Maria was far from carefree. And the only thing she was currently interested in was her own safety and that of her furry son. She tried again, to force the tranquility into her face. Her eyelids twitched under the strain.
There was a knock at the door. She checked herself and opened the door Father Nikolas had brought her a towel and a large jug. It was empty.
“I doubt you saw the spring in the village on your way in. To find it, you must simply continue down the same path into town.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Yes, God bless you, Sister Maria. And tell me, our meeting was so rushed, what is the sainted name that you took at your final oath?”
“Oh yes,” she stalled, trying to maintain some semblance of poise. “I am known as Sister Maria Sofia.” (Maria had luckily heard of the famous temple Hagia Sofia in nearby Istanbul.) “After St. Sofia,” she added, as if somehow to clarify.
She wondered if she had breached etiquette during their first meeting. She simply wasn’t sure to use one name or two. “Do forgive my poor behavior,” she said. “My convent, being so near the city, was informal. We spent so much time helping the poor that our study suffered.”
“And which convent was that?”
Maria nearly said ‘Sisters of the Bleeding Virgin,’ but the whole point of leaving home was to leave her secret love life behind. “The Sisters of the Bleeding Savior,” she answered.
“I see.” He spoke as if he’d heard what she was really thinking. “Well, I’m sure you will adjust to the orderly ways of Petalides, Sister Maria Sofia. This is a quiet town where each and every villager will rely upon us for their needs. For their spiritual education. We must maintain the highest dictates of the Greek church and its rules.”
Father Nikolas turned to leave, but lingered on an afterthought. “I almost forgot,” he said. “There is a man named Hesiod whose farm is just across from the spring. From time to time he obliges me with some food from his crops. His wife just gave birth. I think she will be able to nurse the child, if you explain the circumstance.” Father Nikolas was about to suggest that Maria hand young Prometheus over permanently, but he was afraid of how discourteous it would seem to the nun. He also had to consider how such behavior would affect his reputation, which apparently was so ennobled that it reached all the way to Athens. At least to Athens, he deduced.
“Goodness, yes,” Maria said. “I am sure little Prometheus is hungry by now. We were lucky to stay the night with a wet nurse in Karlovassi. Lucky again, now that there is a family that can help us. Help him.”
“Hesiod is a generous and honest man,” Father Nikolas admonished, “but most inattentive to the word of God.”
Maria could do nothing but smile – still trying to find the maddening pose of carefree interest – as the priest exited. She waited for his footsteps to disappear before she let herself exhale.
“Jesus!” she said. This farce was harder than she expected. She’d never considered of any of these little details. She picked up her infant and the jug and went to fetch water and the milk that her baby didn’t need.
As promised, there was a gate just across from the nearest spring. She pushed it open and walked through a mud courtyard. Hens scampered by her feet, and Maria began to wonder what the priest meant by ‘inattentive to the word of God.’ Everything seemed perfectly in its place in the farmer’s courtyard.
Then her foot unexpectedly sank ankle-deep into something soft and warm. “Shit!” she blurted.
A large, clean-shaven man stepped out from behind a cow and said, “Exactly, Sister. You have named it on the first try.” Maria began a bumbling apology for her language, but the farmer cut her off. “Nothing at all, Sister. You must be a new addition to our local parish. I’m sure Father Nikolas will be grateful for the company. And who’s this?” Hesiod said, indicating the baby.
Maria answered. “Also a new addition! Prometheus, is his name.” She turned the child, stuck in the crook of her elbow, to show his face. The farmer picked him right up and held Prometheus firmly at arm’s distance to the sky, as if he were holding a diamond up to the light to see its flaws.
“He is an orphan,” she said. “I have brought from Athens to be raised under the eye of Father Nikolas. It was a man’s dying wish.”
Hesiod looked at Maria, then handed the bundle back. “Well, the fates have their ways, don’t they? He looks very alert. One has to be, when taking in the instructions of the church.”
“Yes sir,” Maria said without thinking. “I understand your wife has a new baby too. May God bless you and your family.”
Hesiod suddenly looked cross, but it only lasted a moment.
She continued “Do you think she might nurse this poor child?”
Hesiod shook off his momentary surliness and spoke kindly, as before. His voice was strong. He projected like an actor reciting lines in a stage performance. “Mothers of the village come to me for goat’s milk and for cheese. For eggs and figs to feed their families. But, young Prometheus! Nobody has ever asked for the milk from my wife’s breast before!”
Hesiod laughed sonorously. Maria gave a timid smile.
“Of course if there is milk to spare,” he continued. “And you are welcome to it. But first, may I assist you with your foot?”
Maria blushed, embarrassed by the idea of this hulking dark man touching her leg. But with her arms (and her mind) so uniquely encumbered today, she couldn’t refuse his help. She sat on a low wall near the barn. While Hesiod scraped her sandal and wiped her foot clean, Maria looked at the multitude of tools around the yard – baskets, pitchforks, hammers, shears, nails, a small scythe, hoes, and lumber. Each one was in its place. Then she noticed two wooden crosses on the ground, leaning in a corner of the low wall. They were the only things that Hesiod hadn’t found a proper place for. Maria said nothing.
She thanked him and made her way to the back of the house. This time she watched where she placed her feet.
As she came to the back, a sea breeze met her with a wave of salty oxygen. The air reached under her habit and cooled her clipped scalp.
Hesiod’s house was built in sections. The kitchen – in the back with its exposed stonework – was clearly the oldest part. A wooden lintel made way for a single window opening and bestowed a sense of order to an otherwise haphazardly stacked wall. Underneath that window sat Hesiod’s wife. Her black locks spilled over bare tanned shoulders and dangled playfully above the infant at her breast.
The baby was not swaddled.
Modesty overcame Maria, and she waited too long to introduce herself.
“Hello, Sister! You must be traveling. Welcome to Petalides. My name is Alyssa.”
Maria recited the fiction of her circumstances along with the poor fortunes of Prometheus. Alyssa didn’t even wait to hear the whole story before she took the baby to her other breast.
Maria tried not to be self-conscious, but it was difficult. Not because of the awkwardness of the situation, and not because of her bald-faced charade, and not even for the vicarious tingle in her own breasts. Maria was embarrassed because Alyssa was so beautiful, so graceful in her unabashed femininity. Maria herself was covered in black to hide any evidence of her womanhood. She looked upon the beauty of Alyssa’s smooth olive cheeks, her curling hair, and her heavy breasts. Maria was reminded of that grander feeling that the midwife could invoke: the potent serenity of womanhood. With the sun to her back, Maria grew stifled in the dark fabric that covered her from head to toe.
The two women conversed further out of manners, but the words were lost on both of them. All Maria could focus on was the sight of this resplendent mother nursing two babies. Meanwhile, Alyssa’s mind was fastened on this peculiar nun – a fish out of water who handled a baby like only a mother could.
“Would you like to leave him with me for a time, Sister Maria?”
“No!” Maria stammered. “I keep him with me at all times. I made a vow. I suppose I’ll have to…”
Alyssa noticed the wet spots growing on Maria’s chest. She politely pointed out that Maria was leaking. The dubious nun doubled over in shock, pulling the garment away from her chest.
The hostess implored Maria not to be embarrassed. “There’s no reason to try to explain,” she said. Alyssa understood. Maria was a mother and that Prometheus was her son. And there was no crime in that. She still addressed Maria as ‘sister,’ but it sounded more casual now.
“Please sister, come back whenever you wish, and for whatever your reasons. He is always welcome to share with Makis and you will always be welcome too. Don’t worry.”
Maria took the offer. For the sake of the priest, Maria went back to Hesiod’s home once more before retiring for the night. This time Alyssa remarked, with a note of relief, “Oh Prometheus! See? Don’t you feel better without that swaddling board?”
Later that night Maria sat on her mattress, nursing Prometheus. She looked at her other breast and wondered if she could manage to feed two infants, like Alyssa did only too easily.
Maria’s mind turned to the other doubts that nagged her – troubles more immediate than the size of her bosom. She kept replaying the last interaction with Father Nikolas. When he asked her, she had stumbled over her own name! Stupid, stupid, how could I be so stupid! He is going to find out. I am not fooling anybody.
She looked out her window to the ocean. The moon lit a path across the water. I could leave now, she thought. Tonight, before daylight even breaks. I’m rested. I’m strong enough, and this time I’ll take a jug of water. This time I’ll think of a good name and a real convent.
Maria stroked her neck in consternation. She fingered her shorn hair, not even two inches long. If I go now, the villagers of Petalides won’t even remember me, except for a funny story. A silly girl who disappeared quickly. No harm done.
But there was something positive tugging at her too. Something about Hesiod and Alyssa. She trusted them. Perhaps they could help. Perhaps they’d keep her confidence. She wasn’t certain about Hesiod yet, but she knew Alyssa would never judge her.
The thought put her at ease. She stopped petting her scalp, and sleep took a little step closer. She was alright for now. And she knew that she always had the option move on. She could always go to the next town on the next island, and this time with a better story.
She snickered, thinking of her blunder earlier. “Sisters of the Bleeding Virgin?”
* * *
Maria’s private rehearsals didn’t pay off as quickly as she hoped. Her smile and cadence – a bit too ebullient – were mistaken for eagerness by Father Nikolas. Twice he asked her to say the blessing for their meal. She was as articulate as a rolling box. Rather than perceiving Maria’s hoax, he simply shook his head at, yes, another failing of women.
She would learn to dread, as the schoolchildren did, Father Nikolas’s terrifying scowl. He no longer seemed young, as he did at first glance. At one point Maria considered taking a vow of silence just to save her from further anxiety, but she couldn’t deprive Prometheus of his mother’s voice. And she couldn’t go sneaking off every time she had to sooth him.
As months passed, Maria learned more efficient ways to keep his attention off her and her recitals of religious rites. Namely, she learned to spend time outside the parish.
She would stroll through the village with Prometheus in her arms, pointing out objects to him and naming them aloud. “Grass… Trees… Donkey… Sea… Bird… Sun… Sky.” She hadn’t bothered to tarry on any these things for years. Now, they were created all over again. Calling them out for Prometheus became her greatest pleasure.
The villagers looked at her with fellowship. She beamed back at them, calmly reflecting the revelry and wonder of budding life. She finally settled upon the countenance and gait that suited her. It came naturally during these treasured outings, with a child on her hip. Maria even used one of the church’s words to name this air, and in times of need she subdued herself with this unspoken mantra: Gracious, Maria, gracious. Calm and gracious.
Luckily, while this insouciant tune evolved in Maria, the old priest managed to keep his distance. He was always a man of relative solitude, but now he was confining himself a bit more. If he’d had companions to notice the difference, they might have guessed that Father Nikolas had a bout of constipation, with all the time he spent in the bathroom. He’d confine himself there or in his private quarters to writhe in confounded discomfort, sometimes begging the Lord for reprieve. Otherwise, the priest took care of his duties as usual, imposing on his new guests only when absolutely necessary.
He still took a daily turn through the village, blessing any villager who stopped him for conversation – an occurrence that becoming more and more common. Father Nikolas also noticed that attendance at Mass picked up considerably. Ever since the young nun and the orphan baby arrived in Petalides, the townspeople met his eyes more readily. And more warmly. He had begun, on his daily pilgrimage, to glow a bit when raised his fingers to each passerby. It was so uplifting that he had to stop once in a while and remind himself of the weight of his spiritual authority.
Oh, but the children on Sundays were not fooled. Even if their parents spoke of Father Nikolas more pleasantly or remembered to count him in their blessings (which had also grown more common), the children knew they could not let their guard down against the menace with the caterpillar eyebrows.
A great man? Supposedly. A revered man? Evidently. But to the children he was still the man most likely to rap their knuckles with a stick.
Father Nikolas’s pupils learned to pay close attention to those eyebrows. They heralded the fierce green eyes that would pierce straight into their hearts to see the most concealed of trespasses.
“I warn you children,” he would thunder, “if a sin has taken hold of your heart, God will punish you. If even the thought lives in your mind, it will soon come forth into the world, and drag your soul behind it as a slave.”
Maria resented these disquieting teaching methods. She had not even forgiven her own childhood teachers yet. But being neither far from adolescence nor beyond reproach herself, she thought it best to keep silent. Who was she to interfere, anyway? After all, the children were still learning their great lessons in history and written language. Perhaps Maria could have benefited from those lessons herself! An education can be a great asset, she reasoned.
But not quite so great, she decided, when combined with stinging knuckles.
Chapter 3
Prometheus grew quickly at the breasts of Maria and Alyssa. It was easy for Alyssa to consider him a son. He was outgrowing Makis, his surrogate brother, but it never crossed Alyssa’s mind that Prometheus was getting more than his fair share of milk. After all, Maria would occasionally feed Makis when his mother’s hands were otherwise full.
Maria had secretly wanted to try nursing two babies at once and jumped at the first opportunity. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Certainly,” Alyssa yelled. She was filling her apron with almonds. “We’ll be milk sisters, and these two will be our sons!”
The extent of Greek filoxenia can never be overstated. It is what kept travelers alive for thousands of years. It is what kept the sense of adventure and progress alive in early society. And it was especially strong in the house of Hesiod and Alyssa. They opened the fold of their family to Prometheus. He and Makis would grow up calling each other ‘brother.’
But poor Maria was left only as a Sister.
Maria would never be called mother. And she’d never be able to say the word, son. She first realized it on her daily walk through the village, holding her toddling child against her hip.
The town square was lined with stone from every corner, and it held a whole world of discovery, just waiting to be pointed out. “Spring… water… big stone wall. Gate… chickens… goat,” she would say. Then she pointed to him, “Prometheus,” and then sullenly to herself, “…Sister Maria.”
She couldn’t call herself Mána. Prometheus would have to grow up thinking he didn’t have one.
Most young women in her place would burst into tears right there in the street, but Maria simply continued on, calming herself with steady cadence, Gracious, Maria, gracious.
“Calm and gracious, Prometheus,” she said. “We must always be calm and gracious.”
These words and Sister Maria’s untroubled tone had a soothing effect on Prometheus. (And he needed soothing more than most, since he was the one child in the world who had seen his death coming for him.)
It didn’t matter to Maria who else could be trusted with her identity; she knew she could not trust Prometheus. There were no such things as secrets with a toddler; if he knew the truth he would call her Mána all of the time, not just in their discreet moments together.
She could never let him know, no matter how much it pained her. To reveal herself now would bring disgrace on them both. And they’d be forced – perhaps violently – to leave the safety and sustenance that the church offered.
She considered what it would be like to cope with exile again. In the next town she could disguise herself as a widow, now that her hair had mostly grown back…unless, of course, the villagers of Petalides decided to punish her with another shearing.
In the end, she would not bring herself to leave the friends she had made in Alyssa and Hesiod. She truly was becoming a sister to Alyssa. And Hesiod was becoming a brother. He could watch Maria nursing the children with never show a glimmer of shame nor a hint of desire. His eyes held something else instead: a noble pride, like one has for his donkey, or his finest hen, or the first sunset on a freshly covered roof.
* * *
One day when Alyssa was in town, the boys were scurrying around her kitchen. Maria was outside, standing in the wind. The breeze reminded her of her journey, her home, and the miles and seasons since. Hesiod was just coming to the cistern for a drink when he saw Maria lost in her own thoughts, as if the wind was telling her stories from all over the world. The children were far too quiet. He peeked into the kitchen to see what they were doing. Hesiod stopped at the threshold began laughing. Maria broke her trance to come see what was the matter.
It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. Then she saw the two boys, wriggling on the floor like panicked worms. They had tipped over the tin of olive oil and were now trying to squirm back to their feet. So far, neither of them could even get to their hands and knees. The two boys were slipping all over the tiles of the kitchen, looking more like they were trying to swim than walk. Standing next to Hesiod and his thunderous laugh, Maria’s instinct was to rush over and pull them out. But looking at their bewildered – yet determined – faces, she burst out in laughter herself.
By the time Alyssa arrived, Maria and Hesiod were doubled over, clinging to the threshold and each other for balance. The sight of a nun laughing deep belly-laughs only added to the revelry of Alyssa’s experience.
The mothers eventually tired of the spectacle (to Hesiod’s great disappointment) and took the children away for a bath. Soon Maria had Prometheus sitting in a wooden tub in the churchyard behind her quarters. The surface of the soapy water was beaded with oil.
She loved bathing her son. It was one of the most intimate times she shared with him. Her arm, scooping and bent to hold him upright, was in a position unnatural outside the world of motherhood. It was marvelous how instinct took over and she knew exactly how to hold Prometheus safely in the water. Nobody showed her how to do this. It came naturally, just as the midwife had said.
When Prometheus grew older and began to thrash and soak her cloak and habit, Maria figured out how to quell him with distraction. “Where are your toes, Prometheus?”
The child would look critically at the specified part before tentatively pointing it out and smiling up at her.
“That’s right!”
“And where is your belly button?” This was her favorite. Prometheus craned his inquisitive head over to see that frivolous body part. It seemed to exist only for tickling.
“And where is your pencil?” (She only did this one, of course, when she knew they were safely alone. Father Nikolas would surely disapprove of emphasizing the most mischievous of organs.)
She was the one teaching him words and all about the world around him. She pointed it out with the pride of a creator while the warm wind blew the pollens of the Aegean over them.
* * *
Father Nikolas noticed how quickly Prometheus was growing. The boy had tripled in size since he anointed him with holy water in the baptismal altar. He also saw that Sister Maria and the poorly-named orphan were spending much of their time outside of the church. It wasn’t strictly proper, but he rationalized that it was a simple way to spread the gospel throughout the town. (Little did he know that as Maria spoke it, the word of God was, “Look Prometheus, Orange… Egg…Chicken… Flower!”)
Perhaps, he hoped, she might bring a sense of faith to the godless heathen she visits everyday. Father Nikolas could not even think about the man without growing hot under his collar. How dare he insult the church? How could he flaunt all his blessings? How could he ignore the salvation that was right in front of his face?
But never mind, he thought, the Lord does have a plan. Now He had delivered a nun and orphan for Father Nikolas to watch over – which he would gladly do with His blessing. And as sure as the townspeople saw him differently now, the priest was certain that the house of Hesiod would eventually warm to him too.
Father Nikolas had given his guests the shelter of the church house, and made sure that all their food was blessed with prayer. And not only did he ensure they were attending to their own daily prayers, but also that they were familiar with the work of the church. He demonstrated his weekly toil in composing Sunday’s sermon, and even let them share in the miracle.
Every Saturday morning, before they were released to the village for their duties and their livelihoods, Father Nikolas let them hear his rehearsal for Sunday sermon. None of them ever missed the appointment; it was a solemn commitment by all three.
Traditionally, Father Nikolas had never been at ease with women or children, especially when he was a child himself. But now his duties as a priest established the protocol to address anyone with confidence. Priesthood gave him a platform from which he could stand and speak with full knowledge of his purpose. These days he often found himself alone with the troubled, or the blessed, women of Petalides. And he held babies for their baptisms quite regularly.
Even so, it was somewhat difficult for Father Nikolas summon the courage to first invite Sister Maria to hear his humble, intimate rehearsal. She was, however, a woman of God, so there was no shame in asking.
For Maria, sitting in the nave while Father Nikolas recited his Sunday sermon was a test of her newfound practice. She would try to maintain just the right amount of enthusiasm, gratitude, and austerity. Sometimes Father Nikolas had a gentle message of love, peace, and forgiveness, but often he wielded the type of awful brimstone that the local children, at least, had come to expect and fear. In either case, she maintained her kind mien.
She knew that pleasant quiescence was key among her duties; it was important to Father Nikolas as a priest, and even as a man. She felt he deserved it. Even if he was obligated to help her. Even if she had tricked him into it. Father Nikolas still took the two of them in and expected nothing in return. His reasons were secondary.
When his sermons delved into the darker side of faith and his voice began to boom and shudder, well, Maria had no choice but to silently remind herself, Gracious, Maria. Calm and gracious.
She felt useful observing Father Nikolas’s Saturday sermons, just like when she (somewhat less willingly) attended the full length of Sunday services. She always made sure that Prometheus was fed and changed before settling into the front pew to calmly listen to the priest.
As a baby, Prometheus lie in his mother’s arms, gurgling and transfixed by the steady stream of intricate new words. By the time he grew into a toddler he found the ceremonies more confining until finally, exhausted by his struggle to escape, he would fall asleep. Once he gained the ability to speak he surprised everybody one day by singing out in time with the chants, “ages of ages!” The worshipers cheered and clapped for the spectacle. Prometheus played to his crowd, as babies do. “Ages of ages!” he shouted, “Ages of ages!”
At times like that, Father Nikolas would overlook the pagan name that the boy had been cursed with. He even called him by it – painfully at first, and then magnanimously for the benefit of the child. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to change that ridiculous name. The priest felt somehow that the mere utterance of a pagan god underlined his neighbor Hesiod’s flagrant rejection of orthodoxy. He knew it made no sense, but he still held the implacable fear that every time a villager heard the name ‘Prometheus,’ it somehow validated Hesiod’s life and undermined his own.
* * *
Since neither Prometheus nor his friend Makis were of school age yet, they were free to wander around either the church yard or Hesiod’s home. They were surrounded by their two mothers most of the time, teaching them the names of things, to properly ask for food, or how to get it themselves.
The children eventually grew capable of exploring and communicating on their own, and so they started accumulating duties. Their first and favorite job was to gather eggs from the chicken coop in the morning. At first their mothers went with them, shooing away the rooster that so pugnaciously ruled the roost. (Neither Maria nor Alyssa ever really had much fondness for the strutting rogue.) Eventually, the boys learned to keep their distance from him, and were allowed to go alone.
Hesiod was sometimes nearby, and he would ask, “Did you thank the chicken for what she gave you?”
The boys laughed, crying out, “Thank you, birdie head!” and “Yeah, thanks, feather-head!”
And for the time being, Hesiod couldn’t help but titter, “Alright, go now, rascals!”
Chapter 4
The Greek sun, glaring off of the walls, and the sea, and the blanched rocks of Petalides, touched every corner of the boys’ world. They were never cold or frightened in its constant radiation, or in the familial atmosphere of the villagers with their innocent bickering. The musty smells of hay and manure swept through the village, making every inch feel like the safety of their own front door. The townsfolk each knew both Prometheus and Makis and naturally adopted the role of either avuncular protector or uneasy adversary.
The shopkeeper, Proteus, for instance, had little tolerance for children in his store. He was always yelling and using the harshest sounds in the language to ward off the little rapscallions … unless they were buying, of course. Yell as he did, and as much as he threatened to, the merchant never actually hit them. And when their parents were in the shop, the children saw how Proteus shifted into an artful, flattering salesman. The children feared him almost as much as Father Nikolas. They realized quickly that a man with a stick is powerful, but equally so was the man with the sweets and firecrackers.
Proteus was an unctuous, rotund man with a groomed mustache and a taut, red face. For payment he would take proper currency, but barter was also common and actually more convenient for most of the town’s farmers. The merchant had a refined skill for translating the value of wool into apples, apples into eggs, eggs into fabric, chickens into flour. He was – to his apprentice at least – an economic alchemist.
Many of the boys in the village would pay in eggs. Thaddeus, the largest of them, showed Makis and Prometheus what to do if they didn’t have any eggs to trade with. If one stood in front of the store, it was easy to tell which children were coming to trade their eggs for sweets or firecrackers. In a few moments, those children would reemerge from the shop, carrying their prize. That was no fun for Thaddeus. What was far more fun – almost as fun as getting one’s own goodies – was to smash their eggs just before they entered the store. He showed Prometheus and Makis, and together they prevented all the other kids in town from having more fun than they did. Through some strange form of larceny, the three boys took the other children’s fun for themselves. But it wasn’t stealing.
When Hesiod caught word of this from the merchant, he knew the time for joking and child’s games was over. ‘Wasting food’ might not have been on the Christian list, but it was a cardinal sin to Hesiod. The next morning, when Maria arrived and Makis and Prometheus scampered down to the coop to collect eggs, Hesiod was sure to catch them. “And did you thank the chicken?” he asked.
The boys began chuckling in amusement, but they quickly saw that Hesiod was not joking. Not anymore.
“Do you know why we thank the chicken? She gives us her babies so we can grow big and strong. So we must thank her.”
This made some sense to Prometheus who had, for every meal he ate in the church house, thanked God for His gifts. It was logical to thank the chicken as well.
But Makis spoke up. “But we feed her too. Isn’t that fair? Why do we need to thank her? She never thanks me for feeding her.”
Hesiod led the boys closer to one of the roosting hens. “Look at her, boys. Come. Look into her eyes. She cannot speak like we can. You have to look at her eyes. She is thanking you. She likes it here. She thanks us everyday by staying alive and staying with us. And… I’ll tell you a secret.”
The boys huddled in closer.
“You see, sometimes the Gods are very tricky. Zeus and Hermes and Aphrodite, they all come down to visit us from the sky and from the sea. But they take different shapes. They disguise themselves. Sometimes they look like a person. Like the cripple at the fountain. Sometimes their cousins pretend to be a tree. And sometimes they hide as a cow or a chicken. So you must always be careful and be nice to all of them.”
The boys’ jaws hung agape as they looked at the chicken. Hesiod knew he had done a good job. He pressed the advantage while he had it. “And do you know what happens when the Gods are mad at you?”
“They send you to Hell?” Prometheus ventured.
“No,” scoffed Makis. “They eat you up like an olive!”
“No,” Hesiod leaned in. “They turn you into a chicken.”