“So Aesop made them?” he said. “It’s good you have them...proof that his world is still here. I wish I could remember his...his faith...”
Taking the figures from Alcaeus, I put them on a table between us: we three had sat at a table like this, in exile, planning, planning: those worries swept back again, distorted. Confused, I could feel myself trapped. I knew that in those eyes opposite me, death sat there, at least a part of death, the same death that was in those clay animals.
Our hands met across the table.
P
Villa Poseidon
It is useless to cross-examine Alcaeus. He will not discuss Charaxos.
“Here, do me a favor, read me something from Hesiod,” he says, and hands me the poet’s advice to his brother.
How history repeats itself! Family problems haven’t changed: this is an earlier Charaxos, who bribed judges to deprive Hesiod of his inheritance.
If I did not know better, I could almost believe Charaxos had used this story for his model.
As time goes on, I feel the stigma of our relationship more and more. How can I be his sister?