A Terrible Beauty (5 page)

“Tê
kallistê.”

 

Philip

Munich, 1891

Ashton's story haunted the Germans who had so graciously transported him from the depths of the African bush to the relative civility of Cairo. When they saw him again, on the streets some weeks later, despondent and on the verge of falling ill, they took him back into their fold. In the early days of their acquaintance, Ashton had formed an instant connection with Fritz Reiner, a young archaeologist who shared his passion for classical studies, and now Reiner invited him to travel with him to his home in Germany. What other option did he have?

When they arrived in Munich, Reiner's mother took one look at Ashton and declared him to be under her protection. She would see to it that he regained all of his strength and his place in the world. Regaining strength, apparently, meant regular consumption of strong German beer, sausages, and potatoes, but Ashton found he objected to none of it. Slowly, he lost all pallor of illness. But nothing stopped the nightmares plaguing his sleep. They, Ashton knew, would cease only when he was back home, comfortably settled with his wife. He considered going to Berlin, to meet with the British ambassador, but Reiner convinced him not to bother.

“You will meet the same resistance you did in Cairo, my friend,” he said. “You need to go where people recognize you. Not the manager of a hotel or some useless civil servant or bank employee—the people who know and love you. The minute your family sees you, this whole dreadful business of needing proof will evaporate.”

“I realize what you say is both wise and correct,” Ashton said, “but I am full of fear. I have been gone so long. What will they think? I ought never have stayed in Africa for so long.”

“You were not of sound mind, my friend—first the poison and then the fever addled your brain. But now you are recovered and ready to return to your former life—the life that never should have been taken away from you.”

Ashton pushed his palm hard against his forehead. “Kallista, my wife. How will she ever be able to find it in her heart to forgive me?”

“It will be like a dream to her,” Reiner said. “No more dreary widowhood. You will be giving back to her all of the hopes for her future she was forced to abandon the day she learned of your death.”

“What if she has remarried?”

“So soon?”

“It has been nearly three years.”

The two gentlemen sat silent for a moment.

“It is possible, I suppose,” Reiner said. “We could make discreet inquiries with someone in London, perhaps?”

“Hargreaves would be the man for that,” Ashton said.

“Send him a telegram?” Reiner suggested.

“Yes,” Ashton said. “I shall do so without delay. His reply will tell me how best to proceed.” He did not wish to reveal his return to Hargreaves quite yet, so signed it from an old mutual acquaintance of theirs from Eton. That done, he steeled himself for his friend's response.

 

3

Tê
kallistê.

To the fairest.

The shadowy figure had spoken the same words written on the golden apple dropped by Eris, or Discord, at a wedding to which she had not been invited. Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite all claimed it, each believing herself the most worthy of the sentiment. Zeus stayed out of the argument, and chose a shepherd—Paris—to adjudicate. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, in exchange for a promise that he could have the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Unfortunately, as Helen was already married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta, Paris and Helen's subsequent elopement gave rise to the Trojan War.

To me, the phrase held nearly the power it had for Paris. It formed the basis for the name Philip had bestowed on me: Kallista. He never, in his journal, referred to me by my given name, only by Kallista. When I first read it, the word held no significance to me, but on the day a keeper at the British Museum told me Paris's story, I realized Philip's choice of nickname suggested he thought I was beautiful. He had never told me, and this insight into his thoughts affected me profoundly, making me wish I had known him better when he was alive.

By the time I managed to shake myself from the stupor caused by that simple Greek phrase, I could find no trace of the man who had uttered it, and was still mulling over the words when Jeremy found me sitting, motionless, on the fallen section of a column outside the Erechtheion. He dropped down next to me and playfully squeezed my shoulder.

“Now don't be so glum, Em. I am not deserving of this much censure for one small bit of graffiti.”

“You are deserving of far more censure than you shall ever get,” I said, “but that is not what is troubling me at present.” I described for him the appearance of the mysterious stranger. “Although I cannot, in faith, call him a stranger.”

“What are you saying, Em? That Philip has come back to haunt you?”

“I should feel less unsettled if I thought I had seen a ghost. This was no apparition, Jeremy. It was a living and breathing man.”

“Then where did he go?”

“I don't know.”

“Em, I am not in such dire need of distraction that you must sink to this. My broken heart will mend without an apparition of your dead husband.”

“I wish I were inventing it to distract you, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

“You are still exhausted from traveling—the train to Athens was a horror I hope never to experience again—and no one sleeps well the first few nights in a hotel.”

“You believe I am seeing things?” I asked.

“Yes.” He rose to stand in front of me and held out his hand to help me to my feet. “Greece and Ashton are linked inextricably in your mind. Combine that with fatigue, and voilà—your dead husband reanimated.”

“I might agree with you if I hadn't thought I saw him on the boat as well.”

“Hardly surprising on a trip to Greece. Philip was so obsessed with the place I'm surprised his ghost didn't wear a toga.”

“Romans wore togas, Jeremy, not the Greeks.”

“Romans, Greeks, who could be bothered to tell the difference? Forget about it all, Em. What we need now is the champagne I've been lugging in this wretched basket. Come, let's go find your tedious living spouse and that dreadful American. We don't need a ghost.”

“You're a beast,” I said.

“Thank you ever so much for noticing,” he said, leaning in close. “And, Em, I wouldn't mention your ghostly visitor to Hargreaves.”

“Why ever not?”

“You know he and I don't get on—I never could tolerate a Cambridge man—but I have done my best to stop actively disliking him over the past few years, strictly for your sake. Ashton was his best friend. Dragging up memories will only cause him pain.”

“I never thought I would see you so concerned about Colin. The two of you have been getting on so well of late I'm almost afraid you will transfer all of your affections from me to him. Life would hardly be worth living.”

“Ah, Em, if only you took me more seriously.” He pulled my arm through his. “You break my heart.”

“You are a dreadful tease,” I said.

Champagne by moonlight at the Acropolis cures nearly any ill, and by the time we had spread a blanket in the center of the Parthenon and opened the first bottle, I had all but forgot Philip. There were several other small parties visiting the site that evening, and we struck up conversation with the local guide, Alcibiades, one of them had hired. He regaled us with tales from mythology, and joined in when, regretting that I had not brought a copy of something to read aloud from, I began to recite a passage from Sophocles'
Oedipus at Colonus
.

“Last and grandest praise I sing / To Athens, nurse of men, / For her great pride and for the splendor / Destiny has conferred on her. / Land from which fine horses spring!”

Alcibiades finished for me.
“Land of the sea and the sea-farer! / Upon whose lovely littoral / The god of the sea moves, the son of Time.”

“Enough! Enough!” Jeremy made a show of covering his ears with his hands. “No poetry! I much preferred your stories, sir. You must not allow her to force more poetry on me.”

“Are you traveling to any of the islands?” Alcibiades asked.

“Just Santorini,” Jeremy said.

“Well, then, be sure to answer to the Gorgona correctly if she questions you while you're on the boat.”

“The Gorgona?” Jeremy asked. “Is she the one with snakes in her hair?”

“That's Medusa, a gorgon,” I said. “The Gorgona is Alexander the Great's sister.”

“Yes,” Alcibiades continued. “One day, Alexander, after a quest of great difficulty, came to possess a flask of water that, if drunk, would bestow immortality. When he reached home, exhausted, he gave it to his sister to look after while he slept.”

“I am quite onto the way these myths work,” Jeremy said, pouring himself more champagne. “First mistake is not drinking the bloody water the moment you get it.”

“A valid point,” Alcibiades said. “While her brother was sleeping, she was carrying the flask to a place she thought it would be safe, but she tripped and spilled it. When Alexander awoke and learned what had transpired, he cursed her, condemning her to live for eternity as a mermaid.”

“If he could give her eternal life, why couldn't he give it to himself?” Jeremy asked, refilling everyone's champagne.

“It doesn't work that way, old chap,” Colin said. “There are many technical difficulties in these myths that require the modern gentleman to ignore common sense in order to fully appreciate them.”

“I find it charming,” I said. “Even the greatest heroes make mistakes. It reminds us of our humanity.”

“The Gorgona, neither fish nor human—trapped in a state that kept her separate from both the creatures of the sea and those of the earth—was struck by a guilt so deep and so overwhelming that to this day she still stops ships in the Aegean to inquire after her brother.” Alcibiades graced me with a sage smile.

Margaret interrupted. “Presumably one must be very careful to give the correct answer to her question.”

“But of course, madam,” he said. “She will ask,
Is Alexander the king alive?
You must reply,
He lives and reigns and conquers the world!
”

“If you tell her Alexander is dead,” I said, “she will start keening and chanting songs of mourning that churn up the sea until the waves have destroyed your ship and everyone on board drowns. But if you know what to say—”

Jeremy leapt to his feet. “He lives and reigns and conquers the world!”

Alcibiades nodded. “Then she watches over your journey and teaches you the beautiful songs of the sea.”

“Bit inane, don't you think?” Jeremy asked. “Even I know Alexander is long dead. This sister sounds rather daft.”

“Don't say so out loud,” I said, laughing. “You must tell her what she wants to hear. ‘He lives and reigns and conquers the world!'”

Soon we were raising our glasses and toasting the great Alexander, chanting the phrase again and again—
He lives and reigns and conquers the world!
—until we had all collapsed in mirth.

Our spirits damped temporarily when the sour gentleman who had hired our new friend as his guide urged him back to his group. We thanked Alcibiades for entertaining us and waved as he sullenly followed his employer toward the Propylaea.

“Perhaps those words are all Alexander needs to live forever,” Margaret said, lying on her back and looking up at the stars glistening in the sky. “Say it often enough and they become true. Maybe that is how one defeats death, by never being forgotten.”

“Dead is dead,” Colin said. “He may be remembered, but that is not the same as being alive.”

“I don't know that I agree, Hargreaves,” Jeremy said. “It might be preferable to slogging through the rest of eternity. On the other hand, if dead is dead, then I need not worry about offending your spirit when I marry Em the day after you depart this world.”

Colin shifted uncomfortably and looked away. “Might want to wait a decent interval.”

Jeremy glanced at me and shrugged. “If it will make you feel better, of course. But if dead is dead…”

“You couldn't convince her to marry you if you had a thousand years at your disposal, Bainbridge.” Colin stretched out on the blanket. “That said, I almost wish I did believe in ghosts, so that I could watch the farce that would be your unwelcome courtship.”

“I would help our darling duke,” Margaret said, “by composing Latin odes to Emily's beauty and grace.”

“Don't encourage him,” I said, swatting her arm.

“Margaret, you want me to accept your offer only so you can then poke fun at me for not realizing Latin odes would put her off me altogether the instant she heard they were not in Greek,” Jeremy said. “I am not so ignorant as you like to think.”

“Well, then I shall compose Greek poetry for you to recite to her, but you will have to learn the ancient language better than you did at school to ensure you are saying what you actually mean.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, laughing. “Please do that, but don't let him learn Greek. It would be much more diverting to hear him reciting words whose meaning he can't understand. You will prove a malicious Cyrano.”

“The prospect of courting you, Em, grows less and less appealing,” Jeremy said. “Another good thing ruined. At any rate, I owe your husband a debt. It was he, after all, who pointed out that Amity left me with a bulletproof excuse for avoiding marriage for the foreseeable future. The least I can do for him is promise to leave you to your lonely widowhood. Spent, I imagine, reciting dreadful Greek poetry.”

Now we were all laughing again, although I must own to being not altogether amused by the direction the conversation had taken. I could see from Colin's expression that the guilt he had felt at having married his best friend's widow, even after a decent interval, had resurfaced. Not that he regretted our marriage, just that he wished, as did I, that our love had not been born from loss. I decided to follow Jeremy's advice and did not mention to my husband that I thought I had seen Philip. Why cause the dear man any unnecessary pain?