The Parting Gift

Someone had foretold to Poseidon that Odysseus would one day blind his son. Odysseus had only just been born at the time — but what are a mere couple of decades to a god? And when the sea wave first touched the infant’s foot… Odysseus was cursed. Scales raced across his skin in an intricate pattern, he began to choke… Poseidon did not wish to kill the child, oh no! He wanted to claim him for himself, to hide him forever within his own element, to make the boy a part of it. And henceforth, to keep him under his control. Soon, Odysseus could only breathe underwater and thrashed in terror in the palace fountain to the sound of his mother’s sobs. But Anticlea pleaded for her son’s life. Whether she knew who was to blame or had simply chosen the most powerful protector in the lord of the seas, none can say — but she dedicated the child to him. And the curse receded. Was Poseidon not so cruel after all, or was the stern god moved by a mother’s tears — who knows. Yet the more the young Odysseus prayed, the more often he brought the sea-ruler his childish, naive offerings — tasty morsels of food, flowers, beautiful shells — the easier it became for him to breathe. And the fewer new scales were woven into the elegant pattern on his leg. His father sighed with relief; his boyhood friends envied such a clear mark of divine favour. Only his mother turned her anxious gaze to the waves with growing frequency. “He will take you,” she would tell the boy in moments of deepest sorrow. “The sea always claims what is its own. And you are marked by his touch.” Odysseus would laugh and wave her off, saying he was no mighty hero or fair maiden to be of any use to the sea lord. But deep down, he knew she was right. That his days on land were numbered, no matter how much he prayed. And increasingly, his nights were haunted by a deep, blue gaze, indifferent and severe, reminding him that time was slipping through his fingers like water. Odysseus resolved to take everything he could from the years left to him. He mastered hunting and the art of war, strategy and tactics, burying himself in dusty scrolls with the same fervour he applied to archery practice. He even bested the Boar of Athena — simply because it was an interesting challenge. The goddess merely glanced at the pattern of scales on his thigh, now jealously crossed by the fresh scar left by the boar, and sighed. “You are already claimed. It is not for me to steal my uncle’s chosen.” Odysseus merely bowed politely and thanked Athena for the fine hunt. The boar’s hide and the scar on his thigh were his trophies. He was not saddened at not becoming the goddess’s pupil — simply because he knew the ocean was jealous and would not release what it considered its own. Only that night did a faint flicker of interest appear in the god’s blue gaze, as if saying, “Surprise me again. Prove you are worthy of breath.” But the trials of the gods come to a man’s life perhaps only once… So he had to hurry and take from it all he could, while he still could. His father, Laertes, had long understood his son’s desperate thirst and indulged it. To learn carpentry, to plan and begin building a new palace, to go and court a girl he could never marry — all this was permitted him. Odysseus went to court the beautiful Helen merely for amusement. To see famous Sparta, to watch the throngs of other suitors preen like strutting, overdressed cocks before the sole bride, to find a puzzle worthy of a mind incapable of resting idle for even a single minute… Not for one such swiftly fleeting minute… And a puzzle he found. She had clear blue eyes, sparkling like a stream under the summer sun. And dark curls parted by a strict line, like a moonlit path between the dark waves of a night sea. She sat slightly apart from the radiant Helen, surrounded by admirers. And she watched the suitors with the cold curiosity of a naturalist. Just like he did. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, cousin to the illustrious Helen. This was something he had not wanted at all. It was a slow, sweet, and agonising poison. First came simple interest. Penelope was unlike any maiden he had known. While Helen’s other friends giggled and flirted with handsome suitors, she simply watched, and her gaze was as sharp and analytical as his own. Odysseus caught himself often searching for her in the crowd, just to see the corners of her lips twitch when some prince spouted another boastful folly. Sometimes their eyes met and she did not look away. There was no fear or confusion in her look — only calm irony, as if they alone shared a quiet joke amidst this deafening spectacle of vanity. Then came admiration. Penelope spoke rarely, avoiding idle chatter, but every word hit its mark. She knew poetry and the works of philosophers, was keenly interested in navigation and cartography — a strange pursuit for a noble maiden. And Odysseus found himself thinking more and more that he could talk to her forever, not just entertain her occasionally with stories at the feasting table. Only, he had no forever. And that cold, sharp awareness froze his soul with prickling ice with every shared glance, every quiet smile meant only for the two of them… But then came unease. The suitors were on the verge of clashing like a pack of hounds over a choice morsel. And whoever won the contests, the others would give him no peace. Odysseus foresaw disaster in the fate of Sparta’s great beauty — and in the fates of her kin. And the more poison dripped from the outwardly neutral phrases of the competing princes, the sharper the dagger-like glances they threw at each other — the more often his troubled gaze met her alarmed eyes. This became their new, secret point of understanding amidst the chaos of a brewing explosion. Odysseus could have shrugged and stepped aside. He had no intention of marrying; a war in Sparta would not touch Ithaca, that insignificant little island on the fringe of the map. He could have stayed and joined the doomed fight. To dispel the centuries-long boredom of the god watching him, to finally test himself as a military strategist, to be a hero on the battlefield and in her eyes. He could have… No, he could not. He could not bear to see her home engulfed by war, to see those clear eyes fill with tears. Penelope, like a secret spy, had crept into the simple, clear plan of his life and was tearing it apart at the seams. Odysseus no longer wanted to take from life all he could get. He yearned for what he could never have. That smile. That clear gaze. Her gentle palm in his strong hand. A child with her eyes. And many, many quiet, happy years ahead. Without the gaze of another in his dreams, without the knowledge that at any moment he might forget how to breathe… He desired the impossible and knew it. So he decided to finish it all with an elegant stroke. One last solved puzzle. A parting gift. Helen’s husband was to be chosen not by trials or her royal father’s decree. She was to choose him herself. But beforehand, all the suitors swore an oath to defend the honour of her chosen husband and to come to his aid should anyone try to violate their marital union. Each suitor expected to be the fortunate one. None refused the oath. In gratitude for this saving idea, Tyndareus, Helen’s father, offered Odysseus any reward. He remembered Penelope’s clear gaze… and waved it off, mumbling something about diplomatic preferences for Ithaca sometime in the future. And he fled the foreign palace as if from a trap. He walked through the garden, snapping branches within reach, trying somehow to vent his pain and inexpressible rage. At fate, at his own weakness and inability to defy the cruel gods. And in the silence by the fountain, he came upon her. In the stifling purple twilight, Penelope sat on the edge of the marble basin, idly dangling her bare feet in the cool water like an ordinary girl, not a Spartan princess. Seeing him, she was not embarrassed and did not look away, but merely shifted slightly, as if making room for him. Odysseus did not accept the invitation. “I am leaving for home,” he muttered, deliberately shattering the fragile trust between them into sharp fragments. Surprise, akin to fright, flickered in her eyes. “Running away?” Penelope asked in a brittle voice, almost disbelieving. She did not yet know of his parting gift. Odysseus had decided it himself. To cut — then let it be deep. So there would be no temptation to return later. No temptation to make her live each day waiting for him to finally stop breathing. “Yes.” The short word seemed to weigh like a granite boulder as it left his lips. The surprised disbelief in her gaze melted into sharp pain and finally into disappointment, framed by cold sorrow. Penelope looked at him as if he had just died before her eyes and continued breathing only by some mistake. Judging by the pain that pierced his heart at that look, perhaps he had. “Well, farewell then,” she uttered, as formally as one pronounces a sentence. But a faint glimmer of moisture shone at the corners of her eyes. Odysseus glanced away hastily. His own eyes burned. Burned with the salt of the sea he hated at that moment. “Farewell.” He left at dawn, without looking back. Hopeless love, having barely had time to blossom, lodged like a sharp, icy shard in the deepest part of his soul. The forever-etched image of the girl by the fountain. Penelope was to him both a kindred spirit and an unreachable star that had fallen into his hands — and which he was forced to release, for there was simply no other way. That night, the god’s eyes in his dreams gleamed with interest once more. Several years still remained before the great war Odysseus would be forced to join. Far, far more before the prophecy’s fulfillment.