Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria Read online

  “Is this your hell, Isidore?”

  “Nothing is as hellish as your polyhedrons.”

  Isidore, who I have neither seen nor heard since the night we spoke in my atrium, has wit? In the midst of terror and sorrow, I forget myself. I would laugh. But before I can do so, Isidore speaks, “So many are hurt. So many are frightened. I am Parabalanoi. I am needed.”

  Parabalanoi! By Nisaba, Goddess of death, Isidore of the steep sided city of Pergamon is a brute for bishops? More shocked by this than the shaking of the earth, I watch him leave me and I think: not all in the Bishop’s brotherhood are brutes. Some must be who they say they are. I catch myself out. I am searching for a way to find this man “good.” I would find him good because I find him…interesting.

  ~

  The House of Theon still stands. The horses have calmed in their marble stalls. Ife has seen that our servants are safe. Nothing burns, nothing has sunk and nothing risen. Yet something is wrong.

  I find these gathered in Father’s room: Lais, Jone, Minkah, Ife. Father is under his covers. What could be more normal? And yet? As no other speaks first, I must. “Is all well? Is anyone hurt?”

  At this, the top of Father’s thinning skull slowly emerges as would a desert owl from its burrow. He turns his large face on its thin neck to stare at me, his movements uncertain, his faded eyes crossed. So like those cast into the streets, there to live under bridges or in reeds by the lake or even in sewers. I am made ill to see it.

  “Daughter!” he shouts, “Did you forget my intestines?”

  I glance at Lais. That one glance is all I need. Already weakened in body by a life lived in bed, much sunken in spirit by the attack on what he holds to be certain: that perfection is possible, that Plato “saw” the form of heaven, that Euclid could describe divinity, that Mind was truer and finer than matter, Father’s mind is lost.

  I have forgotten what I would say, forgotten that my tribon is now the color of brick, that my skin and hair are matted with the dust of cement, forgotten that I looked into the earth itself—how elemental the world beneath!—and think now only of Father. And of myself. In truth, I think only of myself.

  For close on two years I alone have held our lives in my hands, assuring myself that the day would come when Father would rise from this accursed bed to take up life again. The thought has even excited me. We should both teach. We should both earn salaries. His pride would return. With more money, we could hire more scribes, one solely to copy the poems of Lais. I have arranged to send our little mouse to Didymus. If she would be a Christian, where better? Yet how do I find the money I need to pay for such a school? Unless Theon of Alexandria stands again, teaches again, I must carry these burdens myself. To do so, I need more money.

  But here, before me, is truth. Father will not stand again. He will not teach again. There is only me…and who am I? I am not strong enough, not wise enough. I recoil at the sacrifice. What of my work? What of my dreams? If he becomes ill? If I must pay a doctor as well as a school?

  “Father!” In my voice is enough enthusiasm to wake an opion user. “I have seen into the bowels of the earth.”

  Our burrowing owl blinks at me. “Bowels! Where is my crow?”

  How long does each of us stare at Father before we hear a dreadful thud, followed by the crash of a bowl on the floor?

  Lais has fainted dead away. Ife has dropped her bowl in surprise and horror.

  Before I can reach her, Minkah has. He lifts Lais from where she has fallen. Jone steps, deliberately or not, between the sight of this and Father, who might not notice regardless. We none of us speak, but instead stare into the eyes of the other, horrified.

  The last voice is Father’s. “A crow, Paulus. It has to be a very big crow.”

  Mere moments later, Lais awakens. Looking about at our white faces, our terrified eyes, she smiles. “Father and his organs. The earth and its shaking. I could bear no more.”

  I laugh. Minkah laughs. Ife does not laugh, but allows herself a smile. And Father has covered his head.

  ~

  Minkah the Egyptian

  Theon has not lost what’s left of his mind. My “master” is drugged. As I bring all he eats and all he drinks, what could be easier than slipping something into whatever I serve him? This day of shaking is perfect. They will blame the day. I chose mandrake and an opium extract. That he raves before he sleeps caused me alarm, but I was never afraid of exposure. Not familiar with my mind, how could he, or they, know my intentions?

  When Lais is safe in her room and Jone in hers, when I am certain Hypatia retreats to her bewildering work spread out in bewildering profusion over her table of green stone, I return to the room of Theon. As I knew he would be, he sleeps as a babe. To wake him would take the earth to shake again, which is possible, but I have accounted for that. What was fed him would take the collapse of his house to undo.

  Now where would Theon, who stirs but little, hide his copy of the map that could, to the right eye, divulge the location of the hidden library? I try the obvious first: secreted among his collection of scrolls. Not there. I look through his chests. Nothing. When first I attached myself to this man, I tidied his room. Clutter disturbs me. It confuses my eye and therefore my mind. But having made order of what was disorderly, could there be a locker, a loose board, a drapery behind which is—nothing. Could this man who lives in a bed have actually hidden the map entrusted to him outside his room? Unthinkable. He rarely sets foot outside his room.

  Think, Minkah, trained by Parabalanoi. Who is Theon? How does he live? Where would his mind go when pondering the great task of hiding his map? Aha! His map is under his feather mattress. I roll him over so that one more push would send his drugged body tumbling to the floor. I lift his mattress, and there it is. If he were awake to feel it, I would stab a pin in his foot, then deny he felt pain. I have done it before. Enough denial by me, and even he is unsure, especially as he is no longer supple enough to view the tops, much less the bottoms, of his feet. What an ass. Still, if I take his map, will he miss it? About as much as he misses Jone. Living so close to this father of three, I’m certain he’s forgotten it.

  It is the work of a moment to remove the map, tuck it away in my clothing, and roll the drugged fool back to the center of his bed. Now it is I, Minkah the trusted servant, who must hide this map. Before drugging Theon, I had already thought of the perfect place. It will not be found, not so long as I have care of it.

  How content I would be if I did not know that Lais grows worse. By the day her cheeks grow paler, her body weaker, she cannot breathe with ease. All this she hides, but I have seen her pain when she thinks herself alone. What sickens her, I cannot tell. If only she would tell me, tell Hypatia, tell anyone…on that day I would find the finest doctor in all the world. I would pay all I have to secure him.

  Spring, 393

  Hypatia

  In Father’s house it is the time of Un, the Egyptian hare born with open eyes. Un, also a measurer of time, brings a new year and new life.

  Christians have taken this as well. Throughout the Roman world, they celebrate their Christ’s rising from the dead. The name they call it, Easter, derives from Astarte, Goddess of the Moon. Astarte measures time. Didymus tells me he knows this. He knows too that the rising of his “son of god” is the return of the true sun. Yet his school teaches none of it. Our friend has explained that as most men are simple, the simple are taught only simple things. In this, Didymus, lover of Christ, is as all mystery teachers come before him. There is what is taught to the masses: the outward exoteric, and what is taught the select few: the hidden esoteric.

  Lais has trembled often, fainted twice more. She cannot catch her breath. At times she cannot sit for pain. All of this she would have no one see, but I see. And, as I find, so does Minkah.

  And still our physician discovers nothing wrong. Daniel of Gaza is not Agnodice of Athens who dressed as a man in order to follow her then forbidden calling, yet he is skilled enough. Minkah a
nd I, when we meet, can speak of nothing else. If there is nothing wrong, what then is wrong? What causes her fainting? Why do her hands shake? Why the rasp in her throat? Lais has always been somehow removed from the world of strife and of suffering. Such things do not touch her.

  Therefore, if not a change in the world, what has changed within her?

  I have kept talk of Lais from Father, who seems to grow stronger as she grows weaker, not that he will rise from his bed. He has said nothing to frighten or concern us since his babble of dismembered crows. He has not again spoken of our mother, Damara. He seems content in his room. Minkah brings him all that he needs, and removes all that he does not need. I visit for an hour each day as he now writes a new book he calls On Signs and the Examination of Birds and the Croaking of Ravens.

  When Father finishes his new book, a work he asks no help with, thank Seshat, he desires we begin a commentary on the Mathematical Treatise of Claudius Ptolemy. So long as he sees no ill omens—how could he when all he sees are the four walls of his room?—I am much encouraged.

  As for Jone, she thrives in the school of Didymus. I see her seldom now, as she is either there, or secluded in her room with Ife, reading aloud the so far simple texts her teachers set before her. Passing by, I have heard her voice filled with wonder, I have heard it filled with joyful tears, and I have heard Ife read with her. May the gods bless Ife with eternal life.

  Didymus assures me Jone will progress. He does not say she shall become one of the select few.

  ~

  In the middle of the night I awaken to weeping. Slipping out of bed, lamp in hand, I follow the mournful sound. Nothing from Father who sleeps with one pale bony foot exposed. Jone slumbers clutching a schoolbook in one hand, a nibbled fig in the other. The book is one of Didymus’s own, Treatise on the Holy Spirit. I find no servant awake and lamenting. Frightened, I run along the hall, both hall and I as pale as the moon.

  It is Lais. But Lais does not cry. How could it be she who cries?

  Lais is on her feet in the dark. I light her candles one after the other until her sleeping chamber is ablaze. I light the triple oil lamps that hang in every corner. She paces her room in the light as she’d paced it in the dark, wearing nothing but a fine white sleeping tunic. The white of her sleeping tunic and the white of her skin give off such light as do strange enchanted creatures I have seen pulled from the sea by moonlight. But it is not reflected light. The lamp and candlelight do not do this. The moon does not do this. It is the brightness within her.

  “Lais,” I whisper, “why do you weep?”

  “From pain, sister. I weep from the pain.”

  Lais has answered me. Not only answered me, but said something I have never heard from such a sister. Lais does not complain.

  “My poor lamb! Tell me. Where is your pain?”

  Lais touches her lower back. “Here.” She touches her side above her left hip. “Here.” She clutches her belly. “Everywhere. How shaming I can no longer keep silent.”

  “How long, Lais, how long has this been so?”

  She does not shake her head. To move her head seems more than she can bear. “Two years. More.”

  Two years! Before the decree of Emperor Theodosius that allowed Theophilus to burn the temples. Before Father’s world was set upon and before I need become the father. Before all this, the world of Lais was already threatened. And we neither of us knew, Father and I, too concerned with gnawing our own wounds like wild dogs in a snare.

  I kiss her forehead. I kiss her cheek. “Leave, Lais. Go where it is you can go.”

  Her answer comes only as breath inhaled. “I cannot.”

  “Cannot? But why?”

  “I am bound to my body by pain.” Lais begins to rock and I rock with her, back and forth, back and forth, until she cries out, “Oh, Miw! Is this what others endure? While I knew bliss, they knew pain? I am not worthy. I am not worthy.”

  “Hush, sister, hush. None is so worthy as you.”

  I do not leave Lais the rest of the night. Sometime towards the dawning of the holy sun, she falls into a troubled sleep, broken by a catch in her throat, as if she would at any moment stop breathing. Even asleep she feels pain, and even asleep she tries not to show her pain. As I lie beside her, I tenderly kiss her brow. For all her pain, it is not hot. There is no fever, no delirium. Daniel has seen her daily. Daily, he smiles and tells us it will pass.

  But it will not pass. Two years? Something is terribly wrong.

  As she trembles in her sleep, I offer Persephone, Goddess of death and resurrection, my life if it would please her more than the life of Lais.

  Persephone, daughter of Demeter, does not choose me.

  Like Father, Lais no longer leaves her room. Unlike Father, she cannot. Lais would fall if she stood. Her breath comes less easily by the day. She will not eat yet her belly grows rounder. For days, it seems she retreats into something that is not trance, but a sleepy languor. I cannot follow, but I can hope that there she finds peace. If not me or Minkah, Ife is with her.

  As Lais is, the city I knew is dying. Even as it has quickly repaired itself from the great shaking of the earth, yet it dies just the same. A new belief, one that will tolerate no discussion or dissension, grows in Alexandria, silencing all, just as something grows in Lais, silencing my beloved sister. I can barely speak of this, even to myself, but the power to write left Lais a month ago, and now the power of speech leaves her. Daniel no longer says there is nothing wrong. He says there is a growth within her, lurking behind a wall of flesh, spreading as a fungus spreads—in the dark.

  He could open her belly as cook would gut a fish. Such things have been done for thousands of years. But cutting rarely achieves more than a few days more of life. And a much quicker death.

  Minkah would find a new doctor, a more daring doctor. I ask him to search one out, and to do it quickly. No matter the cost, I will pay it. He protests, saying he will pay. If laughter I had left, I would not laugh but smile. I tenderly kiss his cheek. I thank him for his offer, but both he and I know he cannot afford a physician’s wages. Nor can I, not unless I were to take Jone from her school, and this I will not do. But there are those who will lend the money. There are those who know I will repay them, with interest, any interest.

  Minkah, who loves my sister as I love my sister, who cares for my father as I care for my father, who treats Jone as an equal so that my poor little sister would do much for him, is now my greatest confidante, greater than Augustine.

  There is only one other. Isidore of Pergamon.

  When I do not teach or work with Father or sit with Lais or listen to Jone enthuse over lessons or cope with my correspondence that becomes a deluge—if only I had an amanuensis!—I ride with Isidore the priest.

  I am half alive. I am half dead. If I die with Lais, I live with Isidore the Christian.

  Since the day of the earthquake, we have come across each other, if not by the effort of one, then by the effort of the other. What do we speak of, this lover of a Jesus as written by the Christian philosopher Origen, a priest who walks with the dread Parabalanoi…and Hypatia the “pagan” who loves—oh, but I love so much and so much of it fades as a mirage fades without heat. Father grows, not younger, but less responsible. He shoulders nothing, notices nothing but that which is in front of his nose. By this, he is more now my son than my father. Jone grows every day stranger, more distant, seems bursting with some inner seed. But the plant thereof? How will it grow and what fruit shall it bear?

  And Lais, and Lais…how shall I live without Lais?

  With Minkah I speak of all this, leaving out nothing. With Minkah, I am a Hypatia of the broken heart. With Isidore, as in my letters to Augustine, I speak only of what is rapturous. My thoughts, the thoughts of great minds come before, of great minds yet to come. In this, I do not censure myself. What can I lose by my tongue? My life? And what is that? If Lais should pass through the world for so brief a time, what then remains? Nothing of beauty, nothing of love. So
much is dead that while alive was seen by none. So much is dead, that once trumpeted is now forgotten. So much is yet to come to whom my time will be as if it had never been. Who will miss Hypatia?

  If Isidore censures himself, I do not care. If I am to lose all I value, I will not lose as well my right to speak. By this, I would lose myself. But even to Isidore, I do not mention the books. There are days when we come within miles of them, hiding in their caves, curled in their jars, lost in their inky thoughts.

  I begin to love this man in a way I have never known love, but I do not mention the books. And by this I know I have not found love for to truly love is to truly trust.

  ~

  Home from another public lecture, and Ife is suddenly at me. Her flat dark face a moving play of feeling, she is barely articulate. “Come. You must come. She can’t…where is Minkah?”

  I am already moving. I know what Ife cannot say. She speaks of Lais. Lais cannot what? Breathe? See? Move? And where is Minkah?

  “Fetch Olinda. Now!”

  Olinda of Clarus is become our physician. New to Alexandria, she comes with praise from Rome to Athens. Olinda is here because only in Egypt is she allowed to study the human body. She can cut it open, pull out what is inside, strip muscle from bone. Egyptians have cut into bodies since Egypt began.

  A small woman with a small face starred with small intelligent eyes, she presses a small hand against the large belly of Lais only to tell us what Daniel of Gaza told us: what troubles Lais resides inside her body, that to cut could kill her, probably would kill her, but not to cut will also kill her. I have asked, “Then, shall you try?” Olinda has answered, “I will try if it must come to that, but first there are other methods I would attempt.”

  For a month now, it has seemed our new physician succeeds. But so soon as I open the door of my sister’s room, I know that this success is no success at all.