Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria Read online

  “Well said,” laughs Pappas, “and what will you say when I tell you more? Fierce Arbogast, Valentinian’s Frankish general, has—without consulting Emperor Theodosius—elevated Valentinian’s secretary, one Eugenius, to the Purple?”

  Helladius is too astonished to say anything. As for the rest, they gawk.

  As if delivering a lecture, Pappas now strolls about the room. “You can imagine the poor soul is terrified, having been only a secretary the day before. But Arbogast reminds him that he, Arbogast, commands the whole of the Western army.” Clever Pappas turns himself into a fatherly Arbogast babying the frightened scribbler. “Calm yourself, little Eugenius. Good Arbogast is here while the bad Theodosius is many hard miles away in Constantinople and confused. Will he accept what is done and hope for the best? Will he march on Rome? The distance is hard and it is long and the men who defend you are well-fed and seasoned. Better yet, they march nowhere but rest right here.” Pappas drops his Frankish voice. “Friends, I save the best for last.”

  One turns to the other who turns to another. There is better news than this? What is it? What can it be?

  “Eugenius the Terrified has reopened the temples for pagan worship.”

  Theon has raised his head. Even his eyes focus. “Why?”

  Pappas whirls round at the sound of his voice. “Because Eugenius, the new Emperor of the West, who claimed as do thousands to be Christian so they keep their skin, is at heart a pagan.”

  Those gathered round the bed of Theon rub their hands, or thump each other’s back.

  “Eugenius relights the eternal fire in the Roman Forum, reforms the Vestal Virgins, and has ordered the Altar of Victory, stolen by Octavian Augustus from the Greeks, put back in the Curia of the Senate.”

  Now all in Theon’s room hug each other, weeping.

  Pappas holds up a hand and when all finally notice, each snivels to a stop. “This news will spread faster than fire throughout Egypt, mother and father of Life itself. But never forget that for now we are governed by Theodosius in Constantinople and not by Eugenius in Rome.”

  Helladius sneers. “But Arbogast is the stronger. Theodosius the Tyrant: emperor, destroyer, slanderer, heart-breaker, is weakened, as are all who take their power from him.”

  “That may well be, Helladius, but until all this is settled, we must take care. Who can say what the gods will wish on us?”

  The face of my dear friend, the Bishop of Alexandria, rises before me. He knows no more than these what any god wishes, even his own. So just in case, the fucker of goats bars his door and sets his guards. I think of the Christians who everywhere surround us, of the black monks gathered in the deserts, of the “thugs” who do the bidding of this bishop. I look from dreaming face to dreaming face. What they dream of is as likely as Jews admitting they had never set foot in Egypt, never been slaves, never fled through a Yahweh-parted sea. It is as likely as Egypt once again ruled by Egyptians. How many emperors have come and gone, each dying by the hand of another who would be emperor? How many have been emperor in one place while another claimed the title in some other place, so setting their soldiers and their gods each against each? How many barbarians will ride out from their unimaginable wastelands to uphold this emperor or that emperor so they too might cloak themselves in the Purple? How long before all the Purple is barbaric?

  I have a task of my own this day so I shoo them out. “Come again,” I say, “Anytime.” By now, all I say is taken as my master’s wishes. They are gone in minutes.

  Where do I look first? A man like Theon, easily broken, a father who does not support his family, cannot defend the books. Those who surround him seem not to see this, but I do. If not for me, the father would expect Lais, made of air, to wait on his every need. If not for me, Jone, made of wood, would see, buried in his own interests, her father forgets she lives. As for my darling, who I guard by stealth now as I did last week and last month and last year, by her labors she carries her father as if she were a cup and he precious water in the dry times. In truth, Hypatia carries us all. Because of this, I do what I intend no one to notice. I pay for what Theon most whines for: pens, ink, paper, books, the salary of a scribe who is here only when Hypatia lectures. She will never know her father not only fattens on her, he fattens on me…odd choice of words, these, as Theon does not fatten at all, but shrinks by the day. I move his legs daily so that if he must, he might still have use of them. Humming as he sums, he pays me no mind. Nor to Hypatia, other than her use in his work. I resist twisting his toes. I resist many things.

  I will never abandon this house, even should he take against me. But when I must leave for an hour or a day, called by the oath of Brotherhood, I pretend I take lessons in defense. I need no lessons. By might of arms, I am able to defend them all. There are other ways as well to be gone from the house, less ostentatious ways, for just as Theophilus keeps watch over Theon, I keep watch over Theophilus.

  I have two problems. The first I can solve. The second I cannot. The first is that Theon holds one of three maps. Meletus holds another. Didymus another. If Meletus or Didymus were to be discovered, either would die before surrendering their copy. Would Theon? The answer is a simple no. Therefore he cannot hold a map.

  The second is Lais. Though she would have no one know, Lais is ill.

  ~

  Hypatia

  Five years before my birth, a monstrous wave rose up like the Sea Goddess Scylla, swallowing all that was finest of Alexandria.

  The Emperor Theodosius is as Scylla.

  This day, Pappas informs us that Theodosius has forbidden, on pain of death, all worship but Christian worship in what empire remains to him.

  Alexandria, my beloved city, remains to him.

  I sit alone on royal walls, broken by earthquake and wave, these last few tumbles of stone all that is left of the great Palace of the Ptolemies. Behind me the Bruchion district once stretched out under its shadow, before me the two harbors still carry ships both great and small, and Pharos with its eye of fire still stands.

  Gazing up at an eternity of wheeling light, at mystery beyond mystery beyond all mysteries, I know myself to be as mortal as Cleopatra, as easily swept away as her palace, as small as Pharos placed next to the sun. My world is slowly dying as an alien world is born all around me, one that comes as Jone came, in pain and blood and the death of the mother. And yet, the stars fill me with something akin to the rapture of Lais, pure in itself, containing no part that longs for some other, for here time itself stops, space knows no end, and death is a thing so inconsequential that to fear it seems more than foolish, it seems wasteful of life.

  Is this what inhabits my sister who need not look at the stars? If so, even with starry awe, my heart is yet troubled. My city bleeds, Father fails—and I am as doubtful of self as ever, even as my lectures attract scholars come from everywhere.

  I have written of all this to Augustine. He writes back, asking: and what shall complaint accomplish? I am chastened.

  The dream of the caves in which I wander comes nightly now. Minkah has never again appeared. But each night I find myself lost there and each night I search for a child. So odd, so terribly odd as I know I will never give life to another. Will Jone? Will Lais? Lais does not live as a woman, nor yet does she live as a man. Lais is Lais.

  Unless Jone should marry, three daughters are the last of the line of Theon of Alexandria, a father who poured into an unworthy daughter all he would have given a much more suitable son.

  It is cold and I shiver as I ride Desher home. I have work to do, letters to answer, a book lies open on my table that I would read. But my thoughts turn to Minkah. I find my thoughts turn often to Minkah. He has become my father’s son, but how should I complain of that? Without our Egyptian and his teaching thereof, Father might all the sooner have faded away. No one did more to save the books than he. No one concerns themselves more with my safety. For all this and more, Lais and Jone and I would welcome him at table. But if Father will not come, and he does
not, Minkah refuses. I am sorry for this. Minkah has the wit to make us laugh. Once we all laughed. Laughter is our greatest loss.

  Home again in my own room by my own window, I begin anew the letter that came this day from Augustine, but now, quieter than the mouse Lais names her, Jone appears. And then, oddest of all odd things, she who seldom speaks, speaks to me. “Father does not love me.”

  I am cast into a cave of sorrow. Jone is right. Father does not love her. But this is not to be said, not by me, not by anyone. I had even hoped it would not be known, but Ife knows and it’s why she makes it her business to soothe Damara’s lost babe. I, who can speak of anything at any time, am silenced and my silence is complete.

  My clever little sister hears me. “So you know it is true. He loves you. He loves Lais. He loved Mother. But he does not love me. He thinks it was I who killed her.”

  I manage a startled, “No!”

  Sudden as a snake, Jone’s head swivels on her neck. “You will not lie to me! Not you!”

  This from Jone, so quiet, so still, so passive? In humbled return, I say, “I will not lie.”

  “Then you know he thinks this.”

  “I do.”

  Jone does not cry. I have never seen her cry. But she has closed her eyes and sits now, and if she does not weep, it is only from strength of will. “I am not loved, not even by you.”

  I would gather her up in my arms; I would croon to her as I have seen Ife croon. But Jone does not allow me this. All I have left are words. “You are right. It is not my place to speak for others. But as for me, I have always loved you. Though I do not know you, though you keep yourself hidden, I love you with all my heart.”

  Jone does not melt at my true words. Instead, she stares deep into my eyes. If I do not lie, if I love her as I say I do, can she trust me? Jone has need to speak.

  “Tell me what you have come to say, Jone. I promise I will not repeat it or judge it.”

  A moment more, a looking round to make sure we are unobserved, a flick of her tongue across her lips: “I have been reading.” If I say, “Of course,” she will sense the irony. If she senses irony, my serious little sister will walk away, and that will be that. I am silent. “And I have spoken to some who convince me. I have decided to convert.”

  As she says nothing further, I must ask, though I fear I already know, “Convert to what?”

  “I would be Christian.” It is hard, but I do not react. “Do you know why I would be Christian?” I cannot imagine. Our family is high-born, literate, and Greek. Father and I are in love with reason. Lais is love itself. I shake my head: no, I have no idea. Jone waits to give me her answer. If she times it for effect, her timing is perfect as is her almost whisper. “Because the Christian Father forgives.”

  I count the moments so that my timing equals hers. I absorb what has been said to me. I decide. “In that case, little one, we must find you a school.”

  At this, Jone’s face changes as lightning changes the dark. She, who seldom touches any, throws her arms around my neck, and cries, “I could not ask, but you guess! Clever Hypatia.” And with that our “Panya” leaves as swiftly as she came.

  I cannot return to my letter. Any awe that was mine has fled. It is not fear or concern that Jone turns Christian that grips me. It is why she turns Christian. If I were to tell Father, would it matter? He cannot love what he cannot love. And Jone, by this night’s conversation, is no fool. He cannot now pretend to love what he cannot love.

  Tomorrow I shall enroll her in the Didascalia, the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

  How useful Didymus is to my family. May he live forever.

  And how difficult life these last two years. But surely, as Heraclitus wrote, it will turn and turn again.

  ~

  The first month of 393

  Students curve round me as a cat’s tail curves round a seated cat. Half the Caesarium is filled.

  I have managed no more than a moment concerning the incommensurate dimension of lines forming the sides and diagonals of the square, saying these represent an imponderable mystery leading us to the precipice of the infinite, beyond which all certainty is lost for here the thinking mind loses all comprehension and stands before the mystery of the All, when of a sudden, there comes a strange heat and then a great silence—and then, a tipping of the dais toward the sea. I am thrown first to one side of my chair, then to the other. The floor before me sinks. And then, with a tremendous jolt, all is thrown down by Eris, Goddess of chaos. What has stood upright, falls, what has lain flat, rises, what has kept silent, roars. A crack opens in the tiled and painted ceiling high above, dropping gorgeous chunks of deadly debris down upon us. In seconds, the air chokes us with dust.

  All know what happens here. All shout or flee or cower under stepped benches, one pushes at that which he cannot remove, another crawls dazed and bleeding towards nothing. Four surround the one who is trapped, failing to lift away the stone.

  I have never endured an earthquake of size, never felt other than feeble tremors. That which caused the wave that took the palace took also the lives of thousands. It took the city of Cyrene. What will this one take?

  Leaping from my chair, I would not be elsewhere, not if it would square the circle or renew the reading of Sappho.

  Running out through the swaying pillars of the lecture hall and into the swaying Street of the Great Harbor, Synesius of Cyrene is right behind me, his brother Euoptius right behind him. But Minkah runs before us.

  We four come to an abrupt and shocking halt. Everywhere, the tops or the sides or the carved concrete moldings of the buildings are gone. Octavian’s two stolen obelisks shift on their bases so that, in looking, my own head shifts. Will they fall? Will the salted green waters pour in yet again, flooding the harbors and the canals, swallowing in one huge gulp the city itself?

  No matter if they are Christian or if they are not Christian, my students scatter.

  I do not run. I turn where I stand, surveying what has come of this shaking. Minkah turns with me, as does Synesius and his brother. For a time even Euoptius is open-mouthed before the gods, for not only is he shocked, he is stunned by a piece of fallen gilt. Near the palace of Hadrian, there are insulae of many stories where are housed the masses, each insulae five and six, even seven, stories tall, and in some floor after floor can be seen, sagging now without support, and what was inside falls outside: beds, tables, dishes, baskets, lamps, terra cotta pots, cradles, even the poor cradled babes themselves. The staircases, steep narrow things onto which people cling, lean out and away, as do sewage pipes. Of these, many are broken. And beneath these, the side streets are close to impassable from all that has fallen upon them. Everywhere there are the dead and the wounded. Everywhere there is panic and lamentation. Downed horses scream, oxen bellow, all the birds have flown. Everywhere there are those who clamber over unutterable destruction in an attempt to gather their goods or rescue their kin. All smells of human waste. All is the color of dust and blood. The sun at noon is pale and gives no heat. Everyone calls out for their god. The din is incredible.

  Minkah would go where I would go. But I beseech him to take the horses; he must see to Father and to my sisters. As for me, I seek the worst damage. I would find the deepest widest fissures.

  Augustine and his thoughts of evil rise up in me. If we are good, say many, the gods are good. If we do evil, the gods exact their toll. How then do the good die in earthquakes and the bad earn kingdoms by grievous murder? Why does the earth shake in some places and never in others? Good men and bad reside everywhere. Proud Eratosthenes, he who first named the search for such answers “geology,” asked these same questions when he was not measuring the earth. The sober Aristotle also asked. Augustine asks now. But none know the answer. I ask: could the shaking become so tremendous it would split the world in two?

  There is a second, larger, stronger, jolt and the street I run on moves under my feet like a woven mat pulled along the floor. I would fall to my knees, even land flat o
n my face, were it not for the strong arm that stops me. It is not Minkah. Minkah is away as I bid him. It is not Synesius nor is it Euoptius. Last I saw either, Synesius, unharmed, led his brother away, Euoptius bleeding from his great nose.

  Spitting dust and grit from my mouth, I look up at my savior. Isidore of Pergamon pulls me aright, the priest who remains the favorite of Bishop Theophilus but has not remained my student. Beside him stands Cyril, nephew of Theophilus, grown taller as well as wider. If he has also grown in arrogance, it does not show now. Cyril trembles. His eyes, round as his round face, dart from side to side. His mouth, once a disturbing red, is now a dry white. His skin is whiter than his mouth. I imagine a privy would be most welcome to young Cyril.

  We three stand near an insulae that shifts on its base like the obelisks of rose red granite. Cladding falls from its walls in small chunks and large. If it goes past its center of balance, all beneath will be crushed flat—and we are beneath. I gather my tribon around me, a tribon yet white as the sail of our boat, the Irisi, and run. Isidore and Cyril run with me. But I do not run to safety. I have never intended safety.

  Isidore calls out, “Where are you going?”

  “Wherever the earth has opened widest.”

  “Why!”

  “To say I have seen it.”

  I am as fleet as the fierce Atalanta who would not marry, but Isidore is equally fleet. I look back only once. Cyril cannot run. Before half a block, the wheezing fearful boy is left far behind and where he goes after he is lost to sight I could not guess.

  Behind us, the building topples and the screaming trebles—and now the fires start. Small fires begun by cooking stoves grow larger. Large fires flare into flames that swallow all that attracts them.

  We come on a crack in the granite of a side street running south from the Canopic Way big enough to dwarf a racing chariot and all four of its horses. Behind us, from the offices and markets and great lecture halls of the sprawling Agora, the city’s constant heart, come shrieks and shouts and the thud of fallen statues, but I kneel on the edge of a precipice of an infinite void, looking down at the bowels of the world. Isidore kneels with me.