“Human bodies were not made for this,” he muttered, as he went down spluttering one more time and I hauled him back to his feet.
“Truly, you’ll be able to do it if you let yourself go.”
“I know how dolphins swim.”
“I love dolphins. They often swim out by the rocks, there where the sea darkens to wine. When you have learned to swim, you will be able to swim out to them.”
I had never seen anyone try so hard and keep on failing. Pytheas could not float, but he couldn’t believe he could not. He watched me treading water and floating on my back, and couldn’t believe he couldn’t master the skill by sheer strength of will. I tried supporting him on his stomach, telling him it was more like the way dolphins do it, but it worked only a little better. He kept thrashing about and sinking. “Maybe we should try another day,” I said, seeing that he was growing cold and his fingers were wrinkling from the water.
“I want to swim today.” He bit his lip and looked far younger than he was. “I understand I can’t master the art in one day, but I want to make a beginning. This is so stupid. I feel such a fool. I’ve wasted your whole afternoon when I know you want to be in the library.”
“It isn’t a waste teaching you,” I said. “But how do you know that?”
“Septima says you’re always reading in the library when you have a moment.”
“Septima’s always in the library,” I said. It was true. Septima was a tall grey-eyed girl from the Athens hall who could read when she first came, and in the time since had made herself almost an assistant librarian. “Did you ask her about me?”
“When I heard you were teaching swimming.”
“But why her? How do you know her? She’s Athens and you’re Delphi.”
He looked caught out, then raised his chin boldly. “I knew her before.”
“Before you came here?” Even though we were out in the sea with nobody near us, I lowered my voice. “Now I think about it, you look alike. A kind of family resemblance, maybe?”
“She’s my sister,” he admitted. “But here we’re all to be brothers and sisters, so what difference does it make? She’s my friend, and why shouldn’t she be?”
“No reason she shouldn’t be,” I said. “So you asked her about me?”
“I thought she’d know. I only knew you’d won the race. Now I know you’ve taught the others to swim, and you clearly understand the methods, and you’ve been very patient. I want to learn. I want to swim at least a little today. I can’t let it defeat me.”
I think what did it was the way he blamed himself and not me, and the sheer force of his will. “All right, then,” I said. “There is another way, but it’s dangerous. Put your hands on my shoulders. Don’t clutch, and don’t panic and thrash, even if you go under. You could drown us both if you do. Let go of me if you feel yourself sinking. As long as you don’t panic, I can rescue you, but if you drive us both under and I can’t come up, we could both die.”
“All right.” He stood behind me and put one hand on each of my shoulders.
“Now I’m going to slide slowly forward, and I’ll tow you. Keep your arms still, and let your legs come up. I’ll be underneath you.” I slid forward and took one stroke with my arms, drawing him forward. I could feel the whole length of his body on top of mine. He did not clutch or panic, and I kicked my legs gently, swimming for perhaps six or seven strokes and drawing him along on top of me. I turned my head sideways. “Now keep your arms still but kick your legs just a little.” I was ready to put my own legs down and stand up if he panicked now—I knew the slope of the beach well, and I was still in my depth. I had done this before with my little cousins when they were very small. He began to move his legs, and I kept mine still but kept on swimming strongly with my arms, drawing us along parallel to the shore. At last I told him to stop, and put my feet carefully down. He went under for a second but did not panic or thrash.
“Was I swimming?” he asked.
“You’ve made a good beginning. And now you should go out and run around on the sand to stir your blood, and then we should both clean the salt off with oil. Tomorrow you’ll do better.”
We ran up out of the water and raced on the beach with some other children who were there, none of them people I knew well. Then Pytheas sought me out with a jar of oil and a strigil and we oiled each other and scraped it off. This always feels good after swimming, much better than the wash-fountain, because salt water strips out the body’s oil.
We were not encouraged to have erotic feelings towards the other children—indeed, the opposite, we were discouraged from ever thinking about sex or romantic love. Friendships were encouraged, and friendship was always held out to us as the highest and best of human relationships. Yet as I scraped the strigil down Pytheas’s arms I remembered the feel of his body above mine in the water, and I knew that what I felt was attraction. I was as much frightened by the feeling as drawn by it. I knew it was wrong, and I truly wanted to be my best self. Also, I did not know how to tell if he felt any reciprocal feelings. I said nothing and scraped harder.
“Tomorrow,” I said, when we were done. “Same time. You’ll make a swimmer yet.”
“I will,” he said, as if any alternative was unthinkable, as if he meant to attain all excellence or die trying. I raised my hand in farewell and took a step away, but he spoke. “Simmea?”
I stopped and turned back. “Yes?”
“I like you. You’re brave and clever. I’d like to be your friend.”
“Of course,” I said, and stepped back towards him and clasped his hand. “I like you too.”
7
APOLLO
Athene cheated. She went to the Republic as herself to help set it up, and then once all the work was done she transformed into a ten-year-old girl and asked Ficino to name her. He named her Septima, which I thought served her right for asking him. She knew he was obsessed with magic numbers.
I, however, did the whole thing properly. I went down through Hades and set down my powers for the length of the mortal life I chose from the Fates. Clotho looked astonished, Lachesis looked resigned, and Atropos looked grim, so no change there. I then went on to Lethe, where I wet my lips, to allow me to forget the details of the future life I had chosen, though not, of course, my memories. (The river Lethe is full of brilliantly colored fish. Nobody ever mentions that when they talk about it. I suppose they forget them as soon as they see them, and so they are a surprise at the end and the beginning of each mortal life.) I went on into a womb and was born—and that in itself was an interesting experience. The womb was peaceful. I composed a lot of poetry. Birth was traumatic. I barely remember my first birth, and the images from Simonides’s poem about it have got tangled up in my real earliest memories. This mortal birth was uncomfortable to the point of pain.
My mortal parents were peasant farmers in the hills above Delphi. I had wanted to be born on Delos again, for symmetry, but Athene pointed out that in most eras neither birth nor death are permitted on Delos, which would have made it difficult. I had to master my new tiny mortal body, so different from the immortal body I normally inhabited. I had to cope with the way it changed and grew, at an odd speed, entirely out of my control. At first I could barely focus my eyes, and it was months before I could even speak. I would have thought it would be unutterably boring, but in fact the sensations were all so vivid and immediate that it was intriguing. I could spend hours sitting in the sun looking at my own fingers.