“I praise the gods that we do get along, whatever the reasons,” Sostratos said. “Whenever I think of Menedemos and Uncle Philodemos, I know how lucky I am.”
“How lucky we are,” Lysistratos corrected. Sostratos grinned. He didn’t mind that correction at all.
Now I’ve had what I wanted for so long, Menedemos thought. Why aren’t I happier? He had no trouble finding one of the reasons he wasn’t happier: he hadn’t been able to lie with Baukis since the night of the festival. He’d never found a time when either his father or some of the house slaves weren’t around. He’d paid several visits to brothels since, but what he bought at a brothel made him feel good for a little while without solving his real problem, which was that making love with someone he loved had proved fundamentally different from taking pleasure with a whore.
His father noticed him moping, too, though Philodemos didn’t know all of what he was noticing. He even offered what, from him, amounted to sympathy of sorts: “If her husband’s home now, son, you have to make the best of things till he goes away again. No point to wandering around like a bitch who’s just had her pups drowned.”
Menedemos was eating olives in the andron when his father came out with that bit of advice. He’d been about to spit out a pit. Instead, he choked on it. His father pounded him on the back. The pit came loose. He spat it across the men’s chamber, then wheezed, “Thank you, Father.”
“Any time,” Philodemos answered. “You can suffocate on one of those polluted things if you aren’t careful and you aren’t lucky. Or isn’t that what you meant?”
“Well… some of both,” Menedemos said.
With a sigh, Philodemos said, “Way you’ve been dragging around here, way you’ve been muttering snatches of poetry when you think nobody’s listening, way you’ve… Well, a lot of things show you’ve gone and fallen in love with whoever your latest wife is. Adultery’s bad enough, but love’s worse, because it makes you stupider. I don’t want you to do anything to get yourself in trouble, and I don’t want you to do anything to get the family in trouble. If I talk to you now, maybe I can keep you from acting too foolish. Maybe. I hope so, anyway.”
He does care about me, Menedemos realized with no small astonishment. He mostly has no idea how to show it-it comes out as anger because I don’t act the way he wants me to-but he does. And what am I supposed to do about that?
It shamed him. The mere idea of wanting his father’s wife had shamed him for years-but, finally, not enough to stop him. He had it coming, on account of the way he treats me had been in the back of his mind-sometimes in the front of his mind-ever since. If that wasn’t true, if he couldn’t even pretend it was…
He started to cry. It took him altogether by surprise. One moment he was fine, or thought he was, and the next tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“Here, now. Here, now,” Philodemos said awkwardly, at least as startled as Menedemos was himself. “It can’t be as bad as that.”
“No-it’s worse,” Menedemos choked out. Once the tears started, they didn’t want to stop. He saw his father as a series of shifting, blurry shapes, not as a man at all.
“You see? This is what love does to you.” But Philodemos, for a wonder, didn’t sound outraged or scornful. He put his arm around Menedemos: a rough caress, but a caress even so. “You think this never happened to me? You’d better think again.”
Menedemos was sure this had never happened to his father, for his grandfather hadn’t remarried after his grandmother died. Imagining his father in love with anyone took work. “Did it?” he asked in a small voice, trying to gulp his way out of weeping.
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” Philodemos said. “She was a hetaira, not another man’s wife-I’m not quite so foolish as you.” Even in sympathy, even in consolation, he couldn’t omit the gibe. He went on, “Her name was Arkhippe, and I thought the sun rose and set on her. This was before you were born, you understand, before I wed your mother.” Now, as he looked back across the years, his voice softened. So did his features. As they did, Menedemos realized how much his father looked like Uncle Lysistratos. Most of the time, he had trouble seeing the resemblance, for Philodemos wore a severe expression that contrasted with his younger brother’s cheerful air.
After some small silence, Menedemos asked, “What happened?”
His father’s usual sour look returned. “I told you-she was a hetaira,” he replied. “She was out for what she could get. When I gave her more than anyone else, she loved me-or she said she did. But when she took up with a gilded fop who owned a big farm on the east coast.. well, after that she forgot she’d ever heard my name. She ended up betraying him, too. They’re both dead now, and the fellow who beat me out had no sons. I go on, and so does my line.” He spoke with a certain somber pride: about as much as he ever let himself show when the subject had anything to do with Menedemos.
“You’ve never talked much about this,” Menedemos said. “Now I understand-a little-why you worry so about what I do with women.”
“Of course I don’t talk about it,” Philodemos said impatiently. “A hurt like that isn’t a battle scar you display to show how brave you were. You put it away and do your best to pretend it never happened. I do, anyway.” His face defied Menedemos to challenge him on his choice. After another pause, he changed the subject: “High time we get you married off. Maybe then you won’t play the cuckoo, leaving your eggs in other birds’ nests. By the dog, you’re old enough now.”
Menedemos thought of Protomakhos and Xenokleia. His father, fortunately, didn’t know about that. He also thought about Baukis. Philodemos, even more fortunately, didn’t know about that, either. Menedemos said, “I don’t think I’m ready for a wife of my own.” Not when the one I wish I had is yours.
But Philodemos, again fortunately, was unable to follow his thought, and replied, “It’s time. Thirty is a good age to wed, and you’re getting close. Finding the right family, finding the right girl, will take a while, and so will the dicker over her dowry. But you’ll be glad when it’s done. Having a woman to come home to every day will settle you down.”
Not if she’s someone I don’t want, someone I don’t care about. One more thing Menedemos found it best not to say. All he did say was, “Maybe.”
His father took politeness for agreement. Philodemos was and always had been remarkably good at hearing what he wanted to hear, and hearing it the way he wanted to. He said, “I’ll start asking around. I can think of three or four likely maidens about the right age just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“There’s no rush,” Menedemos said. His father was also remarkably good at not hearing what he didn’t want to hear. He hurried out of the house, as if he expected to come back with a match all sewn up by suppertime. Maybe he did. Menedemos started to call him back, but what was the use? He’d waste his breath, he might anger his father, and he wouldn’t change a thing. Besides, he didn’t think Philodemos would come back with a match. The older man had said it would take time, then ignored his own words.
As if to escape the mere possibility, Menedemos went to the stairway and started up to his own room. No sooner had he set foot on the lowest stair than he heard footsteps coming down. He climbed the stairs with a lightened heart after that, his feet hardly seeming to touch them-it was Baukis. Her pace sped up, too. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the stairwell, he saw the smile on her face. He knew his own wore the same kind of smile, too.
They both stopped halfway. Menedemos looked up past Baukis to the second story. She looked down past him to the doorway that led out to the courtyard. This was probably the only place in the house where they could meet without the fear that a slave was, or could be, spying on them.