“I’m a little surprised he let you bring home any amber at all,” his father said.
“He told me he wouldn’t have for most people, but he was making an exception for me-and especially for you,” Sostratos answered. “I took that for a typical piece of Phoenician flattery, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Well, I am flattered that Himilkon would trust the two of us so far,” Lysistratos said. “We’ve done business with him for a while now, and he knows we’re reliable. He’s pretty reliable, too, come to that, as long as you keep an eye on him.”
“You’d better!” Sostratos exclaimed. “That little game he played just before we sailed, buying up all the papyrus in town and then gouging me when I bought it from him… It was cursed clever, and I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
“He’s sly, no doubt of that,” Lysistratos said. “But if a Hellene can’t stay up with a Phoenician when it comes to trade-well, he doesn’t deserve to, that’s all.” He paused, then changed the subject: “Is your cousin well?”
“Menedemos? I think so, though I haven’t seen much of him the past few days,” Sostratos said. “Why?”
“Because I was talking with him this afternoon while you were down by the harbor, and he just didn’t seem himself,” Lysistratos said. “Half the time, when I asked him something, I’d have to ask him twice. It was as though he wasn’t really paying attention to me, as though his mind were somewhere else. He looked worried, too, and that made me worry-about him.”
“I wonder if he’s had a love affair go wrong, or if some husband discovered he was sniffing around where he shouldn’t,” Sostratos said thoughtfully. “That’s what your description sounds like, and I’ve seen him go through spells like that before. Sailing season before last, he seemed awfully glad to get out of Rhodes, and he needed weeks away to get back to his old self. I remember asking him about it, but he wouldn’t say anything. That’s strange all by itself, for he usually likes to brag. Whatever happened, it hit him hard. Maybe this is more of the same.”
“Yes, it could be.” His father also sounded thoughtful. “It certainly could. I’m glad you have better sense than to leap headlong into foolish love affairs, by the dog.”
“Thank you,” Sostratos said. Lysistratos set a hand on his shoulder. Sostratos laid his own hand on his father’s. “And thank you for not jumping down my throat all the time, the way Uncle Philodemos does with Menedemos.”
“Philodemos wants things just so. He always has.” Lysistratos’ face tightened for a moment. “Before he had a son, he used to jump on me instead. That’s one reason I don’t keep you on such a short leash as he does with Menedemos: he taught me not to. And I’m more naturally easygoing than he is. I know things won’t always be just so, and I try not to fret about it the way Philodemos does. And you’re steadier than your cousin, generally speaking, for which I praise the gods.”
“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.