20
SIMMEA
It was with a mixture of relief and disappointment that I greeted the arrival of my monthly blood at the next new moon. Of the seven of us in Hyssop, four bled and three did not. Klymene was one of the ones who did not. She had been unusually tight-lipped about her experience during the festival. “Well, it took all my accumulated bravery,” was all she had said in answer to my tentative question. Aeschines had eaten with us in Florentia twice and I had eaten with him in Ithaca once—sardines and bitter greens, delicious. I’d seen other new friendships that had come out of the festival. But not for Klymene.
We were in the wash-fountain getting clean one morning when Makalla suddenly said: “Maia said we shouldn’t count on being pregnant even if we don’t bleed. We should wait until next month to be sure.” She sounded apprehensive.
“I’m delighted to be pregnant,” Klymene said.
“Because you won’t have to go through that again?” I asked, rinsing my hair.
“Well, not for some time anyway,” Makalla said.
“It wouldn’t be as bad as that another time,” Klymene said. “No, I’m just glad to be having a baby, to be doing my duty and making a new generation of citizens.”
“I am too,” Makalla said. “I just don’t want to count on anything before I can be sure.”
For a moment I was sorry I wasn’t pregnant too. I felt left out and lazy. Immediately I wondered what Sokrates would think about that and began to interrogate the feeling. It was nonsense. I’d tried as hard as anyone. Maybe next time it would work. It was a pity it wouldn’t be Aeschines again. I liked him and he liked me. But there was always the hope that it would be Pytheas.
I spent that time working on the calculus with a small group Axiothea had drawn together of people who really liked higher mathematics for its own sake, and not as a means of mystical revelation. Mystical revelation through numerology was very popular, especially in halls that had Neoplatonist masters. What we worked on had no practical application I could see but the joy of learning it. I loved it.
Of course I also painted a great deal, and debated constantly with Sokrates. Debating with Sokrates remained a delight and a terror. I was getting better at it, but he still surprised me frequently. It honed my mind, so that in debate with others, I was considered formidable. Pytheas and Kebes too learned Sokrates’s methods, and grew in debate. We began to wonder whether we could challenge the masters. Listening to debates was one of our most popular forms of entertainment—Tullius against Ikaros on the benefits of synthesis against original research, or Ficino against Adeimantus on the virtues of translation. I began to have an idea that I might one day challenge one of the younger masters, perhaps Ikaros or Klio.
One day I went running in the mountains and met Laodike and Damon, returning from a run. I didn’t see them often any more; the division into silver and gold had made a difference. They looked awkward, and I tried hard to be especially friendly, sharing some figs I had brought. We sat in the shade of a rock to eat them. “You’re not running straight up the mountain any more, then?” I asked.
“We’ve been doing a lot of cross-country scrambling,” Damon said. “It’s supposed to be good practice for war. Not that there’s anyone to fight.”
“I can’t fight right now anyway,” Laodike said. She patted her stomach, which had a slight curve.
“Joy to you!” I said. “Klymene’s pregnant too, you know.”
“Maybe you’ll manage it next time,” she said. “There are definite advantages.”
Damon shot her a worried glance. “I don’t think—”
“Oh, Simmea’s our friend, she won’t tell anyone. And we know about her and Pytheas, just the same as you and me.”
“I won’t tell anyone whatever it is, but Pytheas and I aren’t … whatever you think. We’re friends.” I felt blood heating my cheeks.
Laodike laughed. “Well, once you’re pregnant you can’t get more pregnant, so if you can find somewhere quiet to do it, like up here, you can safely copulate with your friend.”
I looked at the two of them. They both looked embarrassed now, and a little sheepish, but also happy in a way that stung my heart. Their hands crept together, intertwined, and clung. Plato said that friendship was good but adding sex to it was bad, but perhaps understandable in silvers. It wasn’t hurting anyone in any case. “I won’t tell anyone, and I’m glad it’s working for you. I’m so pleased I saw you. I miss you in Hyssop. We should do a run together before you get as big as a sleeping house.”
Shortly after that came the second festival of Hera. I had wondered how they were going to manage with some of the women being pregnant and unavailable but all of the men still being free. The answer was that the women were carefully counted, in each class, and that number of men were selected to participate, partly at random and partly by merit. The merit consisted in doing well either in the athletic contests or in their work in the four months since the last time. Then every man who didn’t qualify by merit had his name set in an urn and they were chosen by lot.
Pytheas’s name was second drawn. He was matched with Kryseis and they went off together, seeming content. I drew Phoenix, of Delphi, whom I already knew quite well—we had often raced and wrestled together. He wasn’t as considerate as Aeschines, and much faster. He also wanted me to suck his penis with my mouth, which I refused, because it reminded me of the slave ship. He sulked about this, and said that his previous partner had done it and that the boys all did it for each other. The encounter wasn’t much fun, and I didn’t invite him for dinner in Florentia afterwards.
Nor was it productive. Auge became pregnant, but I didn’t and nor did any of the rest of us in Hyssop. Makalla and Klymene were four months along, showing big breasts and big bellies already, and excused from exercise in the palaestra. Charmides said that swimming would be good for them and that they should take regular gentle walks. Klio taught them vaginal exercises.
“How does she know them?” Makalla giggled. “Has she ever had a baby?”
There was no way to know about the lives of the masters before they came to the city. Klio might have had several children. None of them were here. I wondered if she missed them. I thought about what Septima had said about time.
Auge found her early pregnancy difficult—she vomited every morning. She complained that she was too weak to move marble—she sculpted, and was very good, but now she felt cut off from her art. She broke up with her lover and cried herself to sleep, then when Iphis went to comfort her they ended up beginning a passionate friendship that Klymene found difficult to deal with. They said, giggling, that it was Platonic agape. Klymene had to insist that they each slept in their own bed. It was unsettling. I missed Laodike and Andromeda, who were much more comfortable to live with and who had truly felt like sisters.
21
MAIA
Klymene came to me late one night. I encouraged all the Florentines to come to me any time they had a problem, so I wasn’t very surprised when I opened the door and saw her there. Lysias was curled up asleep in my bed, so I went out to her. It was a cool night with an edge of chill in the air. “Let’s go to my office in Florentia,” I said. “We can be comfortable and you can tell me whatever it is.”
We went to the kitchen first and took plates. We each helped ourselves to some olives, slices from a half-cut round of goat cheese, and some barley bread left over from supper. “As good as a feast,” Klymene said.