The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [27]
I spent a lot of time wandering alone, and sometimes I thought of writing, though I wasn’t sure what I would write, where to start. When I confessed to my mother that I had thought of writing a great tragedy, she stroked my hair and told me I must. She must have spoken privately with my father, because not long after that I was summoned to his room for a talk. Or, rather, a listen.
“I have found you a tutor,” my father said.
That sounded possibly pleasant; someone to talk to about the things I was interested in. Though it gave me a sick feeling, too. Someone chosen by my father would probably be someone very like my father, and I didn’t want anyone else controlling my time. I didn’t want to be guided.
“You’re not cut out to be a soldier,” he continued. “We have to think what to make of you.”
At this I was a little offended. I was tall and rode well and Philip’s wrestling lessons had improved my coordination. I could hold my breath under water a long time, and my eyesight and hearing (then, anyway) were pure and sharp. I was not sure how holding my breath was relevant to soldiering, but it was an athletic feat that I thought deserved some respect. And then, if I wasn’t meant for soldiering, wasn’t I supposed to become a physician, like my father? What failing, I wanted to know, had suddenly disqualified me from that?
“No failing.” A trick of the light, maybe, but my father’s face softened a little into that sadness that sometimes kept him too long in bed, the way it did me. “You are well on your way to becoming what I am. Only I thought it bored you.”
And I was ashamed, because it did.
“His name is Illaeus,” my father said. “He had a play in the festival in Athens, once. Your mother tells me you have an interest that way.”
And that of course made it official: I would become a tragedian and have plays in the festivals in Athens. The only way to overcome the shame of his knowing this ambition of mine (half-formed at best) was to embrace it wholly.
“He expects you tomorrow afternoon, and says not to be early. Apparently he does his own work in the morning.”
I saw approval withheld, but disapproval too. It dawned on me that my father didn’t know what to make of this Illaeus, and wasn’t at all sure of himself in sending me to him. What other avenues had he exhausted without my even knowing of them, I wondered, that he would take such a risk?
Fall was then hardening into winter, and the next day came up soft and grey, a low sky with a whisper of snow. I liked it; it was a change from rain. If the man did his own work in the morning, then I decided I must too, and sat in a corner of the kitchen with a tablet and stylus. I wrote nothing. After lunch I put on my warmest clothes and went out to find the house my father had directed me to. It was in a poor part of the city, a long walk down the hill from ours. I passed a man in rags shitting in the street who laughed at me when I looked at him and then when I looked away. Steam rose from the little pile. The houses here were small and mean, and I knew the families inside slept in single rooms