Atalanti’s mother made the mistake of telling her neighbor about its lovely shape and soon the whole village of Vamvaku knew that her daughter’s mop was beautiful and budding and wonderfully small. Add to that a seventeen year old girl with thick hair, black eyes, light skin, and skirts cinched tight to her waist and you had all the makings for war. With no father to defend her (he was kicked in the head by a donkey one cold winter and froze to death) men started showing up at her doorstep like birds at a raisin patch.
Her heavy-set half-uncle whose chest hair sprouted up past his neckline asked for her help in collecting tomatoes, a job that required much bending over while Kyrantzis, the pipe-smoking caravan driver, dropped by to offer her a small Venetian doll and a free ride on his best horse – he would sit behind her for good measure. Keris, the accountant, known for his surly moods and even surlier hands, returned a table knife he’d borrowed what, over two years ago? and while Atalanti’s mother offered him a glass of cold water, kept glancing this way and that in the hope of spying the girl herself.
Atalanti couldn’t stay inside her home nor could her mother protect her at all hours. She kept close to the other women when she went to the well for water and tended the sheep within earshot of her home, and if she did occasionally find herself alone she was alert and ready to race back at the slightest provocation. But like sickness and love, men strike at unlikely moments and in unlikely ways.
One afternoon when the breeze rushed through the bamboo shoots and the afternoon light cascaded over the terraced hills of Erymanthos, Atalanti made her way up to the Church of the Virgin – built on the ruins of the ancient temple of Aphrodite – to collect tinderwood. She chose an olive tree so overgrown it resembled an escaped convict, and, with the help of a small axe, she began to chop away at its tangled fuss of branches, singing in a voice fresh as the dawn:
Sorry dear tree
but some of you’s for me (chop)
sorry dear olive
but you’ll still be solid (chop)
She couldn’t have known that at that very moment, inside the dark musty church, a man with eyebrows thick enough to hold a fistful of pebbles was on his knees before the icon of the Virgin (known as the Pharmakolytria in this part of the Peloponnesus) praying for a wife and a baby boy, not necessarily in that order. “Deliver unto me,” he said, “a shovel, a stick, a shiny white goat-bone, and keep away the mop, the cleaner, the broom and the moan.” Rhyming was endemic to these villages.
Pressing his cheek to the surface of the icon he suddenly saw, through a slit in the stone wall, an axe rise into the sky like god’s command. He rushed out into the wizard sun to find Atalanti on her toes, breasts lifted, a slight redness coloring her cheeks and a tuft of black hair peeking out from below her white scarf.
For her part Atalanti sensed the determined forward thrust to his step and crouched instinctively, held up her axe and suddenly the two of them were circling each other, animals sniffing. Fast as a thought, she assessed his looks: the kindness in his cherry-dark eyes meant that his rough hands would be gentle. When he came close enough to smell – a mixture of earth and sweat and something else – she decided to let go of the axe. To her surprise, he picked it up and attacked the olive tree – whip whap whock the axe flew through the air – and branches piled up around them like tresses at a ball. Inside this circle of silver-green he pressed his lips against hers, wrapped one arm around her waist while with the other he squeezed her breasts. In the gentle flutter of leaves Atalanti thought she could hear the goddess Aphrodite wishing her well.
When she returned home, she sat next to the fireplace, tugged at her disheveled hair and tried to clear away the doubts that now crowded her mind. Finally she told her mother that she’d been “assaulted” by an unknown man, most likely from Kastania, the neighboring village.
Her mother stroked her face, kissed her forehead, asked her gently if she had any bruises and when she saw her daughter was fine told her there was little time to lose: “Metal sticks best when it’s hot.” It was just after nightfall when mother and daughter, Kyrantzis, False Father Joacheim and Dimitri the Sleepwalker rode into the neighboring village of Kastania, horses clopping loudly on the cobblestone.
Between the clanging of bells (Kyrantzis’ job) the explosion of muskets (that would be Joacheim), the barking of the dogs (gratis) and the presence of a tall, lithe girl in a white linen dress with petals of jasmine sprinkled through her hair, the whole village gathered quickly and, truth be told, eagerly. A boy scampered up the large oak tree and from that lofty perch dropped grapes on the mortals below.
Atalanti’s mother put both hands on her hips, looked at the villagers and wondered aloud if a certain man had the philotimo to show up. A murmur went through the crowd. They hoped their fellow villager would do them right. All men over sixteen lined up along the square while Atalanti walked by, an officer inspecting the troops. She passed him twice without indicating it, glad to see his hands tremble. In his pajamas, tousled hair and bleary eyes she wanted to spare him embarrassment, but not completely. Finally, after the third inspection, he took a step forward.
“My name is Isidoro.” His voice was hoarse. “I am the son of Haris and Efterpi. I apologize for my behavior.” He cleared his throat. “I was swayed by this woman’s angelic beauty – what man could resist.” The villagers remained silent. Though they were relieved the man had stepped forward on his own, it was not enough.
Like the streams of Erymanthos that can run only downhill, so was there only one available course for Isidoro to take. “I will be back,” he said, then bowed his head, turned on his heels like a soldier and went home. He hadn’t expected that a single urge, played out in the bright afternoon sun could lead to this, but they had given him no choice. While he was getting dressed, Atalanti’s indefatigable mother took his parents to one side and promised them two hectares of land, three embroidered vests and a year’s supply of eggs. Isidoro returned smelling of lemon cologne, dressed in a baggy black suit and a bright red tie. The villagers applauded, clapped him on the back and even Atalanti, who had had her doubts, now yielded to the joy of the moment.
The ceremonies were performed in the village square by a priest whose protests about the hour and the location were silenced by Isidoro himself. As honorary guests from Vamvaku, Joacheim and Dimitri the sleepwalker were allowed to lead the hymnals, but their voices were so hoarse and cracked that many believed Atalanti’s mother had chosen them as punishment for their native son’s wayward ways. After the wedding the villagers sang this:
Star walks with star
like the sun and the moon
like this bride with her groom
Perhaps because having two powerful women on your side cancels the potency of each – the Virgin Pharmakolytria on the one hand and the Goddess Aphrodite on the other – Atalanti was unable to give birth to a boy, a shovel, only to mops. The first girl was fair-skinned with a long straight nose like her mother’s and a questioning look on her face as if she couldn’t quite make out why so many adults were hovering in the skies above. Her existence was treated as a necessary sin, to commit once and then to move on to better things. Isidoro adopted an expression of knowing sadness and lifted his arms into the air as if to say “what can you do?” and then got down to the pleasurable business of making another one.
The second daughter, a tsoupi with curly hair and a strange smile, required more drastic measures than merely sighs and hands lifted into the air. Prompted by insults to his manhood, Isidoro retrieved a thick cord from his shop and when he came home, asked Atalanti to show him her bare back.
“Do you really want to scar me?” Atalanti asked as she unbuttoned her shirt and exposed her swollen breasts.
“They’re already talking,” he said by way of explanation, though he couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts. “If I don’t punish you, they’ll say I’m not trying hard enough for a boy.”
“Yes, but do you yourself want to cause me pain?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Yeah, I can see your concern,” she said, and spat at his feet.
Staring at the insolent spittle Isidoro seemed to consider his options.
“Whip me, but once and lightly,” Atalanti offered.
She cupped her breasts and turned. Isidoro paced the room, letting the whip drag along the stone floor, then lifted the whip and brought it down as hard as he could, not once but twice and once again, possessed by a sudden fury. Atalanti cried out in surprise, then without wasting another moment picked up the nearest stool and crashed it down on her husband’s back. With tears of rage she wrenched the whip from his hands, lashed him once on his legs and then whipped the kitchen, sending glasses, dishes and all free-standing objects to the floor. Isidoro huddled in a corner, hands up for protection. “What kind of woman have I married?” Atalanti resembled her ancient namesake who defeated all men – save one – in war and sport. When she was done she threw the whip at Isidoro’s feet, the evil coil’s energy spent.
The following day some of the men came to Isidoro’s shop to congratulate him and offer him their solidarity in the difficult task of taming his wife. They’d heard her cries and knew he’d shown little mercy. “Serves her right for giving you two daughters,” Kyrantzis told him. They pressed for details. “I gave her a full course of Ottoman justice,” he said and they laughed and told him he was an okay guy. Isidoro returned home eager to tell Atalanti that he had been redeemed but she refused to talk and sat half-naked on the edge of the bed, holding a baby girl in each arm. Yellow pus oozed down her back.
*
Though she didn’t like her in the least, for her third child Atalanti decided it was time to call in Fat-Mary, the mid-wife. She was one of those women whose features between the ages of twenty-five and fifty remain more or less the same, with only a few extra pleats on her cheeks to show the years. She had brought over thirty babies into this world, seen three mothers die in labor, knew how to cut umbilical cord with her teeth and how to tie it with a twig and sprinkle it with coffee grinds and ashes to stanch the flow.
“Is Isidoro strong?” Fat Mary had to collect the requisite medical information.
“Strong as the night.”
“Is he like a pick, an axe, or a shovel?”
“Anchor, I’d say.” Isidoro’s thing was splayed, Atalanti continued, it dangled to the right when he walked and widened at the top like an anchor so that when he withdrew sometimes it would hurt.
A lovely hurt, I’m sure, Fat-Mary sighed. “And his juices? Are they adequate?” Sometimes Isidoro filled her mop with wads, but other times there was barely a trickle. Fat-Mary nodded.
Armed with the requisite data, the male-birthing project went into full swing. After each monthly cleansing Atalanti drank the fruit of krataiogono, the power pollen, brought a rabbit’s foot between her legs and rubbed her breasts with fresh goat-bones. Once a month Isidoro ate testicles (ram or goat) and frequently sucked on pomegranate, drank boiled snake-horn, and inhaled sneezeweed. He once dipped his erect shovel in rabbit blood. He always lay facing southwards when he was with Atalanti. She ate cumquats for the boy’s intelligence and avoided lettuce so he wouldn’t be airheaded. Besides the herbs, Atalanti prayed to the Virgin of Preklan, the Virgin of Kordasi and the Virgin of Aradia, to St. John of the Castle and to Saint Bodiless the Angel.
When Atalanti was with child again, Isidoro bought her a jade necklace with a fine silver chain. Fat-Mary decorated the bedroom with cyclamen from the woods and hung up the waxen charms of bells and flutes in the bedroom, along with crucifixes and the haemostati, the figurine that stanched excessive blood flow.
Isidoro’s bronzeware shop was busy not only with repairs of broken scythes, bent plows and snapped combs, but with his songs:
The mansion’s pillar will soon arrive;
no need of dowry or of bribe
two balls of gold hang ‘neath each stride.
When the pains came, Fat-Mary gave Atalanti some herbs to speed up the birth. As for the sex of the child, that was now in god’s hands.
“It’s a difficult one,” she said.
“Liberaaation!” Atalanti cried. “Sweet Virgin, I’ll make forty candles for you and bring them on my knees!” Finally, at the exact moment, expert that she was, Fat-Mary reached deep inside and pulled the baby out with shrieking force. She cut the umbilical cord four fingers up from Atalanti’s stomach, rinsed the baby in luke-warm salt-water which had been boiled with myrrh and rosemary, and put the umbilical cord aside to be used as a charm. Instead of bells between the baby’s legs, there was only a rivulet.
Having heard the baby’s cries, Isidoro came charging in from outside. Fat-Mary was swaddling the baby when Atalanti, wits about her, wedged one of the wax charms from the icon ledge between the child’s legs. Through the thick layers of cloth, the baby now had the proper proportions of a proper shovel.
“What is it? What?” Isidoro’s face was red.
“A boy,” Atalanti said, “can’t you see?” She pointed to the bulge beneath the wrappings.
“My Nicholas! I knew it!” He kissed the baby there, kissed Fat-Mary on her forehead, squeezed his wife’s breasts for good luck, then raced off to the coffee-house and bought drinks for all comers.
Fat-Mary fed the baby’s afterbirth to Poko, their sheepdog. When she returned she put her hands on her hips. “Now what?”
“Let him have his moment. I’ll worry about what to do when I have to.”
For two days Isidoro was kind to his wife, two days that proved to Atalanti she had chosen her husband well. But on the third day Douni the shepherd asked Isidoro how large his baby’s shovel was and that very afternoon he insisted on unswaddling the baby to check for himself. Atalanti avoided looking him in the eye and clutched at her necklace. The scars on her back buzzed with pain. She told Isidoro to leave the house while she prepared the baby for him. Then she bolted the door.
“Come to the window, Isidoro,” she shouted. “A miracle has occurred.” She held the baby up, naked, in front of the window. Isidoro saw the rivulet between the baby’s legs.
“What have you done!”
“You loved the baby when you thought it was a boy. It’s still the same baby.”
Isidoro roared and knocked his head against the wall, then like Achilles mourning for the death of his beloved Patroclus, he clawed the ground for soot and dirt, poured it over his head and sullied his face. “I’ve married a witch!” He spat out a pebble which had fallen from his eyebrow into his mouth. Then he started chopping down their oldest olive tree and when the tree was on it side, he shot Poko, his sheepdog, the same one that had eaten the baby’s placenta. He broke down the door and slapped Atalanti hard across the face, sending her to the floor.
“Wait,” she said, eyes flashing, “you can do better than that!” She retrieved the whip from beneath the sink and gave it to him. “Go ahead. Whip me, and then whip the baby. Maybe you can scare the girl out of it.”
He spat, then mounted his horse, rode through the neighboring villages swearing and whipping his animal, and finally took to the hills. For weeks he was nowhere to be seen. One of the shepherds thought they saw him skulking behind Aphrodite’s temple, but wasn’t certain.
Atalanti realized that her plan had backfired. What had possessed her? “Wait until the furies that possess Isidoro depart for another soul,” Fat-Mary suggested, “then show that you are weak and that you need him.”
But one thing Atalanti couldn’t do was pretend to be weak. So she got herself sick by eating mushrooms that made her throw-up and kept her awake at night until she brought on the twin evils of fever and delirium. When Fat-Mary and her mother tried to make her well, she handed them her three babies and showed them the door. If she wanted to get sick, sick she’d get.
One warm summer night when the cicadas gave out their chicka-chicka call and the nightmoths swooped in front of the lights like wild bats and the ghioni birds hooted their lonely call, Atalanti crawled out her bedroom window and fell to the ground like a moth that’s flown close to a fire. She lay there for hours, collecting her strength. When the moon had risen to its zenith she got up, and hunched and bent, dragged herself past old Salaha’s shed, past the stone sheep pens, over the crenellated earth and the tiered land and finally reached the church of the Pharmakolytria in front of which she kneeled. She held her necklace up and squeezed it. “Me for a boy,” she whispered, “next time take me and give my husband a boy.”
She was distracted by a familiar hoarse voice. She turned her head towards the ruins of Aphrodite’s temple and saw Isidoro standing next to the olive tree where they had first met.
“Atalanti,” he whispered, holding up a candle, “why didn’t you come sooner?” He held the candle up to her face. Her lips were chapped, her neckbones looked like they were piercing her skin and her cheeks were carved with thin lines. He kissed the eyes, lips, and neck, then stopped when he saw blood flowing between her fingers.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, “I promise. Now let go of the necklace.” Only when tears fell from his face and wetted her hands did she release it. He raced away, dipped his shirt in cool stream water, then drained it over her dry lips and dabbed her hot forehead.
They returned home, separating from each other only when they entered the village so she could take her proper place behind him before the curious citizens of Vamvaku who talked about nothing else than Atalanti’s treachery and Isidoro’s revenge. That she was barely able to stand on her feet already gave some of them a measure of satisfaction.
Her cries that day could be heard all the way to the church of the Virgin and beyond. The whip, the men said, he’s taken the whip to her again. Some of the women said those calls to Christ the Savior and God the Pantocrator could only be the result of a stiff olive branch applied liberally to her nether parts, while still others claimed with confidence that Isidoro was doing it the traditional way, using the wide honest hands with which he came into this world.
But we know otherwise. He whipped the wall while she shouted loud as she could, as if in pain. We also know that the fourth child was baptised Aphrodite (the priest protetested that this was not a Christian name) and their last child was named Mary — no protest.