Free Ithaca by Patrick Dillon

from everything on the mainland. All over Greece people are living through the aftermath of the endless, bloody war. For us on Ithaca the war is just an absence—the absence of the men who never came back. Everywhere else, it’s real and you can see its marks—in wounded limbs and scarred memories, in slave girls, in veterans pushing themselves around on trolleys, hands wrapped in bloodied cloth.
    In things people don’t know how to talk about.
    We get back to the great hall about noon, as bells ring in the villages around the house and cicadas shrill in the olive trees. The sun has turned the courtyard into a furnace, but it’s still cool in the hall. The fire has dwindled to a single sputtering log, kept aflame only for ritual’s sake. A slave comes forward with a cool jar of water and a linen cloth to wash the dust from our hands and faces.
    Nestor seems refreshed by his night’s sleep. He lifts his cheek so Polycaste can kiss it, then gestures to a door in the side of the hall and leads me into a small office with a single window too high to see out of. Unlike the great hall, it contains no luxury. It’s plain and simple, with no furniture but a couple of chairs and a wooden table.
    â€œMy thinking-room.” Nestor eases himself painfully into one of the chairs and gestures the servant to leave. “No clutter. We must talk.” But he doesn’t. For a moment he just looks upat the deep blue outside the window. Following his gaze, I can see swallows darting across the sky.
    â€œYou know how this will probably end?” he says at last. He looks at me, and there’s something piercing in his filmy eye, a flash of the wisdom he’s famous for. “It’s more than likely your father is dead. You must know that. If you have a fraction of Odysseus’s brains, you’ll know that.”
    He falls silent again, for a long time, then sighs. “We’ve heard rumors, of course. I’m sure you’ve heard rumors in Ithaca. Odysseus was seen in Africa. He drowned in a storm off Cape Tenaros . . . There are any number of fates one can imagine. A storm? A mutiny? A quarrel with people ashore? You would think, wouldn’t you, that after eight years of fighting together, the Greeks would be united. Nothing could be further from the truth. There were jealousies and resentments in the Greek camp that will endure for generations. Leaders who felt they weren’t shown enough respect, contingents who didn’t get the booty they thought they deserved. In some ways, you know, winning is far harder than losing.”
    Easy to say. I think of the desolate slave girl from the night before.
    â€œSo maybe Odysseus went ashore on some island for water and food, and ran into a fight,” Nestor goes on. “Or he was blown off course. Or he lost his way. There are as many possibilities as there are rumors: the sea holds many perils. But nothing worth acting on. You could spend a lifetime chasing rumors.”
    â€œI know he might be dead,” I say.
    â€œGood.” Nestor rubs his chin thoughtfully. “You’re right to search, though. It’s better to be sure. Nothing saps courage like uncertainty, and from what I hear of affairs in Ithaca, you will need all your courage. Who is looking after Penelope while you are gone?”
    â€œThe servants.”
    His mouth tightens only slightly, but it’s enough to make me wince. My mother, alone in her room. Antinous.
    â€œCan you fight?”
    â€œNo.” I can’t see any point in lying.
    â€œA pity. Somehow you must learn. If any of my sons were here, they would teach you.”
    I say, “Tell me about my father.”
    â€œAre you sure you want to know?” I’m almost certain he expected the question. Again I sense that piercing gleam in the old man’s dull eye. “I wonder if any of us can really know our fathers—really know them. We see them through veils of .