Jocasta: Wife and Mother. Brian Aldiss

Чтение книги онлайн.

       2

      The Oedipus family was preparing to go to the coast.

      The hour of dawn had come. The cloud curtain lifted enough to permit a ray of sun to slip into the rooms where the daughters of Jocasta slept. It was an appropriate time for a small domestic quarrel. Half-naked, Ismene, the dark one, and Antigone, the golden one, discomfited each other.

      Ismene wanted to take her pet bear on the journey to the coast. Jocasta had forbidden it. Ismene shrieked and cried and threw some clothes about. The bear growled and hid its eyes behind its paws; it foresaw a thrashing in its near future.

      ‘Hate, hate, hate!’ shrilled Ismene.

      ‘Sister, dear,’ said Antigone, assuming a studious pose, ‘why make such a fuss? Can you never understand that the more fuss you make, the harder grows Mother’s heart? Have you no more sensibility than your stupid little bear, that you cannot perceive how uncomfortable shrieking and weeping make you?’

      ‘Pheobe is not stupid,’ said Ismene. ‘She’s the cleverest little bear that ever existed. She can stand on her head and you can’t.’

      ‘Is that a test for cleverness? Don’t you see that the idiot thing stands on its head out of stupidity, because it does not know which way up it should be?’

      Ismene rushed at her sister, screaming with anger. ‘Oh, if only you were a bear I would beat you to death!’

      ‘If I were a bear, I might be stupid enough to let you. Grow up, Ismene!’

      ‘I don’t want to grow up if it means being like you!’

      ‘Stop the noise and get yourselves packed!’ cried Jocasta, from the next room, where she was endeavouring to supervise Hezikiee’s attempts at packing. ‘You create a Hades for yourselves inside these four walls. If you quarrel again over that silly bear, I’ll have it slaughtered.’

      The girls put out their tongues at one another, and dressed in silence. ‘She doesn’t mean it,’ said Antigone aloud to herself. ‘She just says these things. She doesn’t mean anything she says …’

      The day seemed to pause before beginning, as if activity were something to be squeezed from the returning light. In valleys nearby, mists awaited the moment to clear. Cockerels crowed. Rats slunk into empty barns. Farmers, thinner than they once had been, woke to pray to their gods for rain – a bucketful, a mugful, a handful … Anything to offer the parched lips of the earth.

      Oedipus, meanwhile, was coaxing the Sphinx into her grand gilded cage. He used many honeyed words, calling her sweetheart and mother. The Sphinx had no wish to enter the cage, despite the floral patterns into which the golden bars of the prison had been wrought. She squeaked in protest. She turned her head invisible, so that Oedipus should not see her. The ruse failed. Eventually, Oedipus caused a slave to light a fire in one corner of the gilded cage, away from a bank of cushions on which the creature might sleep. A spitted deer was set to turn hissing above the flames. Oedipus, mustering his patience about him, stood back and waited.

      The delectable smell arising attracted the Sphinx into her cage. Oedipus slammed the cage door and turned the key.

      The slave cranking the spit cried out in alarm.

      ‘You stay with her and attend her,’ Oedipus ordered. ‘Obey the Sphinx’s every wish. Her life is of more worth than yours.’ The slave made an obeisance, his downcast eyes full of hate.

      ‘My life is worth more than yours,’ parroted the Sphinx. ‘My life is worth yours and more. Your wife is more than yours … When the family is undercast, the sky will be overcast.’ She flung herself against the bars.

      ‘Be a good Sphinx,’ retorted Oedipus. ‘You are precious to me. So I must keep you safe under lock and key while I am away.’ He had on his black robe and metal skirt, as befitted a soldier. As he strode through the halls of the palace, old women withheld their sweeping; clutching their besoms, they bowed as far as long habit allowed in humble salutation. Disregarding them, Oedipus marched out to see that his guard was ready for the journey.

      The sky above Thebes was overcast. Heavy cloud had swallowed the infant sun. This was famine weather. Oedipus saw immediately that the cloud was too high for rain.

      Ten soldiers stood at the ready beside two carriages, each drawn by two horses. The captain came forward and saluted Oedipus. Oedipus returned the salute. He went to inspect the horses, and check the bits that restrained them.

      One of the mares was the cream-coloured Vocifer. She bridled as Oedipus stroked her nose.

      ‘Quiet, girl!’ He found the light was not good, as the mare cast a СКАЧАТЬ