Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (19 page)

“I will be shamed.”

“Which hurts more?”

“Deceit.”

Lais’ laughter causes my laughter.
 
Laughing, I say, “Yet deceit seems the only answer.
 
But if I deceive, it shall be Minkah the Egyptian who chooses
who
to deceive.”

“And who shall you choose?”

“Theophilus.”

Lais laughs again.
 
I will dream of her laughter.
 
I will remember it when most needed.
 
She holds out her writing tablet.
 
“Would you honor me by reading what I write this day?”

I tremble as I take the tablet she offers.
 
With no word crossed out, no sign of hesitation, I read what is written.

I ask for nothing.
In return I give All.
There is no earning my Love.
No work needed, no effort
Save to listen to what is already heard,
To see what is already seen.
To know what is already known.
Do I seem to ask too little?
Would you give although I ask not?
Then this you can give me and I will accept.
I will take your heart.
You will find it waiting for you
When you return.

Autumn, 393

Hypatia

Lais floats through our rooms again.
 
She sits in the sun of our gardens.
 
Her incision heals.
 
Flesh softens her bones.
 
She swears she feels no pain.
 
All praise Olinda.

Even Jone knows pleasure.
 
Because we show interest in her reading—at the moment
The True Word
by Celsus—making no criticism of a Christian teacher, a glimmer of joy lightens our little sister’s serious face.
 
Our reward is this: we are informed that from now on she will read nothing “pagan.”
 
This means she will not be reading anything her own family writes.
 
But as she never has, what loss is this?

Minkah goes about singing some song of the Egyptian streets.
 
I would beg him to stop if I were not so near song myself.
 
Paniwi drops huge rats at the feet of Lais.
 
Both rat and Paniwi look much the worse for wear, though Paniwi is clearly the winner.

I lecture and so many come, so many travel great distances, so many pay.
 
If any truly hear me, I could not say.
 
I teach that Mind creates the illusion of matter.
 
I teach that matter does not “exist,” not as we think it does.
 
The Galileans swear that matter is made of lesser stuff into which we have fallen.
 
Flawed by our fall, we are trapped in a world of opposing principals—good and evil, life and death, love and hate, light and dark, liars and truth-tellers, flesh and the spirit—until we are saved.
 
But this is Persian dualism as taught by Zarathushtra “revealed” to him by his Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda.

The faithful are not told that once another thing was taught of their Christ, a teaching I myself have found only remnants of.
 
The books of those who knew him, or who understood him, claim his life was lived as a spiritual myth, that by it he sought to show the divinity of all.
 
I have searched for these books in vain.
 
If not destroyed, the new teaching has hidden the old teaching as well as the Library is hid.

And yet times soften.
 
It seems as it was before the loss of our temples although ours are not regained for this is Alexandria and Theodosius remains Emperor of the East and so rules Egypt.
 
But Eugenius is Emperor of the West.
 
Pagans there: of Italy, of Gaul, of Spain, of Britain, of North Africa once more openly show themselves.
 
Mystery traditions accept initiates and those who would join number in the thousands.

Before this too passes, I work all the hours I can to make use of it.

New thoughts furnish my head.
 
As if servants had tossed out all that is old, and brought in all that is new, I keep Rinat busy enough for a room of her own in which she might sleep.
 
There is so much to say.
 
I cannot reach the heavens—what do I know of the stars?
 
The number of primes is infinite—is there a pattern?
 
And if there is a pattern, has it meaning?
 
I cannot answer.
 
This is all I am sure of: I know that I AM, for I cannot truly assert that I AM NOT.

Perhaps Rinat works to capture unworthy thoughts.
 
But they are my thoughts, and I am filled to bursting with them.

Hope, found in Siwa, is like a hungry lion.
 
It rises to its feet.

~

Lais and I recline in our bath.
 
Rose petals and sponges float on the oiled water.
 
Paniwi, not one for steam, follows even into the bathhouse, though she must sit on a high tiled ledge where she constantly cleans her fur.
 
As for me, I lie back basking in my sister’s life.
 
I revel in the scent of her, the fine fair hair on her slender arms, the elegant line of her forehead as it flows down to the elegant line of her nose, the small scar on her chin where once she fell from the back of Ia’eh.
 
As for the scar on her belly, even this I find beautiful.
 
Made by Olinda, it has saved my sister’s life.

She has heard of my trip to Siwa, all but that which occurred under the palms.
 
That Isidore was there, she knows, but asks me nothing.
 
I am nothing like as discreet.
 
I probe.
 
When she was not with us, where did she go?
 
During the time her belly was open, what did she feel?
 
Now that she has returned to this world, does it please her?

I make my sister laugh.
 
“Hypatia, Hypatia.
 
No one asks so many questions, and none so quickly so that the person asked cannot keep up, and yet more come.
 
In my bath, I will answer only one.
 
Which shall it be?”

“The first one.”

“Of course, the most difficult—but as I have promised, I reply.
 
I left the cave of my body, sister.
 
I left what I thought home.
 
I left Egypt.
 
And while gone, I had no idea of time or loss.
 
All was bliss.”

“What do you mean by ‘I’?”

“I mean that within me which perceives.
 
I saw, I heard, I had thoughts and emotions.
 
But of body or bodily sensation, there was none.”

“What do you mean by bliss?”

“What would you mean by bliss?”

“I have no idea.
 
I have never known bliss.
 
But where did this
I
of yours go?”

“‘Where’ means nothing.
 
Where is a thing of
this
world.
 
The I of me, which perceives without need of body, was not in this world.”

“Then some other world?”

“If it was, it was not made as this world is made.”

“Were there gods?”

“Gods?
 
If by gods, you mean others without body or concern for the world left behind, then yes, there were ‘gods.’”

“Were you happy?”

“Oh yes.”

“You were happier there?”

“I would have been, if not for your being here.”

“You play with me.”

Lais takes up my hand.
 
She kisses my wet and oily palm.
 
“What else is there but play, beloved?”

~

If I thought Father might rise, I am mistaken.
 
He no longer lives in bed because he despairs; he lives in bed because it suits him.
 
He is warm and he is comfortable.
 
He is coddled and he is safe.
 
Or so it must seem to him.
 
All he might desire is brought him.
 
All those he might wish to speak with, visit.
 
If he has, even once, considered what his choice might mean to me, he does not show it, nor does he seem in the slightest abashed that his daughter earns what is needed to assure him he has a bed, not to mention a room to wall it with and a roof to cover it over.
 
In truth, our father has gone from despair to a kind of childlike contentment.

The way here has been difficult, often it angered me, but I have come finally to accept what must be borne.
 
Has he not raised three females without a wife?
 
Did he not climb to the height of such fame as comes to mathematicians?
 
If there were no Emperor Constantine, no Emperor Theodosius, no Bishop Theophilus, Theon of Alexandria would be teaching still.
 
There is also this: if all had not happened as it did, what should I be?
 
I have been restless, curious, an irritant to those who wish peace and quiet.
 
These “qualities” have found a home in teaching.

There is one thing only that rankles.
 
The younger my father becomes, the older must I become.

He has finished his work on the bleating of sheep and the croaking of ravens and whatever else.
 
Today, we begin work on his commentary on the
Mathematical Treatise
of Claudius Ptolemy.
 
To this end, I have spent hours in the garden on our roof creating an
Astronomical Canon
…for though Ptolemy’s catalog of stars is impressive, still, Claudius Ptolemy the synthesizer, was wrong in a great number of his conclusions which I must somehow prove to Alexandria’s leading mathematician—though his reputation fades.
 
Minkah is forbidden to tell Father what is said of him outside our house; with all he endures, to hear himself replaced—by me!—might further unbalance what is already tilted.

This evening I arrive filled with hope that Father will agree the sun lies at the center of our system, not the earth.

“First,” admonishes Father, “Aristotle does not agree.”

“True, but—”

“And second, Archimedes does not agree.”

“True, but—”

“And third, Theon of Alexandria does not agree.”

“Father.
 
Christians once again teach that the world is flat and the universe shaped like a tabernacle.”

Father snorts down his nose which causes the hairs that grow there to quiver.
 
“Even a simpleton, when shown, can see a ship sail away over a horizon, disappearing little by little.
 
And when the ship returns, it appears little by little.”

“Yet—flat we remain to many.”

Father is still quick.
 
He knows what I would say.
 
“I await the day you personally disprove Aristotle.
 
Until then, Claudius Ptolemy is correct.”

“But the pure unfounded invention of what he calls “epicycles,” so tortuous and so unnecessary if one would merely accept the obvious—”

“Claudius Ptolemy wrote the
Tetrabiblos
.
 
Has anyone been clearer on the subject of astrology?
 
His astronomy is equally clear.”

“It is, demonstrably, a mess.”

“Do I smell boiled milk?
 
I am starving.”

I leave Father to his hot milk, and the intolerable Aristotle to his self-serving argument that the “female is the male deformed,” and that “semen is the seat of the soul.”
 
It was while reading Aristotle that I first knew anger towards the male.
 
Did he not whine whenever his superior masculine eyes caught sight of women at market?
 
How terrible it is to be woman…but only because of men.

~

Winter, 393

Minkah the Egyptian

Lais begs Hypatia to take her to the races.
 
Hypatia begs me.

I shake my head.
 
“What if she becomes over-excited?
 
What if she is yet too weak?”

Hypatia argues for Lais.
 
“But Minkah, Alexios is arrived back from his triumphs in Constantinople.
 
He races this day.
 
There is no charioteer my sister dotes on more than Alexios.
 
He will leave again.
 
What if he does not return?”

I pretend to weaken.
 
“Perhaps if we asked Olinda?”

“Olinda visits a patient in Pelusium.
 
And Lais has been so long at home.
 
Her cheeks glow with health, her body is plump, her stomach flat.
 
She would not walk, Minkah, I would never have her walk.
 
Nor will she ride Ia’eh.
 
I will hire a curtained litter, the most expensive, one with heaped pillows and the strongest bearers.
 
Nor, as we did as children, will she remain all day, not even half the day.
 
We shall see only the race of her hero.
 
Surely there is no harm?
 
At the first sign she tires, she shall come home.”