This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(4)

There’s something more, I can feel it. He’s self-contained, quiet perhaps, but shyness isn’t the problem. I wait for him to go on.

“And I was unremarkable,” he says. “My brothers were strong and handsome; they made marriages that pleased my father.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be considered anything much to look at by some, but he has a twinkling warmth in his eyes and a generosity of spirit that I think makes him very appealing. “I can’t understand why you didn’t.”

“Well,” he says, laughing ruefully, “I never did anything that pleased him.”

My heart twists. There’s no bitterness in his voice, but I can hear a lifetime of loneliness unspoken in his words. “You didn’t just want to marry,” I say, “you wanted to fall in love.”

He glances up at me, startled. “I always thought—”

“That love would find you,” I finish.

He looks down. The dog, until this moment captivated by watching the water over the side of the boat, pads toward him, resting its head in his lap. “It did,” he says quietly. “Once.”

“You lost it.” My voice is soft.

“How do you know?” he asks. “I’ve never spoken of her…not for years.”

“I have a sense for these things.” I smile, gentle and encouraging.

He shakes his head. “It was a long time ago.”

“But you haven’t forgotten.”

“I should have,” he says, and his voice catches unexpectedly. “I should have left it behind.”

“Tell me about her,” I coax. “You’ve held her in your heart all this time. Perhaps when you speak it out loud, you can let her go.”

He glances away, toward the blue expanse of the wide sea.

“Did she tell you no?” I ask. Another, more horrible thought strikes me. “Did she die?”

“Neither,” he says. He hesitates. “It’s strange—strange to be talking about this, strange that you’re here, that you’re asking.” He doesn’t dare ask the question that hovers on his lips. Who are you?

“Has no one ever asked before?”

“We kept it a secret.” The words come quickly now, as though he can’t hold them back any longer. “I promised her I’d never tell as long as we lived. But who knows now if she’s alive or dead?” A shadow crosses his face.

“I promise you,” I say, “that your secret will be safe with me.”

He nods. “Her father would never allow it,” he says. “We grew up in the same village; we were in love for as long as I can remember. But we were still so young—children, really—when he found her a husband.”

“And?”

He blinks, the sheen of tears in his eyes, tears he won’t let fall. “And,” he says, “that was it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He took her away, across the sea. We never even had the chance to say goodbye.”

I stare at him. “That was the end?”

“I saw the ship sailing away,” he says. “He’d come from Athens—that was all I knew.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“No.”

“And you never loved anyone else?”

This sigh comes from deep inside his chest. “I couldn’t.”

“Is that why you’re visiting the sanctuary?” I ask. “To ask Aphrodite to help you forget her at last? To find someone else?”

A flush tinges his worn cheeks. “I wondered,” he says, “if it might not be too late.”

I nod, satisfied. “I’m sure,” I tell him, “that it won’t be.”



* * *



—

When we reach the harbor, he helps me to disembark and I reach into the folds of my robe. I hand him a pot, a rough little trinket shaped of clay with a clumsy lid.

“No, no,” he says, waving it away. “I won’t take any payment.”

“You must,” I say.

He pauses, then takes it in his hand.

“Open it.”

He lifts the lid, and the smoky fragrance of myrrh swirls into the air. “Thank you,” he says.

I lean closer to him, whispering into his ear. “Rub it into your skin.”

He doesn’t hear the cracked voice of an old woman. He hears me: the melodious tone of a goddess.

I watch as he dips a finger into the ointment and brushes it cautiously onto his forearm.

Before our eyes, the wrinkled skin smooths. The flesh that sagged is now firm and taut, gleaming like bronze in the sinking sun.

I hear him gasp before I vanish, disappearing like a dream.

For Phaon, today is the start of something new; fragile and radiant and shimmering with a rainbow of possibilities.

I can never resist a beginning. It’s always my favorite part.





2


Wrapped in mist, I soar above the harbor and toward my sanctuary. The stunned Phaon will soon collect himself: a young man again; renewed and handsome, full of hope.

In the meantime, I note with satisfaction how high the pile of offerings at my altar has become. Honey oozes, left under the glare of the sun in pretty painted bowls. As twilight descends, flower petals begin to curl, leafy garlands turning just slightly brown at the edges, while fruit ripens with a heavy, sweet scent.