Archive of Our Own

This is a story that cannot fathom being told in English, do you understand? It would be a ἁμαρτία- a sin. I wrote this story out fully in Greek before putting it back into English, and then I burnt the English and wrote it again in Greek, and then I realized it will only ever be read in English, so it went back in the vulgar tongue. But some things are not meant to be translated. Still, we will make do with the imperfections of our own language. 

This is what Julien said: Some words are etched too deep into the mind of the speaker to find a place in a foreign world. They cannot be rewritten, nor can they be molded and shaped for a language unknown. He lamented often that our study required translation. We should strive for fluency, he said, but of course, the tradition of study was ingrained far too deep in the academic consciousness. But what use is writing down in Koine tongue what should be read in Attic? 

This is, I think, why he enjoyed the company of Henry so much. When not in class, they spoke exclusively in Greek together- quick witted and scathing was their banter, and they pronounced it not in the Erasmian manner which so many learners did, but with proper Attic values for each letter. 

Henry only seemed happy in Greek, and I, for my part, took it as a task upon me to make him laugh in English, but Bunny seemed the only one able to do that, either. 

Henry was amused by me, and I was often the recipient of his wry smiles and glances, but it was never laughter, never joy. I wondered often what would unlock for me that rare smile he gave to Bunny or Julien, but I came to understand that there was no way to bury myself that deep inside his lungs. It was a closed place, the eisodos through which I was not permitted to enter. Perhaps Henry felt love- I do not doubt it. But the love that he felt was never directed at me, and for that I am strangely bitter, even though he is no longer alive to feel that bitterness.

---

Years later, I was left remembering where it had all gone wrong. It was after Bunny died that things truly started to get as dark as they were at the end, and I remembered that strange semester in pills and untranslatable words, and when I got old, every word I read in Greek held with it a memory from Hampton. 

The first word that came into my mind after I heard Bunny scream was μίασμα. I have never been a particularly religious person, but in dire circumstances, we all found our gods. Camilla and Charles whispered Ave Maria on their way to class, Henry burnt small creatures and intoned in Greek, and I spent long nights praying to any god that would listen, though I did not think any kind one existed. It was a strange time for all of us, and led to moments stranger which I would not have dreamed of had I been in my right mind. Thus, the night with Francis. 

I did not want to be kissed by Francis. I did not want to kiss him back. It simply seemed like the only thing to do in that moment- a relief from the lingering realness of the world. 

As he kissed me, a word lingered in my head- σωφροσύνη. Self control, something which I was sorely lacking at the moment and was sure I would regret in the morning. It was one of the words Julien did not allow us to translate- the English language would destroy the meaning of the word, he said. 

So I thought of σωφροσύνη before I pushed Francis away, and I thought of it every cold night after that too. I played the strange scenario over and over again in my head, and I could never get to the bottom of it. Why had he kissed me? Why had I kissed back? The only reason I could come up with was that I was so desperate for distraction that I would take any distraction I could find, even if it was Francis, and even though I did not find myself compelled to give my body to men.

We spoke about that night once more, and then never again. At times Francis would bring it up again when I least expected it, and I turned beet red at the remembrance. I think it was a memory he teased out of me when he was feeling ill-tempered, or wanted Charles to laugh at someone other than himself. It bothered me, not because I wanted him to kiss me again, but because there was something undeniably magnetic about Francis. He was like a painting that wanted to be watched, that demanded it of his viewers. 

I spent far too long thinking about Francis, the kiss, and the way his flaming red hair framed the sides of his face before the twins announced that we would return to normalcy, through hell or high water. 

We went to the twins house for dinner the week after Bunny died. I suppose we were trying to feign a veneer of normalcy, and the twins insisted on hosting as per usual. Ξενια, they insisted on. Guest friendship. 

A fair bit of ξενια it was, when halfway into the night Charles was so drunk he could barely stand and Camilla was preoccupied moving glasses and plates out of his way so that Charles didn’t shatter any of the fine china. 

None of us mentioned the uncouth behavior of a particular one of the hosts, though Henry wrinkled his nose when he thought Charles couldn’t see him, and made some sort of gesture to Camilla which in turn made her cover her mouth and stifle a laugh. 

Quickly after that we were all excused from the house, though I lingered on the doorstep as long as I could. Some part of me was afraid of leaving Camilla alone with Charles, though back then I didn’t truly know the danger that he posed to her. I just knew it felt like I had entered the chorus line when Camilla softly shut the door in my face. 

So I left her there, beautiful in a fragile way, unable to shake the feeling that if she had ever been scared, I was twice as much the coward. 

Camilla had always been an angel to me, or perhaps a prophetess. I saw her in Cassandra, for I did not believe her capable of the acts of Clytemnestra, or the coldhearted murder of Medea. She was quiet, small, and strange- I never quite knew what was going on in her head, and I was always left with the impression that I had missed something of importance. 

I found her down by the lake alone one evening, staring at the waves mutely. In retrospect, I think she was considering the damage of the night that the group had killed the farmer. But I knew none of that at that time.

“Χαιρε,” I said. 

Camilla did not turn to look at me. “γυναῖκές ἐσμεν ἀθλιώτατον φυτόν,” she replied, and grew strangely thoughtful. I tried to translate her words in my mind before recognizing the phrase for what it was- Medea. It was chilling to hear her speak such, and I quickly tried to make light of it. I did not know Medea as well as she did, so I did not pull from that play, and I have a mind to think that I made the situation even graver with my flippant movement from Medea to Phaedra. “σοῦ τάδ᾿, οὐκ ἐμοῦ κλύεις,” I said. 

Camilla stared at me, unblinking. She spoke to me not in Greek of the tragedians then, but in the Greek of Homer, and then followed it up quickly after with English, signaling the end of our strange pidgin discussion. “πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη” she said, then, “You don’t twist as much.” She tilted her head. “I don’t think so, at least.” 

Later, at the end , after Bunny was dead and Julien left, I remembered that the word Camilla spoke to me that day at the lake was also one deemed by Julien to be untranslatable- πολυτροπος. Long ago, Camilla had told me that I was not the man of many turns which she saw in Odysseus or in Charles, but I came to question even that after Henry died. I was just as twisted, just as much of a wandering man as the rest of them, only when it came down to it, none of us were the Odysseus from Homer. No, we filled the roles of Ajax quite well, and never thought to reflect on that. 

Tragic characters never seem to realize their genre until the very end of the play. They always think they climbed out of epic, or elegy, or history, and never pause to look at what is right in front of their faces: the masks of Dionysus leering down at them. 

But then, we were no different. We fashioned ourselves children of Homer all while the tragedian masks smiled down at us, and while we sang to the god of tragedy and madness, we never actually thought to become part of his chorus. 

After all, it is only at the very end of the play that Ajax takes his life. 

And at the very end of my life, I remembered one last word which we were not permitted to translate in that Greek class long ago, like the last ghost coming back to stand at my shoulder during the night. It was the thing none of us had found in our long years of wandering-  εὐδαιμονία. For no matter how much Plato we read, how much Epicurus Henry quoted after killing a man, there was still no εὐδαιμονία for us in the future. I thought often of Diogenes and his lantern- can anybody find me a good man? 

I did not keep in contact with the Greek class after that fateful night where Henry died, but once or twice I wrote to Camilla, and she wrote back on her grandmother’s typewriter. Her letters all smelled like lavender and were typed on that old typewriter up until she died, even when it would have been more convenient to exchange email addresses. She sealed the letters with wax, and always signed those letters in her own hand.

Camilla never told me what Henry whispered in her ear right before he shot himself, but she read Plato’s Symposium every April like clockwork. I tried, once or twice, to pry the secrets of Henry out from her, but she held them stubbornly to her chest, all she had left of the man she once- and still- loved. 

I could not fault her for still being in love with a dead man, for I was the same, but I was resentful that she would not share that love with me. I know now why she did not. If she gave me that last piece of Henry, those secret words, what would she have left of him? He was a man that did not take kindly to being shared. 

I like to imagine that he will appear to me one day, and tell me those words that he told Camilla so very long ago, but it has not happened yet. I make up phrases for Henry to whisper before he shoves the barrel of the gun to his temple, all the things he might have said to Camilla, and fantasize that he might share the secret with me. In the end, only one phrase feels right, and I know it is not the phrase he spoke to Camilla. It is merely the one I know he would speak to me.