Sophrosyne

SOPHROSYNE

SOPHROSYNE

A NOVEL

MARIANNE APOSTOLIDES

BookThug · 2014

Department of Narrative Studies

FIRST EDITION

copyright © 2014 Marianne Apostolides

Cover image, Nothingness, by Noriko Maeda.

www.norikomaeda.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts and The Ontario Arts Council.

The author gratefully acknowledges the Ontario Arts Council’s Chalmers Arts Fellowship for support in the conceiving and researching of this book.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Apostolides, Marianne, author

Sophrosyne : a novel / Marianne Apostolides. -- First edition.

(Department of narrative studies ; no. 14)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77166-063-1

I. Title. II. Series: Department of narrative studies ; no. 14

PS8601.P58S67 2014     C813'.6     C2014-903810-0

PRINTED IN CANADA

About This Book

A is a work of fiction in which André Alexis presents the compelling narrative of Alexander Baddeley, a Toronto book reviewer obsessed with the work of the elusive and mythical poet Avery Andrews. Baddeley is in awe of Andrews’s ability as a poet – more than anything he wants to understand the inspiration behind his work – so much so that, following in the footsteps of countless pilgrims throughout literary history, Baddeley tracks Andrews down thinking that meeting his literary hero will provide some answers. Their meeting results in a meditation and a revelation about the creative act itself that generates more and more questions about what it means to be inspired.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Denoument

For Jay MillAr

In thanks for building the house of BookThug,

one magical brick at a time.

You’ve all had a taste of this wild passion for philosophy, so

you’ll understand me, and forgive what I did then, and why

I’m telling you now.

– Plato, Symposium

Ku

Emptiness, sky

Emptiness is a cosmic sky

enveloping earth and man and the

countless legions of stars . . . .

If the place where the omnipresent God resides be called

heaven, then heaven

would also have to reach beneath the bottomless pit of hell:

heaven would be an abyss of hell.

This is the sense in which emptiness is an abyss

for the abyss of nihility.

Emptiness, sky

Ku

CHAPTER ONE

And I’m trying to slow it all down. Because I’m lying on the dirt, hidden from the path, and my back presses down as I breathe. My bare back and shoulders, my palms and fingers, because this soil is loamy. Fertile, loamy, and filled with decay. But it cushions me, this soil. It holds me as I breathe, as I press, and it’s slower now. My blood, its beat, because I’ve been running for hours. Raging through the wooded preserve, but now I can feel my breath slower. Here, on the dirt, as I look at the trees that look like columns. Four dead trees, directly beside me. And all of it reminds me of you.

Come here, my love, you said. And you lifted one languid arm toward me, inviting me to climb on top. Because I’d been reading while you cleaned the kitchen. Cooking, cleaning, tidying our tiny apartment, ensuring that all was in place. And now you were lying on the couch, gathering yourself before you left for work.

Bring the book, you added and I eagerly obeyed. I brought the book and climbed on top. I lay on your body, stretched full on the couch, and my cheek was on your chest.

I love this book, you said. And you nuzzled me, your lips on my skin, because your daddy gave you a book, you said. A book about the ancient Olympics, just like the one we were reading. I loved that book when I was a girl.

That was a long time ago, I said, and you laughed.

It was another world ago. . . another life ago. And you stroked my hair, your hand in that coarse thicket. And you told me about the book. Because sport encompassed everything for the Greeks, you said. Art and ethics, virtue, desire. . . And every essential aspect of Greek culture could be displayed in the role of sport. The role, more specifically, of the athlete’s body.

And I felt your body breathing. My belly on yours, my cheek on your chest and my arms tucked, curled so one thumb brushed against my lips. But only sometimes. Only when you breathed deep and I breathed, too, and our inhales intersected in a certain way. Only then would my thumb touch my lips, supremely light. And you spoke about the wrestling schools, the ancient palaistra, because wrestling schools were built for athletics but they became the great academies. And this was important, you said. Because ‘Plato’ and ‘Aristotle’ are mythic names, but these were men. Real men who built the first universities anywhere on earth. And they did so beside the palaistra. Beside and within. . . Because each absorbed the other: sport and thought, physicality, agony: knowledge. All were absorbed into one.

Do you understand, my love?

And I fluttered my eyelids to make myself cuter.

Does that mean yes?

And I fluttered even more.

Because the palaistra were places of learning, you said. And not just about sport. . . Because men would gather to watch, advise, while teenagers grappled in the open pit. And, once they’d concluded their physical effort, they’d all congregate in the colonnade to talk. Talking, debating, with vigour appropriate to men. All the teaching was oral at that point, you said. There weren’t any books or lectures or writing. Because ‘thought’ was a performance, you said, just like sport. . . Stamina, acumen, wit in the oral debate.

And I listened to your voice. The ideas arising from you, your voice, which I felt as vibration in my body. My little-boy body which lay full on top. Because I didn’t hear your voice, I felt it. Far away and soft but mine, your little boy who listened, loosening into your voice. Your sound. My thumb on my lips as you inhaled. As I inhaled. Because I listened as you spoke about abstract ideas, warm like vibration through my core.

Philosophy, you said. "The love of wisdom. Philos plus sophia."

Sophia! I said, recognizing the word.

What does ‘sophia’ mean, Aleksandros?

It’s your name!

It used to be. . .

But not anymore. Now you’re ‘mama,’ right?

Aleksandros, you’re avoiding the question. Please define the word ‘sophia’.

Sophia means wisdom.

"Yes. But what does that mean, my love?"

And I looked up, suddenly uncertain, but you smiled. You stroked my face, held my cheek in your palm. That’s a big question, isn’t it? you asked and I nodded. And you stroked my face. Stroking, settling my cheek on your chest. Holding me there, the gentlest pressure before your fingers travelled down my spine.

What do you think, Aleksandros: will you go to university?

And it seemed like a question but I knew that it wasn’t. I will, I said.

Because the tree trunks could be the columns. Four dead trees, not far beside me, and they could be columns from the photo in the book. Those four marble columns, worn and crumbling, all that’s left of the ancient palaistra. And overgrown grasses surround them, ugly in their tangled growth. But this grass feels soft against my skin. This grass, here, so far from you, from how we were as we lay on the couch. But I palm the blades and begin to imagine. Because the picture from that book became my picture of you, in Greece, and you’re stretched in the grass. And this grass becomes the grass in the book, but it’s moving, with you lying, and the length of the grass is rising around you. And you are smiling. And your eyes are closed and your smile is gentle and, if I relax, I can smile like that, too. I can feel myself breathing like you, or with you, and we’re lying, together, on top of the soil.

Oh, Aleksandros, you said, and you sighed, placing the book on the floor. I’ve got to get ready for work soon, my love. Then you made a suggestion. Before I go to work, we can each ask each other one question from the book. Okay?

Okay.

"But it has to be a vital question. A living question. It can’t be a factual question. Those are the rules."

Okay. You first, mama.

"Okay, Aleksandros. Tell me: what is kalokagathia?"

And I knew that one. I know that one! I said and I propped myself up because I was excited. Eager, excited, because I knew the answer.

Tell me, you said. Tell me what it means.

‘Goodness’ and ‘beauty:’ kalos kai agathos. The words mash together, I said. "They become one big word: kalokagathia. . . . Goodnessandbeauty."

Good boy, you said. "That’s a good start, Aleksandros. But what does that mean? If two separate words are joined together – if two separate concepts are joined in one single word – what does that mean?"

And I thought about it. I looked at the book which you’d placed on the floor. That beloved book, my secret shame, and I pondered the passage I’d read the night before. The whole long section on kalokagathia, illustrated by a single photo. ‘The Discus Thrower, (450 BC), an exemplary model of kalokagathia,’ the caption said. And I’d read the passage alone in bed. Aware of myself, alone in my bed, my little-boy body while you were at work.

What does it mean, my love? you asked, and you were becoming impatient. Please answer the question.

And I didn’t know, but I tried to think, because I wanted to make you proud. And I knew that I could, if I found a proper response to your question: a logical answer that you would accept. Because I found a solution. Mama, I said, that’s a second question. . . . You asked a second question, and therefore I can’t answer it!

Therefore? you said.

Therefore, I repeated.

"Kalos, you laughed. That’s good, Aleksandros. You’re very clever, you know. . . . The Sophists would be proud."

They would?

"Now tell me: what’s your question?"

And my question, that night, was perfectly clear. Mama? I asked, and I snuggled in closer. Mama, are you a Sophist?

And you whispered in reply, as if to tickle the lobe of my ear. Bite your tongue, you said. Then you asked for my question from the book. A living, vital question like the one that you gave me.

But I couldn’t. I still can’t. Instead, I scraped my teeth against my tongue, and I thought about the night before, when I looked at the photo beside the text. Because this is the moment before he throws the discus. Kalokagathia: beauty and goodness, the truth of the body’s perfect agony. And I’d focused on the photo, The Discus Thrower. His shoulders and biceps, the veins on his arms, and his torso and muscle with firm divisions: the athlete’s hard core as he spirals downward, preparing for release.

Tell me, my love, you said. "Do you know how to define your question?"

No, mama, I said.

Should I tell you?

Please tell me.

And you stroked my hair, thinking. Considering your response. And I waited, patient, because I liked the veins on his arm. I liked that smooth rise, the long pulsation of blood. The blood inside, but I could see it. I could sense the pulsation on this sculpture of a man, an athlete. Because I took a piece of fabric from beneath my bed. Scraps of fabric, satin from your costumes, stored beneath my bed, and I stole one. A strip of fabric, midnight blue