Bright Air Black by David Vann

Author:David Vann
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2017-03-07T16:29:54+00:00

No one lives on Lemnos. No goats, even. No shepherd’s hut. Strange that it has a name and that anyone would know it. Not far from the Thracian shore, but they haven’t bothered to settle here. Steep island, barren and dry. Rocks sharp enough to cut your feet. Very few trees, hidden away in canyons and smaller folds.

The Argonauts build a great bonfire on the shore using every spare bit of wood. Open to the sunset but hidden from her father by a small point that forms this cove.

Water shallow and a startling bright blue even as the light fades. Milky white rock cut into a thousand sharp pieces. The men bathe and heckle, splash each other and laugh. They say outrageous things about parts of their bodies.

The evening warm, a pleasant breeze, no need for a fire, but the fire is lit anyway, and large hunks of meat hung, meat turning dark, beginning to rot. Then they oil each other, great slicks in firelight, broad backs and thighs. They’ve already begun on the wine.

Medea sits apart along the shore, forgotten by Jason. He’s swaying already from the drink, spreading oil and shouting over all the other voices shouting. Like a flock of seabirds, some rookery distorted, grown large and held to the ground.

They’ve made a sort of throne for Jason, a shelf cut naturally into the rock and lined now with hides. And they’ve brought a red mantle from the stores below deck, thick linen dyed somehow this bright shade beyond blood, edged with purple, richer and befitting a king among kings.

They buckle it around his shoulders and drape it along his arms, admire the intricate patterns, the tales of arms and men woven into the red. Medea goes over to see. Giants with one eye, hammers forging a thunderbolt, surrounded in flame. Garish works, ludicrous. A man lifting a mountain with his bare hands, while another man sings a mountain into movement. A woman carrying a shield but all the focus on her breast. Groups of men fighting among oxen, unintelligible, all history lost, and a boy throwing a spear at a large man dragging away his mother. Stories out of time, out of sequence, remnants unattached, yet the Argonauts pretend understanding. Medea backs away and lets them squabble over what nothing means.

Then a voice, high-pitched, a man pretending to be a woman, coming from a small copse of trees, a fold in the mountain just behind. The men are silenced, and out steps one of the helmsmen.

I am Hypsipyle, he says in his high voice. Queen of this island, and I have a tale you must hear.

The men shout encouragement. Hypsipyle is escorted to Jason, to kneel before him on his throne.

We are without men, she says.

The Argonauts slap at each other, naked and oiled, laughing and offering to provide men.

Our men raided the Thracians and took many things, including foreign women, and they soon forgot us. They left us to plow our fields alone.

Jason laughs, and all the Argonauts, staggering around and slipping against each other.

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