Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney

Author:Cathy Sweeney [Sweeney, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474618502
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2020-07-22T21:00:00+00:00

Alexander the Great

In the hallway of the house where I live there is a reproduction of a painting of Alexander the Great by the Italian artist, Pietro Rotari. It is a poor quality reproduction and hangs in a gilded frame. The painting depicts the first meeting between Alexander and a young woman he would later marry. When Alexander was a young man he had fallen in love with his childhood friend, Hephaestion. Years later when Hephaestion died, Alexander's grief was uncontrollable. He ordered the manes and tails of all his horses to be cut and on the day of the funeral gave orders that the sacred flame in the temple be extinguished; something normally done only on the death of a king.

When I was a young woman, I too fell in love with my childhood friend. That was a long time ago. Now I live in one room above a shop. The walls are painted green, but they have been painted so many times that when they chip it is blue underneath. The glass in the windows is thin. I have my own toilet but share the kitchen with other people. The kitchen is on the floor above my room and I go there in the afternoons when everyone is at work. I wipe the surfaces clean and then cook stew or goulash with dumplings or pork with rice. I eat some of the food and leave the rest in the fridge. The walls of the kitchen are painted yellow.

Alexander the Great was educated by Aristotle who, in his later years, fell in love with a boy. I imagine the boy as smooth and beautiful; soft eyes and hard arms, a boy bathed in the kind of stereotypes that never go out of fashion. The pottery of the time depicts such relationships—an older lover fondles the genitals of the beloved while holding his chin and looking into his eyes. The beloved’s genitals are unmoved. He remains a perfect child in a perfect dream. Of course, this is art and not reality. Maybe Aristotle’s lover was a muscular teen infatuated with his girl-cousin.

The food I leave in the fridge is eaten by a young woman from the country with yellow hair and green/blue eyes. She is a librarian. She told me this one day in the hallway. She would like to tell me more, but I pretend to be in a hurry. I live here because I have no money, not because I want to hear stories. One day the young woman knocked on my door to tell me that she was going away for the weekend with her married lover. She asked me to feed her cat. I told her I was busy. I am tired of people with their dot-to-dot fantasies.

After Hephaestion’s death Alexander the Great was warned not to enter Babylon. He went anyway, fell ill there, and died; his death helixing back through all the events of his life. My childhood friend died many years ago. During

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