By: Valerie Frankel "Which story should I read tonight?" Papa asked, making the bed sink as he settled onto its edge. "Read the Odyssey," I said, piling my stuffed dragons and teddy bears in the corner to make more room. "The part where Odysseus blinds the Cyclops." It was a great action story. More importantly, Odysseus got his wife back in the end. "Not Gilgamesh?" Papa twisted his moustache, nibbling on its ends. I rolled my eyes. Gilgamesh was father's favorite, not mine. No matter which stories I requested, he always returned to the part divine being who quested for immortality after the gods stole his best friend. Thinking back now, I always wonder if the story reminded him of Mama, who died in a car crash when I was six. "We can read the Odyssey tomorrow," Papa suggested. "I'm just not in that kind of mood." He shrugged. "Besides, I don't want you to get stuck in a single story, over and over. Now's the time to learn, to experience different cultures. There are so many other myths. Castor and Polydeuces placed in the sky by Zeus as the constellation Gemini, when they could not bear to part. Jack Popcorn, the Hungarian lad who became king of Fairyland and reunited with his lost love, Iluska." I scowled. Papa was the one stuck in a single story, fixating on immortality with his beloved. At age nine, I'd accepted Mama was gone. Why couldn't he? "Odyssey," I insisted, pouting as only I could. "I'm playing with Jen and Caitlin tomorrow. Softball field. You're driving. Remember?" My father sighed and tugged the book off the shelf, but he didn't tear his eyes away from the family picture up on the wall. Me sitting on Mama's lap, hair in braids, him smiling a sincere, quirky smile that only existed now in the picture, frozen there forever. Half in my world, half lost in the past, he began to read. So matters continued through my childhood. Every evening, I curled up beside Father as he read to me from Tolkien, Dante, Spencer. Even now, I recall his scent: musty old books and a far-off tang, like storm-cleared air over the sea. But those legends never engulfed me as they did him. He was trapped in the world of yesterday; I had more freedom. When I was 16, Papa called me into his study. I sat down on the battered leather sofa, so crowded with books that there was barely space for both of us. He squeezed an arm around my shoulders, a show of affection rare for him. "Kat, I have cancer." The words echoed in my skull, louder and louder as the room grew fuzzy gray at the edges. All I could cling to were my father's arm around my shoulders and the horrible, terrifying words. "So, what now?" I finally asked. Papa stood up. Why hadn't I noticed how slowly he had been moving lately, the careful, miniscule gestures, the tightness in his face? No, I had been too busy in the world of the living. With a shudder, I shoved away the treacherous thought. He was still alive and I had to keep him that way. "I don't want to die." Papa stumbled a little, balancing his hand on a wobbling pile of books to steady himself. He picked up the top volume, a collection about the Egyptian pantheon. For a moment, I thought he might read it aloud, hoping for comfort or perhaps a reprieve from the long-dead gods. Instead, he tossed it into the unlit fireplace. Dead ashes flew up into the air, clouding the bookish atmosphere. "I don't want to die." I remember the sadness, the hopelessness in his voice when he said those words. I felt as though an icy cold ocean, one that I could never hope to escape, was swallowing me up, like the kraken of Father's tales. "There must be some experimental treatment, some doctor--?" He shook his head. The fury that had scarred his face when he flung the book was seeping away, fading into defeat. Then he straightened, an odd light in his eyes. His fingers twitched against his thighs and his eyes darted to the bookshelf in his accustomed manner. "But I'll do it anyway, Kat. I'll escape. I'll chain death up, like Sisyphus bound Thanatos. I'll live forever. Remember how you loved those stories?" I nodded mutely. I had loved those stories. Back when I was a child, before I realized how precarious life was, and at the same time how precious. Life wasn't dusty books and fading manuscripts of forgotten gods. |
It was movement and growth and experience, all the things my Papa had given up on his quest through old stories. Yet, as I saw the desperation and, yes, the fear in his lined face, how could I protest? Many people had beaten cancer on faith alone. Myth had that power, even if all other strength had faded from it. My father would find an escape. Looking at his set face, I understood the death that had taken my mother would never again have power in this house. My Aunt Beatrice, Mama's younger sister, told me that denial was a normal response. She held me close in her bread-and-butter scented arms and said that I should let him work through it on his own. I tried. But he didn't work through it. As time went on, his determination engulfed him, to cheat, to escape death's clutches. My aunt finally persuaded him to see a counselor. "Death is natural," the counselor said, hair stretched back in a bun until I could see through the skin of her face. "It's the normal ending of life. I understand your anger, but you have to move past it." Father stopped visiting the counselor. Finally, I went to him, and asked, against Aunt Beatrice's advice, how he planned to cheat death. "I must remain awake," he replied, meeting my eyes with his deep blue gaze. "For six days and seven nights. After that, the gods will grant me immortality, in recognition of my great deeds." I easily recognized the words I had learned so many years ago. I shuffled my feet, remembering the counselor's instructions. Everyone deals with grief in a similar way. Denial is natural. Don't shatter his notions; play along at least a little, so he can move past them on his own. I rather doubted that would happen. "But, Father, Gilgamesh was a mighty warrior, who slew Humbaba, and chopped down the Great Cedar." He gave me his knowing smile, the one that lingered on his face when he told me to look up an answer. "One need not be a great, muscled hero to do magnificent deeds. And one need not possess fame and renown to earn a godly reward." I didn't know what to say. And so he decided that he would stay awake for six days and seven nights. He went out and bought coffee. A lot of it. And he stayed awake. On the third day, when I walked into the living room, I heard him snoring. He sat there, on the worn leather couch, fast asleep. Secretly, I think I almost felt relieved. I lacked Father's perfect faith the gods would listen, and I didn't want to know the outcome. I remember standing there in the silent living room, shivering. I wanted my father back, as he had been when my mother lived. I hoped that this attempt would end his obsession. When Father finally woke, his calm face bore no trace of his depression. I knew that it had ended, and that he would start to accept his fate. He didn't. Instead, Father said that the ancient gods had sent him a dream, to show him how he could stay alive forever. It was like the consolation prize, he said, that Gilgamesh received when he fell asleep on his hero's quest. Gilgamesh found a beautiful flower, which bloomed with the power of immortality, as a trophy to show for his long journey. On that day, my father began speaking of cryogenic suspension. He's been gone for four years now. Four years since he said he found the secret of immortality. His own personal fountain of youth. And has he? I don't know. I think about the end of the story, where Gilgamesh doesn't believe in the flower, and wants to test it first. So he saves it to try on an old man, and then goes to bathe in the river. While he's away, a snake eats the flower. Because Gilgamesh abandoned faith, he lost his chance for immortality. And in this world, you only find one chance. I think Father understood that. He seized his possibility of being immortal, as few others would dare. No man can achieve immortality. But has he found a way? Will he spend eternity imprisoned between life and death? Will he live on in the future, to see technology progressed far enough to seem magic in a land of gods? When I think of him, I realize that people can cheat death, though no god grants that power to mortals. We cheat death through the strength of myth itself. I'll tell this story to my children and grandchildren to make sure that Father's legend never dies. For he's a story now, like Hercules, Urshima Taro, King Arthur. Like Gilgamesh, the man who failed his quest yet is still remembered and will be for all time. For we are legends each one of us, building onto the next level of myth as our everlasting legacy. |