The Song of Achilles: A Novel

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

At first it is strange. I am used to keeping him from her, to hoarding him for myself. But the memories well up like springwater, faster than I can hold them back. They do not come as words, but like dreams, rising as scent from the rain-wet earth. This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, so

paltry

IN THE STORIES, the gods have the power to delay the moon’s course if they wish, to spin a single night the length of many. Such was this night, a bounty of hours that never ran dry. We drank deeply, thirsty for all that we had missed in the weeks we were separated.

“I am sure he will be back soon,” she said. Her words were like new leather, still stiff and precise, not yet run together with use.

When he speaks at last, his voice is weary, and defeated. He doesn’t know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won’t light.

my mind slid away, like a fish who would not be caught.

I do not need to say that my panic swelled, that it became a live thing, slippery and deaf to reason.