A Shrine to an Unknown God

BREAD AND WINE

MY FATHER IS HONORED twice a year with a penis parade and theatre competitions. He is a dying-and-rising god, after all.

My mother, as his high priestess, gets the honor of organizing it all, alongside the curators hand-selected by the kings. Which means that once during the springtime and once during the winter our home is full of two things: papyrus scrolls of play scripts and erect phalluses.

I stretch my bare legs across the warm, smooth stone floor. In my hands is a lump of clay I am attempting to shape into a penis. Half of my mother's attention is on the script she's trying to cram in last-minute. The other focuses on preparing our breakfast.

The world is raw and ripe with morning and the energy that builds before any holiday. I want to live in this moment forever, all the golden light spilling over me from our open windows.

Our walls are bare, the house largely devoid of furniture. Most of the space is just used as extra storage for the temple. There are more votive offerings and unused vials of lamb's blood than there are personal belongings.

I run my hands over the cold lump of clay, smoothing out all the bulky edges. Even with something so small and insignificant I want to make it perfect.

With a stroke of inspiration, I tear off a piece from the giant clay slab resting beside me. I roll it into several thin snakes and press them into the penis I am working on. They look like veins, adding an element of realism to it.

"Looks like somebody knows what she's doing." My mom leans down to look at my creation. "Come on, lamb, breakfast is ready. We've gotta hurry. We're already running behind."

My mother carries herself with the airy confidence of a priestess. You can tell, just by looking at her, that she is someone of great importance. The tilt to her chin, the slight smirk, the arch of her eyebrows. Her back is always straight and her mind clear. Even the way she moves is graceful and elegant, every step thought through. Her parents came to Apollonisi from Zambia, and she has their moonlight dark skin and thick coily hair.

Leaving my creation on the floor, I follow my mother to our dining table. It is this simple, round piece of terra-cotta, with legs shaped like lions' paws. Whenever I am at home, our routine is the same. Our meals are quick. We serve ourselves. For breakfast, it is always the same thing—bread and wine.

The bread my mother makes herself, with barley from the agora, our marketplace. The wine, we get from our neighbor. I can make my own—any kind of alcohol at all, really, not just wine. It's easy—I can summon it from any sort of liquid—but I can never get the taste quite right. His is so much sweeter. Besides, he gifts it to us for free, and it would be rude to pass it up. He says that he hopes to gain favor with Dionysus, the wine-god, as I am his daughter and my mother his high priestess. I call bullshit. I see the way he looks at my mother. He has the hots for her.

As far back as I can remember, it has always been just the two of us. No men or slaves or servants. Just my mother and I.

I cherish the days that I get to spend at home, rather than in the barracks.

"Antigone." My mother rarely says my name, an-tig-uh-nee, when we're alone. She saves it for when she needs to catch my attention in public. It throws me off guard. "Have you been thinking of marriage?"

"What?" I sputter on my wine. "No."

"It's just that you're getting older, and..." she swirls a piece of bread around in her cup, staining it red. "The loveliest boy came to the temple the other day. He would make such a good husband. So strong and handsome. And already a decorated soldier. I told him about you. He seemed very interested."

"MoooOOOOOOM."

Every time I see her, we have this conversation. Some strong, handsome boy comes to the temple, or runs into her at the agora, or sits next to her at the theatre. She jumps on him and tells him all about what a wonderful docile little wife I would make. Then she comes home and berates me and reminds me that I am slipping out of my prime.

I have no intention of getting married.

On Apollonisi, girls and boys are equals. We go to the same agōgē, aa-goge (two syllables, almost like gozh), or military school, and train alongside one another. When we turn eighteen, we all join the same army. We fight side-by-side and sleep in the same barracks and are given the same red cloak to wear. We are all told that we either return with our shield or on it.

It is husbands and wives that are not equal.

The second a girl marries, she has to retire from the army. She goes to live at home, in her husband's home, alone, in one of those big houses all by herself. Year-round, her husband lives in the barracks, and he is not allowed to leave. The only time they can see each other is if he sneaks out at night.

Other than that, she is alone until she has children. And she will have children. Sons, good, strong, capable sons. Sons that will go on to be warriors. Any daughters she has are at risk of being left to die at the base of Mount Eliptos in the center of the island in their infancy. Maybe three out of every five girls aren't killed in this way. Any that manage to escape this, like I did, they get trained to be a warrior, sure. They fight for a year or two, sure. But only because that is the only way to become a mother of warriors.

I am a warrior. So are all the other girls that I know. And yet all the men in charge simply want us to be mothers of.

"I'm just worried for you." She reaches across the table and clasps my hand in hers. "That's all. You know what people think of me, of us. I want better for you than that."

I scowl.

Not only did my mother never marry and produce a child out-of-wedlock, she is that dirty word, an outsider, because her parents were immigrants. Even though she was born on the island and is twice as Apollonisian as anyone I know.

Most of the people here, their families have been here for thousands of generations. They've laid claim to this land ever since the first Spartans left their home, their city falling to pieces around them, to populate our island instead. They do not do very well with outsiders.

The only reason the islanders allowed my grandparents to stay was because they refused to leave. They were never fully accepted as neighbors or as members of the community. They never speak of their old life at all. I am not even entirely sure where Zambia is. Any mention of it would be to acknowledge their otherness.

Their status as an outsider trickled down from my mother to me. My alienation has been made so much worse because even my father is an outsider. He came to Greece from what is today China thousands of years ago, the god who comes.

I have never felt like I truly belong. No one will ever look at me the same as the others, no matter what I do. Even if I get married. Even if I'm the perfect Apollonisian woman.

"You never married," I remind her.

"And I wish I had. The only reason people have any respect for me is because of your father."

Despite being an outsider, my father still is one of our most revered gods. My mother is not only his high priestess, but she also had a child with him. People respect her for that and that only.

"Wouldn't it be the same if you had a husband? People would only respect you because of that."

"This isn't about me. This is about you, my lamb. Don't you want to get married?"

"No—"

"What better way to serve your homeland, than to mother the next great warrior?"

There is no point in arguing with her. I dip my bread in my cup of wine and sink down low in my chair.