Chapter 3, section 6: who am I again?

“Let’s go get a drink sweetheart.”

Aphrodite kept her voice cheerful, but her brow was knit. Persephone felt the pressure of Aphrodite’s hand and saw that she was being propelled down a wide set of stone steps, across a stone platform and down another set of steps to a squat building. She couldn’t hear, and it bothered her slightly that Aphrodite’s hand was the only thing that registered as sensation. But the view was lovely from up here, so far above the sounds and the smells.

Why was Aphrodite taking her inside? The sun was so nice and hot out there. Not that it made much difference: outside, inside; hot, cold; weren’t they all the same? In the end everything comes to rest. Even gods, whose time on the dance floor made a mockery of poor mortals’ briefly whispered lifetimes, even they would one day grow weary and throw down the final gauntlet. Mortal, immortal, they were all trapped on the same merry-go-round. It just went around that much quicker for humans is all. And how much quicker still for the fruit fly hanging in the air in front of her face? That would be gone perhaps even before her head hit the five-star pillow tonight at the Copacabana Palace. Or sooner if the thing landed in some inopportune place like on the table in front of her and she were to raise her hand and bring it down on top of the unbearably short-lived creature, like so.

Ouch.

Sounds and smells returned with a whoosh. Utensils clattered against chinaware, and Aphrodite approached carrying a tray of cafeteria food. She unloaded the contents with a flourish and said, ”Voilà. A feast to bring the color back to a queen—even the queen of the colorless realm.”

Persephone groaned, “Please.”

“Sorry darling, I forget sometimes, and you know me, big mouth and all! But you are looking a little paler than usual. Here, you remember these from the reception in Sao Paulo?” Aphrodite pushed four plates of steaming breaded wedges towards Persephone. “They call them ‘pastels’. I don’t see anything pastel about them, but they sure are yummy! I don’t remember which is which, but there’s shrimp, chicken, potato and cheese. They’re all good, but the shrimp is divine. Now which one was the shrimp again?”

She made picking motions with her fingers, and finally picked one up from a plate of small triangular wedges. After blowing on it and nibbling a corner, she proclaimed, “That’s it” and popped the wedge into her mouth. The expression that crossed her face drew stares from tourists and smiles from Cariocas.

Persephone picked one up and bit into it. The batter was deep-fried greasy, and the filling was very salty, like most Brazilian food she had tasted. But it was good, and good to feel food making the trip to her stomach. She tried one from another plate, and liked that too. These pastel things were good; comforting in a childhood memory kind of way.

In addition to the pastels, Aphrodite had brought over egg salad, slices of green tomato, and bright green cans of soda. After chewing a couple more pastels, Persephone picked up one of the cans and examined it: Antarctica Guaraná Champagne. The taglines read Original do Brasil—Tudo Pede. Guaraná champagne? Wasn’t guaraná the Amazonian fruit that mortals heralded as the next ginseng? Get drunk and keep it up all night! How Brazilian. She popped the top and was a little disappointed: it was only soda. Tasty, but not champagne. She downed it anyway, and before long the two goddesses sat around a table of empty plates and greasy crumbs.

Persephone looked up to find Aphrodite staring at her, “So what’s going on in that ravenously beautiful movie star mind of yours? Is it him?”

Persephone shook her head.

“Really? You’ve never been the most extroverted goddess, but since the Montréal show you’ve been stone cold silent. Something happened there, I don’t know what.”

“I don’t know either. I’m…” Persephone’s voice wavered, then trailed off into silence.

Aphrodite’s public face dissolved completely and they sat together in tenderness until Aphrodite said, “You know darling, it’s okay. We may live very… fortunate lives, but the unknown is still unknown, and even we can’t foresee our own futures.”

“Yes, but…” How could she describe what she felt? “Dread,” she said.

“What?”

“Dread. I dread what might happen. Not the unknown. Hell, I used to be the queen of the unknown, but… so… yeah, maybe it is. Him. That. I don’t want to go back there. I know it’s irrational, but I don’t want to be his wife again. I can’t do it.”

She watched a family of four at a nearby table. The mother played with a three-year old girl while the father fed a toddler in a high chair.

“No,” she said slowly, “It’s not him I’m scared or. He chose his own fate. It’s me. How old are we Aphrodite? How old are we?”

Aphrodite shook her head and looked around, slightly uncomfortable at her own name spoken in earshot of mortals.

Persephone stared at the empty cans of Guaraná. “How is it that we’ve come so far and I still don’t know who I am?” She shrugged her shoulders, “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”