The Nursemaid’s Advice

Like a lone oak leaf at the end of winter, the old Nursemaid clung to life. She dozed often and relied on others to support her whenever she stood up to take a few steps. She barely recognized one person from another and repeated herself endlessly as she recalled the glories of Tyre. On the first morning out from Kommos, Amaal sat in the shade of the sail, attempting to bring forth a tune on her flute. She was surprised when the cloudy-eyed old woman gestured to her to come over.

“I know who you are,” she said, pointing a crooked finger at Amaal, who sat down beside her. She spoke in a dry whisper, “You are from a place yet to come.”

For a moment, Amaal hoped that the woman might hold the key to her past. She waited for revelation, but the crone just sighed and sat back against her bale of sail cloth. “Play me a song,” she said, closing her eyes. Amaal hesitated. All the melodies she had heard so far had already escaped her memory. Still, she couldn’t deny the old woman, so she put the flute to her lips and played a jumble of notes until she felt a bony hand touch her arm.

“Take my advice,” the Nursemaid said. “Make music if you like. There’s no harm in it. But I hear no natural ability there. Why don’t you stop struggling and contemplate the flame which the gods have placed within you. See if you can’t find your true…” She paused and rubbed her fingertips with her thumb and let her hand open like an upturned flower. “…gift.”

The message stung, and yet there was truth in what the Nursemaid said. The other musicians on the Phoenix played effortlessly, like free spirits soaring over a lush musical landscape while Amaal searched desperately for a path in the windblown sand. Their innovations appeared out of nowhere, worked their magic, and vanished into the ether when the song was done. Even Hannu’s music, born of little more than natural instinct, possessed his listeners to dance, sing, and sway. Amaal laid her flute across her lap. Maybe the old woman was right. Maybe she was meant for other things. She watched the puffy white clouds drift across the sky. Or was it that the clouds stood still and the Phoenix moved? She could never really tell. Everything was in motion.

When her turn came around after dinner that night, the passengers, their faces illuminated by the brilliant pink sunset, awaited the flute’s mellow song. Amaal felt a flush of shame. “Maybe tomorrow,” she said.

“Well then,” somebody suggested, “why don’t you tell us a story?”

 Amaal sighed. What did they expect? By now everybody knew that she had no memory of the past and no story to tell. A reedy voice screeched from across the deck. It was the old Nursemaid. “Tell them how you escaped from Tyre!”

“Yes, yes!” they all said, “tell us about that.” And so, for the first time, Amaal recalled her story: her reluctant recruitment, her transformation into royal disguise, her trepidation as she stepped into the marketplace in view of Pumayyaton’s guards, the secret shore boat waiting in the harbor, her wobbly climb aboard the Phoenix. Everyone—the passengers, the sailors, even the captain—listened spellbound as Amaal described every detail. At the end, when they expressed awe at her bravery, she insisted that her success was due to pure luck that, for example, the golden sandals fit so perfectly. Many passengers said it was the gods that had guided her on her way and thanked them for doing so. Thus, it was that everyone on the Phoenix came to know Amaal’s story as if it were their own, which, in a way, it was.

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