The unicorn had come to her side, his head lowered, as if to extend his beautiful weapon in the defense of his mistress.
“You are not from Pndapetzim,” she then said. “You are neither a eunuch nor a monster. You are … a man!” She showed that she recognized a man, as he had recognized the unicorn, from having heard man mentioned many times, but never having seen one. “You are beautiful, a man is beautiful.
May I touch you?” She reached out and, with her slender fingers, she stroked his beard and grazed the scar on his face, as Beatrice had done that day. “This was a wound. Are you one of those men who make war?
And what is that?”
“A sword,” Baudolino answered, “but I use it in my defense against wild beasts; I am not a man who makes war. My name is Baudolino, and I come from the lands where the sun sets, over there,” and he made a vague gesture. He noticed that his hand was trembling. “Who are you?”
“I’m a hypatia,” she said, with the tone of someone amused to hear such a naive question, and she laughed, becoming still more beautiful.
Then, remembering that she was speaking with a foreigner: “In this wood, beyond those trees, only we hypatias live. You’re not afraid of me, like those of Pndapetzim are?” This time it was Baudolino who smiled: it was she who feared he was afraid. “Do you come here to the lake often?” he asked. “Not always,” the hypatia answered. “Our mother does not wish us to come out
of the wood alone. But the lake is so beautiful, and Acacios protects me.” She pointed to the unicorn. Then she added, with a worried look, “It is late. I must not stay away so long.
I should not meet the people of Pndapetzim either, if they come this far. But you are not one of them, you are a man, and no one has ever told me to keep away from men.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Baudolino dared to say, “but when the sun is high in the sky. Will you be here?”
“I don’t know,” the hypatia said, troubled, “perhaps.” And she vanished lightly among the trees.
That night Baudolino couldn’t sleep; in any case—he said—he had already dreamed, enough to remember that dream for all his life. However, the next day, just at noon, he took his horse and returned to the lake. He waited till evening, not seeing anyone.
Dejected, he turned towards home, and at the edge of the city he ran into a group of skiapods who were practicing with their fistulas. He saw Gavagai, who said to him: “You, look!” He aimed the reed up high, fired the dart, and killed a bird, which fell nearby. “I great fighter,” Gavagai said, “if White Hun arrive I pass through him!” Baudolino congratulated him, and went off at once to sleep. That night he dreamed of the previous day’s encounter and in the morning he told himself that one dream is not enough for a whole life.
He went back to the lake again. He remained seated by the water, listening to the song of the birds, who were celebrating morning, then the cicadas, at the hour when the noonday devil rages. But it was not hot, the trees spread a delightful coolness, and it cost him no pain to wait there for a few hours. Then she reappeared.
She sat down beside him and told him she had come back because she wanted to learn more about men. Baudolino didn’t know where to begin, and he started describing the place where he was born, the events of Frederick’s court, what empires are and kingdoms, how you hunt with a falcon, what a city is and how you build one, the same things he had told the deacon, avoiding grim or lewd stories, and realizing, as he spoke, that men could even be portrayed with affection. She listened to him, her glistening eyes changing color according to her emotion.
“How well you talk. Do all men tell beautiful stories like you?” No, Baudolino admitted, perhaps he told more and better ones than the others of his race, but among them there were also the poets, who could speak better still. And he began singing one of Abdul’s songs. She didn’t understand the Provençal words but, like the Abcasia, she was bewitched by the melody.
Now her eyes were veiled with dew.
“Tell me,” she asked, blushing slightly, “do men also have their … their females?” She asked this as if she had understood that what Baudolino sang was addressed to a woman. Yes, indeed, Baudolino answered, just as male skiapods mate with female skiapods, so men mate with women; otherwise they cannot make children, and that’s how it is, he added, in the whole universe.
“That’s not true,” the hypatia said, laughing, “hypatias are simply hypatias, and there are no—how can I say it?—no hypatios!” And she laughed again, amused at the very idea. Baudolino wondered what it would take to hear her laugh again, because her laughter was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. He was tempted to ask her how hypatias are born, but was afraid of marring her innocence. At this point, however, he did feel encouraged to ask her who the hypatias were.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s a long story; I don’t know how to tell long stories the way you do. You must realize that a thousand thousand years ago, in a powerful and distant city, there lived a wise and virtuous woman named Hypatia. She had a school of philosophy, which means love of wisdom. But in that city also some bad men lived, who were called Christians; they did not fear the gods, they felt hatred towards philosophy and they particularly could not tolerate the fact that a female should know the truth. One day they seized Hypatia and put her to death amid horrible tortures.
Now some of the younger of her female disciples were spared, perhaps because they were believed to be ignorant maidens who were with her only to serve her. They fled, but the Christians by now were everywhere, and the girls had to journey a long time before reaching this place of peace. Here they tried to keep alive what they had learned from their mistress, but they had heard her speak when they were still very young, they were not wise as she had been, and they didn’t remember clearly all her teachings. So they told themselves they would live together, apart from the world, to rediscover what Hypatia had really said.
Also because God has left shadows of truth in the depths of the heart of each of us, and it is a matter only of bringing them forth, to shine in the light of wisdom, as you free the pulp of a fruit from its skin.” God, the gods, which if they were not the God of the Christians were necessarily false and treacherous … But what was this hypatia saying? Baudolino wondered. However, it mattered little to him, for him it was enough to hear her and he was already prepared to die for her truth.
“Tell me one thing at least,” he interrupted her. “You are the hypatias, in the name of that Hypatia: this I can understand. But what is your name?” “Hypatia.”
“No, I mean you—yourself—what are you called? To distinguish you from another hypatia … I’m asking: what do your companions call you?” “Hypatia.”
“But this evening you will go back to the place where all of you live, and you will meet one hypatia before the others. How will you greet her?” “I will wish her a happy evening. That’s what we do.”
“Yes, but if I go back to Pndapetzim, and I see, for example, a eunuch, he will say to me: Happy evening, O Baudolino. You will say: Happy evening, O … what?”
“If you like, I will say: Happy evening, Hypatia.” “So all of you then are called Hypatia.”
“Naturally. All hypatias are called Hypatia, no one is different from the others, otherwise she wouldn’t be a hypatia.”
“But if one hypatia or another is looking for you, just now when you are absent, and asks another hypatia if she has seen that hypatia who goes around with a unicorn named Acacios, how would she say it?”
“Just as you did. She is looking for the hypatia who goes around with a unicorn named Acacios.”
If Gavagai had given him such an answer, Baudolino would have been tempted to slap him. But not with Hypatia: Baudolino already was thinking how marvelous the place must be, where all the hypatias were called Hypatia.
“But it took several days, Master Niketas, for me to understand what the hypatias really were….”
“So you saw more of each other, I imagine.”
“Every day, or almost. I couldn’t do without seeing her and listening to her: this shouldn’t surprise you, but it surprised me, and filled me with infinite pride, as I understood that she, too, was happy to see me and listen to me. I was … I was like a child again who seeks its mother’s breast, and when the mother is not present, he weeps for fear she will never come back again.”
“It happens also to dogs with their masters. But this matter of the hypatias arouses my curiosity. Because perhaps you know, or don’t know, that Hypatia really did exist, even if it was not a thousand thousand years ago, but, rather, eight centuries, and she lived in Alexandria in Egypt, when the empire was ruled by Theodosius and
