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Voice in the Wind: Things Go Downhill

Voice in the Wind: Things Go Downhill

Last updated on: February 2, 2018 at 5:00 am by Libby Anne

Voice in the Wind: Things Go Downhill 2018-01-29T17:21:25-04:00 Libby Anne

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Voice in the Wind, pp. 444-447

Oh, Julia. Julia, Julia, Julia.

Last week, Julia sent Hadassah to tell Atretes that he “must” come to her because she needed him. Hadassah relayed this word for word and Atretes grew angry and declared that he would not see Julia again until he had a house of his own and could bring her into it has his wife. Julia, for very good reasons—his anger problems and abusive behavior among them—does not want to be Atretes’ wife. She does, however, want to be his lover. And I think we can all see that now that he is free, that is not going to work out.

We’ve seen glimpses of Julia beginning to mistreat Hadassah, but here it escalates. Hadassah returns with no Atretes, and Julia is enraged.

“Where is he?” Julia demanded when Hadassah returned to Primus’ villa alone. “Didn’t you tell him I wanted to see him? You didn’t, did you? What did you tell him?”

“I gave him your message, my lady, exactly as you said.”

Julia slapped her. “You deceitful little Jew. You told him about Primus, didn’t you?” She slapped her again, harder.

Hadassah drew back from her, afraid. She put a trembling hand to her stinging cheek. “I didn’t, my lady.”

“If you said nothing to him about Primus, he would be here!”

“He said he would send for you when he had a house and could take you into it as his wife.”

Juli went still, her face blanching. She stared at Hadassah, then sank down onto her couch, suddenly unable to stand. She closed her eyes. She’d know what to expect, but somehow hearing he had said it so openly made her weak inside, weak with confusion and longing.

Julia is taking out her own pain and confusion on Hadassah. She desperately wants Atretes in her bed (they don’t seem to get on otherwise), but she knows that she cannot marry him without repeating the traumatic experiences of her past two marriages—she would lose her right to her own money and decisions, and be at his mercy. She’s stuck, and somewhere inside it sounds like she realizes it—but she’s not handling it well.

She’s taking out her frustration at the way her life is going at the hands of people she can’t control on the person she does control—Hadassah. This is where, for me, the story begins going downhill. I liked being able to root for Julia, but as she increasingly lashes out at Hadassah (albeit sometimes for very understandable reasons), I find myself growing less able to do so.

In the hands of another author, I might call this a complicated character. Rivers, though, doesn’t realize she has written anything to root for into Julia’s story. Rivers views the struggles Julia has faced not as limits and constraints dished out by a patriarchal society, but just rewards for her mistakes and her unwillingness to live the quiet, domestic, maternal life of her mother.

Hadassah knelt before her. “Please, Lady Julia. Return to the house of your father and mother and remain there until Atretes sends for you.”

Julia felt a moment of uncertainty—but then Calabah’s warnings rose in her mind, clear and logical. If she married Atretes, he would take her into his house and never let her out again. He would be worse than Claudius and Caius put together.

For all of the compassion I do feel for Hadassah—she’s a slave, for crying out loud—it’s bits like these that turn me off her as a character. Hadassah has seen Atretes’ violent, controlling behavior. She knows what Julia suffered at Caius’ hands. Surely she can see that marriage to Atretes would be profoundly unwise. And yet, that is what she is encouraging. She is trying to push Julia into the arms of another abuser.

“If I go back now, I’ll look like a fool. And nothing would change. Marcus wouldn’t approve of my relationship with Atretes any more than he approves of this one with Primus … Marcus might not even allow me to see him.”

“Marcus wants you to be safe and happy.”

No, Hadassah. No, he does not.

Julia raised her brow at the familiar way Hadassah said her brother’s name. She glared down at her for a long, still moment as the deep seed of jealousy, planted by Marcus himself, began to crow. “You only want to be close to my brother, don’t you?” she said coldly. “You’re just like Bithia and all the rest.”

Oh, Julia. No.

The problem here is part Julia’s lack of observation, part Rivers’ insistence on presenting Hadassah as in love with Marcus, despite his utter lack of any redeeming characters, and despite the fact that he tried to rape her and has sexually assaulted her several times. I want to fault Julia for her interpretation of the situation—could she not see Marcus’ predatory behavior?—but Rivers has written in longing, such that Hadassah says Marcus name not with fear or disgust but with tenderness and desire, making Julia’s failure to understand the situation more understandable.

But, Julia has a plan.

She would remind [Atretes] of how he had hated his slavery and demand if that was what he expected of her now. A wife was a slave, someone at the mercy of her husband. This way, they were both free. Nothing had to change between them. They would continue to be lovers as before. It would be even better. She wouldn’t have to pay Sertes. Atretes could come whenever she sent him a message. But even if all her reasoning didn’t work, she knew one thing that would make him listen.

She would tell him about the child she was carrying.

Oh boy. That will go so great.

In the hands of another author, this could be a complex, interesting exchange on varying forms of oppression. Atretes has been a slave, but he has always been a man. He may have hated his slavery—but could he understand Julia’s complaints? But this is Rivers, and I am left with a question—does Rivers think Julia’s arguments here have any merit? Or are we meant to see them as purely ridiculous?

Also—if Julia has a child while living with Primus, that child will be Primus’ child. How on earth does she think her pregnancy will make Atretes more likely to accept the unorthodox arrangement she is suggesting? From where I’m sitting, I would rather think it would only make him pressure her further to marry him. Also, I’m pretty sure none of this is how Ancient Rome worked.

Hadassah, distraught, goes to John the Apostle. She is angry with herself because she has not yet talked to Julia about Jesus. John tells her that “we all know fear at some time”—which feels odd, remembering that Hadassah, and not John, has been through the sacking of Jerusalem—and then he says this:

“When they came and took the Lord away form the Garden of Gethsemane, a Roman soldier grabbed for me, and I ran. He was left holding a linen sheet, which was the only thing covering my body, while I escaped, naked.”

Um. No. The passage where that happens (it’s in Mark) names Peter, James, and John as being with Jesus, and then refers to a “young man” who was following him, who ran and lost his clothes and ended up streaking naked into the night. If that young man had been John, it would have said John. People have speculated for ages as to who that young man was (some say it was Mark, for instance), but John has never been a major contender in the runner (and the list of potential candidates is long).

Anyway, John and Hadassah exchange more platitudes. “We sow in tears that we might harvest in joy.” That kind of thing. (No, really.) “Be faithful, that she and the other might be sanctified.” Cool.

“And what do I do about Calabah?”

“Nothing.”

“But John, she exerts greater and greater control over Julia. It’s as though Julia is being transformed into her likeness. I have to do something.”

John shook his head. “No, Hadassah. Our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness.”

That comes from Ephesians, which many scholars believe wasn’t written until 80-90. They don’t think Paul wrote it but hey, who knows, maybe John did.

I have to say, though—this story would be much more interesting if Hadassah did decide to do something. Say, introduce an assassination attempt, or maybe lean on Marcus and get him to dig up some dirt to send Calabah hurrying back to Rome. Whatever she did, a more active Hadassah would be more interesting than the passive, praying Hadassah we’ve had for the past 446 pages.

That said, I find this focus on Calabah more than a little bit annoying. Why the constant assumption that Julia can’t think of herself? I mean good grief, she’s been through two disastrous marriages—is it any surprise she would demure at entering a marriage with Atretes, after his violent, controlling outbursts earlier in the book? Is it that much of a stretch to think that she could have dreamed up this plan of moving in with Primus in the first place? What, exactly, is the point of Calabah?

I could see Julia running into Calabah in Rome, being fascinated by her words, and then resolving, based on both Calabah’s ideas about female empowerment and her own horrific experience with Caius, to never let herself end up controlled by a man again. Calabah could have pointed her in the direction of thinking of marriage as slavery and in the direction of trying to gain control of her own money, and so forth—she could have given Julia the words to understand what she went through with Caius—but does Calabah really need to still be hanging around?

If Rivers is going to punish Julia for her actions, she could at least give Julia agency and let her make her own decisions.

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