Reality by Other Means. James Morrow

to impress the generals, but perhaps she can touch the heart of the common foot soldier.

      It is at this ambiguous point in her fortunes that Helen runs into herself.

      She blinks — once, twice. She swallows a sphere of air. Yes, it is she, herself, marching along the parapets. Herself? No, not exactly: an idealized rendition, the Helen of ten years ago, svelte and smooth.

      As the troops march through the portal and head toward the plain, the strange incarnation calls down to them.

      “Onward, men!” it shouts, raising a creamy white arm. “Fight for me!” Its movements are deliberate and jerky, as if sunbaked Troy has been magically transplanted to some frigid clime. “I’m worth it!”

      The soldiers turn, look up. “We’ll fight for you, Helen!” a bowman calls toward the parapet.

      “We love you!” a sword-wielder shouts.

      Awkwardly, the incarnation waves. Creakily, it blows an arid kiss. “Onward, men! Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

      “You’re beautiful, Helen!” a spear-thrower cries.

      Helen strides up to her doppelgänger and, seizing the left shoulder, pivots the creature toward her.

      “Onward, men!” it tells Helen. “Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

      “You’re beautiful,” the spear-thrower continues, “and so is your mother!”

      The eyes, Helen is not surprised to discover, are glass. The limbs are fashioned from wood, the head from marble, the teeth from ivory, the lips from wax, the tresses from the fleece of a darkling ram. Helen does not know for certain what forces power this creature, what magic moves its tongue, but she surmises that the genius of Athena is at work here, the witchery of ox-orbed Hera. Chop the creature open, she senses, and out will pour a thousand cogs and pistons from Hephaestus’s fiery workshop.

      Helen wastes no time. She hugs the creature, lifts it off its feet. Heavy, but not so heavy as to dampen her resolve.

      “Onward, men!” it screams as Helen throws it over her shoulder. “Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

      And so it comes to pass that, on a hot, sweaty Asia Minor morning, fair Helen turns the tables on history, gleefully abducting herself from the lofty stone city of Troy.

      Paris is pulling a poisoned arrow from his quiver, intent on shooting a dollop of hemlock into the breast of an Achaean captain, when his brother’s chariot charges past.

      Paris nocks the arrow. He glances at the chariot.

      He aims.

      Glances again.

      Fires. Misses.

      Helen.

      Helen? Helen, by Apollo’s lyre, his Helen — no, two Helens, the true and the false, side by side, the true guiding the horses into the thick of the fight, her wooden twin staring dreamily into space. Paris can’t decide which woman he is more astonished to see.

      “Soldiers of Troy!” cries the fleshly Helen. “Heroes of Argos! Behold how your leaders seek to dupe you! You are fighting for a fraud, a swindle, a thing of gears and glass!”

      A stillness envelops the battlefield. The men are stunned, not so much by the ravings of the charioteer as by the face of her companion, so pure and perfect despite the leather thong sealing her jaw shut. It is a face to sheathe a thousand swords — lower a thousand spears — unnock a thousand arrows.

      Which is exactly what now happens. A thousand swords: sheathed. A thousand spears: lowered. A thousand arrows: unnocked.

      The soldiers crowd around the chariot, pawing at the ersatz Helen. They touch the wooden arms, caress the marble brow, stroke the ivory teeth, pat the waxen lips, squeeze the woolly hair, rub the glass eyes.

      “See what I mean?” cries the true Helen. “Your kings are diddling you …”

      Paris can’t help it: he’s proud of her, by Hermes’s wings. He’s puffing up with admiration. This woman has nerve — she has arete and chutzpah.

      This woman, Paris realizes as a fat, warm tear of nostalgia rolls down his cheek, is going to the end the war.

      “The end,” I say.

      “And then what happened?” Damon asks.

      “Nothing. Finis. Go to sleep.”

      “You can’t fool us,” says Daphne. “All sorts of things happened after that. You went to live on the island of Lesbos.”

      “Not immediately,” I note. “I wandered the world for seven years, having many fine and fabulous adventures. Good night.”

      “And then you went to Lesbos,” Daphne insists.

      “And then we came into the world,” Damon asserts.

      “True,” I say. The twins are always interested in hearing how they came into the world. They never tire of the tale.

      “The women of Lesbos import over a thousand liters of frozen semen annually,” Damon explains to Daphne.

      “From Thrace,” Daphne explains to Damon. “In exchange for olives.”

      “A thriving trade.”

      “Right, honey,” I say. “Bedtime.”

      “And so you got pregnant,” says Daphne.

      “And had us,” says Damon.

      “And brought us to Egypt.” Daphne tugs at my sleeve as if operating a bell rope. “I came out first, didn’t I?” she says. “I’m the oldest.”

      “Yes, dear.”

      “Is that why I’m smarter than Damon?”

      “You’re both equally smart. I’m going to blow out the candle now.”

      Daphne hugs her papyrus doll and says, “Did you really end the war?”