The life and deeds of the seeker
Telemachus was living on his own, in Byzantine, when I first came to know him. He was very depressed at the time, and his only delight in life — apart from reading — was wandering the slopes of Mount Zion, with a big black dog at his heels. He was a short man with broad shoulders and a large round head. His thick yellowish-red hair was beginning to go grey. It must have been very difficult to put a comb through it, I should think, since it was so disorderly.
“My head’s a bit like heaven”, he used to say, adding slowly, “for there is no parting there!” There had never been a hat or cap on that head of his, for the simple reason that hat-makers had never imagined there existed heads quite as big as Telemachus’s. There was a nasty scar across his forehead. He got it when he was a young boy. While walking out of the drift one day he had grabbed the tail of one of the ponies, but instead of pulling him up the incline, the horse had kicked him. His forehead had been split open by the horse, and for a few days Telemachus had been in danger of his life. They had put straw on the road in front of his house to keep down the sound of traffic. The doctor had put a silver plate in his head, and later on that was to give Telemachus the chance to boast, “There may not be any silver in my pocket (and I do not need it as I am no Judah Iscariot) but there’s plenty of it in my head!” He suffered terrible pains for the rest of his life as a result of that accident.
Telemachus was Odyssey’s son. One of his relatives was Mathew, one of the best deacons among the preachers in Byzantine. His mother, Penelope, was a remarkable woman. She was one of the most prominent and notable women of Byzantine, and quite outstanding when members took oral examinations in the Scriptures at Jerusalem Chapel. Telemachus had inherited this interest from his mother. His only friends, Mathew and Luke, were both married men, and Telemachus and his mother were quite comfortable in each other’s company at the old family-home. Great was Penelope’s solicitude for her son. She had a good deal of admiration for the good old times when Odyssey was still home.
Indeed, the other events didn’t count at all in her sight. Once, about the time of the big Jewish meetings at Byzantine, Telemachus had a cold and was being kept at home by the fireside. “You could easily catch pneumonia if you went there,” said Penelope. Then who should call after supper on the Monday but their neighbors, Arete and Alcinous, who were also the parents of Nausicaa. “Telemachus,’ said Arete, “So-and-so (naming one of the old Jewish community members) is preaching at the nearby town of Ithaca — do you want to come?”
Whereupon, before Telemachus had a chance to say anything, Penelope said cheerfully, “Yes, my boy, you go with Arete, and have a bit of a stretch.”
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