The Athenian Murders (10 page)

²²
What is going on? The author is certainly taking eidesis to the
limit! The pancratiasts' fight has turned into an absurd thundering,
suggesting the furious attack of a huge animal (which tallies with all
the images of 'violent' and 'impetuous' charges that have appeared
throughout the chapter, as well as those referring to 'horns'). I think
these are references to the seventh Labour of Hercules, the capture
of the wild, raging Cretan bull. (T.'s
N.)

²³
I'll quickly explain to the reader what's happening. The eidetic
image - here, an enraged bull - has taken on a life of its own and is
charging at the door to the changing room where the conversation is
taking place. I hasten to add that the 'beast's' actions are purely
eidetic and the characters cannot, therefore, perceive them, just as
they are unaware, for instance, of the adjectives the author uses to
describe the gymnasium. This is not a supernatural event, but
simply a literary device whose only purpose is to draw attention to
the image hidden in this chapter (think of the 'snakes' at the end of
Chapter Two). The reader should not therefore be too surprised if
Diagoras and his students seem oblivious to the powerful attacks on
the room, continuing their conversation as if nothing were happen-
ing.
(T.'sN.)

'Yes, Master. At least two.'

'So Tramachus often went hunting alone? What I mean to say, my child, is that this was normal, even if something was worrying him?'

'Yes, Master.'

The door bulged as something charged at it. There was a scraping of hoofs, snorting, the powerful echo of an enormous presence outside.

Quite naked, save for the perfect ribbon encircling his black hair, Euneos calmly spread a brick-red unguent over his thighs.

After a pause, Diagoras remembered his final question: 'Euneos, it was you who told me that Tramachus wouldn't be attending classes that day because he'd gone hunting, wasn't it, my child?'

'I believe so, Master.'

The door endured another battering. Heracles Pontor's cloak was showered with splinters. There was a roar of rage outside.

'How did you know? Did he tell you himself?' Euneos nodded. 'When? I mean, I understand he left at daybreak, but I talked to him the evening before and he said nothing about going hunting. When did he tell you?'

Euneos didn't answer immediately. His small Adam's apple charged at his shapely neck. 'That... same ... evening, I think, Master.. .'

'You saw him that evening?' Diagoras raised his eyebrows. 'Did you often meet in the evenings?' 'No ... It must have been ... earlier.' 'I understand.'

There was a brief silence. Barefoot and naked, the glistening unguent like a second skin over his thighs and shoulders, Euneos carefully hung his tunic on a hook bearing his name.

On the shelf above there were a few personal belongings: a pair of sandals, alabaster jars of unguents, a bronze strigil for scraping oneself clean after exercising, and a little wooden cage containing a tiny bird. The bird was flapping its wings violently.

'The
paedotribe
is expecting me, Master ...' he said.

'Of course, my child,' smiled Diagoras. 'We, too, must leave.'

Obviously uneasy, the naked youth glanced at Heracles out of the corner of his eye and apologised once again. Passing between the two men, he headed for the door - it was so damaged it fell off its hinges as he opened it - and left the room.
²⁴

Diagoras turned towards Heracles, looking for a signal that they might leave, but the Decipherer was staring, smiling, at Antisus: 'Tell me, Antisus, what are you so afraid of?'

'Afraid, sir?'

Apparently highly amused, Heracles took a fig from his knapsack. 'Why, if not, would you have chosen an army post so far away from Athens? I, too, would try to leave if I was as frightened as you. And I would choose a similarly plausible excuse, so that
I
should be considered not a coward but quite the opposite.'

'Are you calling me a coward, sir?'

²⁴
As I've already said, the eidetic events - the savage charges, the battering of the door - are purely literary and, therefore, only perceived by the reader. Montalo, however, like the characters, notices nothing. 'The surprising metaphor of the
roaring beast,'
he states, 'which seems literally to destroy the realism of the scene and interrupts the measured conversation between Diagoras and his students (. . .) on several occasions, seems to have no purpose other than satire - a scathing criticism, no doubt, of the savage pancratium matches held in those days.' Need I say more! (T.'s N.)

'Not at all. I will call you neither cowardly nor brave until I know exactly why you are afraid. The only difference between the brave man and the coward is the source of his alarm. The cause of your fear may be so horrifying that anyone in their right mind would choose to flee the City as soon as possible.'

'I'm not running away from anything,' said Antisus, stressing every word, although his tone remained gentle, respectful. 'I've wanted to guard the temples of Attica for a long time, sir.'

'My dear Antisus,' said Heracles placidly, 'I may accept your fear but not your lies. Don't for a moment think of insulting my intelligence. You made your decision only a few days ago, and your father has asked your former pedagogue to make you change your mind, when he might have tried to do so himself. Does that not imply that your decision took him completely by surprise, that he is overwhelmed by what he sees as a sudden and inexplicable change of opinion, and that, not knowing what to attribute it to, he has called upon the only person outside your family who knows you best? I ask myself, by Zeus, what could be the cause of such a brutal change? Could the death of your friend Tramachus have played a part?' And, quite unconcerned, he added, almost without pausing, as he wiped the fingers in which he had held the fig: 'Excuse me, where might I clean my hands?' Heracles selected a cloth from near Euneos' shelf, utterly oblivious to the silence around him.

'Did my father get you, too, to try to make me reconsider?'

In the young man's gentle words Diagoras noted that respect (like a frightened, cornered animal abandoning its usual obedience and charging violently at its owners) was turning to annoyance. 'Good Antisus, don't be angry ,' he stammered, casting a withering glance at Heracles. 'My friend sometimes goes too far ... You mustn't worry, my boy, you've come of age, so your decisions, even if misguided, always deserve the greatest consideration.' He then whispered to Heracles: 'Would you come with me, please?'

They hastily bade Antisus farewell. The argument began even before they were out of the building.

'It's
my
money!' said Diagoras irritably. 'Or have you forgotten?'

'But it's
my
job, Diagoras. Don't forget that either.'

'I don't care! Can you explain your highly inappropriate remarks?' Diagoras was growing more and more angry. His bald head had turned quite red. He lowered his forehead, as if about to charge at Heracles. 'You offended Antisus!'

'I fired an arrow in the dark and hit the bull's eye,' said the Decipherer calmly.

Diagoras stopped him, pulling violently at his cloak. 'Let me tell you something. I don't care if you think people are merely papyri that you can read and solve like riddles. I'm not paying you to offend - and in my name! - one of my best students, an ephebe whose every lovely feature bears the word 'Virtue'... I disapprove of your methods, Heracles Pontor!'

'I fear I disapprove of yours, too, Diagoras of Mardontes. Instead of questioning those two boys, you seemed to be composing a dithyramb in their honour. And all because you find them so beautiful. I think you confuse Beauty with Truth ...'

'Beauty is part of Truth!'

'Oh,' said Heracles, waving a hand dismissively, indicating that he didn't want to start a philosophical discussion.

But again Diagoras tugged at his cloak. 'Listen to me! You're nothing but a miserable Decipherer of Enigmas. You simply observe material things, judge them and conclude that something happened this way or that, for this or that reason. But you don't arrive at the Truth itself, and you never will. You've never beheld it, nor had your fill of its vision of the absolute. Your skill consists merely in discovering shadows of the Truth. Antisus and Euneos are not perfect creatures, and neither was Tramachus, but I have seen into their souls, and I can assure you that a great deal of the Idea of Virtue shines within them . . . and it shines in their eyes, their beautiful faces, their harmonious bodies. Nothing on earth, Heracles, could be as resplendent as they are without possessing at least a little of the golden riches that come only from Virtue itself.' He stopped, as if ashamed at his impassioned speech. He blinked several times, his face quite red, adding more calmly: 'Don't insult the Truth with your intelligence, Heracles Pontor.'

Somewhere in the emptiness of the devastated, rubble-strewn palaestra,
²⁵
someone cleared his throat: it was Eumarchus.

Diagoras turned and headed impetuously towards the door. 'I'll wait outside,' he said.

'By thundering Zeus, I've only ever heard two people argue like that when they were man and wife,' said Eumarchus, once the philosopher had gone. Inside his black sickle of a smile, a single obstinate tooth, curved like a small horn, persisted.

²⁵
The eidesis in this chapter is so powerful that it has a devastating effect on the location of the scene: the palaestra is 'strewn with rubble', destroyed by the passing of the literary 'beast'. The huge crowd seems to have disappeared. In all my years as a translator I've never seen an eidetic catastrophe of this kind. The anonymous author obviously wants the hidden images to be uppermost in his readers' minds and isn't remotely worried about the realism of
the plot being jeopardised. (T
.'s N.)

'Don't be surprised, Eumarchus, if my friend and I end up getting married,' said Heracles, amused. 'We're so different that I think the only thing that binds us is love.' They laughed good-humouredly. 'Now, Eumarchus, if you don't mind, let's take a little walk and I'll tell you why I asked you to wait...'

They strolled around the gymnasium, which was strewn with rubble after the recent onslaught. Violent charges had cracked the walls in places; javelins and discuses lay among shattered furniture; colossal footprints were visible in the sand; the floor tiles were covered with the skin that had fallen away from the walls - huge limestone flowers the colour of lilies. The fragments of a vessel lay buried beneath the wreckage. On one, the hands of a young girl, her arms raised, palms facing upwards, appeared to be signalling for help or warning of imminent danger. A dust-cloud swirled in the air.
²⁶

'Ah, Eumarchus,' said Heracles as they finished their conversation, 'how can I pay you for this favour?'

'By paying me,' answered the old man. They laughed again.

'One thing more, good Eumarchus. I noticed that there was a small, caged bird on the shelf of your pupil's friend Euneos. A sparrow, a gift typically sent by a lover to his beloved. Do you know who Euneos' lover is?'

'By Phoebus Apollo, I don't know about Euneos, Heracles, but Antisus has received an identical gift, and I can tell you it was from Menaechmus, the sculptor poet. He's besotted!' Eumarchus tugged at Heracles' cloak and lowered his voice. 'Antisus told me about it some time ago, but he made me swear by all the gods that I would tell no one.'

Heracles thought for a moment. 'Menaechmus . . . Yes, the last time I saw that eccentric artist was at Tramachus' funeral, and I remember being surprised that he was there. So Menaechmus gave Antisus a little sparrow ...'

'Are you surprised?' shouted the old man in his rough voice. 'By Athena's azure eyes, I'd give that beautiful Alcibiades with the golden hair an entire nest! Though being a slave and at my age, I doubt the gift would get me anywhere!'

'Right, Eumarchus,' said Heracles, looking suddenly cheerful, 'I have to leave. But do as I told you ...'

'Continue paying me as you have, Heracles Pontor, and your order is as good as saying to the sun, "Rise every day.'"