The Athenian Murders (22 page)

'I'm in the text,
Helena. I don't know how or why, but it's me. I'm the statue, carved by one of the characters, called
The Translator,
sitting at a desk translating just like I do. It all matches: a receding hairline, delicate ears with thick lobes, slender, veined hands .. .It's me. I don't dare go on with the translation. I couldn't bear to read a description of my own
face

She protested. She sat up in bed, asked lots of questions, became angry. Still naked, I went to the sitting room and returned with the pages of my translation. I handed them to her. We were a comical sight: both of us naked - her sitting, me standing - colleagues once more. Her breasts - quivering, pink - rising with each breath, she furrowed her teacher's brow. I stood in silence at the window, my member pathetically shrivelled by anxiety and cold.

'It's ridiculous,' she said, as she finished reading. 'Absolutely ridiculous.' She protested again. She berated me. She said I was becoming obsessed, the description was very vague, it could have been anybody, adding: 'And the signet ring the statue is wearing is engraved with a circle. A
circle]
Not a
sw
an,
like yours!'

That was the most awful part. And she knew it.

'You know very well that in Greek 'circle' is
kitklos
and 'swan'
kuknos,'
I said calmly. 'Only on
e letter's difference. If that
, that
lambda,
is an
n,
then there's absolutely no doubt: it's me.' I stared at the ring on the middle finger of my left hand, engraved with the outline of a swan. It was a gift from my father and I never take it off.

'But in the text it's
kuklos,
not—'

'Montalo says in one of his notes that the word is hard to make out. He takes it to be
kitklos,
but states that the fourth letter is unclear. Do you understand, Helena? The fourth letter.' My voice was flat, almost offhand. 'My sanity depends on Montalo's opinion as a philologist about
a single letter.'

'But that's absurd!' she said, exasperated. 'What are you doing ... in here?' She thumped the papers. 'This book was written thousands of years ago! How . . .' She pulled off the sheets, uncovering her long legs. She smoothed down her red hair. She
went, naked and barefoot, to the door. 'Come on. I want to read the original text.' Her voice was firm now, determined.

Horrified, I begged her not to.

'We're going to read Montalo's text together,' she said, standing at the door. 'I don't care if afterwards you decide not to go on with the translation. I just want you to get this mad notion out of your head.'

We went to the sitting room, both still naked and barefoot. I remember having a ridiculous thought as I followed her: We want to make sure that we're human beings, physical bodies, flesh, organs, not just characters in a novel or readers . . . We're going to find out. We have to. It was cold in the sitting room, but it didn't bother us. Helena got to the desk first and leaned over the papers. I couldn't bring myself to go any closer. I stood behind her, admiring her smooth back, the gentle curve of her spine, the soft buttocks. There was a silence. I remember thinking, She's reading my face. I heard her moan. I closed my eyes. She said: 'Oh.'

She put her arms around me. I was horrified by her tenderness. She said: 'Oh ... Oh ...'

I couldn't bring myself to ask, didn't want to know what she had read. I clung to her warm body. Then I heard laughter - gentle, becoming louder, growing in her belly like a new life. 'Oh ... oh . . . oh ...' she laughed.

Later, much later, when I read what she had read, I understood why she was laughing.

I've decided to go on with the translation. I'm starting from the sentence: 'But he still hadn't seen the statue's face'.
(T.'s N.)

⁵⁴
There's a gap in the text at this point. Montalo states that the following five lines are illegible. (T.'s N.)

But he still hadn't seen the statue's face. He leaned over a little further and looked at it. The features were
⁵⁴

'A shrewd man,' said Heracles, as they left the workshop. 'He doesn't finish his sentences, or his sculptures. He affects a repulsive personality to make us back away holding our noses, but I'm sure he's utterly charming with his followers.'

'Do you think he—' said Diagoras.

'Let's not be too hasty. The truth may be far away, but it will await our arrival with infinite patience. For the moment, I'd like another opportunity to talk to Antisus.'

'Unless I'm much mistaken, we'll find him at the Academy. There is to be a dinner there this evening in honour of a guest of Plato's
, and Antisus is one of the cup
bearers.'

'Very well, Diagoras,' smiled Heracles Pontor. 'I believe the time has come for me to see this Academy of yours.'
⁵⁵

⁵⁵
I've just made an amazing discovery! If I'm right - and I'm pretty sure I am - all the strange enigmas surrounding this novel will start to make sense, even if still strange and, as far as I am personally concerned, far more worrying. I made my discovery - as is so often the case - quite by chance. This evening I was looking over the last part of Chapter Six in Montalo's edition, which I hadn't yet finished translating, when I noticed irritably that the edges of the pages were stubbornly sticking together (it's happened before, but I've simply ignored it). I peered at them more closely: they looked normal, but the substance with which they
were stuck together was
still fresh.
I frowned, increasingly anxious. I examined Chapter Six page by page, and became convinced that, without a shadow of a doubt, the last few pages had been added
recently. A
storm of possible explanations swirled in my brain. I went back to the text and found that the 'new' pages contained the
detailed description of Menaechmus' statue.
My heart started pounding. What on earth could it mean?

I put off any more theorising till later and finished translating the chapter. Then, suddenly, as I looked out of the window (it was night by then) at the row of apple trees marking the boundary of my garden, I remembered the man who had been watching me and who ran off when I saw him ... and my feeling, the following night, that someone
was in the house.
I jumped up.. My forehead was clammy and my temples were throbbing.

The answer seems obvious:
someone has been sitting at my desk swapping some of the pages of Montalo's text
and has done so
very recently.
Could it be someone who
know
s me,
or at least knows what I look like, and who was therefore able to add such accurate details to the description of the sculpture? But if so, who would be capable
of ripping out pages from an original work and replacing them with other pages, for the sole purpose of tormenting the translator?

Whatever the
truth, I can obviously no longer sleep peacefully at night. Or work peacefully, because I can't be sure
whose words
I'm translating. Worse still, will I be able to go on without stopping to wonder if any - or all - of the sentences constitute messages addressed directly to
me
by the mysterious intruder? Now that I've begun to have doubts, how can I be sure that other paragraphs, in previous chapters, don't have anything to do
with me?
The fantasy of literature is so full of ambiguity that the rules of the game don't even have to be broken: the mere
suspicion
that someone might have broken them changes everything, puts a terrible spin on everything. Let's be frank, dear reader, have you never had the mad feeling that a novel - the one you're reading right now, for instance
-
is addressed to you personally?
And once you believe this, do you
shake your head, blinking, and think, That's ridiculous.
Better to forget it and go on reading? So imagine my terror at knowing with absolute certainty that part of this book
concerns me
! And I mean 'terror'. I've been used to looking at novels from a distance . . . and now suddenly to find myself in one!

I have to do something.

I'm stopping work on the translation until this is resolved. And I'm going to try to catc
h my mysterious visitor .. . (T.'s N
.)

VII

T
he road to the Academy of Philosophy starts as little more than a narrow path branching off the Sacred Way just outside the Dipylon Gate. There is nothing special about this path: it enters a forest of tall pines, and twists and sharpens to a point, like a tooth, so that one feels that it might, at any moment, end in an impenetrable thicket. But, once the early bends in the path are left behind, one glimpses, beyond a brief though dense expanse of stones and greenery with leaves as curved as eyeteeth, the smooth facade of the main building, a marble cube placed carefully on a small hill. The path then broadens proudly. There is a portico at the entrance, with busts the colour of tooth-ivory standing in niches on either side, observing in symmetrical silence as travellers approach. It is not known for certain whom the sculptor wished the busts to represent. Some say the True and the False, others the Beautiful and the Good, but the less wise (or possibly the wisest?) say they represent nothing and that they are merely decorations -after all, something had to be placed in those niches. In the
centre, an inscription, engraved in twisting letters: 'May no one enter without knowledge of Geometry' And beyond, the beautiful gardens of Academe, laid out with curving paths. At the centre of a small square, a statue of the hero seems to demand respect from the visitor - left hand outstretched with index finger pointing down, a lance in the other, gaze framed by a helmet with bristling horsehair topped with toothlike points. And standing in the leafy glade, the sober marble architecture of the school. There are open spaces surrounded by white colonnades with red serrated roofs for classes in summer, while an indoor area affords protection to students and tutors when the cold bares its teeth. The gymnasium has all the necessary equipment, but is smaller than the one at the Lyceum. More modest buildings serve as dwellings for some of the tutors and as Plato's place of work.

By the time Heracles and Diagoras arrived, twilight had unleashed a harsh Boreas that shook the twisted branches of the tallest trees. No sooner had they entered the white portico than the Decipherer noticed Diagoras' mood and demeanour change. He became like a hunting dog sniffing for prey: head up, frequently licking his lips, his usually neat beard bristling. He barely listened to Heracles (although the Decipherer spoke little, as was his custom), didn't look at him, and merely nodded and muttered, 'Yes,' to any remark, or 'Wait a moment,' in answer to his questions. Heracles sensed that Diagoras wished to make him see that this was the most perfect place in the world, and that the mere thought of something going wrong was unbearably distressing to him.

The small square was empty and the school building appeared deserted, but Diagoras seemed unconcerned. 'They often take a brief walk around the garden before dinner,' he said.

Heracles suddenly felt his cloak being twisted by a violent tug.

'Here they come.' The philosopher gestured towards the dark gardens, adding ecstatically: 'And there's Plato!'

A group of men was
approaching along the confusion of paths. They all wore dark
himations
covering both shoulders, with neither tunics nor
chitons
underneath. They appeared to have learned the art of walking like ducks in si
ngle file, ranging from the tallest to the shortest. They were conversing. It was wonderful to watch them talking and walking in single file at the same time. Heracles suspected they had some mathematical formula that determined whose turn it was to speak and whose to answer. They never interrupted one
another: number two stopped talking, and
at that precise moment
number four answered; number five then seemed to sense exactly when number four would finish and proceed to make a comment. Their laughter sounded choral. And Heracles sensed something else: while number one - Plato - remained silent, all the others seemed to address their remarks to him, though never directly. To that end, the pitch rose gradually and melodically from the deepest voice, number
two, to the highest, number six, who was not only the shortest in stature but shrieked his remarks, as if to ensure that number one would hear. The overall impression was of a lyre on the move.

The group wound its way through the garden, drawing closer with every turn. By a strange coincidence, several youths emerged from the gymnasium, some quite naked, others in short tunics, and they immediately reined in their disorderly chatter on glimpsing the line of philosophers. The two groups came together in the small square. Heracles wondered for a moment what it would look like to a hypothetical observer in the sky: the line of youths and the line of philosophers moving towards each other until they joined at the vertex ... Perhaps, if one included the straight hedge, a perfect letter delta?