The Athenian Murders (32 page)

Diagoras felt Heracles nudge his elbow. 'Take what you're offered.'

Diagoras took the krater. The figure vanished through the doorway, affording a lightning glimpse of its true nature, for the tunic was open at the sides. But in the blood-red light the questions remained unanswered: what was that hanging there? A high belly? Low breasts?

The Decipherer in turn accepted a krater. 'When the time comes,' he whispered to Diagoras, 'pretend to drink. But don't even think of actually doing so.'

The music stopped abruptly and the audience divided into two groups, standing against the side walls and clearing a central aisle. There was coughing, hoarse laughter and whispered shreds of words. The musicians had withdrawn and only the rhapsode's red figure remained on the stage. A fetid smell rose like a corpse revived by sorcery, and Diagoras had to suppress a sudden urge to flee from the room in search of fresh air. He sensed confusedly that the stench came from the bowl, and the lumpy matter it contained. As the crowd around it had parted, the putrid odour had spread unhindered.

A crowd of improbable figures now came through the curtains.

One was conscious first of their complete nakedness. Then, the bulging forms were suggestive of women. They crawled in, outlandish masks hiding their faces. On some, breasts swung more freely than on others. Some bodies complied with the canon for ephebes more closely than others. Some were slender, lively, agile, others were fat and clumsy. Their backs and buttocks, the most visible parts of their bodies, displayed varying nuances of beauty, age, health. But they were all naked, rootling around on all fours, grunting like sows in heat. The audience urged them on loudly. Diagoras wondered where they had come from, but then remembered the tunnel leading off the small room at the entrance.

They advanced in rows of increasing size: one at the head, two behind, then three, then four - this the largest number that the central aisle could accommodate - so that the front of the strange herd resembled a living spear tip. As it came level with the tripod, the naked torrent broke up and engulfed it.

The ones at the front mounted the stage, flinging themselves at the rhapsode. More kept arriving, the ones at the back having to stop. While they waited, they teased one another, pressing their masks into the backsides and thighs of the ones in front. As they reached the stage, they collapsed, panting frenziedly, in a soft, disordered heap of writhing bodies, a jumble of pubescent flesh.

Astounded, gripped by dismay and revulsion, Diagoras again felt Heracles nudge his arm: 'Pretend to drink!'

Diagoras looked around at the crowd - heads were thrown back, tunics stained with dark fluids. He moved his mask aside and raised the krater to his lips. The liquid smelt like nothing he had encountered before - a dense mixture of ink and spices.

The aisle was almost empty, while the stage creaked beneath the weight of bodies. What was happening? What were they doing? The noisy, naked, shifting mass blocked his view.

Suddenly, an object flew off the stage, landing by the tripod. It was the rhapsode's right arm, easily identifiable by the piece of black cloth from his tunic attached to the shoulder. Its appearance was greeted with joyful cries. The same fate befell the left arm. It hit the floor with a thud, like a dead branch, and came to a stop at Diagoras' feet, the hand open like a white, five-petalled flower. The philosopher screamed but, luckily, nobody heard. As if the act of dismemberment were an agreed signal, the audience rushed towards the bowl in the centre like joyful young girls frolicking in the sun.
¹⁰⁰

¹⁰⁰
'Young girls' and 'white petals' remind me of the image of my girl with the lily. I can picture her running under the strong Greek sun, holding a lily, happy, trusting . . . And all of it in this horrible paragraph! Damn this eidetic novel! (T.'s
N.)

'It's a dummy,' said Heracles, to his horrified companion.

A leg struck one of the spectators before falling to the ground; the other leg, flung too hard, crashed against the opposite wall. The women were now vying with each other to see who could rip the head from the mutilated dummy. Some pulled one way, others pulled the other way, some tearing at it with their teeth, others with their hands. The winner crawled to the middle of the stage and raised her trophy in the air with a howl, spreading her legs shamelessly, displaying athletic muscles unbecoming in an Athenian maiden, and flaunting her breasts. The torchlight branded her ribs with red. She began stamping a bare foot on the wooden stage, raising ghosts of dust. Panting but more subdued, her companions watched with reverence.

Chaos reigned over the audience. What was happening? They were crowding around the bowl. Stunned, jostled, Diagoras moved closer. An old man in front of him was shaking his thick grey hair, as if in a private, ecstatic dance. There was something hanging from his mouth. He looked as if he had been slapped in the face until his lips split, but the shreds of flesh dangling from the corners of his mouth were not his.

'I have to get out,' moaned Diagoras.

The women had begun chanting, shrieking:
'Ia, I
a, Bromios, evohe, evohe
!’

'By the gods of friendship, Heracles, what was that? Definitely not Athens!'

They were in the cool peace of an empty street, sitting on the ground with their backs against a wall, breathless. Diagoras' insides felt much improved after the violent purge they had just undergone.

Heracles replied, frowning: 'I fear that it was Athens much more than your Academy, Diagoras. It was a Dionysian ritual. Dozens of them are celebrated in and around the City every moon, all differing in small details yet similar overall. I knew of these rituals, of course, but until now I'd never seen one, although I wanted to.'

'Why?'

The Decipherer scratched his short silver beard for a moment. 'According to legend, Dionysus' body was destroyed by the Titans, just as Orpheus' was by the women of Thrace. Zeus brought him back to life from his heart. Tearing out the heart and devouring it is one of the most important parts of Dionysian rites.'

'The bowl.. .' murmured Diagoras.

Heracles nodded. 'It probably contained chunks of rotting hearts torn from animals.' 'And those women

'Women and men, slaves and free men, Athenians and metics . . . The rites acknowledge no difference. Madness and frenzy unite people. One of those naked women you saw on all fours could have been the daughter of an archon, and that may have been a slave girl from Corinth or a hetaera from Argos crawling beside her. It's madness, Diagoras. We can't explain it.'

Diagoras shook his head, stunned. 'But what does it all have to do with . . .' Suddenly he opened his eyes wide and exclaimed: 'The torn-out heart! Tramachus!'

Heracles nodded again. 'The sect we saw tonight is more or less legal, known and accepted by the archons, but there are others that operate clandestinely, due to the nature of their rites. You set out the problem clearly at my house, do you remember? We wouldn't reach the Truth by applying reason. I didn't believe you, but now I have to admit that you were right. What I felt in the Agora today as I listened to Attican peasants mourning the death of their friends attacked by wolves was not the logical consequence of a . . . reasoned argument, shall we say? . . . but. . . something I can't define . . . Perhaps it was a flash of inspiration from my Socratic
daemon
,
or the intuition women are said to possess. It happened when one of them mentioned that his friend's heart had been devoured. Suddenly, it came to me: 'It was a ritual, and we didn't suspect.' The victims are mainly peasants whose deaths have gone unnoticed until now. But I'm sure they've been active in Attica for years.'

The Decipherer got to his feet wearily. Diagoras did likewise, murmuring anxiously: 'Wait. That's not how Euneos and Antisus died! Their - their hearts were not torn out!'

'Don't you see? Euneos and Antisus were murdered in order to
mislead
us. It was Tramachus' death they were concerned to cover up. When they found out you had engaged a Decipherer of Enigmas to investigate Tramachus' death, they were so scared they devised this horrific comedy.'

Diagoras ran his hand over his face, as if trying to erase his look of disbelief. 'It's not possible . . . They devoured . . . Tramachus' heart? When? Before or after the wolves ...'

He stopped when he saw the Decipherer staring back at him.

'There never were any wolves,
Diagoras. That was what they tried to hide from us by all possible means. The tears, the bites
.. .it wasn't
a wolf attack ... Some sects ...'

There was a shadow and a sound at the same time. The shadow was an irregular, elongated shape that detached itself from the bend in the road closest to where they stood, and headed swiftly away, outlined by the moonlight. The sound
was first panting, then hurried steps.

'Who ...' asked Diagoras.

Heracles was the first to realise what had happened. 'Somebody was watching us!' he shouted.

He set his fat body in motion, forcing himself to run. Diagoras quickly overtook him. The figure - man or woman -seemed to roll down the street and disappear into the darkness. Snorting and puffing, the Decipherer stopped. 'Pah, it's no use!'

They came level with each other. Diagoras' cheeks were flushed and his girlish lips looked painted; he delicately rearranged his hair, raised his prominent bust as he breathed in and said, in a sweet nymph-like voice:
¹⁰¹
'He's got away. Who could it have been?'

¹⁰¹
1
would ask the reader to ignore Diagoras's sudden hermaphroditism, since it is purely eidetic. The sexual ambiguity dominating the descriptions of secondary characters in this chapter is now affecting one of the protagonists. It would seem to hint at the Ninth Labour, the Girdle of Hippolyta, in which the hero must face the Amazons (warrior maidens - in other words, women-men) and steal Queen Hippolyta's girdle. Still, I think the author has allowed himself a rather malicious joke at the expense of one of the most 'serious' characters in the novel (picturing Diagoras in such a guise made me start laughing again). In many ways, his bizarre sense of humour resembles my masked jailer's. (T.'s N.)

Heracles replied gravely: 'If it was one of them, and I believe it was, our lives won't be worth an obol come daybreak. The members of this cult are cunning and quite unscrupulous. I told you, they didn't hesitate to use Antisus and Euneos as a distraction .. . I'm certain they were both members of the sect, like Tramachus. I understand everything now. The fear
1
saw in Antisus' face was due, not to Menaechmus, but to
us
.
His superiors must have told him to get an army posting away from Athens so that we wouldn't be able to question him. But as we proceeded with our investigation, the sect decided to sacrifice him anyway, to divert our attention towards Menaechmus. I can still see Antisus' expression as he stood naked in the pantry the other night . . . How that wretched young man deceived me! As for Eumarchus, I don't believe he was one of them. Perhaps he witnessed Antisus' murder, and when he tried to stop them, they killed him, too.'

'But then Menaechmus . . .'

'A cult member of some importance. He played the part of the guilty man to perfection when we went to see him.' Heracles frowned. 'And I've no doubt he recruited your students.'

'But Menaechmus has been condemned to death! He's going to be thrown into the
barathrum'.'

Heracles nodded gloomily. 'I know. It's what he
wanted
.
Oh, don't think I understand it, Diagoras! You should read some of the texts I found in your library. The members of some Dionysian cults long to be tortured or to die dismembered. They rush eagerly to the sacrifice, like a maiden into the arms of her husband on her wedding night . . . Do you remember what I said about Tramachus? His arms were unscathed! He didn't defend himself! That must have been what you saw in his eyes that day. You thought it was terror, but it
was
pleasure!
The terror was in
your
eyes, Diagoras!'

'No!' Diagoras shouted, shrieked almost. 'That's not what pleasure looks like!'

'Maybe
this
kind of pleasure does. What do you know? Have you ever felt it? Don't look at me like that, I don't understand either! Why did those taking part in the ritual tonight eat chunks of rotting viscera? I don't know, Diagoras! I can't understand it! Perhaps the entire City has gone mad without us knowing!'

Heracles almost jumped when he saw his companion's face - a combination of horror, anger and shame distorting his muscles in a grotesque manner. The Decipherer had never seen him look like that. When Diagoras spoke, his voice suited the mask he now wore. 'Heracles Pontor, you're talking about a student at the Academy! About
my
students! I knew them to the very depths of their souls! I—'