The Athenian Murders (36 page)

It had remained untouched since Solon's time, as if successive governments had feared to alter it in any way. In the vestibule, the doormen played dice to decide who took night duty and shouted oaths after crucial throws: 'The dog, Eumolpus! You have to pay, by Zeus!'
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¹²²
The 'throw of the dog' was the lowest: three ones. But the author uses it to stress the
eidesis. The dogs are still barking outside by the way (T
’
s N)

Beyond, a short flight of steps led to the deep gloom of the cells, where the prisoners languished, counting the time that remained to them before the final darkness. Though the cells lacked the most basic comforts, as was to be expected, there had been a few notable exceptions. Socrates, for instance, who was locked in the last cell but one on the right - though some of the doormen claimed it was the last on the left - had had a bed, lamp, small table, and several chairs that were always occupied by his numerous visitors. 'But that,' the doormen explained, 'was because he was here a long time before his sentence was carried out. The end of his trial fell during the Sacred Days when, as you know, the ship full of pilgrims journeys to Delos and executions are forbidden
... But he never complained about the delay. He was so patient, poor man!' Be that as it may, such cases were rare. And certainly no exception had been made for the only prisoner there now awaiting the fateful hour. He was to be executed that same day.

The doorman on duty was a young Melian slave named Amphius. The man reflected, not for the first time, that
Amphius would have been handsome - for he had a slender body and manners far more refined than others of his station -had not a mischievous god, or goddess, tugged at the leash of his left eye at his birth and turned his face, where beard sprouted only patchily due to a strange form of ringworm, into a disturbing enigma. Through which eye was Amphius really looking? The right? The left? To his discomfort, the man wondered about it every time he saw him.

They greeted each other. The man asked: 'How is he?'

Amphius replied: 'He doesn't complain. I think he converses with the gods, because sometimes I hear him talking.'

The man - a servant of the Eleven named Triptemes -announced: 'I'm going to see him.'

Amphius said: 'What's that you've got there, Triptemes?'

The man showed him the small, sealed krater. 'When we locked him up, he asked us to get him a little of the wine of Lesbos.'

'Wait, Triptemes,' said Amphius, 'you know it's forbidden for prisoners to receive anything from outside.'

Sighing, the man rejoined: 'Come, Amphius, you do your job, and let me do mine. What are you afraid of? That he might get drunk on the day of his death?'

They laughed.

The man went on: 'If he does, so much the better. As he falls into the
barathrum,
he'll think he's on his way home from a symposium at a friend's house and has stumbled in the street . . .
By blue-eyed Athena, the City's streets are in a terrible state!'
And they laughed all the more.

Amphius blushed, ashamed at having been so suspicious. 'Go on in, Triptemes, and give him the wine, but don't let the masters know.'

'I won't.' He's looking through his right eye, I'm sure of it now, he thought, as he took a torch and prepared to descend into the darkness of the cells.
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The strange uncertainty between 'right' and 'left' in these paragraphs (Socrates' cell, the slave doorman's eye) may be an attempt to reflect eidetically Hercules' tortuous journey to the kingdom of the dead. (
T
.'s
N
.)

We descend from the sky with a martial retinue of thunderbolts and, on the wings of the wind, are blown away from the symmetry of the temples towards the elegant Escambonidai. Beneath our feet we make out a cracked grey line that cuts across the district - the main street. Yes, the blot now moving along it at a prudent pace, heading for one of the private gardens, is a man, so insignificant seen from this height. A slave, judging by his cloak. And young, judging by his agile step. A second man awaits him beneath the trees. Despite the shelter afforded by the branches, his cloak is shiny with moisture. The rain beats down, as does our gaze. We fall on the waiting man's face - large, greasy, with a neat little silver beard and grey eyes with pupils like ebony pins. He is visibly impatient: he looks one way, then the other. When at last he sees the slave, his face becomes more anxious still. What are his thoughts just then? Ah, but we cannot descend right into his head! We land in the tangle of grey hair and there it all ends for us poor drops of water.
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The theme of 'descent', present since the beginning of the chapter, together with the right and left theme evoke Hercules’ journey to the underworld (T’sN)

'Master! Master!' shouted the young slave. 'I've been to Diagoras' house, as you ordered, but found no one!' 'Are you sure?'

'Yes, Master! I knocked on his door repeatedly!'

'Very well, this is what you must do now: go into the house and wait for me there until midday. If I haven't returned by then, notify the servants of the Eleven. Tell them that my slave woman tried to murder me last night, and that I had to defend myself - if they know there's a corpse, they'll act with more haste. Hand them this scroll and request that they have their superiors read it, and then swear on your master's honour that grave danger is looming over the City. I'm not entirely certain that it is, but if you instil fear in them they'll obey your instructions. Do you understand?'

Alarmed, the slave nodded. 'Yes, Master, I'll do as you say! But where are you going? Your words make me shudder!'

'Do as you're told,' Heracles said, raising his voice as the rain grew stronger. 'I'll be back by midday, if all goes well.'

'Take care, Master! This storm appears full of terrible portents!'

'If you obey my orders exactly, you have nothing to fear.' Heracles headed down the sloping street into the mortally pale abyss of the City.

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The 'fall' from the sky down to Heracles Pontor's worries continues. (T.'s
N.)

Dead fingers of rain woke Diagoras very early, drumming on the walls, scratching at the windows, knocking tirelessly at the door. He rose from his bed and dressed quickly. Using his cloak as a hood, he went out.

His district, the Kolytos, was dead; some of the shops had even closed, as if it were a holiday. There were a few passers-by in the busiest streets, but the rain had the dark alleys to itself. Diagoras reflected that he had to hurry if he wanted to get to see Menaechmus that morning. In fact, he felt that he would have to make haste if he wanted to see
anyone,
anywhere, for all of Athens seemed, to his eyes, to have become a rainy cemetery.

He walked down an unevenly sloping street until he came to a small square. Another street led off it downhill. He noticed the shadow of an old man sheltering beneath a cornice, no doubt waiting for the storm to abate. Diagoras was startled by his pale, gaunt face contrasting with the darkness ringing his eyes. A little later, he thought that the cheeks of a slave carrying two amphorae seemed far too pale. And a hetaera on a corner smiled at him like a starving dog, but the dissolving white lead on her face made him think of a disintegrating shroud. By the god of goodness, I've seen nothing but the faces of corpses since setting off! he thought. Maybe the rain is a premonition. Or perhaps the colour of life in our cheeks becomes diluted with water.
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¹²⁶
Neither one nor the other, of course. Diagoras, as usual, can 'scent' the eidesis from a distance. Athens has, indeed, in this chapter become the kingdom of the dead. (T.'s
N.)

Deep in such thoughts, he noticed two hooded figures approaching down a side street. Here we have another pair of spirits, by Zeus.

The figures stopped before him, and one of them said in a friendly voice: 'O Diagoras of Mardontes, accompany us immediately. Something terrible is about to happen.'

They stood in his path. Inside the darkness of their hoods,

Diagoras could make out white, oddly similar faces. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'How do you know who I am?'

The hooded men looked at each other. 'We are ... the
terrible thing
that is about to happen if you don't come with us,' said the other one.

Diagoras realised suddenly that his eyes had deceived him this time: the whiteness of their faces was artificial. They were wearing masks.

They may even have reached the king archon, thought Heracles with alarm. After all,
anyone
could belong to the sect... But, a moment later, he reasoned more calmly: Logically, if they had got that far, they would be feeling safe. Instead, they're terrified of being found out. And he concluded: They may be as powerful as gods, but they fear the laws of men. He knocked at the door again. The slave boy appeared in the dark doorway.

'You again.' He smiled. 'It's a good thing you visit so often. Your visits mean rewards.'

Heracles had two obols ready.

'The house is gloomy. You would get lost without me to guide you,' said the boy, leading him down the dark corridors. 'Do you know what my friend, the old slave Iphimachus, says?'

'What does he say?'

The young guide stopped and lowered his voice. 'That a long time ago someone got lost in here and died without ever finding his way out. And that sometimes, at night, you can see him in the corridors, whiter and colder than the marble of Chalcis, and he asks politely for the way out.'

'Have you ever seen him?'

'No, but Iphimachus says he has.'

They set off again, as Heracles said: 'Well, don't believe ituntil you've seen him for yourself. Anything you don't see with your own eyes is a matter of opinion.'

'The truth is, I pretend to be frightened when he tells me the story,' said the boy cheerfully, 'because he likes it. But I'm not really. If I ever saw the dead man, I'd say: 'The way out is the second turning on the right!"

Heracles laughed. 'You're right not to be afraid. You're almost an ephebe now.'

'Yes, I am,' said the boy proudly.

They passed a man crawling with worms. He didn't look at them as he went by, because his eye sockets were empty. He walked past in silence, carrying with him the fetid smell of a thousand days in the cemetery.
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When they came to the cena-cle, the boy said: 'Wait here. I'll call the mistress.'

127
I
don't need to point out that this walking corpse is eidetic and not an apparition - the boy and Heracles can't see it, just as they can't see the punctuation marks in the text that recounts their conversation. (T.'s N.)

'Thank you.'

They took leave of each other with a look of amused complicity. It struck Heracles suddenly that he was saying goodbye for ever, not only to the boy but to the dismal house and all its inhabitants, and even to his memories. It was as if the world had died and he was the only one to know. Strangely, the thing that most saddened him was leaving the boy; not even his own memories, whether fragile or lasting, valuable or trifling, seemed more important than the lovely, intelligent creature, the little man whose name, by some strange chance or amusing and continuing coincidence, he still didn't know.

As always, it was Itys' voice that announced her presence.

'Too many visits in too short a time, Heracles Pontor, for it to be mere courtesy'

Heracles hadn't seen her enter. He bowed in greeting, and rejoined: 'True, it is not courtesy. I promised I would return to tell you what I discovered about your son's death.'

After the briefest pause, Itys waved to her slaves and they left the cenacle in silence. With her usual dignity, she motioned for Heracles to take one of the couches while she reclined on the other. She was . . . Elegant? Beautiful? Heracles could not find a suitable epithet. He reflected that much of her mature beauty must be due to the gentle hint of ceruse on her cheeks, the pigment on her eyelids, the sparkle of brooches and bracelets, and the harmonious lines of her dark
peplos.
But even without such help, her austere face and sinuous figure would retain all their power ... or might acquire a new one.

'My slaves have not even offered you a dry cloak,' she said. 'I'll have them whipped.'