The Athenian Murders (42 page)

Sighing deeply, with moist, reddened eyes, he replies: 'That's one of the things Philotextus set out to prove with his novel - the world you describe, the world in which we live, our world,
doesn't exist
.
And will probably never exist.' And he adds gloomily: 'The only world that exists is the world of the novel you've translated: Athens after the war, a city full of madness, ecstasy and irrational monsters. That is the
real
world, not ours. That's why I said
The Athenian Murders
influenced the existence of the universe.'

I stare at him. He seems to mean it, though he's smiling. 'Now I really do think you're completely insane!' I say.

'No, son. Try to remember.'

And he smiles kindly now, as if we share the same misfortune. He says: 'Do you remember, in Chapter Seven, the bet between Philotextus and Plato?'

'Yes. Plato claims that a book containing the five elements of knowledge can never be written. But Philotextus isn't so sure ...'

That's right. Well,
The Athenian Murders
is the result of the bet. Philotextus thought the task a difficult one - how to create a work that included the five Platonic elements of knowledge? The first two would be easy: the "name" is simply the name of things, and the "definition", the sentences relating to those things. Any normal text contains both these elements. But the third, the "image", was more of a problem - how to create "images" that would be more than mere "definitions", forms of beings and things beyond written words? So Philotextus invented "eidesis" . . .'

'What do you mean' invented'?' I interrupt incredulously.

Montalo nods gravely. 'Philotextus invented "eidesis". It was a way of making his images fluent, independent.. . not linked to the text but to the reader's imagination. One chapter, for instance, might contain the figure of a lion, or a girl with a lily!'

This is all so preposterous that I have to smile. 'You know as well as I do,' I say, 'that eidesis is a literary device used by a number of Greek writers—'

'No!' interrupts Montalo impatiently. 'It's an invention and it appears nowhere but in this novel! Let me go on and you'll understand. The third element, then, was dealt with . . . But the trickiest ones remained. How to
achieve the fourth,
"intelligence or knowledge of the thing"? Obviously, a voice
outside
the text was needed, a voice that would "discuss" the text as it progressed ... a character watching the plot develop from a distance . . . But this character couldn't be alone, since a "dialogue" was required. So it was essential to have at least two characters
outside
the work. But who could they be, and how could they be introduced to the reader?'

Montalo pauses and raises his eyebrows, amused. He continues: 'Philotextus found the solution in his own poem, in the stanza about the translator "locked up by a madman". Adding several fictitious translators was the best way of providing that fourth element . . . One of them would "translate" the novel, commenting on it in footnotes, and the others would have some sort of relationship with him. This trick enabled our writer to introduce the fourth element. But there remained the fifth and most difficult: the "Idea itself"!'

Montalo pauses briefly and gives a little laugh. He goes on: 'The
"
Idea itself" is the key we've been looking for from the start. Philotextus
doesn't believe
it exists, so that's why we haven't found it. It is there, though - in our search, our desire to find it...' His smile widens and he concludes: 'So Philotextus has won the bet.'

When Montalo finishes, I mutter in disbelief: 'You're quite insane...'

Montalo's inexpressive face is turning increasingly pale. 'I am indeed,' he agrees. 'But I now know why I played with you and then kidnapped you and locked you up in here. In fact I realised it when you told me the poem the novel is based on was by your father . . . Because I'm sure, too, that
my father wrote it
- he was a writer, like yours.'

I don't know what to say. Montalo goes on, increasingly anxious: 'We're part of the images of the novel, don't you see? I'm the
madman
who's locked you up, as it says in the poem, and you're the
translator.
And our father, the man who engendered both you and me, and all the characters in
The Athenian Murders,
is called Philotextus of Chersonnese.'

A shiver runs down my spine. I look round at the dark cell, the table covered in scrolls, the lamp, and Montalo's pale face. I murmur: 'It's a lie ... I - I have a life of
my own.
I have friends! I know a woman called Helena. I'm not a character in a novel. I'm alive!'

Suddenly his face becomes distorted by rage. 'Fool! You still don't understand, do you? Helena . .. Elio ... you . .. me!
We all make up the FOURTH ELEMENT.'

Stunned, furious,
I
pounce on Montalo.
I
try to strike him and escape, but all I manage to do is tear off his face. His face is another mask. But behind it, there's nothing, darkness. His clothes fall, limp, to the floor. The table at which I've been working disappears. So does the bed and the chair. The walls of the cell vanish. I'm plunged into darkness.

'Why? Why? Why?' I ask.

The space allocated to my words shrinks. I become as marginal as my footnotes.

The author decides to end me here.

_EPILOGUE

T
rembling, I raise my quil
l from the papyrus, having writ
ten the final words of my novel. I can't imagine what Plato - waiting for me to finish as eagerly as I - will think. Perhaps, as he reads, his radiant countenance will relax at times into a fine smile. At others, I am certain, he will frown. He might say (and I can hear his measured voice): 'A strange work, Philotextus, particularly the dual theme - on the one hand, Heracles' and Diagoras' investigation; and on the other, this odd character, the Translator (whom you never name), who lives in an imaginary future, recording his thoughts in footnotes, conversing with other characters and who is, at the end, kidnapped by the madman Montalo . . . His is a sad fate, for he is unaware that he himself is as much of a fiction as the work he is translating!'

'But you have put many words in the mouth of your teacher Socrates,' I will say, adding: 'Who has a worse destiny? My Translator, who only exists in the novel, or your Socrates, who, though he might really have lived, has become as fictional a creature as my character? I think it preferable to condemn an imaginary being to reality than a real one to fiction.'

Knowing him as I do, I suspect there will be more frowns than smiles.

But I fear not for him - he is not a man to be disconcerted. Enraptured, he looks out at the intangible world of beauty and tranquillity, harmony and the written word that is the land of Ideas, and offers it to his disciples. At the Academy, they no longer live in the real world, but in Plato's head. Teachers and students alike are 'translators' locked in their respective 'caves', devoting themselves to the quest for the 'Idea itself. I simply wished to tease them a little (forgive me, my intentions were good), to move them, but also to raise my voice (as a poet, not a philosopher) and cry: 'Stop looking for hidden ideas, final keys and ultimate meanings! Stop reading and
live
Come out of the text! What do you see? Nothing but darkness? Stop searching!' I don't believe they will listen. They'll continue scurrying about, as tiny as letters of the alphabet, obsessed with finding the Truth through words and dialogue. Zeus knows how many texts, how many theories written with quill and ink will rule the lives of men in future and foolishly change the course of events! But I'll abide by Xenophon's final words in his recent history: 'As for me, my work ends here. Let another deal with what comes next.'

The end of
The
Athenian Murders
,
written by Philotextus of Chersonnese in the year that Arginides was archon, Demetriate was sybil, and Argelaus was ephor.