The Athenian Murders (7 page)

Swathed in a long dark shawl and tunic, she had the l
oose stride of a wild animal in
the forest. Her bangles and bracelets jangled with every step. Just as she was about to be swallowed by the darkness, she turned and said to Diagoras: 'I didn't want to strike you.'

It was late at night by the time they returned to the City, following the Long Walls.

'I'm sorry you got hurt,' said Heracles, a little guiltily. The philosopher had been silent since their conversation with Yasintra. 'Are you still in pain? I did warn you . . . I've come across that type of hetaera before. They're very agile and quite capable of defending themselves. When she ran away, I knew she'd attack if we got near her.'

He paused, expecting Diagoras to say something, but his companion walked in silence, head bowed, chin resting on his chest. They had left the lights of Piraeus behind some time ago. The great paved road (which, according to Heracles, though empty, was safer and quicker than the more commonly used route), lined by walls built by Themistocles, destroyed by Lysander only to be rebuilt again, rolled on smoothly in the dark winter's night. In the distance, to the north, the walls of Athens stood out like a dream, gleaming faintly.

Heracles went on quickly: 'Now it's you, Diagoras, who has said nothing in a long while. Have you lost heart? Didn't you say you wanted to help with the investigation? My investigations always begin like this: we seem to have nothing, but then . .. Maybe you thought it a waste of time questioning the hetaera? Pah! I can tell you from experience that following up a lead is never a waste of time, quite the opposite. Hunting is knowing how to follow a trail, even though it seems to lead nowhere. Then, contrary to what most people believe, shooting the deer with the arrow turns out to be the easiest—'

He was interrupted by Diagoras' muttering: 'He was a boy ...' he said, as if answering some question from Heracles.

'Still too young to be an ephebe. His gaze was pure. His soul seemed as if burnished by Athena herself.'

'Don't blame yourself. Even at that age we seek outlets.'

The philosopher raised his eyes from the dark road for the first time and glanced disdainfully at Heracles. 'You don't understand. We teach the boys at the Academy to love wisdom above all else and to reject dangerous pleasures and their fleeting rewards. Tramachus knew virtue, he was aware that it is infinitely more useful and profitable than vice. How could he ignore this?'

'And how did you teach virtue at the Academy?' asked the Decipherer.

'Through music and the enjoyment of physical exercise.'

After another silence, Heracles scratched his head and remarked: 'Well, let's just say that Tramachus thought the enjoyment of physical exercise more important than music'

Diagoras ignored him and began to speak quickly and pedantically, as if reciting a tedious lesson to a group of dull students. 'Ignorance is the root of all evil. Who would choose the worst while fully aware that it was the worst? If reason, through learning, made you see that vice was worse than virtue, falsehood worse than truth, immediate pleasure worse than the lasting kind, why would you consciously choose the former? You know, for instance, that fire burns. Would you, of your own free will, hold your hand over flames? It's absurd ... An entire year visiting that... woman! Paying for his pleasure! I don't believe it... The hetaera lied to us. I assure you that... What are you laughing at?'

'Forgive me’
said Heracles. 'I was remembering someone I once watched hold his hand over flames by choice. An old friend from my
deme,
Crantor of Pontor. He believed quite the opposite: he claimed that reason is not enough to make a man choose the best, since he lets himself be guided by desires not ideas. One day he felt like burning his right hand, so he held it over the fire and burned it.'

There was a long silence. Then, Diagoras said: 'And you ... Do you agree with him?'

'Not at all. I always believed my friend was mad.'

'And what became of him?'

'I don't know. He suddenly had an impulse to leave Athens, so he left. And he hasn't returned.'

After another silence and several hurried steps along the paved road, Heracles asked: 'What do you think of the hetaera?'

'She's a strange, dangerous woman.' Diagoras shuddered. 'Her face . . . Her gaze ... I looked into her eyes and saw horrible things

In his vision, she was dancing on the snowy peaks of Parnassus, to a rapid beating of drums, her only clothing a thin deerskin. Her body moved without thought, without will almost, a flower in the fingers of a young girl, spinning dangerously close to the slippery edge of the abyss.

In his vision, she could ignite her hair and lash out at the cold air with it; she could throw back her head so that the bone in her neck protruded from between the muscles like a lily stem; she could shout as if asking for help, calling Bromios with his deer hoofs; she could intone the quick paean from the evening
oreivasia,
the ritual dance tirelessly performed by maenads on mountain tops in winter, handling dangerous, swiftly poisonous snakes and knotting their tails beautifully, just as a young girl, without help, weaves a crown of white lilies.

In his vision, she was a naked form, bloodied by flames from the fires and juice from the grapes. As she moved, she traced hasty, bold words in the snow with her bare feet, ignoring the urgent cries of Prudence, who appeared before her like a slender young girl clad in white, to warn her, vainly, of the danger of the dances. 'Help me!' called the little voice to no avail for, to the eyes of a maenad, danger is as a gleaming lily placed on the opposite bank of an impetuous river to the avid gaze of a young girl: not one of them would resist the temptation to swim across swiftly, without even seeking help, and claim the flower. 'Take care, there is danger here!' calls the voice of reason. But the young girl pays no heed for the lily is too beautiful.

This was all part of his vision, and he took it to be true.
¹⁷

'What strange things you see in the gazes of others, Diagoras!' mocked Heracles good-humouredly. 'Our hetaera may dance in the Lenaean processions from time to time, but believing that she frolics with the maenads in dangerous ecstasies in honour of Dionysus is going too far. I fear your imagination has keener sight than Lynceus.'

¹⁷
Diagoras' latest vision brings together all the eidetic images that have appeared so far: 'speed', the 'stag', the 'young girl with the lily' and the 'plea for help'. Now we have the word 'danger' as well! What can it all mean?
(T
.'s N.)

'I told you what I saw with my mind's eye,' retorted Diagoras. 'It can discern the Idea itself, and you shouldn't be so quick to despise it, Heracles. The Idea itself is superior to reason. It is the light before which all beings and things are no more than vague shadows. And sometimes that Idea may become known to us only through myth, fable, poetry or dreams.'

'Perhaps, but your "Idea itself" is of no use to me, Diagoras. I'm concerned only with what I can see with my own eyes and reason with my own logic'

'So what did you see in the girl?'

'Very little,' said Heracles modestly. 'Only that she was lying.'

Diagoras halted his rapid march and turned to look at the Decipherer. Smiling a little guiltily, like a child caught playing a dangerous prank, Heracles explained: 'I set her a trap by mentioning Tramachus' father. As you know, Meragrus was condemned to death years ago, accused of dangerous collaboration with the Thirty .
. ‘
¹⁸

'I know. It was a harsh trial, like that of the admirals from Arginusae, because Meragrus paid for the crimes of many others.' Diagoras sighed. 'Tramachus was always reluctant to talk about his father. It was a dangerous subject for him.'

'That's what I mean’
said Heracles. 'Yasintra claimed Tramachus hardly spoke to her, but she knew very well that his father died in disgrace ...'

'No. She knew only that he was dead.'

¹⁸
Dictatorship established in Athens, under Spartan supervision, after the Peloponnesian War, made up of thirty citizens. The reader should note that the word 'danger' seems to have left a sort of eidetic 'echo' since its first appearance (the same happened with 'help'), indicating that its presence is important.
(T.'s N
.)

'Not at all! As I've explained, Diagoras, I decipher only what

I can see. But I
see
what someone says as clearly as I'm now seeing the torches at the City Gate. Everything that we do or say is a text that can be read and interpreted. Do you recall her exact words? She didn't say "His father is dead," but "He
had no
father" - wording we would usually use to deny the existence of someone we didn't wish to recall . . . The kind of expression Tramachus would have used himself. Now, if Tramachus mentioned his father to a hetaera from Piraeus, a matter so intimate that he didn't even wish to share it with you, why did she tell us he hardly spoke to her?'

While Diagoras was pondering the question, Heracles added: 'And there's something else: why did she run away when we asked for her?'

'I'm sure she had plenty of reasons,' answered Diagoras. 'What I still don't understand is how you knew she was hiding in the tunnel.'

'Where else? I knew we'd never catch her - she's young and agile, whereas we're old and clumsy ... I refer mainly to myself, of course.' He quickly raised a fat hand, forestalling Diagoras' objection. 'So I deduced that she wouldn't need to run far. She simply had to hide somewhere until the danger was past. And what better place than a dark tunnel close to her house? But why did she flee? Now that's what I don't understand. She earns her living precisely by not fleeing from any man ...'

'More than one dangerous crime must weigh on her conscience,' said Diagoras gravely. 'You may laugh, Decipherer, but I have never seen such a strange woman. The memory of her gaze still makes me shudder . .. What's that?'

A procession of torches was running through the streets near the City Gate. The participants wore masks and carried tabors.

'The start of the Lenaea,' said Heracles. 'The time is upon us.'

Diagoras shook his head disapprovingly. 'Always in such a hurry to amuse themselves ...'

Having identified themselves to the soldiers, they went through the Gate and headed towards the centre of the City. Diagoras asked: 'What do we do now?'

'We rest, by Zeus. My feet ache. My body was made for rolling from place to place, not walking. Tomorrow we'll talk to Antisus and Euneos. I mean, you'll talk and I'll listen.'

'What am I to ask?'

'Not so fast. Let me think about it. I'll see you tomorrow, good Diagoras. Relax, rest your body and your mind. And may anxiety not rob you of sweet sleep: remember that you have engaged the best Decipherer of Enigmas in all Hellas.'
¹⁹

¹⁹
I managed to speak to Helena during one of her breaks this afternoon (she teaches Greek to a class of thirty). I was so agitated that I told her immediately what I'd found out: 'There's a new image in Chapter Three, in addition to the stag: a young girl holding a lily'

Her blue eyes widened. 'What?'

I showed her the translation. 'She appears mainly in the visions of one of the central characters, a Platonist philosopher called Diagoras. But she manages to enter reality in one scene. It's a very powerful eidetic image, Helena. A girl holding a lily calling for help and warning of danger. According to Montalo it's a poetic metaphor, but it's obviously eidetic. The author gives us a description - golden hair and eyes as blue as the sea, a slender body, dressed in white -dispersed throughout the chapter. See? Here he mentions her hair ... Here her "slender figure dressed in white"—'

'Wait a minute’ interrupted Helena. 'The "slender figure dressed in white" in this paragraph represents Prudence. It's a poetic metaphor in the style of—'

‘No I confess I raised
my voice a little more than I would have liked. Helena stared at me in amazement (I hate to think of it now) ‘It’s not a metaphor, It’s an eidetic image’

‘How can you be so sure?’

I thought for a moment. My theory seemed so obvious that I'd forgotten to gather any proof to back it up! 'The word "lily" is repeated
ad nauseam,'
I said. 'And the girl's face ...'

'What face? You just said the author only mentions her eyes and hair. Did you dream up the rest?' I opened my mouth to answer, but suddenly didn't know what to say. Helena went on: 'Don't you think you're taking this eidesis business a bit too far? Elio warned us, remember? He said eidetic novels can be treacherous, and he's right. You start thinking that all the images are significant simply because they're repeated.
But that's ridiculous. In the
Iliad
Homer describes the form of dress of many of his heroes in minute detail, but that doesn't mean it's an eidetic treatise on clothing.'