Damascus

by Christos Tsiolkas

  When the death-seekers emerge, having sat in shit, having told their lies to the condemned, the old man is beaming, invigorated. It takes all my will not to punch him in the face.

  My father’s shade stands sentinel behind me, his breath is fierce and cold on my neck. I am the son and the grandson of warriors; I was born in the filth of a city but my ancestors breathed the clean air of mountains.

  The old man takes my hand. The gentleman Philip and his women follow us to the gates.

  The sun is at its zenith, eclipsing all. The gentleman Philip has secured our seats and guides us to the unsteady lower tiers of the stalls. We are blacksmiths and carpenters and labourers, we are former soldiers and travellers and freemen, but the noble-born Philip shows no distaste or disgust about being here with us, when by rights he should be sitting with the elite. Not that there are any princes or first citizens here today. This is a cheap affair, a grovelling attempt by some low-born merchant who has struck it rich to find favour with the First Amongst Men. I glance at the gentleman Philip. He appears serene, but his acceptance of such dishonour is lunacy. I whisper prayers to The God that I do not fall ill to his contagion.

  With high noon the drums begin and in front of us a man lifts his son onto his shoulders, the boy moving with grace to the pounding of the drums. I am chewing on some spiced nuts I purchased from a stall outside—I offer some to the death-worshippers but they, of course, decline. Slaves run into the arena with flaming torches and set alight the posts that ring the theatre. The timbers have been stuccoed with crystal salts and they burst into coloured flames that leap up high into the skies. We cheer and clap. The drums now beat ferociously, the juice from the nuts I have been chewing begins to take effect: I can see where the fingers of The God reach down from the sky, where He touches and calls the fire from the torches to Him. Grant me a son this time, I pray. Do not let this one be stillborn. I repeat my prayer three times and I am rewarded with a flame that rises higher than any others.

  Across from us in the newly built tower, a curtain is being pulled across and all our eyes are drawn to it, as if by some enchantment. It is made out of scarlet weave, like the screens that shield the gods in the temples. A soldier marches across the sand and flings the curtain open. The merchant who has paid for the circus is sitting there in a sedan chair, holding the hand of his wife. Behind him are his sons and daughters. First his children stand, then his wife and finally the fat old crook, their arms outstretched to us. We are not fools; we know that the planks we are sitting on are rotting, we know that the musicians are ill-practised and out of tune, we know that he has paid the minimum he could in order to satisfy the First Amongst Men’s decrees. We know his contempt for us. And as one we rise and turn our shitters to them, laughing and making farting sounds. The merchant glowers but he is frightened of us and dares not insult us. But he clenches his fist as a salute to the First Amongst Gods and then to the First Amongst Men and we hush. He calls out salutes to the Empress and the princes and we echo his words. We are proud to do so. The merchant adjusts his skirt, takes his seat and clasps his wife’s hand. She leans into him and whispers, her eyes sweeping across us, and he laughs scornfully. We know they detest us as much as we loathe them.

  The posts are still alight. It is cheap and shoddy but we lean forward eagerly, stamping our feet in anticipation.

  A reed pipe plays a gentle note. An accompanying instrument answers in a deeper strident tone. We lean further forward: a favoured moment, our expectation keen and not yet disappointed. Look! We follow the cry from within the pack. A gate scrapes along the ground and two long boards are carried into the arena. The sea, crested sapphire waves with silver foam atop, is painted in glowing dyes across the boards. The heads of the waves are cut out in jagged silhouette. Shrouded black figures are on either end of each board: the first board swings left, the wood frieze behind it slings right; we also swing left, we swing right, we follow the motion of the water. From the sea a figure rises: the god Neptune holding his trident sheathed in silver leaf, a fisherman’s net slung over his shoulder. The little boy in front is entranced and also frightened. He is now sitting beside his father, who puts his arm around him. The sight makes me pray: O Lord, O my God of the Sun, make the next one a boy.

  A streak of fire shoots high above the arena. Our eyes follow its path, and then it explodes in a shower of colour and light. Lightning. And then there is the crack of a baton banging on a metal drum. Thunder. The glistening blue of the sea, the silver of the foam, shines and beams. The boy is jumping up and down—he has moved away from his father—and excitedly reaches out his tiny hands to the God. A slave, an old man but upright, with sinewy powerful arms, has come into the circle, dragging a huge canvas bag behind him. The sack bulges and writhes. He carefully empties it onto the ground. Pythons! We are thrilled but terrified. They are as thick as an oarman’s arm, and as long as two men lying end to end—no, one must be as long as three men. The beasts uncoil, slithering across the sand, raising their glistening heads. We yell with excitement and some young ones shriek. We are mesmerised by the serpents. Neptune is climbing over the waves. He whistles and a young slave boy, naked except for a crossbow over his shoulder, runs through the gate and takes the god’s trident. We scream with laughter! A huge thick cock has been strapped over his own boy-penis; it hangs below his knees. Delighted by our approval, the boy struts around, swinging the fake cock at us. Our loins are stirred: he is handsome, hairless, with skin so pale that it seems transluscent—he is of the savage north. An old drunk yowls: ‘I want you between my legs, Hermes.’ Another man shouts: ‘He really wants you between his arse cheeks.’ We laugh harder. A python darts towards the boy, and in terror he drops the trident. We roar. The old slave is the only one without fear. His hands dive and he lifts one of the serpents, holding the beast aloft as it writhes and bucks, its muscles stretching and bending. But the old slave is strong, and he keeps a firm grasp on the beast, even as the muscles on his neck seem close to bursting. Holding the serpent high, he parades up and down the stalls. Some of the younger children are crying. The boy in front of me is enraptured. He stands absolutely still. The god steps forward. We hush.

  ‘Who has defied Poseidon?’

  The god’s face is a copperplate half-mask, eyebrows made from crushed shells, mouth painted a bloody scarlet.

  ‘Answer me, you mortal shits. Who has defied Poseidon?’ His voice booms around the arena.

  A call springs from us. ‘Odysseus!’

  We repeat the Greek name, call it out in one voice. ‘Odysseus, Odysseus, Odysseus!’

  A shooting flame.

  Lightning.

  Thunder.

  A naked youth, his wrists bound, is pulled into the arena, a Greek warrior’s helmet perched clumsily on his shaved head. The runaway-slave gashes are visible across his brow. The boy is drugged; his eyes roll white, unseeing; he can hardly stand. The crowd mutters. The boy has been made imbecilic from opium—this will not be a fucking contest. The actor playing the God is backing away from us, sensing our anger. I can feel the push of the angry mob behind me; we are ready to destroy. But it is fortunate for the God that there is one amongst us who remains convinced. It is the little boy: he is calling out, pointing to the drugged slave.

  ‘There, God,’ he squeals in delight. ‘There, can’t you see him? There’s Odysseus.’

  We bellow and point as well. ‘There, God, there—there is Odysseus!’

  Except for the four sitting next to me. They have started their prayers, the two women with covered heads and faces, and the old man clutching the hand of the gentleman Philip, who both have their heads lowered.

  I dare not touch the gentleman but I shake the old man’s shoulder. ‘Look!’ I command.

  But they will not cease their damned jabbering.

  Neptune is pointing to Odysseus and the old slave has taken one of the pythons and wrapped it around the youth’s neck. The feel of the scales on his skin rouse the boy. His pupils become visible.
He is awakening, and we roar our approval. There is terror in those eyes now as the beast begins to tighten across the boy’s shoulders. The old slave takes another serpent, which he wraps around the boy’s waist. Neptune raises His torch and He stands before Odysseus. Hermes is kneeling next to the God; he takes his massive sex, strokes it lasciviously, placing it over a shoulder and then coiling it around his neck, mimicking the slow movements of the beasts. Neptune brings the torch close, the fire almost touching the serpents. Their muscles tighten. We push forward, holding our breath.

  Except for the death-lovers, who will not look with us; they are lost in their chanting.

  The old slave is holding the third serpent and the God reaches towards it, performing a dance to the beat of the drums. But as He gets near, the snake’s head darts, as if to bite Neptune’s hand. The God releases a cowardly screech. Will the actor shit himself? We are delirious with joy. The God orders the slave to put the beast on the ground but not to let it go. He lowers His torch to singe the scales of the serpent and the animal spasms in agony. The God keeps the flame against it and the rage of the animal is too much even for the tough old slave. It has escaped his grip as the fire feeds on its flesh. The arena fills with black smoke and the smell of burning meat.

  The dying beast’s terror has been communicated to his brothers. The first serpent has wound itself in three solid bands around the youth’s neck and the second has slowly wrapped itself around the boy’s frail body. We are completely silent. We hear the crack and breaking of the first rib, then the second, then the third. The boy is spewing bile and blood. There is incomprehension, the most bestial pain in his eyes, and then they once again roll white. The body tumbles to the earth, jerks, shakes, lies still. Odysseus is no more. The snakes realise it too. They uncoil themselves from the body.

  We stand, we cheer, applauding as the god bows.

  But the old man, the blasphemous fool, he is wailing. I turn in disgust from him.

  There are several gladiator bouts, each more pitiful than the one before, with scrawny, frail slaves, prisoners of the British wars near comatose from torture and starvation. But we are intoxicated by it, we crush against each other, bathed in sweat from the relentless sun, stinking, delirious. The rich merchant’s wife has fallen asleep and is snoring behind the mesh screen. A play is staged and we half listen to it, heckling loudly. The actor playing Jason is tuneless and his Medea wears rotund breasts, but the actor playing her hasn’t even bothered to shave his chest and abdomen. We don’t wait for them to finish; we insult them and throw whatever we can find at them: stones, mud, dried animal dung. The actors and musicians are scared and their fear spurs us on. ‘Let’s give them a whipping,’ a drunkard shouts. But before we can riot, the virile old slave appears again, pulling a cage into the arena. Inside there is a lioness, hungry and emaciated; her skin is stretched over her jutting ribs but she is still terrifying—her roar silences us.

  From underneath the tower the gate is pulled open and four slaves wheel out a chariot carrying the Greek Goddess Athena, a model of an owl perched on Her shoulder. The slaves take Her vehicle to the centre of the arena and Athena descends. It might be because of the actor’s regal and powerful bearing, or the chilling swoop of his gaze as he surveys the crowd, but we find ourselves making our salutations to the Virgin—we are bowing to Athena, and those of us who can find space in the crowd fall to our knees. The actor’s chest is shaved bare, and there is no need for him to don ridiculous appendages to suggest a woman’s breasts: this actor commands and conjures; we believe he is the Goddess.

  A slave comes through the gate, dragging a naked young girl. I recognise her immediately. She has been washed since the afternoon, and her head has been shaved. Beside me the old man stirs and begins to rise, but the gentleman Philip pulls him back to his seat. The four of them resume their praying, as if the outside world doesn’t exist. I turn away from their ravings, I lean forward, gripped by the drama in the arena. The slave pushes the girl forward: her tits just formed, the rise of her shaved pubis. She is made more beautiful by the gentle glow of the day turning to twilight. Athena lifts Her slender arm and the most honeyed of voices, the voice with which women first come to you when you dream as a boy, She praises the First Amongst Men. Our voices ring out as we too salute the Caesar. The condemned girl also forms the words with her mouth but we cannot hear her voice. The Goddess calls up to the sky, making obeisance to the Imperial family. Our voices answer as one, the girl moves her lips, and then the lioness roars auspiciously. All life, all the world, honours the Imperial family. The Goddess walks up to the girl and then around her, touching her nipple and sliding a finger from her sex to her neck. She raises the girl’s chin so they are looking at each other.

  The Goddess’s voice rings out again, true and clear, rising beyond the theatre to the very floor of Heaven. ‘Honour me, slave. Fall to your knees and glorify me, your Goddess.’

  We start to offer our prayers but our words become frozen in our mouths as the girl does not kneel, her lips do not praise.

  The Goddess steps back, calling out to all of us, ‘What would you have me do?’

  Our rage is unfettered, it storms our veins and threatens to choke us. This is why the harvest did not come, this is why we are hungry. The catastrophes have come because of the blasphemies of the death-worshippers: those cults that deny the gods and those acolytes of an unhinged cult who drink blood and eat flesh to satisfy their perverse crucified god. We scream and we shout: let her jealous god drink our piss, let him gag on our shit. Kill her, we demand, absolve us of her blasphemies, rip her open, cut her into pieces.

  The Goddess flings up Her arm.

  We are silent.

  The Goddess kisses the girl on the lips. As She does, She whips out a dagger from the folds of Her skirt and slashes the girl’s cheek.

  The girl does not wince from the cut. She has closed her eyes, her hands joined together; she is singing her prayers. The four beside me are whispering in unison.

  The Goddess climbs back into Her chariot and the slaves wheel it back to the tower. As the gates start to slide shut, the old slave releases a rope from the cage and leaps with astonishing dexterity to hurl himself into the darkness beneath the tower before the gate is shut. Simultaneously the front bars of the cage clang to the earth.

  The lioness sits on her haunches, as if she cannot believe the possibility of freedom. She sniffs the air, she smells blood, she growls. Slowly she emerges from the cave, sways languorously towards the girl.

  The theatre is silent. No one breathes.

  In an eye-blink, the beast leaps and, with one bite, has torn out the girl’s throat.

  As the lioness feeds, as her claws rip open the belly, as the intestines and guts spill over the corpse, it is as if my own seed has been spilled. We are sated. As one, we rise. As one, we cheer. As one we salute the First Amongst Men, our city and Her gods.

  The gentleman Philip and his slave women are weeping. But the old man’s eyes are dry. His back is straight. He notices my gaze and answers it in the Greek tongue. The words are not clear to me. What’s needed has been done? What’s needed is accomplished?

  He stands without help. ‘Come,’ he orders, and I have never seen him so full of strength. He has abandoned the cloak of his death-loving, he has drunk blood, his eyes shine with life.

  ‘Come,’ he repeats impatiently. ‘It is done.’

  The booming rents apart the night and violates my dream. My mother in Hades, shorn as a slave, is reaching out to me, but she vanishes with the onset of the calamitous noise. I jolt awake, grab my dagger. But the earth has not opened; the stars are in their place and a cover of black cloud shields the Goddess moon.

  From below I hear the old man. He is screaming, a terrible sound. A missile curves out of the darkness, it falls and skips across the tiles of the roof. I peer down into the courtyard below. In the thick summer night, families and beggar boys are sleeping in the dirt, lying between the goats and the sheep.


  ‘Shut your swinish mouth!’ The man screaming up at the prisoner’s window is a lone-legged cripple balancing on his crutch. He has another rock in his free hand and is about to throw that too but I hang over the parapet and call down to him. He seems ready to spew more abuse at me but at that moment the Goddess intervenes: the clouds part and Her beams shine off my dagger’s blade. He grumbles, but not loudly enough for me to discern his words.

  Slowly, banging my fist against my corrupted leg to awaken it, I climb down the ladder. The prisoner’s wailing fills the narrow corridor, a rage that makes the walls shake as the rats run back and forth across my feet. I storm to the door, unchain it and burst into the cell.

  The insults die on my tongue, they cannot be released. The old man is in spasms, his body rocking forward and back in convulsions. It is not human and it is not animal: it is possession. He is on his knees, incessantly slamming the palms of his hands onto the stone, though he seems to feel no pain. He also pounds his head into the ground, and each time he does he shrieks out curses in a harsh language not known to me.

  I draw back, aghast at the viciousness of the evil spirit devouring him. He bawls, screams and then wails in Greek, though with an effort that sees him spit bile across the dirt, as though his tongue is caught between earth and underworld. Through gritted teeth he growls, ‘Why do you not come? Why don’t you show yourself?’

  I take a breath, call on The God and step forward. On seeing me, the old man hurls himself against me with a force that is not human and I am slammed against the wall. I try to get up but he is standing over me, spit and blood from his wounds spraying. He is looking straight at me but he doesn’t see me. And he never stops that inhuman howling.