The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  He realized that he should be ashamed of such plotting. The classic story: he loves her, she loves him, but ‘they’ are against it. And then the enterprising young man of modest working-class origins climbs up the ivory tower of the oldest aristocracy of the city, without losing his progressive ideals, naturally . . . merde! A feuilleton, that’s what he was. A shameless social climber. He felt totally ridiculous.

  What the hell. You only live once, he thought, and sometimes life was made of clichés; so what? He really did love her, and they were very happy together. It was authentic love. Everyone else could go get screwed.

  He tried to control his exhilaration, the heady delirium that grabbed him whenever the wheel of fortune spun his way and spurred him to jump right into the fray. He realized that he had to consider the whole thing carefully, unhurriedly. The party was willing to set their sights on him as a brilliant, successful intellectual, faithful to his political and ideological principles: this was the image they wanted to create for him, how they wanted the electors to see him. The senator had been polite and encouraging, but it was evident that he himself, Michel Charrier, had to pull out the winning hand.

  He put Mireille’s photograph back down on the table and picked up the notebook in which he’d written the outline of his latest study: ‘The propagandistic value of Roman-age agora constructions in Ephesus.’ Less than awe-inspiring. Rigorous, original, deftly argued, but . . . a little dry. Okay to add to the bunch in a tenure evaluation, but not impressive enough to win him the chair. Nor to get people talking inside the University and out. What he was being asked to do was to exploit his research and to pretend, on top of it, that this wasn’t a contradiction in terms in itself; that politics and science could join in a chaste union – without politics fucking science, put simply.

  Dial up the senator and tell him to go to hell, or try to reconcile the two with the least amount of damage? He could attempt to come up with something. If nothing interesting occurred to him, he’d withdraw, declaring nobly that intellectual honesty allowed no compromise. The fox and the grapes. Shit.

  Michel took the pack of unopened mail that was sitting on his desk and began to look through it. He just couldn’t concentrate; he’d been invaded by a craving to take the bull by the horns, to get started on this new challenge, a challenge which was arousing all his energies. Energies which were flying every which way, like flies trapped in a bottle.

  ‘Steady, now,’ he chastised himself. ‘The moment has not arrived; no means nor methods yet, just intent. And not even certain intention. Better to open the mail and think about the lesson.’

  Catalogues, subscriptions, an invitation to a convention, a bill from a bookstore. Abstracts: ‘Obscene language in military life in the Imperial age’; ‘The importance of the asyndeton in Sallustian prose’; ‘The composition of cement mortar in Sillan age constructions’; ‘Hypothesis on the necromantic rite in the Odyssey, Book XI’; ‘Internal road networks and Hadrian’s Wall’; ‘Phallic metaphors in slingshot projectile inscriptions’. It didn’t look like his colleagues scattered throughout the world were coming up with many sparkling ideas either.

  The caretaker knocked on the door: ‘Professor, it’s time for your lesson. Your students are waiting.’

  He picked up his bag, his books and his notes and went along to the classroom, but his concentration was close to zero. He dragged laboriously through the lesson; there was an idea taking shape in the back of his head, but he needed a connection that just wasn’t forthcoming. It fluttered around aimlessly without its meaning becoming clear. But it was a good idea, he could feel it, an important idea. Something that could solve the problem. What the devil . . . He suddenly realized that he hadn’t finished his sentence and the students were looking at him in surprised silence. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit distracted this morning. What was it I was saying?’

  ‘You were saying that a fragment of Heraclid Ponticus reveals Alexander the Great’s intention to dominate the West,’ prompted a girl sitting in the first row, always present and always attentive, the type who would do postgraduate work and stay on for life in the department.

  ‘Thank you, mademoiselle. In fact, as I was saying, although Heraclid Ponticus doesn’t directly mention Alexander’s bellicose intentions, he talks about the god Dionysus subjugating India and Etruria; that is, the easternmost and westernmost regions of the known world. Now, we know that, in keeping with his mother Olympia’s religious convictions, Alexander was brought up to think of himself as an imitator of Dionysus. Thus we may reasonably presume that after having conquered India he would have planned to conquer Etruria, as Dionysus did. Etruria – in other words, Italy and the West. The stuff of myths was often transformed, in antiquity, into a very real force, with concrete consequences. Well. That’s all for today. And . . . sorry about losing track earlier, I guess I’m a bit tired.’

  The students filed out one after another, while the girl who had brought the conclusive words of the lesson to mind lagged behind, giving him a look – over a pair of elegant gold-framed glasses – of maternal comprehension and more-than-scholarly admiration.

  Michel smiled distractedly and remained in the classroom after they had all gone. All right, now he could concentrate on collecting his wandering thoughts and getting a handle on this evasive idea. The idea seemed to be accompanied by the strains of a song, something rare, an old folk song, perhaps, an intense, sad melody . . .

  The idea had something to do with the title of one of those abstracts . . .

  A hypothesis, yes . . .

  Hypothesis on the necromantic rite in the Odyssey, Book XI.

  That was the key! An incredible exploit that would make him famous and attract the attention of the whole world. The prophecy of Tiresias! The raising of the dead . . .

  The idea struck like lightning, releasing an image that had been held prisoner, sealed and scarred over at the back of his brain, for many years. The idea sprang out, razor-sharp, and penetrated his soul with cruel force before he realized what was happening. It exploded like a spring long compressed: the image of a warrior with an oar on his shoulder, being questioned by a man in Scythian garb. An altar behind him, with a bull, a boar and a ram. The golden vase . . . it represented the last voyage of Odysseus, the prophecy of Tiresias. Along with other, unknown, adventures of the hero, stories the world had never heard. The vase of Tiresias revealed the continuation of the Odyssey!

  But from that vase, as if it were Pandora’s box, flowed hallucinations he had long banished – unacknowledged blame, forgotten deaths, the salt of ancient tears. The blue pallor in Heleni’s eyes, Claudio Setti’s last glance, veiled with death . . . and that strange melody. It was a song that Claudio used to sing or play on his flute when he was alone . . . sitting on the seashore, far from the jokes and laughter of his friends . . .

  Michel waited for his heart to absorb the impact, for the mad beating to quieten down. When the whirlwind had subsided, and only the soft notes of Claudio’s song remained at the bottom of his soul, his eyes returned to the table, to the notebook open in front of him. He took a pencil and sketched out a drawing freehand: a nearly perfect reproduction of the vase he had seen ten years earlier in the basement of the National Museum, the night of the Polytechnic massacre.

  It suddenly seemed as if just a few moments had passed: the vase rotated in space in his mind’s eye, revealing its storied bands, its sequence of scenes. His hand raced over the paper, the pencil etching out the contours, the light and the dark. He stopped for a moment to give his memory time to assemble and recreate the forms as his newly tormented conscience shook with emotion. Unknown beasts and monsters, heraldic animals rearing up on the hero’s unsheathed sword, mountains and valleys, birds immobile on that golden sky, wings wide.

  His shirt was drenched with sweat and his hair plastered to his forehead; he had no idea how much time had passed when the caretaker stuck his head in the door.

  ‘Professor, wh
at are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The faculty meeting ended half an hour ago!’

  Michel raised his eyes and the caretaker looked at him with a mixture of surprise and apprehension.

  ‘What’s happened, Professor? Is something wrong?’

  Michel hurriedly gathered the sheets spread all over the desk and stuffed them into his briefcase. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dried his forehead: ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s seven-thirty. I was just making my rounds before closing up the place. If I hadn’t looked in this classroom, I would have locked you in! I always say, better to check everything, you never know.’

  ‘Seven-thirty. It’s late . . . it really is late, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Jacques. I felt . . . faint, so I waited for it to pass, I didn’t want to alarm anyone. It’s nothing at all, it’s just that lately I’ve been laying it on too thick with my work, I’m afraid. Monday I’ll be fine. You’ll see, I’ll be fine . . .’

  ‘Do you want me to call you a cab?’

  ‘No thanks, my car is outside. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Well then, have a nice weekend, Professor.’

  ‘Just a minute, Jacques.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could you come with me for just a minute? There’s something I have to show you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Michel went to his study, took the envelope with the Odyssey abstract from the rest of his mail, and showed it to the caretaker.

  ‘Jacques, all of these abstracts are addressed to the department, and you always leave them for me, because I’m the one who takes care of them. But on this envelope there’s just my first and last name, no sender, no university stamp. Could you find out if we have contacts with this publisher, and if there are other publications from the same house here at the University?’

  ‘Monday I’ll check, and I’ll let you know if you leave the envelope with me. But to tell you the truth, I’ve never noticed that name before. If you don’t know who sent it to you, I may not be of much help.’

  ‘Check our files, if you will, Jacques, and see if we have any other publications by the same author, and make me up a report. I’ll be out until Wednesday.’

  ‘All right, Professor. When you come back, I’ll let you know what I’ve found.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll take the abstract, then.’

  He put it in his jacket pocket and walked out. The square was still warm with the late afternoon sun and a towering cloud in the middle of the sky was rimmed with its blond light. Michel went to the café on the other side of the square, sat down and ordered a cognac: he needed something to whip him back into shape. It was as if he had walked for miles: his back ached, and his legs felt like they would give way. When the waiter brought his drink, he took a long swallow and pulled the abstract out of his pocket. He read the name of the author and the title and looked for the publisher’s name. He’d never heard of them: Perièghesis, 17 Dionysìou Street, Athens.

  Athens . . . Would he see Athens again?

  Grenoble, 13 July, 8 p.m.

  Mireille Catherine Genevieve de Saint-Cyr had been waiting for ages, dressed in jeans and a fringed jacket, for her theatre-bistro date with Michel and two other couples. She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t at least phoned to tell her he’d be late.

  She decided to call him herself, because she hated to make other people wait. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. Michel had surely left home already and was on his way: even calculating that he was just getting into the car, even calculating the decrepit Deux-Chevaux he was driving – twelve years old or more, incredible even by his intellectual gauchiste standards – and even calculating Saturday night traffic, he should have been able to get there in half an hour at the very most. She called her friends, apologizing for the delay and waffling a plausible excuse that she would work out with Michel, but half an hour passed, then an hour, without him showing up. She called her friends back and told them to go on ahead, then tried Michel again. Still no answer. She was starting to get worried. Michel had been acting a little strangely recently, but she couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t come to pick her up.

  She went down to the garage and sped in her car over to Michel’s place on rue des Orfèvres. The Deux-Chevaux was parked in front, full of papers and dust. She looked up: the light in his apartment was on. But if he was home, why wasn’t he answering the phone? Maybe he was ill, or maybe he’d been robbed, attacked?

  She ran up the stairs lightly, reached Michel’s apartment and knocked on the door. At first there was no answer, then a hesitant voice asked: ‘Who’s there?’

  It was not Michel’s voice. It was a voice she’d never heard before, with a foreign accent. The light on the stairs was timer-set and went off, and Mireille fumbled along the wall to switch it back on, but hit the doorbell instead. The same voice said: ‘It’s open, come in.’ She turned around, frightened, and was about to go back down the stairs when the door opened and a dark, still shape loomed up behind it. She screamed.

  ‘Mireille, calm down. It’s me.’

  ‘Michel? But what’s wrong, why didn’t you call me? There’s someone in there – who is it?’

  ‘It’s . . . a friend. He arrived unexpectedly. It’s about something very important.’

  ‘But we had a date. You could have phoned me at least. I’ve been calling and calling.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mireille, please don’t be angry.’ His voice was hoarse and husky, as though he’d been talking for hours. ‘Something happened. I’ve been out.’

  ‘Something serious? Is someone hurt?’

  ‘No, honey. No one’s hurt. But please go now. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll explain everything.’

  He turned on the light and Mireille could at last see him: he was pale, but his eyes were bright. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Don’t you want me to stay?’

  ‘I’m fine. Please go.’

  She walked away unhappily and Michel stood with his hand on the light switch, listening to her receding footsteps.

  ‘Your girlfriend?’ asked the voice behind him.

  ‘Yeah. I’d forgotten about her. She was worried.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve ruined your evening.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Norman. I don’t think I would have felt like going out, anyway. Come on, I’ll make some coffee.’

  Michel put the coffee pot on and got two cups ready. ‘Why me?’ he asked without turning.

  ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You’re an expert in your field. One of the best.’

  ‘There’s better.’

  ‘Maybe. But you see, what’s happened to me in just a few days is too much for anyone to face alone: my father killed under such absurd circumstances, and the golden vase reappearing suddenly in a little town in the Peloponnesus. After ten years. It all goes back to those days we’ve tried to forget.’

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘My father was killed by an arrow that split his heart. With a double-pulleyed Pearson bow, an incredibly lethal weapon. And he was blindfolded and gagged after his death. What’s more, I’ve been told, unofficially you understand, that a message was found on his body. Weird words in archaic Greek, I think, that no one’s been able to interpret. Like a . . . signal of some sort, a macabre warning. I don’t know why, but my mind went straight back to that day I left Athens to go back to London. My father told me that he thought Claudio and Heleni had been murdered by the police, but that there was nothing he could do about it; reasons of state prevented him from speaking out. You see, Michel? Everything points back to those days and only you can help me, because you know . . . you’re the only one who knows . . .’

  ‘Yeah. What went on behind the scenes, shall we say.’

  ‘That’s right. I can’t imagine attempting to do this with anyone else. And even if I had tried to do it on my own, and hadn’t told you anything . . . well, if I had succeeded, you woul
d have hated me for not telling you anything.’

  ‘Maybe I should hate you for having come looking for me.’

  Norman lowered his gaze: ‘You’ve never let go . . .’

  ‘Why, you have?’

  ‘We were kids, Michel. We did what we could.’

  ‘You, maybe.’ His voice trembled. ‘I . . . I . . .’ He couldn’t go on.

  ‘You were just the unlucky one. You were the one who got caught, Michel.’

  ‘They were the unlucky ones. They died.’

  Norman didn’t know what to say. He looked at his friend, his face all wrinkled up like an old man’s, his mouth twisting into a grimace, the tears leaking from his closed lids. He put a hand on his shoulder: ‘We were so young. My God, Michel, we were just kids.’

  Michel dried his eyes. ‘Oh Christ, the coffee, it’s boiling over.’ He turned off the flame and noisily blew his nose, then poured the boiling coffee into two unmatching cups. ‘I had some nice ones somewhere, but I can’t find them any more.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve always been a shambles. But you’re getting worse as you get older! Got a smoke?’

  ‘Gauloises,’ said Michel, taking a pack from his pocket.

  Norman took the cigarette and lit up: ‘My God, still smoking this same shit. It’s like old times, Michel. This coffee’s not bad, but I wouldn’t mind a nice cup of the Turkish stuff: it’s been ages.’

  ‘Listen, let’s get on with it,’ said Michel, lighting up a cigarette as well. ‘Let’s not waste any more time with preliminaries. Tell me exactly what’s happening. And what you’re thinking of doing.’

  ‘I want to find out who killed my father and why.’

  ‘The Greek police and British Intelligence are at work on it. Not enough for you?’

  ‘We know more than they do, if my intuition is right.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Recover that golden vase.’ Michel’s coffee cup remained in mid-air. ‘Drink, it’ll get cold.’