In the Shape of a Boar

by Lawrence Norfolk

  The entrance to the cave was both larger and more distant than he had thought. The cleft in the rock dwarfed its defenders, who were specks of movement against the darkness behind them. Twitching disturbances. Then, suddenly, one of them was still.

  The old man raised his hand. A last burst of noise rolled around the walls and broke apart. The guns fell silent. Look at us, thought Sol. What sign do we form? And the crouching silhouette against its blade of light, the ripples in its outline as it shifts. The old man stood up. All wrong, Sol thought. He might have spoken aloud, for Uncle America turned back to him and said something he did not understand. All of it lost. The old man faced the dark break in the rock and called out.

  Slowly and unsteadily, something rose from the floor of the cave, a shape which at first made no sense to Sol. Uncle America was already standing. At the appearance of the distant figure the younger men rose too. They watched as the figure stumbled down the slope from the entrance, fell heavily, and then appeared to break in two.

  The old man began to walk forward. The others followed.

  Two bodies had come to rest at the foot of the slope. One lay motionless where it fell. As the five of them approached, the other stirred, then rose.

  Thyella got to her feet and walked back to where the dead man lay. She bent to lift him again, hooking her arms under the dead man and dragging him slowly away from the cave. Nothing moved there now.

  They halted a little way short of the woman. The old man spoke. She let fall her burden then turned to him. The old man looked into her face, then down at the dead man. He shook his head and said something. Uncle America reached inside his jacket, then pointed towards the cave. He took Sol's hand and pressed the revolver into it.

  Her eyes had passed over him then. Her face betrayed no sign of recognition. She had raised her hand to her mouth and placed a finger to her lips.

  Sol glanced down at the weapon. The old man reached out with his free hand and touched his palm to Thyella's face. The two had looked at each other.

  Sol walked towards the cave, past the dead man, who was Xanthos. She had closed his eyes. He reached the slope which led up to the entrance. Loose stones rolled under his feet. The air inside was colder, and damper, and their discarded weapons lay on the ground among drifts of spent cartridge cases. He looked back once before walking into the darkness. She was walking away from them across the floor of the Cauldron. She had almost reached the centre. The old man raised his rifle to his shoulder. She came to a halt. Sol turned away before the shot.

  ***

  Sol said, ‘I know that her name was Anastasia Kosta. She took the name Thyella and fought with the andartes in the region of Greece known as Agrapha from 1941 until her death in 1944. I believe she was the lover of an andarte who fought under the name of Xanthos. He was wounded and captured in an action ordered by Colonel Heinrich Eberhardt in the summer of 1943. Thyella was captured in the same action, as was I. She escaped. I and Xanthos did not. Perhaps she was allowed to escape. I do not know.

  ‘Eberhardt was an intelligence officer attached to the German headquarters at Messolonghi. He was killed during the German withdrawal in September 1944, either outside Messolonghi or in the mountains north of Karpenisi. If Thyella betrayed her comrades to Eberhardt in exchange for her lover's life and, by chance, my own, I do not know how. If she killed a German officer so that his corpse might pass as Eberhardt's, I do not know why. If I was her night-hunter, as you said, I proved a poor one. I know that she was executed without trial in a place called the Cauldron in the autumn of 1944 and that, before she died, she asked me for my silence, which I have kept.’

  Here is the place. Here is its home.

  Sol looked around the empty room. He heard the distant thud of the lift and wondered for a moment if Ruth might have decided to return. But the whine of the electric motor passed his floor and continued up through the building. He rose from his chair, walked to the window and looked down.

  Ruth was crossing the bridge. She appeared and disappeared, moving through the pools of streetlight and their intervening darknesses. She had waited long seconds for his answer. Then she had risen to her feet.

  ‘How could I have answered you, Ruth? Our memories never tell us the stories we need. Our heroes never live the lives we require. Such lives leave no trace for those who follow. Their true acts take place in darkness and silence and their untellable stories rest with them, in the cave. What could I have shown you of that?’

  PART III

  Agrapha

  The damp was animal. The air he breathed had been breathed before. Latent in the soured air was its fizzing rush through living blood. Standing in the cave's dead lung, his own lungs pressed the cage of his ribs, relapsed, and pressed again. The other's old breath flowed through him.

  He walked forward and the light died. His eyes strained against a darkness he knew to be absolute. He closed them then advanced, feeling his way forward, taking slow steps. A loose rock rolled beneath his foot and rattled over the cave-floor, which was ribbed with little humps and ridges. The passage dropped, then slanted, leading him deeper into the darkness.

  His progress slowed, or seemed to. There was no time here. He felt for the crevice or crack that would trap his foot and trip his weight forward, sending him headlong into space, or nothing, his own blindness. The night-hunter tracks by the light of the moon. . . . No moon had ever shone here. His palm swept over the stone's cool surfaces, which erupted into pitted honey-combs, then smoothed themselves, or broke into fissured patterns which his mind's eye could not assemble. His arm reached into breaks in the walls and emerged again. He continued.

  The cave narrowed. For a few brief steps, with arms out-stretched, his fingertips would touch both sides. Then it widened again. He stumbled, once, falling and grazing himself on the abrasive stone. The floor yielded nothing to his padding footsteps; their soft scraping and his breathing were the only sounds. The cave's course began to twist. He slowed his pace again. He was patient. Nothing could happen here, except his own creeping progress away from the light. There was no trail to follow now and nothing more to know.

  He thought the cave grew warmer, but it was not so. It was a smell proper to warmth, faint in his nostrils. Musty and dry. Proper to the warmth of an animal's body.

  He reached up and touched the roof of the cave, then traced its orbit around him. He gulped air and held his breath, listening, then dropped to his hands and knees. The smell grew stronger. He reached out his hand. Nothing. The cave's cold stone. But he heard breathing now, toneless and rhythmic. In, and then out. He moved forward and reached again. His hand closed on living flesh. The boar stirred.

  The movement was enough to shrug him off. He crept closer, his fingers tingling as they felt their way forward. A hoof. Its cleft, then the dew claw above it, an ungrown bud at the back of the hind leg. The hair on the haunch was matted with filth or blood. The boar lay on his side, his breathing quick and shallow.

  He felt for the animal's belly, where the hair was sparsest and the skin beneath fine-grained. His palm stroked the fibrous bristles above. The boar shifted again, raising his head then letting it fall. A tusk scraped on the stone. He reached for the hackles. They lay flat along the line of the back, thick as goose quills. Then he lowered his head until the coarse bristles of the boar's flank scratched against his cheek. He settled and ran his fingers into the softer wool beneath. He felt the boar's fading heat pulse through the hard armature of his fat. The lungs rose and fell, each inhalation jostling his head, each exhalation shallower than the last. In, and then out. He was in time. The boar's heart thudded, slower and slower. He waited for its silence.

  Now.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  SIGLA

  ad ad

  aliq. aliquando

  ap. apud

  cit. citation

  cf. confer

  dieg. diegesis

  ff. following

  fort. fortasse

  fr. fragment

&
nbsp; ibid. ibidem

  id. idem

  q.v. quod vide

  Schol. Scholiast

  schol. scholion

  s.v. sub verbo

  vid. vide

  AUTHORS AND WORKS

  Ael

  Aelianus

  Nat Anim

  De natura animalium

  Var Hist

  Varia historia

  Aesch

  Aeschylus

  Ag

  Agamemnon

  Cho

  Choephoroe

  Eum

  Eumenides

  Sept

  Septem contra Thebas

  Pers

  Persae

  Prom

  Prometheus

  Aeschin

  Aeschines

  Alex Pleuron

  Alexander Pleuroniensis

  Ant Lib

  Antonius Liberalis

  Anth Gr

  Anthologia Graeca

  Anth Pal

  Anthologia Palatina

  Antig Car

  Antigonus Carystius

  Apollod

  Apollodorus

  ∼

  Bibliotheca

  Ep

  Epitome

  Ap Rhod

  Apollonius Rhodius

  ∼

  Argonautica

  Apostolius

  Michael Apostolius

  Ar

  Arrian

  Cyn

  Cynegeticus

  Arat

  Aratus

  Phaen

  Phaenomena

  Archil

  Archilochus

  Aristoph

  Aristophanes

  Ach

  Acharnians

  Eccl

  Ecclesiazusae

  Eq

  Equites

  Lys

  Lysistrata

  Nub

  Nubes

  Plut

  Plutus

  Thes

  Thesmophoriazusae

  Vesp

  Vespae

  Aristot

  Aristotle

  Ath Con

  Athenian Constitution

  Gen An

  De Generatione Animalium

  Hist An

  Historia Animalium

  Meteor

  Meterologica

  Nic Eth

  Nicomachean Ethics

  Poet

  Poetics

  Rhet

  Rhetoric

  Athen

  Athenaeus

  ∼

  Deipnosophistoi

  Bacch

  Bacchylides

  CAF

  Comicorum Atticorum Fragmentae, ed. Kock

  Callim

  Callimachus

  Aet

  Aetia

  Hec

  Hecale

  Hymn

  Hymns

  Choerob

  Choeroboscus

  Clem Alex

  Clemens Alexandrinus

  Protrept

  Protrepticus

  CQ

  Classical Quarterly

  Cy

  Cougny

  Epig

  Epigrammatum Anthologiae Palatinae Appendix Nova

  Dem

  Demosthenes

  Dict Cret

  Dictys Cretensis

  Dio Chrys

  Dio Chrysostomus

  Or

  Orationes

  Diod Sic

  Diodorus Siculus

  Diog Laert

  Diogenes Laertes

  Eratos

  Eratosthenes

  Cat

  Catasterismoi

  Eur

  Euripides

  Alc

  Alcestis

  Andr

  Andromache

  Bacch

  Bacchae

  Cyc

  Cyclops

  Elec

  Electra

  Hec

  Hecuba

  Hel

  Helena

  Herc

  Hercules furens

  Hipp

  Hippolytus

  Hyps

  Hypsipyle

  Ion

  Ion

  Iph Aul

  Iphigenia Aulidensis

  Iph Taur

  Iphigenia Taurica

  Med

  Medea

  Mel

  Meleagros

  Or

  Orestes

  Ph

  Phoenissae

  Rh

  Rhesus

  Suppl

  Supplices

  Tro

  Troades

  FrVk

  Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. Diehls and Kranz

  FrGrHist

  Fragmente der griechischen Historike, ed. Jakoby

  Hdt

  Herodotus

  Heph

  Hepaestion

  Ench

  Encheiridion

  Hes

  Hesiod

  Ast

  Astronomia

  Cat

  Catalogus Mulierem

  Melamp

  Melampodia

  Sh

  The Shield of Heracles

  Theog

  Theogony

  WD

  Works and Days

  Hesych

  Hesychius

  Hippoc

  Hippocrates

  Epid

  Epidemiae

  Hom

  Homer

  Hymn

  Homeric Hymns

  Il

  Iliad

  Od

  Odyssey

  Hor

  Horace

  Ode

  Odes

  Hyg

  Hyginus

  Ast

  De Astronomia

  Fab

  Fabulae

  Iamb

  Iamblichus

  Pyth

  Vita Pythagorae

  Inscr Kos

  Inscriptions of Kos, ed. Paton and Hicks

  Isoc

  Isocrates

  Lact Plac

  Lactantius Placidus

  Lesches

  Lesches

  Il

  Ilias Micra

  Luc

  Lucianus Samosatae

  Dial Deorum

  Dialogi Deorum

  Lyc

  Lycophron

  Alex

  Alexandra

  Mar Par

  Marmor Parium

  Mus

  Musaeus

  Hero

  Hero and Lyander

  Nepos

  Nepos

  Tim

  Timoleon

  Nonnus

  Nonnus

  Dionys

  Dionysiaca

  Op

  Oppian

  Cyn

  Cynegetica

  Hal

  Halieutica

  Ov

  Ovid

  Ars Amat

  Ars amatoria

  Fas

  Fasti

  Her

  Heroides

  Met

  Metamorphoses

  Pal

  Palaephatus

  De Incred

  De incredibile

  Parth

  Parthenius

  Er Path

  Erotica Pathemata

  Paus

  Pausanias

  PEG

  Poetae Epici Graeci, ed. Bernabé

  P Berlin

  Berliner Klassikertexte, ed. Schubart

  P Grec

  Papiri Greci et Latini della Societa Italiana, ed. Vitelli et al.

  P Hibeh

  The Hibeh Papyri, ed. Grenfell and Hunt

  Pind

  Pindar

  Isth

  Isthmian Odes

  Nem

  Nemean Odes

  Ol

  Olympian Odes

  Pyth

  Pythian Odes

  Plat

  Plato
<
br />   Crat

  Cratylus

  Crit

  Critias

  Euthyd

  Euthydemus

  Euthyp

  Euthyphro

  Gorg

  Gorgias

  Hipp Maj

  Hippias Major

  Hipp Min

  Hippias Minor

  Ion

  Ion

  Lach

  Laches

  Laws

  Laws