The Athenian Murders

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  The light of the sun pecked lazily at the grass, before landing on a branch and trilling a few notes. A second nightingale alighted beside it.36

  35 The birds, like the butterflies, are eidetic, so they have now turned into rays of sunlight. The reader should note that there is nothing miraculous or magical about it, it's as much of a literary device as the change of metre in a poem. (T.'s N.)

  36 The metamorphosis of bird into light here takes place the other way around. Readers encountering an eidetic text for the first time may find these sentences confusing, but, I repeat, this isn't a miracle but simply a question of language. (T.'s N.).

  At last, Eumarchus finished his story. 'Explain to me, O great Decipherer, what it all means,' he said.

  Heracles pondered a moment before saying: 'Now, I still require your help, good Eumarchus. Follow Antisus' footsteps at night and report to me every two or three days. But first, fly hurriedly to my friend's house with this message ...'

  'I am grateful to you, Heracles, for agreeing to have our meal outside,' said Crantor. 'Do you know, I can no longer endure the gloomy interiors of Athenian houses? The inhabitants of villages south of the Nile cannot believe that in our civilised Athens we live cloistered within adobe walls. They believe that only the dead need walls.' He took another piece of fruit from the bowl and drove the sharp beak of his dagger into the table. After a moment, he said: 'You're not in a talkative mood.'

  The Decipherer seemed to awaken from a dream. In the intact peace of the garden a small bird warbled a tune. Sharp clattering gave away Cerberus' presence in a corner, as he licked the remains from his dish.

  They were dining on the porch. Obeying Crantor's wishes, and aided by the guest himself, Ponsica had brought out the table and two couches from the cenacle. The air was growing cold, for the Sun's chariot of fire was completing its journey, its curved trail of gold stretching, unbroken, across the band of sky above the pines, but it was still possible to sit outside and enjoy the sunset. Though his friend had certainly been loquacious, entertaining even, recounting numerous Odyssean anecdotes and allowing him to listen in silence without having to contribute, Heracles had ended up regretting his invitation: the details of the enigma he was on the verge of solving were tormenting him. And he had to keep a constant watch over the sun's curved trajectory, as he was concerned not to be late for his appointment later that evening. But his Athenian sense of hospitality prompted him to say: 'Crantor, my friend, I apologise for being such a poor host. I have let my thoughts fly elsewhere.'

  'Oh, I don't want to disturb you, Heracles. I assume you've been pondering a matter relating to your work.'

  ‘I have. But I am ashamed of my inhospitable behaviour. So let me now perch my thoughts on a branch and partake in conversation.'

  Crantor wiped his nose with the back of his hand and finished his piece of fruit. 'Are things going well? In your work, I mean.'

  'I can't complain. I'm treated better than my colleagues in Corinth and Argos. They do nothing but decipher the enigmas of the Delphic oracle for a few rich clients. Here, I'm much in demand: to solve a mystery in an Egyptian text, establish the whereabouts of a lost object, identify a thief. There was a time, just after you left, at the end of the war, when I had barely enough to eat . . . Don't laugh, it's true. So I, too, turned to solving the riddles of Delphi. But now, in peacetime, we Athenians have nothing better to do than decipher enigmas, even when there are none. We gather in the Agora, or the gardens of the Lyceum, or at the theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, or simply in the streets, and question one another incessantly · · · And when no one has an answer, they engage a Decipherer.'

  Crantor laughed again. 'You, too, have chosen the life you wanted, Heracles.'

  'I don't know, Crantor, I don't know.' He rubbed his bare arms beneath his cloak. 'I think this way of life has chosen me.'

  Ponsica brought another jug of undiluted wine. Her silence seemed to infect them. Heracles noticed that his friend (Was Crantor still his friend? Were they not now strangers reminiscing about mutual friends?) was watching the slave. The last, pure rays of sun alighted on the gentle curves of the featureless mask; slender but in constant movement, her snow-white arms emerged from the symmetrical openings of the black, floor-length cloak with pointed edges. Ponsica placed the jug gently on the table, bowed and left. From his corner, Cerberus barked furiously.

  'I can't... I couldn't...' muttered Crantor suddenly. 'Couldn't what?'

  'Wear a mask to hide my ugliness. I assume your slave wouldn't either if you didn't force her to.'

  'The complex pattern of her scars distracts me,' said Heracles. He shrugged, adding: 'She is my slave, after all. Others make them do their work naked. I've covered her up completely'

  'Does her body distract you, too?' smiled Crantor, tugging at his beard with his burnt hand.

  'No, but all I want from her is efficiency and silence: I need both so that I can think in peace.'

  The invisible bird whistled three sharply distinct notes. Crantor turned his head towards the house. 'Have you ever seen her naked?' he asked.

  Heracles nodded. 'When I inquired about her at the Phaleron market, the trader stripped her - he thought her body more than made up for her ruined face and that I would therefore pay more. But I said to him: "Have her dress. I simply need to know if she can cook and run a modest-sized house without help." The merchant assured me that she was very efficient, but I wanted her to tell me so herself. When I saw that she didn't answer, I realised that the man had been trying to hide the fact that she couldn't speak. Embarrassed, he explained quickly that she was a mute and told me the story of the Lydian bandits. He added: "But she expresses herself with a simple alphabet of signs." So I bought her.' Heracles paused and sipped his wine, adding: 'It's the best purchase I've ever made, I assure you. But she's gained, too: I have arranged that she should be set free upon my death and have, in fact, already allowed her considerable freedom. Occasionally she even asks for permission to go to Eleusis, as she worships the Sacred Mysteries, and I happily grant it.' He concluded with a smile: 'We're both happy.'

  'How do you know?' said Crantor. 'Have you ever asked her?'

  Heracles looked at him over the curved edge of his cup. 'I don't need to,' he said. 'I deduce that she is.'

  Sharp musical notes filled the air. Crantor narrowed his eyes and said, after a pause: 'Always deducing, Heracles . . .' He tugged at his moustache and beard with his burnt hand. 'That's all you ever do ... Things appear before you masked and mute, and you insist on deducing from them.' He shook his head and looked oddly at his friend, as if he admired him for it. 'You're so incredibly Athenian, Heracles. At least the Platonists, like that client of yours the other day, believe in absolute immutable truths that they cannot see . . . But you? What do you believe in? In what you deduce?'

  'I only believe in what I can see,' said Heracles simply. 'Deduction is another way of seeing things.'

  'Imagine a world full of people like you.' Crantor smiled and paused, as if really doing so. 'How sad it would be.'

  'It would be quiet and efficient,' retorted Heracles. 'Now, a world of Platonists would be sad: they'd walk through the streets as if they were flying, eyes closed and minds set on the invisible.'

  They laughed. Crantor was the first to stop, saying in a strange tone: 'So the best solution is a world full of people like me.'

  Heracles raised his eyebrows, amused. 'Like you? They might suddenly feel the urge to burn their hands, or their feet, or to bang their head against a wall. Everyone would be wandering around maimed. And who knows? Some might start maiming others.'

  'No doubt they would,' said Crantor. 'It is, in fact, what happens everywhere every day. For instance, we maimed the fish you served for dinner this evening with our sharp teeth. The Platonists believe in what they cannot see, you believe in what you can see. But when you eat you all mutilate meat and fish. And figs.'

  Ignoring the jibe, Heracles ate the fig he'd raised to his mouth. Crantor w
ent on: 'You think, and reason, and believe, and have faith . . . But the Truth . . . Where is the Truth?' He laughed loudly, his chest shaking. A few birds detached themselves, like pointed leaves, from high branches.

  After a pause, Crantor turned his black eyes to Heracles. 'I've noticed you staring at the scars on my hand,' he said. 'Do you find them distracting, too? Oh, Heracles, how glad I am that I did what I did that afternoon in Euboea, as we discussed similar matters! Do you remember? We sat, just you and I, beside the small fire inside my cabin. I said: ‘If I had an urge to burn my right hand and did so, I would prove to you that some things can't be reasoned.' You replied: 'No, Crantor, because it would be easy to reason that you were doing so in order to prove that there are things that can't be reasoned.' So I stretched out my arm and placed my hand in the flames.' He did likewise, holding his right arm over the table, and went on: 'Astounded, you leapt up and cried: "Crantor, by Zeus, what are you doing!" And I, my hand still in the flames, replied: "Why are you so surprised, Heracles? Is it because, against all reason, I am burning my hand? Or that, despite all the logical explanations that your mind may devise as to my motive, the fact is, the reality is, Heracles Pontor, that I am burning my hand?'" He burst out laughing again. 'What good is reasoning when you see Reality burn its hand?'

  Heracles looked down at his cup. 'Actually, Crantor, there is an enigma that defies my powers of reasoning,' he said. 'How is it possible that we're friends?'

  They laughed again, with restraint this time. Just then, a small bird alighted on the end of the table, flapping its delicate, dun-coloured wings. Crantor gazed at it in silence.37 'Observe this bird, for example,' he said. 'Why has it landed on the table? Why is it here, with us?'

  37 As the reader must already realise, there is nothing fortuitous about the bird's presence. On the contrary, together with the butterflies and the eidetic birds in the garden, it is there to draw attention to the hidden image of the Stymphalian birds. The obvious repetition of the words 'pointed', 'curved' and 'sharp', evoking their beaks, contributes to this. (T.'s N.)

  ‘It must have a reason. Maybe we should ask it.' 'I'm being serious. From your point of

  view, you might see this little bird as more important in our lives than it seems.' 'What do you mean?'

  'Perhaps ...' Crantor said enigmatically, 'perhaps it's part of the key that explains our presence in the great Work that is the world.'

  Heracles smiled, though he felt in poor humour. 'Is this what you believe in now?'

  'No. I'm looking at things from your point of view. But, you know, he who always seeks explanations runs the risk of inventing them.'

  'No one would invent something quite so ridiculous, Crantor. How could anyone believe that the presence of this bird is part of . . . how did you put it? The key that explains everything?'38

  Crantor didn't answer: slowly, hypnotically, he stretched out his hand, opening it as it neared the bird. In a single lightning move, he caught it in fingers with sharp, curved nails. 'Some do believe it,' he said. 'Let me tell you a story' He held the little head up to his face and peered at it strangely (it was impossible to tell whether with tenderness or curiosity). 'Some time ago I met a mediocre man, the son of a writer no less mediocre than him. This man aspired to be a writer like his father, but the Muses didn't bless him with talent. So he learned languages and turned his hand to translating - the profession that most resembled his father's. One day, the man was given an ancient papyrus and told to translate it. He set to eagerly, working day and night. It was a work in prose, a quite ordinary story, but the man, perhaps because he could not create anything of his own, wanted to believe that it contained a hidden key. And thus began his agony.

  38 Our cunning author is playing with his readers again! Unaware of the truth - that is, that they are merely characters in a book with a hidden key - the characters make fun of the eidetic presence of the bird. (T.'sN.)

  Where was the secret hidden? In the characters' speech? In the descriptions? Deep within the words? Or in the images? At last, he thought he'd found it: 'I've got it!' he said to himself. But then he thought: Might this key not lead to another, and another, and another? Like myriad birds that are impossible to catch.' Crantor's eyes, suddenly dull, were staring at a point somewhere beyond Heracles. They were staring at you.39

  'What happened to him?'

  39 I suddenly felt a little dizzy and had to stop work. It's nothing, just a stupid coincidence - it so happens that my late father was a writer. I can't describe my feelings as I translated Crantor's words, written thousands of years ago on an old papyrus by an unknown author. He's talking about me! I thought for one crazy moment. When I got to the sentence, 'They were staring at you' - another jump into the second person, as in the previous chapter - I leapt away from the paper as if it might burn me and had to stop translating for a while. Then I reread the words, several times, until at last my absurd terror abated. I can go on now. (T.'s N.)

  'He went mad.' Beneath the bristly chaos of his beard, Crantor's lips formed into a sharp curved smile. 'It was terrible. No sooner did he think he'd found the final key than another very different one landed in his hands, and another, and another ... In the end, completely insane, he stopped translating the text and fled from his home. He roamed the forest for several days like a blinded bird. In the end he was devoured by wild beasts.'40 Crantor looked down at the tiny frenzied creature in his hand and smiled again. 'This is the warning I give to all those who so eagerly seek hidden keys: take care, or you might not notice that you're flying blind, so confident are you of your wings ...' Slowly, almost tenderly, he moved his sharp pointed thumbnail towards the little head poking from between his fingers.

  40 Like Montalo? {T.'sN.)

  The bird's agony was tiny and horrific, like the screams of a child tortured underground.

  Heracles sipped his wine placidly.

  Afterwards, Crantor tossed the bird on to the table, like a petteia player flinging down a counter. 'That is my warning,' he said.

  The bird was still alive, but it was shivering and chirping frenziedly. It made two clumsy little leaps and shook its head, scattering bright red clots.

  Heracles greedily seized another fig.

  Eyes half-closed, Crantor might have been thinking of quite trivial things as he watched the bird shake its bloody head.

  'Beautiful sunset,' said Heracles, somewhat bored, scanning the horizon. Crantor agreed.

  The bird suddenly flew off but crashed, as if flung, brutally, into the trunk of a nearby tree. It left a crimson mark and let out a cry. It took off again, colliding with the lower branches. It fell to the ground but rose once more, only to fall again, trailing garlands of blood from its empty eye sockets. After several futile leaps, it rolled on the grass and lay still, waiting, hoping for death.

  Heracles remarked, with a yawn: 'It really isn't too chilly.'41 Suddenly, Crantor got up from the couch, as if the conversation were at an end. But he added: 'The Sphinx devoured anyone who gave the wrong answers to her questions. But do you know the worst thing, Heracles? The Sphinx had wings, and one day she flew away. Since then, we men have experienced something much worse than being devoured: not knowing whether our answers are right.' He stroked his beard with one of his enormous hands and smiled. 'Thank you for the meal and for your hospitality, Heracles Pontor. We will have occasion to see each other again before I leave Athens.' 'I trust we will,' said Heracles.

  And man and dog headed out through the garden.42

  41It seems Heracles hasn't noticed that Crantor has gouged out

  the bird's eyes. One must therefore deduce that this brutal act of torture has taken place at an eidetic level, like the attacks of the 'beast' in the previous chapter and the coiled snakes at the end of Chapter Two. This is the first time, however, that a character in the novel has

  done something like this. I find this intriguing. As a rule, literary acts are carried out by the author, as the characters' behaviour must at all times remain as cl
ose to real life as possible. But it seems that Crantor's anonymous creator couldn't care less whether his character is realistic or not. (T.'s N.)

  42Why this eidetic cruelty to the bird, whose presence - let us not forget - is also eidetic? What is the author trying to tell us? Crantor says it's a 'warning', but from whom to whom? Fine, if Crantor is part of the plot, but if he's simply the author's mouthpiece, the

  warning begins, terrifyingly, to sound like a curse: 'Translator or reader, beware, don't reveal the secret contained in these pages ... or something unpleasant may befall you.' Maybe Montalo found out what it was and . . . That's ridiculous! The book was written thousands of years ago. How could a curse have power after all this time? My head's full of (eidetic) birds. There must be a simpler answer: Crantor is one more character, he's just badly drawn. Crantor is a mistake. He may not even have anything to do with the main theme. (T.'sN.)

  Diagoras was at the agreed place by nightfall but, as he expected, he had to wait. He was thankful, however, that the Decipherer had not chosen as crowded a spot as the last. This time it was a deserted corner beyond the metic traders' quarter, facing alleys leading into the districts of Kolytos and Melitta. And it was well away from the stares of the crowds whose noisy revelling could be heard - far more loudly than Diagoras would have wished - coming mainly from the Agora. The night was cold and capriciously, impenetrably misty. The dark peace of the streets was occasionally disturbed by the unsteady footsteps of a drunk. And there were also the comings and goings of the astynomi's servants, always in pairs or groups and carrying torches and sticks, and of small detachments of soldiers returning from guarding some religious service. Diagoras looked at no one and no one looked at him. One man, however, approached him. He was short and wore a threadbare cloak that also served as a hood. From its folds, he cautiously slid a long, bony arm with outstretched hand, like a crane's leg.