by Brian Aldiss
A primitive belief holds them to the Aulis shore. They believe that the ashen goddess Artemis, the many-breasted Artemis, will not permit them to sail until Agamemnon has sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, played by Sonia Gleesorro, to the goddess.
Grey-haired Agamemnon is plotting with others in his tent.
A cruel scheme is hatched, whereby Iphigenia is lured to Aulis. We see her in the grand wilderness of her mountain home, far away in Argos. She has become a Wise Woman, living alone in a tower a few metres from her noisy family. In several beautiful shots we watch her leave her table where she has been studying, put on sandals and walk out on the slopes dominated by distant blue mountains. The tower stands behind her, already old. Iphigenia wears a light grey robe with scarlet hem. She walks among scattered weeds and scattering chickens to see her family, where her old uncle lies dying.
Other women stand about, inside and outside the cottage. Two small boys linger by their mothers’ aprons. No one speaks. A hound sprawls, panting, by the threshold.
Iphigenia’s uncle lies propped on his rough bed. A messenger has just brought word to the dying man that Achilles wishes to marry Iphigenia. Achilles is with the army on Aulis. Iphigenia protests, but her dying uncle insists that she must go and must consummate the union, for the honour of the family is at stake. Her young brother hugs her and congratulates her. A group of women, assuming statuesque poses, laments her fate. One younger woman runs off down the hill to spread the news in her village of Iphigenia’s turn of fortune.
Iphigenia makes the sea voyage. After many adventures, and the defeat of sea monsters, her ship arrives at Aulis. She is almost dragged from the deck. A man in a black gown with cowl, standing thigh deep in the flood, tells her she must die. War must be waged. We see her face as suddenly, involuntarily, she turns to look back across the sea. Soldiers lead her, no longer visitor but captive, through the surf to Agamemnon. In Agamemnon’s tent stands Achilles. He knows nothing of the ruse that has brought Iphigenia to Aulis. Agamemnon, weeping, tells his child she must be sacrificed to appease the gods. Achilles fights to save her, but is overpowered.
She is resigned. They lead her to a sacrificial stone. The director of Beauty on the Beach, Fritz Shetzenhammer, who is of German-Jewish-Ukrainian origin, does not make the mistake of the Jocasta/Oedipus movie – here there is to be no happy ending, only a dreadful logic, leading like all life eventually to death.
While a great storm rages, with snow blowing in gusts from the bare hillsides, Iphigenia submits for the greater good, giving herself gladly to the ancient rituals of sacrifice, lying unaided on the sacrificial stone. It is her father, Agamemnon himself, who raises the sword, hesitates, then brings it down on his daughter’s womb.
Blood flows; and on that blood the fleet can sail for Troy.
You and Verity, and most of the family, had seen this drama in the cinema, and were moved by its primitive vitality.
‘Yes, primitive vitality, but also some modern sophistication,’ Verity said, over a coffee, when you sat in a café near the cinema after the showing. ‘Shetzenhammer and his scriptwriters have married a slice of Euripides with a slice of Aeschylus’s Oresteia, that ghastly family drama.’
‘What’s “Obestia”, Verity?’ little Sanchi asked. Paul and Joyce had left Sanchi with the nursemaid while they were with you in the cinema.
‘Oresteia’s about wives slaying husbands, sons slaying mothers, written about five hundred years before Christ, I believe. The opening of the film shows Agamemnon receiving word that his wife, Clytemnestra, will slay him when he returns from the invasion of Troy. So that’s the frame within which we see Agamemnon having to destroy his daughter to appease the goddess Artemis.’
‘I liked Artemis,’ said Ted Nash. ‘She was really scary.’
‘So we see that Agamemnon is also doomed.’
‘But who are all these Greek people?’ asked Sanchi, in an aggrieved voice.
Verity and you had to laugh. ‘Their actions and motives have held audiences for two-and-a-half thousand years, Sanchi. Basically, I suppose, it’s all about actions of love and hatred, over which the law has little power.’
And you said in agreement, ‘That must be more or less the case today or MGM would not have spent forty million dollars on the movie.’
Verity had greatly opened up her character since the days of her divorce from Jeremy Nash, being no longer circumscribed by fear. She had a warmth about her to which many people readily responded, including, it seemed, even the great actress, Sonia Gleesorro.
‘I can see you have made Steve so much happier,’ Sonia said to her. ‘What’s the secret? Plenty blow jobs?’ She emitted an instant’s cackle. She was clutching a concoction the golden young men had brought her, as if for tribute. From it she took an occasional sip. Otherwise, she sat motionless as a statue, staring straight ahead. ‘The humbler the person, the happier.’
Suspecting insincerity, Verity said, ‘I’d say the opposite is at least partially true; the happier the person, the humbler. Are you not happy with your renown?’
‘Renown is in itself a form of happiness. Or so they claim.’ She spoke with indifference, above dispute.
‘That too works both ways,’ Verity said, dismissing the subject. ‘Tell me, when you were on that slab, did you know you were going to freeze the blood of the audience? Did you want to freeze the blood of the audience?’
‘It was uncomfortable. I was meant to have some foam rubber support under me, but it didn’t show in time for the shot. I hoped we would scare the daylights out of all those little arseholes who had bullied me at school.’ She thought a while, took a sip from her small glass, and said, ‘No, I didn’t. That was later. I was in the part. Just terrified of that cocksucking sword …’
Fireworks were going off outside the large windows of the Savoy. It lacked only fifty-five minutes to midnight, the birth of the new millennium, and the death of the old, and we talked of the ancient Greeks.
‘I hope you’re going to stay here with us overnight, Sonia,’ you said.
‘No way, baby! Stay in this place? You’re joking.’
‘Oh, we think the Savoy is terribly posh,’ said Verity, good-humouredly.
‘We got a suite at Claridge’s. I’m staying there with Fritz Shetzenhammer.’
Her dark eyes were alert in the dead face, looking from one to the other of you as if peering through a mask. She said, ‘I got a little surprise for you. Call it a New Year gift. Have you got some place private we can go?’ It seemed to be a remark indicating friendliness.
The publicity half-hour was over. The manageress of the hotel came and thanked you. You escorted Sonia in the elevator up to your suite. Her entourage followed in a neighbouring elevator. Sonia looked with practised distaste about her.
She went to the bedroom, where the bed was still unmade after your recent rest period. There you lay still. You were hallucinating. You were on the rock.
Sonia demanded of her maid that the bed be made up. Turning away from this work, she stood staring out of the window, showing neither pleasure nor displeasure as she watched for a minute the illuminated boats floating on the Thames, and the hundreds of people who lined the banks.
‘So, another century.’ She spoke flatly, addressing nobody in particular.
‘They’re two a penny these days,’ you replied. ‘Cheaper by the dozen.’
Without further comment, she went and lay on the bed.
She waved you away, saying, ‘Gimme five minutes, okay?’
You and Verity joined the rest of the family, who were arriving in the outer room. Verity raised an eyebrow at you; you shrugged in return.
‘Can’t you get her out of here?’ Ted asked you in a low voice. ‘We want to enjoy ourselves.’
Barbara squeezed his hand. ‘She’s Sonia Gleesorro, for God’s sake! We can put up with her for an hour, can’t we? I’m just thrilled to be in the same room as her.’
‘That’s right,’ Sanchi piped up. ‘She’s
the Movie Queen! I’m really scared of her.’
‘She’s got a surprise for us,’ Verity said. ‘Can’t guess what it will be.’
‘Maybe she turns into a dragon?’ Joyce suggested. ‘It couldn’t be a very big step for her.’
The bodyguards were carting in new equipment. The new equipment included a screen, which snapped into position, also a number of light folding chairs. The family were ushered into these chairs and sat facing the screen. A metal box was set up beside the screen and plugged in.
You heard an ambulance siren, wailing down the street. ‘Here comes the ambulance,’ said Verity. ‘I’m coming in it with you.’
‘Don’t leave me …’ You clung to her arm, again confused.
The maid went and assisted Sonia off the bed. Ten minutes later, Gleesorro appeared, this time in a flowing gown with a scarlet hem, her hair piled high upon her head.
Her manner was abstract. Her gaze was fixed somewhere above her audience. One of the polished young men drew a curtain over the window to avoid external distraction.
The room was darkened. The screen lit. Once again, ancient Greeks plunged splashing through seawater up to their thighs. You believed you recognized the beach.
‘Why do the classics still hold meaning for us?’ Sonia intoned to her audience. ‘Because they gave us the means to express our inner torments. We sacrifice and are still sacrificed. We still have to wade through the deep waters of life.’
Saying this, she had lost her American accent and was again speaking in unaccented English. Still the soldiers plunged through the waters. Now Iphigenia was among them, skirts flying and adhering wetly to her delectable thighs.
‘You are watching a clip from my movie. It is also a clip from my life, from your lives. Reality is transformed into fiction. Fiction must hold the secret truth of real life. Fiction is greater than life because it has meaning.
‘I’ll let you into a secret. These scenes were shot not in Greece, but on the islands of Guadeloupe. My director, Fritz Shetzen-hammer, has an estate on Guadeloupe. We filmed there, like Bergman on his island, right? And another secret, these scenes were shot only five years ago, not in two hundred BC.’
Someone in the select little audience clapped.
Now the soldiers and the scantily clad woman were running across bare sand. The sand as it had been, bare, warm, scrupulous. Timeless. Mrs North stood again looking down from the dunes. Motion was slowed. There was no music. Sonia ceased speaking. The naked legs seemed to work mechanically.
‘Oh, another secret – those ain’t my thighs.’ Sardonic chuckle. ‘Another secret truth of real life.’
The bracing of feet against sand, the bend of the ankle, the action of the knee, all could be studied as the actors raced over the beaches towards the sacrificial stone.
The audience almost stopped breathing, their backs to the sound of rockets exploding beyond the curtained window of the hotel room, where the drama of the calendar was taking place.
The box by the side of the screen opened like lips parting. A perfect baby girl was revealed. She was naked, and her little fists were clenched in sleep over her chest. Gasps came from the audience. The infant was a perfect dream child, unrecognized by the hand of time.
And now the false Iphigenia came forward with a sword. She raised the sword above the sleeping babe.
One of the women in the audience – it was Joyce – shrieked. Sanchi cried out, ‘No, no don’t, Sonia! Don’t kill that baby!’
The actress paid no attention. She lifted the sword until its hilt was above the level of her eyes. She held it there for a moment.
The infant slept on.
Then down plunged the point of the sword, down into the baby’s stomach. Blood instantly welled out, tiny arms were thrown up in shock, then dropped. The audience broke up, everyone jumping from their seats in horror.
Lights came on. Sonia stood there, mouth slightly open in a laugh of some kind. The baby had vanished.
‘The kid was a hologram, punters!’ she said. ‘Just kidding. You like blood, don’t you? That little act is my millennium gift to you all. Exclusive!’
‘You’re disgusting, disgusting,’ you said weakly.
‘Aw, come on, Steve. That was young Valerie slain, okay? Ma’s dream child, okay? Belated catharsis, okay? Have a laugh.’
Choking with anger, you shouted – but you were whispering – ‘Let’s hope the twenty-first century will not be one half as bloody as your imagination!’ But the words seemed not to register. The banging and popping outside were closer now.
She gave a scornful laugh as she turned away. ‘Human nature don’t ever change.’
Paul and Joyce were trying to comfort their little boy, who sobbed uncontrollably.
‘They’re all archetypes,’ said Paul, consolingly. His face was close to yours.
The equipment was being rapidly packed away by the bodyguard. You and Verity escorted Sonia down in the elevator.
‘Which were you?’ Verity asked. ‘Iphigenia or Clytemnestra?’
It was your prison cell again. You were confused. It drifted in leisurely fashion, and yet seemed to be plunging uncheckably to the ground floor.
Sonia appeared pleased with herself.
‘You like a bit of drama, don’t you?’ she said, stepping out of the elevator. She took the maid’s arm to steady herself. ‘Horror – the stuff of life!’
You crossed the hotel foyer to the street. Mystifyingly, the foyer was now totally deserted, cold, and in semi-darkness. It seemed to be empty of furniture. One of the three Gleesorro youths had called Sonia’s chauffeur on his cell phone, so that the stretch limo was awaiting her out in the street.
You approached the long, black, hearse-like vehicle reluctantly.
‘It’s been great to meet you again, Steve, Verity.’ Sonia spoke in her customary flat tone. She raised her face to be kissed. ‘There’s been a …’ You could not think of the word ‘mistake’.
She turned to the vehicle with some rapidity. No one was yet there to open the rear door for her. She pulled it open impatiently. As she did so, the chimes of Big Ben began to ring out the midnight hour, and the birth of a new century. The chimes were amplified in the lounge of the hotel, from whence now came cheering and clapping.
The banging and popping were louder now.
Sonia paused.
Woofie, the cheetah, saw its chance. It bounded from the limo and ran, ran in a lissom swerve round her mistress – ran for freedom.
Sonia screamed. ‘Oh, my love! Steve, quick, catch her!’
Without thinking, you rushed into the roadway. It was at that midnight moment free of traffic. The cheetah had paused on the far pavement, rump high, head and forebody close to the ground, ears back, staring back at you. She wore a collar. She was crouching in fear as rockets exploded overhead, filling the London sky with stars of many colours.
You went cautiously towards her. The cheetah did not move. She looked at you with an expression you read as a mixture, an almost human mixture, of hope and despair. You held out an open hand to her. You hesitated.
Such was your concentration, such was the noise of the fireworks exploding overhead, you did not heed the cries of Sonia and Verity.
A car with its roof open came speeding along the Strand on an erratic course. It had no lights on. Drunken passengers stood with heads and shoulders through the open roof, waving paper flags, blowing plastic bugles or singing. The vehicle bore down on you in all its blackness. In trying to back out of its way, you slipped. It struck you full on the body as you fell.
You were thrown against a stone wall, already dead.
The singing in the car changed immediately to screaming and yelling. The car swerved across the road and hurtled through a plate glass window. The cheetah disappeared down a side alley.
Verity ran to you, falling on her knees to lift your head, as once you had lifted hers. But she was too late. For you, everything had stopped.
In the hotel, guests had link
ed hands and were still joyously singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
All along the Thames, a wall of light was spreading into the new century.
16
A Fuller Understanding
Stephen Fielding conceived that he was making his way through deep water, almost as if the tide had caught up with him at last. There was light of a kind – of a kind hitherto unknown to him. Inasmuch as he had any sensations, he felt that his consciousness had waned, and yet that he consisted only of a fragment of consciousness.
Although everything presented itself to him as paradox, paradoxically he accepted it as normal. He was reduced to an electron, yet he experienced a great opulence.
That great opulence expressed itself in many ways, in warmth, in distant singing, in drifting colour, all of which constituted a womb-like wealth.
Now he was emerging into an immeasurable space, wide as infinity itself.
‘Oh, of course’, it seemed he said to himself, though the ‘of course’ was the last thing that could have been anticipated. Nothing could have prepared him for where and what he was.
The shades of many people drifted about, deflected through a haze that was not exactly a haze, but rather a version of eyesight. Indefinably, he stood at last – but he was not ‘standing’ at all, and there was no ‘at last’ defining divisions of time – before a concentration of light and energy, a solid block of something that he could only interpret as light. Congealed light: the gaseous element light in its solid state.
He gloried in the miraculous – as everything had always been secretly miraculous. Secretly miraculous. Of course.
The block formed a perfect square, yet its dimensions were elusive. The block was addressing him. He understood it to be at once almost impossibly remote, and yet it was, he recognized, his personal block; his saviour.