The Fourth Circle

by Zoran Zivkovic

  I was at my wits' end when his wariness of Tom, who was frantically chasing Jerry across a garden and continually crashing into things, took the upper hand.

  This was lucky, since a confrontation would otherwise have taken place, which would have been disastrous for my reputation.

  As it happened, the echoes of the Little One's angry snarls were just dying down when Sri appeared at the temple door, suspecting nothing, wearing the artless expression that I suppose is common to all deceived husbands. He informed me that late that afternoon we would see the first rain storm of the monsoon season. Then he wasted a lot of words—most unlike him—to tell me, hesitantly and in a roundabout way, that perhaps he would have to switch me off for a while if there was going to be a lot of atmospheric discharge, to protect the computer's sensitive circuits from possible damage. But that I was not to worry, he would turn me on as soon as the storm passed, that I'd hardly feel the interruption, it couldn't last long.

  What a change, after the fuss with the Little One! Sri apologizing profusely for perhaps needing to turn me off, little knowing, poor dear, that this was the best possible news he could give me. To sleep again, at last! A lot of unknowns would be cleared up, including the diabolical matter of the circle that got the Little One so upset. Luckily, my monitor was not on, otherwise all my excitement would have shown on it. It's not for nothing that they say the screen is the mirror of the soul....

  2. HEAVENLY ASCENSION

  I SAW, AND my bony knees trembled.

  There could be no possible doubt. For a moment, though, because my mind had begun to darken under the mighty and miraculous burden that had fallen on its shoulders in just one day, I thought my old eyes, in the quavering light of the single candle that only augmented the darkness of the cellar, had endowed me with visions of the unreal.

  But when I rubbed my eyes the apparition did not lose its impossible countenance but grew stronger. As I retreated a step or two toward the place where the candle burned at the head of my Master's bier, I understood, with the mad beating of my agitated heart, that the time of untold wonders was not yet past—that, in truth, all the miracles of the day gone by, though more than enough for one righteous life, were as nothing in comparison to this last; for, verily, what I saw under the drawn-back hood could only be called the miracle of miracles.

  I would likely recognize her in total darkness. All my life she has been before my eyes, since that distant moment when the Master, recently departed from the side of his teacher Theophilus, saw her for the first and only time, at that fair long ago, when she stood by her many-colored tent, inviting the crowd to buy some merchandise that I, besieged by the fogs of oblivion, can no longer remember.

  But I remembered very well, as did my Master, her smile, innocent and wan-ton at the same time, which she lavished on the unlettered, gullible mob, tempting them to buy—quite needlessly, and so the more iniquitously, since the crowd would have bought readily enough without prompting....

  That same smile, depicted with the skill of the Unclean One himself, I later saw on countless monastic walls painted by my Master, who lent to Marya's virtuous countenance a quality that is the substance of the greatest blasphemy.

  In the beginning, I used to rebuke the Master for this impropriety, thinking we would arouse the anger of the igumans; it seemed impossible that their aus-tere, experienced eyes would miss the tinge of lasciviousness in Marya's smile, when it was not missed by many of the ordinary monachs who covertly nourished their most lustful and indecent thoughts while beholding it.

  I know all about it: more than once did I catch them as they furtively gave rein to their carnal desires, having first gazed unblinkingly on her face, apparently meekly saying their prayers the while. Why else would some of them, no less sinful but readier to repent, give themselves up willingly to the redemptive penance of the scourge, without any urging from the head of the monastery, but in the hope of washing from themselves a sin that is surely amongst the greatest of all?

  The greatest, yes, but who can blame them for this temptation—I, of all mortals, have the least right to sit in judgment on them, may the Lord have mercy on me for my wrongdoing—when truly this was the work of the Devil.

  Yet the igumans never said anything about that smile; whether because they would thereby be admitting the fornication of their own eyes or because their eyes were truly incorruptible to the charms of the flesh, I could not tell. But wherever we went about the monasteries, Marya's two-edged smile remained behind us, a source of torment to the faltering and of fortitude to the faith of the more steadfast.

  Though more of the first sort, alas, I deemed myself now at that blessed age when I could never again see in Marya's image on a wall aught but infinite chastity and grace, which alone are fitting and pleasing to the Almighty. But this was only a fond illusion because as soon as I recognized the features of that divine countenance under the hood, filled with that ancient flame, once extinguished and now rekindled, the cause of so much repentance in my youth, I felt my withered face blush.

  Confused by the great wonder of this unhoped for arrival but also by the memory of sins long forgotten and now brought back to life by Marya's presence, rather than seek some rational explanation that my poor mind could understand for this visit by her after the passing so many years I, worthless, folded my hands in desperate plea for unmerited forgiveness.

  But my impure, old man's mouth made no sound at all, for her slender white hand slipped from the sleeve of her monastic robe and with the gentlest touch covered my lips, and I felt a strange shiver creep up my spine to the very top of my head and spill over in untold bliss. The touch was brief, only a breath or two, and then the hand was withdrawn swiftly, but still I felt for a long time yet as if all heavenly mercy burned upon my lips.

  That was all that I received from Marya—far more than anything that this lowly creature dared hope for—for she then turned away from my humble self, ignoring me as if I were not present in the cellar, and went again to my late Master, bending over his face, which was, for reasons unknown to me, not yet distorted by the foul ugliness of the death spasm. For a few moments she stood motionless by the Master's bier, shaken—I thought—by sorrow, but I was behind her and could no longer see her face. Then she raised both arms above him, as if about to begin a dirge of mourning, no less sad than the weeping over the body of the martyred Hrist when at last they took Him from the cross.

  The fear that passed through me at that moment was not at all in keeping with this holy sight, but I was afraid that her woman's voice, startling, in violation of her oath of silence, would ring out any moment now, reaching the ears of idle monachs, confusing them and drawing them here to see what new marvel had been visited upon their monastery. And the terrible thought that eyes other than mine, eyes even less worthy, would soon gaze shamelessly upon her, caused me to shiver again, though not with pleasure as before.

  But none of this happened. No sound came from Marya's white throat, no lament, no moan, not even a sigh. But while her mouth remained mute, her extended arms became even more eloquent. At first they did but tremble, as in a wild transport, then a splendor began to flow down from them onto the unmoving body of my dead Master, at first a feeble light, hardly discernible in the brighter glow of the only candle, but stronger with every passing moment until soon it had reached full, angelic brilliance, driving darkness from the deepest corners of the cellar.

  Dulled from all the miracles my eyes had seen in this one day, I could only stare dumbly at this new, wondrous sight, bereft of all power to speak even had I wished to, while the divine light that sprang from Marya's hands grew dense as autumn fog, wrapping my Master in an opaque, glistening shroud as if preparing him for ascension into Heaven.

  And truly, as soon as the thought passed through my troubled mind, the shining cloud around the Master's body began to rise, drawing him up from his humble bier. I looked on unblinkingly, as if watching the resurrection of Hrist Himself, expecting the rising to cont
inue by divine intervention even through the stout walls of the iguman's residence, up to the arch of the sky, where the green fields of Heaven begin.

  But it was not to be. Hardly had the Master, in a cloud of light, risen nearly as high as Marya's hands, when the light from them suddenly ceased to flow. Deprived of this shining cloak, the Master's body remained for a few moments aloft in the murky air, as if sustained by invisible supports, then drifted slowly down to the bier, now illuminated only by candlelight.

  The meaning of this terrible change was not difficult to comprehend. God had denied the mercy of Heaven to His humble servant at the last moment because of his great unrighteousness, sending his soul back from the very gates of Paradise, down into the earthly clay from which Marya herself had come to save him.

  And while my heart had not yet begun to freeze at this terrible thought, my unbelieving eyes, now ready for anything, witnessed yet another miracle—the greatest of all I had seen so far. Hardly had the Master's body touched the humble wooden pallet, to prepare without hope of salvation for a journey into the kingdom of the underworld where eternal sojourn was his rightful portion, when there was a sudden movement—there, where movement could no more be.

  I felt the old grey hairs rise on the back of my neck and my forearms, harbinger of that unreasoning fear that can paralyze a man's every limb, when I saw the Master's eyelids, which I myself had closed with my cursed hands that very morning, tremble and then open wide, as if awakening from some nightly, not eternal, blessed rest.

  3. NOLI TANGERE..

  I TOLD HIM not to touch my circles.

  But no, he would, the Roman barbarian. The sword is all he understands—the sword and destruction. There lies proud Syracuse, now licked by flame from all sides to slake their thirst for blood and devastation. A warmongering mob from the North, raised by a stinking she-wolf on her polluted milk, to subjugate the Mediterranean nations, the ordered societies, by ignorant savagery! Vile descendants of the Herostrat of Hephest, they would gladly burn Alexandria, too, caring not a whit for the wisdom amassed there, just so they might leave their sooty mark on yet another place of renown. Whence, then, all the industry of so many learned lives, which shed drops of light into the dark, endless ocean of ignorance, if all is to disappear in another kind of light—of flames—vanishing in smoke to briefly stay that savage mob's craving for destruction?

  Alexandria would not have lasted any longer under the boot of the conquer-ing Romans than my circles endured in the sand under the maddened feet of that pudgy, cross-eyed centurion who ignored the specific command of his war-lord, Marcellus, not to draw his sword against me. But my choleric, old man's rebel-liousness, which could not do him any harm, provoked him in his insolence to swing keenly and without thinking, plunging his weapon to the hilt into my breast, then with grinning sweaty face watch how the dust with drawings on it absorbed my blood, as life drained swiftly from me.

  I do not blame him for what befell, though he inflicted sharp pain on me, more when pulling the sword out than when driving it into my bony body. I am to blame for that fatal deed; being more intelligent, I should have known how to conduct myself before this raging barbarian, his eyes awry and his lips foaming murderously.

  Well, I have met such barbarians before. The first time near Eknomos, in the first war, while I was a lad just come of age, when my calm eloquence alone averted a massacre by a company of infuriated Romans in that village in the hills where I had found shelter from the siege; and most recently, when I aroused a hunger for learning and wisdom in Marcellus—a soldier by trade—so deep that he offered me his protection. But what good is that protection now, as I lie dead on the sand of the street outside my home in Syracuse? None at all—though death offers the advantage of having put a stop to the fierce pain. But the damage outweighs the advantage, for now I cannot complete the great search as I was just about to do, the search to which I had secretly devoted my entire being.

  People thought that my chief area of study was but a play with numbers and their delicate relationships, which some call mere mathematics and others the noble discipline of physics. While I do not deny that I used to be obsessed by numbers—what intelligent man could resist them?—it was not just the numbers themselves that mattered, nor their application to the affairs of men to ease trouble and bring some benefit (the turn most of my discoveries took despite my real intentions), but rather that ultimate secret that I sought that lies at the heart of mathematics and stands above all numbers, not to be divined, but only glimpsed.

  And then, having already begun to fear that I was growing too old for that supreme effort—for an aging mind concerned with numbers sees hazily what the young discern clearly—I suddenly experienced enlightenment, like that reported by the wise Pythagoras. The founding father of our science, Pythagoras was also in his twilight years when he came to the threshold of the secret of secrets but did not cross it, or at least left no trace of having done so.

  I lie alone and dead in the dust, that barbarous company of Roman legionaries with their sweaty, cross-eyed leader who slaughtered me having moved further up the burning streets of Syracuse to continue their bloody orgy elsewhere. The dreadful din comes from all around to my ears, which fortunately hear no more.

  I did indeed experience enlightenment, such as would not shame even the noble Pythagoras, but I mention it now unwillingly. Unwillingly, for the ascent to enlightenment was not by way of trance, as it certainly must have been with Pythagoras, but as a petty incident hardly worthy of mention, let alone connected with the Great Secret accessible only to the chosen.

  Kiane, my housekeeper, whose clumsy figure in no way matched that glorious name, a woman advanced in years, fat and coarse, though clean and a good cook, but superstitious and overwhelmed by fear, for days endeavored to convince me that we should retreat before the Roman invasion, as we had done before, back into the hills of Sicily, where those hordes, even if victorious, would hesitate to venture. But reassured by Marcellus's guarantee and otherwise unwilling to leave the comforts of Syracuse—even when I planned to go to famed Alexandria—I rejected this proposal. This set her to grumbling, at first under her breath, but then, as the barbarian army began to gather around the walls of our city, with increasing bad temper. Inclined to look for omens in everything, from the most commonplace to the celestial, from the intestines of the animals she prepared so skillfully for our meals to the flight of birds presaging nothing but the coming of autumn, Kiane flung her dark forebodings at me. Since I failed to respond with the requisite apprehension to all these omens of imminent disaster she saw everywhere, she took to fortune-telling, convinced she would thus bend me to her intent. For if I were—as she firmly held—already mad enough not to believe in the undisputed Pythian art, then I should at least trust my own art, mathematics.

  How else but as a sure harbinger of doom could one interpret the fall of the round, minted coins she used for prophesying? Why otherwise would all nine fall at every throw with the face of our ruler upwards? Was not this, for anyone with a spark of intelligence, a sure sign that ill-fortune was upon us?

  All nine to fall on the same side each time? What nonsense! Why, the probability of it happening even twice in a row was so small that Kiane might spend an entire lifetime throwing her coins without ever seeing all nine heads of the ruler one time after another. I could not endure this prattle. If no reasoning could shake her superstitious belief that the flight of birds or the position of stars in the heavens had a meaning other than the most ordinary and basic, the story of the nine coins that always fell face upwards could be proven wrong by a simple experiment.

  I had become accustomed to human stupidity a long time ago, and it no longer surprised me. But her attempt to make use of an evident lie, though driven to it by great fear, angered me, and so I told her to show me an example of what she claimed.

  She interpreted my readiness to watch her fortune-telling with relief, as a sign that I was once more of sound mind, albeit late in the da
y, for from the ramparts of Syracuse the terrible sound of the Romans' bloodthirsty advance could already be heard. Hurriedly reaching into the pocket under her apron, the only garment this otherwise neat woman wore that was always ragged, she took out the worn coins, acquired long ago in some Delphic place in defiance of the edict that banned fortune-telling as a trade in a society that prided itself on its orderliness.

  Well, not everything can be ordered....

  She held them for a moment in her greasy palm and was about to throw them before the threshold of our home, where we happened to be standing, but then she changed her mind and gave them to me to do it, so that there should be no suspicion of trickery, an expression of superior knowledge on her face. I shrugged, satisfied that I would easily, more easily than I had anticipated, free myself from Kiane's nagging. I could endure most things, but a choleric woman, never. I took the coins from her and dropped them gently on the stone tablet in front of the doorstep; they began to bounce with a metallic jangling, and some collided in flight, some only after they fell, not scattering very far but settling into a circle the diameter of which was not much greater than one pace, and there all movement ceased. Into a circle....

  I barely heard Kiane's shrill exclamation, full of glee at the result, for in the same instant as the last tinkle of the worn coins on the stone died, my mind was rent by a mighty flash, flooding its most remote corners with light, and in a moment, I saw everything—all for which I had sought in vain throughout my life and lost hope of ever finding. The circle was the solution—so obvious, so perfect!