The Hidden

by Tobias Hill

  A yell from the kitchen; the curt exclamation of his name. He stood with a sense of release, an eagerness to be gone.

  –Did you want something to eat, in the end?

  –Certainly.

  Eberhard picked up the menu, glanced at it, then put it down, as if he were unsure what to do with it. –Perhaps if you could bring me whatever it was you recommended. The…meat, wasn’t it?

  –The meat, he said, and Eberhard sighed.

  –To tell you the truth, I only came in looking for some quiet. I don’t like to drive when tired. I imagined a meat grill during Lent would be a peaceful retreat.

  –But instead of peace and quiet you found me.

  –That’s not quite how I’d put it. Eberhard pushed back his own chair and offered up his hand. –May I make a suggestion?

  –If you like.

  –Granted the university is full of students learning to take orders in Starbucks, but seven years at Oxford might qualify you for better than this.

  –I’ll bear that in mind.

  –Do that. Don’t be cross, it’s only advice, well meant. I’ll say goodbye again before I go. How long will the meat take?

  –Not long, if you’re in a hurry.

  –Thus the early supper.

  –Where are you headed?

  –Corinth tonight, Eberhard said, and then, softly, Further, if the roads are clear, but Laconia will still be there tomorrow.

  He reached for the menu again, opened his spectacles case, unfolded the glasses and put them on, not seeming to notice Ben standing beside him. When he looked up his eyes were magnified, owlish at finding Ben still there.

  –Laconia?

  –Yes.

  –You mean Lacedaemonia?

  –Yes. Look, Eberhard said, and held up the menu. –It says you have milk-lamb–

  –Not until Easter. What’s it like?

  –I’ve never had the pleasure–

  –Not that. Lacedaemonia.

  –It’s…striking. I don’t suppose it’s for everyone.

  He sat down again, Eberhard shifting his chair back. As if to make room for them both, though there was no lack of it.

  –I’ve never been.

  –Well, Oxford is theoretical to a fault, but in this case they have a point. There isn’t much to make the trip worthwhile. I’m afraid it doesn’t merit your laudable curiosity.

  –I was writing about it, that’s all. Laconia. Sparta. Some lectures, a bunch of articles. I was thinking, last year, anyway, that I might try and work it all together, get a thesis out of it–

  –Better not, Eberhard said. –If I were you. There’s so little to write about, in terms of archaeology. So little has survived.

  –I know, of course. I always loved it, though. Or the idea of it. Athens and Rome didn’t really interest me, but there was something about Sparta…I mean I used to read about it all the time, when I was growing up. Hollow Lacedaemonia.

  No answer. Eberhard closing the menu, looking down at its closure, as if the mention of love offended him.

  –I suppose it’ll be beautiful, in spring.

  –Oh, it’s beautiful already. And at any time. Though I’m afraid no one calls it Lacedaemonia any more. Not even us.

  –Us?

  Sauer folded his hands on the table, the fingers interleaved, sheltering. –Those of us who are working there.

  –Working on what?

  –It’s a small project. Hardly newsworthy.

  –A project? You mean an excavation?

  –That’s rather a grand name for it. We’re just fossicking over old ground. A bit of digging also, now. The earth is still cold, but it will get better.

  –At Sparta?

  –No, no. But close.

  –I don’t suppose there’s any–

  –No.

  –Right.

  –I’m sorry.

  –No. You were right, though.

  –Was I?

  –I wouldn’t mind the work. I mean, if something else came up, something like you’ve found…and then you turn up here. That would have been good luck, that’s all.

  –Yes, wouldn’t it? Eberhard said, smiling in bland sympathy; and then one of the office girls was waving for service, and Florent was whistling from the kitchen, the old men’s plates balanced precariously on the swing doors, and he had to go.

  He had not said goodbye, after all. When Ben had brought his food Sauer had been there waiting, and later, going to and fro, Ben had seen him reading as he ate, methodically, his hands set square on the table top, the pamphlet weighed open again with oil and vinegar. Then Modest had broken a bowl of offal, and by the time the two of them had cleared up the verminous mess the corner table had been empty. It turned out that Adamidis had dealt with the bill. The customer had been in a hurry, and not too chatty, though that happened sometimes with the English, it was a genetic thing, and what did it matter when he had tipped so well?

  Sparta…There was little to see there, he knew, and he had never had the money or the time to go, nor had his research ever demanded it. What would there be there, that Eberhard might be digging for? Sparta was not Athens. The Spartans had left nothing behind that reflected their greatness. They had become no more than rumours of rumours in the histories of others, Romans and Ionians, Macedonians and Athenians, each outsider contradicting the next, a chain of Mediterranean whispers.

  He wondered how it would be, not to be running from, but towards. To have something or someone to go to: to have a destination.

  He had perceived, at Oxford, that even the cleverest of people could make fools of themselves. He was sure that Eberhard had lied to him, and lied ineptly. There was work to be had in Laconia, and he had not wanted Ben to know it. Caught off guard by their meeting, he had improvised clumsily; or he was an unnatural liar to begin with, heavy-handed with mistruth.

  Either way, Ben didn’t hold it against him. He had never known Eberhard well. Sauer had always looked unapproachable, and the looks had not been deceptive. He had not been much interested in the social life of the university, though Ben knew he’d never been short of invitations from those seeking a challenge. His reputation had made him a desirable commodity, but he had also seemed too clever to know, even at Oxford, his intelligence like an armour. Or more than that, like a panoply: both armour and weapon.

  They had been colleagues at best, never mistaking one another for friends. They had nothing in common–he had thought so himself. Why should Sauer share his good fortune with him?

  It was just that it was curious. That their paths should cross like that at all, however small the world. That Eberhard should lie, and lie so poorly, when there seemed nothing much worth hiding. Only the chance of work, at best, and badly paid, no doubt, as their work often was. The truth might have made them colleagues again, of course. He wondered if that was what Sauer had meant to avoid.

  For the first time since leaving England, he felt a lightening, a faint stirring of the spirit. His curiosity was a spur, goading him into–not action, yet, but a consciousness of inaction. A fragile, fledgling eagerness.

  At night his thoughts were always darker. His mind lingered on the first time he had met Eberhard. It was the same day that Emine had met Foyt. She had thought the professor ridiculous, then. She had been angry with him on the way home from that first class. And Foyt had seemed easy to deride, then, with his mannered shyness, his dry lechery and polite pride. The vanity of a handsome man, one famous only within the confines of his world.

  They had been together only a few months. Emine had moved out that term into a flat in Risinghurst with girlfriends, a sprawling place well beyond his own means, so that he had stayed on in his college rooms and spent more nights than not at hers. They had got in early for the seminar, had bought coffee and marble cake to share and had gone to sit by the sunken garden. Emine had been restless with the wait, nervous about the new term and tutor. Foyt’s study had overlooked the Cherwell, and Emine had kept glancing in that direction. She had
been talking about her school days–a nun she had fallen in love with, a summer in Limoges, a trip to the Ile de Ré–when she had abruptly changed tack.

  –Which is his room?

  He had leaned past her to point it out; aware, in the cold, of the heat of her against his arm. –By the Fellows’ Garden.

  –I’m going to look.

  –Why?

  –Because I’m bored. And because he’s famous.

  –Famous! he had laughed. Emine, come on…

  It had stung him into using her name, the fear that he might bore her.

  –You come on. It’ll be fun. I want to.

  And because she had wanted to they had crept down together, of course, slipping on the morning green, Emine shushing his mutterings. He had not expected anything, but in fact Professor Foyt had been there, unaware as a fish in a bowl. Not dressing or in disarray, but absurd nonetheless. A dapper man, no taller than Emine, he had been stood at a long mirror in the gloom of his study, regarding himself with an expression of rapt concentration. As they watched he had raised one hand, cupping the palm in front of his mouth and nose, the gesture both strange and familiar. Checking for bad breath.

  In the event the seminar had been remarkable only for the presence of Eberhard, Foyt as uninterested as most professors in his students, going on too long about the Primary Laws of Archaeology, the modern subtleties of the Law of Superposition, the dangers of excavation, his gaze only now and then drifting to Emine where she sat, her legs crossed at the ankles in the sunlight. Most men would have done the same.

  –Excavation must be our last resort. In our exploration of the past it is our most powerful tool, but it is also the most destructive. It is inevitable that the act of excavation will lead to destruction. If the archaeologist does not recover all that can be recovered, the answers he seeks may be lost forever. The moment we begin to dig, we begin to lose that which we seek to find. There is no recourse in the process of excavation; there is no going back…

  At one point Emine had raised her hand to her mouth, the gesture like a yawn but not, her eyes as they slid to his brimming with mirth: but afterwards, on the bus back to Risinghurst, she had been ill at ease.

  –I don’t like him. Foyt. I can’t stand him.

  –Why?

  –Because he is…Her accent had grown stronger, as it did when she was irritated; as did his also. –He is a dirty vain old cockerel.

  The turn of phrase had struck him as funny. It had reminded him of the meal she had cooked his brother, and he had laughed, even knowing it was a mistake.

  –You think I’m joking?

  –No, of course not. Why would you?

  –You’re such an idiot. You didn’t even notice.

  –Notice what? Was he going at it like a piston under the desk?

  –Don’t be vile.

  –Vile and Vain. Evil twins, separated at birth.

  –It’s not funny.

  Belatedly he had noticed the red starting in her cheeks, the sign of real anger. –Hey. Okay, he’s a vain old cockerel. Did he touch you?

  –…It wasn’t like that.

  –Well then, what?

  But Emine had just looked at him, then, her eyes giving away nothing. He had felt as if he had done something wrong himself, and when she spoke again it was to change the subject. And after that they hadn’t really spoken of Foyt for years, nothing that mattered, right up until the night she had told him that he was a danger to her, body and soul. That she was leaving him, and who she was leaving him for.

  …It wasn’t like that. Had she paused, then, before answering? Or was he imagining things as he recalled them? How easy it would be to falsify those memories with hindsight. It was years ago, now, and he couldn’t be sure.

  He dreamed of Sparta and remembered nothing of that, and dreamed of Emine and recalled everything. It was a better dream than those which had come before it.

  Her hair lay on the pillow beside him, the strands of it like light and dark honey together, summer-bleached; and turning, following it (both pillow and hair far too long), he discovered her also there, waiting for him. He kissed her, felt her reaching for him, felt her drawing the sheet away from them both. Her pupils were dilated with desire. It was as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. When she came her fingers covered her mouth, as if her pleasure were something long-forgotten.

  He woke knowing where he was going.

  He telephoned the British School. It was an old archaeological institution, not far from the boarding house where he had spent his first days in Athens. Two days later he received a call at the grill. The School had made enquiries, as he had asked, about excavation work in Laconia. A Dr Fischer would see him now.

  Already the day was warm. Spring was approaching. He walked to the British School. Beyond its green enclosure, flat rooftops and striped awnings climbed towards the Hill of Wolves. A sallow-faced assistant led him to Dr Fischer’s office and closed the door behind him.

  The room was empty. Two walls of books bordered one of pictures. Archaic photographs. A woman in rusted monochrome, standing astride a cyclopic ruin as if it were the body of an elephant. A shot of Delphi at dawn, horse riders among the columns. The grand moguls of archaeology, claiming hoards of gold in the names of empires: Schliemann seated before a crowd of engineers; Layard posing with a battalion of tunnellers; Carter signing autographs, fresh from the plunder of Tutankhamun, the darkness around him stellar with flash-powders…

  Behind the desk a pair of sash windows were crowded with aloes, their fronds pressed against the glass, rendering the room jungle-green. The desk was heaped with stuff. Facsimiled inscriptions in Etruscan, Phoenician and cursive Elephantine. A blue box of Glacier Mints. An article in French about the synagogue bombings in Istanbul. An old pamphlet–Summary of the Doctrines of Zoroaster & Plato– splayed under a glass-flower paperweight.

  These are the principal doctrines that ought to be acknowledged by one who will be wise. The first of these is one about the gods: that they are. One of the gods is Zeus, the sovereign. Poseidon himself then begot from Hera, other gods within the heavens, both the celestial offspring of the stars and then the chthonian offspring of the spirits who are close by us…

  –Gemistus Plethon of Mystras, a cracked voice said, and he jumped, knocking the paperweight sideways, catching its flower-bubble before it hit the floor. The doctor stood behind him, a small old woman in dogtooth tweed and sunglasses that were too large for her.

  –You’ve read him?

  –I–no, no…

  –Not your period, perhaps. Fourteenth century, though you might not guess it. The last of the great Hellenic philosophers. Some people would say the last lost hope of Byzantium. Constantinople fell to the Turks only a year after his death. His Laws were supposed to be extraordinary. So extraordinary, alas, that the only copy in existence was burned by the Patriarch of Byzantium. This is only his Summary, preserved by a faithful pupil. As you can see, Plethon advocated an acceptance of Hellenic paganism…thus the burning. Please sit. Have you been in the country long?

  Fischer was lowering herself into her seat, rearranging her papers and candies. A month, he said, and she tsked.

  –You sound as if you have a cold. If you are going to Laconia you will have to dress sensibly. The Greek winter can be surprising to those who know only her summers.

  –There is a dig at Sparta, then?

  –Indeed there is. Ah! Here is the tea. Thank you, Nyssa.

  The sallow-faced assistant came and went. Fischer took off her sunglasses and poured. Underneath her eyes were a fragile blue, seamed with a multitude of smile-lines.

  –Well! To business. You are Oxford, yes?

  –Yes.

  –And you have much experience of fieldwork?

  –Well, no. I wouldn’t describe myself as a practical archaeologist–

  –No doubt that will make it all the more thrilling for you. Personally I hope never to heft a shovel again, but for you it will be a privile
ge. The completion of your education, yes? So, now: just as you have heard, there is a dig. We were asked to fund it ourselves, in fact: at that point the project was intended to mark the centenary of the School’s first work in Laconia, with subsequent exhibitions to be held here and in Sparta. We are sent so many proposals, however, and the director in this case was young and inexperienced and…well, there have been so many digs at Sparta, and there is so little to show for them. Nevertheless she has persevered, and, to her credit, it seems the dig is now under way. Even so, as things stand there is backing for only a single season. So they will be hard at it down there. Long days. No picnics. And they are searching for findspots on the fringes of the main Spartan sites. They will be excavating pigsties, not palaces…a pigsty would be a considerable find, in fact. Do pigsties hold some appeal for you, Mr Mercer?

  –I’m sure I can–

  –Well and good. In that case I have more news for you. Firstly, the digging began a month ago. The sites will be reburied in the autumn. The director is putting into practice some new ideas on working out of season to minimise tourist interference; they seem a little New School to me, but they offer a rare chance for you, so early in the year. Secondly, though there is only funding in place for a single campaign, that financing comes courtesy of the Cyriac Foundation. You’ve heard of them?

  –I’m afraid not.

  Fischer drank off her tea, then leaned forward over the desk. –Cyriac like to keep a low profile. In America they are a designated Cultural Resource Management firm; here we simply call such bodies rich. The Greek government has precious little to invest in ploughing up its past, and in this day and age the universities are not much better. Besides, none of them are much interested in digging over such well-trodden ground as that of Sparta. By contrast the Cyriac Foundation are rich as the proverbial Lydian king. I understand their workers are all paid something, and their per diems are the envy of fieldworkers everywhere. Would you like the rest of my good news? Fischer said, and in her enthusiasm rushed on, the empty tea cup gripped in one thin hand. –I have already ‘touched base’ with the project director. Her name is Dr Missy Stanton. I am afraid she is American, but there is no getting away from them these days. I have expressed a warm interest on your behalf, and Oxford speaks for itself. Dr Stanton will be overjoyed to have you. She would like you there within the week. Now then, you must tell me, how is England, these days?