MASQUES OF SATAN

by Oliver, Reggie

  ‘Of the past?’ said Dr Semple in a very shaky voice.

  ‘Of the past. It is only very recently that we have been able to achieve precision as to dates and location, but we can now be fairly sure of being able to see what is happening at a particular time and place in the past. Of course, these things take considerable time and effort to set up, so I have prepared two examples to show you tonight, but, I assure you, you will be watching “in real time”, as it were. Neither of these two examples has been pre-recorded.’

  ‘How do we know this isn’t all a gigantic hoax?’ said Jack Angleton. ‘It’s quite easily done, you know. My television experience has taught me a lot about computer generated images and so on. I bet I could——’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dr Loring. ‘But what would be the point? I can provide you with enough scientific data to prove it, but that would take an age. The chief reason why you should believe me is that I have nothing to gain from fooling you except the childish gratification of a hoaxer. I think the Vice-Chancellor here can vouch that I am not the sort of person who is interested in playing futile tricks on distinguished academic minds.’ The Vice-Chancellor nodded, wondering at the same time whether his nephew’s last remark contained a veiled reference to Shakespeare, the Urban Terrorist.

  ‘As a tribute to the Vice-Chancellor,’ went on Dr Loring, ‘my first example is from the period of Ancient History in which he has specialised. All of you, I am sure, will at the very least have heard of his groundbreaking work, Priestcraft and Society in Bronze Age Crete.’

  ‘A poor thing, but Minoan,’ murmured the Vice-Chancellor. It got a good laugh; it nearly always did.

  ‘I am hoping to bring you some images of the city of Knossos in Crete from the summer of 1387 BC, shortly before its destruction by fire which, I can now reveal, the Vice-Chancellor, on the basis of Egyptian chronology and some recently discovered Hittite cuneiform tablets, correctly surmised to be the year 1386 BC.’ There was a little patter of applause at this, but the Vice-Chancellor was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable, though he could not quite articulate the reason for his unease.

  The curtains drew apart to reveal a screen on which an infinite number of points of coloured light scintillated. Dr Loring muttered something through a microphone to some figures who inhabited a glass box above and behind the seated academics. It looked like a cinema projection box except that there was no projector. The Vice-Chancellor supposed that the images would be beamed directly on to the screen in front of them.

  Slowly the points of light, like the dots on a pointillist painting, began to form themselves into the image of a deep blue disc on a black background, at first a vague adumbration, but becoming progressively sharper. Was this the Earth?

  A line of poetry came into the Vice-Chancellor’s mind unbidden, as it often did in what he chose to call his ‘dotage’: ‘You small blue circle swinging in far ether.’ Where was it from? Byron’s ‘Cain’, that was it. He was not such an old dotard as he thought he was. Yet how did Byron know a century-and-a-half before man ventured into the ether, that that was how earth would look from space? Human science was always limping to keep up with the human imagination. But wait a minute, should the Chronoscope be that far out of earth’s orbit? There came a great pulse of light and the Vice-Chancellor, his eyes fixed on the screen, had the almost physical sensation of falling at high speed towards the globe. Green continents and seas of piercing blue began to engulf his vision. For a brief moment he saw the rag of Hellas fluttering its golden ribbons of land over the dark Ægean, then he was hanging about a hundred feet or so above a recognisable landscape.

  On a plateau of land within sight of the sea a cluster of monumental buildings was gathered: gaudy, complex, the stout pillars of its colonnades and terraces painted the colour of red earth. In the centre of it all a wide flight of steps led up to a great courtyard with a smooth pavement of dressed stone. He recognised it at once. In its ruined twenty-first century incarnation he had seen it many times. It was the great ‘Bull Court’ at the palace of Knossos in Crete.

  Around the wide paved space, lit by a high sun in a cloudless atmosphere, many people were gathered, some in the cool shadow of the red colonnades that flanked it, some on balconies and terraces above. At one end, in front of the main palace buildings, a wooden platform had been raised, canopied with cloth dyed purple from the murex shell. On it sat a group of palace hierarchs, male and female. The central seated figure, to judge from his heavy and powerful build, was a man, but his head was entirely covered by an uncannily lifelike black bull’s-head mask.

  All the spectators were festively dressed. The men wore short tunics, extravagantly fringed and tasselled; the women wore long, brightly coloured flounced dresses which reached almost to the ground: above their tight, embroidered bodices their breasts were bare.

  In the centre of the court stood a group of a dozen young men, aged, at a guess, between sixteen and twenty-one. Their black hair was oiled and worn in long ringlets, and they were naked save for a loincloth and a short, fringed kilt around their nipped-in waists. Facing them on the pavement was a great black bull, larger than any the Vice-Chancellor had seen in his century. Its immensely long, curled horns reminded him of pictures he had seen of aurochs, wild cattle which had become extinct, if his memory served him right, in the seventeenth century.

  The tranquil, almost static scene, suddenly burst into animated life. The bull had begun to trot towards the knot of youths, who immediately fanned out into a perfectly formed semicircle. A moment later the dance had begun. From all sides the youths were vaulting over the bull in a disciplined preordained sequence. Last of all, the tallest of them, who had remained facing the head of the bull, took a short run and leapt at the animal, grasping as he did so the two great horns. For an astonishing moment he was suspended in the air above the bull’s head, legs pointing up to the sky, head looking down on the bull, at right angles to its glistening black back, maintained only by his grip on the two horns. Then he vaulted off them with a double somersault, to be caught by one of his companions stationed directly behind the great bucking monster.

  The vision was silent, of course, but the movements of the crowd suggested a great shout of exultation at this moment. The Vice-Chancellor watched in a trance, so absorbed by the scene that he was now barely conscious of the miracle of it all. He was seeing things which he had envisioned a hundred times in a hundred different ways. Far from disappointing him, it had exceeded all conceivable expectations. And yet something was worrying him, he could not tell what.

  Then the scene began to blur and flicker and waver, but just before it became indecipherable the Vice-Chancellor saw two white-winged objects a little like huge birds flash across the sky and turn away from the palace of Knossos towards the sea. The next moment the screen’s images were shattered into a million sparkling fragments once again.

  ‘Apologies for that,’ said Dr Loring, ‘but we’re still experiencing difficulty in maintaining an image for more than about ten minutes. It’s a minor technical obstacle which I’m sure we’ll overcome very shortly.

  Professor Quoist, who had been sitting next to the Vice-Chancellor, turned to him and said: ‘You realise what you have just seen, don’t you, V-C?’ The Vice-Chancellor smiled wearily.

  ‘I think I know what you’re going to say, Simone,’ he said, ‘but tell us all the same.’

  ‘You have just seen the End of History.’

  ‘Explain,’ said Jack Angleton.

  ‘I would have thought even an academic media hack like you would have realised the implications,’ said Quoist. ‘This contraption will eventually — when Dr Loring’s little technical obstacles are overcome — reveal everything that ever happened in history. The result is that history will cease, because everything will be known. There can be no longer any speculation about causes, connections, consequences which are at the heart of what makes history a worthwhile discipline. All the causes will be known. Just one dam’ thing after anoth
er; that’s all you’ll be able to see. Everyone will have the power to access whatever they want, so they won’t want it any more: it’ll be like the early twenty-first century Internet boom and bust, only worse. Wisdom will be lost in knowledge; knowledge will be lost in information. The intelligent people will desert history in droves; leaving behind only nerds and voyeurs. And don’t think you’re going to escape the consequences, Mr Celebrity Don Angleton. It’ll be just as bad for literary scholarship. If you know just when and where and how Shakespeare wrote the Sonnets — dammit, even what sort of a pen he used — if you can actually watch him rehearsing Hamlet at the Globe, who’s going to listen to Jack Angleton’s cock-eyed theories on the subject?’

  ‘And philosophy,’ said Dr Loring. ‘You’re forgetting philosophy, Professor Quoist.’

  ‘Oh, no! Okay, so you can watch Wittgenstein arguing with Russell and taking his boyfriends to cowboy movies, but so what? That does not invalidate or forestall any of the ongoing debates about meaning, about language games, empiricism, ethical systems.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said the Reverend Dr Semple, who had been looking rather glum but had suddenly become animated. ‘Once you have seen everything man has done it is only a short time before you know everything man has thought, from Primitive Man to Plato and Aristotle to Wittgenstein and Frege. Then you will see that human thought does not progress, it simply goes round in a circle, and that nothing can validate one system of thought over another. Since you philosophers have banished metaphysics in favour of logic and empiricism you have also abolished the criteria by which truth can be separated from falsehood. You have no means of escaping your prison, so all you do is endlessly argue about what Kant or Schopenhauer or Hegel meant by so and so. And when you find that out, as you will, what is left? Your only way is to begin again the search for transcendence, for the things which cannot be seen by any Chronoscope, or microscope, or any other kind of scope. I mean the things of the soul. When all other kinds of knowledge are exhausted, as they will be by this device, Theology at last will come into her own.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t, Reverend!’ yelled Professor Quoist. The Vice-Chancellor winced slightly at the philosopher’s vehemence. ‘Theology is the most vulnerable of them all. Shall I tell you why? Because the competing — note that, Reverend, competing! — theologies and metaphysical systems of the world owe their extremely dubious validity entirely to so-called authority, to the myths that surround their patriarchs and prophets and saints and messiahs. Once those myths are exploded by this little engine — and they will be! They will be! — once the walkings on water, and angels dictating Korans, and levitating Buddhas are exposed for the garbage they are, what have you got left? Nothing. Fancy words, no proof. Not even history.’

  ‘Which brings me rather neatly to my second example,’ said Dr Loring in a deliberately careful and measured tone. ‘I had rather anticipated some of these lines of argument, so I prepared a second scene to show you. I am not quite sure what it may signify, but I think it will certainly inform our debate.’

  When the scene was revealed to them none of the academics needed to be told, as they were by Dr Loring, that the year was 33 AD and the place a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. The point of view was again about a hundred or so feet in the air and looking downwards but obliquely at a group of men, women, and Roman soldiers gathered around three crosses on which hung three men. The face of the central figure was turned downwards and away from the viewer, but you could see quite clearly the chaplet of thorny twigs that had been jammed down on his lank, blood-streaked locks. And above him on the cross a board had been nailed on which were scrawled in white chalk some words in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The faces of the small crowd gathered on the hill were all concentrated upon the figure on the middle cross. Heavy grey clouds massed on the horizon.

  It struck the Vice-Chancellor that the angle from which he was viewing the scene was not unlike that of Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, and resembled even more the crude but powerful drawing by John of the Cross himself which had inspired it. This began a train of thought in the Vice-Chancellor’s mind.

  ‘We have been trying to find evidence of the resurrection,’ said Dr Loring, ‘as yet without success. Neither proof nor disproof. I’m sure we will find something soon. It’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Well, at the very least,’ said Dr Semple, ‘ what we have here proves the historicity of the gospels, much disputed by people of your ilk, Professor Quoist. It’s all there, you see: the soldiers, the women, and the disciples, Jesus crucified between two criminals, the crown of thorns. Look! There! Even Pilate’s superscription nailed to the cross, and one can just read it: HIC EST IESUS REX IUDAEORUM. Gospel Truth, my dear Professor.’

  ‘Show me the feeding of the five thousand, the raising of Lazarus, the water into wine,’ said Professor Quoist, ‘then I might begin to concede your point. So far all I’ve seen is a man dying in a far off place and time.’

  ‘Dying for you and me,’ said The Reverend Dr Semple solemnly, almost as if he believed it.

  ‘That’s the way you see it; it’s not the way I see it, pal.’

  ‘Exactly!’ shouted the Vice-Chancellor. Everyone turned to look at him. The three crosses faded from the screen and the meaningless specks of coloured light returned.

  ‘Robert,’ said the Vice-Chancellor, addressing Dr Loring now as his nephew, not as a junior colleague. ‘I think we can resolve this issue here and now. Can you return to Knossos one more time, same date, almost exactly the same place, except if you could move the point of vision to just off the coast of Crete and facing towards Knossos.’

  ‘Well, I can try,’ said Dr Loring, astonished at this sudden burst of energy from his Uncle. ‘I think I can do it. It may take a little time to recalibrate the crystals.’

  ‘I am sure we can wait,’ said the Vice-Chancellor.

  While they waited conversation was desultory, no longer heated. The Vice-Chancellor refused to be drawn into any explanation for his outburst or his peremptory command.

  For the third time the sparks cleared and the screen took them hurtling towards the past. This time they were above the sea, a deep azure beneath the sapphire sky, tiny wavelets glittering in the sun. Beyond was the green and yellow ochre of the land and, in the middle distance, the plateau on which sat the Labyrinthine palace of Knossos. The sea was unfurrowed except by a middle-sized, squat sailing vessel. It was evidently a fishing boat: men could be seen hauling in nets from its stern.

  ‘Are you sure this is what you want, V-C?’ murmured Professor Quoist.

  The Vice-Chancellor took her hand in what he hoped would be interpreted as a fatherly way. ‘Hold on, Simone! Wait! Aha! Here we go!’

  From the direction of the Palace of Minos two pale objects came flying, their white pinions flashing as they flapped slowly, rhythmically. Even from a distance they looked too large for birds. As they came closer the academics could see what they were, and all except the Vice-Chancellor shook their heads in disbelief.

  A man in the prime of life and a young boy, no older than sixteen were flying towards them. Attached by leather straps to their outstretched arms were great wings of white feathers. The man was flapping slowly, gracefully. Once he looked behind him and seemed to speak to the boy who was following, his flight less even and controlled. He was swooping and soaring ecstatically. Now he was close enough to the point of vision for his expression of joy and exultation to be seen.

  ‘What in hell is this?’ said Professor Quoist.

  The Vice-Chancellor let go of her hand. ‘You are about to witness a tragedy,’ he said.

  Just then the boy flapped his wings and soared upwards so that for ten seconds or so he was lost from view. The man turned again and glanced upwards, a look of alarm on his face. Then they saw the boy falling, falling at tremendous speed in a snowfall of feathers, his wings in tatters. He hit the sea with the impact of a bullet. A scintillating plume of spray shot upwards and the boy vanish
ed beneath the waves. The last thing they saw before the vision faded was the look of anguish on the man’s face as he swooped low over the sea, looking for signs of his son.

  Turning to Professor Quoist the Vice-Chancellor said: ‘Can you tell us what we have just seen, Professor?’

  Quoist shook her head and smiled, an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘You go right ahead and tell us, V-C. You’re just dying to.’

  ‘Daedalus was a legendary inventor, and master craftsman. He came originally from Athens, I believe, but went with his son Icarus to work for the court of King Minos at Knossos where he built the Labyrinth. There came a time when he wanted to leave Crete, but King Minos would not let him; so, to escape, Daedalus built wings out of feathers held together with wax for himself and his son Icarus. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as it would melt his wings. They successfully flew from Knossos, but Icarus, in his exhilaration, forgot his father’s advice. Flying too close to the sun, the wax holding his wings together melted in the heat and he fell to his death, drowning in the sea. The Icarian Sea, where he fell, was named after him.’

  ‘Are you telling us,’ said Jack Angleton, ‘ that we have just witnessed some sort of re-enactment of a Greek Myth?’

  ‘It looks very like it,’ said the Vice-Chancellor. ‘I mean we can’t deny that we saw what we saw, can we?’

  ‘It just doesn’t make any sense,’ said Professor Quoist.

  ‘On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. The myth of Icarus has one of the clearest significances of all Greek Myths. It represents the dangers of aspiration——’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, V-C, and you know dam’ well. The whole thing stinks. It just doesn’t add up. I mean, for example, the little fishing boat, there with all the people on board. Nobody on it seems to have noticed that there’s a man in the sky with wings and all, and a dam’ boy who suddenly crashes into the sea. Jesus, what is this?’