The Black Halo

by Iain Crichton Smith

  Over his naked legs lay his lyre which he was strumming and Mr Trill said, ‘I know that your lyre was so entrancing that the stones and the beasts followed you. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s perfectly right,’ said Orpheus tossing his hair carelessly. ‘They did that. In those days I was certainly a good singer . . . And then I married Eurydice.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Trill who was horrified to feel some doubt in his mind that this was really Orpheus for he didn’t look at all like the singer as he had imagined him.

  ‘Oh, it was nothing wrong with Eurydice,’ said Orpheus. ‘No man could have had a better wife. She was compassionate, kind, a good listener, a companion, and I loved her to excess.’ He paused and Trill said,

  ‘Why then do you blame her? You seem to me to blame her.’

  ‘Blame her? No I don’t blame her. There is nothing I can blame her for. If my friends visited me she was hospitable to them, and some of them were not all that reputable. Her love was flawless, perfect, there was no other woman like her. She was faithful, adoring, practical. If I wished to compose she would leave me alone, if I didn’t she would talk to me. I never ever saw her angry. Would you believe that was possible; and yet I can tell you it was true. And at times I thought if she died that I would be helpless, without anchor, without rudder. If I came in drunk in the early hours of the morning she was always there waiting for me, but she never harangued me . . . And then she was bitten by the snake and she died.’

  ‘And so,’ said Mr Trill, ‘you went to Hades to save her and bring her back to the world again.’

  ‘That is what I intended to do,’ said Orpheus. ‘I played to Pluto in that land of minerals, I charmed even Cerberus himself. I crossed with Charon in his boat and brought my lyre to the country of the dead. And Pluto said to me, ‘Now you can take her with you provided you do not look back.’ Such perfection she had had, such restfulness, such repose. And she looked at me with such trust and complete love. How can I describe it to you or to anyone else? She stretched out her arms towards me with such longing. At that moment even the darkness seemed clear and piercing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Trill, ‘what happened? You were told not to look back and yet you did. Isn’t that right?’

  Orpheus seemed not to hear him but to be as it were listening to a voice deep within himself. ‘So much I thought of in that moment. Never before had I played so harmoniously, so finely, as when I was going in search of Eurydice, when I didn’t have Eurydice at all. Do you understand that? It was as if my whole soul had become part Hades, part Elysium, it was as if I needed Hades. And for the first time ever I thought about my singing and my poetry, for never before had I thought of it. It had been as natural to me as the wind in the trees. I had not suffered any sorrow. It was as if at that moment I suffered an agony greater than any I had ever suffered, as if I had to cross over into the shadows, and become self-conscious. And that self-consciousness was necessary to me. Everything seemed to happen in that moment.’

  ‘What? What seemed to happen?’ said Mr Trill. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I knew I didn’t want Eurydice back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s true. I didn’t wish her back. If you can understand this, her perfection was too great for me, it damaged my poetry. Do you know what I did then? I placed my art, the development of my art, before my love for Eurydice. I needed to suffer, it was in my nature to suffer. If I had brought Eurydice back, I myself would have died, I myself would have gone to Hades.’

  Mr Trill gazed at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘It was strange to see them with their bony hands pleading with me to save Eurydice: but what did they know of art?’

  Orpheus crossed his naked legs disturbingly, and continued, ‘I had to suffer all that there was to suffer, know all there was to know. That was my destiny. And my destiny was unavoidable. From the very first moment that I had sung and played, I knew that my fate was to continue with my chosen art. And in Hades I felt that my power was greater than it had ever been, and that I needed a perpetual Hades. I needed an unending search for Eurydice. And all that happened in a single moment, as we stared at each other across the space of Hades, in that dimness of iron and ghosts. How can one ever describe that gaze? And let me tell you something else, the most bitter part of all, Eurydice knew what was happening, what had happened, and she agreed with me. She loved me so much that she agreed with me. She did not complain nor make any other sign of entreaty. Does that not in itself tell of her perfection? How could I ever have deserved her?’

  And Mr Trill recognised that unalterable selfishness of the artist, that shield and armour which not even human feeling can pierce and he mourned Eurydice, and her implacable generosity. And he heard Orpheus’ voice as if in a dream.

  ‘And so I emerged into the upper world, and the stones were whiter than they had ever been and the trees were greener. And I wandered among the dead of this world, the perverted, the fallen. There is no den or hovel that I have not visited, there is no practice that I have not attempted. And all my songs have been elegies for Eurydice for she is the perfection that I have not attained. She had to die before I could possess her, and every song is a fresh attempt on her virginity, an interrogation of her love. Her love,’ he added hopelessly as if he did not know what the word meant.

  ‘And I was determined that I wouldn’t remarry. And so, well, I turned to others for my satisfaction, not women, if you get me. But they had their revenge on me in the end.’

  ‘What others?’ Mr Trill was about to say when he saw Orpheus’s melting eyes resting on him and it was for a moment as if he was lost in a mist of desire, languid and faint. Those white legs, those girlish hands and neck . . .

  ‘I . . . ’ said Trill, ‘I . . . ’ It was as if he had entered a world which was dazzling yet corrupt, attractive yet unnatural, a total Hades of the spirit, in which Eurydice flowered poignantly among metals of a fierce flawed lustre. So this had been the reality of the story, this selfish passionate substance. For art to flourish, the human being must die, must stretch out its hands unavailingly, must accept death that another life be created, another music be made. Was there truth nowhere? Was every narrative ambiguous? Had the classic world been a deception?

  ‘I . . . ’ said Trill again and got to his feet and ran away as fast as possible on his short stumpy legs, away from Orpheus who, as if he had already forgotten him, went back to his strumming again.

  What a narrow escape, thought Trill, there had never been anything like that in Eastborough Grammar, though in the boarding school it had been different. But what was happening to his knowledge of the classics? It was as if everyone was determined to tell him the opposite of what he wished to hear and know about.

  At that very moment Trill heard a voice saying, ‘Hullo, old chap,’ and he looked and there, standing in front of him, was Harris. Here among the shades, Harris whom he had hated so much.

  ‘Well, well, well, so this is Rosy,’ said Harris, his flushed moustached face gazing down at him. ‘I often wondered what had happened to you. Little Rosy whose head I used to plunge in the basin.’

  ‘I’m going to run away,’ thought Trill feeling a trembling in his legs. I’m going to disgrace myself and run away. But he didn’t. He stayed where he was, in the swirling mist.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Harris. ‘I’m not going to touch you. As a matter of fact I’d be glad of someone to talk to. It gets boring down here and I never seem to meet anyone I know.’

  But Trill was seeing in front of him the faces of boys distorted with cruelty: he heard their laughter and felt again the cold harsh water on his face.

  ‘Ah, those were good days,’ said Harris amiably. ‘Do you remember old Horace with his Latin and Greek? Silly old duffer. Never did me any good, that’s for sure.’

  ‘What did you do then?’ said Trill tremblingly.

  ‘Oh, I went into business. No need for Latin or Greek there, I can tell you
. Did quite well.’

  And his face faded and solidified, grew and withered.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Trill in a high squeaking voice. ‘I don’t believe you. You were always cruel and a liar. I don’t believe that you did well at all. I believe that you were a – commercial traveller. That was all you were fit for. I hated you.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you did. I suppose you did but we’re both grown men now. We don’t need to keep up that feud.’

  ‘We do, we do,’ shrilled Trill daringly. ‘Of course we do. Do you know that I had nightmares about you? Why did you torture me so much? I didn’t do anything to you.’

  ‘Well, old boy, you looked so helpless, that was all, and it passed the time. God, those essays we did, and those rules. Lights out at ten. It was just that you were one of nature’s losers, old boy, that’s all. All you were interested in was handing in your comps all present and correct.’

  ‘But I didn’t do anything to you and you used to put my head in the basin and tie up my bedclothes. Why did you do that?’

  ‘I just told you. And anyway it’s a long time ago. Why should you keep those grudges going? I bet you ended up as a teacher yourself. I can imagine you in the staff-room with your pipe in your mouth marking your exercise books and having a quiet look in class up the girls’ legs. You were a bit of a sissy really. No offence. We always thought that.’

  ‘Who did? Who always thought that?’ said Mr Trill, his voice rising to a scream. ‘Tell me that.’

  ‘Oh, if you want to know there was Ormond and Pacey and Mason, they all thought that. As a matter of fact, I saw Mason not so long ago. He’s a brigadier now. But I haven’t seen any of the others. I must say it’s very lonely.’

  ‘Mason always said you were an old liar,’ shouted Trill, the blood mounting to his face. ‘He caught you out time and time again. He said that you would become a commercial traveller. You mark my words, he used to say, that stinker Harris will end up as a commercial traveller. And that was when Mason was in the Cadets. You were always trying to get out of them, weren’t you?’

  ‘They were so boring, old chap, so boring, all that dreary marching. So Mason said that, did he? What else did he say?’

  ‘He said he thought your parents lived in the slums. He often told us that because he said why otherwise did your parents never visit the school?’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Yes, and there were other things too. We once saw your underpants and they were full of holes. Did you know that we called you Holy Harris? We never told you that ’cos you were a bully.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Harris his face fading and solidifying. ‘Isn’t that interesting? You certainly find out things in Hades that you didn’t know before. It’s worth the visit. But surely after all those years you’ll have forgotten about all that. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll introduce you to some of the bigwigs. I’ve got a ticket here which allows you to see them. I can give it to you if you like. Would you like that?’

  ‘No I wouldn’t,’ screamed Trill. ‘I wouldn’t. I don’t want your ticket. You can keep your rotten ticket. You’re a great big bully and you won’t change and that’s a fact.’ And as he looked Harris’s face changed and wavered and the tears started to pour out of his eyes and his hands began to tremble and his whole body which had looked so imposing became small and withered, and even the striped tie which he still wore began to disappear.

  ‘Please, please,’ said Harris holding his hands out in entreaty.

  ‘No,’ said the implacable Trill, ‘no, no, no. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. You’re a bully and a cheat and a liar. And I can see your pants. Holy Harris, Holy Harris,’ he chanted, and the bony knees of Harris disappeared and there was no one left in the wavering mist but Mr Trill himself who groped about as if looking for his own body while the fog swirled around him and in the distance he could vaguely make out the lowering castle with its towers and battlements.

  He looked down at his body to see if his own knees were still there or if he was still wearing his navy blue uniform with the badge of the red lion at the breast and the word sequamur written on it, but no, he was wearing his adult clothes – his suit greyed a little by the ashes of his pipe – and he was himself again, just as if he were the old Mr Trill sitting in a chair in the staff-room filling in the Ximenes crossword or interlacing essays with red marks as if they were bars of blood across the page.

  At that moment he saw a tall figure looming towards him out of the mist, and he started.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘Do I know you?’ But the figure passed on with a silent dignified walk. Mr Trill ran after it. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted again and though he didn’t realise it he looked silly running about with his case as if he were a business man whose train had left without his knowing it and who was scurrying about in search of the stationmaster.

  The figure stopped and looked at him. It was tall and imposing and as its lineaments solidified Mr Trill saw that it was a woman, majestic, implacable. He went down slowly on his knees and heard himself asking, ‘Are you a goddess then? You are not Athene, are you? Or even Juno?’

  ‘No, I am none of these,’ said the figure. ‘My name is Dido, and who are you?’

  ‘My name is Mr Trill and I used to be a classics master at Eastborough Grammar, Dido,’ and he was almost overwhelmed that he had spoken her name but he began to speak again quickly and nervously. ‘I used to read poetry about you. “And I shall know it even from among the shades.” You said that didn’t you?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I suppose I might have done. I said many things.’ And the lips twitched with a brief pain.

  ‘But your story,’ said Mr Trill, ‘can I not hear your story? Look, we are alone. We will not be interrupted. I’ve been told so much that I feel is wrong, and perhaps you could tell me the truth about yourself and Aeneas. Is it true that he left you and sailed to Italy? Is it true about the cave where you met?’

  ‘Yes, it is true, it is all true. But what use is it to talk of it now? In his own mind he had his duty to do, he had to sail away and found Rome. That, he said, was his destiny. Who can resist the will of the gods? I thought we might,’ and her voice faded away. ‘It was possible that my love might, but it didn’t. He sailed away secretly in his boats. Perhaps that was the worst of all. He should have told me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Mr Trill daringly, ‘he could not bring himself to meet you again in case he could not continue with his destiny.’

  ‘Perhaps. What does it matter now? He has sought me here, I have seen him hesitantly lingering as if he wished to speak to me, but I, what should I have to say to him?’

  ‘But the founding of a new city, of a civilisation,’ said Mr Trill, ‘is that not more important than a private love? Rome became a great empire: it spread its power all over the world.’

  ‘Is that true?’ said Dido in an uninterested voice. ‘Perhaps that is important.’

  ‘And then,’ said Mr Trill, ‘it produced a great poet who wrote about you. I think his sympathies were with you.’

  ‘With me? A Roman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  As if talking to herself Dido said, ‘He charmed me with his stories. All the time that he was telling me of the fall of Troy, Carthage was being built. There was the sound of hammers everywhere. It was like a new beginning. I thought it would be a new beginning for us. But even while he was talking to me, even in the deepest moments of our love I knew that he was thinking of Rome.’

  ‘The poet says,’ Mr Trill persisted, ‘that it was with a heavy heart Aeneas left Phoenicia, though he was filled with love and longing.’

  ‘And I,’ said Dido, ‘was on fire when I saw his sails fading into the distance. It was as if I was burning. As a queen what should I do but kill myself? I had my own dignity too. Everyone has his dignity.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Trill. And he was filled with hatred for that obstinate, god-obeying man who had set off in search of his own fam
e, leaving behind him a pyre that blazed on an abandoned headland. Was the creation of a new land, the pursuit of fame, narrow obedience to the gods, indeed greater than the love such a woman as this could give?

  ‘There were some other words that the poet wrote,’ said Mr Trill, quoting from memory. ‘He wrote that you said,

  ‘ “If that wicked being must surely sail to land and come to harbour because such is the fixed and destined ending required by Jupiter’s own ordinances, yet let him afterwards suffer affliction in war through the arms of a daring foe, let him be banished from his own territory and torn from the embraces of Iulus, imploring aid as he sees his innocent friends die and then after surrendering to a humiliating peace may he not live to enjoy his kingdom in happiness: and may he lie fallen before his time, unburied on a lonely strand.” ’

  ‘I said that?’ said Dido laughing. ‘When did I say that? How could I speak like that? No, that was not how I felt. How should love speak like that? How should I wish such things for him? I thought you said that that poet spoke well of me? What I felt was not that. When I saw those ships sailing away and I heard around me the sounds of the hammers as Carthage was being built, it was not vengeance I felt, rather it was hopelessness, as if my world was coming to an end. Have you not loved? Do you not know what love is?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Trill, ‘I have loved.’

  ‘If that is so then you must know that it is not anger one feels at such a moment.’ She paused and then began again as if she were back in Carthage, ‘It was a clear day and his men were pulling at the oars. Men were working around me excavating a harbour and others raising a temple and a theatre. The sea was so calm: it was the calmness of the sea that tormented me. He was sailing into the future and I was remaining there. Yet it was not anger I felt, it was the indifference of the day that tormented me. The sea was so calm, the day was so clear and pure and the ship was sailing away from me forever. Forever. And then I turned to the pyre and stabbed myself with my dagger.’