Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

  Arne-Sayles did not testify at his trial and never offered any explanation as to why he’d imprisoned James Ritter.

  I found this entry to be disappointing; there was very little information as to who poor James Ritter was. I turned to the second entry. This looked more promising.

  Biography of James Ritter

  Born 1967 in London. In his youth Ritter was very good-looking. He worked as a model, a waiter, a barman, an actor and occasionally as a prostitute. Throughout his adult life he suffered prolonged periods of mental illness. He was sectioned at least twice between 1987 and 1994, once in London, once in Wakefield. He was sometimes homeless.

  After he was found behind the fake wall in Arne-Sayles’s house he was taken to hospital where he was treated for pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration and bipolar disorder. The police tried to discover how long Arne-Sayles had kept him prisoner, but Ritter was incapable of giving any sort of coherent answer. So the police talked to people who knew him – drug addicts, social workers, people who ran hostels for the homeless. All that they (the police) were able to establish was that Ritter had been seen in and around Manchester in the early part of 1995, so it was possible – though by no means definite – that he had been imprisoned for as long as two years.

  Ritter’s own story, as he gradually became able to tell it, served to make matters more obscure. He insisted that he had only been at Arne-Sayles’s house in Whalley Range for brief periods; most of the time he had been at a different house, a house that contained statues and where many of the rooms were flooded by the sea. Most of the time he appeared to think that he was still there. On several occasions while he was in hospital he became very agitated, saying that he needed to go back to the minotaurs because the minotaurs would have his dinner. Despite being put on medication to control his delusions, he continued to insist on this story of a house with a flooded basement and statues.

  Quite what Arne-Sayles was trying to achieve by keeping Ritter prisoner is still a matter for debate. Two theories have been put forward.

  The first is that Arne-Sayles brainwashed Ritter in order to lend credence to his claims that other worlds not only existed, but that he and other people had been there. Certainly, Ritter’s description of the house is similar to the vast, empty rooms in Sylvia D’Agostino’s film, The Castle; it is also similar to Arne-Sayles’s own description of the other world in the book he wrote in prison: The Labyrinth. (Of course, it is perfectly possible that Arne-Sayles simply elaborated on Ritter’s hallucinations.) But if that was Arne-Sayles’s aim – to manufacture evidence of another world – then why did he choose a man with a history of delusional illness as his witness?

  The second theory was that the kidnapping had less to do with Arne-Sayles’s Other World theories than with his outré sexual tastes. (This was the line the prosecution took at the trial in October 1997.) But in that case why was Ritter babbling about houses with seas in the basement?

  Angharad Scott attempted to interview Ritter for her biography of Arne-Sayles, but Ritter had taken offence that no one believed him about the house with the ocean imprisoned in it and he refused to speak to her. In 2010 a Guardian journalist – Lysander Weeks – tracked him down for a retrospective piece on the Arne-Sayles scandal. At this point Ritter was working as a caretaker for Manchester Town Hall. Weeks described him as calm, self-possessed, almost Zen-like. Ritter claimed to have been drug-free for a decade. Nevertheless the story he told Weeks was the same one he had told the police: that for about eighteen months between 1995 and 1997 he had inhabited a large house where the sea flooded the basement and sometimes rose up to the ground floor. Ritter said he had slept in a sort of white, translucent cave beneath the marble sweep of a great staircase. Ritter said that working at Manchester Town Hall was what had saved him; it too was a vast building with great rooms and statues and staircases. The resemblance to the other house – the one Arne-Sayles had taken him to – calmed him.

  Journal entries on Sylvia D’Agostino and poor James Ritter: some initial thoughts

  entry for the twenty-first day of the eighth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  The last entry on poor James Ritter was the one I found the most intriguing. It was just as full of nonsense words as the others, but the part about the Minotaurs was a clear reference to the First Vestibule. I also recognised Ritter’s description of the white, translucent cave beneath a Staircase. The First Vestibule contains just such a Staircase with just such a cave-like space beneath it. And it was in that cave-like space that I had found much of the rubbish that had so annoyed me. James Ritter was clearly the person who had eaten crisps and fish fingers in the First Vestibule. (This insight alone justifies my decision to continue reading my Journal!)

  Sylvia D’Agostino’s entry was less informative, but judging by the description of her film, The Castle, she too had visited these Halls.

  The word ‘university’ occurs three times in the entry about Sylvia D’Agostino and three times in the entries about Stanley Ovenden. Two weeks ago I hypothesised that I was able to ascribe a meaning to this seemingly nonsense word because I have seen Statues of Scholars in the House. At the time I was inclined to dismiss this theory as weak, but it seems more plausible now. It occurs to me that there are many other ideas that I understand perfectly, even though no such things exist in the World. For example I know that a garden is a place where one can refresh oneself with the sight of plants and trees. But a garden is not a thing that exists in the World nor is there any Statue representing that particular idea. (Indeed I cannot quite imagine what a Statue of a garden would look like.) Instead, scattered about the House are Statues in which People or Gods or Beasts are surrounded by Roses or Strands of Ivy, or shelter under the Canopies of Trees. In the Ninth Vestibule there is the Statue of a Gardener digging and in the Nineteenth South-Eastern Hall there is a Statue of a different Gardener pruning a Rose Bush. It is from these things that I deduce the idea of a garden. I do not believe this happens by accident. This is how the House places new ideas gently and naturally in the Minds of Men. This is how the House increases my understanding.

  This realisation is very encouraging and I no longer feel quite so alarmed when a nonsensical word in my Journal gives rise to a mental image that I cannot account for. Do not be anxious, I tell Myself. It is the House. It is the House enlarging your understanding.

  All the Journal entries contain names. I have made a list of those I have found so far. There are fifteen of them. Assuming that ‘Ketterley’ belongs to the Other and that another belongs to the Prophet, then thirteen remain. This is the exact number of the Dead in my Halls. A coincidence? After careful consideration I am inclined to think it might be. While fifteen people are named, several more seem to be implied in the text: people such as the friend to whom D’Agostino said that she wished to study ‘Death, Stars and Mathematics’; ‘the police’ (who are mentioned in all the texts); the woman who cleaned Laurence Arne-Sayles’s house; and the young men whom Laurence Arne-Sayles picked up on Saturday nights. It is impossible to say at this juncture how many of these people there are.

  PART 4

  16

  I retrieve the scraps of paper from the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall

  entry for the first day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  I had not forgotten the scraps of paper that I found in the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall, nor the ones that remained there, woven into herring gull nests.

  Two days ago I gathered together supplies for the journey: food, blankets, a small saucepan in which to heat water and some rags. I set off and reached the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall about the middle of the afternoon. The gulls must have been out searching for food because there were none in the Hall, though fresh deposits of excrement on the Statues showed that it was still their roosting place.

  Immediately I began work extricating the scraps of paper from the nests. The ease with which this could be accomplished va
ried. In some nests the seaweed was dry and fell apart at the first tug, but in others the paper scraps were cemented to the seaweed by the gulls’ droppings. I made a fire using dry seaweed from the old nests; I heated water in the saucepan; then I dipped a rag into the water and applied it gently to the paper that was stuck in the nests. It was delicate work: too little hot water and the hard droppings would not soften; too much and the paper itself would dissolve. It took me many hours of labour, but by the evening of the second day I had recovered seventy-nine scraps from thirty-five nests. I examined every nest again and satisfied Myself that no more remained.

  This morning I returned to my own Halls.

  I spent some time trying to assemble the writing. Eventually, after an hour, I had part of a page – perhaps as much as half – and a few smaller sections of other pages.

  The writing was very bad, full of crossings out. I read:

  … that he has done to me. How could I have been so stupid? I will die here. There is no one coming to save me. I will die here. The silence [piece missing] no sound, only the pounding of the sea in the rooms below. There is nothing to eat. I rely on him to bring me food and water – which only underlines my status as a prisoner, a slave. He leaves the food in the room with the minotaur statues. I indulge myself in long fantasies of killing him. In one of the destroyed rooms I found a jagged piece of marble about the size of a roof tile. I have thought about crushing his head with it. This would give me great satisfaction …

  This was the writing of a very angry and unhappy person. I wondered who it had been? I wished that I could reach through his writing to comfort him, to show him the fish that abounds in every Vestibule, the beds of shellfish just waiting to be gathered, how with only a little foresight he need never go hungry, how the House provides for and protects its Children. I wondered about his persecutor, the man who had made him a slave. I felt very sad to think that there had existed such antagonism between two human beings, perhaps even between two of my own Dead. Had the Concealed Person tormented the Biscuit-Box Man? Or the other way round?

  Very carefully I turned over the scraps and examined the reverse. The writing here was even worse.

  I forget. I forget. Yesterday I could not think of the word for lamp-post. This morning I thought that one of the statues spoke to me. I passed some time (about half an hour I think) talking to it. I am LOSING MY MIND. How horrible, how terrible to be in this dreadful place and MAD. I am DETERMINED TO KILL him before this happens. Before I forget why I HATE HIM.

  I sighed when I unravelled this. I took three envelopes the Other gave me once. In the first I placed the scraps that I had succeeded in putting together. On the outside of the envelope I carefully wrote a copy of the two transcriptions. In the second envelope I placed some scraps that fitted together, making fragments of sentences. In the third envelope I placed the scraps I had not managed to fit to any others.

  A problem

  entry for the second day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  One overriding problem concerns me at the moment: whether or not to ask the Other about Stanley Ovenden, Sylvia D’Agostino, poor James Ritter and Maurizio Giussani. The Prophet called the Other ‘Ketterley’. In the entry about the disappearance of Maurizio Giussani the name ‘Ketterley’ appears in close proximity to the names D’Agostino and Ovenden, and to Giussani itself. From this I conclude that the Other knew these people. I long to know more of them and several times it has been on the tip of my tongue to ask him. But always at the last moment I have hesitated. Supposing he said: Where did you hear of these people? Who told you?, I would not know what to say. He must not know that I have spoken to the Prophet. He must not know about the entries in my Journal.

  He is full of suspicion. He thinks of nothing but the approach of 16. Two months ago he declared his intention to go to the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall and perform the ritual, which he believes will summon the Great and Secret Knowledge, but at present all that is forgotten.

  Lemon

  entry for the fifth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  This morning I was on my way from the Third Northern Hall to the Sixteenth Vestibule. I passed out of the First Northern Hall and into the First Vestibule. I took a step or two, then stopped.

  Something had just happened. What was it? What had just happened?

  I took a couple of steps back into the Doorway and breathed in. There it was again! A scent. A perfume of lemons, geranium leaves, hyacinths and narcissi.

  It was quite strong in this one spot. Someone – a person wearing a beautiful perfume – had stood for a while in the Doorway, perhaps looking out at the Long Vista of Receding Halls. I returned to the First Northern Hall but could find no trace of it there. I went back to the First Vestibule and passed southwards along the Wall under the looming Statue of a Minotaur. Yes, the scent was discernible here too. I traced the person’s path as far as a point between the Doorway to the First Western Hall and the Doorway to the Corridor leading to the First South-Western Hall. There I lost it.

  Who was the person who had passed this way? Not the Other. I knew the perfume he wore: a spicy scent of coriander, rose and sandalwood. The Prophet? I remembered his perfume very well. Again, quite different – violet had been the dominant note, with hints of cloves, blackcurrant and rose.

  No, this was someone new.

  16 had come. 16 was here.

  My heart started beating faster. I looked around the Vestibule. The great space was darkened by the velvet Shadows of the Minotaurs with splinters of golden Light between. 16 did not step out from a hiding place to begin making me mad. Yet he had been there and perhaps no more than an hour before.

  It was surprising to me that someone like 16, someone so wedded to Destruction and Madness, should wear a perfume so lovely, so redolent of Sunshine and Happiness. But then I told Myself that I was foolish to think like that. Treat this as a warning, I said. Be on your guard. 16 will not wear his ill intentions in his face. It is very likely he will be pleasing to the eyes. His manners will be friendly and insinuating. That is how he intends to destroy you.

  More people to kill

  entry for the seventh day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  This morning I told the Other about the perfume in the First Vestibule. To my surprise he took the news quite calmly.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m beginning to think that it’s better to get it over with,’ he said, ‘rather than hanging about, waiting for it to happen. And besides, perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing after all.’

  ‘But I thought you said that 16 is a great threat to us,’ I said. ‘I thought you said that he threatens your safety and my sanity?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Then how can it possibly be good if he comes here?’

  ‘Because the threat to us is so great that our only option is to eliminate 16 entirely.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  For an answer, the Other put two fingers to his head in imitation of a gun and made the sound: Boom!

  I was stunned. ‘I do not think that I could kill someone however wicked they are,’ I said. ‘Even the wicked deserve Life. Or if they do not, then let the House take it from them. Not me.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I could kill someone with my hands.’ He examined his own thoughtfully, spreading the fingers and turning them over. ‘Though it would be interesting to try. Tell you what. I’ll get a gun. That’ll make it easier, whichever of us has to do it. Which reminds me, there’s a possibility – a small possibility – that someone else might come here. If you ever see an old man …’

  ‘ … an old man?’ I said, startled.

  ‘ … yes, an old man. If you see him, tell me straightaway. He’s not quite so tall as me. Very thin. Pale. With hooded eyes and a red, wet mouth.’ The Other gave an involuntary shudder, then said, ‘I
don’t know why I’m describing him to you. It’s not as if hordes of old men are going to start turning up.’

  ‘Why? Are you going to kill him as well?’ I asked anxiously. I had no doubt that the Other was talking about the Prophet.

  ‘Well, no,’ he said. He paused. ‘Although now that you mention it, it’s about time that somebody did. It was always amazing to me that no one killed him while he was in prison. Anyway, tell me if you see him.’

  I nodded in as non-committal a manner as I could manage. The Other had asked me to tell him if I saw the Prophet in the future, not if I had seen him in the past, so I was not exactly lying. The one good thing about this new development is that the Prophet has gone back to his own Halls and he said quite definitely that he did not intend to return.

  I find writing made by 16

  entry for the thirteenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  For five days a steady, grey, drenching rain fell in all the Vestibules. The World was damp and chill and puddles formed on the Stone Pavements at the Doors to the Vestibules. The Halls were full of the chatter of birds who came there to shelter.

  I kept as busy as I could. I mended my fishing nets and practised my music. But all the while at the back of my mind was the thought that 16 was here and intended to make me mad. I had no idea when the crisis would come, and it was not a pleasant feeling.

  Today it stopped raining. The World became light of Heart again.

  I made my way to the Sixth North-Western Hall, which is home to a flock of rooks. The moment they saw me they descended from their perches on the High Statues, wheeling and flapping and calling to each other. I scattered scraps of fish to feed them. Two alighted on my shoulders. One pecked at my ear, hoping to discover if I was good to eat. It made me laugh. Standing in the middle of the rattle and whirl of black wings, I was not paying attention to my surroundings and I did not at first see that on a Door to my right, there was a mark, a slash of bright yellow chalk. Then I did see it. I shrugged the birds away and went to look.