The Night Villa

by Carol Goodman

  “Are you sure you can operate the spectrograph yourself?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve watched him do it a dozen times. We’ll have to wait until everyone else is asleep, though.”

  “I was thinking we’d start around two. Can you stay up until then?”

  Agnes downs the rest of her cappuccino and holds the empty cup up to the waiter to indicate she wants another. I do the same with my espresso cup. Before I put it down, Agnes clinks her cup against mine. “I can’t wait to see Maria’s face when she hears there was a scroll in the Chamber. She looked like she was going to cry when you guys came back empty-handed.”

  I hadn’t noticed Maria’s disappointment, and I wonder what she had hoped to find in the chamber: Iusta’s diary or Pythagoras’s Golden Verses? I don’t admit to Agnes that I have no idea how I’m going to explain to Lyros and the rest of the project how I came by the scroll. Downing another shot of espresso, I decide to worry about that once I know what’s in it.

  Agnes and I agree to meet in the lab at two a.m. Luckily, she’s got a set of keys and the lab’s separated from the sleeping quarters by the lower courtyard. Passing the splashing fountain I hope that the sound of falling water’s enough to disguise the noise of the spectrograph.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Agnes tells me when I confess my worries while we’re positioning the scroll in the spectrograph. “The labs are soundproofed. Mr. Lyros didn’t want modern noises ruining the illusion of being in an ancient villa.”

  “Lovely what money can buy,” I say. “I wonder if he pays to reroute air traffic over this part of the island.”

  Agnes looks up from the viewer with a furrowed brow. “I thought you liked Mr. Lyros.”

  “Oh,” I say, sorry I’ve let on that I no longer do. “He’s okay, I mean, he’s been tremendously generous putting us all up here and helping the project. It’s just, um…”

  “That he seems a little creepy?” Agnes suggests, looking back down and adjusting the settings on the machine.

  “I was going to say otherworldly.”

  Agnes nods. “It’s his eyes. They’re so pale it’s like there’s nothing there behind them. Anyway, I’m glad.”

  “Glad about what?”

  “Glad that you don’t like him. I’m still rooting for you and Dr. Lawrence.”

  “Agnes—” I’m about to correct her misassumptions about me and Elgin but stop when an image of the charred scroll appears on the screen. As the spectrograph scans the layers of tightly rolled papyrus the image of the scroll appears to swell, the layers gently separating like a wet newspaper swelling in the rain. “Wow,” I say instead. “How can it differentiate between the different layers?”

  “George wrote a program that recognizes the blank side of the papyrus and the space between columns of writing. Look, once it separates the layers it begins to digitally unfurl the scroll.”

  I watch as on the screen the scroll appears to unroll from left to right as though invisible hands were opening it. Agnes shows me how moving the cursor unrolls the scroll on the right and rolls it up on the left, just as it would have if an ancient Roman were reading it.

  “A totally unnecessary effect,” Agnes says, “but George says it makes him feel like he’s browsing through the library of Alexandria with an invisible slave holding the scrolls open.”

  “It’s amazing,” I say, peering closer at the screen, “but I can’t make out the writing.”

  “I have to adjust the contrast. This ink isn’t the same as what Phineas was using—” As Agnes adjusts a knob on the machine, the letters on the screen sharpen and darken while the background of charred papyrus grows dimmer. The first thing I notice is that the letters aren’t Greek, they’re Latin—so it’s not the Golden Verses. The second thing I notice is that the handwriting is familiar.

  “He’s using a different kind of ink and he’s not writing as neatly, but it’s definitely Phineas. Sorry, I know you were hoping it would be Iusta.” Agnes sounds as disappointed as I feel.

  “Well,” I say, “at least maybe we’ll hear more about what happened to Iusta. This must be the scroll Phineas took with him underground and that he wrote while he was in the chamber. That’s why the handwriting is different—he probably didn’t have much light or a good writing surface—”

  “And he was rushing to finish before they came back for him. Doesn’t this line say, I must write in haste?”

  “Yes,” I say, sight-reading the next few lines. “…so that I might record the marvelous things I’ve witnessed today before it is too late. Even now the ground trembles and I smell the reek of sulfur. I fear this chamber might indeed become my tomb, my Hades, and this might be my eulogy.

  “Leave it to Phineas to write his own eulogy,” I say, irritated that we haven’t found Iusta’s diary. Still, there’s always the chance that he’ll tell us what became of the diary—and of Iusta herself. “We might as well see what he has to say for himself.”

  I must write in haste so that I might record the marvelous things I’ve witnessed today before it is too late. Even now the ground trembles and I smell the reek of sulfur. I fear this chamber might indeed become my tomb, my Hades, and this might be my eulogy.

  Everything was done so as to make me believe I was descending into the underworld. Calatoria and her attendants stood in a circle around the statue of the goddess Night. Like the goddess, they were arrayed in veils embroidered with stars, their loose hair wreathed with poppies, the flower of sleep and forgetting. Twelve guardians of Night: a fitting escort to the land of the dead. The effect would have been more pleasing, though, if the women had been younger. They were all matrons of Calatoria’s age, and none nearly as attractive as Calatoria herself, a club of bored magistrates’ wives who whiled away their time at the seaside by playing at sacred rites. I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed.

  Still, I could tell I was being infected with the spirit of the mystery rites. Each attendant held a little basket—not unlike the liknon carried in Dionysian rites, only these were made of metal and held burning incense. They filled the passage with a sweet heady smoke that made me feel light-headed. Opium, I imagine. Calatoria led the way down the stairs, holding a torch high above her head so that as we descended I caught fleeting images of the paintings on the wall. I was glad I had seen them before with Iusta because I am sure that if I had encountered them for the first time in this atmosphere, intoxicated by the opium smoke and the peculiar keening of the attendants, I would have been even more unnerved than I was. Even forewarned, the quivering inter-tangled limbs of human and beast seemed to come alive in the flash of Calatoria’s torch. I could almost believe that at any moment the tentacle of an octopus or the hand of one of these sea nymphs would reach out and grab me from behind. The world above seemed suddenly far away, its rules and strictures more illusory than the laws that governed these strange aqueous couplings. Every step downward was taking me closer to the core, not just of the earth where Hades and his queen rule the shades, but into the core of my very being. This, I said to myself, is the secret of the mystery rites: they reveal what it means to be human. They show us where we’ve come from and where we all end up: Chaos, as Ovid has described it, a rough and undigested mass clotted with the warring seeds of things not yet yoked together. This is what we come from and, perhaps, what we return to at the end.

  When we came to the bottom of the steps, the attendants circled round the stone lid of the chamber. I tried not to give away by glance or gesture that I recognized the place. Instead, I stood with respectfully lowered eyes, looking into the face of the carved Medusa, as still as if I had indeed been turned into stone by her.

  “Are you ready to assume the role of the god?” Calatoria asked.

  “Yes. I am ready.”

  “First, then, you must cleanse yourself of all earthly stain. I will ask you three questions. You are not to answer them now, but must think on them in your chamber while we cleanse ourselves for the sacrifice. Have your answ
ers ready when we come for you.”

  I nodded my assent without speaking and waited for my questions, wondering if this is how Oedipus felt before the Sphinx.

  At an invisible sign from their mistress, the attendants began to chant together, their voices all as one. The words were in Greek.

  Where did I go wrong today?

  What did I accomplish?

  What obligation did I not perform?

  I’m ashamed to say that I nearly laughed at hearing the three questions posed by Pythagoras in his Golden Verses. Was Calatoria taunting me with her theft? Or was this the clue to why she had stolen the scroll? Were these women Pythagoreans? True, the philosopher had dwelled in a part of Italy not far from here. Perhaps this little group was a remnant of his followers. The idea was so intriguing that I missed whatever Calatoria said next. Some more nonsense about preparing myself and cleansing my soul. Then the attendants knelt around the stone circle and, intoning a series of random words and numbers, turned the lid. I noticed, as I had not when Iusta turned the stone, that when the lid was in the right position a series of triangles were formed by the dots on the interior circle and the exterior rim. I saw then that beneath their veils the women wore painted dots shaped like triangles upon their foreheads. I felt sure then that I had penetrated at least one secret of Calatoria’s little mysteries: they combined some primitive worship of Pythagoras with the rites of Demeter and Persephone with perhaps some elements of Dionysian worship thrown in. I was so busy pondering this that I was startled to notice that the attendants had moved closer and were encircling me with ropes. I jerked away, merely a natural reaction to the sensation of being bound, and two women wrenched my arms behind my back with surprising strength and quickness while the others tightened their hold on me.

  “Must they be so tight?” I asked, surprised at the fear in my own voice.

  “We wouldn’t want you to slip while you’re being lowered to your chamber,” Calatoria answered, nodding to one of the attendants who stepped in front of me and, without any warning, dropped a hood over my head.

  The instant I was plunged into blackness the women began to moan and wail, letting loose a torrent of such wild unbridled lamentation that my hair stood on end and my skin tingled as if a million pins were pricking its surface. Pins were pricking my skin and hands were moving all over me, pinching, tickling, prying…so many sensations I could no longer tell what was happening to me. I felt myself lifted off my feet and laid flat—only I was lying on nothing. I was held up by a dozen hands as if carried on a bier, and all the while the women keened their loss, mourning the death of a god. Of course, I thought, this is the Dionysian element of the rites. I am Zagreus, devoured by the Titans, later to be reborn as the god Dionysus. I could feel the women plucking at my arms and legs as if to tear me limb from limb. I could even feel their mouths on my flesh—sucking, nipping—symbolizing the ritual eating of the god. Indeed, some of the women, carried away with ecstasy, actually bit me. I tried not to scream out, but if I did I’m sure the sound was covered up by their ululations. Just when the sensations were becoming unbearable, I felt myself plummeting through space and I dropped onto hard cold stone.

  I lay there, stunned, while above me I could hear the grating of stone against stone as the lid was replaced. I waited until I could tell by the muted wails of the women that the chamber was sealed. Then I struggled against the ropes. Iusta had not prepared me for this! What if I couldn’t untie myself? But the ropes, while tightly wrapped around my body, did not secure my hands and I was soon able to free myself. The first thing I did was to take the hood off my head. It did no good; I was immersed in total darkness.

  This, too, I guessed, was part of the ritual. I was the god who has been killed and eaten awaiting my rebirth in the stomach of great Zeus. I heard rumblings in the earth not unlike the growlings of a great stomach—sounds made, I imagined, by Calatoria and her attendants as they moved through the tunnels that were hewn through the rock around my chamber. They would go now to the grotto and bathe in the sea, then return to celebrate my rebirth, bringing me the goddess Persephone, but at that point I admit that I grew confused. According to the legend, if I were Zagreus, then actually Persephone was my mother. So she wouldn’t be offered to me as a bride. But if I were Hades, Persephone’s ravisher and husband, then why had I been subjected to the ritual dismemberment and eating? I could only assume that Calatoria and her women had gotten their myths mixed up. I would have to ask Iusta about it later.

  Now, though, I had to collect my wits and find my way to the Chamber of the Maiden. I found the iron rod Iusta had left and used it to open the door into the tunnels. Following the tunnels marked with the sign of the pomegranate, I found the chamber of Persephone with Iusta bound in it. She, however, had been left with a torch stuck into a crack in the rock, which she grabbed as soon as I untied her. She led me into another series of tunnels, following the path marked with the double-tailed siren that led to the grotto.

  “Even without these signs, I think I would be able to find my way to the grotto by following the sound of the sea,” I told Iusta.

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Iusta replied. “The sea enters a number of caves inside this cliff and produces confusing echoes in the many caverns and tunnels. Listen.”

  She made me stop and I heard what she meant. The sound of the sea was all around us, as if we had traveled beneath the bottom of the ocean into the lair of Poseidon. Threaded inside the music of the ocean was the sound of women’s voices; Calatoria and her attendants had given over their keening for singing now, but their song had something wild and savage in it. I felt sure this was how the sirens sounded when they lured men to their doom. It almost made me afraid to follow their voices to their lair, but I could also feel the pull of the secret knowledge their song promised.

  “Here,” Iusta said as we reached the end of a long tunnel. “If we climb onto this ledge we will see into the Sirens’ Grotto. Be careful to keep your head down so that they can’t see you.”

  Iusta climbed up onto the ledge first and then offered me her hand to help me up. There was hardly enough room for both of us even though Iusta is slight and I have always observed the stoic’s diet and so remain slim at an age when other men have grown stout. I could feel her flesh pressed against mine and her breath on my neck as she leaned forward to look over the ledge into the grotto. She smelled like lemons and rosewater, I noticed, a refreshingly sweet smell in this dank, incense-laden cavern.

  “They’ve almost reached the part where Calatoria will read from The Golden Verses. We must be sure to see where she’s hidden the scroll.”

  I tore myself away from the contemplation of Iusta’s charms and looked into the grotto. It looked like a natural sea cave, hewn out of limestone and filled with water of an ethereal blue. Around its edges was a shallow ledge and on this Calatoria and her attendants positioned themselves, each one holding a torch so that the light of the flames reflected in the water and danced on the ceiling, like phosphorescent sea creatures swimming in a moonlit ocean. With their loose hair and wild eyes, I could well believe they were actually sirens. One by one they lowered their torches and doused them in the water where the flames seemed to glow blue before dying and then, marvelous to say, the flames leaped back to life as the torches were lifted back up.

  “Ah,” I whispered to Iusta, “it’s a trick played by the Bacchantes in Rome—I read about it in Livy. The torches are coated with a mixture of chalk and sulfur. I can smell the sulfur from here.”

  Iusta looked at me and smiled, impressed, I imagined, with my learning. “It must be wonderful to possess such a store of wisdom.”

  “I find it especially useful in these situations. Once you understand the mechanics of such exhibitions, they cease to have the power to frighten.”

  “And does your knowledge also insulate you from amazement and wonder?” she asked.

  I stared at her. Did I detect a note of mockery in her voice? But she seemed quite serious.
She looked, oddly enough, as though she pitied me. “Perhaps it does,” I answered. “I never thought of it that way. I suppose it’s the price one pays for plumbing the mysteries of the world that they cease to amaze one, but what is the alternative? To be tossed to and fro on a sea of superstition and emotion? I will try, though, to suspend my reason for the duration of the rites so that I might experience them to the full.”

  At that, she looked troubled and was about to say something, but a sound from the grotto distracted her. “Listen,” she said, “Calatoria is reading.”

  Calatoria was holding a scroll open in her hands while an attendant held a torch above her head. We had missed the moment when she retrieved the scroll from its hiding place. Still, we would see where she hid it when it came time for the women to cleanse themselves in the sea. I strained to hear what she read. It sounded like it was written in Greek hexameters.

  A fish whose bright scales shimmer in shallows

  never weeps for her mortality,

  but when we do for ours we quite forget

  our many other lives, past and to be:

  as fish whose glimmer makes love to the sun,

  or sea birds whose white feathers blur to streaks of foam,

  who glide and skim above seas vast as all eternity;

  even the squid deep in green water once

  was a swallow whose life could come to you or me,

  soft wings swooping through dusk’s pinkest glow.

  Mother of life’s the sea—

  by it we must gather now, to sacrifice, exult

  and praise blue mother waves and father sky

  until the time comes when we have to flee,

  casting off the Night for Day!

  We are a shining circle. We!

  When she finished reading the poem, Calatoria carefully replaced the scroll in a hole in the wall. Turning back to the circle of her attendants, she sang in a loud ringing voice: