The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Mireille had to wait a few days for approval to arrive from London and in the meantime she called Michel whenever she could. He didn’t want to waste time, and had already started looking in the National Library in Athens, going through all the books that he thought might contain such phrases. But the best he could do was guess: the Old Testament, Athenaeus, Apollodorus, Dionysius Areopagitas, the Fathers of the Church, Lucianus. He’d also gone to the land registry office to see if he could find out who the building at 17 Dionysìou Street belonged to, but had been told that it would take some time. He’d tried slipping the clerk a tip, but it hadn’t helped much, because anyone who needed anything from the office had obviously done the same. So it was back to square one.

  Mireille didn’t manage to get access to Icarus until mid-October, when she received a formal appointment from the company. She arrived fresh off the plane from Paris, emanating the elegance and style of her social rank and her personal beauty, and was taken directly to the office of the director, who was reluctant to hand her over to Dr Jones, the technician who was to help her in her research. He was a shy, young, freckle-faced man with red hair who had certainly never had to deal with a woman so intelligent that she wanted to interrogate Icarus, and so beautiful as to make his legs tremble and muddle his thoughts. His attempts at small talk were wholly inadequate, his compliments awkward and inopportune, but Mireille smiled regardless as he led her along the long hall and accompanied her down to the sterile, uniformly lit basement room where the company devised its computer strategies. And where all the knowledge salvaged from the shipwrecked ancient world was saved on a disk a few centimetres wide.

  Mireille did not want her father to regret having obtained this privilege for her, and so for a good hour she entered a series of questions in which she had absolutely no interest but which fitted in with her alibi, were it ever to be checked. But she couldn’t wait to type in those phrases that she’d copied in her notebook.

  ‘Dr Jones,’ she said, when she felt ready, ‘I don’t know how to thank you: Icarus is a dream come true – it’s saved me months and months of work and research.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done nothing. And I’ve enjoyed your company immensely. You see, it’s not every day that I get to assist such a lovely girl. These thinking machines have an advantage over us – they’re completely insensitive to female beauty and can work quickly and rationally, while any human being would be hopelessly confused by . . . well, anyone like me, anyway . . .’

  ‘How sweet of you to say such a thing, Dr Jones.’

  Jones gulped. ‘Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like to ask our program?’

  ‘Now that you ask, there are a couple of odd phrases that I copied down from a book a long time ago, and I would be curious to know where they come from. But I don’t want to inconvenience you. It’s really not important.’

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t mind in the least, believe me. What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘You know ancient Greek, obviously.’

  ‘Of course, I’ve been one of the main contributors to the Icarus program.’

  ‘It’s something that a friend of mine transcribed into modern Greek from the ancient Greek. I’d like to identify the original source. It’s just a couple of phrases . . .’

  She showed him the transcriptions in her notebook: ‘She’s naked, she’s cold,’ and ‘You put the bread into a cold oven.’

  ‘Weird stuff,’ said Jones.

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s try.’

  The technician typed in the first phrase, then hit the search key. The numbers of the files being scanned flew over the display while the following message appeared:

  Estimated search time: eight minutes

  Eight minutes! The machine could go through the entire body of classical literature in just eight minutes!

  ‘Found it,’ said the technician suddenly. ‘Look, he’s found it.’ A blue blinking light at the top right of the screen signalled that the search was over, and the exact source of the quotation appeared at the centre of the display:

  Oracles of the Dead, in Herodot, V. 92, 2

  Jones turned to the girl with a vaguely dismayed look on his face. ‘It’s an Oracle of the Dead, miss, reported by Herodotus.’

  Herodotus! Lord knew what obscure sources Michel was looking through that very minute. Why was it that one tried the most difficult things first? Herodotus of all things!

  ‘Let’s see who it refers to,’ added Jones, as he typed in another query. Icarus responded instantly:

  See Melissa

  and then again

  Periander’s dead wife

  ‘The phrase refers to Melissa, the dead wife of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, if I’m not mistaken.’

  Correct

  Icarus answered at his request for confirmation.

  ‘Let’s look at the second phrase now,’ said Jones, and entered the first of the versions Mireille had written down.

  Not found

  replied Icarus after a few minutes, adding:

  Searching for a similar expression

  Several more minutes passed. A window on the screen was analysing all the possible grammatical and stylistic variations that the program’s endless philological memory could assemble. Mireille was fascinated: ‘Incredible,’ she murmured, her eyes glued to the screen. ‘Fantastic’ A message finally appeared:

  Sentence not available in direct speech

  ‘Let’s try it this way,’ suggested Jones, entering:

  Try indirect speech

  Icarus promptly started searching again, and, after just a few seconds, provided the answer, together with the phrase in ancient Greek:

  Original sentence found:

  Óti epí psychrón tón ipnòn toús ártous epébale

  It concluded with the text source:

  Oracles of the Dead, in Herodot, V. 92, 3

  ‘Strange,’ said Mireille. ‘Could it be the same passage?’

  ‘Not quite, miss. It’s in the following paragraph. Look, I can call up the entire chapter.’

  It took just a few seconds for chapter 92 of Book V of Herodotus to show up on the display. Both read it in silence, then Jones said with a naughty tone: ‘Quite some story, miss.’

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Mireille, a bit embarrassed. ‘I wonder what it could have meant in the context I found it in . . .’

  ‘Icarus is printing all the operations we’ve requested. If you need more than one copy, we have to specify that.’

  ‘Two. Two would be fine, thank you.’

  ‘Of everything?’

  ‘Yes, everything. Please.’

  Jones took the sheets coming off the printer, slipped them into a folder and handed it to Mireille, who thanked him warmly.

  ‘You’re not going straight back to France, I hope,’ Jones found the courage to ask in a small voice.

  Mireille looked at her watch. ‘If I hurry I’ll be able to catch the five-thirty plane from Heathrow. I just don’t know how to thank you, Dr Jones. You’ll say goodbye to the director for me, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, certainly,’ stammered Jones, disappointed. They got into the elevator, and in that brief moment of forced intimacy he wanted to make another attempt, but before he got his courage up, the elevator had already arrived at its destination and the door was opening.

  ‘Thanks so much again,’ said Mireille, hurrying down the corridor that led to the exit.

  Jones stood watching the soft roll of her hips under her white linen skirt, and blushed at the thoughts running through his mind.

  He shouted after her: ‘Come back any time you like!’

  Mireille turned with a smile and waved, then reached the exit. She tried Michel’s number from the first booth she found and then again at the airport, but got no answer. Michel at that moment was futilely pouring over his books at the National Library. She found him after midnight, calling from a restaurant along the highway:

  ‘Mission acco
mplished, Professor.’

  ‘Mireille, you’ve really succeeded?’

  ‘Icarus is great, It didn’t take longer than fifteen minutes. Both phrases are from Herodotus.’

  ‘Herodotus? Good God, I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Right, Herodotus, Book V, chapter 92, paragraphs 2 and 3. Both Oracles of the Dead. Messages from the underworld.’

  PAVLOS KARAMANLIS ARRIVED at police headquarters eager to see whether the identikit he’d sent around the country had found a match, but he was immediately disappointed. Lots of answers on the table: all negative. No one seemed to remember having seen that face. Except for Skardamoula and Hierolimin, but he hadn’t even bothered sending it to them.

  He asked his friend at the Ministry of Defence for an appointment and met him for dinner in a tavern.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Has there ever been a mix-up in your files? Like, a mistaken identity for instance?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Why do you ask?’

  He took a copy of the identikit out of his pocket: ‘Have you ever seen this man?’ His friend shook his head. ‘Look at him carefully,’ insisted Karamanlis, ‘it’s very important. Are you certain you’ve never seen him?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. It’s not the type of face you forget easily.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been dealing with this man over the last ten years as if he were Admiral Anastasios Bogdanos. That’s how he introduced himself ten years ago, and that’s who I believed he was.’

  ‘Oh no, Admiral Bogdanos looked absolutely nothing like that. My God, how could a man like you let that happen? Didn’t you get information on him?’

  ‘It was you who gave me all the information I needed. I just never thought of asking you what he looked like. The thing is, he was always so perfectly informed about everything, so determined, so damned right at the right time and in the right place that it never occurred to me that he could be anyone else.’

  ‘And you said that you’d seen him recently?’

  ‘That’s right. It was thanks to him that one of my men, sergeant Vlassos, made it out of a murder attempt alive.’

  ‘That Portolagos business?’

  ‘Yeah. We’ve tried to keep the press out of it, but it looks like the same hand that struck Roussos and Karagheorghis.’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘I’ve got to find him, understand? If I can’t get the upper hand here, I’m screwed. I’ve got the authorities on one side – they’re getting suspicious and have probably started their own investigation – and I’ve got this murderous lunatic on the other . . .’

  ‘Out looking for you?’

  ‘I’m absolutely certain of it.’

  ‘What does this con man know about you?’

  ‘A lot. Too much.’

  ‘And you? What do you know about him?’

  ‘Nothing. Not even his name.’

  ‘No clue?’

  Karamanlis shook his head. ‘My only lead is a golden vase that disappeared ten years ago from the National Museum during the assault of the Polytechnic. It was important to him.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe he has it, maybe he’s sold it or given it away . . .’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. Nearly, anyway.’

  They’d finished eating and the waiter had brought their coffee. A group at the next table had begun singing; between one song and the next they ate pistachio nuts and drank wine, loudly arguing about the soccer season.

  ‘Practically nothing. That’s strange, very strange. There seems to be something underneath it all which is beyond our understanding. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it. When did you learn that that man was an impostor?’

  ‘When you told me he was dead. It seemed impossible to me, so I went directly to Volos, to the cemetery. I saw his photo.’

  ‘Listen, I have a suggestion for you. You’ve got so little to go on, it probably can’t hurt. There are people who, just by looking at a photograph of someone, or a sketch even, can perceive where that person might be, like a radar beam localizing a shape in the sky or in the sea . . .’

  Karamanlis smiled: ‘Is that how badly off I seem? Let’s get a crystal-gazer over here to look at our coffee grounds!’

  The other man seemed offended. ‘The person I’m talking about is no crystal-gazer. This person is exceptionally gifted. They say that members of the government, and even the President himself, have consulted him in critical situations. He lives completely isolated in a hovel on Mount Peristeri, living on what game he can catch and on milk from the sheep and goats that share his house with him. No one knows how old he is, no one even knows his name. Go to him and show him that sketch, describe the vase to him, the one that disappeared. He’ll get a complete picture of it in his head. He goes where he wants to go, in any moment, no matter how far. He’s . . . he is . . . a kallikàntharos.’

  Very few people were still lingering in the tavern. An old man, probably a drunk, was slumped over a corner table, sleeping. Karamanlis got up and put on his jacket.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you do every day. I’ll have to think about it.’

  16

  Athens, Olympia Bar, 20 October, 5 p.m.

  NORMAN ORDERED A Metaxa brandy for himself, and a glass of Roditis for Michel. ‘I feel like ordering something for that cop over there in the car.’

  ‘You really think he’s watching us?’

  ‘What else is he doing? He’s been on me since Sidirokastro. Well, we’ll just let him stew in his own juices. So, tell me how it feels to be back in this cafe after all these years.’

  ‘I was here a few weeks ago, just ran into it by chance. It made me feel terrible. Really awful. All of this has been hard on me.’

  ‘You said that you’d discovered the meaning of those messages, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I found the context, and that’s something. Mireille went to London, to the central headquarters of British Informatics, to consult Icarus, a program that can analyse any aspect of classical literature, including literary criticism over the last ten years. The author is Herodotus, very well known.’

  ‘And we’d imagined some obscure source.’

  ‘Yeah, right. So, there are two phrases: the first – “She’s naked, she’s cold” – was left on the corpses of both Roussos and Karagheorghis. The phrase comes from an Oracle of the Dead, and it’s the response that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, receives from the oracle by calling up the ghost of his dead wife Melissa at Ephira. Periander had consulted the oracle to find out where a certain treasure had been buried, but the oracle shamed him with its answer: Periander was so miserly that he had refused to burn Melissa’s bridal gown on her funeral pyre because it was too precious, leaving his wife naked and cold in her grave.

  ‘In an attempt to exculpate himself, Periander gathered all the most illustrious ladies of the city and had them remove their clothing so it could be burned in honour of his dead wife. He queried the oracle once again, and this time he got the second response. The phrase that was carved on the arrow which ran through Vlassos, if you can trust Karamanlis on this one: “You put the bread in a cold oven.”

  ‘The phrase was a crude reminder that Periander had coupled with his wife after her death. Melissa, through the oracle, was accusing him of raping and desecrating her corpse. We’d consider him some kind of psycho, but for the ancients his crime was even worse. It was considered a heartless monstrosity, deserving of the most horrible punishment.’

  ‘Good God. But what do you suppose it can possibly mean here and now?’

  ‘I’ve thought and thought about it. The most logical deduction – if we can call any of this logical – is that the messages reveal the reason these men were condemned to death. Since the first message was identical for Roussos and Karagheorghis, we have to assume that they committed the same crime, although I have no idea of what it could have been. The second message, on the
other hand, is very explicit . . .’

  The juke box, which had been mute up to that moment, suddenly started playing a song and Michel started. ‘Norman,’ he said, ‘this song – do you remember this song?’ Norman shook his head, puzzled. ‘Claudio used to play this song when we first met him at Parga. He used to play it on his flute . . .’ He jumped up and ran over to the juke box. He looked at the man who had chosen it: dark skin, black eyes, a thick moustache. Lebanese, maybe, or a Cypriot, there were lots of them in Athens. He sat down again, shaking and bewildered.

  Norman looked into his eyes: ‘Michel, Michel . . . Claudio’s song was an old Italian folk song. How could it be in that juke box? You’re hearing things.’

  Michel lowered his head and fell silent, choked up with the hopelessness of his memories. When he lifted his head again his eyes were gleaming: ‘I can’t think of anything else. Heleni must have . . .’ he faltered.

  ‘Come on,’ said Norman, ‘you’ve got to get it out.’

  ‘Heleni must have suffered the same . . . outrage . . . as Melissa. Her dead body . . . Oh God, oh my God!’ He raised his hand to his forehead to cover his tears, uncontrollable now.

  Norman was upset as well. ‘I think you’ve hit on the truth – that arrow hit Vlassos through his groin. I think it was deliberate.’

  ‘If what we think is true, can you imagine how much they suffered, the two of them? If Claudio survived, he has become poisoned by hate and the desire for revenge. A death machine. Not a man any more, Norman, he’s no longer a man. Think of what he had to go through. It was my fault, Norman . . .’

  Norman passed him his full glass of brandy: ‘Drink this, it’s a lot stronger. Swallow it, I said.’ He put a hand on Michel’s shoulder: ‘Every person in this world can only resist for so long. You were just a kid, and you were incapable of withstanding the torture they were subjecting you to. Maybe even Claudio wouldn’t have held up at that point. Or me, for that matter. You mustn’t be ashamed, Michel. You mustn’t take the blame. Listen, right now we have to do everything we can to get in touch with him, if he’s alive. We have to talk to him and force him out of the crazy isolation he must have been living in all these years. We have to stop him from committing more crimes. Tell him what’s happened, make him understand what he’s doing. We have got to find him. Karamanlis believes that he’s going to go for the kill with Vlassos and that then it will be his turn.’