The Athenian Murders

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  'This has nothing to do with my friendship with Meragrus ... I consider it my duty.'

  'Oh, a duty.' This time the mouth formed into a faint smile. 'A sacred duty, of course. You talk as you always have, Heracles Pontor!'

  She stepped forward and the light revealed the pyramid of her nose, her cheeks - marked with recent scratches - and the black embers of her eyes. She hadn't aged as much as Heracles had expected; the hand of the artist who made her was still apparent, he thought. The colpos of her dark peplos spilled in slow waves over her breast. One hand was hidden beneath her shawl; she clutched both edges of the garment with the other, and it was in the hand that Heracles saw signs of age, as if the years had flowed down her arms, blackening the ends. There, and only there, in the enlarged knuckles and crooked fingers, Itys was old.

  'I am grateful for your sense of duty,' she murmured. There was deep sincerity in her voice for the first time, and it shook him. 'How did you find out so soon?'

  'There was a great commotion in the street when they brought the body. It woke the neighbourhood.'

  There was a scream. Then another. For a moment, absurdly,

  Heracles thought they came from Itys' mouth, which was shut; as if she had roared internally, and her thin body were shuddering and resonating with this sound produced in her throat.

  But then the scream, deafening, entered the room; clad in black, it pushed the slaves away, crawled from one side of the room to the other, then collapsed in a corner, writhing, as if seized by a holy madness. At last it dissolved into an endless lamentation.

  'It's much worse for Elea,' said Itys apologetically, as if to excuse her daughter's conduct. Tramachus was more than a brother, he was her kyrios, her legal guardian, the only man Elea has ever known and loved ...'

  Itys turned towards the girl, who was crouching in a dark corner, her legs gathered tightly to her as if she wanted to take up as little space as possible, or to disappear into the shadows like a black cobweb, her hands raised in front of her face, her eyes and mouth wide open (her features were three black circles filling her entire countenance), as she shook with violent sobs. Itys said: 'That's enough, Elea. You are not to leave the gynaeceum, you know that, particularly in such a state. Displaying your grief before a guest. . . Such behaviour does not befit an honourable woman! Return to your chamber!' But the girl's weeping grew louder. Raising her hand, Itys exclaimed: 'I will not repeat my order!'

  'Allow me, mistress,' said one of the slaves. She kneeled hurriedly beside Elea and murmured something to her that Heracles could not make out. Soon, the girl's sobs became incomprehensible mumbling.

  When Heracles looked at Itys again, he saw that she was watching him.

  'What happened?' asked Itys. 'The captain of the guard told me only that a goatherd found him dead a little way from Lycabettus

  'Aschilos, the doctor, claims it was a wolf attack.'

  'It would take many wolves to kill my son!'

  And not a few to overcome you, O noble woman, he thought. 'Doubtless there were many,' he said.

  Itys began speaking in a strangely gentle voice, not addressing Heracles, as if she were alone, intoning a prayer. The mouths of the cuts on her pale, angular face were bleeding again.

  'He left two days ago. I bade him farewell as I had many times before, unconcerned - he was a grown man well able to take care of himself . . . 'I'm going to spend the day hunting, Mother,' he told me. 'I'll fill a knapsack with quails and thrushes for you. I'll set traps with my nets for hares.' He said he would return that night, but he did not. I was going to chide him, but...'

  Her mouth opened suddenly, as if about to pronounce an enormous word. She remained thus a moment, jaw tensed, the dark ellipse of her maw motionless in the silence,3 before closing it gently and murmuring: 'But now I cannot face and rebuke Death ... because it will not return with my son's countenance to ask my forgiveness .. . My beloved son!'

  3 As the attentive reader may already have noticed, all the metaphors and images in the second half of this chapter relate to 'mouths' and 'maws', as well as 'screams' and 'roars'. What we have here, obviously, is an eidetic text. (T's N.)

  Slight tenderness in her is more terrible than Stentor's roar, Heracles thought admiringly. "The gods can be unjust at times,' he said, because he felt he had to say something, but also because, deep down, he believed it.

  'Don't speak of them, Heracles. Do not speak of the gods!' Itys' mouth trembled with rage. 'It was the gods who sank their teeth into my son's body, and smiled as they tore out and devoured his heart, breathing in the warm scent of his blood with relish! Oh, do not speak of gods in my presence!'

  It was as though Itys was trying, vainly, to subdue her own voice, issuing as a powerful roar from her maw, imposing silence all around her. The slaves had turned to look at her; even Elea was silent, listening to her mother with mortal reverence.

  'Cronius Zeus has brought down the last great oak of this house while it was yet in leaf! ' curse the gods and their immortal caste!' She raised her arms, hands open, in a fearsome, precise gesture. Then, slowly lowering them and her voice, she added, with sudden contempt: 'The highest praise the gods may expect from us is our silence!'

  The word 'silence' was torn by a triple clamour, which penetrated deep into Heracles' ears and remained with him as he left the terrible house - a ritual, threefold scream, from the slaves and from Elea, their mouths open, jaws almost unhinged, forming a single throat rent by three distinct, high-pitched, deafening notes - the funereal roar of the maw.4

  4 I find it surprising that, in his scholarly edition of the original, Montalo should make no mention of the powerful eidesis present in the text, at least throughout the first chapter. But maybe he didn't know about this strange literary device. It's not unusual to find translators, even among the most erudite, who are not familiar with a literary technique which may, in any case, have been used by only a handful of Greek writers - in some ways the most celebrated ones -and whose main feature is precisely that it is only noticed by those who know about it.By way of example for the curious reader , and also to be honest about how I came to discover the image hidden in this chapter (for the translator must be honest in his notes, lying is the author's perogative) I will recount the brief conversation I had yersterday with my friend Helena, whom I respect as a learned and highly experienced colleague. The subject of work came up and I told her enthusiastically that The Athenian Murders, the novel I had just begun translating, was an eidetic text. She stared at me for a moment, holding one of the cherries on the nearby plate by its stalk 'A what?' she asked.

  'Eidesis,' I explained, 'is a literary technique invented by the Ancient Greeks to transmit secret messages or keys in their works. It consists in repeating, in any text, metaphors or words that, when identified by a perceptive reader, make up an idea or image that's independent of the original text. Arginusus of Corinth, for example, used eidesis to hide a detailed description of a young woman he loved in a long poem apparently about wild flowers. And Epaphus of Macedonia inserted his will by means of eidesis into an epic tale describing the death of the hero Patroclus. And Euphronius of—'

  'How interesting,' smiled Helena, bored. 'And would you care to tell me what's hidden in your anonymous Athenian Murders?'

  'I won't know until I've translated the whole thing. In Chapter One, the eidesis mainly involves "hair" or "manes", "mouths" and "maws" that "scream" and "roar", but—'

  '"Manes" and "maws that roar"?' she interrupted simply. 'It could be referring to a lion, couldn't it?'

  And she ate the cherry.

  I hate the way women always arrive at the truth effortlessly, by the shortest route. It was my turn to go very still and stare. 'A lion, of course ...' I muttered.

  'What I don't understand,' Helena went on casually, 'is why the author thought the idea of a lion so secret that he had to hide it through eidesis ...'

  'We'll find out once I've translated it. An eidetic text can only be fully understood once yo
u've read all the way through.' As I spoke, I was thinking: A lion, of course . .. Why didn't I think of that?

  'Right.' Helena considered the conversation at an end. She bent her long legs, which had been stretched out on a chair, put the plate of cherries on the table, and stood up. 'Get on with the translation and let me know how it goes.'

  'What's surprising is that Montalo didn't notice anything in the original manuscript,' I said.

  'Why don't you write to him?' she suggested. 'It'll make you look good and bring you some kudos.'

  And, although at the time I pretended not to agree (I didn't want her to know she'd solved all my problems at a stroke), this is exactly what I have done. (T's N.)

  5 'The surface is sticky; one's fingers slide over it as if smeared with oil; the central area is fragile, like scales,' states Montalo, regarding the pieces of papyrus that make up the manuscript at the opening of the second chapter. Could it have been made from the leaves of different plants? (T's N.)

  II5

  Slaves prepared the body of Tramachus, son of the widow Itys, according to custom: the horrific lacerations were glossed with ointments from a lekythos; agile-fingered hands slid over the ravaged flesh, anointing it with essences and perfumes; it was wrapped in a delicate shroud and arrayed in clean clothes; the face was left uncovered, the jaw firmly bandaged to prevent the horrifying rictus of death; an obol to pay for Charon's services was placed beneath the slimy tongue. The corpse was then laid out on a bed of myrtle and jasmine, feet towards the door, watched over by the grey presence of a guardian Hermes; the wake would last all day. At the garden gate, the ardanion, the amphora of lustral water, served to make public the tragedy and to cleanse the guests of contact with the beyond. From midday, the hired mourners intoned their sinuous canticles, and tokens of condolence rained down. By afternoon, a line of men snaked the length of the garden path. All stood in silence, beneath the cold damp of the trees, awaiting their turn to enter the house, file past the body and offer their condolences to the family. Tramachus' uncle, Daminus, of the deme of Clazobion, acted as host: he possessed a considerable fortune in boats and in silver mines in Laurion, and his presence drew many. Few, however, attended in memory of Meragrus, Tramachus' father, condemned and executed as a traitor to democracy many years earlier, or out of respect for the widow Itys, who had inherited her husband's dishonour.

  Heracles Pontor arrived at sunset, for he had decided that he, too, would take part in the ecphora, the funeral procession, always held at night. Slowly, ceremonially, he

  entered the dark vestibule - damp and cold, the air oily with the scent of unguents - and circled the corpse once, following the winding line of guests. He embraced Daminus and ltys; she was wrapped in a black peplos and large-hooded shawl. They did not speak. His embrace was one among many. As he progressed he recognised some of the guests but not others. There was Praxinoe and his son, the beautiful Antisus, said to have been one of Tramachus' closest friends; also Isiphenes and Ephialtes, well-known merchants, there, no doubt, because of Daminus; and - a presence he found most surprising - Menaechmus, the sculptor poet, dressed as carelessly as usual, who broke with protocol by stopping to whisper a few words to Itys. And lastly, as he emerged into the cold damp garden, he thought he saw the sturdy figure of the philosopher Plato waiting to enter with the others. Heracles assumed he had come in memory of his old friendship with Meragrus.

  The procession that set off for the cemetery along the Panathenaic Way looked like a giant sinuous creature; the head consisted of, first, the corpse, on a swaying bier carried by four slaves; behind it, the immediate family - Daminus, Itys and Elea - deep in silent grief; then the oboe players, young men in black tunics awaiting the start of the ceremony to begin playing; and lastly, the white peploses of the four weepers. Friends and acquaintances of the family, advancing two by two, made up the body-In the cold, damp evening mist, the cortege headed out of the City through the Dipylon Gate and set off along the Sacred Way, leaving the lights of the houses far behind. The tombstones of the Ceramicus rippled in the torchlight; all around there rose statues of gods and heroes delicately oiled with the night dew, tall steles inscribed and embellished with undulating figures, and urns of solemn outline with ivy snaking over them. The slaves carefully placed the corpse on the funeral pyre. The sinuous notes of the oboes slid through the air; the hired mourners, in formation, tore at their garments while intoning their cold, oscillating chant. Libations were made in honour of the gods of the dead. The guests dispersed to observe the ceremony. Heracles chose to stand beside a huge statue of Perseus; Medusa's decapitated head, which the hero clutched by her mane of vipers, was level with Heracles' face and appeared to be watching him through empty eyes. The chanting concluded, the final words were uttered, and the golden heads of four torches were lowered at the edge of the pyre: the many-headed Fire rose up, writhing, its numerous tongues waving in the cold damp air of the Night.6

  The man knocked on the door several times. No one answered, so he tried again. Clouds with many heads began to twist in the dark Athenian sky.

  The door was opened at last; a figure appeared, swathed in a long black shroud, with a featureless white face. Confused and intimidated, the man stammered: 'I wish to see Heracles Pontor, known as the Decipherer of Enigmas.'

  The figure slipped back into the shadows; still hesitant, the man entered the house. Outside, now and then, thunder boomed.

  Heracles Pontor sat at the table in his small room. He had stopped reading and was absorbed in tracing the sinuous path of a large crack that ran from the ceiling half-way down the opposite wall. The door opened gently and Ponsica appeared.

  'A guest,' said Heracles, deciphering the graceful, undulating movements of his masked slave's slender, agile-fingered hands. 'A man. Wishes to see me.' Both hands fluttered at once, the ten heads of her fingers conversing in the air. 'Yes, show him in.'

  6 'Cold and damp', together with 'undulating' and 'sinuous' movement, in all its variants, appear to dominate the eidesis in this chapter. This could easily be a sea image (which would be very characteristic of the Greeks). But what about the recurring 'stickiness'? Let's move on and see. (T's N.)

  The man was tall and thin. He wore a humble woollen cloak upon which the cold, damp night had deposited a layer of its slimy scales. His well-formed head was bald and shiny, and his chin sported a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were bright, but the weariness of age was apparent in the lines around them. Once Ponsica had left, still silent, the man, who had been watching her in amazement, turned to Heracles. 'Is what they say of you true?'

  'And what do they say?'

  'That a Decipherer of Enigmas can read the faces of men and the look of things as if they were papyri. That he knows the language of appearances and can translate it. Is that why your slave hides her face behind a blank mask?'

  Heracles got up to get a bowl of fruit and a krater of wine. He smiled slightly and said: 'By Zeus, I would not want to deny such a reputation, but my slave covers her face more for my own tranquillity than hers. She was kidnapped by Lydian bandits when she was no more than a baby, and during a night of drunkenness, they amused themselves by burning her face and tearing out her small tongue . . . Please, help yourself to fruit ... It seems one of the bandits took pity on her, or discerned there might be profit to be made, and adopted her. Later he sold her as a slave for domestic work. I bought her in the market two years ago. I like her because she's as silent as a cat and as obedient as a dog, but her ruined features displease me.'

  'I understand,' said the man. 'You feel sorry for her ...'

  'Oh, no, it's not that,' said Heracles. 'They distract me. My eyes are too often tempted by the complexity of all that they see. For example, just before you arrived, I was engrossed in following the path of that interesting crack on the wall - its course and tributaries, its origin . . . Well, my slave's face is an endless, twisted confusion of cracks, a constant enigma for my tireless gaze, so I decided to have her hide it by making
her wear a mask. I like to be surrounded by simple things: the rectangle of a table, the circles of goblets, simple geometric shapes. My work consists in exactly the opposite - deciphering the complicated. Please, make yourself comfortable on the couch ... Do try some of this fresh fruit, especially the sweet figs. I adore figs, don't you? I can also offer you a goblet of undiluted wine.'

  The man had listened to Heracles' calm words with growing surprise. He now reclined slowly on the couch. In the light from a small oil lamp on the table, his bald head cast a perfectly round shadow on the wall. The shadow of Heracles' head - a thick cone with a short tuft of hair on top - stretched to the ceiling.

  'Thank you. I'll take the couch for now,' said the man.

  Heracles shrugged. He pushed aside some scrolls and drew the bowl of fruit towards him. He sat down and took a fig. 'Now, how can I help you?' he asked pleasantly.

  Thunder clamoured harshly in the distance. After a pause, the man said: 'I'm not sure, in truth. I've heard that you solve mysteries. I've come to present you with one.'