The Athenian Murders

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  'It was nothing. Just the wind,' said Heracles.15

  15 Of course it's something! Our protagonists can't see her, of course (she's a purely fictional figure), but here, once again, we have the 'girl with the lily'. There can no longer be any doubt that this is another eidetic image, and a very powerful one at that, since it crosses over into the reality of the story, like a ghost. What can it mean? I have to admit that this sudden apparition makes me a little uneasy; I even struck the text, just as Pericles is said to have done to Phidias' chryselephantine statue of Athena to get her to speak: 'What does it mean? What do you mean?' The paper, of course, yields no answers. I've calmed down now. (T.'s N.)

  For a brief moment, time stopped, spent. Diagoras, now chilled to the bone by the damp cold, gave himself away by whispering to the Decipherer's stout shadow: 'I never would have believed that Tramachus ... I mean, you understand . . . Purity was one of his greatest virtues, or so it seemed . . . This is the last thing I would have expected ... To associate with a vulgar ... He was still a boy! It hadn't occurred to me that he might be experiencing the normal desires of an ephebe . . . When Lisilus told me—'

  'Quiet,' Heracles' shadow said suddenly.

  Quick scraping sounds came from the tunnel, as if someone were walking over rubble. Diagoras felt the Decipherer's warm breath in his ear just before he heard his voice.

  'Jump on her quickly. Protect your crotch with your hand and watch her knees. Try to calm her.'

  'But—'

  'Do as I say, or she'll get away again. I'll back you.'

  What does he mean? wondered Diagoras, undecided. But there was no more time for questions.

  Agile, quick, silent, a shadow, thrown by the trace of moonlight, spread like a carpet over the ground at the crossroads. Diagoras flung himself upon it and, without warning, it turned into a body. A mass of perfumed hair swung in his face, like a slap, and a muscular form struggled in his arms. Gripping tightly, Diagoras pushed her against the opposite wall. 'That's enough, by Apollo!' he cried. 'We're not going to hurt you! We just want to talk to you. Calm yourself.' The figure became still and Diagoras backed slightly. He could not see her face as it was masked by her hands, but her eyes peered through fingers as slender as the antlers of a young stag. 'We want to ask you a few questions . . . about an ephebe named Tramachus. You knew him, didn't you?'

  Calmer now, Diagoras thought she would eventually open the delicate doors formed by her hands and show her face.

  Then came a flash of lightning in his lower abdomen. The pain, at first, was a perfect, blinding light that flooded his eyes like liquid spilling, relentless, over the edge of a crater. The sensation took a little longer, crouching between his legs before stretching furiously and exploding into his consciousness as if spewing shards of glass. He fell, coughing, to the ground, and didn't even feel his head strike the paving stones.

  There was a scuffle. Heracles Pontor threw himself upon the figure. He was far less gentle than Diagoras, grabbing her slim arms and pushing her roughly against the wall. She moaned - a manly gasp. Again he slammed her against the wall. The figure tried to strike back, but Heracles leaned his fat body against her so that she couldn't use her knees. He saw Diagoras struggle to his feet. He spoke quickly to his prey: ‘I’ll only hurt you if you give me no choice. And if you strike my companion again, I'll have no choice.' He turned to Diagoras and said: 'Keep a tight hold of her this time. I told you to watch out for her knees.'

  Diagoras muttered to the shadow, gasping painfully with each word: 'My friend ... speaks the truth ... We don't wish to hurt you ... Do you understand?'

  The shadow nodded, but the philosopher kept a firm grip on her arms.

  At last, the struggle subsided, just as cold relinquishes the muscles in a rapid race. Panting, Diagoras felt the flat, anonymous, blurred figure, which he held firmly against the wall, turn quickly into a woman. He sensed the volume of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, the different smell, the smooth firmness. He observed curly hair, slender limbs, curves. Lastly, he made out her face.

  His first thought was that her face was strange. He realised that, for some reason, he had imagined she would be very beautiful. But she wasn't: her curly hair was an untidy mat of fur; her eyes were too large and pale, like those of a swift, timid animal, although in the darkness he could not tell their colour; her thin cheeks hinted at the skull beneath the taut skin. He drew back, confused, the pain still throbbing dully in his abdomen, and asked: 'Are you Yasintra?' The cold clothed his words in steam.

  She didn't answer.

  'You knew Tramachus,' insisted Diagoras. 'He came to see you.'

  'Watch her knees . . .' Heracles' voice warned from a great distance.

  The girl stared in silence. 'Did he pay for his visits?'

  Diagoras wasn't sure why he asked, but it was the first question to receive an answer: 'Of course he did,' she said. Both men reflected that many ephebes had a less masculine voice than she - it was the echo of an oboe in a cavern. 'The rites of Bromios are paid for in paeans; the rites of Cypris in obols.'

  Diagoras didn't know why, but he felt offended. Perhaps it was because the girl seemed unafraid. And were the full lips mocking him in the darkness, or was he imagining it?

  'When did you meet him?'

  'At the last Lenaea. He saw me dancing in the procession to the god and sought me out afterwards.'

  'He sought you?' exclaimed Diagoras in disbelief. 'But he was not yet a man!'

  'Many youths seek me.'

  'Perhaps you refer to someone else.'

  'Tramachus, who was killed by wolves,' said Yasintra. 'I speak of him.'

  Heracles said impatiently: 'Who did you think we were?' 'I don't understand.' Yasintra turned her liquid gaze upon him.

  'Why did you run away when we asked for you? You don't look like one who flees from men. Who were you expecting?' 'Nobody. I run away if I want to.'

  'Yasintra,' pleaded Diagoras, 'we need your help. We know that Tramachus was in some kind of trouble. A very grave matter was tormenting him. I. . . we were his friends and we want to find out what it was. Your relationship with him no longer matters. We simply want to know if Tramachus spoke of his worries.' He wanted to add: 'Oh, please, help me. I care about this more than you can imagine.'

  As vulnerable and fragile as a lily in the hands of a maiden, he felt he could have pleaded for help a hundred times. His spirit, stripped of all pride, was like a young girl with blue eyes and shining hair, imploring on her knees: 'Help me, please, help me.' But, gentle as the brush of a girl's white tunic against a flower, and yet, as ardent as the girl's delectable nubile body, his wish was not translated into words.16

  'Tramachus never spoke much,' she said. 'But he didn't seem anxious.'

  'Did he ever ask for your help?' enquired Heracles. 'No. Why would he?' 'When did you see him last?' 'One moon ago.' 'He never talked about his life?' 'Who ever talks to women like me?' 'Did his family approve of your relationship?' 'There was no relationship - he came to see me, paid and left.'

  'But perhaps his family disliked the idea that its noble son was coming to you for solace, even if only once in a while.' 'I don't know. It wasn't his family I had to please.' 'Maybe his father knew about you.' pressed Heracles calmly. 'He had no father.'

  'You're right,' said Heracles. 'I meant his mother.' 'I don't know her.'

  There was a short silence. Diagoras looked at the Decipherer for help. Heracles shrugged.

  'Can I go now?' asked the girl. 'I'm tired.'

  Although they said nothing, she moved away from the wall and hurried away.

  16 The powerful eidetic image of the 'girl with the lily' persists! And now the idea of 'help' - repeated three times in this paragraph - seems to have joined it. The author describes the young girl according to the rules of eidesis, in other words, scattering adjectives throughout the text for the reader to collect at the end and create the complete image. The image here, I believe, is that of a 'young girl' with eyes
as 'blue' as the sea, 'shining' hair or hair of 'moonlight', and a 'delectable' and 'smooth' body, wearing a 'white tunic' and holding a 'lily'. Obviously a very beautiful young girl... But why is she running away? And who or what is threatening her? (T.'sN.)

  Swathed in a long dark shawl and tunic, she had the loose stride of a wild animal in the forest. Her bangles and bracelets jangled with every step. Just as she was about to be swallowed by the darkness, she turned and said to Diagoras: 'I didn't want to strike you.'

  It was late at night by the time they returned to the City, following the Long Walls.

  'I'm sorry you got hurt,' said Heracles, a little guiltily. The philosopher had been silent since their conversation with Yasintra. 'Are you still in pain? I did warn you . . . I've come across that type of hetaera before. They're very agile and quite capable of defending themselves. When she ran away, I knew she'd attack if we got near her.'

  He paused, expecting Diagoras to say something, but his companion walked in silence, head bowed, chin resting on his chest. They had left the lights of Piraeus behind some time ago. The great paved road (which, according to Heracles, though empty, was safer and quicker than the more commonly used route), lined by walls built by Themistocles, destroyed by Lysander only to be rebuilt again, rolled on smoothly in the dark winter's night. In the distance, to the north, the walls of Athens stood out like a dream, gleaming faintly.

  Heracles went on quickly: 'Now it's you, Diagoras, who has said nothing in a long while. Have you lost heart? Didn't you say you wanted to help with the investigation? My investigations always begin like this: we seem to have nothing, but then . .. Maybe you thought it a waste of time questioning the hetaera? Pah! I can tell you from experience that following up a lead is never a waste of time, quite the opposite. Hunting is knowing how to follow a trail, even though it seems to lead nowhere. Then, contrary to what most people believe, shooting the deer with the arrow turns out to be the easiest—'

  He was interrupted by Diagoras' muttering: 'He was a boy ...' he said, as if answering some question from Heracles.

  'Still too young to be an ephebe. His gaze was pure. His soul seemed as if burnished by Athena herself.'

  'Don't blame yourself. Even at that age we seek outlets.'

  The philosopher raised his eyes from the dark road for the first time and glanced disdainfully at Heracles. 'You don't understand. We teach the boys at the Academy to love wisdom above all else and to reject dangerous pleasures and their fleeting rewards. Tramachus knew virtue, he was aware that it is infinitely more useful and profitable than vice. How could he ignore this?'

  'And how did you teach virtue at the Academy?' asked the Decipherer.

  'Through music and the enjoyment of physical exercise.'

  After another silence, Heracles scratched his head and remarked: 'Well, let's just say that Tramachus thought the enjoyment of physical exercise more important than music'

  Diagoras ignored him and began to speak quickly and pedantically, as if reciting a tedious lesson to a group of dull students. 'Ignorance is the root of all evil. Who would choose the worst while fully aware that it was the worst? If reason, through learning, made you see that vice was worse than virtue, falsehood worse than truth, immediate pleasure worse than the lasting kind, why would you consciously choose the former? You know, for instance, that fire burns. Would you, of your own free will, hold your hand over flames? It's absurd ... An entire year visiting that... woman! Paying for his pleasure! I don't believe it... The hetaera lied to us. I assure you that... What are you laughing at?'

  'Forgive me’ said Heracles. 'I was remembering someone I once watched hold his hand over flames by choice. An old friend from my deme, Crantor of Pontor. He believed quite the opposite: he claimed that reason is not enough to make a man choose the best, since he lets himself be guided by desires not ideas. One day he felt like burning his right hand, so he held it over the fire and burned it.'

  There was a long silence. Then, Diagoras said: 'And you ... Do you agree with him?'

  'Not at all. I always believed my friend was mad.'

  'And what became of him?'

  'I don't know. He suddenly had an impulse to leave Athens, so he left. And he hasn't returned.'

  After another silence and several hurried steps along the paved road, Heracles asked: 'What do you think of the hetaera?'

  'She's a strange, dangerous woman.' Diagoras shuddered. 'Her face . . . Her gaze ... I looked into her eyes and saw horrible things

  In his vision, she was dancing on the snowy peaks of Parnassus, to a rapid beating of drums, her only clothing a thin deerskin. Her body moved without thought, without will almost, a flower in the fingers of a young girl, spinning dangerously close to the slippery edge of the abyss.

  In his vision, she could ignite her hair and lash out at the cold air with it; she could throw back her head so that the bone in her neck protruded from between the muscles like a lily stem; she could shout as if asking for help, calling Bromios with his deer hoofs; she could intone the quick paean from the evening oreivasia, the ritual dance tirelessly performed by maenads on mountain tops in winter, handling dangerous, swiftly poisonous snakes and knotting their tails beautifully, just as a young girl, without help, weaves a crown of white lilies.

  In his vision, she was a naked form, bloodied by flames from the fires and juice from the grapes. As she moved, she traced hasty, bold words in the snow with her bare feet, ignoring the urgent cries of Prudence, who appeared before her like a slender young girl clad in white, to warn her, vainly, of the danger of the dances. 'Help me!' called the little voice to no avail for, to the eyes of a maenad, danger is as a gleaming lily placed on the opposite bank of an impetuous river to the avid gaze of a young girl: not one of them would resist the temptation to swim across swiftly, without even seeking help, and claim the flower. 'Take care, there is danger here!' calls the voice of reason. But the young girl pays no heed for the lily is too beautiful.

  This was all part of his vision, and he took it to be true.17

  'What strange things you see in the gazes of others, Diagoras!' mocked Heracles good-humouredly. 'Our hetaera may dance in the Lenaean processions from time to time, but believing that she frolics with the maenads in dangerous ecstasies in honour of Dionysus is going too far. I fear your imagination has keener sight than Lynceus.'

  17 Diagoras' latest vision brings together all the eidetic images that have appeared so far: 'speed', the 'stag', the 'young girl with the lily' and the 'plea for help'. Now we have the word 'danger' as well! What can it all mean? (T.'s N.)

  'I told you what I saw with my mind's eye,' retorted Diagoras. 'It can discern the Idea itself, and you shouldn't be so quick to despise it, Heracles. The Idea itself is superior to reason. It is the light before which all beings and things are no more than vague shadows. And sometimes that Idea may become known to us only through myth, fable, poetry or dreams.'

  'Perhaps, but your "Idea itself" is of no use to me, Diagoras. I'm concerned only with what I can see with my own eyes and reason with my own logic'

  'So what did you see in the girl?'

  'Very little,' said Heracles modestly. 'Only that she was lying.'

  Diagoras halted his rapid march and turned to look at the Decipherer. Smiling a little guiltily, like a child caught playing a dangerous prank, Heracles explained: 'I set her a trap by mentioning Tramachus' father. As you know, Meragrus was condemned to death years ago, accused of dangerous collaboration with the Thirty .. ‘18

  'I know. It was a harsh trial, like that of the admirals from Arginusae, because Meragrus paid for the crimes of many others.' Diagoras sighed. 'Tramachus was always reluctant to talk about his father. It was a dangerous subject for him.'

  'That's what I mean’ said Heracles. 'Yasintra claimed Tramachus hardly spoke to her, but she knew very well that his father died in disgrace ...'

  'No. She knew only that he was dead.'

  18 Dictatorship established in Athens, under Spartan supervisio
n, after the Peloponnesian War, made up of thirty citizens. The reader should note that the word 'danger' seems to have left a sort of eidetic 'echo' since its first appearance (the same happened with 'help'), indicating that its presence is important. (T.'s N.)

  'Not at all! As I've explained, Diagoras, I decipher only what