'I am really a client.'
'Ah, some mysterious problem to solve! You're in good hands, Diagoras. I know for a fact that Heracles is a wonderful Decipherer. He's grown a little stouter since I last saw him, but I assure you he has the same piercing gaze and quick intelligence. He'll solve your enigma, whatever it may be, and quickly.'
'By the gods of friendship,' grumbled Heracles, 'let's not speak of work tonight.'
'So you are a philosopher?' Diagoras asked Crantor.
'What Athenian isn't?' rejoined Crantor, raising his eyebrows.
Heracles said: 'Let us be clear, good Diagoras: Crantor is a philosopher in deed, not in thought. He takes his convictions to their utmost limit, for he doesn't like to believe in anything that he can't put into practice.' Heracles seemed to enjoy his speech, as if he had been talking of the trait he most admired in his old friend. 'I remember ... I remember one of your sayings, Crantor: "I think with my hands.'"
'You remember it wrongly, Heracles. The sentence was: 'Hands think as well.' But it applies to the whole body.'
'Do you think with your intestines, too?' smiled Diagoras. Wine had made him sceptical, as it often does to those who rarely drink it.
'And with my bladder, and my penis, and my lungs, and my toenails,' said Crantor. And he added, after a pause: 'I believe you, too, are a philosopher, Diagoras.'
'I am a tutor at the Academy. Do you know of the Academy?'
'Of course. Our good friend Aristocles!'
'We've long known him by his nickname, Plato.' Diagoras was pleasantly surprised to find that Crantor knew Plato's real name.
'I know. Tell him from me that he is fondly remembered in Sicily.'
'Have you been to Sicily?'
'I've come more or less straight from there. It is rumoured that the tyrant Dionysius has fallen out with his brother-in-law Dion because of your colleague's teachings.'
Diagoras was delighted to hear it. 'Plato would be happy to know that his sojourn in Sicily is beginning to bear fruit. But I invite you to tell him so in person at the Academy, Crantor.
Please pay us a visit whenever you wish. Come and dine with us. Then you can take part in our philosophical dialogues.'
Crantor stared in amusement at his cup of wine, as if it contained something extremely funny or ridiculous. 'I thank you, Diagoras,' he replied, 'but I'll have to think about it. The truth is, your theories don't appeal to me.' And he laughed quietly, as if he'd just made a hilarious joke.
Slightly confused, Diagoras asked pleasantly: 'What theories do appeal to you?'
'Living.'
'Living?'
Still staring at his cup, Crantor nodded. Diagoras said: 'Living isn't a theory. To live, all one needs is to be alive.'
'No. One has to learn how to live.'
Having wanted to leave a moment earlier, Diagoras now felt a professional interest in the conversation. He leaned his head forward and stroked his neatly trimmed Athenian beard with the tips of his slender fingers. 'What you've just said is very curious, Crantor. Please explain, for I fear I don't understand. In your opinion, how does one learn to live?'
'I can't explain.'
'But it would seem that you have learned how to do so.'
Crantor nodded. Diagoras said: 'How can one learn something which is then impossible to explain?'
Crantor suddenly revealed huge white teeth lurking in the centre of his labyrinth of a beard. 'Athenians . ..' he grumbled, so low that Diagoras couldn't make out the rest of the sentence. But as Crantor spoke, his voice grew louder, as if he had been far away and was now charging violently towards them. 'They never change, however long one stays away ... Athenians .. .
Oh, your passion for word games, sophisms, texts, dialogues! Your way of learning, with your arses on a bench, listening, reading, deciphering, inventing arguments and counterarguments in one endless dialogue! Athenians . . . one people made up of men who think and listen to music ... and another people, more numerous but governed by the first, that knows pleasure and suffering but not how to read or write.' He jumped up and went over to the window. The confused clamour of Lenaean revelling filtered through it. 'Listen to it, Diagoras ... The true Athenian people. Its history will never be recorded on funeral steles or preserved on the papyri that your philosophers use to compose their wonderful works . . . This people doesn't even speak: it bellows, it roars like an enraged bull . . .' He moved away from the window. Diagoras noted a savage, almost fierce quality in his movements. 'A people made up of men who eat, drink, fornicate and enjoy themselves, believing they're possessed by the ecstasy of the gods ... Listen to them! They're out there.'
"There are different classes of men, just as there are different types of wine, Crantor,' said Diagoras. 'This people of which you talk is incapable of reasoning. Men who can reason belong to a higher class, so they have no choice but to lead the—'
The cry was savage, unexpected. Cerberus barked loudly, echoing his master's stentorian outburst. 'Reasoning! What good is reasoning? Did you use reason in your war against Sparta? Were your imperial ambitions based on reason? Pericles, Alcibiades, Cleon - these men led you to the slaughter! Were they reasonable? And now, in defeat, what's left? Reasoning past glories!'
'You talk as if you weren't Athenian!' protested Diagoras.
'Leave, and you too will cease to be Athenian! One can only be Athenian within the walls of this absurd city! The first thing you find when you leave is that there is no single truth - every man has his own. And out there, you open your eyes ... and all you see is the blackness of chaos.'
There was a pause. Even Cerberus' furious barking ceased. Diagoras turned towards Heracles, as if about to say something, but the Decipherer appeared to be plunged in his own thoughts. Diagoras assumed he considered the conversation too 'philosophical' and was therefore letting him do all the answering. He cleared his throat and said: 'I understand what you're saying, Crantor, but you're wrong. The blackness you mention, in which you see only chaos, is simply your ignorance. You believe that absolute, immutable truths do not exist, but I can assure you they do, even though they may be difficult to perceive. You say every man has his own truth. I would counter that every man has his own opinion. You have come across a great many very different men who expressed themselves in different languages and had their own opinions about things, and you've come to the erroneous conclusion that nothing has the same value for all. The fact is, Crantor, you don't go beyond words, definitions, images of objects and beings. But there are ideas beyond words—'
'The Translator,' interrupted Crantor.
'What?'
Lit from below by the lamps, Crantor's huge face looked like a mysterious mask. 'There's a widely held belief in many places far from Athens,' he said, 'that everything we do and say exists as words written in another language on a huge papyrus scroll. And Someone is reading the scroll right now, deciphering our thoughts and actions, and finding hidden keys to the text of our lives. That Someone is known as the Interpreter or
Translator . . . Those who believe in Him think that our lives have an ultimate meaning of which we ourselves are unaware, but which the Translator discovers as he reads us. Eventually, the text comes to an end and we die, knowing no more than before. But the Translator, who has read us, discovers at last the ultimate meaning of our existence.'28
Heracles broke his silence and said: 'What good does believing in that stupid Translator do them if they die in the end?'
'Well, there are those who believe it's possible to talk to the Translator.' Crantor smiled mischievously. 'They say we can address Him in the knowledge that he is listening, since He reads and translates all our words.'
'And those who believe it, what do they say to this . . . Translator?' asked Diagoras, who found the belief no less ridiculous than Heracles.
'It depends,' said Crantor. 'Some praise Him, or request things: that He should tell them what's going to happen to them in future chapters, for instance ... Others challenge Him, as they k
now, or think they know, that He doesn't really exist.'
'And how do they challenge Him?' asked Diagoras.
'They shout out to Him,' said Crantor. And suddenly he raised his eyes to the dark ceiling. He seemed to be looking for something. He was looking for you.29
28 Though I've searched through all my books, I can't find a single reference to this supposed religion. The author must have invented it. (T.'s N.)
29I have translated this literally, but I can't understand who the author is referring to in this unexpected grammatical shift to the second person. (T.'s N.)
'Listen, Translator!' he shouted, in his powerful voice. 'You, who are so sure you exist! Tell me who I am! Interpret my language and define me! I challenge you to understand me! You, who think we are merely words written long ago! You, who think that our story has a final, hidden key! Apply your reason to me, Translator! Tell me who I am ... if, when you read me, that is, you can also decipher me!' Recovering his composure, he looked at Diagoras and smiled. 'That's what they shout at this supposed Translator. But the Translator never answers, of course, because He doesn't exist. And if He does exist, He knows as little as we do.'30
Ponsica brought in another krater and poured more wine. Making the most of the pause, Crantor said: 'I'm going for a walk. The night air will do me good.' The deformed white dog followed him out.
A moment later, Heracles said: 'Don't pay him too much heed, good Diagoras. He was always very strange, very impulsive, and time and experience have accentuated his oddity. He never had the patience to sit down and discuss things at length; complex reasoning confused him . . . He wasn't like an Athenian, or even a Spartan, for he loathed war and armies. Have I told you how he went to live alone in a hut he built himself on the island of Euboea? It was around the time he burned his hand . . . But he wasn't happy as a misanthrope either. I don't know what pleases or displeases him. I never have ... I suspect he isn't happy with the part Zeus has allocated him in the great Play of life. I apologise for his behaviour, Diagoras.'
The philosopher made light of it and stood up to leave. 'What are we doing tomorrow?' he asked.
30 I really don't know why I'm suddenly feeling so uneasy. In Homer, for instance, there are numerous examples of unexpected moves into the second person. This must be something similar. But the fact is, I felt rather tense as I translated Crantor's invective. I've come to the conclusion that 'Translator' may be another eidetic word. If this is the case, the image that emerges from this chapter is more complex than I thought: the violent 'charges' of an 'invisible beast' (representing the Cretan bull), the 'girl with the lily', and now the 'Translator'. Helena's right: I've become obsessed with this book. I'm going to speak to Hector tomorrow. (T.'s N.)
'You're not doing anything. You're my client and you've already done quite enough work.'
'But I'd still like to help.'
'That won't be necessary. I'm going to carry out a little investigation on my own tomorrow. I'll let you know if anything new turns up.'
Diagoras stopped at the door: 'Have you found out anything you can tell me?'
The Decipherer scratched his head. 'It's all going well,' he said. 'I have a few theories that will keep me awake tonight, but...'
'I know,' said Diagoras. 'Let us not speak of the fig before we open it up.'
They bade each other goodnight like good friends.31
31 I'm becoming more and more anxious. I don't know why, I've never felt like this about a piece of work. But it might all be my imagination. I'll reproduce the brief conversation I had with Hector this morning, and leave it to the reader to decide.
'The Athenian Murders.' He nodded when I mentioned the work. 'Yes, a classical Greek text by an anonymous author dating back to Athens just after the Peloponnesian War. I was the one who mentioned to Elio that it should be on our list.. .'
'I know. I'm doing the translation,' I said. 'How can I help you?'
I told him. He frowned and, like Elio, asked me why I wanted to check the original manuscript. I explained that I thought the novel was eidetic but that Montalo didn't seem to have noticed. He frowned again. 'If Montalo didn't notice then it can't be eidetic,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude, but Montalo was an expert on the subject
I summoned all my patience to say: 'The eidesis is very powerful, Hector. In some scenes, it affects reality and even the characters' conversations and opinions ... It must mean something, surely? I want to find the key the author hid in the text, and I need the original to make sure that my translation is accurate .. . Elio agrees - he told me to talk to you.'
Hector is very stubborn but he gave in eventually, though he didn't give me much hope - the text had been in Montalo's possession, and after his death all his manuscripts went to other libraries. He didn't have any close friends or family and lived like a hermit in an isolated house in the country.
'And it was precisely his desire to get away from civilisation,' he added, 'that led to his death . . . Don't you agree?'
'What?'
'Oh, I thought you knew. Didn't Elio tell you?'
'All he said was that he was dead.' Then I remembered Elio's words. 'And that "everybody knew about it". But I didn't understand why.'
'Because he had a horrific death,' said Hector.
I swallowed.
Hector went on: 'His body was found in the forest near his home. He'd been torn to pieces. The police said he must have been attacked by a pack of wolves ...' (T.'s N.)
V
Heracles Pontor, the Decipherer of Enigmas, could fly. He soared as light as air, high in the pitch dark of a cave, in absolute silence, as if his body were a sheet of parchment. At last he found what he was looking for. First he heard the beats, as thick as the sound of oars cutting through muddy waters; then he saw it, floating in the dark, like him - a human heart, just ripped out and still beating. A hand held it as if it were a wineskin; thick trails of blood oozed through the fingers. But it was the identity of the man grasping it so tightly, rather than the naked organ itself, that concerned him. The arm to which the hand belonged, however, appeared to have been cut off neatly at the shoulder, and beyond, everything was in shadow. Curious, Heracles came closer: how could an unattached arm float in the air? Then he discovered something even stranger: he could hear only a single set of heartbeats. He looked down in horror, and raised his hands to his chest. He found a huge empty hole.
He realised that it was his own heart that had been torn out.
He woke up screaming.
By the time a worried Ponsica entered the room, he was feeling better, and was able to reassure her.32
The young slave stopped to hang the torch in the metal hook. He jumped, reaching it this time before Heracles had a chance to help. 'You've taken a long time to return,' the boy said, brushing dust from his hands, 'but while you still pay me I don't mind waiting for you until I am old enough to be an ephebe.'
'You'll be one sooner than Nature intends, if you carry on being so shrewd,' said Heracles. 'How is your mistress?'
'A little better than when you last saw her, though not fully recovered.' Along one of the dark corridors, the boy stopped and drew closer to the Decipherer with a mysterious air. 'My friend Iphimachus, the old slave of the house, says she screams in her dreams,' he whispered.
'I had a dream last night that made me scream,' confessed Heracles. 'It's odd because it doesn't happen very often .'
'It's a sign of age.'
'Do you know the meaning of dreams, too?'
32I had a dream last night, before I started on this section. I didn't see a heart, though. In the dream I was watching the central character, Heracles Pontor, as he lay in bed dreaming. Suddenly he woke up screaming as if he'd just had a nightmare. Then I too woke up and screamed. Now, having read the opening of Chapter Five, I find the similarity chilling. With regard to this scroll Montalo notes: 'The papyrus is smooth and very thin, as if fewer layers of the plant were used to produce it, or as if, with the passing of time, i
t has become fragile, porous, delicate, like the wing of a butterfly or small bird.' (T.'sN.)
'No. It's what Iphimachus thinks.'
They reached the cenacle where Heracles had been received before. Today it was cleaner and brighter. Lamps burned in alcoves and behind the couches and amphorae, as well as along the corridors that led to it, so that the room was bathed in golden light. The boy asked: 'Aren't you taking part in the Lenaea?'
'Me? I'm not a poet.'
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