The Athenian Murders

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  'And Eumarchus? Did he drink kyon, too?'

  'Of course. The poor old slave was very keen to liberate his urges. He mutilated himself with his own hands. Incidentally, you suspected that we used a drug ... Why?'

  'I smelt it on Antisus' and Eumarchus' breath and, later, on Ponsica's . .. And by the way, Crantor, could you clarify something: was my slave a member of your sect before this all started?'

  Despite the gloom, the look on Heracles' face must have been quite obvious, because Crantor raised his eyebrows and replied, looking into his eyes: 'Don't tell me you're surprised! Oh, by Zeus and Aphrodite, Heracles! Do you think it would have been hard to persuade her?' There was even a little compassion in his voice. He moved closer to his enfeebled prisoner, adding: 'My friend, for once in your life try to see things as they are and not as your reason presents them to you. That poor girl, maimed as a child, then forced by you to endure the humiliation of that mask ... Do you think she needed anyone to unleash her rage? Heracles, Heracles! How long have you surrounded yourself with masks so that you don't have to see real, naked human beings?'

  He paused, and shrugged. 'In fact, Ponsica joined us soon after you bought her.' He frowned and added with displeasure: 'She should have killed you when I ordered her to. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.'

  'I assume using Yasintra was your idea, too.'

  'Yes. I thought of it when we heard you'd spoken to her. She doesn't belong to our sect, but we were keeping an eye on her. We threatened her when we found out that Tramachus had revealed some of our secrets, wishing to convert her to our faith. Getting her into your house was doubly useful: on the one hand, it helped to distract and confuse you; on the other ... let's say it served an instructive purpose, proving to you in practice that physical pleasure, to which you believe yourself so indifferent, is more powerful than the will to live.'

  'By Athena, what a useful lesson,' said Heracles sarcastically 'Tell me, Crantor, and make me laugh at least, is this how you spent your time away from Athens? Devising tricks to protect this sect of madmen?'

  'I travelled for many years, as I told you,' replied Crantor calmly 'But I returned to Greece much earlier than I said, and journeyed around Thrace and Macedonia, which is when I came into contact with the sect. It's known by different names, but the most common is Lykaion. I was so surprised to find such wild ideas on Greek soil that I immediately became a member - Cerberus, Cerberus, that's enough now, stop barking. I assure you we're not madmen, Heracles. We don't do anyone any harm, unless our own safety is threatened. We perform rituals in the forest and drink kyon. We give ourselves up completely to an age-old force now known as Dionysus, but which isn't a god, and cannot be represented in images or expressed in words. So what is it? We don't know ourselves! All we know is that it lies buried deep within men and causes rage, desire, pain, pleasure. Such is the power we worship, Heracles, and we sacrifice ourselves to it. Does that surprise you? Wars also demand sacrifices, yet no one is surprised. The difference is that we choose when, how, and why we sacrifice ourselves!'

  He stirred the bowl of liquid vigorously and went on: 'The brotherhood is Thracian in origin, but it now operates mainly in Macedonia. Did you know that Euripides, the celebrated poet, belonged to it in his final years?' He glanced at Heracles, eyebrows raised, no doubt expecting him to show surprise, but the Decipherer gazed back impassively. 'Yes, Euripides himself! He came across our religion and embraced it. He drank kyon and was killed by other cult members. As you know, the legend goes that he was torn to pieces by dogs, but it's simply a symbolic way of describing a Lykaion sacrifice. And Heraclitus, the philosopher of Ephesus, who believed that violence and discord are not only necessary to man but desirable, was said to have been devoured by a pack of dogs. He, too, belonged to our sect!'

  'Menaechmus mentioned both,' nodded Heracles.

  'Indeed, they were brothers of Lykaion.'

  Crantor added, as if some idea or related subject of conversation had come to him suddenly: 'Euripides' was quite a strange case. All his life, he shied away, artistically and intellectually, from man's instinctive nature, writing insipid, rationalist plays. In old age, during his voluntary exile to the court of King Archelaus of Macedonia, disillusioned with the hypocrisy of his Athenian homeland, he came across Lykaion. In those days, the brotherhood hadn't reached Attica, but flourished in regions to the north. At Archelaus' court, Euripides witnessed the rites of Lykaion, and was transformed. He wrote a play, a tragedy, quite unlike his previous work - Bacchantes, in praise of fury, dance and orgiastic pleasure. He intended it torepay his debt to primitive theatre, which belongs to Dionysus. Poets still wonder how on earth the old master wrote such a thing at the end of his life. But they don't realise that it was his most heartfelt work!'134

  134Montalo has just said: 'Don't you think Bacchantes could be an eidetic work? Blood, fury, madness - it's all there. Perhaps Euripides was describing a Lykaion ritual in eidesis.'

  'I can't believe Master Euripides went that insane!' I retorted. (T.'sN.)

  'The drug makes you insane,' said Heracles wearily. 'Nobody in their right mind would want to be mutilated by others.'

  'So you think it's just the kyon?' Crantor gazed at the steaming liquid in the bowl. Tiny golden droplets hung from the rim. 'I believe it's something we have inside us, all of us. The kyon enables us to feel it, certainly, but...' He tapped his chest. 'It's here, Heracles. Inside you, too. It can't be translated into words. One can't philosophise about it. It's absurd, if you like, irrational, enraging . . . but real. That's the secret we're going to teach all men.' He came closer to Heracles, and his face - a huge shadow - broke into a wide smile. 'Anyway, you know I don't like discussions. We'll find out soon enough whether it's the kyon, won't we?'

  Heracles tugged at the ropes tied to the golden nails. He felt stiff and weak, but he didn't think the drug had had any effect on him. He looked up at Crantor's craggy face and said: 'You're wrong, Crantor. This isn't a secret that humanity wants to learn. I don't believe in prophecies or oracles, but if I were to predict one thing, I'd say that Athens will be the birthplace of a new kind of man. A man who fights with his eyes and mind, not hishands. A man who will translate the texts of his forebears, and learn from them.'

  Crantor listened with eyes wide, as if he were about to burst out laughing.

  'The only violence I predict will be in the imagination,' Heracles went on. 'Both men and women will be able to read and write, and will form guilds of learned translators who will edit and decipher the works of our contemporaries. And, as they translate the writings left by others, they will find out about the world before the reign of reason. Neither you nor I will see it, Crantor, but man is advancing towards Reason, not Instinct.'135

  135 Heracles' predictions have come true! Perhaps this is the key to the novel!

  Montalo stares at me in silence. 'Carry on translating,' he says. (T.'sN.)

  'No,' said Crantor, smiling. 'You're the one who's wrong.'

  With a strange look on his face, he seemed to be staring not at Heracles but at somebody behind him, set into the rock, or perhaps beneath his feet, at invisible depths, though Heracles could not be sure in the growing darkness.

  Crantor, in fact, was looking at you. 136

  136'Strange,' I note. 'A change to the second person again ...' 'Carry on translating!' my kidnapper interrupts anxiously, as if we have come to a crucial point in the text. (T.'s N.)

  He said: "These translators that you prophesy will discover nothing, because they won't exist, Heracles. Philosophy will never triumph over instinct.' Raising his voice, he went on: 'Heracles appears to defeat the monsters, but between the lines, in texts, in fine speeches, in logical reasoning, in the thoughts ofmen, the Hydra raises its multiple heads, the terrifying lion roars and the bronze hoofs of the flesh-eating mares thunder. Human nature is not 137

  137 What's the matter?' Montalo asks. 'These words of Crantor's, I'm trembling. 'What about them?' 'My father ... I remember .
..'

  'Yes!' Montalo urges me on. 'Yes! Your father, what?' 'He wrote a poem a long time ago.'

  Montalo urges me on again. I try to remember. This is the first stanza of my father's

  poem, as I remember it:

  The Hydra raises its many heads,

  The terrifying lion roars, and the bronze hoofs

  Of the flesh-eating mares thunder.

  'It's the opening of one of my father's poems!'

  I declare, astounded. Montalo looks sad for a moment. He nods and murmurs, 'I know the rest:

  The theories and ideas of men sometimes

  Seem like the exploits of Hercules,

  In a perpetual struggle with creatures

  That oppose his noble reason.

  But I sometimes picture my poor soul

  As a translator locked up by a madman,

  Forced to decipher an absurd text,

  Struggling to find meaning.

  And you, final Truth, Platonic Idea –

  In your beauty and fragility

  So like a lily in the hands of a young girl –

  How you cry for help once you realise

  That your own non-being will bury you!

  Oh Hercules, how futile are your exploits,

  For I know men who love monsters,

  Who give themselves up with delight to the sacrifice,

  Making of the bites their religion!

  The bull roars amidst the blood,

  The hound barks and spews flames,

  The serpent still eagerly watches

  Over the golden apples in the garden.

  I've written out the whole poem. I'm rereading it. I remember it. 'It's one of my father's poems!'

  Montalo looks down. What will he say? He says: 'It's a poem by Philotextus of Chersonnese. Do you remember him?'

  'The writer who appears in Chapter Seven at the dinner with the tutors at the Academy?'

  'That's right. Philotextus used his own poem as inspiration for the eidetic images contained in The Athenian Murders: the Labours of Hercules, the girl with the lily, the translator ...'

  'But then . . .'

  Montalo nods, his face inscrutable. 'Yes. The Athenian Murders was written by Philotextus of Chersonnese,' he says. 'Don't ask me how I know, the fact is, I just do. But please continue with your translation. There's still a little more before the end.' (T.'s N.)

  'Human nature is not a text to which a translator can find a final key, Heracles, or even a set of invisible ideas. So defeating the monsters is futile, for they lurk within you. The kyon will awaken them soon. Can you feel them shifting in your entrails yet?'

  Heracles was about to make a sarcastic reply when he heard a groan in the darkness beyond the brazier, coming from one of the vague shapes at the foot of the wall opposite. Although he couldn't see who it was, he recognised the voice immediately.

  'Diagoras!' he said. 'What have you done to him?'

  'Nothing he hasn't done to himself’ replied Crantor. 'He drank kyon . . . and I assure you we were all surprised at how quickly it took effect.' He raised his voice and added, mocking: 'Oh, our noble Platonist philosopher! The great idealist! What rage against himself he had inside, by Zeus!'

  Cerberus - a pale shape circling Crantor - provided a furious accompaniment to his master's words. His barks formed chains of echoes. Crantor bent down and stroked him affectionately. 'No, no ... Calm down, Cerberus ... It's all right

  Meanwhile, Heracles tugged sharply at the rope tied to one of the gold nails. It gave slightly. Encouraged, he pulled again and, soundlessly, the nail came out of the wall. Crantor was still attending to his dog. Heracles had to be quick now. But when he tried to move his free hand, he found that the fingers wouldn't obey him - they were frozen, filled from root to tip with an army of tiny snakes that had multiplied beneath the skin. So he pulled as hard as he could at the other gold nail.

  As it gave way, Crantor turned round.

  Heracles Pontor was a short, fat man. In addition, his aching arms now hung, useless, at his sides like broken tools. He realised immediately that his only hope lay in using one of the nearby objects as a weapon. His eyes selected the poker protruding from the embers. But it was too far away, and Crantor, now bearing down upon him furiously, would block his path. So, in a heartbeat, or the blink of an eye, during which time stopped and thought ceased, the Decipherer realised, without even looking to check, that the golden nails were still hanging from the ropes tied to his wrists. When Crantor's shadow grew so large that it engulfed Heracles' entire body, he swiftly raised his right arm and described a quick, violent semicircle in the air.

  Perhaps Crantor expected the blow to come from Heracles' fist, for when he saw it pass without hitting him, he did not dodge and so received the nail full in the face. Heracles wasn't sure exactly where he'd struck, but he heard the pain. He lunged, eyes fixed on the poker, but a sharp kick to his chest winded him. He collapsed on his side and rolled like a ripe fruit that had fallen from a tree.

  During the torment that followed, he recalled how he had competed in the pancratium in his youth. He even remembered the names of some of his opponents. Scenes, images of triumph and defeat filled his memory... But his thoughts fragmented ... Sentences lost coherence ... They became loose words ...

  Cowering and shielding his head, he endured his punishment. When the rocks that were Crantor's feet ceased kicking him, he breathed in and smelt blood. The blows had swept him like a flabby piece of rubbish against one of the walls. Crantor was speaking, but Heracles couldn't make out what he was saying - a savage, terrifying child was shouting foreign words in his ear, dribbling sickening, bitter saliva over his face. He recognised Cerberus. He turned his head and half opened his eyes. The dog, right beside his face, was a loud, wrinkled mask with empty sockets. He seemed like a ghost of himself. Beyond, across an infinite expanse of pain, Crantor stood with his back to him. Was he saying something? Heracles couldn't be sure, for Cerberus was a barrier of noise between him and all other sounds. Why was Crantor no longer kicking him? Why wasn't he finishing him off?

  He thought of something. It wasn't a good plan, but by then nothing was good. He grabbed the dog's puny body with both hands. Unused to being handled by strangers, it struggled, like a baby that appeared to consist predominantly of two rows of very sharp teeth. Heracles held his frantic prey well away as he lifted it. Crantor must have heard the change of tone in the dog's barking, for he turned and started shouting. For a moment Heracles allowed himself to recall that he hadn't been a bad discus thrower.

  Like a soft bundle tossed playfully by a child, Cerberus crashed into the brazier, knocking it and the bowl over. When the embers, spread over the ground like the slow juice from a volcano, came into contact with the animal's coat, the barking again changed. Smeared with flames, the dog rolled across the floor. Heracles hadn't thrown it very hard, but the added momentum came from the movements of the animal itself - it was a furious whirl of embers. Its howls, surrounded by echoes, pierced Heracles' ears like golden needles. As he had guessed, Crantor hesitated only a moment between attacking him again and rescuing the dog, and decided immediately to rescue the dog.

  Bowl. Brazier. Poker. Three distinct objects, scattered randomly on the ground. Heracles flopped painfully and obesely towards the poker. The unpredictable goddesses of luck had not cast it too far away.

  'Cerberus!' shouted Crantor, crouching beside the dog. He was patting the little body, wiping away the ash. 'Cerberus, it's all right. Let me—'

  Heracles thought that a single blow, with the poker clasped in both hands, would be enough, but he underestimated the huge man's resilience. Crantor raised his hand to his head and tried to turn. Heracles struck him again. This time, Crantor fell on his back. But Heracles fell, too, collapsing on top of him, exhausted.

  '... fat, Heracles,' he heard Crantor gasp. 'You should do ... more exercise.'

  Heracles sat up slowly and painfully. His arms felt like heavy bronze shields. He leaned on t
he poker. 'Fat and weak,' smiled Crantor from the floor.

  The Decipherer managed to sit astride Crantor. They were both panting, as if they had just run an Olympic race. A dark, wet snake emerged from Crantor's head. It grew from a hatch-ling, to a viper, to a python, slithering over the ground. Crantor smiled again. 'Can you ... feel the kyon yet?' he asked.

  'No,' said Heracles.

  That's why he didn't kill me, Heracles thought. He was waiting for the drug to take effect on me.

  'Strike me,' murmured Crantor.

  'No,' said Heracles again. He struggled to his feet.

  The snake now dwarfed the head that had engendered it. But it had lost its original form and now resembled a tree. 138

  138 'Snake' and 'tree' - the blood pouring from Crantor's head becomes a beautiful eidetic image evoking both the monster that guards the Golden Apples and the trees from which they hang.