by Tobias Hill
–What’s that?
–This? Eberhard said, and picking up the pamphlet, This is as it says, a manifesto. Or a manual. I suppose it’s more a methodology than a statement of belief. I found it in a shop in Oxford some years ago. It cost…let’s see. Two pounds fifty. But I think I got it for less.
–What are The Birds?
–Were. They were an Italian group of anarchists. Their enemies called them anarcho-communists, not entirely inaccurately. The members have all retired now. I met one of them once. She lives quietly. Not peacefully, I think. The group began in Lombardy. They were marginal but vigorous. They still have some interesting things to say. You’re welcome to borrow this. Ben?
He had stepped back, he realised, was still moving away from the desk, the yellowed pamphlet and Eberhard himself. The twilight seemed to fall between them.
–Don’t be afraid.
–I’m not, he said, and in saying it knew he was.
–You don’t need to be. You’re safe with us.
He had reached the balcony doors. The worst thing was Eberhard’s calmness. Through the dusk came the pacific sound of bells, calling worshippers to vespers.
–I don’t know you.
–Of course you do. And I know you. You’ve changed.
–Have I?
–A great deal, and for the better. Separation has done you good. Don’t stare like that, it makes you look ridiculous. We’re not monsters, Ben. We’re your friends.
–I thought you were.
–You know we are.
–How can I? I don’t know any of you. I don’t even know what you’re doing here.
–But you do. We’re here to dig, like you. You might have had other reasons for following me, of course, given the state you were in when I found you. It shouldn’t be such a surprise that we have other reasons, too. We would love, all of us, to find something of Sparta, to see that greatness rediscovered. But we have other interests here, and for those the dig is useful. It helps us keep up appearances.
–Why would you need to do that?
Eberhard put down the pamphlet, arranging it squarely atop the chaos of the desk, as if putting off an answer. The lights of the square gleamed vaguely off his wet scalp. –Well, I think you know. Essentially, yes, I think you do.
–I don’t.
–You’re lying. Lying to yourself. You’ve known enough to guess at it for a long time now. You’ve been wilfully blind to it. You’ve let it dawn on you until it has become so blindingly obvious that it is impossible for you to ignore. You can’t imagine how glad I was when you finally faced up to it, when you faced up to me, in Pylos. You’ve certainly tried my patience, Ben.
–That’s all shit, all of it. I thought you were mucking around–
–Playing games? No you didn’t. You knew it was more than that. You asked me as much, once, and I told you so. Not that you ever asked too much. Better not to have all the answers. Easier to be uncertain. You preferred to remain in the dark. You wanted to be with us, and so, for as long as you could, you chose to see in us only that which you wanted most in us.
–That’s not true, he said, but it was only a flat refusal: it lacked the force of contradiction. The shock he felt, he realised, was almost uncoloured by surprise.
The acceptance of it came to him as something unnaturally held back. It was gradual at first, a trickle of stale recollection; then it became a landslide, a flood, an inundation.
He saw that they had been very kind to him. They had let him into their circle. They were strange children, elder children, who had let him play a game he had never quite understood. There had been rules which no one had explained to him, which he had never really grasped. He had not been grasping, after all. He had never asked much of them. He had asked them questions, but somehow never the right questions. He had put up with Jason’s bigotry and Max’s stubborn hostility, but most of all with what seemed to be his necessary ignorance. He had needed them, needed to be with them, more than he had wished to know what they kept from him. Even in Pylos, when he had finally demanded answers, he had been content with half-answers. He had cherished his contentment. It had been enough to be with them, even if he wasn’t one of them, not really, not one of Us.
He had known all manner of things. He had known that there was something in the cave. He had understood that the game of the hunt was more than a game. For as long as he had known them he had known that they were hiding something. He thought he might even have had an inkling–but how could he have understood anything, then?–the first night he saw Eberhard again, reading alone in the meat grill in Metamorphosis.
Understanding is a funny thing, isn’t it?
–It’s time, Ben. It’s time that you believed in something, Eberhard was saying, but there had been more than that, something he had missed again. He shook himself clear of himself. –You look pale. Are you sick?
–Of course not. Stop worrying, I’m fine.
–Sit down, here. Better?
–Yes, thank you.
His voice sounded strange to him. Too shabby and vulnerable. The room felt colder. He put his face in his hands. When he looked up Eberhard was going away, through the dim room and out of sight, down the hall towards the kitchen.
–Eb, he said, then more audibly, Eberhard?
There was no answer. After a minute he got up and followed down the hall. Eberhard had the cupboard open, was unpacking water bottles from a satchel onto the empty shelves.
–What are you doing?
–I’ll take you home.
–I thought we were going to the cave.
Eberhard’s voice had been gentle. Now there was a new terseness to it.
–You seem to think I’ve made a mistake with you. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’m willing to take your word for it.
He closed the cupboard as Ben came up. His hand remained on the door, as if he were protecting it.
–I didn’t say that.
–Didn’t you? You’ve made it very clear. For which I should be grateful, since we have no room for mistakes.
–That’s not fair and you know it.
–Do I?
–You promised.
–And in good faith, but you say that I misunderstood you.
They were head to head now, their voices low, like a couple in a public place locked in some unspeakable argument.
–You trusted me, you said.
–So I did. I still do.
–So tell me.
–Are you certain you want me to?
–I still want to go with you.
–That’s not the same thing. I don’t doubt that you want to be with us. I don’t doubt you at all, in fact, or you wouldn’t be here tonight. My only concern is that you may doubt yourself. You seem to be in two minds, Ben. I’m asking you to choose. It’s time to choose. There is no going back.
A silence fell between them. Through the clotted extraction fan he could hear pigeons hobbling along the eaves. Then even the birds stopped moving, and it was so quiet that he became aware of the sound of his blood, faint and deep, beating behind his ears.
–How can I make up my mind, when I don’t know what I’m making it up about?
–You’ll have to trust me, I suppose.
Out of nothing he thought of Emine. The memory of her was very sharp, sensual, and so meaningless, so little to do with anything in this new life, that he pushed her away as if she were nothing.
–Alright.
–What do you want?
–To be one of you.
–Then you will.
–What are you? he asked again, and Eberhard hugged him before turning and opening the fridge, the weird light of the machine falling askance across his face.
–Come and see.
It was a quiet night, the trucks on the highway intermittent, and after Afisou nothing, only the engine and the road, and the stars of insects pinwheeling towards them, headlit and colliding and gone.
He had not been to the sit
e after dark since the night of the hunt. He had been excited, then, thrilled by their togetherness. This time he felt, not excitement, but a wearing anxiety that soon deepened into weariness. The stuffy warmth and the darkness instilled a lethargy in him. They spoke little, and when they did he found his tongue and thoughts sluggish.
–I never asked why you were in Athens.
–I didn’t want you to. I’m afraid I steered you away from it.
–Were you buying the guns?
–That was another trip. No, I was there to watch. We had begun what we have set out to do, oh, a few weeks earlier. Max wanted one of us to observe the…reaction to our first action. I went to Athens for two days. I needed to be discreet. I wanted a quiet place to stay, somewhere not too far out of town, but off the beaten track.
–Metamorphosis.
–I chose it for the name. It seemed appropriate. I did think it was a dismal place, I don’t know how you put up with it. The hotel was atrocious. But then we would never have met again if it wasn’t for that. I am glad that we found you, Ben. You were made for us.
They had turned off the river road, up the hill towards the site. The track was louder under the wheels. The trees had put on a wild new growth which swooped and slapped against the windows.
They came out onto the tops. Eberhard coasted in under the moonshadows of the cypresses.
–We walk from here. Can you manage a bag?
–I’ll try. I don’t know why I’m so tired.
–I think it may be mild shock. We must take care you don’t get cold. I don’t suppose a bit of fresh air will do you any harm.
His head began to clear, in fact, as soon as they set off. It was a cloudless night, and the cool air was invigorating. They climbed North Hill between the pits, then descended diagonally across a field of scree and a hollow of boggy ground. Only as he saw the trees ahead did he realise how nearly they were following in the footsteps of the hunt.
They entered the woods together. Eberhard took his arm. They went on more slowly as the trees thickened. The satchels were heavy, packed full. There was a torch strapped to one of them, but Eberhard shook his head at it. There was no path that Ben could see, but now and then Eberhard would stop, casting about in the dark.
A cluster of boulders loomed up to their left, a natural dolmen, familiar to him as a thing once seen in a dream and since forgotten. Then they were at the clearing, its blackened waste dreary without the luminous presence of the creature they had killed. Weeds had sprung up since the hunt, tall things with heavy heads, their bud-dings ashen in the dark.
Eberhard’s voice came back to him, hushed, as they shouldered through.
–I believe these are asphodel. Homer’s harbourers of the dead.
–They look like weeds. I thought they were meant to be flowers.
–I don’t suppose they mind what you call them. And no doubt they’ll come into flower soon enough. They seem to grow just as well here as in any Underworld.
The land began to rise, gently at first and then more fiercely, until the pines gave way to clinging growths, and they were more climbing than walking.
They came out onto bedrock. Eberhard was ahead of him, hands on hips, catching his breath: his own was long gone, and he squatted down, gulping lungfuls.
After a while he became conscious of the silence. He could hear the wind, faint in the trees and rocks. A goat cried somewhere far away. There was no human sound beyond that of their own breathing.
He looked back west. Sparta was miles off, a rigid network of brightness crisscrossing the lowlands. He felt a quickening of the pulse, a gathering euphoric sense of both accomplishment and anticipation. The night itself was no longer dark. The moon had a dirty cast–as if the high air were full of dust–and the sky a vestigial lucidity, a corona of light pollution circling the horizons.
A stone clicked on the rocks behind him. He looked up and saw Eberhard, his head obscuring the stars.
–Come on.
–How much further?
–Not far.
–You always say that.
–Do you want to go back?
–Too late for that, isn’t it?
He stood up. They went on. The going was quicker on the rocks, but here and there he caught glimpses of crevices and sudden drops. He stayed close to Eberhard, walking with his arms spread, ready to fall again. A song began to go round in his head, distracting and maddening, nagging at him for half a mile before he recognised it as an absurd snatch of an old Christmas carol.
The night grows darker now, and the wind grows stronger. Fails my heart, I know not how: I can go no longer…
The land began to rise again. They came to a sheer face of rock. A lone cricket stilled as they approached.
–Are we lost?
–This is the way.
–I can’t do that.
–Of course you can.
–Does Natsuko? he said, and Eberhard chuckled.
–Two of us come, twice a week. Natsuko is fearless, she puts even Max to shame. I suspect she would be more ferocious than any of us, if push ever came to shove. Does that make you feel better?
–No.
–Follow where I go.
They began to climb. He smelled woodsmoke, a faint warm trace of human habitation from somewhere far below. The rock bit into his hands. He was glad of its solidity. Then Eberhard was reaching down, helping him the last feet, and as he crested the top he saw the mountains, their snowcaps blue in the moonlight, and below them the caves.
The slope that led up to them was steep and studded with scrub. He began to lag. By the time he reached standable ground Eberhard was sitting on an outcrop, a thermos lid cupped in both hands.
He slumped down beside him, shrugged off his satchel. His shirt was steeped in sweat. Eberhard held out the lid.
–Here.
–What is it?
–Sidherítis. Mountain tea. Try it, I find it helps.
They sat side by side. The air was growing colder. He could feel the warmth of the outcrop beneath him.
–Up there, Eberhard said, and Ben followed his gesture. The mountains began in earnest less than fifty feet above them, breaking loose from the foothills, a mass of limestone heaving skywards. All along the face were the outlines of caves, concentrations of darkness. Lips and mouths and clefts.
–There are so many.
–People lived in them once. Twenty thousand years ago this was an acropolis of troglodytes. Greece begins with her caves. The earthquakes and the road builders demolish many over time, but what remain are still countless. Ours is the nearest from here. It’s tall and narrow and there’s a fig tree growing in it. You’ll smell the fig when you’re close. I found it a long time ago. I used to come here as a boy, to get away from things. My family, primarily. I found it a peaceful place. There are more impressive caves, but this one has advantages. It’s one of the reasons we’re here at all. I mentioned it when Max first told me he was coming here. Our plans were all theoretical until he saw it for himself. The cave inspired him. And Max inspired us.
–Is it safe?
–Safe enough. Go carefully. It’s tight at first but you can stand inside. Walk nine steps–count them–before you use the light. You’ll see that you have to crawl again. Look in the satchels before you do and you’ll find something to put on–
–You’re not coming?
Eberhard shook his head.
–I wish you would.
Eberhard reached for the lid, shook it out. –Better you go alone. You may want some time to yourself. Take the satchels. Remember what I said. You’ll know what else to do.
His ribs ached as he stood, the bruises a week old. He took a satchel on each arm and trudged up the last stretch. The scrub gave way to maquis and he shouldered through. At the cave mouth he looked back. He could still see Eberhard, motionless against the distant lights of the Laconian plain.
The mouth was narrow, tapering up out of sight from a mass of growth. He got down on his han
ds and knees, the satchels swinging under him. The earth was dry and soft, like the sand at Pylos, on the secret beach. He could smell fennel, figs, opuntia.
He began to crawl under the thicket. Brush scraped along his back, not painfully but alarmingly loud, as if his clothes were being torn open. As he tucked his head into his chest something–an insect or a bird–fluttered and flew out past him. A branch whipped across his face and was gone.
The air changed first. He felt it cool. He went another foot and stopped. Under his hands the ground was unyielding. He could hear the echo of his own breathing. The undergrowth was behind him: he must be inside the cave.
He began to rise, putting out a hand, and cried out as he pitched forward onto his knees. Where the walls should have been there was nothing but darkness and sepulchral cold.
He fumbled for the satchels. For an interminable moment he thought the torch was gone before his fingers closed on it. He yanked it loose. Switched it on.
The cave came to life around him. The walls were just beyond his reach: he must have barely missed them. The thicket crammed the mouth behind him. The alien cast of a cicada clung to a low branch by his face. A pigeon huddled against one wall, an emaciated thing with one wing hanging awkwardly and both claws clenched into fists. High above the two of them the space dwindled to a fissure, a chink, a hairline crack, the torchlight jittering into shadows.
As he stood he brought the torch down, sending the light inwards. The space was small, an air pocket, thirty feet deep at most. It was the wrong cave, he thought, and for a moment he imagined the shame of going back to Eberhard to ask him for redirections. Then he saw the way the light struck one creased fold of rock and flashed out of sight into it, from the walls into deeper space, a convoluted vanishing point.
Eberhard’s voice came back to him: he had used the torch too soon. He shuttered its face with his hand. It was going to be hard to turn it off again. The cave was dim around him, but a residue of light still seeped between his fingers, blood-red, warm and comforting. There was a movement at his feet, and looking down he saw it was the pigeon, hobbling crabwise away from him or his illumination. He took a deep breath and then another, as if he were about to plunge into water, and switched off the torch.
