The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  ‘That’s why I despise your real world. Because men fight over it like a tug of war, trying to pull it to their advantage without any regard for what’s really true.’

  A second later, I realised I’d conceded Euphemus’ original point. But if he noticed, the look on my face made him think better of mentioning it.

  At the side of the road, a boundary stone said we were ten miles from Thurii.

  For any philosopher thinking of taking up a public career, Pythagoras’ life offers a cautionary tale.

  One hundred and fifty-odd years ago, he sailed out of the east in a blaze of mystery and settled in the Greek colony at Croton, towards the southwestern end of Italy. Pupils flocked to him. In short order, most of the city’s eminent citizens had signed up to his school, including a local strongman called Milo. Pythagoras taught ascetism, contemplation and mathematics. When his zealous pupils noticed that their local rivals, the Sybarites, lived a decidedly un-Pythagorean life of hedonistic luxury, they destroyed Sybaris.

  But not everyone took to Pythagoras. Government by the wise is necessarily elitist: the unwise and foolish feel excluded, and tend to resent it. And there’s never any shortage of fools. One night, Pythagoras’ enemies in Croton rose up, burned down his home and massacred his followers. Pythagoras barely escaped. He lived out the rest of his days in exile, not far from Taras. You can still see his house from the road, though it’s now built into a temple complex.

  We passed it on the second day, and I insisted on dragging Euphemus over to have a look.

  ‘Where did Pythagoras get his wisdom from?’ I asked aloud, remembering Agathon’s question to Archytas. ‘You hear a lot about his students and followers, but nothing about his teachers.’

  Euphemus studied the plain little house. Next to the stout-pillared temple, it didn’t look like much more than a lamp store.

  ‘I met a man from Croton, once, on Crete. He told a tale that Pythagoras went down to the underworld, like Orpheus, but instead of bringing back a woman, he brought back wisdom.’

  I remembered the tomb that Agathon had cracked open, the gaping hole in the hillside. ‘What could you possibly learn that would be worth that journey?’

  Euphemus shrugged. ‘It’s just superstition.’

  * * *

  On a dark day when the clouds raced low, we reached Thurii. I saw it from far off, a city on the plain, hemmed in by mountains and the grey sea. As we crossed the bridge over the Cratus, past the white temple to Artemis that marked the city limits, Euphemus pointed to the river below. Thick weeds billowed in the stream, clutching the fragments of fallen columns that littered the riverbed like the bones of a lost army.

  ‘The drowned city of Sybaris. Say what you like about the Pythagoreans, but you don’t want to get on the wrong side of them.’

  Thunder rolled down off the mountains and rumbled across the plain. The clouds closed ranks like a shield wall. Raindrops punched rings in the river surface.

  Euphemus looked at the sky. ‘It’s going to be bad.’

  By the time we reached the city walls, we were both wet as fish. I had to shout to the gateman to make myself heard.

  ‘Dimos’ house?’

  The storm had swept the streets bare. We hurried down the broad avenue, past empty shops and grand temples. Dim figures crowded under the porticoes like the shades of Hades; above, carved monsters crouched on the gutters and spat streams of water at us.

  ‘The city’s going to be drowned again if we’re not careful,’ Euphemus bellowed in my ear.

  ‘At least we’re not at sea.’

  Lightning flashed, thunder hard on its heels. With a bray of terror, one of our mules jerked his bridle out of my hand and galloped down the street out of sight. There was no point trying to catch him. Euphemus and I dragged the other mule another hundred yards, to the house the gateman had described.

  A slave opened the door, hanging back to avoid the rain spattering the threshold.

  ‘Is this Dimos’ house?’

  The slave nodded.

  ‘Is Agathon here?’

  ‘For all the gods’ sakes.’ Euphemus elbowed me out of the way, pushed past the slave and shook himself off like a dog. ‘Does it matter? Let’s get out of this rain.’

  We stood in the hall while the slave fetched water and washed the mud off our feet. Another slave went to find his master. A third had the thankless task of unloading our mule in the rain. Soon Euphemus’ baggage was dripping another puddle onto the floor.

  ‘Welcome,’ said a not-terribly-welcoming voice. A body eclipsed the lamp at the end of the corridor: a stout man with sloped shoulders and oily grey hair. He dug his thumbs into his belt, rocked back a little and considered us, like a bale of goods landed unexpectedly outside a warehouse.

  ‘Do we have business?’

  ‘Don’t you recognise your own brother?’

  Sort of. There’s no blood shared between us. His father married my mother, a second marriage for both of them. Dimos was fifteen years my senior and out of the house before I could remember. His father named him in a fit of enthusiasm for the Democracy, which gave the wags of Athens plenty of material when the rest of the family threw in their lot with the dictators. Dimos, who has nothing in common with the common man, found it so unbearable he emigrated.

  ‘And this is Euphemus, the famous sophist and rhetorician.’

  If Euphemus had any use at all, I’d hoped he could at least impress my stepbrother. But Dimos barely registered him. ‘My house isn’t an inn for you and your idle friends,’ he muttered as he led us down the corridor. ‘I’m still recovering from the last one you sent here.’

  The cold was forgotten. ‘Agathon?’

  ‘Some would say you’re taking advantage.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘A month ago.’

  I stopped on the threshold of the andron. ‘But that’s impossible. He was in Taras two weeks ago.’

  ‘Then that’s where he must have gone.’ He dropped heavily onto a bench and leaned back. ‘Wine! I was glad to get him out of the house.’

  ‘His host in Taras said he’d come back here.’

  ‘He could have gone to the moon for all I care. He’s not welcome here.’

  His face had gone a vivid red; his shoulders twitched with anger. It seemed an excessive reaction. I put it down to the shock of finding me on his doorstep.

  I tried to be nice. ‘It’s good to see you, brother. You look well.’

  That wasn’t entirely true. In Athens, when he was young and I was younger, Dimos lived a gilded life: handsome, rich, desirable. Thirty years later, some of the gold has definitely worn off. Scratched and dented, you can see the lead underneath.

  ‘No one warned me you were coming,’ he grumbled. A slave brought cups of warmed wine. ‘What are you doing in Italy?’

  I didn’t dare mention Agathon again. ‘I wanted to study.’

  ‘You’ll find no philosophy here.’ Dimos is one of those Athenians who emigrated chiefly so he could tell the colonists how much better things are at home. ‘And your friend?’

  ‘He’s going to work for the tyrant of Syracuse.’

  Euphemus made an awkward bow from his couch, like a starfish curling up. ‘Allow me to thank you for your generous hospitality …’

  I was sick of the sound of Euphemus’ voice. I drank the wine and listened to the storm, and thought of a hole in the ground that was the last place anyone had seen Agathon.

  Ten

  Jonah – London

  At Wandsworth police station, a heavy-set constable took him to an interview room and gave him a cup of coffee. She said her name was Ruth. The fluorescent lights flickered and burned as she took his details.

  ‘Profession?’

  ‘Musician. I play in a band.’

  She looked up. ‘Should I have heard of you?’

  He guessed not. Their first album had kindled a small blaze of h
ype: a profile in the NME, a fawning write-up in Uncut and a sniffier notice from The Face. A couple of singles had lingered around the lower echelons of the charts: they might have broken the Top 20 if they’d sold their song for a mobile phone ad, but Jonah had refused. At the time, he thought it meant they had integrity. But the label had lost interest, and suddenly they weren’t a hot new band but just another group trying to be heard above the noise. The songs got better, the fans were as loyal as ever – but, year by year, it became clear they were never going to make the leap.

  ‘We once toured with LCD Soundsystem,’ he offered.

  ‘I’ll take that as a “No”,’ she said, smiling as if it were a joke. ‘Moving on …’

  Ruth asked the same questions as the Foreign Office, and got the same answers.

  ‘So as far as you’re aware, the last time anyone saw her was yesterday morning.’

  ‘Or afternoon. She got her things from the hotel. The receptionist might have seen her …’ He tailed off, thinking of all the things he could have done differently, the questions he’d have asked in Italy if he’d known Lily wouldn’t be here.

  ‘Can you think of any reason she might have for wanting to disappear like this?’

  ‘Wanting?’ Jonah echoed. ‘You think this is something she wanted?’

  Ruth acted as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘There’s no evidence of any crime. That’s a good thing,’ she reminded him. ‘In most cases like this there’s a straightforward explanation.’

  Cases like this.

  ‘What about the text messages?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘She can’t have sent them herself. Someone else must have.’

  Ruth was too professional to let him see what she thought of that. ‘We’ll look into it. Were there any issues in your relationship? Any problems?’

  ‘Everything was fine.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘Six weeks ago. I took her to the airport.’

  ‘It’s a long time to be apart.’

  Jonah tried to read her expression, but it was perfectly neutral.

  ‘It happens every summer. She has to dig, I need to tour.’

  ‘Can’t be easy.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you keep in touch?’

  ‘Every day.’

  Another note. ‘Did she talk about anything that was worrying her. Conflicts with her colleagues, her private life?’ Jonah shook his head. ‘Any arguments?’

  He was still shaking his head when he realised the last question was about him. ‘No,’ he said emphatically.

  Her eyebrows arched up as she made another note. ‘It’s not uncommon for couples to argue.’

  Jonah didn’t answer.

  ‘You drove all the way from Berlin, overnight. Any particular reason for the hurry?’

  ‘I wanted to see her.’

  ‘You must have been very tired.’

  ‘I slept on the way.’ What was she trying to say? That he might have missed Lily because he’d nodded off? He felt the anger rising inside him and tried to keep it in check.

  She waited, watching him to see if he’d say more. When he didn’t, she leaned forward and wrote something down. It seemed to take a long time.

  ‘That’s enough to be going on with.’ She stood. ‘We’ll inform Interpol, who’ll pass it on to the Italian police. They’ll conduct the investigation. In the meantime, we’ll arrange a press conference to try and raise some awareness.’

  She showed him the door.

  ‘Someone out there knows where your wife is. We just have to reach them.’

  Greece – ten years ago

  Another Sunday, another drive packed into the hire car, part of Adam’s apparent plan to visit every ancient column in Greece. This time Jonah let Richard take the front seat, while he squeezed in the back. Charis sat sideways on his lap, her bare legs folded against his, her chest inches from his face.

  On the radio, Richard had managed to find the only station in Greece that played classical music, much to the others’ disgust. Charis, in particular, teased him relentlessly.

  ‘I mean, it all sounds exactly the same. I bet you don’t even know what this song’s called. You’re just being pretentious.’

  ‘You don’t have to know what something’s called to like it.’

  ‘Plato would say you have to know something’s proper name to understand its essence,’ Adam said from the other side of the car. Charis reached across and flicked him on the nose.

  ‘Stuff Plato.’

  ‘It’s called the “Queen of the Night”,’ Jonah said. ‘From The Magic Flute. By Mozart.’

  Richard twisted around in his seat. ‘Ten points to Jonah. I didn’t think this was your thing.’

  ‘Quite the opera buff, aren’t you?’ said Charis. She pinched his cheek.

  ‘My mother’s a singer,’ he said. It made him think of lying in bed, listening to the songs come through the floor as she practised in the sitting room. But Julian had started telling a long story about a girl at school they’d called the queen of the night, and no one cared.

  The temple was a let-down, just a few blocks overgrown with grass and weeds, surrounded by a low chain-link fence. There was no guard. They climbed over the fence and poked around for a few minutes, but even Adam couldn’t make much of it.

  Charis put her hands on her hips and surveyed the ruins. ‘Adam, darling, you’ve found the one thing that actually makes digging look interesting.’

  ‘Good view, though.’ Julian had wandered to the far edge of the site, where steep cliffs fell to the waves.

  ‘The book says there’s a sea cave underneath,’ said Adam. ‘There’s a local legend it used to be an entrance to Hades.’

  ‘Oh, fab.’

  They’d brought a coolbox. Julian took out a can of beer, opened it, and poured a good measure over the ruins.

  ‘You can’t do that.’ Richard looked over his shoulder, in case a caretaker should appear. ‘It’s a site.’

  ‘Libation to the gods.’ Julian splashed another slug over the ruins, then took a deep swig for himself. ‘Anyone else?’

  Jonah took one. In the heat, dust and salt in the air, it tasted like nectar. He offered the can to Lily.

  ‘Want some?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Adam was still staring over the edge of the cliff. ‘Does anyone want to see about this cave?’

  ‘I will.’ Jonah jumped up and went over. The cliffs were steep but not sheer, with plenty of fissures in the rock to hold onto.

  ‘You’ll break your necks,’ said Richard. ‘Or drown.’

  ‘Getting up’ll be harder than getting down,’ Julian added. ‘You’ll end up marooned.’

  ‘Like Philoctetes,’ said Charis.

  ‘I’ll go first.’ Jonah set his beer carefully on a column base. He sat down on the cliff edge, then pivoted around and lowered himself down. The rocks were hot under his fingers, but not as steep as they’d looked from above, and his arms were strong from the digging.

  The cliff ended in a rocky shelf, a couple of feet wide, before a short drop into the sea. He couldn’t see a cave, but a few yards along a sea channel cut through the rock and disappeared into the cliff. Not far off, he could hear a roar like a motorway.

  Pebbles and grit rattled down the cliff. He looked up to see a pair of bare legs and battered boots almost on top of him. Lily slithered down the last few feet and landed off-balance. Jonah grabbed her arm.

  ‘Steady. You don’t want to prove Richard right.’

  ‘I want to see it.’

  She pushed past to the end of the ledge and lay on her stomach. Leaning out over the sea channel, she craned her head to look in.

  ‘It definitely goes somewhere.’

  Jonah lay down next to her. The channel disappeared into the cliff, a low dark mouth, invisible inside.

  ‘That’s too small to be a cave.’

  Another clatter of stones. Adam had come down. He wipe
d his hands on his jeans.

  ‘Is it there?’

  Lily got out of the way so Adam could see. Jonah rolled aside to give him more room. Behind him on the ledge, Lily had stood up.

  ‘I want to see where it goes.’

  She raised her arms and pulled off her T-shirt; kicked off her boots, unzipped her shorts and stepped out of them. She stood there in her underwear, blushing a little, defying him to look. She had little pink bows on her bra straps.

  She padded to the edge of the rock. A wave surfed through the channel. Adam looked up, then hurriedly down again.

  ‘What about currents?’ said Jonah.

  ‘You can wait here, if you like,’ said Lily.

  Jonah glanced at Adam, both trying not to stare at Lily. Without a word, they both stripped to their boxers.

  The moment they jumped in, all awkwardness disappeared. The narrow channel squeezed the waves dangerously fast: Jonah took one in the face and was slapped straight into Lily. He bobbed up and felt the roof graze his head; he opened his mouth in surprise, and took in a lungful of water. Lily’s arm snaked around his neck and pulled him forward. Another wave broke over him, blinding him, but he kicked on.

  He felt the darkness cool his shoulders as he passed under the rock. He put out an arm, expecting to meet a dead end, but all he felt was water. The snare-drum crash of the waves was gone, replaced with a low murmur all around him like distant laughter. Lily had let go. He opened his eyes.

  The channel had opened into a long, high cave. By some trick of nature, sunlight from outside flowed through and reflected onto the walls, throwing rippling lines of light across the stone. The whole cave glowed golden blue.

  They trod water and drank in the wonder of the place. No one spoke. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Jonah saw the walls arching into space above them like a cathedral.

  Lily kicked across to the far side. Little splashes echoed around the cave. She reached up and put her hand in a small hollow.