The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  ‘You loved Socrates?

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And how did that feel?’

  ‘I felt …’ My soul seemed to inflate at the very thought, the way muscles flex at the memory of a fight. ‘I felt like Euphemus’ primitive man – that I’d found the other half of me.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  There were only the two of us in the room. The others were as flat as the painted men dining on the walls behind them.

  ‘Let me tell you about love,’ she said. ‘Love isn’t kind or fair or good, like the playwright says. He isn’t a god – he isn’t even immortal. One moment he can be brimming with life; the next moment dead in a cave; then alive again.

  ‘Love is a poor man huddled in a doorway, rough and squalid, with bare feet and bare earth clinging to his clothes. He’s a sophist, a conspirator and a sorcerer. An ingenious hero. He’s the child of Want and Plenty, the grandchild of Cunning. He’s needy, ruthless and tricky. And do you know what he craves most of all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Immortality.’

  Widespread groans. ‘She’s as bad as him,’ someone said.

  ‘I can think of a few other things love wants.’ The doctor unwound his tunic and spread it apart, in case we lacked imagination. Diotima allowed a small smirk at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘It’s true, love infects us with a lust for sex. Every creature – man, bird or beast – suffers untold agonies longing to procreate.’ A cool glance at the doctor’s exposed member. ‘Some quite shrivel up with desire. Why?’

  ‘Come into the courtyard and I’ll show you,’ said the doctor, unpleasantly.

  ‘Love wants beauty.’

  ‘You said it was immortality.’

  She shook her head. Even that simple gesture held me. The play of light on the sweat at her throat. The flash of her earrings. The way the ivy leaves fluttered, and the sickle-strand of dark hair hanging down by her cheek.

  ‘Love wants beauty. He wants it for himself, and he wants it forever. Sex isn’t love’s objective: it’s the method he uses. It’s the closest most of us can come to feeling so alive we escape our mortality.’

  Dimos leaned forward, overhanging his couch like the prow of a ship. The lamplight scored deep red cracks in his face.

  ‘And who do you love, Diotima?’

  She thought for a moment, then looked straight at me. Every atom in my body seemed to turn to fire.

  ‘Someone who isn’t here.’

  A crash shattered the hush in the room. Dimos was standing. A marble table lolled on the floor, rocking back and forth among the scattered dates and nuts.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you left,’ he said. ‘Unless you have any more to say about love?’

  She had her back to me; I couldn’t see the look she gave him. All I know is that it seemed to freeze time.

  ‘Even you might be able to get yourself initiated into love’s lesser mysteries,’ she told him. ‘But if you’re thinking you might go all the way …’ She crooked her little finger at him. ‘You’ll never get in the door.’

  By the time he could think of a retort, she’d gone. Dimos sat heavily, then clapped his hands.

  ‘Let’s have some more entertainment.

  The dancing girls came back. While we were talking, they’d oiled up their bodies, lubrication for what was to come. The mood in the room improved. The flute-boy started playing again, though after hearing Diotima play, he might as well have been farting through a straw.

  I ignored the dancing girls, and the slaves sweeping up the mess Dimos had spilled. For me, the room was empty. Through the open door, I could see Diotima in the courtyard putting on her cloak. I stared at the slim ankle below the hem of her dress, the sway of her hips as she wrapped the cloak around her.

  A cloak’s a simple garment – the first thing a girl makes once she’s learned to weave. No two are exactly the same, but they all look alike. That’s why you dress it up with a pin or a ribbon or a piece of embroidery, so you can identify it at the end of an evening when your eyes are tired and there are ten to choose from.

  This one had a monogram, an A in a circle stitched on the back, just below the nape of the neck. Wholly unremarkable. Except that I’d seen it before, many times, most recently on the dockside at the Piraeus, wrapping the shoulders of the friend I was seeing off. I still remember the moment he turned to board his ship, the flash of the monogram across his shoulders.

  Of course I do. It was the last time I saw Agathon.

  Twelve

  Jonah – London

  Charis lived in an imposing townhouse in a whitewashed enclave of north London. Two bay trees flanked the front door; on the raked gravel at the bottom of the steps, a winged god, one arm missing, watched the street. A red ball lolled against his foot.

  Jonah climbed the stairs and rang the bell. A young woman answered, slim and pretty in figure-hugging jeans and a tight pink T-shirt. Probably the nanny. She smiled at him, in the way women often did.

  ‘Is Charis in?’

  From inside, a muffled voice called, ‘It’s OK, Yolanda, I’ll get it.’ He heard a flurry on the stairs, a bang and a well-spoken shit. The nanny stepped back. The door opened wider.

  ‘Can’t you get the children to clear up their toys, Yolanda?’ A pause as she registered Jonah. ‘Darling?’

  When he first met her, Charis was the girl they all wanted. Everyone has an age where they look their best: Charis’s came on young and strong. Too strong, perhaps, for her own good. She’d had a girlish innocence in a body that had raced ahead; her skin glowed with youth, her long, dark hair framed puppy-fat cheeks. She laughed loudly, and threw her arms around people she’d just met. When you looked into her blue eyes, there was no hint of self-consciousness, only wide-open delight inviting you in. Even Jonah had felt the pull – before Lily turned up.

  And now … thirty really shouldn’t seem so old. The puppy-fat had come off, leaving a hard and angular face; her hair, fashionably bobbed, had lost its lustre. Her eyes looked tired. Only the hug she gave him hadn’t changed.

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming – you should have said.’

  ‘I called yesterday.’ One phone call in dozens, ringing round every friend he could think of to look for Lily. ‘I left a message.’

  ‘Sorry. We had Bill’s parents down for the weekend – they’ve just left – and then this morning’s been murder with the kids.’ She gave him the sort of smile pretty girls use instead of apologies. ‘I would have called back, I promise. Was it urgent?’

  He couldn’t explain on the doorstep. ‘Can we talk somewhere?’

  ‘Mysterious.’ A hint of her old energy. ‘Come through. Can you keep the kids away, Yolanda – and put the kettle on. You take sugar, don’t you? Excuse the mess.’

  She brought him into a conservatory filled with wicker furniture and plastic toys. Summer had mounted one last charge and the city was sweating, not a cloud in the sky. Office workers would be packing the parks at lunchtime, rolling up sleeves and sliding straps off shoulders to even out their fading tans. But even with the heat in the conservatory, Charis didn’t open the doors.

  The nanny brought tea. Charis glanced at her watch. ‘It’s after twelve,’ she said, happily surprised. ‘Perhaps we can manage something stronger.’

  ‘Tea’s fine.’

  ‘Bo-ring.’ She sprang down from her chair, went out, and came back with a bottle of white wine and two glasses. She filled them to the rim.

  ‘Cheers.’

  The wine was so cold it tasted almost like water. Charis slipped off her shoes and curled her legs under her in the chair. ‘So what’s going on?’

  ‘Lily’s missing.’ He blurted it out, took another gulp of wine, and told the story. By the time he’d finished, his glass was empty. Charis refilled it.

  ‘I’m so sorry. If she calls me …’

  ‘It’s not that.’ He could tell what she was thinking from her tone, and
didn’t want to hear it. ‘Just before she disappeared, Lily posted a letter – she must have sent it from the hotel that morning. I thought if anyone could understand it, you could.’

  He took the FedEx envelope from his bag and slid the piece of paper out of it. Charis’s hand brushed his as she took it.

  ‘It’s ancient Greek.’

  ‘So you can read it?’

  He didn’t really have to ask. Charis had got a First in Classics at Oxford. The doctorate followed, then a research post which quickly became a full fellowship at her college. At the same time, she burned through a string of hapless boyfriends, had a torrid affair with her supervisor, then abruptly married an old Etonian twenty years older who worked in hedge funds and took it as a point of principle that his wife shouldn’t work.

  ‘It’s a bit messy.’ She stroked a lock of hair back from her face. ‘She must have copied it from somewhere. Maybe something she dug up. Do you know what this is?’

  She pointed to the top left corner of the page, where Lily had written and circled ‘R27’.

  ‘I don’t know – maybe some reference number.’ He scratched his stubble. ‘That’s the bit I can read.’

  Charis mumbled under her breath, then made a small grunt of surprise.

  ‘The words of Memory. That’s what it says. The words of Memory, carved in gold, for the hour of your death.’

  Even in the stifling conservatory, a chill went through Jonah.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Just a minute.’

  Charis slid off her chair and went into the living room. Jonah took the paper back and stared at it. Compared with Lily’s regular writing, the page was a mess. The lines were crooked, the letters badly spaced. Like a child just learning to write.

  For the hour of your death.

  On the bookshelf, he noticed Lily staring at him out of a photograph in an old, cheap frame. He picked it up and studied it. She was with Richard, Charis and Adam, arms around each other – somewhere cold and wet, judging by the coats and damp hair. Probably Oxford. Had he been there? It must have been ages ago. Their faces were fresh as the rain – and it was a long time since she’d had her arm around Adam.

  He drained his glass and poured more, splashing it over the rim.

  ‘Those were good times.’ Charis had come back with a book in her hand and perched on the arm of his chair. Jonah looked at the picture again.

  ‘Have you spoken to Adam recently?’

  She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t do Christmas cards. I think he went off to Greece to play at being Socrates.’

  Jonah put the photograph back on the shelf, though his eyes kept darting to Lily. Charis opened her book and spread out the glossy pages in the middle. Against a black background, Jonah saw what he took to be a golden sheet of paper, creased into eighths where it had been folded, its edges torn and ragged. There was writing on it, though not in ink. It looked as though it had been pressed into with a blunt nib, or through another sheet.

  ‘Is that parchment?’

  Charis laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘Too cheap, darling. It’s gold.’

  ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘This is blown up. The real thing’s about the size of a credit card.’

  Jonah looked closer. The writing resembled what Lily had written, block letters meandering across the page. Even enlarged, the writing was no bigger than you might use for a shopping list. He could hardly imagine how small it must be in real life, how hard it must have been for someone to engrave those letters. Or why they’d bothered.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a golden grave tablet. There was some sort of cult in the ancient world: people would be buried with these things to take to the afterlife. This one in the book dates from about 400 BC.’

  ‘There’s more than one?’

  ‘They’ve been found all over the Med. There’s one down the road in the British Museum, I think.’

  Jonah sipped his wine. The heat had made it sour.

  ‘Could Lily have found one?’

  ‘Where she was is more or less ground zero for these tablets. I think some actually came up in other excavations at Sybaris. Yes.’ She scanned a few pages of the book, reminding herself. ‘Three were found at Thurii, which was the city they built on top of Sybaris after it was flooded.’

  ‘So you don’t have to translate it. You know what it says already.’

  ‘More or less. The tablets vary a bit on the details.’

  ‘Details of what?’

  She blinked. ‘Didn’t I say? They’re directions to the underworld.’

  Greece

  Jonah wasn’t there when it happened. He got the story afterwards. He’d been at the lab with Menelaos, the professor, fetching some tools; the others had been playing Frisbee in the olive grove next to the trench. Menelaos often warned them about the snakes, but he was a worried old man and paranoid like all Greeks, so they didn’t pay any attention.

  At first, they said, she barely felt a thing. A bit of pain where the fangs had punctured her calf, just over the top of her boot. A trickle of blood running into her sock. They even carried on the game for a few vital moments while she sat under a tree, rubbing the wound and chatting quite normally. The snake had vanished into the ground; Lily said it was no longer than her arm.

  Five minutes later, the poison hit. Her face and neck puffed red as a balloon; her veins popped, her eyes bulged, her tongue swelled until it forced its way out of her mouth. She writhed on the ground as the pain shot through her back.

  It was Adam who saved her. While Charis cried and Richard talked about calling an ambulance, Adam lifted her in his arms and got Julian to help him carry her out of the meadow. He laid her on the back seat of the hire car, and drove her fifteen kilometres to the hospital at Aegion. When Julian suggested that he might kill all three of them, the way he was driving, he almost kicked him out of the car.

  Jonah got back fifteen minutes later. Menelaos had the only other car but he wouldn’t take him: he said there was nothing they could do. Jonah walked two miles to the main road and flagged down a lorry going in the right direction. It dropped him on the outskirts of town; after that, it took almost an hour to find the hospital. Julian met him in the crowded waiting room.

  ‘She’s unconscious. The doctors say she’s fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Fifty-fifty what?’

  Julian pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. ‘Fifty-fifty that she’ll make it.’

  He chattered on with words that Jonah barely heard: antivenom … organ failure … sedation …

  ‘I have to see her.’

  ‘Adam’s with her.’ Julian laid a hand on his arm. ‘Let the doctors do their thing.’

  Jonah shook him off. ‘I have to see her,’ he repeated. He looked around for someone to help, though he didn’t speak Greek. Instead, he saw Adam coming through a pair of double doors. His face was white as death, his shoulders hunched.

  ‘How—?’

  ‘No change. They won’t know for ages. They said to wait out here.’

  That night, Adam and Jonah sat together in the waiting room, barely talking. When a nurse told them they could visit again, they both trooped through and took seats on opposite sides of Lily’s bed. She looked like a prisoner. A breathing tube snaked down her open mouth into her throat, while fat bundles of tubes and cables stuck to her like cobwebs.

  Eventually, Adam looked up, ‘There’s no point us both being here. The doctor said it could be hours, even days. Better to take turns.’

  ‘No.’ There was so much poison in her body, and she was so weak. She needed him there. ‘You can go, if you want.’

  He was too tired to pretend. The emotion in his voice was raw and explicit. No way to mistake it. Adam stared at him.

  ‘Are you and Lily …?’

  Jonah nodded. Since that day in the sea cave, he and Lily had been behaving like fifteen year olds on a family holiday. Sneaking away at every opportunity, swimming r
ound to the next beach, legs touching under the table at supper. Every moment snatched, illicit. Somehow, it would have felt like a betrayal of the group to confess.

  And I don’t want to upset Adam, she’d said. He’ll take it badly.

  ‘I thought so.’ Adam took a sip from his water bottle. His face was pinched in furious concentration, as though this was some sort of mathematical problem he could solve with his intellect. ‘She likes you.’

  Jonah didn’t know what to say. They stood on opposite sides of the bed, Lily between them. All he could hear was the hiss of the air pipe, the soft pulse of the machines.

  Adam stroked Lily’s arm, strapped to the bed so she didn’t pull out the tubes by moving it.

  ‘Call me if anything changes.’

  A universe of space seemed to hang between them. Jonah said, ‘You saved her life. The doctors said another five minutes and it would have been too late.’

  A tear ran down Adam’s nose and he wiped it away angrily. ‘You’d have done the same if you’d been there.’

  Lily spent forty-two hours unconscious. The whole time, Jonah was either at her bedside during visiting hours, or dozing in the waiting room. The second night, one of the nurses took pity on him and let him stay in the room after curfew. He sat in the chair, drifting into rapid-fire dreams that always ended with hours still to go until dawn.

  He must have fallen asleep because at last the sun woke him, pale gold coming through the window. The light fell on Lily’s face through the cocoon of cables, painting life onto the pale skin.

  She stirred, blinked, and opened her eyes. Jonah gaped, then lunged across the room for the call button. Lily wanted to say something, but the tube in her throat prevented her. He kissed her forehead and held her gaze, saying it all with his eyes.

  It was only when he knew she’d make it that he finally understood it might have been different. Until then, he’d refused to let himself admit the possibility, because to admit it was to let it in, and he’d been holding back death for three days. He just had enough time to call Adam before he collapsed from exhaustion.