The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  ‘So Hades went to his brother, Zeus, the king of the gods, and Zeus agreed to help him. He told his brother he could snatch the maiden while she was picking flowers in a glade.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Jonah interrupted. ‘I thought you said Zeus was the girl’s father.’

  ‘And her mother’s brother. It’s all a bit incestuous.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘So the maiden went to the meadow, braiding flowers into a crown. But when she reached to pull up one of the narcissus flowers, a great rift opened in the earth. Hades rode out in his golden chariot. The maiden screamed, but the god grabbed her and dragged her down to Hell.’

  Jonah’s chest tightened. As the story played out in his mind, it wasn’t a forest glade in Greece, but a baked plain in Southern Italy under a forked mountain. And the hole in the ground had people in it, opening up the earth five centimeters at a time.

  ‘Her mother heard the scream and came flying, but the crack in the earth had closed. She scoured the earth for her daughter, but no one would say anything because they all feared Death. At last, Helios, the sun who sees everything, took pity on her and told her. When she realised that Zeus had betrayed her, she tore off her crown, covered her head, and wandered the earth as a mortal. At last she came here, to Eleusis, and collapsed in the shade of an olive tree, next to a well. When the local king’s daughters came to fetch water, they saw her and took pity on her: they brought her back to life. Later, she taught them her mysteries, and ordered them to build her a temple on this spot. But she was still wasting away inside.’

  Across time, across the bridge between myth and reality, Jonah felt the goddess’s emptiness inside him.

  ‘Meanwhile, without Demeter, the rains didn’t fall, the crops withered in the fields and turned to dust. The whole earth starved. And not just people. Because they had no food to make sacrifices, the gods became desperately weak too. One by one, Zeus sent the other gods to Eleusis to beg Demeter to return to Olympus and bring back the harvest. They offered her every imaginable gift, but the only thing she wanted was to see her daughter again.

  ‘When Zeus saw he had no choice, he sent his messenger down to the underworld to make Hades set the maiden free.’

  ‘I think I’ve heard this story before.’ Jonah searched his memory. ‘This is Orpheus and Eurydice, right?’

  The guide shook her head. ‘That’s another legend. Orpheus is similar – but he was a mortal, and his story ends differently. When Zeus’s messenger reached the underworld, Hades didn’t argue. But before the maiden went, he gave her a few pomegranate berries to eat, so she wouldn’t get hungry on the journey home. In her excitement, she forgot that if you eat the fruits of hell you can never be free of it. Which is why, forever afterwards, the maiden spends eight months of the year with her mother in the light, and four months in darkness with her husband. And for that season, Demeter keeps the earth hostage and no crops grow.’

  ‘Does this woman have a name?’

  ‘The ancient Greeks didn’t dare say it aloud. They called her Kore, which means maiden. Plato refers to her as Pherepapha, the “goddess who understands”. You probably know her as Persephone.’

  He barely caught the name. She’d lowered her voice, so that all he heard was soft consonants rustling like grass. As if, even now, she was afraid of what the name would conjure.

  ‘She has various other cult titles. The ancient philosopher Empedocles refers to her as Nestis. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?’

  Jonah stared. She met his gaze, but all he saw was his own reflection mirrored in her sunglasses.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Aren’t you looking for the maiden too?’

  She unbuttoned the cardigan and peeled it away. Underneath she wore a black top with thin straps, revealing golden-brown arms. A lotus-flower tattoo blossomed on her shoulder.

  Déjà vu hit Jonah all over again. Except this time it was real, a true memory. A beautiful woman sitting on a patio, fairy lights twinkling like stars. Jonah rushing by to get to the boat across the water. The tattoo. Nestis.

  ‘You were at the hotel in Sibari the night Lily disappeared.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You called me in London. You brought me here.’

  She nodded again. Jonah felt that he’d been straining on a rope which had suddenly come undone so quickly he’d lost all balance.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Ren.’

  That didn’t begin to answer his question. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Do you mean Why? Why was I in Sibari? Why am I here? Why did I call you?’

  ‘Why. Who. Everything.’

  ‘Because I can help you.’

  He remembered what she’d said on the phone. I know who took your wife. A wild thought struck him.

  ‘Did you take Lily?’

  ‘No.’

  He was flailing. He got up from the steps, walked a brief circle on the terrace, and stood facing her. She watched him patiently.

  ‘Why did you bring me here? Why the charade about being a guide?’

  ‘I wanted you to understand what this is.’

  ‘What what is?’

  ‘Eleusis.’

  He gazed at the terrace, the dry grass growing through the stones, the signs and barriers for visitors who didn’t come any more. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A place for revelations.’

  ‘Revelations,’ he repeated. ‘Do you mean like truth?’

  ‘Truth’s a problematic concept.’

  She had a way of avoiding questions that made him want to grab her shoulders and shake the answers out of her. But an equally powerful force prevented him. An aura surrounded her, something inviolable. He knew, without having to be warned, that if he touched her in anger, bad things would happen.

  ‘Why were you in Sibari? Did you know what was going to happen to Lily?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  She took off the baseball cap and shook out her hair. It fell past her shoulders: long, dark and glossy. She lifted her sunglasses to hold back her hair, revealing a pair of almond-shaped eyes. For the first time, Jonah wondered how old she was. She didn’t look much more than twenty, but her eyes were as old as time.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Socratis Maroussis?’

  ‘Is he related to Ari Maroussis, who owns the Nestis?’

  ‘His father – and the richest man in Greece. Not that that means so much these days, but don’t be fooled. The crash didn’t touch him. His fortune’s in London, his ships are registered in Panama, and his clients are mostly in China.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘He’s the money behind the Eikasia Foundation. He funded the Sybaris dig. He employs your friend Adam Shaw.’

  ‘How do you know about Adam?’

  ‘The old man’s probably a psychopath, if you want to be clinical. You don’t get that rich worrying about people’s feelings. He’s destroyed more people in the last fifty years than you’ve played gigs.’

  She knows about the band, Jonah noted.

  ‘Other people’s souls have wells of compassion, sympathy, altruism. In Maroussis, they’ve been poisoned by greed and ambition. But he’s old fashioned: he still lives by some sort of code. Ari, on the other hand, inherited all his father’s vices, but none of the restraint. Have you read Plato?’

  The question caught him off guard. ‘Should I?’

  ‘He captures Ari well.’ She said it matter-of-factly, as if a Sunday magazine had assigned Plato to write a profile. ‘“He lives in clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of his dissolute life only make him mad for more. And if he finds anything good in himself, any merit or kindness or vestigial sense of shame, he wipes it out until his madness is perfected.”’

  On the warm stones in the noon sun, Jonah shivered. Ren’s words framed a cave, a jagged gash in a barren hillside. The stench of rotting flesh wafted out; discarded bones lay at it
s mouth. From inside, he could hear the screams of unspeakable things. The thought that Lily was in there made him want to throw himself into the sea.

  ‘You said you know what happened to Lily.’ His mouth was so dry he thought he’d choke.

  Her eyes shimmered like oil: sometimes green, sometimes blue, sometimes so dark they lost all colour. ‘Socrates said, “All the truths in the universe have always existed in our soul.” We just need a guide to bring it to the surface.’

  Frustration erupted in anger. ‘For God’s sake, can we cut through the mystique and the games? Just tell me what happened.’

  Ren didn’t move, didn’t even change her expression. She was a rock; against it, all his emotion was just froth and spray. For a moment, her permanence whipped his fury to a new, savage peak. Then he realised it was pointless.

  And as his anger slipped away, he understood she was right. He had all the pieces he needed. In the straight beam of Ren’s stare, they all came together.

  ‘It started with the gold tablet,’ he said slowly.

  ‘A long time before that. But keep going.’

  ‘The others wanted to keep it secret – I don’t know why. They sacked the conservator, but Lily wouldn’t play. So they got rid of her.’

  ‘How?’

  The ancient philosopher Empedocles refers to her as Nestis. ‘The boat. They took her away.’ And he’d stood there on the dock, watching the wake churn the sea, knowing what was happening but not understanding it.

  Without thinking, Jonah leaned down and broke off a stalk of grass. He wound it around his finger, watching the tip flood red as it went tight, then drain when he let go. His thoughts ebbed and flowed.

  ‘What’s so special about the tablet?’

  Ren shook her head. Her hair swayed as though a breeze tickled it. ‘Do you know about the Orphic religion?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it.’ Written on a card at the British Museum. Gold tablet with an Orphic inscription and the pendant case that contained it.

  ‘It was a mystery cult, a lot like Eleusis. It was concerned with a journey to the underworld, too.’

  Charis: The tablets are directions to the underworld.

  ‘Like a lot of billionaires, Socratis Maroussis suffers from ennui. There’s nothing he can’t have, but he still wants more. He’s also an old man, and he’s not well. He’s obsessed with ancient philosophy, and the Orphic cult in particular. Everything the Eikasia Foundation does is to try and understand its secrets.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he be better spending his money on a cure for cancer, or whatever?’

  ‘Do you remember the last line of the tablet? No longer mortal – a god. You don’t need the tablet to find the underworld – we’re all headed there anyway. The tablet is to help you escape. That’s what the Orpheus cult promises. Immortality.’

  The sun warmed his back. The ancient stone dug into his hands. A beetle crawled slowly up his trouser leg. He didn’t notice any of it.

  ‘But the tablet’s not unique,’ he said at last. ‘There are others. I saw one in the British Museum.’

  Ren watched him and didn’t speak. After a moment, Jonah understood that she was waiting for him again.

  ‘There must be something different about this one. Something the other tablets don’t have.’

  She nodded.

  ‘But Charis translated it. She said it was the same as the others.’

  ‘Do you trust her?’

  ‘She’s my friend. Lily’s friend.’

  Sandi: Don’t you get it? They were all in this together. All college friends, all in each other’s pockets.

  ‘What about the others. Richard, Adam? Are they part of this?’

  She shrugged. The lotus flower on her shoulder shivered.

  ‘Adam Shaw is very close to Maroussis. It would be surprising if the foundation did something without Adam knowing about it.’

  ‘Or Ari could have acted alone.’ Acted alone. He felt as if he was covering someone else’s song. The words belonged in a story, in a cop show or a crime novel. Not in his universe.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And Richard?’

  ‘Richard Andrews has lived his entire life by the rules that other people set for him.’

  It was all too much for him to comprehend. He stared at Ren, wondering if he was about to wake up from a dream.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  The question was so deep and so broad, he almost had to laugh at the futility. ‘You – everything. You’ve brought me here, you’ve told me this amazing story.’

  ‘You told the story.’

  ‘You’ve told me I can’t trust any of my friends. Why should I trust you?’

  She sat perfectly still, her head cocked to one side as if listening to the wind in the dust. The silence lasted so long that Jonah wondered whether she’d say anything again, or if he’d offended her in some obscure but irrevocable way.

  ‘Do you think she’s …?’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  Anger flared inside him. ‘Does anything else?’

  ‘Weren’t you paying attention to the story I told you? Wherever Lily’s gone, you’ll find her. The real question is: can you bring her back?’

  Twenty-three

  When your opponent has you ‘stuck down the well’, as the saying goes, trapped by a question with no good answer, what will you do?

  Plato, Theaetetus

  The boy was about ten and naked. His damp hair clung to his scalp, though the sun had already dried his skin. He had a length of rope tied around one ankle, and a small amphora of wine lay on the ground beside him on a wet patch of stone. Soldiers milled around.

  Agathon lay next to the amphora, sprawled out like a drunk in a stage comedy. Except this was tragedy. His bare skin was raw and bloated. Even trying not to look, I could see clouds of bruises spread over him like inkdrops in water. One leg stuck out at a right-angle: it must have broken somewhere on his journey to the bottom of the well. His head lolled the other way, mercifully hiding his eyes.

  ‘The boy found it when he dived for the wine,’ Dion told me. ‘We leave it down there in the summer to keep it cool.’

  I nodded, as if what he was saying mattered.

  ‘He must have fallen. Perhaps he’d been drinking and lost his way in the dark.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The well was in the kitchen garden, a long way from the guest quarters. Its wall was knee high, with a wooden cover leaning against it. And Agathon never drank.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.’

  This is what happens when tyrants rule. Men disappear in the dead of night; corpses turn up in unexpected places; friends fall down wells. Tracks go in to the cave, but none come out.

  The moral is: take warning from the misfortunes of others.

  Now I understood what Dion had been trying to tell me. I turned to face him.

  ‘You knew.’

  He was too young – and not quite innocent enough. The look he gave me aimed for bewildered ignorance, but didn’t quite get there.

  ‘He fell down the well.’

  ‘All that time we were talking about virtue, when you were so interested in what I had to say. Is this what you were thinking about?’

  I looked down at the corpse again. It was a horrible thing: broken, flabby, empty. The soul had left it; so had the intelligence and the beauty. Everything that was Agathon.

  Even so, I couldn’t bear to leave him there with the men who’d killed him. He looked so lonely, so lost. Without thinking, I knelt down and lifted him up. He was heavy – heavier than he’d ever been in life – but I wasn’t going to drop him in front of Dionysius’ mercenaries.

  I carried him through a gate and all the way back to my room. I laid him on the bed and pulled a sheet over him. Then I went to find the man responsible.

  Nobody tipped Socrates down a well. He died as he lived, publicly, surrounded by a crowd hanging on his every las
t word. I wasn’t there: I was ill. That’s what I tell people.

  It’s not exactly true, not the way they think. I wasn’t lying in bed, or breathing in vapours at a steam pool. I was standing on the beach below Cape Sounion, holding a basket of rocks. I’d tied a small end of rope to the handle, and looped it around my wrist so I wouldn’t let go when I passed out.

  My heart was broken. I was so empty, I needed the stones to weigh me down. If Socrates could be murdered by a mob, then there was nothing left in the world for me. I refused to inhabit it.

  I remember that morning as if it were the only day I ever lived. The smell in the air, the ripples of light on the sea bed. I remember how calm the sea was, and how pleasant it was to have it cooling my feet. A fisherman sat hunched up on a rock on the point, but he didn’t seem to notice me.

  My friends said Socrates drained the cup calmly and easily. He scolded the others for crying like women: he wanted to die in peace.

  The numbness started in his feet and rose. He walked around to stir the poison, then lay down when his legs got too heavy. The executioner provided a running commentary, prodding his ankles, his calves, his thighs; asking him what he could feel. When it got to his belly, he lifted the veil briefly and said his last words.

  At Sounion, a gull swooped down from the headland and plunged into the water with a shock of spray. I felt a pain in my chest and knew the poison had reached his heart. Socrates had left the world. I gripped the basket tighter and prepared to follow him. The laughing waves tugged at my legs like children, encouraging me on. It was a calm day, but the wind and the sea seemed to roar in my ears like a storm.

  I couldn’t do it. I slipped the rope loop off my wrist and let the basket sink. I waded ashore and collapsed on the beach, unable to move. The fisherman who found me thought I was dead.

  Was that courage or cowardice? Socrates said that to be properly courageous, you have to understand the true nature of the dangers. Of course I didn’t understand death. But I didn’t think that life would be this hard either.

  That night, I had my drowning dream for the first time.

  The guards didn’t try to stop me. They could spot a man bent on his own destruction – why bother to get in the way? Some even opened doors for me, with mocking bows and grins that said they didn’t expect to see me come back.