by Mike Sweeney
“Okay.” Océane looked from one of us to the other. “So who is going to tell it to me?”
“He knows it better.”
“No, you do it.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m really not good at this,” I said. “So, the way I heard it is Alexander was visiting the city and was introduced to all the great artists and philosophers. Diogenes, though, didn’t come. Alexander had heard so much about him, though, he insisted on meeting him. So he went to the agora.”
I paused, reflecting how appropriate this setting was; even in ruins, you could sense how the agora would have been then. An agora was a public place. Started as a place where the voting citizens would meet to discuss politics and admire art, became over time the public market. The stoa were like boardwalks, a breezeway under a colonnade where market stalls could set up and teachers gather with their students.
“It was sunny and the agora was probably hot and smelly and noisy, food sellers, hawkers, dogs underfoot. Alexander comes out there surrounded by his sycophants, young nobles in their best finery. Diogenes is there in a filthy robe, lying on the ground in front of his pot.”
Océane laughed at my description.
“‘Is there anything,’ the conquering general asks, ‘that the powerful Alexander of Macedon can do for Diogenes?’ And the philosopher answered. ‘You could move out of my light.’”
“I’m surprised he didn’t have him killed!” Océane exclaimed.
“Apparently Alexander respected a man like that. He told his friends, ‘If I were not Alexander, I would want to be Diogenes.’ Of course Diogenes had the last laugh.”
Philippe couldn’t resist. He joined me in the quote; “‘If I were not Diogenes, I would want to be Diogenes, too.’”
“I guess it ran in the blood,” I mused. “Philip sent a letter to Sparta demanding their surrender. Polite but firm, something like, ‘If my army takes Sparta they will burn the fields, topple the buildings, foul the wells.’ Sparta sent back one of their famous replies; ‘If.’ Apparently Philip respected that. He left them alone.”
“Laconic,” Océane said. “The old Greek name of the region was Laconia.”
“So when we say John Wayne is being laconic, we are saying he’s talking like a Spartan?”
Océane smiled. “And yes you can tell a story. ‘When you really need to,’” she gently mocked.
“Well, thanks,” I said. “I guess I’ve had some practice. I’ve been doing a sort of lecture series on YouTube. It’s become…surprisingly popular.”
“You said ‘dig,’ earlier. You do archaeology?” Océane asked.
“I bet the hat gave it away.” I flushed a little. “It’s a costume,” I tried to explain. “When I started my channel, it was a little more, um, Indiana Jones. Now it is basically a history lecture, but still not terribly serious. I pretend I’m this globe-trotting adventurer named Athena Fox, and I throw in little bits about being attacked by lions in Borneo or something.”
“There are no lions in Borneo.”
“I said it wasn’t terribly serious! But that said, I am actually serious about history. About good history. There’s so much stupid stuff out there.”
“So no more Crystal Skulls and mummies that walk around like this.” Océane demonstrated briefly. She really had the gently mocking thing down pat. Philippe laughed.
“No, not these days,” I agreed. “Anyhow, that’s how I ended up in Athens.”
“And how do you like it?”
“Wonderful. I’ve got a whole week here. I want to go to all the museums. I want to see a play outside in an amphitheater. I want to go to the beach. And I want to shop.”
“A week is not long,” Océane said. “It is easier for us. You have to take a plane across the ocean to get here from America. We can fly in a few hours. Or take the train. Or even a ferry.” She shared a smile with Philippe. “And do not ever plan too much. Things happen when you travel. Some good. Some bad. You must leave space in your schedule to let them.”
I thought about that. About having all of Europe open to you. No wonder the Continentals were so…Continental.
We agreed to check out the Museum of the Agora while we were here. Besides, it was probably air-conditioned. Diogenes I wasn’t; I’d had enough of the sun for the moment. It was cool and quiet and I found a nice cutaway diagram where a Byzantine building had dug a cistern all the way through different historical layers down to the foundations of the stoa, making a sort of palimpsest in stone.
Philippe found some ostracon on display. These were pottery sherds used as votes for an ostracism. One was marked with the name Alcibiades. Océane drew my attention to a cute little jar; a black-figure lekythoi, said the data plate. On it, a fully armed hoplite was apparently jumping into a moving chariot. So stunt riding demonstrations went way, way back.
“And here are coins with a bull’s head,” Océane said next. Electrum, and possibly from the reign of Theseus, the data plate said.
“You’d think he’d be done with bulls,” I said. “This is the same Theseus, right?”
“Plutarch says so. You remember, he forgot to take down the black sails after he fought the Minotaur.”
“Making him the next king of Athens.”
All too soon our day was ending, and we were in the process of saying goodbye. We paused outside the museum, the sun glinting on the green grass and turning the stonework white. “I am so glad I met you both.” I tried to find the words. “And thank you for breakfast. And for rescuing me after that fall!”
“It was our pleasure. Now look straight ahead,” Océane commanded. She stood close and peered into one eye, then another. “No dizziness? You don’t feel that you need to vomit?”
“I’m good.”
“You had better be.”
Philippe took my hand as well. “You have plans?”
“Back to the hotel, get cleaned up,” I said.
I paused. A long pause. “And then I’m off to Atlantis.”
CHAPTER THREE
ERMOU STREET WAS a fancy shopping district, wide streets almost entirely given over to pedestrian traffic and glass store fronts set back to leave lots of sidewalk. It had coats and shoes and bags, name brands even I recognized (there was a Gap two blocks down), and more jewelry stores than you could shake a Koh-i-Noor at.
The facade of the Atlantis Gallery was classy and understated. Undersea life straight from the Sea Daffodils fresco twined in muted Victorian pastels to a tasteful Art Nouveau affect. The signage was small and made implicit the statement that if you had to ask about prices, you didn’t belong inside.
I wished I had worn better clothes. I didn’t have better clothes. Thrift store shopping could give you a unique look, but you couldn’t fake the labels. Being fashionable, in circles where that mattered, largely boiled down to showing the money. So, yeah, best option was to come in costume, like Spooky had suggested. Besides, that’s how Drea had set it up. I had an invitation in the name of Athena Fox. I wondered sometimes if Drea really understood the world-trotting archaeologist and adventurer was fictional.
Yeah, so I was feeling a little impostor syndrome. This whole trip had been like that, really. Nice hotels, taxis everywhere, hell, even flying overseas (which I’d never done before). It was a glimpse into how the other half lived. Or whatever percentage wasn’t renting a room in a shared Victorian that was rather closer to the Panhandle than it was to the “Yupper Haight” of Cole Valley. I’d kept expecting the TSA to pull me aside for Flying While Poor.
This wasn’t my first trip across the divide, though. I’d grown up in Burbank, where the line between had it and had been was narrow enough to cut yourself on.
Cocktail chatter came from the reception inside Atlantis, almost masking the muted thud of some up-tempo world beat. The young man sitting just inside the door had black slacks and white button-up shirt and didn’t even bother to look up as I approached. I twitched my scarf into slightly better order and tilted the hat back on my head. “Kal
ispéra,” I ventured.
“Kalispéra.” He still didn’t bother looking up.
Right. “I have…an invitation?” I said, hating the hesitation in my voice. “My name is…”
“Athena Fox!”
She was dressed to the nines, leather skirt over black tights, set off with bolero jacket and scarlet blouse in some kind of shiny metallic fabric. The money gleamed.
“Kalispéra!” She drew out the vowel. “Ariadne,” she introduced herself. This was the gallery owner. Her eyes were bright with intent intelligence in a face framed with blond hair and her warm smile was just this side of being an infectious grin. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
She swept me in before her. At least it wasn’t evening wear inside. More like garden party casual. I resisted the urge to straighten my hems. “The new print run of Heracleidae arrived just in time for our little reception. You have had a chance to read Professor Sharpe’s book? Ah, let me introduce you to my good friend Margarita Dupond. Margarita? This is Athena Fox. She’s an archaeologist.”
“Actually…” I started to say.
“…My pleasure.” We crossed in mid-word.
“…My pleasure,” I echoed instead of finishing. She was what some of my friends would call a grand dame, probably on the boards of half the charitable organizations in town. She had some kind of lacework shawl and a complicated brooch and a serene expression in her watery pale eyes.
“And this is my friend and long-time associate Signor Cosimo Nardella.” He was an older man, the build of someone who had played football in high school, a suit that fit well enough to be bespoke. He gave me a politician’s smile, instant warmth and likability.
“Signor Nardella.” I offered my hand, not sure what he’d do with it.
He took it in a firm handshake. “Miss Fox,” he said. “The pleasure is all mine.” He said it with a frank admiration that made me flush despite myself. Dammit, the man was good. He had that animal magnetism, and he damned well knew it.
A young man, dapper in a dark suit and with hair as blond as Draco Malfoy was hovering in the background. He smiled at me, but nobody seemed to think he was worth introducing.
“And over there by the buffet is Dottore Saviano; he’s an expert on early Attic ceramics and owns a small gallery in Padua. You must find time to speak to him. Giulio is such a dear man. I’m sure you’ll hit it off.”
A weird, yelping laugh came from the biggest knot of guests. Oh, I knew that hyena sound. I saw Ariadne make a small moue, quickly masked. I turned carefully. These were younger people, more casually if just as expensively dressed. The man at the center of attention, though, was wearing one of those t-shirts printed with a tuxedo. Those had never ever been in style. And because that wasn’t enough — nothing could ever be enough with him — he’d topped it off with a short fez like the one worn by the Evzones.
Vash. We’d never crossed paths, but in the many overlapping circles of the social media world I had more than one friend who had. Usually violently. He was an internet bad boy, someone who’d made a career as a professional shit-stirrer. What was he doing here? And why did the people around him look vaguely familiar?
“I’m assuming you already know Jim,” Ariadne pointedly skipped over Vash, instead pointing out the gangling young man with the cowlick hair and the aw, shucks grin that would get him instantly cast in any community theater production of Li’l Abner.
Jim’s Tried it? I’d heard he had been doing travel videos lately. His channel had started with unboxing videos, moved on to casual and chatty reviews. You couldn’t call him an influencer, though. As far as I knew he’d never accepted money for anything he reviewed. Although as far as I was concerned, the main qualification for being an influencer was a willingness to hang out with assholes. You want Fyre Festivals? This is how you get Fyre Festivals.
Now it made sense. The invitation hadn’t been an error. It really was Athena Fox she wanted. Athena Fox the YouTube personality, Athena Fox with a history channel. She was after new customers, maybe a whole new customer base. I hoped she knew how small my little channel was. Heck, even Vash was small change compared to, say, a PewDiePie.
There was a tinkle of broken glass and a startled laugh. “Duty calls,” Ariadne said, and left me to my own devices.
The movement had attracted Vash’s attention. New prey, said his gaze. “Athena Fox,” he said, louder than was necessary. “Won’t you join us?”
Okay, what exactly had I walked into here? I gave an empty smile and strolled that way. I’d been eyeballing the gallery during the round of introductions. Expensive and trendy inside, not unlike the high-end clothing shops around us. Cove lighting, some fancy standing fixtures that were intriguingly geometric and looked like heavily corroded bronze. Vertical panels holding blue-green water within which the occasional bubble drifted up languorously. Ariadne had taken the Atlantis motif and run with it.
Antiquities, right? I’d never bought any myself. Looked once, but even the smallest was out of my range. There were a few objects displayed here, mostly protected behind glass. A few objects out in the open, these with the look of impulse buys.
Oh, wait. I knew that round shape. That would be a replica of the Phaistos Disc. Found on Crete, covered with an obscure and untranslatable script. One of those archaeological mysteries some people like to make a lot out of.
No more time to think; I’d reached the group. “Jim,” I said quickly. “Love your show.”
“I’ve seen yours,” Vash butted in. “People, this is Athena Fox, famous archaeologist, world traveller, speaks ten languages and can read Linear A the way most of us can read a newspaper.”
“Linear B,” I corrected without thinking. “I consider myself more of a historian,” I said in a more conciliatory fashion. “An amateur historian.”
Vash’s eyes glinted. “Good catch,” he said. “Linear A,” he pontificated to the group, “is the written language of the Minoans, and unlike Linear B, it has yet to be cracked.” He turned his attention back to me. “You mean to say,” he said in tones of broad disbelief, “You can’t do all that stuff on your show? Dive into rapids, fly a damaged plane, survive in the trackless desert?”
“My word!” Margarita had joined us. “That all sounds very dangerous!”
“My early shows were…a bit dramatized,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You mean fake,” Vash said.
“It still sounds fun to watch,” another of the men jumped in. “Howard,” he introduced himself. “Made my nickel facilitating manufacturing in Chengdu. Getting into collecting now.”
“I’ll send you a link,” Vash said. He smirked. “Start with Episode Three.”
Oh, gods. I was never going to live that one down.
The videos I’d made back in the Media Lab days weren’t even hosted on the same channel as my new stuff. But the Internet never forgot. Even today Episode Three got comments. There were discussions there that had spun off into threads hundreds of posts long.
“So what you are saying,” Vash came back to me, “Is you don’t have any of those skills. You’ve never been on a dig, you’ve hardly travelled, and you don’t speak a dozen languages.”
Jim was chortling into his beer glass by now. I changed my mind. He did have a tolerance for assholes. He was cozying up to Vash in true follower fashion, ready to laugh whenever the master said laugh.
“Ah, Dottore.” Margarita Dupond gave a little wave. Giulio Saviano had joined us. He was a balding, slump-shouldered man that made me think of a Greek wrestler. Something about the way his arms hung away from a barrel chest.
“Julio!’ Vash greeted him heartily.
A pained look crossed the solid, broad-jowled face. “Giulio,” he said. “I am not a ‘Hoolio.’ I am Italian.”
“We were just talking about all the languages our young Miss Fox knows,” Dame Dupond was burbling on. “Perhaps you two could share a few words?”
“Um…” I let slip a brief pleading look a
t him. “Dottore?”
“Buona sera, Signora Fox. Come sta?”
He was speaking slowly, trying to help. It wasn’t going to be enough. I didn’t know any Italian.
No, actually. I did know some words. Right. In for a penny, in for twenty lire. “Sul tasto,” I said instead. “Con sordino, ah, largo capriccio?”
He looked blankly at me. There was an uncomfortable pause. “La tua pronuncia è unica…” he started. Stopped. A broad grin took over his face, changing its character completely. He’d got it. “La donna è mobile,” he said then. “Muta d'accento!”
Donna meant woman, right? Was accento something about how I talked? No, had to watch out for false friends, words that sounded like something you knew, like thinking a Spanish friend who was “embarazada” was embarrassed, not, you know…
So I just laughed as if he’d flattered me outrageously. “Fermata!” I said coquettishly. “Col legno, da capo al fine,” I added.
Being a band geek had left its mark.
I heard a snort. Looked out the corner of my eye to see Dame Dupond looking at us with the clear untroubled gaze of someone who hasn’t the slightest idea what’s going on.
“...o Principessa,” Giulio was addressing me now. Princess? Then something about guarding stars? I was sure of it now; he was quoting something at me. A poem maybe?
“Um..andante con moto,” I gestured towards Vash’s circle with my head, trying to end this while I still could.
He nodded. But before he turned his attention to the group he leaned close. His expression was serious. “Vissi d’arte,” he told me softly.
Vash was laughing silently, the effort not to bray out loud making him red in the face. “Allegro non troppo!” he said as we finished.
“What…what just happened?” Jim asked.
That only made Vash laugh louder. “Nice work, Athena Fox,” he said. “I’m starting to believe in you. Are you as clever when it comes to history?”
“Alea iacta est.” Howard raised his glass to us. “The die is cast.”
“Said?” Vash turned it into a challenge.
