The Athenian Murders (16 page)

'By the warrior Ares,' he croaked, 'I served in the Athenian army for twenty years, survived Sicily and lost my left arm. But what has my Athenian homeland done for me? Thrown me out on the streets to scavenge for bones like a dog. Have more mercy than our rulers, good citizen!'

With dignity, Diagoras reached under his cloak for some coins.

'May you live as long as the sons of the gods!' the beggar said gratefully, and walked away.

Just then, Diagoras heard his name. The obese figure of the Decipherer of Enigmas stood, edged with moonlight, at the end of an alley. 'Come on,' said Heracles.

They walked in silence towards the district of Melitta.

'Where are we going?' asked Diagoras.

'I want you to see something.'

'Have you learned more?'

'I think I know everything.'

Though Heracles was as laconic as ever, Diagoras thought he heard tension in his voice and wondered at the cause. Perhaps he has bad news, he thought. 'Just tell me whether Antisus and Euneos are implicated.'

'Wait. Soon you will be able to tell me yourself.'

They walked down a dark street lined with smithies that were shut for the night. They left behind the Pidea bath house and the small shrine to Hephaestus. They turned into an alley so narrow that a slave carrying two amphorae on a pole across his shoulders had to wait for them to pass before he could enter. They crossed the little square dedicated to the hero Melampus. The moon guided them down a sloping street lined with stables and through the dense darkness of a street of tanneries. Always uncomfortable on these silent walks, Diagoras said: 'By Zeus, I hope we're not going to have to chase another hetaera.'

'No. We're almost there.'

They stopped in a street of ruined houses, their walls staring empty-eyed into the night. Heracles pointed to one.

'Do you see those men with torches at the door?' he said. 'That's where we're going. Now, do as I tell you. When they ask what you want, say, 'I've come to see the performance,' and give them a few obols. They'll let you in. I'll be doing likewise.' 'What does this all mean?'

'As I said, you can tell me yourself afterwards. Come on.'

Heracles was first to reach the door. Diagoras repeated his words and gestures. Inside the gloomy hallway of the dilapidated house they could see a narrow flight of stone steps leading below. Several men disappeared down them. Unsteadily, Diagoras followed the Decipherer and descended into darkness. For a moment he was aware of nothing but his companion's stout back: the steep steps required all his attention. Then he heard chanting, reciting. Down below, the darkness was different, as if created by a different artist, and it called for different eyes. Unaccustomed to it, Diagoras' eyes could make out only confused shapes. A strong smell of wine combined with
the odour of bodies. There were
tiers of wooden benches, and they took seats in one of the rows.

'Look,' said Heracles.

At the back of the room, on a small stage, a masked chorus was reciting verses around an altar. The members of the chorus had their hands raised, palms upwards. Through the slits in the masks, their eyes, though dark, appeared watchful. The rest of the scene was lost in the glare of torches in the corners but, squinting, Diagoras could make out another masked figure at a table covered in scrolls. 'What is this?' he asked.

'A theatrical performance,' replied Heracles.

'I can see that. I mean what...'

The Decipherer gestured to him to be silent. The chorus concluded the antistrophe and stood in a line facing the audience. Diagoras began to feel as if he were stifling; but he was disturbed by more than the unbreathable air: there was, too, the
tangible
zeal
of the spectators. They were few in number - there were many empty seats - but they acted in unison: craning their necks, swaying in time to the chanting, drinking wine from small wineskins. One of them, beside Diagoras, sat panting, eyes bulging. This was
zeal.

Diagoras remembered having witnessed it for the first time at performances by the poets Aeschylus and Sophocles: an almost religious sense of participation, a tacit, unspoken intelligence, as resides in the written word, and a certain . . . What exactly? Pleasure? Fear? Elation? He couldn't understand it. He felt, at times, that the immense ritual was more ancient even than man's understanding. It wasn't exactly theatre, but something pre-existent, chaotic. There were no fine verses for a cultured audience to translate into beautiful images; the plot was almost always irrational: mothers fornicated with their sons, sons murdered their fathers, wives entangled their spouses in bloody nets; one crime repaid another, vengeance was eternal, the Furies hounded the guilty and the innocent, corpses remained unburied; howls of pain everywhere from a merciless chorus; and terror as huge, as oppressive as that of the man lost at sea. Theatre like a Cyclops' eye watching the audience from its cave. Diagoras had always felt uneasy before these tortured works. No wonder Plato disliked them so much! Where, in such performances, were the moral teachings, the rules of conduct, the duty of the poet to educate the people, the—

'Diagoras,' whispered Heracles, 'look at the two chorus members on the right, in the second row.'

One of the actors approached the figure at the table. His high cothurni and complicated mask indicated that he was the Coryphaeus. He began a stichomythia with the seated actor.

coryphaeus
: Come, Translator, search for the keys, if there are any.

translator
: Long have I sought them. But the words confound me.

coryphaeus: So
you think it useless to persist?

translator: No
, for I believe that all that is written may be deciphered.

coryphaeus
: Are you not afraid of reaching the end?

translator
: Why should I be afraid?

coryphaeus
: Because there may be no answers.

translator
: While I have strength, I will continue.

coryphaeus
: Oh, Translator, you drag a rock that will only
roll back down the mountain!

translator
: It is my Destiny: in vain would I try to rebel!

coryphaeus
: It would seem you are driven by blind faith.

translator
: There must be something behind the words!
There is always a meaning!

'Do you recognise them?' asked Heracles. 'Oh, gods,' murmured Diagoras.

coryphaeus
: I see it is futile to try to make you change your mind.

translator: You
are not mistaken. I am bound to this chair and to these scrolls.

There was a clashing of cymbals. The chorus began a rhythmic stasimon:

chorus
: I weep for you, Translator. Your fate ties your eyes to the words, making you believe that you will find a
key to the text you translate! Why did owl-eyed Athena bestow luminous knowledge upon us? There you are, unfortunate, reaching fruitlessly for your reward, but the meanings elude both your outstretched hands and yours skilled gaze! Oh, torture!
⁴³

Diagoras had seen enough. He stood up and went to the door. There was a clash of cymbals so loud that the sound turned to light, and everybody blinked. The members of the chorus raised their arms:

chorus
: Beware, Translator, beware! You are being watched! You are being watched!

'Diagoras, wait!' cried Heracles Pontor.

chorus
: Danger awaits you! You have been warned, Translator!
⁴⁴

⁴³
Torture indeed. Is this a message from the author to his possible translators? Could the secret of
The
Athenian Murders
be such that its anonymous creator wanted to play safe by trying to discourage anyone who might attempt to decipher it?
(T.'s N.)

⁴⁴
This might sound - and probably actually is - amusing, but alone in my house at night as I was, bent over my papers, I stopped translating when I came to these words, and glanced around nervously. Nothing but darkness, of course (when I'm working I have a single light on at my desk and nothing else). I can only attribute my
behaviour to the powerful spell cast by literature which, at this time of night, can confuse one's mind, as Homer would say.
(T.'s
N
.)

Out in the cold dark street, under the watchful eye of the moon, Diagoras took several deep breaths. Coming up behind him, the Decipherer was also gasping for air, but in his case it was due to the effort of climbing
the stairs. 'Did you recognise
them?' he asked.

Diagoras nodded. 'They were wearing masks, but it was them.'

They walked back through the deserted streets. Heracles said: 'So what does it all mean? Why do Antisus and Euneos come here at night, wrapped in long dark tunics? I expect you can explain it to me.'

'At the Academy we believe that theatre is an imitative and vulgar art,' said Diagoras slowly. 'Our students are expressly forbidden to attend, let alone participate in, theatrical performances. Plato believes ... We all believe that most poets are rather careless and spend their time setting the young a bad example by depicting characters who are noble yet full of despicable vices. To us, true theatre is not coarse entertainment intended to make the populace laugh and shout. In Plato's ideal government, the—'

'Apparently not all your students agree,' interrupted Heracles.

Diagoras looked pained and closed his eyes. 'I never would have believed it,' he murmured, 'Antisus and Euneos . ..'

'And probably Tramachus, too. I'm sorry'

'But what kind of grotesque . . . play were they rehearsing? And what place was that? The only indoor theatre in the City I know of is the Odeon.'

'Ah, Diagoras, Athens breathes while we think!' exclaimed Heracles, with a sigh. 'There is much that our eyes do not see but that also belongs to the people: ridiculous entertainment, improbable professions, irrational activities ... You never leave your Academy, and I never leave the confines of my brain, which comes to the same. But Athens, my dear Diagoras, is not our
idea
of Athens.'

'So now you agree with Crantor?'

Heracles shrugged. 'What I'm trying to say, Diagoras, is that there are strange places where you and I have never been. The slave who found out about all this assured me that there are several illegal theatres like this one in the City. Most are old houses bought cheaply by metic merchants who then rent them out to poets, paying their high taxes with the proceeds. The archons forbid these activities, of course, but, as you've just seen, there is an audience for such things . . . The theatre is a fairly lucrative business in Athens.'

'As for the play itself

'I don't know the title or the subject, but I do know the author: it's a tragedy by Menaechmus, the sculptor-poet. Did you spot him?'

'Menaechmus?'

'Yes. He was the man sitting at the table, playing the Translator. His mask was small so I could see it was him. A strange man. He has a workshop in the Ceramicus and earns his living making friezes for the houses of noble Athenians. And he writes tragedies that can never be performed officially, but only for a 'select' few, mediocre poets like himself, in these underground theatres. I've made some inquiries in his neighbourhood. It seems his workshop is used for more than work -he holds Syracusan-style gatherings there in the evenings, orgies that would make the most debauched blush. The main guests are the youths that serve as models for his sculptures and as the chorus in his plays .. .'

Diagoras turned towards Heracles. 'You wouldn't dare to imply that. . .' he said.

Heracles shrugged and sighed, as if reluctantly about to impart bad news. 'Come,' he said. 'Let us stop here and talk.'

They were in a wide open area, beside a stoa with walls decorated with forms suggesting human faces. The only features the artist had retained were the eyes, open and watchful. The moon looked down, and, in the distance, a dog barked.

'Diagoras,' said Heracles slowly, 'though we have been acquainted only a short time, I believe I know you slightly, and I suspect you could say the same about me. What I'm about to say will displease you, but it's the truth, or part of it. And it's what you paid me to find out.'