The Hidden Read online

  Their city is not built continuously, and has no great temples or other works. Instead it looks like a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas…

  The Spartan–that cicada! Always ready to sing…

  Long hair makes a handsome man more beautiful, and an ugly man more frightening…

  If Lacedaemonia were ever laid waste, and there remained only the ruins of the temples and public buildings, those born into the world of the far future would find it hard to believe that the power of Sparta had ever been equal to its reputation…

  VI

  Lacedaemonia

  He woke up to Madonna. Somewhere outside a radio was playing, and as he lay listening a car started and moved off, ‘Material Girl’ carried away with it.

  Churchbells in her wake. A cockerel crowing. A carillon of bells and cockerels.

  He closed his eyes in happiness. He had slept well, had rested wonderfully, but felt no regret as he woke. Had he been dreaming? Certainly he knew where he was as if he had been dreaming of it all night. There was no disjunction between sleeping and waking. He was in Sparta; he had made it to Sparta, the city without walls. That was the source of his elation.

  He sat up. The bed was hard and the room, too, was spare, though the stairs and halls he dimly remembered had not been Spartan at all, had been all plush carpets and deluxe velvets. Emine’s letter lay on the floor. He had been reading the thing again before bed. He got up and pocketed it, her writing snagging at his thoughts.

  Ring me.

  He went to the window, pulling off the sweatshirt he had slept in. The view was of nothing–the hotel pool, balconies, a wedge of street–but beyond he could make out mountains. Shades and shades of blue. The air was colder than Athens. Everything was washed in sunlight.

  He went through to the bathroom. The fittings were black and white, marble and steel, the towels in matching livery. The little soaps and bottles were lined up, straight as ammunition. It was like walking into an old photograph. After Metamorphosis the austere luxury of it was overwhelming. He stripped, turned on the shower, sank his head into the deafening heat.

  Dr Stanton had got him the room. Missy, she had said. Please call me Missy. I tell them all the same but no one ever does. Her voice had been warm and pleading and distant. He had been standing in the meat grill, Mrs Adamidis hoovering round him, the voice on the line hard to extricate from the din of suction. There was a problem with his sharing lodgings, he had understood, so he would be in a hotel for now. Of course the Cyriac Foundation would pay for it. The where? The where? The Menelaion, on Palaeológou. And about the dig, there would be instructions for him at reception. Someone could leave him instructions. Or maybe someone would come for him in the morning. Was that alright? Did that make sense? They all hoped he didn’t mind…

  He got out of the shower, wiped off the mirror and shaved, watching his face emerge. His eyes glared back at him. Even his smile was ferocious. He had not shaved in a fortnight. He grazed the skin along one cheekbone, dabbed at the blood and kept going.

  There was no one at reception. A cat scrutinised its claws in the sunlit entrance. A pedestal cage stood out of place on the steps like a sofa moved for spring cleaning: its cockatoo denizen peered back into the lobby with aldermanic affront. A stick-thin boy with slicked-back hair polished brasses between animals. He stood when Ben called good morning, ferreting a headphone out of one ear, shoving it in his pocket, death metal coming faintly through his trousers.

  –Sir?

  –Good morning! he said again, but the boy only smiled and frowned, as if a foreigner’s enthusiasm might be a trick and he meant to cover all contingencies.

  –There’s a message for me. Room 39?

  There were no messages. The boy took Ben’s key and peered into drawers and pigeonholes. In the hotel bar someone began to play the piano not particularly well. A flock of women were entering and settling there, all dressed in their best, a waiter bringing them cakes on a trolley–Oh my goodness! No, that we must save for Glykeria– a priest in orthodox habit watching over them like a shepherd.

  –There is nothing, the boy said finally, and crossed his arms over his ribs with nervous satisfaction.

  He breakfasted alone, the women and the priest ignoring him, the pianist giving him a wink, the waiter taking his order sternly, as if breakfast were not a meal to be trifled with. When he finished there was still no message and no one had come for him.

  His impatience grew. Outside the morning was going to waste. He could be sightseeing or looking for the others himself. Stupid to sit and do nothing, with the sun out and Sparta on the doorstep. He left a note at the desk on his way out, stepping over the boy’s gleaming MENEΛAION on his way down to the street.

  And there was Sparta, the source of his waking joy. A broad road–a boulevard–lined with orange trees, crowded with people late for work, with booths selling Chiclets, chocolates, matches, watches, paperbacks. An avenue of bulbous palms, ivy growing up their flanks like military winter coats. A square bordered by colonnades. A pack of schoolgirls eating chips. A custom pickup cruising past with speakers pumped up to the max. A flatbed full of yelping dogs. A pair of jeeps packed with cadets. A rigid geometry of streets. Umbrellas hung from barred windows. The sun going in, the sky ironclad. A shop selling onions and eggs, comics, chestnuts, shotgun shells, and fourteen brands of cigarettes. A plane tree, spreading down, its tentacular arms harbouring four tables, three old men, two children, one backgammon board.

  It began to rain, at first only damping the dust but then with increasing resolution. He stopped to wait it out under a row of carobs. Others were there before him. An old woman nodded at him and looked away, as if they had met there so many times there was no longer any need for small talk. A man in shirtsleeves came out of a house and began washing down a car with a broom. The old woman took a mobile from her purse and frowned at the upsidedown time.

  Ring me. Here is something else I would not say.

  One by one the other loiterers abandoned the trees. There was no one left but him when the rain began to penetrate the foliage. He turned round, looking for better shelter. Behind the carobs a public garden ran along for a block, its footpaths meandering between rain-dark statues. To one side stood a doorway flanked by caryatids, words inscribed on the entablature above them:

  MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SPARTA

  He upended his jacket and ran for it. The doors were closed and for some time he knocked, run-off seeping down his neck, before he tried them and discovered them unlocked. He pushed them open, wiping his face and hands.

  Dry church air: the taste and smell of limestone. The atrium was empty and unlit, cornered with columns, hollowed out with galleries. Less museum than mausoleum. He took another step and a light came on in the chamber ahead. He caught a glimpse of a room–one wooden chair, a one-bar heater–and then the curator was shuffling out, sighing, waving his coins away as if they were a crude offence, as if his presence were a personal affront to her.

  Dim lights flickered on in the side halls. The curator was grumbling over a dead bulb. He wandered away from her through a room full of weapons. He could still hear her behind him. She was dogging his footsteps, her face hovering between a display of spearheads and sword blades, her expression one of unabashed suspicion. He turned back to the exhibits, pretending to ignore her, biting back both irritation and laughter. Finally he lost himself in study, so that he did not hear her leave, only noticing that she had given up on him when he glanced up to find her gone.

  So many snakes. That was surprising, and he was no longer in the mood to be surprised. What had snakes to do with Sparta? Here was a man striking a serpent down, here a man stretching out a hand to one, as if…feeding it, maybe, or offering it himself. Here was Apollo, who once killed the great serpent Python. Here were Castor and Polydeuces, the god-born brothers, rendered in the forms of snakes. Here, in a clutter of tiny bronzes, was the Amphisbaena, the monster born of the blood that fell from Medusa’s severe
d head; and beyond it, rendered in Roman mosaic, the face of Medusa herself.

  He went on. A line of bas reliefs, labelled only Chthonic Deities. The same scene repeated over and over like an occurrence in a nightmare: a man and a woman seated side by side on lion-footed thrones. The man’s hair was dreadlocked like that of a Spartan warrior. His gaze met that of the onlooker and was not unkind. In his hands he raised a two-handled bowl. In one relief a snake coiled upwards, its head over the lip of the bowl. In another a dog cavorted under the thrones. In a third, two kneeling worshippers rendered the seated gods gigantic.

  He stopped to put his jacket on. The museum was as cold as the streets outside. When he had seen the sign above the door he had been relieved, as if it were a familiar address, but the place was not what he had expected. The labels were cryptic, as if whoever had written them had wanted to be as secretive as the Spartans themselves. And he shouldn’t need labels after all. He should know Sparta.

  He came to a wall of gravestones. Some of them bore names, some only reliefs of men fighting beasts and monsters. Those he understood. Sparta had been no place for monuments. Only those who died as heroes would be honoured with names on their graves.

  But then beyond the stones…what was that? A basin, a massive pale urn, carved with women–three of them–each standing on the back of a lion. Who were they? What did they mean? And beyond that, laid side by side, were clay masks from the Sanctuary of Artemis-Orthia. A row of devilish old men, pucker-mouthed, sphincter-lipped, a clutch of scalped faces grimacing at the ceiling. He stood looking down at them, glad of the intervening glass. What did old devils have to do with Artemis, god of women?

  A lightstrip fizzed and pocked above him. He turned back towards the atrium. Unease caught at him, as if he had swum out too far. In a corner stood a Roman bust, another relic of the centuries after Sparta had given way to younger empires. The head was tranquil in profile, but as Ben passed its expression seemed to change. Face-on, the look it bore was one of pure viciousness.

  He called out thanks to the curator, not waiting for a reply. Outside the rain had eased. He hurried back through the garden of statues, finding to his relief that the far end came out by the main road and only a block from the hotel. The city was smaller than he had imagined–no more, really, than a country town–but a clock on the corner said he was later than he had meant to be.

  No one waited for him. The slicked-back boy was gone. The birdcage had been moved inside. Two women sat at reception. One was doing a crossword, the other a sudoku. They looked alike as family, almond-eyed, henna-haired. They worked at their puzzles as if they were in competition. Only when he rang the bell did one put down her pen.

  –Are you lost?

  –No, I’m staying here, he said, and the second woman nodded, as if the fact were unpleasant but unsurprising. One of them fetched his key while the other looked him up and down.

  –Caught by the rain, I see.

  –It’s not so bad. There’s a message for me…?

  –No messages.

  –You’re sure?

  –No messages. No one came, not for you. You know, you could do with an umbrella, Crossword said, as if suggesting a haircut to a delinquent.

  –Does it rain much here, in winter?

  –Did you hear that, Marina? What do you say to the boy? Does it rain much in the winter?

  Low laughter, a mannish chuckle. –It rains all the time, Sudoku said, In winter.

  He went upstairs to wait. His clothes were wet and he hung them up and crawled back into bed for warmth, going on with the thesis notes. A rock drill was gearing up outside and he turned on the TV to drown it out, an old film interspersed with local business ads. Mystras roofing, the Aspis bed emporium, the Spartina lemonade cannery. The Predator crouching over Arnie, dreadful, dreadlocked, monstrous.

  At some point he must have dozed off: he woke to find noon come and gone. He got up in a muddle, drooling and lost, cranky with himself and with the waste of the morning. The clothes were not yet dry but nothing else was remotely clean, and he shrugged them back on and went down again to the street.

  The sky was an unbroken grey. He bought an umbrella from a street vendor under the pineapple palms, asking for directions with his change. Fischer had said the Cyriac dig would be near the major sites, and there were not many of those in Sparta. Already he could see the old acropolis, its heights nothing much after Athens.

  The vendor came out of his booth. Down by the river, if he so pleased, he would come to the Sanctuary of Artemis-Orthia. Across the river and up in the hills–up the first good road after Afisou–he would find the Menelaion…but that was far, the vendor said, and besides, there was nothing there but stones, old stones.

  –Better you come back in the summer, he said, and handed Ben a red umbrella.

  He went north. The streets gave way to a football field, the field to olive groves, witchgrass and meadowflowers, chickens ducking between the trees. It would not be so bad, he decided, to find the excavation this way; to show himself capable, to show willing. He passed a ruin rutted with biker tracks, then two tourists toiling upwards, bedraggled and bickering, French girls, or Belgians, in floppy hats and gingham shorts.

  At the summit he stopped to catch his breath. The air smelled of pines and woodsmoke. There was no sign of the archaeologists, but already they seemed remote, while Sparta was immediate and unexpected, exhilarating and familiar from the thousands of pages he had read. He was a fool not to have come here before.

  He would try and find them anyway. Just to show them; just to show them. There were not so many other places to check. He would make for the Menelaion while the weather still held and go by the Sanctuary of Artemis-Orthia on his way home. And if he hadn’t found them by then, well, they couldn’t say he hadn’t tried.

  The girls had reached the theatre below. One of them began to dance while the other filmed her with a mobile. The ruins carried their laughter upwards, as they had been made to do. They sat on the broken stage, talking together in soft voices. When they began to kiss he looked away.

  A horse whinnied in the olive groves. Beyond them, Sparta was laid out bare. Simple buildings, white as salt.

  He began down towards the river. He heard the highway before he reached it. The buildings around were gutted and abandoned, the town fraying at its edges. Irises grew in the ruins. Someone called to him from a doorway. An old woman was leaning there, on a forked staff taller than herself. White teeth and dark skin; white-and-dark eyes. A gypsy, he realised, and wondered how it was he knew to realise it. She was waving something at him–as he passed he caught a flash of some trinket–and he shook his head and went on.

  He came to the bridge out of town. The river was swollen with rain, full of log-jams of oranges. He crossed and went on along the highway, stepping around the deepest ruts, tankers thundering past him.

  He was used to walking, used to the directions walkers were given, the distances never as great as kind strangers would have one believe; but he had gone a way already, two miles or so from the hotel. He skirted a village and doubled back, following the river again. The banks were overhung with oleander and giant grasses, the stems and blades as tall as trees and thick as the trunks of saplings. The hills were closing in. The air felt colder. There was a stillness to the landscape, as if it were waiting for something. He caught a whiff of oranges, the odour mixing with his sweat and seeming for a moment salt, as if the smell of the sea had been blown twenty miles from the coast.

  A peal of thunder rolled between the mountains, echoing down the ranges. He began to walk faster. The road was single-lane and empty most of the time. A tractor passed, heading back to the highway. He stuck his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

  He tried to think how far he had gone. Four miles or so from the hotel, and surely it couldn’t be much further. The umbrella vendor had said to take the first good road up to the hills. A truck came down a muddy track ahead, and he stopped beside it, looking up in indecisio
n before going on as before.

  The rain began, so softly at first that he was hardly aware of it until he saw the blacktop shining. He stopped to open the umbrella. He had not noticed when he bought it, but now he realised it was printed with the face of a familiar right-wing politician. Under the beaming face, a slogan: Shelter In Any Weather. Something hissed past, going his way, and he looked up from the politician’s leer too late to wave it down.

  The cold was leaching through his clothes. Stupid to have worn them damp. He started walking again. Up ahead was a stand of pines, whip-thin things with no shelter. He reached them and kept going. The rain was soaking through his shoes. He passed a roadside shrine, the offerings in its tin-and-glass box–a packet of Kleenex, a bottle of Claymore–as faded and dry as bones.

  Lightning, and then thunder again, gigantic between the valley walls. It was becoming hard to go forward. The blacktop was plunged in downpour. He saw headlights coming up behind, stuck out one hand, shouted a filthy curse at the car and himself as it ploughed on through the rain.

  He came to the one good turning. The umbrella-man’s road was sunk in mire. He climbed through the undergrowth until he reached higher ground, pulling the umbrella behind him.

  He advanced with his eyes on his feet. He seemed now to be walking on water. His steps slid and skated and bit. Something–an animal? A rock?–went crashing away through the scrub. When he looked up again the road was ending. The concrete ran out where it turned. There was nothing beyond but a dirt track churned to milk.

  He stopped at the edge of the concrete. The rain pelted his scalp. He recalled Emine again, the memory forcing itself up. The sense of her was so strong it was like a presence. Emine would not be doing this. She had always been the sensible one.

  He shook his head, spraying rain. There was no going on. He would have to go back the way he had come. He looked down the hill, baring his teeth, and saw a building set back in the trees.