The Double Tongue Page 7

  ‘They turned their backs to me.’

  ‘So you saw their back-parts. Perhaps they’ll cover you with their hands and put you in the crack at the oracle and –’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘Arieka, I assure you, you are highly favoured among women. Why not, pray? You are the – or a – Pythia and I am the High Priest of Apollo. We can say what we like and if anyone complains we can say we are inspired.’

  I made the apotropaic sign. ‘God send the gods don’t hear you!’

  ‘At midday the gods are asleep if they have any sense. I can feel the spring, though. Another month and it’ll be time for the Questions. Though what sort of a noise that fat slug of a bitch will make, Apollo alone knows. She’s killing herself with honeycakes. We’ll have to carry her to the oracle and throw her down the steps.’

  ‘Ionides Peisistratides!’

  IV

  But the gods had other plans. The new First Lady died that very night in her snorting sleep. It is not good luck for the people to know too much about the living and dying of the Pythias. They are there, or not. People there, having accustomed themselves, though unconsciously, to refer to the Two Ladies now found themselves having consciously to refer to The Lady, concerning whom those with any knowledge of the oracle’s history would find themselves exclaiming amusedly ‘It’s quite like old times!’ The old times for the oracle were some six thousand years ago at a modest computation. There was, as well as this, a matter of no more than two weeks between the death and the festival of the spring solstice, combined with the Games and the Questions, a hundred other questions and the transfer of my few personal belongings from the apartments of the Second Lady to those of the First.

  I was terrified. The terror was not of this world. As far as this world was concerned nothing made much difference. I was a shrouded figure, the one woman now in Delphi whose face was never bared. I was aware of a rumour that I was younger than any First Lady had ever been though how young they did not know. But the explanation given was that I was a virgin, not a married woman living apart from her husband, and well on in years – fifty or so. The rumour attached was that I had already given signs of the god’s choice. That fresh, bright air of Delphi seemed to be able to create stories out of nothing. For the people did not believe in the Olympians alone. It seemed sometimes that every street corner had its arguing group who swore to the reality of this demon or that, this or that nostrum for either seeing the demon or alternatively not seeing him. My information was that the new First Lady was rumoured to have, literally, eyes in the back of her head. She was said to be accompanied by a whole troupe of demons whose bidding she was compelled to do. Delphi, in fact, was a muck heap of nonsense. I refused to have anything to do with it. To be a Pythia, to be educated in the hexameter in case the god should choose to revert to using it, was trouble enough. I buried myself in the bookroom and spoke to no one but Perseus. Perseus spoke all languages that there are. This did not prevent his Greek from having a curious malformation in which the ‘p’s became ‘k’s. It was also thick, so that his ‘k’ was never sure that it was not a ‘kh’. By now when I sometimes spoke – especially if we were discussing books as we frequently were – I would observe a smile flit over his darkling face. Learned and distinguished man as he was, he was still a slave and I did not feel it proper to admit him to such intimacy as I enjoyed – the right word – with Ionides. If we were not married – I mean Ionides and I – if he still had and would always have that shuddering distaste for a woman’s flesh which made any physical intimacy out of the question, I doubt if any married couple ever approaches the intimacy of thought and feeling that we sometimes enjoyed – or, and I must make the qualification – that I for my part felt we enjoyed. One day he came to the bookroom when Perseus was hidden away in his own place, trying as usual to make sense of the picture writing on a Cretan brick. Ionides was jubilant.

  ‘First Lady – two things! First – they are bringing the Ion of Euripides! You will see your first tragedy! Second, they feel that the death in succession of two Ladies means that the god has a special purpose and need – imagine a god having a need, oh Athens! – a special need of the current First Lady. They are organizing the greatest, most brilliant pomp that Athens has ever sent!’

  ‘A pomp?’

  ‘The city fathers, all the priests of all the gods new and old, the academy, the knights on horseback, have you ever – no of course you haven’t! Never mind, and forgive my chatter. Remember I’m an Athenian. The Archon himself will ask the question on behalf of the city. Of course Athens isn’t what it was any more than Delphi is. But, never mind, we shall do our best. Once I have found out what question he is asking –’ He stopped for a moment. ‘Don’t look so pained my dear, it’s quite usual nowadays –’

  ‘That wouldn’t please the god. No wonder half Delphi is in ruins and the other half made into hostels for tourists rather than suppliants.’

  ‘I was forgetting myself. Forgive me, First Lady, of course we must have no prior knowledge of the questions. It would be unthinkable.’

  ‘There would be an ox on my tongue.’

  ‘You are very fond of that expression, are you not? It means you are going back to the old fear that you are unworthy. Well. You are a virgin. That disarms any god I believe. It is also supposed to tame wild beasts, prevent drunkenness and ensure good harvests. What have you got to worry about? I wish I was in your case.’

  I did not know quite what he meant by that for he was unmarried, and I did not care to ask for an explanation.

  ‘Ionides.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have been reading.’

  ‘As always. Good. It can do nothing but good. If everyone could read and would read – what an outburst of wisdom!’

  ‘I’ve been reading about the oracle. This time it was about the legend and saying that the Old Religion was woman’s. Saying that some of the images were buried and have been dug up – monstrous fat women –’

  ‘So they have. You know there are oracles everywhere. Not as famous as us of course, but still useful to their own locality. This morning when the assembly agreed in Athens –’

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘Have you forgotten our pigeons? Why! We knew what had been decided in Athens sooner than the Athenians knew in their own suburbs.’

  ‘But who –?’

  ‘Come, my dear! Athens has an oracle too. One foot cannot walk by itself.’

  A great and frightening light flooded my mind.

  ‘So that –’

  ‘Is how it is done. Yes, Arieka, that is how it is done. I had not meant to tell you but of course I am fundamentally a blabbermouth. It was too much to keep to myself. All the oracles everywhere – some one pigeon flight, some a dozen pigeon flights away; but all bound for Delphi!’

  ‘It is outrageous. All those people!’

  [A passage of manuscript is missing at this point.]

  I had taken to wandering in Delphi, a shrouded and unrecognizable woman going about the market and trying the vegetables and cheeses on sale. No one paid any attention to me. It was thus I was even able to approach the building of the oracle itself, noting that the portico remained unpainted. I climbed the steps and looked down those that led into the appalling interior. It was down there, in the adytum, that the compelling vapour was said to issue from the deep cleft in the rock – that same cleft, it may be, which had been the lair of Pytho, whom Apollo slew in hand-to-hand combat. I myself was now in some sense Pytho himself, but humbled, forced into the obedient servant of the oracle, the human instrument whose mouth he might tear as he would. Daylight penetrated some distance down those stairs, but dimly. There were recesses on either hand and stone seats in them. I hoped devoutly that those seats would be filled with living persons when I went down. Ionides would be there, I knew – nearest to the sacred tripod, where I must sit, and the glowing charcoal on which I must heap the dried laurel leaves then inhale their smoke. I turned
away. The day would come soon enough. Why run to meet it?

  But Delphi was making an effort, there was no doubt about that. The Foundation might have no means of support other than the credit of the heavens, but each individual trader seemed determined to show the tourists ‘the real Delphi’. There was paint everywhere, spring flowers not just for sale but put up as decorations. The great day rushed upon us, the seventh day of the month. At dawn Ionides arrived, craving an audience but marching in before I had granted it. He accepted a mouthful of wine.

  ‘The pomp has been received at your father’s house, did you know? It’s most generous. I suppose that at last he’s decided he’s proud of you. The position, my dear, the position! So he has put up as many people as possible. The Megarans will be coming along the shore then up the road. Corinth will be here, of course. Now. I think we have time to go over the questions.’

  ‘But I’m not supposed to know them!’

  ‘Do you want to make things difficult? The most important are the city ones of course. Athens first. Will we – will they – preserve the age-old freedom of the city? We have to say yes, of course. The usual escape clause, as you know. There’s a Roman, officially a private citizen. I only found out this morning that he’s coming. “Just a tourist.” A likely story!’

  ‘If he claims to be a private citizen, let us treat him that way.’

  ‘Alas no. The realities of power, my dear. Our power is spiritual. Rome’s power is quite another matter. So though he pretends to be private we’d better be ready with something about the sucklings of the she-wolf. You’ve no idea how credulous the Romans are. That question could be worth millions of those gold coins of which we have so few.’

  ‘The Foundation has ten.’

  ‘He wants to know whether he will achieve his ambition. You note the singular noun, ambition! He wants to be consul, they all do. They’re really like the Spartan kings, come two at a time to keep an eye on each other. Not a bad idea at that, it mostly works.’

  ‘You don’t need me, Ionides. Why not give the oracles yourself?’

  ‘Ha ha, very funny, First Lady. He’s Metellus Cimber and he wants to know about an aristocratic young friend of his, Caesar. Which of the two of them will rise higher. My goodness, I have heard of Caesar, to say nothing of this man Cimber.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Naturally. I have a feeling in my bones – oh no! I shouldn’t say that! Why keep a Pythia and do the shouting oneself? You had better be entirely ambiguous about these two Roman lads. Does anything suggest itself to you?’

  ‘Apollo has never been so far away. I don’t even see his back-parts.’

  ‘In Latin, Cimber ought to mean a man from up north, more nearly under the Pole Star. As for Caesar – something to do with a cut, I think. What a foul language Latin is! Could you say Caesar will be a cut above the Pole Star? What is the matter?’

  ‘I don’t like it. Ionides, you’ve never understood. I believe – even though they turned their backs on me, I believe. In Delphi I feel the gods present if it’s only for other people. This is all – I would call it blasphemy and I don’t mean the blasphemy which might be punished by the law, though that’s bad enough. But this – it will be punished by the gods themselves!’

  ‘That is exactly as it should be, my dear. Do you not understand that I wish devoutly that it might be true – that when you go down there the god will really speak through you – I wish it but I don’t believe it.’

  ‘If you wish, why bother to prepare all these questions?’

  ‘Look. I speak in all seriousness. I am a flimsy creature, not solid like you. But when you go down those steps and climb on to the sacred tripod, you are free. You are the freest woman in Hellas – in the world! You will say what you will say. You will only resort to our answers rather than the god’s if you find nothing but silence. I shall be sitting in the nearest niche to you where there is still a glimpse of the day. I shall have my tablets and stylus. If you speak not out of our agreement but out of the god’s promptings, I will write your words down and proclaim them to the crowd even though they should say “Ionides is a false priest and should be destroyed here and now!”’

  So he said, convincing himself. Ionides was even better at convincing himself than convincing other people, and he was good at that. As he spoke there was a warmth and passion in his voice that was most affecting and after it his glottis went up and down no less than three times.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Forgive me speaking so strongly. But I had a sudden feeling that you thought the oracle was rigged. No, no, my dear. I speak with the tongues of men. You should speak with the tongues of the Holy Messengers. But –’ and here he smiled his wonderful, sad smile – ‘If we cannot have the one let us at least have the other.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll say no more –’

  ‘Oh but your contribution on this level is essential – quintessential! You must live on two levels! I, alas, have only one! We’ll leave the Roman question since it seemed to disturb you. Forget it and live – quintessentially on two levels. There! Understand, my dear, that people still ask political questions. The Roman question is political. But if indeed you find silence when their question is put to you, do you suppose that we can risk having the Pythia say anything she likes over a question that affects the whole world? Silence would be best ideally, if the god does not speak. But, then, who would consult the oracle?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Sometimes I myself wish I was some rustic fellow tending the village oracle – some old biddy who reads palms and divines in running water, or even some fellow who goes about the dry countryside dowsing for it! Anything sometimes to break out of the sad rational world! Now, about Athens. Of course the freedom question is for show and has to be answered about how free Athens is, now the children are taking care of their mother. Everybody will know what that means. But the real question is which side to back so as to keep the Hellespont open to Athenian shipping for corn. Make the wrong choice and they’ll starve. Well, never mind. I can see the situation is being almost too much for you. I’ll answer that one, though the god knows it’s a toss up between two dictators. May I advise? I have complete faith in your integrity. But it is a public and dramatic occasion. I myself am prone sometimes to drama which becomes melodrama. Do be simple, my dear, a homely, rather slow creature, everybody’s aunt, if not mother. If anything goes wrong I can have the shawms sounded and that would give us both a breathing space. In any case, remember the most important thing is that you can be as slow as you like, take half an hour to get yourself settled on the tripod, remember you have all the time in the world. In fact’ – and he smiled again – ‘even though you will be invisible, it’s your show!’

  He rose to go but stopped and turned to me again.

  ‘I nearly forgot! Can you stand the smell of burning laurel?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do I have to stand it? Don’t I have to be overcome by it?’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to try it – how foolish of me! Of course the First Lady had been using it before I was born and the Second never got near that tripod. What are we to do?’

  ‘Once again, I don’t know. I don’t seem to know much, do I?’

  ‘There isn’t time. We shall have to chance it. How I wish it were a simple matter of incubation.’

  ‘Which is –?’

  ‘A Latin term. The suppliant goes to sleep in the precinct and dreams, that is all. Very simple. Well, my dear, dare I say “Good luck”?’

  He bowed.

  *

  They sounded the shawms outside the palace of the Pythias. I went, shrouded, to the vehicle which by tradition I never saw. I was helped into it and supported. It moved on brazen wheels and I knew, though I did not see them, that it was hauled over the noisy cobbles by young men who were honoured by the task. There was a noise almost as loud as the shawms from the wheels and when it stopped a third noise was a kind of sea roar from the people. Their voices beat in on my ears so tha
t I was hard put to it not to cover them with my hands as well as the material of my scarf. But the Pythia must remain in public a shrouded figure, even her hands folded under the maiden garments with which she approaches her celestial bridegroom. I never saw the famous Athenian procession which anyway had stopped at the entry to Delphi since there was no room for them inside. But I heard the roar dwindle into near silence, which was filled with the breathing of people and the stamp and wicker of horses far off. Then into that breathing silence the shawms sounded four times. As the sound of the last note died away I felt a hand search for mine and take it and the voice of the High Priest of Apollo murmur in my ear, ‘Come’.

  I was lifted down from whatever vehicle it was, and I heard the sound of the chosen goat being sacrificed.

  ‘Hold my hand. The steps begin just in front of you.’

  I felt for the step like the blinded creature I was, leaning into his arm for support and reassurance. One step. Two.

  ‘Slowly.’

  Another step. More. It seemed to me that the breathing of living creatures was bearing in on me. I found my own breath coming quick. My heart was thudding.

  ‘Stay.’

  I stood and his hand left me. Even inside my headscarf I kept my ears shut in desire of ignorance and safety. Down here was the dark. Behind there the noise of the crowd was as it might be waves turning over on the beach of the very gulf itself. But the gulf was far away. Here was nothing but other. I felt round with my hands, stretched out my arms, knew I must not move or I should be lost. In sudden terror I clutched at the scarf and wrestled with it till it came away from my face. But there was still nothing to see. Suddenly my whole body began to shudder, not the skin with its surface movements but the deep flesh and bone, a repeated convulsion that turned me sideways, then round. My knees struck the solid earth and I felt cloth and flesh tear.