Agamemnon's Daughter (6 page)

I would have done better to tear up the invitation and never shown my face here. Ah, Suzy, what have you brought me to?

My sorrow at losing her pained me cruelly. Suzy . . . That’s how I’d said her name in my head every time.

I’d feared she would drop me. It was more apt to sear you, just as it seemed a better reflection of the pride of a daughter of the elite. Ah Suzy, what have you brought me to, I repeated. You really chose just the right day for breaking up!

I knew that the pain of losing her would be long-lived, but on that day it was almost unbearable.

As I moved forward, with my presumably glum face contrasting with the festive mood all around me, I saw a silhouette I recognized, barely a few yards ahead of me. It was Th. D., the painter, apparently on his way, like me, to a seat in the grandstand. He was holding his younger daughter by the hand. (Well, well: where had the blue and red ribbons gone?)

Probably in thrall to the notion that I would be less noticeable in his shadow, I elbowed through the crowd to get as close as possible to him. Perhaps I might also take advantage of the legitimacy of his presence here. In his case, at least, the reasons why he had a place in the grandstand were known to all.

As I proceeded, I studied the expression on his face. Apart from my own, his was the only blank face in the whole junketing crowd. That’s the way he always looked on television broadcasts of the various public ceremonies where I’d seen him appear. It was likely he’d earned the right to scowl in public long ago. Indisputably a far more precious asset than all the fees he must earn.

I knew of no one else in the whole country who was simultaneously considered privileged and persecuted. It sometimes happened that these two adjectives were both applied to him in the same after-dinner conversation, and even by the same speaker. Everyone agreed nonetheless that the nature of his relations with the state were shrouded in mystery. There was talk of him being criticized, even of his being accused of the kind of grievous error that can break a man for good, but, except on one occasion at a Party Plenum, it had all taken place behind closed doors. Then, when his fall was fully expected —
He’s going to get it in the neck
and
He’s untouchable
were equally popular topics for after-hours gossip — his face suddenly reappeared on some platform or other, looking as morose as ever.

What had he paid for such immunity? For, like all of us, he too must have had his eagle, probably a more terrifying one than any other, to keep him going through the night.

People said lots of other things about him in cafe conversations and after-dinner talk. He was rumored to arouse a great deal of jealousy in the upper echelons, not to say at the topmost rung of the ladder, especially because he exhibited abroad. Among the other observations that he provoked, what people disagreed about most was the role he might or might not play in the life of the nation. Some asserted that he already did play a role by means of his work; others said not. We should expect more, much more of him, they insisted, all the more so because he could rest assured that nobody would dare try to bring him down. He was well aware he was untouchable. So why didn’t he take advantage of it?

“You’re the one who says they can’t get at him,” another would reply. “In the light of day, they’re powerless, I grant you that. But who can be sure that nothing could happen to him under cover or behind the scenes? An automobile accident, for instance, or a dinner that just happened to be off, and then, next morning, a splendid funeral, and
finita la commedia!
I’d go so far as to say that the irritation you can feel now and then on his account is there for him to hear the message:
Aren’t you grateful to he still alive? What more do you want?”

“Ah, yes, I hadn’t thought of that,” the first speaker replied, aghast.

That’s what was said about the man, but as I walked just behind him, what was especially on my mind was that no one could have said that he’d earned the right to be seated in the stands by performing some ordinarily sordid act. So I kept on convincing myself blindly that I was taking advantage of some sliver of his immunity on the way to my seat, which was turning into something more like a way of the cross.

He passed a number of senior figures in the government (well, that’s what they looked like, to judge by their suits) and each in turn chucked his daughter’s cheek.

“That one looks after our newspapers,” he told his daughter with a smile, “and he’s our foreign minister.” He could have been showing her new toys.

At any rate, that’s the impression it made on me. Everything he said was imbued with the kind of ease that comes only from elevation — from the great height whence a man who already knows he is immortal can look down and comment upon the temporal affairs of this world.

“Who’s higher up, the foreign minister or the minister of the interior?” the little girl asked as the pair of them moved farther away from me.

I tried to catch up, to hear the answer.

“Well, now . . . how can I put it? Interior affairs are unmistakably the most important.”

“But foreign ones are much more attractive!” the little girl protested.

He laughed.

“Do you mean dresses?” he asked. “You’re right!”

We were now almost underneath the grandstand. A security check far more stringent than the last awaited us.

I took my invitation card out of my pocket again and went up to the barrier. I don’t know why, but I thought I could hear a buzzing in my inner ear.

“ID!”

“Oh, of course. Sorry.”

A few yards farther on came the start of another zone, with an entirely different atmosphere. It was full of diplomats looking for their seats, delegations from abroad, and TV camera crews.

I strode easily across the few yards that separated me from it. I felt as if my whole appearance betrayed distraction, particularly the expression on my face, or, to be more precise, the smile that must have been on it. I was shown the access route to the C-1 stand, which I instantly forgot, until someone else showed it to me again. My left and right shoulders were constantly being bumped by other guests.

By what means did they get that far up?
For an instant I thought that question was in every glance cast upon me, then the next instant I thought it was only in my own head. Everything was smothered in collective joviality, as if a generous helping of sauce had been poured over it all so as to even out the taste. From here on it’s just us. What we did to get here doesn’t matter anymore. When all is said and done, we all took the same path. The path that leads here. To the feet of Power, Heavenly Light, and Olympus!

A pair of watery eyes cast what I took to be a sour glance at me. Maybe my presence was an impediment to their enjoying the happiness they were about to savor. What’s this mere mortal doing in a place set aside for the elect? So he filed a report, okay. So he denounced someone, all right. But it’s far too soon to call him up here! If it weren’t, then half the population of Albania . . .

But the nausea set off by those weepy eyes was soon dispelled. The brass band opposite the platform carried on, thumping out its rousing marches. The flags began to flutter a little more vigorously in the breeze, as if they knew it was nearly ten o’clock. I caught sight of Th. D. one more time, then lost him from sight. Maybe he was going on even farther. Perhaps up to stand B, or even to stand A .. .

The strange sensation of bewilderment persisted in my brain. It was probably euphoria induced by being so close to power. Flags and marching bands had a purpose, after all. They played their part.

My intoxication would surely have been complete if it hadn’t been for the taste of a funeral in the back of my throat. Suzana’s funeral. I had lost Suzana at the same time as I gained access to this stand. The flowers and the music and the august scarlet drapes would have been just as fitting to mark her passing. Her sacrifice . . .

What I’d been reading in recent days about the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter would not go out of my mind. The festive hubbub, the brass band, and the watchwords written on the red banners didn’t take my mind off the subject, they actually brought it back with greater intensity. Two thousand eight hundred years ago, a large crowd — just like this one, moving toward the grandstand — converged on an altar that was probably similarly draped in red.

Why are you all in such a hurry? —What’s going on?
—
Didn’t you know?
—
They say Agamemnon’s daughter is going to be sacrificed
—

A rumor to that effect had been going around troop-infested Aulis for some days. It was true that the wind hadn’t stopped blowing, and the sea was still foaming around the ships anchored close to shore. But despite the weather, most people were puzzled when they heard the alleged reasons for the delay in setting out for Troy. Was it just the high wind, or was there something else?
We had our fill of wind coming over here, more than enough of it. If the leaders are at loggerheads over something, like I’ve heard said once or twice, why don’t they come out and admit it?

“Excuse me, Comrade, do you have the right time?”

I was so lost in my own thoughts that if the man who asked me the time had touched my elbow, as people sometimes do, I would surely have jumped like a jack-in-the-box. And that would have prompted God knows what suspicions!

I was aware that someone was smiling at me, and I thought: Now you’re really going out of your mind, you’ve forgotten who people are! Then I realized that the person in question was smiling at someone else, with a face as worn and as lined as a dried fig. I don’t know what drew my attention to the person, whose skin was creased into a shape that could have been a smile expressing disbelief or irony or some other meaning unknown to mere mortals. It’s Suzana’s father’s top adviser! I realized. When he was at a meeting we televised a year before, one of my colleagues had whispered into my ear:
That’s Comrade X’s right-hand man.

I studied him with as much concentrated hostility as I could muster. Had he or had he not known in advance of Suzana’s impending change of heart? He must have known, seeing as he was her father’s closest confidant. Maybe it was even worse . . . Maybe he was the instigator of her sacrifice! Like Calchas . . .

My imagination flew off once again to the ancient seaport of Aulis. The rumbling swell and the ceaseless comings and goings of soldiers dotted all along the shore made the atmosphere of suspended activity almost palpable. Most of them were dreaming of giving up war and going back home to their wives or sweethearts. A rumor that the campaign was about to be canceled gave them hope of just such a turn — but suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came quite different news. In order to calm the winds, Agamemnon, the commander in chief, was going to sacrifice his own daughter!

Most of them didn’t believe their ears. Supporters of the commander of the fleet didn’t believe it because it saddened them too much. Was such a sacrifice really necessary? Agamemnon’s opponents didn’t believe it — they were reluctant to admit that the chief was capable of such self-denial. And people who were hoping for the straightforward cancellation of the campaign didn’t want to believe it, either.

No, something like that just wasn’t possible. It was utter madness; it was uncalled for. As for the wind, old seadogs confirmed that it wasn’t so bad it required such a tragic step. Anyway, who could be sure it would make the wind abate? After all, it was that soothsayer Calchas who’d come up with the idea — and everyone knew how unreliable he was.

I scanned the crowd to find Suzana’s father’s adviser again, but I’d lost him. If I had managed to locate him, in the crazy mood I was in I might have been capable of approaching him and asking out loud: “So it was you, wasn’t it, who gave Suzana’s father that piece of perverse advice? But
why
did you do it? Go on, tell me why!”

Robert Graves’s book dealt at length with the issue of Calchas. According to the oldest sources, his personality was as puzzling as could be. It was known that he was a Trojan, sent over by Priam with the specific task of sabotaging the Greeks’ campaign. Eventually, though, he’d gone over to the other side, become a turncoat. So you couldn’t avoid wondering whether he was a genuine renegade, or whether his new allegiance was just a strategic cover. It was equally possible, as often happens in circumstances of this kind, that after facing numerous dilemmas in the course of a war whose end was nowhere in sight, Calchas had ended up a double agent.

His proposal to sacrifice Agamemnon’s daughter couldn’t have been a key step in his career. (Let’s not forget that his prophecies, like those of any turncoat, were treated with skepticism.) If he were still secretly in Priam’s service, then obviously he would ask for the sacrifice of the commander’s daughter, to foment further discord and resentment among the increasingly fractious Greeks. But if he’d genuinely gone over to the Greek side, the question would then arise whether he truly believed that the sacrifice would placate the winds (or whatever else: passions, disagreements), and thus permit the fleet to set out.

Whatever he was, a true or sham renegade, an
agent provocateur
or a double agent, his advice was just too wild, not to say lunatic. A soothsayer, especially in times such as these, must have had many enemies just waiting to use the tiniest of his blunders against him. So if he had made the suggestion to Agamemnon, he would have been sure to lose out in the end.

Far more plausible, therefore, was that Calchas never said anything of the kind, and that the idea of sacrifice had been invented by Agamemnon, for reasons known only to himself. He must have seen how easy it would be to implicate Calchas after the event, to justify his crime in the eyes of enlightened people and to mask its real motive. It was even quite possible that raging winds and so on hadn’t even been mentioned as the fleet was preparing to depart, and that the sacrifice had been performed without a word of explanation . . .