The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (28 page)

“The labyrinth was designed by Daedalus, the king’s architect. Every eight years Athens, the vassal fortress of Crete, would send as sacrifice seven maidens and seven young men to be devoured by the
Minotaur. One of them, Theseus, will kill the monster. He will come out of the labyrinth, with the aid of a ball of string, unwound behind him. The famous red thread, a gift from Ariadne. Theseus abandons her, however, in favor of Phaedra.”

“Sex, then. The red thread is sex. In antiquity, too.”

“Minos punishes Daedalus, the ineffective architect of the labyrinth. The labyrinth was imperfect! Daedalus is imprisoned in the labyrinth, together with his son, Icarus. The architect can’t escape his own creation. Icarus, who is obsessed with flight, fabricates a couple of wings, making himself into an artificial bird. And he flies . . . ignoring the advice of his father not to fly too close to the sun. The wax in the wings melts. The flyer crashes into the sea. Then, the father Daedalus lands gently in Sicily.”

“An animated movie.”

“Let’s drink the first glass. To the innocence of the audience.”

The professor rises from the armchair, opens the bottle, pours the wine into the glasses, they clink, he sits back down into his seat.

Tara is docile and amused; the professor is in his new role.

“The Old Man wrote about such animated movies. Or the Alchemist. Should we call him that?”

“For the animated movies, the Alchemist is better.”

“All right, I’ll stay with the Old Man. The Old Man refers to modern interpretations, naturally. The urban reader. The solitaries of the city-labyrinth. The mythical Minotaur is the uninhibited part of man. The vital, prerational part.”

“The beast. The beast of joy inside us.”

“The modern city dweller wants to squelch this part of himself, says the passé-ist. Cosmin Dima is all for the inherent organic structure, he rejects modern artifice, the city labyrinth of modernity. Daedalus’ artifices, and those that follow, hide the monster in the subconscious. A fatal mistake, the nostalgic says. The Old Man is skeptical of reason, disgusted by progress. The Old Man gets stuck on … “

“The Alchemist.”

“For the Alchemist and for his friends, traditions, like pagan
barbarism, are sources of energy and power. Civilization is forgetting. A lack of scope and center. The decline of the individual.”

“Referring to us! The city dwellers! The solitaries from the city labyrinth. But what about those who live in the country, at the college hidden in the woods? Does that revitalize the beast?”

“I don’t know what goes on in your dorms. Drugs, orgies? I wouldn’t be shocked. Youth. The test of limits. I never participated. Regretfully.”

“You can make it up. America offers you ways. You modify your look, body, mind, personality, anything. You can find the magic pill or the elixir invented only last week. You go to Arizona or Nevada or Antarctica under a different name. You’re someone else. The New World encourages the new. Newness. A new start, we say.”

“I was talking about the decline of the individual, not about impostures.”

Ga
par looks at his knees, but he’s speaking clearly and audibly.

“It’s not an imposture, but a new start.”

“Substitution. A person who is a substitute for another person, that’s how the dictionary defines impostor. I know what I’m talking about, I’m an exile.”

“It’s not a new beginning?”

“A lot of mimetics. The first step toward change is mimetic.”

“So, then, you’re with the Old Man.”

“I don’t believe in the idealization of the past. Or in any idealization.”

“Skeptic.”

“The only decency. The modern decline of the individual means the decline of the Nation, the retronauts say. The decline of the individual, the disaster of the Nation.”

“Logical.”

“Logical and true, if the past were a golden reference. But it can’t be. It would defy human imperfection. Should we go back to the animated movies? The Minotaur can’t be stopped, the Old Man and his apprentices maintain. The nostalgia of myth, the pastoral, idealization. The Minotaur avenges the modern labyrinth. The
happy and prosperous hell of modernity, or the totalitarian, mytho-maniacal colony. Should we drink to the modern inferno? It’s no worse than the infernos of the past.”

“I prefer to drink for no reason. Just because I like the wine. The student is a hedonist.”

“Not enough. I don’t like the Minotaur. I prefer the labyrinth. As a game. As artifice. Antidote to boredom. We drink for Saturday night. Rest. Relaxation.”

Ga
par gets up. Big, massive. He is awake, as if no longer afraid to be awake.

“A sullen March evening. A sullen professor, a sullen lecture about a sullen labyrinth. The labyrinth as a game? It’s a game for innocents. An innocent audience. A complicit audience, nonetheless.”

“Complicit? Yes, I am here. The student is present.”

“It’s the present.”

“And the professor is also present.”

“Maybe. He’s not convinced. He should be convinced.”

They clink glasses, in a good humor both of them. The game prepares for the crime or for the solving of the crime. The killing of the Minotaur or the key to its action.

“Under what sign were you born?”

“What do you mean? I don’t know. I don’t bother with that nonsense.”

“Me, neither, but. . . Taurus means vitality. Spring. But I don’t think …”

“But what.. . ?”

“My cousin Lu is obsessed with signs, zodiac, astrology, fortune-telling. Some things even seem true, naturally. The rule of probability. I’m hopeless at this stuff. I am amused and then I forget.”

“Horoscopes are another joke. Any game is good. You don’t know how to play games, I suspect.”

“I haven’t for a while. Short amusement, that’s all. When were you born?”

“You want to know how old I am?”

“You couldn’t be young enough for an old man like me. It’s the month that interests me, not the year.”

“April.”

“And the day?”

“You said just the month, that’s all.”

“There are two signs for every month.”

“Okay, I’ll take them both. Whatever they may be. Both of them.”

“All right. A solar promise. Rebirth. The sun punished Icarus by melting his wings. Punished him for his arrogance in defying predetermination, for his faith in freedom, in options. For the ego’s ambition. The modern self-made man. That’s what you Americans say.”

“Imposture! Mimetics.”

“The first step to change. Some change, anyway.”

“The wine isn’t American, this time. The subject is Greek, the Old Man, Eastern European. The same as the host, an improvised professor, impostor. Targeted in the shadows by the phantom-killing ray.”

A moment of exhaustion. Ga
par doesn’t know how to go on. He should probably consult Patrick, Larry Eight and the special agent, on how to manipulate the evening of the revelation. The stages, the pace, the surprises, the traps, the decisive moment when the coy and cunning fox will twist in the silk snare, unable to escape.

“Could you sleep here tonight?”

“Why? Do you have insomnia? Is it the rustling in the woods? Does the solitary city dweller feel the Minotaur close by? Bull, badger, owl. The night itself is a dark being. It seduces or kills. Do you have insomnia?”

“Last night I didn’t sleep at all,” the professor lies. That’s why I’m delivering speeches. To stay awake.”

“Take a sleeping pill. The wine is going to help, as well. You’ll sleep after drinking Eastern European wine. Old habits help. They pacify.”

The professor is waiting for an answer.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Why? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the sexuality of the elderly. And you don’t need to be afraid of yourself, either. As for me, I can fend for myself, if youth attacks. I’ll get by. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t report you.”

“You want me to sleep here? Here, on the couch?”

“Why not? I’d feel better.”

“No, absolutely not. My roommate is waiting for me. It’s a small college, everything gets out.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do. And you need your salary.”

“We’ll tell Patrick that we spent all night talking about the labyrinth. It took all night. We drank wine, you were tired, you stayed. We’ll see how he takes on the new cards, what hypotheses he offers.”

“We could tell him that, even if it’s not true. I like the game, I told you. The game, as a labyrinth.”

“Games with Dracula?”

“The professor is an eccentric, not a monster.”

Tara continues to prod him, like a policeman. Professor Ga
par does the same. She smiles, he smiles.

“The game, as a labyrinth. That’s what Gilbert says.”

“Gilbert, which Gilbert?”

“Anteos. You don’t know Gilbert Anteos?”

“The guy with the shaved head?”

“Yes, professor of Greek, Latin, and ancient literature.”

“You’re in his class?”

“Yes, I took Greek Mythology and Modern Life. An eccentric type.”

“Like me?”

“He took refuge in America from the colonial dictatorship in Greece. He’s an exile, too. A nomad.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About Anteos? You never asked what classes I’m taking.”

“You just let me go on and on, like a dilettante, about the Minotaur and Ariadne and Daedalus.”

“I don’t look down on dilettantes. America is full of dilettantes. They respect all hobbies. Among dilettantes, you discover clairvoyants and unexpected suggestions.”

“So, then, the expert with the shaved head talked to you about the labyrinth. Did he also quote Dima?”

“I don’t remember. Otherwise, yes, all the references, the entire inventory. The invisible fire transforms the bodies arrived in Hades in the underground dwelling . . . the labyrinthine dwelling of the dead. The transition from the spiral to the cross. Christ, like Theseus, descending into the Inferno.
Descensus ad infernos.
The red thread of Ariadne, the bloodied memory.”

The professor is silent, gazing at his postal woman who didn’t bring the mail.

“I should check my notes. I didn’t retain that name, Dima. When you were talking about these Balkanic, sinister things, I didn’t make the connection. But Anteos, yes, Gilbert talked about the labyrinth and the rest. I took notes, I’m sure. What I didn’t write, I remember.”