Mr. Grigorakis, the hotel owner and a tried and true classicist, took us to the wide patio that overlooked the sea, where interested musicians had been playing lyres and singing sweet litanies invoking Pythagoras since seven that morning.
Luisa, the medium, who had been accompanying Ramses since he’d started his business, sat down in a chair in the middle of the circle of happy old men who were singing along to the sound of the lyres.
“Why are there so many animals?” I asked Grigorakis, pulling him aside.
“Because they understand Pythagoras,” was his response. And he then explained that, according to Pythagoras, after humans die they inhabit a variety of animals until they go through the entire universe of fauna. Then they again became human beings.
At that moment, Luisa, the medium, shuddered in her chair and fell into a trance, possessed by a spirit.
“I am Pythagoras of Croton,” she said in a guttural voice, “and I’ve been a lion, a chimpanzee, an elephant, an eagle, and a buffalo on the American plains. But today I appear in the body of a man, because my reincarnation cycle has reached its end. Is there love here?”
As their only response, the classicists took each other’s hands and started to kiss each other on the lips and the cheeks and to dance around the medium, to the sound of the lyres.
In the meantime, Ramses placed the camera in front of the medium and proceeded to take photos with the lightbulb and electrical-cable-laden device.
The classicists stopped dancing and crowded around the medium, who continued with closed eyes, imprisoned by a series of strong shudders.
Twelve photos were taken, until the medium stood up and said in a masculine voice:
“That’s enough for today. I have important missions to carry out in other parts of the world. But you can count on my eternal love, and call me whenever you need me. Ah! And don’t forget mathematics. Remember that mathematics is the primal science. And all other branches of knowledge stem from it.”
With that, Pythagoras abandoned the medium’s body and she fell to the floor face-down, where she lay for a long while, only recovering her senses little by little.
Grigorakis, the leader of the classicists, approached Ramses and asked him if he had managed to see Pythagoras through the lens.
“Just like I see you now,” Ramses responded.
“So, when will those photos be ready?” Grigorakis wanted to know.
“You’ll have them in your hands on Friday.”
“If Pythagoras isn’t in them, I’ll pay you anyway, but if Pythagoras appears in them, I’ll write you a check for six thousand dollars.”
“Don’t worry,” Ramses said, “Pythagoras has been photographed.”
They bid us farewell with a lot of applause and blessings and soon we were back on Flagler and 14th Avenue, where Ramses had his studio.
He started to develop the photos right away. I was also there, in the dark room, watching how Ramses developed the negatives under the faint red light. He developed all of them, and then he took a hold of the printing machine and started to print the photos. There appeared the happy old men, the lyre players, Grigorakis on his knees with his arms lifted high, as well as the medium with her eyes closed, surrounded by solemn old men holding each other’s hands. But Pythagoras was not there.
“Go find me a picture of Pythagoras in the archive,” Ramses ordered me, his voice urgent.
“That’s impossible,” I told him. “Pythagoras of Croton was never photographed in his lifetime or painted by any artist.”
“Well, then look through films set in antiquity for some old, bearded man who looks like a prophet.”
I went out to the archive and was looking for what Ramses requested for a long time. In the end, I came upon a photo of John Houston dressed as an ancient Greek, holding a staff in his hand.
I quickly took it to Ramses and asked him if that was what he wanted.
“I like it,” he said. “Find me more — seated, standing, talking.”
I went back to the archive and was actually able to gather several photos of John Houston in different positions in his prophet garb.
“Perfect,” Ramses said with the material in his hands. “Now leave me alone. For this work I need a lot of concentration and solitude.”
Ramses spent the whole day working in the dark room. It got to be five p.m., and the medium and I left the place, with him inside, concentrating on his work.
The next day, when I appeared before him in the dark room, he turned on the lights and showed me his work, still in the dryer.
There you could see the thirty old classicists in Miami Beach surrounding a Pythagoras dressed in a Grecian tunic, raising his staff very solemnly. There were four photos like that. The others were simple views of the hotel and of the jolly old men who radiated happiness as they danced.
“As you see, it’s all a trick,” Ramses said with a smile. “Pythagoras of Croton never existed, and if he did exist, he must now be old dust over the hot earth of Croton.”
“So you don’t believe?” I asked him.
“In anything.” Ramses responded. “When I left Cuba, I stopped believing in all religion and all philosophy. I embraced money as my ideology.”
“But then, this is a scam.” I said.
“Perhaps,” Ramses responded, looking down at his nails philosophically. “But they’re going to be happy with these photos. Their devotion to Pythagoras will lead them to blindly believe that John Houston is the real Pythagoras. They will never suspect that it’s a crude photomontage. They’ll be happy; I’ll have six-thousand dollars in my pocket. What you call a scam, I call a white lie, a dream machine. The camera I have is just a Japanese Nikon to take pictures of weddings and baptisms. Everything decorating it is pure useless junk to create an ambience. So, what do you make of all of this?”
By way of response, I started laughing.
“The perfect business.” I said.
“Good,” Ramses said. “Now you have to go to Kendall, to 122nd Avenue, to hand over twelve photos to an old woman who lost her daughter three months ago and is obsessed with the idea that the deceased is still living in her house. As you’ll notice, the daughter is none other than Bette Davis in the movie “Jezebel,” dressed as a late 19th-century lady. If the old lady complains that this isn’t her daughter, you’ll be able to tell her that spirits change their appearance according to their tastes and, to wander about in the fourth dimension they take on the face they like most. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“So go. There are twelve photos and the old lady should give you five hundred dollars, as per the contract. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“So get going!”
I left the studio in Ramses’ car and was soon in Kendall looking for the old woman’s home. It took me a while to find the house — it was tucked away, protected by two gates, and guarded by an aggressive Doberman who barked frantically at me from the moment I got out of my car. I rang the doorbell and the old woman answered, leaning on two crutches.
“I’ve come from Ramses Photos,” I said with a forced smile. “I brought the photos the Maestro took of you and your deceased daughter two months ago.”
“God bless you, son! I am willing to stop eating for a whole month for those photos. I’ll pay any price, but let me see them right away.”
I handed over the sealed envelope and she opened it very delicately.
There, in the first photo, you could see the old woman sitting in a gray armchair with Bette Davis behind her, her hands on the old woman’s shoulders, dressed in a very elegant suit from the mid-1800s.
“My daughter! My daughter!” the little old woman exclaimed, tears in her eyes. “Why does she look so different? She was thinner.”