‘They can cry out to God the same as I do. The airwaves are free, it costs them nothing.’
‘Tell me more about your deep distress.’
‘With you everything comes out; with me it stays in, it’s deep, it’s nothing to talk about. Also it’s not uncomfortable, it’s like a mountain of stone and on top of it grows a little blue flower. Don’t worry about it.’
‘The mountain stays in but the bad air comes out.’
‘Inside I’m pure,’ she said.
‘Is there something else you wanted to talk about?’ I said to the head. ‘Or is fidelity the only thing on your mind at the moment?’
‘Do you want to hear my story?’ said the head.
‘Yes, I want to hear your story.’
‘I ask you for the second time: do you want to hear my story?’
‘Yes, please tell it.’
‘I’ll ask you three times: for the third time, do you want to hear my story?’
‘Yes, yes, yes. Three times yes. Now tell it.’
‘Once begun, the story must be finished.’
‘Well of course I want to hear the whole thing.’
‘You have to take it on you then, you have to say, “Once begun, the story must be finished; I take it on me.’”
‘Once begun, the story must be finished; I take it on me.’
‘Now I’ll begin,’ said the head. ‘I’m not very sure of anything; I may be lying or I may even be making it up as I go along. I was a good musician but I’m not reliable in any other way. Sometimes I can’t make the distinction between how things seemed and how they actually were.’
‘Who can?’
The head of Orpheus gave a little cough and seemed to pull itself together. ‘I don’t really want to tell my story,’ it said, ‘but I have to do it if I ask three times and you say yes each time. I’m not even sure what the story is. Have you ever, perhaps while walking, found the world coming towards you in all its detail and then receding behind you and nothing has any more significance than anything else: a stone in the road or the sun in your eyes or the black shape of a bird in the blue sky, you don’t know whether one thing matters more than another?’
‘Yes, it’s often like that with me.’
‘My mother’s name was Calliope. Sometimes she sang a little song:
“Hermes the maybe, Hermes the sending –
in the day a road, in the night a wending.”’
‘“Who is Hermes?” I asked her.
‘“Hermes is your father.”
‘“Where is he?”
‘My mother pointed to the road. “Here and gone.”
‘“Where’s Hermes?” I said to the shepherds.
‘They showed me a heap of stones by the roadside. “There’s Hermes,” they said.
‘“How can a heap of stones be Hermes?”
‘“Every man who tupped your mother put a stone on that heap in the name of Hermes,” they said.
‘I put my ear to the stones, I listened to the dance in them, listened to the music of Hermes-in-the-stone. I looked at the road that was the place of Hermes. Without moving it ran through the valley and over the mountains, at the same time running and standing still, at the same time here and gone.
‘That night I went to the road. There was no moon, only the night and the dim road wending into darkness. I stamped on the road, I whispered, “Hermes!” The road moved backward under my feet, faster, faster. The steady rhythm of it stretched its long dream into the darkness and the whispering of the night. Running, running I said to the night “I have no name but the one you give me, no face but the one you see.”
‘I was, I am, an emptiness. I don’t know what anything is: I don’t know what music is, I don’t know the difference between running and stillness, between dancing and death. The world vibrates like a crystal in the mind; there is a frequency at which terror and ecstasy are the same and any road may be taken. There was an olive grove, it was morning. Shadows and whispers in the greenlit shade and the sunlight twittering in the leaves above. Hermes doesn’t show itself as a picture in the eyes, it’s there like a beast that can’t be seen, a strangeness dancing in the greenlit shade, dancing its music in the brightness of the shadows, in the darkness of the light.
‘There was an olive grove, I could feel the Hermes of it. There was a tortoise. My hand reached down and picked up the tortoise; with a hiss it drew its head in. I stood there feeling the shape of it and the weight of it in my hand and there was an idea coming to me when I felt eyes on me, felt myself being looked at. There was someone else in the olive grove, there was a man who hadn’t been there a moment ago. He was staring at me with eyes open so wide that I could see white all around the pupils. He had his hands out in front of him as if he was going to say, “Don’t”, but he didn’t say anything. A dark man, not young, but I couldn’t have said how old he was.
‘The tortoise was in my left hand and my knife was in my right; my idea was the tortoise-shell empty and two posts and a yoke and some strings for a kind of little harp with the shell as a soundbox. The man’s eyes were still on me, his wide-open eyes; almost I wanted to use the knife on him to make him stop looking at me. He let his hands drop to his sides when I cut the plastron loose and dug the body out of the shell, ugh! what a mess and my hands all slippery with blood and gore. The entrails were mysterious. I think about it now, how those entrails spilled out so easily when I made an emptiness for my music to sound in. Impossible to put those entrails back.
‘You know how you’ll hear a sound while you’re asleep and there comes a whole dream to account for it and in the dream there are things that happen before and after the sound — might it be that the whole universe has no purpose but to explain the killing of the tortoise? Do you see what I mean? Perhaps the universe is a continually fluctuating event that configures itself to whatever is perceived as centre. Do you think that might be how it is?’
I closed my eyes and saw the long nakedness of Luise twisting in the stardrift of galaxies and nebulae. ‘I hope not,’ I said.
‘The dark man watched me as I emptied the tortoise-shell,’ said the head. ‘He cupped his hands in the shape of the shell, then he mimed the plucking of strings. “Music? For making music?” he said.
‘“Yes, for making music,” I said. “How did you know?” Because what I was going to do had never been done before, there was no such instrument as the lyre then.
‘“I don’t know how I know,” he said. He had come closer; he smelled of honey.
‘“Why do you smell of honey?” I said.
‘“I keep bees.” he said. “My name is Aristaeus.” He stood there as if listening for something that only he could hear.
‘“What are you listening for?” I said.
‘“Your name.”
I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to tell him my name.
‘“You don’t want to tell it,” he said. “You’re afraid.”
‘“Afraid of what?” I said.
‘“Afraid to hear the sound of your name in this place.”
‘“I’m not afraid.”
“Then tell it.”
‘“My name is Orpheus,” I said. Still he seemed to be listening for something else. “What are you listening for now?” I said.
‘“The olive trees whisper,” he said. “I always listen. You are the one who is Orpheus.”
‘“I’ve just told you that.”
‘“Not just your name,” he said. “You’re going to do it, you’re going to be Orpheus.”
‘“What else can I be?”
‘“You are the story of yourself,” he said. With his finger he traced figures in the air.
‘“What’s that you’re doing?” I said.
‘“Your name. You are the story of Orpheus.”
‘“How can I be a story? I’m a man, a live person.”
‘“You’re a story.”