They were standing in an underground temple. A mesmerising song echoed around the fresco-heavy walls and the forest of statues and the unsupported roof that did not seem to be attached to anything but floating above them.
The whole place shone with changing colours and images that appeared and disappeared and were reflected around its edges like a news reel or a film, with them the only spectators in a surreal spectacle that seemed to be drawing them in and taking them to different places, places they had never seen before.
A mist rose and fell and a battered stone chest landed at their feet. Something like branches or tentacles or long legs jutted out and speared the ground, securely fastening the chest, and nailing it to the ground, or so it seemed.
Giorgos, Vasilis and John attempted to find a way to open it, but it seemed solid with no visible opening. They tried to lift it, expecting great weight and resistance, and they were almost thrown back when it proved to be as light as a feather.
The Persian seemed to have disappeared altogether. They were flummoxed, defeated by their featherweight gift that miraculously appeared with no warning or an instruction manual. A dark presence was approaching.
Shadowy figures began to gather and multiply exponentially inside the temple. A cold shiver ran down their spines. Then the figures spoke with one voice, the words appearing in the air in front of them.
“You need to see the world with new eyes and then you will be deserving to accept the blessings of the chest. Do not be afraid of what you see. You will know what is an illusion and what is real. Time in your world and the worlds through the other openings has stopped while you are inside.”
The scene suddenly changed and they were standing in a field in the middle of nowhere. They saw a plane a few feet away. What looked like a pilot stood by the plane and there was a lonely ticket booth on one side of what they now decided was a derelict airfield, while, in all honesty, calling it that would be stretching the definition.
Above the ticket booth was a board with the word “tickets” and below the phrase “plane charter for peanuts”. They began to walk towards the ticket booth, wondering with what money they didn’t have they would pay the fares, when the person behind the counter made a gesture to waive them away towards the plane, but not before handing them a small bag which when they opened saw that it contained a hand. A note inside told them that it was the Emperor’s right hand.
The pilot told them they could board the first flight out of there. They boarded the rickety old plane and with their fingers crossed, their knuckles white from holding on for dear life, and their hearts in their palms, they set off to destination unknown.
Giorgos, Vasilis and John recognised their destination when the plane landed on the street outside the acoustically extraordinary Megaron Mousikis or Music Hall, in resplendent-in-leafy-concrete chaotic Athens.
A famous soprano was singing in Bizet’s “Carmen”. They simply could not resist attending. After their evening at the opera was over they ventured out to find refuge and relax at an elegant old cafe a short bracing walk away in the Kolonaki area of the city.
Sitting at a table, only a short distance away, was the soprano they had just watched, the soprano who carried them into another world, who reached into nerve endings they didn’t know existed, teasing them ruthlessly, playing them like a master, making them vibrate and swell almost to bursting point like a grenade armed and about to explode and spread their innards and splash them onto the canvas around them with deft masterstrokes in a phenomenally wondrous but bloody masterpiece. Job done, sacrifice worth it to the altar of great art.
The soprano had generously and selflessly given them emotions they had never experienced before. Now before them she seemed to have switched to another role, a role expected of someone of her fame, talent and stature, when not on stage but amongst her public, that of behaving every inch la diva prima, la prima donna.
Something did not fit the picture they had created of her in their minds. For her act slipped at an unguarded moment, the layer of legend was peeled away, revealing a girl in all her vulnerability, a deep sadness appearing to be eating away at her. She was, shockingly, alone. Where were the armies and hoards of admirers, barbarian and otherwise, to adulate and worship at her altar and glorious form?
She looked in their direction and beckoned them over. They got up reluctantly, suddenly star-struck shy. Even when she spoke, she sang like a nightingale or a bird of paradise.
‘Vasilis, and Giorgos and… John, is it? Come and sit with me.’
‘How do you know our names?’ Vasilis was curious and a little bit worried.
‘Come. First you sit down. Then I’ll tell you.’
The three men obeyed.
‘Thank you.’ She sang.
‘For what? What could we possibly have given you, my dear lady, that we don’t remember? Our dear friend, amnesia, may have been more tender than usual in her affections.’
‘Even at that distance, I could see that the three of you were mesmerised, hypnotised and ruptured, with eyes for nothing and no-one else on stage or inside that theatre, but for my dear self. I want you all to come with me to my apartment for a drink.’
Vasilis, Giorgos and John could not resist. They were a little bit curious too. They had just met her, but they could not shake the feeling that the chance meeting was orchestrated and that she had a message for them. They accepted her generous invite with alacrity.
‘We would be delighted.’ Vasilis, the unofficial but by silent consent appointed ambassador, spoke for them all.
Inside her apartment in one of the city’s most exclusive blocks, at one of the city’s most exclusive addresses, they sat on her chintz sofa while she excused herself for a moment.
Vasilis, Giorgos and John heard the rustle of silk and turned. Even when walking, she barely touched the ground, her movements sensuous and reminiscent of a cat. A cat about to pounce, perhaps? She came into the room looking every bit the gracious hostess in a temptingly wrapped package, the perfect image of loveliness. She handed Vasilis a small package.
‘This is for you. A small token of appreciation for your admiration. Good manners and Santa Claus will chastise me for not wrapping it, but there was no time.’
Vasilis hesitated, as if afraid of being burned, whether because of the package or touching her he could not be sure. She laughed loudly at his reluctance and misplaced caution.
‘Take it. It won’t bite.’
She said this in a singing a-cappella voice from an invisible sheet to an invisible melody in her head rather than in a flat boring narrative to the non-existent music in their heads which they tried to follow, but could not dare participate in.
Vasilis started to play with the package, flicking it and bouncing it from hand to hand, unsure what to do with it. A crazy idea kept shouting at him inside his brain. This trick was part of her foreplay. He smiled. She smiled too, but from amusement at the confusion of such a usually confident and courageous man.
‘Vasilis, it’s not a bomb. If it were, it would have exploded by now with all that bouncing about. Please open it.’
Vasilis opened the package and came face to face with a severed embalmed hand.
‘That’s the Emperor’s left hand. Your next destination is Wallaman Falls near Ingam in Queensland, Australia. Your pilot awaits you.’
Vasilis was perplexed, as were the others, but they all gave in to her charm wrapped in iron will. They were entranced and enthralled by her and her body’s and her eyes’ promise of the dream of faraway lands of magic and blissful oblivion. They felt they could not resist, but they knew they should, and they did desist.
She was without doubt a redoubtable force and a, hopelessly, shameless temptress. Giorgos was a hapless romantic at heart, but deep down he felt a strange attraction to her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen her before, perhaps in a dream and he couldn’t believe his dream was standing before him in the flesh.