Clowns At Midnight (22 page)

There was no stopping him. ‘Just the name.’

‘He believed that Apollo, god of the sun, light and life, reason and order, has Dionysos as his alter ego, the Prince of Darkness who tears creatures to pieces and represents wildness and frenzy. But the thing is, Fludd saw them as the
one
being, the Dionysian shadow in the Apollonian light, as it has been so well put. By night Dionysos tears creatures into seven pieces, by day Apollo restores them to life again. They represent polarities, but they’re aspects of a single force: Day Sun and Night Sun. The original Dionysos is much closer to the original Apollo, inextricably linked. He
completes
Apollo, something dynamic and fine, crucial for life, on the side of life.’

‘Not a devil turned comedian.’

That’s the way!
The windows shuddered at a sudden gust. Things banged in the yard.

Carlo laughed. ‘Exactly. Exactly so. At Delphi,
the
classic Apollonian site, three months of the year were sacred to Dionysos. Think of it! The step where the oracle’s tripod stood was sacred to him, this other god, perhaps as a gate into the underworld. You can see the vital connection, the completion. It was later, when the Orphic mysteries took hold, that they were pried apart, and our poor old Night Sun became demonised.’

I let him play it out. ‘Which is not how it was originally.’

Carlo pushed back from the table, rose and walked over to the terracotta mask, stood looking up at its striking gaze. The antique face had an autumnal cast in the raw light.

‘David, the worship of Dionysos was so popular and enduring because it stood for indestructible life in the face of death, not the individual life that dies. That is what Dionysos really was. You see why he was so durable, why the Church fought so hard to discredit him. How easy to see the riot of the Bacchic frenzy—the
athesauriston
, they called it then, Dionysian rapture—as something inappropriate. It resembled excess, reckless and amoral conduct. How easy to forget that wine was used to bring the human mind out of its hidebound, intellectual pursuits back to the level of greater life, greater nature. Less of the head; more of the heart. How inevitable and ironic that in its symbolic role, the emblematic Dionysian wine should then be made part of the Christian Mass.’

Another refrain. All of our meetings before the mask had involved wine, I realised, as if part of some sacrament. It gave the terrible, gleeful terracotta eyes a new power, an even more sinister intensity.

‘Did they use fear?’ I asked, already knowing the answer. ‘Make terror part of their techniques for heightening experience? Most religions do.’

Carlo returned to the table, sat again, the mask a rising moon at his shoulder once more. All of it planned. Only the wind was the outsider, the random factor.

‘Fear, dread and panic.
È vero
! It’s what we said the other day about appropriate fear. As maenads, the women were predators, David. Fludd was close to it. In
The Bacchae
, Euripides’ rather unsatisfactory play, the maenads tear King Pentheus apart. Shocking and amazing for the Greeks of that time to hear described, such a violation of order and authority. The maenads did it. It was
their
mystery, a very great female mystery; everything was permitted. They say it was women who originally brought Dionysos to Athens. In the vase paintings and frescoes you see the women in their processions with their thyrssos wands: the wand tipped with a pine cone. The men are portrayed either as satyrs—horned, goat-legged, ready templates for Satan—or sileni: tailed, half-animal attendants, or else as human males in feminine garb. It’s true. In reality men had to dress as women to participate. But it’s the stories of maenads as sexual predators that led to the cult being misunderstood. People forgot that sexual frenzy is just rampant nature in its dramatic polarity to death. The ecstasy of the dance and the hunt is just as wild, but we always remember the sexual because it gives a profoundly personal taste of life and death in the same instant.’ There was little of the pig farmer in his words now. ‘
All
things must pass.
I
will be replaced in spite of everything. The world
will
move on. The ancients knew this, accepted and resisted this just as we do. But many feared the wildness, even as they were drawn to it. Still how it is. And that is how fine Dionysos became carousing Bacchus and the Etruscan Fufluns, cheapened, debased, brought down.’

‘Turned into Satan,’ I said. ‘Made a comedian.’

The mask grinned riotously.
Dah-dah!
I imagined the rimshot. Even now comedy kept me safe.

Carlo smiled and raised a hand, made a wholly Sardinian gesture of agreement. ‘It’s natural to discredit what makes you uncomfortable. They turned Apollo and Helios into Christ, reduced Great Rhea, Demeter and Sophia to the Virgin Mary, scattered the female qualities. What else can you expect? How does the song go: “You take what you need and leave the rest”? St Paul and St Peter won, divided the god, and many good things came of it.’

‘And much was lost,’ I said, to show I understood. ‘A joy of being in the world. A courage to face the whole.’

‘As you say, David. Re-arranged. Re-accommodated. Unless someone remembers.’

I ate more prosciutto and considered our other conversations. This, too, was the refrain: Dionysos and Apollo as rehearsals for Christ. An idea whose time had come but proved ultimately too much, too demanding, and was broken asunder. This
was
today’s lesson. I could go now. Carlo would let me. The mask would.

That’s all folks!

‘How do you reconcile this with being a Catholic?’ I had to ask it. ‘Being brought up in the Church?’

Carlo shrugged. ‘Once you allow the trinity, the Eucharist, transubstantiation, the blessed Mother
and
the Lord of the Dance, the idea of an all-powerful, all-creating, absolute being, you have to allow what else he is, what else he has been and can be, inside and outside what we can know. You also allow that he is a metaphor for something. As a creation, you allow, too, that you cannot know the system while you are inside the system. So much for mediators and intercessors. So much for morality. You must allow
all
the ways a creator has used to reveal his word. It’s the
all
that poses the difficulty. Ask Milton. Ask the Jesuits. People would deny you that
all
.’

We continued eating and finishing our wine, as if that were why we were here and not the words. And perhaps that was the truth of it. It was the emotion in what he said that mattered. Sage and pig farmer on one side of the table, writer and coulrophobe on this side, both sat as one in the play of emotion.

‘There may be towers elsewhere,’ I said. ‘Other dead towers. Disconnected.’

Carlo looked at me sharply, as if fascinated by the prospect, then nodded and smiled. ‘
Sì
. Though I suspect not, we should go to Argentina and look, yes? When this wind dies down. Search New Zealand and South Africa, travel through Oceania. Seek more balance in the world.’

‘Completion,’ I said, using his word, letting him know that I accepted it.

‘You are good to share this.’

‘I’m sure others do. Others must. Raina surely.’

Carlo smiled. ‘She is wonderful,
sì
. But the tower bothers her.’

‘The pagan aspect?’

‘The darkness it represents. She can only take so much. Go out to your maze, you crazy man! That is Raina. But she tries. She always tries.’

‘But there are the others. Your friends. The Bittis, the Pellegrinis and Tramontes. The Kesbys. Gemma and Zoe.’ I let the last name hang, trying to read his dark eyes, so aware of the other pair watching from the wall, smiling into light and time, ready to outlive us all.

But Carlo nodded, gave no other reaction. It was the perfect strategy. He just remained silent, appearing to reflect.

There was no point pursuing it.

Carlo, who is Zoe?

Ah, David
.
What did Gemma say?

‘So we have the Night Sun,’ I said. ‘The mamuthone. Some Dionysian connection. But the blood on the bells –’

‘Pig or sheep’s blood. Goat’s blood,’ Carlo said. ‘Has to be.’

‘Can you be sure?’

‘It’s likely, David. Someone is scaring us. Using fear, as you say.’

‘What do we do?’

‘I’ll talk to Tomaso. Ask him why the carving would be there. Why he and Papa went to the tower as young men. What they did. Why they built the tower.’

‘I thought it was already there. Like the maze.’

‘
Scusi
, David. Papa built the maze. I need to know why
they
built the tower. Made the sign. I’m sure they did.’

More revelations. ‘Will he tell?’

‘No. But I will watch his eyes too. I will give him silence. He is family. He needs to sit at my table,
ne
? He must choose. I will go and ask him.’ Carlo stood again, letting me know that we had reached the end of this exchange.

My leave to go. But then a single word struck. I will watch his eyes
too
. As he had been watching mine. Carlo was letting me know he knew of my position, my continuing impasse, had been watching, deciding. He was choosing me, guiding and cautioning me, releasing me all in a word. I moved back from the table, letting him see that I accepted it.

Which I had. Because now at least this part of the progress was complete. I had my leave to visit Gemma.

There was just one thing. I indicated the mask.

‘Carlo, that isn’t Dionysos.’

He shrugged. ‘Who can say? He was never shown like that. He was always the beautiful young man with the vine wreath on his brow. Very much Alexander. Very much Jesus Christ. But, as we agree, the devil was made into a comedian. What else could have been done to him before? Maybe Pan and Silenus, the satyrs and maenads are just parts of the god too.’

‘Maybe the Church simply cannot contain him as Christ.’

‘
Sì
, it has always been difficult. Perhaps he is the one we are not meant to forget, David. Even when we have broken him and stolen his name.’

‘Maybe this is what was left when they broke him down in some earlier age.’

‘
Sì
, or simply what else he has to be. Never one thing.’

We stood smiling, agreeing, the mask smiling with us, locked in its rapture.

‘Come back soon!’ Carlo said then, leading me to the front door and onto the veranda, freeing me into the wearying frenzy of the day. ‘I must visit Tomaso and see what he and Papa were playing at.’

‘I’d like to call about that, if I may. Stay part of this.’

‘I want you to. Phone tonight, please. I will tell you what I learn.’

‘Thank you, Carlo.’

‘Thank
you
, David.
Ciao
!’

Back home I forced more words on the novel, two thousand, three, but it was hard going and poor Rollo Jaine suffered for it. Still, he had it easy. He took whatever I gave him, went wherever I sent him, did whatever I made him do, suffered my shortcomings, my lack of inspiration, as if knowing I could always save him later.

Knowing Rollo—were it possible to ask—he’d probably say: I take what I’m given. David hasn’t let me down yet.

But finally I just sat staring at the screen, going with my thoughts.

Could it be this simple: Carlo’s father and Tomaso building a dead tower, a forgotten
nuraghe
, setting up a place for the Night Sun, arranging for occasional mamuthone custodians to visit, keep watch, cry Iackhos in the night?

I had so little of it. As much as I liked Carlo and Raina, and found myself drawn more and more to Gemma, I trusted none of them now, believed nothing but the general direction of where this seemed to be leading.

But it was, surprisingly, enough. Exasperating, yes, but when I thought of how my time at Starbreak Fell would be without any of it, I realised just how I’d come to depend on the events of the past two weeks. Less than two weeks—and it had become everything.

The phone brought me back. I snatched up the handset.

‘Hello?’

‘David, it’s Carlo.’

‘Carlo, it’s good to hear you. Did you ask him? What did Tomaso say?’

‘David, it is complicated. He swears he and Papa never put a carving there. He demands to see it.’

Still no answers then. ‘Why did they build the tower?’

‘Because as boys they loved the
nuraghi
. They swore that one day they would build one.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘It is enough. I raise goats and sheep with my pigs because I am Sardinian. People say it’s crazy. My own children. It’s enough.’

‘So what else can we do?’

‘It becomes a matter of honour,
ne
? Raina says to let it be now. Tomaso is old. Let it be.’

‘Will you take him there?’

‘He wants to see it.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow, or Tuesday. He is keen. Someone has tampered with his tower.’

His
tower.

‘May I come along?’

‘I will need to think. I did not accuse him, you understand, but he must not sense I distrust his word. It depends on the day. Let’s say tomorrow, between ten and eleven. Best you be nearby, the good neighbour. If it’s right, I will suggest you accompany us.’

‘To share a neighbourly glass of wine.’

‘Of course to share a glass of wine! We may be Sardinian but we’re not crazy!’

We bid each other goodnight, and I went back to my writing, filling an hour or more cleaning up the text I’d written earlier. All that had happened had made me sensitive to character motivation, reminding me that often there was
no
understanding why people did things. Once you granted the real reason I avoided seeing the back of a particular cereal box or driving by a McDonald’s, or why Carlo Risi hung a terracotta mask on his wall, you could allow almost anything.

Before I knew it, it was six o’clock. The wind had fallen away, leaving an uncanny silence, and I was drawn from the screen by the sounds of koels, currawongs and other birds starting to roost for the evening.