John Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon

I said, “Sir, we’ve been falsely accused.” My eyes filled with tears. It was like a plea, but I wasn’t ashamed. He put me at ease.

“Oh?” he said.

He was waiting, and I said, “My master’s the loyalest man in all Sparta. He’s too proud to say so himself, sir, but it’s true. He’s a man of the deepest integrity, sir. That’s why people hate him. And he’s a good man, absolutely law-abiding, only there’s certain people that spread rumors about him — people I could name: old Bottje, for instance, the rich old goof that peddles horse manure in the vineyards. I mean, they resent the way he dresses and things. Also, he puts them to shame. It’s the truth. They’re mediocre, you know, and my master’s a genius. People can’t stand that — they say things in public and then there’s Agathon showing that all they say is wrong. That bothers people.”

The ephor merely listened, far away as the mountains, the eagles that fly beyond the rims of the farthest mountains, but I could see he was taking it all in. He’d weigh it, maybe begin an investigation. I glanced over at Agathon. He was looking at me with quizzical interest, as if I was talking about somebody he didn’t know.

The ephor was still waiting, looking me up and down with cool but not unfriendly detachment, the kind of thing you expect from a good administrator. The others stood a step behind him, one of them fat and kindly, soft-looking, rubbing his little hands together, eager to be my friend, the other ephor short and square, stony- faced, the kind that might be your friend and then again might not.

“Lykourgos knows about him, sir,” I said. “Agathon worked for Lykourgos for a long time. He was one of his top advisers.”

“But Lykourgos is at Delphi,” the ephor said. He was honestly concerned. He sucked in the corner of his lower up, thinking about how he could get through to Lykourgos.

“Well,” I said, “the kings know about Agathon too.”

His eyebrows lowered a little. He was still looking at me hard, judging me carefully. “Do you think they’d care?”

He was right, I knew. What was justice to them? But I was excited. The ephor was a man who leveled with you. I’d been right to trust him. Now I wished the shit I’d written something to give them, some kind of point- by-point defense. That reminded me, and I said, “Sir, what’s the charge against us?”

His eyes were still coming at me firm as nails and his look was still mild, but his mind was a thousand miles away, reconsidering our whole case. Then he looked past me, over my head, remembering something. He worked it out, made some decision, then turned to the jailer. “See that they get everything they need,” he said. Without another word, he left, striding across the sloping field with the other two ephors hurrying behind him and the soldiers and men with banners running to catch up.

Agathon smiled. “You played it brilliantly,” he said.

I could have hit him with a chair, but I kept my temper. We had hope now. “You’re crazy,” I said. “I mean literally.” And it came to me that it was true. He was a great Seer, yes, and he was a good old man, but he was out of his mind, insane. I’d been cowed by him before. I hadn’t realized that a genius can be as stupid as anybody else at one or two points; but I knew now. I wasn’t playing, I was pleading with that ephor with all my heart. And if Agathon couldn’t see that, it had to be because he’d spent so much time seeing through men’s lies he’d forgotten what plain truth sounded like. I glanced at him to see if my guess about him was true. He was still smiling, and he’d rolled the pupils of his eyes up out of sight. It scared me, that sudden realization of how crazy he really was. I was going to have to fight for us both — with no idea what it was I was fighting or who it was that was against us. There he sat, filthy and fat, lewd, with those horrible eye whites staring at me and cracks of dirt around his neck and sweat beads on his forehead and the tip of his nose. He was helpless, I could see it now, which meant not only that I had to do it all, I had to outmaneuver his craziness to do it I wanted to cry. But there was still that tall, cool ephor. There was hope.

I decided to work the whole thing out in writing. That was what they’d given us the parchment for — I could see that now.

What are the most likely charges against Agathon?

1. Corrupting the youth, mainly because of his singing.

2. Friendship with Helots; hence, possible complicity in the revolution. (Nonsense.)

3. Talking too much about the kings, etc.

4. Public nuisance (smelling of onions, breaking wind, etc.).

5. Bad personal appearance.

6. Molesting old women.

I kept staring at the list. I couldn’t believe it. Surely there had to be more to it than that! Surely they could see that all these were mere foibles or jokes!

When I glanced over at Agathon, he was looking at me as coolly, as rationally, as the ephor had, his interlaced fingers resting on his beard. The complete transformation unsettled me. He was solemner than a funeral pyre. He said, “I’ll tell you another thing about Lykourgos, my boy. He gets headaches.”

I waited.

“He’s had them all his life,” Agathon said. “He’s asked me about them once or twice, since I pretend to a smattering of medical knowledge. I suggested that he have himself poisoned: then all our headaches would end at once.” Agathon laughed wildly, then sobered. “He rarely smiles at my jokes. He merely stares at me, mournful, and sometimes shakes his head. I have a theory about his headaches, though. He gets them from clenching his teeth. I told him once: ‘Lykourgos, that which is unnatural, Nature destroys. You’re a doomed man.’ ‘All life is doomed, finally,’ he said.”

You see what I have to contend with.

Peeker labors on. God bless him. As the soldiers labor on, dying for freedom (both sides) at Stanyclarus Plain and along the coast I can gather no news, either by normal or by extraordinary channels, on the plague.

Last night, unluckily, my jailer did not put the planks up over my door, so that Iona’s boy couldn’t visit me, if he meant to, for lack of cover. I sat wrapped in blankets beside the door squinting out into the ghostly snowlight, hoping to catch some sign of life, some sign that he was at least there, waiting for his chance. The sticks on the hearth crackled pleasantly, but my mind was full of Iona, Tuka, my poor unlucky children, my childhood friend, poor Konon. I watched the stars, unnaturally bright and distinct, riddlesome, imperceptibly turning above me, counting my hours, and they mixed themselves up, somehow, with my thoughts of people. I scoff at astrologers and tease my jailer with the antics of those Great Pretenders, but I know I too am a kind of pretender in matters of Destiny. I clown, pretending to experience what in fact I do experience: I mime and burlesque my own nature in an abaxial attempt to get it clear; but I understand nothing, for all my fine reputation. I strut or rant or giggle or taunt reality with obscene little gestures, like some actor imploring tier on tier of silent observers to show some reaction — laugh, throw stones — but the stars remain aloof, expressionless, creating — perhaps even purposefully (as an audience voluntarily gives the actor time) — the span of my existence. At times, squinting up, furtive, humbly amenable, I am filled with a superstitious fear that they know the plot, and possibly control it. Or that, in any case, someone, Something, knows the plot How else can I explain these “impressions” that occasionally come to me — clear knowledge of distant things, things still in the future, almost always things of no interest to me whatever? No; precision: I have an unreasonable intuition of deadly inevitability, both in myself and in the world. The skull behind Zeus’s mask.