Piranesi(11)

‘Nothing. Just keep quiet like I told you.’

‘I will concentrate on lending you the strength of my Spirit,’ I said.

‘Fine. Good. You do that.’ He returned briefly to his shining device to check something. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘This first part of the ritual is where I’ve made most changes. Up to now I’ve been simply invoking the knowledge and asking it to come to me and bestow itself upon me. That doesn’t seem to have got me anywhere so instead I’m going to summon the spirit of Addy Domarus.’

‘Who or what is Addy Domarus?’ I asked.

‘A king. Long dead. Someone who possessed the knowledge. Or some of it at any rate. I’ve had success calling on him for aid in other rituals, notably for …’ He stopped abruptly and for a brief moment looked confused. ‘I’ve had success calling on him in the past,’ he finished.

The Other assumed the noble posture of an Interpreter of Mysteries. He straightened his back, pulled back his shoulders and lifted up his head. He put me in mind of the Statue of a Hierophant in the Nineteenth Southern Hall.

Suddenly the significance of what he had said struck me.

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. ‘You have never said before that you knew one of the names of the Dead! Do you know which one he is? Please tell me if you do! I would very much like to call him by his name when I take him offerings of food and drink!’

The Other stopped what he was doing and frowned. ‘What?’ he said.

‘The Dead,’ I went on, eagerly. ‘If you do indeed know one of their names, then please tell me to which of them it belongs.’

‘Sorry? You’ve lost me. Which of the what was what?’

‘You said that in times gone by one or more of the Dead possessed the Knowledge. Then they lost it. So I wanted to know which of them it was. The Biscuit-Box Man? The Concealed Person? Or was it one of the People of the Alcove?’

The Other gazed at me blankly. ‘Biscuit box … What are you talking about? Oh, wait. Is this something to do with those bones you found? No. No-no-no-no-no. Those aren’t … That’s not … Oh, for God’s sake! Didn’t I just say that I need to focus? Didn’t I just say that? Can we not do this now? I’m trying to get this ritual sorted.’

Immediately I felt ashamed. I was impeding the Other’s important work. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

‘I don’t have time to answer irrelevant questions,’ he snapped.

‘Sorry.’

‘If you could just be quiet, that would be wonderful.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

‘Fine. Good. OK. Where was I?’ said the Other. He took a deep breath and stood very erect again, rearing up his head. He raised his arms and in sonorous tones he called on Addy Domarus several times and in several different ways to Come! Come!

In the ensuing silence he gradually let his arms fall to his sides, and relaxed. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘For the real thing I’ll maybe have a brazier. Some incense burning. We’ll see. Then after the invocation comes the enumeration. I name the powers I seek: the vanquishing of Death, the penetration of lesser minds, invisibility etc., etc. It’s important to visualise each power and so, as I name them, I imagine myself living forever, reading someone else’s thoughts, becoming invisible and so on.’

I raised my hand politely. (I did not want to be accused of asking irrelevant questions again.)

‘Yes?’ he said, sharply.

‘Shall I do that too?’

‘Yes. If you like.’

In the same sonorous voice the Other recited the list of powers that the Knowledge bestows, and when he intoned, I name the power of flight!, I pictured Myself transformed into an osprey, flying with the other ospreys over the Surging Tides. (Of all the powers that the Other talks about, this is my favourite. To be perfectly honest, I am largely indifferent to the rest. What use would invisibility be to me? Most days there is no one here to see me except the birds. Nor do I have any desire to live forever. The House ordains a certain span for birds and another for men. With this I am content.)

The Other reached the end of his list. I could see that he was thinking about the parts of the ritual he had just performed and that he was not satisfied with them. There was a scowl on his face, and he stared off into the distance. ‘I feel like I should be addressing all this to some sort of – some kind of energy, something vital and alive. It is power that I seek and therefore I should be speaking these words to something that is already powerful. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘But there isn’t anything powerful. There isn’t even anything alive. Just endless dreary rooms all the same, full of decaying figures covered with bird shit.’ He fell into an unhappy silence.

I have known for many years that the Other does not revere the House in the same way I do, but it still shocks me when he talks like this. How can a man as intelligent as him say there is nothing alive in the House? The Lower Halls are full of sea creatures and vegetation, many of them very beautiful and very strange. The Tides themselves are full of movement and power so that, while they may not exactly be alive, neither are they not-alive. In the Middle Halls are birds and men. The droppings (of which he complains) are signs of Life! Nor is he correct to say that the Halls are all the same. They vary a great deal in the style of their Columns, Pilasters, Niches, Apses, Pediments etc., as well as in the number of their Doors and Windows. Every Hall has its Statues and all the Statues are unique, or if there are any repetitions they must occur at vast distances as I have yet to see one.