Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(38)

“Did you ever hear of someone—called—the Pythia?”

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Where is the forest?”

Felix rocked back on his heels, pursed his lips. “Maybe you should see a physician? Or down a stiff cognac?”

“Maybe I should return to Mesmer.” Dirk began to cry. “I left in disarray.”

“It’s being startled, it’s nothing, there now, straighten up, man.”

Dirk stood on weak knees; Felix leapt to support him. “I’ll take you back. Least I can do after smacking into you. Anyway, I’m curious; Mesmer may be Herr Doktor Quack, but he always turns over a bright thought or two despite himself. Wait here, hold on to the wall while I go tell Kurt what I’m doing. He can manage on his own. He’ll hire someone to clear away the mess. What that boy won’t do for a lark! The Baron will beat him silly with a cane. His father meant that hot-air assemblage for a gathering of scientific enthusiasts this weekend, I think. And it was hard to acquire, and dear. It came from Paris. We were taking it on a trial run. Without permission.”

Dirk watched Felix walk away. The young ’cellist was hobbling a little, too; he was hiding his own bruises in the interest of taking care of Dirk. The tears began to seep again; Dirk hid them in his collars two or three at a time, and had dry cheeks by the time Felix returned, offering an arm.





49.


“Are you willing to try again?” asked Mesmer. “If you can attain the proper calm and detachment after your hard knock in the street, I shall interview you.”

“I’d like to stay,” said Felix.

Dirk shook his head. “But don’t go far. Come back in when I say.”

Felix left the room and the Heilig-Geist Spital, looking for a coffeehouse and a broadsheet, and promised to return in an hour. Mesmer again lowered the drapes, and did something with glass balls that made a shimmering sound, like rounded prisms if there were such a thing, and in terrific curiosity and fear Dirk closed his eye.

When he opened it, Felix had returned, and the Doktor was drawing back the drapes with a palsied hand. “Do you want to say what you saw?”

Dirk shook his head. “I have no words for it.”

“You had many words for it half an hour ago, but I don’t know what they mean. I believe you mentioned the Pythia.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

Mesmer glanced at Felix, who obliged. “The Oracle of Delphi,” said Felix. “The famed seer of ancient Greece—”

“I never heard of such a creature—”

Felix rushed on. “She foretold the fates of kings and men, and spoke in riddles or spoke in plain tongue, as her visions allowed. Why did she speak to you? Frankly, I’m cut to the quick.”

“Stop, young man,” said Mesmer. “We must proceed with diligence. Reticence. Which means let him tell us.”

Dirk grimaced. “I’m not sure what an oracle is.”

“Or Pan?” asked Mesmer.

“Pan?”

“A sort of satyr, as you described him, half goat, half youth?”

“He was no youth! Old as a dwarf in the Black Forest.” These words spilled from Dirk’s mouth. They were almost the most definite thing he had ever said aloud. His eye widened at the sound of them.

“You have seen them before,” said Mesmer. “When you died as a child.”

“That’s balderdash.”

“You took something from the Pan. You took his knife.”

“I . . . thought he was the knife?”

“We often mistake the object for its essence. Philosophy will clear that muddle up in time. Do you know why they come to you?”

Felix couldn’t help blurting out, “He’s possessed! Dirk hears voices . . .”

“Shut up,” said Mesmer. “He sees visions. It’s not the same thing. Nor is it the same thing as memory, I think. Not like Nastaran’s vision of her childhood garden. Maybe this begins in memory, but a different sort of transaction is occurring. Do you know why these two come to you in their forest?”

“Their forest,” said Dirk. “Why is it . . . the way it is?”

“Do you want me to tell you what I think you said to me when you were—otherwise? Well, mesmerized?”

Dirk looked at Felix, whose face was beaming—jealousy, pride, curiosity. Dirk shrugged his shoulders, and sighed, and nodded.

So Mesmer told them both.



“The Pythia—the Oracle at Delphi—lived in as quiet a way as she could manage, given she was the most famous woman in the ancient world. To see her, crews rowed the triremes of kings up the strait of Corinth and anchored at Delphi. Slaves hauled tribute uphill to the temples of Apollo and Poseidon, among others. The visiting kings fasted. They cleansed. They paid out alms. They sometimes forgave debts. Quite a few of them found prostitutes lower down the hill but more of them did not even go looking. Then, usually heavyhearted from a question about some political or military mission, some concern of a royal house, like lines of succession or a proposed military allegiance, the great man of state would go alone into the temple of the Pythia.

“Having spent the previous night in a sacred grove, the priestess would also approach the house of prophecy and settle herself there. A vent of holy smoke roiled from a fissure in the earth below. She would fall into a trance. She would speak as the gods directed her to speak. Often when she awoke she couldn’t recall what prophecy she had made, and when it was told back to her she rarely took pains to decipher it.”