Dear Arley,
I hope this letter finds you well, and disposed to read a rather long one. As you know, the Peek Creek in my garden has made it possible for me to be forever sharing Beau's life. And that is what I have been doing, for he and Uncle Richearth have been making me rather nervous.
“Give me a few minutes to study how we should
make our descent into hell,” Beaurenard said to Uncle Richie. “When one
descends to dangerous places one must descend prepared for whatever might
happen.”
Beau had surrounded himself with books on
classical mythology, among them the little green book decorated with golden
apples, plump and winged with wings of blue. I'm sure you remember that lovely book!
“No! No need!” responded Uncle Richearth. “Hell
is a come-as-you-are experience. Those who go there go just as they were caught
by death, because they have no choice. If not, who would go there? Or anywhere, looking awful? Can’t you
see that once you are there anything can happen?”
“No, I don’t think so,” argued Beau. “If anything
could happen there, all those people who don’t want to be there could flee from
that site. And none of them break out of there, so not just anything can
happen. Well, I read here that some people do make it out of there. Ascending
with crowns of green and white poplar leaves on their heads. But that is a
regulated exodus, planned and controlled like almost everything that happens in
Hades. They seem to be quite organized. Perhaps we won’t have time to make
pondered decisions, but at least we can make informed ones.”
Beau was consulting those books on classic
mythology very attentively. He didn’t want to risk making mistakes in a place
like Hades. He felt he would have to be very diplomatic, even if he disliked
the place, and respect the customs and rules and uses of those people as much
as they might repulse him.
“The folks with the poplar in their hair are
revenants, or reborns, whatever. You have to die first to be one of those, and
we can’t do that. Are you thinking of consulting the Eleusinians? They are the
ones that know how to triumph down there. But those guys don’t share their
secrets. They have been as tight as clams about them for thousands of years.
They won’t open up for you. They didn’t even for me, and I am Demeter’s very own
godson, who used to crash their mysterious bashes to have good fun there. I
never did join the sect though. It would have killed my daddy if I had. I vex
and annoy him now and again, but I never go too far. It wouldn’t be considerate
of me, would it?”
“You are Demeter’s godson?”
“That’s
why one of my names is Demetrius. No, my little friend, no. There is no way to
be prepared for hell. Anything can happen there.”
“But there are things we know, for example,
one mustn’t eat anything there.”
“From there. But who is to stop us
from lugging a picnic hamper? With champagne and caviar and fairy bread of the
kind that is always freshly toasted. You know those ridiculous people who
travel to New York with a huge salami sausage and potato omelettes in their
suitcases in case they hate the food in the Big Apple? Well, actually, that is the way one should go
to hell. Have you read in those books that this can’t be done? No, you haven’t.
Because it can. I’m glad you brought food up because the sirens invited us to
breakfast, a grand seafood fest it was too, but by noon we might get peckish.
So we had better provide ourselves with victuals.”
“On a picnic to hell. Tea among the asphodels.
What ideas you have, Dimmy! No, I haven’t read or heard anywhere that it is
forbidden to take food there, but I suspect it is, because I know one has to
board the barge stark naked, leaving everything behind. Me, I am going to fly
over the river. What is clear we have to take with us is a map. We desperately
need to identify Mnemosyne’s lake and be able to tell it from the other bodies
of water there. If we have to drink something, it had better be from this lake.
It is the only potable water available and the only thing it might make us is omniscient. You see, there is
a river of tears and probably snot and another river of spit and curses.”
“And a third of fiery water. And I don’t mean
whiskey,” nodded our uncle.
“Those waters are dangerous even for the
dead. We could not only die of disgust, we could catch something fay healers
have never heard of. Nor do we want to lose our memories because of the waters
of Lethe. We would wander all over that place forever, asking ourselves what
the hell we are doing there.”
“Even if you couldn’t find the exit, surely
you would find something to do rather than roam about aimlessly. You are always
up to something. I would kill time flirting with the ladies. You know, there
are some very interesting women down there. Why, I even once toyed with Helen
of Troy, but her husband spirited her off to the Isles of the Blessed before
she could elope with me and trigger another war. She was exactly as gorgeous as
they say. And so friendly!”
“I don’t want to toy with anyone. I am like
Odysseus. I’m very happy with the girl I have back home,” said Beau.
“Why, so am I!” our uncle assured Beau.
“Delighted! But I wouldn’t be home, would I? And if I had to spend time roving memoryless
in hell, I would have to do something to make this bearable. Look, there are
these ladies who are in charge of the lighting. Torchbearing nymphs. Lampades
they are called. And they are quite sociable. If they like you, they might lead
you to Elysium. Over there, one is almost as happy as we are back home. And what
do you know? Maybe I would find Helen.”
“Friendly they might seem to you,” said Beau,
“who never know who you are really dealing with. According to these books what
there is down there is vampires.”
“Not the lampades, no! I don’t know why
people always associate available women with bloodsuckers! The vampires down
there are the lamias. Affairs with lamias always turn out sadly, that I will
admit. But if you like redheads, there are the empusai. Their hair is always in
flames. But it is trick fire that doesn’t burn one. Just for show it is. They
are really evil spirits, but ridiculously silly ones. They appear before men
looking like lovely hetairai. What makes them special is that one of their legs
is like a goat’s, while the other is made of metal. They are very sensitive
about this, so don’t mention it to them, or they will break into boisterous
tears. I have never offended them, but I have seen it happen. Sorry spectacle,
that. Ah, and there are also mormos, bogey women who frighten bad little boys, if that is
your thing.”
“NO!”
hollered Beau. “I see you do know the place. You’ve been there before. You've made that clear and I shall have to trust you to guide me. But no gallant adventures, no!”
“Oh,
there was a time when I would flit in
and out of there like the proverbial fellow who shares your last name. At first they used
to confuse me with Orpheus. `What?´ they would say, `Here again to visit Eurydice?´
I’ve never flirted with Eurydice. I respect Orpheus. Well, rather it is
Eurydice who respects her husband, but, one way or another, Orpheus is
respected.”
“You are making me more nervous than I
already am with all this chatter,” said Beau. “What matters is how to get out
of there.”
“Look, one thing there is none of down there
is music. In any hell, music is verbotten. Even in mortal hells, that is how it
is. You see a country that has forbidden music? Well that country is a hell on
earth. You can bet your neck on that. Don’t you know music civilizes? And they
don’t want any of that in hells. Only yells and lamentations. And in Hades
there is nothing to drown these out with. So when I want to leave Hades, I start to
sing. And they kick me out ipso facto.”
“That easy? Don’t musicians go to hell?”
“Some do. But they stop being musicians as
soon as they drink the waters of Lethe and forget their do-re-mis.”
“And no one has ever tried to force you to
drink that blasted water?”
“No. What happens is that when I sing, the
world stops. Everyone is fascinated. Many sob in silence, but moved, not from
pain or sorrow. What I do is something similar to what filibusters do in
parliaments. Whereas they speak and speak and no one can interrupt them till
they go hoarse and faint, I sing and sing till I’m out of there and no one can
silence me.”
“But surely you have to shut up at some
point, and…”
“I sing my way to the exit, dancing and tripping and fluttering to the door. And I step out quite calmly, with one delicate
pirouette, because the gate opens for me
when it hears my voice.”
“And no one else takes the opportunity to
rush out?”
“There must be nobody deaf there, because no
one does. I’m telling you, they remain like paralyzed.”
“Does that mean I will be able to step out
too or will I become frozen like everyone else?”
“You are fay, Beau, not a stiff, nor a
citizen of the underworld of any kind. You aren’t ignorant of the power of music, like many a
savage beast.You will fly out of there next to me. Besides, they eventually
pacted with me to let me in and out of there whenever I please as long as I do
it quietly. That is a deal we made. Nothing will hold you back in there while
you are by my side, Beau!”
“I don’t know. I find it difficult to believe
nothing bad will happen to me if I go to Hades.”
“Stop worrying already and trust me, will
you? You’re with a man who always wins!”
“Okay. Let the katabasis begin,” said Beau.
And he turned himself into an enormous
wolf.
“What the…hell? Beaurenard, is that you?” asked our astonished uncle, who
couldn’t understand what had happened.
“Of course it is! As if I would go to a place
like Hades lacking a disguise. I have a reputation to defend! Besides, there is
a three-headed dog that is the doorman there, and not all dogs take kindly to me.
I’m a fox fairy, and if that dog notices this, there could be trouble. He’s
said to have mean fleas.”
“There is no way I am letting you come with
me looking like Fenrir about to end the world! For heaven’s sake, it is me you are frightening!”
“Good. Because I haven’t even blinked yet.”
“Pretend to be Michael Jackson instead! We
could sing a duet.”
“Jackson was very scandalous. Better Elvis.
There are so many Elvises popping about that I might go unnoticed.”
“It won’t matter either way because nobody
there will remember either bloke. All inmates deprived of memory, you know.”
And that is how our Uncle Richearth and
Beaurenard set off for Hades, where what they found had nothing to do with what
they expected.
First, Uncle Richie took Beau to Epirus, on
the northwestern side of Greece, and from there to the village of Mesopotamos,
to the Necromanteion of Acheron. In the ghost of this temple and oracle of the
dead there is a subterranean chamber of silence, and in it, a passage to the
underworld. In this chamber, no sound can be heard that is made by those
within, and our uncle had to lead Richie with gestures and by the arm, to a
secret door to a tunnel through which they descended to a wetland covered with
waterlilies.
“We are next to one bank of the river
Acheron,” said Uncle Richearth as soon as he could speak, “a river that passes
through dark gorges and goes underground in certain spots, like this one. And
on the other bank is the Underworld. But I think that before we call the
ferryman, we should have a taste of the lunch we bring with us. Look, there is
a bench of stone among the waterlilies. Whitely it peeps, mutely beckoning us.”
“There is very little light here. I don’t
know how these flowers can grow here.”
“We can see, even if dimly, because here is
where the last light that penetrates the path to Hades stops advancing.
Further, the lighting depends on torches.”
But that was the last of what our uncle knew
about Hades, because as I have mentioned before, things had changed there.
Richie and Beau waded to the stone bench, of
alabaster it seemed to be to me as I watched them, and they sat there and drank
chamvá, which is what the bubbly Uncle Rich’s vineyards and winecellars produce
is called, and which everyone finds superior to any cava or champagne in both
the mortal and fay worlds. It went a bit to my head, but since it is top quality, it didn't fuddle me. They also munched on toast with fresh, melting
butter and caviar of the kind the fay
sturgeons sell themselves, and on assorted gourmet sandwiches and tons of fruit
that had been watered with the purest, clearest water.
“Let’s not leave any debris behind,” said
Beau, and he made what there was of that disappear, save for a glass jar that had held faux tuna fish in Pedro Ximénez, because our uncle had been accosted by a tiny,
emerald sea horse that had settled on one of his soaking wet shoes and would
not be persuaded to move away. So Uncle Richie washed the jar and when it was
clean, he put the seahorse in it, promising to take it to his aquarium in Apple
Island. Since the jar was magical, the water in it never fell out, even if one
failed to cover it with a lid. So Richie put that in the hamper, next to all the
fruit and sandwiches that had been left over. And I don’t want to make a spoiler, but I know
you will worry about the seahorse, so I will reassure you getting ahead and
telling you that it was not left behind in Hades.
When they were done eating, Uncle Richie glanced at his platinum pocket watch and said, “I don’t know what is happening
here. Where the devil is the
ferryman? We’ve been here a while and there’s no trace of him. Or the ferry.
And it is quite large. One can’t easily miss it.”
The clock struck two p.m. and suddenly a
spotlight lit up and focused on a demon that looked disturbingly like Mr. Binky
when he had dressed himself as an infernal civil servant for one of Michael’s
Halloween parties. This was not the usual demon Hades was famous for though. He had the horns, but strangely, he also wore glasses and had a necktie hanging down his bare chest. The demon was sitting behind
a large desk on which there was a
portable computer.
“Excuse me,” said Beau to the fellow with the
computer. “Are you an agathodaemon or a kakodaimon? Or perhaps not one at all?”
“Do you have an appointment?” asked the
demon.
“Bad,” whispered Beau to our uncle. “That is
what he is. He needn’t say more.”
“Hey, you! Where is Charon?” Uncle Richearth
asked the demon.
“Are you here to see him?”
“We expected to. He’s always hanging about
somewhere here.”
“Workers have a right to a vacation.”
“He is a worker? But he loved to do this. Or
that was what he was destined for. He was the
bargeman. He has another life?”
“Not because he wants to. But we have forced
him to have one. He can’t be here perpetually, working as if he is on a
Japanese strike. It would make us look bad.”
“Oh, for the love of Rhiannon!” exclaimed
Beau softly. “I fear we are in totally unknown whereabouts. And I trying to
prepare our trip! How deluded I was!” And to the demon he said, “Who is boss
here? Has the god Hades suffered a coup?”
“That fellow has to do whatever the citizens
ask him to do. No more doing as he pleases. Greece invented democracy. Let this
be evident!”
“This has got to be a joke,” Beau whispered
to our uncle. “Maybe by the Jocose Gang, in revenge for the Kittykids’ party.
Are you sure this was the right entrance?”
“Totally,” answered Uncle Richie. And he said
to the fellow with the computer, “Listen, is music still forbidden here?”
“Of course it is. Only dirges. Shouts and
laments are also permitted, as long as they don’t malign the regime. Chorales
of hired mourners, well we even have contests. Our regime loves contests.”
“The regime is a devil-may-care republic?”
asked Beau.
“Abstain from insults,” said the demon. “Why
are you here?”
“I’ve come to see some old friends,” said
Uncle Richearth. “I haven’t seen them since Offenbach composed Orpheus in the Underworld. Back then, I
came to teach the nymphs to dance the Infernal
Galop, that is, the can can. It was a dance I thought they should know how to do. A long time ago that was. It’s about time I
dropped by to say hi, don’t you think?”
“We had better get to filling in some forms,”
said the demon, “because I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“And why not? We’re all speaking in ancient
Greek, aren’t we? And my ancient Greek is impeccable. We should be able to
communicate.”
“Are you Asians or Europeans?”
“What could that possibly matter?” asked
Uncle Richearth. “Who cares what a dead guy’s origin is? That is what comes
here, isn’t it? Dead people. Of all sorts. Have you become racists now or what?”
“I suspect it might be because of the
judges,” intervened Beau. “I’ve read there is this one bloke who judges the
Asians and this other bloke who takes charge of the Europeans. Is it because of
that? Or not?” Beau asked the demon.
“I’m writing here Europeans,” said the demon,
“from this side of the Hellespont.” And he began to hit the keys of the
keyboard. “So now, date and hour of death?”
“Painfully early this morning,” said Uncle
Richie, “is when we decided to come here, isn’t that so, Beau?” and a little
lower he added, “Don’t you say we aren’t dead because this fellow looks
inflexible.”
“Who came to fetch you? Didn’t anyone? Not even
Hermes? You gave no notice?”
“Well, we were with the sirens. They told us
to come here. Directly. We were supposed to give notice we were going to die?
How can one do that? One isn't always aware one is about to croak, is one?”
The demon replied, “Remitted by the sirens.
Death by drowning is what I am going to record here, though you don’t look too
wet. Only the edges of your trousers are humid. It looks as if you have been
eating, but you don’t seem to have been poisoned. Have you been drinking? Teachers
shouldn’t. Give a good example.”
“Why would we be teachers?” asked our uncle.
“I’m a gentleman farmer and a vocational singer.”
“Yeah, sure. You just said you came here to teach. Which makes sense, because the only people who come here
nowadays are teachers, though usually of dead languages. An occasional archaelogist, and
certain admirers of the old religions. No dancing here. Only writhing, leaping in pain and fainting. I’ll write down music teachers. Can you
sing a thernody?”
“First
thing I learned to sing,” lied Uncle Richie. “You want me to teach people to
sing funeral songs? Because I think…”
“The few people that come here today have all
heard of Elysium and want to make it there. Yes, it is a shame, but that paradise still exists and only people who were too stupendous in life to be sent to the boring asphodel fields get there. Children of the gods and such. All with good connections. If you do get there, you can sing whatever you please, but that is up to the judges, not me. Alright, state your names and
business here.”
“Like I already told you, I am a great friend
of my friends and I want to see my friends now,”insisted
Uncle Richie. “And my name is Demetrius, and I am a godson of the Queen’s mom. That
makes us family. I should have no problems entering this place.”
"Hades is a friendly place. Nobody has problems entering Hades. Everybody is welcome!"
"Are you so amiable that you answer for the problems we may have once inside?" asked Beau.
And then, suddenly and out of nowhere, three
dogs fell on Uncle Rich, who slipped backwards, flat onto the floor. And as he yelled
“It’s okay! We know each other!” Beau turned into a terrific wolf again but stopped
short of taking on the dogs because he saw they were but one, and that its
three heads were licking Uncle Richie with unrepressed love, as were the forked
tongues of the snakes that adorned those three heads. And his tail, which was
one much larger serpent, was wagging very happily.
“It’s so nice of you to remember me,
sweetie,” Uncle Richie was saying to the dog.
“But who the hell are you?” shouted the demon, who had risen from his seat in a flash at the sight of the wolf Beau had turned into and taken refuge under the desk.
“These are friends of the queen,” said Charon, appearing behind the dog and helping Uncle Rich get up.
“And yours,” said our uncle. “Tell this
fellow to let us in, Charon. I’ll give you all the coins I have on me. That’s a
lot. I don’t know why I didn’t start by saying that. Well, yes, I do know. I
was cowed by this demon’s computer.”
And Uncle Richie began to sing very softly to Cerberus, "How much is that doggie in the window?" And Cerberus joined him, squirming with delight and howling softly too.
“Just put a tick in the box for the category of heroes, Katafalkos,” said Charon to the demon, pointing
at the computer. “This divo will give you more trouble if you
don’t let him in than he will if you do. I know him well.”
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