The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [90]
“Nephew,” he called.
Speusippus had entered immediately behind me, and made a show of putting his clammy hand on my head to move me aside. “Uncle. All here now.”
Speusippus released me. I stepped back into the crowd, back and back, as he made his speech of welcome, until I found a slave against the wall with a tray I could pick clean. I finished in time to applaud with the others.
“Water,” I told the slave with two pitchers on his tray. My hands still smelled of the girl, or I imagined they did. I plucked a large flower from an arrangement and shoved finger after finger down its white throat, reaming for scent. Plato was responding to Speusippus. He had taken the scroll from Callippus and unrolled it and held it up. It was a map of the world, fly-specked with black dots. Plato was explaining that each dot represented the birthplace of a member of the Academy. We all edged closer, looking for our dots. There was no Stageira-dot. The Pella-dot was probably supposed to be me.
“I’m so proud of you all,” Plato was saying. “I’ve been away for so long. Too long, I know. I’m very tired, and can’t imagine travelling again anytime soon. You’re all stuck with me, is what I’m trying to say.” Laughter. “We have a lot of work to do, a lot of problems to solve. Difficult problems. But there is no problem without a solution. We are the world in miniature here, and together we will solve the problems of the world. Problems of geometry, problems of physics, problems of government, problems of justice and law. What we achieve here will be incorruptible down the ages.” Applause. “And I apologize for the rubbish they’re feeding you. I see standards in the kitchen have slipped unconscionably since I’ve been away. We’ll remedy that problem tomorrow.” Laughter and applause. A rebuke: the food was fine and fancy, the master a known ascetic. “Tomorrow,” he repeated.
I made my way over to him as the party resumed.
“Did the new boy like my speech?” he asked.
“All problems have solutions and the food will be worse tomorrow?”
He laughed, and leaned forward to look into my cup. “He doesn’t drink?”
He spoke like Illaeus. Illaeus spoke like him. “Not much.”
“Why not?”
Callippus was rolling the scroll, listening to something Eudoxus was saying in his ear. We were alone for a moment in the middle of the crowded room. “My master in Pella drank. It stopped him from getting his work done.”
“Illaeus.”
I nodded.
“I remember his time here. A lovely boy. Lovely mind. A gift for languages, and for language. Loved poetry. He drank then, too, and liked to go into the city, alone, at night. It seemed harmless at the time.”
I held his look.
“His letter moved me,” Plato said. “Unexpected, first of all, because he left angry. I hadn’t heard from him in years. Then he says, I have a boy here. You must take this boy.”
I smelled my fingers.
“I had a master myself, years ago. Will you come with me, please? I’m having trouble hearing in this room.”
He led me through a curtain. I felt my classmates watch us go. We sat in a room I had never entered, a cell with a bed, table, two chairs, and a shelf of books.
“My master was a father to me,” he said. “I will be a father to you, if you’ll let me. You are already so many people to me. Illaeus, again, and my own younger self, and your own self too. Eudoxus tells me the others are frightened of you. He says you spend a lot of time alone.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be.”
“Why did Illaeus leave angry?”
“He wanted me to love him the most. I failed him.”
We sat listening to the party sounds from the big room.
“Not all problems