The Whispers of Nemesis Read Free

eager applause. As he turned the page to each fresh poem, he surveyed his audience with arrogance, assessing their ability to grasp the finer shades of meaning in his verses; and wherever he had doubts, he turned the page again.
    For forty minutes, he went on in this way – reciting, captivating, judging, moving on – until he finished the last poem in the volume. Sighing, he closed the book, said ‘Thank you,’ and sat down, as Leda slipped away behind the curtain.
    In a light sweat of excitement, the Dean tugged at his bow-tie to loosen it, and rose once more from his seat.
    â€˜Marvellous!’ he said. ‘Breathtaking, absolutely! Such a privilege for all of us to hear that astonishing work read by the man who created it. And Kyrie Volakis has very kindly agreed to stay with us a while, to answer your questions and sign copies of his books, which are on sale at the back of the hall. Now, will you please join me in thanking him once again in the accustomed manner? Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Santos Volakis!’
    The Dean ushered the poet off the platform and through the hall. The people who had been his audience stood back, and watched the poet curiously as he passed, as if surprised to find him merely human.
    A short queue had already formed before the desk where the poet was to sign copies of his books; behind a table stacked with Santos’s three published anthologies, a young man waited with an open cash-box.
    The man with the leather holdall rose from his seat. Beneath his raincoat, he wore a charcoal-grey suit, whose excellent cut disguised his corpulence, to a degree, though the quality of his tailoring was blighted by the old-fashioned, white canvas tennis shoes on his feet. He made his way to the bookseller’s table, where he picked up a copy of Songs from Silence , and read a few lines before turning it over to examine the stiffly posed black-and-white photograph of the poet on the back cover.
    The fat man smiled at the bookseller.
    â€˜The photograph does him no justice,’ he said, in the clear, accentless Greek of TV newscasters. ‘The man, in life, has the charisma of an artist, which the camera cannot capture. I’ll take the book.’
    As the bookseller counted out change, the fat man glanced across at the signing-desk, where the short queue had grown longer.
    â€˜A pity I don’t have time to wait to have my copy signed,’ he said, pocketing coins. ‘I am a great admirer of Kyrie Volakis’s talent. Still, life’s twists and turns are unpredictable. Perhaps he and I shall meet some other time. Thank you.’
    As the fat man left the hall, the Dean saw that the poet was comfortably seated, and snapped his fingers at a faculty secretary, who rushed up with a carafe of water and a glass of acidic wine. The poet held her eyes as he thanked her, and the secretary – a woman close to forty, and no longer used to flirtation – dipped her head to hide the blush spreading up her neck, and hurried away.
    Santos removed the cap from a black fountain pen, brushed his long hair abstractedly from his eyes and looked up at a girl whose own tight-plaited hair reached down to the small of her back.
    Nervously, she smiled at him, and handed him a copy of the slender, hard-backed book from which he’d read – a handsome edition whose pale-blue jacket carried the poet’s name and the title, Songs from Silence , in graceful, white script, and on whose spine, below the publisher’s name – Bellerophon Editions – a spread-winged Pegasus carried a sword-wielding warrior.
    â€˜I’m such a fan of yours,’ she said.
    â€˜Who is it for?’ asked the poet, his pen ready over the title page.
    â€˜Marianna,’ she said. ‘And could you please write a line from the Songs , too?’
    As the queue dwindled, the Dean came to Santos’s side.
    â€˜Is your daughter not with us?’ asked the Dean.
    â€˜Leda had a