Mason drove down to San Remo to buy himself an Italian suit, a belt, a new shoulder bag. Going back he picked up the hitchhiker at Ventimiglia. The boy's sign said: “Nice.” André-something spoke only French; was returning home after attending his grandfather's funeral in Rome. He'd hitched this far in two days. Their conversation of course was difficult. But Mason thought he understood the boy to say that his poppa left to a museum the family replicas of ancient Frankish icons and purity-symbols. As they approached the toll-gate at San Isidore, André made it clear he wanted to exit here. Sporadic shelling behind his eyes? Mason was relieved. He took the old narrow road up through the hills. When he got there the villa was quiet. Afternoon shadows lay to the west of its trees. Somebody had stuck a Telex message from Schnitzler in his door crack.
Greece in the middle of April? Driving into Athens from the airport was hectic in crazy laneless rush-hour traffic. Hotel Corinth on Safokleous and Klisthenous became a place of sleeplessness. In Greece Mason could go searching darkly and secretly for… for answers?… Morning light was a gift from the gods. Before noon he was drinking scotch on a roof top: the only customer in the restaurant till a group of noisy men and women came in around noon chattering away in English. All had Greek accents except one. Yellow Eyes was surely American. The guys certainly had talent for supporting roles… Later, Mason wandered around as the shops began opening. Saturday night shoppers were out. He was observer, spectator — not participant. He felt no different from what he'd always felt… The next morning Mason was at the National Museum trying to provoke Cycladic. From her stern place as mother goddess and model for modern sculpture she refused to respond. Mason was unworthy? Insulted, he rushed on. Goddess Hygieia? She would not heal him. Her mission was set — as fixed as his. Kikori too didn't even consider responding from her Fourth Century B.C. perch in the Temple of Artemis. He beat at her stone. A guard threatened to arrest him. He shook the guard's hand off his arm. Then Mason met his lover: that beastly deadly ungodly unworldly feathered creature (with lice under her wings): Sepulchral, the sad-faced holder of the death-crying lyre. O Siren!
His lost wings…? No, it wasn't that simple: something more complex. He moved silently through the gravestones. No smells here. Burning hair? Fried pig ears — as odor? Nothing of the sort. Tar? Dyed leather/ Perfume? The feel of the tongue against okra? This was a more elusive — cerebral — reality. He looked suspiciously at the black figure found at Antikytera. That shipwreck rang a bell. Then the comic mask of a slave found near Dipylon in the second century B.C., hit a raw nerve. The answer surely was not that: it was part of the problem. And there she was again: the winged one with her bird feet and woman breasts! Mason slapped her. No blood dripped from her eye. Her primitive lyre didn't bang to the marble floor. He kissed her. She did not respond. He arrived in a remote gallery just in time to help Aphrodite in a vicious struggle with Pan: she had her sandal raised threateningly against him as he tugged at her arm. A shorter figure, he was a mean fucker. But it was hard to know exactly what the cupid figure — on Aphrodite's shoulder grasping one of Pan's horns — meant. A cupidic bridge between… He moved on, still with confidence: nobody else was around except for an occasional guard. Unusual. Soon there was Hermes carrying a lamb. Mason felt the Roman weight of it. Picasso's man with goat? To slaughter? Surely part of the answer was hidden there, in the slit down the belly, in the expert removal of the testicles? Music for every occasion: the kythera with seven strings. Seven and one? Play please. Bronze cymbals he thought surely served to reach into the classic depths beneath, say, jazz: sacrifice: aulos; funeraclass="underline" anlos; drama: lyra (solo). The more removed from earthly concerns the more permanent in their stone and static insistence were the resistant figures. Even mortals sat as dead weight on thrones of, say, six hundred-thirty B.C., like Egyptian gods. But they were goddesses weren't they? “Heroized.” Mason touched the rims of their blunt eyelids. The gesture was sexual. Yes? Sexual and moody. In the geometric period he missed whatever clues were hidden in the duck the horse the… Even his spiritual forefather: Satyr was useless, in a way: his music did not give the bird woman the rhythm she needed to fly! Something was deadly wrong in their relationship. With his flute strapped to his head — allowing freedom for both hands — he was still not the receiver of total benefits. Mason stroked her bronze skull. She smiled. Ah! (… and he knew the brain changed when the body was turned upside-down: in the fourth stage they turned the figures, inverted the models in a kiln and fired them, causing the quick wax to melt… but there were five stages!) If this museum was a cool sanctuary then Kabeiroi near Thebes in the sixth century was even more so: Mason scratched under her wings. Griffins nearby cackled. A bird-snake of Argos said, “Polly wanta… ” It was at this point that he realized he wasn't going to get the answers — the way he wanted them — here! On the way out, out of friendliness, he scratched the belly of the pregnant toad-person.