by Antonio Napoli

The suspicion that something had happened to old Giscone and his nephew Jabir was as tormenting as it was useless: it didn’t help us move forward in our understanding. The house was in order, and nothing noticeable was missing; the cat purred at all of us and roamed the rooms without any sign of unease; the neighbors hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual. All clues pointed, therefore, to a voluntary absence from the now silent house; whether it was an abandonment, we let the sunset decide — which didn’t alter the number of guests in those rooms. But what meaning — and above all, what direction — could we give to their unannounced departure? Did the old man no longer feel safe in that house, targeted by Massinissa’s envoys, whom we had hoped to keep away through a ruse?

Unlike Speusippus, I didn’t trust the woman much. I had nothing to object to in her state of apprehension over the boy’s fate, but she gave me the impression of hiding something, as if adapting to circumstances, studying the evolution of the conversation before answering — always briefly, always with the caution of someone who had learned to defend herself more through discretion than with frank truth. But perhaps it was simply the effect of mutual mistrust.

I was still vexed by Speusippus’s generous and reckless gesture. True: without the book we would never have been able to restore the woman’s freedom. But now, without it, I no longer knew what to expect from the others. Before, I could infer something from their memories — more than that, in fact: it was as if the thoughts of another soul lent me a gaze that wasn’t mine. What regret! The scroll, with its mystery, was lost — just like the chance to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

And then I began to feel tired. Tired that my involuntary involvement in that family story — built on absences, suspicions, unspoken words, perhaps even unconfessed ambitions — continued to usurp my right to seek happiness, whatever that was, wherever it might be hiding.

Today I realize that the more the Book of Memory allowed me to penetrate the soul of others, recognizing their emotions as if they were my own, the more the loss of this power increased my selfishness, making me feel even more estranged from others. I should have been ashamed of my overbearing concern for myself — but I couldn’t. It was as if, all of a sudden, the sandstorm surrounding me had cleared only to show me how fragile, how bare, my ability was to sustain a long, strenuous interest in the injustices and troubles of others.

It wasn’t Giscone, nor Jabir, nor Speusippus, nor the woman who claimed to be named Ishara that made me uneasy. It was the void left by the book, that silence that forced me to listen to myself — and find nothing to justify the hardness of my heart, which was, quite simply, a fact.
Perhaps not a fault. An instinct.

Evening was falling, and I remained seated by the window, listening to the wind carrying voices from the nearby tavern. There is no better place than that refuge of rest or wear on the body, where it becomes easier to accept that another’s soul does not belong to us, and that every attempt to read it like a scroll is in vain. Seduced by the thought of that tolerated indifference, I made my way toward the tavern, letting Speusippus and Ishara feed on a silence as discreet as it was well endured.

I had been sitting for a while at my table — a table bruised by knife marks, its edges cracked like the lips of an old sailor — when a voice behind me caught my ear, and without turning around, I began to follow the dialogue between two people who, judging by their voices, seemed to be of the same age.

“You say that committing injustice is good, and suffering it is evil?”

“Could it be otherwise?”

“Of course it could. It’s better to suffer evil than to inflict it.”

“Oh, come now! Ask around if people wouldn’t commit an injustice if they were sure to get away with it. Go ahead, ask. They wouldn’t need to be asked twice, these gentlemen. Am I wrong?”

But the room remained silent.

“In their hearts,” continued the voice, slightly raising its tone, “everyone here believes that injustice pays more than justice. But in public, they all praise the righteousness… of others. Hypocrites!”

“Even if you’re right,” replied the other voice calmly, “the perfect unjust person should act in the shadows, never letting themselves be discovered.”

“Exactly! That would be their ‘virtue’, if we want to call virtue the effort toward perfection.”

“Then tell me: if the unjust person is one who would never give up the benefits of their dishonest actions, who is the just person?”

“The one who forgoes dishonest deeds and the benefits they bring.”

“And what would their perfection, their virtue, be? Is it not doing good even when it costs dearly?”

“Yes.”

“So, the highest thing for a just person would be to suffer injustice without responding with another.”

“Without a doubt.”

“But then tell me: if what the just person does harms the unjust one, and if the unjust always seeks profit from their actions… why would they ever hurt the just, knowing that it only makes them stronger in their virtue? Isn’t that a contradiction?”

At that point, the interlocutor hesitated, mumbled something unintelligible and, seized by annoyance, kicked the other’s chair, knocking him onto someone else.

He hadn’t even gotten up before a general brawl broke out, as if suddenly everyone wanted to test their concept of justice on someone else’s body.

Amid the commotion, dodging kicks and elbows, I made sure to drag the body of the first one who fell out of the establishment. Once outside, I said:

“You always get yourself into trouble, dear Timaeus.”

“Oh! Saved just in time!” the man exclaimed, laughing. “Already back, my dear Zebo? Are you all safe?”

“Let’s go home. You’ve caused enough damage here.”

“But this time I merely responded to the nonsense of that arrogant sophist…”

As we walked, we talked. Timaeus told me that Giscone and Jabir had left for Syria, to reach King Antiochus III.

“And why?” I asked.

“Hannibal, after a brief stay in Tyre, has taken refuge at the Seleucid court. Seems he’s planning something: actions against the Romans. Perhaps a new war.”

“Did they do the right thing by leaving?”

The question dropped into the air like a stone in a still pond.

No one answered.

For a moment, even the street noises seemed to fade. Timaeus lowered his gaze. I watched the long shadows of our figures on the cobblestones, trembling in the lantern light from the house.

“Sometimes,” Timaeus finally said, his voice barely audible, “there is no right choice.”