 
Persephone

by Michael Buergermeister

Copyright 2018 Michael Buergermeister

Smashwords Edition
Chapter 1

Panic set in. "Oh God," Persephone thought, there was so much to be done before she flew away. She realized she'd forgotten to take out travel insurance. There was little point insuring her baggage; nothing she had was of any intrinsic value. There was also never any cover for volcanic disruption. "Medical stuff, on the other hand," she reflected "is not to be messed with." It was too late now; it was three in the morning on the day she was due to depart. It would be impossible to organize anything at this ungodly hour.

As she sat, ate toast and drank tea in her shabby Camden flat she read of how a killer storm was lashing the Philippines. "Hopefully it will quieten down by the time I arrive."

It was "Frantic Friday" and a million motorists were expected to clog up the roads on the last working day before Christmas. Eleven million getaway trips were expected; hers was one of them but it wouldn't be by car.

By a quarter past four she was on a train heading for the airport. She took the Heathrow Express rather than the tube because she couldn't afford to miss her flight. It was the first leg of her journey to a tiny island off Bali.

As she hurtled through the still sleeping city she read of how a fire had broken out at London Zoo. A nine-year-old aardvark, renowned for its digging abilities and gentle nature, had died along with four meerkat brothers: Robbie, Norman, Billy and Nigel.

By half past five she'd passed the tall, silver Christmas tree at Heathrow Airport and was looking up at the departure board, with its flights bound for Dubai, Hong Kong and Cape Town. She quickly found her Philipine Airlines flight to Manila and was told to go to Gate forty.

She tried repeatedly to sleep on the plane but failed miserably to actually do so. In her semi-awake state she recalled the beginning of Parzival: "Ist zwivel herzen nachgebur, daz muoz der sele werden." "The soul will grow bitter if the heart is indecisive. He who wavers can still be happy; heaven and hell are part of them. He who loses his inner support ends in the darkness of hell. He who preserves inner firmness adheres to the light and color of the sky."

She remembered her own lecture on the subject. The poem, she'd told her students, was about the quest for spirituality. She'd talked of heroic acts of chivalry inspired by true love, and how everything was ultimately fulfilled in marriage.

Would she find the man of her dreams on an island off Bali? Probably not. Being in love was a complicated affair. She yearned for the feeling of needing somebody, physically, yet knew how fickle passion could be. How she envied those who'd found their soul mates. Was she unlucky, too free spirited or simply too selfish? She had no time for an abusive relationship or an abusive man for that matter. If she were to find someone he'd have to be special. Of that much she was sure.

The blinds in the plane were pulled down the whole day, which left Persephone not a little disorientated. The fact that she was on medication didn't help either.

She'd been suffering from acute depression the whole term and had begun seeing a psychiatrist once more. It had become increasingly difficult to get up in the morning. It had been next to impossible to write her research paper on Thomas Bernhard or to give her lectures in Comparative Literature. She'd felt like an animal, trapped in a zoo.

What on earth did Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper matter in this day and age? Who cared? Her students certainly didn't seem to do so. All they seemed to be interested in was getting ahead. And their ambition seemed only matched by their ignorance, which was quite simply appalling. Was that the real cause of her depression? Or was it the low quality of the books she was asked to review for the newspapers? Was it the fault of the general public, who seemed to lack taste, the fault of the publishers, who seemed obsessed with profit, or the fault of the authors themselves? Was she simply living in an idiocracy, as some of her colleagues claimed? Or was the West doomed to decadence and a slow but mortal decay? Despite everything she believed taste was linked to truth and truth linked to our very ability to survive. Perhaps she, alongside the society in which she lived, was destined for extinction. It was that simple. This didn't prevent her though from yearning for enlightenment, personal happiness and ultimately: spiritual salvation.

"Do we really have something within us" she asked herself, "that unites us with a higher being? Does such a thing exist? Is there an essential part of our nature – a pure spirit, which is united to something superior to ourselves? Can we be liberated from our material world, a world full of things, as well as our past?"

Some scientists, she recalled, argued that consciousness derives from deep-level, fine-scale quantum activities within cells. Quantum processes attributed to the soul work in partnership with observable neurological processes. These in turn produce the experience of human consciousness.

She thought about The Tao of Physics with its discussion of the properties and interactions of subatomic particles and the striking parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. It argued that modern physics leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to those held by mystics.

She thought about Wittgenstein's mysticism, which formed the core of his philosophy. Wittgenstein was referring to his own mystical experiences when he wrote: about that which one cannot speak one should stay silent.

It had always been from the East that Persephone had expected enlightenment but she was skeptical as to whether she'd actually attain it on a tiny island off Bali of all places. Yet, oddly enough, this had been the real, secret, reason she'd accepted her sister's offer of a holiday.

"Is this a good idea? We might well end up killing one another. And, even if Eris manages to stay sober, which is extremely unlikely, what can be worse than being stuck on an island with an abusive alcoholic? Why am I doing this to myself? Why didn't I decide to stay in London? I could have gone to stylish parties in Soho like I did last year. Who on earth might be of interest on this remote and god-forsaken island?"

Of course, she reflected, it was all linked to her depression. She simply had to get away but couldn't afford to do so. Her sister on the other hand, a bonds saleswoman in the City of London, could easily invite her. The odd thing was: she had had no communication with Eris for quite some time. She hadn't actually spoken to her sister for over a year.

The prepaid flight she'd found in the post one morning had come completely out of the blue. There hadn't been one single accompanying word from her sister. Had it been an error? She'd tried to clarify the issue but Eris had neither returned her calls nor answered her emails. It was as if she'd sent her the invitation by mistake. Perhaps she had. Perhaps her secretary was simply incompetent. It was all something of a mystery, to say the least.

After what seemed like an eternity Persephone was finally able to look out of the window. The sky was a Prussian blue and the city a myriad of lights. The flight was ending just as it had begun: in darkness.

From Manila Persephone took a three and a half hour flight to Bali Denpasar, where she arrived on a wet and windy Christmas morning. When a driver from the hotel picked her up she realized that she had far too many clothes on. Although damp it was warm: twenty-eight degrees. The heat though did her good. In London it had been cold and she'd suffered for weeks on end from appalling health. All the coughing, sneezing, and feeling perpetually miserable! It had been quite awful.

The hotel itself, despite its dancing deities, ornate umbrellas and tacky Christmas trees, was charming and she was delighted when she saw her elegant room, decorated in calm, pastel shades, with a huge bed under a Chinese painting. The room even had a TV, a mirror, a desk, a bathroom and a shower.

She decided to surf for a while. The three thousand meter high Mount Agung volcano had belched a thick plume of grey smoke two thousand meters into the sky. The smoke had blown northeast but the eruption hadn't been bad enough to shut the airport down. She'd been lucky.

When Mount Agung had last erupted thousands had died. Indonesia, she read, sat on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The gods of Ganung Agung were said to be upset about the encroachments upon their sacred space. It was half past five in the morning when she finally tried to get some sleep.

Instead of coming at nine, as was agreed, the wake up call came at seven. She was told that a man from the boat company was waiting. The day before yesterday's make up was still on, she didn't have time to shower or have breakfast but threw on some clothes and raced downstairs. It was better to get off to the island sooner, she thought, rather than later.

The small, white bus took her to a deserted jetty from where her boat set sail. As it tracked the coast up to Padangbai little patches of blue appeared in the sky.

When the boat arrived at Padangbai, vendors in colorful plastic raincoats advertised their wares.

One of the crew put on a Father Christmas costume to welcome the newcomers. As Persephone looked on at the scene the beginning of Tristan came into her head: "Gedaethe mans ze guote niht, von dem der werlde guot geschiht, so waere ez allez alse niht, swaz guotes in der werlde geschiht." "If one didn't respect those who do good then there wouldn't be anybody doing good in the world. Those who treat what an excellent man does, with the best of intentions, with anything less than benevolence, are in the wrong. Dear is the one who knows how to weigh good and bad, who can judge me and everyone else according to their true value."

Who were these people, she asked herself? She looked at the whey-faced Westerners in their pale, casual clothes and the fascinating faces of the strong and energetic crew, in their vibrant, blue shirts. One looked cheerful, a second serious while a third: tired and disillusioned with life.

Once the boat started again she looked out of the window. The grey view reminded her of the Norfolk Broads. To her surprise she met a girl, an art student, from Chalk Farm of all places, who spent her time in Surfer's Paradise. The world was small indeed. They discussed art. Persephone thought of Tristan. "Respect and appreciation promote art, where art is worthy of praise. Where it is glorified with praise, it blooms in manifold ways. Work, which has gained neither recognition nor fame, sinks into indifference. Quality, on the other hand, can never be denied."

Was that strictly true? She'd seen a lot of excellent pieces from good artists who'd attained neither fame nor wealth. Whenever she went to the London Frieze on the other hand she was invariably shocked and appalled at the superabundance of trivial, derivative and vulgar art. At times she couldn't help but think that this was indeed an age of banality, trivia and mediocrity.

Yet, perhaps it had always been so. After all Gottfried von Strassburg had written that there were many who thought that good was bad and bad was good. They didn't help, but rather hindered. And that was in 1210!

After landing at Gili Trawangan she and her luggage were loaded onto a speedboat, which was bobbing in the shallows. The small speedboat then took her across to the smallest of the Gilis, Gili Meno, which was visible just across the water. Once she arrived she had to jump from the speedboat onto a beach. A horse and cart then took her along a bumpy track until she reached her destination.

Chapter 2

Once Persephone arrived, she was shown to a villa, which she was to share with her sister, Eris. To her surprise, it was empty. Eris, she learned, had gone to another island and would be back shortly.

Hibiscus and jasmine flowers were strewn upon a beige double bed that was flanked by two tables, upon which were bottles, glasses and cups. Above the bed was a bright, green, abstract painting on a brown wall. In one corner was a cupboard with towels and a water dispenser and next to the latter was a door leading to an open air shower.

Eris had left a pile of notes for a novel she was working on in the living room, along with some draft copies of the novel itself.

Persephone couldn't resist the temptation of looking at the sheets of paper. She knew very well that her sister's philosophy was to adapt oneself to the market but she was somewhat startled to find out how dumbed down she'd actually become. Her stiff, stilted prose was simply appalling. This was doubtlessly because she'd never been musical; she'd never had an ear or an eye for beauty. Apart from which she'd neither read much nor studied literature. She had never thought it necessary. If the truth be told, she'd always despised artists. She was forever asking what exactly art was for. Above all else: she despised Persephone. Why, Eris asked, again and again, had she studied literature of all things? What could be more worthless than that? And why was she teaching it? It was not as if the position paid well. Prostitutes earned more. It was not as if the job had even a modicum of prestige either. Nobody took her seriously. And yet now Eris was attempting to write herself! And a novel to boot! Had she gone completely and utterly mad?

On one sheet were written the words: "His manly gesture was contemptuous of those around him, and he had unusual strength and brilliant skills. He looked at the world with cool indifference. He was convinced that she loved him. He felt calm in a way he hadn't felt for a long time. New, brighter horizons lit up, horizons full of happiness. His work, and everything that had once oppressed him, seemed to belong to the past." Eris certainly seemed to have abandoned her feminism, of that much Persephone was sure. She read further.

""Aren't you happy with your job?" Simon's expression changed and he looked at Mary with a serious and somewhat confused expression on his face. He felt wounded by her accusatory tone. "No," he finally replied. He felt relieved as he gave expression to something, which he'd always managed to keep secret."

""Sometimes I feel just like a cog in a machine. I always have to function. I need time to reflect. I need distance." Mary listened silently. Ida suddenly appeared with two glasses of wine. Simon looked at her and his face lit up. He was in love. "

By the time she'd finished the page, Persephone felt so soporific that she fell into a deep sleep. She slept non-stop for fifteen hours and only woke up on Boxing Day.

When she got up she noticed that it was late in the morning. She pulled the curtains and opened a window; the view was to die for. The sea was a gradation of turquoise, the beach a perfect white and there was a slight sea breeze. "If anything qualifies as paradise on earth", she reflected, "this must be it."

She was starving and quickly ate the breakfast of scrambled eggs, grilled tomato and toast, all washed down by black, sweet coffee and papaya juice.

She thought of the Chinese lone traveller, a teacher of cultural history, she'd met on the boat. She'd spoken perfect English so they'd been able to chat about life, work, holidays and philosophy without the slightest difficulty. "One must respect the forces of life," she'd said to Persephone "and not distort them. One must never try to attain an ideal. It is the everyday, the incomplete, the state of flux that's the key."

Persephone thought about the Tao Te Ching. The nameless was the origin of heaven and earth while the named was the mother of all things. The constant void enabled one to observe the true essence. The constant being enabled one to see outward manifestations. As soon as beauty is known as beautiful, it becomes ugly and as soon as virtue is known as good, it becomes evil. Being and non-being engender one another. The difficult and easy accomplish one another, long and short form one another, high and low distinguish one another, sound and tone harmonize one another, and before and after follow one another.

Next to the Christmas decorations on the table, consisting of silver balls, cones and tiny trees, was a copy of "The Pillow Book" by Sei Shōnagon, which Persephone had brought along. Sei Shōnagon had been a court lady to Fujiwara no Teishi, one of the five empress consorts of the Japanese Emperor Ichijō.

Sei Shōnagon wrote of how, in spring, she loved the dawn when the light gradually returned, of how the outline of the mountains faintly emerged from the bright sky, and of how the narrow, pink-tinted clouds stretched across them.

In summer, she loved the moonlit nights, when the fireflies emerged in large numbers while in autumn, she loved the evening hour, when the sun's rays touched the mountain tops and the crows flew off to find their resting place. She also adored watching the wild geese pull away into the distance, the gentle breeze after sunset and the chirping of crickets.

In winter she liked the early morning; especially if snow had fallen or hoarfrost had decorated everything white. She also enjoyed watching people making fires and putting coal embers in rooms.

After breakfast Persephone wandered past the swimming pool, which was shielded by a curved, grey awning, and then on down to the beach, where lanterns hung above white tables and chairs. As she sat down and looked across at Gili Trawangan she couldn't help but feel a little glum. The fact that Eris wasn't there made everything extremely awkward indeed. She didn't know a soul at the resort.

Dave, the charming, good-natured and easy-going Liverpudlian, who ran the place, was nice but too busy with his own crowd of relatives and friends to have any time to bother about her. When not involved in greeting new guests he took care of the running of things.

An English actress, a Brazilian opera singer, an Austrian painter, three young, pretty Japanese teachers and a balding, middle-aged, British wealth manager were the next batch of guests to arrive.

Persephone spent most of the day sitting at the beach. Only very slowly did she recover from her arduous trip. Perhaps, she thought to herself, if she meditated for a while she'd feel better. She recalled what she'd learned at a spiritual seminar in a run down Brixton community center she'd attended the previous summer.

The guru, an elderly Indian gentleman by the name of Pankaj Raman, spoke of how the only function of a teacher was to help clear the path that separates us from the truth – the truth of what we already are and what we already know in our deepest selves. The spiritual teacher is there to show and open up a dimension of inner depth and inner peace.

That which the teacher points to is not to be found in the realm of thought but is a dimension that goes much deeper. It is a feeling of vibrant peace.

The transformation of human consciousness, he told his thirty odd students, mainly middle-aged women and not a few pensioners, was no longer a luxury for the few but a necessity for all of humanity.

"Silence and peace are the essence of our being. It is inner silence that will save and transform the world. When you lose your inner silence, you lose contact with yourself. When you lose contact with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. The sense of self, the feeling of who you are, is linked with silence. This is what we call the: "I am". It is deeper than names or forms. Silence is your true nature. Silence is your inner space. Silence is the awareness in which words are perceived and become thoughts. Without awareness, there is no perception, no thought, no world. You are awareness. The counterpart to outer noise is the inner noise of thinking. The counterpart to the outer silence is inner silence. Whenever there is silence around you listen to it. By listening to outer silence you open up a dimension of silence in yourself. Only by means of inner silence can you become aware of outer silence. The minute you perceive silence around you, you stop to think. You are aware of silence, but you don't think. As soon as you become aware of silence, there is an inner alertness. You are present. Look at a tree, a flower, or a plant. Let nature teach you silence. Let nature teach you to connect with silence. Let nature teach you a sense of oneness with all things. Once you become aware of consciousness, inner silence ensues. Once you stop to resist you will be at peace."
Chapter 3

Persephone spent the whole morning at the beach. All she did was sit in the sun and listen to the sea lapping at her feet. After a couple of hours she felt gloriously relaxed. By lunchtime she was starving.

She greedily ate the delicious food served to her by the handsome, young waiter, who she couldn't help but admire.

Prawn tempura with mango strawberry salsa was followed by chicken with roast potatoes, steamed vegetables, rosemary juice and apple. Dessert consisted of blackberry crumble. At the bottom of the menu was a jokey quote from the Simpsons: "Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know...the birth of Santa".

She thought about Christianity. She had been brought up a Catholic but, over time, had lost her faith. That, very much, she blamed on Nietzsche.

She remembered sitting in the London Oratory, her local church, in Knightsbridge, listening to a Haydn Mass. The music had been inspirational and the emotions, sights and sounds quite overwhelming. She thought of her first communion and how, when she'd been confirmed, she'd cried. It had been a profoundly emotional experience.

She'd always been inspired by churches and what she termed spiritual spaces, such as the extraordinary St. Peter's in Rome, the stunningly beautiful Blue Mosque in Istanbul and awe-inspiring Durham Cathedral. If she couldn't be in a church she was happiest in a museum. She adored the Prado, the Louvre, the Tate Modern and the National Gallery. She loved art. Art for her was a matter of the spirit. It was akin to religion. Yet, at the same time, as a skeptic, as one who'd been burnt and deceived many a time, she was doubtful of the official narratives that had been served up to her.

Did the Flavians: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, create Christianity, as one of her closest friends believed? Was the whole religion an elaborate hoax? Had millions been fooled for thousands of years? And if so, was atheism the only answer? What of other religions? Were they not equally fallible? And if that were the case: what of morality?

Dostoyevsky's idea: that once God was dead all was allowed stuck very much in her mind. And had he not proven prophetic? Had not the Twentieth Century been one of the most evil, brutal and iniquitous of all recorded history? Who was behind such monstrous barbarity? The much maligned Illuminati? And who were they?

What, she asked herself, did morality mean in this day and age? The age of the gentleman, the era of civilization, the age of humanity seemed well and truly dead.

The vast majority of her contemporaries seemed to be dishonest, superficial, and self-centered. Even the nicer and more liberal ones seemed to have no qualms about defrauding others. There seemed to be no sense of decency, no sense of shame, and no moral compass anymore. Perhaps there had never been any. Egotism, crass materialism, blind conformism and the worship of the golden calf seemed to be the norm, not the exception.

What was to be made of her friend, Thoby's, accusations that the Jesuits were the Illuminati and that the One World Government, New World Order project had the aim of making the Catholic Church supreme? The Catholic Church, according to Thoby, sought absolute, authoritarian control and had had no qualms about bringing down kings, creating bogus ideologies, such as Marxism, Communism, Zionism, Fascism and Nazism or setting off world wars in order to attain its ends. The UN and EU were simply extensions of this lust for absolute, temporal power. Those at the rotten heart of the system, the old Black Nobility were, according to Thoby, Satanists who dreamt of reducing everyone to slaves.

Persephone saw how a man dressed as Father Christmas gave presents to delighted children at a neighboring table. She wondered whether she'd ever have children of her own. There were times when she felt remorse, bitterness and guilt about her abortion. What if her child had been born? Would it have changed her life? Would she have been forced to give up her career, as she'd feared at the time? And had it been worth it? She would never become a professor, she would never attain tenure, she would never even have a good contract, of that much she was sure. She'd failed as an academic and had to reconsider her options.

Of course it hadn't been financially possible to have children at the time. She grew somewhat bitter over her poverty. Yet Eris, who was rich, hadn't had children either. For that she'd always been simply too selfish.

Persephone thought of the passage from her sister's novel; it had most probably been autobiographical. Eris was cold, incapable of empathy and incapable of affection. She'd always been of the opinion that love was an illusion and had often quoted La Rochefoucauld to that effect.

She'd even once said that she liked Wagner because Wagner shows that love is quite impossible. How, Persephone asked herself, could Eris live a life wholly devoid of love? How did she manage to survive? She'd been expecting Eris to commit suicide for years, yet for some reason or other, much to Persephone's annoyance, she'd failed to actually do so.

Persephone thought about the different forms the emotion could take: sexual love, passionate love, friendship, the love between children and parents, universal love, playful or uncommitted love, love founded on reason and, last but not least: self-love. How many forms had she known?

There was another aspect of the passage from her sister's novel that had also struck a chord. Perhaps it wasn't quite so abysmal after all. It had been the linkage of one's job to a sense of depression. She'd recently read an article arguing that depression was due to overwork. Antidepressants weren't the answer. Most people taking antidepressants become depressed within a year of taking them.

Depression wasn't simply the result of a spontaneous chemical imbalance of the brain. It wasn't produced by low serotonin. It was caused by an innate need to feel valued, to feel good at something and that one had a secure future.

Few people were actually "engaged" in their work – few found it meaningful or looked forward to it. Two thirds were "not engaged". They sleepwalked through their workday. A quarter were "actively disengaged", they hated their jobs. When was the last time she'd felt "engaged" in teaching?

The only thing she lived for, where she felt most alive, was when she was in a theatre. Her secret ambition, her great dream, had always been to be an actress.

She remembered "An American in Paris" at the Dominion Theatre, which had filled her with sheer joy at its beauty. Zoe Rainey had been fabulous as Milo. What a glorious show it had been!

"Hamilton" had been equally amazing. Giles Terera had dominated the stage with the most astonishingly assured and yet seemingly effortless performance as Aaron Burr.

After lunch a tall, handsome stranger, carrying a guitar on his back, arrived at the resort. Persephone was immediately intrigued.

She thought of the passages from Parzifal: "It was as if flames flickered and lit up his full lips, which were red as ruby. His whole figure was stunningly beautiful. His hair, in blond curls, spilled out from under his precious headgear. His cloak, of green velvet, trimmed with black sable, covered a snow-white robe."

After lying in a hammock for most of the day she was invited by Dave to join a larger group for dinner, which was under the broad leaves of a pandan tree. The sea lapped only inches away from their table.

When Persephone arrived the tall, handsome stranger was holding forth. The actress, the painter and the opera singer were looking on admiringly. There were also three young, pretty Japanese teachers, who also seemed equally filled with admiration.

The stranger, who was called Jeff, was tall, tanned and muscular. Persephone studied his regular features, bushy eyebrows, long, blond, curly hair, intelligent, fine, blue eyes and wasn't at all surprised to learn that he was a yoga teacher. It transpired that Jeff was a musician from California. He was travelling the world, a latter day troubador and guru. Persephone thought of Parzifal: "I can only describe him like this: that he shone like a flickering fire in the night. Nowhere was a dull spot to be discovered. His brilliance drew all eyes and was so strong that he almost hurt sick eyes."

"When the Estonians say "Terviseks"," Jeff recounted, "which means "Cheers", it sounds like "daily sex"." Jeff laughed loudly, and without the slightest embarrassment.

Jeff talked about how he loved "tripping" as he put it, around Estonia. The country seemed, in his eyes "authentic" and "free". It had an "innocent" feeling and the people seemed to "love and preserve" their "native culture".

He spoke about how he'd walked around Tallinn and heard choirs of girls singing traditional folk songs. The countryside was so unspoiled that it reminded him of a "National Geographic shoot from the 1970's". The main highways were like regional roads, with two lanes and hardly any cars.

Jeff seemed to be no friend of globalization and was of the opinion that "multiculturalism only favors multiculturalists", and not the existing "native cultures". The globalized urban, corporate, consumer culture was, in his eyes, "toxic".

Sweden, in contrast to Estonia, was thoroughly corrupt, not least on account of the fact that it had one of the largest weapons manufacturing industries in the world. Some women's issues were trumpeted while other critical issues, like rape, quietly ignored. He much preferred Norway to Sweden.

He waxed lyrical about the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, with its boats, drinking horns, ornate sleds, trunks, and drinking vessels. It housed archaeological finds from Tune, Gokstad, Oseberg and Borre. He also chatted about the Sauna Sweat Lodge at Lilihammer.

What he liked most about the Norse religion was the fact that it knew it was based on mythology. This was unlike the abrahamic religions, which mistook mythology for history.

Finally Persephone saw an opportunity to say something, to make her presence felt and above all else: to attract Jeff's attention.

"In "A Man in Love", Karl Ove Knausgard's second of his six-volume "Min Kamp" novels, one of the characters talks about Stockholm and the differences between Sweden and Norway. The Swedes, he says, believe that their way of doing things is the only one possible. Any deviation is both a mistake and a defect. Stockholm, in his eyes, is a beautiful city but is as cold as ice. One can spend one's whole life there without really being in touch with anyone."

Persephone purposely ignored the looks of annoyance directed at her by the Japanese girls. None of those present were well disposed toward her attempt to grab the limelight. She then launched into a passionate defense of Knausgard even though not a word had been said against him. "Knausgard feels that novels tend to obscure the world instead of showing it, because their form is so much alike from novel to novel. He tries to break out of the conventional form. His extreme form brings the novel closer to real experience. The obligation of literature, he argues, is to make the world strange, so that one can see it. Writing, for him, is a kind of ongoing struggle to renew the world."

"He is very interested in religious language, religious art, and what happens when religion disappears, when we lose any way to formulate the presence of the divine or the experience of religious ecstasy. Is it still here, just under another name, or has it totally disappeared? Is it possible that humans have changed? Was it the same to live, let's say, eight hundred years after Christ, in Viking times, and to live now – or is there some major difference? Those are some of the things he's writing about."

Once she'd finished she noticed that her outburst of passion had spoiled the atmosphere at the table. One after another everyone made excuses to leave. Her foray into spreading the Gospel of Knausgard had ended in a complete and utter disaster.
Chapter 4

If Eris felt like committing suicide that morning it was because her rage against her long dead mother had found no outward escape. Her pent-up anger had taken on fearsome dimensions and was now coiled up, serpent-like, and turned in against herself. The more she tried to repress her deep, dark passion the more potent it became. She could say she was an efficient, highly skilled, brilliant machine but she still trembled at the mere memory of her mother. She might tell herself that she'd loved her parents and they had, in turn, loved her but deep down she knew it to be untrue.

She had been feeling sick, had been having nightmares and had been unable to sleep for a while now. What kept her going? Fear? Perhaps. Hope? Was there any? Hardly. All around her she could see nothing but an unending sea of despair. Only after drinking a bottle of vodka was she able to get some sleep. After a while she managed to, temporarily at least, obliterate her memories of the past. Only in a state of complete and utter oblivion did she feel at peace. The next step was to focus on the future. Only after that she was able to function.

Eris had invited Persephone to Gili Meno to humor her psychiatrist yet her growing horror and disgust at the thought of meeting her sister had prompted her to flee. Eris despised and hated Persephone. Apart from which: she felt weak. Eris didn't feel up to encountering Persephone at such a moment in time. It was all too much, simply too much. And she needed to consult a doctor. She felt ill, seriously ill.

A day before Persephone was due to arrive Eris had taken a speedboat to Lombok. There she'd hired a car and driven to Praya-Lombok Airport.

As she sat in the airport she thought to herself: "Why on earth did I give in to my psychiatrist's suggestion?" It had been a moment of folly. She was now ruining her own hard earned holiday. This was ridiculous. She had a right to this. She had paid for this. She was exhausted. She was ill. She needed rest. She had to free her mind from all worries and cares. She was forced to escape the City and its pressures. She was a fugitive, in Lombock of all places. At least London was big enough to easily avoid her sister. But here? Impossible. What a crushing bore.

She was sick to death of listening to her sister moan and groan. Persephone was forever talking about what a miserable childhood they'd had, about how badly they'd been treated by their parents, and about how she never had any money. She was forever being negative about everything, especially banks. This hardly endeared her to Eris.

Of course the truth was: Persephone had made choices, bad choices. Nobody had forced her to either study literature or to become an academic for that matter. If that particular job didn't pay the bills then she ought get one that did. It was high time that she came to grips with reality.

The last check in was half an hour before her flight was due to depart. That was at shortly before seven. She would arrive in Denpasar-Bali Ngurah Rai at twenty to eight.

As a frequent business traveller Eris had access to a smart lounge with food. She coldly studied the polished, shiny floor, brown, curved armchairs, small, round, glass-topped tables and clinically examined the cups, jars, shiny metal containers on shiny, stone counters, under which plates and cups were neatly piled in lit compartments. It was, she noted, as if they were on display in a museum. Behind one of the counters was a large mirror and above that was a banner declaring: Merry Christmas. She briefly looked at herself in the mirror. Had she put on weight? She felt hungry but resisted the urge to eat.

She sat down at one of the tables and pulled out a book from her travel bag. She was reading Sarah Knight's tome with its snappy, catchy title: "The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do."

She immediately identified with Sarah Knight. She too was overextended and overburdened by life, stressed out, anxious, even panic-stricken by her commitments. She worked too much, played too little, and never had enough time to devote to things that truly made her happy. She too had tackled numerous projects, tasks and tests to prove herself worthy of admiration. She too had socialized with people she didn't actually like. She too had performed jobs that were beneath her. She too had eaten things that disgusted her. She too needed to declutter and reorganize her life. She too needed to spend less time, energy and above all money on things that failed to make her happy.

What though, did she really desire? She wasn't sure. What did she want out of life? Was she looking for a boyfriend? Not really. She simply didn't have time for one. She hardly had time for anybody. And how often had her friends disappointed her? They had been there for the good times but had invariably fled when it came to the bad. They'd taken a lot but had given very little in return. Not a few had tried to borrow money from her. Of course, she hadn't given them a penny. She wasn't a fool. They never did have the intention of repaying her. Of that she was sure. Not a few had spoken badly of her behind her back. Not a few had lied, cheated and defamed her. How often had she encountered those who simply wanted to make use of her?

Did she want to marry and settle down? How could she afford to do so, with all her debts? Did she want children? Soon it would be too late for that. She had spent hours talking to her psychiatrist but still all the key questions, all the difficult issues, remained open and unanswered.

The main topic of discussion had always been her difficult relationship with her mother on the one hand and her kleptomania on the other. It was something of a miracle that she'd never been caught. Perhaps she'd been noticed but she invariably spent so much money that shop owners wisely chose to overlook the fact. Perhaps it had been her way of getting back at society. She always felt cheated. It was almost as if she'd been cheated out of her happiness, even as a little girl. But whose fault had that been? Her parents? Even as a child she'd felt deprived. It had been Persephone who'd been the apple of her father's eye. When he'd left, the family had been plunged into strife, trauma and darkness. The sooner she could get away the better.

She was glad that she was independent of all that animosity, anger, hatred, depression, all that detritus of useless feeling and sentimental nonsense. She'd gone to a good university and had studied economics. After that she'd immediately applied for a job in the City and had got a job as a bond saleswoman.

A saleswoman always has to control her feelings, especially her fear and greed. Eris was good at that. Not only did she have to control her feelings, she also had to control her body language. She could never divulge, with a false gesture or expression, whether she was making or losing money. Eris was skilled at that too. It had taken years to perfect. As a child she'd invariably lied. She was a consummate actor.

She'd worked hard over the years to become a mistress of the quick kill, and had proven her superiority by handling risk better than the rest of the risk-taking world. Only recently had problems at work arisen. She'd been relegated to doing research. At the time her boss had pretended it had been a form of advancement. Both she and her colleagues knew otherwise.

When not reading Sarah Knight's book she pulled out a tablet and studied the developments in the bond markets. She was worried about the rise of the Yuan as an oil currency. How exactly would the crisis in Saudi Arabia play out? What if the dollar lost its reserve currency status? Could the deficit be maintained indefinitely? What if the American economy collapsed? The answers to all these questions had a direct bearing on the bond markets.

P/E ratios on stocks were at a historically high. The 10-year bond yield was the highest in over four years at 2.71%. Most economists predicted that the Fed would raise rates three to four times in the coming year. There were also the beginnings of a trade war between the US, EU, Canada, Mexico, South Korea and China. Tariffs on certain imports from these countries, including washing machines, steel, and solar panels had been announced. NAFTA's survival had been called into question.

To her annoyance her boss had refused to allow her to do further research on the Middle East. What on earth was going on there? Why was it that the interminable squabble between the Palestinians and the Jews was never resolved? She didn't understand a thing about it all. Instead of devoting time to the Middle East she'd been asked to find out about Ireland. Ireland? Ireland of all places? How boring was that? Was it on account of the fact that she'd once made the mistake of mentioning that mother had been Catholic? Yes, it was true: she had Irish ancestry, but that was a long, long time ago and only on her mother's side. Her father's family was English and as old as the hills. They could trace their origins back to the Normans and were terribly proud of the fact. Her mother on the other hand had been extremely proud of being Irish. Only the Irish, Eris reflected, could come up with such daft names as Eris and Persephone. Who on earth in their right mind would name their children that?

Eris walked across the tarmac to the white plane, a turboprop ATR 42. All the while she couldn't take her eyes off the beautiful sunset. Once on board her thoughts returned to the reason she was sitting there: her escape from her sister.

Surely if anybody should be on her f..k list it was Persephone, right up there, at the very top. Why on earth had Eris invited her? Why had she listened to her shrink? It had been a moment of stupidity she deeply regretted. Or perhaps it had been the charitable "Christmas spirit", the spirit of helping out the less fortunate and downright poor. Why did she have to have anything to do with her sister? What had her shrink been thinking of? Persephone was not merely a bore, she was a complete and utter loser. Perhaps her shrink had been too limited to grasp this simple fact. She made a mental note: "Change shrink asap."

The sad truth was that not only was Persephone invariably negative she was also horribly ignorant. Neither sister spoke the same language. Persephone had no idea about creative destruction, conditionalities, externalities, false correlations, fictitious capital, apex predators, asset-price inflation, ebitda, mark-to-model accounting, NINJA loans, chartalism, over depreciation, extractive economies, financialization, GINI coefficients, innocent fraud, debt deflation, junk bonds, liquidity traps, moral hazard or productive loans. In fact, if the truth be told, she had no idea about anything of importance. She preferred locking herself up in her ivory tower, divorcing herself from reality and burying herself in her ridiculous books. Was it so surprising that she was single? She was a fool. Men obviously realized that fact immediately.

The trick, for Sarah Knight, was getting the balance right between not giving a fuck and not being an asshole. It was a question of essentially managing to be polite and considerate while looking after one's own interests.

She, Eris, had to make an inventory of her mental space, her mental "barn" as it were. What was good and useful and what was mere clutter? She, too, had to stop caring about what others thought and to stop feigning sincerity. Like Sarah Knight she really didn't think much of "the threat of a nuclear Iran", Greek yoghurt, "Glamping", lobster, the pope's latest opinions, napkin rings, the Olympics, the New Yorker, going to the gym, Facebook quizzes, football or "Tummy time".

She had to stop fearing the judgment of her boss, Mark Rogers, and that of her co-workers. She, Eris, was doing a decent job so it was unlikely that she'd get fired.

She thought of the building she worked in with its depressing industrial carpeting, bland conference rooms, and fake potted plants. She thought of the hours she wasted at superfluous meetings, ridiculous conference calls or preparing perfectly pointless power point presentations. She thought about the agonies she'd gone through abiding strictly by the company dress code, even in the height of summer. She thought about all the useless paper work she'd done in her lifetime. What had been the point?

She also had to set new boundaries. There would, in future, be no thought of contributing to charities or helping kickstarters, or helping fund cures for cancer. She no longer cared about her reputation, whether she hurt people's feelings or whether she was behaving like an asshole. Why not behave like an asshole? That is precisely the way Mark Rogers always behaved, and that was why he managed to get ahead. This, she decided, was the real secret of his success.
Chapter 5

Persephone, after getting a bit sunburned, spent a whole day locked up in the villa. She read her sister's carelessly typed-up manuscript, half of which didn't make any sense whatsoever. She picked up where she'd left off the day before.

"Simon wandered slowly through the dark streets with a new, astonishing thought, and he gradually calmed. He reached the door of a church, which stood high above the valley. He stood next to a wall and looked down at a black river and tiny lights along its banks. "It is ghastly to live without love," he thought to himself, "It is terrible to live without others, but I can love. I can decide"."

"He was surprised by his own thought. "I can forgive her and still love." His heart became lighter. "Why was I in such despair?" He looked out across the valley. The light breached the darkness of the fog."

"Simon looked at his house. "Why doesn't she love me?" he thought in despair. "Because you're not worthy of love," came the surprising reply. "When do you ever think of others? You always think about yourself, you persist in your own misery." These words suddenly rang a bell. "Yes it might well be the case", he thought, surprised, "I'm an egoist.""

For a few seconds thoughts of killing his wife passed through his mind. He suddenly froze, aware that his footsteps had carried him back to his own doorstep. He stood, motionless, listening with tormented ears and staring with tortured eyes. No noise? Fear came over him that his wife might surprise him in the dark.

Of course, Persephone reflected, this was a self-portrait of Eris. Eris had always been cold, selfish, and filled with self-loathing. She'd always been vicious, violent and full of murderous impulses she could barely control.

She'd been, from the time she was a baby, fiercely jealous of Persephone, the younger and prettier of the two daughters. She'd never quite forgiven her for stealing the limelight and never quite forgotten how she'd gained the affection of her parents. Ever since then Eris had lived in her shadow and ever since then she'd mortally hated her.

When a child Eris had been, although a petit blond, something of a tomboy and had always competed against boys; she'd always measured her worth against them.

She'd been a long distance runner, had learned Karate and had been fiercely aggressive. Her will had always been indomitable and she'd always been a tyrant. She liked to bully others and she liked to get involved in verbal altercations.

She loved hearing the sound of her own voice and was invariably in awe of her own eloquence. At the same time she viewed herself as an idealist. Even now she regarded herself as one. There was no better system than the Free Market. Capitalism was the most efficient system ever created. It had helped the poor emerge from poverty. It was helping create a global bourgeoisie. What the West did was fight for democracy. It was always a war: us against them. Anyone who disagreed simply didn't understand. They were ignorant, or worse: malevolent.

She frequently accused Persephone of being a "Communist" and of wanting to disrupt and subvert society. This was due to (how could it be otherwise?) her own failure and jealousy. She envied those, like Eris, more successful than herself. What she, Eris, fought for, was civilization and humanity. What she, Eris, fought against was terrorism.

Persephone had always gone in the completely opposite direction. There had been few girls more feminine than Persephone. While Eris had fought with boys in the mud Persephone had played with pink dolls on fluffy rugs.

The Simon character in the novel included many characteristics of Eris: her obsession with belonging to an elite, with social status, money and "performance". Her whole life was geared to her career. She was also something of a psychopath. That Simon wanted to kill his wife reflected Eris's wish to murder others. It was a miracle that she hadn't been locked up.

Persephone remembered her violent behavior: how she'd pinned their mother to a wall and nearly strangled her and how, in the course of an argument, she'd punched a pane of glass. Her fist had immediately started to bleed bright, red blood. On another occasion she'd pulled Persephone by her pullover and had torn it. She'd then run to the police and had claimed that Persephone had assaulted her. That had been a disagreeable matter, to say the least. Persephone had been forced to pay a lawyer a considerable sum of money. She was still paying off the debt. This was one of the prime reasons she was so broke.

If Eris was able to bleed she went to immense lengths to prove that she was invulnerable. Her motto was always: attack is the best form of defense. And she attacked, countless times. At first she'd been tormented by her mother but then the boot had been on the other foot. She'd mentally tortured her mother until she was a nervous wreck. It was Eris more than anyone else who was responsible for their mother's early death. But this, of course, she could never admit. She blamed (how could it be otherwise?) Persephone. Not only that: she lied. Their mother had always loved her most of all.

Persephone stopped reading her sister's stiff, dull prose. The novel was so vile that it literally made her want to puke.

She returned to reading "The Pillow Book" instead. She enjoyed reading about the cat in the imperial palace, whose laziness and defiance so angered a servant, Muma, that she set the dog, Okinamaro, on her. This led to a frightful scene, which angered the emperor. He discharged Muma of her task and banned Okinamaro. Poor Okinamaro was then beaten when he tried to return to court. He was so badly beaten that most at court thought him dead. He was quite unrecognizable and when his name was called he mistrusted those doing the calling. Eventually the courtiers recognized him, pitied him and forgave his earlier misdeeds.

Makura no Soshi noted the names of mountains: Oguchiyama, Kaseyama, Mikasayama, the mountain of dark forests, the mountain of forbidden trespass, the mountain of the unforgotten, the mountain of the pine tops. She then enumerated the markets: Tatsu-Market, Sato-Market, Tsuba Market, mountain peaks: Yuzuruha-peak, Amida-peak, Iyataka-peak, and plains: Mika-plain, Ashita-plain, Sono-plain. She then listed ravines: Kakure ravine, Ina ravine, the "ravine of slyness", the "don't trespass ravine", and the "blue ravine", lakes: the sweet water lake, Yosa lake, the lake at the mouth of the river, imperial tombs: Ogusuru, Kashiwagi, and Ame, and ferries: Shikasuga, Korizuma and Mizuhashi.

She wrote of how she was embarrassed when the empress had asked all her ladies in waiting to pen a poem; few had managed to do so.

She listed the things that were out of keeping with her expectations such as the sound of dogs barking the whole day long, fish traps in Spring, women who only gave birth to girls, letters she wrote returned in crumpled condition, married men who never spent time at home, ladies at court who seduced them, wet nurses who didn't do their jobs properly, passionately desired lovers who weren't at home at night, exorcists who claimed particular demons were too powerful to be driven out, people who involved her in pointless discussions even though she was dead tired, and the sending of poems without receiving the slightest response.

Persephone also thought about what she'd read in Confucius about studying not to be crude, taking loyalty and trustworthiness as a pivot and how, if one errs, one shouldn't be afraid of correcting oneself. It was difficult for her though to be joyful although poor. "Don't be concerned that no one recognizes your merits" she told herself, "be concerned that you may not recognize the merits of others."

Yet, despite everything, she couldn't concentrate on the book. Thoughts of Eris still angered and upset her. In order to calm herself Persephone recalled the wise and kindly words of her guru, Pankaj Raman.

"Focus on the pause between inhaling and exhaling, on the pause between two words in a conversation, on the pause between two notes of a piano playing, on the pause between two thoughts. The formless dimension of pure awareness rises and takes the place of identification with form. It is only in this moment of silence that creativity happens and solutions to problems can be found. Silence is the only thing in the world that has no form. It is not of this world. Become aware of consciousness. Be guided in word and deed by silence. Most people spend their lives as prisoners of thinking. They never go beyond their narrow lives. But you must transcend this. You must attain a higher level of consciousness. Only then will you be free from suffering."

She recalled what he'd said about the Hopi: "The Hopi believe that we, as stewards of life, influence the balance of nature to such an extent that our own actions are the deciding factor in whether the great cycles bring happiness or misery to nature. Our world today is the unfolding of a pattern that we set in motion ourselves."

"Our deviation from natural equilibrium goes back to a time that precedes the existence of our current physical form. Once upon a time, we were able to emerge and disappear at will. However, because of our arrogance, we took our creativeness as a matter of course, neglecting the Creator's plan. The result was that we are now stuck in our physical form, entangled in a constant struggle between our left and right, the left being wise but clumsy, the right being clever and powerful, but foolish and forgetting our original purpose."

"This suicidal division has governed the entire course of our history in all successive worlds. Whenever the sources of life have flowed less abundantly in harmony with the cycles of nature, we've tried to improve our situation through interventions, believing that every mistake has been corrected by them."

"However, in our cunning, most of us have lost sight of our original purpose, have become entangled in a self-designed world, and have ultimately turned against the order of the universe itself."
Chapter 6

Once on Bali Eris rented a house for a month. There was an indoor pond with golden fish, an outside pool, a space for meditation and statues, vases and pictures everywhere.

As she lay in bed Eris felt lost and abandoned. The feeling of loneliness spread through every blood vessel, like a cancer. She was paralyzed; nothing seemed real.

All she was aware of was the cheerful brilliance of the electric light, the sound of a clock ticking and a fan whirring. For days on end she'd been filled with an overwhelming urge to commit suicide. Past and future seemed to have dissolved. The only thing that remained was the present. "If that is the case" she thought to herself, "I may as well dispose of myself like the empty, worthless shell I am."

"I can deceive myself as much as I want. I can be enthusiastic. I can pretend that everything is going to get better but the truth is: nothing will get better. I am doomed. My life is a nightmare. I hate myself. There is no hope. Nothing can alter this reality. Life is meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is pointless. Why do I bother?"

She couldn't bare to look in the mirror. She felt horribly ugly. She no longer had faith in her ability to dazzle. If only she could be as beautiful as Persephone!

"I am ugly," she told herself. "I have lost my ability to attract even the blind. In a female that is a rather pathetic malady. My self-esteem is non-existent. My last links to life have vanished. There is no one left. No one at all. I don't care about anybody, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual."

"What is it that makes one attract others? Last year there were several men who wanted me, for a whole variety of reasons. I was sure of my looks, sure of my magnetism, and my ego was strong. Now, after three blind dates – two flopped utterly, the third was an utter bore – I wonder how I ever thought I was desirable. But inside I know I once was. I used to have a sense of sparkle. I used to be self-assured."

"There is so much hurt in the game of searching for a mate, of testing and trying people out. And then one suddenly realizes that one has forgotten that it is in fact a game. If I didn't think so much, I might have the chance of one day being happy. If I didn't have sex organs, I wouldn't be on the brink of a nervous breakdown."

"Maybe I should quit my job and marry. Who knows? After a while I might get used to the idea of marriage and children. If only it wouldn't swallow up my desire to be myself. Of course, marriage might be wonderful, if, that is, I could find the right man, a man of intelligence, wit and compassion."

"Before I give up and surrender my body, I must be willing to give up my thoughts, mind, and dreams. How can I do that? It's quite impossible!"

"But from what would I live and who would marry me? All the men I know are either pathetic wimps or macho assholes. There seems to be literally nothing in between."

"I invariably spiral back down to my problem. In reality I'm drowning. I'm not only sick, I'm sick with longing too."

"What is more, I have too strong a conscience to break the old customs I was brought up with without disastrous consequences. I can only dream of being free and breaking through the boundaries of decency and decorum. How I hate the girls who dispel sexual hunger, without any misgivings whatsoever."

"I drag out my life, from one date to the next in painful desire, always unfulfilled. This state of affairs is quite maddening. Perhaps I'll lose my sanity. Who knows?"

"The truth is: I'm scared, scared and frozen. It's my old, primitive urge for survival."

She'd always had immense difficulties with boys. This was linked to her father's abandonment of her when she was young.

How could most of the women she knew prostitute themselves in the way they did? Most of married women she knew were desperately unhappy, trapped or bored while most of the girls in the office had boyfriends they hated or despised. They were only together for material reasons.

Eris had no intention of letting herself be dominated or ruined by a man. What she wanted was to lead her own, independent life. Of course that entailed tough choices and sacrifices and had unhappy consequences, such as her drinking but for her it was a question of integrity, a question of what she termed the purity of her soul. There was nothing better than feeling clean, than having a clear conscience. This was, of course, all linked to her Catholic upbringing. She was profoundly religious.

In the mornings she was able to relax in the sun and read about what was going on in the world. A friend had sent her an article by Jane Fonda, who complained about being a "perennial". She'd just turned eighty and could no longer run, ski or write letters on account of her osteoarthritis. Being so ancient though had its advantages. She no longer was groped or harassed, and could fall back on "Well, I'm old," to justify mistakes. People were extremely solicitous. Bottles and doors were forever being opened on her behalf.

What, Eris wondered, would life be like when she was old? She wanted to get to at least a hundred. She had good genes, of that much she was sure. Life was precious to her. She wanted to live, so dearly to live, but above all: to live well, and to live in style. She was, in her eyes, special. She was wealthy, elegant, intelligent, one of the elite. Her life mattered. She was a cut above the rest.

It didn't matter if she wouldn't be able to run, ski or write letters in old age. Why on earth would she want to run, ski or write letters? Who wrote letters these days? And to whom should she send them? She could comfortably discard most physical activities. She had never even had sex.

Although thirty-five Eris was still a virgin. This had rather unfortunate consequences, leading to all manners of perversions. At times she lusted after every man she saw and the more menial his task and the darker his skin, the more she desired him.

This was doubtlessly a consequence of her imperial thinking, but what, to her mind, was wrong with that? Empire was a fact of life and she was proud of the British Empire. She was proud of its history. She believed it the task of the English to spread enlightenment, civilization and humanity to the benighted of the earth.

All she had to do was pay one of the innumerable servants who worked at the hotel. They would be grateful. Exceptionally grateful. But losing her virginity to a servant? How disgusting was that? And what if she were to get pregnant? It would be the ultimate humiliation. She would die of shame.

Jane Fonda could remember when the air and water were clean, song birds and empty spaces were plentiful and there was less traffic and stress. Then the population had been merely two billion. Now it was seven and a half. A hundred thousand lives were being added to the planet every day.

Eris was gripped by panic. The population was increasing at an alarming rate. It was out of control. Something had to be done. A virus needed to be developed or a war had to be fought. There were simply too many people. Simply too many. She became anxious. What would happen? Would the world collapse? Would there be chaos, anarchy? Would she starve? It was hardly surprising she suffered from nightmares.

In the afternoons she continued her research about the Irish economy. This was her homework.

She learned that there were sixty-four banks in Ireland including UniCredit, Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Bank of America, and Bank of Montreal.

Some were retail banks that provided general banking services, including comprehensive current account services and mortgage facilities while others operated in the International Financial Services Centre.

According to Moody's the outlook for the Irish banking system was positive. This was due to expectations that operating conditions for the country's banks would continue to improve.

The largest retail and commercial bank in Ireland was the Allied Irish Bank, which was established in 1825 and employed 10,000 staff. It provided deposit products, loans, financial planning services, investment, pension cash management, online banking, foreign exchange, interest rate risk management, and mobile banking services. It also offered various insurance products and operated through a network of 200 branches across the country.

In 2016, the bank reported total assets of US$113 billion and a net profit of US$1.97 billion.

There was Bank of Ireland, which provided products and services such as mortgages, credit cards, savings, personal loans, current accounts, foreign exchange services, prepaid cards and business banking products. It employed around 11,000 staff across 250 branches.

As of 2016, the bank's total assets were $114 billion and it had a total income of $3,880 million.

She read of how the Bank of Ireland had taken over the Hibernian Bank in 1958 and the national Bank in 1965 and how the Allied Irish Banks or AIB was the product of the merger of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, Royal Bank of Ireland and Munster & Leinster in 1966.

In addition to the banks were the building societies, which had something of an advantage in as much they could hide money from the taxman, until that is everybody could do so. Over the years either the banks had bought the building societies or the building societies had become banks.

The fact that the government was unwilling to risk either of the major banks going bust and the close relationship between the major banks and the politicians set the stage for the financial meltdown of 2008.

The European Central Bank, she learned, had ensured that governments took full liability for paying uninsured bank depositors and bondholders, even when high interest rates were paid by banks engaged in reckless lending and insider dealing.

Irish banks increased their borrowing from foreign depositors and bondholders from €15 billion in 2004 to €110 billion in 2008. The vast inflow was used to fuel a real estate bubble. Property prices rose fivefold. 87% of Irish families bought homes on credit – leaving few people to buy the new luxurious mansions being built by developers without much concern for actually finding buyers. Most of the bank loans had had no foundation in realistic market valuations.

Once new deposit inflows stopped in 2008 the property bubble burst. Housing prices plunged and large depositors started to withdraw their funds from Irish banks. Interest rates rose due to the fears on the part of bondholders that many of the debts would turn bad.

The European Central Bank asserted that the problem was one of illiquidity whereas it was in fact one of insolvency from junk mortgages and insider deals to bank owners. The collateral was usually empty or half-built houses.

The ECB advised the Irish government to deter a run on the banks by providing an unlimited guarantee to uninsured large depositors and bondholders.

The six largest banks initially stated that their overall losses were merely €4 billion. Anglo Ireland then said it had lost €7 billion. The government yielded to ECB advice and took full liability for paying large depositors and bondholders. On January 20 2009, Anglo Irish was taken onto the balance sheet as a public liability.

In 2010 the IMF and ECB arranged a €100 billion loan to the government, in order to avoid "contagion" throughout the eurozone.

There was no Irish deposit insurance agency and no legal obligation to bail out large depositors so why did they do so? Why didn't they simply let the banks default?

The sky began to cloud over and Eris got up from the lounge chair, walked over to the glass door, with its curved dragon-like handles, and looked at herself in its reflection. Yes, she really did have to lose weight.

She passed the head of Buddha on its austere stool, and threw herself on a bed with white pillows, and a pastel striped cover in reds and yellows. Opposite the bed was an austere dressing table in front of a large, framed mirror. Small, colorful, abstract works of art hung on the walls. Next to the bed were open wooden shelves.

Seldom had her sexual urges been stronger. Of course it was her biological clock. It was tormenting her. She fantasized about a dark-skinned, strong smelling, Indonesian man breaking into the house. Of course it was an impossibility but she dreamt of it nevertheless. He would enter the room and find her on the bed, stark naked. Unable to resist the temptation he would rip his own clothes off and leap onto her like a wild animal. If only, if only!
Chapter 7

Persephone was woken by a text message. She'd forgotten to turn off her mobile. The news was terrible. One of her students had killed herself. Sophie, a charming, sensitive and vivacious girl, had had a one-night stand with a complete stranger. The next day she'd texted the fact to her boyfriend, James, by mistake. After writing a long and apologetic email Sophie had overdosed on cocaine and champagne. "Well, that's one way to go," Persephone reflected. What a waste! Sophie had been so beautiful, so kind and so intelligent! She'd been Persephone's favorite student. And now she was gone! How short life was! And how rudely cut off!

Somehow or other Persephone's life had always been intertwined with death. There were times when she feared that her touch was that of the grim reaper himself. She had got to know so many people who'd subsequently died that she began to suspect that her own influence had been involved.

She sat at the breakfast table, looked out at the beautiful view, drank a pomegranate smoothie and thought about the myths associated with her name.

She thought of Isis and Demeter, the earth mother, and her daughter Persephone in Eleusis. Isis had been considered the mother of creation, the mistress of all the elements, the highest of the deities, the queen of the spirits, the first of the celestials, and the apparition of the gods and goddesses. She'd been known by many names: Venus, Diana, Proserpina, Ceres, Juno, Bellona and Hecate.

The painful search of the goddess Demeter for her abducted daughter Persephone in Eleusis found its parallel in the journey of Isis, who looked for her brother-husband Osiris. In both mythologies, the efforts of the goddesses to retrieve their lost relatives from the realm of the dead had been ultimately successful, even if it hadn't been permanent: Osiris had been brought back to life, but decided to stay in the realm of the dead, Persephone had returned to the land of the living, but having eaten the fruit of the dead – a pomegranate seed – it was her destiny to return to the underworld for a third of the year.

Persephone thought back to an incident when, as a student, she'd nearly been killed when waiting outside a nightclub. The bouncers had refused to let anyone in, the crowd had grown restless, there'd been pushing and shoving and suddenly a barrier had collapsed, killing an acquaintance. Had Persephone been a little bit earlier she'd almost certainly have died too.

One of her colleagues found the matter amusing. That she couldn't understand. Apparently the exact same thing happened to another student a few years after she left university. Nobody ever seemed to learn or to demand any changes. Of course this time the incident with Sophie was different. Drugs had been in play.

Persephone had never quite understood the attraction of drugs. Perhaps that had been on account of the fact that she'd never had the money to afford them. She'd had her share of sexual misadventures, failed relationships and disastrous affairs though. And her sex life was still a complete and utter nightmare.

If it had been up to her her sexual life would have begun much earlier than it did but she'd been ruled by her mother's iron fist on the one hand and had been intimidated by her sister on the other. Being brought up a Catholic hadn't helped either.

Her first time in bed with a man had been humiliating disaster. For a while she'd entirely avoided any contact with the opposite sex. Her physical and emotional needs however proved stronger than any inhibitions, self-consciousness or fears.

Finally, at university, when she was safely far removed from either her mother or Eris, she'd acquired a boyfriend. Both her mother and Eris had reacted angrily. They and they alone could dictate Persephone's fate and they couldn't and wouldn't tolerate any competition to their authority. But Persephone had rebelled and, due to a loan from her aunt, became financially independent. She could do what she pleased and for a time she was happy.

There were times when Persephone envied Eris, the virgin queen. How on earth did she manage it? Yes, it was true: Eris was right. Persephone did throw herself at men who were way beneath her and yes, it was true: she was something of a slut, but the idea of living entirely without sex or love, in the way that Eris did, was anathema. The world needed more of both sex and love, of that much Persephone was sure.

It was uptight psychopaths like Eris who were responsible for all the unhappiness and woe in the world. Would Persephone ever find Mr. Right? Probably not but she would at least die trying.

Persephone thought her sister foolish. Eris had no time for anything other than work, work, work. It was killing her. And all just to sustain her ridiculous petit-bourgeois pretentions, her absurd sense of superiority and smug sense of complacency. It was all just one gigantic vanity trip, nothing more. How narcissistic her sister was! One day she'd die of cancer, of that much Persephone was sure.

After a short breakfast and a brief walk on the beach Persephone resumed the reading of her sister's novel. How on earth did she find the time? She obviously didn't bother to revise. No wonder it was so bad!

"Simon's strong figure, upright, with firm step, masterful and unaffected, had once sparked interest in all. He'd once been considered a role model, a man who'd managed to assert himself in the big world."

"His struggles, with its victories and defeats, had once been seen in an adventurous light. Distinguished by his brilliant abilities he was a member of an elite circle. Everybody listened to him and what he said awakened respect. He'd once had access to everything: money, honor and love. Everyone had recognized in him a man who'd worked in the immediate vicinity of power, in the proximity of the real driving force of the country: a man who'd been a member of an elite group, a man who'd proven himself in the seriousness of everyday life and had emerged victorious."

"He was sometimes generous, with lavish gifts, when circumstances required, but understood the value of money. His older brother already had his own villa and his mother was eager for him to follow suit quickly before the prices rose. Simon cautiously followed the development on the real estate market. His mother was even willing to help him financially with the purchase of a villa. At length she asked him about his intentions. Many children of her friends already had villas and she was afraid that he'd fall behind."

Persephone thought about her own mother. She'd had done her utmost to ruin Persephone's life and had sabotaged her at all decisive stages of her career. When Persephone thought she'd come close to success or when she thought she'd finally met the right boy her mother had risen like a sea monster and had crushed her hopes.

Both her mother and Eris had always been tyrants. They'd always demanded absolute and unerring obedience. And Persephone had always been willing to submit. She'd always deferred to their opinions and had always caved in to their demands. If the truth be told: Persephone had always been terrorized by both her sister and mother.

How ironic it was! She'd followed their advice but even then they'd damned her. Her mother had always praised her for studying literature and starting an academic career but when Persephone actually persevered with it, despite initial reversals, her mother had turned against her and had poured hatred and scorn upon her head. Persephone had been shattered. Likewise Eris had alternately praised and condemned her until Persephone had been thoroughly confused and demoralized. And the joke was that all Persephone had sought, her life long, was the approval of her mother or her sister. She'd never sought to be selfish. She'd always tried to please. She'd always wanted to give her all. Yet what had been the point? Had she succeeded in imparting knowledge? The task of teaching was arduous. Were her sacrifices, her long hours of study, in vain?

Persephone recalled getting up early in the morning, getting to the university, preparing her lectures, getting herself psyched up as if before a theatre performance and then "delivering her aria", as she called it. It demanded all her nervous and emotional energy. And how nerve-wracking the lectures were! She fretted about being properly prepared. She worried about structuring her lectures logically and articulating herself clearly. Had they understood? Had she succeeded in getting her ideas across? Had she aroused their interest? Or were they bored and indifferent? Did they hate her lectures? She couldn't tell. What a difference a girl like Sophie had made! She'd been so sweet! And so enthusiastic! She'd always been kind to her fellow students. What did it matter if she'd made a mistake? One mistake! It is human to err. Her boyfriend would have forgiven her. Everyone would have done so. What on earth did a one night stand matter in the greater scheme of things?

After her lectures Persephone had been completely and utterly drained. She'd just sat in a cafe close to the university and had drunk a cup of tea. Her mind had been too numb to even read a newspaper.

She thought about Parzifal. "If indecision dwells in the heart the soul shall reap woe. If, like the black and white of the magpie, unimpaired courage is combined with its opposite, everything is both glorious and ignominious. They who waver, can still be happy; heaven and hell are part of them. They who lose their inner support end in the darkness of hell. They who preserve inner firmness adhere to the light color of the sky."

"Those who are dishonest end in the fire of hell and their reputation is destroyed as if in a hailstorm."

"I show woman the goal her heart should seek. She should think carefully about whom she bestows her praise and her maiden honor upon so that she won't regret her chastity and faithfulness later. Let the honorable woman always find the right measure! In God's sight I pray all good women to keep in wisdom's way. Modesty is all virtues crown!"

"The false heart shall win false honor. How long does thin ice last, if the sun shines hot as August? Respect vanishes quickly. Many women are praised for beauty. But if their heart be false, they are as worthless as gold-handled shards of glass. Conversely a noble ruby encased in cheap brass is to be valued. She who has a noble heart, will be highly esteemed."
Chapter 8

As Eris studied the showerhead in the bathroom images of knives, limbs, flesh, skin and blood streamed through her head. She turned up the hot water until it was close to boiling. She needed to distract herself by means of pain. She needed to get the pictures out of her head. This was too much, simply too much. She thought she was going slowly insane. She let out a cry. The water had scalded her. Then she turned the water off, got out of the shower and slowly dried her body. Half the soap from the shampoo was still in her hair, she was still visibly dirty and she could still smell her own sweat. But she was not about to wash herself again. Why bother? There was no one she was planning to see on that particular day or any other for that matter. She had no need for another soul. She was alone and it was better that way; she wanted to retreat from the world. She needed peace and quiet. She needed to order her thoughts and life. Her nerves were mere shreds.

In recent weeks she'd invariably had three types of dream: dreams about sex, dying and excessive violence. In the last couple of nights the latter had predominated. She dreamed about killing colleagues who annoyed her, her boss and above all else: Persephone. Little else filled her sleeping hours. This time though her dreams filled her waking hours too. This was a problem. She could hardly work.

There were nights when she woke in horror, in a cold sweat, and there were others when she slumbered on regardless.

She suffered from acute anxiety. Something was wrong but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Her friend in London, Corinna, had gone missing. Some said she was in New York, others in L.A.. Some said she'd been fired, others that she'd left of her own accord, others still: that she was either hiding out in a monastery in Greece or was somewhere in Costa Rica. What seemed certain was that she'd disappeared, without a trace. What had happened? Had she gone into hiding? Had the documents, the "Jersey Files", Eris had entrusted her with proven too dangerous? What had become of them? Corinna was the only one with the key to the safe and the only one who knew the code off by heart. It wasn't written down, anywhere. Without the "Jersey Files" Eris was wholly without a weapon against her boss, Mark Rogers. It had been the threat of their publication that had kept him in line. Could she get access to them? If so, how? Gradually it became clear what was wrong, why she was worried: she was being followed. She'd dismissed the idea at first but the more she thought about it the more obvious it became. It wasn't merely paranoia.

Outside it was pouring. Eris stayed in the whole day. As she studied the grey curtains, the grey carpet and the turquoise jug on a simple wooden platform she listened to the thunder. It sounded like cymbals clashing.

She thought about the last time she'd talked with her boss. It had been at a business lunch in a small private dining room in the Old Parsonage Hotel in Oxford. The room was dark, with an open fire. The fire was fake but extremely hot. A stuffed pike glared from a large glass case.

The food was extremely good: chicken oysters with lemon mayonnaise and mushrooms with wild garlic.

She'd made it abundantly clear to her boss, Mark Rogers, that she was tired of being poorly rewarded for her pains. Her bonus was miniscule. It was a joke. She'd once been the best trader on the floor. Now she was forced to do research on behalf of the company. There was no connection whatsoever between what she did and what she got in return. She was being discriminated against because she was a woman. That was the only reason. Things would have to change, soon. Otherwise certain things would come to light, which might well damage not only him, her boss, but the company as a whole too. Given her long and persuasive track record a partnership in the company was the least she should expect. This would only be fair.

Mark Rogers wore his familiar working uniform: a grey suit, white shirt and plain silk tie. That particular day his tie was bright red. After sitting down at a table he refused to look at the wine list. "I've seen too many people who've destroyed their lives with alcohol," was his dry comment. This Eris immediately perceived as an insult, which it was intended to be. She took umbrage and slowly began to lose her cool. This was exactly the effect Mark Rogers had intended.

"You know I've become very successful over the years," he began. "People don't have access to my numbers but I'm worth an awful lot. I've always been ambitious. My parents didn't encourage me in any way. I wasn't guided. But I was extremely good at school."

"I started the company by myself. I did it my own way. I've been alone most years. When I decided to start the company, it wasn't because I was seeking a lucrative career. I just enjoy creating things. Peter Allen and I were excited about the bonds market."

"We were surprised nobody else was working on bonds for Third World countries. We got to work on the most interesting problems and hired the best people. We were in on the ground floor. The money was almost an accidental byproduct. Really, if one develops good bonds, the business isn't that complicated. The business side is pretty simple really. One tries to take in more than one spends."

"Of course there's always opposition when one does something big. When we started talking about a merger with Bryce Pinkerton for example it was too early. It wasn't done to please investors, or for stock price; it was a merger based on substance. And the substance was two companies that started at exactly the same time, with exactly the same vision, but which took completely different approaches. No merger is ever perfect but we did achieve our objective: we did indeed get rid of our most dangerous competitor."

"We've done many things that have been somewhat controversial. A lot of people were devastated when their houses were ruined and their values destroyed but that was by no means our fault. I'm told that the food is very good here."

Eris didn't reply. She listened and waited for an opportunity to speak. When she would, she thought to herself, it wouldn't be just about the quality of the food. Mark's monologue however continued unabated.

"You know I work very hard for a living. I believe that one should work hard, don't you agree? You know I'm working as many hours now as I did at the start. I don't work the hours that I did in my twenties and early thirties, when I didn't take any holidays and didn't go home most nights. Then I was truly fanatical. In that respect I have changed, but I nevertheless still work very hard indeed."

"I am a modest man. I'm not greedy. I don't demand more than what I'm entitled to. I have a nice office but I don't have expensive hobbies. I have a charming house but I never wanted a Ferrari. I always wanted a pool but that was never terribly expensive you see. I'm pretty contented really and I hope that those who work for me are contented too. I personally think that we are generous to our employees. Sometimes overly so. Others disagree. You seem to be one of them."

"With bonds one knows whether something is right or not in three or four years... but a lot of the things we're doing now are more in the five- to 10-year time frame. This makes the question of remuneration tricky, to say the least."

"You know I enjoy my job and I do it well. I read whatever is necessary and I get to learn whatever I need to. And I get to spend time with people who work on trading floors all over the world. It's quite exciting really."

"I hear what you're saying. You know things. You want to threaten me, us, the company. You want to blackmail us. You are threatening to annihilate us but you know what? We simply can't afford such a loss of credibility. If you do anything foolish I'll bring a lawsuit that will be tied up in court for decades. Do you understand? Decades."

"As for your friend Corinna, she has behaved extremely foolishly indeed. She lost her temper and verbally abused me as well as other members of the board. Such behavior is unforgivable. She has already regretted that, I can assure you."

"Had you been more clever, had you played your cards right, had you been a skilled chess player, you might well have won. But this time you have proven unlucky. Extremely unlucky. We can't fire you, just yet, but your career with the company is over. Do you understand? Definitively over. And if you think of running to the press or becoming a whistleblower, then there will be serious consequences, I can promise you that. You know perfectly well, by the way, that our company has friends in the media."

Had Persephone lost the game? Had they seen her cards, guessed that Corinna had been the key and the guardian of her secrets and either bribed or disposed of her? The files concerning secret slush funds, secret pipeline deals and secret assessments of oil and gas fields Persephone and Corinna had stumbled upon had not only had commercial but also geopolitical implications. Any number of powers had an interest in the information, in either preventing it leaking to the press or in attaining it themselves. It was perfectly plausible that one or other or perhaps a combination of secret services had decided that Corinna simply knew too much. In which case they would be coming after Eris also. Everything was possible. Mark Rogers had no compunction about destroying entire continents, let alone individual countries, cities, or people. Who, other than Corinna, knew about this? Nobody. There was literally not a soul she could turn to. What could she say? That she had wanted a pay rise, a bigger bonus and had tried to blackmail her boss into getting it? That a colleague had mysteriously disappeared? That a number of incriminating documents had been entrusted to her? That her boss had called her bluff? What she herself had done was illegal. She had taken a risk and misjudged. A bond trader always has to ask himself or herself: Is this a smart risk? Do I feel lucky? How cunning is my opponent? Does he or she have any idea what he is or she is doing, and if not, how do I exploit his or her ignorance?

How on earth could she have had the temerity to take on Mark Rogers of all people? Had she been insane? Had she been tired of life? It was sheer suicide. Of course the company would win. The company always won. How could she not have foreseen the inevitable? Apart from which: she had no idea which other parties were directly or indirectly involved: the Mossad, the CIA, MI6, or the FSB? It could be any number of agencies. The information was extremely sensitive indeed.

One of the reasons she'd fled to Bali had been that her nerve had begun to crack. Corinna had noticed this too: her short tempered flare ups, her ready anger and irrational hatred. Perhaps Corinna had been worried that Eris was falling apart. Perhaps Corinna had made a deal and had handed over the secrets. In which case Eris was lost.

For weeks before Eris left for Bali she noticed that she was being watched. People followed her. She could still hear the echo of shoes on the pavement in the cold night. She could still remember her sense of chill, her anxiety and racing heart as she hurried to escape. She grew quite paranoid and turned off her mobile whenever she could. It was slowly killing her anyway, of that much she was sure.

On one occasion she made the mistake of switching on her mobile in the center of town. Within half an hour she was being followed. She wanted to take the tube and found herself being carefully studied by a tall man in a black leather jacket as she took the escalator down to the platform. He seemed to be comparing her to notes he'd taken and to be trying to ascertain whether she was indeed the correct target or not.

Once on the platform he continued to study her closely while phoning. There were few people on the platform that night and there was no obvious reason why he should be standing so close to her.

Her instinct told her to run. She took fright, decided that a lonely tube platform was a dangerous place to be and got on an escalator taking her back up. As she rode up the escalator she saw two powerfully built men, who looked like a pair of gorillas, also in black leather jackets, rushing down the escalator. They stopped in astonishment when they saw her riding in the opposite direction.

Had they been planning to push her under a tube train? Most probably. But who were they? At a guess Eris would have said that the men were Russians but they could also have been Russians for hire. They could have been FSB or the Mossad. It was perhaps better not to know.

Eris knew that she had to rely on her own wits to survive. She couldn't rely on anyone. That she'd invited Persephone had been a serious error. How could she make such a mistake? Now, of all times, just when her very life was in danger? Just when they were coming after her. Of course, in Bali, alone in a house, she was an easy target. She was a sitting duck. She grew more and more paranoid by the minute.
Chapter 9

For days on end Persephone either swam or snorkeled in the crystalline pure water, searched for turtles, examined corals or admired the shoals of golden and bright green fish. She even found a sunken pier.

When not swimming, snorkeling or sunbathing she explored the interior of the island, with its three hundred natives, dirt tracks, palm trees, bamboo bungalows, cottages, restaurants, cafés and hotels. The western part of the island, where her particular resort was located, was pretty much deserted.

As she passed the thatched-roof huts lining the shoreline she was reminded of the fact that Gili Meno, which is the smallest and quietest of the three Gilis, is considered suitable for romantic escapes but not for those who'd just been dumped or needed distraction.

She felt horribly lonely and wondered whether she should take a boat to Gili Trawangan, which was said to be livelier. She'd been told that a different club hosted an event every night. How exciting! She so wanted to dance. She was good at dancing. God, how she wanted to get laid. After lying in the sun and swimming for hours on end she was very much in the mood for love.

Gili Trawangan had the advantage that after a wild, and possibly embarrassing night out she could simply return to Gili Meno and hide out in the villa. There was so much she wanted to read anyway. She wanted to finish "The Pillow Book" as soon as humanly possible. It was quite fascinating.

As she studied the natives with their torso wraps made of intricately patterned cotton cloth and udengs she imagined what Japan in the eleventh century must have been like.

Only the edges, sleeve ends, collar, and hem of the individual layers of the silk robes women wore at the time were revealed. It was the outermost robe that set the overall tone for the color scheme. A woman's taste and sensitivity was displayed by her choice of color combinations. She would select the various robes for the ensemble in accordance with the season, an occasion, or a prevailing mood. Jackets, skirt-like trousers (hakama) and an apron worn at the back completed women's court dress.

She thought of Sei Shōnagon's "The Pillow Book". When celebrating New Year, courtiers wished the emperor good luck, exchanged congratulations, and took particular care about their appearance. They picked herbs, half hidden by remnants of snow, and journeyed to the imperial palace to admire the emperor's new horse. Their carriages would jolt at the central gate, causing heads to collide and trinkets to fall.

The new arrivals would get a glimpse of the exclusive parts of the palace and envy the more privileged courtiers. How gifted they must be, the new arrivals would think, to be allowed to move so freely in the very heart of the imperial palace!

A rice porridge would be prepared as a festive meal and the women and girls in the household would play pranks on one another. Of course life at court, Persephone knew all too well from reading "The Tale of Genji", wasn't always fun and games.

A number of women wanted the pre-eminent distinction of being the one favored by the emperor. They treated those they regarded as not quite their equals with contempt and, at times, resentment.

The emperor's passion for a woman of lower status would be criticized and many would complain that Japan would suffer the same fate as China had. Sex and politics, Persephone reflected, rarely, if ever, mixed. Yet politics, at one and the same time, was invariably sexual politics. Politics involved the question of who got to sleep with whom or who got to sleep with anyone at all.

She thought about the story of Ramayana, which was translated into Javanese by Empu Kanva on behalf of King Airlanga in the first half of the eleventh century and which was still one of the staples of Balinese theatre.

Rama, the rightful heir to the throne, was disinherited due to the intrigues of concubines at court. He was forced, together with his wife Sinta and his stepbrother Laksmana, to flee into the forest. One day the demon Rahwana, the embodiment of evil, fell in love with Sinta and abducted her. The rest of the story revolved around Rama's attempts at getting his abducted wife back. He only succeeded with the help of Hanoman, a courageous, honest and noble white monkey. Hanoman was the son of Bathara Bayu, the deity of the wind, while Rama himself was the incarnation of Bathara Vishnu, the Sustainer of the World.

Persephone thought about Balinese Theatre with its angular and abruptly broken attitudes, mechanically rolling eyes, horizontally moving heads, pouts, muscular contractions, syncopated modulations, musical phrases, flappings of insect wings, rustlings of branches, sounds of hollow drums, and dances of animated puppets. How she wished she could see such a performance on Gili Meno!

As she was passed by a horse and cart she imagined herself back in the Middle Ages. She thought about Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzifal": "Whenever he fought a battle his brave heart never failed him. He was like steel and won high fame in victorious combat. He was bold, and only slowly did he gain the right experience of life. The sight of him delighted the eyes of women and filled their hearts with longing. When his father died the bold hero Gachmuret lost all the castles and the land where his father had once carried scepter and crown with splendor and royal perfection. The loss of his father was painfully lamented, for his life and reign had been blameless. His eldest son ordered all the princes of the land to come. They came, as befits knights, as they were entitled to expect great fiefs from his hand. They pleaded with the new king not to disinherit Gachmuret and to leave him a landowner, so that the young nobleman could live freely according to his noble birth. The king agreed and said: "Why not call my brother Gachmuret of Anjou, which is the name of my kingdom? My brother can be assured of help; he is my household companion. I want to demonstrate that we share the same mother. I have riches in abundance and he shall have his fair share. I won't risk my salvation at the hands of Him, who gives and takes at his discretion.""

Persephone couldn't help but think of her dead mother and father. When she was young Persephone had been extremely attached to her father and he, in turn, had reciprocated her affection. She'd also been exceptionally close to her mother. Only later did her relation to both sour.

Eris, by contrast, had never been treated particularly well by either parent. Persephone had pitied Eris and had nicknamed her "the orphan". Yet Eris had made a cult of pretending that both her mother and father had adored her and that she'd adored them. This was, of course, a lie. But then Eris had always been a liar as well as a thief.

Terrible fights had followed her father's death. Worst had been the battle over the house in Kensington. Eris had even attempted to commit suicide after their father's passing. She'd thrown herself out of a window. This had been followed by a stint with an aunt, Lady Monfort-Noir, in the country. Upon her return she'd managed to burn the house in Kensington down. It had been an ill-disguised attempt on the lives of both Persephone and her mother. Eris had demanded that the house be signed over to her and when her mother had refused her unreasonable demand she'd simply set it on fire.

No criminal charges followed as the family had been desperate to avoid scandal. With the house went Persephone's hopes of a comfortable and quiet life. After the blaze and after the discovery that their father's stocks and shares had been worthless Persephone was forced into a world of toil and sorrow.

Persephone remembered the dark house with its innumerable small, oddly shaped rooms, twisting staircase leading into a hall, and its cabinets full of blue china, gold faced clocks, baize covered tables, carved sideboards, grand pianos, busts, engravings, oak chairs and red plush curtains. And she remembered it ablaze.

When she returned home she saw a constant stream of acrid, grey smoke billowing out of the windows. She remembered the bright lights of the fire brigade and how the individual fires refused to be extinguished for hours on end.

A fireman explained that old houses, where everything had dried out, were highly inflammable. Similar buildings frequently ended in such a manner. He also told Persephone that arson was strongly suspected.

There wasn't an investigation. It was a miracle that both Persephone and her mother had survived. But they were indigent and humiliated. The only thing their mother managed to save were her diaries and some photos. And even they Eris had tried to steal from her.

The shock killed her mother off within a month. She no longer evinced a desire to live. Her daughter, Eris, had disgraced the family. She was evil, ungrateful, a monster. It had been a tragic affair.

Persephone also remembered the house that had belonged to their aunt, Lady Monfort-Noir, just outside St. Ives. It was there that the family had spent its summers. It had been a substantial place, with a dining room, living room, drawing room, music room, and guest rooms, decorated with chintz wallpaper, ornaments, sofas and pictures.

Bay windows opened on to a garden. Above them were balconies and canopies edged with pediments. Between the bay windows was a blind arch. Climbers and passion flowers clambered up to the second floor balconies.

The garden was full of primroses, bluebells, anemones, grapes, strawberries, peaches, sweet-scented escallonia hedges, thickets of gooseberries and currants. When the weather was good Persephone and Eris would play tennis on the lawn. Now and again Persephone would wander off to the greenhouse, where the jackmanii grew or to the pond or the big tree close to the mesembryanthemums and the pampas grass.

She thought of the sea, the moors, and the place names: Clodgy, Halsetown Bog, Carbis Bay, Lelant, Zennor and the Gunard's Head.

After Eris burnt that particular house down Lady Monfort-Noir suddenly lost all interest in Persephone, her former protégé. Did she fear for her life? Was she worried that Eris would attack either her or her property with equal impunity? Perhaps it had been the family's biggest mistake not to incarcerate Eris when they'd had a chance to do so.

Persephone enjoyed listening to Lady Monfort-Noir. Lady Monfort-Noir would speak for hours of England and what it meant to be English. She'd list all the great eccentrics she'd ever known. Half had been Nazis but Lady Monfort-Noir didn't see anything particularly reprehensible about that. After all: wasn't the royal family German?

She liked to talk about Kensington when it was still distinctly separate from London, when a high wall divided Kensington Gardens from the Hounslow Road, when there were still deer in the gardens, cavalry barracks close to Queen's Gate and a turnpike at the top of the Gloucester Road. There was once a time when South Kensington was made up of market gardens, gentle slopes, gravel paths, avenues of trees, fields of hawthorn, old elms and strawberry-beds.

Lady Monfort-Noir talked of the times when Soho Square had been called King's Square and when Dr. Nicholas Barbon had leased the Tudor palaces along the Strand, pulled them down and turned York House into Buckingham and Villiers Streets and Exeter House into Exeter Street and Exeter Change. At the same time the Sidney family had built on their land around Leicester Fields, a project which had started under Robert Sydney, 2nd Earl of Leicester with his building of a mansion north of the Royal Mews (now Trafalgar Sq.).

She talked of how Dryden had lived in Gerrard St., Casanova in Greek St. and Mozart in Frith St..

Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton had lain the foundation of modern Bloomsbury by creating Bloomsbury Sq.. While erecting his own mansion he'd parceled out plots to builders on forty-two-year leases at low ground rents on condition that the leasee built substantial houses, which were then to revert to the landlord. This, together with Barbon's technique of standardization proved the pattern to be followed by other speculators.

The area was further developed by the Bedford family who rationed shops, banned taverns and gated the entrances.

Cavendish Sq. was the result of the marriage of Henrietta Cavendish with Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford who naturally enough leant his name to both Oxford St. and Harley St..

Portland Place was named after William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland, Welbeck St. after Welbeck Abbey, the Portland family home, and Wimpole St. after Harley's Cambridgeshire seat. It was interestingly enough in one of the mews of the Portman estate, a certain Cato St. that the "Cato Street Conspirators" had lain their plans to murder the entire Cabinet as they dined in Grosvenor Sq.. Baker St was also built on land leased from Portman and was laid out by William Baker. It was to be home to both William Pitt the Younger and Sarah Siddon.

The Earl of Cadogan married Elizabeth Sloane, who'd inherited considerable amounts of property from her father: Sir Hans Sloane. This led to the development of Cadogen Place, Sloane Str. and Sloane Sq. In Ebury St. Mozart composed his 1st Symphony.

Lady Monfort-Noir liked to talk about the family history, which seemed very much plagued by madness and violence. One ancestor, who'd been a prominent publicist, and who'd argued that Africans were a different species to whites, a species much closer to apes, had been taken to court for throwing slaves overboard and claiming on the insurance. Another had been killed during Tacky's revolt on Jamaica.

One whole branch had made the serious error of moving, lock stock and barrel, to India and had perished during the great rebellion of 1857.

Yet not all branches of the family had suffered. One branch had made a small fortune selling opium in China. It was this fortune that had made the purchase of the house in Kensington possible.

One distant aunt had gone mad when the cask carrying her dead husband back to England had exploded and his body had come shooting out. Another distant uncle had lost his sanity when he'd failed to attain the high academic standards demanded of him by his family. He'd flunked his exams, had failed to go to either Oxford or Cambridge and had starved to death a few months later, after being incarcerated in a mental institution.

In order to remedy this problem it had been decided to teach the children of the next generation how to print books. It was not good if they all became intellectuals. They needed to learn something practical instead.

Some of the family had been anarchists, socialists and thoroughly subversive. Once three of their number had pretended to be visiting dignitaries from Abyssinia in order to attain access to the most modern and secret ship of the British Navy. It had been a veritable scandal when the truth had been revealed. Others had worked against the First Great War, claiming that it was simply an attempt to impose the will of the British Empire on Germany. Others had worked against the Second, claiming that the war was simply an attempt on the part of the Americans to attain world hegemony.

Lady Monfort-Noir lamented the death of civilization, for which she blamed the "f...ing Socialists." It had been they who'd introduced the horrendous taxes. Taxes had been the death of society, the death of luxury and the death of splendor. The entire populace had been reduced to slavery. Everybody had to work, work and work some more. Work was so banal, so trite, so degrading. For whom did they work? Who benefited? The "thieving banksters"? The "City spivs"? The masses? What did she care for the masses? The masses were petty, materialistic, immoral and profoundly disgusting. The country had gone to rack and ruin. It could no longer be saved. Those in power were unscrupulous rats.

Of course it hadn't helped matters when her nephew, Henry, Persephone's father, who'd attended Eton and Cambridge, had "married below his station". And an Irishwoman, a Catholic to boot, who Lady Monfort-Noir referred to, when in a better mood, as "that paddy washerwoman" and when in a worse to "that Irish...". That she'd attended a good university, UCD, that her father had been an officer and a gentleman, who was descended from an ancient Irish family, hadn't mattered in the least.

When Lady Monfort-Noir's nephew, Henry, Persephone's father, had deserted the family Lady Monfort-Noir had been delighted. When he'd returned to it she'd been quite distressed. The fact that Persephone didn't wish to see him and set stringent conditions she thought "perfectly admirable." Any thought of reconciliation she regarded as "hypocrisy" and "cant".

Lady Monfort-Noir regarded her nephew, Henry, Persephone's father as a lovable bounder. Persephone however grew to hate her father on account of his materialism, his coldness and his boundless cruelty. He went on to make a lot of money asset stripping and destroying companies but never thought for a second of giving either of his daughters a penny. He was the personification of Scrooge.

As much as Lady Monfort-Noir had been attached to Persephone, who she knew to be kind and affectionate, qualities she cherished most of all, she'd hated Eris, who she regarded as cold, vicious and evil. She complained bitterly when Eris, thanks to her cousin, Adrian, who Lady Monfort-Noir equally disliked, got a job in the City. The fact that she, Eris, had made quite a career, in contrast to Adrian, who'd never managed to escape the back office and who seemed to degenerate the longer he stayed there, didn't impress her in the least. On the contrary. She, Lady Monfort-Noir, needled Adrian about the fact that he was a failure, a "loser" and encouraged him in his jealousy of Eris. It was all her fault, Lady Monfort-Noir would tell him. She, Eris, had the contacts, she had the connections, she could help him if she really wanted to. But she didn't. Why not? She obviously didn't feel the slightest gratitude. Or loyalty toward her family. When Adrian broke out in bitter tirades against Eris, Lady Monfort-Noir would be delighted. He was a complete idiot, of that much she was sure.

Persephone thought of Charles, the distant cousin, Lady Monfort-Noir had introduced her to. There was no man she'd felt such a passion for. They'd lived in perfect harmony. It had been as if in a dream!

He'd been so handsome, intelligent and so kind! How she missed Charles! It had been a short but blissful romance. They'd even planned to marry and have children. Of all the men she ever met he was the only one she'd wished to have children with.

He was stricken while on holiday in Thailand. Why hadn't she been able to accompany him? How foolish to let him go off on his own! And to go to Thailand of all places! The humidity had been too much for his weak lungs. He'd died quite suddenly.

A month later four friends of his had got drunk, had gone off on a boating trip near St. Ives, and had drowned. It had been a melancholy time.
Chapter 10

As Eris sat in Someplace Else Cafe, with its bottles, shiny metal containers, ornate, metal teapots and large glass jars on black shelves, she thought about all the places in the world she'd been on behalf of her company.

She remembered the red earth of the gold mine in Uganda and the perilous trip through the poverty-stricken shantytowns to reach a particularly remote cobalt mine in the Congo. When she finally arrived she was told that no women were permitted. If they tried to get in they'd be killed like snakes.

She recalled the mobile phone factory in China, with its cool, clinical work floor and its harsh, Spartan living conditions. She remembered the terror of going down a mineshaft in the Ukraine and the airy, plant filled offices of a Dutch company in Amsterdam, with its hammocks and employees working on laptops.

She recalled how she'd been caught in a snowstorm on the bare hills of New Zealand's Crown Range Summit and had lost control of her car. For a few seconds she thought it was the end. It was only due to good fortune that she escaped without a scratch. The car rental company had refused to pay for the damages.

She thought of the time she'd visited the La Piste camp, a barren enclosure with rows of houses on steeples, in Haiti. It was pitch black at night and although there'd been a security fence around the camp she'd been terrified of being robbed, raped or simply murdered. She'd been sent to assess Codevi industrial park but had taken a wrong turn and had landed in La Pista instead.

She could only relax once she got to the small bridge and metal gate of Codevi. After that she visited another, similar industrial park called Sonapi near Port-au-Prince. She'd then written a long report about the success of the "export-processing zone" and how Haiti was well worth investing in.

Haiti, she wrote enthusiastically, had a huge competitive advantage; it had the lowest labor costs in the hemisphere. The minimum wage was merely $3.70 per day. In addition to that Haiti had tariff-free access to the US market. At the same time there were no taxes on exports and no customs duties on imported materials.

Of course what she couldn't mention was the paucity of private investment and the absence of foreign donors. $15 billion was needed yet only a fraction of that had actually materialized. Furthermore Haiti's public institutions were weak and riven by corruption. The rubble from a recent earthquake still lay around, there were few roads, little housing or water and not much sanitation. In fact Haiti's GDP was lower than it had been in 1960. This was all public knowledge, she reflected, so why should she bother putting it in the report?

She remembered the bitter fights with Persephone about the world economy. Eris's company CCB, Persephone charged, fed on poverty and destroyed the environment. It generated apartheid, encouraged racism, undermined the rights of women and created conflicts between nation states.

It had been involved in financial speculation in Eastern Europe and Asia, where one country after the next had collapsed. In Bulgaria it was responsible for reducing the vast majority of the population to an income of $4 a day and in Indonesia it was to blame for halving incomes to $20 per month.

Eris had countered that the free market policies, which CCB advocated, were in reality lifting the masses out of poverty. The world was getting to be a richer and better place. This was nonsense Persephone responded, a mere trick of statistics. Definitions of poverty were pegged artificially low while the high cost of living wasn't taken into account.

Of course, Eris thought, this was simply Persephone being her usual, perverse self. She was completely out of touch with reality and simply repeating platitudes commonplace among her "lefty", Guardian reading, "intellectual" friends. What did Persephone know about such matters? She hardly left the country.

Persephone was forever quoting her Eton and Cambridge educated, radical, "lefty" friend, a fellow academic, called Thoby, a true menace to society if ever there was one.

Eris had long been weary of discussing anything at all with Thoby. Thoby, who taught history, was forever rubbishing economics as so much nonsense and was forever attacking Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

"The whole business of money being an extension of barter is a fraud, a myth, a lie. It is nonsense," Thoby would rage. "It has no basis whatsoever in empirical fact. Money has always been debt, whether debt to a prince or debt to the gods." The one thing he thought good about Smith was that he had, along with Mill, denounced the rentier economy.

"Wall Street investment bankers and hedge fund managers who raid companies and empty out their pension reserves, landlords who rack-rent their tenants, monopolies who gouge consumers with prices not warranted by the actual costs of production and commercial banks who demand that governments cover their losses are all parasites."

"Monopolists and bankers charge more for access to land, natural resources, monopolies and credit than what their services need to cost. A rentier economy is one in which individuals levy charges for the property their ancestors have bequeathed. It is taking without producing. And, as Honoré de Balzac pointed out, most family fortunes are based on theft. I know that to be the case of my family at least. They were war profiteers. Disgusting people."

"In the past nations regulated and taxed such destructive exploitation but today the One Percent have gained control of government. They have created a system in which they are neither taxed nor prosecuted for their crimes. Furthermore they sponsor think tanks that argue that rentier takings represent a contribution to the economy rather than a subtraction from it."

Eris knew this to be true from her own experience. Whole trading floors of her own and other bond companies rarely actually did anything once they'd sold some bonds. They just sat back and waited for the money to roll in of its own accord. She nevertheless felt like hitting Thoby and slitting his throat. One day she'd do so. Of that much she was sure. He was a menace, a threat to the world, a threat to order, and a threat to civilization. He ought to be hanged! What he was advocating was revolution. Or perhaps he was simply too stupid to realize the fact.

Eris recalled the time when both she and Persephone, as teenagers, travelled around Europe together. It was an unmitigated disaster. They'd fought bitterly. Yet they'd travelled far, up to Bergen in Norway and down all the way to Istanbul. It was a miracle that they'd both survived.

Corinna, Eris recalled, had been doing research about oil pipelines a month before her disappearance. Perhaps her disappearance was linked to that.

The last time they met for dinner Corinna told Eris all about how Azerbaijan's port at Alat was simultaneously connected to the West (Turkey and the European Union), the South (Iran and India) and the North (Russia). Alat was also designed as a top logistics/manufacturing/connectivity hub of the New Silk Roads, aka Belt and Road Initiative. Its top strategic location straddled the central connectivity corridor. It was linked to the newly opened Baku-Tblisi-Kars railway, which connected the Caucasus with Central Asia; and was also linked with the International North-South Transport Corridor that connects Russia to India via Iran.

Transportation corridors were all the rage, Corinna told Persephone, and recommended that she read Connectivity by Parag Khanna. For Azerbaijan, oil and gas may only last up to 2050. So the priority was to engineer the transition toward becoming a logistics hub; actually, the premier Caspian Sea hub.

Turkmenistan was actively promoting itself as "the heart of the Great Silk Road." Yet that was centered more on reviving Ancient Silk Road sites than on digital connectivity.

On account of its idiosyncratic practices, Turkmenistan never managed to diversify its export markets. It operated the switch from Russia to China but couldn't land the lucrative European market.

It had been a mantra in Brussels for ages that the EU needed energy diversification away from Gazprom.

European companies were developing major oilfields in Kazakhstan. But on the "blue gold" front, so far, no gas from Central Asia was flowing to Europe.

The traumatic experiences of the past were epitomized by the Nabucco – a pipeline from Turkmenistan via the Caspian to Turkey. In the end it was never built.

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan were actually stiff competitors on opposite shores of the Caspian. Baku was delighted with Nabucco's failure because that boosted the prospects of its own gas from the sprawling Shah Deniz field hitting Europe. The key Nabucco problem was the mystery surrounding Turkmenistan's real gas-production capability. Most of its gas was now directed toward China.

A complicating factor was that any pipeline that crossed the still legally undefined Caspian (was it a sea or was it a lake?) was also not exactly welcomed by either Russia or Iran.

Gazprom had its own plans to increase its share of the European market via Nord Stream and Turk Stream. Iran would aim finally to crack European markets via a possible pipeline from the massive South Pars field in cooperation with Qatar, a revamped version of the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline that was one of the key reasons for the war in Syria.

Had Corinna stumbled upon something that threatened one of the key players? Eris knew enough people who'd been silenced.

She looked over at the kind looking husband and wife preparing Indonesian Noodles. Behind them were two stoves, a sink and a fridge. Eris envied them. Their lives were clean and simple. Her life, by contrast, was something of a nightmare. She looked up at the orange and yellow cages that hung from the ceiling. When was the last time, she asked herself, that she'd actually felt free?

Eris thought about her difficult relationship with her mother. She remembered how, when her father left, she'd forced her mother into making a promise never to remarry. They'd fought over the issue of whether the girls should go to a private school or not. In the event Eris had gone to one and Persephone hadn't. It had been this educational advantage that had enabled Eris to dominate her sister. She was simply better educated, knew more and was more eloquent. Of course when it came to arguing it was not the better argument which won the day but sheer will power and force of personality. Eris had always been a tyrant toward Eris and she'd fought their mother, day in, day out, tooth and nail. They'd hated one another. Now and again their altercations would end in violence.

There was one thing though that their mother had been able to persuade Eris into doing: she'd forced her to renounce sex before marriage. Otherwise she'd end up as a whore. The idea appealed to Eris for one simple reason: she knew that she'd have to redirect her sexual energy into other things: studying at school, university and working hard for a company. Eris always was ambitious and she never, ever had time for love. The truth was she was, even as a child, bitter, cynical, cruel and as cold as ice.
Chapter 11

There were so many models for living Persephone thought as she sat drinking a green smoothie in a beach hut looking out onto a row of small, yellow and pale blue boats bobbing on the waves. There was her friend Rosy, a born again Christian, who discussed her affairs with married men at meetings of her local Anglican church. There was Jane, who'd married a journalist. She'd ceased to work after inheriting a substantial sum and who now had five children. And there was Vera who talked unceasingly about her adventures in club land as she hunted for men, new scalps to add to her list. Vera reminded Persephone of Parzival in her never-ending thirst for glory. There was Paula who was forever undecided and anxious before beginning a new relationship. Would it last? Would it lead to marriage? What was the point if it didn't do so? Would she be able to balance a relationship with her individual needs and wishes? Would she be able to pursue her career? This was invariably exhaustively discussed in some smoke filled pub for hours and hours and invariably ended in the same conclusion: it was better to stay single. And there was Therese who, although married, still managed to find time for two lovers. Her husband also had a lover, a man who happened to be fixated by their child. The list of possible constellations was literally endless.

Persephone was tired of one-night stands and was no advocate of hedonism. Yet she wasn't exactly what one might term a conservative or a prude. She was extremely open-minded and tolerant. At the same time she wanted nothing more than to recreate the harmony she'd enjoyed with Charles.

She laughed when she thought of Vera's adventures. Vera loved to tell pornographic tales and to deliberately provoke Persephone with her graphic language.

"The guy at the bar," Vera once told her "with his long hair, dark skin and gangster-like charisma, looked like Bob Marley. God was he horny! My tongue hung out and I started to drool. And that was even though I'd just slept with a bloke two hours before. It's not that Mr. Happy hadn't done his job well. He had done his job well. But I still felt cold inside."

"Anyway, as I was saying: I was in this smoky, loud and crowded club in the Docklands. It stank of sweat, dope and cheap perfume. I made my way through the dancing crowd, all the time focused on Bob Marley. A milky-faced teenager tried to fumble me but I ignored him. I had more important things on my mind. The object of my desire was sitting at the bar looking desperately bored and sipping a dull-looking drink. I caught his eye. He came over to me. We chatted for a bit. Then this girl with half-length blond hair, tight, red tank top and big breasts showed up. It came as a shock. Had I made a mistake? Should I return to the zit-faced teenager? Was he still there? He'd gone! God it was embarrassing! The Bob Marley bloke, whose real name was Noah, noticed how bad I felt and said that everything was cool. He took me by the hand and, telling the blonde to follow us, led us to this private room, VIPs only, at the back of the club. The blonde, a Ukrainian prostitute called Natasha, pulled out a bag of coke and started snorting while a big, African, security guy looked on. You could see he really didn't give a toss."

"The lights were dim, there were large, plastic sofas and a black curtain ran around the wall, muffling the sound coming from outside. A waitress came in and put a bottle of champagne on the table. Noah started caressing me; first my legs, then my thighs and then my breasts. We chatted about this and that but I couldn't take my eyes off his trousers. They were beginning to bulge."

"The true professional that she was Natasha got straight to work and unzipped his trousers."

There then followed an extremely graphic description of the orgy, involving a number of Noah's friends, a number of those working at the club, and a number of prostitutes, that then ensued. Persephone was not a little disgusted. How could Vera sleep with so many strange men at one and the same time? It didn't sound terribly hygienic or particularly safe.

On another occasion Vera spoke about her encounter with a photographer.

"The night of the photo shoot I just couldn't decide what to wear. It took me ages; hours, literally hours. Then the penny dropped: a white skirt, a green satin top, red suspenders and red underwear. Dead sexy."

"According to his description of himself he was tall, dark and handsome. He was a photographer called Ali I'd gotten to know over the Internet. He seemed to be a pretty cool bloke with a really black sense of humor. Tons of irony. Nothing but mockery. And he could be nasty. Real nasty. But fun. He made me laugh! So that night I was curious and excited."

"Every time I heard his voice on the phone or read one of his text messages or emails my heart beat faster. What would he be like? Would I be disappointed or happily surprised?"

"That night was the night he was going to take my pictures. At seven we met in a fancy restaurant in Mayfair. At first he seemed very formal, very polite, very uptight but slowly he relaxed."

"Then he showed me photos he'd taken of models on his iPhone. All of them naked of course. But they weren't half bad all the same."

"The more photos he showed the more perverted they got. He seemed to be really into bondage in a big way."

"I was beginning to get nervous and it seemed strange to be looking at these pictures in a posh restaurant."

"He told me how he worked in advertising, and had once been hugely successful. His partner had ripped him off and had run away with all his money. He wasn't worried though because his family back in Bangladesh was filthy rich. He was set to inherit and was planning to set up his own studio."

"After a while he paid, we got into his not so fancy car and drove to Fulham, where he had his studio."

"It wasn't exactly palatial if you know what I mean, but it was nice enough."

"We had another glass of wine and then he asked me to undress. First he took some photos of me in my sexy underwear and then he asked me to take that off too."

"After that he tied me up and well, you can guess the rest..."

The third story was similar in both content and style.

"It was pouring outside and I was bored as hell. I'd been surfing for hours, watching one bad porno video worse than the next, when I got an idea. What about acting in one? Wouldn't that be fun? And I might actually get paid for doing something I actually liked doing."

"To cut a long story short: I found a link. A bloke in Brighton was looking for good porno stories for either a film or a magazine. It took me a couple of hours, you know how I hate typing stuff up, and I'm not exactly Miss Creative UK, but I finally put a story together. It was about me and the S&M guy. With a few little changes here and there obviously. Anyway, I sent it off per email and went to bed. It was three in the morning and I was completely out of it."

"Five hours later I was woken up by the sound of the phone. A bloke at the other end of it wanted to meet. I should come to Brighton or he would come to London. I didn't have the rail fare so I suggested he visit London. He said he'd be there by noon at the latest and that we should meet up at a hotel near Charing Cross."

"So there I was sitting in this huge, fancy lobby, all dressed up in my Sunday best, with my black cocktail dress and my black high heals. Very chic. And I was thinking to myself: is this a good idea? Do I really want to be doing this? All these business men were sitting around reading the FT or The Economist. If only they knew! I said to myself. What if they were to find out? Would they like the idea? Would they want to join in?"

"Then all of a sudden this bloke in a suit and tie walks up to me. It's him! He recognized me from the photo I sent. I blushed at the thought. All my secrets! He knows all my secrets! And I know nothing about him, not even his name!"

""Hi, I'm Adam!" he says with this posh, plummy, very public school voice. He invites me to the cocktail bar. At twelve in the afternoon! How could I say no? Then after that we return to the hotel. He has booked a room. So up I go, its on the fourth floor, all excited, and I'm thinking the whole time: is this a good idea, what if he's dangerous? What if he rapes me or worse?"

"In the room he tells me to take off my panties. He studies me, like he's looking at an art work or something. Then he tells me to take off my dress. Then he tells me to kneel in front of him. Then he unzips his trousers..."
Chapter 12

Eris looked out from her balcony window and saw a swimmer in a blue, brightly lit pool in the middle of a nocturnal palm garden. That night the streets and squares of the city were deserted. They were like the rice fields, the palm groves, and the temples: dark and silent.

She listened to the noise of the palm fronds. The wind was picking bougainvillea and hibiscus blossoms out of the garden, carrying them to the glowing waters and scattering them into the waves.

Eris sat and did nothing. She felt, for the first time in months, if not years, the full beauty of life. Once she was able to relax she was able to get to bed early. She had neither a need for medication nor for a drink.

That night Eris had a dream. She dreamt she had a disease of the heart. It would kill her within six months. At first she felt relief. She was finished with life. It was over. All her worries, struggles, agonies and miseries were to be left behind. Then came a feeling of horror. That was followed by an overwhelming desire to live. In turn came a sense of regret at leaving so much undone.

She felt an overwhelming desire to have a child, it didn't terribly matter with whom. In fact she felt like seducing the first man she happened to see. She needed to leave something behind; to leave a footprint on the planet and felt the urge to procreate. That, she realized, was the true meaning of life. Everything else was nonsense. These thoughts and feelings were followed, in turn, by a profound fear of insanity. Who would regret her passing? Would anyone? It was somehow terrible to depart while everything was still in motion, while everyone else could go on living. It seemed so horribly unfair!

"Immunity", Eris said to herself. "To be immune. To exist far removed from rubs, shocks, and suffering. To be beyond the range of poisonous darts. To have enough to live without the need for flattery or success. To no longer mind hearing others being praised. To be able to be alone and for that to be enough. To be strong. To be content. To be quiet. To be mistress of my own time. To be detached from what others say about me. To be calm. To be nothing. The most satisfactory of all states, of course, is to be nothing."

Eris felt sick but she wasn't sure whether her sense of general malaise was due to her exhaustion, her sense of depression or something more serious. She felt tired. A sense of weakness persisted. It wouldn't go away. She felt enervated. She resolved to seek medical advice.

It took Eris a while to find the information about the nearest hospital on the Internet. Once she did so she got into her rented car and drove there. It was on the other side of town. She got lost a couple of times before she actually found it.

There were rows of mopeds parked outside of the hospital and it was by no means easy to find a parking space. A three-story colonial era structure dominated the large compound, which was made up of a number of buildings.

A row of wheelchairs was parked under a concrete staircase next to the main entrance. Eris walked inside and went over to the curved wooden reception desk of the Out Patient Department, where two dark-haired girls sat under a big sign with details about insurance. Not far removed was the Emergency Reception Center.

When she explained what she was there for she was asked to sit on a huge, brown sofa with cushions, which dominated the lobby. There was a vast flat screen on the wall, a designer table in the middle of the room, with an exotic plant on it, and art works scattered around on pedestals. Everyone seemed to be color coded: girls in bright pink shirts who dealt with the more mundane needs of the patients, ambulance-drivers in grey, nurses in elegant blue and doctors in white.

The first question to be decided, she was told, was whether her case was medical or surgical. After a short wait she was shown into a small office of one of the younger doctors, who immediately started discoursing in perfect English about poetry and especially about W. H. Auden, who he seemed to adore. Eris didn't know what to reply and smiled wryly. He asked her a large number of questions and she soon found herself undergoing a number of tests, including a blood test. After that she was told to return within the hour to pick up the results.

She wandered around the hospital, with its squeaky-clean corridors and patients or relatives waiting, playing with their mobiles or simply looking bored, and was surprised to find a cafeteria. Above the counter were the words: order and pay. Close by was a waffle stand. Its name struck her as being highly suggestive: Waffelicious.

However sick or close to death anybody seemed to get, they still seemed fiercely determined to enjoy their food. Yet Eris had no appetite and simply whiled away her time walking back and forth along the corridors, which all looked interchangeable.

Finally she was able to see the young doctor again. He looked concerned and recommended she stay overnight for observation. An operation might be necessary to determine whether what she had was malignant or benign. It could be Morbus Boeck, otherwise known as Sarcoidosis, or something more serious. He didn't seem to want to say exactly what. What was needed was an operation. One of her lymph nodes had to be extracted and examined. She explained that this was simply impossible. After a lengthy discourse about how pressed for time she was and how difficult her job was she promised to immediately go to a hospital upon her return to England. She thanked him for his efforts and departed.

Was she going to die? What could it be? Why did the doctor hint at a darker possibility? The other option, the one the doctor had alluded to, the one, which was inexpressible, the one which was incurable, was fatal. It was the end. That much was clear.

What were the arguments against suicide? She could think of none. Only her religion but was that strong enough? Probably not. She returned to the house she was staying at and got out a bottle of scotch.

The more Eris reflected on her mother and her difficult youth the drunker she got. She wanted to erase all memory of the past. Her hatred of her mother loomed large and wouldn't go away. It was monstrous. It was like a cancerous growth. It was like a dark, inky cloud that threatened to smother and asphyxiate her. She wanted to raise her from the dead if only to kill her again. How she loathed her mother!
Chapter 13

Persephone found herself talking about novels in a circle made up of the opera singer, who talked about music, the actress, who talked about theatre and the painter who talked about art.

"The novel tells a story," Persephone began, "it narrates life in time. A good novel always surprises and, if possible, has a prophetic, visionary dimension. At the same time novels ought to keep us on tenterhooks and reveal the hidden lives of characters."

"The form of the novel is, like no other, an expression of transcendental homelessness. The novel is the epic of an age in which the totality of life is no longer directly given and in which the immanence of meaning has become a problem. Above all the novel is a form of adventure. Its content is the story of the soul. While the epic creates a self-contained totality of life, the novel seeks to discover and uncover the hidden totality of life."

"The epic hero is never an individual. His doesn't have a personal destiny but rather is part of a community. The unity of the system of value that determines the epic cosmos creates an organism that is too organic for any one part of it to be self-contained."

"Dante represents the transition from the epic to the modern. Dante's architecture is that of an epic poem but his figures are already individuals who deliberately and energetically oppose reality. In the modern novel heroes are seekers. Don Quixote is the most obvious example."

The singer spoke of the supremacy of the parasitic in contemporary culture. There were millions of charlatans claiming that they and they alone were capable of interpreting, decoding and conveying the meaning of a work. In reality it was only the performers themselves who were able to do so. It was the actors who interpreted Agamemnon, Ophelia or other roles, dancers who interpreted choreographies, and violinists, cellists and other musicians who interpreted composers such as Bach.

Interpretation, she asserted, is an actively implemented process of understanding and has the immediacy of a translation. Such an understanding process is both analytical and critical. Every performance of a dramatic text or musical score is a critique of its core meaning.

"To understand music one has to understand the language of music. One has to understand that accelerando means faster, adagio slowly and leisurely, allegro a fast pace, andante, a moderate speed and andantino a slow walking one."

"As a singer one has to live each day as if it were one's last. When I was twenty I travelled with my mother but this was very hard for me. I was not with my friends. I had to leave Rio and perform in all these different places. I still miss my old friends and still suffer from loneliness."

"I first wanted to become an actress but there was too much competition. So I went to the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, which is in the Rua do Passeio, in the Lapa district, instead of acting school. It's not far from the Museu de Arte Morderna do Rio de Janeiro. Of course if I hadn't become an opera singer I'd have found another way of being onstage."

"I try to sing everything which suits my voice. I take a score and two or three CDs of those singers I think most helpful, singers with real vocal technique and musicality, and try to understand how the part can work. I compare different versions, try to understand what there is, what nuances there are, see where the difficulties are, where the problems are, what I need to work on most. But once I've learnt the role, I listen to no one else. I have to make it my own, and don't want to be influenced by anyone. What I try to do is to make my heroine convincing."

"Last season I had to sing Anna Boleyn but it was a nightmare. It was very difficult. If you're not a natural dramatic coloratura it destroys your voice. It requires very strong breathing, and a saturated middle. Most times the singers distort the words and use the wrong rhythmic pattern. The role of Anna Boleyn is very low. It is even lower than Giovanna Seymour. But of course it's always necessary to learn the part the way the composer wrote it, and then to find your own expression."

"The important thing", the painter said "is to have a real love for the visible world as well as a love for the deep, secret world within ourselves. Both the visible world and our inner selves provide the realm where we seek the individuality of our souls."

"This search has always existed in the best works of art; it has always been a search for something abstract. One must respect what the eye sees and represent it on the area of the picture in height, width, and depth. One must observe the Law of Surface. This law must never be broken by the use of false techniques of illusion. Only then can one find oneself in a work of art. All seeking and aspiration ends in finding oneself."

"This doesn't mean that one ought to thoughtlessly imitate nature. The impression nature makes upon one must always become an expression of one's own joy or grief. One's formation of it must contain that transformation which makes art a real abstraction. Nature is a wonderful chaos to be put into order and completed."

"One has to avoid thoughtless imitation of nature on the one hand and sterile abstraction, which is basically decorative, on the other. It is a question of achieving balance, and maintaining it."

The actress spoke about the need to exploit to the utmost the internal movements, the perpetual coming and going within the soul. She had no time for the dismal tradition of subservience to the author and complete dependence on the text. The spirit of the text mattered, not the letter.

What was necessary was a kind of magnetic intercommunication between the spirit of the author and the spirit of the director. The theatre must be thrust back into life. It was necessary to rediscover the essence of theatre.

"This life exists intact in the texts of the great tragedians, when one hears them in their full dimensions, with their full color, volumes, perspective, and density. Our problem is that we lack a capacity for mysticism."

"What good is an actor who doesn't have the habit of looking within herself, who is not in the habit of looking within herself, who doesn't possess the ability to withdraw and be released from herself? This ability, this discipline, is indispensible."

"It is only by means of purification and oblivion that we recover the purity of our initial reactions and learn to restore to theatrical gesture its human meaning. Theatre is a transubstantiation of life."

"One goes to the theatre to escape from oneself but also to rediscover oneself. In theatre everything, bar barrenness and banality, is permissible."

"What we must do is to learn to be mystics again. And we must do so by concentrating on a text. We must forget ourselves, forget theatre. We must wait and seize the images that arise in us, naked, natural, excessive, and follow these images to the very end. We must rid ourselves not only of all reality, verisimilitude, but even of logic, if, at the end, we can still catch a glimpse of real life."

"The theatre has to give us an ephemeral but real world, a world tangential to objective reality. Either the theatre becomes this world, or we'll do without theatre."
Chapter 14

Eris studied the layers of baroquely curved grey stone and elaborately carved door of a small shrine in a shopping street where offerings to the gods were made. Two ghoulish deities squatted in front of it. She touched the white fabric that was tied to the deities' heads and legs. For the first time she became conscious of the fact that Bali was Hindu whereas Lombok was Muslim.

This meant that she could go freely shopping for booze. Instead of food that morning she'd had three juices containing, amongst other fruits, dragon fruit and tamarillo. The colors had been amazing.

The day before she'd had a yellow, orange & pink drink called Exotic Mix and one called Rainbow, which contained mango, avocado, papaya, and red dragon fruit. These had been followed by one, called Eclipse, which was a mix of mango & papaya and another: Two faces, which was made up of mango & strawberry. She'd become quite addicted to the juices of Bali.

In a positive mood that afternoon she'd shot off a number of highly eloquent, highly intelligent emails to various people, including Mark Rogers. Each was a masterpiece of diplomacy. She argued her case and tried, persuasively, to point out that it was in everybody's interest to help her. She was a valuable asset, an important member of the company, and had useful skills. The world would quite simply not be the same without her. In fact the world could not afford to lose her. Her extraordinary track record spoke for itself.

When she got up and left the shrine she went to find some alcohol. After all: she'd completed her day's pensum of work an hour before and needed to reward herself in some way.

In a supermarket she admired the curved wooden containers and the wonderful array of fruits: red bristling Rambutans from Aceh, green soursoups, purple mangosteens, brown salaks, yellow bengkoangs, green pisak kepoks, and golden pisang mas bananas.

Next to the bakery Eris discovered row after row of wine bottles. She bought as many as she could carry. The minute she got outside the heavens opened and it began to pour.

Eris suddenly looked around her. She had the feeling that she was being followed once more. She kept seeing the same people, ostensibly American tourists: big, muscular men and fat, ugly women, in close proximity to her. They seemed to be working as a team. And they seemed to be putting themselves in her path in a highly conspicuous fashion. Were they really or just pretending to be Americans? It was impossible to know for sure. She was beginning to feel the strain of constant surveillance. Occasionally she even made eye-contact with those following her. They didn't seem in the least embarrassed or disconcerted at being discovered; on the contrary. Had they no conscience? No shame? Most probably not. This seemed to be a non-too subtle form of psychological pressure.

What sacrifices were necessary to appease these particularly angry gods? And which angry gods were to be appeased? The CIA, the Mossad, MI6, the Russians, a private security company? Eris had no desire to end up as a victim of a mop-up job.

She had known a lawyer who'd made the mistake of getting involved in the financial affairs of a major arms company. She'd been able to track who was buying what and which arms were being shipped to where. This had huge political and public relations ramifications. If the general public was to learn what was really going on...

One day she found out that she'd been framed for a crime she couldn't possibly have committed. She was petrified. Had she been tried and prosecuted it would have meant life imprisonment and most probably torture.

She fled to a relative in New Zealand and then to a friend in Australia. Even then she felt she was going slowly insane. Someone, somehow, most probably by means of microwaves, was destroying her sanity. She felt as if her brain was being fried.

Eventually she became so distraught that she threw herself off a cliff. The incident was ruled a suicide.

Was this to be the fate Eris was to suffer? She needed advice, quickly. She had to start making a list of potential persecutors; at the top was Mark Rogers. He had contacts in the private security field. He'd never had qualms about hiring mercenaries. He certainly wouldn't have any inhibitions about having her followed or bumped off. If Corinna was dead it was he who'd killed her. People don't just disappear. They don't just fall off the side of the earth. Of that much Eris was sure.

Perhaps she, Eris, should contact the Embassy. But what would she say? That she suspected she was being followed by a bunch of American tourists? That strange people were taking pictures of her? That she felt unsafe? They would think her quite mad.

She got lost and had to ask directions but eventually got back to the house. Once inside she started to drink almost immediately. Her hands were beginning to tremble.

The next morning was truly glorious. She admired the statue of Buddha on the balcony, looked out at the view of the rooftops, the lush, green vegetation and pool below and was overcome by the sight of so much beauty.

That morning she was filled with boundless optimism. Everything would be alright. The persecution and psychological terror would end. She and Mark Rogers would be reconciled. Perhaps she would marry. Perhaps she would have kids. All of a sudden she wanted children like she had never wanted anything else in her life before.

She thought about Persephone. Was she on the island? Had she travelled halfway around the world? Should she, Eris, reconcile herself with her too? She was still aggrieved that Persephone hadn't handed over the diaries and photos from their mother as she'd insisted she should. The fact that Persephone was equally entitled to them didn't occur to her. She wanted the diaries if only because she was worried about what was in them regarding herself. As to the photos: her demand was dictated by simple jealousy. She didn't want Persephone to have something she didn't have. But would she return them? Eris had already threatened to send in the police. The only thing that had stopped her was the awkward question of ownership. The diaries didn't actually belong to anybody. Perhaps there was a chance of some deal being made. Persephone was weak and it had always been possible to bully her in the past.

That morning, before the sun grew fierce in its intensity, Eris drove over to double six street. She walked around, sat down at the Bali Surf School with its red, white & pink umbrellas and rows of blue, purple and red chairs facing the sea and ordered a vodka on the rocks. It was time to celebrate. Everything would be alright.

She pondered the question of whether she should contact Persephone, her long lost, prodigal sister. Yet contact with Persephone was invariably irritating. Her emails were so skimpy. She hardly ever wrote a thing. And if she did write something it was a model of brevity. It was obvious that she really didn't care much about her, Eris.

Why was Persephone's life such a mess? What had gone wrong? Was it all because she'd no sense of the practical, of the realistic? Persephone always had lived in an ivory tower. It was time for her, Eris, to intervene. It was time to give Persephone a good kick up the backside. It was ridiculous that she, with all her education, should be earning so little. She ought to be ashamed of herself. And the flat in Camden where she lived! It was a disgrace. The whole building ought be torn down. It was a slum, a veritable slum. How could Persephone live there? Of course, Eris reflected, she must have accepted her present and flown to Bali. How could she possibly have done otherwise? She'd have been insane not to do so. Yet she, Eris, would have refused the offer. It was humiliating. To accept presents from her sister, although they weren't reconciled! How insane was that? And of course: she wouldn't be grateful. The poor were never grateful. The more Eris thought of Persephone, the more she hated her. Would it be possible to hire a hit man to get rid of her? Of course, it must be possible but Eris had first of all to concentrate on saving her own skin. What use was Persephone dead if Eris was dead too?

There were signs everywhere for yoga, which Eris despised, and for surf boards. Perhaps she, Eris, should learn how to surf. Who knows, she thought to herself, it might be fun. That morning she could relax. There was no sign of her being followed.

After drinking a number of vodkas on the rocks Eris went shopping for silk scarves.

She found a shop, flanked by huge yellow and orange blinds, where there were innumerable silk textiles folded in piles and boxes. There were also multi-colored patterned dresses on display and rows of light blouses and skirts on hangers. The middle-aged man in grey sports shirt, purple Bermuda shorts and sandals looked exceedingly happy. Eris wondered why.

Obviously selling silks was more agreeable than selling bonds or stocks and shares, Eris thought to herself. Perhaps she should sell up, move to Bali and open a similar shop. Who cared if the profit margins were slim? It would be a highly agreeable lifestyle.

After buying a silk dress, it was fortunate that she was so small, as all the sizes fitted her, Eris drove back to Someplace Else Cafe. It had started to rain again and the scooters outside the cafe were draped with plastic.

As she drank a banana smoothie she studied a black and white diagram on the wall. It adumbrated the steps needed to create a cup of coffee:

1 plant the bean

2 watch coffee plant grow

3 harvest the cherries

4 process the coffee cherries, pulp, wash, dry

5 sort

6 travel air sea land

7 roast beans

8 grind beans

9 make your espresso or coffee hot or cold

10 enjoy beverage

She studied the shelves of books & magazines but couldn't find any of interest.

When she returned to the house she was renting she found that it had been burgled. Her laptop, important documents and a number of drives were missing. Her cash had remained untouched. It was, for her, a sign from the gods. She resolved to leave Bali at once and return to Gili Meno. Persephone might be a pain in the neck but she was, at least, trustworthy and an assassin would think twice about eliminating both sisters at one and the same time.
Chapter 15

After the actress and painter left the opera singer, Maria, told Persephone about Brazil.

"There is so much variety and diversity that it's like five countries in one. Everybody talks about the violence and the social divide but that shouldn't be taken too seriously. It all harmonizes in the end."

"There is a magnificent variety of people from very different backgrounds. We've always had a social mixture. People can be incredibly welcoming, incredibly warm and they can be unbelievably violent too. The main thing about Brazil is the contrast. You have incredibly well educated people and poorly educated people. You have places within cities that are incredibly well developed next to unbelievably destroyed areas. We have favelas in Rio next to multi-million dollar real estate. We waste talent. We waste humanity."

"Sure, you learn to take cover if there's a shooting and sure, you get used to seeing dead bodies lying in the streets and sure, you get robbed, but the people are warm, generous and friendly."

"If the rich get robbed it's because they think of themselves as something better. They differentiate. But if you don't differentiate you can go to a Favela and they'll treat you as equals. Sure it's important to know that the Favelas have their own mini-municipalities and you have to know who to talk to but the people are cool. They might make fun of you but nothing worse. Even the drug dealers don't bother you. Sure, the people like to put on a show and frighten you a bit but you have to stay calm. You can even talk and negotiate with a potential robber. You can suggest going for a meal with him. That is all possible. In Brazil everything is possible. Everything is still very much in a state of flux. There is hope and equally great despair. But most people are happy. Even when picking through a heap of garbage, they're happy. Some guy might have millions, he might be surrounded by a tiny mean-looking militia, and live in a huge place but he'll be lonely. He'll be forced to buy friends."

"He might be rich, he might be a millionaire, but he'll have no trouble about asking a voodoo priest to help him out. The voodoo priests, who always ask for money and stuff, summon spirits. They are kind of between spirits and demons. They possess them and then ask you what you want. And most often than not the wish comes true. The curses come true too. I still haven't figured it out how all this stuff works! But the people see no contradiction between Christianity and Voodoo. It all goes hand in hand."

"If you're born in Rio de Janeiro you're known as a carioca. If you're not born in the capital, you're not a carioca, you're a fluminense. Cariocas are famous in Brazil for being, how can I put it? "spongers", leaches. In Saõ Paulo, it took me about a year to convince people that they could trust me."

"All cariocas drive like wild people. They compete with each other. There is no law. The only law is: never let anybody else pass you, even if they're signaling they intend to change lane, don't let them do so. Everybody is supposed to stick to the lane they're in no matter what. It's kind of weird. In Rio they scream: you're a loser and sucker for letting that bitch cross your way."

"Rio has three main zones: South (the rich one, Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon), the North Zone (the poor one, far from the beach, Meier, Maracanã, Tijuca) and the West Zone (famous for holding the "nouveaux riches" the ones who make some money, not enough to live in the South Zone, but more than enough to keep on living in the North Zone)."

"The main problem is that, even in the South Zone, where all the rich live, there are many favelas. They are up the hills, like Cantagalo, Rocinha and Vidigal. These favelas are huge. There are many people living there. They are the ones that come down to the city to work as servants, maids and cleaners in the rich people's houses and apartments."

"I used to live in Copacabana. Truly, I lived in Arpoador, a very small neighbourhood between Copacabana and Ipanema. It is exactly where there is the Copacabana Fort, also known as Posto 6."

"I could walk to the school I worked as a teacher. It was a school named Marília de Dirceu. It is located in a famous square in Ipanema named General Osório. At this school, a public elementary school, sponsored by the city government, the kids would have English classes, Physical Education and all the other regular classes you can think of. The difference is that at this school, the kids would all come from the favela."

"I was teaching and a 10 year old boy turns to me and asks: "Maria, do you live on the asphalt or in the favela?" I looked at him and said: "What do you think? Look at me. I am not different from you in any aspect, am I? We are using the same pair of jeans, the same kind of shirt, we have similar sneakers. What do you think? Are we that different?""

He turned to me and said: "Of course we are! I can tell you are from the asphalt. You do not live in the favela at all!"

And I asked him: "Why do you think that way?"

He said: "It is because you never scream. You do not holler. Your voice is always low and calm. Nobody in my family speaks that way. You are not from a favela, you are too quiet."

"The strange thing about the Brazilians is that, although they love all things new, for the sake of being new, they don't like those who don't conform to their very fixed, very European ideals. If you are blond and look like Barbie, you are considered beautiful and if you are like me, with curly black hair with what they call: "bad hair" and a bit of a dark skin color, you're considered ugly."

"Brazil is a racist society but it is latent. It is hidden. It wasn't the Portuguese who killed the indigenous populace, it was the Republic, which was first founded in 1889. And Brazil only ended slavery a year before, in 1888. Instead of giving the former slaves work they imported more people from Europe, so the former slaves moved south and created what became the favelas. They still have no work and are still at the bottom, along with the indigenous population, of the social pile. Those in power haven't changed much over the centuries. They still keep the people down."

"I moved back to Brazil when I was ten. I was still playing with dolls and stuff and the girls were super advanced, all wearing make-up and short skirts. They would make fun of me and bully me because I wasn't typically Brazilian."

"We moved to England because of politics. I can still remember the night we flew to England. I was three years old and I can still see it as a movie. It is my oldest crystal clear memory. My parents and sister and I. My sister was less than a year old, she was a baby. We were in downtown Rio and we had to meet a cousin who was going to drive us to the airport. We turn a corner and we are caught between the students and the cavalry. The cavalry of course advances, charges and beats the hell out of the students. I remember them even using a fire engine to ram the students. I remember people being beaten, everyone crying. Suddenly there is teargas all over the place. We hide. My parents drag us into a travel agency. We stay there till someone turns on the air conditioning, which is a really stupid thing to do. Tear gas comes in. We have to run away again. Then we bump into our cousin around the corner."

"We left for England because my father, who had nothing to do with politics what so ever ended up on a list. He was told to leave."
Chapter 16

Eris checked into a small hotel for one night only. When she arrived the staff were rolling down the outside blinds to keep out the torrential rain. Why on earth, she asked herself, had she picked the rainy season of all times to come to Bali?

The hotel was fully booked and she was forced to take a tiny room. As she carefully studied the walls, drawers and curtains she wondered whether the room was bugged. Of late she'd become not a little paranoid.

She took out her iPhone and recharged it. She hoped that Mark Rogers had answered at least one of her text messages if not her emails. All possible scenarios and all possible options ran through her mind. What should she do? Relent? Give in to Mark Rogers? Then, truly, her life would be in danger. Should she pretend nothing had happened? That there never had been a friend called Corinna or a Jersey file?

There had to be a means of escape. This was not the time to lose hope. She had to fight her way out of this corner, however daunting it might appear.

She turned on her iPhone. There was no reply. In fact there hadn't been a response to any of her communications. How could that be possible? How dare they all ignore her? What impudence! She would get her revenge, of that much she was sure.

She became wary of leaving her room and stayed indoors the whole day. Perhaps assassins were waiting outside. Perhaps the brakes of her car had been tampered with. Perhaps they were placing a bomb under her car at this very moment.

She felt weak, wretched and very tired indeed. The illness was coming back. What could it possibly be? Was she terminally ill? If so, she wanted, oh so desperately, a child, something to leave behind in this god-forsaken world.

She continued reading Sarah Knight. That at least calmed her. She thought about her own feelings of guilt, shame and obligation toward Persephone. And about their never ending fights over both politics and religion. Persephone's godless Communism was intolerable. It was high time that she changed and saw the light. It was her, Eris's moral obligation to talk to her. Otherwise Persephone would lose her soul. What did she, Eris, care if Persephone were damned? What difference would it make? Again, it was all due to her personal feelings of guilt, shame and obligation.

The next morning she checked into the Juada Garden Hotel, which resembled a block of flats. The man at the desk told her that he was an Arsenal supporter. She replied with a glacial smile.

The whole day she stayed in her room and the whole night she was in agony and unable to sleep. Worries, combined with the mysterious illness, tormented her. Images of her mother, shouting and screaming, haunted her dreams. She sweated so profusely that she tore her sheets. She woke up in the morning, punching the wall.

She looked out of the window. Below was a pristine pool. Next to it were blue umbrellas, tables, deckchairs and palm trees. There was something odd about the scene but at first she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then she realized: the whole area around the pool was eerily deserted. There was literally not a soul to be seen. Although the weather was glorious nobody was outside.

The next place she stayed was the Subak Hotel, which was replete with lizards, dragons and gods. A golden lizard clung to the wall, a dragon sat on top of a pedestal and there were assorted birds on balustrades. Below them knelt fat, angry gods.

As she looked at the orange curtain behind the bed, the green, patterned pillow, elegant lamp and flower in a glass jar she listened to the sound of birds in the rain.

The tuberose in the room gave off an incredible perfume and she slept extremely well.

As she flew to Lombok the next day she read about the One-Minute Principle For Self-Improvement. At the heart of it was the idea that a person should practice doing something for a single minute, every day at the same time. Failure, she read, was due to the attempt to achieve too much, too fast and the difficulty of changing old habits. The practice of Kaizen, which included the idea of the "one-minute principle" aimed to change life in the long term. It had to be an activity which brought joy and satisfaction. Eris couldn't think of one, single example; other than drinking of course. She simply wasn't a happy person. She no longer even have her work to distract her. And now she was flying to Lombok and from there was taking a boat back to Gilo Meno. The further she flew, the closer she got to Persephone. How she hated and loathed Persephone! Yet this was her, Eris's last chance to escape.
Chapter 17

The first Persephone learned of Eris's arrival was when she was lying on the beach: "Hey," Jeff said, "I didn't know you had a famous writer for a sister." She did? She looked puzzled. "What's the matter? Didn't you know?" Persephone felt a proper fool. It was yet another of the countless humiliations on the part of her sister.

What was the meaning of this? Eris a famous writer? Since when was she a writer let alone a famous one? Her prose was quite simply appalling. Her scribbling was a hobby, and a bad one at that, nothing more. But how was she, Persephone, to explain this fact to Jeff? They'd been spending a lot of time together and she'd grown extremely fond of him. It was more than just a crush. She desired him but was wary of surrendering too early. The last thing she wanted was a one-night stand and having to look at him across the breakfast table for each of her last remaining days on the island.

Was Jeff the man of her dreams, the one and only, her knight in shining armor? Would he be willing to sacrifice everything, his travelling at least, and come to live in a shabby Camden flat? He could still play in a band and he could still teach yoga. But in Camden. Not very glamorous, was it? It was an offer he could very easily refuse. This thought plagued Persephone. There was little she could do to persuade. Other than use her body. But that had failed in the past and sex was not an option to be played lightly. Above all else: sexual interest burned out very quickly indeed. Only a deep friendship, a profound sense of kinship, based on similar interests and values had any hope of success. And was that the case now? Hardly.

She looked up at the sky. Even when the clouds rolled over there was much to admire.

Suddenly an extremely strong wind blew up. Jeff told her that they'd have to run quickly to get under cover. She ditched her coconut daiquiri and ran like hell.

The storm abated as quickly as it had come and when they returned to the beach they noticed that preparations for the New Years festivities were already in full swing.

It was close to noon and Persephone realized that she'd have to confront her sister, a prospect she dreaded. The less she had to do with her, the more peaceful and contented her life invariably was.

What would her mood be like? Mellow, aggressive, or pure and simply nasty? Her own mood in the meantime had been transformed from one of relaxed happiness into one of doom and gloom.

Slowly but surely she made her way to the villa as though she were walking to an execution block. She found Eris staring out of a window. She was tense and greeted Persephone with a cold smile.

Eris began by complaining about their cousin, Adrian. Their aunt, Isabelle, had died and there'd been a fearful fight about the inheritance. Adrian, her son, was extremely angry. He thought of himself as being his mother's sole heir. He refused to accept the fact that he'd been disinherited. Isabelle had wanted to leave a large portion of her fortune to Eris. The rest she'd donated to charity. What made the situation all the more awkward was the fact that Adrian had just lost his job in the City, which he blamed on Eris, and had considerable debts. Persephone had been, as usual in family circles, completely forgotten.

"Adrian has upset me so often now but I see he can't help it. I'm shocked to the core. He's like a little boy of seven, self-righteous, stupid, and self-pitying. He's consumed with jealousy. Once I return to England I'll never speak to him ever again. It is impossible to talk to him. He cannot listen to anything and immediately gets upset and aggressive. Any criticism immediately prompts vicious attacks on his part. And he destroys everything. He calls his insults opinions and everybody else's opinions insults. He forgets what he said one minute after he said it and cannot conceive of anyone thinking differently from himself. I feel very sorry for his children."

"Isabelle was saying at Easter that he reminded her of his dad in his treatment of Adrian. His dad, you remember Albert, always made Adrian stand in the corner if there was any sign of independence, dragged him to shops and never gave him a choice. He listened to no one and thought himself a very pasha. In fact, I wonder if his dad was not better because he left others alone sometimes."

"Adrian obviously is a tyrant at home. He clings to his family for all his self-respect. In that way he resembles many other men who've also failed in their careers and their friendships."

"Naturally, he has his own ideology to keep himself in a state of delusion. He believes he is the best, the first and right in everything. It's sickening to listen to his views about us and our relationships. He seems to have lost all contact with reality. Who supports him in his sad fantasies? He shows no remorse at his neglect and callousness towards his children at home, makes himself out to be the devoted son in the face of all the evidence and is sickeningly sentimental."

"Sadly I think his wife, Janet, sustains Adrian in his fantasies. Any reconciliation will only be skin deep because one can't ever be reconciled with someone with neither a conscience, a heart nor a brain. Apart from which: he is so selfish and so rude. Where is his honesty? Where is his sense of decency? Where? Where was it in the past and where is it now? I see none. Only sentimentality and callousness. Of course he knows how to be meek and humble when it suits him."

"It is never easy for us to accept our failings. It is painful to know that we all fall short of our ideals. Failure is part of being human. Society is not tolerant of failure. It is hardly surprising that those who suffer failure at school and in their careers often fall into the trap of self-hatred. Self-hatred can transform our inner worlds into a very hell. Again and again, we reproach ourselves and condemn ourselves for all we have failed to achieve. We are sensitive to the voices of those who criticize us. We remember and nurse grievances uttered ten years before and forget all the positive things that were ever said."

"Unless we begin a painful process of self-examination and honestly admit our responsibility for our lives and our actions, we end up directing that hatred that is darkening our souls outwards toward other people. We end up seeking scapegoats for all our problems. When the figure that we've always blamed for our failures, even up to the age of thirty, dies then there's a crisis. This is the crisis Adrian is facing."

"Will he be able to accept the idea that he might not be the great man who has only failed because his mother was so wicked? He refuses to accept the idea that he might have had a share of responsibility for his own setbacks and failures. He refuses to accept that it's in his power to choose the path of dignity, compassion and justice, happiness and independence. It's in his power to pick himself up, learn from his mistakes and seek to improve. It's in his power to shape his own future. Before he can do that he has to let go of all his grievances and accusations."

"Otherwise the frustration and hatred he feels shall continue to fester and seek a new object. The aunt dies and the niece, who is closely associated with her, becomes the object of hatred. For the time being. But since she has little contact with him and hasn't had for years and won't in the future a new one will have to be found."

"It is sad that Adrian doesn't accept his responsibility for the violent and horrendous outburst against his mother at Easter after – or perhaps because – her friend Stephanie had just given such a wonderful and sincere tribute to her. As had so many other neighbors and friends. As had his sister. It is sad that Adrian felt compelled to keep up the fiction that he is the misunderstood victim of a wicked mother, who has ruined his life. And this merely days after her death. Just when her memory was being cherished by so many. It is sad that the degree of violent and abusive language he used would have been shocking ten days after the funeral let alone three days after the death of his mother. And all this while preparations for the funeral were going on. The worst thing was that he insisted on being part of it."

"It is sad that he chose to disregard the feelings of those who were mourning her death. He even began his tirade of insults in front of those most deeply afflicted. He didn't rest until he'd reached a provocation so awful that it couldn't be passed over in silence."

"It's sad that, when his cousins tried to defend his mother's reputation, pointing out that she was good as well as bad, they were, in turn, subjected to the most horrendous abuse and bullying."

"It's sad that he chose to insult me by saying that I have sex with prostitutes because no man would sleep with me of their own free will: that a man would have to have bag over his head to sleep with me and that I would only have a child from a sperm bank. These are just some of the brutal insults that are so awful they're funny. It is sad that Adrian refuses to show any signs of remorse."

"It's sad that his cousin then gets a call from Adrian's wife, Janet, on a rainy afternoon, which turned into a torrent of abuse and the most hysterical fury."

"That isn't Janet's style. She never acts that way in front of the children. Adrian must accept responsibility for that call. He must accept responsibility for inciting so much hatred. He must accept responsibility for giving a misleading representation of what happened during his stay. He must accept responsibility for blaming others for his behavior instead of seeing that there is no one responsible but himself. But accepting responsibility is something Adrian has consistently refused to do. He has shown that he always prefers to blame others rather than examine his own conduct. He's apt to analyze others rather than himself."

"It's sad when Janet threatens to cause a scandal at the funeral of her mother-in-law. She can do it of course. Isabelle's reputation won't be touched however and nor will mine. Janet will have to bear responsibility for her actions. She might even be taken into psychiatric care. And she might well get at last the help she needs."

"Adrian always complained that Isabelle refused to seek counseling at times of stress. It's time for him to admit that not all is well in his own family. No wife of a sane and happy husband behaves in such a manner. If it does come to psychiatric help of course the focus will ultimately be on him and his role in this affair. This would prove a good thing. Because he'll finally get the help he needs. And so will Janet. Isabelle has now died. It might have been a chance for reconciliation. It might have been a chance to reflect on the meaning of life. It ought not have descended into this nightmare of abuse and threats. Isabelle had many failings – though most people agree that alcoholism is a sickness that also has many causes – but she had great strengths too. She would honestly examine her own conscience. She would honestly admit mistakes. She would sincerely try to improve. She would turn to others with good will. If one came half way she would shower one with kindness."

"My relationship with my aunt meant a lot to me. My relationship to Adrian is over. No one who has behaved as he has should ever call themselves family again. It's a joke. Janet has been incited to an act of hatred by Adrian but she too has ultimately to accept responsibility for her abuse. She didn't get drunk. There were no mitigating circumstances of diminished responsibility. There was no apology either nor even a sign of awareness of the problem."

"If there had been a sign that Adrian is capable of seeing his own faults – and not just focusing on those of others – then that might have been a basis for dialogue and reconciliation. There can't be another."

"From now on, there will be no communication between myself and Adrian or Janet. In fact, I will treat similar harassment from Adrian and Janet as a matter to be handled by the police. Who would put up with this behavior? Isabelle would certainly not have put up with it if Adrian had launched into his tirade while she was still living. She would have kicked him out. Why did he keep silent earlier? Why, if his true opinion about his mother is so dreadful did he visit her? If he believed his mother was so wicked why did he want to expose his children to her even for one single minute? Why did he insist on taking over the funeral arrangements – was it because of the will? – when he felt so strongly about her? Why was he not prepared to keep silent and allow others to grieve? Why has he felt such a need to tell everyone how awful his mother was and to force it down their throats? Why has he interrupted their grieving? Why did he insist on blackening his mother in front of others? Why did he blacken me when I defended her? Why the urgency to insult everyone in funny and ghastly ways? Is it because he hasn't a job? Is it because he has too much energy on his hands? Is it because he's frustrated that he can't find gainful employment? There are difficult times in life. That much is true. But the solution is to seek help if one cannot help oneself. The solution is to learn to take responsibility for one's own life and for one's own thoughts and feelings."

"My only wish is that Adrian and Janet seek help to deal with their feelings of stress, frustration and anguish by going to those who are in a position to give professional help. Many today are in a similar position. It is nothing to be ashamed of. But if one sweeps it under the carpet and ignores it, it can destroy our lives. There are a lot of good courses today that teach people the basic principles of responsibility, self-empowerment, self-respect as well as the elementary rules of social behavior and communication. Equipped with this knowledge and insight, Adrian and Janet shall be able to make use of their potential, be more valued colleagues and members of the community, enjoy richer relations with their neighbors and even learn to sustain genuine friendships."

"It is a problem. But it is not mine any more. It will be a matter for the police if Adrian and Janet behave again in a similar way. They will no longer be able to hide their abuse behind the cloak of family relations. It is time they looked for psychological help for their own sake and for the sake of all."

Persephone remembered all too well why she had no contact to Adrian, Janet and the rest of the family. She had been trying desperately for years to forget them. What was the point of indulging in all this hatred? What was to be gained by it? Persephone was well and truly disgusted by the entire affair. And why did Eris tell her all this? It didn't interest her in the least. On the contrary: it bored her to tears.

It was sad to learn that Adrian had lost his job though. The City was ruthless and it was no fun being unemployed in this day and age. The world was a brutal and cruel place. Mistakes weren't tolerated while society was unforgiving.

It was sadder still that Eris enjoyed such poor relations to both Adrian and Janet. She didn't mention once that it had been Adrian and Adrian alone who'd got her her job. It was Adrian who'd facilitated her brilliant career.

This wasn't entirely true though. Persephone had also played a minor but decisive role. She remembered how Eris had been enmeshed in a life of drugs and crime while still at school. She'd merely been twelve at the time. This was the last thing their mother had expected from private education. Eris had been caught speeding in a stolen master's car. She'd been drunk and high on cocaine.

Eris had been suspended and it was only thanks to Persephone that she wasn't expelled. She'd stood up for her sister, fought for her, and had argued both eloquently and persuasively on her behalf.

When Eris disappeared a month later it was Persephone who found her and brought her back.

When Eris had been caught and charged with shoplifting it had been Persephone who'd intervened and persuaded the shop owner that nothing could be gained from a conviction. The charges were dropped.

Again and again Persephone had save Eris's bacon. She'd avoided though giving her a kick up the backside. She'd always been a gentle, kind and good-humored angel of reason. She'd invariably coaxed her into doing the right thing by means of jokes. Everything had been reduced to a huge joke. It was all quite ridiculous, a mockery.

Of course Persephone understood perfectly well at the time that Eris's bad behavior was her way of getting her revenge on their mother. She wanted her to suffer. She wanted her to worry. She wanted her to feel complete and utter despair. And, countless times, their mother had given up on her. Countless times their mother had threatened to disown her; to let her perish on the streets. Only Persephone had prevented this from happening.

And had Eris ever shown a glimmer of gratitude? Of course not. Just as she now displayed not a trace to Adrian so she'd never shown a grain of gratitude to Persephone herself. Yet Persephone didn't regret her actions for a minute. It was a question of karma. Her good karma would come back to her just as Eris's bad karma would haunt her.

Her arrogance, Persephone reflected, her petty-minded, cold-hearted viciousness were well and truly disgusting and Persephone took the earliest possible opportunity to withdraw into her own room. There she lay on her bed and read: The Pillow Book.

"Insufferable: A visitor who comes just when I've urgent things to do, and then chatters endlessly. If it's somebody I don't owe a lot of respect to, I can send him away and put him off until later, but if it's a high personage, I'm in trouble. Very disagreeable! A hair in the Indian ink. Or a grain of sand that squeaks unbearably when grinding. Someone suddenly falls ill. One looks for a necromancer but he's unavailable. The messenger walks around while the time one waits seems endless. Finally, the eagerly awaited hermit appears and is charged with performing the ritual. However, the necromancer, who has to drive out a lot of demons, hardly sits properly. While reciting the sutras his voice sounds as if he's falling asleep. Totally unbearable! Boredom, while others chatter emptily or laugh obnoxiously."

Sadly, she couldn't send Eris away. Eris was paying for the holiday, which made her a "high personage". If only there was a necromancer on the island to drive the bitter, black demons out of Eris's heart. And if only she, Persephone, wasn't now confronted with a few days of Eris's empty chatter and obnoxious laughter. She was dreading the New Year's celebrations in the evening. She feared the worst.
Chapter 18

Later that afternoon Eris got more aggressive, as was to be expected, toward Persephone. She claimed that her sister was forever getting as much out of others as she could, pretended to be reasonable, and treated others like "stupid, ignorant, trash bags" who couldn't "understand anything". She seemed to think that she, on account of the fact that she was the only one who'd ever read Kant in the original, was the only reasonable and moral person in the family. She was equally scathing about their father, who she termed a "predatory wolf". She was convinced however that there was a part of their father that had once loved them but that he hadn't been able to show it.

Their father, in Eris's opinion, had been guilty of "putting property before people and manipulation before honesty". This had been a "crime of its own kind".

"What we sew we reap," she opined. "Any apparent material advantage gained by cold greed is soon lost by a subsequent impoverishment of the soul." She saw herself as being an advocate of "sound human values", "financial prudence" but "low expectations".

She accused Persephone of being jealous of her success and consequently blaming others for the absence of her own. She had "nothing to say" and was "corrupt, mad, ghastly, sick, dark, crude, brutal, bitter and twisted". Her whole life was one nasty lie. She would never make it as an academic.

When Persephone replied that this was somewhat unfair Eris said that she wasn't mentally stable. All she did was spew out bizarre and groundless insults. Persephone wasn't at all sure what she meant but knew better than to ask.

Persephone was, in Eris's eyes, a liar who'd been caught out in her nasty manipulation and lies. Everybody knew she was insane. Everybody knew she was vicious and evil.

Again Persephone was sincerely puzzled. What was Eris referring to? She simply had no idea. And who was "everybody"? Had the family been talking badly about her behind her back? Most probably.

Not only was she, Persephone, to desist from any terms of endearment she was no longer to refer to her as her sister. All contact was over between them. In future she would treat Persephone like any other thief who steals her property and her money. She was an emotional abuser and liar. She would simply take practical steps to get her property returned and to assert her rights in law if Persephone trampled over them in such a hideous way. She wasn't interested in Persephone's "little games".

Persephone immediately realized that Eris was referring to their mother's diaries, which, properly speaking didn't belong to anyone at all. It was a miracle they'd survived, and that was no thanks to Eris. As to the money? Was she referring to the trip? Or what? When had she stolen any money? Never. The thought had never occurred to her. What a contrast to Eris, who was forever thieving! It was highly probable that she had, as Lady Monfort-Noir had asserted, blackmailed her aunt Isabelle into leaving her everything and disinheriting her own son. Of course, Persephone realized, Eris was projecting onto her, her own sins and transgressions. It was Eris who was the "nasty mean-minded manipulative liar" not Persephone.

Eris claimed that she was the only one who'd helped their mother financially at the end, the only one who'd scattered her ashes, and the only one who'd been mentioned in her diaries. And yet she had nothing at all, no photos, diaries. Persephone had done nothing for her.

Again, Eris seemed to be imagining things. It might be true that she'd given her mother the odd pound or two but that was all. She was Scrooge personified. Her mother had never wanted her ashes to be scattered and had expressly forbidden it. Eris had simply stolen the urn. It had been her way of making sure that her mother would never return. And yet her mother haunted her, of that much Persephone was sure. As to being mentioned in the diaries: their mother's entries about Eris hadn't been terribly flattering. On the contrary: she'd despised and hated Eris.

She, Eris, stated that she wouldn't let herself be blackmailed by Persephone. She'd tell everyone what Persephone had been up to even if it meant that she never got the photos back. There was a limit. And Persephone had stepped over it. She wanted the truth more than the photos. She wanted justice more than the diaries. She wanted to see Persephone's manipulation, greed and unscrupulousness finally exposed for what they were. The truth would come out sooner or later. Persephone couldn't hide it. Persephone couldn't manipulate the flow of information. In the end Persephone could keep the photos but they would be her lasting disgrace, a lasting testimony to her depravity. Persephone could look at them every day and she could die with them. She who had simply made a trade out of her mother's and father's deaths.

Persephone turned away and couldn't help suppress a smile. Her sister was raving. She'd always been fond of raving. What she said made little sense and bore little resemblance to reality. What made Persephone smile most of all was the thought that Eris was interested in the truth. When had she ever been interested in the truth? She'd lied her entire life. She made her living from being a liar.

Eris recounted how she'd once tried to arrange a meeting between Persephone and their father. She'd told him to ring Persephone himself because she knew Persephone didn't listen to her. Their father had rung her but Persephone had told him that she didn't want to speak to him.

Eris felt that their father was sad and she sent Persephone an email saying that he was old, he wasn't far from death and she was sure their father loved her in his own way and wanted to reach out to her. Eris also said that for all his bad side, their father also has a good side and had done some good things. Persephone had replied by saying that the day he died would be the happiest of her life.

Eris had sent Persephone an email to the effect that such hatred wasn't very civilized. Their father had been a proponent of civilized, human values. Eris saw their father again and again she felt his sadness at his broken relations with Persephone. Eris sent Persephone an email noting the wish of their father to make contact.

Persephone had replied that she didn't have time for empty, hollow words or sentimental claptrap and that the price of reconciliation was 10K. Either their father proved that he really, truly wished to be reconciled with deeds, with actions, or she wanted no part of the affair. She had no time for pretense or charades. She knew the games he played and she knew how shallow and deceitful he was. Apart from which: she hated him with all her mind, body and soul.

Eris refused to carry out this request and countered by saying that a reconciliation with a father close to his death was a matter of humanity, an act of basic decency while a business deal was a business deal. One couldn't make a business deal out of a reconciliation with one's father close to death. One couldn't try to profit financially from his desire to see one before he died. This simply exposed Persephone's depravity. If she couldn't see the difference she was merely insane. Persephone's whole approach was corrupt to the core.

She claimed that she'd abused her, Eris, and her sincere wish to see Persephone and their father reconciled. She'd disregarded Eris's feelings and her objections to being involved in such a sordid trade, and had used emotional blackmail to try to make money from her father's death.

She, Eris, wanted no more contact with Persephone after this holiday. Whatever happened, the terms of their contact would be strictly defined by the law. She, Eris, considered Persephone to be totally and utterly depraved, a liar of the worst and most manipulative kind. Persephone was even more depraved than their father had been, and that was saying something. Not even he would have traded in his dead parent's photos and diaries and tried to involve his sister in a sordid trade. Not even he would have employed such emotional blackmail and lies.

Everyone Eris told this story to agreed that Persephone's were the actions of an insane person. The worst thing was her total lack of remorse or shame.

Her, Persephone's, emails didn't relate to anything that had happened and used a tone that was totally inappropriate. She, Eris, told her, Persephone, not to call her Dear Eris anymore. She lacked all feelings, respect for others, honor or sense of values. Obviously she couldn't tell when the boundaries had finally been crossed. From now on, for Eris, the only option was the law.

Her, Eris's, emails were lucid, clear and so was her conversation. Persephone's primitive communications on the other hand reflected a lack of self awareness and awareness of others. They consisted in mere one-liners. They lacked logic, were blatant lies or were contradictory.

Persephone became acutely aware that the evening festivities were going to be tricky to say the least. Eris soon departed and within minutes Persephone could hear her and Jeff's laughter close by.
Chapter 19

When Jeff walked over to her dinner table that evening Persephone glanced over at Eris. Jeff was now her possession; he was her master while she was his queen. She couldn't help but think of Parzifal: "When her master entered the hall, he saw many ladies, beautifully dressed. When the mighty queen saw the Lord of Anjou, burning yearning filled her heart. He offered such a splendid sight that, whether she liked it or not, he opened her heart to love, which had hitherto kept the feminine sense of shame shut.

Many sighs escaped the ruler, but through her tears she often cast secret, shy, and friendly looks in the direction of Gaschmuret. Her eyes soon told her heart that he was a beautiful man. Unexpectedly, there awoke in each a deep mutual desire, and they could no longer separate their eyes."

It was only a question of time before they'd "indulge carefree in the enjoyment of intoxicating and pure love." If they hadn't done so already.

The last thing Persephone had expected was that Eris should morph into a man-eater. Eris grew more disgusting, in her eyes, by the minute. Should she warn Jeff that her sister was a monster? What was Eris up to? She, the Virgin Queen, seemed utterly determined to seduce Jeff. It wouldn't have surprised Persephone if she'd slept with him already. The Virgin Queen was just about to lose her virginity or had done so already.

Or perhaps she should warn Eris. After all: this was not in keeping with her character but was a moment of madness. Eris might well regret it for the rest of her days. What if she got pregnant? What if Jeff abandoned her once he learned the truth? And that was inevitable. What on earth was going through her mind, if anything? Persephone felt like speaking out loud the words: "I set the following goals for women: To listen to my advice, they should think carefully about whom to praise and honor, and to whom they then give their love and respect, so that later they won't regret their chastity and faithfulness. God let the honorable women always find the right measure in all things! Modesty is all virtue's crown!"

What was worst of all: she, Persephone, would be forced to maintain the charade that her sister was a famous writer. Persephone, unlike Eris, hated lying. She couldn't lie to save her life. Fortunately she didn't have to. Yet, the situation made her extremely uncomfortable indeed.

Eris and Jeff were soon talking about politics. Since when was Eris a left-wing, radical, member of "Occupy Wall Street", Persephone asked herself? Had she undergone some Damascene conversion? Had she quit her job in the City? Had she become a whistleblower? Or was she lying, as always? Most probably the latter.

There was one thing Eris and Jeff had in common, Persephone quickly realized: they were both very fond of monologues. This relationship was never going to work, she thought to herself. It was doomed from the very start. Both were too much alike: both were not a little arrogant, selfish and egotistical.

"Do you ever get the feeling", Jeff began, "that one small group seems to be way, way over represented in the "media"? They're the only ones allowed to cover stories from every angle: left, right, center, corporate and "independent". Some are apologists, others: venting stations for lazy stoned liberals. Some are a voice for neo-Bolshevik leftists, some right winger war hawks and others still are judge, jury and executioner. All are propagandists and all try, in one way or another, to support the Zionist agenda. I call it the Zio-Media. It's not fair or balanced; it's just Zionist propaganda."

"Trump is another Zionist puppet. Even rather benign Joe Biden is a Ziotard and he follows the Catholic faith. Many "American" evangelical Christians are crazy Zionists too."

"England and France have become totally infiltrated and compromised by Zionist, Globalist, and multi-national corporate interests. The US is the latest empire that the Zionists and Globalists are piggyback riding into their One World Government. If our politicians are directed by Israelis, Ziotards and Globalists and not by us then we should all stop paying taxes. We need a complete tax break before we can become a democracy once more. We shouldn't pay one cent until our politicians do what we, the citizens, want and not what the Ziotards and Globalists want."

"We all have to stop paying income tax. All countries must abandon the dollar and start up gold, silver and barter exchanges. We need to completely bypass and isolate the Globalist's usury structures."

"We have to be straight and clear in any conversation that tries to make the occupation and colonization of Palestine into "a war" or some kind of "back and forth". Its a clear occupation and ethnic cleansing of another people's land."

"Of course the Zionist strategy is to smear every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Sadly: it's now lost its teeth. In fact some only trust those who've been wrongly smeared as anti-Semitic. The Zionists started this long ago when they created the idea that the people of the Jewish faith are a culture, a blood type and an ethnicity. By extension they are a nation and a state, which they aren't. Judaism is just another Abrahamic religion, no more and no less. No one is chosen or unchosen by "God"."

"There is more to World War Two than just the part about the people of Jewish faith. I know, for some that's hard to imagine, but there's much, much more. Like the fact that over sixty million, largely "white", Christians died. It was one big Christian holocaust. Up in flames by fire bombs. Plus, Hess's peace flight to Scotland, Himmler's actions, Churchill's "total war" proclamation, the "transfer agreement" and other Zionist acts of collaboration. People forget the thousands of Poles murdered by the Bolsheviks after the war, the tens of millions of dead but uncounted German civilians, the war crimes in Germany by the "Allies" and Bolsheviks after the war. People forget how World War One created World War Two due to the endless reparations paid by the Germans. Sorry, but the whole thing about the plight of the Jews is well covered (films, doc's, countless organizations, museums, monuments etc.). It doesn't deserve any more of our time. The other parts of history on the other hand need far, far more study. Lots of historians, revisionists and scholars are onto it."

Jeff talked about the "openness of the public to interact with each other" in California. "Strangers are always talking. You can meet someone in a coffee shop and talk for an hour. And it might be a deep discussion that surprises you."

He talked about Santa Barbara, where he grew up. "It's kind of a picture perfect place. You would imagine it on a postcard. It has the mountains behind it, which makes it like the French Riviera and then it has a seaside. That's nice. It has a big harbor, and long, long, thick beaches everywhere. A lot of people have been coming there for a long time and live a good life. My parents came there when my mom was pregnant with me and bought a house and stayed. I'm glad they chose that because the other consideration was Beirut, Lebanon. That used to be called the Paris of the Middle East but it kinda went to shit. So I'm glad they picked Santa Barbara!"

"My father and mother come from a place called Boon, Iowa; middle of the country. Iowa is known for its corn and its pigs among other things. My dad grew up on the wrong side of the tracks with a divorced mother in horrible economic conditions and my mom grew up on the right side of the tracks. Her father was an immigrant from Sweden. He worked very hard. He became a railroad engineer and rebuilt houses on the weekends and was always busy and always had a very strong work ethic. She was raised with Swedish values with a pretty stable family."

One of his happiest memories of Santa Barbara was going to Hendry's Beach, which he used to visit as part of school field trips. "I was in Monroe Elementary. We were like a three quarters of a mile down to Hendry's Beach. We used to go there at low-tide because the water would be way out and there would be tide pools and all kinds of animals and sea anemones and little fish in the ponds and so. A lady called Mrs. Mallosy used to take us out there and show us stuff and let us explore. That was really nice. We used to do that a couple of times a year from the school."

Another place he liked was Bass Lake, which he described as being "south of San Francisco but inland, by the Sequoias. It's a big lake where you go waterskiing in the summertime. It has nice water. It has iron pyrite in the water as little flakes and that's fool's gold, so there are all these little gold flakes in the water that are iron pyrite that makes the water shiny and cool. Waterskiing there is nice. We probably spent six or seven summers there, having fun."

He also liked "Zaca Lake, the only natural lake in southern California. It's quite deep, which is interesting. It's in the mountains by Santa Ynez. You have to go over the mountains to get to it. You drive through sort of winding valleys, and then you get to this place, with a lot of trees and stuff, and there's a lake in it, and it's maybe fifty meters round or something like that, and it's naturally there. It's been there a long time. It's also very deep. They don't really know what's at the bottom of it."

"The Native Americans have a long history with this lake and it was kind of a spiritual center for them. White people took it over after the Native Americans. It's no longer part of the Chumash reservation. It's a lovely little lake, totally unexpected; it's a beautiful place to stay. We used to stay there for a week in the summer. We went swimming and boating every day. It was quiet. It wasn't too busy. It wasn't a big lake, like Bass Lake is. There's no hotel there. There are only cottages you can rent."

"A lot of people have come to California since I was a kid. When I grew up in Santa Barbara there were orange fields, and there were farmers and it was very nice. There was a lot of citrus farming. By the time I became an adult all those things were gone. It was all built over with new stuff that wasn't very interesting, that was kind of a cancerous growth."

"I was a born again Christian when I was growing up. That was with a Baptist or Evangelical type of church. It was a Christ related congregation of the Southern Baptist tradition. We didn't have any speaking in tongues or anything we would consider "fringe" like that but it was made up of decent people who were trying to make the world a better place using Judeo-Christian thought to try to understand it. It was a fundamentalist type church. It was a literal interpretation of the Bible. It was taking literal parts of the Bible and trying to apply them to modern society, such as: being Christ-like in your daily goings about, turning the other cheek, not hating. All of the sort of Christian morals that America is founded on, were part of that. You know: helping the disadvantaged. Not being selfish; or not being too selfish."

"It was a decent church. I got an early indoctrination into it. By five years old I'd decided that the only choice is to become a born again Christian because I didn't want to go to hell. I wanted eternal salvation, and to be at God's side for ever. That sounded pretty nice."

"By the time I was eighteen I really was questioning that whole construct because I saw the way people professed to act and think about things. They were all just human, full of sins and selfishness and things like that."

"One thing that was key was this fairly rich guy who lived in an area called Hawk Ranch. He had the service master's franchise, so he provided services to a number of companies, cleaning and things like that, and he was very well off. He drove his giant Mercedes to church every week and parked it in the red zone, in front of a fire hydrant, across the street from the church, every week, because that was his spot. Whether he got a ticket or not he just did that. This was a completely selfish and arrogant act."

"That was just one of the indicators that there was a difference between spiritual ideals and actions. I realized that I'd been presented with something as truth but it was essentially an arbitrary story. I could have been raised by Hindus and have had a completely different story structure. It would all kind of mean the same thing. It all tried to guide you to a better path to walk on, be more helpful and those sorts of things."

"I was kind of pissed off that I'd been misled. I'd been given a whole story and had been told that it was the truth. I realized that it was somewhat arbitrary and required belief. You have to believe that it's possible and belief is really irrational to me. Things are or are not. They aren't something because you believe they're something. That's not the way I work."

"I was pissed off and wanted to be an atheist. I wanted to be anti-God because this was a huge, giant myth. Everyone was spreading it and telling that it was true, and it wasn't true."

"Then I said: I really don't know what the answer is so I'll just say I'm an agnostic because I don't have enough information yet. I'm still at that point. I don't have enough information to make any decision on a kind of religion. I've studied religions quite a bit, from Buddhism to Mormonism to Catholicism to Evangelical Christianity. The Hindus are quite fascinating. They go back a long, long way. They have so much understanding of human nature encoded into their god constructs and different influences that go into life and they can be respected because it deals with human nature pretty accurately. The other one I would say is Zen Buddhism as a philosophy. It seems to deal with human nature very well. A lot of religions, like Catholicism, have shown themselves unable to deal with human nature very well."

"The problem over the years of children being abused in different Catholic organizations for different purposes shows that. I had a friend I grew up with, a guy called Andrew Pierson, who was on my street and he would be a singer at the Santa Barbara Mission, which is the High Catholic Church in Santa Barbara and attended Saint Anthony's Seminary as a boy singer. It came out later that he was abused for a number of years by a couple of different priests there. To me that duplicity was unbelievable."

"I like Zen Buddhism because it focuses on human nature such as weakness and the need to be independent of the flesh, being able to deprive yourself of everything for extremely long periods of time, to gain clarity. Things like that are important. Meditating in a stone box for three years. I respect what they're trying to achieve by that."

"I think America is very church oriented but I don't see very much spirituality going on. It's kind of a spiritual desert I would say. Materialism is worshipped. That's a god. It's a society of "me, me, me". That kind of pettiness is not very helpful."

"I mean America has great opportunity and potential but the way that capitalism manifests itself promotes fear and greed. When you promote those things it doesn't make a very nice society. The economic process can be pretty brutal."

Jeff spoke of how the West must learn from the so-called "savages". In many cases, their solutions and their ways of doing things, which at first might seem rough, were much cleverer than the West's. It was the so-called "savages" who were the deeper and more refined thinkers. The West had much to learn from their "savagery" in terms of instinct, passion, and mood. The culture of the Occident no longer fitted. It was a dead culture. It had nothing to do with daily life. It no longer had living roots.

He aimed for music which had an immediate connection with daily life, which was a direct and sincere expression of real life and real moods. He spoke of how, in the West, people believed that the nature of man was very different from the nature of other beings in the world. In the West, people believed that man couldn't be identified with the elements such as the winds, the trees, and rivers. We, in the West, hated winds, trees and rivers. The so-called "primitive man" on the other hand loved winds, trees and rivers. He believed in the affinity between man on the one hand and winds, trees and rivers on the other. He was aware of the continuity of all things, especially the continuity between man and the rest of the world.

The so-called "savages" respected every being in the world. They realized that man wasn't the owner of all beings, but just one among others.

Western man believed that the things he thought existed outside actually existed in the same way that he thought of them. He was convinced that the shape of the world was the same shape as his reason. He believed very strongly that the basis of his reason was well founded, especially the basis of his logic.

"Primitive man" was aware of the weakness of reason and logic, and believed in other ways of attaining knowledge of things.

"With music you can communicate with people in almost a different language, separate from the dialogue we use normally because it creates a vibration. This sounds very hippy and dippy but it's reality. You can create awareness in people on a sonic level. Just like you can create dissonance within the body, conflicting frequency, you can harmonize frequency in the body with music, if that's your intention. And you can create discord very easily, a lot of dissonance within the body with using a series of chord structures, how you tune the instrument, to what setting, 440 as opposed to 432, these have different frequencies and they effect your cellular vibration. There all kinds of devices for crowd control now using frequency. Lot of high pitched sounds that can fry your eardrums and can damage people. It's usually fairly short-term but if they use low frequency they would deafen you. They have very much the means to do that already. That's just your ears but there are other things happening to the inside of your body. With a wine glass, with a bit of water you can make this beautiful tone. You can also move your finger around the edge of that wine glass and get that tone really perfect and then you can create tension and then destroy the glass. So as much as it can ring for beauty it can be very destructive. This is why I chose to get into music: because I could see how powerful it was and how it had such a powerful effect on people. We would play bars and we played music that I wrote. I used an alternative tuning and there was a lot of dissonance in the harmonics. I always notice this. It was 440 tuning. Even I felt tension. I used to think: it's building excitement, probably because my nature is not violent. When we played those songs in a club with a lot of drinking males it was full-on riot. They poured out onto the street fighting. I knew instantly it had something to do with the way those frequencies were affecting people. The area was shut down because of a massive riot. We only played a set. They were getting very angry and hostile at each other. We had a cool presence but the chord structures I was using was unleashing something. I wanted to do a positive thing so I moved very fast away from that. I disbanded that band. I thought of all these fundamentalist Christian types: "Music is the devil", you know, even in modern times. It's considered bad. The funny thing is: I think they have a little bit of a point but they are religious, ignorant zealots so they don't know how to phrase it with their Abrahamic dualist theory. If you break it down to what it is it can unleash these forces. It isn't the devil, something mythical and fictional (It's not even built into their dogma) but it's a real force. That's the destruction of the wine glass with the water with the beautiful ringing tone in it. Now you go to that beautiful ringing tone and how you can play a Tibetan sound ball or just a wine glass with a little water in there. You can create almost a harmonizing, pacifying, very freeing vibration. It's not just the harmonizing frequency. It starts to harmonize on a cellular level. It starts to work with your natural frequency, to balance it. I thought: wow, that's what I want to be in on. Then I put in very political and environmental style lyrics with this smooth vibration. The vibration was this dreamy flowing cloud that was like lyrical medicine that was easy to swallow. The lyrical quality was always pushing on people's sacred cows or belief structures or how they see the environment. I wanted to do it in a harmonizing way. Ironically I had those same lyrics but mixed with those more aggravating, dissonant tones it was very magical when I got it right. I could even now play and create havoc. I know I could easily do that. But why waste your talents creating misery when you can create beauty, right?"

"When I tour I create this harmony and I can say things like a comedian can say things that you just can't say in polite society. What I really dislike is this politically correct theory, which is incorrect in my opinion. I can say real, hard truth. This melody makes it easy to swallow the medicine. The best things are when I see large groups of people. And again: it's not idol worship. When people drink the cool aid that's one thing but when you drink the cool aid, that's really f...d up. I don't get into that."

"Yoga is the same thing. I use my voice very similarly in music as I do in Yoga. I teach a style of Hatha Yoga, which is traditional, classical Hatha Yoga. Not westernized, again: hippy dippy Yoga. It's very simple. It's command driven but how you say the words, if you have the tonality, again: are you making the wine glass ring with this chimy beautiful harmony or are you being aggressive and hostile in the approach. I do this mantra style lyrics, changing the lyrics or changing the commands so it's not a mantra in a monotone delivery, unlike singing, which is more dynamical. This is more designed to be very flat but everything ends with a nice push. It does a lot to allow people to release from their conscious mind to get into a place of just moving to the command. The command is not my own making. I'm not trying to do anything other than help them stretch and strengthen their tissues and align their bones. I'm not trying to tell them any environmental stuff or any social justice or anything. It is just strictly about their health and wellbeing. It's just commands like: bend your body to the right. Pull in your left hand with your right hand but it is set in a chanting style. I always say to them: if I sound like a monk chanting in the back corner of the room this is the place you want to be. If you're hearing my commands very clearly and precisely that's not where you want to be. I promise I'm not going to throw any weird stuff in there. It's just physical commands. Just release and go with it, over time: it's a practice of continuum, you will strengthen and lengthen your ligaments, tendons and muscles, realign your skeletal structure and improve your breathing under pressure."

"Life is about creating harmony or its about creating dissonance. Some feed off dissonance because its very easy to feed on. It's very easy to create. There's still some creative process in there. It's just not much. It takes a lot of creative energy to help before polarized people start to see themselves as rounded off to one. Once you shave off these little things we're very much the same. I rail against dissonance. When compassionate, good people see dissonance that injures people it's like an emergency. You run toward it and try to help; if you're a good person. You don't just ignore it. Creating harmony is what is important."

"I speak of dissonance a lot. A lot of people like dissonance. They think it is a good thing. They think to dissent is very healthy. They think arguing is good, as long as it doesn't turn to violence. I don't believe that. I think communication is good; I think interacting is good. I don't believe in the old Oxford theory of the argument. I think it's false. It's a litigious theory of arguing for the murderer. I don't think that builds good, ethical fiber. I think that undermines ethical structure. It's ironic that they study it so heavily. Just to ask somebody to pick something which is completely arbitrary or totally against their basic ethics and argue it in a positive way, this is corrupt. This is a lawyer's theory, not a legitimate form of communication. I'm extremely precise about how things are laid out."

"Watching people become the guru, it's horrifying and comical and it goes with this idol worship thing again. First you are doing this practical thing, there is some artistic expression in there, or whatever, but it's not rocket science (rocket science isn't rocket science either). Then all of a sudden they surrender to this thing. They drink the cool aid but then you drink the cool aid, your own cool aid. Now it's a real mess. You start to talk about yourself in the third person. It's a mess."

Jeff spoke about his travels around Indonesia. He spoke of how the layout of a house was often a reflection of the indigenous concept of the cosmos. The roof was associated with the upper world, the seat of the gods and ancestors, the living space with the world of humans and the space below, the space of the pillars and stilts, with the underworld, where the demons and spirits resided. The central stake was associated with the founding of the house and had a sacred significance. It stood in the center and was regarded as the binding element between the underworld and the upper world.

The symbols depicted were often associated with these worlds. The water snake for example was associated with the underworld and the hornbill with the over-world.

At the same time many things had symbolic value. For example the direction upstream or the direction of sunrise was auspicious while the direction downstream or the sunset was the direction of death and thus unhappy.

He spoke about the Minangkabau, a Malay people living in the Padang Highlands of Sumatra. In contrast to other ethnic groups in Indonesia, the Minangkabau have a matrilineal kinship system. The inheritance passes from the mothers to the daughters. In this way, the rumah gadang (large house) is mostly inhabited by women of the maternal side and passed on.

The men of the Minangkabau cultivate the tradition of the merantau. They leave their region to gain life and work experience. The women manage the property of the clan. They decide everything while the men call themselves "homeless". If they marry a woman, they just become "visitors" to her rumah gadang.

He spoke of his own pantheism. He spoke of passions, desires, reachings, aspirations, subtle chains of countless rings, sepulchers of fathers, beholding God and nature face to face, being embosomed in nature, floods of life, action proportioned to nature, the perfection of creation, nature describing its own design, souls reflected in Nature, the sacredness of the woman's and the man's body, the universe as a procession with measured and perfect motion, countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments, and how every thing is sacred.

He spoke of Bali. Nowhere on earth, he said, were there so many temples as in Bali. There were family temples, common temples, and temples for individuals. Temples in Bali were not buildings, he said, they were sacred, ancient, venerable places. They were great stone and wooden chairs and thrones upon which the invisible gods settled when the priest calls them. Each village usually has three temples aligned along a mountain-sea axis, with the mountains as the place of the gods and the sea as the seat of the demons.

Mountainward (kaja) is considered the direction of purity and divinity while seaward (kelod) symbolizes impurity and the demonic. The antagonistic forces must be reconciled by offering sacrifices to both the good and the evil powers.

The temple, which always lies seaward outside the village near the burial and burning place, is called Pur Dalem. In this place of worship sacrifices are made to the beings of the underworld.

Pura Puseh is always uphill and within the village boundary. In the ritual center of the village sacrifice is made to the divine powers of the upper world.

The temple of Besakih, located at the foot of the highest mountain in Bali, Gunung Agung, is one of the most important temples of all. One enters the temple through a split gate, the Candi Bentar, after ascending a seven-level terrace sequence. This entrance embodies the duality of all life. Behind it is the first courtyard, a sort of forecourt that symbolizes the earthly world, with pavilions for the preparation of offerings, rice stores and resting places for the faithful. A covered gate leads to a second courtyard. This gate symbolizes that duality has become one. A last gate leads to the third courtyard. Here are rows of shrines, pagodas and altars, dedicated to the deities.

There are also many Merus, wooden structures with pagoda-like staggered roofs tapering upwards, which are covered with palm trees. These Merus symbolize the mythological seat of the gods. The number of roofs is always odd, from three to eleven. Eleven roofs are for Shiwa and nine for Brahma and Vishnu.

The tripartite division of the temple complex symbolizes the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity: Shiva, Brahma and Wischnu. Shiva is especially revered as the undisputed chief deity in the Holy of Holies.

Another important temple related to Besaikih is Goa Lawah, located on the Straits of Badung. Goa means cave, Lawah bat. Inside the cave and on its outer walls, there are thousands of bats that are considered sacred.

At the southernmost tip of Bali, on a high cliff on the Indian Ocean, is the temple Ulu Watu. It is dedicated to the goddess of the sea, Dewi Danu.

The Pura Ulu Watu is one of the nine imperial temples and reflects the importance of power.

Another temple dedicated to goddess Dewi Danu, goddess of the lakes, is Pura Ulun Danu, located on Lake Bratan in northern Bali. Also here there is a series of Merus, which protrude partly on a promontory in the lake.

Jeff spoke of oblations, perfect sacrifices to the gods: the fearless protectors, repellers of foes, doers of fair deeds, sharers of benevolence, bestowers of prosperity, givers of delight, removers of darkness, and eternal guardians of Law, who were glorified by singers with hymns of praise.

He spoke of the invisible absolute and the visible phenomenon. He spoke of how both were whole and how the visible whole comes out of the invisible whole. He spoke of how one should perform righteous deeds, karma. How he or she who perceive all beings as the self, who sees this oneness everywhere, can suffer neither delusion nor grief. He spoke of how the self is all-seeing, all-knowing and transcendent. He spoke of The Bhagavad Gita and told the story of the great archer and renowned hero Arjuna.

He told them that they ought visit Magelang, in Central Java with its Borobudur or "Candhi Barabudhur", which dates from the reign of the Sailendra Dynasty in the ninth-century.

It had nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome and was decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome was surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a stupa.

The Mehru is the hill, on which the gods live. In order to get closer to them, a stepped pyramid, a terraced sanctuary, had been built. Each level symbolizes ascension, a step further in development and a step closer to higher consciousness. The architecture of Borobudur reflects the world view of the three cosmic spheres of Buddhism: Kamadhatu, the sphere of desire; Rupadhatu, the sphere of form; and Arupadhatu, the sphere of formlessness.

The lowest level, Kamadhatu, reflects earthly lusts and suffering. Sin, vice, war and suffering dominate. Then comes Rupadhatu with its 1300 basalt bas-reliefs depicting the life of Buddha, Siddharta Guatama: his mother's Maja's dream of a white elephant, her death after his birth, Siddharta's youth in the Royal Palace, his first contacts with the outside world, his meeting with an old man, his learning that youth is not eternal, his meeting with a sick person and discovery that health is impermanent. When confronted with a dead man, he realizes that life is transient. The last encounter is with a monk. From him he learns how to change his life through meditation. Siddharta returns to himself and, as a hermit, seeks salvation from earthly chains. Under the Bodhi tree he finds enlightenment, Siddharta becomes Gautama Buddha, and the spreading of his teachings begins. The terraces that follow describe the quest for enlightenment. There are no more dramatic scenes, the pictures become abstract, they repeat themselves and are very similar. The next step leads into the Arupadhatu. It is the sphere of image and formlessness, the salvation from human suffering.

Only a few kilometers east of Borobudur is a second important Buddhist temple called Candi Mendut. From the originally large temple district only the main temple is preserved. Between Borobudur and Mendut stands another temple, the Candi Pawon.

By the middle of the 9th century, the Shailendras were replaced by the rising Hindu Sanyaya Dynasty. The Shailendras were pushed to Sumatra, where they survived in the realm of Srivijaya.

The temple complex of Prambanan, the Hindu-Shiwaite counterpart to Borobudur, symbolized the victory over the Buddhist Shailendras. The construction of the original total of 232 sanctuaries began under the rule of Sri Maharaja Rakai Pikatan. Around 915, the complex is said to have been completed under King Daksha. A devastating earthquake destroyed it in 1549.

Today one can admire eight of the main temples, which were rebuilt. In a quadrangular courtyard, the three largest temples are arranged in a north-south direction. They symbolize the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity. In the middle is the 56m high main temple, consecrated to Shiva. Next to it, in the south, is the temple dedicated to Brahma. In the north is one consecrated to Wischnu.

Opposite these three temples are three other sanctuaries containing the mythical mounts of the Trimurti: Shiva's Bull, called Nandi, Brama's wild goose, Hamsa, and Vishnu's Sunbird, Garuda. All the other 224 sanctuaries are in ruins.

Popularly, the Shivat Temple is also called Loro Jonggrang. The legend of the creation of the Prambanan is that the Princess Loro Jonggrang, daughter of King Ratu Baka, spurned a prince, who was intended to be her husband.

In order to dismiss him, she demanded that he build a huge temple palace with 1000 statues. This should be completed in a single day. The prince had magical powers and, to her horror, the princess saw that there was only one statue left to complete. She resorted to a ruse and hit the ground with a wooden block where rice was being pounded. This was so violent that all the roosters opened up their wings in terror and the sun darkened. The prince was fooled and thought the day was already over. Seeing the deception, Loro turned Jonggrang, the "slender maiden," into the last missing stone statue.

The New Years meal: roasted butternut squash soup and homemade focaccia bread, filet steak with dauphinoise potatoes, steamed vegetables and red wine followed by white chocolate crème brûlée and a glass of Baileys put all three: Eris, Persephone and Jeff in a good mood. At the bottom of the menu was a quote from Mark Twain: "Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can start paving hell with them as usual." The later the evening got and the closer they got to the magic hour the merrier and drunker everyone became.

The staff grew more relaxed. One entertained with a display of fire eating while another played "Suonata en fa dièse mineur" by Silvius Leopold Weiss on a lute. Maria obliged with an aria: "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from the opera "La Wally".

The advantage of celebrating New Year's in Bali was that it was hours ahead of the US or Europe.

Once the impromptu party on the beach was over Eris and Jeff disappeared and Persephone was left on her own. It wasn't a particularly agreeable experience.
Chapter 20

The next morning Persephone awoke to the smell of puke. Eris had thrown up all over the villa, literally everywhere, sometimes in the most unexpected of places.

Persephone found Eris writhing in agony but the latter refused adamantly to call a doctor. Persephone made the mistake of threatening to tell Jeff that Eris was, like their mother, an alcoholic. This infuriated Eris and she flew into a fearsome rage.

If Persephone wanted to bring their mother's alcoholism into the public domain, Eris stated, then let it be. Eris would have no problem whatsoever telling others about her alcoholism and how she, Eris, was repeatedly physically assaulted by their mother to the point where she was forced to ring the police for defense. As far as she was concerned the world could know about their mother's alcoholism. It was Persephone and her problems that would come to light. Unlike her, Eris, she, Persephone, had not got over it.

People need only look at Persephone's emails, what she wrote, her defamation and could decide for themselves what to think of her. The more Persephone wrote, the more she revealed herself. They might look at her, Eris's emails, her work and her communication and they would make up their minds, uninfluenced by anybody. They weren't the same. People could spot the difference. What the two sisters wrote and the way they both wrote set them worlds apart. People would say: wasn't she, Eris, a success! Look at her sister, Persephone, by comparison! Just imagine, she could have turned out like her!

Her, Eris's, success was due to the fact that she was rational, clear, lucid and sensible. From now on she, Eris, would refuse to put up with her, Persephone's corruption.

It was she, Eris, who'd helped their mother out with money. It was she, Eris, who their mother had phoned every day. It was she, Eris, who'd visited their mother when she was old. Persephone had simply slammed the phone down. It was she, Eris, who their mother had mentioned in her diary. When was Persephone mentioned? Never. It might be true that their mother could, occasionally, have too much to drink and be extremely aggressive but she and Eris ended up as friends. Their mother stopped beating her and the situation eased. Just because Persephone didn't have a heart didn't mean no one else did. Her true motivation was jealousy for her sister, nothing else. Persephone always was jealous. She was also ambitious. She ought finally grow up and stop ruining Eris's reputation. And stop harassing her.

She, Eris, would never have sanctioned anything as despicable as Persephone had done. She ought leave her, Eris, in peace and leave her out of her, Persephone's, depravity. It made Eris ill to think that she had a sister like Persephone.

She, Eris, spoke sarcastically of Persephone's wonderful capacity "to put herself in other people's shows", her "breadth of thinking" and "empathy". In addition to her, Persephone's, inability to connect with other people her "natural helpfulness", "kindness", "generosity", "honesty" and "capacity for self-criticism" also played a role.

She spoke in the same ironic vane of Persephone's "long", "complex" emails, which were full of "brilliant" analysis. Her emails showed her "wonderful self-awareness", "ethical character", and "ability to reason". Persephone invariably presented "balanced arguments" and showed "an ability of articulating what was going on in her head". She, Eris, had rarely read such "interesting" emails as Persephone's, sometimes, at their greatest length, exceeding all of twenty words.

And they weren't always full of sneers and abuse. They weren't always "just slightly" prejudiced, or full of "jealous vitriol". They weren't always "filled with lies" or "blatant twistings of the truth".

From Persephone's emails it was clear that as much as one percent of what she actually thought and actually felt was present in her consciousness while the other ninety-nine per cent was buried deep down in her subconsciousness. No wonder Persephone came across as "so enlightened and so noble". With all of her gigantic one per cent of consciousness. How wonderful it was to deal with someone who was "so self-aware" and who was "aware of others". She had a good heart too. She was always looking for ways to help others.

She, Eris, of course, was as "awful", "wretched" and "inconsiderate" as she, Persephone said she was. She, Persephone, was so insightful.

Oh, how terrible she, Eris, was, always so impatient, always in such a hurry, always incapable of thinking and feeling exactly as she, Persephone, did. It was a scandal that she, Eris, should have a life of her own.

It was simply appalling that she, Eris, wasn't a mere shadow without any existence except one as a snarling, ghastly sister who could be ordered around and looked down upon.

Why was she, Eris, incapable of seeing in her, Persephone, a perfection that she, Eris, couldn't hope to ever understand let alone aspire to.

It was a shame that she, Persephone, had such a stupid sister as she was always telling everyone. Poor Persephone! Poor Persephone, to have to put up with such an unappreciative world, one incapable of grasping her true genius.

She, Eris, knew exactly how understanding, kind, helpful and above all else: honest she, Persephone, was.

"As your sister, I feel it my duty to tell you that unless you start thinking about life, values and work, I see a situation where your potential will be wasted. After all: you are almost forty."

"You are, it seems to me, like a person walking in the middle of life who is unable to see the potentials they have or utilize them because they're fixated by narrow, short-term results. All you seem to want to do is to boost your ego. You seem perpetually prone to fears and anxieties."

"If you don't manage to get your ego under control, your selfish will to power at all costs, you won't realize your potential. Your life will turn out to be a frustrating series of failures and near misses. And this will all be due to the attitudes and values you've chosen to imprison yourself in. You're too lazy, too superficial and too hard-hearted to re-examine or change. You don't realize that an iron will to success is one thing, strength of character is quite another. Or that constant input is most definitely not identical with real reflection."

"You seem to think that looking after one's own perceived interests at all costs is the same as interest in others but that is quite simply not the case. Whatever happens to suit you isn't the same as having solid values and sticking to them with total integrity. Selfishness, boastfulness and opportunism aren't the same as charm, courage or grit."

"It would profoundly regrettable if you weren't able to take a step back and think about your life. Time is running out. It will soon be now or never if you are to realize your potential. Your job is a waste of energy for so little money. It is best to use all one's talents in a challenging job in a challenging environment. It is always good to stretch oneself, to always take on something bigger. One has try to work with equals, people one can learn from. What is important is unity of purpose."

"Playing a doormat is not conducive to developing confidence or the right skills. Yours is a passive, one-dimensional activity. It only has a negative effect."

"You have to get into something practical. You need to organize, persuade, discuss, plan, raise money, be dynamic, get involved, take risks, and use your social skills."

"To mobilize your energies, you must imagine that the world has written you off. No one expects you to do anything but fail. That way you'll feel as if you've nothing left to lose."

"Think of Adrian. He tends to believe that he has every right to succeed in advance, and then gets very anxious when that success doesn't materialize. His attitude isn't conducive to the full mobilization of his energies. It doesn't permit his freedom to experiment or provide him with an opportunity to be his authentic self."

"You have to go for it. You have to use your talents, generate lots of positive energy by action but you shouldn't expect results."

"Why bother with your humdrum wage slave job? It's both badly paid and depressing. Nowadays people can easily set up their own business. The only thing needed is research, planning, and a thoroughly professional approach. The trick is to find out what you really want to do, what others really want or need, and then to stick at it. You do have plenty of talents. Why should you fail?"

"Of course, one has to be excellent. One has to identify one's special skills, what one can do that no one else can, and go for that niche. One also needs a strong network and plenty of connections and the requisite social skills. One has to be self-motivated, a good organizer and planner. So it isn't all that easy. But eventually, if you invest in something meaningful, you'll reap the rewards. You'll also do something for others."

"What is important is to think of all the possible variations and then to pick a sound plan. It is vital that you have some overall direction. One always has to be willing to revise a plan and adjust it to take into account real events. Life is forever changing. We are forever changing. Nothing stays the same. The great creative forces at work are always pushing forward and creating ever new patterns."

"We are always moving towards enlightenment. God is a great artist. He is always restless. He wants now this, now that beautiful thing to appear. He wants more enlightenment and ever greater consciousness. He wants everything to move into a sphere of light, beauty, truth and happiness. This is a deep longing in all human beings. Hence all the frustrations and misery. Hence all the blocks to our self-realization."

"Life is better now than it was ever before. Political, economic and personal liberty is greater now than it ever was before. War casts its shadow over a smaller proportion of the world's population. Fewer people live in fear of arbitrary arrest or torture."

"The replacement of central planning by market-based economics and a lowering of trade barriers have lifted millions out of poverty and have given them more income, more education and more freedom of choice."

"In the past half century humanity has made remarkable progress. This is an indubitable fact. This isn't merely a question of higher incomes but also one of longer and better lives."

"We've managed to halve global fertility from five children for each woman in the early 1970s to just 2.4 today. In China and Brazil it is lower still. Only in Sub-Saharan Africa is the fertility rate still high. Death in infancy has been reduced in India from 246 out of 1,000 children in 1960 to 43 today. In Brazil the drop has been from 171 to 15. In Japan the figures are 40 to 3."

"Life expectancy has risen from 53 in 1960 to 72 today. In China it is 76, which is the same as Japan in 1977. In Brazil it's the same. India is up to 69. Nigeria's life expectancy has risen from 37 in 1960 to 53 today."

"This is all due to improvements in sanitation, basic health care, higher agricultural yields, cleaner air, and improved diets. It is also due to the fact that prices have dropped while wages have risen. We have all become more prosperous."

"As for extreme poverty it has dropped from 99% in 1800 to 11% today. As recently ago as 1990 67% of all Chinese lived in extreme poverty. Now only 1% do so."

"We've made huge progress on the fronts of female education, clean water, vaccinations, and of course: democracy."

"Why has all this been possible? Because the Enlightenment, with its reason and science has been unstoppable."

"Of course there is still much to be done. We need to tackle the problems resulting from ageing populations, mass urbanization, diseases spreading quickly, conflicts over ever-scarcer resources and the fragility of the financial system. There remain the threats of military conflict, environmental disaster, the depletions of fish reserves and global warming but these too can be dealt with."

Persephone thought about what Thoby had said to her. If the truth be told political, economic and personal liberties were diminishing at an ever increasing rate. Democracy in the West was a farce. Nearly every election was rigged. The entire global population, due to the electronic grid, the Internet of all things, electronic currency and chipping was moving inexorably toward a new, global Auschwitz. It was only a matter of time before the populace was culled. The preferred method was war, hence all the conflicts in Palestine, Syria and Yemen. Big business, Thoby pointed out, had always profited from war. Thus American companies had produced tanks for the Nazis during the World War Two and trucks for the Vietnamese Communists during the Vietnam War.

The entire system was built on the fear of losing one's job, fear of poverty and downright terrorism. There was even a term for it: "traumatized worker". The theory being that the more terrorized and traumatized the worker the more pliable he or she would be.

Those resisting the system, like the Occupy movement, were simply arbitrarily arrested and tortured.

In order to confuse the masses, there was standardized terrorism, which was, of course, all part of Gladio or Gladio B. This had been in full swing since the end of World War Two and was very much ongoing if not expanding.

As to 9/11: fires had never, ever caused the collapse of a steel-framed high-rise before nor had they done so since. All the evidence pointed to the fact that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition. It was really that simple. 9/11 was a blatant hoax, a clumsy fraud perpetrated against a superficial, stupid, and ignorant populace.

The whole narrative about market-based economics was nonsense. Hogwash, nothing more. Free markets didn't even exist. Every market had rules and boundaries that restricted choice.

Self-interest might be powerful but it was by no means dominant. If it were the world would fall apart very rapidly indeed. The notion of the "invisible hand" was ridiculous for the simple reason that people didn't know what they were actually doing. They just didn't understand the complexities of the world around them.

The owners of most companies were shareholders. They rarely cared about the long-term and preferred short-term profits to investment.

The countries that got rich did so because of state-led development and not due to market-oriented policies. The iPhone was a classic example of this. In fact most investment was state-led.

Historically speaking, most countries got rich because of trade barriers and high wages not due to their absence.

If the West was affluent this was due to its habit of plundering the rest of the world, nothing more. Most banks only survived due the drug trade, which was, in turn, organized by the West.

The modern economy was simply drained in a vampire-like fashion by Wall Street bankers, hedge-fund managers, landlords and monopolies. The entire economy was based on the premise of rent extraction: taking without producing.

As for the infamous "New World Order" it fed on human poverty, destroyed the natural environment and generated social apartheid, racism and ethnic strife.

"Free market reforms" simply benefited illicit activities. Criminal syndicates acquired state assets while profits from narcotics, arms and prostitution were funneled into legitimate businesses.

Downsizing, corporate restructuring and relocation simply diminished wages while high unemployment was used as an additional tool for depressing them. One third of the global workforce was unemployed.

The supply of goods and services was stagnant while profit was sought in speculative or fraudulent transactions. This in turn disrupted the world's financial markets.

Austerity measures caused the disintegration of the state, the destruction of production, and the compression of real earnings.

The whole aim was to minimize corporate labor costs. Thus real wages in the Third World and Eastern Europe were as much as seventy times lower than in the US, Western Europe or Japan.

If people were living longer lives it was despite the policies advocated by Eris, not because of them. Yet this, Persephone knew all too well, she couldn't possibly say. What was the point of arguing? What would she achieve? And what was the point of addressing any of Eris's slanderous personal accusations? Eris was a bully, a liar and a thief. She was an amoral, evil psychopath. Who knew what she might do? And Persephone was acutely aware of her own vulnerability. What if Eris were to strangle her in the night? This was a distinct possibility. Or stab her and make it look like a break in or attempted robbery? Eris had always been capable of the most heinous of crimes. The only thing that had prevented her, up till then, from landing in jail, or worse, was the brilliance of her intelligence. She was able to talk, it might all be nonsense, all hot air, but she was articulate; that much was true. She could talk her way out of any crime.
Chapter 21

The next day Jeff was gone. He vanished, as if into thin air. Eris was devastated and consented to Persephone's suggestion that she call a doctor. As Persephone went to fetch Dave, the hotel manager, she thought of the lines: "The proud, bold knight had remained until his thirst for adventure could no longer be tamed. He'd denied himself all the challenges of life and now needed to test himself in knightly adventure. Yet he loved his wife more than life itself. "

"The Queen found in her purse a letter in her husband's hand, which she was familiar with. In it she read: "Hereby the lover of the beloved assures his undiminished love. Like a thief, I have begun my journey secretly because I wanted to spare you the pain of saying goodbye. O mistress, if you give birth to a son, he will have a lion's strength.""

Yet when Persephone returned with Dave Eris too had vanished. Had she left in pursuit of Jeff, had she committed suicide or had there been foul play? Persephone knew perfectly well that Eris had been involved in shady dealings. She could guess that she'd been followed. Eris had always led a life of crime and it didn't surprise Persephone in the least that she'd one day suffer as a consequence.

Months later there was still no word of Eris. She'd disappeared. She'd fallen off the face of the earth. Her body was never found.

Persephone reflected upon her sister's fate. Dishonesty didn't pay. It never did. It only generated bad karma. She, Persephone, might not find life always terribly easy but she was exceedingly grateful to be alive. This was one thing her adventure on Gili Meno taught her. Every minute, every second, every waking hour was unbelievably precious.

The End
