Christopher and Olivia, wearing their ski masks, pile treasure into saddlebags on the back of Aethon-the-conveniently-located-donkey. Alex says, “Ow, that’s heavy, stop, please, this is a misunderstanding, I’m not a beast, I’m a man, a simple shepherd from Arkadia,” and Christopher-who-is-Bandit-Number-One says, “Why is this donkey making so much danged noise?” and Olivia-who-is-Bandit-Number-Two says, “If it doesn’t shut up, we’ll be caught,” and she whacks Alex with her foil-covered sword, and the exit alarm downstairs blares, then stops.
All five children glance at Zeno where he sits in the front row, apparently decide that this, too, must be a test, and the masked bandits continue ransacking the inn.
A familiar jolt of pain rides through Zeno’s hip as he rises. He gives his actors a thumbs-up, hobbles to the back of the room, and eases open the little arched door. The stairwell lights are off.
From the first floor comes the jumbled thuds of what sounds like a shelf being pushed over. Then it’s quiet again.
There’s only the red glow of the EXIT sign at the top of the stairs, transforming the gold paint on the plywood wall into a frightening, poisonous green, and the far-off keen of a siren, and a red-blue-red-blue light licking along the edges of the stairs.
Memories sweep through the dark: Korea, a shattered windshield, the silhouettes of soldiers swarming down a snow-covered slope. He finds the handrail, eases down two steps, then realizes that a figure is curled at the bottom of the stairwell.
Sharif looks up, his face drawn. On the left shoulder of his T-shirt is a shadow or a spatter or something worse. With his left hand, he puts an index finger to his lips.
Zeno hesitates.
Go back, waves Sharif.
He turns, tries to make his boots quiet on the stairs; the golden wall looms above him—
Ὦ ξένε, ὅστις εἶ, ἄνοιξον, ἵνα μάθῃς ἃ θαυμάζεις
—the severity of the old Greek striking him suddenly as alien and chilling. For an instant Zeno feels as though, like Antonius Diogenes studying the inscription on a centuries-old chest, he is a stranger from the future, about to enter some unknowable and deeply foreign past. Stranger, whoever you are… To pretend he knows anything about what those words signify is absurd.
He ducks back through the arched doorway and fastens the door behind him. Onstage the bandits are driving Aethon-the-donkey down the stony road out of Thessaly. Christopher says, “Well, this has to be the most worthless donkey I’ve ever seen! It complains with every step,” and Olivia says, “As soon as we get back to our hideout and unload this loot, let’s cut its throat and throw it off a cliff,” and Alex pushes his donkey head up over his nose and scratches his forehead.
“Mr. Ninis?”
The karaoke light is blinding. Zeno leans on a folding chair to keep his balance.
Through his ski mask Christopher says, “I’m sorry I messed up my line before.”
“No, no,” Zeno says, trying to keep his voice quiet. “You’re doing wonderfully. All of you. It’s very funny. It’s brilliant. Everyone is going to love it.” The cicadas and crickets drone from the speaker. The cardboard clouds twist on their threads. All five kids watch him. What is he supposed to do?
“So,” Olivia-the-bandit says, and twirls her plastic sword, “should we keep the story going?”