Pen Name

I was at the flea market in the filthy old port town of Piraeus, near Athens, a while back. I love a good market, especially in a place with a few layers of history, a few dirty secrets. The life of such a town is in its markets: the tools and utensils that have changed little in centuries; the gorgeous clothing woven, dyed, knitted or embroidered by hand; the antique stalls where grandmother’s china kittens jostle with her priceless amber worry beads – so different from the soulless, standardised supermarkets with their plastic Chinese goods and their plastic food. Anyway, in this particular market I was drawn to an unruly display of items under the care of a surly, gap-toothed teenager. He smirked as I examined a heap of brass goat-bells – what would an ignorant turista know about livestock? His smirk grew more pronounced as I worked my way through his collection of antique icons – foreigners! They wouldn’t know Saint Giorgios from Saint Nikolaus!

Then I saw it. A fine, silver fountain pen in elaborate filigree, nice and thick, with the old-fashioned straight nib that I favour. It had a name engraved in Greek letters along the side and it was in splendid condition. I hefted it and appreciated the weight and balance of a fine instrument. Just as I was composing my face into a look of nonchalance to make my opening bid, the youth’s eyes met mine. His glance slid down to the object in my hand, and his superior expression was instantly replaced by one of unmistakable horror.

“No! No for sale!” he exclaimed, attempting to snatch the pen from my hand. But I was not to be put off by some smug kid who thought his precious merchandise too good for an ignorant turista. I held tight to my prize and waved a fifty euro note at him with my free hand – more money, I’m sure, than his stall would make in a month. He let go of the pen to grab the fifty, of course, but the stricken expression never left his dark eyes as I turned and fled, triumphant.

That evening I polished my pen to a fine sheen and filled it with the best quality indigo ink. What a pleasure to sign my name with an instrument of such craftsmanship! But what happened next, I can hardly bring myself to tell. I am in the habit of keeping a journal of my travels – observations on the landscapes, customs and architecture, amusing incidents, characters, memorable meals and the like. The silver pen glided over the page with a silky smoothness, transforming my scrawl into calligraphy of deepest, most lustrous blue. I read over my account of the day, and had to take several deep breaths and clean my glasses. What I read in place of my plain, methodical prose was a narrative of such horror and violence that I thought I must be caught in a nightmare!

The narrator of the tale was a man unhappy in a brokered marriage, who plotted the death of his wife. But the descriptions, the lurid imaginings of his disturbed mind, the detail of his methods and her suffering, the clever disguising of his crime – where had this come from? It took a few more trials, but it soon became obvious that every time I took up the pen, no matter what my own intention, the result would be a story of violence and vice that sickened me to my soul. I should have stopped, of course, and disposed of my beloved pen, but I’m afraid the writing became a kind of compulsion. And besides, though I wouldn’t dream of publishing them under my own name, the horror fiction of Ariadne Thanatos – quite literally my pen-name – turns quite a nice little profit.