Over the next two months, Augusta learned what her father meant by intense. They were up every morning at dawn, running miles along the winding mountain paths. Mornings were given over to study: psychology, history, economics, political systems. And afternoons they spent practicing self-defense and hand-to-hand combat—the art of escape, her father called it. Her job as an agent was not to stand and fight but extricate herself and any other assets from enemy influence as quickly and cleanly as possible. Only if her life depended on it should she aim to disable or kill her opponent.
Despite the intensity, and the occasional physical pain that accompanied her exertions, Augusta found herself enjoying her training. As her father had predicted, she was a quick study, and she looked forward to their class sessions together, which ranged widely over world history and human nature. For the most part, the solitude suited her. Their occasional trips into the local village to purchase supplies was enough to meet her low threshold for social interaction. And they frequently called her mother and grandmother on an encrypted line, describing the progress she was making. She could tell her mother was proud of her. It was enough to keep her going, despite all the hardship and discomfort.
In the evenings her father would project a movie onto the side wall of the chapel, and they would have fun watching adventure films together. There were some benefits to having a secret agent for a father, Augusta thought as she listened to her father’s hilarious commentary on all the famous spy movies. Not only did they have top-notch technology, which allowed them to use all his gear even in a remote outpost like the monastery, but he could also explain in lively detail how James Bond should have thrown his punches and Jason Bourne should have aborted the mission altogether.
“No way would an agent risk his team’s life like that!” her father roared at the screen one night, as Augusta enjoyed the rare treat of a chocolate bar.
“Dad, you know they just try to make it as exciting as possible,” Augusta said, laughing in spite of herself. “They don’t care if it’s realistic or not.”
“Yeah, but who wants to see terrible agents making terrible mistakes?” her father said, gesturing toward the screen. “Why don’t they show true heroes—the people who do things the right way and don’t get any recognition for it? That would be much more interesting.”
“You mean like you?” Augusta grinned. “You’d be a great movie star. Jumping out of helicopters to scoop up Hasan and Efendi from Camlica.”
Nicolas smiled. “Or maybe you, bursting into the baths of Bedestan wearing an Ottoman caftan. As they say, truth is more interesting than fiction.”
“Nobody says that!” Augusta laughed. “The saying is truth is stranger than fiction. Not more interesting. What about all those Greek myths you’ve been telling me? Those are fiction and they’re pretty strange. And interesting.”
“Well, some would say they’re interesting because of what they reveal about human psychology. Myths, stories, fables, parables—all constructed by humans to make sense of this crazy world. The same is true of philosophy. They are all attempts, in different ways, to understand why we’re here and to find meaning in our lives. Whether you call it religion, or mythology, or literature, or philosophy, the goal is always the same. We all want to understand why we’re here. We want to feel like we matter in some way. Humans are the only species that recognizes our own potential meaninglessness in the face of a vast universe. Forget death. What truly terrifies people is not mattering. That it all might be a waste of time. That all the suffering, all the wondering, all the loving, might not be worth anything in the end.”
Augusta balled up her candy wrapper and threw it onto the trash pile in the corner. She didn’t know what to say. She had never heard her father speak so pessimistically about life. He had always been so encouraging, so full of good advice, so steady at directing her every move. Was he telling her now it was all meaningless?
Nicolas took a sip of the ouzo he had bought from a local farmer. It tasted just like raki to Augusta, but her father insisted there were differences. You could taste the soil where the grapes are grown, he said. Each batch had its own special flavor.
“Are you saying life is pointless? Everything I’m doing, all this hard training, has no purpose?”
“Not at all. On the contrary, I’m saying everything we humans do is part of our quest for a meaningful life, whether people realize it or not. Making movies. Telling stories. Stealing books. Even training to become a spy. We all need something to hold on to. A direction. A purpose. A guiding star.”
Augusta sat in silence, rolling these thoughts through her mind. Finally, she asked, “And what is your guiding star? Your purpose?”
Her father gazed at the frescoed walls around them, crumbling with meaning and purpose from centuries past. Many men, long since buried, had found their lodestar within these walls. Still others had found theirs in the pagan temples that dotted this island, or in the ancient oak groves venerated by the early Minoans. The Rumelovs, he knew, found their purpose in resurrecting the past, in trying to restore ancient ways of worship. There were many ways of orienting yourself within the vastness of the universe.
“Truth,” he said at last. “Truth has always been my guide. It’s the only thing I can really believe in. But truth is difficult to serve. Sometimes it is veiled or hidden from us. Sometimes we grope along looking for it, with only small clues to keep us going. Sometimes we almost lose sight of it completely.”
“Hmm.” Augusta helped herself to some of her father’s ouzo, grimacing as it trickled down her throat. “How exactly do you know what the truth is? How can you be sure you know the truth about anything? And I don’t see how truth can be your guide in everything, like which pair of pants to put on in the morning. Or who to marry, or how to defeat an enemy. Truth isn’t practical. And maybe it’s deceptive, or as they say, truth is relative. Seems like a bad choice for a guiding star.”
Nicolas laughed heartily. “Good girl! You’re catching on to this game. I can see I’ve taught you well.” He poured a tiny bit of ouzo for her and a large amount for himself. “Don’t take anyone’s word for granted—question everything. Ask to see the evidence yourself. Think it through and see if it makes sense to you. That’s the only way you’ll find out the truth about anything. Just keep prodding and you’ll get there.”
“You’re not going to tell me the answer?” she asked disappointedly.
“How do you know there’s an answer? Maybe there isn’t one.”
Augusta pursed her lips. “Maybe there isn’t a universally accepted answer, but apparently there’s an answer that you believe in. Otherwise you wouldn’t have based your life on it.”
“True,” Nicolas said, sighing. “But I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it.”
“Try me.”
Leaning back against the wall, Nicolas appraised his daughter’s bright, curious face, her hazel eyes full of intelligence and energy. She had the whole world before her, her whole life. What a remarkable young woman, he thought proudly. Whether or not she became an agent, she would do great things in life. But there were some lessons she just couldn’t understand now. She wasn’t ready yet.
“Okay, just one hint for today. Then it’s time to call it a night.”
Augusta looked at him expectantly.
Nicolas jerked his head toward Augusta’s bag, sitting to the side of the room. “Your book, the lost discourses, was authored by a very wise man. Epictetus. He was unparalleled as a teacher of logic, which is basically the search for truth. The ancient Greeks thought logic meant using all our mental faculties to understand the world. It’s not just one narrow type of reasoning. For the Greeks logic was about thinking clearly, examining our use of language, and understanding the relationship of some things to other things. Seeing how things fit together.”
Augusta poured herself another sip of ouzo. Just one more, she thought. They had an early day tomorrow, like always.
“But Epictetus put his own spin on logic. He used the Greek term phantasia, which we translate as impression. Impressions are a mental representation we form of the world, a picture in our minds of how things are. We receive sensory input from our eyes, ears, and other senses, and these communicate information to our central command post, which we now know to be the brain. Some impressions come from our senses, and some are created by our own minds. So you might have the impression that it’s night right now, or that this ouzo is bitter. These are questions that can be corroborated by objective measures, such as bitterness compounds in a beverage or amount of light in the sky. These are simple, straightforward cases of our sensory input matching established measurements.
“But how do we know if we can rely on our senses? Or on our measurements? What if someone tries to trick us? For example, they might put a dark screen over the windows and say it’s night when it’s really day. Or they might tell us tests revealed this ouzo measures 0 on the international bitterness scale, when our taste buds tell us it contains dozens of bittering compounds.”
Augusta’s head was beginning to hurt. This felt like the day her father had sat across from her in the Ottoman History Museum and told her about the Carter family heritage. Maybe they should have this conversation tomorrow in broad daylight, when she could see clearly.
“In ancient Greece one philosophical school, known as the Skeptics, thought that you couldn’t know anything for sure. There is no clear way of distinguishing truth from non-truth. Many centuries later, Rene Descartes set off a philosophical revolution in Europe with his answer to the same question: cogito ergo sum. Sitting by a warm fire one night, he decided that there was only one thing he could know for sure, that he existed as a thinking being. Everything else might be a trick—for example, the work of an evil demon—but he could at least have certain knowledge of his own existence.”
Looking up at the dour-faced saint now glowering down at her from the chapel wall, Augusta could understand Descartes’ concern.
“Epictetus and the ancient Stoics had a different answer. They had more confidence in our physical senses and our ability to make reasonable choices. We act on what it is reasonable to suppose. And some impressions are just too powerful to be the result of trickery. If you walk outside at noon on a sunny day, it’s impossible to reasonably believe that it’s night. The heat and light of the sun are too overpowering.
“Starting from these irrefutable basic impressions, we can build a foundation of certain knowledge. Not every sense impression is reliable or true. But through investigation and applying the correct methodologies, we do have the ability to discover which ones are true.”
Was it the ouzo or all the talk of phantasia that was making her so drowsy? Augusta felt an overwhelming urge to sleep. This was definitely an overpowering impression. Yawning, she gave her father a goodnight hug.
“Thanks, Dad, that sounds great. I’m off to bed now. See you in the morning.”
Chuckling to himself, Nicolas kissed his daughter on the forehead and let himself out of the chapel, clicking the door shut behind him. All in good time, he thought. All in good time.