Fanina, Child of Rome

by Pierre Sabbagh

  The soldiers had stopped to discuss matters.

  ‘They’ve gone down Black Fig alley!’

  ‘In that case, a fat lot of chance you’ve got of ever finding them.’

  ‘Oh, let them alone. Let it go ...’

  ‘Novius is right. There are only two possible reasons for them doing a bunk like that: either the woman is married and she’s having a bit of fun on the quiet — in which case it isn’t worth our bothering about; or she’s another of the toffee-nosed set hanging about the streets to get what kicks she can from pick-ups, in which case we might find ourselves in deep water....’

  ‘Unless she’s a whore who’s left the district....’

  ‘So you think it might be worth our while to get her out of there, do you, Trebius?’

  The watchmen’s good-natured, unexcited voices reached Caius and Fanina in the doorway in which they were huddled. To put an end to the discussion, the man who had first hailed the young couple announced:

  ‘Well I only know one thing, and that is that they did not obey my summons. We must go after them.’

  ‘You, Phocas,’ jeered one of the soldiers, ‘the way you go challenging everyone on the streets, you’ll cause a fall in the birthrate of Rome, you will!’

  ‘That’s enough from you, Novius! Come on . . . Paquius and Salvius, you stay there and clobber everyone that comes out. Trebius and Statius, you go down the next alleyway along. And you, Novius, you come with me ...’

  ‘I’m telling you, Phocas, this will just mean getting another one in the eye for nix....’

  ‘You looking for a tickle of my boot?’

  ‘Have it your own way, chief, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Some of the footsteps grew fainter, while others drew nearer.

  ‘They’re coming this way!’ Caius whispered.

  ‘There’s another alleyway over there,’ whispered Fanina.

  Tripping and stumbling against the slimy walls, the two of them made their way down an extremely narrow passageway, which stank atrociously from the gutter they splashed through.

  The soldiers’ cries grew louder.

  ‘Come on out of it, you!’

  ‘What did you run away for?’

  A whispering voice replied in an atrocious foreign accent:

  ‘I didn’t run away, sir! I was asleep in this barrel.’

  ‘Are you a runaway slave?’

  ‘I’m a free man, sir; as free as the air, sir.’

  Without realizing it, Caius and Fanina must have passed the sleeping man, who now added:

  ‘The people you are looking for went that way.’

  ‘You telling the truth?’

  ‘Let the chaste belt of Venus throttle me if I lied, sir.’

  The tumult grew, shutters clattered open. Dragged from their slumbers, the people of the neighbourhood gave vent to their annoyance by a series of protests that spread from floor to floor.

  ‘If they’ve gone into one of those buildings, Phocas, you can go on looking for them till you’re blue in the face.’

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, will you!’

  Fanina heard the sound of hurrying footsteps in the next alleyway: it was the halting step of a lame man! Another cripple! Was it really happening, or was she imagining it? She felt she’d go out of her mind if ...

  ‘They are coming nearer, love. Let’s go this way!’

  Caius’s arm around Fanina’s waist had tightened, tensed by the strain he was under, but his voice was firm and calm, wonderfully calm. Fanina, almost dead with fear herself, could not help admiring her lover. As long as he was there, she would have nothing to fear. Nothing. She let herself be led on.

  Around and above them the noise reached its climax. Everyone in the vicinity was at the windows, insulting the watchmen and consigning those they were chasing to the infernal divinities.

  ‘Get lost, why don’t you?’

  ‘We’ve got to work tomorrow!’

  ‘We need our sleep!’

  ‘I’ll take the next man who bawls in my earholes down from his perch and flatten the thing he calls his nose! Is that clear?’

  This threat from the captain of the watch had its effect, and comparative silence fell over the block of houses. The watchmen’s footsteps drew nearer again, and they questioned an old man who replied in croaking voice:

  ‘I think I saw them, they were going that way!’

  ‘Well, you lead the way then!’

  ‘Oh, please not, your honour!’

  ‘I said, lead the way!’

  Something moved at the end of the passageway in which Caius and Fanina had taken refuge.

  ‘It must be a rat,’ said the young man.

  With a shudder of disgust, Fanina huddled closer to Caius.

  ‘Courage, my love.’

  Fanina braced herself.

  ‘I’ll be brave, my dearest.’

  Caius, almost carrying Fanina, moved still farther back. Then suddenly he stumbled, and, feeling the wall with his free hand, remarked:

  ‘This is a dead end.’

  The watchmen were coming more slowly towards them now, methodically trying every door, seeing whether they could open them, then moving on to the next. They were growing more and more ill-tempered with every second that passed.

  ‘I’m telling you, they’ve done a bunk. It’s a regular rabbit-warren in here. Anyone who knows it could snap his fingers at the entire watch for ten years.’

  ‘May Vulcan flatten me under his hammer, Novius, if I leave here without finding them!’

  The broken voice of the old man who was guiding the soldiers was heard again:

  ‘If they went down there, you’ll catch them easily. It’s a dead end and all the doors are bolted.’

  At that very moment, the watchmen’s lantern-light was reflected in a black puddle at the end of the passage. A few brief seconds more, and the trap into which the young people had rushed would spring shut on them.

  Fanina clutched wildly at Caius. The imminence of danger had given her back the use of all her faculties, all her lucidity. She no longer thought of herself. He must escape, he first and foremost.

  ‘Leave me ...’ she said intensely.

  She broke off, stupefied.

  ‘Leave me ...’

  Caius had begun to speak at the very same moment as her, and had begun with the same words. He went on:

  ‘Leave me to try to break out of here. I’ll draw them off after me. They will chase me, and you can take the opportunity to escape. . . .’

  She had been about to say:

  ‘Leave me ... You are under sentence of death. If you are caught, it’ll be all up with you, whereas I can always manage somehow.’

  In a submissive voice she said:

  ‘You are right.’

  ‘Where shall we meet?’

  ‘In front of the Janus-Curiatius shrine.’

  Why had she suggested that particular place? She did not know.

  ‘I’ll find it,’ he said.

  Then clasping her to him till he nearly crushed her, he whispered:

  ‘May the gods watch over you, my beloved.’

  With tears streaming down her face, she stammered:

  ‘May the gods watch over our love, my dearest.’

  A brief kiss behind Fanina’s ear, and Caius tore himself away and made a dash for it. Fanina stood with parched throat and staring eyes, biting fiercely on her hands, as she heard him splash down the gutter in the middle of the alley.

  ‘Phocas!’ yelled one of the watchmen, ‘I can hear them! They’re here!’

  ‘Cut them off, Novius!’

  There was a thud, the grating noise of an iron corselet scraping the wall. Then the old man who had been acting as guide gave a cry, a lantern flew into the air and landed at the end of the passageway. A terrible death-rattle began.

  ‘Novius!’ bellowed a muffled voice.

  Then another cry:

  ‘Help!’

  Still more shouts:

&n
bsp; ‘This way, Trebius!’

  The other watchmen were coming, but still Caius did not run for it; he took on every adversary that appeared; they, however, dared not strike him with their swords for fear of hitting one another.

  This was not what Fanina had wanted. She suddenly realized that, instead of fleeing, her lover intended to keep all their pursuers concentrating on him in order to give her a chance to escape.

  ‘Caius!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Get away, by all the gods!’ shouted the young man.

  She dashed forward, fell to her knees, got up again, and cried out again:

  ‘I’m going, but I want you to get away too!’

  ‘I’ll do as you say, my love! I’ll get away!’ yelled Caius.

  The din of clashing corselets grew even louder.

  ‘I’ve got him, Statius!’

  ‘No, that’s me you’ve got! He’s over there! He’s away! By Hercules, he’s away!’

  Fanina heard the sound of running. Panting, her legs giving way beneath her, she leant up against the wall.

  ‘Catch him, Paquius!

  ‘Here he is!’

  ‘No, he’s here!’

  ‘He’s got away, the dog! I can hear him over there! You’ll never get him now!’

  Caius was safe! Fanina should have made the most of the occasion to get away herself. She should have done, but her knees were giving beneath her, her head was spinning, and lights seemed to dance before her eyes. Around her, above her, the air was crisscrossed with shouts, oaths, calls for help, and the rending death-rattle of a man near his end....

  And still she made no move. She was about to faint...

  Then suddenly her hair stood on end: there was someone coining up behind her from the end of the alleyway ... someone coming towards her brushing the walls and panting like an animal ... someone with a limp....

  A demented scream rose up within her, tearing at her throat.... She screamed as she had never screamed in all her life; then, gathering up her pallium, which hindered her movements, she rushed headlong forward, like one demented.

  Chapter Two

  With the noisy, stumbling tread of the infernal cripple hot on her heels, Fanina burst out into the next alley, towards which the other watchmen of the patrol were running.

  There were people thronging round her in the dark. Groans, cries for help, yells, curses and threats: a thousand confused cries assailed her, beat at her eardrums and tortured her jagged nerves. Her trembling legs moved faster than she would ever have thought possible. A terrible, elemental fear gripped her bowels.

  Still screaming, she crashed into a wall, rebounded, fell over into the fetid, greasy water of the gutter, got up again, stumbled over a body lying in her path, knocked over a man who gave out a great roar of pain, and jostled another who immediately lurched back against her with a dull grunt.

  She screamed even louder. Her nostrils were full of the smell of greasy leather, of sweat, and of cheap, rough wine. Two great thick hands clasped her round the waist and pummelled her mercilessly.

  ‘Here’s the woman, Salvius! I’ve got her!’ the man shouted, tipping her over backwards.

  ‘Just a minute. I’m coming!’

  A short distance from Fanina, the man called Salvius was feeling his way furiously through the darkness towards his comrade. If he were to reach him and come to his assistance, that would be the end of Fanina. She must escape, she must escape. So she lashed out like a mad thing and scratched, bending her nails back on the metal of the soldier’s corselet, but he went on clutching her and swearing. But her struggles were of no avail; the watchman brought his powerful hands up over her bust, bending her over as if to snap her in two, while his great hairy arm encircled her neck.

  Lights danced before Fanina’s eyes. There was a drumming in her ears. She was suffocating, and was about to go under when, once again, through the uproar, she made out the approaching steps of the lame man. Then, suddenly stiffening, her strength increased tenfold by the terror that had again taken hold of her, she bit full into the arm that was choking her.

  ‘The bitch! She’s away! Catch her!’

  For a split second, the grip of the soldier who held her prisoner had slackened. Wide-eyed, with hair streaming loose, Fanina rushed off blindly.

  Behind her there now rose the uproar of battle. Having picked up Fanina’s trace again, the cripple had run into the watchmen who barred his way.

  ‘There’s a man! Another man!’ yelled one of the watchmen.

  ‘Help! Paquius!’ shouted another.

  ‘Pin him against the wall, by Bacchus! He’s going to get away! ...’

  This last word transformed itself into a ghastly, interminable unbearable howl, like an animal in the throes of death.

  A soldier called: ‘Trebius! Trebius!’

  ‘He’s dead!’

  A corselet scraped the cobblestones. A helmet rattled against a wall.... Someone gurgled, gave a dying gasp and collapsed into the gutter. Then the heavy footfall of the lame man rang out behind Fanina.

  She ran on without the slightest idea which way she was heading. She turned to the right, to the left, stumbled against the corner of a house, against a door, against a milestone.

  She ran on and on. Never would she manage to get out of this black labyrinth. She was nothing more than a poor cornered creature in the grip of the most unspeakable terror.

  With tear-drenched face and heart beating wildly in her labouring chest, she moaned:

  ‘Caius, Caius, Caius!’

  She must flee, she must go as fast as possible to the Janus-Curiatius shrine, where Caius Vindex would by now certainly be waiting for her, or she would die there and then to escape from this terrible nightmare.

  The lame man was drawing nearer and she could hear his hoarse breathing. Was it the abominable dwarf? Was it really that mysterious, terrifying creature whose bestial strength so horrified her? She could visualize his massive silhouette, his endlessly long arms stretched out to grasp her, his enormous hands ready to close on her.

  He was getting still closer and was about to reach her, when suddenly a diffuse light at the end of an alleyway struck Fanina’s gaze. Her legs regained their former agility and bore her swiftly down to the moonlit main road, at precisely the point where the watch had challenged her and Vindex a few moments earlier.

  A few moments? It seemed more like a century to Fanina! She seemed to have been separated from Vindex for an eternity, and never, not even in the depths of the tomb from which the young man had rescued her, had she felt so alone as now.

  She ran and ran down the main road as fast as her legs would carry her, never slowing down in spite of the piercing stitch in her side.

  The noisy thud of the lame man’s iron-clad sandals followed her for a long time, but gradually the noise grew fainter and then ceased.

  Breathless, her throat burning, the pain stabbing in her side, Fanina leant for a moment against a house, and slowly wiped her brow with a fold of her cape. Her ears were full of the irregular thumping of her heart; then gradually things grew normal again: her heart regained its customary rhythm once more, her breathing became regular and the cruel pain in her side decreased, then stopped. She felt better and was recovering her spirits when, in the distance, she heard the sound of shouting.

  Fanina straightened up again, her eyes wide with panic. More shouts rang out in the night, orders were barked out, and whistles blown.

  ‘Three of our men have been killed in Black Fig Alley!’

  ‘Alert the Prefect of the Watch!’

  ‘The murderers will be well away by now!’

  Once again Fanina dived down one of the small side-streets. From all sides now came the sound of marching troops, troops so numerous that they seemed to have filled the entire neighbourhood. Fanina had been about to come out on a cross-roads, but was obliged to take cover in the shadow of a doorway to avoid being seen by a strong detachment of watchmen who were puffing noisily up the slope towards her at the doubl
e.

  Once the danger was past, Fanina moved on, as silent as a shadow in her light hide shoes. She no longer knew where she was, and no longer knew how long she had been on the run. She had made too many detours to avoid the watchmen and people out late on the streets. She realized with dismay how little she knew of the topography of the city, for she had never been out at night before, and had always crossed it in a sedan-chair, in a chariot, or in a procession, and had never had to find her own way.

  Then suddenly she almost shouted aloud for joy; she recognized the little temple dedicated by the merchants of Rome to Mercury, the god of commerce; she had often admired its elegant pediment decorated with multicoloured high-relief in fantastically rich detail. She was in Cyprius Street, and on her left she would find the street in which stood the Janus-Curiatius shrine, by which Vindex would be waiting for her.

  She rushed forth, buoyant with joy, ran for a moment, then slowed down and stopped as she reached the corner of Janus Street, out of breath.

  What was it that suddenly stopped her in her tracks and prevented her from rushing headlong towards the man she loved? Was it coquettishness? Or was it an obscure foreboding? Fanina herself certainly could not have said.

  So she halted and hastily straightened her clothes, tying up her thick, golden hair again in a heavy knot. Meanwhile she listened, then looked round the corner. From the shadows in which she stood, she could make out the row of houses with big faintly gleaming cobblestones of the road between.

  The Janus-Curiatius shrine was just a few paces from where she stood. Fanina could not see it, but she could clearly make out the part of its decoration that distinguished it from the other altars of the city — the massive yoke stretching across the street, beneath which the youthful Horatius, glorious conqueror of the Curiatii, but also the murderer of his sister Camilla, had been forced to humble himself as a punishment for his crime.

  Vindex was no doubt standing hidden in a doorway near the shrine.

  At that very instant, something moved beneath the yoke, and Fanina’s heart leapt into her mouth. Now she could make out a black silhouette. A short stocky silhouette, inordinately broad: the silhouette of the dwarf with the russet leather cape.