Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  Duarte has finally learned how to navigate the close-knit waters of female Cro-Magnon society, which can be a minefield of dos and don’ts. Without relinquishing her alpha status, Duarte showed proper deference upon arrival. Following the protocols of entering a camp already occupied by other women, she exhibited respect and patience, and thus won the women’s trust. Now the three biddies gossip and laugh whether they are sitting in a circle working on handicrafts, preparing food or roaming the countryside gathering.

  Mother, my Summer may not be what you expected in a daughter-in-law, but she can hold her own in a conversation with Dr. Maria Duarte. That is saying something. And she brings a dowry to the table. If you were to add up the value of all your glorious jewels, gold and silver the sum would probably not even equal half the sale price of Summer Wind’s great sapphire.

  If the sky blue sapphire hit the auctioneer’s block in 2230 it would be hailed as one of the greatest stones in the history of mankind. The thing is almost the size of her fist! Egg-shaped, perfectly clear, the sapphire could fetch enough to buy a city or small country. And she got it despite picking last!

  Dr. Duarte spread a leather square on the ground after lunch one sunny afternoon and invited us to gather close. Explaining that Leonglauix and Kaikane had brought us gifts, she upended a fox fur pouch over the tarp. Out tumbled four oversized stones I assumed to be quartz. Red, yellow, blue and green.

  “Everybody gets to pick one,” Duarte said. “Salvatore, we decided you should go first in recognition of your outstanding work on the Neanderthal dig. I’ve been reading your reports late into the night. Top-notch. Three bravos for you.”

  I tried to defer to Jones and the women, but in the end was forced to choose.

  “Did you chip these off the ceiling of a cave?” I inquired.

  Kaikane clapped his hands in delight. “They’re not crystals, Sal,” he laughed. “You’re holding a yellow diamond. The long red one’s a ruby, big blue’s a sapphire and I bet you can guess what the green one is.”

  “Emerald?”

  “Bingo. Which one you like? Maria and I have a bet.”

  With the equivalent of Italy’s gross national product spread before me, I would not be rushed. Holding each of the stones up to the light, I rated their clarity and estimated their weight. As a former thief, I know a thing or two about jewels. In the future, they will be faceted to sparkle and look bigger than they really are. These stones were rounded smooth thanks to many months bashing against granite, sand and coral inside Kaikane’s ingenious tumbling tubes.

  Though the flattish, oblong ruby had gone through two bouts in a tube, it maintained a patina of texture along its top and bottom. The opaque surfaces beautifully highlighted the high sheen of the edges and ends. I judged the carat weight to be about half of the sapphire and perhaps equal to the yellow diamond and emerald. Of all the stones, the deep green emerald was the roughest.

  The choice was simple as red has always been my color.

  “Told you,” Kaikane sang out as I slid the ruby to my side.

  I have not yet decided whether to make the stone the centerpiece of a new necklace or have our boat repairman help me inlay it into the handle of my club.

  “OK, Jones, you’re next,” Duarte giggled.

  “Got a bet on me too?”

  “Just pick.”

  Jones gave each stone a cursory inspection before palming the emerald.

  “Two in a row,” Kaikane grinned. “Somebody’s going to have to invite Gray Beard and Bello over for the night. It’s gonna get noisy on the boat.”

  “You shush,” Duarte said, giving him a playful swat on the arm. Her blush left no doubt as to what they were wagering.

  Flower and Summer Wind weren’t expecting to receive jewels until Duarte made them determine who would pick first. Gripping a pair of grass stems in her fist, she held them out and said, “Baby stem is next.”

  Flower won and immediately grabbed the yellow diamond. The gleam in her eye as she held the stone up to the sun said she was truly happy and not picking the lesser stone out of deference to her elder, Summer Wind. That is how my fiancée came to possess the Great Sapphire of Syria.

  Her first inclination was to use it to make an octopus lure. Kaikane had to bite his cheeks to keep from laughing our loud as his wife calmly explained the blue stone had great value. Hearing that, Summer immediately passed it along to me to hold until we come up with a fitting use. It is too cumbersome for a necklace. I think it would make a dandy head for a queen’s scepter.

  To conclude my treatise on Summer, I will say she is as loyal to me as you were, Mother. She loves me and cares for me. My goal is to no longer allow Father’s insults to undermine my desire for her.

  How the hell did you put up with such a monster? I know you shared some happy times together, but the interactions that dominate my memory are icy silences at the dining table and your bitter arguments wafting down the stairwells.

  Did you hear I attempted to murder him? You and I now belong to a select club–just us, and all the others who tried and failed. It is a difficult task to accomplish.

  I thought his dissocial nature was aggravated by the belt, but he had been free of the device for a month and was still unable to behave civilly. Does he wear the security belt with you? If so, be careful.

  In light of his complete lack of empathy, filters and redeeming qualities, I would happily depart for our voyage without him. Even if he shows up with his tail between his legs begging to be included, we all agree there must be a code of conduct for him to adhere to. Break the rules and he will be abandoned on the nearest shore or iceberg.

  In our final conversation of any substance, Father stated quite matter-of-factly that he was finished having children. Labeling his progeny “ungrateful brats,” he claimed we brought far more sorrow than joy.

  I pointed out how little he struck me as the celibate type.

  “I’m not planning on giving up shagging the lassies, if that’s what you’re implying,” he said. “Do you know humans can make warts go away just by willing them to? It’s true. I see you have several on your hands. You should try it.”

  “Your plan is to will your sperm to swim backwards?”

  “Well put, for someone born brain damaged.”

  I let him have the last word. You know how that is, Mother. I hesitate to share this information for I do not want you to construe it as blame or regret. Even if I could click my heels three times and return to my bedroom suite with its steaming hot shower and soft, plush bed, I would not. This is where my work and my new family are.

  Now that I have qualified my feelings, Father finally shared the truth of why he forced me to join The Team and thus be sentenced to life imprisonment in the Paleolithic. As I say, there are worse places for an anthropologist to be exiled.

  “Do you ever wonder why I sent you back here?” he asked. “Probably think I brought my favorite son along for company? Don’t make me laugh. You’d rank about 500th on my kid list.”

  “Why then?”

  “So you didn’t kill your mother, you bloody wanker.”

  “Kill mother?”

  “Yes, you idiot. Let me ask you, did you ever service that yellow air car? The flying box?”

  “How could I recall?”

  “The authorities found no record of any maintenance, you imbecile! While you rank 500th, she was one of my top three wives. I loved her deeply. And you killed her, or would have if I didn’t jump you back a year before your car stalled and tumbled from the sky over Lake Como. You were taking her to Munich to visit a sister.”

  Mother, I am not sure how much of this story will be shared with family members or the public, but I have every reason to believe the veracity of Father’s prediction. I was too busy catting around to tend to trivial matters like letting my car be picked up and taken to the shop for service. My friends warned I would crash.

  Did you know I used to store my drugs and stolen loot in the yellow car? The exorbitan
t sum I paid to have its twin secret compartments installed was paid back many times through the years. I knew if mechanics happened to find the hidden bins they would be compelled by law to report them to the authorities.

  Drugs and thievery were just a fraction of the destructive lifestyle I was hurtling through at the time. I do not need to tell you about it. How many failed rehabilitations did you and Father pay for? You were always so thoughtful to have your aide drop me off and pick me up. When I relapsed, it was Father’s men who fetched me from the slammer.

  You may not be surprised to learn I am in the midst of another stab at sobriety, or that I believe I can really make it stick this time. I will not begrudge skepticism by you or the family. You have heard it all before. And I will be worm food eons before any of you are born, so who cares, right?

  I care. I want to do better. A recent anthropological dig has inspired me to do more. The other night a well-meaning friend dropped a bag of booze in my lap. Oh, how tempting! Cheeks watering, heart pounding, palms sweating, I came a millimeter from turning that bag upside down and sucking it like a calf on a teat.

  For every rationalization of how I could take just one drink there was the cold reality of how many previous rounds of clean living ended the same way. One drink or snort or pill quickly becomes a blur of all of the above. In our many discussions on the matter, Mother, you were so kind to never use the term “addiction,” even though my plight was obvious.

  I am an addict cursed by an addictive personality. All the analysts you paid for said so. I reasoned that if I was going to live, I might as well live big. Careening from the exhilaration of slipping into bedrooms to steal jewels and passcodes, to the mind-numbing glow of the latest synthetic drugs, I nearly took you down with me.

  Sparing your life, or even just thinking I did, is a far more worthy reason to be in this situation than I deserve. Back when I thought Father sent me here to rot for embarrassing him, it was easy to play the victim. Discovering I am exactly where I belong has been life changing for some unexplainable reason.

  Who knows, I may get as far as Bordeaux or New York, set up a whisky still and return to my favorite hobby. I could grow fat and sloppy and do nothing productive for the rest of my sorry days.

  For now, I enjoy being clean. It is invigorating to be so clear-headed. So what if I cannot study humans in North America. Maybe a new title, “Chief Zoologist,” is in store. I am adaptable if anything.

  I am also a dreamer. I have been wondering how my legacy would be affected if we were to hit the shores of America and find some unknown branch of mankind already there to meet us. That sort of discovery could put a scientist’s name on the map.

  Judging by my observations of mankind, I would not rule out such a possibility. Neanderthals are foxy devils and Cro-Magnon doubly so. All they would have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other for a few generations during the right stretch of time to cross over from Asia. I will have to let you know what I find.

  To readers, my wish is to convey how important your role is in this process. Knowing you would someday read what I write keeps me going. I beg your forgiveness if my stories stretch overly long. I pray you have been able to find room in your hearts to overlook my sad penchant for grabbing the spotlight and shining it upon myself. Mother could tell stories of how I forced her and the staff to endure one-boy plays and solo song recitals.

  It has been a pleasure to serve you. Hopefully my words and descriptions have helped paint a picture of this wild, exotic world. The next batch of reports you receive will hopefully be written in America. Until then, eat well, love deeply, take care of each other and the planet.

  Ciao,

  Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Einstein III

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “What if he goes over there and starts breeding up a storm? It could change the future.”

  Jones: “Yeah, all American dogs will max out at a foot tall.”

  Kaikane: “With pointy ears.”

  Bolzano: “But curious as cats and smart as whips.”

  Duarte: “Jest if you must. I’m seriously concerned.”

  Bolzano: “The answer seems quite obvious to me.”

  Duarte: “What do you suggest, doggie condoms?”

  Bolzano: “Bello must become a castrato if he is to sail with the choir to America.”

  Kaikane: “Castrato?”

  Jones: “Sal wants to cut off his balls.”

  Bolzano: “I thought you could do the honors.”

  Kaikane: “Whoever does it better not screw up. Old Man will kill anybody who hurts his dog.”

  Duarte: “Oh, I’ll do it.”

  Kaikane: “Just like that?”

  Duarte: “No, not just like that! I must study the procedure and harass Gray Beard into giving his consent. That should take about two days, long enough for you jokesters to figure out how to hold him while I do the deed.

  Jones: “Hold which one? Dog or old man?”

  Duarte: “Both.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  With the deadline to bury this computer fast approaching, I have been excused from hauling soil and stones to log one final entry. Seated in the shade of an overhanging rock 35 feet uphill from the cave, I enjoy a 280-degree view of the landscape, including the distant hills of Rome and far to the horizon the Mediterranean Sea’s wave-lapped shoreline.

  Though the land is nearly scorched bare of trees and brush, spring brings rejuvenation. Wildflowers, berry bushes and hundreds of strange new bromeliads add color to the rolling green hills and valleys. The sweet scent of flowers and clover has brought an end to the pervasive stench of soot and damp burned wood.

  The million charred animal carcasses littering the Tiber River basin have been transformed, seemingly overnight, from gruesome relics into mounds of yellow Cytisus scoparius flowers. The plant species appears to dominate spots overly rich in phosphate and nitrogen.

  Speaking of bushes, I must stop beating around this one. It’s not like me to procrastinate on an important chore, but I’ve been putting this journal entry off for weeks. As senior officer, writing this farewell means navigating a minefield of touchy topics and Team violations. It’s difficult to outline our travel plans without mentioning we are taking three Cro-Magnons and a pet dog along for the trans-Atlantic journey. How many Team rules does that break?

  In one instance of restraint, our resident red wolf is not included on the departure manifest. I know a certain Team member wishes he could figure out a way to make it happen, but it would be madness to even try. The wolf would tear the boat apart.

  The massive animal dropped by at least twice today. He keeps his distance, studies us from the shadows of blackened tree stumps, craning his neck, searching for his buddy Jones.

  The Captain, Flower and Summer Wind have already been moved out to the island for safekeeping along with the sailing canoe. With the impending arrival of the first clans returning from the north, we had little choice.

  The instant smoke from a campfire was spotted to the north, we rallied the crew and launched under near-emergency procedures. It was good practice if nothing else.

  While we know we can trust Gray Beard to keep our secrets, we’re still not 100 percent sure about the girls. Would they blab? Brag on their new clan’s capabilities? It is possible. I guess you could say we crossed the Rubicon once they climbed aboard a sailing canoe and handled their first voyage without “freaking out,” as Paul worried they might.

  Wide-eyed, frightened by the canoe’s fast, bucking run to the sea, Summer and Flower sat on deck with death grips around the forward mast. Trusting us completely, they had no idea how dangerous it was clearing the Tiber’s shallow mouth against an incoming tide. As usual, my husband made it appear simple.

  Unscathed by the fire, the island offers a nicely shaded sanctuary for Jones and the girls to braid ropes and cure as much food as they can.

  We got them settled with
a wonderful homecoming meal of baked tuna. Paul speared the blue fin–it must have weighed 500 pounds–as a school passed beneath the canoe. We were under sail, about a half mile from the island, when the school surfaced. Grabbing his harpoon, Paul launched a wild shot that got lucky. Nine times out of 10 this maneuver ends with an empty spear bobbing to the surface.

  This time, the barbed harpoon’s tether uncoiled with a sizzle. Somehow the line made of tough sea grass didn’t snap when it sprung taut. As I was closest, I helped Paul fight the fish to the side of the boat where Gray Beard waited to secure it with the long gaff. Our passengers were most impressed when we beached and discovered the fish was too big to haul ashore in one piece. We ended up carrying the tuna up to camp in heavy sections, long, blood-red chunks easily 20 pounds each.

  We harvested all we could ever hope to use, then pushed the carcass out with the tide. It made it as far as the middle of the lagoon before the sharks rushed to turn the surface into pink froth. It was quite a chilling show.

  Sharks were, of course, on everybody’s mind yesterday morning as the quarry crew of Cpl. Bolzano, Gray Beard, Paul and I paddled to the mainland. In a kayak, with our butts below sea level, some of those gray fins are tall as we are when they knife by.

  Speaking of sharks, two-thirds of the hike to the storage cave, Hunter fell in beside me.

  “Look, I want to apologize to you,” he said. “I understand taking you on a long run without your consent was wrong, and that I put a lot of undue stress upon your husband. I regret making light of that previously, but to be honest, I have very few memories of our time together. I recall the beginning, snooping on the Denisovans, and then things start to fade.”