The Far Time Incident

by Neve Maslakovic

“No. It’s over a hundred pages long. There is a sense of unease in Pompeii,” Xavier added as we navigated a segment of the road where a trench had been dug up to fix water pipes probably damaged by the recent earthquakes. “There are repairs going on all over town, practically on every block. The older folks remember the big earthquake of seventeen years ago and the damage it did. They’re worried about another big one, what with all the tremors.” We passed the entryway to an elaborate villa. Unlike some of the others that had the word HAVE—“Welcome”—spelled out on the floor mosaic just inside the threshold, this one featured CAVE CANEM—“Beware of the dog”—and a mosaic of a chained guard dog with bared teeth. Beyond, I caught a glimpse of a fancy atrium and a colonnaded garden, where the real dog could perhaps be found; what other riches and decorations waited inside were blocked from the view of mere passersby like us. Shops and tiny living quarters faced the street all around the block, serving as a buffer between the villa at its center and the rest of the world. This seemed to be the standard arrangement throughout the town.

  We had stopped by a second entrance, which was not at all like the fancy one we’d just passed—a plain wooden gate, it was just wide enough for a cart to fit through. “Wait here. Let’s make you presentable first and then you can meet Secundus.” As Xavier pulled the gate open and walked through it, I caught a glimpse of a small stable and a garden.

  “You know what’s really odd?” I said to Nate as we waited for the professor to return.

  “Being stuck in the past with no way to get home?”

  “That, and not knowing why someone did this to us. We’re back to square one now that we know that Dr. Mooney’s disappearance is unrelated.” Next door was a small shop selling foodstuffs from an open counter. The brightness of the midmorning sun made it difficult to see much deeper into the shop, but I thought I caught a glance of someone sweeping the floor. Directly across the street, a proprietor readied his tavern for the day, and farther down there was a street fountain. Only a thin trickle ran out of the open mouth of a theatrical mask, a tragic one. It was unsettling. I pulled my mind back to what I was saying. “I keep thinking I’m the one who was targeted. Abigail said she feels the same way. Kamal, too. And Helen. But if it is me, I don’t know what I might have done. It keeps eating at me, though. I wish I could keep a professional detachment like you do.”

  He had been leaning against the wall next to the gate, his bare ankles crossed under the cloak. He straightened up at my words. “No, trust me, Julia, it’s personal, very personal. I’m barely—with some effort—managing to keep myself professionally detached. There is a reason why officers aren’t supposed to work on crimes committed against themselves. Just like a lawyer shouldn’t defend himself in court, or a doctor should not try to diagnose—herself,” he added quickly, as if he was worried I would judge him on his choice of pronouns.

  “I’m not sure that’s true in every case,” I said, digressing from the subject at hand. “I, for one, do all my own paperwork and taxes. And though I have never seen his house, I’m sure Terry keeps it as immaculate as he makes mine every Tuesday. And my neighbor, Martha, is a retired horticulturalist who does her own gardening… I wonder why it’s suitable to apply your work skills at home for some professions, but not for others.”

  “Speaking of skills, Julia, I’ve been wondering about something.”

  “Yes?”

  “What about dinners?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What do you do when you invite someone over for dinner at your house?”

  Was this a roundabout way of asking me out on a date? If so, it was a very odd way of doing it. The timing wasn’t so great either. “Uh—I’m still not following,” I said.

  “You said you don’t cook. Do you never have people over for a dinner party?”

  “Oh, that. I get events like that minicatered.”

  “Minicatered?”

  “I get delivery from the Panda Palace over on Main or pick up something from Ingrid’s on Lakeshore. And I throw in some wine and ice cream, too,” I said, conscious of sounding a touch defensive. “And I can make coffee.” From instant packets, I didn’t add.

  “I never picked up any of the languages my grandparents spoke—if I had been more enterprising I could have learned four—but my father’s mother, Mary Kirkland, taught me to cook. If we can get our hands on the right spices, I can make shrimp curry, my favorite dish, for us.”

  “Thanks. Uh—it sounds spicy.”

  “I’ll make it mild.”

  “Are there any basic skills that you lack, Chief Kirkland, or are you good at everything?”

  I half expected him to say yes, but he thought for a moment and said, “I’m terrible at gift wrapping. Birthday presents, Christmas presents, doesn’t matter. Even square ones like jigsaw puzzles come out looking like shapeless blobs.”

  “I can teach you. You measure out the paper, fold the edges, tape, then add a ribbon and curl it using a scissor blade—”

  “The nearest Hallmark store is two millennia away,” said Xavier, who had returned. He had a lit lamp in one hand, and with the other he was hugging against his chest a wicker basket filled with clothes. He passed the basket to Nate, then motioned for us to follow him. We walked through a one-room stable, and into a small courtyard planted with several fruit trees and a tiny herb garden. To one side, a sunny spot held three jars sunken into the ground, like at the villa on Vesuvius’s slopes, for the fermenting layers of fish, salt, and herbs that Xavier had mentioned. I’d expected there to be a smell, but there wasn’t. A crudely executed painting on one wall—flowers, birds perched on tree, a bubbling fountain—made the garden seem larger than it really was.

  “In here.”

  It was cooler inside, with the heat of the day kept out by the thick stone walls. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Herbs and drying flowers hung from racks. Tables held stoppered jars and earthenware vessels filled with mysterious liquids and pastes. Something simmered in a pot sitting on a tripod brazier, releasing a sharp, acrid smell into the room. To one side, a curtain cordoned off what I guessed was a sleeping area.

  “We’re behind the shop. Secundus’s mother concocts ointments and salves in here with herbs from the garden. This way.”

  I caught a glimpse of a bald man of medium height sweeping with a twig broom before Xavier led us up a narrow staircase to the upper story of the house. A balcony overhanging the street fronted two doors. Xavier opened the second and motioned us in, closing the door behind us. The sliver of light coming in through the slit that served as a window didn’t do much to illuminate the dark, dingy space, explaining the need for the lamp in Xavier’s hand. Its small halo of light caught the didgeridoo, propped up in one corner against the wall. (I supposed you had to bring a little bit of home wherever you traveled. I decided to ask Xavier later, at a more private moment, what else he had brought with him. I was sorely missing soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, not to mention toilet paper.) Xavier set the lamp on a small table, the only piece of furniture in the room other than the bed. The bed was a simple affair, a wooden frame supporting a straw-filled mattress. In one corner were a couple of large, unwieldy sacks—Xavier’s silks and spices. The room, like his office, smelled of a Thanksgiving feast.

  I looked over the clothes in the basket we had brought up. Xavier explained, “I purchased a few things from the household downstairs. We can pick up stuff for the others on our way back. That’s Sabina’s mother’s dress,” he said of the somewhat faded, but carefully folded blue linen dress I had pulled out of the basket. Before I could ask who Sabina was, he and Nate left the room so that I could change. I made a little pile of the cloak, my boots, skirt, and blouse, then donned the dress and a pair of sandals I found in the basket. After lacing up the sandals, which fit reasonably well, I tried to figure out what to do with the two cord-like, woven belts that had come with the dress. I tied one around my waist and had just dropped the extra one back into the bask
et when the door opened and a dark head poked through. “Salve.”

  It was the girl I had seen in the villa courtyard, the one with the abacus. I waved her in. She said one more word, “Sabina,” and looked at me expectantly. I assumed that was her name and replied in kind. “Julia.” She closed the door behind her and repeated that, but with a soft j: Yoolia.

  There was a double-sided ivory comb in her hand, and she held it up, then motioned me over to Xavier’s bed. Looking around, I realized that the room contained neither a mirror nor a chair. I sat down at the foot of the bed. The girl commenced brushing my hair by the flickering of the lamp. A simple ritual, the brushing of hair, one that had remained unchanged through the centuries. The delicate tines of what looked like a family heirloom kept getting caught in my thick strands, but it was still a very touching gesture.

  As she moved around me, I noticed an amulet hanging on a thin leather strap around her neck. (I’d been brushing up on my knowledge of deities since we’d arrived—Greek, Roman, Egyptian, they were all over Pompeii in large numbers. Xavier had been very informative. The early Roman spirits of fields, streams, and the home and hearth had merged with the Greek deities from Mount Olympus into one large family, which absorbed new gods and goddesses as state borders grew, explaining why there was a temple of Isis in the middle of the town. To add to the mix, kosher garum was available for purchase and Xavier mentioned that he might have spotted a wall graffito referencing a small, new monotheistic cult, but he wasn’t sure.) The amber crescent moon that hung over Sabina’s wheat-colored dress I recognized as Diana’s—Dee-ahna, goddess of the hunt, the moon, and childbirth. The girl’s dress was a simple one, two rectangles sewn together, leaving space for the head and arms, with a belt at the waist. The soft light of the lamp revealed the strong arms underneath. Like her kin downstairs, this was a working-class girl.

  After ten minutes or so, Sabina stepped back to take a look at her handiwork. She frowned, as if displeased with something, looked around, and spotted the extra belt where I had dropped it back into the basket. I pointed to the one I had already tied around my waist. She nodded as if to say, “Yes, but that’s not all,” and wrapped the other one just under my bust line.

  “Oh,” I said. “Never would have thought to put it there.”

  Lastly she loosely draped a thin, rectangular piece of material, like a cross between a scarf and a shawl, over my shoulders.

  “Thanks,” I said. I bundled up my twenty-first-century clothing under her curious gaze. She didn’t seem too surprised that a traveler from far Britannia might not know the local customs regarding proper dress, but I suspected that she had to be curious about the strange material of my skirt (rayon), not to mention the plastic shirt buttons and the zipper on my boots.

  We stepped back out onto the terrace, my hair looking much better than it had since our arrival. Nate said, “What took you so long?” and went in to change. He emerged a minute later wearing a light-brown tunic, pretty much like a long sleeveless T-shirt with a belt tied around the waist. His strappy leather sandals were a good two sizes too small and his toes stuck out uncomfortably. I repressed the urge to giggle, not at the outfit but at his obvious discomfort at how revealing it was. The tunic reached about midthigh.

  “Pants—why don’t they have them?” he mumbled.

  “The climate is mild. Pants may be worn in Britannia, where we’re from, but not here.” Xavier went back into the room to stuff our clothing bundles under the bed.

  Once that was done, we headed back downstairs. Nate paused at the top of the narrow staircase and said quietly, “I’d like to take a look around the shop, examine the scene of the crime.”

  “Yes, I’d like your opinion,” Xavier said, his voice not at all low, from the bottom of the stairs. “By the way, I told Sabina’s father that Julia here—nice Roman name, by the way—that Julia is my niece, and that you’re her husband.”

  “What?” Nate and I said simultaneously. Xavier added as we came down the stairs, “I explained that you’re in town from Britannia with your two young adult children and an older relative. It seemed like the easiest solution. Why, is there a problem?”

  I was glad Helen wasn’t there to hear herself described as an “older relative.”

  Xavier remembered to add, “I’ve explained that you don’t speak a word of Latin.”

  That was true enough.

  We got our first proper look at the shop.

  It was a mess.

  Pottery jars lay strewn all around, smashed into pieces and dripping some sort of dark sauce. The smell defied description and I realized that whatever was simmering on the brazier in the other room had been meant to counter it, unsuccessfully. The bald man I’d spotted earlier was working on sweeping the mess into the street, past the shop counter. The counter faced the street; the three round openings set into it held dry goods, undisturbed. Above, bronze ladles and funnels were suspended from a wooden rail—also undisturbed. A scruffy brownish dog lay to the side, lazily asleep in a shaft of sunlight. Deeper inside the shop, an old woman was wiping a wall where a jar had been flung against it, leaving a dark stain. I recognized her at once. I had last seen her in the courtyard of a Vesuvian villa, as she enjoyed an illicit scoopful of wine. Her dark shawl was gone and today her dress was sleeveless; I couldn’t help but stare at her arms—the skin was dried and cracked with age and use, but the strength was clearly still there. I looked away, not wanting to be rude.

  Sabina’s father came over and greeted us, broom in hand. He was somewhat scruffy, with dark stubble under prominent cheekbones. When he turned to me after greeting Nate, our eyes locked for a moment. His gaze was bright, keen, alive. And suddenly it all felt so real. Secundus, Sabina, the woman wiping the wall, they weren’t figures on History’s stage anymore, but living, breathing human beings at the mercy of the forces of the disaster that was about to descend on their heads. I had to tear my eyes away from Secundus’s gaze. I felt like he could see deep inside me. I felt like the harbinger of death. I didn’t want him to read all that I knew in my face.

  The woman cleaning the wall, a much older and more sour-looking version of Sabina, shot us a disinterested look. When she noticed Sabina behind us, she barked something at the girl through a mouth missing several of its yellow teeth. Sabina hurried over, the Diana medallion around her neck bouncing against her chest. The old woman pointed at a spot on the wall where what looked like wine stains or dark-colored juice marred the plaster. Sabina dipped a cloth in a vessel, squeezed the excess water out, and started scrubbing at the stain, but I doubted it would give and felt a pang of pity for the girl. Her attempts at cleaning the wall seemed to have the effect of removing bits of plaster more than anything else.

  Secundus said something to Nate.

  “You have a beautiful wife,” Xavier translated, and it took me a moment to parse who he meant. “Your daughter must be a picture of beauty as well… He wants to know what business you engage in, Chief Kirkland.”

  “Uh—tell him I’m the caretaker of a school.”

  Xavier proceeded to do so.

  “A strange occupation for a Briton,” Xavier translated Secundus’s reply. “He’s heard you’re all warriors who paint yourselves blue.”

  “Tell him we’re sorry about what happened to his shop,” I said, deciding that I wasn’t going to be relegated into the background while the men conversed. I watched as Xavier relayed my words and a cloud descended onto the man’s proud, strong-boned face. He said something back, with a quick glance in my direction. “All of his profits gone, months of work ruined,” Xavier translated. “He doesn’t know how he’ll cover the rent or get his shop back on its feet. It’s hard enough competing against Scaurus as is.”

  Xavier didn’t bother to explain who Scaurus was, but added, looking around, “I’m a bit chagrined that I didn’t hear the intruder even though I was lying in bed awake, worrying about the volcano. Secundus had gone over to join in the festivities at the tavern, as he usuall
y does in the evening. I decided not to because I wanted to keep an eye on Vesuvius. Sabina and Faustilla were asleep in the room next to mine. They didn’t hear anything either. Someone came in through the side gate, even though Secundus swears by all the gods that he had locked it after shuttering the shop for the night. Whoever it was went into the shop through the garden, emptied the small box Secundus used as a till, and proceeded to smash whatever they couldn’t take. The gate was swinging open when Secundus got back.”

  During the professor’s explanation, Sabina’s father had been leaning on his broom, occasionally nodding when he recognized a name. I studied his features, not because of any sudden physical attraction, but because I felt a strange kinship with him. He was a man with a shop, a garum shop—about as far as you could get from the paperwork and organizing skills needed for my own job—but I understood. The shop was Secundus’s way of making his mark on the world, not just a means of supporting himself and his mother and daughter (not to mention his dog). I nodded my head toward the animal, still asleep in a corner. “Didn’t the dog hear the intruder?”

  Xavier shook his head. “Celer is not much of a guard dog. He only barks at birds. He was asleep in the garden under the pear tree.”

  The security chief nudged one of the broken garum jars with his foot. It broke into two additional pieces along the length of a crack. “It looks like an amateur job.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “A professional would have taken the money and beat a fast retreat. Wanton destruction like this speaks of a personal animosity, of anger. I’d say someone has a personal beef with Secundus.”

  “A local who had a bit too much to drink at the tavern? Did Secundus insult someone without realizing it?” I was throwing out ideas as they came to me, surveying a sad glob of smooshed olives on the sole of my sandal. Faustilla gave her son a sharp look and he went back to sweeping the shop, with, I swear, a wink at me. “It’s horrible to see anyone lose their livelihood like this.”