Justine pressed her body against one wall, looking upward through the narrow opening to the oak branches and patch of azure sky above. Amir braced himself with his right hand on the wall near Justine’s head, leaning forward to see what she saw. He turned slowly toward her so she could feel his warm breath on her hair, repressed energy radiating from his tight body. He looked down, finding her eyes, his pupils dilating, mouth moist. Justine felt her own mouth go dry then dampen with desire as her trembling body grew warmer.
Amir turned more fully toward her now, his chest pressing against hers. He kissed her eyes, his penetrating lips and tongue moving to her ear and neck. His arm encircled her waist and drew her to him. Lips brushed, then pressed together fully, hungry for the embrace so long desired.
The lovers lowered themselves onto the moist grass between the boulders, helping each other loosen their clothing without relaxing their kiss. Amir rolled onto Justine in one flowing movement, rocking rhythmically, grasping desperately at her body. It was Justine who cried out first, followed quickly by Amir’s deep-throated release.
They suddenly began to hear human voices, soft at first, then growing near, a group entering the gorge not far from where they lay. The presence of others made them grasp each other more tightly at first, then rapidly pull their clothes up over their sweaty bodies and jump to their feet. They looked at each other anew, surprised and slightly embarrassed. They started to laugh.
Still laughing occasionally, as though rediscovering their sexual selves, Justine and Amir returned to Villa Narsi. After they cleaned up, they set out for town, climbing the hill then turning into a narrow alley headed for Al Barilotto on Via Carolina. Pasta had never tasted so good.
CHAPTER 16
We look back and analyze the events of our lives, But there is another way of seeing, a backward-and-forward-at-once Vision, that is not rationally understandable.
—Rumi
WHY DID I BECOME an anthropologist? Justine mused as her feet pounded the damp path to the rim of the Fiesole hill. Spring rains had left the foliage glistening in the early sun. Water droplets clung to the leaves of the apple and fig trees. Turning east, she tried to recall the moment she had staked claim to her future profession. It had been an observation by Philip Noble, her first anthropology professor. “Ritual connects the conscious with the unconscious mind,” he’d said. She was hooked.
But there were times, like the present, when she was disappointed in her chosen field. In this instance, it was anthropology’s avoidance of death that she found appalling. Except for funerary practices, anthropology shied away from the topic. “How do you take notes when people are in anguish?” she had argued with herself, defending classical anthropology’s avoidance of death and near-death experiences. “Death anxiety,” Noble had called it. She considered whether the Etruscans viewed death as an initiation into a glorious afterlife. Then she recalled the horror of the day the children had been killed in the devastating earthquake outside Cairo, Ibrahim’s murder, and Riccardo’s sudden death, then revival. She stopped running. The weight of these thoughts was crushing. Her legs felt leaden, and in any case, she had reached the end of the path. Thirty feet below, a narrow road wove through the woods near the Maimo restaurant. Justine pulled her shoulders back, entwined her fingers behind her, and stretched. Droplets of rain fell from an apple tree above and ran like tears down her cheeks. She shook her head vigorously and headed for home.
Justine kicked off her muddy running shoes and grabbed a towel hanging on the back porch, rubbing her moist hair, then her feet and legs. She sat on the side bench for several moments, thinking about death. Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, she thought, Am I coming to terms with death as a form of rebirth? A strange sense of calm washed over her.
Justine stepped into the warm shower, allowing the shampoo suds to embrace her, cover her like whipped cream. Why did I become an anthropologist? she asked herself again, and nearly froze in place. Then, as though her curiosity had kicked in, bolts of energy ran through her body. Out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around her head, pulled on a T-shirt with “Napa Valley Triathlon” printed on the back, snapped her khaki shorts, and raced from her room. Headed for the attic.
As she ran, her own family anthropology flashed through her mind. Her father’s profession as an archaeologist and her chance to nose around in the Egyptian fields with him as a child. Her mother’s Egyptian heritage; her father’s descendence from Lakota ancestors in Nebraska. Then, at the University of Illinois, her chance to do her residency with the Hopis in Arizona. If she hadn’t favored cultures, she would have undoubtedly been an archaeologist. But her questions were different from her father’s. Her compelling interests were the relationships among people.
Finally, Justine knelt in front of the still-empty trunk, its contents tossed clumsily on a nearby chair. She carefully lifted the loosened slats up, one by one, to reveal the stiff paper lining, she’d seen before. Instinctively she felt—she knew—there was something hidden in this mothball-smelly heirloom. Something secret. She peeled back and removed the stiff, yellowed paper lining. Sitting back, she drew a pocketknife from her shorts, using her fingernails to extract a small blade. One by one, she loosened the slats and lifted each of them from the bottom of the trunk, bracing them against a nearby chair. She enjoyed stretching out the process, tantalizing herself until she was feverish with the hunt.
As she’d expected, with the removal of four slats, there they sat, the treasure of her hunt: three bundles of letters tied with blue satin ribbons, browned by time, thin and fragile. She sat back on her heels and stared. Letters. To whom? From whom? Several moments passed; she was flushed with excitement, but forced herself to wait longer. Then, lifting each bundle with the tenderness of a new mother, she placed them on the floor beside her while she reconstructed the original scene. Each slat and the paper lining were put deftly back in place, the clothes folded and repacked, ready for another generation.
She rose to her feet with the three bundles in her arms and made her way back down the stairs and across the hall to her room, where she placed the light burden on her bed. For several moments she just stared in wonder. Who are they to? From? When? Why? she asked herself again, as though she could tease out the answers in her mind’s eye.
Making sure the door was firmly closed, she sat cross-legged on her bed and reached for the first bundle. Opening the first letter as though it would crumble in her hand, she noted a date in the upper right corner. Thank god, they are dated—unlike the codex. March of 1928. Opening the top letters of each of the stacks, she discovered the earliest date—February 24, 1927—and began to read.
Villa Mirenda, 24 February 1927
Madame Hassouna,
When I met you last evening I found myself at a loss for words. You were kind to smile patiently while I found my speech. You probably think me irksome. Other than meeting you, I found the party a bore. Too many aimless Americans. No sense of history.
We are in Florence for the spring. Would you consider tea? I would like to know more about your beloved Egypt.
Your humble servant, David
The letter seems rather routine, and this David a bit of a bore, Justine thought. Yet it must have been written to my great-great grandmother requesting a courtesy call. She picked up the next in line.
Villa Mirenda, 3 March 1927
Madame Hassouna,
Tea was most pleasing. I must visit Egypt before the English silence the exotic pulse of the ancients. Tell me you will join us again soon.
What do you think of Huxley’s new book? I’m afraid I must tell him the truth, poor fellow. Perhaps you might help me find the words.
I will send you a copy of my newest. I am being criticized for the political ideas—when will critics learn that I don’t believe everything my characters say? What a burden. You might find the piece heavy, but I would like to know what you think.
Yours, David
Ah, he treats her as a fellow intellectual, Justine
mused. Capable of critiquing Huxley. He must have been speaking of Brave New World. David seems to be some sort of political writer himself, and seeks her ideas there as well. A respectful friendship seems to be in the making.
Villa Mirenda, 22 April 1927
Madame Hassouna,
I was gratified and surprised to receive your letter of Sunday 19. We would be pleased to come to dinner.
You liked Huxley more than I did. I should ask you to write to him for me, diplomat that you are. Please don’t find me unkind. I cherish truth and tell it directly, but too often I offend tender sensibilities. Hux endures me, good man.
I travel to Cerveteri and Tarquinia with my patient friend this week. I find the Etruscans a fascinating race. I felt an instinctual sympathy when first I was in their presence—as I experience with you. They lived with a pagan sense of the flow of the cosmos and their place in it—so of course the Romans had to stamp them out two thousand years ago. The porpoises they drew in their designs are the same porpoises I wrote of four years ago, the same dance of life that is in everything they did, either in life or in art—for them no difference, as there is no difference for me. Where others see a bastard and primitive art, I see the flow of life, flowers of red and black decorating their black bucchero ware, whether flowers or porpoises, dancing in naturalness, free and spontaneous, connected to the earth, an ever-present religious connection, which was their Elixir of life. Niente paura, as you like to say—nothing to fear. The Etruscans lived in the highest religious state, which is the state of wonder. I proclaim myself, and you, dear girl, Neo-Etruscans.
You are right to find a space to write. I find privacy essential, but my dear wife says I should live alone.
Have you noticed the gardens? Roses and lilies in full bloom. Nature is my chapel, a sanctuary for the soul.
Yours, David
Justine placed the letter on her lap. A state of wonder—how inspiring. The Etruscans. Huxley. A writer? All clues point to Lawrence . . . D.H. Lawrence! Written with such glorious language and abstractness. Clearly the writer respected Madame Hassouna. But “David”? As far as I know he never called himself “David.” Perhaps I am overanxious, projecting—it must be another writer named David. And which Madame Hassouna? Her great-great-grandmother? Her great-grandmother? Whomever it was, she was married. Risky business, this. Justine picked up the next letter and began to read, feverish with excitement.
Villa Mirenda, 1 May 1927
My dear Isabella,
Thank you for a lovely evening. Your husband was most gracious. We were disappointed that he was called away and could no longer regale us with stories of the Orient since the painful partitions of 1919. Frieda insists we go to Baden Baden next week.
Yours, David
Isabella! And Frieda! My great-grandmother and D.H. Lawrence? Is this even possible?
“What are you reading?” asked her father, leaning against the doorframe of Justine’s room, crutch in one hand, right leg suspended in air. Since the accident at Cerveteri, he had been convalescing in the room down the hall. Lucrezia was not thrilled with the arrangement.
Startled, Justine slyly drew a pillow over the top of the letters. “Dad. I didn’t see you there.” Hadn’t she closed the door?
Morgan knew that look of wide-eyed innocence when his daughter had something to hide. “Love letters?” he grinned.
“As a matter of fact, they probably are, but I’m not ready to share them,” she said mysteriously, winking at her surprised father.
“As you wish,” he said, staring at her for a time. His tan was fading, and there were a few new wrinkles around his mouth. The recent ordeal had taken its toll on this usually resilient man. “Help me down to lunch?”
CHAPTER 17
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.
—Prince Fabrizio in Lampedusa’s The Leopard
JUSTINE WAS BACK IN ROME, staying in a friend’s apartment near the eleventh-century courtyard that led into the Basilica di San Clemente. She entered through a nondescript side door. On her morning run, she had toured this small residential community, Celio. It was crowded with apartments, banks, enotecas, corner grocery stores, laundries, and sumptuous villas from another era. The enclave sat in a triangle just east of the Coliseum, the site of her appointment with Andrea, who had suggested they meet in the stone tribute to Pope St. Clement, the third successor of St. Peter. Even though she was confident that Andrea would be late for their appointment, Justine had decided to arrive early so that she could tour the site and find the Mithraics Amir had told her about.
She stepped into the nave of the Basilica, twice reconstructed since the maniacal Emperor Nero burned Rome in 64 CE. As she entered, a nun sitting at a table near the entrance offered a small booklet with maps and text entitled St. Clement’s Rome. Justine bought one and walked toward the altar to view three black nuns fingering rosary beads, an Italian family of five, a dozen elderly women in housedresses and black scarves, and two suspendered old men awaiting communion as an aged priest in white with a green satin sash brought wine and bread to a younger priest, also in green satin. The children’s eyes darted around the room as they pulled at each other and shuffled their feet, uncomfortable in such austere surroundings. The same the world over, she mused. Church is the preoccupation of the old.
Justine observed the proceedings for several minutes. Beside her, another voyeur, a young woman in shorts, held a Nikon camera. Balancing the open booklet in one hand, Justine surveyed the gold-embossed ceiling, the marble tile floor, the altar under a triumphal arch, and the cathedra on the podium for the presiding bishop. Nearby was the martyr’s tomb. She glanced again at the little circus of practitioners and yearned to know what made Rome tick.
Justine’s attention was drawn to ten frescos on either side of the nave that depicted the legend of the martyrdom of St. Clement. According to the apocryphal story in the booklet, Clement was persecuted for spreading the word of Jesus Christ. First he was forced to work in the mines of the Crimea during the reign of Trajan, and when he converted the soldiers and his fellow prisoners, the Romans bound him to an anchor and threw him into the Black Sea. The waters magically receded, revealing an angelic tomb encasing Clement’s body. Soon, angels extracted the martyr from the watery grave and buried him on a nearby island. Justine wondered if Pope Clement had been mistaken for this daring man. So which man is buried in this tomb? she mused. Perhaps neither.
Justine walked to the eastern portion of the Basilica and descended the worn marble steps into the fourth-century remains of the former edifice. More like a cave than a church, the underground catacombs were connected by steps to narrow passages weaving through chamber after chamber, a maze often halting abruptly at dead ends. A musty smell filled her senses. The stunning, dark portrait of Jesus taking the wrist of Adam to rescue him from Limbo could barely be seen in the muted light. Was Jesus compelled to rescue any worthy person who had died before He arrived on earth?
The tomb of St. Cyril sat near the center of the room. To its right was the bust of the great benefactor, Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston, who served as the Titular of St. Clement from 1911 to 1941. Much before that, as religious persecution in Ireland grew, she read, the basilica was handed over in perpetuity to the Irish Dominicans in 1676.
In one of the halls, a large reversible stone slab was suspended in air. Pagan inscriptions appeared on one side and Christian inscriptions on the other. Why hadn’t the Christians eradicated the pagan inscriptions, as they had in so many other places? Undoubtedly, the inscriptions could be construed to Christian meanings, as when the pagan holidays became Christian holidays to capture the ceremonial habits of the people.
Finally, Justine found the steps that led down into the first-century church. Lowering her head, she carefully contorted her body through the narrow passageway into the lowest catacombs. Some chambers ran east and west, parallel to a central area that might have served as the center of worship. Afte
r Amir’s description of the Mithraic Temple in Sovana, she was increasingly excited about what she would find. Justine found one of the marble benches facing the carved stele depicting Mithra, his cape flying and head turned away as he slay a bull. Alongside, a raven, a snake, and a scorpion, signs of the Zodiac.
Justine could understand how Roman soldiers might have been captivated by these symbols of Christianity, with their emphasis on loyalty, obedience, and victory over one’s enemies. The guidebook suggested that Mithra had been brought to Rome by soldiers returning from battles in Asia Minor. Since people at that time believed the earth, rather than the sun, was the fixed center of the universe, worshipping the Zodiac just didn’t make sense.
“He was born of a virgin birth, you know.” The rich male voice behind her resonated with a fine acoustical clarity. Justine started, then turned, but failed to distinguish any human form in the dark cavity. “Who are you?” she asked, more bewildered than afraid. But she knew even before she asked. The deep, resounding voice was unmistakable.
“Actually, Mithra emerged from an egg-shaped rock, bringing with him the notion of life after death in the star-filled universe above.”
Justine stood and walked toward the voice. “Mr. Blackburn. What a surprise,” she said, her voice tense with sarcasm. “Surely this isn’t an accidental encounter.” He was stalking her. But why?
“I don’t take you for a naïve woman, Dr. Jenner. I thought I’d alert you to a small legal maneuver that has been initiated. You might be brought before a magistrate for colluding to steal treasured artifacts.” The meager light barely caught his boyish features and self-satisfied grin.
“Theft? Me?” she exclaimed. “I find that highly amusing coming from the thief of the recently discovered Egyptian codex.” Justine could feel the flush of anger rise in her chest.
“You wound me, my dear. Your charge is unfounded. Yet if I were to confess my transgressions, they would be almost irrelevant in the overall scheme of things—would they not? Men—and must I add, women—still dally with these obscure religious myths. How is that different from Mithras here? Whether it’s a bull or a windmill, men play at finding meaning where there is none. History moves forward, yet nothing really changes.”
The Italian Letters: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy Book 2) Page 13