The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  They did not talk about the body back at the university. There was a gadget by which Petrovitch could be reached from the room if anything happened. He said it was almost as important to find out what Sister Olav was like as to attend the patient. Semyon had thought about what was happening.

  It was an important thing they had between them in that body, he had concluded. It was more important than anything either of them had ever dealt with and, even though they might talk of their families, the body living on machines, hanging on this side of death, warm with life, lived between them as more than a link. Little John Carter was their environment.

  'A scientific advance outlives everything around it,' said Petrovitch, coming to a stop. And he did not have to tell Lew what and whom he was talking about.

  'Yeah,' said McCardle.

  'I know you have special interests. And so do I, but we also have an obligation to everyone. To people we will never know, generations hence. Even if they don't know who we are.'

  'I agree,' said Lew.

  'I have legitimate worries about someone who dedicates her life to a religion, especially one to whom that time of Rome is of vital importance.'

  'We will talk to her. I think she's honest.'

  'Honest is not the point, Lew. I would not want a devout Marxist either. Our job, if we can succeed with John Carter, and I think now we have a very good chance, is first to find out the biological key in the blood that allowed his brain to freeze without massive crystallization damage, and secondly, to find whatever historical evidence is available. I am not relegating history to a second place out of prejudice. I am putting it there because if there is one discipline that tends to be unreliable, it is history. It's at the service, usually, of whoever pays for it.'

  'Yeah,' said Lew, hoisting his bulk up in his seat. 'It's not a pure science. It's like a big guess. You know I once talked with one historian who studied the entire Middle Ages without ever realizing that it was a little ice age with a temperature drop that was astounding. History is the least important thing.'

  'And we must keep the religious aspect out. Agreed?'

  'Yes. I agree.'

  Lew shook hands and almost engulfed Petrovitch's stubby fingers.

  They first met with the mother superior, who had heard of Dr Petrovitch and his work. She was not sure how cryonics fit in with geology. Lew explained, looking straight at her, with the crucified Jesus hung up on that four-foot cross behind her head, that they had found certain Roman items preserved.

  The mother superior nodded.

  ‘If Sister Olav agrees, and I personally think her calling is academic, she would have to stay at Saint Sabina's, a teaching hospital near you.'

  'Of course,' said Petrovitch.

  'Certainly,' said Lew.

  They were taken to a bare room with several polished wooden chairs and walls of solemn white plaster, and a dark, foreboding crucifix. The mother superior left them and went to get Sister Olav.

  ‘I feel uncomfortable in here,' said Petrovitch. He squinted at the crucifix. 'So do I,' said Lew.

  'You're not Christian?' said Petrovitch. 'Baptist. We don't go in for the statuary.' Petrovitch nodded. 'Do you go to church often?’ McCardle shook his head, ‘I was really raised Church of God mostly, and partly Baptist. You just say Baptist. It covers a lot.' 'Your wife and children?'

  They belong to a social centre sort of thing.' McCardle looked at the crucifix again. Little John Carter, or Julius Caesar, whoever he was, had probably seen real crucifixions. At the end of a rebellion in a province, it was not unknown to crucify thousands. McCardle had once read about Saint Helena finding the true cross, because when she found a cross buried in a building she assumed that was the cross. It would be like Christ being killed on a battlefield and, finding a bullet, you said this one killed my Lord. Lew tried to imagine what thousands of crosses with men hanging from them looked like.

  'One thing,' said Petrovitch. 'We must be firm on keeping that out.' He pointed to the crucifix. 'She is a translator. Good enough. I am not interested in the cradle of Christianity. I am not interested in which saint met with which saint over what, and who did or did not do what miracle. Or how many of those they had in their homes.' He nodded to the crucifix.

  "They wouldn't have that in a home at that time. That was an executing device.'

  ‘I always thought it looked horrible with all that blood. We have ikons but.. .’ He opened the palms of his hands and shook his head. 'Frightening. I tell you this, Lew. I would rather have no translator than one working some religious, superstitious sickness on our patient. Yes? You hear me?'

  'OK,' said Lew. His bulky coat was getting warm.

  'None,' said Petrovitch firmly.

  'I heard you, Semyon. All right?'

  Petrovitch's dark eyes narrowed. He stared at Lew with boiling contempt. 'I will not have science defiled by the superstitions taught to children to frighten them. I will not.'

  'Do you want us to leave now?' asked Lew.

  'No. We will do what is polite. Politeness, courtesy, yes. That we will give.'

  'OK,' said Lew.

  'And no more.'

  'Get off my back,' said Lew.

  'What does that mean?'

  'It means I said yes. Enough. You got your "yes". I'm not the Catholic Church. Don't yell at me.'

  Petrovitch was adamant until Sister Olav entered with the mother superior. Perhaps it was the smile, so perfect and so bright. Or the pale blue eyes that seemed to dance. Maybe it was the black setting for that gem of a face. But Petrovitch was up and clicking his heels like some Prussian when she came in. He even bowed. Lew McCardle rose out of politeness because men were not supposed to sit when women entered. The mother superior observed like a wary mother goose as her gosling confronted a heel-clicking fox and a big, old, lazy, yellow American dog.

  There was a proper order of things that the mother superior oversaw, pointing to seats, making introductions, establishing who was who, and who said what, and needed what, and wanted what.

  The two doctors had a project at the university which could use the academic talents and skills of Sister Olav, presumably to the benefit of the scientific community, and therefore mankind. Sister Olav, while teaching locally, had ambitions for the contemplative life. If the mother superior were correct, these men wanted Sister Olav to delay further her total involvement in the cloistered life because of her special skills.

  Sister Olav smiled. 'I am sorry, no.'

  'We're not anti-Christian,' said Petrovitch.

  ‘I have my reasons for doing what I do. I do not wish to share them with you. I am sorry,' said Sister Olav, exposing a cool, gentle wall that was not so much a hot rejection as a fact of life that was not going to be altered.

  'Oh,' said Dr Petrovitch. He looked to McCardle. A light had been put out of Petrovitch's face. McCardle raised a hand, signifying there was more to be said. There was a force in him that surprised Petrovitch, a sureness in a shaky world.

  'Sister, I know for a fact that when we present our case to you, you will say "yes". We are not asking for a long-range commitment. Six months at the most, and you are vital to us.'

  'I don't think you are fully aware of my reasons for doing things, therefore you cannot say I will do either this or that.'

  'You have had Latin in your precollege schools, in college, and in graduate schools. You have studied it in all these stages ?' asked McCardle.

  'Yes,' said Sister Olav.

  Then, when I show you what we are working on, you will decide to work with us.'

  'We are not anti-Christian,' said Petrovitch again. 'We realize the profound influence of the Christian Church, of the Roman Catholic Church, upon its environment in antiquity. We think it would be a travesty to avoid it.' He looked to the mother superior with great sincerity. He avoided Lew.

  Sister Olav spoke: 'First, Dr Petrovitch, I never thought you were anti-Christian or pro-Christian. Secondly, Dr McCardle, you just do not understand me. I seek a conte
mplative life for my own reasons. One of those reasons, I think you assume, is that I find the academic life inadequate. That is not my reason.'

  'I know you have studied Latin for much of your adult life, and therefore, there had to be some fascination. Maybe there still is. But what I can show you is something you cannot refuse to work with. I know this because I have studied Latin just a bit, too. And you teach this, also, which makes me all the more certain you will help us. But that is neither here nor there. What I ask of you, and of the mother superior, is that you take one afternoon and observe our project, and then tell us "no" if you wish. I am certain, technically, that you will not wish to tell us "no".'

  'Does it concern the tapes ?'

  ‘Yes,' said McCardle.

  'You have found something ?' said Sister Olav.

  'Bigger than a bread box,' said McCardle with a smile and then had to explain there was a guessing game played on the radio when he was a boy, where the typical question was whether it was bigger than a bread box.

  The mother superior nodded. Sister Olav nodded. Petrovitch wasn't listening. He was looking at the smooth, white cheeks of the nun. He was thinking that they might never have been kissed. They were beautiful cheeks.

  'There would be the utmost propriety,' offered Dr Petrovitch.

  'We ask for an afternoon,' said McCardle to the mother superior.

  'I would recommend it to you, Sister Olav,' said the mother superior.

  'Do you order it?' she asked. The way she looked up to the standing woman, the total concentration, the honesty, the simple beauty, the exquisite beauty, thought Semyon Petrovitch, what an incredible waste.

  'No,' said the mother superior.

  'Do you wish it?'

  'Yes,' said the mother superior.

  'I must think,' said Sister Olav. And she remembered what the mother superior had said about vocations, which was the Latin word itself for callings. Was she being called by this ? She thought the arrogance of the American being so sure was amusing. She was not unaware that the Russian was somewhat enamoured of her, but that would prove only a little problem, at most. He seemed like a nice enough man.

  'Yes. I will see. I have a class in the morning but in the afternoon, if you can provide transportation, I will see what you have to show.'

  She was all but certain the American had in his possession some valuable scrolls, more than likely encased in some sort of precious jewels. He had had someone read it to see if it could be recognized, and she had only placed the language.

  The American, being a geologist, had obviously dug it up somewhere. The Russian doctor? She wondered about that, assuming possibly some piece of flesh, or some fruit, or some organic matter might have been preserved by the cold. But up here? There were summer thaws. One had to go farther north for the year-round, century-round ice. And besides, no Romans would come this far to leave something. This was outside their civilized world.

  One of two things had happened. A barbarian tribe had captured some scrolls or objects from a Roman legion farther south in Germany, passed it on as booty, lost it somewhere up here, and the geologist found it. Or the pair of men had been taken by a hoaxer. As she bade good-bye, promising to see them on the morrow, the latter seemed most likely. She quickly dismissed the possibility that they would be so foolish as to believe there were tape recordings back in ancient Rome or that ancient spirits talked.

  Outside, Petrovitch wanted to know, demanded to know, how Lew McCardle could speak with such arrogance to such nice ladies.

  ' 'Cause I can, Semyon. And what's this sudden conversion of yours?' 'They were nice ladies.' 'Bullshit. You had a hard-on.’

  'What?' asked Petrovitch, suddenly looking down at his pants with a violent jerk of his head that almost pitched him over into the grey snow lining the walk to their car.

  'In your mind, I mean,' said Lew.

  'You shouldn't joke like that,' said Semyon recovering his dignity.

  'She's only a lesbian, Semyon. They're all lesbians, right ?'

  'That's just normal misinformation that goes around. She is special, Lew. That is a beautiful woman wasting her life. That is a precious gem. Hidden away, deprived. Innocent. Did you see her smile?'

  'No,' said Lew.

  'It was a smile. Lew, of someone who has put herself away for some reason. If we can find that reason, we can save her.' 'Maybe she wants to be there.'

  'No one that beautiful could want to be there in that cold and frightening place.'

  Sister Olav arrived the next day in the back seat of a rented car, reading. The driver startled her by telling her she was at her destination.

  Semyon was at the kerb to open the door. Lew watched from a window in an office he had made his. He drank a beer. He could taste victory. He was glad he did not manipulate people as a career but happier still that he had found this hidden talent when he needed it. Lurking behind that was the fear that suddenly everything was going to go wrong because he wasn't that sort of person. Because of that fear, he dressed very carefully now, every day, to remind himself he was a vice-president of a company.

  It was important that he greet Sister Olav outside the room of the patient, so he dropped the half-rilled beer bottle in a waste-basket and went up the corridor along the cryonics floor, through the double swinging doors under the red exit sign, to the intensive-care room where signs in Norwegian, English, and French said keep out.

  He looked back at the doors under the red exit sign and adjusted the jacket of his grey suit. He wore a subdued blue shirt with a plain black tie and black shoes. He was sorry he left the beer unfinished. He had more time than he thought.

  But he had to be here in front of this door. It was this door and what it represented that would convince Sister Olav. He knew she had been told about this door in her first Latin class and that she too had believed it didn't exist.

  The corridor doors swung open with Petrovitch leading the pale nun in the black habit, like a court jester, dancing around her, hovering over her, explaining too many things too quickly. He had promised he would not tell her what they had.

  'If you do, and not me, we will lose the effect of this offer. So don't tell her.'

  'You have my word.'

  'I mean really,' Lew had said.

  'My word is my word.'

  'Except when it comes to the nun.'

  'I don't lie,' Petrovitch had said imperiously.

  And so now he ushered her to Lew standing in front of the patient's room.

  'I have complied with your request,' said Semyon. 'Not a word.’

  ‘So mysterious,' said Sister Olav, as though being shown a trick by children for whom she had to show the proper awe.

  'Semyon, please wait there,' said Lew, pointing across the corridor.

  Petrovitch watched suspiciously and quite closely as the large American put a forefinger on the door. He whispered something into the black veil bonnet of Sister Olav. She shook her head. She covered her mouth.

  'No,' she gasped.

  'Yes,' said Lew and tapped the door. Then he opened it. Petrovitch could hear the constant mumbling of little John Carter with the scarred body.

  He saw her wait a moment in the doorway then turn away, her blue eyes rimmed with tears. She blessed herself with the sign of the cross and then took a very deep breath.

  'I must get a room within this university hospital complex. Now. I am not going back. Not to my class, not to the convent. It will be all right with the mother superior. Please, Close the door, we must get organized. We must have working rules.'

  Petrovitch was agreeing to everything, as Lew took her to Petrovitch's office where she busily began writing a list of needs.

  'How ?' asked Petrovitch stunned, as they waited for her.

  'Because I come from the same culture as she does.'

  'No. You don't. You're American. She's Norwegian.'

  McCardle shook his head. 'We are all the children of Rome, without knowing it. Our months are called after Roman emperors or g
ods; our summer is July and August, named after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. When your people scream fascist at us, you are referring to the rods of authority called fasces by the Romans. The idea of law written down and to be observed equally comes to us from the Romans, and our alphabet comes to us exactly from the Roman. From plumbing to the idea that surrounding someone in battle gives victory, Rome gave them to us. Rome is our common, civilized roots, so deep that many of us in the West do not even realize it unless we are educated to it. Rome is our intellectual father, and we have been living off its remnants for two thousand years.'

  'But, obviously, Sister Olav knew that before she came here. Better than you,' said Petrovitch.

  'You're right,' said Lew. 'I want to show you something that we have talked about for centuries, and only you gave us.' 'What?'

  'I want to show you,' said Lew.

  As they walked back up the corridor to the patient's room, Lew explained how complicated it was to learn and teach Latin, how many complex rules there were for this very precise dead language.

  At the room he put his right forefinger on the metal fire-retardant door as he had for Sister Olav.

  'From Berlin to Paris, from Des Moines to Rome, almost every first-year Latin teacher has told every first-year Latin class how sorry he or she is that they must study Latin grammar in such an artificial and complex way ... almost like putting together a puzzle. They have said, for centuries now, to almost every first-year class that the student could learn Latin better and faster and more properly if they talked to a Roman on the other side of a classroom door.'