'I did not hate Rome. Rome, too, was good. There were bad things, but there was much good. Much good. Roads and water and governments, as corrupt as they were, were better than what was there before the legion planted its standard.'
'Good. On behalf of all of us, we ask that you do not attempt to take your life again, so that you will know what we have all accomplished.'
'You have given me a second life.'
'There is more and you will see. It cannot be explained in a picture or word. You must see and feel to understand. Now each of us has one question we ask of you. If you will give us an answer, we would appreciate it.'
'Why one?'
'Because we have burdened you enough with questions, and we had set rules on ourselves that we should not ask personal questions, but treat you as a scientific thing.'
'I felt like a thing,' I said. The three had not removed the blade. I left it there, still not touching it
'Do not use this on yourself for a while. Let us show you first what we have done. It will take days, but give us your life for that time, as a gift.'
'And then you will kill me at my request.'
'We cannot. None of us can do that or promise that. But we are certain we may show you a great thing.'
'There are no great things.'
'We think we can show you a great thing, and in doing so you will know what we have done, and a bit more of who we are who have done this.'
'Done, if I get an answer to my question. Not one given to an exhibition of science, but to a person.'
And they all agreed. And my question was:
'Why are you doing this thing, whatever it is?'
'Because we are who we are,' said Lewus, and Olava translated for Semyonus. And all three agreed.
'Do you think your masters, whom you all praise here before me this night, will lose their self-interests for your convenience?'
'No,' said Olava. 'We will take care of it.'
'You ? You three ? Olava, the legionnaire who follows all orders with discipline; Semyonus, falling in love without perception; and Lewus, the orange-haired giant who works his entire life for a master and does not know who that master is or exactly what it wants, until, like an imbecile, he finds a weapon in his hand and does not know he is standing on sand? I cannot conceive of any of you succeeding in blunting a plan by your cult, Olava, your government, Semyonus, and least of all your latifundium, Lewus.'
'We have worked things out. Every master will be pushed aside or fooled. Do not worry. I will handle my latifundium.'
'You? Least of all you. None of us would be here if you were not some clumsy oaf. You ?'
'I am not stupid, Eugeni. I am not’
Then why are we here ?'
His massive hands closed on my shoulders and, like some brute ox, put me into a chair.
'All my life, Eugeni, I have dealt with people who thought I was some form of stupid trash in some manner. Now you, after two millennia, stab me in my biggest wound. My parents were not people I was proud of. And my home village school thought I should not study your language, which in our age only the better students studied because it is difficult for us today. Yet I know it. In a more advanced school they thought that, since I was a gladiator, I should not study this and, most recently, Olava assumed I was deficient in this language because I came from an area of a country she looks down on. I allowed her that because it served what I thought were my purposes. But I want you to know I am an intelligent and perceptive person. And I am offended at being thought of as some sort of big package of garbage.'
'You were a gladiator?'
'Our kind. Games. But people got hurt, not killed though. We threw ourselves at each other.'
I nodded, but did not add, for Lewus's feelings, that his size would make him good at such a contest.
'Please do not call me stupid any more for I am not. I have a title that bestows on me a certain level of intelligence accepted by others. Perhaps like your son Petronius, who felt he had to be more Roman than others, I needed that title, but I have it And my plan is sound.'
'What is it?'
'It is something you would not understand.’ Try me.'
'I am going to take that which is precious and make it un-precious.'
That might work, I thought That might be the one thing that could work.
'Now,' continued Lewus, 'I have my question I ask of you. And that is, what is it like to live with someone you love? When Olava's reports showed you ran back to save only your wife and son, I so envied you having that. So did Semyonus.'
'Did you, Olava ?' I asked.
'No. I thought it was nice but quite natural, even though during your period, for political people, it might have been an extraordinary act.' "That is a lot of words to say what?'
‘I think I am saying my own parents had such a good love that your good love was not all that enviable, because as a child I had come from a family with love.'
'And it was so.'
'Lewus,' I said, 'it was no great thing, until I lost it. Then the love Miriamne and I had was most clear. Of all that I have done, marrying Miriamne, legally, was the happiest and best thing I have done.'
And I knew he understood. I removed the blade from where it was sticking up, pommel high, from the wooden floor. I had to exert pressure, for it had gone in a goodly depth, and the wood clung.
Semyonus wanted to ask his question with Olava not listening, so the stalwart woman went to another room. He was ashamed of the question, but he wanted to ask it anyway. Lewus translated. They spoke in hushed tones, like conspirators.
'Eugeni, Semyonus wants to know about slavery. Specifically, if you bought a woman, if you owned her, could you do anything you wanted to her?'
Semyonus hung on the words.
'I don't understand,' I said.
'Sexually,' said Lewus. And then he repeated the word to Semyonus who nodded enthusiastically and added something.
'He does not mean with your wife, the woman you married, Eugeni. Rather, generally,' said Lewus, Semyonus adding other things to be translated by Lewus,'... like tie them up... and do whatever you wanted... or anything you wanted... chain them to a bed... or things.'
'Could or would ?' I asked.
'Could,' came back Semyonus's answer through Lewus. 'I suppose. I guess. There were slaves you bought for sex. And there were prostitutes. What does he mean by could ?' 'Legally.'
'Slaves did have rights, although magistrates who were slave owners did not pursue those rights with zeal; they pursued their own, of course. Female slaves were generally willing, and if masters did that, they usually added some coins to a peculium. I honestly cannot answer that question well. Does Semyonus have sexual affairs with nurses ?'
When he heard this, Semyonus glanced nervously at the room Olaya was in and then nodded back to me.
'But they are mainly for work, and if they do not wish sex, he does not ask it,' said Lewus, translating.
'So too with slaves,' I said. But Lewus did not translate Semyonus's response.
'What did he say ?' I asked.
'He said "oh".'
'Which means?'
'Which means he was disappointed,' said Lewus. 'What did he expect ?' I asked.
'Probably the other side of his romantic coin, that which was not what he has known. Another thing. A strange thing. Something in his imagination. Perhaps a bit Roman in his entertainment, for as you have said, the arena is in the mind of the mobs.'
And Lewus said this was so with his game that he played, sponsored by the schools of his country for fame and finance - the myth being that the gladiators fought for the schools instead of their own interests.
Semyonus, after asking me, through Lewus, never to let Olava know what he had asked, called her back into the room. And with this he gave me an embarrassed wink, and I winked back.
Only Olava did not have a question to ask me, for as she said:
'I will have more time than Lewus or Semyonus, and I will have many, many, many
questions. And, if all works well, time to ask them. Much time. I hope. I pray.'
But they insisted she ask a question, and she said most of her questions were religious, which Lewus and Semyonus would not be interested in. So she thought a moment and asked a question she said might interest her colleagues:
'Who was the most famous person you knew personally, and tell us about him.'
'Most famous person,' I said.
'In all Rome, outside of Domitian, of course.'
'I didn't know our divinity personally,' I said.
'All right, then you have no problem.'
'Famous. Famous. Famous.' I thought of the men I had dealt with, all the senators and tribunes and the like. I remembered incidents with them, but all I remembered was how I had calculated what they would do.
'Famous, outside of Domitian,' I repeated.
Olava and Lewus nodded, Olava translating for Semyonus.
'Quintus Cornelius Fabius.'
'Who ?' asked Olava, looking to Lewus. Lewus shrugged. 'Never heard of him,' said Lewus.
'You never heard of the phrases left over from my age, "rich as Fabius", "pure Fabius", "I am not as Quintus Cornelius Fabius"?'
They hadn't.
'His donatives to Domitian not to seize his fortunes were as large as most fortunes,' I explained.
Still, they had not heard of him. And this was possible because he had never built monuments to himself as other rich men did, rather he had spent all his time collecting more fortunes. He lived alone, somewhat like Demosthenes who had known him better than I had, his fortune and mine doing business.
Lewus and Semyonus drank, and I went to sleep alone, and Olava went to her room. In the morning Lewus was dressed in the formal manner of his times with a cloth around his neck and his face shaven. He smelled of men's oils, and his orangish hair was combed back and neat and tonsored with grace.
He had awakened me to say good-bye. He used words identical to those of Lucius Aurelius Cotta, my patriarch, who had said good-bye to me in Domitian's palace.
'And so, brother, forever hello and good-bye.'
And by that Lewus meant we had just really met each other and were saying good-bye forever.
Twenty eight
Lewellyn McCardle, Jr,
son of Lewellyn 'Slim' McCardle, Sr,
Purina Mills warehouseman, dead;
and Dottie Shanklin McCardle, resident of
Beaches Senior Citizens Home, St Petersburg;
graduate of Texas M and C with highest honours;
holder of a PhD from the University of Chicago;
former senior geologist of Houghton Oil Corporation
father of Cara and Tricia;
husband of Katherine Hooper McCardle;
owner of one home and two cars and small shares of the great Houghton Corporation,
said good-bye to a friend.
'Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale,' he said, quoting the famous poem of Catullus to the muscular, dark little fellow who had so changed his life. And then he embraced him that morning with spring all about them, and life coming green in the little hills. He remembered the dark ice and the still form, so long ago, less than two months ago, and how he had come alive to remind him of his education - a word which itself came from Latin, almost unchanged, 'to lead out of, meaning by that to lead out of darkness, into the light, into knowledge.
He understood now, hoping it was not the great amount of alcohol he had drunk, that he too had a heritage. The very act of learning was a heritage. Before Eugeni, it was, and after Lewellyn, it was. Bound one and the same, a man was a man because he thought, and all the cheers and all the illustrious parentage could not add one whit to any of his meaning. Neither could the jeers nor a father like 'Slim' McCardle take that away.
So when Lew said hello and good-bye, he was not only greeting Eugeni, whom he now knew as a brother, he was greeting himself. And while he knew he had done good in his lifetime - man needing energy - he also realized he was worth more than that. He was better than that. And this was so.
So it was good-bye, and Lew regretted one thing that morning, and it was that he had not told Eugeni how much he had enjoyed Ginger Jackson and was sorry, now that so many things were coming to a close, that he had not married her and seen what might have happened. She was his Miriamne, and he had not taken her to wife.
Lew looked back at the cabin. Eugeni stood halfway up the door, a giant of a little man. Lew saw him tap his heart, and he knew he had something to live for, whether he understood it or not. Lew had something to die for. And he was not all that sure who was luckier.
By noon, Lew was in the major Oslo television station talking freely with a television interviewer and feeling the very big lens on the camera devour him. He had not thought it was that big, or that round, and it was dark like eternity behind that glass. The drink came out in sweat under the lights, but his voice was steady. The metal chair seat bit into his fleshy thighs and he did not care.
He talked of the great future of the economies of the Scandinavian countries, especially because of the new, large deposits of oil in excess of the current ones discovered at this point.
He did not mention his friend. With a polished stick, he pointed out on a map just where the deposits were and described scientifically the earth formations under the ice that encapsulated them. He was telling the interviewer this because he wanted to live and invest in an ever-growing and more prosperous Norway. He said this with a straightforward, fresh-washed, honest face. He was retired from the oil business.
At his hotel suite, he put in a phone call to Kathy in their Austin home. It took twenty minutes for the operator to get through. Kathy was groggy. He had awakened her.
'Honey,' he said, with delicious malice, ‘I never loved you. Banging a Yankee is like sticking it in wet cardboard. Put on the girls. C'mon. Don't delay. This is costing money. It's from Oslo, Norway. Hello, Tricia, listen, honey. You think you're some kind of radical progressive, but, sweetheart, you're just an insignificant piece of shit, and you're not all that different from your mother whom you call a pig, honey. You're the pig and the insect, and you know it. That's why you're clawing at people who do things. You never put so much as a biscuit in anybody's mouth.
Put your sister on. Cara ... hello, honey. Look, you tell that shrink to go suck. You happen to be one of the finest human beings I've ever met. Sorry I didn't get to know you better. But being responsible for someone's welfare is no way to get to know her.'
'You drunk, Daddy?'
'No. Stopped drinking early this morning. I'm going to rest for a while now.' 'Do you want to talk, Dad ?'
'Honey, there is not a seventeen-year-old living, including you, no matter how decent you are, who can tell me about anything that matters. And this is the truth. Seventeen, especially your kind of seventeen, just hasn't been around long enough. Goodbye.'
The phone was ringing as soon as he hung up. It was the long-distance operator from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He recognized the smooth patrician voice with one word:
'Why?'
'Hi, Jim,' said Lew to the chairman of Houghton Oil. 'Why? Why? Why? Why?'
'Because,' said Lew, and all he could think about was his father coming home soused, usually bleeding, and his mother running into the bedroom and locking the door and threatening to hit his father with a skillet if he opened the door, and one night his father holding a used condom in front of his face and yelling at him that his mother was a whore, and yelling at her that she should have sucked a nigger and beating up on young Lew and throwing him outside and breaking that lock on the bedroom and getting the skillet in the head, and the next morning everybody going about business as usual because it was not that unusual. And a couple of kids at North Springs Regional School knowing about that particular night, and one trying to be overly nice because of it, and Lew telling her to get her ass the hell out of his sight.
'Why?' asked James Houghton Laurie and there was no Texas in his voice - t
he kind of voice Lew had once thought came from clean, safe, better worlds.
' 'Cause I ain't trash,' said Lew McCardle.
'Whoever said you were?' said Laurie in winded shock. 'My God, whoever said you were?' 'No one,' said Lew. And hung up.
Twenty Nine
Dr Semyon Fyodorovitch Petrovitch,
son of Vasily Ivanovitch Petrovitch,
member of the workers' committee, Magnitogorsk Factory,
and Mariania Sergeyevna Petrovitch,
chairman of the workers' committee of Magnitogorsk Factory;
member of the Communist Youth;
the Russian Academy of Sciences;
on loan to Oslo University under the Scandinavian-Soviet Friendship Pact,
woke up and saw the rough wood of the cabin near his head and realized it was not all a bad dream, and that the night before he had made a pact to save his patient at the risk of his own future.
In the evening, with beautiful cool Olava and the dynamic Lewus, it made so much sense. It was so good and so right the night before.
As a physician, Semyon stated, he thought any trial of the patient, or even further incarceration, might prove fatal.
While for Eugeni there were times of apparent satisfactory adjustment - a smile, a nod, an explanation with the hands moving rapidly, good active physical movement - there were others of deep dark despair. Semyon Petrovitch was not one of those who took lightly interest in, or attempts at, suicide. It was utter foolishness to dismiss these things, for the very expression of desire for death was the proof of sickness.
'Yes, I agree. More than any of you I know my patient must be active in some way. Being a specimen, to be blunt, is not conducive to mental health, and, with all honesty, Olava, you were hard on him. And I am not laying blame.'
'I did not think you were,' Sister Olav had said.
'To be blunt, also, he is mine. Little Eugeni is mine. I saved him. I nursed him to consciousness. And, not to take any special credit - you know I am not that sort -1 did it. I brought him around. His body made it. His mind - his ego, id, soul, or whatever - did not. I am very proud of Eugeni. I join with you. But, after hearing your plan, is there any way I can do this without defying my embassy ?'
The Far Arena Page 41