The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'What did he say?'

  'Holy words.'

  'What words?'said Olava.

  'What words?' Olava whispered again, weakly. She was limp. I was not. 'Words.'

  'Yes. Oh. What was his name.' 'Whose?'

  'The priest's name? Anyone's name. Name me anything.'

  'I don't know. The man didn't have a sesterce to his name. He wore rags. I did it for Miriamne. She wanted this ceremony. I did it as a favour.'

  'Did he say "this is my body, this is my blood", did he say that ?'

  'I don't know. The man was a beggar. He was not a real priest, Olava, not really. He had been a fisherman in Judea.'

  Olava stiffened and jumped up, as though new life breathed into her veins, She moved with such force I was knocked backward on to the soft, high bed. The light came on with such glaring I could not see. My eyes hurt and I covered them, but Olava was on me with questions before I could even see. Naturally, my desire went, like a punctured wineskin.

  'What was his name? What did he look like? What did he say? What did he do ? Where did he five? Who were his friends?’

  'Wait. Wait. My eyes hurt.'

  Tell me.'

  'In a moment, woman. In a moment. My eyes hurt. I hear you are back and healthy, being your same unpleasant self.' 'Talk.'

  'I am Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, barbarian. You will treat me with respect.'

  'You didn't even know Juvenal who lived at your time, and you expect me to respect you.'

  'I may have owned Juvenal.'

  'You couldn't. He wasn't a slave.'

  'He was so important, I was not sure who he was.'

  'You were so ignorant you were not sure who he was.'

  'I could read. My mother was Greek. That village taught me to read even before I bought scholars. I had many scholars, and historians like yourself, although they knew manners. So did your Peter.'

  At that she gasped, covering her mouth. Her cosmetics were in colourful disarray across her face, having been spread by tear and hand. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair a mess of white yellow thatching.

  People in other rooms yelled at us, and Olava lowered her voice. I did too.

  'Peter?' she whispered, leaning forward, her big, pale, bony hands clasped anxiously in front of her chest. Both our passions had gone, and she was a worthy match of wits and will.

  'The priest. The Jew.'

  'Was he one of the original followers of Jesus, this Peter? You see, it is important that I know. Important to me and my faith and history, too. We look to him as our first chief priest.'

  'All of you?'

  'In our sect. We believe God has taken him unto himself as a special person, called a saint.'

  'Then it must have been another Peter. The Peter who performed the ceremony was nothing unusual. A very common man. But I married Miriamne, nevertheless, in her ceremony. The important official one came later. It didn't matter.'

  'What do you remember about this Peter?'

  'He was nice.'

  'In what way?'

  'He was respectful.'

  'In what way?'

  'In every way. He was in the home of Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus. And he knew it.' 'What did he look like?'

  'Like a fisherman, although this one had not fished for many years. I gave him a donative of two or three sesterces. He was overjoyed. It was more than he deserved, but I loved Miriamne.’ 'What did he say?'

  'He said I was a fitting tribute in my sword and manhood to his god.' 'He didn't say that.'

  'You're right. A priest of Apollo said that. But so what? If there are so many people who believe, we can say whatever we want. But woman, the Peter I know of could not have been your chief priest.'

  'Why?'

  'It is better that you don't know in case he was the Peter.' 'Eugeni, I want to know.' She was firm on this, this formidable woman.

  'All right, but I give you one moment to take back the question. You won't like the answer. Do you still want to hear?' 'Yes,' she said.

  'He was executed like a common criminal. Upside down.' At this she let out a shriek of laughter and clapped her hands in joy.

  'That was our Peter. He was crucified. Our first father of our church. I think it was. That was how he died. You see, we value giving up things for our God. He gave his life.'

  'Better the blood of a cow or a pig, woman. I don't like your god who asks those sacrifices.'

  'What about a legionnaire sacrificing his life for Rome?'

  'The legions got paid, and they got paid regularly. Why do you think they worked so well, woman?'

  'There was honour too. You can't tell me there wasn't, Eugeni.'

  'Oh, yes. Some people cast away their one life for honour, some for drink, but most because they do not think they can die. Yes, there was honour. But it is the most specious of arguments that tries to justify one stupidity with the fact that there is a worse one.'

  She laughed at this, quite broadly.

  'There were even people,' I said, ‘Who would die for history. Now what sort of a judge is history when your first priest is remembered, and Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus is not? Despite the decree and everything, I should have been remembered, and that very ordinary man should not have been.'

  'I will not argue that with you... for now. But you have shown honour. There on the bed where you sit. You showed it. You did not take me because you knew of my vows, and for that, Eugeni, thank you.'

  'I did not take you because of how you felt about your vows. Not because of your vows, which I think are stupid. I think a copulation would do you wonders. Many copulations. And often.'

  'Perhaps for my body but not me.'

  'Intelligence is like a sword, but more often people who have it fall on it. Would you most graciously tell me the difference between your body and you ? How have you separated yourself from your body?'

  On this we argued late into the dawn, with occasional demands from people in adjoining rooms for quiet.

  We were both very tired when we heard people awakening near us through the very thin walls. One banged on the door, and I got my blade, the one I had performed with. Olava yelled back in a begging tone, and finally the man left. Olava had been afraid of what might happen to him, if he successfully carried out what obviously were threats to break down the door.

  We turned out the lights again, but now shafts of sun came through the drapery. It was dark, but not completely dark. As I fell asleep, I hoped I would remember to ask why they built the rooms with openings to the street, when it was so obvious to any rational person that they had to cover them again. I longed for a couch in which I would awaken and see the pool of the peristilium again and hear the slaves working easily in the morning trying to be quiet so as not to wake me.

  I thought I heard a slave bang a pot - one of those noisy accidents Miriamne arranged when she did not want to be responsible for awakening me. But it was a horn. The kind they used in automobiles. And I went to sleep with those noises coming into the little sealed room lacking the tiniest grace of plants or water and my friend Olava snoring like gravel avalanches through the caves of Dacia.

  Germany was now highly civilized, one could tell from the roads. The Germans had recently waged wars against neighbours simultaneously and lost, the country being divided into two parts now, we driving south in the western part.

  The noise was so bad from so many cars in one gigantic

  German city, I had thought I heard Olava say these people had thrown millions of others into ovens. Concentrating on driving, she further confused me by saying it was not some device of war, but rather a national effort to annihilate a people. 'To take their land?'

  'No. They had no land. Quiet, this is difficult’ 'So are you.'

  'Must you always contend?'

  'Rather than surrender to you?'

  'You're worse than my brothers. Quiet,' she said.

  From the snatches, I gathered they accused a people of all manner of evil, and then systematically, yes, millions, kill
ed them. And this to eliminate them, the purpose being elimination. If I heard correctly.

  They didn't eat them?'

  'Cannibalism up here has been gone many centuries. Quiet I am trying to read the signs,'

  Two days we crossed the land of the Germans, from north to south. If we had taken the exact route of my march going backwards across it, I would not have recognized a bit of it.

  Even the forests were neat. They had built cities here and roads, and all manner of civilized things. They had come a long way. Thus time had shown to be a lie the Roman contention that the German was a happy, brave, but wild person, unable to accept discipline and too emotional for grave matters.

  This of course was as much nonsense many centuries ago as it was now. It is not the blood in a man's veins that counts, it is what he does with it.

  Those born high like to contend their prominence reflects some natural law like horses running or birds flying, just as those born low often like to think of wealth and fame as something dishonestly obtained; the former establishing the justice of his good fortune, the latter an excuse for his bad.

  The Helvetians were now bankers and famous around the world for it. We passed through their land, too, and then into Italy, once again unified under Rome, but no longer with power. But there was another change. We drove through a tunnel into Italy where legions used to guard each pass in these mountains -each pass having its own legion to keep invaders out. An open tunnel. No legionnaire, just normal custodes checking people's automobiles.

  'Hannibal had to march over,' said Olava. 'Do you know of Hannibal?'

  'Yes. I am no fool. He was a Carthaginian. He invaded Italy down into Latium, but couldn't get the other cities to join him in enough number. He needed another big battle to get the cities to side with him, but Quintus Fabius, the delayer, wouldn't give him one, and eventually he went back to Carthage and was defeated there.'

  'Very good, you show great strength in some areas.'

  'We did Hannibal once. We had gladiators on elephants fight men on foot It was very nice and no one was charged with murdering an elephant.'

  'Did you participate?'

  'Yes, after. In a single match, against Hannibal's descendant, who had vowed to defeat Rome's Eugeni, whose ancestor had died swearing that, while his meagre body might be crushed under Carthaginian elephant hoofs, lo, Roman blood could never be crushed, and challenging with his dying words to a single match, descendant to descendant.'

  "That is utterly ridiculous, Eugeni,'

  'You haven't heard it all.'

  'I don't want to hear it all.'

  'You ask me about this poet and that poet and this historian and that historian, of whom I have only the scantiest knowledge but what I really do know about, what I was good at, what I understood, you show no interest in.'

  'Other things are more important to our civilization.'

  'Yes. Jewish beggars, historians you could own for less gold than would fill a cup. The garbage of Rome. It is not that Peter was important.'

  'He was,' said Olava stoutly.

  'Let me finish. It was not that Peter was so important, but that your cult is today. People do not magnify the significance of their ancestors because the ancestors are important, but because they are. Would Peter be important if your cult were not big?'

  'Our size is the proof of Peter's importance.'

  'Well, I liked him.'

  'Did you? That's nice of you. So did God. The great Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus liked Saint Peter, liked Peter the Fisherman.'

  'At the time I liked him, he was not as popular as you say he is today.' I said. 'When I liked him, he needed friends.'

  'Where were you at his execution?'

  'Safely, prudently, and intelligently at home with Miriamne. And if Peter had been as prudent, he would have been lying on a couch instead of nailed upside down to two boards.'

  'How did his execution happen ? What were the facts surrounding it?'

  'I don't know. There was political turmoil, and they were giving games out of everyone's treasury. Four times I was matched that year, and they would have forced me into a hundred if they could. One match, I didn't even know ray opponent until I was on the sand. And he was good, and people started booing.'

  'Why was that?'

  'You care about the arena?'

  ‘Yes.'

  'Good. Because a real match, one in which men are feinting and judging and looking for an advantage and trying not to give one, is quite boring. And it is too quick for the eye in a big arena. You can have a real and good match, but you need an audience equal to it, do you understand?'

  'Yes. I think I do,' she said. Her short hair was now combed in a perky manner, and her cosmetics were more subdued. She still had her hard, nervous drive, but that would remain until, if ever, she decided to release her sexual juices. Still she was beautiful, if the looks she got from men were any gauge.

  'Now I have good news for you. Olava. I have been saving it. I did the Aeneid, the poem you love so much.'

  She turned from her driving, even as the automobile went forward.

  'You did what?' she asked, shocked, her face confused yet verging on anger.

  'I did the Aeneid. I was not going to tell you, but since we are establishing something here, I will allow it. Yes. I did the Aeneid?

  '1 didn't know it was made into some form of play, or that you were an actor.'

  'An actor? Never. I did the Aeneid in the arena.'

  'Really? And how could that be?' she asked with some contempt and amusement in her voice.

  'I am glad you asked,' I said. 'We were quite inventive. Dido was a prostitute who could fornicate with bulls, I was Aeneas, and—'

  'Stop ...'

  ‘I'm going to tell you about the Aeneid? "That was not the Aeneid. That was using the poem for your own selfish ends. Eugeni, don't you know the poem?' 'I had people who knew it'

  'You should know it yourself. It is beautiful. It is such a beautiful poem, such a beautiful language that I could lose myself in it. It was such a danger to my own faith and my service, this love I had. Most look at Greek as the language of arts, but I always loved Latin.'

  it was a better performance than the kitchen,' I said with some sullenness.

  She said she would show me the Flaminian Way. And while we looked for its entrance, I tried to remember things about the priest - the fisherman. But all I could remember was how happy this made Miriamne, and how the other slaves were happy too, and how she said this ceremony was the greatest gift I could have given her.

  In her happiness I knew joy like I had never known before, and I wondered if Olava would be interested or if she cared. I wanted to. tell her, but I was afraid she might ask a cold question about this, and I did not want coldness in this most precious moment.

  'Why are you crying, Eugeni?'

  'I remember something beautifuL’

  'Will you share it?'

  ‘It was beautiful and tender.'

  'Will you share it?'

  ‘I was remembering how happy I was in Miriamne's happiness. I lived it again. It may have been the happiest, or one of the happiest, moments of my life.'

  Olava stopped the automobile. She leaned to me and kissed my cheek.

  'God bless you, Eugeni.'

  And I cried some more. 'He did that, too. Peter did. And said that,' I said.

  Olava kissed me twice, loud, smacking kisses with much gusto.

  'You know, Eugeni,' she said with much joy, 'perhaps Saint Peter has been protecting you.'

  'That sort of protection I will live without, because before his kiss, I was a wealthy man. What do I own now?'

  'You own time. Look, the Flaminian.'

  We had been parked near it. But it was a horror. To describe it as being in disrepair would have been unduly complimentary. Grass grew on its stone. Blocks were worn down. The beautiful, even, smoothed road was gutted beyond belief. Stone had surrendered to time.

  But this had been one of the better p
reserved roads. Some were worse.

  'Are we near Vindobonum?' I asked.

  ‘I don't know. But we can get books. That would show us.'

  It was a moist and warm day. The trees were in leaf and the sky so pale blue, like Olava's eyes, and little puffs of white clouds, like clouds so long ago, hung in the sky waiting for the winds of the gods to blow them away.

  'Are you all right, Eugeni?'

  'Yes.'

  'You look so sad.'

  'I am sad. There was a saying that Jupiter blows all clouds away and by that it meant all things bad pass. You see those clouds,' I said, pointing to the sky which this age had conquered, 'they have been blown away and come again. But Jupiter is not here. Nor is Mars. Nor is Apollo. They are not here. Just Eugeni. Only Eugeni is here.'

  There were three contiguous latifundia I had owned near here. I was sure of it. Now the town's name was Vindobonum and I had donated the baths there, to the town.

  By law, Vindobonum citizens had to return slaves who escaped, and vigilance rewarded is vigilance pursued. I did not know if we were near Surmius, and Olava took me away from the ruined road, and we took other roads. The buildings were old and yet new. And by the features of the people, it looked as though all the slaves had escaped, leaving only occasional Romans.

  On toward Rome, but after two days' ride, we came to a town called Assisi, which I was sure was Asisum. The hills nearby were right. The road was the same. I had not owned property here, but I knew the town.

  And amid the new rubbish of buildings was the old, faded temple of Minerva tucked in like a precious old friend between two strangers.

  Olava warned me not to go in.

  'It has been changed. My cult has taken it over.'