Hadrian's Wall

by Felicia Jensen

  I regretted not having brought my notepad to reproduce that picture. It seemed to be one of those coats-of-arms that proclaimed the honor of families or houses which belonged to the Knights. Later, I would look for the symbol on the Internet, as well as its meaning.

  Below the coat-of-arms, the text explained that Cahill was a version of Ó’Cathail—which, in turn, came from a pronunciation of old Irish: “catu-ualos.” Its remote origin suggests that the clan had roots both in Ireland and old Caledonia. Translated literally, the name means “mighty in battle” and it was a kind of honorary title or something with a long list of brave warriors and Celtic leaders to flaunt it. Many of them were kings...everything to do with the image I had of Adrian.

  Okay, it wasn’t enough that he was a rich and illustrious medical resident, he must be a blue-blooded warrior too. Instead of feeling awed, I was depressed. Adrian was completely out of my reach.

  I went back to the text. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to learn more about that family. As I delved further into the reading, the more astonished and stunned I became.

  “(...) The tribes have settled in the lands, families forming clans, and marking their territories. Some of the bravest clans settled in the Highlands (...) The origin of groups organized under the banner Cahill goes back to a period prior to the arrival of the Romans. At the time of the Roman invasions, the Celtic warriors united themselves to combat the dreaded Legions (...)”

  The arrival of a middle-aged woman distracted me momentarily. She descended the winding stairs and went to Charity, who made an imperious gesture for me to come closer. I confess that I felt like a servant being summoned by the queen. Even if her subconscious intent was to remind me of the differences between me, an ex-Jane Doe, and the powerful Cahills, it was completely unnecessary. I could never forget, even now that I knew a little more of the family saga.

  I was sure that for some obscure reason, Charity disapproved of me because she disapproved of Adrian’s attention for me. I already knew that I was not of the same socio-economic class, but she didn’t have to point out something so obvious to me. Hmmm... I think that knowing the origins of Cahill caused me to feel overly sensitive and I was being a little overly dramatic here.

  The woman with Charity was dressed simply, yet elegantly. She turned her friendly eyes toward me and suddenly froze. She looked at me like someone seeing an ogre. In the awkward moment that followed, while she averted her eyes to fix them on my left hand, I had to resist the impulse to hide it behind my back, like a child caught in the act. The truth was that I was feeling like Shrek when he was having dinner with Fiona’s parents for the first time—in other words, I was feeling dislocated and inappropriate.

  While I tried to understand what was wrong, the woman managed to recover with amazing speed. She smiled and extended her hand to greet me as if that awkward moment never happened. I averted my eyes to Charity, but she gave no indication that she’d seen what happened when she introduced us.

  “Marjory Newton, Melissa Baker, my guest. Melissa, Marjory is the Museum Director in Hadrian’s Wall.

  As I shook the hand of the woman, I noticed that she also wore a cord with a pendant similar to the one worn by the front desk girl. Who knows, maybe this is part of the uniform, I wondered, with a touch of hysteria.

  “Nice to meet you, Melissa! You came here to learn a little about our history? Let me accompany you.” She made an expansive gesture with her arm. Now I felt doubly ogress.

  * * *

  We strolled down the corridor with Charity and the receptionist trailing behind us. Soon we were in front the same screen that I had been admiring a few minutes ago. When Marjory pressed her index finger on one area of the screen, the images and texts changed. Wow!

  “31 October 1814,” she began to explain. That was the date our town was founded. I mean, when Cahill and his loyal associates pioneered the lands of this county.

  On Halloween? Are you serious?

  She pointed to the photos by pressing her finger to a point on the screen to make them appear. The scenes ranged from old buildings to ancient men. They wore frock coats and funny hats, and they had mustaches. Oh...and posed with very serious faces.

  “The man on the right is the town’s founder, Adrian Cahill.

  My jaw dropped. How it is possible? I looked closely at the picture and noticed the striking resemblance. Of course this guy only could be Adrian’s ancestor. There was no denying...and there was another explanation, of course! Although his name was the same and both looked almost identical...only his clothes denounced the change of time. The boy in front of my eyes, so imposing as the actual Adrian that I’d met, wore trimmed sideburns. He was holding a watch—probably gold—strapped to his hip pocket with a chain.

  In the photo, he was not a cutaway like other men. He wore a white shirt, with sleeves rolled up, under a fair waistcoat. He posed with his foot resting on a log crossed before them. His posture, his look, and his physique were the same as his current descendant. Awesome! I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “That’s a family tradition.” She answered my unspoken question, as if she had the text memorized. “Every firstborn son was named Adrian in honor of the clan founder. Legend has it that the first Adrian was a prince, son of a Celtic queen with a powerful and mysterious warrior who had come from distant lands. That warrior would have been a comrade-in-arms of the emperor Hadrian.

  “The same Roman emperor, famous for devising the wall that separated the Roman conquests from the lands belonging to the unconquerable Caledonians. You must be wondering how an ally of the Caledonians, who vowed to defend their territory, could become friend of the enemy that they were supposed to fight against?”

  In fact, I wasn’t wondering about anything. But since she had brought it up, it really was a contradictory situation...

  “We don’t know for sure, but it seemed to involve a debt of honor. For some years, a pact of peaceful coexistence lasted between the Romans and the Caledonians until betrayal from both sides unleashed the war. We only know that since that time, all the firstborn of the clan would receive the name of the emperor. What originally was intended to repay a debt has become a tradition.”

  “Doesn’t it cause a mess?” I dared to ask.

  Charity giggled.

  “It absolutely does!”

  The receptionist laughed too, but in Marjory’s presence, she disguised it as a cough.

  “This is why I call Adrian ‘AC’,” Charity explained to me, “so as to not confuse him with his father.”

  Before I could vent my curiosity, Marjory made new photos emerge on the surface of the projection screen. “People standing on the deck of a merchant ship (slide one). They point to the continent in front of them—the Statue of Liberty (slide two). Close up of the elder Adrian with mutton-chop whiskers, sporting a pipe (slide three). Several people posed for the traditional family photo, wearing their best clothes. I thought I saw a girl who looked much like Charity among them (slide four). Men building houses and buildings (slide five). Couples dressed in Victorian style stroll the ancient streets (slide six). Men on carts loaded with groceries and other trinkets crossing muddy roads (slide seven).

  I felt an inexplicable desire to have seen it all, live and in color. It was like I had lost something that people definitely had shared—a history.

  “As you can see, this is an ancient family,” Marjory said. “The first Adrian to step on American soil was one very successful man in the field of navigation and a lot...eccentric. He was accompanied by some other clans—all relatives, employees, and friends. Other families gradually settled here, starting with the workers who participated in the construction of Panthers House.”

  I looked at her without understanding. I felt goose bumps all over just by the mention of the word “panther.” The stir came over me again, as if I were very close to unraveling some scabrous mystery.

  “I mean, the Cliff House...” The woman corrected quick
ly herself. “Panther’s Cliff or Panther’s House is the nickname that people gave to the place of permanent abode of the Cahill family.”

  “Why ‘Panther’s Cliff’?” My voice sounded unstable. I really want to know the answer? Instinctively, I looked back and couldn’t see Charity anywhere. Marjory also looked around. She seemed nervous, as if she had committed a faux pas. She excused herself and left me standing there, feeling flustered, but the girl from the reception desk... What was her name? Ah, yes...Rita. She answered my question:

  “The oldest Adrian Cahill, the founder, was an eccentric man. He brought his... his pets—animals that he’d captured in his adventures and travels around the world.

  “Panthers?” I whispered, realizing what she was telling me.

  She nodded.

  “Three huge, scary panthers who were watching the hills like guard dogs. More dangerous than dogs, obviously...but so devoted to their master as ‘the best friend of man.’ Those who ventured onto the property to steal something or who just felt moved by an imprudent curiosity didn’t come out alive from there.” She clicked on the screen and a new image appeared.

  The huge statue of a black cat was being carried on rolling logs surrounded by very thick ropes. Seeing the picture, I could almost feel the strength required to move the massive cat forward. A pulley system supported by a wooden structure attached to the stones appeared on the unfinished walls. It must have served to quadruple the force of traction. The ropes tied to the statue passed through pulleys and appeared distended on the other side, pulled by four pairs of oxen partially visible in the photo. It was an impressive scene.

  “The elders said that in dawns of winter...when the sky was starry and there was no wind, you could hear the roars of the beasts from many miles away. Whenever this happened, it was because they were...hunting.

  My eyes must have been bulging at that point.

  “Hunting? Hunting what?”

  Stupid question. What could a panther hunt which was not prey?

  “Who knows?” she said, pursed her lips. “Rabbits, lambs, deer... imprudent men, I guess.”

  “But these are just stories.” Reappearing suddenly, Charity interrupted us. “Unsubstantiated legends that are part of local folklore.”

  Marjory joined our little group. They both glared at Rita reproachfully. She immediately apologized and practically ran back to the reception desk. The poor girl looked down at her papers, not daring to lift her eyes again.

  Apparently, Charity didn’t want me to know about local legends. Why?

  They both gathered around me with Marjory in front guiding us back to the exhibition. In fact, I felt escorted by they both.

  On the next screen have emerged photographs showing the arrival of materials to build of the mansion. Stones, earth mounds, and working men—none these interested me because the images didn’t show what was being erected behind the massive wall.

  However, the pictures that most impressed me were related to the constituted town map for a three-dimensional program, which accelerated forward and backward, showing the urban changes in matter of seconds. According to Marjory, the idea is provide to the museum visitor a scale of the town’s evolution over the decades until the present day.

  Again, I thought: That’s what is cutting edge technology. It was very different than I expected from a museum. When thinking about museums, I think about cobwebs, old bones, wax dolls...whatever.

  “There are no photos of the “Cliff House”?

  Marjory looked at me with veiled expression and shook her head.

  “Why? I questioned, incredulously.

  “People outside the family circle never had permission to enter the property—only a few selected friends.”

  “Are you saying that nobody even photographed the place?”

  She nodded.

  I stared Charity, who shrugged.

  “Precautions of old men, rich and bored as usual,” she trivialized the situation. Our family has always been fanatical about security.”

  “Oh!” What else could I say?

  Marjory gently guided me to a large area lined with green screens. It looked like a big open box. This environment contrasted with the others. Marjory pointed down and explained that we were stepping on sensors that would activate multiple holographic images around us. After pressing the buttons on a panel mounted on the wall, beams of light popped and the images began to form around the two of us. In the beginning, it trembled a little until it became uniform and stable.

  Suddenly I found myself in the heart of Hadrian’s Wall, in the nineteenth century. People walked quietly down the sidewalk, passing by us, waving and smiling. Unbelievable! A virtual time machine.

  I darted out of the path of a chariot, but in that moment I remembered that these images were only illusory things. I let out a laugh, but it died in my throat the instant I saw him. He was casually standing at the curb with his back against a lamppost.

  Adrian Cahill looked directly at me.

  Behind him was a large house surrounded by a small garden. The sign said, “McPherson Hostel.”

  He was wearing a frock coat and topper on his head. For a moment I was transported to the first day when I woke up in the Caledonia Hospital and saw him beside my bed.

  Eager and enraptured, my eyes analyzed his ancestor in the smallest detail. That Adrian Cahill was the first to disembark in the U.S.—the town’s founder. He was the same height. He had the same piercing eyes—equally protected by glasses, although the lenses were different. Despite the mutton chops that followed the line of his jaw, he seemed as alive as his current descendant.

  Suddenly, he stopped leaning his back against the lamppost and began walking toward me without diverting his eyes from mine. Oh, God! My stomach stayed tightened.

  “Hundreds of small photos and footage shot by ancient cinematographers were uploaded into a computer program that wove together, in anticipation of kinesthesia, to fill the gaps caused by the deterioration of old films.” Marjory tried to explain to me. Jeez! Is that Mandarin or Greek?

  “The person responsible for this project was the fabulous Dr. Christian Wade. He succeeded in creating the illusion of movement in a three-dimensional plot. In turn, the footage was re-mastered, which helped to recompose the holographic setting viewed at all angles. Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Very...” I whispered.

  While disconcerting, the virtual reality was not what most impressed me...Adrian Cahill, in natural size, walking towards me as if he knew exactly what he was doing...that’s what really impressed me. It seemed so real...not a mere projection created by a computer. Sure, I was already delirious. I took a last look around as if the images could recur at any time. I had the unpleasant feeling of being watched by unseen eyes.

  When I noticed that Marjory and Charity had moved away through the columns of the hall, I ran to catch them. I was overcome by a sudden fear of being alone in that place.

  “There are no photos of the panthers?” I asked both of them.

  Charity laughed, but her smile no reached her eyes.

  “Why should there be? As I said before, the Panthers thing is pure superstition. Nobody ever saw them.” Her eyes crossed quickly to Marjory’s attentive eyes.

  It’s clear that someone had seen the panthers, but Charity didn’t want to talk about it. Why not, I had no idea...or did I? I believe that’s a question, the answer to which I’m not prepared to meet.

  “However...” she continued, with lightness. “You can see its statue at the entrance of the hill.

  Why would someone bother to build statues of panther if they didn’t exist? Whim of an eccentric billionaire? It’s funny...since I came to Hadrian’s Wall, most of my sentences have ended as a question.

  I forced myself to look directly into Charity’s eyes.

  “Now I understand a little more about the town. The walls, the saga of your clan, and everything else...”

  “Great!” She didn’t let me finish. “Then we
can go. On another occasion, you’ll be able to spend more time at the museum. Now, we have to go. Shall we?”

  Oookay, for sure! If I were still in town...and definitely without Charity’s presence, maybe I could extract more information from two employees of museum—maybe not from the boss, but I’m sure that Rita would be a valuable source of information.

  Before we reached the exit, we went through other rooms where objects appeared to be related to the history of the region. Beginning with archaeological artifacts dating from pre-history (cataloged by the local university), to crossing by scenarios that reproduced the daily lives of American natives and English colonizers, while going through either of these environments, I saw something at a glance that shocked me. In semi-darkness of the room, there was a heavy wooden trunk, very old and battered, with huge fetters and halters bolted to it. The fetters were rusty. I felt a strange pain in my chest.

  The two women half-stalled in the hallway when they noticed I wasn’t following them. Marjory decided to resume the tourist explanations:

  “The elders say that the panthers were tied to the trunk when Adrian Cahill was receiving guests at his mansion, but inasmuch as it is only legend, we cannot know for sure for what purpose this tool was used,” Marjory said. “After all, Cahill never had slaves.

  I was shaking with chills. Judging by the thickness and width of the handcuffs, cats should be huge.

  “Poor animals...prisoners of such horrible thing. It looks like a torture machine to me.” I could almost see the panthers swinging its head to get rid of the uncomfortable weight of the halter and scratching the ground with its claws. Restless, the paws would make the chains clink as they swung from side to side.