Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  Between the entrance to the grounds and the vast workshops stood a trim, dapper building, three or four storeys high, fronted with sheets of pale marble so that it looked unrelated either to the other buildings or the dusty ground around it. It shimmered in the hazy air like a mirage. It even had a frieze of statues within its pediment, cast in polished steel: Vulcan stood in the centre, his hammer swung up into the apex of the triangle that framed him. He was top-heavy; the knotted muscles of his shoulders massive and inflated, his legs crippled, but it did not seem to bother him. He was forging the armour of Achilles. Around him were assistant Cyclopes, bending over their tasks, obedient and absorbed. Sulien looked up at them and was reminded queasily of Bupe’s one eye.

  A young woman in smart, dull-textured clothes, not a slave, came out to meet them, a taut square smile pegged out on her face like a tent. She said in a similarly strained, polite voice, ‘You’re from Transtiberina, yes? Will you come up?’

  ‘Not yet, we won’t,’ said Varius. ‘You keep us very busy. I want to see how.’ He walked away, towards the shell-filling shop.

  Dismayed and angry, the woman followed him. ‘Where do you think you’re going? It’s dangerous if you just … Well! No one’s taking any responsibility for you going in there, I hope you realise that!’

  By the time he reached the entrance of the workshop, Varius genuinely could not hear her. He went on, into the centre of the works, and Sulien followed, more reluctantly. The machine-driven hammers were ranged along one immense wall, gnashing beneath chimney-like shafts that bulged into bell-shaped hoods, like a street of adobe houses. The metallic scent Sulien and Varius had noticed outside was far stronger here; every breath carried a drift of metal particles, filed from the casings of the shells, and the fine grey dust lay everywhere, mixed in with the general grime and darkness on the floor, which sometimes stirred with the suggestion of rats.

  There were ranks of slaves in the heat and dirt: pushing the hot rods of metal into the maw of the hammers; packing the shells with explosive powder at long benches; obscured, at the far end of the chamber by a jerking loom-like machine of vertical rods and droning leather belts. Not one of the slaves so much as glanced up from their work at Sulien or Varius. Beside the benches, on low carts, the finished weapons lay in stacks, like many huge, innocent vases.

  It was impossible to think; the noise of hammers seemed to flatten the very self to nothing. Although there was obvious danger everywhere, the part of Varius’ brain that sputtered reflexively with possible deaths fell silent, as if overloaded. For a second he shut his eyes, the sound filling his head, and for that time he felt oddly reluctant to leave.

  But, they were inside only a few minutes before letting the angrily-smiling woman lead them out again to the management building with the frieze of Vulcan. They climbed through floors of clerks tending ledgers and records of purchases; the woman showed them towards an office and then subsided to a desk of her own where her look of strained hostility altered slightly but did not disappear. There were very few other women.

  The office was smart and pleasant, although there was a blur of dust on the windows, as well as the constant dull thudding, just palpable within the floor and walls. Presumably everyone got used to it, working there, whether as a slave or a director.

  Proculus, the manager of the factory’s operations, sat down and nodded at them repeatedly with a grudging smile. Still nodding, he said, ‘Well. All right,’ as if he’d already been forced to yield a point, and then sighed. ‘So, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?’

  Sulien had meant only to sit in the room and let the conversation wash past him; he still felt too shaken by what had happened earlier to do any more. But he was angry too, and found himself speaking as if on a furious physical reflex: ‘Why do you think we’re here? Do you mean you don’t know what we see, week after week – the state people are in when you dump them? I should have brought pictures.’

  Proculus winced, not with shame but with exasperation, and said with regretful impatience, ‘Well, I know about you. You were a slave yourself, of course. You see a distorted view of the matter.’

  Sulien blinked, speechless.

  ‘Of course, there is a question of profit. But contrary to what you might think, that is not the only thing at stake. We’re not turning out saucepans here. We all know this is a vulnerable time, and what we do is essential to protecting Rome. And that, I’m afraid, can’t stop for anything.’

  Varius told Proculus calmly, ‘We’re here to help you.’

  Sulien and Proculus looked at him, both taken aback.

  ‘In what way?’ asked Proculus, guardedly.

  Varius leaned forward, purposeful and friendly. ‘We can help you keep your slaves going longer. We think we can find a way to save you a significant proportion of what you spend on replacing and training them.’

  Proculus paused. ‘Look, I’m sure that works in other industries, but the reality is when they’re finished here we can’t use them again.’

  ‘But,’ Sulien shook his head, ‘don’t you feel anything for them? Any regret? They end up covered in burns, or blind, or dead. You can’t just …’ He wished he hadn’t come. He felt as if he had soaked up some of the violence from the disused apartment block and it threatened to spray out of him again at even a touch. He tapped his foot, trying to earth some of it.

  ‘I’ve already explained,’ said Proculus wearily.

  ‘You haven’t explained how you can bear it. It’s getting worse all the time!’

  Varius agreed, ‘It’s true, it is getting worse.’ He was not worried by Sulien’s outspokenness; it was pretty much what Proculus would have been expecting from them both. He would be relieved that Varius at least was talking to him dispassionately.

  ‘Well,’ said Proculus. ‘We’ve had to increase production.’

  Varius felt a small flick of attention. ‘Why’s that?’

  Proculus looked at once amused and bewildered. ‘I think we all know why. Nionia. It’s only a matter of time. We’ve had instructions from the military.’

  Varius was silent for a moment. He looked at Sulien. ‘Salvius,’ he said. He would have to tell Marcus about this. He did not want to. It was an uncomfortable reminder of Marcus’ offer. But he carried on, evenly, ‘If there’s a war, then it’s all the more important that you don’t waste the resources you have. How many slaves are there, working here?’

  ‘About a thousand, give or take.’

  ‘Not so many, really,’ remarked Varius. ‘And it’s true, as things are now, many of the slaves you dispose of are – irreparable. But there are things you could do. You know that. There could be better shields on those machines. You could keep them healthier. The ones we see are so clapped out it’s no wonder they have accidents. And then we would have a better chance of returning usable labour to you. And there may not be a war—’

  ‘Well, all the signs say to the contrary.’

  ‘You’re probably right, but even if it’s only further off than you think, as long as we don’t have new shipments of prisoners of war going onto the market, then slaves are only going to become more and more expensive. Either way, you need to take steps to get more out of the ones you have.’

  Proculus’ face had become still and reflective. He said nothing.

  ‘You should invest some of what you spend on new slaves with us,’ said Varius.

  ‘Then you want money?’ As Varius had anticipated, Proculus looked contemptuous, and yet a little more comfortable too.

  ‘Of course we want money,’ said Varius, and gave him a sudden, broad, genial smile. To Sulien, who was watching the conversation with near-disgust, this looked bizarre and out of character, but, to his surprise, it prompted Proculus to utter a slight companionable chuckle. Varius expanded amicably, ‘We have to keep the place going. We all have to have something to live on, too.’

  Proculus chuckled again and said, ‘Yes, we all have to do that.’

  ‘But as I’ve said,
I believe you’d save money overall. It’s very much in your interest. From another perspective too.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  Varius smiled again, more thinly. ‘Our new Regent is very concerned about these things. And we both have connections with him.’

  There was a silence. Proculus sat motionless, his own smile fading. ‘All I can say is that I’ll take this up with my superiors,’ he said at last.

  ‘I’m glad you will,’ said Varius mildly. ‘And what will you recommend to them?’

  A trapped, unhappy ripple played over Proculus. ‘That we … make changes. I can’t promise you anything about the money.’

  ‘Good. But there are improvements you can make yourself.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I will think about what can be done.’

  Varius extended his hand. Proculus took it, subdued. ‘We’ll go over to the slaves’ quarters now,’ Varius told him, almost kindly.

  ‘Is that really …?’ began Proculus, sounding almost mournful.

  ‘It may help us come up with more suggestions,’ said Varius, letting go of the other man’s fingers. ‘It’s been good to talk to you.’

  Outside, the noise marched up again to meet them. They did not speak. Varius was aware that Sulien hadn’t looked at him since they’d left Proculus’ office. At last he said impatiently, ‘He wasn’t going to get on his knees and beg forgiveness, Sulien.’

  ‘I know,’ muttered Sulien.

  ‘I don’t know how near or far off abolition is, but a few more of them might live to see it. It’s better than nothing.’

  ‘I know,’ repeated Sulien.

  Varius walked faster, leaving Sulien a little behind. He’d said what he’d meant to; the disgust he’d felt with the words and with himself had perversely seemed to help him, like a fuel burning. It had worked as well as he could have expected, better even. There had been moments when it had seemed to him he’d heard something like his own argument before, somewhere else, a friendly ruthlessness that was not wholly like himself. As if someone were saying to him, do it like this, place this barrier here, and it will work. Where had he learned that? Who was that like?

  Gabinius, he thought, as his foot hit the dust. He stopped, briefly immobile with fury and revulsion. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he told dead Gabinius in his head, and he paced on again towards the barracks, trying to check an unforeseen gust of rage about Gemella – not so much the usual, almost-tedious regret that he should have seen at the time what was going to kill her and stopped it, but anger that it was not preventable now, that she could not be forced back to life. The factory crunched and roared around him, there was no good reason to be there.

  Sulien did not try to catch him up. He was tired now, and trying to cast an understanding blur over what Varius had said to Proculus was more tiring still. Behind the barracks, all along this side of the enclosure, the barb-topped fence gave way to a brick wall that rose ten feet above the barracks roof and then sprouted a crop of ferociously edged blades, curling inwards like cats’ claws. The long dark shed below, windowless except for a few skylights, was divided into three sections, each with its own low-pitched roof. Ahead, Varius entered one of the further sections of the barracks, seemingly leaving the first partitions to him. Sulien pushed a door open cautiously, afraid of wrecking someone’s sleep, if sleep were possible in the babel from outside. But the barracks seemed to be empty; no one lay in the rows of stinking beds before him. The narrow bunks were placed along the walls as regularly as the hammers in the factory, but far more tightly, scarcely a foot between them. The thin, oily mattresses bore the bleary yellowish imprints of bodies as if whenever someone rose from the bed someone else had always thrown themselves down at once, to lie and ache. Even at a glance he could see the live reddish dust of bedbugs. There was a single tap on the wall behind him, no other way of washing, it seemed, although the shed must have housed 0 people at a time. There were buckets. The smell was hot and vivid, and as nauseating as the stale odour in the room in the Subura flat. He felt too tired to think clearly about what he saw now, or even to worry about whether Una had ever had to live anywhere so horrible. It was such a long day and he still did not know what he was going to do at the end of it, if it was even safe to go home.

  Varius, entering the next dormitory, could not make the door stand open and looked around in automatic frustration for something to prop it open with. Then he abandoned it in disgust, allowing the door to swing shut behind him, even though this was more like a dungeon than anywhere he’d been, even in prison. His body tensed at once, and his heart began to beat fast and bitterly, but he only needed a few minutes in here, surely he could damn well stand it that long. He made himself concentrate: get Sulien to tell him about which diseases would spread here and how fast, he would concoct some exact-sounding figure of how much money this was costing Proculus, what should be done …

  Then, like something he’d summoned, the blast of noise from the factory stuttered and changed, something burst in its heart. Varius turned, thinking in instinctive dread of the stores of explosives around the site, and just as he was reminding himself that they were spaced to avoid the risk of one accidental blast setting off another, a second explosion came – nearer, worse. Through the closed blinds, between the slats of the roof, he could see something hurtling across from the core of the factory, bright like a shooting star. It soared with a silky whispering sound, and struck the next division where Sulien was. The connecting door flew open and Varius saw the space beyond it lighting up.

  As the boom slammed against him and made his bones hum, Varius felt that he was going to be paralysed with shock – was even angry in advance with his failure to do anything. But in fact, he moved immediately, down between the files of bunks towards the door, shouting Sulien’s name. There was no answer, and when he called again he could barely hear himself over the rushing of the fire and the drumming of falling embers on the roof. He got halfway to the door and knew, suddenly, that he would not make it the rest of the way in time; the little comet that had set fire to the barracks had been flung from the shell-filling shops, the mortar factory. The two blasts so far were only like the first bubbles rising from the bottom of a heated pan of water. More would come, much worse, and any second now.

  He grabbed the upright of the bunk beside him, pressed himself into the space between two beds, towards the wall furthest from what was coming. He got up onto the lower mattress, and then it came – a surging force that wiped all sound before it, mauled down the walls and the roof, and hurled him down on the fetid bed and pinned him there. The bed skidded back, driven hard against the wall, its foot mangling and sloping as the broken roof and the opposite row of bunks were rammed into it, cracking and tumbling. Tangled barricades of smashed wood piled themselves up on either side. The bunk above jolted and collapsed down over him. Not one explosion but a pulsing string of them, unrolling over the ground. All the light crumpled up like paper.

  He could hear nothing except a cold hollow humming, cupped in each ear. He might have been blind too; the blackness was solid and total. Varius elbowed at the stuff that lay over him, struggled up onto his knees, dragged on something, a long serrated spar. The remnants of the bunk bed had left him in a little triangular space, like a cave. The back wall of the shed seemed to be still intact, but on every other side he felt a dark mass of splinters and smashed boards. The spar was wedged fast and wouldn’t move. He fished around, loosened something – a slat from another bunk, a plank? – flung it down beside him on the bed like a prize.

  He was at the bottom of a newly lit bonfire. He could feel the heat of the flames overhead, fluttering on the outer shell of the wreck. And he knew, feeling something like rough fingertips on his lungs, that the hollow where he crouched was filling with smoke. Varius’ head clouded, his limbs grew heavy. In a slow, sing-song voice it came to him gently: no one can blame anyone for getting killed in a fire. As if for future reference, as if it would be helpful to tell people, he noted that it was not
as bad as you might think. Certainly he would have shrunk from it happening like this. Burning was the worst kind of pain, but, as it turned out, the smoke killed you before the flames did, and mercifully fast; soaking you up swiftly and cheerfully, like alcohol. Varius blinked good-humouredly in the blackness. He was coughing steadily as he worked, and his eyes streamed, but he did not mind that much. (The half-smashed frame of the bed was supporting what was left of the ceiling, the mass on either side more loosely packed. Varius clawed, pulled, kicked.) Yes, it was like getting drunk. Someone should tell people these things. And he was alone, he could do whatever he wanted. No one would know if he just lay here on the bed and waited. He had not even had to make the choice, here it came: his so-much-belated death – out of nowhere, a free gift.

  Was Sulien going to die too? Varius felt a great rush of drunken sorrow at the idea. No, no, no. He would be all right.

  He threw another dusty lath down beside him. He had a little pile there now. As he scrabbled at it, the wreckage shuddered rhythmically – he felt rather than heard that the explosions were still beating out across the compound. Still marvelling at the extraordinary kindness of death by smoke, he kicked again as the next shiver came, and something overhead dislodged and shook free. There was a fall and clattering, a few bright flakes of orange fire dropped past in the dark, and he felt a little puff of real air, clean on the edge of his lungs. For the first time, as if a severe, prompting voice had said his name, Varius noticed with disbelief what he had been doing all this time, how hard he’d been fighting. His arms, straining against the bars of wood, ached with effort. Had he been knocked out when the walls first blew in, was it possible that he could have started trying to dig his way out even before he was properly conscious again? Because he could not remember beginning.

  He thought with clearer alarm of Sulien in the next dormitory, the burst of gold fire. There was a little yellow blaze somewhere below and ahead of him now, where the sparks had fallen. It was eating away the air, but it let him see: he had cleared a gap in the thicket of ruined planking, crossed and hatched about though it was with fallen beams. He was aware now of the rage of his body, the horror of being trapped in this tiny and poisonous space. He forced himself bruisingly in among the shafts, reached and thrashed fiercely, feeling things shifting and cracking under and around him like dry bones. He got his knee onto what was left of the top bunk and pushed upwards again like a swimmer, A fragment fell aside and then his head and shoulders were in the daylight and the smoke-infected air.