The Deadliest Lie

by June Trop

  “So, over the last few months, with Sergius’s encouragement, my fantasy has become a reality. And he told me that after I retire, I could become a trainer, manager, or even the owner of a ludus in the provinces. He himself earns commissions from managers all over the Empire by sending them athletic young men likely to withstand the rigors of training and attract a following. But he earns most of his income by investing in prospective gladiators like me, financing their trip to a ludus and collecting a share of their signing fee and purses.”

  I listened raptly, shifting my position only to ease the jab of a wicker spine against one of my bruises.

  “We reached an understanding more than a week ago and met as planned at the cookshop so we could review the conditions of our agreement and I could sign the promissory note.

  “Late this afternoon at the pier, he’ll give me a letter of introduction to the lanista in Capua and another to the Bank of Gabinius in Rome, where, through our branch in Alexandria, he’s established one account to fund my journey to Capua and another to collect his share of my signing fee and prize monies. In return, I’ll give him our mother’s jewelry to hold as collateral, accept delivery at the warehouse of the provisions he’s ordered, wait at the inn for the herald to announce the ship’s departure, and direct his porters to load my provisions onto the ship.”

  Given his mastery of these particulars, I wondered whether Binyamin might have made a better business partner for Papa than Noah.

  “Sergius explained that I might have to wait weeks at the inn, but he has an arrangement with the copa to accommodate me indefinitely, everything included, even prostitutes.”

  In one rhythmic sequence, Binyamin flicked a smile and waggled his head in disbelief at his good fortune.

  “Once in Rome, I’ll wait for the next tournament with Rufinus’s gladiators, sign a contract with him there, and travel to Capua with the troupe, or I’ll hire my own mule and carriage and take my time getting there.

  “So today I’ll leave this house for good, and except for you and Aunt Hannah, I’ll be glad to leave everyone else.”

  “Will you at least say good-bye to Papa? He really does love you and, in his own way, has wanted the best for you.”

  “No, Sis. I couldn’t bear another row with him. Besides, since Shabbat, we’re like two ghosts. We occupy the same space, but we’re invisible to each other. So I think it’s better if I just leave.”

  “But please,” I said as I lifted myself out of the chair to grasp his hands. “At least let me accompany you to the pier. I’ll hire a curtained litter to wait for us on our side street so no one will witness your leaving or stare at my bruises, and together we can have one last spin around the city in style.”

  He shrugged as if he had no choice and then managed a stiff smile.

  So I ordered a litter for that afternoon. I only wished I could have ordered the scrolls to appear as easily. If Papa didn’t take them and Binyamin didn’t take them, then who did? And how and why did they do it? With only one more day to find out, the last flutter of hope was dying in my breast.

  Chapter 24

  Thursday Afternoon into Early Evening

  SHADING OUR EYES like cave dwellers, we tiptoed into the sharp afternoon light, swiveling our heads in unison like a dancing duo to make sure no one was about. Then we rounded the corner to view our waiting litter, its fittings like molten gold under the baking sun, the polished ebony bodies of its eight Nubian bearers resplendent in their starched white tunics threaded with gold. Dizzy with the prospect of gliding through the streets high above the ox dung, I could pretend that we’d be riding on the wings of Mercury. That we’d be sealed in a compartment, invulnerable to the realities of time and space. And that we’d be on a celebratory outing rather than playing out the last scene of our shared history.

  Folding ourselves into the compartment, we settled facing one another on overstuffed cushions scented with rosewater, Binyamin’s bag at his side. Spikes of sunlight tamed by the lace curtains warmed my face and intensified the excitement in Binyamin’s eyes before spilling into the gold-threaded interior. Then the bearers lifted the litter to sweep us southward through our quarter to the Canopic Way, westward to the Museum, northward on the Street of the Soma through the agora to the Caesareum, and finally along the harbor to Binyamin’s pier in the Eunostos.

  “I really appreciate this send-off, Sis. I know you’ve been worried about me. But remember, I’m not studious like you. I could never spend the rest of my life bent over a ledger like Papa and Noah. So I figure this is my best option. I could have enrolled in the ludus here, but I wouldn’t have the same opportunities for training and competition that I’ll have in Capua. Besides, I need to make the break for Papa’s sake as well as my own. Can you imagine his reaction if I were training right here in Alexandria?”

  Some change in his expression, perhaps the slight parting of his lips or the lifting of his eyebrows, told me that he was taking the moment to enjoy that fantasy.

  “Binny, Binny, Binny, of course I’ve been worried about you.” I didn’t let on how worried, beginning with the voyage itself, not only the risk of a storm but the certainty of shipboard scoundrels waiting like vipers to feed on him. I only hoped he couldn’t hear the apprehension in my voice.

  “You’re a part of me,” I said, “the better part considering your grit, even as a child daring to confront Papa regardless of the consequences, something I’m still not able to do. And yes, I believe you could have a future in the arena. I just hope you’re not doing this to atone for our mother’s death. Papa may blame you, but her destiny was determined long before we were born.”

  “No, Sis, I really do love the games. You know I don’t respect many things, but I do admire the Roman virtues gladiators represent: their discipline and dignity, their physical form and fearlessness, and their will to win. And Sergius says I have the gift.

  “I admit I’ve borne Papa’s blame, but you’ve kowtowed to him. You’ve let him plot your future even though it means marrying someone you find repulsive. By the way, I find Noah repulsive too.”

  “My reasons for marrying Noah are complex, but mostly I think it would be best for the family”—

  “You mean best for Papa. Look, I know you’re interested in someone else. Don’t blush, Sis. The whole quarter’s been gossiping about it. You are, after all, our Aphrodite. They see you in the agora—and I don’t mean on just the calends—without Papa’s bodyguard and when you could have sent Phoebe.”

  I gawked at him, biting into my lower lip before dropping my chin and tracing anxious circles on my himation with my index finger. But then I remembered the gaggle of matrons in the agora, their multiple chins shaking, their lips pinched in disgust as they pelted me with impudent stares.

  “Oh, Binny. No wonder Papa’s been insisting I set the date.”

  “There you go making excuses for him again. You don’t have to marry Noah just because Papa says so. Life is short. Take it from me: Pursue pleasure. That’s the only lesson I remember from school, that one class in philosophy, that pleasure is the supreme good, and bodily pleasures are better than mental pleasures. To me, being a gladiator means pursuing those pleasures both in and out of the arena.”

  The scar on his left cheek wiggled in synchrony with the rhythm of his voice.

  “You know, Sis, I’ve never been afraid, certainly not of Papa. To me, his punishments were inane. Why should I care whether he grounded me? I’d just jump out my window and go wherever I wanted anyway, to the Gymnasium or Zenon’s cookshop, to hang out, gamble a little, or lure his voluptuous daughter into the pantry, where she’d flaunt her vulgarity and I’d relieve my lust.”

  Binyamin made a lewd gesture with his hands.

  “In a sense, I had more freedom when I was grounded, because I didn’t have to explain where I was going, and you were ready to swear that I’d spe
nt the evening studying with you. I only wished he’d have grounded me from school.”

  This time when his lips parted, they curled into a full smile.

  “Still, Binny, I’d have this recurrent nightmare that he’d caught me in the lie and turned me into a bronze statue that looked like Medusa after Athena had punished her.”

  He threw out a whoop of laughter, but when he saw I was serious, his guffaw froze in the air, his face puckered, and he shook his head as if to say I was a hopeless ninny.

  “Listen, Sis, you’d feel guilty when you were in the kitchen and the cook broke a plate.”

  Peeking through the curtains, watching the scenery slide by, I noticed we’d already turned onto the Way, its otherwise deserted concourse speckled with a few heat-drugged vendors hawking parasols and honey-sweetened water inside sharp-edged slivers of shade. Our bearers, their feet barely brushing the pavement, loped through the Bruchium Quarter, turning its colonnades and fountains, temples and monuments, sphinxes and statues into a radiant blur. Soon we’d reach the Museum with hardly a chance to glimpse at Eratosthenes’s astrolabe under the portico of its soaring central hall. Or squint at the shimmering marble dome of the Museum’s circular dining hall. Or crane our necks to gaze at the top of the observatory. Or watch the scholars saunter along the tree-lined walks to the Great Library. Or peer into the surrounding park, its arcades, botanical gardens, ornamental pools, and statue of the Muses.

  Casting about for any anecdote to forestall the doomsday silence that was threatening to blanket our litter like a toxic gas, I told Binyamin about the time Hector took me to the Great Library. Nowadays, anyone literate can access its manuscripts, but we had a special invitation because Hector knew the director. They’d studied together years ago, long before the burden of a dying brother’s laographia forced Hector to sell his freedom to Papa.

  Hector had to chide me for gasping when I entered the vaulted reading room, the Library’s largest and airiest hall. The beams of sunlight streaming through its arched clerestory windows were exploding into countless beads of light. Some splashed onto the fluted stone pillars and the bearded busts of the Library’s greatest scholars who peered out at us from every niche. Others glinted off the marble walls and the rows of multicolored Alexandrine lamps. At the same time, secondary beams polished the long, narrow mahogany tables and warmed the finial-topped, leather-cushioned armchairs.

  The readers were scattered among the tables. Several sat back brooding over their cache of scrolls while their curling sheets of papyrus, inkwell, and tray of sharpened pens lay idly about. Others were hunched over their papyri, scratching notes furiously. I lingered to watch them as if I could absorb their erudition by breathing in the hall’s scents of leather and tranquility. One scholar with a tonsure of orange frizz and unkempt whiskers was leaning back with his arms folded across his chest, waggling his head and jiggling his leg in bafflement. Another, a white-haired Arabian with a prognathous jaw, stared at the ceiling’s covings while scratching his head and squinting into the light. A frail, hollow-chested Carthaginian bowed his head and bit his lower lip when his hulking colleague rebuked him for his dry, concussive cough. And a red-faced Iberian with a crooked nose and a harelip wielded a torn scroll in an insistent arc to summon a tiptoeing slave to bring him a replacement.

  As self-conscious as I felt when Hector chided me for gasping, I buried my face in my hands when he had to do it again, this time in a less-than-patient baritone “for clopping like a horse on cobblestones.” (The patter of his sandals on the dark-veined, polished marble squares made hardly an echo.) But the image of a horse in this very hall prompted me to burst into a fit of giggles like the side splitters I’d have with Phoebe. As if my lack of control weren’t mortifying enough, when it launched Hector’s wayward iris into a clockwise spin, I succumbed to yet another, more hysterical fit, this one punctuated by snorts, croaks, and hiccoughs and culminating in a puddle on the floor.

  Never mind that I’d come to see the double-door meeting rooms, lecture halls, recital theaters, and refectories. That I longed to feel the weight of the silver door levers and smell their metallic residue on my hands. Never mind that I’d set my heart on seeing the director’s office. His collection of rare scrolls is rumored to fill every cubby on every wall from the dado to the carved wooden ceiling. Never mind that I’d also dreamed of gazing at that ceiling’s stunning design, an optical illusion inlaid with red, green, yellow, and rarest of all blue jasper. And never mind that Hector had promised to show me the Museum’s vivisection laboratories.

  An unbidden gag escaped from Hector’s throat, one he hastily converted into a dry cough. The blood that had drained out of his now stony white face must have rushed into mine because I could feel my throat throbbing, my color reddening, and a wash of sticky sweat pearling across my forehead. Instead of continuing our tour, Hector tugged at my elbow and hustled me into one of the many chambers that flank the hall. Each must store hundreds if not thousands of scrolls, but I noticed only the chamber’s ancient dust and the acrid odor of its greasy tallow wicks. With my eyes already burning and my nose beginning to sting, I dreaded yet another fit, this time of sloppy sneezes, wet and explosive.

  Slaves on ladders were shelving and fetching scrolls from immense storage cabinets while others were hauling armloads and basketfuls to waiting readers. In one corner, three bearded scholars sat huddled over a table stacked with layers of unrolled manuscripts. Hector explained that they were comparing different Homeric texts to ascertain the canonical version, which, as a source of income for the Library, scribes would copy for wealthy bibliophiles around the world.

  I was diverting Binyamin with this story of my outing with Hector when, distracted by a flock of twittering sand martins on wing to the beach, I peeked through the curtains again to see that we’d already passed through the agora. Spotting the sprawling emerald lawns of the Caesareum ahead, the vast cityscape that dominates the Great Harbor, and hearing the sea thunder and hiss against the rocks, I realized with a bile-swirling jolt that our jaunt was almost over, that the present was sliding toward the future all too quickly.

  Soon we’d be entering the grounds of the Caesareum. Perhaps for the last time Binyamin would gaze upon its gilded statues of nymphs and goddesses; its galleries, banquet halls, and libraries; its porticoes, promenades, and reflecting pools; its terraced gardens sloping to the sea; its leafy groves and thickets; its sculpted fountains and topiary; its courtyards redolent of roses, the beds backed by jasmine hedges and the walls lined with espaliered fruit trees.

  Next he’d gaze upon the temple itself, its entrance heralded by two great obelisks known as Cleopatra’s Needles, its façade burnished to a pale amber in the late afternoon light. Wounded by his own sword, Mark Antony died here in the arms of his Cleopatra, and she, having failed to beguile Octavian, provoked the bite of an asp to die here eleven days later in the arms of her handmaidens.

  Instead of viewing the sights, Binyamin had lowered his chin. With his eyebrows contracted, he was pressing his palms against his cheeks, his fingertips against his lids. But a moment later, he was Binyamin again. Having won his struggle for that Roman self-control, he lifted his chin and pasted a thin smile on his otherwise impassive face. Afraid to test the durability of that smile, I looked away to pluck at the folds of my himation before unfastening our mother’s fibula.

  “Here, Binny, I want you to take this for protection.”

  At first, he leaned back, squinting and cocking his head. But when he saw the fibula in my hand, he raised his shoulders and straightened up. Tossing some cushions out of the way and holding onto the side of the litter for balance, I inched toward him on my knees.

  For a moment, while I was pinning the fibula to the right shoulder of his chlamys, I felt a prick behind my eyes and thought our tears might mingle. But no. Only his shallow, rapid breaths and the heat of his body betrayed his stress.

 
; Then, thrusting his arm through the undulating curtain to signal the bearers to stop, he said in a flat voice, “I have to go now, Sis.” Before his words could melt into the warm breeze, the bearers had lowered us to the curb. Grabbing his bag and bolting through the curtain, Binyamin began a run toward his pier while I stayed to listen to the rhythmic jingle of the clasps on his travel bag and watch his figure become a minified silhouette in the fading daylight and then disappear.

  Chapter 25

  Thursday Evening

  “HOLD STILL, MIRIAM.”

  “But Phoebe, it stinks.”

  “You want to walk around with that bruise on your face forever? You look like you’re wearing a rotten plum.” Phoebe could make me smile even when she was bossy.

  We were in my sitting room, the sea breeze rustling the crowns of the cypress trees while the candelabra threw amber stripes across the mosaic floor tiles and into my cubiculum. I was sitting at one end of the sofa, on the edge of the cushion, my knees crossed, one leg twisted around the other like a vine. Phoebe was standing over me fussing with the poultice, refolding the warm, mustard-filled cloth to secure it around my head with a strip of linen. I was relaxing in the pleasure of her sweet breath against my cheek when, with a frisson of excitement, I noticed a rolled-up sheet of papyrus on my writing desk.

  “Phoebe, what’s that?”

  “You know that twisted little man, the hunchback I see begging in our plaza when I go to buy produce from Nestor? He slipped me this letter when I was serving your aunt lunch in the courtyard. He’d been waiting by the curb, and when he spotted me, he called out and handed it to me through the thicket. I’m lucky I didn’t scratch my arm on the thistle when I poked my hand through the fence.”

  “Did you say you scratched your arm?”

  “No, I said I was lucky. But he scratched his.”