A Mist of Prophecies

by Saylor, Steven

  Her symptoms were obscure. There were no sharp pains, no visible rashes, no vomiting or foul excreta. She felt weak and out of sorts – ‘uncomfortable in my skin,’ she said. She was sometimes dizzy, sometimes short of breath. She had no faith in the physicians or their treatments. When she bit one of them for pinching her tongue too hard, I told the quack he was lucky to leave my house with all his fingers, and I decided to send for no more physicians.

  A household is not unlike a human body, with a head and a heart and a sense of well-being that depends on the harmony of its various parts. The disposition of my household changed from day to day, depending on Bethesda. Her bad days were bad days for everyone, full of gloom and foreboding. On her good days the household stirred with a cautious sense of hope. As time passed and bad days outnumbered good, hope receded, so that even the best days were tempered by a deep anxiety.

  To please Bethesda, I kept to the house as much as possible. For long hours I did little more than sit beside her in the garden, holding her hand while we reminisced. It was in Alexandria that I had found her. I had been a young man, footloose in the world. She had been a slave, hardly more than a child. At the first sight of her I was hopelessly smitten, as only a young man can be. I was determined to purchase her and make her my own, and I did. When I returned to Rome, I brought Bethesda with me. It was not until she became pregnant with Diana that I made her a free woman and married her so that my child would be born free. Why had I waited so long? Partly because I feared that such a drastic change in Bethesda’s status would also throw our relationship out of balance; she already wielded quite enough power over me as my slave! But our marriage and the birth of our daughter had only strengthened the bond between us, and freedom had strengthened Bethesda’s character in every way. Where before she had seemed wilful, she became strong willed; where before she had seemed petulant, I came to see her as fiercely determined. Did these changes take place in Bethesda or merely in my perceptions of her? I couldn’t say, and Bethesda was the last person to ask. Paradox and irony held no fascination for her.

  When we reminisced, it was not to remark about subtle states of mind or the way things changed but stayed the same. Our conversations served to remind one another of a vast, shared catalogue of people, places, and things. The mere summoning up of these memories brought us a shared pleasure.

  ‘Do you remember the beacon atop the Pharos lighthouse,’ she would ask, ‘and how we sat on the deck of the ship the night we sailed from Alexandria and watched it dwindle to nothing?’

  ‘Of course I remember. It was a warm night. Even so, you shivered, so I held you next to me.’

  ‘I shivered because I was afraid to leave Alexandria. I thought that Rome would swallow me up.’

  I laughed. ‘Do you remember how awful the food was, on that ship? Bread like bricks, salty dried figs—’

  ‘Nothing like our last meal in Alexandria. Do you remember—’

  ‘– the little shop on the corner that sold sesame cakes soaked with honey and wine? The memory makes my mouth water even now.’

  ‘And the funny little woman who ran the shop? All those cats! Every cat in Alexandria came to her shop!’

  ‘Because she encouraged them,’ I said. ‘She put out bowls of milk. The day before we left, she showed us some kittens, and you insisted on smuggling one of those kittens on board the ship with you, even though I expressly forbade it.’

  ‘I had to bring something of Alexandria with me. The Romans should have thanked me for bringing them a new deity! Imagine my surprise when we arrived and I saw not a single statue of a proper god anywhere in the whole city, no falcon-headed Horus or dog-headed Anubis – only images of ordinary men and women. I knew then that you had brought me to a very strange place indeed . . .’

  At some point we would both realize that we had had this exact conversation before, not once but many times over the years; it was like a ritual that once begun had to be pursued to its conclusion; and like most rituals its mere observance brought us a curious comfort. One memory would lead to another and another, like links in a chain that wound around and around us both, cinching us together at the very centre of the time and space that encompassed our two lives.

  And then . . . the shadow of her illness would pass over Bethesda. The corners of her mouth would constrict. Her brow would furrow. Her hand would tighten, then loosen, in mine, and she would say that she was suddenly weary and light-headed and needed to lie down. I would draw a deep breath, and it would seem to me that the very air was thick with worry and repining.

  I began to feel like a prisoner in my own house. Small irritations grew into unbearable torments.

  Androcles and Mopsus drove me to distraction with their constant bickering. One day I yelled at them so sharply that little Androcles began to cry, whereupon Mopsus began to tease him, which drove me into such a fury that I barely restrained myself from striking him. Afterwards I felt so ill that I had to lie down, and found myself wondering if I had fallen victim to Bethesda’s complaint.

  Hieronymus, whose mordant wit had always amused me, began to strike me as a pretentious buffoon, always prattling on about Roman politics, a subject about which he knew next to nothing. One night, losing my temper over some particularly sarcastic observation of his, I remarked on the prodigious quantities he was able to consume at every meal, at my expense. He turned pale, put down his bowl, and said that from that point onward he would take all his meals alone, after the family ate, dining upon our scraps. He left the room, and nothing I could say would persuade him to return. This was the man who had taken me into his home in Massilia, sharing everything he had with me.

  Davus, who had saved my life in Massilia, earned my wrath one day by knocking over a tripod lamp. Trying to pick it up, he tripped and stepped on it and damaged it even more. When he was done, all three of the bronze griffin heads were dented and the pole was bent. It was – or rather, had been – one of the most valuable objects remaining in the house, something I had counted on being able to sell if the direst need arose. I told him that his clumsiness had robbed the household of a month’s worth of food.

  Even with Diana, I became short-tempered. When little Aulus was noisy, I blamed her, and I found myself arguing with her about her mother’s illness and what to do about it. Our disagreements were over small things – whether Bethesda should drink hot beverages or cold ones, whether or not she should be kept awake during the day (so that she might sleep more soundly at night, I argued), whether to heed the advice of a physician who had told us that the blood of a sparrow would be beneficial to her – but the words we exchanged were sharp and bitter. I accused Diana of having inherited her mother’s worst traits of stubbornness and wrongheadedness. In a cruel moment she accused me of caring less about her mother than she did. I was cut to the quick, and for several days would hardly speak to her.

  I looked to my son Eco for relief. Like Meto, he was my child by adoption. Unlike Meto, we had never had a falling-out of any sort, yet over the years we had grown apart. This was only natural; Eco had his own household. He also had his own livelihood, following in my footsteps, and although we had occasionally consulted one another professionally over the years, Eco had grown increasingly independent and kept his business and financial affairs to himself. Increasingly, he also kept his family to himself. Eco had married up, into an old but faded family desperate for fresh blood, the Menenii. His wife and Bethesda had never really got along.

  The afternoon I invited Eco and his brood to my house turned into a disaster. Menenia said something to offend Bethesda – some nonsense about the women of her family ‘staring down’ illness rather then submitting to it – and Bethesda promptly retired to her bed. Eco’s golden-haired, eleven-year-old twins, who took after their mother, took shameless advantage of Mopsus and Androcles, ordering them to fetch this and that. When Androcles muttered a remark about ‘losing their heads someday’ – a bit of inflammatory rhetoric he had picked up in the Forum, no doubt – Eco wa
s appalled and insisted that I punish the boy like the slave he was; and when I refused, he took his family home. Goaded by his brother, Androcles gloated about his escape, whereupon I finally did deliver a few sound thwacks to his backside. Everyone in the household went to bed miserable that night.

  In the past, there had always been someone to whom I could turn in troubled times, even though he was seldom present. Confused, unhappy, seeking solace, I would have locked myself away in my study, taken up my stylus, unlatched the cover of a spare wax tablet and rubbed it blank, and set about writing a letter to Meto. Knowing he might not read my words for many days – secretly fearing he might never read them, for he was a soldier and often in danger – I would nonetheless have set down my thoughts and feelings to share with my beloved son; and having done so, I would have felt a great relief and a lightening of my spirit. But now, by my own decree, that avenue was closed to me. In those dismal days, how bitterly I missed that source of solace!

  Oppressed by the uncertain state of the world, anxious about my debts, worried by Bethesda’s illness and the discord in my household, aching from the loss of the son I had disowned – such was the state of my mind when I decided to escape the safe confines of my house and go off wandering one day.

  I had done much the same thing almost a month before, on the day I found myself at Cassandra’s apartment and later witnessed Caelius’s disappearing act in the Forum. But whereas on the previous occasion my feet had taken me straight to Cassandra’s door, unwittingly or not, on this day I found myself taking a much longer walk as I trod a meandering course through the city. Having lived so long in Rome, knowing it so intimately, it was probably impossible for me literally to lose myself in the city. Nonetheless, I fell into a certain musing state of mind, forgetful of my bearings and direction and alert only to my immediate surroundings and the sensations they produced.

  It was a fine day for such a walk, typical of late Maius, sunny but not too hot. The charm of Rome was everywhere. At a quaint neighbourhood fountain, water poured from the mouth of a gorgon into a deep trough from which women scooped brimming buckets. (Water, if nothing else, was still plentiful and free in Rome.) Just around the corner, a huge bronze phallus projecting from the lintel of a doorway proclaimed the presence of a neighbourhood brothel. The sun happened to catch the phallus at such an angle that it cast a shadow onto the street so absurdly enormous that I laughed out loud. On the doorstep an uncommonly plump prostitute sat sunning herself like a cat. As I walked by, she opened her eyes to slits, and I believe I heard her literally purring. A little farther on, I came to a long alley fronted by continuous walls on either side; both walls were overgrown with blooming jasmine, and the smell was so heady that once I reached the end of the alley, I turned around and retraced my steps, just to see if the scent was as sweet going in the opposite direction.

  Every time I turned a corner, I was confronted by memories, sweet and bitter. I had lived so long in Rome that sometimes it seemed to me the city was a map of my own mind, its streets and buildings manifestations of my deepest memories.

  In this austere little house, now painted yellow but bright blue when I last entered the door, I had once comforted a grieving widow who summoned me to solve the murder of her husband – and it turned out that she herself was the murderer . . .

  Down that street a band of thieves, intent on cutting our throats, had once chased me and my slave Belbo – how I missed that faithful bodyguard! The two of us had escaped by ducking into a fountain and holding our breaths . . .

  I crested a hill and saw in the distance the terraces and wings of Pompey’s vast mansion atop the Pincian Hill outside the city walls; an intervening haze of heat and dust imbued the place with a slightly unreal, floating quality, like a palace seen afar in a dream. When Pompey slept at night, so far from home, was this how he saw the house he had left behind? The last time I had seen Pompey – making his escape by ship from Italy – he had tried to strangle me with his bare hands. The memory made my throat constrict. At that very moment, was the so-called Great One alive or dead? Was he standing over the slain body of Caesar, listening to his soldiers declare him Master of the World – or was he just another mortal turned to ashes like so many before him, whose ferocious ambitions counted for nothing when the jaws of Hades opened to claim them?

  At the craggy base of the Capitoline Hill, I passed the gate of the private family cemetery where years ago I had met in secret with Clodia on the eve of Marcus Caelius’ trial for murder. How I had been smitten by that mysterious, aloof, treacherous beauty! In all my life, Clodia had been the only woman who had ever tempted me to stray from Bethesda. Until now . . .

  No matter how circuitous the route, no matter how distracting or amusing or arousing or appalling the memories summoned up by each turning of a corner, my feet knew where they were leading me.

  When I arrived at the doorstep of her tenement, guarded by the dog who did not bark at my approach, was I surprised? A little. The part of me that desired her – totally, without question, beyond reason – had outfoxed the part of me that knew such a thing was impossible, improper, absurd. Absurdity, more than anything else, might have stayed me. A much older man hankering after a beautiful young woman inevitably presents a preposterous scene. I thought of every lecherous old fool I had ever seen on the stage and cringed at the idea of making a comic spectacle of myself. Even assuming that my advances were welcomed and mutually desired, there were complications – not least the fact that the object of my desire might be as mad as everyone said, in which case, was I not equally mad to be pursuing her?

  As to the greatest complication of all – my companion and wife of many years, ailing and alone in her bed at home – I could not even bear to think of that. In the end, I was hardly thinking at all as I found myself propelled forwards by some mechanism of the body far removed from conscious thought.

  If she had not been in her room, or if Rupa had been there, perhaps things might have turned out very differently. But she was there, and she was alone. I pulled back the curtain, unannounced and without warning, expecting to give her a start. Instead, she slowly turned her face in my direction, sat up on the pallet, and rose to her feet. As she slowly walked towards me, her eyes never left mine. She parted her lips and opened her arms. I let the curtain drop behind me. I think I let out a little cry, like a child overwhelmed by an unfamiliar emotion, as her lips met mine and covered them.

  XII

  The morning after my visits to Antonia and Cytheris, I again rose early. Bethesda stirred and spoke a little, but remained in bed. She had almost entirely stopped eating, and this, even more than her lethargy, was beginning to worry me. Her face had become gaunt, her eyes vacant. The powerful will that had ruled my household for so many years seemed to be seeping out of her little by little, leaving only a shell behind.

  The day was already warm, but a chill passed through me. For the very first time – always before I had managed to avoid the thought – I had an inkling of what the world would be like without her. I had experienced life before Bethesda, but so long ago I could hardly remember such a thing. To imagine a life after Bethesda was almost impossible. I reminded myself that in such matters we mortals seldom have a choice, physicians and radish soup and prayers to the gods notwithstanding.

  I ate a little. I summoned Androcles and Mopsus to help put on my toga, then sent them to do the same for Davus. Thus my day began as had the previous two, and I realized, with a twinge of mingled pleasure and guilt, that I had begun to enjoy this routine. It gave me something to take my mind off Bethesda, and my debts, and the discord in my household. In a curious way, even though it was all about her, it even took my mind off Cassandra, or at least gave me something to think about besides the obsessive longing she had stirred in me – and the consequent guilt – and the grief I had felt when she died in my arms.

  I realized, as I made plans and preparations for the day, that I was working again – not for another, and nor for money (alas), but
working nonetheless at the curious trade that had sustained me throughout my life. In recent years I had gradually retired from that trade, leaving it to Eco. I had become Gordianus the husband, Gordianus the father, Gordianus the chin-wagger in the Forum, and even, against all expectations, Gordianus the illicit lover – but no longer Gordianus the Finder. Now I once again found myself doing what I had always done best, looking for the truth of a matter that no one else cared, or dared, to pursue. I had found my bearings and settled like a wagon wheel into a familiar groove. In spite of all my reasons to feel miserable, at least I could say with certainty who and what I was. I was Gordianus the Finder again, pursuing the course the gods had laid down for me.

  Davus stepped into the garden. From the satisfied, slightly stupid look on his face, I suspected that he and my daughter had found their own release from the strains of life at some point during the night. And why not? I tried to suppress a twinge of envy.

  ‘How is—?’ Davus’ question was cut off with a yawn as he stretched his arms above his head, disarranging the folds of his toga.

  ‘Bethesda is no better . . . but no worse,’ I said, hoping I spoke the truth.

  ‘And where are we off to this morning, Father-in-Law?’

  At the height of Milo’s power, when he ruled a veritable army of street gangs in competition with Clodius, he and his wife, Fausta, had lived in one of the city’s more imposing houses, a worthy habitation for the daughter of the dictator Sulla and the husband from whom she expected great things.

  That house and its contents had been confiscated by the state and sold at auction not long after Milo’s exile from Rome. Fausta, though she remained married to Milo, refused to accompany him to Massilia. Without a house, where was she to live and by what means? As it turned out, the law included a provision for an abandoned wife to reclaim her dowry from the first proceeds of confiscated property. Fausta’s dowry had been considerable, and after the auction she managed to get much of it back. With that money she had moved into a smaller, more humble dwelling on the far side of the Palatine Hill from my own. She was not exactly poor, but she had fallen a great distance in the world.