The Secret of Provence House

by Aubrey Rhodes

  ‘I am. I am on your side. I’m sorry. I was just trying to be polite. Please come back to the car.’

  ‘I don’t want you to talk to that girl in private. If she has something so important to say, she should say it in front of Camilla, and me. I’m your wife. Camilla is my mother-in-law. Who the hell is she?’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’

  Then she started to cry, and he took her in his arms and kissed the side of her head and rubbed one of her shoulders as he turned them both back toward the car.

  When they reached the cottage, she went up to their room straight away and ran herself a bath. James and Noelma tried to put the girls to sleep but they were both too agitated and so he sent Noelma away to her room across the hall and he stayed with the girls, reading to them and talking with them until they drifted off. He watched them for a few minutes in the light of the bedside lamp he had promised to leave on for them. The fact that Carmensina’s drunkenness and unhappiness had prevented her from making the effort with him to put the girls to sleep made him angry. But he knew that if he expressed that anger it would set her off again. He also knew that after her bath she would want him to make love to her, as proof of her continuing power over him, to show him and herself that everything was all right. He recalled the suggestion he had made to her some months earlier, that she ‘see someone, a professional’ and the torrent of derision she had spewed at him, deriding anyone who, in her opinion, was foolish enough to consult ‘escuraments’ for problems best solved ‘as my father used to say’ by an extra whiskey and common sense.

  He stood up and resisted the urge to give his girls a parting kiss for fear of waking them. Then he turned toward the door, preparing himself to go down the hall and face the music. They had all known happier times in that house and he only wished such times might someday return. At the moment it was hard to imagine how that might come about. He remembered taking Carmensina there once, before they were married, much to the recently widowed Camilla’s disgruntlement – and how different a time that had been, the couplings they had subjected the cottage to. The idea of making love to her now felt impossible, even as he knew she would be unbuckling his belt sometime in the next half an hour. He hoped his body would ignore his emotional state and rise to the occasion if only so that this trip might be salvaged. It occurred to him, and it came seemingly out of nowhere as he placed his hand on the doorknob to their room, that one thing he might attempt in order to accomplish the task, would be to fantasize about the person at the root of this latest disaster. Carmensina had been correct on that account, for he had thought the professor very beautiful.

  Chapter 15

  For three days and nights there was no wind. Lengths of cloth were strung along the deck for shade. Lucca and Octavius were stripped down to their loincloths. The slaves kept below where the heat was infernal were put to the oars. The ship’s captain fumed in a permanent state of ill humour for he was carrying perishables that needed to reach port as soon as possible. Drinking water was rationed. The Romans gambled and traded complicated, ribald stories of amorous misadventure. We few passengers passed the time telling tales as well, while dreaming of cool autumnal rains.

  I was telling Yeshua how many of my fellow tin merchants obtained their product from ports in Iberia, where tin and lead were brought from mines worked inland, but that I still preferred the longer journey to Belerion, what his mother had called the Cassiterites, where I could visit the tin streams and deal with the miners directly. Over the years I had come to know them, a peaceful and colourful people, and I saw no reason to change.

  ‘The land I am taking you to is green and cool. The stones grow moss. It is a land of sea mists, sheep pastures, cold rivers and winds.’

  It was then we heard the commotion below deck, an argument, loud but brief, followed by the unmistakable cracking sound of a whip. Then the noise of a man protesting, of a man being flogged and then being dragged against his will toward the stairwell connecting the lower and upper decks. The man’s protests turned into screams, terrible screams that all of us on the upper deck listened to transfixed, screams that pierced the deadly, still air.

  The captain and his mate pulled the screaming and all but naked slave up from the hold onto the deck. The captain yelled at the dark and wiry muscled little man with all his might, yells that were just as loud as the victim’s screams of protest. The mate held the man down and the captain went for his sword. He then began hacking away at the man’s wrists, terrifying the mate who was ordered to hold the slave still – an impossible task – and in whose vicinity the slicing sword came perilously close. The captain, crazed by his rage, was inept and clumsy in his vile castigation, but finally the poor slave’s hands were separated from his body with great spurts of blood spewing forth that covered the wooden planks of the surrounding deck. ‘Don’t look,’ I said to Yeshua. But it was impossible not to stare at such an eruption of savagery. I looked to my Romans to gauge their reaction and found them taking in the spectacle with what might have been a combination of curiosity and contempt.

  The slave fainted and went limp. The captain took him by the ankles and ordered the mate to grab him by what was left of his bloodied arms and they tossed the fellow into the sea. I made an effort to restrain Yeshua, but he broke free from my grasp and went to look. Octavius joined him. Lucca and I looked at each other until the legionnaire jutted out his chin and shrugged his shoulders. We later learned his transgression had been to remove his hands from his oar in order to tell a joke to those around him.

  Seagulls alighted upon the deck and pecked at the pools of drying blood. Hours passed, and in the afternoon a cool breeze arrived bringing clouds and, in their wake, a steady wind that filled the sails, breaking the tedium, bringing relief to the spirit, bestowing upon the slaves below a merited rest, and justifying to the captain his brutality.

  Chapter 16

  There was a knock on the library door, followed by James stepping into the room.

  ‘Laura?’

  She put her computer into sleep mode and turned, expecting to find him alone, but Carmensina and then Camilla came in behind him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, standing but staying put by her work table.

  She thought he appeared both better and somewhat worse for wear in the morning light. He had a rugged aura about him that she liked, and he had nicked himself shaving. Carmensina looked hungover and was wearing a navy blazer with gold buttons. Camilla looked sweet but sheepish.

  ‘I know you wanted to have a word with me alone,’ he said, doing his best to radiate a confident and much-ado-about-nothing tone, ‘but we thought, given the importance to my mother of the work you’re doing, that we should all hear what you wished to say to me.’

  In an instant Laura realized Camilla had been right about not telling James too much, for fear of his feeling compelled to share it with Carmensina who, clearly, was behind this awkward ambush. Laura sought to nip things in the bud.

  ‘Well I can understand that,’ she said. ‘But I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, which is probably my fault. All I wanted was to fill you in on some of the concerns I have about this project, as a courtesy really, concerns I’ve already shared, in full, with Camilla. We can talk about it some other time. I’d never think of keeping anything related to this project from her. We’re as thick as thieves, aren’t we Camilla?’

  ‘That’s just what I told them dear.’

  James looked relieved and unhappy at the same time. Carmensina, irked by this confession of mutual complicity, would not be put off.

  ‘What is this secrecy all about?’ she asked, taking a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. ‘Neither James nor I really know what it is you are doing.’

  ‘Surely Camilla has told you something.’

  ‘I have,’ said Camilla.

  ‘What?’ said Carmensina, ‘That you are translating some old document, some old book that belongs to the family.’

  ‘Exactly,’
Laura said. ‘It’s a text that might end up being quite valuable and I just wanted James to know that, and for him to know how important it is that he and Camilla can prove that it legally belongs to them, to all of you.’

  ‘I found the papers I was looking for early this morning,’ said James, ‘in the cottage, just where I’d hoped they’d be.’

  ‘Oh good.’

  ‘I’ll leave them with Mother.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  Laura then decided to cease being quite so cooperative and she just stood there, silent and composed, leaving it to the intruders to find a way to extricate themselves from a situation that was costing James a number of points in her estimation.

  ‘Well then – what is it you need to speak to James about “some other time”?’ Carmensina asked, taking out a cigarette but not yet lighting it.

  ‘Just some details,’ Laura said.

  ‘Well, why not now?’ Carmensina insisted, ‘I mean, here we all are.’

  ‘Because it is not a good time for me. I’m in the middle of something I should get back to.’

  She said these last words looking beyond James and his wife, resting her eyes upon Camilla.

  ‘Quite right,’ Camilla said. ‘Out we go then. We’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Sorry for the intrusion,’ James said, sounding like he meant it. Carmensina, who had no choice but to leave with them, began venting again to her husband and mother-in-law in Catalan as she marched out.

  Laura sat at her desk wishing the married couple would leave the estate as soon as possible. The idea of having to sit through another meal with them felt impossible and she resolved then and there to go into the village that evening for a pint and some shepherd’s pie. She was too unnerved to resume work right away. She had imagined what her talk with James was going to be like, a meeting of minds, the acquisition of an important ally, a hoped-for degree of understanding that would have allayed her worry that she was going to have to organize a response to what might happen when word got out about the project all on her own. But nothing of the sort had occurred. The man had caved quickly and disappointingly to the capricious needs of his jealous spouse.

  Hearing the two girls playing in the garden, Laura went to the window to look at them. To her relief they were not wearing matching navy blazers. As Noelma hovered nearby, lost in her own thoughts, the girls squatted down by the edge of the reflecting pool. Laura imagined they were looking at the large goldfish that swam about under lily pads. She imagined the strings of genes wrapped and enfolded within their cells, inherited from Irish and English and Catalan stock. Then she thought about her own, and how everyone was a mongrel, but a mongrel that more often than not showed off the best traits of each parent’s contribution. Or so it seemed to her looking at the girls and seeking to inject a bit of optimism into a day that had started so bleakly – the depressing piece she had translated, followed by the awkward confrontation. There they all were she thought, gathered in Cornwall that morning, a group of Spaniards and half-Spaniards, probably not half an hour’s drive from the tin mines Joseph of Arimathea was en route to back at her desk. She noticed the girls turning in the same direction and then saw James and Carmensina walking diagonally across the lawn towards them. Instinctively she stepped back from the window, but she kept on looking.

  Chapter 17

  As we approached the eastern coast of Sicily the volcanic mountain surged up from the mist. The ship docked at Siracusa and we were grateful to bid farewell to the foul-smelling vessel and its violent captain. Octavius, a distant descendant of the consul who wrested the city from the Greeks two centuries earlier, invited us to stay with his father and mother in their villa.

  Octavius’s father was an elderly, open, worldly man, eager for new minds to converse with. The palatial home was near Akragas, up in the hills and the luxury of its appointments was notable. Yeshua was given his own room with its own bath and assigned a servant. Gardens and patios with mosaics and pools abounded providing privacy and sweet-smelling plants and tiny birds, and there were well hidden niches from which to contemplate the sea.

  The wedding of a nephew was planned and the family was grateful to me for bringing their son to them at such a propitious time. No effort was spared to put us at ease.

  Out walking one morning I rested on a stone bench placed under the shade of a tall palm tree. Below me was a small garden with a fountain at its centre dedicated to the nymph Arethusa. Seated near the fountain were Claudius – Octavius’ father – and Yeshua. I listened to the following:

  ‘I would like to know more about Judaism,’ Claudius said, ‘about this Almighty God of yours.’

  ‘We do not preach it to others,’ Yeshua answered.

  ‘But,’ Claudius said, ‘what if I have been in error all my life?’

  ‘I’m sure you have been,’ Yeshua said.

  ‘So,’ said Claudius, ‘I have foolishly been making sacrifices and donating alms to our many Gods, each with their own temple, their own province in our lives – all for naught.’

  ‘Yes,’ Yeshua said, ‘all for naught.’

  ‘Might we bargain Yeshua? I will come here each day and learn what I must of your Judaism. But in return you must sit with an instructor of my choosing each night before retiring and listen to how life and the afterlife are regarded in the Roman manner.’

  At this Yeshua remained silent. Part of him surely rejected the prospect of having to listen to someone extol the virtues of sinful icons. But I imagine part of him relished the opportunity to convert an influential Roman. ‘I accept your proposal sir,’ he said.

  The instructor that Claudius chose was a beautiful young woman called Daphne who tended the family’s private shrine dedicated to Minerva. It stood at the highest part of their property. Daphne’s beauty mirrored Yeshua’s and from the first moment he met her – for he told me so one night in Carthage during a fierce storm when we were unable to sleep – he felt unsure. He had expected his teacher would be a man. Little did he suspect that bets were being tallied throughout the household based on what Claudius truly intended to happen. The only ones to wager against the patriarch and his family were Lucca and myself.

  Claudius dutifully appeared each day as Yeshua held forth on numerous matters regarding the Talmud and the Torah. Yeshua was a natural teacher so it came easily to him and it gave him pleasure, and Claudius, not entirely a cad, listened well and asked serious questions.

  And in the evenings, after the meal, listening to music while smelling lemon blossoms, telling tales, hearing my hosts discuss the intrigues and rumours that reached them from Rome, Yeshua would leave us and walk along a steep path under stars to the clearing high above the villa where Daphne awaited him. On the evening of the wedding feast Yeshua did not come back down to the villa. When I expressed my concern to Octavius and to his father, they told me not to worry, that he was in good hands.

  Before we boarded our new ship Lucca and I paid our debt, for everyone knew what had happened and everyone was kind enough not to make light of it in his presence. This is how Yeshua described it to me that blustery night in Carthage …

  ‘Despite my mother’s concern, I have taken notice of young women since I can remember. On the day of the wedding feast, I was asked to visit Daphne earlier than usual. The sun had barely set and such was the pleasure I took during my climb, the rosemary, the pines, the sea views that were no longer hidden in a shroud of darkness, that a scorpion climbed my leg and reached halfway up my thigh before I took notice of it. Not knowing what it was I swatted at it through my garment, only to feel its angry sting. By the time I reached the temple I was feverish. Daphne bade me recline and with the aid of her young servant girl they removed my garment. She recognized the wound at once and lost no time kneeling upon the ground beside me, whereupon she commenced to suck out the venom, spitting it away. Lifting my head to observe her, feeling her fingers gripping the bare skin of my upper thigh and knee, feeling her lips, teeth and tongue concentrated upon th
e intimacies of my affliction, I was, despite the pain, unable to control myself, and I felt myself hardening in a manner that was most embarrassing. It was soon impossible for either of the women to ignore it. But Daphne seemed unperturbed. She simply turned to the servant girl and said, ‘Attend to him.’ And then she looked up at me and said, ‘It will help distract you from the pain.’ The servant girl then proceeded to unwrap my loincloth. Both women paused a second to stare before getting on with their tasks, Daphne to empty my lesion of poison, the servant girl to empty me of something else. I swear to you uncle, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. ‘And there is an excellent chance,’ I said to him, ‘that, free of charge, it will never happen to you again.’

  I let him be for a few moments. And then I said to him, ‘That was not all that happened, was it?’ ‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘I was given something to drink that put me to sleep. And when I awakened night had fallen and I found myself upon a comfortable bed in a simple, narrow chamber that was new to me, lit by tapers placed along a small ledge that ran along one of the walls. Daphne appeared wearing a short and diaphanous garment new to me as well. She brought me some water and lay down beside me.

  ‘Where am I?’ I asked her. ‘This is where I sleep,’ she said. ‘How long have I been here?’ I asked. ‘Many hours,’ she said. ‘I was worried about you at first, but now you are well.’ ‘I have caused you to miss the wedding feast,’ I said, ‘and I must go. My uncle will be concerned.’ ‘Your uncle, and everyone else in the villa are either drunk or asleep by now,’ she said. ‘And I had your uncle advised some time ago. You should continue to rest, here. The gods decree it.’

  ‘My god forbids it,’ I said.

  ‘Your god forbids that you lie with me, not that you sleep next to me. That is all that shall happen here tonight.’

  After that we lay there in silence. As time passed some of the tapers died out. The bed was not wide, and it was difficult to sleep or even to turn without touching her in some way. I remained silent for fear of provoking something. We fell asleep until some hours later when I awakened again. It was deep into the night and colder and all but two of the tapers had gone out. She was turned toward me on her side and her garment had opened and I saw her breasts only inches away. I leaned into them and softly kissed them, softly kissed their gentle swell and then she awakened and kissed me back and we spent the rest of the night and early dawn together. I sinned mightily and though my Heavenly Father may have been angry with me and ashamed of me, her gods were not, for Eos brought the dawn and Aeolus a sweet breeze and Helios brought the sun rising in the east and Morpheus granted a deep sleep to Daphne allowing me to rise and dress and take my defiled but pleasured body back down to the villa.’