by Ken Parejko
I shifted in my seat. Behind us a sudden, loud cheer rose out of the gladiators' barracks. “Herodotus says that all men have equal knowledge, or ignorance, of the gods,” I said.
“Do you believe that?”
“I'm afraid I don't know the gods. I only know what others have said of them.”
She put her hand on mine. “Perhaps you do know them, but don't realize you do.”
“So then,” I rejoined, “knowing you know them, that's the trick?” She didn’t respond. “But what about Caligula? He knew the moon, or so he believed. Knew her so well he talked her into his arms, and made love to her.”
“Yes.”
“Did his believing that Luna left the sky to spend the night with him make it so?”
She didn't respond.
To the west a few clouds were forming. My grain-dealer would be back soon. We sat a while silently watching the clouds change shapes.
“Were you happy as a child?” Drusilla asked, quietly.
The question took me by surprise. Of course I was happy as a child. For a long time I’d assumed everyone was. My mother was a strong but compassionate woman who put the well-being of her family above herself, but never entirely forgetting herself. Father was gone most of the time, as most of my friends' fathers were, but when he was with us he was gentle and kind to us. The Aulus thing was very hard on my parents, who for a time drifted separately into oceans of their own grief, far away from Little Sparrow and I. But they returned in time to care for us, as I knew they would.
Only after hearing the life stories of many of my friends did I realize how lucky I’d been; that many families were tainted by poverty, or the selfishness of one or both of the parents, who though they were parents continued to behave like children.
“Yes,” I said. “I was.”
She sighed. “I thought so,” she admitted. “As for me, I was a princess, my father King of Judea. When he wasn’t torturing or seducing someone he was too busy ruling to care about us. We were his line of descent, not his children, not people in our own right. Actually he only really cared about Julius. He’d rather we sisters not even have happened. It's not a pleasant thing, you know, for a child to realize you’re not wanted, a kind of wart on your family's face." She paused, stood up, bent to run her hand through the basin's water which she lavished over her face. She leaned back against a column. “Now here I am, with my own son, facing my own test as a parent. What do you think of his chances?”
“He's chosen a hard path. Actors cannot be appointed jurists,” I reminded her. “They can't vote. If caught in a crime they can be beaten without just cause. All that.”
“I know.” She turned to face me. “We're not full citizens anyway, you know, so he's not giving up as much.”
“And the military academy?” Actors aren't welcome in the military.
“He's resigning, after the performance. That is, if all goes well.”
“It's a big step.”
“Over the edge. It's what we do, we Agrippas. Wide flat plains bore us. Most of great-grandfather Herod's empire was flat, flat, flat, but he did all his building on the tops of mountains or down by the coast. We grew up, my brothers and I, on edges. It’s no different for Antonius.” She sat again. A starling began a long concert from a nearby acacia. It was a complex melody, and lovely. “And you?”
“Me? Well, actually I live near the sea, and halfway up the Cape. So I suppose it means I like living near the edge but not on it?” We listened a while to the bird-concert. “I’ve traveled my share. Germany, Spain, Africa, Egypt, Belgium, Judea, fighting in the dark woods of the north, and managing the mines of Spain. I don’t seek out adventure but I don’t turn away from it either. I’m comfortable wherever I am.”
Drusilla, envious, sighed.
“So,” I asked, “you've come all the way from Alexandria for your son's performance?”
“That, yes, and while I’m here to visit the Iseum."
“You’re one of hers?”
“Yes hers, and others. I’m on a search.”
“A search?”
“For my soul.”
“Your soul? And how will you know if you find it?”
She was silent a moment, then spoke quietly. “I’ll know. I’ve found pieces of it already, in the Iseum. I was initiated, just a few days ago, into the Dionysian rites. And I'm going to visit the Cumaen Sibyl.”
“Oh?” I would be traveling to Cumae, about the sacred woods.
“Now, again, the Sibyl’s fame is rising,” she explained.
“Ah.” These mysteries were beyond me. Cults and incantations, remnants of the superstitious past. I kept my distance. At most they were mildly interesting, in an anthropological sort of way; but to believe and actually take part in them, it was beyond me. Magic and all that hocus-pocus were just ways of trying to control the world. Their followers were mostly those like Drusilla who’d suffered in childhood and felt they weren’t really part of this world. They wanted to change the world so they didn't have to change themselves. Nero, Caligula. I kept my distance. Yet here I was, up close to one.
“When are you going to Cumae?” I asked.
“After his performance.”
“If you’d like, come with me. I have business there. With the cult, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, “about wood, for ships.”
“The sacred groves?”
“Yes. We need lumber, for some new ships. The groves are the last ancient forests around, and actually I’m for keeping them that way. So my hope is they’ll turn us down.”
This seemed to surprise her. “Oh. When are you going?”
“When do you want to go? We can take one of my ships.”
“That would be wonderful.” The road to Cumae ran through fever-infested marshes notorious for its bandits.
“Why not come over to Misenum first? I could show you around.”
“Could I?”
“Yes, why not?” I rose. “Now, I'd better be going. I almost forgot my business. Where are you staying?”
“The Via Stabiana. One door past Caecilius Jucundus’. With a widow, a priestess of Isis, named Avita.”
“I’ll send a boat for you. In, say, ten days?”
“Wonderful.” She raised herself onto her toes and kissed my cheek, as she had her son’s. I left her there, sitting beside the splashing fountain and its lovely little nymphaeum. I didn't look back, but felt her eyes on me as I made my way out to the Via de Teatri and from there toward the central forum. My business seemed now somehow uncommonly tedious, and I cared little for whether I would get the grain order filled or not. That bothered me, this new-found insouciance. Where had it come from?
As it turned out Pollo, the grain-dealer, was predictably apologetic and promised we'd have our grain in five days or less. “If it’s not,” I offered, “you won't see a government contract again.” Pollo bowed, fawned, followed me out the basilica.
I was halfway out the Porta Marina, on my way down to the ship awaiting me in the harbor, when I remembered the fish. I returned to the macellum where the shopkeeper handed me my mullets. They were still fresh, kept cool in cold water. I was breathing heavily again as I made my way down the steps and out of the city. In a few moments I was aboard the small Liburnian which that morning had brought me to Pompeii.
The ship cast off and the men rowed until we caught a wind. The sails were unfurled and we made our way, tacking against the west-wind, toward Misenum. I turned then for a last look at the city. The roof of the Doric temple in the triangular forum was prominent above the west wall. It seemed to me that I saw a tiny figure looking out over the wall, unmoving, in delicate blue silk, and it seemed too that an arm rose from that figure to wave at my departing ship. But it might only have been a trick of the sun, or of my mind, the delicate figure and the waving arm.
I raised a hand to wave back.
Chapter 22
Misenum
Aug.18, 79 C.E.
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and set at naught the cleverness
of the clever.
St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 1.19-23
The painter was due this morning, and the mosaicist. Plinia wanted to talk about new furniture to match the new dining room floor. I’d promised Caecilius we’d go down to the harbor to watch one of the new ships being towed out on its maiden voyage. As I was headed to the study to go through some new grasses I’d found yesterday along the beach I glanced out the door and there came the painter, the mosaicist, and right on their heels Drusilla. Yes, I thought, that's right. Today. How could I forget?
I stepped aside to let the men pass. They knew where to go and what to do. I reached a hand out to Drusilla and ushered her into the atrium.
“What a lovely spot,” she said as she came in.
“It is.”
A moment’s silence.
“You’re having some work done,” she added.
“I'll show you.” It was a pleasant morning, still cool, the light clear and bright. The man who’d brought her bags set them beside the door.
We stepped into the peristyle, where the painting was nearly done, the walls now a rich, deep red, highlighted along the corners with fine colorful images of local plants. In the dining room the old floor was gone and from the far corner the new pattern grew across the room.
“I’ve come at a bad time,” she apologized.
“It's okay.”
I took her to her room, far back where the villa nudged up against the hill, shaded by large trees, one of the coolest rooms in the house. I introduced her to Plinia, who welcomed her coolly.
So here she was, and in no time I regretted inviting her. Somehow she seemed not to fit in at all. She was like a sliver in the foot, a minor toothache, impossible to ignore and insisting on being in the thick of things. But she was a quick study and soon learned when I liked to be left alone and when I didn’t so much mind company, which was mostly at meals, when her intelligent curiosity endeared herself to me, as she asked probing questions about my work, family, and botanizing.
In a few days my resentment had given way first to a begrudging admiration then, almost against my will, a delicate affection. Now I enjoyed hearing her footsteps as she walked quietly through the halls of the admiralty. At first she kept clear of my study then one morning as she passed asked if she could come in. She stood surveying the room, piled high with sheets and scraps of papyri, plant specimens in and out of the presses I’d cobbled together, and a wall full of hundreds of papyri in heavily-used disarray. I was too busy scribbling away, bent over the writing-table set under the light of the room’s only window, to pay any attention to her. She stood quietly and the only evidence she was there was the light muskiness of her perfume, a smell I despised, on principle. I also resented the conflict the perfume set off in my mind between those principles and a part of me which found it surprisingly appealing. Without a word she whisked quietly away to her own room and the spiritual exercises she practiced, leaving only that trace of herself behind, a musky kind of gossamer webbing.
The third night after she’d come I was working late on the Flora, comparing several kinds of horsetails, common plants of the fields and meadows, which though they found uses as medicinal herbs were considered weeds in pastures and hay-fields, said to give diarrhea to the cattle which ate them. And what a mess their taxonomy was. As far as I could make out there were at least four different kinds within an hour’s ride from my house. A plant without leaves, almost entirely slender green stem, they provided few clues for identification. I was studying the primitive flowers atop their stems, looking for similarities and differences among the specimens in front of me. My eyes were sore and I’d begun to wish I had something else to do. As I worked thunder rolled in the distance, and outside the window a light rain began to fall, raising soft smells of the warm summer night. I relaxed, breathed deeply and gave up for the night.
As I passed her room I noticed an oil-lamp still burning. I slipped into bed, listening to the rain falling quietly outside, occasional flashes of lightning bringing the chairs and tables in the room into sudden silhouette. I was nearly asleep when a close flash of lightning brought my eyes open and who should I see but Drusilla, suddenly in bed beside me.
“The lightning frightens me,” she said, curling her body next to mine. I was at a loss for words. Finally I just went to sleep. I woke after the storm had passed, before the dawn had brought new light to a new day, and she was gone. That morning while we chatted over breakfast she took a deep interest in Caecilius’ lessons, but said nothing about her visit during the night.
The next night though there was no storm a few minutes after I slipped into bed she was beside me. We made love in the darkness. It had been a long time since I'd been with a woman, and in that darkness I found a new kind of light.
We lay beside one another. Perhaps two more different people had never shared a bed. We rested in separate worlds, I on my back not even noticing my noisy breathing which frightened her, it sounded so labored. My world was not a world of the heart. After describing everything the Roman mind had learned about nature, in my Natural History, and now on my quest to explore the flora of Campania, I now found myself overtaken with a kind of vertigo. The admiralty which had felt like home for me the past few years had been invaded with a new urgency, a reminder of landscapes I’d not visited, emotions I'd not explored. Thoughts of Vespasian came to me as I drifted towards sleep, who'd loved both his wife and his mistress deeply, and an image too of Aulus in whose eyes I caught glimpses of the same world, the landscape of the heart. The gray light of the moon and the whispered prayers of the sea slipped in through the west window. The calm of the night was shaken by a sudden subtle movement of the earth, like the twitch of a great animal’s limbs in sleep. Subtle, yet enough to bring us both awake. She clung to me as the quiet rattling of the water-glasses on the bed-table died away.
We lay together, listening to the sea and the wind, waiting for the earth, the room, the floor to shift again. It did not. Drusilla’s hand fell, like a fallen leaf, onto my thigh.
“I was thinking,” I said quietly, “of the first we met.”
“Caesarea,” she offered.
“Yes.” I used a long moment of silence. “I'd seen you before, you know, at Ara Agrippinensis.”
“You were afraid of me,” she said, her whispery voice the sound of the sea, her words the light of the moon.
“Yes.”
“And now?”
I didn’t answer. After a bit I said, “The war, in Judea, I learned so much.” It was as though she’d come too close to my heart and I needed to divert her away. “You know we couldn’t have won, if you Jews had been united.” Outside a nightingale suddenly broke into song, from far away, barely audible, its voice seeming to rise out of then dying back into the sighing sea. I coughed. “And all the holy men, each hovering over their own little piece of God, of earth.”
“Years ago I was down from Rome,” I said, relaxing to the feel of her flesh beside me, “in Puteoli, on business. I was at the harbor when a cargo ship came in, but carrying prisoners too.” I wasn’t sure why I’d thought of this only knew I wanted to share it with her. “I watched as they were unloaded. One they threw down onto the sand. He landed face-down. I watched as he pushed himself upright. What struck me was that he was neither a broken man, nor a man of hatred. He bowed to those who abused him, as though he was their servant, as though they were only dumb gears in the machinery of his fate. I asked a nearby guard who this man was. His name is Paul, he said, from Tarsus. One of the Nazarenes, the Christians.”
“Paul?” she asked. She turned over onto her back, slipped her left hand under my leg. “When was this?”
I thought a moment. A moth flew in the window, silently circled the room, as though come to overhear us.
“Almost twenty years.” I was quiet. Then in a voice of resignation, I added. “Is it possible, twenty years?”<
br />
“I knew him,” Drusilla said.
“Paul?”
“Yes, Paul of Tarsus. Of course.” We lay on our backs, just touching, speaking quietly up into the soft night.
“Felix, my husband, had him held in the palace’s basement, for two years..” She focused her mind across the years. “He was so...so religious. Like a mirror he reflected the light from his teacher. We…” she paused to choose her words. “We were like cat and dog in a cage, Paul and I. He was afraid of me, and if he was a different man, I think he would have hated me.”
The moth landed on the bed-table where it dipped its long tongue into a drop of water splashed out by the earthquake. The moth was a large, silent presence.
“Why was he your prisoner?
“For his own protection. The zealots believed only circumcised Jews should enter the Temple. But the Nazarene they call Christus brought a new kind of Judaism, a threat to the traditional Jews. Paul believed that uncircumcised gentiles should be welcomed in the Temple. It was a battle of the old against the new. They threatened him. He was willing to collaborate with us Herodians, against the zealots. We needed him, he needed us. So we protected him.”
“But you said he might hate you.”
She rested her voice. The moth rose gently into the calm night air and landed on the wall near the window. A dog down in the town beside the harbor started to bark, and in a few moments a half-dozen others joined in, before all settled back into silence. Somehow it seemed, against all logic, that the dogs were barking at the moth. I watched the moth. It did not move.
“My father arranged my first marriage, to king Azisus of Syria. I was a young, beautiful virgin. Azisus lusted after me, and panted after a connection to us Herodians. But he was Syrian, not Jewish. To have me he had to be circumcised.” She lifted her hand out from under my leg, found my penis. “Would you?”
“What an odd custom. I imagine it hurts.”
“Yes, I suppose it does.” Gently she held it in her hand, then let it fall back. “But Azisus did. He wasn’t healed yet, at our marriage, so I remained a virgin. He was insufferable, really, and stupid. My father insisted on the marriage for political reasons but I couldn't bear it and would not, for all the world, stay married to him. Felix’ brother Pallas, who became Claudius’ treasurer, was a favorite of Nero’s, and it was through him that Felix got appointed procurator in Judea. I’m sure you know all that. Felix saw me at some banquet or another and fell for me. Unfortunately I was already married. So he hired a friend, a smooth-talking holy man, Simon Magus, to visit me at the palace. We talked and talked, philosophy, politics, religion, but without my noticing he slipped into our chatter subtle praise of Felix and along the way convinced me to divorce Asizus so I could marry Felix. It was the only time in my life I was outwitted.”
