The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'We are certain of that. We believe he" was involved in some swindle to do with oil exploration. It went awry and he shot himself this afternoon before we could talk to him. Was he despondent?' 'He was drinking heavily.'

  'That often happens to alcoholics. Were you aware that he had a serious drinking problem?' ‘No. I knew he drank heavily.'

  'His company said he had to be relieved of duty, sort of stricken from the rolls, so to speak, because he had become unreliable. They had hoped he would be able to effect his cure while assigned to a public service project.'

  'I don't understand politics,' said Dr Petrovitch.

  'Not politics. Facts.' said the inspector.

  'Oh,' said Dr Petrovitch.

  'It is a shame you had to be sucked into this, doctor, but on behalf of my government, let me thank you for your wholehearted cooperation.'

  Semyon offered to shake hands and then realized his were very wet with perspiration. He also realized that he had not been told by Lew how quickly Sister Olav and the little patient would leave after he was gone, or how. Or where they were going in order to help the patient's recovery, to break the depression, and ultimately to enable him to realize what had happened.

  They were gone. Both of them. From his life. With just as much finality as Lew was gone. The American had acted much like a poultice, sucking all the evil humours to his own self. With his life. The least Semyon could do was to endure now whatever the bureaucracy would do to what they considered an innocent fool. It came quickly from a minor diplomatic officer.

  Dr Petrovitch was sourly told he had compromised the embassy itself. The embassy did not consider him helpful. There was a time, he was told, that he helped foster the friendly presence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics here in Norway by his cooperative work, sharing the advancement of Soviet science with a friendly nation.

  Now, this was not the case.

  Did Dr Petrovitch realize the significance of what had happened? This asked by a sombre, resolute, young assistant deputy consul for embassy affairs. Did he?

  Dr Petrovitch shrugged, gathering back his dignity. ‘No. I do not know,' he said.

  'Does it help to know the victim was Ferdinand d'Ouelette?' Dr Petrovitch shrugged.

  'The second best man with foil in the world is Anastas Boreskian,' said the assistant deputy consul for embassy affairs. 'Yes?'

  'You haven't heard of the name?'

  'No. That is not a sport I am interested in.'

  'Well, one of our citizens has just gotten himself associated with the murder of the best fencer in the world. Now do you understand the significance of what you have allowed yourself to be duped into? Yes?'

  'I understand that I have spent forty-two years avoiding the slime of politics, and you, son, reaffirm my basic decision.'

  'You know we cannot afford to leave you here to go wandering around like a trusted and responsible citizen. You know that, of course,' said the young man with his little triumph. 'But in case you don't understand the significance of what has happened, let me tell you that the sum total of your work is to add a slight taint to a Soviet athlete when he wins his rightful place at the next Olympics. People will forever wonder if Boreskian would ever have been able to honestly defeat d'Ouelette.'

  Semyon Petrovitch asked the young man if there was anything else he wanted.

  No, he was told, there was nothing else.

  'Then take some vitamin C, you're coming down with a cold,' said Dr Petrovitch.

  'Now, wait a minute,' snorted the assistant deputy consul for embassy affairs.

  'Stick out your tongue,' said Dr Petrovitch, and when the young man did so, Semyon Petrovitch, physician, knew everything would be all right. He was still a doctor, and he would be needed.

  The KGB officer understood the significance of what had happened. This only went to show the inevitable results of keeping a limited security staff in a country designated 'nonstrategic'. With a limited staff, citizens like Dr Semyon Petrovitch could be lured by the wiles of almost any foreigner, and even worse could happen unless the embassy staff at Oslo were brought up to the comparable French or British operation. Dr Petrovitch was going home.

  At Ringerike, at the Dominican convent, the mother superior heard that Sister Olav might never be coming back, that there was evidence she might have been involved romantically with an alcoholic swindler, now dead. And she was off, pardon the expression, Mother Superior, to God knew where.

  When the priest came the next morning to say Mass, the mother superior prayed for Sister Olav, whom she always believed had a vocation elsewhere outside the convent.

  When the sad happening was discussed with the office of the metropolitan, she said she believed not that Sister Olav had been involved in some unpleasantness or evil; rather, she felt, Sister Olav had realized possibly some calling that none of them at this time understood. And that everything would some day be clear.

  'Considering the facts, Mother Superior,' said a brother working at the metropolitan's office, 'that seems a bit too much to hope for.'

  'Nothing on this earth is too much to hope for,' said the mother superior.

  Thirty

  Olava watched Semyonus disappear, then looked at the timepiece on her wrist. And counted. She counted to two hundred, and I could tell it was to force herself to slow down. She wanted to make sure she was not rushing.

  At two hundred, she told me to put on fresh clothes and take only a few things. I put on a dark shirt and a bright pair of pants, but when Olava saw this she said the colour combination would attract attention.

  She selected a shirt and a pair of pants, the house being stocked with things to fit me, although most of them were white.

  'Do you have shoes for me?' I asked, for I had worn sandals and I had not seen others wear them, only the complicated lacing boots that ended at the ankles. I had been told that everytime someone wanted to put on these boots he had to loosen the thongs, and then tighten them and then tie them. Each time a person had to do this, on both feet.

  'No. No. Use the sandals you've been using.'

  That will not cause notice?'

  'No. No. Some people wear them today.'

  'Why are we running?'

  'To go to a better place, Eugeni. Hurry. Get dressed.'

  'No, woman. There is no place I want to go. I have no place. I have no place. You record everything and hear nothing. Don't you listen?'

  'Lewus has sacrificed his career for you and maybe more. Semyonus is giving up his research here for you. For them, Eugeni, come. Get ready.'

  'If they suffer for me, then I will do the same for them. I will cut my leg. I will bang my head against that wall. I will not eat.. Or better yet, in their honour I shall eat things I despise. I shall eat raw meat for them. I will not get ready.'

  'Eugeni, please.'

  'No. I have promised only not to take my own life right away.' '1 beg.' 'Do so.'

  'If we don't run, we will never see Rome.'

  'We are going to Rome?'

  'Yes.'

  'I saw those pictures. There has been some damage.' 'Eugeni!'

  'I will go. But there is no one there I know. Is there? There couldn't be, could there?'

  'No, Eugeni. Turn away. I've got to dress,' she said. 'At least let me close the door.'

  'You are dressed,' I said.

  'In other clothes, I want to dress in privacy. Give me privacy.'

  Her black robe, bunched in handfuls, paused at her ankles that were clothed in white linen. I did not move, nor did I let her close the door.

  She turned her back and disrobed anyhow, protecting her breasts and vagina from my sight, as though a gaze could contaminate. Her undergarments, too, were a latticework of webbing and strapping. But they were plain.

  She took the binding from her- head, showing choppy pale white hair cut short. Over her shoulder she glanced at me.

  'I don't have time to ask you why you are doing this,' she said.

  'I lust for your body
, Olava.'

  ‘I don't think so, Eugeni.'

  'You do not think you are desirable?'

  'You are working on me as though I were on sand with you.'

  'I have no sword,' I said. But she was right. She dressed hurriedly, in men's leggings, and a man's shirt, although she made no effort to hide her womanness.

  We left all the machines, and all the food, and everything that was in that small house without lock or guard, and together we went in the opposite direction from where Semyonus had so stiffly walked.

  There was an automobile for us on the side of the soft, black road, not stone at all, even here in the hinterland of the north country where stone would wear better. I assumed. The automobile had probably been sent here or driven here previously by Lewus.

  The key, without which the car would not start, was tucked under a simple visor that was used to shield the eyes from the sun. Olava had with her a packet the size of a small shield. She handed me a very small book. Inside was my picture, a machine-made product, called a photograph.

  This was a document nation-states issued to their citizens to control their passage. Lewus had this one for me for a while. According to Olava, it was his plan, at one point, to get me to flee with this passport out of the country, if need be. Not a serious plan. It was at a time before the match in the kitchen.

  Remembering this and their reaction I said: 'Murder. You have just committed murder.'

  'I didn't hit anyone with this car,' she said. ' You must have hit a bug. Is that not murder ? If a performance is murder, then hitting a bug might be murder too.' 'It's not.' 'Oh.'

  'And you know it's not, Eugeni.' 'I do.'

  Her shirt was a checkered jumble of coloured lines in an insane, disorganized pattern, made moire disordered by the straightness of the line. It was a design of one of the Briton tribes. I had been matched with Britons, or at least everyone thought they were Britons. The problem with Britons had been making them matter, I told Olava, but she was so intent on steering our automobile that she did not fall on this bone, as she normally did.

  'Are those pictures on our papers of passage used to find people?'

  'Yes.'

  "Then we may have troubles.'

  'Or not. Lewus has performed a deception that should work. Like you for your family. Most of the troubles will fall on him, but they will also look for the wrong people.'

  'You didn't trust Semyonus; that's why we waited, yes?'

  'He's already giving up an awful lot. Why put more of a burden on him than he can bear?'

  'I will dedicate my evening meal to Semyonus by eating stones.’

  'You who caused perhaps the greatest riot in all history, in all history...'

  'Hail the god History.'

  'You who caused what might have been the greatest riot in the history of the city, offering up everything you owned for your mother who was not alive.'

  'Ah, you will talk to me.'

  'I am explaining why you should at least respect Lewus and Semyonus and live for them and yourself. Your life has been paid for, Eugeni.'

  'To do what?'

  'To learn. To understand this great thing they have done. To ... I am not sure.' 'I most certainly will die for them because they have made my second passing necessary. Two deaths in a lifetime is more than one should die.'

  'You don't think of it as a second lifetime?'

  'I had lived my life with plans for a single one. I would say, looking back on it now...' And when I thought of Miriamne and Petronius, and the peristilium, the daily negotiations in my atrium, and even the cautious preparations for the arena, I became woefully sad and watched the road come up beneath us, and come up beneath us, and come up beneath us.

  Olava now made arrangements to change automobiles, and with that I asked her if she also did not trust Lewus.

  'For a virgin, you have much stealth.'

  'Lewus told me to do this. He is your friend.'

  'I like him. I wished he could have stayed, and you would have done what he did, whatever that was.'

  'I understand, Eugeni. You shared a commonality.'

  'I liked him.'

  ‘Yes. I heard.'

  'Hear? No. You must live to hear other humans. You don't live. You have taken virginity and made it into a wall.'

  'I have made vows, Eugeni, that require —'

  ‘I knew virgins,' I yelled at her stone-still head. 'I knew virgins. They had property. They had concerns. They had families. They had fears. I knew vestals. They were at the games. They were people.'

  'I am steering, Eugeni,' she said.

  'At this moment,' I said, meaning while she was operating the automobile, now; later she would not be, and her attitude would yet remain the same.

  Her jaw muscles twitched now. When she brushed her hands off on her leggings, I saw her hands were perspiring. At the height of this anxiety in her, she did a strange thing. She smiled at me as though this were a simple, joyous day.

  At one shop she bought dresses. She put on cosmetics, clumsily. To this she added a perfume, like a sow's afterbirth rotting in the sun. Then she asked if I was hungry, and further asked why I laughed at the question. Apparently, she was attractive to these people, for the men gave her smiling stares.

  There was a boat we took, larger than any I had ever seen, that carried us and many other automobiles over to Germany. When we were in Germany, she told me she had greatly feared being captured. But her fear did not leave, rather the real gnawing thing that sapped the marrow from her bone continued through the day. And we stayed at a hostel, Germany having been built up by this age with all manner of roads and the most modern of these inventions. And now, every German one saw, almost, was washed quite clean. They would no more think of covering themselves with grease than a Roman would.

  When the door shut behind us, Olava selected a chair to sleep in. I refused She was bigger, and I did not like beds anyway. She was tired. In her eyes and her body, she was spent.

  I had seen this tiredness before. It came after an honest match, and a hard one, where the person has gone farther than they ever suspected they could.

  Her blue eyes looked into the nowhere. I found the switch for the light and turned it off by myself. I curled up in the chair and fell asleep.

  I awakened in the dark, and suddenly I didn't know where I was, and I was calling for a slave to bring a lamp.

  'No slaves, Eugeni. This is the new time.' It was Olava, and she was crying. That was what had awakened me.

  Grave and stalwart - like the Roman tribune in a woman's body, like the Romans thought all tribunes were, while only the best were - this hard person, when she broke, broke like stone into so many little, helpless pieces, without give or bend in any of them.

  I could not find the light, but I found Olava. She was in the clothes and in the spot I had left her when I put out the lights. Her face was wet, her hands were cold. She was trembling as though no warmth could cut this shield of the north pain. I grabbed her massive shoulders and held. I squeezed until she said it hurt, and then my arms eased their hold.

  'Woman, we are alone. And we are lost,' I said in the blackness, somewhere in Germany, many centuries beyond where I could help anyone.

  'I prayed last night. And when I started to pray, Eugeni, I could not. I have sinned, but I did not know what else to do. There was nothing else I could do. I had to go with you. I have to escort you. You have no one else. Lewus is gone, you know. He is dead.

  We print things in writing of events of the day. I saw that this evening. He is dead, is that what frightens you?’

  'No.'

  'What frightens you?'

  ‘I am not sure any more. I knew before what the dangers were to my soul, which is my spirit. I love my God, Eugeni. In Him is my future, and I no longer know the way to Him. I am not sure of things any more.'

  'You mean, Olava, this is the first time you have been unsure in your life?'

  'Yes. As bad as this. Yes. This is the first time. I could al
ways reason things out. I reasoned out God, too.'

  She said she had joined her cult in a special way, vowing obedience and chastity and poverty, these things being given up now for a greater reward later, gifts to her god and to herself.

  This was her Christian sect, an outgrowth of the one that had come to Rome in my time. Today there were many Christian sects.

  She had left her order of virgins without permission because she felt an obligation to help me, because this was what she thought her god wanted. But now she was not sure any more and she was alone and deeply troubled.

  My arms hurt from holding such a large person, but when I released, I felt her gasp.

  'Eugeni, hold me. Hold me. Please. Do not let me go. I will give you anything. Do anything. Please hold me. I need you. Please.' Her voice was weak and tender.

  And I held her, and I felt myself wanting her in a man's way to a woman.

  We were quiet there in the dark, and I kissed her shorn hair, like I used to kiss Petronius' when he was very young, ‘I don't know what I feel,' she said. 'You feel nothing, woman. It will pass. May I let go?' 'Not yet. In a while.'

  'Let me tell you how Miriamne and I performed the ceremony of marriage,' I said. 'Good. But don't let go.' 'I can't hold you much longer, woman.'

  ‘A while’

  'We ate bread and drank wine and promised fidelity to each other.' 'Yes?'

  'Aren't you interested?'

  'Yes. Did anyone touch the bread first?'

  'Glad you asked, woman. Yes. It was an important thing that bread. Holy it was, and one of her Jewish priests held the bread and made it holy.'