The Uncertain Hour

by Jesse Browner

  “Come with me, little one.”

  Petronius untethered the puppy. It groveled and shrank from his grasp, then buried its head gratefully in his armpit as he clasped it to his chest and inhaled its oily, sour-milk scent. Somehow, the smell revived him instantly, as if it were a potent tonic or drug, and he returned to the party with a lighter step. Yet, as he approached the group, he became aware of an ominous silence, and almost at the same time he caught sight of a dark, motionless figure watching them from the shelter of the colonnade. The others had seen it too. Nero had sent his men after all, then, and it was time to call an end to the party and make his hasty good-byes. Petronius sighed and got to his feet, and the executioner stepped forward. Petronius knew him immediately.

  “Are you still alive then, Arbiter?” Turpilianus called out, extending a hand that Petronius ignored as they closed in on one another.

  “I always feel alive in your presence, brother, whether I am or not. Is it really you he’s sent? That’s resourceful.”

  The other guests had risen, too, automatically, assuming that the time had come, and loitered uncertainly some paces away. The newcomer did not appear to be armed—was clothed, indeed, in the finest red toga, as if he had come directly from a triumph—but there was surely a contingent of soldiers waiting just out of sight in the event of trouble. Petronius imagined that, even in the dim light, the family resemblance must have been striking to them, and disconcerting. Titus Petronius Niger and Publius Petronius Turpilianus were of the same height, the same build, the same bearing, the same black hair flecked with gray and worn unfashionably long by both. In this gloom, of course, they would be unable to see the cruelty in Turpilianus’s eyes, or the corruption of his heart. Perhaps there was nothing to distinguish the brothers in the dead of night.

  Turpilianus lowered his voice. “Don’t worry, you’ve got a few hours left. They’ve only just now wrapped up your trial.”

  “How did it go?”

  “You lost.”

  “My sentence?”

  “You need to ask?”

  “So what have you come for?”

  “I’ve come to say good-bye, Arbiter. Hope you acquit yourself nobly.”

  “Well, good-bye then. I’ve got guests, you see.”

  “Yes, I see. The emperor will be gratified to know that there are still Romans who value loyalty above their own personal safety. They’d do well to clear out before dawn.”

  “Thank you, I’ll see to it.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to give me? For safekeeping, I mean. Deeds, wills, that sort of thing?”

  “I don’t think so. Good night, Turpilianus.”

  “Good-bye, then, Arbiter.”

  Just as he had appeared, Petronius’s brother melted into the shadows and was swallowed up by the night. Petronius stood his ground, just to make sure there were no further unpleasant surprises. When he was convinced that he had seen the last of his brother, he sighed and turned back to the guests, who sat in a row on the edge of the couch, glum and ill at ease, like petitioners outside a magistrate’s office. Petronius put a little bounce into his step, clapped his hands, and rubbed his palms together.

  “That was pleasant,” Martialis said.

  “You will all do me the favor of returning to your places and filling your glasses. We must not give my brother the satisfaction of imagining that he’s ruined our evening.”

  “What is the matter with that man?” Lucilius demanded furiously. “Has he no decency whatsoever?”

  “He has the face of a man swimming underwater.”

  “How could two such different men spring from the same loins?”

  “What makes you think we are so unlike? Anyway, he is only my half-brother.”

  “Just look at him, prancing about in his triumphal regalia in the middle of the night. And for what? He disgraced himself utterly in Britain.”

  “His triumphs cannot mitigate his lack of human qualities.”

  “No,” Petronius said quietly. “But Nero certainly will, as he did mine. Now can we please change the subject?” He took his place on the couch, and the others moved to follow suit, with the exception of Melissa and Pollia, who hung back to pursue their private conversation.

  Silence settled heavily upon the diners on the couch, each seeming, or pretending, to be lost in thought. In normal circumstances, such a pause would have been most worrisome to Petronius, the surest alarum of faltering conviviality, and as host he would have taken urgent, if subtle, steps to revive the party or to end it. Now he did not care to act. Let them reflect, if they wanted to; they’d certainly earned that right tonight. He wondered what each one was thinking. Was there one among them who was considering how best to cut the evening short and make his excuses without giving offense or appearing anxious to leave? He doubted it. It was more likely that each was scheming how to contrive to be the last to go; this was, after all, a historical event in its way, and, even without the considerations of friendship and tact, well worth seeing through to the bitter end. Who, after all, would want to say “Yes, I was invited to Petron-ius’s notorious suicide banquet, but I left early”? Petronius instantly chided himself for his cynicism; and yet, if these were indeed his dearest friends, why did he need to keep reminding himself of that fact? It was, he understood, because he was so utterly alone in what he would have to do after they’d left, and in his mind and in his heart he had already said his good-byes. And suddenly, with blinding conviction, he knew what each of them was thinking. Each was asking himself at that very moment what it must feel like to be in Petronius’s shoes, and to know that it was now a matter of a few meager hours before he would be dead. Dead forever. They would try to wrap their minds around the notion of the absolute, irrefutable inevitability of their own imminent dissolution—“Dead, dead, dead! I will be nothing!”—but Petronius knew with equal conviction that they must fail. Ultimately they must come to that fork in the road so familiar to every soldier in the field when he finds himself thinking: “It will happen to him but not to me.” That was natural, and perfectly reasonable, as he himself knew from personal experience. But he was already well embarked on the other tangent, the one never taken until now, and so he had left them behind. In a way, it was not he but they who were the living ghosts, already fading from view in the mist at his back. The little world was as nothing, its panoramas and inhabitants but feeble, flickering, translucent shadows, when set against the great unknown universe yawning before him. In a strange way, he realized, he felt almost proud of himself—he could now say that he knew something, understood something known and understood by no one else. Achilles, too, had sailed wittingly to his preordained fate, and that knowledge had been the source of the greatest measure of his courage; but not even Achilles had known precisely, to the place and the hour, where it would happen. Was this grateful resignation courage? Petronius was doubtful; he had attended too many dissections of courage over the years to believe that it could ever be truly understood by those who seek it, wield it, or forsake it. He only knew, as Achilles knew, that courage was for lesser things. He had no need of it now.

  “It’s gone cold, hasn’t it?” Lucilius asked.

  “Would you like to go inside?”

  “No. I like it.”

  “We could build up the fires, but they’ve all gone off to the Saturnalia. I don’t know where we keep the firewood.”

  “Never mind. There are plenty of blankets.”

  At some point, Pollia and Melissa had wandered off together to the far side of the terrace. Now they reappeared, arms wrapped about one another’s waists, Pollia resting her head on Melissa’s shoulder. When they reached the couch, they separated with a kiss. Melissa climbed in beneath the counterpane beside Petronius and laid her hand across his chest. Pollia perched herself on the edge at Fabius’s feet. Fabius gave her a quizzical look and beckoned her to join him, but she shook her head and hugged her shoulders.

  “What have you two been plotting?” Cornelia asked, a concei
t of jealousy in her voice.

  “We have been discussing second chances.”

  “Second chances?”

  “What we would do if we had the chance to do something over again.”

  “And?”

  “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, come on!” Cornelia snorted rather coarsely. “It’s a game, isn’t it?”

  “Pollia?” All eyes turned to Pollia, but she shrank into herself and shook her head again.

  “Sorry.”

  “Be a spoilsport if you like. I for one know exactly what I would do. I would never have married Dolabella, my first husband, the impotent lout. I’d have held out for Lucilius from the start, and by now we’d have lots of lovely children. Perhaps even a grandchild or two.”

  “How very sweet of you, darling. The problem is, if I could do it all again, I should have chosen to stay in Sicily after my term as procurator, instead of seeking my fortune in Rome. And then I’d never have met you, and even if I had, I’d be poor and you wouldn’t have me.”

  “Beast! How could you?”

  “Sicily’s a delightful place. Quiet, good wine. Nothing more complicated to adjudicate than a few vendettas and the occasional act of piracy.”

  “I think I’d have taken my studies of Greek rhetoric more seriously.”

  “Ah, how noble of you, Fabius. What about you, Anicius?”

  “That’s easy. I’d have had more sex when I was young enough to enjoy it. A lot more sex.”

  “An entire generation of grammar-school boys thanks you for that omission.”

  “Yes, and I should have been kinder. I wish I had been a kinder person.”

  “Rubbish!” Cornelia exclaimed. “How could you possibly be kinder than you are?”

  “I was not so kind as a young man. There are many who are not with us today to whom I should like the chance to apologize.”

  “And you, Petronius?”

  Petronius thought long and hard. He knew perfectly well that there was only one answer he could give; the question was whether he should give it. He couldn’t be sure of saying it correctly, and saying it wrong would be worse than not saying it at all. Everything had to be simple now, pared down to its essence.

  “I have never apologized to Melissa for a wrong I once did her.”

  “That’s it?” Cornelia shrilled. “Do you mean to say that if you offered her this apology, there is nothing else in your entire life you would regret?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do it, then, Petronius. Do it now!”

  He held on to Melissa’s smile, which, without changing, grew stronger, pulled him in closer to her.

  “I may well yet,” he said.

  The silence that followed was broken only by a vine stump popping in the brazier, and by Pollia’s muffled sobbing. Melissa enwrapped her in her shawl to hide her face, while Fabius merely lay staring into the embers, his face a blank cipher. If he had felt stronger, Petronius would have given that stupid boy a good crack across the face.

  Cornelia cleared her throat and ran a bloodred fingernail across her right eyebrow. “I suppose you win the game, Petronius,” she said sheepishly. “Unless Melissa can top you.”

  “Petronius,” Melissa said, “I believe Pollia and Fabius are ready to say their good-nights.”

  Petronius sat up in alarm, suddenly feeling light-headed and nauseated again. “No, no. It’s too early,” he said, aware of the whine of panic rising in his throat, and ashamed, yet unable to suppress it. “I won’t hear of it. Come, another glass.”

  “It is not early,” Melissa insisted. “The dawn will be here in two hours or less, and you still have business to transact.”

  “Are you evicting our guests, Melissa? What kind of send-off is that?”

  But the others were already beginning to stir, shifting their weight and leaning over in the poor, flickering light to locate their sandals at the foot of the couch. Petronius felt the atmosphere dissipating as rapidly as a breath of steam on a winter’s day, and he had reached this juncture of the evening too many times to pretend to himself that it could be salvaged. The party was over; the guests were ready to call it a night; and to insist that they linger, even for five superfluous minutes, would be to color their memories of the entire endeavor with a pallid wash of regret. Like a man’s life, a dinner is best quitted while it still has a warm soul to see it on its way. Nevertheless, he gave it one last try.

  “Lucilius, you’ll stay, won’t you?”

  Lucilius had already pinned his tunic around his shoulders, and was helping Cornelia on with her shawl. “Petronius, I would stay to the bitter end if you asked me to, and hold your hand all the way. But it is not my place, and you know it.”

  “Titus, my dear,” Cornelia said. “It is time for us to say goodbye.”

  “Anicius?”

  “Kiss me, Titus. I will be going.”

  “Marcus may stay, Petronius,” Melissa said with quiet authority. “The others will take their gifts now.”

  “Gifts! Of course, how could I forget? Marcus, hand me the ladle in that wine bowl, will you? Gather round, the rest of you.”

  The six guests drew together in a small circle around their host as he accepted the ladle from Martialis, while Melissa waited to one side. It was, of course, the priceless myrrhine ladle from Arrabona that her late husband had once given her in his ignorance, and that she had later given to Petronius in her pride. And now it was Petronius who must try to pass it on in all humility. It was a task, one of his very last, that he dearly wanted to get just right, but the ladle itself would make that difficult, for it was one of the least humble objects he had ever encountered. Even now, in this dismal, volcanic glow, it shone with an arrogant light, as if it had an inner spine of eternal liquor, the colorless blood of the gods flowing in its translucent veins, responsive to envy and fear and grasping and anger. When Petronius held it out at chest height, it absorbed the yellow of his tunic and discharged it again as bile.

  “Look carefully at this ladle,” Petronius said. “You will almost certainly never see such exquisite craftsmanship again in your lifetime. It is the very embodiment of perfection, you will agree. It is said to be invaluable, but it most definitely has a value. In fact, it has been appraised at 300,000 sesterces, enough to pay a legionary’s salary for a thousand years. Whoever owns it is a wealthy man indeed. And yet, strangely, it has meant very little to any of its recent owners. It clearly had little value to the merchant who sold it for a pittance to Aulus Junius in Arrabona. Aulus Junius, in turn, passed it on to Melissa to serve cheap wine at his drinking parties. Melissa gave it to me, simply because she could find no other way of expressing herself. And now I, its last owner—well, perhaps I am able to appreciate something of its beauty, but I hold its perfection cheap. Perhaps it would mean something to a god, but it means nothing to me.

  “Nero has seen it, and he covets it. In a few hours, when he sends his henchmen to pillage my house, the ladle will be at the top of their list. I am determined that he shall not have it. I cannot give it to any of you, because its mere possession will put its possessor at great risk. I cannot return it to Melissa, obviously. So Melissa and I have come up with a plan that will both keep it out of Nero’s hands and restore it to its true value.”

  Petronius held the ladle out at arm’s length and allowed it to drop to the granite pavement. The sound as it shattered was like the cracking of ice on an Alpine lake in the spring thaw. The guests, rather than gasp in dismay, felt its destruction as a communal release of tension, and sighed each to themselves, as if they had only been waiting for this moment. They stared down in calm silence at the dozen or so lumps of crystal that were all that remained of the ladle. Then Petronius stooped and gathered the pieces into a fold of his tunic.

  “Each of you will take a fragment home with you, as a memento of me and our time together. The shards are quite valuable in their own right—the emperor himself owns several precious myrrhine specimens—bu
t that is hardly the point. In the daylight, you will see that each fragment emits the same light as the whole. Each pulses with the same inner life. It is my hope that these fragments, the living heart of the crystal, will seem even more beautiful than the body from which they came. And perhaps, if I am very, very lucky, that is how my friends will remember me.”

  He held out a piece of crystal to Anicius, who took it and enfolded Petronius in his embrace. “You are a good man,” he whispered. “The world will know of this night. Your glory is assured.” And then he was gone.

  Next came Lucilius. They clasped forearms, and Petronius could feel Lucilius tremble and almost falter. “You are a brave man,” he said, choking.

  Cornelia, eyes red-rimmed but resolutely dry, grasped Petron-ius’s face between her palms and planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips. “You poor man.” Then, as an afterthought, she gave him another, longer kiss, and hurried on to her waiting husband. And they were gone.