The Uncertain Hour

by Jesse Browner

  Fabius stepped up, his arms by his side, eyes downcast, like a boy awaiting instructions from his father. Petronius took him by the shoulders, at arm’s length, but could think of nothing to say. How like him to feel awkward and shy at this juncture! But as he fumbled with his gift of crystal, Fabius found his tongue. “I wish you safe passage to the underworld. You are a great, a great Roman,” he muttered, and executed a clumsy salute.

  Pollia threw herself into Petronius’s arms, pressing her face into his chest and sobbing inconsolably. And just as he had responded inappropriately to Fabius’s hapless formality, Petronius found himself ferociously excited by the heat of her body and the dampness of her tears soaking through the cloth of his tunic. As he struggled to understand what she was saying, her voice muffled by proximity and emotion, he was only dimly aware of the vision, flitting and fleeing like a thrush through the empty hallways of his mind, of himself on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground, her thighs wrapped around his hips, her sobs of ecstasy and gratitude ringing in his ears. And then, the fantasy exhausting itself at the same moment that it had sprung to life, he grasped what Pollia was saying.

  “I love you, Petronius, I love you,” over and over again, until he had to push her into Fabius’s waiting arms, and they stepped away.

  Petronius turned toward the house to watch them go, but time must have been playing tricks on him, for they had already vanished. The only figure that remained was the Hagesander Diana at the far end of the dining room, and she had never been of much comfort to him. He tried to think back—had he been daydreaming? Somehow his memory of the past few seconds had become all muddled. Perhaps he had not entertained his fantasy of making love to Pollia until after she had gone, until after he had heard her say she loved him? But if that were the case, what had he been thinking about when she was in his arms? He tried to remember; it had only been moments earlier, but it felt as if it had all occurred a thousand years ago in a distant land. Suddenly it seemed enormously important to him to retrieve the memory of the past minute precisely as it had unfolded. These thoughts and visions were of great moment; he had a strange feeling that he would need them with him in the afterworld, that one carried one’s last memories like currency down there, and the more precise they were, the more valuable; or perhaps they were armor down there, and the more specific they were, the more protective; or perhaps they were travel documents, and only those who could recite them faithfully would be allowed to pass; or they were genealogical testaments, and those with the most impressive memories enjoyed the most prestige among the dead. Petro-nius had no idea why these thoughts were occurring to him, rushing upon him with such irresistible impetus. He knew objectively that they were foolish and meaningless, and that he was wasting precious time indulging them, but he felt as one does in a dream in which there are multiple time schemes, and enemies can leap and fly while one’s own legs can barely move through the viscous, clinging seconds. And then, with a start of recognition so pure and true that it made his heart race, as if he had just inhaled the entire universe in one gasp, he realized that this whole thing—his fantasy with Pollia, and his confession, and the dinner party, and the death sentence, and his years at Nero’s court, and his return to Rome—was all just a dream—of course, it had all occurred in the blink of an eye, he could see that now!—and that when he turned around again to Melissa and Martialis, the whole fabric of reality that he had known for the past eight years would be stripped away, and he would open his eyes and find himself in his bed in the villa at Lake Sophon, and the sun would just be rising on a quiet summer’s morning, the cranes tiptoeing silently through the rushes, and Melissa would be at his side, naked, pressing herself against him. He swung about, his arms open wide to his salvation, and his legs gave way beneath him. When he came to, he found himself crumpled on the ground, his face drenched in hot tears, his head cradled in Melissa’s lap as if he were the aged father who had just taken that fatal fall, and he felt a shame deeper than he could ever imagine possible.

  “I must get up,” he said.

  “Rest a moment,” Melissa whispered.

  “No, I must.”

  “Shh.” The very slight pressure of her palms against his cheeks was enough to hold him down, and the coolness of her hands on his wet skin made him understand that the tears were not hers, but his own. He closed his eyes.

  “I don’t want to die,” he said, feeling that somehow it was safe to say with his eyes closed, and at the same time knowing how childish the feeling really was.

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “There’s time still. I’ll live if you tell me to live.”

  “Shh.”

  He lay there a few minutes as she rocked his head gently, like a baby in a cradle, and felt his tears dry in a cold, almost imperceptible breeze—it was the sun, rising five hundred miles away over Greece and pushing the night air before it. Calm gradually settled upon him, until after a minute he realized with mild surprise that the moment had come, without thought or premeditation, the moment of serene acceptance that he had trained for his entire life and sought in vain this entire long day and night. It was here; it had stolen upon him like a long-absent lover—or no, like the mother who died long ago from a withering disease, whom one no longer remembers except as a shattered husk, but who returns in dreams clad in shining light and health, bringing her enveloping love to the dreamer who had never thought to feel its like again. He could hardly believe it; it was too good to be true, precisely as he had hoped it would be—this feeling of strength, joy, fearlessness—but never quite believed himself capable of mastering. Now he saw that it was not a moment that one mastered but that one submitted to, and that was its mystery for those who sought it. It was odd, interesting, he thought, that in just the past minute he had felt both like an old man and like an infant. The infant he had been, once, but recalled nothing at all thereof; the old man he would never be. Still, a lifetime in the interim. More than enough. One could live forever, and not have this moment of peace that he was having now. Why ruin it with stupid, vulgar thoughts of escape? How could surviving a thousand more years improve on what he had found right here, right now? He took Melissa’s hands in his own and kissed each one.

  “Well?” He looked up into her face. She stared back at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement and affection, and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. There was no hypersensi-tivity now—the whole world was contained in that touch, the rest of his body numb. He grasped her hand and held it to his skin.

  “Well?”

  She laughed and looked away. “I’m not going to immolate myself at your side, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Oh, Titus—or should I call you ‘Governor’? Can you really be as dim as that, after all these years? Of course I knew what you’d done. I knew it right away. Who else could have given him his marching orders but you?”

  “And yet you’ve never said anything about it. You pretended to know nothing.”

  “I understand the way men think. You’d have found a way to blame me if I had.”

  “And now?’

  “And now what?”

  “Have you forgiven me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. You did the best you could with what you had.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “Of course I do. Anyway, why ask me? You’ll be dead in an hour or so. Take it up with Junius when you run into him. He’s the one you should be asking for forgiveness.”

  Petronius sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. He’d forgotten how perfect it was, lying with his head in her lap. Perhaps he should kiss her, make love to her right now, a touching communion, a fitting remembrance? But no, everything was right the way it was; the time for such intimacies had passed. They seemed too encumbered now, too earthbound. Besides, who would get to be on top? Petronius laughed quietly, and sighed again. Then he remembered what he’d wanted to ask.

 
“Melissa, what did you say?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you and Pollia were talking about second chances. I can imagine what she said.”

  “She said she was in love with you, and she asked for my forgiveness. She said she wished she’d never married Fabius.”

  “Naturally. But what did you say?”

  “Are you sure you want to ask me that question, Titus?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I said nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I said there was nothing I would wish to change. There is no decision that I have ever made that I would wish to undo.”

  “What about all the pain I caused you?”

  “That was your decision, not mine. The only way I could have avoided that pain would have been to decide not to be with you, and that I could never have done.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had a mission to make you a wiser man. And to bring us to this moment. Isn’t that enough?”

  She was right, of course. It was more than enough, this moment. It was the moment for which one waits an entire lifetime, and Petronius had. But what of Melissa? Tomorrow, in just an hour or two, the world would change for her forever, and what would it mean for her then, who must find a way to preserve it? Petronius thought of the kouros. Born eight hundred years earlier, in a world so different from his own, it might very well endure another eight hundred, or more, into a world that would be even more different still. It was only a rock; it did not retain or remember the world through which it had passed, and yet it served as a reminder of all who saw and touched it, not just at the moment of its creation and of the living, breathing man who put his chisel to the stone, but also of every age it had seen, of every generation that had preserved it, or neglected it, and passed it on intact. And it occurred to Petronius that this love of his, this moment, did not actually belong to him at all, or to Melissa, or to the next man on whom she might bestow it, should there be one. Perhaps this love was a kouros, created in ancient times, and passed from keeper to keeper, through him and Melissa and on into the unknown future. And though, like the statue, it would not remember either of them, still, to some lover a thousand years hence who had never heard their names or known their deeds, it would serve as a reminder of all the lovers who had received it, cosseted it, and passed it on. Its very existence would be a testament to their care of it, and maybe, just maybe, in a moment similar to this one, those impossibly distant lovers will think back in gratitude on all those who had held it and saved it on their behalf.

  As if she were reading his thoughts, Melissa leaned over, held his cheeks between her palms, and kissed him full and long on the lips. After that, they were quiet, listening to the breath of the sea. And then Martialis sneezed somewhere off along the terrace.

  “I have one more thing I have to do,” Petronius said, and rolled off her lap to pick himself up off the ground. Martialis was over by the balustrade, staring morosely out over the black water.

  “I’ll only be a moment, Marcus. Wait for me, and we’ll take a walk.” He strode off into the house.

  The rooms and corridors were dark and quiet, as was normal for this time of night, yet they seemed especially lifeless now. Petronius suspected that there was not a slave in the house, with the possible exception of Commagenus and Demetrius, who were not much given to revelry and, ever diligent, were probably in their quarters preparing themselves for their new life as freed-men. Petronius considered rousing Demetrius for the task at hand, but decided that, having already said their good-byes, it would be uncomfortable for both of them to have to reprise them. Besides which, given the possibility that members of his household might still be tortured for any further information that could be of use to the state—and a scribe was certainly the most obvious potential guardian of such information—Petronius wished to spare him the possession of any incriminating secrets. This last job was something he could do himself.

  As per standing orders, the lamps were still lit in his study, though the oil had been allowed to deplete itself tonight and would run out momentarily. He sat at his desk, retrieved a fresh sheet of his finest letter papyrus, dipped his pen, and began to write.

  Titus Petronius Niger to Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, greetings—

  PETRONIUS HAD LEARNED a simple truth: It is not possible to love another when you despise yourself. Did everyone but him already know it? One thing was certain: Melissa knew it. He taught it to her every day in their growing estrangement; in his anger and in his despair; in the brutality of his lovemaking and then in his inability to make love to her at all; in his indifference to her happiness and to his own; in his peevish response to minor irritations and in his atrophied moral judgment; in his apathy toward her social trajectory and in the carelessness with which he steered his own. Dark times indeed. He had lost Melissa, and gained an empire.

  Where else was he to take himself, where else on Earth was more suited to a man like him than Nero’s court? Giving in to the emperor’s blandishments and launching himself into court society had not been difficult decisions to make. They were barely decisions at all; more like slipping into a warm, perfumed bath. Now that the veil had been stripped from his eyes, and he saw himself for who he truly was, it came to seem his only natural home, and his Tartarus.

  For two years he stood at the emperor’s right hand, whispering in his ear, advising and cajoling him. He was not, it was true, a political counselor, and he avoided inserting himself into lethal enmities, but that was a spurious distinction. In a tyrant’s court, culture and politics are indissoluble, and Petronius knew exactly what he was doing, even as he staggered along in a sort of heedless, drunken haze. He made light of Nero’s excesses and couched his sins in apposite classical justifications. Petronius’s intellect, eloquence, and refinement flattered the emperor’s vision of himself as an aesthete of the highest rank, in a way that the brutal vulgarians of the inner circle—who complemented the butcher and the thug in him—could never hope to compete with. When Nero kicked the pregnant empress Poppaea Sabina to death, it was Petronius who sat with him in private mourning and helped compose her funeral eulogy.

  But it was only a waiting game, and Petronius knew it. Compared to Tigellinus and the other ruthless, low-born ministers, he was an amateur in the kind of scheming and backbiting necessary to maintain a career at court. From the moment he had elbowed Tigellinus aside, it was merely a matter of time before revenge was exacted, and allowing himself to be crowned “Arbiter” was just a manner of slow-motion suicide.

  The fatal moment arrived with the surprise banquet which Tigellinus organized in Nero’s honor on Agrippa’s lake. The lakeshore was stocked with exotic birds and beasts, lined with elegant makeshift brothels staffed with willing patrician matrons, and ablaze with a thousand flaming torches. Vibrant song rang out upon the water from choruses cleverly concealed along the embankments. The emperor and his party (including Petronius) were towed upon a raft of gold and ivory and dined with unsurpassed luxury, their every foible and depravity administered to by a crew of professional hedonists. The emperor was presented with a stunning Greek youth who kept him entertained throughout the night. The event was planned and executed perfectly from beginning to end, and everyone involved knew that the Arbiter of Elegance had been made obsolete in a single blow.

  When Rome burned not long afterward, Petronius took it as his cue to bow out. His relationship with Melissa had long since withered into a hollow, misshapen thing; he had fully justified her every fear and misgiving, and she no longer expected anything of him. She let him go without anger or bitterness, but rather in profound sadness for what he had become. He left her to manage the Esquiline villa, retired to Cumae, and waited for his sins to catch up with him.

  PETRONIUS GLANCED DOWN at the papyrus and reread what he had written:

  Titus Petronius Niger to Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Ger-manicus, greetings—

  Then he continued to write. />
  Sire, our late friend and colleague, Annaeus Seneca, in one of his more lucid moments, once said to me: “All conversations with autocrats end with expressions of gratitude.” At the time, I believed this observation to be a rather sorry commentary on the life he had led in your company. I see now, however, that it was remarkably sagacious—that means “clever,” Caesar—as I find myself in the unanticipated position of writing on my deathbed to offer you my undying thanks for all you have done for me. Your own mother, Sire, could not have been more grateful to you than I am when you made it possible for her to retire at the full height of her powers.

  Without your guidance, example, and stimulus, I would never have grasped the urgency and reward of being adequately prepared for death. Had I lived to be an old man, I believe that I should never have attained the conclusions and serenity that dire necessity has thrust upon me, and that sustain me now in my final, happy moments. I do not claim to have attained wisdom or understanding; that would be too much to ask. Yet I feel that you have gifted me with an almost equal treasure: a measure of self-awareness that, while modest, has nevertheless cast a splendid new light on the world around me and my place in it. I cannot help but believe that it is a gift afforded to few men, and for that I shall remain eternally in your debt.

  One more thing, Caesar. Since it may come to pass that you shall find yourself in similar circumstances in the not-too-distant future, and in pressing need of a medium whereby to record your final thoughts and wishes in haste, may I humbly suggest that you keep about you at all times a quill, an inkhorn, and a sheet of papyrus for that purpose, as I have done for the past several years, living in the shadow of your displeasure. They may prove to be very handy indeed and bring you peace of mind when you are most in need of it, as they have me.

  Without pausing to reread a single word of the letter, Petronius sanded, folded, and sealed it with wax, stamping the seal with his signet ring. Next, rummaging through his strongbox, he found the most recent codicil to his will, broke the seal, made some minor amendments, and resealed it. He pocketed a fistful of gold denarii and then, with both documents tucked into a fold of his cape, strode out onto the terrace. He felt full of strength, his every muscle vibrant with energy, like a wineskin filled with new, green wine. He knew it was the vigor of last chances, but it felt very good nonetheless, and he wondered how it might be, and why it cannot be, to feel this way every moment of one’s life. He found Melissa and Martialis deep in conversation on a bench beneath the colonnade.