Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  ‘Oh bull’s balls, I’ve offended him!’ laughed the tambourinist easily.

  ‘He’s a shy lad.’ It was safe for me to smile at her; I had protection. Helena was lolling against me, probably to annoy Philocrates. I tickled her neck, hoping he would spot the propietary gesture. ‘What’s Maiuma, Ione?’

  ‘Gods, don’t you know? I thought it was famous.’

  ‘It’s an antique nautical festival,’ Helena recited. She always did the heavy reading-up when we were planning foreign trips. ‘Of resonant notoriety,’ she added, as if she knew that would catch my interest. ‘Believed to derive from Phoenicia, it involves, amongst other shameless public practices, the ritual immersion of naked women in sacred pools.’

  ‘Good idea! While we’re here, let’s try to take in an evening of sacred pond-watching. I like to collect a salacious rite or two to liven up my memoirs - ‘

  ‘Shut up, Falco!’ I deduced that my senator’s daughter was not planning a plunge at the pleasure ground. She enjoyed herself being superior. ‘I imagine there is a great deal of shrieking, plenty of overpriced sour red wine on sale, and everyone goes home afterwards with sand down their tunics and foot fungus.’

  ‘Falco?’ Whether it was Helena’s use of my name that roused her, Ione suddenly bolted down the last of her bread. She squinted at me sideways, still with crumbs on her face. ‘You’re the new boy, aren’t you? Hah!’ she exclaimed derisively. ‘Written any good plays lately?’

  ‘Enough to learn that my job is to provide creative ideas, neat plots, good jokes, provocative thoughts and subtle dialogue, all so that cliche-ridden producers can convert them into trash. Played any good tunes lately?’

  ‘All I have to do is bash in time for the boys!’ I might have known she was a girl who liked innuendo. ‘What sort of plays do you like then, Falco?’ It sounded a straight question. She was one of those girls who seem to threaten abuse, then disarm you by taking a sensible interest in your hobbies.

  Helena joked: ‘Falco’s idea of a good day at the theatre is watching all three Oedipus tragedies, without a break for lunch.’

  ‘Oh very Greek!’ Ione must have been born under the Pons Sublicius; she had the authentic twang of the Tiber. She was a Roman; ‘Greek’ was the worst insult she could hand out.

  ‘Ignore the silly patter from the tall piece in the blue skirt,’ I said. ‘Her family all sell lupins on the Esquiline; she only knows how to tell lies.’

  ‘That so?’ Ione gazed at Helena admiringly.

  I heard myself admitting, ‘I had a good idea for a play I want to write myself.’ We ‘were obviously going to be stuck in customs for a long time. Bored and weary after the forty miles from Philadelphia, I fell into the trap of betraying my dreams: it starts off with a young wastrel meeting the ghost of his father-‘

  Helena and Ione looked at each other, then chorused frankly: ‘Give up, Falco! It will never sell tickets.’

  ‘That’s not all you do, is it?’ young Ione demanded narrowly. After my long career as an informer, I recognised the subtle air of self-importance before she spoke. Some evidence was about to emerge. ‘They say you’re sniffing out what happened up on the magic mountain in Petra. I could tell you a few things!’

  ‘About Heliodorus? I found him dead, you know.’ She presumably did know, but openness is inoffensive and fills in time while you gather your wits. ‘I’d like to know who held him under,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you should ask why they did it?’ Ione was like a young girl teasing me on a treasure hunt, openly excited. Not a good idea if she really did know something. Not when most of my suspects were all close by and probably listening.

  ‘So are you able to tell me that?’ I pretended to grin in return, keeping it light.

  ‘You’re not so dumb; you’ll get there in the end. I bet I could give you some clues, though.’

  I wanted to press for details, but the customs post was far too public. I had to shut her up, for her own sake as much as for my own chances of finding the killer.

  ‘Are you willing to talk to me sometime, but maybe not here?’

  In response to my question she glanced downwards, until her eyes were virtually closed. Painted spikes lengthened the appearance of her eyelashes; her lids were brushed with something that looked like gold dust. Some of the expensive prostitutes who serviced senators at Roman dinner parties would pay thousands for an introduction to Ione’s cosmetics mixer. Long practised in buying information, I wondered how many amethystine marbled boxes and little pink glass scent vials I would have to offer to acquire whatever she was touting.

  Unable to resist the mystery, I tried suggestion: ‘I’m working on the theory it was a man who hated him for reasons connected with women - ‘

  ‘Ha!’ lone barked with laughter. ‘Wrong direction, Falco!

  Completely wrong! Believe me, the scribe’s ducking was purely professional.’

  It was too late to ask her more. Tranio and Grumio, who were always hanging about near the orchestra girls, came mooching up like spare waiters at an orgy wanting to offer limp garlands in return for a large tip.

  ‘Another time,’ Ione promised me, winking. She made it sound like an offer of sexual favours. ‘Somewhere quiet when we’re on our own, eh Falco?’

  I grinned bravely, while Helena Justina assumed the expression of the jealous loser in a one-sided partnership.

  Tranio, the taller, wittier clown, gave me a long dumb stare.

  Chapter XXVI

  The customs officer suddenly turned on us as if he could not imagine why we were loitering in his precious space, and shooed us off, Without giving him a chance to change his mind, we shot in through the town gate.

  We had come about fifteen years too early. It was not much in the scheme of town planning, but too long for hungry performers who were gnawing on their last pomegranate. The site diagram of the future Gerasa showed an ambitious design with not one but two theatres of extravagant proportions, plus another, smaller auditorium outside the city at the site of the notorious water festival where Helena had forbidden me to go and leer. They needed all these stages -now. Most were still only architectural drawings. We soon discovered that the situation for performers was desperate. At present we were stuck with one very basic arena in the older part of town, over which all comers had to haggle - and there was plenty of competition.

  It was turmoil. In this town we were just one small act in a mad circus. Gerasa had such a reputation for riches that it drew buskers from all the parched corners of the East. To be offering a simple play with flute, drum and tambourine accompaniment was nothing. In Gerasa they had every gaggle of scruffy acrobats with torn tunics and only one left boot between them, every bad-tempered fire-eater, every troupe of sardine-dish spinners and turnip jugglers, every one-armed harpist or arthritic stilt-walker. We could pay half a denarius to see the Tallest Man in Alexandria (who must have shrunk in the Nile, for he was barely a foot longer than I was), or a mere copper for a backward-facing goat. In fact for a quadrans or two extra I could have actually bought the goat, whose owner told me he was sick of the heat and the slowness of trade and was going home to plant beans.

  I had a long conversation with this man, in the course of which I nearly did acquire his goat. So long as he kept me talking, taking on an unconvincing sideshow freak seemed quite a decent business proposition. Gerasa was that kind of town.

  Entering by the South Gate had placed us near the existing theatre, but it had the disadvantage of marking us out for hordes of grubby children who mobbed us, trying to sell cheap ribbons and badly made whistles. Looking serious and cute, they offered their wares in silence, but otherwise the noise from the packed streets was unbearable.

  ‘This is hopeless!’ shouted Chremes, as we huddled together to discuss what to do. His disgust with The Rope after its failed second outing at Philadelphia had faded so quickly that he was now planning for us to repeat it while the Twins were in practice for their tug of war. However, the indecisive-ness D
avos had complained about soon reappeared. Almost before we dug the props out, new doubts set in. I’d like you to brush up The Arbitration, Falco.’ I had read it; I complained wittily that The Rope had much more pulling power. Chremes ignored me. Quibbling about the play was only half his problem. ‘We can either travel on straight away, or I’ll do what I can to obtain an appearance. If we stay, the bribe to the booker will wipe out most of the ticket money, but if we go on we’ve lost a week without earning - ‘

  Clearly irritated, Davos weighed in. ‘I vote to see what you can get. Mind you, with all this cheap competition it’s going to be like doing The Play We Never Mention on a wet Thursday in Olynthus…’

  ‘What’s the unmentionable play?’ asked Helena.

  Davos gave her a shirty look, pointed out that by definition he wasn’t allowed to mention it, and shrugged off her meek apology.

  I tried another ploy for avoiding the manager’s turgid idea of a repertoire: ‘Chremes, we need a good draw. I’ve a brand-new idea you may like to try. A lad about town meets the ghost of his newly dead father, who tells him - ‘

  ‘You say the father’s dead?’ He was already confused and I hadn’t even reached the complicated bit.

  ‘Murdered. That’s the point. You see, his ghost catches the hero by the tunic sleeve and reveals who snuffed out his pa - ‘

  ‘Impossible! In New Comedy ghosts never speak.’ So much for my big idea. Chremes could be firm enough when crushing a genius; having rejected my masterpiece he went wittering on as usual. I lost interest and sat chewing a straw.

  Eventually, when even he was tired of havering, Chremes stumped off to see the theatre manager; we sent Davos along to stiffen him. The rest of us moped around looking sick. We were too hot and depressed to do anything until we knew what was happening.

  Grumio, who had a provocative streak, spoke up: ‘The play we don’t mention is TheMother-in-Law by Terence.’

  ‘You just mentioned it!’ Stung by Davos, Helena had become a literalist.

  ‘I’m not superstitious.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Apart from the off-putting title? Nothing. It’s his best play.’

  ‘Why the dirty reputation then?’ I demanded.

  ‘It was a legendary failure, due to the rival attractions of boxers, tightrope walkers and gladiators.’ I knew how Terence must have felt.

  We all looked gloomy. Our own situation seemed horribly similar. Our struggling little dramas were unlikely to draw crowds at Gerasa, where the populace had devised their own sophisticatedly ribald festival, the Phoenician Maiuma, to fill any quiet evening. Besides we had already glimpsed the street performers, and knew Gerasa could call on other entertainment that was twice as unusual and three times as noisy as ours, at half the cost.

  Rather than think about our predicament, people started wandering off.

  Grumio was still sitting nearby. I got talking to him. As usual when you look as if you’re having a rich literary conversation, our companions left us severely alone. I asked him more about The Play We Never Mention, and quickly discovered he had a deep knowledge of theatrical history. In fact he turned out to be quite an interesting character.

  It was easy to dismiss Grumio. His round face could be taken for a sign of simplicity. Playing the dullard of the two clowns, he had been forced into a secondary role off-stage as well as on. In fact he was highly intelligent, not to mention professional. Getting him on his own, without the noisy brilliance of Tranio to overshadow him, I learned that he saw himself as an exponent of an ancient and honourable craft.

  ‘So how did you get into this line, Grumio?’

  ‘Partly heredity. I’m following my father and grandfather. Poverty comes into it. We never owned land; we never knew any other trade. All we had - a precious gift that most folk lack - was natural wit.’

  ‘And you can survive by this?’

  ‘Not easily any more. That’s why I’m in a stage company. My ancestors never had to suffer like this. In the old days laughter-men were independent. They travelled around earning their meals with their varied skills - sleight of hand and tumbling, recitation, dancing - but most of all with a crackling repertoire of jokes. I was trained to the physical jerks by my father, and of course I inherited sixty years of family wisecracks. For me, it’s a let-down to be stuck in Chremes’ gang like this and tied to a script.’

  ‘You’re good at it though,’ I told him.

  ‘Yes, but it’s dull. It lacks the edge of living on your wits; devising your patter on your feet; improvising the apt rejoinder; snapping out the perfect quip.’

  I was fascinated by this new side to the country clown. He was a much more thoughtful student of his art than I had given him credit for, though it was my own fault for assuming that playing the fool meant he was one. Now I saw that Grumio had a devotee’s respect for the practice of humour; even for our dreadful comedies he would polish his performance, though all the time he was hankering for better things. For him the old jokes really were the best - especially if he turned them out in a new guise.

  This dedication meant he had a deep, private personality. There was far more to him than the sleepy character who yearned for girls and drink and who let Tranio take the lead as much in their off-duty lives as in some tiresome plot. Under that fairly lightly worn mask, Grumio was his own man.

  Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.

  Being an informal stand-up comic at formal reclining ! dinners seemed a nerve-racking way of life to me. But if someone could do it, I would have thought there was a market for a satirist. I asked why Grumio had had to turn to lesser things.

  ‘No call. In my father or grandfather’s day all I would have needed in life were my cloak and shoes, my flask and strigil, a cup and knife to take to dinner, and a small wallet for my earnings. Everyone who could find the wherewithal would eagerly ask a wandering jokesmith in.’

  ‘Sounds just like being a vagrant philosopher!’

  ‘A cynic,’ he agreed readily. ‘Exactly. Most cynics are witty and all clowns are cynical. Meet us on the road, and who could tell the difference?’

  ‘Me, I hope! I’m a good Roman. I’d take a five-mile detour to avoid a philosopher.’

  He disabused me. ‘You won’t be tested. No clown can do that any longer. I’d be run out of town like a warty beggar by the idlers who hang around the water tower inventing slander. Now everyone wants to be the funny man himself; all people like me can do is flatter them silly and feed them material. It’s not for me; I won’t be a yes-man. I get sick of pandering to other people’s stupidity.’ Grumio’s voice had a raw note. He had a real hatred for the amateur rivals he was deriding, a real lament for the deterioration of his trade. (I also noticed a strident belief in his own brilliance; clowns are an arrogant lot.) ‘Besides,’ he complained, ‘There are no morals. The new “humour”, if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it’s now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it’s even true. In fact, making up a spiteful lie has become respectable. Today’s “jesters” are outright public nuisances.’

  A similar charge is often laid against informers. We too are supposed to be amoral vendors of overheard dirt, gutter know-alls who fabricate freely if we cannot produce hard facts; deliberate mixers, self-seekers and stirrers. It’s even regarded as a suitable insult for people to call us comedians…

  Abruptly Grumio lurched to his feet. There was a restlessness about him I had overlooked before; perhaps I had caused it by discussing his work. That does depress most people.

  For a moment I felt I had annoyed or upset him. But then he waved a hand amiably enough, and sauntered off.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Helena curiously, coming up as usual just when I had been assuming she had her head down in business of her own.

  ‘Just a history lesson about clowns.’

  She smiled. Helena Justina could make a th
oughtful smile raise more questions than a dead mouse in a pail of milk. ‘Oh, men’s talk!’ she commented.

  I leaned on my chin and gazed at her. She had probably been listening, then being Helena she had done some thinking too. We both had an instinct for certain things. I found myself being niggled by a sensation she must have shared: somewhere an issue that might be important had been raised.

  Chapter XXVII

  To the great surprise of all of us, within the hour Chremes came rushing back to announce he had secured the theatre; moreover it was for the very next night. Obviously the Gerasenes had no notion of fair turns. Chremes and Davos had happened to be demanding attention from the booking manager just when that grafter received a cancellation, so for the proverbial small fee we were allowed to snap up the vacancy, never mind who else had been waiting around town.

  ‘They like an easy life here,’ Chremes told us. ‘All the booker wanted to be sure of was that we’d pay his sweetener.’ He told us how much the bribe had been, and some of us were of the opinion it would be more profitable to leave Gerasa now and play The Arbitration to a nomad’s herd of sheep.

  ‘Is this why the other troupe packed their traps?’

  Chremes looked huffed that we were complaining after he had pulled off a triumph. ‘Not according to my information. They were a sleazy circus act. Apparently they could cope when their chief trapezist had a fall that left him paralysed, yet when their performing bear caught a cold - ‘

  ‘They lost their nerve,’ Tranio broke in snappily. ‘As we may do when all the groups who arrived here ahead of us find out how we jumped the queue and come looking for us!’

  ‘We’ll show the town something worth watching, then do a quick flit,’ Chremes answered with a casual air that said just how many times the company had fled places in a hurry.

  ‘Tell that to the Chersonesus Taurica weightlifting team!’ muttered Tranio.

  Still, when you think you are about to make some money, nobody likes to be too ethical.