The Paradise Ghetto

by Fergus O'Connell

  ‘I love you, Aurelia. I love you,’ the spotty youth was saying as his tempo increased until finally he came to a shuddering halt.

  In the end he had taken very little time. Birkita lay there for a minute or so until his breathing returned to normal and then she gently eased herself out from under him.

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked as she began to dress.

  ‘It was amazing. What about you?’

  ‘Unbelievable. You’re an incredible lover. Aurelia is a very lucky woman.’ They were the same phrases she always used.

  The youth looked not just spent, but sad.

  ‘Was it your first time?’ she asked.

  ‘First time with a –’ He stopped.

  ‘So you know that if you enjoyed it, it’s lucky to give the girl something extra?’

  The youth gave her an incredible five asses. It seemed to be the rest of the money he had.

  ‘I hope you’ll come again,’ she said as he left.

  She was pretty sure that he wouldn’t – he had spent far more than he had intended. But at least he couldn’t say he was unhappy.

  And so the day wore on. It was a slow day. She had two other customers – a big man with a red angry face who hurt her, and one of the smelliest men she had ever had to endure. It grew dark. After the lamps were lit, Albinus brought her some hot food from the cookhouse down the street. As she sat on the edge of the bed and ate it, she thought through her plan again. There was so much that could go wrong.

  She had waited four moons because she had needed to learn a little of the Roman tongue. She had that now. She had also learned something of the layout of Pompeii. Most importantly, from talking to customers, she knew where the harbour was. She had only been there that one time – the day she arrived – but she knew that once she escaped from here, if she went steadily downhill, she would come to where the ships were. Anyway, sometimes, depending on which way the wind was blowing, she could smell the salty, watery air and knew the direction in which to go.

  She had earned some money. Her line about ‘you know it’s lucky to give the girl something extra?’ hadn’t always been successful. A lot of men were mean bastards but then there were some like the spotty youth who could be taken for a ride. Even with handing half the money over to Flavia, Birkita still had managed to put together a pile of coins. She kept them not in the wooden chest, but in a small hole she had managed to burrow out between the stone bed and the wall. She had no idea if it was enough to pay for a passage home. She would have to take a chance on that. Basically, she had decided that she would be prepared to fuck the entire crew if it was a case of getting away from here.

  She had also needed time to study the routine in the lupanar. She had that now too. The event that signalled the end of the day was when Antonius showed up to collect the money. He would wait around for a while. As long as there was even the sniff of a customer who would pay, the lupanar would stay open. But eventually Antonius would collect the takings and go. According to Flavia he lived in another part of the city.

  Once he was gone, Flavia sometimes left too – she lived in a room in a house up the street. With her gone, either Cassius or Crispus – only one of them was ever on duty – would close the front door and bar it from the inside. Two mattresses would be brought down from the room upstairs. Albinus slept on one which he placed in the central corridor near the toilet. Cassius or Crispus slept on the other and it was positioned right in front of the door, blocking it.

  At first, Birkita had despaired when she had seen this arrangement. To get out, someone would have to either wake or kill the man sleeping in front of the door. But it didn’t take long for Birkita to realise that while Crispus took his duties very seriously and performed them to the letter – he was terrified of Antonius – Cassius was a different proposition.

  Cassius appeared to have three interests: chatting with his friends – he seemed to know everyone in Pompeii – drinking and women. His job at the lupanar enabled him to enjoy all three.

  It turned out that if he got the chance, he would drink steadily through the day. It was in this that Birkita had seen the first dawning of an opportunity. Through Flavia, Antonius kept a strict watch on the consumption of the wine that was sold to the customers. This meant that there was no way that Cassius could have this without paying for it – which he couldn’t afford. And he was too mean to pay for it in any of the local taverns. So Birkita had arranged from him to have a supply.

  When she asked a customer whether they wanted wine, many said yes and in addition, they would often buy her one as well. She never drank any of it – she hated the Roman drink just as she hated everything Roman – and so she would save hers and after the customer had gone, give it to Cassius, if he was on duty. Otherwise, she gave it to Albinus or to one of the other girls. Cassius was a big man with a huge capacity, but if they were busy, she could give him enough that, by the end of the day, he was quite groggy.

  This was where the sex came in. When Cassius was on duty, he rarely went to sleep on the mattress. As far as he was concerned, one of the perks of his job was that his working day always ended with sex. So he would go to one of the girls’ cubicles – a different one every night – and have sex. After a noisy orgasm and with enough wine inside him, Cassius could be relied on to spend the next few hours out cold. Often he slept well into the morning, only being woken by Albinus just before he unbarred the door to Flavia’s loud knock.

  Here then, was the opportunity.

  It would have to be a day when Birkita was very busy, when lots of customers asked for wine and bought her one and which she would then pass on to Cassius. After Antonius and Flavia had gone and Cassius had had his sex and was asleep, there was a period of time in which she might escape. All of that still left Albinus, but Birkita always tried to be nice to him and to treat him well. Occasionally she bought him little treats from the cake shop down the street. The girls were allowed to go that far, provided Cassius or Crispus went with them. Birkita hoped that when the night came, Albinus would stay silent while she unbarred the door and stole out of the lupanar.

  If he didn’t, she had thought of that too.

  There was a customer from whom she had bought a knife.

  Chapter Eleven

  Birkita’s Plan Again (Suzanne)

  There was one other complication.

  Apart from a busy day resulting in enough wine to make Cassius drunk, Albinus keeping quiet or being killed, Birkita having enough time to get to the harbour, finding a ship that would take her to Britannia and having enough money to pay for her passage, there was one other thing that had to fall into place.

  That first night that Flavia came to Birkita had not been the only one. Rather, it had turned out to be the first of many. As well as having to give sex to Cassius from time to time, Birkita also had to have sex with Flavia.

  Flavia rarely had to take customers. In all the time she had been there, Birkita had only seen it happen twice. As a result, it seemed to Birkita that Flavia had a pretty easy life. When the end of the day came and Birkita was literally fucked to exhaustion, she then had to find the energy to be an enthusiastic lover to Flavia. Not that it happened every night. But two or three nights a week, Flavia ended up spending the night with Birkita in the bed in the upstairs room.

  At first, she had shouldered this as just another burden. And as her plan began to form, she had added it to the list of conditions that would have to be met before she could escape. As well as all the other things, it would have to be a night when Flavia went home.

  But after a while, a strange thing began to happen. Birkita found that she didn’t mind when Flavia came to her. Apart from getting out of the cubicle which she hated and the more comfortable mattress upstairs, Birkita liked being in bed with Flavia. In comparison to any of the men, she was gentle and tender; she didn’t just use Birkita as some kind of empty vessel to be filled up. After they had made love, Birkita would often fall asleep in Flavia’s arms and Birkita found s
he slept deeply and had nice dreams, feeling safe in a way that she hadn’t since she’d been made a slave.

  She had a sense that Flavia cared about her. It was a feeling she had forgotten – that there had once been people in her life who loved her and who looked after her. It wasn’t long before she found herself wondering throughout the day whether Flavia was going to come to her that night. Eventually, she looked forward to it and would be disappointed on the nights when it didn’t happen.

  So that as her plan began to take shape, she found herself picturing something else.

  Birkita felt that she no longer had a home – a place to which she could return. Yes, she would escape – or die in the attempt. The gods could take her; she wasn’t going to live the rest of her life here. Assuming she did get away she would go to the land of her birth and exact her revenge. But after that – what?

  There was a good chance she would be a fugitive after killing the bull Roman and even if that wasn’t the case, she felt there was no place for her in a land where there were Romans. But maybe she could find a place where the Romans hadn’t come and spread their poison. And maybe ... maybe ... Flavia would come with her.

  Birkita pictured them together living in a hut by a stream in a forest. There was birdsong. The stream sparkled in the sunlight. They had a small garden where they grew vegetables and had some fruit trees. There were chickens and a pig and they kept bees for honey. Sometimes, they hunted for meat. They caught fish and baked bread. It was a vision which Birkita spent more and more time thinking about. As men sweated over her and pushed themselves into her, her mind would fly away to this faraway world which had now come to fill many of her waking hours.

  But to make this dream come true, she would have to tell Flavia about it.

  It was the night of the shortest day. Flavia had come to her and they had made love. It was afterwards and they were lying in bed naked. Birkita lay in the crook of Flavia’s arm – something that Flavia said she liked – while she absent-mindedly stroked Birkita’s breast and played with her nipple.

  ‘What was it like – where you lived?’ asked Birkita.

  ‘It’s so long ago now.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. The land was beautiful. There were forests and rivers and plenty of animals to hunt. We were free and had no shortage of food or drink – even in winter. The children were happy and played all the time. Men and women loved...’

  Flavia’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Did you love?’ asked Birkita.

  After a silence Flavia said, ‘There was a girl. We used to steal away to the woods. There we would lie amongst the flowers or in summer, in the water.’

  ‘Was she very beautiful?’

  ‘She was beautiful to me. We were going to run away and find a peaceful place to live. Then the Romans came.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She became a slave – just like me. The last I saw of her was in a long column of us captives marching through a forest. She had golden hair so I could see her up ahead of me – a long way off. She was looking back trying to see me. Her face was bleeding where they had hit her. That was the last time I saw her face. I never saw her after that. I don’t know what became of her. If she’s alive or dead now, I don’t know. But she’s dead for me. I’ll never find her again.’

  ‘Were you warriors?’ asked Birkita.

  ‘We learned to use weapons and such but we had never used them in anger. There wasn’t much fighting. It was a time of peace with most of the neighbouring tribes. If any trouble did break out – somebody stole cattle or something – the men took care of it.’

  A thought suddenly occurred to Birkita.

  ‘What’s your real name? It’s not Flavia.’

  ‘No, it’s not Flavia. My parents called me Sirona.’

  ‘Sirona,’ repeated Birkita, rolling it around on her tongue and tasting the word. ‘I like it.’

  ‘I liked it too,’ said Flavia in a voice that sounded lost and distant.

  She had stopped playing with Birkita’s breast. Birkita put a hand across and stroked Flavia’s belly down to where the hair began.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Flavia dreamily.

  ‘Would you go back there?’ Birkita asked.

  ‘In a heartbeat. It would be changed I’m sure. It wouldn’t be like it was. But to go back there ... why, it would be like being born again. To get out of this place. Not to die here.’

  Birkita stopped stroking.

  ‘I’m going to escape,’ she said. ‘Will you come with me?’

  She had expected Flavia to be more shocked. Instead, she almost sounded bored. And there was also a hint in her voice of the tone she used when she was instructing the girls to do something.

  ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘It’s not. And even if it was, you would get caught and then ... well, you know what would happen then.’

  ‘If it was possible,’ Birkita said, ‘if it was – would you come with me?’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘Anywhere. Back to Gaul. Britannia. Any place but this shithole.’

  Flavia went silent. Birkita knew that she might just have ruined whatever chance she had of escaping. Even if Flavia didn’t tell Antonius, she would be on her guard now. If Birkita escaped, Flavia was bound to suffer in some way. She might even have ended up in the arena herself. It was too big a risk for her.

  Birkita saw now the terrible mistake she had made. She was – or had been – a warrior. But Flavia wasn’t. There had been some people like that in Birkita’s village – one or two girls, one man. It was like they had been born gentle. The man would probably have become a druid. The women? Who knew? It mattered less with the women. She had assumed that Flavia would be prepared to take the risk. To Birkita it was just part of being a warrior. In fact, once she had decided to escape, it had been as though her power – which she had lost that day they had first put chains on her – had started to return. It had been like a drink, flowing back into her.

  But it was a terrible risk she ran and while warriors took such risks all the time, not everyone was a warrior. Flavia clearly wasn’t. Birkita had misjudged her completely and now her plan was stillborn. Dead before it began.

  Flavia lay still, staring at the ceiling. Birkita wanted to say something but she didn’t know what to say. What would undo the damage she had just done? Outside, the sky was showing the first hint of the day’s colour. A cart was wheeled past on the street, the man pushing it whistling. A cock crowed. And a second time. And a third.

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t try to escape,’ Flavia said. ‘It will only go wrong and you will die a terrible death.’

  ‘Better death than this,’ Birkita said without thinking.

  Instantly she wished she hadn’t.

  ‘No,’ said Flavia. ‘No, you are wrong.’

  With that, she rose from the bed and began to dress, her back turned to Birkita.

  Chapter Twelve

  Flavia Changes Her Mind (Julia)

  For the next few days Birkita lived in terror. If Flavia spoke to her at all it was only to issue instructions about work. Nor did Flavia come to her when the day was over. For more than a week, Flavia didn’t invite her into the bed upstairs. It had never happened before.

  The courage that Birkita had been painstakingly building up, spurred on by the vision of her idyllic life with Flavia, had evaporated. Now she found herself wondering when they would come for her. Whenever either Cassius or Crispus approached her, it was almost like her heart froze. When Antonius came into the lupanar her mind ran riot as she pictured herself being taken away and thrown into some awful dungeon. Then she would emerge, blinking in the sunlight, into the arena to die in a ghastly way for the entertainment of the crowd. The lupanar, with its horrible bed that was her home and workplace, its smell of candles and sweat and stale bodies and the toilet and semen, had suddenly become the dearest place in the world
to her.

  A few days into the month that the Romans called Januarius Birkita was lying awake in her cubicle. She was struggling to get some sleep, something that had pretty much eluded her since she had told Flavia of her plan. She changed position for the umpteenth time. Beyond the curtain, the lupanar was asleep. Albinus and Crispus were on their mattresses in the hallway, the latter snoring and making a sound like a cricket. The girls were silent in their cubicles except for Bakt, the Egyptian girl, who sounded like she was having a nightmare. Flavia had gone home. It was just after sunrise. Pompeii was hardly stirring with only the occasional sound floating in from the street. There were still hours before the lupanar would be open.

  Next moment came a loud thumping of a fist on the front door.

  ‘Open up! Open up!’

  It was Antonius’ voice.

  Birkita’s heart leapt with terror. She glanced up at the barred window. Crispus was right outside the curtain. There was no escape. In the hallway, Crispus groaned as he began to unbar the door. Birkita heard the hinges squeak as it was opened.

  ‘Wake them!’ Antonius said. ‘Gather them all together. Now!’

  Birkita had rarely heard Antonius speak and when she had, his voice had always been quiet, soft-spoken. Actually, she found he had a very boring voice. She had never heard him like this. As Birkita rose from the bed, she knew that there was only one option left for her. Quietly she lifted the lid of the chest, reached in and found the knife. Holding the handle in the palm of her hand, she laid the blade across her wrist and along her arm. He would not take her alive.

  She pushed past the curtain.

  Out in the hallway, the other girls were appearing. They were in various states of undress, hair tousled, yawning and wiping sleep from their eyes. Crispus and Albinus stood by the wall, almost at attention. Antonius, flanked by Flavia and another girl that Birkita had never seen before, stood in front of the door which had been closed again. Cassius stood behind the three of them covering the door. The Syrian twins, Claudia, Bakt and Birkita stood close together, as though by doing so it would give them some protection. Antonius’ face, which was normally very pale, was red. He looked at each of the girls in turn. Birkita was unable to hold his gaze. She looked down at her feet.