“Two thousand years old, and yet in some ways it looks like any college football stadium,” Maggie remarked.
“And is bigger than most,” Paul said. “It could seat more than fifty thousand people.” I’d finished taking photos by this time and we’d joined the line waiting to go inside, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to return my guidebook.
“Forget college football,” Maggie amended. “The Green Bay Packers would envy digs like this!”
“Oh, this isn’t the half of it. According to Robin’s book, it even had a retractable awning to protect spectators from sun and rain.”
As we drew nearer, we could see that the ground-level arches ringing the amphitheatre were numbered, just like a modern stadium—except that the numbers carved over each entrance were in Roman numerals.
“How would people know which section they were supposed to sit in?” Maggie asked. “Surely they didn’t have tickets!”
“Of course they did,” Paul said. “But instead of being printed on paper, they were scratched on pottery shards. Evidently pottery shards were the Roman equivalent of scrap paper.”
We passed beneath the arch designated XXVIII—twenty-eight—and found ourselves in a shady passageway with still more arched openings, beyond which were the areas that had once held seating.
“You ladies are going to love this bit,” predicted Paul, grinning broadly. “The amphitheatre was designed to be filled or evacuated quickly. The Latin word for the passageways that allowed for this rapid discharge of people is ‘vomitoria.’ Or, in the singular, ‘vomitorium.’ I’ll give you three guesses what English word is derived from it.”
Maggie and Sylvia grimaced, and my aunt spoke for all three of us when she said, “I think we only need one.”
“I’ll have to share that little tidbit with my class this fall,” I said drily. “There’s no better way to interest thirteen-year-old boys in language than to connect it to something vulgar.”
Inside the Colosseum, still more surprises were in store. Most of the original floor was gone, exposing an elaborate system of underground tunnels. And over all, plants grew wherever they were able to put down roots in the crevices between the blocks of travertine stone.
“I didn’t expect it to be so—so green,” I said. Somehow the lush vegetation didn’t seem to square with gory images of gladiators doing battle, or Christians being thrown to the lions.
“Apparently plants have grown inside the Colosseum for centuries,” Paul said, referring once again to my guidebook. “Domenico Panaroli first catalogued them in 1643, and since then almost seven hundred different species have been identified.”
“Seven hundred? But how did they all get here?” Maggie asked. Sylvia, I noticed, had apparently become bored with the discussion, for she had wandered off and was peering through each arched opening, almost as if she were looking for someone—more amusing company, I guessed. I hoped we hadn’t been rude—I thought we’d been unusually gracious, under the circumstances—but I couldn’t honestly say I would be sorry if she decided to abandon us in favor of someone else.
“Bird migration, changes in climate over the centuries—one particularly romantic theory suggests that the seeds were caught in the fur of the animals brought in from all over the empire.”
“Oh, I like that one,” I said. “It would be nice to think they were responsible for bringing life to the Colosseum, rather than just death to all those poor Christians.”
“There was something about that, now where did I see it?” Paul muttered, flipping back and forth a few pages. “Ah, here it is. Apparently there’s a marked lack of historical records of Christians being martyred at the Colosseum, as it was used for executing common criminals—unless, of course, their ‘crime’ was failing to reverence the Roman gods, in which case it seems to be a matter of semantics. Most of the Christian persecutions were carried out at the Circus Maximus. But the animals weren’t always the winners here, you know. The inaugural games lasted more than one hundred days, during which more than nine thousand animals—or possibly five thousand, depending on whose account you choose to believe—were slaughtered, either by fighting against each other or against a human opponent.”
“That’s horrible!” I exclaimed.
“To modern sensibilities, yes,” Paul agreed. “But keep in mind, Titus had only just succeeded his father, Vespasian, as Emperor, and already he’d dealt with a fire that had burned in Rome for three days, an outbreak of plague in the city, and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The extravagant games were probably an attempt to appease his disgruntled subjects as much as placating the Roman gods.”
Maggie peered down into the exposed tunnels. “I suppose the underground section is where they kept the animals.”
“Part of it, yes,” Paul said. “There was also an underground tunnel to the gladiators’ barracks, as well as separate tunnels for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins to enter and leave the Colosseum without having to mingle with the riff-raff.”
“Can we go down there?” I asked. “I’d love to explore.”
Paul shook his head. “The hypogeum—the underground part, that is—isn’t open to the public, although it may be someday. It wasn’t fully excavated until the 1930s, under Mussolini.”
“It’s nice to know he was good for something,” Maggie muttered.
“Listen to this: the hypogeum wasn’t part of the original structure. It was added later, when Titus’s younger brother, Domitian, became Emperor. Before that, the entire arena could be flooded, and naval battles were re-enacted here, including a famous clash between the Greeks and the Corinthians.”
“Now, that would’ve been something to see!” I said. “How much water do you suppose it must have taken to float a battleship?”
“Keep in mind, the ships of the time were quite small by today’s standards,” Paul pointed out. “Not nearly as large as our own Oceanus.”
“Speaking of which,” Maggie said, consulting her wristwatch, “we’d better hop back on the bus if we’re going to see anything else before heading back to our ship.”
Paul and I agreed, and so after reluctantly collecting Sylvia, we boarded the tour bus. I had assumed we were heading back to St. Peter’s Square, but to my surprise, Paul stood up before we reached the familiar stop.
“Let’s get off here,” he said.
We did—there wasn’t time to debate the matter—but when we got off the bus, Maggie voiced the question we were all thinking.
“What’s here?”
“The church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin,” he replied.
We all looked askance at the church we’d never even heard of before.
“I’m sure it’s lovely, Paul, but if we stop to look at every historic church in Rome, we’ll miss the ‘all aboard,’ ” my aunt pointed out.
“This will only take a moment,” he assured us. “We won’t even go inside—just as far as the portico.”
We followed Paul, obediently if not enthusiastically, to the portico, where he stopped before an enormous round marble representation of a human face, with crudely carved holes for its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
“La Bocca della Verità,” he said by way of explanation. “Or, in English, ‘the Mouth of Truth.’ It dates from the first century and was probably part of a fountain or, less romantically, a manhole cover. But since the Middle Ages it’s served as a primitive sort of lie detector. If you tell a lie with your hand in its mouth, your hand will be bitten off. Anyone care to give it a try? What about you, Robin? Can you think of a good lie?”
I’m never going to marry Gene. It was the first thing that came into my head, and it was a lie—wasn’t it? Of course it was! Still, I was strangely reluctant to stick my hand into the mouth and put it to the test. Because I didn’t want Maggie to think I was having doubts, I told myself, not because I had any fear of losing my hand to a first-century Roman manhole cover.
“No?” Paul prompted. “Well then, I guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
> He thought for a moment—thinking up a suitably convincing lie, no doubt—then stuck his hand into the stone mouth, turned to Sylvia, and announced, “My name is Graham Grimes.”
“See,” Maggie said, “nothing—”
“Aauugghh!” Paul let out a bloodcurdling scream, and withdrew his hand from the mouth. His arm ended abruptly at the sleeve of his sport coat. Maggie, Sylvia, and I stared stupefied at the hand that wasn’t there for perhaps a fraction of a second and then, as if on cue, we all burst out laughing.
“Very funny,” I chided him. “We’ve all seen Roman Holiday, you know. Gregory Peck played the same trick on Audrey Hepburn.”
Paul shrugged with unimpaired good cheer. “Oh well, it was worth a try.” He held his arm out straight, and his hand emerged, uninjured, from the end of his sleeve. “I knew I couldn’t fool Maggie, but I thought maybe you would be too young to have seen that film.” I noticed he wisely refrained from any speculations as to Sylvia’s age.
“I never saw it in the theater, but they show it now and then on late-night television,” I explained. “When your fiancé is off on a submarine somewhere, you spend a lot of nights at home watching TV,” I added ruefully, just to remind myself of Gene, whom I fully intended to marry.
Having accomplished what he’d intended at the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Paul shepherded us back to the bus stop, where we had to wait twenty minutes for the next bus to come along.
“You see what your little stunt has cost,” Maggie scolded him playfully. “If we don’t get to see the Sistine Chapel, we’ll know who to blame.”
But before we returned to St. Peter’s Square, we had to find lunch somewhere. Maggie complained that the glass of wine she’d had at the osteria near the Trevi Fountain had long since worn off, while Sylvia and I had had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast. Paul led us to a ristorante that had been highly recommended by a colleague of his. Here we made two discoveries: first, that the food was just as plentiful and delicious as Paul had been led to believe; and second, that the Italian idea of a meal was a leisurely event that stretched to two and a half hours. By the time we made our way back to St. Peter’s Square, the line snaking out from the Sistine Chapel was even longer than it had been that morning.
“Now I see why we had to wish for a return trip to Rome back at the Trevi Fountain,” I said. “It’s impossible to see everything in one day.”
“Sad, but true,” Paul admitted. “A cruise is a great way to get an overview of several of the world’s great cities all in one trip, but the tight schedule means you can only see the highlights of each port of call.”
Resigning ourselves to the inevitable (and ignoring the many ticket hawkers who optimistically promised to get us inside the Chapel “presto!”), we contented ourselves with strolling about the plaza, enjoying the shade of the massive colonnades, cooling ourselves in the spray of the twin Bernini fountains, and taking photos of the Egyptian obelisk marking the center, whose shadow—according to the guidebook I’d finally reclaimed from Paul—marked the time like a giant sundial. Then, too, there was the ever-popular pastime of people-watching. A cardinal, dignified in flowing scarlet robes, frowned at a gaggle of brown-skinned young novices, all giggling amongst themselves like any American teenyboppers. I did wonder, though, what sort of lurid secrets might be shared between young women sworn to a life of celibacy. The thought of romantic secrets reminded me of Maggie and her tête-à-tête with Paul, and I resolved to demand a full accounting once we were back in the privacy of our own staterooms.
Back at the ship, however, it became clear that any confidences would have to wait. As we reached our cabin doors, Maggie, fumbling in her purse, grumbled, “I can’t find my key!”
“Are you sure you had it this morning?” Even as I asked the question, I already knew the answer. A woman suddenly living alone again after decades of marriage would be unlikely to forget to lock her door, and the stateroom doors couldn’t be locked from the outside without the key, making it impossible for Maggie to have accidentally locked herself out.
“It isn’t here!” she exclaimed in growing impatience, having by this time dropped to her knees and dumped the contents of her purse out into the passageway, the better to sift through the odds and ends it contained. “Did I give it to you, Robin?”
“No.” I smiled slyly at her. “Did you give it to Paul, by any chance?”
She paused in her search long enough to look up at me with a stern look belied by the twinkle in her eye. “Why, Robin, I’m surprised at you! What would your mother say?”
“Probably that you’re a bad influence on me—or maybe that I’m a bad influence on you. I don’t remember your giving me your key, but I’ll check.” Following my aunt’s example, I dumped out my purse and sorted through its contents. Just as I’d expected, the only key I found was my own. “So what happens now?”
Maggie sighed. “I suppose I’d better go down to the purser’s desk and see if anyone has found it and turned it in there. If not, I’ll ask if they have a spare. There must be extras, else how would the cabin steward get in?”
“I’ll go with you.”
By the time we’d collected a replacement key from the purser and returned to our cabins, we barely had time to dress for dinner. After a full meal, all I wanted to do was put up my aching feet and rest in preparation for the next day’s excursion to Pompeii. The juicy details of Maggie’s date, I decided, would just have to wait.
Chapter 6
I stood among them, but not of them.
GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
I awoke the next morning just as the ship was docking in Naples. Recalling Miss Duprée’s warnings about the uneven streets of Pompeii, I resisted the urge to try out my new Italian sandals and settled instead on a pair of less stylish but more practical Keds, along with a sleeveless shirtwaist dress of plaid seersucker. Once dressed, I knocked on Maggie’s door, but she didn’t answer. I knocked again, with no more response, and was debating the wisdom of going down to breakfast alone when I heard the distant swish of the midships elevator sliding to a stop, and a moment later Maggie came hurrying down the passageway.
“I’m so sorry, Robin,” she said, fumbling in her bag for her replacement key. “I awoke an hour ago, so I went down for an early breakfast. I thought I would be back before you were up and about.”
“It’s all right,” I assured her. Driven by some demon of mischief, I asked, “And how is Paul this morning?”
“He’s fine. He—” Realizing she’d stepped very neatly into the trap I’d set for her, she gave me a rather sheepish smile. “He’s fine. Will you mind very much if he accompanies us to Pompeii?”
“Of course not! I’d much rather have Paul’s company than Sylvia Duprée’s. I hope Mr. Grimes is recovered. I’m not sure I can take her for two days in a row.”
But as we boarded the bus, there was no sign of either the Mistress or her Sugar Daddy. He’d come down to dinner last night, but had not been the charming dinner companion of the previous evening; he hadn’t taken part in the conversation at all, and had only picked at the lavish meal set before him. I wondered if Miss Duprée had decided to stay on the ship and play the devoted nurse. Somehow I couldn’t quite picture her in the role.
In any case, I had a row all to myself this time, since no one came to claim the seat beside me. I slid over to the window, and prepared to enjoy the view. And what a view it was! The Bay of Naples spread out before us, and in the distance a gently curved mountain appeared hazy against the blue sky.
“It looks harmless enough, doesn’t it?” asked Paul, turning around in his seat to address me. “Hard to believe it was responsible for the destruction of two cities.”
“That’s Mount Vesuvius?” I exclaimed, regarding the deceptively peaceful-looking slope with new eyes.
Paul was right: It was strange to think that this was the same volcano whose eruption in 79 A.D. had buried Pompeii and
Herculaneum under more than twenty feet of volcanic ash. We would explore Pompeii later in the day, but first our bus driver treated us to a drive along the dramatic Amalfi Coast. Since I was seated on the right-hand side of the bus, I had an unobstructed view of the five-hundred-foot drop to the sea; better that, I supposed, than that of the passengers seated on the left, whose view included the oncoming traffic swerving toward us around hairpin bends so sharp that it seemed as if the passengers seated in the front of the bus must be able to see the ones in the rear through the window as we rounded the curve.
We spent the morning in Sorrento, where lemon trees grew within scaffolds of wood and wire, an ingenious arrangement that allowed orchards to thrive on the almost vertical cliffs that surrounded the town. We strolled down the narrow streets of the old medieval city toward the bay for photographs, and as we retraced our steps up the slope toward the town center, I bought a couple of pieces of fruit at an outdoor market and tucked them into my bag for a snack later, having been warned that there would be nowhere to eat amongst the Pompeiian ruins. By now the sun was high enough to penetrate the dark canyonlike streets, and we stopped at a tiny osteria whose outdoor tables took advantage of the shade cast by the surrounding buildings.
“We can’t leave for Pompeii without first trying the limoncello,” Maggie declared. “After all, Sorrento is famous for it.”
“So that’s what all the lemon trees are for!” I exclaimed. “I’ll admit, I wondered. I’d never thought of Italians as being all that fond of lemonade.”
“Oh, you can probably get lemonade if you want it,” Paul said. “Still, as long as we’re here, I figure ‘when in Rome,’ and all that.”
“Rome was yesterday,” I pointed out. “You’re getting your days mixed up, Paul.”
He made a face at me. “No one likes a smart-aleck, Robin.”
“It serves you right for that stunt with the Mouth of Truth,” I retorted, still conscious of having betrayed more than I’d intended there. Or was it that I was uncomfortable with confronting the truth about myself and Gene?
Moon over the Mediterranean Page 7
