Colosseum (9 page)

Not really. Verus barely knows how to count to fifty. Well, he knows numbers higher than fifty, but
fifty thousand
is truly beyond his grasp. Sixty-two souls used to live in his village. In the quarry he worked alongside a hundred and thirty companions. Along with the guards, there might have been a hundred and fifty. At the port of Misenum there were a lot of people, that was true. But at a guess there were no more than a thousand. Fifty thousand all together is madness. As far as he is concerned, that would be enough to fill the whole world. There is no way the boy is ready for Rome. And yet the Eternal City draws ever closer.

“No, I really can't imagine it,” he answers laconically. He has no more to add on the subject, so he limits himself to listening.

Marcius is pleased the boy has stopped interrupting him: “First and foremost the games should be a holiday for the crowd, not a torture. You need a bit of shade so the poor spectators' heads don't end up cooked, and for shade, my boy, there's nothing better than a sail. And if Rome needs a sail, there's no one more fit to pull it into position than a
classiario
from Misenum, you can bet that skinny behind of yours on that.”

Verus registers the information.

“Sails,” Marcius continues, “are like women, young Briton. If you treat them too rough they'll cut you open. But if you don't hold them taut, they get away from you and bang about all over the place. The finer they are, the more damage they can do if they're left unguarded. Just like damned women, may Juno watch over every last one of them. If you don't treat them with an iron fist they can come down on the wrong man and do him an injury. What would become of the poor people watching the show if, right in the middle of a fight, they suddenly couldn't see anything, eyes and mouth covered by a shroud whiter than snow?”

“I imagine people would get angry. I'd get angry…” Verus is sure of something, for once in his life.

“Exactly. You'd get angry with the Emperor, who organized the party but didn't think about the details. You'd be annoyed with the damned gladiators or the ferocious beasts, who go on tearing each other apart without you being able to see. And then you'd be scared and cursing, suddenly caught in a trap. Same thing as happens with women, young fool.”

Verus takes his word for it.

“Luckily, it's us who will be taking care of the cool and serenity of Rome… Who better than the cream of the Misene fleet to unfurl the greatest sail in the world, when the moment comes?”

“Nobody, sir.”

“Nobody. You said it.”

And with that the discussion is over.

The Eternal City is now a stone's throw from the caravan, which draws to a halt near to the Capena Gate.

The customs officers are in no hurry as they go about their work, delaying the encounter that will change the Briton's life forever. The Queen of the World is stirring to life, but the game of seduction takes the time it takes, and the customs checks play to the She-wolf's favor.

Another few moments of waiting before the miracle, young Verus. In less than an hour, there, at the center of the universe, your life will cease to be what it was.

Marcius has warned him, but the stubborn Verus paid him no heed.

No one is ready for Rome, the first time. Let alone a barbarian from the North.

It is not his eyes but his nose that is first struck. It is the smell, damn it, that nobody expects.

The air is thick with humidity. Rome is water and stone, it drips from every wall, moss covers every brick, and mosquitoes dominate the entire city, even more so than the Praetorians. But the unhealthy air is nothing next to the life that surrounds him. Throngs of slaves trot past with their arms loaded with dirty laundry, mostly tunics and sheets. Their shaved heads are saturated with acrid sweat. They file into a strange building beneath a small dome, from which emanates a strong smell of urine. Marcius explains that there, inside the
fullonica
, they leave the laundry to soak in piss in order to whiten it. After that the clothes are hung over a brazier filled with burning sulfur. The fumes dry out the yellow and fix the white. A quick rinse and a few hours in the sun are enough to give you sheets whiter than December snow. If it were not for the horrid stench, Verus would gape with surprise.

Instead, he holds a hand to his nose and hurries past.

Piss, then. What better way to welcome a foreigner?

Little by little the She-wolf reveals her true size: gigantic buildings like the Pantheon, built in magnificent red-black stone, leave newcomers speechless, as though they have just rounded a familiar corner and found it inexplicably before them. But there is no time for surprise, Marcius yanks Verus along with him. Further on. The throng is a living thing, the skin colors of the people around them are multiplying.

The scent of spices and beans drying in the sun, a chubby merchant sweating as he unloads pistachios from a rickety wagon. A fat woman in a threadbare tunic gives a whistle as she leans out of a pergola—a dark, wooden structure clinging to the wall of the tenement, a kind of veranda hanging in mid-air—the merchant looks up and she makes a sign with her fingers: three. The seller holds his arms out, waiting for the basket to come down. There are some coins inside. He pockets them and loads three handfuls of his goods in the basket.

Sold.

Verus is enthralled by the sight of the
insulae
, the gigantic tenement blocks that infest the streets of the Eternal City. Each one is a veritable colossus of brick and plaster: for the umpteenth time since sunrise, Verus realizes these are the biggest objects crafted by man that he has ever seen in his life. A hundred or so windows, all alike and crowned with a red-brick ledge, dot the dirty, white plaster. Flowers and plants sprout from just about everywhere, balanced on windowsills, and ivy creeps up some of the walls, searching for light amidst the shade of roofs and hanging laundry.

The smell of ash, which brings back such bad memories, actually comes from the laundry that has been hung out to dry. From where he is standing, those lines of multi-colored banners look like the vanguard of some foreign army on the march. He follows as Marcius darts down an alleyway and all of a sudden the lights go out. Beyond the sun's embrace, humidity bites at the joints. The walls stink of shit. There is no shame around these parts, a dozen businessmen are emptying their guts shoulder to shoulder, chatting about this and that. The rising price of salt is today's topic.

As they leave the alleyway there is something that Verus would prefer not to see, but there is nothing worse than a pair of curious eyes in a city such as this. Sitting rigidly on the ground, propped up against the wall, a girl of about twenty who has been dead some time. She has a pretty face but it is the color of parchment and there are noticeable purple stains around her neck. Her eyes are closed in silent thanks to Selene, goddess of peaceful death. But the true horror is what she holds in her arms, even if nobody seems to notice: her baby of a few months has not made it. Perhaps he was sick or perhaps they both were, judging by the swarms of flies filling their mouths.

Verus hopes she died in her sleep. Then he retches uncontrollably. Marcius teases him, but at the same time he makes sure he does not feel too bad. The sailor is a good man and he would prefer to spare the boy what he will be obliged to tell him a thousand paces from now. The Amphitheater is finally within view, time is ticking away, and they must shortly go on their separate ways.

One last stop in a
taberna
that has just opened: Marcius leans on the bar and orders two cups of ale. The other men throw him a dirty look: since when do Roman officers bother to offer their slaves a drink? And what was more, without even buying a round for themselves.

What are things coming to?

Verus is overcome with excitement. His amazement stems, however, not only from the ale but also from the bunches of bronze phalluses that dangle from the roof of the shack.

A nice big bunch of erect, curved penises that leave nothing to the imagination. Matched with a flame-red cock of painted wood, nailed up perpendicular to the north wall, big enough for a child of three or four to straddle it.

These fucking Romans sure are a strange bunch…

“Touch it! It brings good luck!” shouts Marcius, waving one of the phalluses at random.

Verus does not feel like it: “Where I'm from they cause nothing but trouble…”

The barman's wife, from deep within the storerooms that double as lodgings for her, the husband and the four children they have brought into the world, ventures a “Says who?” loudly enough to make even the people out in the street laugh loudly.

Marcius swallows the last mouthful and tells Verus to get a move on.

It's time, damn it.

It is time to stare destiny in the face.

“Shut your eyes,” the sailor advises the slave. “Because when you go round this corner, nothing will be the same as before, and I want you to be ready.”

Verus does as he is told, allowing himself to be led blindly over the last stones. He trips, picks himself up, and when he hears the order opens his eyes on his future.

The Amphitheater, at last.

The cursèd heart of Rome.

The first time is different for everybody. Some cannot believe it and shake their heads. Others are overcome by the size of the building and lose their balance, falling backwards, unable to adjust their eyes to the new, artificial horizon. Many people—most, if truth be told—do nothing more than gasp with surprise, like the noise that escapes a child's lips when he finds himself before a cuddly animal or a new toy.

Other simply remain silent. As one is silent before the abyss, or before the eyes of the Gorgon. This is what Verus does, awestruck by its magnificence and incalculable immensity.

His first view of it fills him with a sort of burning. The heat is the work of his imagination, but the burning that has been consuming him since the night of the massacre bursts into flame without warning, flushing his cheeks bright red.

It is not the height, nor even the travertine, wrapped around the stone in an endless orgy, peeping out from one intertwined arch after another in a stack of gaping holes and hard stone.

It is the light that truly leaves him speechless. The three rows of arches is the door through which Jupiter gazes down on the world, setting the arena ablaze. It is the outer wall, which is something close to divine, with the aspect of a celestial stairway.

It is the hugeness of the form, the colossal embrace, the limitless eye, wide open and watching over the fate of the She-wolf.

It is the size, damn it, the size.

As miniscule as Verus feels, the men clinging to the scaffolding skirting the southern sector look like ants on a piece of ripe fruit. Or rather, fleas on the smooth back of a sleeping hound.

Marcius has to make
the speech
. Right now though, Verus has too much to take in to be able to listen to him. Marcius tries to make himself clear, but Verus underestimates what he has to tell him: “Boy, over that threshold,” he says, indicating the southern entrance, “we go our separate ways. I can't keep you with me, you'd get in the way. The detachment from the Classis Misenensisthat I have led here will take care of the sail, you know that. It is not an easy job, it takes both practice and expertise. And you don't have either one of them, you damned, big-hearted Briton. Before we left I contacted Lucius Mangalus, one of the four contractors building the Amphitheater, and I let you go at a good price in exchange for the promise that he would treat you well. In a few months' time the work will be finished. After nine years of hard work the last stone will be in place. And you will be able to boast of having taken part in the greatest building project in the whole world. What do you say, boy?”

Verus remains silent for a good minute. Just enough time to take in the officer's words, so that he can patiently repeat them again when he finds himself alone again with his damned destiny.

Then he kneels, his eyes still full of wonder, and bows his head before the man he owes everything to: “I have no words, sir. I really do not know what to say.”

A wise answer.

And an honest one too, as the image of the Amphitheater is so immense that it leaves no room for further comment.

Marcius moves off, leading the young man into the belly of the beast. Lucius Mangalus's men take delivery of the new arrival and escort him to the area set aside for his new job. When they put a hammer and chisel in his hands, Verus finally realizes that he has once again circled the world only to return to the same shitty starting point.

Stone, exhaustion, and sweat.

Whips, guards; dust for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Some men are born with their fate scored into their flesh. Others must traverse the underworld itself to earn that cursed brand on their skin.

Verus sighs, gestures silently to his companions and sets to work, as though he has just returned from an overlong break.

A handsome, muscular young man stares at him respectfully. His eyes are blue and sad, as cold as ice. Verus offers him a nod of the head and sighs again.

The greatest arena in the universe is taking shape at lightning speed.

Perhaps the dream is not so far off, after all.

Perhaps, for once, the waves of destiny have brought him to the right place.

To get along in the world you have to grasp how things work.

And grasp it fast.

Verus has never been particularly insightful, but he has not taken long to learn the rules.

Life amongst the bricks and travertine is certainly harder than it was at the quarry: it is not just a question of back-breaking work. This is Rome. Here, whether you like it or not, everything is politics.