The Far Arena (57 page)

'Eugeni, Semyonus wants to know about slavery. Specifically, if you bought a woman, if you owned her, could you do anything you wanted to her?'

Semyonus hung on the words.

'I don't understand,' I said.

'Sexually,' said Lewus. And then he repeated the word to Semyonus who nodded enthusiastically and added something.

'He does not mean with your wife, the woman you married, Eugeni. Rather, generally,' said Lewus, Semyonus adding other things to be translated by Lewus,'... like tie them up... and do whatever you wanted... or anything you wanted... chain them to a bed... or things.'

'Could or would ?' I asked.

'Could,' came back Semyonus's answer through Lewus. 'I suppose. I guess. There were slaves you bought for sex. And there were prostitutes. What does he mean by could ?' 'Legally.'

'Slaves did have rights, although magistrates who were slave owners did not pursue those rights with zeal; they pursued their own, of course. Female slaves were generally willing, and if masters did that, they usually added some coins to a peculium.
I
honestly cannot answer that question well. Does Semyonus have sexual affairs with nurses ?'

When he heard this, Semyonus glanced nervously at the room Olaya was in and then nodded back to me.

'But they are mainly for work, and if they do not wish sex, he does not ask it,' said Lewus, translating.

'So too with slaves,' I said. But Lewus did not translate Semyonus's response.

'What did he say ?' I asked.

'He said "oh".'

'Which means?'

'Which means he was disappointed,' said Lewus. 'What did he expect ?' I asked.

'Probably the other side of his romantic coin, that which was not what he has known. Another thing. A strange thing. Something in his imagination. Perhaps a bit Roman in his entertainment, for as you have said, the arena is in the mind of the mobs.'

And Lewus said this was so with his game that he played, sponsored by the schools of his country for fame and finance - the myth being that the gladiators fought for the schools instead of their own interests.

Semyonus, after asking me, through Lewus, never to let Olava know what he had asked, called her back into the room. And with this he gave me an embarrassed wink, and I winked back.

Only Olava did not have a question to ask me, for as she said:

'I will have more time than Lewus or Semyonus, and I will have many, many, many questions. And, if all works well, time to ask them. Much time. I hope. I pray.'

But they insisted she ask a question, and she said most of her questions were religious, which Lewus and Semyonus would not be interested in. So she thought a moment and asked a question she said might interest her colleagues:

'Who was the most famous person you knew personally, and tell us about him.'

'Most famous person,' I said.

'In all Rome, outside of Domitian, of course.'

'I didn't know our divinity personally,' I said.

'All right, then you have no problem.'

'Famous. Famous. Famous.' I thought of the men I had dealt with, all the senators and tribunes and the like. I remembered incidents with them, but all I remembered was how I had calculated what they would do.

'Famous, outside of Domitian,' I repeated.

Olava and Lewus nodded, Olava translating for Semyonus.

'Quintus Cornelius Fabius.'

'Who ?' asked Olava, looking to Lewus. Lewus shrugged. 'Never heard of him,' said Lewus.

'You never heard of the phrases left over from my age, "rich as Fabius", "pure Fabius", "I am not as Quintus Cornelius Fabius"?'

They hadn't.

'His donatives to Domitian not to seize his fortunes were as large as most fortunes,' I explained.

Still, they had not heard of him. And this was possible because he had never built monuments to himself as other rich men did, rather he had spent all his time collecting more fortunes. He lived alone, somewhat like Demosthenes who had known him better than I had, his fortune and mine doing business.

Lewus and Semyonus drank, and I went to sleep alone, and Olava went to her room. In the morning Lewus was dressed in the formal manner of his times with a cloth around his neck and his face shaven. He smelled of men's oils, and his orangish hair was combed back and neat and tonsored with grace.

He had awakened me to say good-bye. He used words identical to those of Lucius Aurelius Cotta, my patriarch, who had said good-bye to me in Domitian's palace.

'And so, brother, forever hello and good-bye.'

And by that Lewus meant we had just really met each other and were saying good-bye forever.

Twent
y eight

Lewellyn McCardle, Jr,

son of Lewellyn 'Slim' McCardle, Sr,

Purina Mills warehouseman, dead;

and Dottie Shanklin McCardle, resident of

Beaches Senior Citizens Home, St Petersburg;

graduate of Texas M and C with highest honours;

holder of a PhD from the University of Chicago;

former senior geologist of Houghton Oil Corporation

fa
ther of Cara and Tricia;

husband of Katherine Hooper McCardle;

owner of one home and two cars and small shares of the great Houghton Corporation,

said good-bye to a friend.

'Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale,' he said, quoting the famous poem of Catullus to the muscular, dark little fellow who had so changed his life. And then he embraced him that morning with spring all about them, and life coming green in the little hills. He remembered the dark ice and the still form, so long ago, less than two months ago, and how he had come alive to remind him of his education - a word which itself came from Latin, almost unchanged, 'to lead out of, meaning by that to lead out of darkness, into the light, into knowledge.

He understood now, hoping it was not the great amount of alcohol he had drunk, that he too had a heritage. The very act of learning was a heritage. Before Eugeni, it was, and after Lewellyn, it was. Bound one and the same, a man was a man because he thought, and all the cheers and all the illustrious parentage could not add one whit to any of his meaning. Neither could the jeers nor a father like 'Slim' McCardle take that away.

So when Lew said hello and good-bye, he was not only greeting Eugeni, whom he now knew as a brother, he was greeting himself. And while he knew he had done good in his lifetime - man needing energy - he also realized he was worth more than that. He was better than that. And this was so.

So it was good-bye, and Lew regretted one thing that morning, and it was that he had not told Eugeni how much he had enjoyed Ginger Jackson and was sorry, now that so many things were coming to a close, that he had not married her and seen what might have happened. She was his Miriamne, and he had not taken her to wife.

Lew looked back at the cabin. Eugeni stood halfway up the door, a giant of a little man. Lew saw him tap his heart, and he knew he had something to live for, whether he understood it or not. Lew had something to die for. And he was not all that sure who was luckier.

By noon, Lew was in the major Oslo television station talking freely with a television interviewer and feeling the very big lens on the camera devour him. He had not thought it was that big, or that round, and it was dark like eternity behind that glass. The drink came out in sweat under the lights, but his voice was steady. The metal chair seat bit into his fleshy thighs and he did not care.

He talked of the great future of the economies of the Scandinavian countries, especially because of the new, large deposits of oil in excess of the current ones discovered at this point.

He did not mention his friend. With a polished stick, he pointed out on a map just where the deposits were and described scientifically the earth formations under the ice that encapsulated them. He was telling the interviewer this because he wanted to live and invest in an ever-growing and more prosperous Norway. He said this with a straightforward, fresh-washed, honest face. He was retired from the oil business.

At his hotel suite, he put in a phone call to Kathy in their Austin home. It took twenty minutes for the operator to get through. Kathy was groggy. He had awakened her.

'Honey,' he said, with delicious malice,
‘I
never loved you. Banging a Yankee is like sticking it in wet cardboard. Put on the girls. C'mon. Don't delay. This is costing money. It's from Oslo, Norway. Hello, Tricia, listen, honey. You think you're some kind of radical progressive, but, sweetheart, you're just an insignificant piece of shit, and you're not all that different from your mother whom you call a pig, honey. You're the pig and the insect, and you know it. That's why you're clawing at people who do things. You never put so much as a biscuit in anybody's mouth.

Put your sister on. Cara ... hello, honey. Look, you tell that shrink to go suck. You happen to be one of the finest human beings I've ever met. Sorry I didn't get to know you better. But being responsible for someone's welfare is no way to get to know her.'

'You drunk, Daddy?'

'No. Stopped drinking early this morning. I'm going to rest for a while now.' 'Do you want to talk, Dad ?'

'Honey, there is not a seventeen-year-old living, including you, no matter how decent you are, who can tell me about anything that matters. And this is the truth. Seventeen, especially your kind of seventeen, just hasn't been around long enough. Goodbye.'

The phone was ringing as soon as he hung up. It was the long-distance operator from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He recognized the smooth patrician voice with one word:

'Why?'

'Hi, Jim,' said Lew to the chairman of Houghton Oil. 'Why? Why? Why? Why?'

'Because,' said Lew, and all he could think about was his father coming home soused, usually bleeding, and his mother running into the bedroom and locking the door and threatening to hit his father with a skillet if he opened the door, and one night his father holding a used condom in front of his face and yelling at him that his mother was a whore, and yelling at her that she should have sucked a nigger and beating up on young Lew and throwing him outside and breaking that lock on the bedroom and getting the skillet in the head, and the next morning everybody going about business as usual because it was not that unusual. And a couple of kids at North Springs Regional School knowing about that particular night, and one trying to be overly nice because of it, and Lew telling her to get her ass the hell out of his sight.

'Why?' asked James Houghton Laurie and there was no Texas in his voice - the kind of voice Lew had once thought came from clean, safe, better worlds.

' 'Cause I
ain't trash,' said Lew McCardle.

'Whoever said you were?' said Laurie in winded shock. 'My God, whoever said you were?' 'No one,' said Lew. And hung up.

Twenty Nine

Dr Semyon Fyodorovitch Petrovitch,

son of Vasily Ivanovitch Petrovitch,

member of the workers' committee, Magnitogorsk Factory,

and Mariania Sergeyevna Petrovitch,

chairman of the workers' committee of Magnitogorsk Factory;

member of the Communist Youth;

the Russian Academy of Sciences;

on loan to Oslo University under the Scandinavian-Soviet Friendship Pact,

woke up and saw the rough wood of the cabin near his head and realized it was not all a bad dream, and that the night before he had made a pact to save his patient at the risk of his own future.

In the evening, with beautiful cool Olava and the dynamic Lewus, it made so much sense. It was so good and so right the night before.

As a physician, Semyon stated, he thought any trial of the patient, or even further incarceration, might prove fatal.

While for Eugeni there were times of apparent satisfactory adjustment - a smile, a nod, an explanation with the hands moving rapidly, good active physical movement - there were others of deep dark despair. Semyon Petrovitch was not one of those who took lightly interest in, or attempts at, suicide. It was utter foolishness to dismiss these things, for the very expression of desire for death was the proof of sickness.

'Yes, I agree. More than any of you I know my patient must be active in some way. Being a specimen, to be blunt, is not conducive to mental health, and, with all honesty, Olava, you were hard on him. And I am not laying blame.'

'I did not think you were,' Sister Olav had said.