The Far Arena (61 page)

'What was his name? What did he look like? What did he say? What did he do ? Where did he five? Who were his friends?
’

'Wait. Wait. My eyes hurt.'

Tell me.'

'In a moment, woman. In a moment. My eyes hurt. I hear you are back and healthy, being your same unpleasant self.' 'Talk.'

'I am Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, barbarian. You will treat me with respect.'

'You didn't even know Juvenal who lived at your time, and you expect me to respect you.'

'I may have owned Juvenal.'

'You couldn't. He wasn't a slave.'

'He was so important, I was not sure who he was.'

'You were so ignorant you were not sure who he was.'

'I could read. My mother was Greek. That village taught me to read even before I bought scholars. I had many scholars, and historians like yourself, although they knew manners. So did your Peter.'

At that she gasped, covering her mouth. Her cosmetics were in colourful disarray across her face, having been spread by tear and hand. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair a mess of white yellow thatching.

People in other rooms yelled at us, and Olava lowered her voice. I did too.

'Peter?' she whispered, leaning forward, her big, pale, bony hands clasped anxiously in front of her chest. Both our passions had gone, and she was a worthy match of wits and will.

'The priest. The Jew.'

'Was he one of the original followers of Jesus, this Peter? You see, it is important that I know. Important to me and my faith and history, too. We look to him as our first chief priest.'

'All of you?'

'In our sect. We believe God has taken him unto himself as a special person, called a saint.'

'Then it must have been another Peter. The Peter who performed the ceremony was nothing unusual. A very common man. But I married Miriamne, nevertheless, in her ceremony. The important official one came later. It didn't matter.'

'What do you remember about this Peter?'

'He was nice.'

'In what way?'

'He was respectful.'

'In what way?'

'In every way. He was in the
home of Lucius Aurelius Eugeni
anus. And he knew it.' 'What did he look like?'

'Like a fisherman, although this one had not fished for many years. I gave him a donative of two or three sesterces. He was overjoyed. It was more than he deserved, but I loved Miriamne.
’
'What did he say?'

'He said I was a fitting tribute in my sword and manhood to his god.' 'He didn't say that.'

'You're right. A priest of Apollo said that. But so what? If there are so many people who believe, we can say whatever we want. But woman, the Peter I know of could not have been your chief priest.'

'Why?'

'It is better that you don't know in case he was the Peter.' 'Eugeni, I want to know.' She was firm on this, this formidable woman.

'All right, but I give you one moment to take back the question. You won't like the answer. Do you still want to hear?' 'Yes,' she said.

'He was executed like a common criminal. Upside down.' At this she let out a shriek of laughter and clapped her hands in joy.

'That was our Peter. He was crucified. Our first father of our church. I think it was. That was how he died. You see, we value giving up things for our God. He gave his life.'

'Better the blood of a cow or a pig, woman. I don't like your god who asks those sacrifices.'

'What about a legionnaire sacrificing his life for Rome?'

'The legions got paid, and they got paid regularly. Why do you think they worked so well, woman?'

'There was honour too. You can't tell me there wasn't, Eugeni.'

'Oh, yes. Some people cast away their one life for honour, some for drink, but most because they do not think they can die. Yes, there was honour. But it is the most specious of arguments that tries to justify one stupidity with the fact that there is a worse one.'

She laughed at this, quite broadly.

'Th
ere were even people,' I said, ‘W
ho would die for history. Now what sort of a judge is history when your first priest is remembered, and Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus is not? Despite the decree and everything, I should have been remembered, and that very ordinary man should not have been.'

'I will not argue that with you
... for now. But you have shown
honour. There on the bed where you sit. You showed it. You did not take me because you knew of my vows, and for that, Eugeni, thank you.'

'I did not take you because of how you felt about your vows. Not because of your vows, which I think are stupid. I think a copulation would do you wonders. Many copulations. And often.'

'Perhaps for my body but not me.'

'Intelligence is like a sword, but more often people who have it fall on it. Would you most graciously tell me the difference between your body and you ? How have you separated yourself from your body?'

On this we argued late into the dawn, with occasional demands from people in adjoining rooms for quiet.

We were both very tired when we heard people awakening near us through the very thin walls. One banged on the door, and I got my blade, the one I had performed with. Olava yelled back in a begging tone, and finally the man left. Olava had been afraid of what might happen to him, if he successfully carried out what obviously were threats to break down the door.

We turned out the lights again, but now shafts of sun came through the drapery. It was dark, but not completely dark. As I fell asleep, I hoped I would remember to ask why they built the rooms with openings to the street, when it was so obvious to any rational person that they had to cover them again. I longed for a couch in which I would awaken and see the pool of the peristilium again and hear the slaves working easily in the morning trying to be quiet so as not to wake me.

I thought I heard a slave bang a pot - one of those noisy accidents Miriamne arranged when she did not want to be responsible for awakening me. But it was a horn. The kind they used in automobiles. And I went to sleep with those noises coming into the little sealed room lacking the tiniest grace of plants or water and my friend Olava snoring like gravel avalanches through the caves of Dacia.

Germany was now highly civilized, one could tell from the roads. The Germans had recently waged wars against neighbours simultaneously and lost, the country being divided into two parts now, we driving south in the western part.

The noise was so bad from so many cars in one gigantic

German city, I had thought I heard Olava say these people had thrown millions of others into ovens. Concentrating on driving, she further confused me by saying it was not some device of war, but rather a national effort to annihilate a people. 'To take their land?'

'No. They had no
land. Quiet, this is difficult’
'So are you.'

'Must you always contend?'

'Rather than surrender to you?'

'You're worse than my brothers. Quiet,' she said.

From the snatches, I gathered they accused a people of all manner of evil, and then systematically, yes, millions, killed them. And this to eliminate them, the purpose being elimination. If I heard correctly.

They didn't eat them?'

'Cannibalism up here has been gone many centuries. Quiet I am trying to read the signs,'

Two days we crossed the land of the Germans, from north to south. If we had taken the exact route of my march going backwards across it, I would not have recognized a bit of it.

Even the forests were neat. They had built cities here and roads, and all manner of civilized things. They had come a long way. Thus time had shown to be a lie the Roman contention that the German was a happy, brave, but wild person, unable to accept discipline and too emotional for grave matters.

This of course was as much nonsense many centuries ago as it was now. It is not the blood in a man's veins that counts, it is what he does with it.

Those born high like to contend their prominence reflects some natural law like horses running or birds flying, just as those born low often like to think of wealth and fame as something dishonestly obtained; the former establishing the justice of his good fortune, the latter an excuse for his bad.

The Helvetians were now bankers and famous around the world for it. We passed through their land, too, and then into Italy, once again unified under Rome, but no longer with power. But there was another change. We drove through a tunnel into Italy where legions used to guard each pass in these mountains -each pass having its own legion to keep invaders out. An open tunnel. No legionnaire, just normal custodes checking people's automobiles.

'Hannibal had to march over,' said Olava. 'Do you know of Hannibal?'

'Yes. I am no fool. He was a Carthaginian. He invaded Italy down into Latium, but couldn't get the other cities to join him in enough number. He needed another big battle to get the cities to side with him, but Quintus Fabius, the delayer, wouldn't give him one, and eventually he went back to Carthage and was defeated there.'

'Very good, you show great strength in some areas.'

'We did Hannibal once. We had gladiators on elephants fight men on foot It was very nice and no one was charged with murdering an elephant.'

'Did you participate?'

'Yes, after. In a single match, against Hannibal's descendant, who had vowed to defeat Rome's Eugeni, whose ancestor had died swearing that, while his meagre body might be crushed under Carthaginian elephant hoofs, lo, Roman blood could never be crushed, and challenging with his dying words to a single match, descendant to descendant.'

"That is utterly ridiculous, Eugeni,'

'You haven't heard it all.'

'I don't want to hear it all.'

'You ask me about this poet and that poet and this historian and that historian, of whom I have only the scantiest knowledge but what I really do know about, what I was good at, what I understood, you show no interest in.'

'Other things are more important to our civilization.'

'Yes. Jewish beggars, historians you could own for less gold than would fill a cup. The garbage of Rome. It is not that Peter was important.'

'He was,' said Olava stoutly.

'Let me finish. It was not that Peter was so important, but that your cult is today. People do not magnify the significance of their ancestors because the ancestors are important, but because
they
are. Would Peter be important if your cult were not big?'

'Our size is the proof of Peter's importance.'

'Well, I liked him.'

'Did you? That's nice of you. So did God. The great Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus liked Saint Peter, liked Peter the Fisherman.'

'At the time I liked him, he was not as popular as you say he is today.' I said. 'When I liked him, he needed friends.'

'Where were you at his execution?'

'Safely, prudently, and intelligently at home with Miriamne. And if Peter had been as prudent, he would have been lying on a couch instead of nailed upside down to two boards.'

'How did his execution happen ? What were the facts surrounding it?'

'I don't know. There was political turmoil, and they were giving games out of everyone's treasury. Four times I was matched that year, and they would have forced me into a hundred if they could. One match, I didn't even know ray opponent until I was on the sand. And he was good, and people started booing.'

'Why was that?'

'You care about the arena?'

‘
Yes.'

'Good. Because a real match, one in which men are feinting and judging and looking for an advantage and trying not to give one, is quite boring. And it is too quick for the eye in a big arena. You can have a real and good match, but you need an audience equal to it, do you understand?'

'Yes. I think I do,' she said. Her short hair was now combed in a perky manner, and her cosmetics were more subdued. She still had her hard, nervous drive, but that would remain until, if ever, she decided to release her sexual juices. Still she was beautiful, if the looks she got from men were any gauge.