“You’re hooked, aren’t you?” Agnes asks.
“I guess so,” I admit. The truth is that my head is filled with the image of the man from the Persephone, with trying to line up his face with my memories of Ely, and the only thing I can imagine that will take my mind off the identity of the mysterious stranger is the next installment of Phineas’s journal. If I had any doubt that the next installment was worth getting hold of, it’s erased when we enter the lab and George looks up from the scanner, his bloodshot eyes gleaming.
“You’re going to love this next part,” he tells me and Agnes. “It’s like getting a guided walking tour through Herculaneum two days before it was destroyed.”
“Cool,” Agnes says, “I was afraid the whole thing was going to be Phineas wandering around the villa chasing after poor Iusta.”
“Well, here we’ve got him going to the baths, and then we get him chasing Iusta around town. Here are the photocopies of what I’ve scanned today,” George says, handing Agnes a thin stack of papers. “And my transcription of the Latin awaiting your exceptional translating skills.”
Agnes blushes at George’s compliment, confirming my suspicion that there’s a flirtation going on between these two. What about Sam? I want to ask.
“I’ll get right to work on it,” Agnes says. “I’ll have it ready by dinnertime.”
I look over Agnes’s shoulder at the pages of Latin and decide that unless I want to spend the afternoon pining for failed love affairs (mine, Agnes’s, Sam’s), I’d better get myself something to do. “Why don’t you give me a copy?” I ask.
Agnes looks up, a flicker of wariness in her eyes, and I realize she thinks I don’t trust her translating ability. “That way we’ll both have time for lunch and a siesta before dinner,” I add, hoping she’ll see that I’m treating her as an equal.
“Okay,” she replies, yawning a little as she takes the sheets to the copying machine. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. You look tired, too, Dr. Chase. I think our swim took a lot out of you.”
I decide, though, that instead of lunch and a siesta I need to get out of the villa for a bit. I change back into my skirt, tank top, and sandals and, tossing my wallet, a Latin dictionary, and the Phineas transcript in a canvas bag, head out the gates and down toward town. I pass iron gates covered with bougainvillea affording glimpses of majolica-tiled walkways and grape-covered pergolas. Each one looks more secretive than the last—a hidden bower where just about anything could be going on, a private Eden for those eccentric foreigners Lyros spoke of before, come to live out their fantasies.
As I approach the town, the private villas are interspersed with small hotels and shops until I’m walking in a narrow cobbled street between high whitewashed walls. It could be a medieval city except that here the ancient walls are pierced with shop windows full of gaudy resortwear and jewelry carved from coral and shell. I stop at one of the windows to look at the cameos, which are my favorites. There among the Victorian profiles and half-nude goddesses I find one that depicts two women in profile—Day and Night—a common motif in nineteenth-century cameos. The woman who represents Day has her head lifted, her hair is adorned with wheat and roses, and a dove spreads its wings across her bodice. Her sister, Night, is behind her, her star-veiled head bowed, her hair bound with poppies, an owl nestled between her breasts. No wonder this motif was so popular with the Victorians: it represented what Elgin had called last night “the dual nature of the feminine.”
The merchandise becomes pricier near the Piazzetta—designer shoes and handbags and Cartier—to go with the seven-euro lemonades served in the Gran’Caffe. It’ll cost me a fortune to drink enough lemonades to last through a reading of the Phineas, but I sit down anyway, determined to enjoy a restful hour away from the intrigues at the villa.
I order a pizza all’Acqua and a lemonade. The waiter brings me a tall glass with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, a pitcher of water, and a smaller pitcher of sugar syrup. The pizza is covered in the fresh mozzarella I’ve become addicted to and studded with local peperoncino chilis. It’s like eating a meal of dichotomies: the hot peppers pillowed in bland, creamy mozzarella, the tart lemon juice tempered by the sugar. At first I’m so seduced by the food that I can’t focus on the Latin words in front of me, but slowly, between bites and sips, I unravel Phineas’s day in Herculaneum.
When I awoke the next morning the villa was so silent that I almost believed it had fallen under a spell, or at least that the revelries of the previous evening had left all the inhabitants so drained that they still slept. But then the grizzled old servant—I could tell by his pilleus that he had recently been granted his freedom—who brought me my morning bread and drink told me that far from being asleep, his mistress and her handmaids had arisen at dawn to travel to Surrentum to pay homage there at the temple of the sirens. “As they always do before the rites,” he told me. “It’s part of the preparation.”
“And the girl Iusta,” I asked, “has she gone, too?”
“She had errands in town to perform for the mistress this morning,” he told me. I thought I saw an impudent smile creeping over his face and so I cut short our colloquy by demanding hot water.
“I’m afraid there’s none to be had as the slaves are all busy with preparations for the rites,” he told me, again with a smile that suggested he was secretly pleased at my inconvenience. I made a note to myself to speak to Calatoria about her servant’s impudence and asked if there was a decent bath in town.
“We have two,” the old man said, “a large one in the forum and a smaller, but more refined establishment on the walls of the marina. You would no doubt prefer the Suburban Baths. It is only a short walk along the marina wall.”
“Good,” I told the servant, not wanting him to think I was in any way inconvenienced by this turn of events. “I wanted to look at the marina to see if there are any boats I might commission for the rest of my journey. And I am always glad for the opportunity to see new sights.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” the old slave told me. “You will see things here that you have never seen before.”
The old man departed and, if I’m not mistaken, I heard him chuckling to himself as he went. No doubt he was alluding to the rites that I would be taking part in soon and trying to alarm me, I conjectured as I dressed and left the villa. Little did he know what marvels I had witnessed in my travels. I have seen in Egypt the embalmed bodies of centaurs and mermaids and in Sicily and Rhodes I have been shown the bones of giants that, according to the natives, were spewn forth from the earth during times of earthquake. I have taken part in the mysteries of Eleusis and Agrai and inhaled the vapors that rise up from the bowels of the earth at the oracle of Delphi. I doubted that anything dreamed up in this little provincial town could rival the things I’ve seen.
I did notice, though, as I made my way through the gate to the marina and down a long ramp to the baths that it is a town quite preoccupied with the pleasures of the flesh. Numerous inscriptions and drawings on the walls indicated that sexual liaisons of many kinds were practiced here on Herculaneum’s waterfront. One named Sturnus had written, “And willingly we perform the act to which the permissive Longinus consented with pleasure: quick carnal union,” and another had drawn a picture illustrating a similar union.
In contrast to these lewd decorations, I found a terrace of shrines dedicated to the gods, local and imported. In one reposed a statue of Isis suckling her son, the god Horus, which reminded me of the little statue I had given Iusta. I wondered if she had already taken it to the market and sold it, but then I reproved myself for the base thought and looked around for the baths. I found them on the last level before the beach, built right into the marina wall. Its roof formed a terrace for a private house, from which I could hear voices and laughter. I passed through a courtyard, where a statue of Marcus Nonius Balbus commemorated the proconsul’s restoration of the town after the last earthquake and then through an arched portal that had been partially an
d inelegantly bricked up—a result, I deduced, of damage from the same earthquake. I had observed similar signs of damage in my hostess’s villa and it now occurred to me that the dissolute nature of the town might be a result of living on unstable ground.
I descended into an elegant vestibule supported by four enormous red columns and washed my hands at a small basin with water that flowed from the head of Apollo. I had to admit that the old freedman had been right about the elegance of these baths. The cloakroom where a slave took my clothing was quite beautifully paneled in polished woods, the linen I was given to wrap myself in was of the finest weave. As I took my place on the marble bench of the apodyterium, I admired the panels of warriors locked in combat and cupids engaged in their own sports. A group of men sat across from me, too engrossed in their conversation to notice a stranger in their midst, and I settled down, patient to wait my turn in the tepidarium if it afforded me a chance to listen to the locals’ conversation.
It soon became apparent that the three men were discussing a lawsuit in the local courts and that the case concerned the disputed manumission of a slave.
“It all came down to the birthdate,” one man with a weak chin and prominent nose said to his companions. “On whether she was born before her mother was freed or after.”
“I thought there was a witness who said she was born after,” his companion said.
“Yes, but the same man changed his testimony,” the first man said. “They say he gained his freedom by lying in court.”
“I say they shouldn’t have taken the word of a slave,” contended the youngest of the three, a handsome youth with a feminine face and ringleted hair. “Of course he’d say what his mistress bid him to say.”
“If the word of a slave is so suspect, my dear Dexter, then why should we listen to you?” the third man said, draping his arm around the shoulder of the youth and twining his fingers through his curls. “And why should anyone believe the word of this girl who could not be expected to remember the day of her own birth?”
“An excellent point, Apelles. I could have told you the outcome of the case before its conclusion. Why would the family have allowed a pregnant slave to buy her freedom before the birth of the child when they could just as easily wait and retain a replacement for the lost slave? It makes no sense at all.”
“Ah, but I’ve heard that the master of the house was fond of this slave and so granted her the right to buy back her freedom before the child was born. How else could she have set herself up in such a lucrative business if not with her former master’s backing?”
“Hm, I did wonder about that,” the long-nosed man said. “I’ve tasted her oysters—they’re the best in the Cup.”
“Yes,” the boy Dexter said eagerly, “and now all those oyster beds have become the property of—”
“Her mistress,” Apelles concluded, clapping Dexter on the back. “And none too soon. The word in the marketplace is that since her husband’s death Calatoria’s household has been severely depleted of finances. They say Gaius Petronius made a number of unwise investments and gambled away his wife’s fortune. No wonder it is said that Calatoria despises all men and practices rites only to female gods in her household. They say—”
I had perhaps unwisely shown my interest in the conversation since hearing the name of my hostess and the man called Apelles now stopped, seeming to take notice of my presence for the first time. At the same moment, a slave appeared, telling the three men that their guest had arrived and was awaiting them in a private room. Then, turning to me, the slave indicated that I could now enter the tepidarium. I was sorry that we were separated before I could learn more. Even the pleasures of the warm bath, followed by a good sweat in the sudatorium and then a plunge in the frigidarium, did little to distract me from pondering the conversation I had overheard. Clearly they were talking about Iusta—the daughter of the oyster vendor who gained her freedom either just before or after giving birth to her. I found I agreed with the long-nosed man when he said it didn’t make sense for Gaius Petronius to grant Vitalis her freedom before she gave birth…unless she was a particular favorite. As I was toweled off and rubbed by a most efficient masseuse I thought about the pictures of Iusta’s mother on the wall in the courtyard, depicting her as the young frightened initiate. Who, I wondered, had played the role of the god Dionysus in that rite? Had it been Gaius Petronius himself? And if he had played the role of Dionysus with Vitalis, might he have been Iusta’s father? That might explain why he would give Vitalis her freedom before her child was born. It would also explain the superior education he had given Iusta. I determined that the next time I saw Iusta I would ask her if Gaius Petronius ever gave her reason to believe he was her father. The old man had said Iusta was doing errands in town; perhaps I might find her in the forum.
So anxious was I to leave the baths in order to pursue this goal that I became lost in the back rooms. I opened one door and found the furnace, then hearing voices and thinking that it must be the exit I opened another.
It was not the exit. It was the private room to which the men whose conversation I had overheard had repaired, along with their guest. The guest was a lady whose age it was difficult to judge both because of the great quantity of powder on her face and the unusual position she had assumed—a position I am reluctant to describe, suffice it to say that she was doing her best to entertain the gentleman with the long nose while the other two men, Dexter and Apelles, did their best to entertain each other.
I hastily closed the door, muttering apologies, and went in search of the exit. By the time I found it, I was sweating—the effects of the cold plunge already negated by the heat of the day and my exertion. The door I came out of let onto a narrow alley leading away from the sea and toward a steep flight of steps back up onto the level of the town. At the top of the steps I found myself at the crossroads of three streets marked, fittingly, by a shrine to Hecate, goddess of crossroads.
“And which way now?” I asked the three-bodied goddess. I noticed that one of the figures carried a torch, the other a pomegranate, and the third a poppy. Because I had been given a poppy last night I decided to take the street the last figure faced. “After all,” I said to myself, “it is a small town organized along a grid. How lost could I get?”
It seemed though that no matter how many turns I made none led to the forum, nor did I see anyone of whom I could ask directions. The entire town seemed to be deserted. Had they all gone to Surrentum to worship at the Temple of the Sirens? Or were they all inside, engaging in recreations like those that occupied my friends from the baths?
Laughter and voices came from deep inside the houses I passed, but I was reluctant to venture inside any more private rooms. Then, as I turned down yet another long deserted street I saw a woman in a saffron-yellow stola and green palla framed in an archway, her back to me. Her head turned as she looked over her shoulder. Our eyes met and I recognized Iusta. I lifted my hand to summon her, but she must not have seen me because she disappeared around the corner. I ran up the street, determined to catch up with her, but when I reached the street she had gone down and turned in the direction she had gone, I found myself facing a blind and empty alley. It was as if she had been swallowed up by the earth. I ran to the end of the alley and pressed my hands up against the stone wall, as if I could melt through it and join her, and then I noticed that there was a small doorway in the wall to my right that was so covered with trailing flowers that I had at first missed it. Above the doorway, scratched in the stone, were three signs: a boat, a woman holding a child, and a crudely drawn fish. Was the girl here being prepared for Calatoria’s rites? If that were the case, and I blundered into a secret rite only for women, mightn’t I be subject to some awful punishment? I recalled what the men at the baths said about Calatoria’s hatred toward men. Did I want to earn her wrath? I was on the verge of turning away, but then I heard a sound come from inside the house: a low moaning as of someone who had been gravely injured. Without further consideri
ng the consequences, I pushed aside the vines and entered…
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say aloud to the blank page. “Damn it, George! That’s where you break off?”
I’ve spoken louder than I meant to and as I look up I notice several tourists staring at me. Including one man at a table at the edge of the square in a red T-shirt and white jeans and dark sunglasses. He smiles at me and holds up his hand in the same gesture he’d made from the boat. As my hand moves to mirror it, I knock the pitcher of water into my lap. I look away—for only a moment, concerned mostly for the transcripts, forgetting for the moment that they’re not originals. When I look up, the man is gone.
I stand up and take off after him. He can’t have gone far, I figure, passing under a tiled arch. I see a flash of red in a crowd of tourists outside a gelateria halfway down the street, but by the time I struggle through the crowd he’s gone. I turn up a winding street lined with souvenir and postcard shops and get stuck in the crowds spilling out of the funicular station. Past the station is a terrace overlooking the steep streets descending toward the Marina Grande. I scan the whole terrace and the streets I can see from there, but there’s no sign of him. It’s then that I realize I left my purse at my table in the Piazzetta. I run back, sure that my bag with my wallet will be gone, but when I reach the square I find that my bag’s still hanging from my chair and my books and papers are still on the table.
A miracle, I think, gathering up my things. I get my watch stolen off my wrist, but when I leave my bag for anyone to take it’s spared. I check my wallet and see that the cash is all there and then, as I’m counting out change for a tip I notice that, far from anything having been taken from the table, something’s been added. Three small cards, each about an inch square, are lying in the plastic tip tray. Each one has a small, cartoonish figure on it: a man sweeping with a broom, a frying pan, and a sun. Signs as enigmatic as the one’s Phineas found over the door in the alley. Unlike Phineas, though, I have no way of tracking down the meaning of the signs, so I pick up the little cards, slip them in my skirt pocket, and head back to the villa.