Threshold Of Fire Part 8

Urbanilla looks from the Prefect to the man behind the bars and back again. She takes her time, then drops her lashes over her sharp glance. "He's not like that" - with a gesture of her elbow in the direction of the guardsmen - "not like them there."

The Prefect does not want to ask her precisely what she means. He feels lightheaded, a.s.saulted by a sensation which he scarcely dares to recognize. (The justice hall in Alexandria, the figure of the student Klafthi among the elegant youths who surrounded Olympiodorus...at the same time, despite his indignation, he felt intoxicated, under a sort of spell ....) Suddenly, toward that stupid creature Urbanilla, he is seized by a feeling of indifference bordering on generosity. She is uninteresting; an earlier interrogation conducted by the commander Aulus Fronto has revealed that she had understood nothing about the role that Pylades made her play; she knows nothing, is nothing, no, she is not dangerous. A strange feeling of satisfaction, which he pushes aside while he recovers his dignity. No one is close enough to him to notice the twitch at the corner of his eye, the nervous trembling of his lips.

"Take her away."

"Where to, Excellency?"

"Let her go."

The torches crackle in their tubes. Under the low ceiling, each movement, each gesture throws flickering shadows.

"Are you then so obstinate a heathen that you choose death over the opportunity to convert?"

"As one condemned to imprisonment for life, I would then become a hermit, a walled-up anchorite ... And the dungeons of the prefecture could be a place for pilgrims to visit. After my death, do you want to distribute my bones among the faithful? That prospect doesn't attract me."

"You mock. You are filled with distrust and disdain for what I and countless others hold most sacred. I recognize that look and that slight smile. If there were a chessboard here before you now, you would not look at me. You would avert your face and move one of the pieces while I'm talking to you."

"I think you're dreaming out loud. You think you're talking to somebody else."

"I thought about him this morning. Now I understand why."

"Chessboard. Eliezar? I've never seen anyone else play that game. I didn't know that I resembled him. Maybe those who are born slaves end up looking like their masters. A brand of nature..."

"Exactly right! He has put his stamp in your blood, in your soul. You are his grandson."

Now something seems to press down upon the Prefect; it is as if there is a heavy burden on his shoulders which sinks into him, into his chest, crus.h.i.+ng his heart: a chunk of marble or granite, a piece of a relief. A thin voice calls out in the distance, or is it only his imagination? Two stone fingers, larger than life, stab through him before raising themselves aloft as though taking an oath.

The other stands motionless behind the bars. When he finally speaks, his voice is very soft. "His grandson. So, never a slave?"

"Both; grandson and slave, through the mother."

"Who said that, and when?"

"Eliezar ben Ezekiel himself, on the day that he arranged in his will for your emanc.i.p.ation."

The prisoner moves back, away from the barrier, withdrawing into the depths of the cell where he had been standing when the conversation began. Now it is the Prefect who grips the iron bars, bringing his face close to the opening in order to see the other, to catch a glimpse of him in the darkness.

"It's appropriate - a life that began with a testament should end with a testament. Order them to bring me writing gear."

"You're not going to die, not for a long time yet."

"You haven't been able to control my life - don't think that now you have power over my death."

"You forget where you are and who I am."

"I know now who I am."

"Claudius, in the name of G.o.d, convert!"

"Not that name any more. Give me paper, a pen."

"You made a will ten years ago. You bequeathed your poetry to Rome."

"Because I have survived since then, I want to rescind that bequest. I want to make a newer testament."

Undeniably it is the same voice, softer now, but still marked by a natural authority. Hadrian, suddenly reminded of those conversations in Alexandria, yields to something stronger than he, to a consciousness older and more profound than his own. Some moments earlier the man standing a few feet from him in the darkness had seemed to him to be an extension of Klafthi, a Claudius certainly changed but always recognizable in essence. Now that is over. The distance between them can no longer be bridged.

The Prefect turns away, motions to one of the guardsmen, orders him to bring light and writing gear to the prisoner.

In a palanquin, under armed escort, the Prefect is brought back to his villa. After a bath and a hasty meal (alone, silent, served by slaves who move like shadows), he paces back and forth for a while in the peristylium. The moon rises, reddish, at first deformed, then growing sharper in contour, a disc of light. In the garden, the leaves begin to gleam. How can he state the grounds, in the morning, for the fact that this one time the customary sentence will not be carried out? Transfer the prisoner from the death cells of the Tullianum where he awaits execution, pretend to forget him and, after a decent interval, convey him to a suitable place of custody? Give everyone, including the prisoner, the impression that justice will run its course? Justice?

Suddenly the Prefect is overcome by a devastating feeling of exhaustion. His limbs are as heavy as stone; he still feels the constant pressure in his chest. He lies down on a couch which has been pushed to the edge of the gallery, close to a basin in which the reflection of the moon floats among the water plants. Memories of Canopis and the bright nights on the Nile. Something - a leaf, an insect - has fleetingly stirred the surface, which quivers slightly - fragmented silver. Gazing at it, he must have fallen asleep for a moment; when he wakes with a start, the moon is scarcely higher above the rooftop. Clammy, with pounding heart, he sits on the edge of the couch.

He thinks of the dream which had haunted him yesterday. He knows suddenly who it was who called to him from across the sea. In the dream he was himself a prisoner of the basalt wall; the other had abandoned him, sailing away over the horizon. In reality it was the other way round: the fugitive returned, as if by a miracle, and was imprisoned. But I shall not abandon you, says the Prefect aloud; at the sound of his own voice, he looks about him, startled. It is silent in the galleries. He wants to believe that the cry - "Hadrian!" - was a call for help. Although secretly he knows better, he forces his memory to obey that interpretation: the s.h.i.+p was not sailing away; it was approaching. He himself was not there, alone and dest.i.tute on the seash.o.r.e, waiting. This wait is rewarded. I will not abandon you. I will temper justice with mercy. Justice?

What is justice, what is injustice? whispers the Prefect, desperately attempting once again to subst.i.tute the illusion for the dreaded vision. His voice is so low that what he says cannot be heard.

As first magistrate of the City, of course he knows the regulae juris, the rules of law. He enjoys showing off his knowledge of them: during hearings he adorns his arguments with citations. At this moment, his memory turns against him, suggesting to him what he least needs under the circ.u.mstances - the ancient rule concerning questions of justice and injustice, a theoretical sentence to be chiselled in marble: Better to free the guilty than to risk the condemnation of the innocent.

A dissident inner voice attempts to justify the innumerable decisions, which he has made in the past, conflicting with the golden rule. Is it injustice to condemn an atheist for a crime he has not committed? Isn't his impiety enough to render him guilty by definition? Who will deny that his mere existence is pernicious, that everything he does is a crime? Is it unjust to bring about the condemnation of such a person by creating the appearance of guilt, with the intention of purifying the State and society for the greater glory of G.o.d? Hasn't a magistrate the right to take preventative measures? Haven't the emperors, over the course of the last two centuries, issued edicts and decrees giving the law greater freedom of action on just this point?

The Prefect stands up, dazzled by the double light of the moon - in the sky above the eaves and in the water at his feet. He moves into the depths of the house, lingers irresolute in one of the apartments between the peristylium and the forecourt. He deems himself justified this time in altering a judgment. What is more, it is impossible for him to execute that judgment. But he knows that no lawbook contains a formula which can be used to make his determination acceptable, without at the same time weakening all precedents and stopping the administration of justice - or so it would seem.

From within the gallery (furnished with deceptive austerity: the stiff chairs are fas.h.i.+oned from ivory; the unembellished lamps are silver), he stares at the blue glow in the distance beyond the pillars. He is convinced that he has the right; he has no doubts. At moments like these, the sort of life he leads (must lead, he thinks) weighs heavily upon him. What has so often filled him with satisfaction - the sight of his valuable possessions, the knowledge that he is being served with the deepest submissiveness and care -now seems only to emphasize his solitude.

You shall learn to pray, just as I now go to pray, he says, half-aloud in the silence, to the other, who is far out of earshot in the vaults of the prefecture. At first you will curse the darkness and the isolation, but then, later, you will acknowledge with grat.i.tude that this is the only way you could gain insight. For you will come to realize that the world is only a pretense, a desert from which those turn away who are truly saved. When you are desperate, when you need guidance, I shall be there. In my capacity as Prefect of the City, I am taking a great risk. I hope that you appreciate the depth of my friends.h.i.+p.

He wants to rescue the other from his obstinacy and to restore their initial closeness. The prisoner will certainly have a strong ongoing aversion to his environment - that will help him to develop a completely new perspective. In the brown and green hills of Umbria, an isolated monastery. If the other, at some later date, after years of repentance, should renounce his worldly involvement, and if he himself, after fulfilling his administrative tasks, should decide to choose a life of retirement from the world, then perhaps for both of them, a shelter in the pious community of monks. Doing penance, finding redemption. A perfect victory.

Another image intrudes: the worn face of Eliezar ben Ezekiel in the shadows - his sorrowful eyes closed, his head nodding almost imperceptibly while he, Hadrian, reads him the poem about the Phoenix. He remembers his feeling of triumph, hardly tempered by pity, on seeing Eliezar dying, defeated, abandoning his habitual reserve, recognizing Hadrian as a person of consequence. Why else would he have confided to a stranger that secret, the source of his worry and his doubts?

For over twenty years, Eliezar has been in his grave. If he were still alive, how would he approach this ragged schoolmaster from the Subura - his counterpart?

Although the night air is mild, the Prefect trembles with cold. He knows quite well why it is that his body feels as heavy as stone. He wants to cry out, a protracted lament - to call back the Hadrian of an earlier day, not yet rigid, not yet burdened with guilt over injustice and perjury. Standing in his quiet marble house, he begins to grasp the real meaning of his dream.

He spends the rest of the night in his oratorium, a closed, bare s.p.a.ce, windowless, a cell. He kneels, his head bent, muttering incessantly.

The stars have grown pale when he reappears in the gallery. He wakes a slave, summons his secretary, sends them, despite the early hour, with an urgent message to the hall of justice. Leaning back on his couch - in the garden the flowers and leaves are regaining their colors - he savors the victory which he has won over himself.

Claudius. Now you will be forced to see what you have always stubbornly denied until today - that I am your friend and your benefactor, that I have come forward to help you in your hour of need, that at great personal sacrifice, I have given you your liberty. No one has ever behaved more generously to you. Unthinkable that this act of mine should not convince you. Now it is obvious that your resistance rests on a misunderstanding. You believe that I act only out of self-interest, driven by G.o.d knows what predilection to tyranny. But I am the master of my emotions. I am setting you free. You will not be pursued. Go in peace. Of the two of us, I have been the stronger, just as I was stronger than Eliezar. Wherever you are, whatever you do, you will not escape me any longer. Your conscience, all that is best in you, will remain tied to me forever.

Exhausted, he has dropped off to sleep in the early morning. Hadrian! Suspended between dreaming and waking, he feels a deep pleasure, like a sick person who knows that he will soon be cured. Hadrian! Clarissime! The voice of his secretary at the foot of his couch. Now he will hear that Marcus Anicius Rufus and his friends have been arrested in the night and transported to the prefecture for a speedy trial. A confused dream crosses his consciousness just on the border where images are created by repressed pain and distress. He no longer knows what it was, nor does he want to know. He opens his eyes.

His secretary is indeed standing there. The message has been delivered. The previous afternoon, on the Prefect's order, wax tablets had been provided to the prisoner, now freed; his writings were retrieved from the cell.

The secretary - correct as always, but behaving with a certain wariness which the Prefect has never noticed in him before - places the bound and sealed tablets at the foot of the couch and, with a bow, departs.

Eliezar, Father - By way of salutation and of posthumous homage, I dedicate to you this testament which is not one, since I have nothing to leave. I call you father: my life comes from you, you have created it. Your son who begat me, still lives in Alexandria, unreachable. He is nothing to me, I am nothing to him. You, who no longer exist, I can reach only in myself, nowhere else. I scarcely knew you. To me you were the old man, the lord of the estates, immensely rich in possessions and in knowledge, the wise, strong master, taken for granted as the backdrop to my life. My future lay in your hands.

Once, when I came across you in the olive garden, you made a gesture as if you were about to place your hand on my head. But you quickly recovered and simply waved your hand at me. I feared you, I respected you, but at every turn, whenever I saw you - in conversations with overseer or steward, slaves or freed servants, women or children - you were always listening with the same attentiveness, always speaking with the same calm composure, even when it was a question of a reprimand or punishment. This caused me to be overwhelmed by a vague feeling, a mixture of despair and malice, a need to provoke, to push you to the point where I could see you lose that patient self-control, to force you to act in a way that would justify the secret undercurrent of hatred inside me. I was not grateful when you did not punish me after that b.l.o.o.d.y game with the c.o.c.k, but instead sent me to school in the city. But I forgot my resentment when I became absorbed in my studies. I did not think about you any more. I wors.h.i.+pped the rector Claudia.n.u.s who imparted knowledge to me and, through that knowledge, a feeling of dignity. When he died, I realized that I stood alone.

Perhaps I knew unconsciously what has never been revealed until today. Flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood, and at the same time irrevocably rejected, shut out. Who knows, I may have spent my life striving, in word and deed, to prove my right to exist. I sought for what I had never really had - a father: example and roots. In the underworld, in the realm of black magic, I found a father-in-evil: Olympiodorus. I wanted to possess the demonic power which I believed was his. Later I saw fathers in people whom I considered to be wise, level-headed, of unimpeachable integrity. At every turn, another image of myself as a "son", a new form of dependency, and then, after a time, new forms of resistance: I must break away in order to go on living.

Now I have outgrown all that; I have pa.s.sed the age at which I needed to be a son. No more the unconditional surrender, the identification. I don't want any longer, out of shame or self-contempt, to destroy what I once revered. To be adult, independent - that means having the courage to submit one's acts - as well as those of others - to a lucid examination, to criticism; to challenge the self-love, the pretensions of infallibility which are hidden in all of us.

It would seem that, three centuries after the short and promising rebellion under the sign of the Fish (against the rigidity of the Law and Authority, the State and the Faith, and despite internal rigidity), Rome chose the Son, the image of total submission - a terrible mistake. For what does he symbolize? Powerless, tormented, his outstretched arms nailed down so that he cannot take the suffering to his heart, nor raise his fist in wrath against the persecutors and despoilers. Resignation has been declared sacred. What are the results? That the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. That the sword will be raised against those who most deserve solicitude and consolation. That for many years to come, the earth will be scorched, life despised, humanity trampled into b.l.o.o.d.y rags. That men will tolerate torture, slavery and starvation. Who will dare to impose another conception of the Son so that we will not be ruined by the omnipotence of the authorities whose criteria are unworldly and supernatural?

Where will the meaning of life be found, if not in the so-called temporal world, in the existence on earth of man, that creature gifted with reason? I do not believe in miracles, nor in the resurrection of the dead, let alone in ascension to the heavens. But I know that militant and at the same time humble consideration for the living, a thirst for justice, can be embodied in a man among men. Only he who loves and understands his fellow men in their affliction and their ignorance, who knows that in a world governed by greed and violence, true compa.s.sion requires an iron will and self-discipline - only he who devotes himself in word and deed to making sense of the absurdity, the injustice of being born "fatherless" - that man alone would be an innovator, a giver of life.

Eliezar, you thrust me into the world, first at Alexandria and from there (your experience of men, your mastery of the game of chess taught you to foresee the consequences of certain combinations) to Milan and Rome, to high honor and renown and then finally to humiliation and oblivion, perhaps so that I should learn to be a resistant son, searching for a meaningful place under the sun and not for myself alone. For ten years I taught in the Subura in order to stay alive, because the only trade I could command was language usage and the interpretation of texts.

I had no grandiose expectations for these lessons. I hoped that in the future perhaps some artisans would be able to praise their products in other ways than by the use of clumsy marks, and would know how to compute their expenses and their income, and that a handful of warehous.e.m.e.n and porters might no longer need to stare helplessly at indecipherable characters. It did occur to me, too, that one day these people might be less willing to go on allowing themselves to be treated as doormats and beasts of burden. My ambition and my ability did not reach beyond that.

I know that human nature holds a core of creativity, the germ of individuality. There is a poet, so to speak, in everyone-even Urbanilla, perhaps, half cruel and inquisitive child, half dull and withered flower of the brothel. The true power on earth is the power of poetry. Only the poetic vision, clarifying and connecting, makes life worth living.

If I were able to go on living, I would try to build on what I am only now beginning to understand. Someone - Marcus Anicius Rufus, I suppose - found an opportunity to send me a vial with a few drops of poison - a friendly service from a Roman of the old school, to spare me the humiliation of an execution "in the spirit of the law". But it seems that the powers-that-be have reserved another sort of death for me. I must become - according to him who has unwittingly proved to be your most perfect instrument because for the second time he has been able to provoke me to rebellion - what I have always been, from the very beginning: a prisoner for life. Thanks to this gift, I can, this last time, escape from his control. Voluntary death is also a form of resistance.

Thus a testament and last will. I possess only the will to rise, like the Phoenix, from my earlier self. That impulse I dedicate to you, Eliezar, father. I am one with you and still irrevocably another. You abandoned me; now I leave you forever. I love you and I reject you.

Farewell.

When, later than usual, the Prefect sets foot on the black-and-white marble floor of the justice hall, the sight of his officials, scribes, a.s.sessors and attendants arranged in a half-circle before him on the dais, brings home to him the full significance of what he had done that morning. He is not a solitary agent, responsible for his own decisions alone - he represents a structure that begins at the bottom with the praetorian guard and ends at the top with the Emperor himself. If the Prefect errs, he undermines the prestige of the Imperial Majesty; he weakens the widespread apparatus of justice and police power. The argument that he had formulated in the still hours of the night to justify the release ("the sentence p.r.o.nounced ten years ago must be revoked; the guilt of the accused was not conclusively established") calls into question the whole system of prosecution for divination, most notably by making public the practice - inevitable in this sort of process - of using a network of informers and provocateurs.

The nature of the silence which greets him convinces the Prefect that the situation has been discussed before his arrival; the air is filled with repressed tension. He takes his place, pushes his right foot in its red senatorial shoe to the edge of the platform, arranges the folds of his toga. While he is doing this, he realizes that, contrary to custom, he has not asked for nor received the doc.u.ments for the cases at hand.

The Commandant Aulus Fronto appears at the door, surrounded by his men. This in itself is not unusual: the detachment of the praetorian guard which makes the arrest must be present at every session of the court. However this time the Commandant does not move to the side of the hall, but stands in the middle, before the dais, on the meandering mosaic. He requests permission to speak.

"In the cell of the released prisoner, a small sealed vial was discovered, which, after inquiry, was found to contain a quick-acting poison. This vial was not on the person of the prisoner when he was locked up yesterday afternoon. It follows therefore that it must have been delivered to him later, in secret. I, Aulus Fronto, Commandant of the third division, praetorian guard, consider it my duty to report this fact, since I am responsible for irregularities in the prison vaults."

One of the guard now hands a small bottle of opaque gla.s.s to the Prefect, who lifts it unthinking to his face, smells the odor of bitter almonds. Absently, he lets the fragile sh.e.l.l glide back and forth between his fingers, while the Commandant continues.

"This morning about sunrise, on written order of the ill.u.s.trious Hadrian, Prefect of the City, I had the doors of the prison opened in order to effect the release of the man who called himself Niliacus. It lies within the power of the Prefect to discharge from further prosecution because of lack of evidence, this man, who was encountered on the grounds of the villa of Marcus Anicius Rufus, and interrogated in connection with that arrest. However, this person who called himself Niliacus, is none other than Claudius Claudia.n.u.s, poet, who was, at an earlier time, condemned to exclusion from fire and water, but who has since returned inside the territory of the City, an act forbidden to him on pain of death. Therefore in this case the Prefect is required to execute the customary sentence.

"I, Aulus Fronto, Commandant of the third division of the praetorian guard, am not in a position to refuse to implement the commands of my superiors in rank. But I cannot contribute, through my obedience, to this violation and evasion of the law. Therefore I request to be relieved of my duties."

Now the Prefect, as highest magistrate of the City, is still sitting on his ivory throne. On either side of him the lictors raise the bundled rods and axes, the fasces, symbol of his rank. But he is already no more than a pile of ashes; a breath of wind will suffice to blow him away, and he knows it.

The stirring and whispering behind him has an unmistakably hostile character; short taps with his signet ring will never again call this company to order. The face of the Commandant Aulus Fronto, exemplary soldier, betrays no emotion, but his bearing is grimly inflexible. He stands there, legs apart, chin raised, a personification of the principles strictly upheld for years by the Prefect himself; a perfect product of the Prefect's beliefs and behavior, spirit of his spirit, a relentless supporter of his doctrine, a representative of the new generation of order and discipline, the true son. The Prefect is surprised: he had always known that he was not loved; he had never realized how much he was disliked.

He recognizes this feeling of desperation. He is standing with his back against the basalt; there is no escape. From outside, over the buildings of the former temple of Tellus, through the small high windows of the justice hall, come the sounds of Rome, like the murmur of the sea, the rustle of waves rolling over myriad pebbles on the ocean floor.

It takes a simple gesture: to raise the thin gla.s.s vial to his lips. An odor of bitter almonds.

GLOSSARY.

Arians: Followers of Arius who believed that the Son is not co-equal with the Father.

Atrium: The fore-court, that part of the Roman house opening off the entrance.

Clarissimi: Excellencies.

Clarissimus: t.i.tle given in the Imperial period to people of quality.

Clivus Capitolinus: The road to the Capitol.

Curiales: Members of the Curia or court, which was one of the 30 parts into which Romulus divided the Roman people.

Divinatio: divination.

Fasces: A bundle carried before the highest magistrates and consisting of rods, with which criminals were scourged, and an axe with which they were beheaded.

Garum: A sauce for fish.

Gigantomachia: The war between the G.o.ds and the t.i.tans.

h.o.m.o novus: A man newly enn.o.bled, the first of his family to achieve the highest rank. Sometimes, an upstart.

Ignotus: unknown.

Ill.u.s.trissimi: Those who are most ill.u.s.trious.

Impluvium: A skylight, the opening in the roof of the atrium through which smoke was released. It also admitted the rain, and the impluvium was also the name for the square basin into which rain water was received.

Insula: A tenement, housing for the poor.