Gore Vidal’s Caligula (11 page)

Caligula sat up a bit on his dining couch and listened harder. Godhead was a topic that fascinated him.

“No, I said,” continued the Emperor, stuffing honeyed larks into his mouth. “I am a man. Then they offered me this title and that title. No, I said. I am simply first among you. Of course, they would kill me if they could . . .”

Caligula raised his eyes to the marble-faced walls of the room. Around the top of the marble, about two feet below the ceiling, a dado in low relief pictured a Pan-figure playing the syrinx while nymphs cavorted between his legs and each other’s legs. It was beautifully done; Caligula particularly appreciated how the satyr’s prick stood out from the rest of the relief. A long, wrenching cry of pain distracted him from the erotic handiwork.

A rack on great wooden wheels was trundled through the door by two tall slaves, German captives of war. A jailer in a leather surcoat kept one eye on the agonized prisoner on the rack, a man of indeterminate age who might once have been quite handsome. But now his face was so contorted in pain there was no telling what he had looked like. His arms and legs had been torn out of their sockets and the joints were swollen purple.

Tiberius, startled, exclaimed, “Has the cook gone mad? We’re not cannibals!”

“Anyway,” put in Caligula critically, “he’s much too stringy.”

“You asked me to bring him to you, Caesar,” said the jailer with a respectful bow. “During dinner, you said.”

“Did I?” It was evident that Tiberius had completely forgotten. “Oh, yes . . . yes . . .” It wouldn’t do to have the others thinking the Emperor was losing his memory. “Name?” he barked at the tortured man.

“Carnalus,” the man croaked through bitten lips.

Trying to remember, Tiberius turned to a large chest of Egyptian wood, trimmed in gold, that stood by his side. Opening it, he reached in and began caressing his pet snake, running his hands lightly over the dry, scaly curves. It helped him to think.

“Carnalus . . .” mused Tiberius. The memory was on the tip of his tongue. “Oh, yes! I should have known. I’ve drunk too much wine. You . . . um . . . you wrote a poem . . . praising . . . praising . . .” He looked to the racked fellow for prompting.

“Brutus. The tyrant-killer,” snarled Carnalus, in all the voice he could muster.

“That’s treason!” cried Caligula, half-rising from his couch.

“I know, I know,” Tiberius sighed gently, waving Caligula back down again. “You see how I must live?” He cast his Imperial eyes upward to the gods, as if beseeching heavenly acknowledgement of his plight. “Surrounded by bitterness, no matter what I do. No matter how good my actions.” He called to one of his slaves. “Flies for the snake.”

“Then kill me,” demanded Carnalus weakly. “Now!”

“Are you not pleased with life?” Tiberius asked mildly.

A golden plate appeared, embossed with mythological creatures. On it were six or seven dead flies, bluebottles. The Emperor’s snake liked bluebottles best.

“Thank you,” purred Tiberius. He fed the flies one by one to his pet. “You’re hungry, aren’t you, darling?” he cooed.

“How can anybody be pleased with life under your bloody tyranny?” Carnalus muttered.

“Lord,” cried Caligula eagerly, drawing his dagger. “Let me cut his tongue out!”

But Tiberius shook his Imperial head. “No, no. I have guaranteed freedom of speech . . . given my solemn word . . .” He made kissing noises at the snake.

“Kill me, now!” howled Carnalus.

Tiberius’ eyes widened. “Kill you? My dear Carnalus, how can I? We are not yet friends.” He smiled and waved a hand at the jailer, who ordered the German slaves to cart off the tortured prisoner.

“I remember when Macro arrested him,” Caligula said, eager to put in his two coins’ worth.

“Macro is your friend, isn’t he?” asked Tiberius sweetly.

Caligula had been reaching into a silver saltcellar when Tiberius spoke. Nervous, he scattered grains of salt with his shaking hand. An ill omen, curse it! “Lord . . .” he stammered, “he serves . . . you and only you.”

Tiberius looked at the ceiling, where painted nymphs wandered naked through Arcady, always pursued and often captured by wanton shepherds. “They’re all alike,” he murmured dolefully. “They desert the setting sun”—he touched his own withered chest—“for the rising sun,” and he pointed to the terrified Caligula. Then, turning to Nerva, he warned in a voice of iron, “Watch out for Macro when I am dead.”

“I know that he hates me,” replied Nerva calmly.

“Because you are wise . . . because you are good,” nodded the Emperor. “So, when I am gone . . . beware!”

“I have taken precautions, Caesar,” Nerva said drily, without so much as a glance in Caligula’s direction.

Tiberius drank deep from his cup, which a naked slave-girl leaned over to refill, then looked up as a timid young man, dressed in the tunic of boyhood, his eyes downcast, entered the room.

“My child,” the old Emperor called out. “Tiberius Gemellus . . . flesh of my flesh . . . my
own
grandson. My
last
grandson. Come kiss your old grandfather!”

Caligula’s neck-hairs bristled at the sight of the adolescent boy, and his eyes narrowed in hate.

“But I am your grandson, too,” he protested, half-rising from his couch.

“Only by adoption,” Tiberius replied coldly. “By Fate’s decree.” Pulling the slender boy close, he kissed Gemellus affectionately.
“This
is the last of my line. Oh, lovely boy! What, what will become of you?”

I’d like to show you right now what will become of him, you old bastard, thought Caligula, mad with jealousy. His fingers itched for the hilt of his dagger, and in his mind’s eye he could see the miserable brat’s heartsblood staining his pretty white tunic.

Caligula forced a smile. “He is like a brother to me, Lord,” he said softly.

But Tiberius was not to be fooled. Besides, the old man adored this game. It amused him to set his grandsons against each other, and the Emperor could feel Gemellus trembling in his embrace. The boy wasn’t fooled by Caligula’s honeyed words. He knew what Fate probably held in store for him.

“A brother, you say? A brother? You know what that means in our family,” Tiberius admonished Caligula. “Murder. Brother against brother. Father against son. One by one all have been swept away by Fate . . .”

“Not by Fate. By
you,
Tiberius,” said Nerva firmly.

“What?!” In sudden rage, Tiberius half-lifted himself from the dining couch. Then, recovering himself, he subsided. “Ah, yes . . . Nerva. Old friend.”

Nerva was the only one left in whom the Emperor could place any trust, and it was Nerva’s privilege, and Nerva’s alone, to speak his mind exactly as he saw fit. Nerva was the conscience of the Empire.

Addressing himself to the Senator, Tiberius explained, “If I have had cause to remove from this world any member of my family, it is because he turned upon me and that is blasphemy, for I am the chosen instrument of Fate upon this earth. Challenge me and you challenge heaven itself.”

“You are not God, Tiberius,” answered Nerva sternly.

Caligula drew in a deep breath. To speak to Tiberius like this! Nerva must be mad! Why, if he, Caligula, uttered but one syllable of any of this, the Emperor would have him beaten half to death and dragged to a cliff, there to be flung to the rocks below.

“Not yet, anyway,” continued Nerva. “Besides,” he added drily, “you don’t believe in Heaven.”

Tiberius smiled pleasantly. “You’re right. I don’t. I was overstating my case. A fault, I agree. But I have been given the absolute power of life and of death. Until I myself die.” Pulling Tiberius Gemellus to him, he began to stroke his grandson’s hair.

“Poor boy,” he murmured, tears forming in his eyes, “when I am gone, Caligula will kill you.”

“No, I swear . . .” protested Caligula, enjoying the alarm in Gemellus’ face.

“But then,” said Tiberius with a slow smile, “someone will kill Caligula.”

Caligula ground his teeth. He could say nothing. He pushed the dish of candied fruit away. He had lost his appetite.

Nerva lay in the tepid water, drowsy, totally relaxed. Glancing around him at the elaborate bathroom, he smiled to himself. Such vulgarity. Back home, in his house in Rome, the bathroom was everything the noble Roman’s bath should be. Small. Modest. Clean. Handsome tiles with a simple design. A tub only large enough to contain a human being and enough water to get him clean. But here . . . this bathroom was as large as the antechamber to the Senate. The floor was an intricate mosaic, a pattern so sexually gross that Nerva could never bring himself to look down. The dado around the ceiling showed
putti
—little cupids—performing intimate services for naked courtesans. Here one little bare-assed Eros was powdering his lady’s cunt-hairs; there another was rouging her nipples. Nerva sighed. He always felt so out of place in this bathroom Tiberius had assigned to his exclusive use. The red marble bathtub was the worst. It was enormous, big enough to stage a
nauma-chia,
or mock sea battle. Many gallons of water were needed to fill it, all so that one man could have a bath. How wasteful . . .

Peace was beginning to enter Nerva’s body, a long, restful peace. He smiled gently, watching the bath water turn slowly from pink to red as the blood flowed out of his slit wrists.

Nerva was committing suicide in the traditional manner of patrician Romans, by opening his veins in a warm bath.

The two slaves who attended him wept in despair. “Please, master, don’t leave us!” sobbed the elder of the two.

Nerva rested his head against the edge of the tiled tub. “Be happy for me. I am exchanging a prison for a . . .”

The tall, forbidding figure of Tiberius loomed suddenly in the doorway. Behind him came his shadow, Caligula, peering round-eyed into the room.

“Nerva! How dare you!” roared the Emperor. “Bind his wrists!” he shouted at the slaves, who began hurriedly to tear strips of linen.

Nerva stopped them with a loud command. “No!”

“No? To me?” shouted Tiberius. “Hurry!” he demanded of the slaves, who stood paralyzed, caught between the opposing wills of these two powerful men.

“If you don’t let me die now,” said Nerva grimly, “I shall find a way to die tomorrow or the day after.”

Tiberius sank onto a stool near the tub. After a moment, he addressed the Senator in pleading tones.

“But you can’t leave me like this. You are the oldest, my dearest friend . . .”

Nerva regarded him without emotion. “But I
am
leaving you. Because I
am
your oldest, your dearest friend.”

“Why?” Tiberius’ ancient shoulders sagged.

“To choose the hour of one’s own death is the closest a man can ever come to tricking Fate . . .”

“Well, I’ll trick
you!”
shouted Tiberius, standing up. “I’ll stop this. Hurry up!” he screamed at the two slaves. They would have obeyed, but a gesture from Nerva stopped them again.

“I have lived long enough, Tiberius,” said Nerva with some passion. “And I hate my life!”

“Why?” Tiberius’ tone was beseeching.

“You
ask me why? I have stood by and watched you murder your family, your friends, the best men of Rome.”

Tiberius turned to the slaves. “Out!” He watched them scramble in terror from the room. Caligula remained in the doorway, eyeing Nerva with fascination.

“We
were
friends, years ago,” said Nerva.

“We are. We
are!”
the Emperor cried.

Nerva shook his head. “Whatever we are . . . or were . . . you will die soon . . .”

“How do you know?” wailed Tiberius.

“And when you are gone, Macro would kill me,” Nerva continued, ignoring the Emperor’s sudden outburst of fear.

“I shall arrest him. Now! Will that please you? I shall have him executed. Treason—”

Nerva shook his head again. “You cannot control him,” he said harshly. “Anyway, even if Macro were dead, how am I to live with this?” He raised one hand from the bath and pointed contemptuously at Caligula. The slit in his wrist gaped open like a hungry mouth, and the trickle of red fell more thickly with the movement.

Tiberius turned to Caligula, pleading. “You will always respect my old friend, won’t you?”

“Yes, Caesar!” replied Caligula piously. “I do respect . . . and honor him.” Go on, he thought. Die, you miserable old sheep!

“You hear that?” Tiberius turned anxiously to Nerva, hoping that he would change his mind and permit his wrists to be bound.

“Goodbye,” said Nerva gently. His voice came as if from a very great distance. He was now beyond Tiberius’ reach, and the Emperor knew it.

“You . . . you . . .” Bursting into tears, Tiberius rushed from the room.

Caligula, however, remained. There was both coldness and curiosity in his blue eyes as he stared down at the dying old man.

“What is it like?” he asked in a low voice.

Softly, drowsily, Nerva answered, “Warm. Pleasant.” His eyes were shut, and his head nodded gently.

“I don’t mean the bath,” snapped Caligula.

He came close to the tub. The water in it was a deep red now, almost as red as the marble of the tub itself. Squatting, he peered closely into Nerva’s face. The old man was very pale, and Caligula watched him with fascination as the last of his life’s blood drained from his veins.

“There’s no pain,” Nerva murmured. “One just drifts away . . . drifts away . . .”

“Is that all?” Caligula’s eyes glittered and red spots of fiery color burned in his cheeks.

“Mmmmmmmm . . .”

“Do you see
her
yet?” Caligula asked urgently.

Nerva’s lids opened half-way. “Her? Who?”

“Her,” Caligula whispered. “The goddess. Isis.”

A smile of amusement crossed Nerva’s face. “So you’re one of those,” he murmured. “No. There is no goddess. There is nothing.”

“Are you sure?” Caligula was anxious, knowing there was little time now. Death was already smoothing away the wrinkles and furrows on Nerva’s face. He touched the old man’s forehead.

“You’re growing cold. You’re almost dead.”

“Mmmmmmm . . .”

“What is it like? Tell me what’s happening. Tell me!” Caligula bent his head close to Nerva’s.