On Etruscan Time (2 page)

It was not quite silent. He heard a buzzing, like one of those motor scooters that had darted around their car, and the small sound of a radio or a TV came from someplace nearby. He heard men talking, sounding like they were giving orders, and a thud, like metal hitting wood. But that was all.

The moonlight turned the houses bluish silver instead of the yellow or brown they must be. Something about the light made them look fake, as if they were flat house fronts on a stage. He shivered a little and imagined something coming from behind them, some strange, dark thing. He leaned out the window and looked around. Nothing was out there, as far as he could tell. But you could never be sure. Those deep shadows could hide anything.

“Can't sleep?” Hector turned around quickly. But it was just his mother, wrapped in her bathrobe, her curly dark hair messy around her face. He suddenly wished he was little again so he could go bury his face in her soft robe. She would take him to bed and rub his back until he fell asleep. But he was eleven, and she hadn't done that for years.

He shook his head. “Me either,” she said.

“What did that guy Ettore mean about human bones?” he asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “They look human, but there isn't a specialist on the team here, so they sent the bones to a lab to be analyzed. We should find out more tomorrow. I mean today.” She yawned. “I didn't stay up much later than you did, although I tried. But then when I went to bed I couldn't fall asleep. I drank so much coffee to stay awake and was so excited to see Susanna and Ettore that now I can't unwind. Anyway, it'll take a few days to get on Italian time.”

“I wish we could just stay on Tennessee time,” Hector said, knowing he was being unreasonable but wanting to keep her there talking a little longer.

“Time doesn't work like that,” she said. “Once we start eating meals when everyone else does and going to bed when they do, we'll feel more comfortable, just as though we had always been on Italian time. And then when we go home, we'll have to adjust all over again.”

He groaned, and she laughed. “I know,” she said, reaching out and smoothing his hair. “But the sooner we get started, the easier it will be. Go back to bed and lie there with your eyes closed, at least. The sun will be up in a few hours, and that can be your signal that it's okay to get up. Will you try?” He nodded, and she said, “Goodnight, then,” and went back to her room.

He lay still, but his eyes kept popping open. He forced them shut and said to himself,
I can open my eyes after I take a hundred breaths, but no fair cheating and breathing fast.
He started counting:
One, innnnnn … ooouuuuut … two, innnnnn … ooouuuuut …
In between counts, he pictured time zones spread around the world. He imagined the earth turning and the sun shining on some parts of the globe while others were in darkness.
Sixteen, innnnnn … ooouuuuut
 … So if you traveled backward fast enough, would you wind up arriving earlier than when you left? Something was wrong with that, he knew, but as the globe twirled in his mind, he couldn't think what.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine …

*   *   *

When Hector woke again, a faint pinkish light was coming through the window. That meant the sun was rising and he could get up. He pulled on the clothes that were lying on the floor. He should probably unpack his suitcase, but there was plenty of time for that.

On his way down the hall, he paused and looked into his mother's room. She was still asleep, or at least still in bed. He thudded down the stone stairs. Susanna sat in the kitchen, wearing a bathrobe, her blond hair swept up loosely. She was reading a newspaper and sipping out of the tiniest cup he'd ever seen.
She must not like coffee very much,
Hector thought. But then why was she drinking it?

“Good morning, 'Ector,” she said, laying down the paper. She looked as though speaking cost her an effort. His father was the same way in the morning.

“Buongiorno,”
he answered carefully, and was rewarded with a grin.

“Breakfast,” she said, gesturing at the counter. “I don't know what you eat, so I bought some American food and some Italian food.” There was a tiny box of cornflakes and a plate of brown rolls. They looked dry, but to be polite he picked one up. It was warm.

“They are new,” Susanna said.

“Fresh?” Hector asked.

“Yes, fresh,” Susanna said. “They make them there.” She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the street.

“They bake at night?” Hector asked.

“They make them all the night so we can have fresh bread,” she said. “All but Sunday. Sunday morning we don't eat fresh bread, so the baker can sleep and go to church with his family.”

That explained the voices and the clanking he had heard in the night. He took a bite of the roll. It was hollow, with a crust so crunchy that little bits flew all over the table. The inside of the crust was soft and delicious. He took another bite even before he'd swallowed the first one.

“That form of bread is called a
rosetta,
” Susanna said. “It is the typical bread of Roma. Thousands of years ago the Etruscans made bread in that form. But you don't know about the Etruscans, I think.”

“I do know a little,” Hector said. “My mom gave me a book. They were people who lived in Italy more than two thousand years ago, before the Romans, right? And they had a mysterious language. My mom says that lots of the things that most people think the Romans invented, the Romans really learned from the Etruscans, like gladiators and aqueducts and telling the future by looking at the insides of animals.”

“Very good,” she said, nodding. “And the village of Sporfieri is built on top of a very, very antique Etruscan city. We archaeologists are here to learn about the people who lived in that city. Nobody knows very much about the Etruscans, so any small thing we find is a treasure. We don't—didn't—haven't found many good things. This is our last summer. The money for digging is almost gone.”

“Is that why you asked my mother to come?”

“Sì,”
she said. “When I and Ettore and your mother studied at the university in Roma together, your mother learned antique languages like
that.
” Her quick finger-snap made Hector jump. “She has a facility for languages. We have found some things with letters on them, and we hope to find more. With your mother here—”

“With me here, what?” She came into the kitchen, still in her bathrobe. She poured herself a tiny cup of coffee and sat next to Hector. She spread a roll thickly with strawberry jam and took a bite.

“Ah, Betsy,” Susanna said. “Did you sleep well?”

“No,” she said around her bread. “It will take a few days. Right, Heck?” He nodded.

“We were talking about your facility for antique languages.”

“
Ancient
languages,” she corrected. “Hector inherited it, I think, at least for Italian. On the plane he could repeat back to me all sorts of things in Italian, when I just said them to him once.”

“
Bravo,
'Ector,” Susanna said. “I wish I had a facility. And I hope you still have yours, Betsy.”

“I don't know.” His mother put down her coffee cup. “After years of teaching nothing but beginning Latin and Greek, I haven't been able to test it for a long time.”

“Well,
we'll
test you,” Susanna said, and she winked at Hector. “What is the original of the name of this town?”

“Sporfieri?” Hector's mother frowned in thought. “Let's see—
spor;
that part's easy.”

“Why is that easy?” Hector asked.

“
Spur
is Etruscan for
city,
” she explained. “We don't know a whole lot of words, but that one's certain. Now about the
fieri
part.” She frowned in concentration, her head tilted to one side as though listening. She murmured, “
Fieri
—could that be
fler?
” she asked, looking at Susanna, who shrugged. “Why would they name this place that?”

“Name it what?” Hector asked.

“To turn into
fieri
in Italian,” his mother went on, “the original Etruscan word must have been something like
fleris.
Maybe it was
flere,
which meant
god.
That could mean this was a holy city. But I don't think so. If it were some kind of sacred place, we probably would have heard about it before, and the Etruscan town under Sporfieri isn't mentioned by any writers. It's like it never existed.”

“But—” Hector started. His mother went on as though she hadn't heard him. As usual.

“Or the Etruscan word could be
fler,
‘sacrifice.' But why would they name their whole town after sacrifice? They were doing them all the time, in every city, not just this one. So why name this particular town City of Sacrifice?”

“Maybe something was not usual about the sacrifices they made here,” Susanna said.

“What about those bones?” Hector asked. Finally they looked at him, as though surprised he could talk. “Maybe they sacrificed people,” he said.

3

The two women looked at each other. “Well,” his mother said thoughtfully, “that would explain why no one mentions the town. If it was associated with something so terrible, maybe they were trying to forget it. And Susi, you know, some people say the Etruscans did perform human sacrifice. Remember that temple near Cortona, that one with the sphinxes devouring people? An article I read said that the statues could represent human sacrifice.”

“I don't know,” Susanna said doubtfully. “Professor Carberry says it, but nobody else.”

“True,” Hector's mother said, “but if a scholar of his standing—”

The door opened and Ettore's head poked around.
“Permesso?”

“Caffè?”
Susanna asked, waving at the coffee pot.

“Sì, grazie,”
he said, and poured himself a cup. Weren't they going to talk about the bones anymore? It was always the same. Just when things got interesting, the subject changed.

After breakfast, the adults took off at a brisk walk, talking quickly in Italian, and Hector followed slowly on the bumpy street made of flat, dark stones.

Now that the sun was up, the sky was bright blue and he could see that the houses were different shades of tan. They weren't very tall, and their shutters were closed against the sun, which was already warm after the night's chill. In the doorways, heavyset women in dark, tight dresses sat on folding chairs, talking to each other as they knitted or cut up vegetables. They didn't look too friendly, but when Hector passed by, they said,
“Ciao”
or
“Buongiorno.”
When he answered in careful Italian they broke into smiles that made them look nicer. One or two even patted his shoulder and said,
“Bravo!”
at his Italian.

The road of smooth, flat stones went down and down. In a few places the adults in front of him took a shortcut on worn, gray steps that cut straight through the curves, instead of going back and forth like the road did. Hector followed at an ever-increasing distance. The steps were uneven and steep, and there was nothing to hold on to. He saw his mother run her hand down the house wall next to her to keep her balance, so he did the same. The stone was cold and felt wet under his touch, although his hand was dry when he took it off.

The third set of stairs ended in an arched opening in the dark stone wall that encircled the base of the hill, enclosing the town. The adults had already gone through it, and he quickened his pace so he could catch up, then stumbled on the black paving stones. He didn't fall, but he stopped for a second to regain his balance, then went on more carefully, watching his step. He emerged from the semidarkness into the brightness of the early-summer morning.

After blinking a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light, Hector saw that he was in a shallow valley. Rows of neon-orange sticks poked out of the ground, with strings attaching them to each other. Near one of these strings, Hector's mother stood with her hands on her hips, looking down into a hole in the ground and nodding while Ettore pointed into it and said something. Susanna interrupted, asking a question in a high, excited voice.

Hector turned and looked back toward the village squatting solidly on its hill. Another group of adults was coming out of the arched opening in the wall and heading toward them. The morning light slanting down the valley made their shadows look like small-headed giants moving bumpily across the field. He suddenly felt shy and didn't want to have to talk to them, even if they spoke English, so he trotted down to where his mother was now lowering herself into a rectangular trench.

“These are the same as the ones you've had analyzed?” she asked. Ettore nodded.

“Sì, sì,”
he said. “We got the results by fax. Preliminary, but they seem sure.”

“So they're definitely human?”

A grunt of assent.

The other people—the archaeologists, he supposed—had reached the dig area. There were six or eight of them, and most looked younger than Ettore and Susanna. They were dressed for the heat and the women's hair was tied back. Some were speaking English, some what sounded like German, and some Italian. He could pick out the Italian, even from this distance—the sounds were much rounder than in the other languages. They clustered, talking and laughing, at the door of a metal shed a short distance away. They went into the shed one at a time, emerging with small boxes.

Hector stood aside as Ettore introduced the people to his mother. She shook hands with each of them and then said something that made them laugh. They split up into different groups and started working. Some dug in the trenches, while others measured a piece of ground and marked off a square with string. They settled down, only occasionally calling out to each other. Someone turned on a radio that blared American music.