On Etruscan Time (4 page)

Why were they all focused so intently? Hector screwed up his eyes and followed their gaze. The building looked kind of like the temples pictured in books on ancient Greece and Rome. A short flight of steps led up to a row of columns, which supported a peaked roof. A carved face with its tongue sticking out gazed with crossed eyes over the crowd from the point of the roof, and animals that looked like a mix between eagles and cats perched on the corners. Hector could just barely make out a closed door behind the row of columns, but it was in such deep shadow under the overhang that he couldn't see any of its details.

Unlike pictures of the old temples, all the different parts of this building were painted. The columns were blue and red, the details of the animals and the carved face were picked out in many colors, their edges outlined in black. It was so colorful that it almost hurt Hector's eyes in the unnatural light.

People were beginning to mutter and shift their weight from foot to foot, as though they were becoming impatient. A baby started to cry and was hushed.

Still, they all stared at the colorful building. The tension grew until Hector would have sworn he saw electric sparks shooting around the crowd.

And then the temple door burst open.

*   *   *

Hector sat bolt upright, his throat closed tight in panic. Had he screamed? He settled back against the bumpy tree, his heart pounding, and tried to steady his breath. Despite the bright sun, he felt a chill that started deep in his bones. He wished he'd stayed asleep just a little longer. He hadn't seen what was coming through the door, but whatever it was, it would have been better to see it than to wake up not knowing.

The strange eye-shaped rock was still in his hand. He stared at it and shuddered.

“Did you find something?”

It was Ettore. Mutely, Hector held out the eye. As Ettore took it from him, Hector warmed, as though a hidden sun had come out again. And he felt something else too. He had that odd sensation of having lived through all this before. What did his dad call it? Déjà vu.

“Greek,” Ettore said. “Modern.”

“How do you know it's not ancient?”

Ettore rolled the eye over in his hand. “It wasn't deep enough in the dirt,” he said. “The Etruscan things are farther down. And anyway, the city seems to stop back there,” and he pointed toward the trenches. Hector barely listened. The feeling of déjà vu was slipping away, and the more he tried to hold on to it, the faster it fled. He shook his head and blinked.

Ettore had evidently finished talking while Hector was feeling time slide around, because the man handed the stone back to him and squatted by the place where Hector had been digging. Hector held the odd thing, considering whether to throw it far away, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead he slid it into his pocket and stood up.

Ettore was inspecting the small hole where Hector had found the stone.

“Good work,” he said. “You didn't disturb anything more than what you had to. What made you dig it up, anyway?”

Hector didn't want to say he'd seen it shining. That must have been a trick of the light. So he just said, “It looked too round to be a regular rock.” He hoped that Ettore wouldn't be angry with him for not calling him when he found “something interesting,” but the archaeologist didn't seem to care. Maybe it was because he had already decided that the eye was modern.

Ettore nodded. “I think you understand how we work, now. Susanna said you may try in the trench when you showed me you could do the work. Would you like to?” He gestured behind him.

“Sure!” Hector said. There had to be more interesting things than eye-shaped stones there. Maybe he'd find the tomb of a pharaoh. No, that was Egypt. Still, there had to be tombs here someplace. As Ettore said, the Etruscans didn't just throw dead bodies in the trash. Or not usually.

“I will be next to you,” Ettore said. “Come on.”

Ettore lowered himself into the trench and Hector followed. “Here.” Ettore handed him a toothbrush and a small pick. “The dirt down here is different from what it is near the surface. Do like so.” With the sharp end of the pick, he gently poked at the hard-packed earth, then brushed off what he had loosened. When he reached a lump of something that didn't crumble, he left it in its place and worked next to it, loosening more soil. He kept on until Hector could clearly see the hard object that now stuck out from the surrounding dirt. Ettore pulled it out and shrugged. “This time, just a rock. Next time—who knows?”

Hector held the tools awkwardly. The air was damp and thick in the pit, making it hard to breathe. It even smelled moldy. He prodded the dirt tentatively and nothing happened. “Don't be scared,” Ettore said. “You need to hit it—bam!—to break it.” So Hector poked harder and was rewarded by a shower of earth. “Good,” Ettore said. “I'll work here next to you, so you can ask me if you have a question.”

Hector poked and brushed, brushed and poked. Twice he thought he'd found something, but in both cases it was only a stone. “Don't worry,” Ettore said when Hector showed him his finds. “There are surely potsherds down here.”

“Potsherds?” Hector said.

“Or shards,” Ettore said. “Pieces of pots. They might not be beautiful, but they are useful to us. We can use them to tell how old is what we find around them.”

Hector was getting bored and thought of telling Ettore he'd had enough for the day. Then something sticking out a bit from the dirt wall caught his eye. It was hard to say what was different about that particular dark lump, but once he saw it, he couldn't stop looking at it.

“Can I dig over there?” he asked, pointing with his brush. Ettore glanced over, seemed not to notice anything unusual, and said, “Certainly.” He told Hector some more about what was so important about pieces of pots, but Hector stopped paying attention, because this time he was certain he had found something. It was black, not reddish like the dirt or gray like stone, and it was smooth and shiny.

Ettore noticed his concentration and moved closer. A couple of times he seemed about to take the pick from Hector's hand, but instead he stopped and let Hector do the work himself. Hector felt his heart leap with excitement as he realized that what he was slowly revealing to the dim light inside the trench was a shiny piece of pottery, curved and smooth.

When the sherd was finally freed from the surrounding dirt, Hector gently pried it out and turned it over in his hands. “Here,” Ettore said and passed him a bowl of water. “Wash it off.” Hector hesitated. “Come on,” Ettore said. “It has survived rain and earthquakes. A little water won't hurt it.” So Hector dunked the sherd in the water and swished it around.

The curved piece of clay was no larger than his hand, and a soft black. White letters, slanting downward, were painted all over it. Hector passed the sherd to Ettore.

“What does it say?” he asked. Ettore shook his head, glanced at the spot where Hector had found it, and wrote something in his notebook.

“Take it to Betsy—to your mother,” he instructed. “Perhaps she can read it.” Hector climbed out of the trench and ran to where his mother sat, now wearing her broad-brimmed hat as the sun climbed higher.

“Mom! Mom! Look what I found!” He held the piece of broken pot toward her.

“Heck, you're not supposed to be messing around in the trenches,” his mother said, frowning up at him.

“He wasn't making a mess.” Ettore had joined them. “He was helping, with Susi's permission and mine. And see? He made a discovery.”

“Sorry,” his mother said. “I just thought—never mind. Let me see.” Hector gave her his find and leaned over as she scrutinized it.

“
You
found this, Heck?” He nodded. “I'm impressed,” she said. “There are some whole words here. Look.” By that time a small crowd had gathered. A pot with writing on it must be more unusual than he had thought.

“Something about
zusleva,
” she murmured. “That's ‘offering,' or ‘sacrifice.' Then
fanu
—that's ‘sanctuary,' or ‘temple.' Then the same word three times:
clan, clan, clan.
‘Son, son, son.'” She shook her head. “I wish there were more—it's impossible to tell what it means just from these few words. There's no way to know what they're talking about.” She groped for her pen and pad and carefully copied the letters from the sherd.

One of the archaeologists glanced at his watch and said something, and they started to drift back to their trenches and pack up their tools. A lot of them said “congratulations” and “good job” to Hector as they went past, and he flushed with pleasure.

“Wow, it's late,” his mother said. “Lunchtime.” She handed the sherd to one of the archaeologists, who carried it to the shed.

“Good work,” Ettore told him. “You hungry?”

“Starving,” Hector said. “What time is it?”

“Almost one o'clock,” Ettore answered. “Come on.” Hector picked up his tools, and as they passed the shed, he put them back on the shelf. Then he trotted after Ettore, who was now talking with another archaeologist.

Hector was starting to feel sleepy again, and the heat of the afternoon wasn't helping any. He slowed down to follow the adults through the narrow stone arch, hoping he wasn't tagging along too closely, looking like a little kid who had to hang out with the grown-ups. But on the other hand, he didn't want to get separated from the rest of them. He had no idea where they were going.

As the shade of the wall hit him, Hector glanced up and blinked. He shook his head and looked again, but he hadn't been mistaken. Squatting on the edge of the enormous gray rock that made up the right-hand side of the arch was a boy in a long white shirt, looking solemnly down at Hector, his hand raised in greeting.

5

Hector's hand went up involuntarily—not to return the greeting but to shield his eyes from the sight of the boy. He gave Hector a queasy feeling. How did he get up on top of that arch? What was he doing there? And why were the others ignoring him? Hector broke into a trot.

His mother was waiting for him at a bend in the road. She smiled and pointed into a doorway, then went inside before he could speak to her.

The people from the dig were seated at long tables, like in a cafeteria. His mother patted the plastic chair next to her, and he slid into it. His hunger was replaced by shyness at having to eat in front of these people he didn't know, who were speaking all sorts of languages. He took a bite of bread. It was disappointing after the delicious roll of that morning.

Who was that boy?
he opened his mouth to ask, but then his mother also bit into the bread. “Ah, tasteless Tuscan,” she said.

“It is
not
tasteless,” Ettore said. “It absorbs the taste of the other foods.”

“Are you still litigating about that?” Susanna asked.

“Arguing,” said his mother.

“Eh già,”
Susanna said, slapping her own forehead lightly with her open palm. “I will never remember. Are you still arguing about that? Twenty years ago you insulted the bread of Toscana, Betsy, and you defended it, Ettore. You also cited Dante.”

“Tu proverai si come sa di sale lo pane altrui,”
Ettore said, his hand on his chest and his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. Hector put down his bread next to his plate. Didn't anyone even care that he couldn't understand Italian?

“Dante was wrong and you're wrong,” Hector's mother said, but with a laugh in her voice.

“Dante?
Wrong?
” Ettore pretended to faint.

A white-uniformed woman plunked a heavy bowl down in front of Hector. In it was clear brown soup with a few noodles. He tasted the broth. It looked plain, but it was delicious, and he had no trouble finishing the bowlful. He felt his appetite come bounding back.
This will never be enough,
he thought.

“Show your mother what else you found today,” Ettore said. Hector pulled the eye out of his pocket. It flashed as his mother took it, but she didn't seem to notice. She turned it over in her hand until the blue eye was staring up at her.

“So it's not Etruscan?” she asked, as she handed it back to Hector.

“Unfortunately, no,” Ettore said, and he gave Hector a sympathetic grimace. “Some Greek tourist must have dropped it. You know they carry these things against the
malocchio
—the bad eye.”

“
Evil
eye,” she said. “How do you know it's not ancient?”

“Too superficial,” Ettore said.

“Shallow,” she corrected. “Anyway, I thought that sometimes hard things could work their way up to the surface.”

Ettore shrugged. “It's not usual.”

“Well, it's not like you can carbon-date stone,” Hector's mother said as he put the eye back in his pocket. It felt strangely heavy, and he shifted on the hard seat.

One of the uniformed women took away Hector's empty soup bowl. He looked after it longingly as his stomach rumbled.

“C'hai ancora fame?”
the woman asked, with a gap-toothed grin. He looked at his mother.

“She wants to know if you're still hungry,” she translated.

“Sì,”
Hector said. The woman said something rapidly to his mother.

“She says not to worry, that there's more coming.”

“Grazie,”
Hector said, and he was rewarded with another smile. And in a moment the woman came back, carrying one plate heaped with chicken and another with french fries. A second woman brought a big bowl of salad.

Everything was so good that Hector didn't realize how much he'd eaten until he saw the pile of chicken bones on his plate. They reminded him of the bones in the trench. Fortunately, one of the women whisked his plate away and replaced it with a cardboard container of ice cream. As he scraped out the last of it, she reappeared and put another one in front of him, patting him on the shoulder.
“Bravo!”
she said. It was nice to be congratulated for eating a lot when you were hungry. And for accidentally finding a potsherd with writing on it.