Pandora (11 page)

Jacob and David first did an entire inventory of the household furnishings they were purchasing for me, as I stood there staring at them in near disbelief at their patience with detail.

And when they’d found every room quite fine, and a bedchamber down the hall to the right, and a small open garden somewhere to the left, beyond the kitchen, they went upstairs, found things proper and then unloaded my possessions. Trunk followed trunk.

Then to my utter shock, Jacob’s father, David, drew out a scroll and actually started taking a full inventory of everything that belonged to me, from hairpins to ink and gold.

Jacob was meantime sent on an errand!

I could see the hasty writing of my Father on this inventory that David read under his breath.

“Personal toilet articles,” David said in final summation of one portion of this examination. “Clothes, one, two, three trunks—to the largest bedroom, go! Household plate to the kitchen. Books here?”

“Yes, please.” I was too shocked at his honesty and meticulousness to speak.

“Ah, so many books!”

“Fine, don’t count them!” I said.

“I cannot, you see, these fragile . . . ”

“Yes, I know. Carry on.”

“You want your ivory and ebony shelves assembled here in the front room?”

“Magnificent.”

I slumped down on the floor, only to be lifted at once by two helpful Asian slaves and settled in an amazingly soft cross-legged Roman chair. I was given a cup of fresh clean-smelling water. I drank it down, thought of blood. Closed my eyes.

“Ink, writing materials on the desk?” asked the old man.

“If you will,” I sighed.

“Now, everybody out,” said the old man, dispensing coins quickly and generously to these Asian slaves, who bowed from the waist and backed out of the room, nearly stumbling over each other.

I was about to try to form some sensible words of gratitude when a fresh brace of slaves rushed in—nearly colliding with the departing crew—carrying baskets of everything edible that a marketplace could yield, including at least nine kinds of bread, jugs of oil, melons, green vegetables and much smoked food that would last for days—fish, beef and exotic sea creatures dried out to look like parchment.

At once to the kitchen, save for a plate of olives and cheese and bread at once for the lady on that table to her left. Fetch the lady’s wine, which her Father has sent.

Oh, how incredible. My Father’s wine.

Then everyone was ordered out again with lots of coins freely given and the old man at once returned to his inventory.

“Jacob, come here, count for me this gold as I read off the list to you! Plate, coin, more coin, jewels of exceptional value? Coin, bars of gold. Yes . . . ”

On and on they went, rushing at it.

Where had my Father hidden all this gold? I couldn’t imagine it.

What was I going to do with it? Were they really going to let me keep this? They were honest men but this was such a fortune.

“You must wait until everyone is gone,” said David, “and then hide this gold yourself in various places about the house. You will find such places. We cannot do that for you, for then we would know where it was. Your jewels? Some I leave here to be hidden for they are much too valuable to be flashed abroad among the populace in your first days.” He opened a casket of gems. “See this ruby? It is superb. Look at the size of it. This can feed you for the rest of your life if sold to an honest man for half of its worth. Every jewel in this box is exceptional. I know jewels. These are hand-picked from the finest. See these pearls? Perfection.” He returned the ruby and the pearls to the casket and shut the lid.

“Yes,” I said weakly.

“Pearls, more gold, silver, plate . . . ” he muttered. “It’s all here! We should take more care but . . . ”

“Oh, no, you have done wonders,” I declared.

I stared at the bread and the wine in the cup. My Father’s wine bottle. My Father’s amphorae around the room.

“Pandora,” said Jacob, addressing me most seriously.
“Here in my hand is the Deed to this house. And another paper which describes your official entry into the port under your new made-up name, Julia, La, La, La and so forth. Pandora, we have to leave you.”

The old man shook his head and bit his lip.

“We have to sail for Ephesus, child,” he said “I am ashamed that I must leave you, but the harbor will soon be blocked!”

“There are ships on fire already in the harbor,” said Jacob under his breath. “They’ve pulled down the statue of Tiberius in the Forum.”

“The transaction is closed” said the old man to me. “The man who sold the house has never laid eyes on you and does not know your real name, and there is no evidence of it remaining here. Those were not his slaves who brought you here.”

“You’ve done miracles for me,” I said

“You are on your own, my beautiful Roman princess,” Jacob said. “It hurts my soul to leave you like this.”

“We must,” said the old man.

“Don’t go out for three days,” said Jacob, coming near to me, about as near as he could as if he even meant to break all the rules and kiss my cheek. “There are enough legions here to quell this riot, but they will let it burn itself out, rather than slaughter Roman citizens. And forget those Greek friends. Their house is already an inferno.”

They turned to leave!

“Were you well paid for all this?” I asked. “If not, take from my gold now, freely. I insist!”

“Don’t even think of such things,” said the old man. “But for your peace of mind, know this: your Father staked me twice after my ships were captured by pirates in the Adriatic. Your Father put his money in with mine and I made profits for both of us. The Greek owed your Father money. Worry about those matters no more. But we must go!”

“God be with you, Pandora,” said Jacob.

Jewels. Where were the jewels? I leapt up and opened the casket. There were hundreds of them, flawless, dazzlingly clear and exquisitely polished. I saw their value, their clarity and the care of the polishing. I took the big egg-shaped ruby David had shown to me and then another just like it and thrust them at the two men.

They put up their hands to say No.

“Oh, but you must,” I said. “Give me this respect. Confirm for me that I am a free Roman woman and that I shall live as my Father told me to do! It will give me courage! Take this from me.”

David shook his head sternly, but Jacob took the ruby.

“Pandora, here, the keys. Follow us and lock the gate at the street and then the doors to the vestibule. Don’t fear. There are lamps everywhere. Plenty of oil—”

“Go!” I said as they passed over the threshold. I locked the gate and held to the bars, staring at them.
“If you can’t get out, if you need me, come back here,” I said.

“We have our own people here,” Jacob said soothingly. “Thank you from my heart for the beautiful ruby, Pandora. You will survive. Go back in, bolt the doors.”

I made it to the chair but I did not sit in it. Rather I collapsed and prayed,
“Lares familiares . . . 
spirits of the house, I should find your altar. Welcome me, please, I bring no ill will to anyone. I will heap your altar with flowers and light your fire. Give me patience. Let me . . . rest.”

Yet I did nothing but sit in shock on the floor, my hands limp, for hours as the daylight waned. As the strange little house grew dark.

A blood dream began, but I wouldn’t have it. Not that alien Temple. Not the altar, no! Not the blood. I banished it and imagined I was home.

I was a little girl. Dream of that, I told myself, of listening to my eldest brother, Antony, talk of war in the North, driving the mad Germans back to the sea! He had so loved Germanicus. So had my other brothers. Lucius, the young one, he was so weak by nature. It broke my heart to think of him crying out for mercy as soldiers cut him down.

The Empire was the world. All that lay beyond was chaos and misery and struggle and strife. I was a soldier. I could fight. I dreamt I was putting on my armor. My brother said, “I am so relieved to discover you are a man, I always thought so.”

I didn’t waken till the following morning.

And then it was that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before.

Note this. Because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune and Nature more truly than a human can bear to know it. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass.

The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world.

I was alone. I went from room to room of this small house, banging upon the walls with my fists and crying with my teeth clenched, and whirling. There was no Mother Isis.

There were no gods. Philosophers were fools! Poets sang lies.

I sobbed and tore at my hair; I tore at my dress as naturally as if it had been a newborn custom. I knocked over chairs and tables.

At times I felt a huge exhilaration, a freedom from all falsehoods and conventions, all means by which a soul or body can be held hostage!

And then the awesome nature of this freedom spread itself out around me as if the house did not exist, as if the darkness knew no walls.

Three nights and days I spent in this agony.

I forgot to eat food. I forgot to drink water.

I never lighted a lamp. The moon nearing her fullness gave enough light to this meaningless labyrinth of little painted chambers.

Sleep was gone from me forever.

My heart beat fast. My limbs clenched, then slackened, only to clench again.

At times, I lay on the moist good Earth of the courtyard, for my Father, because no one had laid his body on the moist good Earth, as it should have been done, right after his death and before any funeral.

I knew suddenly why this disgrace was so important, his body rent with wounds and not placed on the Earth. I knew the gravity of this omission as few have ever known the meaning of anything. It was of the utmost importance because it did not matter at all!

Live, Lydia
.

I looked at the small leafy trees of the garden. I felt a strange gratitude that I had opened human eyes in this darkness on Earth long enough to see such things.

I quoted Lucretius:

“That which comes from Heaven ascends to Heaven”?

Madness!

Alas, as I said, I wandered, crawled, wept and cried for three nights and days.

INALLY
, one morning, when the sun came spilling down through the open roof, I looked at the objects in the room and I realized I didn’t know what they were, or what they’d been made for. I didn’t know their common names. I was removed from their definitions. I didn’t even know this place.

I sat up and realized I was looking at the Lararium, the shrine of the household gods.

This was the dining room of course, and those were the couches, and there the glorious conjugal bed!

The Lararium was a high three-sided shrine, a little temple with three pediments, and inside stood figures of old household gods. No one in this profane city had even taken them away with the dead woman.

The flowers were dead. The fire had simply gone out. No one had quenched it with wine, as should have been done.

On hands and knees I crawled in my torn dress around the garden of the peristyle, gathering flowers
for these gods. I found the wood and made their sacred fire.

I stared at them. I stared for hours. It seemed I would never move again.

Night fell. “Don’t sleep,” I whispered. “Keep watch with the night! They wait for you by dark, those Egyptians! The moon, look, it’s almost full, only a night or so from being full.”

But the worst of my agony had passed and I was exhausted, and sleep rose to embrace me. Sleep rose as if to say, “Care no more.”

The dream came.

I saw men in gilded robes. “You will be taken now in the sanctum.” But what’s there? I didn’t want to see. “Our Mother, our beloved Mother of Sorrows,” said the Priest. The paintings on the walls were rows upon rows of Egyptians in profile, and words made of pictures. Myrrh burned in this place.

“Come,” said those who held me. “All the impurities have gone from you now, and you will partake of the sacred Fount.”

I could hear a woman crying and moaning. I peeped into the great room before I entered it. There they were, the King and the Queen on their thrones, the King still and staring as in the last dream, and the Queen struggling against her golden fetters. She wore the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. And pleated linen. Her hair was not a wig but real plaits. She cried and her white cheeks were stained in red. Red stained her necklace and her breasts. She looked soiled and ignominious.

“My Mother, my goddess,” I said. “But this is an abomination.”

I forced myself to wake.

I sat up and I laid my hand on the Lararium, and looked at the spiderwebs in the trees of the garden, made visible by the climbing sun.

I thought I heard people whispering in the ancient Egyptian tongue.

I was not going to allow this! I would not go mad.