The Far Arena (56 page)

'You think I needed to be told these things, Lewus?' I said.

"There was a bad period in my church when men did evil things,' said Olava.

"They did what they thought served their interests, those deeds now not serving yours, woman.'

Olava bit her reply short. Her kindness was like a cloak of stones to a swimmer. It reminded me of myself, of the me who always thought he had controlled events more than most men and was now so controlled as to be exhibited as less than an animal in the arena. For an animal will be allowed to fight. I was not even allowed that

'You don't know what to do because you don't know yourselves,' I said. 'And by that I mean what is valuable to you. Right now, I vote for the grave, to which I tried to return, but could not overcome a too-well-trained lust for life. You, Olava, talk of Lewus's sins because if you dwell on that, you can delay deciding what happens to me after that'

'You are right, Eugeni,' she said, clean and courageous as ever, 'for to admit a flaw in crisis requires enough strength to know the rest of you will not follow to the depths.'

'And the same for all of you. This crisis now confronting you -a fine performance that is by some quirk of time now called a crime - has put before you what I had to face by my quirk in the arena. The world is coming down on all of you. What do you want to save? I was lucky. I had my loves. For most people those decisions are never made, the grave ending the debate before it begins. But not for you.'

'You were lucky,' said Lewus, 'and Semyonus says so too, but I think you are wrong, gladiator.'

'How?'

'About you. Your time of decision was not running from the arena, for those are the immediate problems of life whose answers are apparent. You cannot tell me, gladiator, that running for your life is a decision.'

And I laughed. For he was right.

'Your decision was whether you would kill Publius, and you made the wrong one. I think.'

'There is nothing to think about. It was wrong. I know why I did it, but it was still wrong. I said no to many things that day when I said no to Rome. I said who I was. I was Lucius Aurelius Eugenianiis and how dare they put this piece of trivial nonsense beneath my sword for their imaginations. They never knew how really good I was, because they wanted their dreams satisfied. Only a few knew, and I served the mobs. They did not know my mother, who was a good woman, and better than all of them. She would never, for someone else's approval, signal my death, as Publius' mother did his. Neither would Miriamne.

'My mother was beaten in the fields when they hauled me away in chains. They had to beat her cries out of her. My mother, who was so unimportant she did not even have a name in a bill of sale, was better than all of them. I was ashamed of her. Yes, I admit it. I was ashamed of her because she was beaten.

'That day, my last day in the arena, the horrendous day, I was proud of my mother. I was proud of me. I was proud of Miriamne, whom I loved and love today, strong as the day I left her. I, the only one with memory of her, love her this day as I did in my last thoughts in the German Sea. As I did Petronius at the German Sea.

'For I confess to you now, as a child I did not hate those who beat my mother, but in a way hated her for making me ashamed she was beaten. I was sorry. But am sorry no longer.'

In hot tears, I took my blade and threw it quivering into the wooden floor as I had thrown it into the sand. 'No,' I screamed. 'No.'

And if Rome could not hear it, that was all right. They had not heard what I was saying when I said it. That was why they had to find so many reasons for why I did what I did.

'Semyonus says,' said Olava, 'that now he believes in his form of government more than ever. For his government, he says, has freed the masses from slavery.'

'Masses?' I asked.

'The lower classes, the bulk of people,' said Olava.

'If that is some form of advanced government, we are back on the latifundia. For that is how my mother was treated. You call people "masses" when you treat them as a lump, as a hundred slaves more or less, as an army if you will. Nobody ever knew a mass or loved a mass or even paid the respect of hating a mass. In a small way, being treated as the Roman given to you, I have suffered my personhood going, a living death adding to my great sadness. An emperor looks upon his lower classes as a mass, a patrician looks upon his latifundium slaves as such, for his house slaves usually have names.'

'Semyonus says you do not understand. He is part of the masses.'

'If he has a name, he is not. If he is human, he is not. That is the convenient lie he tells himself. I have been wrong. All of you can continue your self-deceptions; this crisis just makes them a little bit more difficult to sustain. However, with perseverance, you can keep them comfortably to the graves and never pay the price.'

As was natural, Olava, the strong one, spoke first:

‘
My self-deception - my lie - was that I loved a language so much that I feared losing my soul. It was not the language I loved so much as it was escaping from the world my Dominus, my God, had given me. I liked my world better than His.'

As was natural, Semyonus did not know what I was talking about, which meant he had chosen the warm, easy way. But Lewus with a great sob in his big body, gave himself to tears.

And thus the three of them began talking with an open heart I had never seen between them before. They did not invite me into this but talked deep into darkness outside, as I watched. My blade upright from the floor stuck solid between them all, as if they all shared it.

When I tried to interrupt. Olava answered that all three were serving themselves and their interests and that it was not my concern.

'With you three, it is my concern,' I said.

I dozed and was roughly awakened by Semyonus. His eyes were ringed with red, for he too had been crying. Of all of them, Olava was without tears; rather, her grim determination was even more grim.

'We have all decided what we will do,' said Olava. 'We have decided that we want you to know what we have done, and who we are.'

'I know.'

'No, you don't,' she said

'I understand the machinations of your masters better than you.'

'To a degree, yes. But we are talking of what we are. We want you to know that none of us thinks those we serve are evil. Semyonus believes his government is the great hope of what governments can be and is on a road towards that. Lewus points to his latifundium as enabling man not to be a pack animal and to live past thirty years. I believe my cult is the path that everyone should take, for the one right destiny for every man, and that is God, my God, whom 1 believe is the God for all. This we want you to know because we do not hate whom we serve.'

'I did not hate Rome. Rome, too, was good. There were bad things, but there was much good. Much good. Roads and water and governments, as corrupt as they were, were better than what was there before the legion planted its standard.'

'Good. On behalf of all of us, we ask that you do not attempt to take your life again, so that you will know what we have all accomplished.'

'You have given me a second life.'

'There is more and you will see. It cannot be explained in a picture or word. You must see and feel to understand. Now each of us has one question we ask of you. If you will give us an answer, we would appreciate it.'

'Why one?'

'Because we have burdened you enough with questions, and we had set rules on ourselves that we should not ask personal questions, but treat you as a scientific thing.'

'I felt like a thing,' I said. The three had not removed the blade. I left it there, still not touching it

'Do not use this on yourself for a while. Let us show you first what we have done. It will take days, but give us your life for that time, as a gift.'

'And then you will kill me at my request.'

'We cannot. None of us can do that or promise that. But we are certain we may show you a great thing.'

'There are no great things.'

'We think we can show you a great thing, and in doing so you will know what we have done, and a bit more of who we are who have done this.'

'Done, if I get an answer to my question. Not one given to an exhibition of science, but to a person.'

And they all agreed. And my question was:

'Why are you doing this thing, whatever it is?'

'Because we are who we are,' said Lewus, and Olava translated for Semyonus. And all three agreed.

'Do you think your masters, whom you all praise here before me this night, will lose their self-interests for your convenience?'

'No,' said Olava. 'We will take care of it.'

'You ? You three ? Olava, the legionnaire who follows all orders with discipline; Semyonus, falling in love without perception; and Lewus, the orange-haired giant who works his entire life for a master and does not know who that master is or exactly what it wants, until, like an imbecile, he finds a weapon in his hand and does not know he is standing on sand? I cannot conceive of any of you succeeding in blunting a plan by your cult, Olava, your government, Semyonus, and least of all your latifundium, Lewus.'

'We have worked things out. Every master will be pushed aside or fooled. Do not worry. I will handle my latifundium.'

'You? Least of all you. None of us would be here if you were not some clumsy oaf. You ?'

'I am not stupid, Eugeni. I am not
’

Then why are we here ?'

His massive hands closed on my shoulders and, like some brute ox, put me into a chair.

'All my life, Eugeni, I have dealt with people who thought
I
was some form of stupid trash in some manner. Now you, after two millennia, stab me in my biggest wound. My parents were not people I was proud of. And my home village school thought I should not study your language, which in our age only the better students studied because it is difficult for us today. Yet I know it. In a more advanced school they thought that, since I was a gladiator, I should not study this and, most recently, Olava assumed I was deficient in this language because I came from an area of a country she looks down on. I allowed her that because it served what I thought were my purposes. But I want you to know I am an intelligent and perceptive person. And I am offended at being thought of as some sort of big package of garbage.'

'You were a gladiator?'

'Our kind. Games. But people got hurt, not killed though. We threw ourselves at each other.'

I nodded, but did not add, for Lewus's feelings, that his size would make him good at such a contest.

'Please do not call me stupid any more for I am not. I have a title that bestows on me a certain level of intelligence accepted by others. Perhaps like your son Petronius, who felt he had to be more Roman than others, I needed that title, but I have it And my plan is sound.'

'What is it?'

'It is something you would not understand.
’
Try me.'

'I am going to take that which is precious and make it un-precious.'

That might work, I thought That might be the one thing that could work.

'Now,' continued Lewus, 'I have my question I ask of you. And that is, what is it like to live with someone you love? When Olava's reports showed you ran back to save only your wife and son, I so envied you having that. So did Semyonus.'

'Did you, Olava ?' I asked.

'No. I thought it was nice but quite natural, even though during your period, for political people, it might have been an extraordinary act.' "That is a lot of words to say what?'

‘
I think I am saying my own parents had such a good love that your good love was not all that enviable, because as a child I had come from a family with love.'

'And it was so.'

'Lewus,' I said, 'it was no great thing, until I lost it. Then the love Miriamne and I had was most clear. Of all that I have done, marrying Miriamne, legally, was the happiest and best thing I have done.'

And I knew he understood. I removed the blade from where it was sticking up, pommel high, from the wooden floor. I had to exert pressure, for it had gone in a goodly depth, and the wood clung.

Semyonus wanted to ask his question with Olava not listening, so the stalwart woman went to another room. He was ashamed of the question, but he wanted to ask it anyway. Lewus translated. They spoke in hushed tones, like conspirators.