The Just City (20 page)

We crossed the square and walked down the street of Demeter, wrists together. The crowds were thinner here, and as we went on and came away from the sound of music we found ourselves almost alone. When we came to the plaza where the street of Demeter crosses the street of Dionysos, Aeschines stopped. “There are chambers down here,” he said, gesturing with his free hand.

“All right,” I said. We turned to the left. “Did they tell you about this?”

“Ikaros, one of the masters from Ferrara, explained it to all the boys of Ithaka and Ferrara,” he said. “I expect one of your masters explained it to the Florentines.”

“I wish Maia had explained it to me,” I said.

“Why, are you nervous?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I suppose it's just because this is the first time and I don't know enough about it. I saw my mother raped, and then more women were raped on the slave ship.” That had been the stuff of nightmare for years. “So I have some uncomfortable feelings.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'll try not to hurt you.”

“Thank you.” I looked at him. He was tall and earnest and his brow was furrowed now as he looked down at me. He wasn't flawless Pytheas, my best friend and secret beloved. But if I had hoped for that, I had also known that the odds were a hundred and twenty-five to one.

“Here,” he said. There was a low hall which I had used before. It was full of practice rooms where people learning the lyre could sit in bad weather. Some of the doors lay open and others were closed. In the open ones I could see mattresses covered with blankets. We went into one and closed the door.

“Are all the practice rooms going to be used for this?” I asked, trying not to look at the bed.

“I don't know. Ikaros said this was where we should go.” He unwound the garland and rubbed his wrist. “That was a bit tight.”

I smiled. “This is a horribly awkward situation.”

“It would almost be better if we were complete strangers and could introduce ourselves.”

“I'm Simmea,” I said.

He laughed. “I know. And you're a Florentine, and one of Sokrates's pupils, and you did a painting of some girls racing. That's all I know about you.”

“That's more than I know about you,” I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think I've seen you with Septima?”

“She's a good friend,” he said. “She knows so much.”

“I had a great conversation with her the other day about why the gods can't change history,” I said. He took off his headdress and stood holding it awkwardly in both hands.

“There's nowhere to put things,” he said, looking around. “I don't want to drop this on the floor. Somebody must have spent a lot of time making it.”

“I made ones for us this morning,” I said. “They don't take long, once you get the hang of it.” I took mine off and showed him the construction. “These big daisies make everything easy.”

Aeschines took my headdress and put them both down gently in the corner of the room. Then he came back over to the bed and sat down next to me. “Are you afraid?” he asked.

“More nervous and awkward and ignorant,” I said.

He put his arm around me and moved his face slowly towards mine. He then kissed me tentatively. “How was that?” he asked.

I laughed, because he sounded so much like somebody beginning a philosophic inquiry. “I think that was quite nice,” I said. “The problem is that there are all these things I'm trying not to think about—the slavers on the ship, and what happened to my mother. And I'm not quite sure what I am supposed to be thinking about.”

“You're supposed to focus on sensation, Ikaros said. Like eating, when you just taste the food and you're there in that moment, except also focusing on the other person and what they're feeling.”

“But how can you tell?”

“Pardon?” He looked disconcerted.

“How can you tell what the other person is feeling? I have no idea what you're feeling!”

“I'm feeling that you're very nervous but kissing you was nice,” he said. “The other thing Ikaros said is that there's no hurry. We've got all afternoon and all night. We don't have to do it all in the first two seconds. We can be comfortable. We can try things.”

We tried various things to make ourselves comfortable. What worked best was standing naked and leaning into each other, the way we might when wrestling. That way, upright and with my legs firmly in a wrestling stance, nothing reminded me of anything horrible, and I could enjoy the feeling of Aeschines's chest against mine. We kissed standing like that, and then he began to rub the sides of my breasts. He was so earnest and sensitive that I started to feel safe with him. I rubbed his chest, and moved my hand lower. When I touched his penis he made a movement as if electrified and, looking at his face, I saw that his eyes were shut and his head thrown back. I had often seen penises when swimming and in the palaestra, so they were no novelty, but I had never voluntarily touched one, especially not one that was awake. Aeschines's was awake. I stroked it gently, experimentally. He twitched again. I began to understand what Ikaros had meant about paying attention to how the other person felt. I liked it. I was making him feel like that. I felt in control. This was good. Then his hands moved between my legs and I felt my breath catch.

Afterwards I wasn't sure how I felt about it. “Did you like it?” Aeschines asked.

“Yes…” I said. “It was fun. I liked the way you liked it. I liked lots of things about it. I wish we could do it standing up.”

“We could try,” he said. “In a little bit, when I've rested.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Sure. We're married until tomorrow morning. We can do it as many times as we want to before that. Ikaros was quite plain about that.”

We did it twice more. Standing up was definitely better for me, both in feeling in control and just generally comfortable. Later we slept uncomfortably together in the bed.

“So I guess we're friends now,” Aeschines said as got dressed the next morning.

“We definitely are.” I smiled at him. “You could come and eat in Florentia with me tonight if you want.”

“That feels strange,” he said. “I didn't know you, and now I know that you like doing sex standing up.”

“Don't tell anybody!”

“Of course not!” He sounded shocked, which was a relief. “Boys do talk about it sometimes. I always thought they were lying. About getting girls to sneak off to the woods with them. Specific girls. And what those girls liked. It's a kind of showing off they do when they jerk off.”

“Jerk off?”

He mimed with his hand. “At night, in the sleeping houses, standing round together with everyone doing that and nobody touching each other. Girls don't do that?”

“Not equipped,” I said.

He laughed. “But nothing like that?”

“Not in Hyssop,” I said. “I never heard of girls doing that, but that doesn't mean they don't. But I never heard of them sneaking off with boys, either.”

“Would you do that?” he asked.

“What? Sneak off to the woods with you? No. That would be wrong.” I wanted to get back to Hyssop and bathe in the wash-fountain before breakfast. “You're not seriously suggesting it?”

“No, of course not.” I wasn't sure whether he meant it or not.

“Dinner tonight, then?” I asked, my hand on the door.

“Sure.” He picked up the headdresses and garland from the corner. The flowers were dying, away from water for so long. “Do you want yours?”

“What for?”

“No, I suppose they're done with now.” He turned them in his hands looking a little sad. “Well, I hope we do this again some time.”

“So do I,” I said, and meant it. I didn't share the calculations of probability with him, though.

 

19

A
POLLO

“How are you going to get out of it?” I had cornered Athene in the library. She was sitting in the window seat she liked, the one where she had a secret compartment in the armrest, reading Tullius's newly printed monograph on the integrity of the soul.

“He's getting old,” she said, putting it down on a mess of books and papers on the seat beside her.

“He is,” I agreed. “Ikaros flattened him in their last debate. And he's been avoiding Sokrates.”

“He's going to die soon, whatever I do. I know he's vain and silly, but I'm very fond of him.”

“I am too. Even if you have to send him back to face his assassination, at least he got this extra length of his natural lifespan.”

“I hate that cold bastard Octavian,” she said. “Killing Cicero for political advantage. It's like burning down a library to make toast. I could never warm to Rome again until Marcus Aurelius.” She picked up the book again, then hesitated and put it down. “Did you want to ask me something?”

“Yes. How are you going to get out of being paired off at the festival of Hera?”

“I'm sick of the subject of the festival of Hera. It's all anyone's talking about. I may be getting a bit bored with this whole thing, actually. Anyway, I shall be chosen and walk off with somebody, and then they will fall asleep and dream they've had a pleasant afternoon with Septima, while I come back to the library.”

“Do you need help with the dream?” I asked.

“No thanks. There's a perfectly good bit of Catullus.”

I laughed, quietly because we were in the library. The funny thing was that she was so serious. She rolled her eyes. “Sorry,” I said. “I should have guessed you'd have a plan.”

“Did you come to offer to help if I needed it?” she asked.

“Well…” I felt caught out. “I knew you wouldn't want to participate, and I hadn't thought of a dream.”

“Well thank you. I don't need it. But I do appreciate the concern. I'd have thought you'd be looking forward to it. First sexual act in sixteen years?”

“I've been continent for longer before,” I said. Though that was usually when I was focusing on something else and not noticing how long it had been. “And anyway, that isn't quite true. This will be the first time mating with a woman, but there have been some sex acts with men.”

“Boys?”

“And masters.”

“Not Pico?”

“No. He's never done more than look admiring.” I wondered why she was asking, but her expression did not invite questions.

She picked up her book again and put her finger in it ready to open it. “So did you want me to influence the lots to get you whoever you have picked out for the festival?”

“No. I thought I'd go with chance. That way I'll learn something about choice.”

She looked astonished. “I suppose that's true, but I'm surprised to hear you say so. I've never seen you with anyone who wasn't perfect. What will you do if it's your funny little Simmea? She's very smart, isn't she? I was talking to her about the constraints of time the other night.”

“She's very smart,” I agreed. Of course I knew she was in love with me. “It's extremely unlikely that we'd be chosen together, though.”

Athene shook her head. “You're changing.”

“Learning things. That was the whole idea.”

She started to read, and I left.

The next day was the games, where I was careful to do well in everything without actually winning anything. Simmea came third in the swimming. I could swim now, but I didn't even enter the races. Human bodies aren't made for that kind of exercise. The day after was the festival. We wore flowered headdresses and danced in the plaza before the temple of Zeus and Hera. Phidias's huge chryselephantine seated Zeus stood on one side of the steps, and a large Hera from Argos stood on the other. I wondered, eyeing them, what Father knew about this enterprise, and what he would say. Athene was his favorite daughter, but even so. It would be possible to argue that we were bending his rules all over the place.

I avoided Simmea. I felt uncomfortable at the thought of her. I liked her very much. I admired her. I enjoyed her friendship. But Athene was right. In thousands of years I'd never mated with anyone who wasn't perfect. I didn't know if it was possible. If it turned out it wasn't with some random girl, that didn't matter all that much. With Simmea it could be a disaster.

It turned out I was worrying about entirely the wrong thing.

There's a whole section in Book Five of the
Republic
about how the masters are supposed to cheat with the sex festival, to make sure the best get to have the best children. The children of the less good will be exposed anyway, but while everyone's supposed to believe it's entirely random, they naturally cheat for eugenics. I hadn't forgotten this, but I had only thought it would mean that they'd be likely to match me with somebody beautiful after all. They did. But when I heard our names read out I froze.

“Pytheas, Klymene!” old Ficino read. My friends were pushing me forward and laughing. I walked mechanically towards the steps. I saw Klymene coming from the other side, not looking at me. The garland was tied around our wrists and our arms raised. Our eyes had still not met. We walked together down the steps and off through the dancers and down the street.

Eventually I looked at her. She was so pale and resolute that she'd have done for a portrait of Artemis. “I'm really sorry,” I said.

“It's
random chance
,” she said. “It's not your fault any more than it is mine. It's just Fortuna laughing at both of us.”

“I mean I'm really sorry I said what I said to you on the mountain.”

She looked at me now for the first time. “That's the latest apology I ever had.”

“Simmea said you didn't want to talk to me. She beat me up. She made me realize what an idiot I was.”

“She made me practice being brave until I could be brave again,” Klymene said. “Simmea's a good friend. And I didn't want to talk to you right away. But it has been a long time. Years.”