Fabia, Balbus’ wife, belched and spoke around a mouthful of food: “Poor you, Calpurnia, living in this shambles. Can’t the governor requisition better quarters?” She gestured with a thick arm at the peeling fresco on the wall. It was unkind, and meant to be. Malice glittered in her eyes.
Calpurnia would not allow this woman to make her angry. She forced a smile. “Soon to be repaired. I’ve made my own sketches for a mythical landscape, children riding on the backs of centaurs, a temple in the distance. I’ll paint some of it myself, workmen will do the rest.”
Silence. The women were dumbfounded. Cassia, an engineer’s wife, wrinkled her small nose and giggled. “The smell of that hot wax, the mess, really!” Embarrassed laughter around the table. An arch, knowing look from Fabia that said What do you expect?
The luncheon was on the verge of being a disaster. How Calpurnia loathed these gatherings, and yet she felt compelled to go through with them. She had endured many such occasions in Rome too, but there she was one senator’s wife among many, not required to play a role that felt too big for her. This was different. She felt their resentment, their envy. And she was all alone, without her husband’s boundless good humor and sociability to give her cover.
“We’ve heard that you and your husband are on intimate terms with our emperor and his wife,” said Cassia brightly. What’s she like?”
“Yes, tell us about Plotina,” the others chorused.
“She’s very nice,” said Calpurnia.
“And…?”
“A very kind and sensible woman.”
The wives couldn’t conceal their disappointment.
“Well, what about him, Trajan?” Cassia pressed on. “People say he drinks too much and is too fond of little boys.”
“People say a great many things they know nothing about,” Calpurnia replied. She knew she was handling this wrong, could see the resentment in their faces. Give them what they want, she told herself, be one of them, unbend. But she could not.
Then Fannia, the wife of Caelianus, Pliny’s chief clerk, gave a little cough. “And how is your husband, dear? Have you heard anything from him?” Fannia was the closest Calpurnia had to an ally among this nest of bewigged and bejeweled vipers. Unfortunately, her husband’s status was lower than the other husbands represented here, and status, among them, was everything.
“I’ve had one letter from him, a short one. He’s terribly busy.” Gods, how she missed him! She had written him four letters in the past week.
“Enjoy it while you can,” said Faustilla, sucking her fingers. “Nymphidius hasn’t written me a single word. See if I care. He can stay away as long as he likes.” Her husband was traveling with Pliny.
“You mean to say you don’t miss him at night?” This was Memmia, who had managed in the meantime to spill another glass of wine on herself. Her tongue darted out over her lips wickedly.
“Why, the old man hasn’t had it up in years. And I’ve got my ‘pacifier’, if you know what I mean.”
“Hush, Faustilla, you’re awful!”
Faustilla was not to be deterred. Her old, pouched eyes twinkled. “Had it made for me years ago by a shoemaker. This long, thick as your wrist, stuffed with wool, leather as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Borrow it any time you like.”
“Calpurnia, dear, excuse us, some of us aren’t fit company,” Atilia interrupted hastily. “And now, my dear, I’m going to presume on our short acquaintance.” She gestured for silence, turned to the others, and explained, “Calpurnia and I met quite by chance in front of the temple of Asclepius the day Pancrates returned and then again a few nights ago at Fabia’s. Well, ladies, I have a surprise for all of you-remember, Calpurnia dear, I told you I could arrange it. I daresay you didn’t believe me. I’ve asked Pancrates to join us here today. Oh, my husband and I know him well. He’s truly a marvel. And he’s so anxious to meet you, Calpurnia. He’s in the foyer now.”
Before she could be stopped, Atilia was up and out the door. She returned a moment later with her prize. Calpurnia half rose from her couch in anger. How dare the stupid woman bring this charlatan into her home! But the wives gathered around him, all talking at once in happy wonderment. He ignored them all but, striding across the room to Calpurnia’s couch, he stood before her and inclined his head. She had had barely a glimpse of him that day when he entered the temple to the wild cheers of his devotees. She only remembered the snake with its glittering scales that enveloped his shoulders like some obscene garment.
Now, at close range-and without the snake, the gods be thanked! — she saw him entire, and felt the force of the man. He was tall and dressed in a long-sleeved, unbelted tunic of some delicate white stuff that hung straight from his shoulder to his ankle. His black hair spilled in ringlets down his back, he had a hooked nose that curved toward his chin, his matted beard was streaked with gray. His complexion was swarthy like one of the southern barbarians (he accomplished this by staining himself with the juice of almonds) and, like them, his feet were bare. His bright, black eyes, sunk in sockets like twin caves, moved constantly as though seeing things hidden from others. He fixed them on her. “Lady, I will speak to you alone.” It was a voice that presumed, that commanded.
Calpurnia’s mind raced. Should she order the servants to throw him out? But plainly this man was not just some street corner diviner; he had an enormous following in the town. What might they do if she treated their oracle with disrespect? Then, too, Atilia, insufferable as she was, must not be slighted. Her husband was a pillar of the expatriate business community, a group they needed to conciliate. What would Pliny do? No matter, she was in charge, she must decide. He looked at her unblinking, waiting for her answer. And, in spite of herself, she was curious. Even if he was a howling madman, she thought, an interview with him was preferable to prolonging this gruesome lunch.
“Come this way,” she said, standing up. Seven pairs of envious eyes followed them out of the room.
She led him to her studio, which was just down the hall; a room fragrant with wax and oil, cluttered with jars of pigments, braziers, easels, a table littered with brushes and spatulas, a pair of stools. They stood and faced each other. His dark eyes searched her face. “You don’t like them, do you, those women? You shouldn’t. You are more intelligent than they are, you have a purer spirit. I feel it.”
Calpurnia laughed nervously. “Is this your stock in trade, flattery? I imagine no one quarrels with you if you tell them only pleasant things. You know nothing about me, sir.”
Pancrates ignored this. He let his eyes wander around the little room, examining the pictures, in various states of completion, that sat on easels and hung from the walls. “Why do you paint? A painting is nothing but the shadow of a shadow.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to argue with this man about her art.
“And why do you paint only children? As I was coming in, I met a little boy racing down the corridor on his hobbyhorse. You’ve painted his face here, and here on these Cupids. Now that I look, I see him everywhere. But he isn’t you son, is he?”
How could he know this? “Who are you?” she demanded. “Where do you come from?”
“I see I’ve angered you. Forgive me, lady.” For the first time he smiled, showing a wide space between his front teeth. “Where I come from is no matter, but where I have been. I have travelled in India. I have seen the martichora with its human head and its long tail that shoots arrows. And I have seen the pygmies and the men who stand on their heads and shade themselves with their feet. I have lived with the Brahmans on top of their sacred hill and watched them rise into the air when they pray to the Sun. And I have seen the giant bearded serpents that live in that land and I have brought one home with me. With the aid of its spirit, I have advised kings and princes in every region of the world.”