It was bad enough that I had sent Belbo home alone from Clodia's house, leaving myself without a bodyguard to cross the Palatine by night. Bad enough, too, that I eventually came home smelling of cheap wine and the rancid smoke of tavern lamps. But to have spent the night with that woman!
This was ridiculous, of course, and I said so, especially as I hadn't even seen Clodia all night.
How then did I explain the lingering smell of perfume on me?
A smarter man (or even myself, less worn out and sleepy) would have thought twice before explaining that the perfume came from a blanket that the lady in question must have put over him when he unwittingly dozed off in her garden-
That was that. I spent what little remained of the night trying to find a comfortable position on a cramped dining couch in my study. I'm used to sleeping with a warm body next to me.
I'm also used to sleeping until at least daybreak, especially after having stayed up half the night. This was not to be. It wasn't that Bethesda woke me; she simply made it impossible for me to go on sleeping. Was it really necessary to send the scrub maid to clean my study before dawn?
Once I was awake, Bethesda didn't refuse to feed me. But the millet porridge was lumpy and cold, and there was no conversation to warm it up.
After breakfast, I shooed the scrub maid from my study and shut the door. It was a good morning, I decided, to write a letter.
To my beloved son Meto, serving under the command ofGaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, from his loving father in Rome, may Fortune be with you.
I write this letter only three days after my last; Martius is gone and the Kalends of Aprilis is upon us. Much has happened in the meantime, all revolving about the murder of Dio.
Our neighbor Marcus Caelius (now our former neighbor; Clodius evicted him) has been accused of the murder of Dio, and related crimes having to do with the harassment of the Egyptian envoys, as well as a previous attempt (by poison) on Dio's life. I have been hired by friends of the prosecution to help find evidence against Caelius. My only interest is to determine who killed Dio, so that I can put this nagging affair to rest, for my own peace of mind if not for justice's sake.
I will attempt to explain the details later. (Perhaps after the trial, which begins the day after tomorrow.) What is foremost in my mind now, what I would long to discuss if you were here with me, is something else.
What is this madness which poets call love?
What power compels a man to thrust himself against the lacerating indifference of a woman who no longer loves him? What drives a woman to seek the absolute destruction of a man who rejects her? What cruel appetite makes a man of rational intellect crave the debasement of his helpless partners in sex? How does a eunuch, supposedly impervious to love, become enamored of a beautiful woman? Is it natural for a brother and sister to share a bed, as we are told the gods and goddesses of Egypt sometimes do? Why do the worshipers of the Great Mother emasculate themselves in religious ecstasy? Why would a woman steal a lock of her lover's pubic hair to cherish as a keepsake?
You must wonder if I'm mad to pose such questions. But in fact they may have as much to do with the murder of Dio and the upcoming trial of Caelius as do the intrigues of Egyptian politics, and I find myself baffled. I fear I have become too old for this kind of work, which requires a mind in empathy with the world around it. I like to think I am wiser than I used to be, but what use is wisdom in making sense of a world that follows the dictates of mad passion? I feel like a sober man on a ship of drunkards.
We say it is the hand of Venus that compels these strange behaviors, as if that put the matter to rest, when in fact we say "the hand of Venus" precisely because we do not understand these passions and cannot explain them, only suffer them when we must and watch, perplexed, the suffering of others…
There was a rapping at the door. I steeled myself for a chill wind and called, "Come in." But it was not Bethesda who entered. It was Diana.
She closed the door behind her and sat in the chair across from my writing table. There was a shadow on her face. Something was troubling her.
"Mother is angry at you," she said. "Is she? I hadn't noticed." "What are you doing?" "Writing a letter to Meto."
"Didn't you write to him just a few days ago?" "Yes."
"What does the letter say?"
"This and that."
"Is it about your work?"
"In a way. Yes, it's about my work."
"You're writing to Meto because you've sent Eco on a trip, and you need someone to talk to. Isn't that it?" "You're very perceptive, Diana."
She lifted her hand and pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her cheek. What remarkably lustrous hair she had, like her mother's before the strands of gray began to dull it. It fell past her shoulders almost to her breasts, framing her face and throat. In the soft morning light her skin shone like dusky rose petals.
"Why don't you share your troubles with me, Papa? Mother does. She tells me everything."
"I suppose that's the way of the world. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons."
She looked at me steadily. I tried to look back at her, but found myself looking away. "The boys are older than you, Diana. They've shared my work, my travels." I smiled. "Half the time when I begin a sentence, Eco finishes it."
"And Meto?"
"Meto is different. You're old enough to remember some of what happened while we were on the farm-Catilina, the trouble between Meto and me, Meto's decision to become a soldier. That was a great test of the bond between us. He's his own man now and I don't always understand him. Even so, I can always tell him what I think."
"But Eco and Meto aren't even your flesh. You adopted them. I carry your blood, Papa."
"Yes, Diana, I know." Why then are you so mysterious, I thought, and why is there such a gulf between us? And why do I keep these thoughts to myself instead of speaking them aloud?
"Can I read the letter, Papa?"
This took me aback. I looked down at the parchment, scrutinizing the words. "I'm not sure you'd understand, Diana." "Then you could explain."
"I'm not sure I'd want to. If you were older, perhaps."
"I'm not a child anymore, Papa."
I shook my head.
"Mother says I'm a woman now."
I cleared my throat. "Yes, well, then I suppose you have every right to read your mother's personal letters."
"That's cruel, Papa. You know that Mother can't read or write, which is hardly her fault. If she had been raised as a Roman girl…"
Instead of an Egyptian slave, I thought. Was that what was disturbing Diana, her mother's origins, the fact that she was the child of a woman born in slavery? Diana and I had never really talked about this, but I assumed that Bethesda had discussed it with her, in some way. They certainly spent enough time talking to each other in private. Did Diana bear some resentment against me, for having bought her mother in an Alexandrian slave market? But I was also the man who had freed Bethesda. It all seemed terribly complicated, suddenly.
"Even most Roman women don't learn to read, Diana."
"The woman you're working for can read, I imagine."
"I'm sure she can."
"And you made sure I was taught to read."
"Yes, I did."
"But what good is the skill, if you forbid me to use it?" She looked at the letter in front of me.