Threshold of Fire Page 2

  “Those Roman citizens who are aware of their responsibilites know that nowadays they must indulge in other entertainments at home. The report says further that in one of your anterooms, my officers found baskets of live cocks, undoubtedly sacrificial animals …”

  “No orders were given for sacrifice in my house. I don’t know who brought them in or who received them —”

  “There were often sacrifices in your house. Fresh flowers were placed on your house altar and at the feet of idols.”

  “Animal sacrifice has never taken place under my roof and it never will take place there!”

  “Ah, that’s a clever play on words! In your garden — in the open air and thus, I grant you, not under your roof — was a small altar, the kind that can be set up and taken down quickly.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. It was dark in the garden. I didn’t think it was necessary to examine the actors’ stage properties beforehand.”

  “In the jurisprudence of actions connected with magic, innumerable examples are cited of rituals identical to those which were apparently going to take place in your house last night: an erotic performance culminating in the sacrifice of cocks, including the so-called inspection of entrails. And all this in order to obtain an answer to questions about the duration of the Emperor’s life and to exercise an influence on that duration — in short, a detestable preamble to high treason. It’s an undisputed fact that the materials necessary for these kinds of practices have been found in your house, ready for use.”

  “Yes, well, despite all that, I suggest you need only question the artists — unofficially if necessary. Since they are outside society, not legally responsible citizens, they just might know more than you or I — “

  “Your sarcasm is misplaced. I have informed myself to the last minute detail. For a number of understandable reasons, actors never carry with them instruments associated with such actions — they’re intimidated by the law, and they’re afraid of reprisals from those who make their living from sacrifice and divination.”

  “I can assure you that no one who was in my house last night considers himself qualified to perform those rituals that you’re talking about.”

  “You haven’t really explained the presence of the man called Niliacus.”

  “I repeat what I said earlier: his presence on my property last night was unknown to me. I don’t know what he was doing there.”

  “May I help you remember? Was he perhaps waiting for some prearranged signal? You had met him before, you know.”

  “I refuse to discuss the allegations made by a slave frightened of torture.”

  “If you answer truthfully, you’ll spare the slave real pain and save yourself the trouble of inventing explanations for what you won’t be able to deny in the long run.”

  “Since you are determined to find me guilty, why don’t you just tell me right now what it is you wish to hear?”

  “Did you summon this man Niliacus — whose name, origin and circumstances are so strikingly nebulous — to sacrifice cocks and make certain prophecies during the gathering at your home?”

  “No, I did nothing of the sort.”

  “Marcus Anicius Rufus, you — in unfortunate contrast to the rest of your respected family, past and present — are not a Christian. We know you to be a man who holds stubbornly to pagan practices, to an obsolete mode of life… You refuse to admit that times have changed. We remember your words and actions at critical moments in the Senate. You’ve never been able to hide your displeasure with recent developments — worse, you have revealed a deep-rooted antipathy to the views of the exalted Emperor Honorius and his advisors. There are persistent rumors that you have publicly urged the restoration of ancient values. In addition, there is no doubt about the inclinations of your guests. Denial is pointless. I have reliable information. This wouldn’t be the first time that a coup d’etat was prepared under the guise of a dinner among friends — with criminal sacrifice and prophesying camouflaged as the buffoonery of supposed artists.”

  “You have no proof of that.”

  “In my opinion, both the nature and the intention of the performance in your house are indisputable.”

  “Then I must demand legal assistance.”

  “Considering the incriminating character of the facts and the seriousness of the transgression, that’s absolutely unnecessary.”

  “It’s only your interpretation of the facts that makes them incriminating. You and your officers have blown this affair completely out of proportion. All that really happened is that I invited the mime Pylades — I enjoyed his performances in the past — to come and amuse my guests with one of the numbers that were popular in his heyday. Before dessert — following ancient custom — I had the statues of my ancestors and my household gods set upon a table and I poured wine to honor them. Now that’s called idolatry, it’s punishable, I know that. I’m ready to pay any penalty that you decide to impose. I swear on oath that this is all there is. Now let’s have an end to this undignified spectacle.”

  “We’re going around in circles, Marcus Anicius Rufus. You can’t deny the presence in your house of compromising persons and objects and you have given me no satisfactory explanation for that. This is a serious matter. You’re under suspicion of high treason.”

  “In other words, you want to ruin me and my friends. Now I understand why the commander of the guard thought he had the right to force his way into my house. That raid was premeditated.”

  “I’m only an instrument of justice. I feel personally concerned about what is happening to you and your friends today. It would grieve me to have to remove you from office, to see you deprived of power and wealth. Nevertheless, I feel no pity for you. Some must fall very low before they’re able to find the truth. You have always closed your eyes and ears to the new; you have always been arrogantly opposed to the spirit of our times. You are literally outside our time, Marcus Anicius Rufus — that’s proven by your desire to use incantation and bloody sacrifice to control the future, to meddle in things that belong only to God. I hope fervently that what happened today will bring you insight, help you to regain humility and show you the way to true salvation.”

  “All right, punish me then if you have to, but I beg you to leave my family and my friends alone.”

  “I can’t leave anyone alone who was discovered on your premises last night. My heart is bleeding, but I must enforce the law.”

  “Enforce it then, but don’t insult my intelligence with these elaborate speeches —”

  “I wonder if you would be able to maintain this stoical attitude under all circumstances … ?”

  “I’ve said what I had to say. Nothing in the world could make me say anything else. And I know my friends — it’s the same for them.”

  “This man, this Niliacus… clearly he doesn’t belong to your distinguished circle of friends. Perhaps he will prove … willing — or should I say, more sensitive to certain methods of persuasion … if that should become necessary … ”

  “He’s a complete outsider.”

  “I can’t accept that, as long as I don’t know the reason for your involvement with him.”

  “It’s a private matter of no importance.”

  “I have the impression that you have a strong reason to protect him.”

  “I came upon the man by accident in the street — he looked like someone I knew once. After I had invited him to visit my home, I discovered my mistake.”

  “And when was that?”

  “My slave told you — on the day of the entry of the Emperor Honorius, three weeks ago.”

  “And who was it you thought he resembled?”

  “That’s certainly beside the point — it has nothing to do with the situation.”

  “Nevertheless, I find it extremely interesting.”

  “I’m not standing before a nosy old woman, am I — but before the first magistrate in the City —”

  “Your insults can only make matters worse. Stop and th
ink about your charming wife Sempronia whom I must still interrogate … You still refuse to answer? Niliacus will certainly tell me everything soon.”

  “All I know is that you won’t get to hear what you insist on hearing. Since I am not allowed to defend myself fairly and you’ve obviously made up your mind to destroy me, all discussion between us is meaningless. From this moment, I will not say another word to you.”

  The statements of the four others, the guests of Marcus Anicius Rufus, are identical. They come one after the other, to stand before the Prefect; all — depending on their temperaments and the extent of their self-command — grimly stiff or convincingly indifferent, unshaven, the traces of a sleepless night on their faces, but with their togas correctly draped over arm and shoulder. Just as their host had done, all four ask for lawyers. Four times the Prefect refuses, pointing out that as the representative of the highest authority in the City, he is fully qualified — yes, required — to pronounce judgment in cases like these, behind closed doors, without jury, without counsel, without defense, and within twenty-four hours.

  It had not been his secretary’s voice that he had heard. His name had been called, a faint, distant, drawn-out sound: Hadrian! A cry from the sea, against the wind. He was standing then on the bottom step of the broad staircase, with every wave a thin, shiny film washing over the granite. In his dream, he saw the myriad pebbles of the sloping shore moving under the water. Slivers in the mosaic on the floor before his platform gleam like wet stones. The sun is higher in the sky; there are fewer shadows in the corners of the justice hall. Some sounds are still coming from the doorway through which Quintus Fulcinius Trio has just been led away: footsteps ring in the hollow corridor beyond it. The low voices of the praetorian guard summon the next prisoner for interrogation; their weapons and greaves clink softly against the metal-covered leather scallops of their breastplates.

  The Prefect’s officials, arrayed in a semi-circle behind him, whisper together. He can hear the rusde of their garments and the shuffling of their feet as they move about. Someone stifles a cough. He knows that he need only tap his signet ring against the arm of his chair to obtain complete silence, which he values above all else during a session — the wall of living statues behind him underlining the atmosphere of impassive, dignified expectancy which befits his role as deputy to His Majesty. But that he makes no attempt to call his retinue to order, by tapping with the onyx on the index finger of his left hand, is more evidence of the uncertainty which came over him when he saw the prisoners standing before him. He feels thwarted, in some inexplicable fashion checkmated, unjustly deprived of satisfaction, injured in the most essential part of himself: the belief in his duty. Is this the after-effect of a dream?

  Behind the impressive façade with the columns, an impenetrable precipice, and before him as far as the eye can reach, the equally impenetrable sea.

  “Hadrian!”

  It did not seem to be a summons, nor a greeting. The sound grew fainter, more protracted and melancholy, and there on the most extreme edge of that place without depth, without landscape, he had, on the threshold between sleep and waking, realized in dismay the profundity of his loneliness.

  “Niliacus? Nothing more? No last name, no first name? A foreigner?”

  “Born on the Nile as the name tells you, but I’ve been in Rome for a long time.”

  “So you’re not a Roman citizen?”

  “No more nor no less than you yourself.”

  The Prefect’s studied impassivity stiffens under the pressure of a sudden instinctive defensiveness; this creates a still deeper silence around him, as if everyone is holding his breath. Who can be more Roman than the City’s highest magistrate sitting in judgment on the dais, his sallow skin stretched, shining as if it were polished, over forehead, cheek bones and chin, eyes just as dark and opaque as the seal on his finger, accentuated by the immaculate folds which flow from shoulders to toes, horizontal and vertical, pleats and creases, blue white against cream white — the only broken line is the purple band bordering his garments, which seems to be drawn in blood.

  For the first time in many years, feelings stir in the Prefect which he thought had been dispelled; they smart like old wounds. He suspects that all the officials behind him have been reminded now of what they have always known: that Hadrian, born and raised in Alexandria, in Egypt, is an imported Roman — yes, he too is a Niliacus — and that this knowledge, despite the respect shown him (his due) could once again (as in earlier days) rouse in his inferiors an intolerable tendency to behave toward him with condescending familiarity. This thought alienates him from the self-image which he has cultivated for so long: his outward appearance, his bearing and the ceremonial toga, seem a brittle shell within which he cringes, vulnerable.

  Reason is powerless here. The word “Egypt” — which has been in everyone’s thoughts, but which no one has yet uttered — possesses, perhaps even before it is grasped by the mind, the force of an exorcism. Pharos, the lighthouse at Alexandria, a white needle in the morning light, a forefinger raised against the sky before us as, from the afterdeck of a ship on its way to Rome, we saw the familiar coastline fade away forever ….

  In his dream, the little ship sailed without him. He was called by name, his Roman name: Hadrian! But he must remain behind, an exile in a land only one arcade deep, unreal as the backdrop of a theatre. Marble steps rise to the quays of Alexandria, they rise out of the sea to the colonnades of the buildings. The desolate region of his dreams — was it an hermetically sealed country of origin, an Egypt become inaccessible? How can one tell what is hiding behind there, or lying fossilized in the rocks?

  The interrogation continues. More cautiously now, with mounting suspicion — and another feeling, too: a disturbing tension. The Prefect gropes for information about this man in the shabby cloak. A freedman, yes, practicing no craft, no, lives from hand to mouth. No, he had nothing to do with the events in the villa of Marcus Anicius Rufus.

  “But you had been in that house once before. Marcus Anicius Rufus has admitted it.”

  A shrug, a longer pause than after the first questions.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “The reason for your first visit.”

  “I didn’t visit Marcus Anicius Rufus.”

  “Ah, yes, then it was he who approached you. What did he want with you?”

  “A while ago I was attacked during a fight in the street —”

  “On the day of the entry of the exalted Emperor Honorius?”

  “That’s right. Marcus Anicius Rufus saw this in passing and saved me by taking me home with him in his retinue.”

  “No one acts like that toward a total stranger.”

  “Possibly he mistook me for someone else. I thanked him and left again. That’s all.”

  “Whom did he take you for then?”

  “I didn’t ask him that.”

  “What were you doing near his house last night?”

  “I was looking for a place to sleep. Since the Emperor’s entry, there are many people in the City. When I was leaving Marcus Anicius Rufus’s house that time, I saw how peaceful the garden was and filled with jasmine —”

  The Prefect is irritated by this air of indifference bordering on impertinence, from one who belongs without question to the most destitute social caste.

  “That’s enough! The City and the provinces are swarming with charlatans disguised as vagabonds who privately perpetuate their pagan hocus pocus for money. Their equipment includes portable altars and cases with sacrificial knives. The praetorian guard have frequently confiscated items like these. Unfortunately, too many of our highly placed citizens, who should know better, are secretly greedy for prophecies and black arts — if not for something still worse. It is curious that you were so close to the villa where, as has been proven, preparations had been made for the sacrifice of cocks. Everything that has come to light during these hearings has confirmed my belief that the mealtime at Marcus Anicius Rufus’s was far
from being as innocent as some would like us to think. Both Marcus Anicius Rufus and you must provide me with more credible explanations before I feel I have reason to revise my opinion. Prove to me first of all that Marcus Anicius did not send for you on the recommendation of like-minded friends, that you have never sacrificed a cock …”

  The man facing the Prefect moves a step nearer on the meandering mosaics and raises his right hand.

  “I can’t prove anything. Besides, it’s the accuser who must supply the proof. But I swear that I have never sacrificed a cock unless it was in your presence.”

  Later — the hearing is suspended until further notice — in an adjoining room where the confiscated books and personal property of Marcus Anicius Rufus are displayed, the Prefect absorbs the full significance of that last remark. As he takes up the rolls of parchment, glances at the wax tablets (the clerks, busy since midnight reading line by line, declare that so far they have found no incriminating material), the words of Niliacus, born on the Nile, hang in the air, a disturbing echo. Why that gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction, even of secret fear? That question is closely connected to another which the Prefect must admit to his consciousness: why, when surprise and displeasure were clearly written on the faces of his officials, did he not go on to interrogate the enigmatic foreigner? To elicit personal details — from which village, which city on the Nile have you come, what brought you to Rome, when and how, who gave you your freedom?

  Indistinct images of the past flash before him, startling because they make the Prefect realize that his past — Egypt, his youth — form a backdrop made of basalt which cannot be destroyed. The mud huts of the Fayyum, lotus blossoms floating on the brown reflecting water of the Nile inlets in the swampy Delta, the long rows of lighted pleasure boats moored outside Canopis, the suburb of Alexandria …. his father’s house … the fragrance of forgotten meals … the sounds of the vernacular which he has not spoken since he was a little child. For more than thirty years, he has been a Roman. Magistrate of the Empire, a vocation for a bachelor who has left all his relatives behind in Egypt, who has no circle of friends and no inclination to indulge in forms of amusement which require intimacy with others… He has dedicated himself completely to the task set him by two emperors in succession.