Abroad (9 page)

We descended farther into the thicket of olive trees. Claire was still holding her wine. “There,” she said, pointing to a crumbled pile of stones and faded tiles.

“It’s nothing anymore, is it?”

“No, but think of what it used to be. Maybe a family lived here. Or an outlaw.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, definitely.” Claire sat on the slope in the shade, looking at the valley. I sat next to her. Above us, the traffic throbbed on.

“So why did you come to Italy, Taz?” Claire asked, handing me her jar of wine.

“Oh, to get away. Out of Nottingham. And Ireland. My family can be … well, I’m the youngest. I suppose I needed air.”

“Air.” Claire nodded. “Yeah.” She crossed her arms over her knees. “You know why I came?”

I shook my head.

“Because here, I can be anyone I fucking
feel
like.”

She rocked back and forth, her hands playing with the dead grass.

“No one knows me. No one’s heard of me. It’s fucking fun. It’s more than fun. It’s…” She stopped. “I can’t think of the word.”

“Freeing?”

“
Liberating.
”

“Isn’t that the same?”

“I mean, I
like
sex, you know? I’ve liked it since junior high school. It made me a freak. And everyone knew. Butte’s not exactly a huge town. So all through high school—
boom.
Claire the slut.”

“I see.”

She grabbed the wine jar, took a greedy gulp, then wiped her lips.

“I don’t know. And when I moved to Missoula to go to the U, it was still the same. It’s like, if I sleep with a guy, everyone knows. I’m a slut. I’m easy. I can’t just
enjoy
sex, or experiment. It means there’s something wrong with me. Not that sex is all there is to it. Here, I can be a bitch. Who’s going to care? Or I can try … I don’t know. The guitar. I can play in the square, like, for money. Made seven euros yesterday.”

I burst out laughing. “I hate to tell you this…”

“I suck. I know.”

“Maybe.”

She kissed me on the cheek and pressed her forehead to mine.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said.

And then she stood and disappeared. There was no other word for it—I must have turned my head just three seconds later, and she was gone. She had a way of doing that when she left places. I could only guess that growing up in the wilds of far-off Montana, she knew how to avoid making sounds or footprints. As if she were a hunter, born knowing how to track.

Thainia, 1st century AD

A short girl, stout with dark hair and olive skin, a nose that hooked out and down. In the spring, she went for a walk outside of the city walls with her brother. He was her twin, and it was his wedding day. They were to slaughter a lamb for the feast in the family’s fields.

Thainia was starting to do work in the kitchen now, as women in the house, if they were not brides, had to make themselves useful. Thainia’s hands were already rough with cuts, but she didn’t complain. She was a loud girl, brassy, with a wine-fed sense of humor. Her father didn’t care for her much, but her mother liked having her at banquets.

Just as they neared the low stone wall that marked their land, some thieves came upon the brother and sister. Thrusting out their daggers, they moved to pull Thainia away.

The scene of what was to come unfolded quickly in Thainia’s mind.

Her father would never come look for her—to do so would start a war with the barbarians, and he would have no interest in losing men on her behalf. Her mother would cry, resigned, for if Thainia was raped, the girl would not be allowed back into the Volsinii house. It was against common law. If she didn’t end up a slave to these brutes, Thainia would end up wandering the streets and dying there.

“Help,” she said, looking at her brother.

Her twin didn’t have to ask what she meant. He put his knife to her throat. When the men charged forward, he slashed as hard as he could, struggling with the tendons and bone. Still she breathed, so he pierced her heart.

Thainia, the first entry in the Compagnia’s ledger. The first Good Death.

Thainia Volsinii, eighteen years old, 1st century AD

7

Registration was long over for all classes, including Intensive Etruscan Mythology. But since Anna knew the professor, I was sure I wouldn’t have a problem.

I was wrong.

“No,” the administrator behind the desk said when I went to register. He was sleek as a whippet, with a tan shaved head that made his age impossible to gauge. “You are too late.”

“But this class hasn’t even started yet.” I opened my eyes wide, trying to channel Jenny’s sex appeal and Anna’s bargaining powers.

“It is forbidden. I am telling you. You cannot enroll. Enrollment was last Monday.”

“Oh. I see.”

I stood there for a moment, but he didn’t look up again.

All right, I thought. So, then, no seminar. I started to turn away.

“
Scusa!
Ragazza!
Where are you going?”

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I don’t understand. You said I couldn’t enroll.”

“Well, yes, I
said
no, but not
always.
” He sighed, as if I were maddening him. “Ah! All right. For you, we make an exception.”

“Oh! Well, you don’t have to—”

“Here is your paper. You show this to the professor, and then if—
IF!
—if he wants you, he will let you in.”

“I—”

“This is very unusual, what I am doing.”

“Yes … I … thank you?” I ventured. He stroked his chin, clearly pleased. The transaction was, somehow, complete. This would not be the last time, of course; again and again, this happened. On trains. At the grocery store. We don’t usually sell just a hundred grams of this porchetta, but for
you
 … because it is
me
 …

Italy, I found, is full of exceptions.

As I ran out of the college with my paper in my pocket, my excitement was so acute it had a taste to it—a metal pole on a winter’s day. Still, every time I looked at that syllabus my stomach turned. Ovid I gave up on after a good three hundred pages; now I was giving Homer my best shot. But e-mails kept coming from the professor, adding texts he’d forgotten. Apuleius, Euripides, Hesiod, “and, of course, Pindar.”

And, of course, Pindar.
My belly grew cold, my mouth prickly and dry. Who in God’s name was Pindar? Nor did Anna particularly quell my fear the next time I met the B4 for drinks at Hotel Nysa.

“Well, of
course
I know Pindar,” she said. “I’m a classics major. But don’t worry. All you really need is the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey.
”

An uncomfortable silence followed.

“Oh, girls, don’t tell me. Doesn’t
everyone
have to read those? You know, to get a diploma?”

“Not in psychology,” Jenny said.

“Well, there is that terrific painting of Circe by Waterhouse in the Oldham,” Luka said. “So I’ve always assumed I got the gist of the thing.”

“I’ll try to get through it,” I said.

“Can we get some more drinks here?” Luka called.

“Tabitha, look. It’s very simple. Just read those two, all right? And
not
the SparkNotes, the
books.
Okay, if you’re lost, you can read the Graves supplement. At least you’ll be covered in an emergency. But be as quiet as you can in class. Arthur’s a genius, so he’ll know in about five seconds that you’re…”

“Illiterate?” Luka said.

“Call it under-read,” Anna said.

“Anna, you do get so dull when you’re pretentious,” Jenny said.

“Hear hear,” Luka said, picking distastefully at a tray of olives.

“Christ,” Anna said, almost to herself. “You know, it really is appalling, how I’m wasting—”

“What?” Jenny asked. “Your life?”

Anna grabbed her bag, squirreling around for something. Lip gloss, it turned out.

“I’m interested, Anna,” I said. “I am. I’m really looking forward to the class.”

“Kiss ass,” Luka muttered.

But Jenny wasn’t through yet. “Do tell us, Anna, are you blowing this professor of yours?”

“Don’t be disgusting.” Carefully, she slicked her thin lips.

“It’s just that you seem terribly knowledgeable of his every bloody word. And of course, we
know
about you and older blokes, don’t we? Major weakness, that’s the word.”

“Jenny—”

“Oh, skip it. Anyway, tell us. What
else
does Arthur say?”

Anna drew herself up in her chair. “Well. That without knowing mythology, we’re doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. And he’s right. Look at Persephone. She was having a laugh, not paying any sort of attention, hanging about with her mates, and then she was dragged off by Hades—”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“—and taken to the Underworld because she
wasn’t
careful. Sound like something that could happen to you?”

“Oh, I wish it would,” Luka said. “I’d like to be dragged and tied. Sex is so boring in uni.”

“You’re all hopeless and sick. Taz is the only one of this lot with even the slightest curiosity and sense at all.”

“You just want to be dragged and tied up by Arthur,” said Jenny. “You bloody well love old men, the crustier the better, and you know it. You want him. Admit it.”

“Please. He is my
professor.
”

“Well, I don’t like this at all,” Jenny said. “It makes me cross, actually, not knowing what this is all about.”

“We can have interests outside of parties, Jenny,” Luka said.

“Can you?”

“Look, I’m not excluding you from anything,” Anna said. “You can take the class.”

“Not interested. Too busy.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Luka asked.

“The problem is Anna’s propensity toward old codgers, and we don’t want the bother.”

“Arthur Korloff was a close friend of my father’s,” Anna said. “They met in New York in their twenties. He’s my godfather.”

“All right. I’ll trust Taz to keep you in line,” Jenny said. “Won’t you, Taz?” She turned and patted my arm. “I want a full report, eh?”

Just then, the waitress set four large Camparis in front of us: cherry red, topped with thin slices of oranges. Beads of moisture dripped down each glass.

“Oh, thank God,” Jenny cried, suddenly peaceable. “Right then, you fucking nerds. Here’s to … mythology. I choose Bacchus, all right? Please, let’s get drunk.”

*   *   *

The next day, Jenny came by to see me. More and more, she seemed to take a particular liking to having tea with me in the afternoon, often popping around unannounced.

“It’s important that we get our
alone
time, Taz,” she said, sitting on the terrace, smoking. Her purse was at her feet. It seemed to grow larger and shinier each time I saw it.

Jenny wore it well, her class. She was extremely good at getting people to serve her. For her visits, I’d drag the real teapot from the top shelf. Not that she would have said anything if I’d just handed her a mug with a bag, as I was used to, but I just knew it wouldn’t do.

“Remember, just a little dip in the water,” she said. “I can’t take that builder’s tea.”

“No, of course.”

I handed her a cup. She sighed happily. “Anna and Luka are lovely—they are. But you’re my only friend here.”

I knew, of course, my former hall mate was saying that very same thing to Anna and Luka, but I didn’t care. It made me feel special, being singled out, however disingenuously. That day, I remember, I lit a cigarette because she had, and sat at the edge of my plastic chair, my legs positioned tensely in front of me, as if I were about to leap.

“I mean, Anna’s a little snobby, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “No.”

“Oh but she
is.
Trust me. Those girls with titles. It’s a handicap. I’m surprised she isn’t
more
that way, actually.”

“Well, I don’t—”

“And Luka! Total show-business kid. They’re always ‘artists,’ aren’t they?”

“I think her paintings are rather good.”

“Maybe. Still, she’s such a lush. Not that I don’t love them both. I absolutely do. Absolutely. It’s just … they’re not like
you.
Solid. Such a good head on your shoulders.”

“Well—”

“It’s true! Look—you were just completely unwilling to give away your compatriots. I love that. I do.” She leaned over and, squeezing my hand, spoke in that low, intimate tone she had. “I’d
die
without you. Really, I’m not joking.” She held my gaze for a moment, but I wasn’t sure what to do with any of it. My head felt muddled, my cheeks, hot.

“Now,” she said, leaning back again and picking up her tea with a brisk smile, “you
might
think about wearing that white sweater tonight.”

“Really? But I just got that blue peasant thing from the square.”

“I know, I know. Still, I’d wear the white.”

“Maybe.”

“Here’s the thing, darling,” Jenny said. “I—well,
we’re
—a bit worried about you.”

I shifted in my seat. “What do you mean?”

“We are a group, of course. Of friends. But we’re also … we’re more than that. We’re an
alliance.
”

“And?”

“Well, I’ve been watching you. And I’ve been watching others watch you. And what I see is a little alarming.” She looked at me, wrinkling her eyes at the corners. “You’re much too breakable. I’m—we’re—worried that some man … that some man is going to come along and just
crush
you. That you’ll have one horrible affair with an arsehole and end up a pile of dust.”

“Look,” I said, smiling with what I hoped read as composure. “I’ve
been
dumped before. I’ve
been
a pile of dust. If I ever do meet someone I halfway like, I’ll be all right.”

“You won’t, though. I can see that you won’t.”

“Oh, I don’t see that.”

“Listen,” she said. “Can you imagine
me
being screwed over by some man?”

I had to admit, nothing seemed less likely.