The Last Girls of Pompeii Read online

  “Whatever are you speaking of Julia?” Her mother stood up straighter and adjusted a pin in her braided coronet. “Resign from what?”

  “Resign from being a bridesmaid.” Everyone burst out laughing, including the slaves and the seamstress. Herminia came up to her youngest daughter and pulled on her hair playfully. “Magistrates resign darling, city councilors resign, sometimes even senators, but bridesmaids? Oh how curious you are!”

  “A bit too curious with that arm!” Cornelia fumed.

  “Cornelia we’ve had quite enough of that.”

  “But Mother, you didn’t allow her to wear such a transparent material for Flavia’s wedding. It’s simply not fair!”

  “It is fair!” Herminia spoke sharply. “It’s much much hotter than it was when Flavia got married. Do you want the poor child to boil to death?”

  “I should be so lucky,” Cornelia muttered.

  With that Flavia rushed across the room and slapped her older sister. Julia leaped down from the pedestal, knocking over the seamstress, and delivered a swift kick to Cornelia’s backside.

  “Girls! Girls!” Herminia shrieked. The slaves stood back, their hands pressed against their mouths to conceal their laughter.

  “What in the name of Jupiter is going on in here?” Cornelius burst into the room. By this time Cornelia and Flavia were wrestling on the floor, and Cornelia was pulling Flavia’s hair. One of her hairpieces flew off. Oh this is fun. Thought Julia. This is worth being a bridesmaid. She was attempting to stuff the hairpiece in Cornelia’s mouth.

  “You horrible creature.” Cornelia’s words were muffled by the hair.

  “Yes, one bad arm, you monster, but see what I can do with the good one!” she screamed at Cornelia’s flushed and stuffed face. The hair foamed out from Cornelia’s mouth like a rabid dog’s spittle. But then Julia felt herself being lifted into the air by a slave. Another slave was separating Cornelia and Flavia. Herminia stood transfixed. She was mumbling something about the augurs warning about this wedding.

  “Now what is this about?” their father boomed.

  “It’s about Julia’s dress,” Cornelia shouted.

  “You don’t have to shout.” Cornelius lowered his own voice as he said this.

  “It is not about Julia’s dress,” Flavia said with a quiet dignity that caught her father’s attention. “It is about Cornelia’s cruelty to Julia.”

  Cornelius Petreius’s large blue eyes opened so wide they were like huge fathomless pools in his face. He wheeled about to face his eldest daughter. “It is about her arm. Well, Cornelia—” he took Julia by the shoulders and pulled her toward Cornelia, and then lifted the long sleeve that was covering the deformed arm—“look at this hard my dear. Get used to it.”

  “Why?” Cornelia said. Her bottom lip was trembling, and Julia had never seen her so scared, nor had she ever seen her father so angry.

  “This might be the Curse of Venus, or it might not.”

  Julia gasped. Finally those words had been spoken, spoken by her own father. This cut deeper than anything Cornelia could have said. Julia’s eyes filled with tears. “But whatever it is, it’s a curse that has been visited before on our family.”

  “It has?” Cornelia said, her voice quaking with fear now.

  “What?” Julia said.

  “Cornelius!” Herminia interrupted and then hissed at her husband. “Don’t speak of such things.”

  “I will if I have to, Herminia.”

  Julia was stunned. She had never heard this before, and she could tell that neither of her sisters had either. A flood of joy swept through her. She was not completely alone. She was not the first person in the family this had happened to. And perhaps she was not such a freak.

  Cornelius then turned to Julia. “Now child enough of all this wedding nonsense. Come with me. I have to go to the Forum on some business and then we shall go to the harbor. And how would you like to go to our favorite restaurant and have ourselves some octopus? What do say you to that?”

  “Oh Father, yes,”

  “And I think we’ll go by the jeweler and find something precious for you to wear for the wedding. You are a bridesmaid are you not?” He turned his head toward Cornelia “And you shall be properly honored. I think jade, yes. I saw a lovely jade piece at Lucretius’s.”

  “Jade!” Cornelia was quivering with anger.

  “Yes, jade Cornelia,” her father replied coldly. He began to walk out and then stopped and turned toward Cornelia. “Cornelia, you are about to be married. You have so much. Jealousy is unbecoming to anyone, especially a bride. Make some space in your heart for love.”

  Julia watched her sister. Tears had begun to spill down her cheeks. These were tears not of anger but of sorrow and regret. “I am sorry, Julia,” she said quietly. Had Cornelia ever before in her life said these four words?

  “Let’s walk to the Forum, Julia. The sun’s not high yet This is the coolest part of the morning.” He turned to the two slaves who stood by the litter. “Lido and Servius, meet us there in one hour with the litter and then we shall go on to the port.”

  As they turned onto the street, there were the usual petitioners calling out for favors. These were not the official clients who were permitted into their patron Petronius’s house, but just gangs who hoped something might be tossed in their direction. Julia and her father hurried by them. As she had been trained to do, Julia walked quickly with her eyes straight forward.

  Every few feet, storekeepers came out to bid the magistrate good day and inquire if he would be purchasing from them for the next wedding. The wine merchant ran to him in the street.

  “Will it be the Falernian , Flavius Cornelius Petreius?” the merchant asked using his patron’s full name as a sign of respect.

  Petronius laughed. “I’m afraid so, dear fellow. I wish it on no one—two daughters’ weddings in one summer.”

  The wine merchant pinched Julia’s cheek. “But a while until this little one. Don’t worry your father shall buy the wine of Falernian for your wedding too!” Julia pulled her palla tighter over her arm and heard her father cough nervously. This wedding was like a stray hungry dog that seemed to follow them everywhere. It was impossible to get away from it!

  Soon they were at the Forum. “Father when will your statue be put up?” Julia asked glancing about at the statues of the dignitaries and emperors that lined the immense rectangular space.

  “Soon my dear.”

  “Where will it go?”

  “Over there between Pliny’s and that of Eumachia, perhaps.”

  “Are Eumachia and the empress Livia the only statues of women in the forum?”

  “Yes, a priestess and a goddess.” But the word “goddess” was tinged with disdain. Julia knew that although her father was no Republican he looked askance at the deification of the emperors and especially the empress Livia, wife of the great Augustus. She was rumored to have been a consummate poisoner who had succeeded in poisoning two of her own sons and several grandchildren.

  “Will your statue be sitting on a horse?”

  Petronius laughed heartily. “Julia my dear, the very idea! I would undoubtedly fall off even as a statue. I am no general. I am a merchant, a shipbuilder. Better to put me on the deck of a bucking trireme than a horse. Come along now. I have to clear up some business details.”

  The business details that Cornelius Petreius was required to attend to in the forum had nothing to do with shipbuilding. He was one of a pair of senior magistrates called duoviri to whom the maintenance of sacred and public buildings as well as the roads was entrusted.

  Julia and her father mounted the steps of the building that was the center of these activities. A half dozen scribes sat behind stone desks with their styluses and wax tablets.

  “Ah Januarius, is my dear colleague Quintilius Pomponius in?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good good. I’ll see him right away. Could you fetch us some figures on carrera marble, including shipping and insta
llation?”

  Julia followed her father into a spacious room. A rotund man sat at a desk. He was bent over a wax tablet so Julia could see that his partially bald head was inscribed with a perimeter of perfectly fashioned curls. The curls reminded Julia of flattened snails. She once again thought of Marcus’s hair and how it fell so naturally across his brow.

  The man looked up and smiled. “What a pleasure! You have brought my absolutely favorite Petronius daughter, the lovely and clever Julia.” Quintilius Pomponius was the other magistrate who served with Julia’s father as one of the duoviri. “Come have a most fabulous fig while two boring old men talk business.”

  A slave immediately materialized, carrying a plate of not just figs but large purple grapes, peaches, and apricots along with a small jug of peach wine.

  “So what is it, Cornelius?” Quintilius Pomponius asked.

  “Well, I believe that I have secured enough money to begin reconstruction on the Venus temple, from a source that shall not be mentioned,”

  “Aaah.” Quintilius Pomponius laughed slyly. “I bet I know who that source might be.”

  This was the first time that Julia had heard this good news. She supposed now her mother and father would stop squabbling about it. That hadn’t taken long—what only twelve years or so?

  “I am having Januarius fetch some figures for materials—carrera marble and installation.”

  “For the pillars perhaps, but you’ll have to go with travertine for the floors.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Cornelius said rubbing his chin.

  Quintilius Pomponius now cleared his throat. “I am afraid dear Cornelius that there is right now a more pressing matter.” The seriousness in his voice alerted Cornelius as well as Julia. She loved being included in this talk. A serious matter, not a wedding matter, how refreshing!

  “Did you happen to pass by the public fountain near the thermopolium two streets over?” Quintus Pomopeius asked.

  “No, I’m afraid we did not come that way,” Cornelius said.

  “Tell me then, how are the fountains in your own garden?”

  “I think quite normal.”

  “No, Father,” Julia piped up. By the gods why did I say that? She and Sura had sneaked out to go swimming again and had noticed this second time that barely a trickle flowed from the Venus fountain.

  “What is that, Julia?” Both men turned to her expectantly.

  “Well, Father the other night, I could not sleep you know when it was so hot and Sura and I took a turn in the garden.” Well that was true. “And we noticed that the shell of Venus was almost dry. No water at all. But by morning there was some.”

  “Curious.” Cornelius looked at Quintilius Pomponius . “Of course my wife prefers that the pressure be maintained at its very lowest on all the fountains in our garden. She finds loud splashing or even just dripping disturbs the tranquility.”

  “I think it’s a real problem though,” Quintilius Pomponius ’s brow contracted into deep furrows.

  “Well, we had better contact the aquarius.”

  “Yes, I have sent word already.”

  Julia wondered if she should mention the odor she and Marcus had sniffed that evening when the fountain was barely running, the smell of rotten eggs. But her father and Pomponius were already on to other matters.

  By the time Cornelius Petreius’s business at the Forum had been concluded, the sun was high and the heat of the late morning lay on the city thickly. It turned all the marble statues into quivering and seemingly insubstantial masses. The rays of the sun’s light struck like shards of glass. Julia squinted her eyes against it as they walked to where the litter with their bearers awaited them. The darkness of the litter’s interior was a welcome relief, and her father pulled out a jug of cool water from which they both drank, a practice her mother would have frowned upon and said was for “road slaves.” Julia settled back into the comfort of the linen cushions. These bearers were among the strongest and the smoothest runners of her father’s slaves. It was almost as if the litter was floating along a swift river current. She relaxed and time passed quickly.

  “Here we are, Julia. Your favorite restaurant.”

  Aurelius Josephus, the owner, came out to greet them. He was a Jew. “Aah Cornelius Petreius!” He opened the door of the litter and began welcoming them effusively while directing his own slaves to make a table ready.”

  “No, no need for a table. My daughter Julia here prefers to eat at the bar.”

  “Of course, of course!” He quickly showed them to the stone bar with holes in which amphorae of wine were set. Julia’s father ordered all of the specialties—the octopus, conger eel wrapped in beet root, salad with many lettuces, a platter of sea urchins, oysters, and boiled crawfish.”

  “Tell me, Aurelius Josephus,”—Cornelius winked at Julia as the plates began to arrive before them—“how does a Jew like yourself explain serving shellfish? Doesn’t your religion forbid the eating of such creatures?”

  “I don’t eat them. I just have my cooks prepare them. Simple enough.”

  “But does it disturb you to see others eating them?”

  “Why should it disturb me? You have your gods, I have mine.”

  “Just one right?” Cornelius asked, sucking the juice from a crawfish tentacle.

  “One’s enough for me. One god. One wife. That’s it.” He slapped his hands together. “And what, may I ask, is the occasion that brings you and your lovely daughter to my humble restaurant?”

  “She is sick to death of all the foolish wedding talk. As am I.”

  “Oh yes, and you have to pay for it all.”

  “Indeed I do!” Cornelius said as Aurelius Josephus filled his glass with more of wine. “That reminds me, can you get me a good deal on a barrel of these oysters? They’re delicious.”

  “Of course I can. What’s the date?”

  “August twenty-fourth, just a week away.”

  Aurelius Josephus went and fetched a wax tablet. With his stylus he wrote down the order. “The day after the Vulcanalia. Good you got your order in now. I’ll deliver them at dawn on the day of the wedding. Anything else you need?”

  “Flamingo tongues, but they’re not exactly your department.”

  “Oh Father, I hate flamingo tongues,” Julia said making a face.

  “Well, it’s not your wedding and your mother and Cornelia want them.” Cornelius was getting out his pouch to pay.

  “Try them with a little garum,” Aurelius Josephus suggested. “The sauce helps. They’ll taste just like tuna.”

  I doubt it, Julia thought. But she thanked him nonetheless and said she would do just that.

  An hour later on the very opposite side of the city from the port, Julia looked at her wrist. The circlet of jade disks was beautiful, each one a slightly different color green. “Father I love it! I just love it. The stones have every color of the sea,” Julia exclaimed.

  Her father laughed. “Well, I’m a ship builder not a sailor, and I have not seen every color of the sea, but it becomes you, Julia.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  They had just climbed back in the litter and her father had ordered the bearers to carry them out through the gate to the necropolis and their family’s tombs. He had bought a jug of the peach wine they had drunk at lunch as an offering.

  More than a quarter of a hour later they came upon the small stone house of the dead where Julia’s ancestors’ ashes rested. They passed through the open entryway into the cool shadows of the building. Urns containing the ashes were placed on shelves and then beneath these shelves were strong boxes containing clothes, jewels, and various possessions the deceased had used in life. Julia always went first to the urn that contained the ashes of a small child, a girl named Paulina who had died during the time of the Republic nearly one hundred years before. She often wondered what Paulina’s box contained—toys undoubtedly, but from the inscription Julia could see that the child had died so young she did not have enough years to collect many fav
orite things. Julia felt the weight of the jade bracelet on her own wrist and wondered if when her time came it would be buried with her in a strongbox beneath her ashes.

  She had a sudden thought. This girl Paulina had lived during the times when children like herself who were born with deformities were often taken to hillsides outside the city and abandoned to be devoured by wolves or to die of starvation.

  “Father if I had been born, say, one hundred years ago, would you have carried me to a hillside and left to die?”

  Cornelius Petreius gasped. “Julia, what a terrible thing to say or think about. Of course not. Never!”

  “But Father that was the custom, was it not? And some people still do it?”

  “Those were very brutal times.”

  It wasn’t much of an answer in Julia’s mind. If they were brutal times, did that make the people naturally brutal? Would her father have been born brutal then? Or could he have made up his mind not to be?

  “But it was the Republic. Many say that those were Rome’s finest hours.”

  “Republicans! Now don’t go talking such nonsense. Come let’s leave.”

  “Father, you haven’t made your offering.”

  “Oh yes, yes of course.”

  Julia took a bit of wine from the jug, cupped it in her hands, and dribbled it over the urn of the long-ago child Paulina. In brutal times, did it follow that a child was born brutal? These were not such brutal times, yet Cornelia was brutal. How had that come to be?

  All the way home they were quiet. Julia was absorbed in her thoughts of abandoned babies. She tried to imagine what it was like for such a baby. Did the baby smell the breath of the wolves as they approached? Did it know enough to even be frightened? Or was the baby just feeling hunger and cold? Did it take long for it to die? That would perhaps be the worst. Suppose the wolves didn’t come, and the baby just cried and cried into the darkness of the night, the broiling heat of the day, the emptiness of this world into which it had been born. Even if it did not know enough to be scared and even if it did feel cold or hunger what must have been the worst was the emptiness, the complete loneliness of the universe. The loneliness would have been crushing. One didn’t have to be smart to feel loneliness. One only had to be human. Of this Julia was sure.