His fingers are digging painfully into her upper arms, but she doesn’t flinch. Amara has belonged to Felix so long, she knows that he is going to rape her, to humiliate her, to try and destroy the last traces of the happiness she has brought back, now fading like the scent of jasmine on her skin. She grips the scroll Pliny gave her. There are parts of herself Felix cannot know or touch.
“I never forget,” she says.
“Good,” Felix lets go of her. “You should get back to work then.”
She is almost over the threshold of the doorway, giddy with relief, when he stops her. “Did I say you could take that?” Amara waits as he walks up to her, lets him take Pliny’s gift from her hands. “I might be able to sell it.” He turns the scroll over, a dismissive look on his face. “You never know what someone else will value.”
26
Thais: Me not speaking from my heart? That’s not fair! What have you ever wanted from me, even in fun, that you didn’t get?
The theatre’s stage is blazing with torches, even though dusk has not yet fallen. The brightly painted columns and statues, the flamboyance of the actors, the laughter, reminds her of the atmosphere at the Vinalia. Amara has never been to see a play before and is enjoying the luxury of watching rather than being watched. Let someone else have the hard work of entertaining for a while. Beside her, Rufus has taken her hand, and his look of utter delight at the unfolding scene endears him to her. He really is like a child, she thinks.
She finds the play easy to follow. It is The Eunuch by Terence who, Rufus eagerly assures her, is a greater master than Virgil. She would certainly like to borrow the luck of the play’s courtesan, Thais, who seems to rule the men through charm alone. Amara suspects Thais never encountered a pimp like Felix.
She finds herself laughing at this world where the slaves are cleverer than their masters, and the men love women to distraction. She remembers Rufus telling her he admired the theatre for telling the truth – can he really think the world is like this? On stage, she watches as an actor disguises himself as a eunuch in order to rape the slave girl he fancies. He is a tall man, lisping and mincing to convince everyone he is safe to leave with the young virgin. Laughter ripples round the theatre at the absurdity and audacity of the joke.
“The comic timing!” Rufus whispers to her. “It’s perfect.”
The girl’s exaggerated screams off stage cause further titters of amusement. Rufus laughs with the rest. Amara sits listening to the actress’s cries, a fixed smile on her face. Perhaps comedy is a mirror after all.
The sky turns a deeper blue, and the shadows on stage lengthen. Rufus is caressing her hand, teasing out the shape of her fingers with his own. She had worried, before this evening, about being out of place in a respectable crowd. Victoria had insisted she let her make some changes to the white robe Pliny gave her – “You don’t want Rufus thinking he’s taken his mother! At least show a bit of shoulder.” – and now she is grateful to her friend. Many of the women here are obviously courtesans, out with wealthy lovers. Her eye is drawn to one woman, sitting with the poise of a queen, her robes elegantly dipped at the back to show the line of her dark brown shoulder blades. Amara shuffles on her seat, trying to pull her own dress a little further down her arm.
The play’s end surprises her. Thais gets to keep both her lovers – the one she likes and the one who pays. She looks at Rufus who is cheering enthusiastically. Perhaps her life will disturb him less than she feared. He turns to her, face lit with excitement. “Did you like it?”
“It was wonderful!” she exclaims. “I cannot think of a happier evening!”
“I’m so glad,” he says, kissing her hand. “I hoped you would.”
They spill back out onto the streets with the rest of the audience. Laughter and conversation warm the evening air. Amara can see a small crowd pressed around Marcella’s bar and instinctively turns away.
“Is there somewhere to entertain privately at your place?” Rufus asks. He has not yet been to the brothel – one of his slaves was sent to collect her.
“Oh!” Amara says, looking horrified. “We couldn’t go there!” She imagines Rufus stepping into the narrow, sooty corridor, greeted by some vomiting laundryman, embracing her to the sound of Victoria’s moaning, the air stagnant with the smell from the latrine. She would never see him again. “It’s a terrible place!”
“But you seem so… lovely,” Rufus replies, looking at the nearly-respectable white dress, her carefully dressed hair.
Amara knows she cannot tell him she is ashamed of the squalor; she must invent a more poetic reason to stay away. “My master is unbelievably cruel,” she replies. “If he thought there was a chance I might be happy with you, even for an hour, he would never let me see you again.”
“Really?” Rufus looks alarmed.
Amara glances at him sidelong, as if too shy to be direct. “If he thought I might care for anyone, he would punish me dreadfully.” Even as she says it, she can imagine Felix laughing. As if he would care about anything other than the money.
Rufus squeezes her hand. “I will take you to my home. My parents are away for the summer.”
They walk to his house, accompanied by a small retinue of slaves who must have had to hang around outside the theatre during the performance. Rufus is still enjoying talking about the play, and together, they amuse themselves imagining what mischief Thais and her lover might make after the action has ended. “And even our eunuch married his girl in the end,” he says about the rapist, “so no harm done.”
The porter lets them in, and Amara feels a flood of relief that they did not go to the brothel. It is a wealthy home, not far from Zoilus’s house, and as Rufus leads her across the atrium, a beautiful marine mosaic beneath their feet, she imagines his horror at the Wolf Den’s baked mud floor. They pass through the courtyard, and he stops to break off a sprig of jasmine.
“This scent always makes me think of you,” he says, giving it to her. “The way you were sitting in that garden! Surrounded by a thousand white stars. I was just thinking to myself I had no idea the admiral had a daughter and then I remembered…” He stops abruptly.
And then you remembered Pliny had hired a whore, Amara thinks. “That’s such a beautiful thing to say,” she whispers, inhaling the flower’s scent before tucking the stem behind her ear. “Thank you.” She doesn’t stop him when he kisses her this time. Why else, after all, is she here?
“A little further,” he says, letting go of her. “My rooms are this way.” One of the slaves has accompanied them, and Rufus turns to him before leading her off. “Some refreshments please, Vitalio.”
Rufus’s rooms are set off the large garden. She smiles to herself to see the paintings on the walls: theatre masks and actors on stage. Rufus offers her a couch, reclining beside her. Vitalio brings them wine and sets down a light supper on a small table by the couch: bread, cheese, dried figs. Then he leaves.
It is clear Rufus has no intention of eating yet. No sooner is Vitalio gone, than he is all over her. Amara finds herself unexpectedly afraid. This feels too familiar, too like the brothel. So much rests on him liking her, and she has no idea how a courtesan might be expected to behave. Should she acquiesce or will he want to chase her?
“Stop!” she says, pushing him off and sitting up. She rearranges her dress to cover herself. Her heart is pounding with anxiety. “Just a moment.”