CHAPTER XX

XX

-Pharsalus…

It was anxious Portia who came to tell me about it that day at noon.

- Father and others like Pompeius’ father-in-law are already in Africa. As far as I know, Magnus left for Mitilene…A real slaughter, Calpurnia….These were the exact words the legate told me. Though it might seem strange to you, I am mainly sorry for Marcia. My father, you know, is inebriated by a cause that does not even allow him to have time to write to his wife. Luckily, she still has us, her friends, and the frequent visits of her father who has the good sense of inflicting it on her, I mean the presence of that foster-son who fatefully happens to be your husband’s grandnephew. She told me that he looks like Caesar and that she had initially been deeply disturbed by his overpowering self-confidence, unusual for a boy of his age, and that absent-looking bearing, almost non-human, despite his undeniable good looks. The same kind of absent-looking bearing that I have seen about you in these last few weeks and that really – what could I say …– alarms me!

Portia had also realized it. That strayed look of mine, of which I got aware. The sort of invisible subtle mist which had been invading me after returning from Cumae, when I started massaging my body every day with that ointment which had been carefully prepared following Kornel’s instructions and also taking up that labour of “inner watching” that I simultaneously carried about, trying to concentrate my attention on those knots of internal force throughout my self, according to the teachings of that wise man from overseas. I felt it coming over and over again. That intense concentrated life, expanding itself towards a look, the same as that one which had so often sprung up in my thoughts. Wise, almost motherly, in pain. Then giving way to another one beyond: misty, almost unknown despite its familiar features. Would myself, Portia, Aurelia, Marcia…Servilia herself…have anything to do with her? Perhaps I, Calpurnia Piso, was growing more like her, alien to what is purely human….

–My dear Calpurnia…Aren´t you influenced by that balm that you have been using since you returned from Cumae? Its perfume …. It is so strange!!

– Dearest Portia! You aren’t used to any kind of cosmetics. That is why this startles you.

–But… no other Roman patrician woman wears something like that! It is a combination of so many different odours. Has Cornelia…. recommended it to you?

No, I could not reveal it to her. On the other hand, she would not understand a single word. Anyway, what else could you expect of a strict stoic. Therefore, I changed the subject, asking her if Cornelia had had news about her nephew Faustus. Kornel… what might he be thinking right now? Why did I feel so confused when his memory often returned to me in those circumstances? I thought that the wisest thing to do would be to offer my trust and closeness both to Marcia and Portia, who badly needed them. No, I could not draw back within myself, in that anxious search of …what? An ability to fascinate that could darken that slightly perceived shadow, bound to break into …our lives in the next years to come? Would Kornel have found such a solid basis in my intuitions? Why not searching about its real existence? Perhaps, Kornel was the only one. Kornel, Kornel… why should my life depend on that fellow, who, at the same time, was and was not an elderly man, raised inside a wisdom which was alien to anything that had surrounded me for a lifetime. But I was bound to go ahead, with a husband who was Rome’s Great Man, who I had only cherished as a partner for a few days and whose loyalty expectancy happened to be…Which word could I use? Yes… which word would be proper for someone whose fame all over Rome would contradict his marital life… I really knew all this was both a desperate means to try to assert my own identity and a frantic wish to get rid of that occasional trembling that would come to me every time I remembered your tanned parchment-like skin merging into the vibration of my fibres. It was an anxious attempt to blur that dazzling vision coming from the East.. and I did not have any other access to it except Kornel. If only I could have him near, at least until your arrival in Rome, that return that I was starting to doubt about!

That evening , like the previous ones, I decided to have a bath and then send out my servants so that I could stay by myself and again proceed to the ceremony of anointing my body, rhythmically letting the balm within my skin pores, as if singing a silent unconscious melody… was it really like that? Those low notes, warm like a primary impulse which could be flowing inside my blood, now growing golden, turning into a shade that could be either dusk or noon sunshine, medium notes coming from my inner self, as if played by that instrument that I once heard in Blodwynn’s hands, encouraged by that female life force, wise and motherly, but now veiled by some eerie pale shine…. Maybe the light of a waxing moon on some kind of clay-like limbs which seemed to embrace a small newly-born life. “Isis, Ishtar… Embody yourself within me. Make me wear your face in front of him…”

My hands were climbing my breasts and neck while hearing that ascending voice of notes that seemed to be intensified by the iridescent shafts in emerald of the evening, lighting me up, veiling my sight and senses. Gods…. Were you, my lord? Among that unearthly mist of ethereal music, there flew that piercing look in blue and silver amidst that net of wrinkles. That hair, however, was not so scarce or flax-like, but those silver threads mixed with crimson hair were clear-cut… I made an effort to see you upright and wiry on your horse with no hoofs… Yes…but a huge peasant hat covered your face and you were riding a steed which had all his hoofs. An icy gaze was that… “Calpurnia, Calpurnia… What are you doing? What’s the use of your being here? There is no point: everything must go its way… and so must you…”

Those well-drawn lips might be trying a sort of chilly though captivating smile, the same that had been familiar to me since… Each particle of my being seemed to vibrate, encouraged by that dense flowing force which, in fact, was that force that I was beholding then. That fear of what I had just discovered made me grow aware of my strung, balm -anointed limbs.