The Silver Pigs

XLVIII

It was two hours before morning and most of Rome lay asleep. All the waggons and carts had retreated to their berths. Late diners had braved ambush at street corners to straggle home; prostitutes and pimps were dozing on the rushes among their sordid snoring clients; the lights in the palaces and mansions were dim. It was cold enough for a fine mist to have curled among the valleys between the Seven Hills, but when I woke I was warm physically and felt the slow, strong, welling emotion of a man who had convinced himself the girl in his arms would be the woman in his life.

I stayed completely still, remembering. I watched her sleeping face, at once so familiar to me, yet in deep slumber strangely unlike itself. I knew I must not expect to hold her, or watch her sleeping, ever again. Perhaps that was what made me feel I could not bear to let her go.

She woke. Her gaze at once dropped. She was shy not because of what we had done, but in case she found me changed. Her hand stirred against me, in a somewhat private place; I saw her eyes widen, startled, then she settled again. I smiled at her.

"Helena…" I studied her closed, cautious face. A sculptor might have quibbled, but to me she was beautiful. Anyway, if sculptors knew anything they'd take up a more lucrative line of work. "Nothing to say?"

After a time she replied, with typical honesty, "I suppose last night was how it is meant to be?"

Well; she had told me something about Pertinax. My answer was equally subdued.

"I imagine it must be." Which, if she was interested in past history, told her something about me.

I started to laugh: with her, at myself, at life, helplessly. "Oh Helena, Helena!… I learned some wonders about women with you last night!"

"I learned some about myself!" she answered wryly. Then she closed her eyes against my inner wrist, reluctant to let me see anything she felt.

Despite her restraint, or because of it, I wanted her to understand. "It's like studying a foreign language: you pick up a smattering of grammar, some basic vocabulary, a terrible accent that just gets you understood; you struggle for years, then without warning everything flows, you grasp how it all works"

"Oh don't! Falco She stopped; I had lost her.

"Marcus," I begged, but she hardly seemed to hear.

She forced herself on: "There's no need to pretend! We found a comforting way to pass the time' O Jupiter! She had stopped again. Then she insisted, "Last night was wonderful. You must have realized. But I see how it is: every case a girl, every new case a new girl"

All this was what a man expects to think. In a leaden voice I raged, "You are not some girl in a case!"

"So what am I?" Helena demanded.

"Yourself." I could not tell her.

I could hardly believe she did not realize.

"We ought to leave."

I hated her sounding so unapproachable. Oh I knew why; dear gods how I knew! I had done this to other people. The hardened attitude so ungracious, but oh so sensible! A brisk departure, in deep anxiety that one hour of passion might be held against you as the excuse for a lifetime of painful commitment which you had never pretended to want…

Now here was an irony. For the first time in my life I felt everything I should, everything most women believe they need. The only time it mattered, yet either Helena simply could not believe it or she was frantically trying to evade me. I locked my grip on her.

"Helena Justina," I began slowly, "what can I do? If I said that I loved you, it would be a tragedy to us both. I am beneath your dignity, and you are beyond my reach"

"I am a senator's daughter," she interrupted in a busy tone of voice, "you are two ranks below. This is not illegal; yet it will not be allowed She struggled restlessly but I would not let her go. "There is nothing for us"

"Perhaps! Lady, you and I are as cynical as one another about the world. We will do whatever we must, but don't doubt me. I wanted you very badly; I had wanted you for a long time as much as you wanted me!" I saw her gaze become unsteady. Quite suddenly I hoped, and made myself believe, that her view of me had been better than I thought, not only last night, but perhaps long before. I threw myself into the hope, knowing yet not caring that I was a fool. "And now…"

"Now?" she repeated. A tiny smile twitched in the corner of her mouth. I realized she was answering a smile of mine; she was still with me after all. Fighting for her friendship, I watched her melt back to the intimacy we so unexpectedly found last night. More sure of myself, I soothed that tender spot on the nape of her neck where I had undone the catch of her necklace many hours before. This time I dared let myself notice the flutter on her skin where she was touched. This time I understood that she realized how every nerve in my body was aware of her.

For the second time I told her a truth she must have known already.

"Now I want you again."