Time to leave your mother, dear.
You’re ready for a man.
– HORACE
First I heard of it was overheard
when I came home unexpectedly early
from the baths ’cos it was overcrowded
and as usual they told me to come back later.
As I dawdled up our street, busy
with shoppers – tired of having to say Salve!
and Bene, gratias at every step to neighbours
who didn’t give a toss about how I felt,
wondering if Alba could come out to play,
glad that spring was here after a long winter
when I’d had to wrap my feet in rags
or else they’d fall off –
I saw a fancy sedan parked up outside
our shop and four bronzed sedan-bearers
wearing white linen skirts with gold stripes,
leaning against the wall, waiting.
I ran the rest of the way, found the shop closed.
I heard voices, put my ear to the door.
‘Sì, Mr Felix. Zuleika very obediens girl, sir.
No problemata, she make very optima wife, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it, for when I saw her at the baths,
she stole my heart. Indeed,
less than dazzling little colonia.
She reminds me of the girls back in Ægyptus,
where I spent most of my teenage years,
my father was governor there, you know,
I liked the mysterious, dark ones
from the south, who would oil my limbs,
waft soundlessly around me leaving
the lingering scent of musky sandalwood
from Zanzibar in their wake.
I have been looking for a wife for some time,
and naturaliter, I wanted someone young,
someone specialis, a rare flower.’
‘Sì, Mr Felix. Zuleika very specialis girl.
Yes, always at home, quietly sewing,
very placid, no back-chat.’
‘Good. I have enjoyed bachelorhood
to its utmost, Anlamani, but the fiend loneliness
has become a most unwelcome friend.
I intend to make this my far-western base
and I need to warm my home with a wife.
I am a man of multiple interests: a senator,
military man, businessman, I undertake
trading missions for the government,
and I’m a landowner,
in the plethora of simpering debutantes
who are paraded in the cattle-market balls
every season, mothers thrusting their powdered
wrinkled cleavages at me, supposedly
on behalf of their darling twittering daughters.
My own dear mater died young, you know,
she was so very benevola, I missed
her terribly when I was a boy. I still do.
Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long
to tie the knot, so to speak.
To form an attachment is to risk its loss,
is it not? I have been looking for a nice,
simplex, quiet, fidelis girl, a girl
who will not betray me with affairs,
who will not wear me out with horrid fights,
unlike my pater’s subsequent three wives,
who made my life hell, and his,
who were of the hedonistic breed
of aristocratic matronae, determined to compete
with the husband in all spheres,
ever boastful of their sexual shenanigans,
humiliating the dear gentle man in public
and prepared to argue until dawn on matters
of politics, world affairs and the arts.
It has got quite out of hand in the fatherland.
Nor do I want one with cumbersome baggage.
Is my load not heavy enough?
I will of course see to an educatio for her,
and lessons in elegantia, she is of the age
where she will learn quickly.
Do not worry about her dowry, it is of no
consequentia to me, of course
you will benefit greatly from this negotium.
I think we can safely say that your business
is due to expand considerably.’
‘You are very benignus gentleman, sir.
Road has been uphill, almost vertical, for years.
A boost to oeconomia most welcome, sir.’
‘Say no more. You have my patronage.’
I looked through a large crack in the door
(there were many) and saw an old man,
much taller than my small father,
who was so thin, that day his stoop resembling
a frozen bow. The man was much fatter
than Pops too, he was in a word: obesus.
His smooth olive-skinned face wore
the haughty expression of a true patrician,
his thinning brown hair was cut
was of sumptuous linen that fell in elegant folds,
he wore several gold rings with bright stones
and when my eyes moved slowly down
I saw his legs: thin, hairy and bandy.
At which point my own took me rapidly
down the street, not even stopping at Alba’s,
no words could form yet.
I ran until I reached the sloping banks
of the River Fleet, far away from the docks,
and then I screamed at the water
until my throat was sore and my spittle
had dried up, not caring
that all the fishermen thereabouts
stopped mending their nets and stared.
I stayed for hours and when it was dark,
the beach deserted, I stripped off, threw
my tatty green dress on to pebbles,
walked into the cold water and swam far out,
shivering. It was what I needed,
to calm me down. I had done it before.
When I turned round, the city was lit up
with lamps, and torches flickered in windows
and doorways of houses on the hills.
1 knew I had to accept my fate. I could throw
The man’s voice carried such utter imperium,
and he expressed such an awful desire for me.
I swam towards the lights, forcing myself
to conquer the cold water,
before my body seized up with cramp.
And what about Mater dearest?
Dad would have sent her on an errand.
I thought of how she spat out words
like the gristle of fetid beef, hating
her adopted language, even now:
Zuks! Fetch Khu-kh-umba! Cabb-age!
Hasp-ara-gush!
She’d wave an arm at Dad,
her underarm loose like soggy papyrus.
More! More! – finger and thumb rubbing
together in a greedy money-making gesture.
Nubia good! He’d turn away, serve
another customer, joke with them,
while she scowled, pulled her voluminous
black robes over her head, slumped
into a corner, still as a sack of potatoes.
As a kid, I’d crawl into her covers,
make my breath hers.
A sweet tooth had taken the rest away,
nourished ghosts, walked with stillborns
riding her back. She dragged me down streets,
I flew like her robes in fierce wind.
Darling Catullus came three years later,
a miracle on account of his sperm bag.
I hadn’t been left to die outside the city walls
exactly, but, aged three, I knew who
would inherit the key to the Kingdom of Pops.
I have suffer so too you will have suffer.
Her eyes were nigrosine, whites browned,
liquefying only when she rocked Catullus
to sleep with softly sung Nubian ditties –
cross-legged on the mat which served
as couch and mattress behind the counter
of our first vegetable shop in Milk Street.
Ulcers sprouted in my mouth, sleepless,
Dad lanced them, I bit my tongue
so’s not to awaken the Baby Jesus,
was desperate to run into the night for ever,
to find the river and disappear in it,
I was swimming in the dead of it,
my frozen limbs struggled up the beach,
my dress instantly soaked. I ran back
through the deserted streets,
was of my sandalled feet on hardened earth,
my harsh panting breaths. I called for Alba,
she heard from the back where they slept,
but she came quickly to the door,
took one look at me, ran back inside, returned
to wrap me up in her grey blanket
that scratched my wet skin like thistles.
She made me sit down, just the two of us,
few dared walk around after dark.
She rubbed my back. ‘Zeeks. Wassup?’