The Paradise Ghetto Page 13

  But then suddenly there was an unexpected hush. The couple ignored it and continued their latest coupling. This involved the man standing and holding the woman upside down, her thighs on his shoulders, his penis in her mouth. Suddenly the crowd began to roar with laughter. At this the man looked up and as he did so, a look of horror came over his face and he dropped the woman as his erection faded. She fell with a loud thud and a scream of pain onto the platform.

  A huge brown beast with a great shaggy mane and a long tail had come down the tunnel and emerged from its semi-darkness into the sunlight of the arena. It padded along slowly, uneasily, looking around and sniffing the air, unsure. But then it noticed the man and the woman who were now standing on the platform in horror, staring at the beast. The crowd hushed as it waited to see what would happen next. The great beast stared at the couple. They looked around frantically searching for some place where they could find safety. But there was nothing. They were alone in the arena with just the low platform. Then the great beast slowly broke into a loping run, moving incredibly quickly for such a large animal. The couple began to run away and the crowd roared with laughter. Most of the spectators were on their feet now, cheering and whistling and straining to see and make sure they missed nothing.

  The man was much faster than the woman so that the beast caught her first, leaping onto her back. She uttered a wild, terrible shriek as she was brought down. The animal settled on top of her as she continued to scream. The man stopped, turned around, hesitated for a moment and then ran back. The beast already had the woman’s shoulder in its mouth and was tearing at it. A spray of bright blood erupted splashing the beast, the sand and the woman’s white skin with scarlet. The man tried to push the beast off but then the animal turned on him. He screamed, falling onto his back as the animal moved to lie on top of him and take his arm in its mouth. There was a loud crunching sound. Birkita looked to either side of her. On one side, Flavia stared down into the arena, her face impassive, unreadable. On the other, the bodyguard was laughing. After a few moments he seemed to become aware that he was being watched and he turned to Birkita. He looked at her with interest as though seeing her for the first time. Then he mimed a kiss at her before returning his gaze to the arena. Birkita kept her eyes averted until the screaming stopped.

  The afternoon continued with more fights amongst men and between men and animals. The compact bodyguard bought snacks and wine from a seller and Birkita was given some of this. Towards evening, two saddled horses were led into the arena. At this the crowd fell silent. Moments later, a woman with wild blonde hair was led in by two soldiers, one holding each of her arms. The woman was bare-breasted and wore only a loincloth. Her wrists were chained together. She screamed and struggled like a madwoman but the soldiers grip was like iron. When they reached the centre of the arena where the horses were waiting, the woman suddenly went quiet. Her strength seemed to fail her and her legs folded beneath her.

  Sitting in the sand, the two horses were backed up, one on either side of her. Then Birkita understood what was going to happen. She looked at Flavia who was staring intently down at the scene. The woman’s chains were taken off but now her left wrist and ankle were tied by two ropes to the saddle of one horse. Then her other wrist and ankle were tied to the second one. Flavia became aware that Birkita was watching her because she suddenly turned.

  ‘An escaped slave,’ Flavia said by way of explanation before turning back. And now Birkita understood why she had been brought here. She kept looking away as she heard the horses urged forward, and then the screaming began.

  20

  ‘Did the Romans really do things like that?’ asks Julia. She is in some shock at what Suzanne has written.

  ‘Apparently so,’ says Suzanne. ‘I’ll keep going – OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Julia is glad to be out of it for a while.

  Chapter Seven

  Antonius (Suzanne)

  They left shortly after the woman was torn apart by the horses, walking back to the building that Flavia told Julia was called the lupanar. She was in something of a daze. Upstairs, a boy brought her food from a nearby cookshop. Then Flavia came and took Birkita’s dress from her. She gave her instead a long length of red cloth which she said was called a toga. It was made of much plainer, coarser material. Flavia showed Birkita how to tie it by wrapping it around herself and then over one shoulder.

  While she was doing this, Flavia talked.

  ‘Tonight you sleep here but from tomorrow, you will be downstairs. You will have your own cubicle. You can sleep late because we don’t start until the middle of the afternoon. But then we are open until dawn.

  ‘When the men come in, you will be standing in the corridor between the cubicles – you and anyone else who is not taken at the time. Smile at the man but don’t say anything. The man chooses who he wants. If he wants you, you take him to your cubicle. You tell him your name. Sometimes they use your name but sometimes they want to call you the name of some other girl – a girlfriend or their wife or a woman they’re in love with but they’ll never be able to have.

  ‘Next you undress him. If you see any cuts or sores of any kind on his thing, you can tell him you’ll only give him fellatus. With your mouth. You understand?’

  Birkita understood.

  ‘But please, be clear – you can only do that so often. If Antonius feels he is losing customers...’

  She left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  ‘Then you find out what they want and how much they’re going to spend.’

  ‘I ask them how much they’d like to spend?’

  ‘Not “like”. Not “like” to spend. They don’t like to spend anything. You say, “How much are you going to spend?” I will teach it to you in the Roman tongue – and also how to count. Numbers, so that you know the money and you won’t get cheated. At first you may not be very good at all this. Most people say that you should hide your inexperience, but the thing is, you don’t want to get complaints. If Antonius gets complaints...

  ‘So – and this is what I did when I started – I think it’s good to say that you’re new. Then they’ll be more tolerant of mistakes, they won’t think you’re cold, they’ll be a bit more sympathetic. Most men aren’t bastards – just the occasional one, and then our boys take care of them.’

  Birkita assumed these were the two bodyguards.

  ‘So give them what they paid for and then out as quickly as possible. If they give you any extra, you give me half – is that understood?’

  Birkita nodded.

  ‘But please listen to me.’

  Flavia looked Birkita in the eye.

  ‘Make sure that the customers are happy. Oh, there’ll always be the ones who moan and want their money back. But try to make sure you send them away with a smile on their face. Master Antonius has paid a lot of money for you and he likes things to run smoothly. If they don’t...’

  It was the third time she had done this and this time, Birkita reacted.

  ‘If they don’t what?’ she said, almost angrily.

  ‘Understand, Birkita, you are now his property. That’s all – property, the same as his dog or his shoe or a chair or this building. He can do what he likes with you. All he has to do is say that you tried to escape...’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And you will end up in the arena.’ Flavia quickly changed the subject. ‘Now, you look beautiful. Tomorrow I will help you with your hair and your face. I will be there between customers in case anything needs looking after.’

  ‘Flavia?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ve done ... what I will be doing tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. When I first came here.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Ten summers ago.’

  It was a lifetime. Birkita was appalled.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, not very often. Only if someone is looking for an older woman. Which is not too often. Now I am called the anci
lla ornatrice. This means I take care of everything.’

  ‘Are you free?’

  ‘No, I’m very expensive. More expensive than you.’

  Birkita laughed. It was the first time she had laughed since that day in the forest.

  ‘No, I mean are you a free woman?’

  ‘I am a slave. As you are. As we both will be until we die. And now I must teach you some words.’

  After Flavia left, Birkita lay down and closed her eyes. She tried to sleep, trying not to think about what had happened to her family, the events of this day and what was coming tomorrow.

  Outside it grew dark. The earlier cooking smells had faded away and now the street was becoming noisy again as people finished their evening meals and came out of their homes. Downstairs was open for business and Birkita could hear the sounds as the first men arrived. There was a greeting as though of old friends, a squeal of laughter, some heavy grunting as though of a pig, though she knew it was a man.

  She lay on the bed, on her side, fully clothed. There was a stub of a candle on a little table beside the bed but she left it unlit. She kept her back to the door and she stared out the window. All she could see was the tiled roof of the building opposite but the window at least gave her the sense that there was a way out, a way back; that there was freedom somewhere. If she was a bird she could have just flown out the window and away. Back to ... where? Back to where?

  She tried to sleep. She was bone weary but try as she might to block them, images of what she had seen kept coming, unbidden into her mind. She still found it hard to believe she had seen these things. But then everything was like a nightmare – everything since that day in the forest.

  She wondered if the gods knew she was here in this place. Or were they still back in the fields and groves and rivers of home? Home. What did the word even mean now? How could she have any home when her parents, her brother, her village, everyone she knew, even her dogs, were gone?

  A loud crash of something being broken came from downstairs. A male voice laughed loudly. But then a girl screamed and there was the sound of a scuffle. Birkita heard the sound of some punches and then a commotion out on the street. More laughter floated up on the warm air and in through the open window. When it had gone quiet again she heard footsteps on the stairs. Flavia.

  The door of the room squealed open and Birkita knew immediately, knew from the faint odour that whoever it was, it was not Flavia.

  It was Antonius who approached her bed.

  He uttered some words in his own tongue and shook her by the shoulder as if to wake her. She turned and looked up at him. He tugged at her clothes saying something else. She didn’t understand the words but she knew what he meant.

  Then he took her.

  21

  Julia reaches the end of the chapter and looks up. Suzanne is looking expectantly at her. Julia knows the feeling only too well – that terrible and exhilarating feeling of waiting to hear.

  ‘I thought it was going fine until the end,’ she says. ‘This is a big thing for Birkita. What happens to her with Antonius and tomorrow when she starts work in the brothel. We need to describe it more fully. In more detail.’

  ‘More graphic?’

  ‘I suppose. Yes, I suppose ... I suppose it is going to be more graphic.’

  ‘You know, you’re right. I think what I was thinking was that a publisher would never publish something that explicit.’

  Suzanne with the publisher again. Julia can’t help but smile.

  ‘I think we’ll worry about that when the time comes,’ she says. ‘Right now I think we just need to write the best book we can.’

  ‘You’re right. You’re so right.’

  Julia is very pleased. But it also occurs to her that Suzanne is extraordinarily open to criticism. It is a really attractive trait. Julia thinks Suzanne would have made a great teacher. Will make a great teacher.

  ‘Actually you know what it is?’ says Suzanne.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I funked it.’

  ‘Funked what?’

  ‘I thought it would be too hard to imagine what that would be like – you know, to be raped like that, so I ... I funked it.’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine all right,’ Julia says, almost in a whisper.

  Then the words are out of her mouth before she has managed to think about them.

  ‘I can try if you like,’ she says.

  Julia hopes Suzanne will say no. This is not a piece of the story that Julia wants to write.

  ‘That would be great,’ Suzanne says.

  Julia groans inwardly. She takes the book and settles on the mattress, on her tummy resting on her elbows. She reads back.

  “He uttered some words in his own tongue and shook her by the shoulder as if to wake her. She turned and looked up at him. He tugged at her clothes saying something else. She didn’t understand the words but she knew what he meant.”

  She crosses out “Then he took her.”

  She takes a deep breath and continues.

  Chapter Eight

  Antonius – continued (Julia)

  She sat up, climbed off the bed slowly and started to undress. Antonius was naked by the time she was and he was erect. He indicated that she should go down on all fours. Then kneeling behind her he entered her. She gasped as she felt the pain. Placing the palms of his hands on her hips he began to pump her. She panted as Flavia had told her to. The bed shook and made a rocking noise. Antonius began to ride her harder. She started to gasp just as Flavia had said. Antonius was thrusting in and out of her. More quickly. Breathing heavily. In the end, he climaxed, pressing himself hard against her and panting furiously.

  Birkita moved gently back and forwards a few times. She sighed as though with blissful happiness. Both were nice final touches, Flavia had said. Antonius stayed inside her, kneeling, hands holding her until his breathing had subsided and returned to normal. Birkita could feel wetness on the inside of her thighs. She thought she smelt blood but she couldn’t do anything about it. She just waited to see what Antonius wanted next or what he would do.

  Sounds drifted up from the street. A man and a woman talking softly, sounding like lovers as they walked under the window. A dog barked somewhere, distantly. Footsteps in a nearby street and the chink of metal – men marching. Normal sounds from the normal world.

  She tried to think about something – anything – else. Something pleasant. But in all of the vast world that she had travelled, in all of the immense inside of her mind, she could find nothing.

  Antonius had shrunk by then and eventually he slipped out of her. The bed creaked as he rose from it. Birkita stayed on all fours like some strange human beast of burden. She felt open, vulnerable, violated. Silently, Antonius dressed. Then, without so much as a word, he walked out.

  22

  The writing takes Julia less than an hour. When she is finished she passes the book to Suzanne who has been lying beside her on her back gazing up at the ceiling. It is something they have both come to do. While one of them is writing, the other is thinking about where the story might go next.

  As Suzanne starts to read, Julia turns away onto her side. She finds that she is shaking and close to tears. She doesn’t want Suzanne to see. A few minutes later lights out suddenly occurs and the room is plunged into darkness. Julia hears the book shut with a soft plop. They have made an incision in the side of the mattress and Suzanne stuffs the book into it. This is where they keep it hidden and where they hope it will be safe. Having done that, Suzanne turns onto her side too and spoons Julia.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ Suzanne says softly.

  Julia wants to cry. Her eyes have all watered up.

  ‘It was ... it was very difficult to write.’

  It is all she can manage to say before the tears start flowing.

  ‘Oh, my darling girl,’ says Suzanne. ‘Come here to me.’

  Suzanne wraps herself around Julia, holding her breast in the palm of her hand. Julia feels Suzanne’s li
ps on the back of her neck. Suzanne kisses her ever so softly, ever so tenderly and then gently caresses Julia’s neck with her lips and cheek. It is the last sensation Julia feels before she falls asleep.

  23

  Usually Julia and Suzanne talk on their way to work. Ideas come to them during the night that they are anxious to share. They want to talk about the path the book is to take next. The following morning though, they are both strangely quiet.

  It is a beautiful day. Though still very cold, it is nowhere near as cold as it was when they first arrived. The sky is cloudless and a perfect blue. There is a fresh fall of snow on the ground and on the ramparts. The sun has a little heat in it. There is a real sense of spring in the air. Rumours, or bonkes as they are called in the ghetto, abound. This morning’s one over breakfast was that the Germans were suffering huge losses on a daily basis. Julia and Suzanne have managed to survive the winter. Spring is coming. Soon the summer will be here and then maybe the war will end.

  Julia wonders what she would do then. What would happen to Suzanne? Would they just go their separate ways? Would they remain friends? Would they stay in touch? Would they finish the book? Or now that the real world would be calling them back, would they just forget this foolish project of theirs?

  As soon as they arrive at the hospital, Irena asks if she can speak to them. They go to the corner where she has a table and chair – the place that she refers to jokingly as ‘my office’. Julia and Suzanne laughed the first time she said it but it seems like it stopped being a joke a long time ago.