The Last Stoic (21 page)

They rattled the box at night.
  During the day it was too hot
to sleep.  The isolation was complete except for the silent delivery of thin
porridge and grey water.  No quantity of begging, no measure of berating, would
provoke the soldiers to respond.  Not for more water, not to let him out, not
for a meeting with the magistrate.  With a simple explanation all would be
resolved, Marcus was sure of it. 

On the sixth morning Nasir was
silent.  His chanting did not come at dawn, as it usually did.  Nor did it come
just before noon or mid-afternoon.  Only crickets could be heard at dusk. 

“He’s taken a fall,” was all the
soldier would say as he slid the tin cup and wooden bowl through the slat at
the bottom of the box.  Marcus flipped the bowl and cup against the wall of the
smoker. 

He stopped eating.  On the eighth
day they let him out.   

“Where are you taking me?” 

His voice staggered out, weak
with disuse.  The soldiers each took an arm and raised his frame from the
ground.

“Back to your cage.”

The men struggled to keep him
upright, to get his legs moving.

“What do I have to do to get out
of here?” Marcus asked when the bright flashes cleared from behind his eyes.

“Tell the magistrate what he
wants to hear.”

“I’ve tried!” 

Marcus stopped, closed his eyes
tight, and slackened.  The shouting had caused a sharp pain in the centre of
his head.  The prison yard was noticeably quiet.

“What happened to the noisy
fellow?” Marcus whispered.

“Your accomplice?  The Parthian?”

“He’s joined the Christian.”

“What does that mean?”

One of the soldiers struck hard
at the side of Marcus’ knee with his baton, crumpling him back to the ground.

“No questions.  We’ve mentioned
that before.  You’re lucky I’m not the magistrate.  He wouldn’t put up with
it.  Would he?” 

His partner shook his head.

They were at the door of Marcus’
old cage, the one at the end of the row.  It occurred to him how satisfying it
had been to walk.

“Please.  May I walk the yard?”

They looked at him like he’d told
an unfunny joke.  The cage door was opened.  Marcus ducked his head and folded
himself in.  He sat on the sparse pile of straw and sawdust and held his head
in his hands.  A cockroach scampered over his bare foot and up his calf until
he swatted it away and into the debris, where it remained, teetering on the
enameled hemisphere of its shell, upside down, the filaments of its half dozen
legs cycling frantically. 

“Chin up.”

It was a wheezy, anemic voice. 
Marcus raised an eye through splayed fingers.  The ancient prisoner with the
nimbus of white hair, the one who replaced Sebastianus, was still there.  He
looked back from the adjacent cage with a toothless smile. 

“Having a hard time of it?”

Marcus buried his head further
into his hands. 

“Where are you from?”

“Britannia,” Marcus mumbled into
his knees.

“A ha!  Which town?”

“Verulamium.” 

“A delightful place!”

Marcus lifted his head slightly. 
“You know it?”

“I’ve been there several times. 
Do they still put on shows at that wonderful theatre?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I remember it well,” said the
old man, the equatorial sun glinting off his weepy eyes.  “It’s unique you
know, the only theatre in Britannia, perhaps in all of Gaul, with a prominent
stage for drama.”

“People come from miles around
just for the theatre.”

“And who could blame them?  I
remember an excellent performance of Seneca’s
Hercules Furens
one
season, very edifying.  The lead actor did an admirable job, a Celtic lad if I
remember correctly, as strong as an ox.  Fortuitous casting.  I also saw the same
troupe put on Plautus’
The Asses
, but I remember less about the play and
more about the drunken riot started in the auditorium during the second act. 
Appalling.  Terence is more my taste really.”

“My grandfather used to take me
to see the wrestling competitions and the archery exhibitions.”

“Ah yes!”

“And once my whole family went to
see
The Knights...”

“Euripides…”

“Right, Euripides.”

“A fine play for the family,
plenty of amusement.”

“I laughed so hard my face hurt.”

The old man clapped his hands together. 
They fell quiet again.  Only the muted whir of insects coming from distant
thickets could be heard. 

“Thinking of them?”

Marcus stared at his feet.

“Don’t worry son, I suspect you
will see them again, soon.”

“Where are you from?”

“Originally?”

Marcus nodded.

“Rome.”

“How long have you been here.”

“I’m not sure.  Two years,
perhaps.”

Marcus blanched. 

“Before that, they had me at a
camp in Pannonia.  For five years or so.”

“Vae!  Five years! How have you
survived?”

“I haven’t sought out death.” 

“Yes, but why haven’t they
executed you.  Like the others.”

“I suppose they think I still
have something to offer, some information, some secret that makes them afraid.”

Marcus took a moment to study the
man again, to reappraise.  He sat motionless in the adjacent cage with a gummy,
generous smile on his weathered face, thin enough to be translucent.  He looked
like he might expire at any moment.  But here he was in one of the cramped
cages, cross-legged and calm, stewing as they all were in the relentless heat,
amid the filth, the roaches, and the dung.  He appears, Marcus thought, to be
happy. 

He’s mad
. 

The man neither drooled nor
twitched.  He didn’t jabber.  He wasn’t pitching his own faeces around the
cage.  Sebastianus, with all of his rocking and chanting and shrieking could
have been reasonably judged to be mad.  But this old man?  He gave the opposite
impression.  A light emanated from his clear blue eyes, watery and twinkling
under the harsh, white rays of midday, that indicated a concentrated, distilled
power.  Marcus looked again. 
What if he’s lying?  Maybe he’s working for
the magistrate, infiltrating, tricking me into incriminating myself.   Wouldn’t
the furtive spy be more plausible than the jolly seven year prisoner? 

“Who are you really?” Marcus
asked, finally.

The old man chuckled amiably.  “I
already told you.  Sextus Condianus.”

Marcus shook his head resolutely.

“I’ve heard the story of Sextus
Condianus.  He was older than my grandfather.”

“Look at me Marcus.”

“Yes, you’re old enough.  But
Sextus has been caught and executed, publicly.”

“Six times.”

Marcus paused.  “If you’re Sextus
Condianus, why do they keep you here?  Why aren’t you in Rome, on public
display?  Why haven’t they executed you properly?”

“I don’t know the mind of the emperor.”

“How have you survived?  You’re…,
with respect, you’re a very old man.  I was ready,” Marcus gestured toward the
smoker, “I was prepared to take my own life.  I’ve been here only eleven days.”

“Nothing happens to anybody which
he is not fitted by nature to bear.”

Marcus stared.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing happens to anybody
which…”

“I heard you!”  Marcus winced at
the flash behind his eyes. 

“I beg your pardon.”

“Is that supposed to be amusing? 
I’ve been beaten, dehydrated, drowned, roasted, starved, and sleep-deprived
until I’m suicidal.  A platitude?  That’s not amusing at all.  Clearly you
haven’t been here for two years.  Jupiter!” Marcus spat across his cage at the
old man, as a way of punctuating his speech.  “Is it a trifle what I’ve endured? 
It’s an insult.  It’s absurd.” 

“My apologies, young lad.  I
meant no offence.”

Marcus turned away.

“I assure you the statement is
not empty; there is much power in it.”

Silence.

Sextus Condianus tilted his head
to the side, ready to snooze, drifting almost immediately.  Marcus’ anger soon
faded, replaced with ever-present fatigue.  He lay his head against the bars
and slept uncomfortably but deeply, dreaming of home.  Sleep was brief. 
Soldiers returned to fetch Marcus to the magistrate.  He cast a resentful eye
at the dozy old prisoner lounging as though on a mattress of down and crisp
linen. 

Fool!  It must be some comfort to
be mad in a place like this.

With the permission of Paul Cornelius
, Paulina and Vincent interviewed
every employee of the firm.  They contacted Mark’s colleagues who had moved on
and were now in different states or different countries.  They met with his
erstwhile neighbours and the superintendent of his building.  They questioned
those at nearby grocery stores, convenience stores, and book stores.  Daily
they phoned area hospitals, newspapers, radio stations, and the police
station.  It had been five days.  No leads. 

Vincent arrived at the Super
Shepherd Ministries holding a new
Bridge Over the River Kwai
DVD and a
copy of
The Meditations
, the gift to Mark, under his arm.

“Oh, hello.  You again,” Patrick
said when he opened the door to his apartment and saw the old man there.  “What
can I do for you?”

Vincent noticed that Patrick was
still wearing the trousers that Paulina had identified as his grandson’s.

“May I come in?” he asked. 

Patrick looked at him doubtfully.

“I haven’t seen Mark, if that’s
why you’re here.”

“No word from him, eh?”

“No.”

“That’s disappointing.  Very
disappointing indeed.”

Patrick said nothing.

“Well, yes, that’s partly why I
came by.  But not the only reason.”  Vincent gestured inside.  “May I?”

Patrick sighed.  He led Vincent
through a compact kitchenette and into an adjacent sitting area where he had a
rollout couch and an armless, padded chair.  Patrick sat down on one end of the
couch, furthest away from the chair, and motioned to Vincent to sit.  Vincent
declined.

“So.  What is it?” 

“Sorry?”

“What’s the other reason?” 
Patrick asked.  “That you’re here.”

 “Oh yes!”  Vincent handed him
the DVD.  “I brought you this.” 

“A Bridge Over The River Kwai? 
What for?”

“The other day when we met you at
Mark’s apartment you said you had come by for it.”

“I did?”

“Yes, don’t you remember?”

“Oh wait!  Yes, that’s right, I
did want to borrow it, you’re right.”

“I couldn’t find it in Mark’s
collection, so I picked up a copy for you from the store.”

Patrick shifted on the sofa.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“My pleasure.  You are a friend
of Mark’s.  You are a friend of ours.”

“Mark and I were just
acquaintances.”

Vincent scanned Patrick’s eyes. 

“We were,” Patrick said
defensively, “just acquaintances.  I didn’t actually know him that well.”

“That’s fine son,” Vincent said. 
“Tell me, where are you from?”

“Where am
I
from?”

“Yes, where were you raised?”

“Why does that matter?”

Vincent picked up a die-cast
model of a military jeep sitting on a shelf and looked at it absently.

“It doesn’t matter.  Just being
friendly.  I like to know Mark’s pals.”

“Acquaintances.  I barely knew
him.”

“Knew him?”

“What?”

Vincent put the jeep back down. 
Patrick stood and turned it so that it faced the other way.

“Past tense.  Why did you use the
past tense?  You said, ‘knew him’.”

“I don’t know.  Bad grammar.  No
reason.”

Patrick sat again and looked out
the window, pushing back the curtain.

“Something has happened to him?”

“No.  I’ve already told you I
have no idea.”

“Ok, fair enough.  So, you’re
from here?”

Vincent now crossed the room to
take a seat in the chair, but Patrick intervened.

“No,” he said, sighing again,
“New Ravenna.  Ohio.  Well, thanks for the movie, thanks for stopping by, I
guess you have a lot to do.  I hope Mark returns soon.”

Vincent did not let Patrick take
his elbow.  He sat instead. 

“New Ravenna!  No kidding.  I have
family there, or I used to.”

“Really?”

“Yes, an uncle moved out that way
when I was just a youngster, during the Depression.  I can still remember
taking the train to visit him.  He worked in a huge shoe factory.  I think half
the town worked there.  I can still remember the smell of the leather.”

“Constantine Shoes?”

“Yes, bless me, I think that was
it.”

“My great-great-uncle owned that
shoe factory!” 

“You don’t say!” Vincent said.
“My but this world is small, is it not?  Are you a Constantine of Constantine
Shoes?”

Patrick nodded warily and he
looked anew at the old man.  He was unsettled by this sudden intrusion of
coincidence into the conversation.  He looked carefully at Vincent, measuring
him again.  Is he for real? 

“Remarkable!  If my memory serves,
I believe that my uncle married a young woman there who worked in the
administrative offices, helping with payroll and what not.  It was a very plum
job for those times.”

“Yes?  What of it?”

Vincent continued.  He recalled
his uncle saying the woman’s grandfather’s cousin was the owner of the plant,
that her maiden name may have been Constantine, and that his uncle liked to
joke that he’d married up. 

“Unfortunately, the factory
eventually went under, like so many others at the time.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Can you imagine that?  We might
be related!  Distantly, of course.  You and
Mark
might be distantly
related.  Maybe fourth or fifth cousins.  What are the chances?”

Patrick eyed Vincent critically. 
A trick?  He’s not that clever
. 

“Aren’t you glad I asked?  We
might never have known.”

Patrick wasn’t convinced.  It was
his turn to interrogate.

“Where are
you
from?” he
asked.

“Originally?”

Patrick nodded.

“I grew up in Brooklyn.”

“And then?”

“Eventually we moved.”

“Where?”

“Canada.”

“Why?”

“Are you sure you’re really
interested?”

When Vincent first arrived,
Patrick wanted him to leave immediately.  Why was he still sniffing around? 
What did he suspect?  But as they talked, as Patrick probed, as the genial old
man smiled and replied, curiosity replaced his fading reticence.  Could this
eccentric geezer really be family? 

“I suppose,” he said, “are you in
a rush?”

Patrick hadn’t spoken to anyone
in two days.  He hadn’t even been outside in that time.  He wasn’t aware of
just how much he had missed human contact.  Having a visitor in the apartment,
even if it was this strange old man, was unexpectedly comforting. 

“I had the sense that maybe you
were.”  Vincent stood up as if to leave.  “I feel like maybe I’ve been
imposing.  I don’t want to interrupt, you’re probably quite busy.”

Patrick now decided he wouldn’t
let him go.  Not yet. 

“No, that’s fine, you’re not
imposing.”  Patrick waved his hands downward, motioning Vincent to sit. 

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.  Would you like a
drink?”

“Thank you, most kind.”  Vincent
sat again.  “A glass of water would be excellent.”

Patrick went to the kitchenette,
pulled out a bottle from the fridge, poured a soda for himself and filled
another glass from the tap. 

“Now, what was I saying?” Vincent
asked, as he took the glass.

“You were telling me why you
moved.”

“Yes.  I had a great position in
New York with a top engineering lab.  We were doing exciting work, with speech
recognition and robotics, way ahead of our time…but we had to leave.  In 1969. 
It wasn’t easy.”

“What happened?” Patrick asked.

“The war.  Vietnam.  It was
excellent for business.  Investment in our firm quadrupled.  But not so good
personally.”

“Why not?”

“My son, Luke, who was 18 at the
time, got drafted.”

“My dad enlisted.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah.  It fucked him up.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t know if ‘Nam fucked him
up.  The Gulf fucked him up.”

Vincent sipped from his glass.

“Sorry,” Patrick said, “Pardon my
language.  Continue.”

Vincent explained that Luke,
Mark’s father, became a conscientious objector.  A Buddhist. 

“I was skeptical.  I thought that
maybe he was just afraid.  But he and his mother convinced me that the war was
unnecessary and unjust.  And once I saw the irrationality of the war, I
realized that my work at the lab, as fascinating as it was, as enthralling as
it was, as lucrative as it was, it too was immoral, making killing more
efficient.  So I quit.  Still we worried that the army was coming for Luke,
regardless of our beliefs.  We left everything and everybody and moved to
Canada.”

Patrick thought about his own
father, Patrick Constantine Sr., and how impossible it would be for his old man
to consider that he, Patrick Constantine Jr., might not follow in his footsteps
and join the Army. 

“So what are you doing so far
from home?  What drew you away?”

The prescience of the question
startled Patrick.

“Me?  I don’t know, small town,
no prospects.  Got sick of it I guess.”

Patrick looked away and they were
quiet for a moment. 

“It’s funny isn’t it?”  Vincent
said.

“What’s that?”

“For the longest time we were
told that there would never be another ‘Vietnam’.  Here we are, only a
generation later, stuck in the middle of another catastrophe of our own making,
with the same arguments for and against, in some cases made by the very same
men.”

Vincent held up the copy of
The
Meditations
he had been holding since he arrived.

“It has been said, and it will be
said again, ‘All the cycles of creation since the beginning of time exhibit the
same recurring pattern, so that it can make no difference whether you watch the
identical spectacle for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or for ever’.”

“Yeah, I guess.” 

They were silent again.

“I should be there.” Patrick
said.

“Where?”

“Overseas.  Fighting.  If my old man
had his way, anyway.”

“I see.”

Patrick’s paranoia returned. 
What
is this guy doing here?  Why is he asking so many questions?  Does he knows
more about me than he lets on?  CIA?  Digging deeper into the assassination
attempt?  A private investigator?  Hired by my father?

“Who are you really?” Patrick
asked out loud.

Vincent laughed.  “Vincent,
Mark’s grandfather.”

“What about all this business of
having an uncle in New Ravenna?”

“It’s quite a coincidence,”
Vincent said, “but it’s absolutely true.  We might be related.  Everything is
possible under the sun.”

“What is that?” Patrick asked,
gesturing toward Vincent’s book.

“It is a copy of
The
Meditations.
”

Patrick looked back blankly.

“The writings of Marcus
Aurelius.  I gave it to my grandson as a goodbye gift, but in his haste he
forgot it.  I brought it down with me to give to him when we meet again.  I
thought I might lend it to you, his friend, until he gets back.”

Vincent handed him the book. 
Patrick chose not to remind the old man again that he and Mark were just
acquaintances.

“It’s a book of observances. 
Almost two thousand years old.  It has been indispensable to me.  I like to
open it at random, let the pages fall where they may, and read the first
paragraph I see.  It never disappoints.”

Patrick held the book, appraising
it with his hands.

“Go ahead,” Vincent said, “Try
it!”

Patrick looked at Vincent for a
moment and then let the book fall open.  He read the first sentence of the
first paragraph that met his eyes. 
In all you do or say or think, recollect
that at any time the power of withdrawal from life is in your own hands.
 

“Let me try again,” he said. 

He closed the book and let it
fall open again.  Once more he started reading from the paragraph where his
gaze landed.

“Read it out loud,” Vincent
urged.

“
Very soon you will be dead
,”
Patrick said.  He considered closing the book and handing it back immediately,
but Vincent looked on with expectation and interest.  He felt compelled to
continue.  “
But even yet you are not single-minded, nor above disquiet; not
yet unapprehensive of harm from without; not yet charitable to all men, nor
persuaded that to do justly is the only wisdom
.”