second century romans

I WAS LOST AGAIN, driving a convertible in the dark. De Niro and Pacino were in the backseat, clutching their newborns, and feeding them formula. We were in a vast underground aquarium that had been built by the Romans in the second century. Some areas of the site were still unknown to archaeology. These were dark and blotted out by an ominous swirling mist. We drove beneath the arch of an aqueduct, but I decided to turn around. “Do you even know where you’re going?” De Niro piped up. “Well, we’re not going in there,” I said, gesturing. “If you go in there, you only fall more deeply asleep.”

We took another road and soon arrived at a brightly lit exhibit called “The History of Cheese,” which was on loan from the Smithsonian. Some pieces were contributed by the Amalienborg in Copenhagen too. Pacino was impressed by the Caseus Fumosus Velabrensis or Smoked Velabran Cheese. “Bobby, get over here. Try it, just try it.” Pacino slipped his baby a taste.

I left the veteran actors at the cheese exhibit and went to a book launch after that, and there was a lot of cake for the guests. Jane was there eating the cake and selling books and she didn’t want to leave. Antti, a spectacled Finnish reader who likes to talk geopolitics, also showed up and was having the cake and whispering to me about Bourdain and Nord Stream. “Splendid work,” he kept muttering aloud and pacing. He was carrying a fresh issue of The Economist. Jane couldn’t be pulled away from all of the after hours cake and mingling and networking.

On the steps on the way out, we did hug, and it felt refreshing, as if all was healed, but then she told me she had rented a garage in the city and was going to start raising some sheep there. She already had a few lambs. Bolt scooters soared by, and in the distance I heard the metallic clang of an urban fender bender. The lambs were pressing themselves against the walls. They were frightened. “Look, this is no place for sheep,” I kept trying to convince her. “The city is no place for sheep!” She wouldn’t listen to me, so I left.

My convertible was parked in a garage that had served as a site of crucifixion for early Christians. I paid the attendant a few euros for his troubles, coaxed De Niro, Pacino, and the brood from the cheese exhibit and we were off, but not empty handed. Pacino kept feeding me blocks of ancient cheese over my shoulder. “Try this, man. A precursor to Pecorino Romano. Hoo-ah! I just love this shit.”

l.a.

AFTER MY WIFE AND I SPLIT, she took up with a Dutch screenwriter named Hans and moved to L.A. When Hans was on strike, they invited me out to visit and I obliged. We agreed to meet at an exclusive beach club that had a special iron gate at its entrance. From the club promenade one could look out and watch the whales diving and singing in the straits. Hans seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t understand his desire to befriend me. He was a wiry sort, with orange-red hair, and he liked to wear dark clothes, even in the summer and in California. “What would you like to drink?” “Was your flight all right?” “Is the hotel comfortable?” “You know, you can always stay with us.” He also tried to win me over by gifting me various treasured items of modern day hipsterdom, such as a freshly pressed edition of Talking Heads’ classic 1980 album Remain in Light. “This is high quality, 180-gram vinyl,” Hans said, displaying my gift. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that because of the divorce settlement, I didn’t have the money for a decent turntable or sound system. I decided to file the record away for future listening. A man’s got to have some goals, you know. He also presented me a copy of Thunderball signed by Ian Fleming. Such artifacts are easy to come by if you are one of Hollywood’s top writers, even if you are on strike. I put it away in my knapsack. The club had a tennis area divided into two sections. The first had “batting cages,” where new players could try out their backhands, and then the second had the proper, luxurious courts. Taylor Swift was there playing tennis against Idris Elba. “Fifteen-Love,” Taylor announced. “Thirty-Love.” They both wore shorts so bleached white you had to squint to look at them. “Do you want to play a game?” Hans said. My ex was behind him, toying with an umbrella like Deborah Kerr in The King and I. “After that, we can have lunch at the club restaurant. It’s no problem.” I agreed and said I needed to go and change my clothes. On the way out, I left the Talking Heads LP and the Ian Fleming novel with someone up front. I knew Hans meant well, but L.A. was not for me.

salmon pink

FOR A LONG TIME, I didn’t give the woman in the other apartment much attention. I would only see her in the corridors of the house on Väike-Patarei, or Little Battery Street, overlooking the bay and the gulf. The halls inside the house were poorly lit, with only a single blinking lightbulb surrounded by a worn meshed textile material that in some day and age was thought of as a lamp. The steps in the house were tiled, in a familiar pattern of light and dark. The place smelled of moisture and light rot, though pleasantly.

On a typical writing day, I would only hear the comings and goings of the woman. I would hear her shoes on the tiles, the sound of which would grow when she was coming, and retreat when she was leaving. I could hear her fumbling for her keys. She seemed to have many of them, and it took her time to grip the right one and slide it into the lock, turn it, and open the door. The door creaked open and then shut. The sound of the door closing did fill me with a sense of dread or alarm. There was an abruptness, a heaviness to the way that door shut.

I found out from the girl who worked at the pastry shop that the woman’s name was Sylvia. I had seen her just a few times in person. She had blonde hair, of course, and a fondness for wearing black or dark blue dresses. I usually regard other writers with a necessary caution. There are dark waters there. Two dark waters don’t make a particularly pacific ocean. I was intrigued though. I wondered what Sylvia was writing. The pastry girl said she was a novelist.

One day, there was a knock at the door. My own office was a mess. I had been sorting through notes and papers, and there were piles all over the floor. When I opened the door, Sylvia came through it. She kissed me immediately. I wish I could tell you what she looked like. I can tell you her skin was smooth and tanned, and I remember the fleshy pink of her lips, and the slope of her cheek and the aroma of her hair. She wore a tiny silver medallion around her neck that I later learned depicted Jeanne D’Arc. We somehow tumbled into the papers, and I apologized for how messy and unmanageable my life was. Sylvia didn’t care. She tugged up her dress, this time white and linen, and we were soon deeply connected. She was mumbling about her ex-husband James half the time. She told me that he had gone off salmon fishing. “He loves salmon more than me,” she said. “Don’t you see? James loves salmon fishing more than me!”

She was crying. Then she came.

Afterward, she smoothed out her dress. My hips ached and I was as deflated as an old party balloon. There were pages stuck to my back. Those notes from the trip to Mexico in ’00. I still hadn’t used them. Some of the pages were soaked. “I’m sorry for the mess,” I repeated. “Could you please stop apologizing,” Sylvia said. She kissed me again and stood up. “I have to go now,” Sylvia said. “I have a deadline today.” “I’m also on deadline,” I said. I was. After she had left, I positioned myself in front of the old typewriter. There I tapped out the following line.

“Theirs was a love of escapism, but sometimes a sweaty escapism is just what this sordid life of ours requires.”