for her bizarre act. No matter that she had been guiltless. No matter that she had been cursed for her husband’s foolish evasion of his duty. She had lain with an animal, she was disgusting and depraved and she deserved her punishment. Off she went in tears, followed by howls of righteous contempt.
She dressed hurriedly and ran all the way to the sick bay at the Hippodrome. The physician met her at the door, wiping his bloodied hands and forearms.
“How is he? Is he …” She fought for breath.
“He’s dead. You’re too late.”
“No,” she said. “No. Not just … without … not …” She put a hand against the rough stone of the wall to keep herself in the world, to stop herself from falling into a dark void.
He was unable to look her in the eye. She sensed his disapproval of this woman who performed a lewd pantomime while her husband breathed his last alone. “We tried, but the shock and loss of blood were too severe,” he said. “It was a frightful wound.”
“Oh, dear God,” she said. “He loved that bear. He used to breathe into its nostrils. Right up close.”
“The bear’s had to be put down. No tamer will work with an animal that has attacked someone so viciously. Vet says, it had an inflamed abscess in a tooth that probably drove it mad.”
“A tooth,” she repeated.
“Yes, well, it’s a pity. It was a valuable animal. Trained bears are hard to come by. But there it is.”
She left the sick bay on listless feet, wrapped in her own old cloak. On the way out she encountered Peter, an apprentice trainer who had had a great admiration for Acasius.
“I’m s-sorry, Anastasia,” he mumbled and shuffled his large feet. “I heard. It’s t-terrible.”
She nodded. She did not trust her voice.
“I’ll s-see you home,” he offered. “You must b-be exhausted.”
She nodded again. Let him bumble along, as long as he didn’t expect her to speak. She would have to tell the children, she thought. Dear God in heaven, how would she do that? They would be shattered. Especially Theodora, the middle one, who had without any doubt been her father’s favourite, and the last one to see him before he died. What could she say?
And now, bereft of their main breadwinner, how would they survive? She was, she told herself in utter disbelief, a widow. She had three small girl children. She could not imagine what would become of them.
Theodora looked at her father as he lay in the open coffin, wrapped in his best cloak in such a way as to conceal the fact that his arm was missing. His thick, dark hair was beautifully combed and his face looked stern, the way he used to look when one of his children had been naughty. There was a peculiar smell, in spite of the masses of flowers that breathed scent into the air, despite the incense that wafted from the censers carried by the priests who had come to lead the procession to the cemetery near to the city walls. It smelled like standing water, she thought. It smelled like the dead mouse they had once found in the kitchen. It had been days ago that he was killed.
She knew that her father had died. She knew that. Yet she thought that maybe, if she could be alone with him and speak to him very nicely, tell him how much they missed him and how sad they were, he might open his eyes again and smile. Miracles did happen.
Her father had told her about miracles himself, for he had been a Christian priest before he was a bearkeeper, in that far country from which they had come when she was too small to know that they were leaving home. Every evening at bedtime, he had read to his daughters from one of the two precious books – codices he called them – that he had brought with him. One told how God had created the world – Comito’s favourite – and the other held the Gospels, that told about the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Theodora loved that one. Her father had read her the story of how the Lord Jesus had spoken to Lazarus, and he had awoken even though he had been dead for days. Even though his winding cloths were smelly. So perhaps …
But she was never alone with him. There were lots of people: Asterius, the tall, thin Dancing Master of the Greens, with the big nose and important air, who was in charge of all their performances at the Hippodrome and the Kynêgion, also men Acasius had worked with, neighbours from their block and others down the street, the men friends with whom Acasius had wrestled and played ball games, the baker who supplied their bread, the blacksmith, who looked unnaturally clean, and Peter, who had liked to watch Acasius working with the bears, as well as Rosa, the sweaty fat washerwoman from downstairs, who had a clear, sweet voice and led the mourners in song.
Theodora looked forlornly into the coffin. She saw that they had put his training whip and pitchfork into the coffin with him. And his handsaw and his hammer and … and … his whittling tools, which he had used to make little animals for her. Now she understood for the first time that he was never going to wake up. Never coming back. Never again going to hold her warm and safe in his cloak. They were really, really going to put him into the ground. There would be no miracle. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
Now several sturdy men who were to carry the coffin came into the room. One had a hammer. It was time to close the lid. Theodora wanted to shout: No, no, don’t close him in – don’t shut him up, don’t, oh please don’t take him away! But her mother took her hand in a grip so hard that it hurt. It was going to happen no matter what. She clung to her mother’s hand and winced at each hammer blow. But she said nothing.
The men hoisted the coffin onto their shoulders and bore it out of the door. A procession began to form up in the street. The priests chanted, words she did not understand. But she did understand what the choir of women mourners sang as they trudged along. It was an old song that she had often heard women sing.
Once in my garden there grew an apple tree
But a storm blew up and stole it away from me.
Once in my garden I had a lovely rose
But the petals were torn by the winter wind that blows.
Once in my chamber I lay safely with my dear
But now when I call him my beloved cannot hear.
Once we could stand side by side and see the sun
But now your fair eyes are closed and I am left alone.
Yes, I am left alone and I weep for my lost dear.
I call him and I call him but alas he cannot hear.
My heart burns, my heart burns, for alas he cannot hear.
Her mother kept her grip on Theodora’s hand. Her elder sister, Comito, white-faced but dry-eyed, clutched her mother’s other hand. Their mother led them out into the street. An elderly neighbour who could not walk as far as the cemetery would look after their little sister, also christened Anastasia but called Stasie, whose short, fat legs would not carry her that far either. The solemn procession wound through the streets. The priests swung their censers and intoned their chant. People respectfully stood still and made the sign of the cross as the funeral procession passed by. A huge load of bundles that appeared to be walking on two legs turned into a porter who moved aside. For some time they walked through narrow, winding streets thronged with buildings, then they reached the outskirts where the road was lined with orchards and market gardens. A farmer with a donkey cart piled high with cabbages drew up and doffed
