The Just City (4 page)

In Plato's Republic, as never in all of history, my sex would have been no impediment. I could have been an equal to anyone. I could have exercised freely, and learned philosophy. I wished fiercely that it existed and that I had been born there. He had written two thousand three hundred years ago, and never in all that time had anyone paid any attention. How many women had led stupid wasted unnecessary lives because nobody listened to Plato? I was furious with all the world except Plato and my father.

I went back to my seat and took up the book again, reading on faster and faster, no longer wanting to disagree with Socrates, saying yes in my heart, yes to everything; yes, censor Homer, limit the forms of music, why not; yes, take children into battle; yes, by all means exercise naked if you think it better; yes, indeed, begin with ten-year-olds—how I would have loved it at ten. Yes, please, please, dearest Plato, teach the best of both sexes to become philosopher kings who discover and understand the Truth behind this world. I turned up the gas lamp and read most of the night.

The next morning Aunt Fanny complained that I looked fatigued, and said that I should not exhaust myself. I protested that I was very well, and an outing would revive me. The guide took us to see the Trevi Fountain, a huge extravaganza which Anne admired, and then on to the Pantheon, a round temple to all the gods, built by Marcus Agrippa and since reclaimed as a Christian church. The dome leads the eye up inexorably to a circle of clear sky. I looked at all the Catholic clutter of crucifixes and icons down below and saw it as impious in this place which led the heart to God without any need of it. Surely the philosopher kings would have divined God in the Truth. Surely nobody could come in here without apprehending Him, even the pagans who had built the place. Surely behind the façade of the mythology they understood, perhaps without knowing what they understood. They had no saints and prophets. Their gods were the best way for them to comprehend the divine.

My thoughts turned to the Greek gods, and to the idea of the female principle within God that had struck me in Florence. Without in the least intending it I found myself praying to Athene, the female patroness of learning and wisdom. “Oh Pallas Athene, please take me away from this, let me live in Plato's Republic, let me work to find a way to make it real.”

I am sure that the next instant I would have realized what I was doing, and been shocked at myself and fallen to my knees and begged Jesus to forgive me. But that next instant never came. I was standing in the Pantheon looking up and praying to Athene, and then without any transition I was on Kallisti, in a pillared chamber full of men and women from many different centuries, all as bewildered as I was, with grey-eyed Athene herself standing unmistakably before us.

 

4

S
IMMEA

I have never known what year it was when they bought me in Smyrna, or even what century. The masters wanted us to forget our old homes, and when once much later I asked Ficino, he said he could not recall. Perhaps he truly could not. He must have been on many of those voyages, into many years. They gathered up ten thousand Greek-speaking children who appeared to them to be ten-year-olds. I have often thought since how much better it would have been for them to have gathered up the abandoned babies of antiquity—but then they would have needed wet nurses, so perhaps that would not have worked either.

We spent two nights on the
Goodness
before we came to the city on the afternoon of the third day.

My first sight of the city was overwhelming. The masters brought us out in groups to see it as we approached. Kebes and I were among the last to come out, when we were almost in the harbor. The ruins at Smyrna had impressed me. The city was intact, was new made, and it had been positioned for maximum beauty and impact. Coming to it from the sea I saw the great mountain rising behind it, smoking slightly, and below that the slopes of the hills cupping the city. The city itself shone in the afternoon light. The pillars, the domes, the arches, all of it lay in the balance of light and shadow. Our souls know harmony and proportion before we are born, so although I had never seen anything like it, my soul resonated at once to the beauty of the city.

Immediately in front of us lay the harbor, with the mole curving out before it. This reflected in miniature the balance of man-made and natural elements in the city and the hills. I stood in awe, moved beyond words by the wonder of it. Kebes poked me in the ribs. “Where are the people?” he asked. “And what's that?”

I looked where he was pointing. “A crane?” I suggested.

“But it was moving.” Indeed, it was moving. None of us had ever seen a worker before. This one was the color of bronze, with treads and four great arms, each ending in a different kind of hand—a digger, a gripper, a claw, a scoop. It was easily twice the height of a man. I would have assumed it a kind of beast, except that it had nothing that could be considered a head. It was trundling along the harborfront ready to help us tie up, so we saw it very well as we came inside the mole. We were all asking each other what it was, and at last one of the masters came and told us it was a worker and that we were not to be afraid. “They're here to do the heavy work and help us,” he said, in his strange slurred Greek.

Once the
Goodness
was tied up we were taken ashore in groups of fourteen, seven boys and seven girls. We were led off in different directions through the streets. I was glad Kebes was with me, and even more glad to be in the group led by Ficino. Whatever Kebes said, I already felt that Ficino was a friend. I looked about me eagerly as we went through the streets. They were broad and well-proportioned, and lined with pillared courts and houses and temples with statues of the gods. We passed the occasional worker, some the same as the first but others shaped very differently. We saw no people until we had been walking for some time, when we heard the sound of children playing. We walked for some time more before we passed the palaestra where they were exercising—the sound had carried in the empty city. “Where are all the people?” I asked Ficino boldly.

“You are the people,” he said, looking down at me. “This is your city. And not all of you are here yet.”

A little while after that, a young woman came out of one of the houses. She was wearing a blue and white kiton with a key pattern around the borders, the first I had ever seen. She was fair-skinned, and her fair hair fell down her back in a neat braid. “Joy to you,” she said. “I am Maia. The girls should come in here.”

I lingered on the threshold as Ficino led the boys on. I did not want to lose track of the only people I knew. I was relieved to see them turning into the next house along the street.

“This is Hyssop house,” Maia said, inside. I turned and went in. Inside it was cool. It seemed dark after the street, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the light that came in through the narrow windows. I saw that there were seven beds neatly lined up, one beside the door and three on each side of the room. A chest stood beside each one. Beyond them lay another door, which was closed. The walls and floor were marble, the roof had wooden beams.

“There is hyssop growing outside, by the door,” one of the girls said, a tall girl as dark-skinned as my grandmother.

I hadn't noticed the hyssop. Maia nodded, clearly pleased. “Yes. All of the sleeping houses have their own flower or herb.” Her Greek was strange, extremely precise but with odd hesitations as if she sometimes had to think to remember a word. Most disconcertingly she pronounced her V as B. “Each sleeping house sleeps seven people—either girls or boys, never mixed. Now I will teach you about hygiene.”

She opened the other door, which led to the most amazing room I had ever seen. The marble floor and walls were striped black and white, and at the far end of the room the floor dipped into a trench with gratings underneath it. Above that were metal nozzles projecting from the wall. Maia shrugged out of her kiton and stood naked before us. She pressed a metal switch in the wall and water began to jet from the nozzles. “This is a wash-fountain,” she explained. “It is to cleanse you. Come on.”

We moved forward hesitantly. The water was cold, pleasant on a hot afternoon. “Take soap,” Maia instructed, showing us another switch and putting her hand underneath a jet that provided a single gush of liquid soap when she pressed it. I had never encountered soap before. It felt strange on my palm. Maia showed us how to wash with the soap and how it lathered up in the water, she showed us how to wash our hair under the jets. “There is no shortage of water, but you should not be wasteful of the soap,” she said.

“It smells of hyssop,” said the girl who had noticed the hyssop outside.

Then Maia showed us the four cubicles at the other end of the room, each of which contained a latrine-fountain—a marble seat, with a lever to pull to summon water to carry away our wastes. “There are four latrine-fountains for the seven of you. Be reasonable in taking turns,” she said. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to clean yourselves with oil and a scraper.”

I was becoming numb with marvels when she led us back into the bedroom. “There is a bed here for each of you.” She turned to the dark-skinned girl. “What is your name?”

“They said I was to be called Andromeda,” she said.

“That's a wonderful name,” Maia said, enthusiastically. “Andromeda, because you spoke first and noticed the hyssop, for now you will be the watcher for Hyssop house. You will have this bed by the door, and you will come for me if you need me—I will show you where I live. You will be in charge of the house when I am not here, and you will take note and answer for the conduct of the others. The rest of you choose beds now.”

We looked at each other. We had been splashing comfortably together in the wash-fountain, but now we were shy. I took a hesitant step towards a bed, in the inner corner. The other girls sorted themselves out with no squabbling—though two girls ran for the other corner bed, the girl who got there second retreated and took the next bed. “Now open your chests,” Maia said. We did so. Inside were two undyed blankets, one linen and one wool. “Dry yourselves on one.” I took out the wool blanket and dried myself. “Now put that one on the bed to dry. Take out the other.” She picked up her kiton and shook it. “This is how you wear it.” She demonstrated. It was much harder than it looked, especially making the folds. It took some of us a long time to develop the skill of tucking it in—a thing that is second nature now, but was difficult that first day. Maia gave each of us a leather belt and a plain iron pin to fasten our kitons. “These will change,” she said, but did not explain further.

“The other blanket is your cloak,” she said, and showed us how to fold the cloaks. “You won't need it before winter. They are also your blankets and towels, as you have seen.”

“They are ours?” one of the girls asked, touching the pin. “Ours to keep?”

“Yours to use,” Maia said.

“Who is our master?” Andromeda asked. “You?”

“You must obey all the masters, but you are not slaves,” Maia said. “Ficino will explain later. Come on now. It is time to eat.”

We were all dressed, and none of our kitons were actually falling off. Maia led us to our dining hall. “Our dining hall is called Florentia,” she said. “A sleeping house is a small thing, though each has a name and a flower, and you might want to embroider hyssop on your kiton later, if you care to. But a dining hall is a very important matter. Each of them seats seventy people, mixed boys and girls, and each of them is named for one of the great cities of civilization.”

“How many eating halls are there?” I asked.

“One hundred and forty-four,” Maia answered at once.

I calculated in my head. “So there are ten thousand and eighty of us?”

“You're quick with numbers! What is your name?”

“Simmea,” I said.

She smiled. “Another wonderful name. Well, Simmea, yes, there will be ten thousand and eighty of you, twelve tribes, a hundred and forty-four dining halls. And you will all learn about the cities of your dining halls and take pride in their accomplishments.”

“And is Florentia a great city?” Andromeda asked. “I never heard of it.”

“You will hear about it soon,” Maia promised.

The dining hall was immense. It was built of stone, not marble, and it had narrow windows and a twisting tower rising from one corner. Inside it had a courtyard with a fountain, and stairs leading up to a big room with a great cacophony of children sitting on benches drawn up at tables. I was glad to spot Ficino and Kebes sitting eating among the others. They were both wearing kitons, but Ficino kept on his red hat.

Maia found us places, all together at one of the tables. Kebes saw me and waved a hand as I sat down. “We all take turns serving,” Maia explained. I was hungry. A boy brought out trays of food and set them down where we could help ourselves. The food was amazing—it was bread and fresh cheese with olives, artichokes, cucumbers, and olive oil, with fresh clean water to drink. That first night I remember we had a delicious buttery ham that seemed to melt on my tongue.

It was when I was eating the ham that I looked up and saw the paintings. On all the walls of the room hung paintings, ten of them, all of mythological scenes, and nine of them painted with a wonderful delicacy of imagination that made me stare and stare. I did not see all ten that night, only the one on the opposite wall, which showed an old man with a long beard shaking snow from his cloak while beautiful young women danced around a frozen fountain and a wolf gnawed at a bundle dropped by a fleeing hunter. I had never seen snow before, but that was not why I couldn't stop staring.

“You're not eating, Simmea,” Maia said after a time. I realised I was sitting there with ham in my mouth and not chewing.

“I'm sorry,” I said, closing my mouth and swallowing. “But the painting! Who did it? What is it?”