Conjunctions:57 Kin

Arthur was a quiet boy who grew into a quiet man. When he and Walt Kaplan were boys it was always, Shhhhhh, Arthur’s studying. There’s got to be at least one yeshiva butcher in every family and a yeshiva butcher’s got to have quiet. Go play outside, Walt, your brother’s studying. 
     And so Walt went to work in their father’s furniture store and Arthur went to college, first to Brown and then to Columbia for his PhD in classics. Arthur’s face was pale. He always looked as though he’d been dusted with flour. This added to his gravitas, and Walt, like the rest of the family, was proud that Arthur looked the part of a scholar ghost. 
     His first book appeared in 1968. For a man who lived such a quiet life (he’d married a wan, squirrelly-looking girl and they lived in Brooklyn without children), the book nearly caused a scandal. The title was innocuous enough: Catiline and His Role in the Roman Revolution. Yet the book was a surprisingly graphic and spirited defense of Catiline. The man made trouble two thousand years ago and here he is making more havoc via the pen of meek little Arthur Kaplan who came out of the womb speaking Hebrew and Latin …
     Villainous fiend, murderer, robber, corrupter of youth and donkeys, venal proprietor, traitor! Plutarch topped it off with the accusation that Catiline had deflowered his own daughter. And all this in the prologue! 
     What? The family gasped. What? What? Don’t get us wrong. An author is an author is an author and our Arthur is an author. His name’s right there on a book. But incest? Donkeys? Maybe he should have been out in the street playing stickball with Walt. 
      “Maybe nobody will read it.” 
     “Ah, yes. Of course, that’s it. Nobody will read it.” 
     “But we’ll put it on the shelf.” 
     “Yes, absolutely, the shelf.”

 Can Catiline be cleared? 
The reputation of the Roman conspirator assigned to infamy
in the polemics of Cicero has been reclaimed …

September 25, 1968

Arthur’s triumphant appearance in Fall River. He gave a short speech at his alma mater, BMC Durfee High School, noting that the destruction of Catiline’s reputation was the result of the same sort of mudslinging that characterizes the politics of today. “And you think the Romans were violent? Maybe we ought to look at ourselves in this year, 1968 … It is not a man who is heard but his critics. Because critics always shout louder and use more colorful language. Elections bring out the poet in politicians, don’t they? Take, for instance, the consular elections of 64 BC when Cicero called Piso (father of Caesar’s last wife, Calpurnia), among other things, brute, plague, butcher, linkboy of Catiline, lump of carrion, drunken fool, inhuman lunatic, feces, epicurean pig, assassin, temple robber, plunderer of Macedonia, infuriated pirate egged on by desire for booty and rapine … And yet, it must be said that, compared to Catiline, Piso was a lunch counter.” 
     This was followed by a strangely long pause. Arthur leaned over the podium, gaped at his audience, and waited. He repeated it. “Piso was a lunch counter.” His sad, pasty face, his eyes imploring. (Cousin Ida nudged Cousin Frieda and whispered, Must he make those awful lists?) It was Walt who finally, mercifully, laughed. Ah, a lunch counter! Piso was a lunch counter! My brother the scholar was never known for his sense of humor. You sell furniture, you gotta have a sense of humor. Are you finished with this speech, Arthur? 
     And yet one night, about a month or so later, it was Walt who, after dinner, went and took the book off the shelf in the living room where Sarah had safely stored it for posterity. He carried it upstairs to his study in the flat of his hand like a waiter carrying drinks. Then he locked the door and went to Rome. Night was thinning into morning by the time Catiline uttered the last of his famous last words: But if fortune frowns on your bravery, take care not to die unavenged. Do not be captured and slaughtered like cattle, but fighting like heroes leave the enemy a bloody and tearful victory. 
     Walt hears trumpets. If fortune frowns … Viva Catiline! Viva the traitor!
     Furthermore, as my brother argues, no self-respecting republic should be without a little healthy rebellion. It keeps everybody honest and with a blowhard like Cicero believing every word that rolled off his golden tongue no matter how ridiculous—somebody had to draw a line across the forum with his sword. Even, yes, if it costs your life. Walt slides off his chair and onto the carpet. He stares at the ceiling. His study is a box that envelopes him, protects him. There are days he mourns this room, wonders how it will go on without him when he’s gone. Yet right now the distance between himself on the floor and the ceiling is intolerable. 
     I’m lying in a grave in my own house. To think there are people who believe that when it’s all over the angels sing and we float up higher and higher … They don’t doubt. They believe. Before I put on my other sock, I’ve doubted the entire day. 
     After the Battle of Pistoria, they brought Catiline’s severed head back to Rome in a basket. 
     This has to mean something. 
     Once, in this very room, a jay rammed into the window. Then he backed up and flew into it again. Again. Again. Again, until he finally dropped into the dirt by the side of the house. And they say only man is heroic enough to pursue lost causes. 
     This morning, my people sleep. My own brother, the scholar, has faith enough—believes in enough—to devote his life to raising an ancient debaucher from the dead; he sleeps in leafy Brooklyn. My wife and daughter sleep across the hall. The dawn sun claws upward. I sink into carpet. How can I arise to protect my people if I don’t even own a sword? 
     How can you shout farewell if you never go anywhere?