You Don't Own Me 2 (The Russian Don 2)

‘Ten years to build, using sixty thousand Jewish slaves with eighty entrances, thirty-six traps doors, accommodating fifty-thousand spectators for festivals that lasted up to one hundred days. During which half-a-million people were slaughtered and a million animals were brutally killed. It is one of the greatest and most unashamed celebrations of human violence. I guess we were all more honest in those days,’ Zane says.

‘Humanity has come a long way since then,’ I tell him quietly.

He sits on the stone seat. ‘Don’t you see the sheer ferocity that runs your world?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I see it run by law and order, by democratic governments.’

He sighs. ‘Your government is the biggest example of naked ferocity.’

‘What?’ I say with a laugh.

‘In fact, I’d go so far as to say there is no difference between what your government does and what I do.’

I snort contemptuously. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Why is it ridiculous?’ he queries. His eyes are watchful and I realize that he is very serious about what he is saying. As bizarre as it sounds to me he actually believes what he is telling me.

‘OK,’ I say slowly and go to sit next to him. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, but agents of state don’t lie, extort money, murder rivals, train and initiate uniform enforcers, constantly go to war with their neighbors to protect their borders, and enforce protection rackets. I could go on …’

His mouth twists into a smile. Sexy or Cruel? Maybe both. The arrogant tilt to his chin tells me I have walked directly into his trap.

‘I hate to break it to you, my innocent little fish,’ he says, his voice a sly caress, ‘but governments routinely undertake all those activities you mentioned and more. Governments do protect their borders, they lie all the time, and they extort money through taxes. Try not paying your taxes and see how ferocious your government really is. What are extrajudicial killings and kill lists, but the state assassinating its enemies and rivals? Just as I have enforcers they have their police and army to implement their policies. They provide their citizens protection for reasons I maintain law and order on my turf. The only real difference between them and me is my borders are smaller and more fluid.’

I frown. ‘It’s not the same,’ I insist, but as always when he speaks, he shows another side to an argument that I have never even considered might exist.

‘There is none so blind as she who will not see,’ he says, and taking my hand pulls me to my feet.

He takes me to one of the trap doors through which the slaves and animals that were held underground were unleashed into the arena and I feel a chill in my body. I turn towards him.

‘Even if the whole world is violent. Even if the very government we look upon as our protectors is violent, I never want to use that as a justification for my own violence.’

He gazes at me with unreadable eyes.

We have lunch at a sidewalk café and I order exactly what I had the night before. Pasta with cheese and pepper. There are no truffle shavings on it, but it is still incredibly good. Zane has the same.

Afterwards, we go to the Borghese Park and walk in the fallen leaves. It is very beautiful with the changing colors of fall. I look up at Zane and can hardly believe that this is my life. This is the kind of dreamy fantasy existence I expect to find in my favorite books.

We eat gelato, soft Italian ice cream, in the fresh air. Then the highlight of our trip: Zane has arranged a private tour for us of the Sistine Chapel.

We arrive as all the other tourists are leaving. A woman in a green trouser suit carrying a clipboard comes up to us. She looks at it and haltingly pronounces our incognito surname.

‘Mr. and Mrs. Zhivanescskaya?’

‘Si,’ Zane and I say, and she smiles.

Her name is Claudia. Friendly and chatty, she leads us down the one-way system through the long corridors of the main buildings towards the Sistine Chapel. Her voice echoes down the empty corridors, and as we get closer she starts telling us about the chapel’s eight thousand square feet of restored frescoes depicting stories of Genesis, Moses, Jesus, and the famous Last Judgment.

She informs us that far from being elated, Michelangelo regarded his Sistine Chapel commission from the Pope with the utmost suspicion, because he believed that his enemies and rivals had concocted the idea to see him fail on a grand scale. As far as he was concerned God had chosen him to be a sculptor and not a painter.

Finally we reach the chapel.

She is still speaking, telling us about how the challenge of painting at a height of sixty-five feet required a certain amount of ingenuity with scaffolds and platforms slotted into the specially made wall opening, but her voice has become just an echo. I stand and stare in awe at the ceiling.