The Attic Box

Back in the corner, next to the busted bird cage and a bag of old shoes, sat a dusty Heineken’s box scrawled with “To Save” in black marker.

Five moves to five attics, the box remained unopened, a testament to its uselessness and importance. It was time to recall why I saved it.

I’m still new to Buddhism. Some of it seems sketchy, but a lot of it resonates as I take stock of my life and try to make sense of why I’m here. Buddhism teaches us that renunciation is a prerequisite to enlightenment, and I’m on a mission to renounce a lot of stuff. Plus, I hate clutter.

This box had to go. But first I had to see what I was going to renounce before it hit the trash can.

 I slid the box under the light of a bare bulb, casting an auspicious orb around me and my mystery stuff.

I opened the flaps. On top was my Boy Scout canteen. Really, a metal canteen? Like I was going to pass that along to a grandchild who has a dozen neoprene water bottles. That can go.

Old photos, a measly coin collection, photos of boyhood pals, a Nixon bumper sticker, a ‘60s vintage clock radio. OK, I’ll let my kids decide what’s cool and they can pitch the rest.

A cigar box held a collection of matchboxes I collected while backpacking around Europe. I shook each one to see if there was anything inside. One held a couple beads, another small change from the days before Euros. Another, featuring the ace of spades and the word Fortuna on the label, rattled when I shook it.

 I slid the matchbox open to find a quarter-size chunk of plaster, its flat side faded blue with a touch of yellow. This box held my karma.

***

It was 1973, I recalled. I had hitchhiked from Amsterdam to Naples, sometimes sharing the journey with one backpacker or another for a few days before we went separate ways. I’d been bumming around with a Canadian named Tim since the Riviera, and we found our way to the entrance of Pompei.

“Closed,” Tim said. “Who thinks to close an archeologic wonder?”

“It’s Monday,” I said. “They seem to close a lot of cultural stuff on Mondays.”

“Man, I gotta be in Brindisi for the Corfu ferry Wednesday. I was really looking forward to seeing this place today.”

“Let’s go peek over the wall. Maybe you can see something from there.”

We walked along a perimeter road next to a concrete wall about eight feet high that enclosed the evidence of Mount Vesuvius’ wrath. Tim climbed onto a blown tire that leaned against the wall to see what was on the other side.

“I can see some ruins,” he said. “I’m going over.”

Tim didn’t always show good sense. He struggled under a too-heavy pack, partly because he collected souvenir rocks in every country instead of something light – like matchboxes. He was impatient with those who didn’t speak English. He seemed more like an American than a Canadian. His bushy red beard and hair gave him the look of a pirate, which mirrored his impulsive behavior.

He threw his pack over the wall, then followed it. I pondered that a moment, thought “what the hell,” and climbed over, too.

Nobody was in sight. We apparently had the place to ourselves.

We walked streets paved with rocks that were set there 2000 years ago, and then were buried under ash until the 18^th century. We saw statue-like people and a chained dog, consumed and fossilized by the elements they were trying to escape. We walked through homes with muraled tile floors, feeling as though the owners might return any minute. A barricade blocked the doorway of one, suggesting it was still being excavated.

Tim stepped over the barricade, of course. I followed.

It occurs to me that in those days I went with the flow. I wanted to do the right thing, but was inclined to leave my choices to serendipity, inertia and peer pressure. My renunciation efforts often conjure up memories of wrong-headed choices I made when I knew better, or choices I allowed to be made on my behalf. Entering that room was one of those bad choices.

Three walls in the room were bare concrete, as was the floor and a ceiling that somehow withstood the weight of the volcano’s pumice and ash. Except for the fourth wall, the room looked like the coal bin in the basement of my parents’ house.

On that fourth wall, remnants of a mural remained, mostly the edges that hinted at sky and greenery. What had been the center of the mural lay in pieces on the floor, a pile of plaster nuggets that had been sifted from ash. Like kids assembling an immense jigsaw puzzle, workers had separated similar-colored remnants into piles.

“Whoa. Imagine putting this back together,” I said.

“They’ll never do it. Impossible,” Tim said. “I’ll bet they didn’t find all the pieces anyway.”

I couldn’t see any evidence that pieces had been re-attached to the wall, or that groups of pieces had been re-assembled into part of a picture. Maybe Tim was right.

I watched as he dug his rock can out of his pack and plunked in a piece of the mural.

“Shit, man, you can’t take that!” I said. “That’s an artifact.”

“So what. I can appreciate it more than some worker shoveling it around with thousands of other pieces.”

That was the instant when I should have taken the high road. Archeologists had gone to extraordinary effort to rescue and preserve these remnants for posterity, not for a couple foreign goofs.  I should have reminded myself that this was someone’s home, and probably their grave.

Instead, I took a matchbox from my pack and dropped a chunk of the mural inside. Later, I would mail it home with earrings I bought for my mom in Greece.

***

In in the yellow light of my attic, the piece of mural seemed to emit an ancient energy. I imagined it was beckoning for me to atone for my youthful larceny. Not all karma is instant; it bides its time to claim its penance or offer rewards. Perhaps that time had come. “To Save,” the box said. Maybe it meant to save me.

I spent the next week researching what had become of the fresco that birthed my remnant. I learned that laser technology had been used to identify which pieces went where, and what faded colors looked like when they were new. Amazing restorations had been done in several of Pompeii’s rooms, bringing images of animals and gardens back to life. As far as I could tell, experts had filled in the gaps with new paints as the scenes took shape.

I probed my soul for the path I should take.

Should I return the remnant to the Pompeii curator with a letter of apology? Should I sign my name? Would I be arrested if I did? Could the curator or his predecessors be blamed for slack security? Perhaps the curator would just dispose of the relic to avoid a controversy.

Should I donate it to an American museum? Should I pass it on to my grandchildren with a lesson on honoring antiquities?

 What would it take to renounce and atone for my bad act decades ago?

I deliberated for days on the right path. I hoped I made the right choice.

***

When I got to Pompeii, I made an appointment to see the curator.

His office walls were lined with shelves bearing remnants of sculpture, tiles and, yes, frescoes.

“I have something to return,” I said. “I was a foolish 20-year-old when I took it. And I’m very sorry.”

Seated at his desk, he slid open the matchbox and immediately knew what it was I had returned. His face followed raised eyebrows to peer up at mine. I felt like a child caught talking in class, but his expression shifted to one of puzzlement rather than scorn.

“This is very strange,” he said. “Like you, a man from Canada came to see me last week. Like you, he returned a piece of fresco with an apology.

“Your fresco has come home. You may let your conscience rest.”