Testament

by Nino Ricci

  Thus I kept up my wandering not in search of him, as I might have fooled myself into believing, but because in some way it pleased me to, or was necessary, though I did not know what it profited me or what wisdom I hoped would come of it. The truth was that through Yeshua some doorway had been shown to me that I would not otherwise have come to, for in seeing how he cut his bonds to the things of this world, and did not think twice about living in the streets and going his own way, I was put in doubt about my own verities and arrangements. So my restlessness had come to me, and I thought of Tryphon and how he had marvelled at Yeshua’s intellect, and I wondered at the ways there were of seeing the world and if Yeshua’s understanding did not surpass my own.

  It was in the streets near the harbour that Yeshua kept himself. Some of these were the most wretched in the city, where there were no women except for whores and no worship of God, it seemed, except in the prayers whispered over the gaming boards. But it was also here that every sort of wise man and scoundrel washed up, vagrants from as far as the Indus who presented themselves as mighty wizards or priests but often enough were the merest charlatans. Among the educated and the rich they held little sway, for these saw through their fakery. But the poor and ignorant gathered there in large numbers, including many hopeful of cures, cripples and the infertile and even lepers, who smuggled themselves into the city through the harbour or paid off the guards at the city gates. Great horrors were performed there, as I heard, abortions as well as surgeries on Jews who wished to hide their mark, and many who went there in desperation ended up cheated of their money by those who promised wonders and cures they could not deliver. I myself had been foolish enough to come at the time of the plague to seek medicines for Hosheah, for which I paid dearly but to no avail.

  Still I found I was drawn to those streets, not only on Yeshua’s account and the hope of catching a glimpse of him, but because I had indeed seen wonders there that defied belief. For instance, there was a healer there, a surgeon, who with my own eyes and before many other witnesses I saw revive a man from oblivion by drilling a hole in his skull. The man had fallen from a building and crushed his head, and had the surgeon not agreed to look to him he would surely have been buried by evening. But there, before all of us, he burrowed through the man’s very bone, thus releasing from his head a great quantity of water and blood, and moments later the patient opened his eyes like someone brought back from the dead.

  I heard tell of other such miracles, those who cured lepers, others who, with surgery, cured the blind. Whether such powers came of God or the devil, I could not say. Surely they seemed directed to the cause of good, even if there were many who were made to pay much above what they could afford, and many others who died under the surgeon’s knife or under some cure that had poisoned them. But it seemed to me there was much that was unnatural in what happened in those streets, and partook of powers that mortals should not take to themselves. It was said that in the city’s schools even the corpses of the dead were butchered so that the ways of the body might be known. But I thought that the body was God’s temple, and the ways of it were his mystery and not to be understood by the likes of men.

  As for Yeshua, he was perhaps drawn to this quarter as any child would be, in the hope of seeing wonders. Indeed, often I thought of him next to Yaqob his brother, who though not swift of mind was also thoughtful enough in his way. Yet Yaqob knew nothing except cutting stone, for he had worked all his life at his father’s side, while Yeshua, as I imagined, had witnessed all the wonders of the world, and the horrors, for all these could be seen in that quarter of the city. There were prophets there, and those who read entrails, and magicians from Meroe who charmed snakes or even gave themselves over to their venom, falling into a trance. Then also there were performances, one heard, that could not be described—every lewdness was practised in them, and sometimes children or slaves were dismembered or simply murdered on the stage, all for the amusement of the spectators. These were savageries learned from the Romans, with their circuses and their shows, who though they had many gods yet were godless, for because the emperor called himself God who was only a man, therefore his citizens had lost their faith.

  For much of his time, I discovered, Yeshua made his living like any street urchin, running errands or working the ships at the port or begging alms as he had with Artimidorus, though, like him, he would not take money but only lodging and food. But he also had not lied to say he had a teacher, for indeed he had many, and often apprenticed himself for a month or three to this one or that, and did their business for them. To judge from how he moved from one to the other, it seemed he could not bear any of them for any great time, or that they themselves could not put up with him, for often, as I heard, he was let go for arrogance. But surely even then it might have been that he grew bored with them, or that his knowledge increased so quickly they feared it would surpass their own.

  Because of the market near the ships I found sufficient reason to visit the quarter frequently. It was not hard to find Yeshua then for he was well enough known, and I needed only to ask in the street and soon enough he would come to me. I would have food for him, wrapped in leaves to keep it warm, which he ate in the open. We did not speak a great deal—I asked how he did and he said well, and sometimes I offered him money, which he refused. He did not ask after Yehoceph, or his brothers and sisters, and I did not ask the thoughts that ran through his head. Yet even then there was something between us like a grief we had shared or a secret that had not quite been spoken, and I remembered how it had been with us when he was small, the weight I had felt settle over me in his presence. It was the weight of his own single-mindedness, it seemed to me now—I did not know what he intended for himself, or what the Lord intended for him, except that he saw that thing always visible before him like a distant point he must reach.

  I imagined at first that though people knew him, he lived solitarily, for that had always seemed his nature. But I came to learn this was not the case. Indeed, there was a whole band in that quarter, children of the streets like himself, who had begun to look to him as their leader, and whom he organized to salvage food from the ships that came into port or to choose their corner for begging so they should not conflict with one another, and slit each other’s throats. So it seemed he had made a life for himself on his own, and had his family of the streets to replace the one he had left. It hurt me to see this, for he had found his place among beggars when he could not in his own home. Hearing sometimes how people spoke about him in the street, the affection he was held in and his eloquence and good humour, I had the sense he saved for me only the worst of himself, so little did the child they described seem to resemble my own.

  I could not have said how long we might have gone on in this way, meeting only in the streets, or if in the end his path should have so varied from mine that he would have been lost to my life. But it so happened that the troubles there had been between the Alexandrians and the Jews erupted again. There was an incident, a brawl, where a Jew killed a Greek over some slight, and then the riots began, where Jews were murdered in the streets and those with shops outside of our quarter had them burnt to the ground.

  It was in the midst of this that Yeshua returned to us, in the dark of night. He had somehow got caught up in the riots and taken a knife to his chest—from his pallor it was clear he had lost a great deal of blood, and it was a wonder he had made his way to us, for shortly after his arrival he fell into a swoon and did not rise again for several days. I thought then that he would not survive, and rose every morning with the same terror in me, that I should find him dead. But after a time he came around. At first he was not certain where he was or how he had come to be there, and it moved me to see the need in him and his helplessness.

  You have come to your home, I said, and he did not contradict me.

  Wounded and frail as he was he seemed a child again, and eventually even the other children began to go to him, wondering, I supposed, that he was their brother and yet l
ived so differently from them. His sisters brought his food to him so he would not need to get up from his bed, and Yaqob, who because of the troubles could not go to work, sat with him during the day and talked to him so unaffectedly, of this and that, the jobs he had done or the doings of the quarter, that I felt my heart in my throat at how he still accepted him. Yehoceph, for his part, kept his silence, and because we all lived in those days in mortal fear and every Jew looked out for every Jew, I could not imagine that he would turn Yeshua out into the street.

  Yeshua had said nothing of what had happened, nor had we dared to ask him. But from the talk of the quarter we knew a Jew had been slaughtered near the docks the night Yeshua had returned to us, dragged out from his shop by the mob though he had lived peacefully in that part of the city for many years and indeed had been married to a Greek. A few who had seen the thing said it beggared the mind for brutality, since the mob had been in a bloodlust and had literally torn the man limb from limb before the horrified eyes of his children and wife. Eventually we were able to learn that it was there Yeshua had received his injury, for when he was up and about someone recognized him as one of those who had tried to stay the crowd’s fury, and been attacked in their turn for their pains. So the story went around the quarter that Yeshua had risked his life as a Jew and he was seen as a hero, though he still would not talk of the thing. Among our neighbours there was surely some surprise that he should return to us in glory in this way, for after his years in the streets they had no doubt imagined him the merest wastrel. I dared to feel a mother’s pride in him then, that despite the life he had led he had still brought himself honour, though I did not know if he would leave me again the instant the troubles had ended.

  During that time there were many of us in the quarter who billeted in our homes those who, on account of the riots, had been forced from their own. Among the ones we ourselves put up was a young scholar of the city named Gedalyah with whom Yeshua, as he recovered, had many discussions. Gedalyah told him the story of Pompey’s capture of the temple when the Romans first conquered us, and how even as they were being slaughtered the priests continued in their offices, valuing their allegiance to God above their own lives. So Pompey took charge of the place, and went at once to enter the most hallowed sanctuary of the Jews, the Holy of Holies, in which none but the high priest was permitted. For he imagined that vast riches lay within, and also that the great god of the Jews, for whom so many had fought so valiantly, must be represented there in supreme splendour. But to his amazement he parted the curtain and found that the place stood empty.

  He understood then that our god was not some idol like those of the pagans, Gedalyah said, but so greatly surpassed any likeness we might make of him as to defy representation.

  This story seemed to affect Yeshua deeply.

  It was how my own teacher Artimidorus used to speak about God, he said.

  The riots had ended by then because the Jews had all been consigned to their quarter and forbidden to leave it. It happened, however, that a group of young Jews, still enraged at the murders that had been committed and the damage to our property, stole out of the quarter one night, though it was heavily guarded, and breached the old city wall by way of the canal. From there they set a fire just inside the Gate of the Sun so that several buildings were burnt, including some homes. By morning the news of the fire had spread, and a mob had formed to march on our quarter and destroy us.

  As it fell out it was the sabbath that day and we were in the assembly house near our home when the word reached us, Yehoceph and I and the children and also Yeshua, who had recovered. We came out to find the streets already thronged at the news, the more so because of the many who had been driven into the district on account of the riots. Large numbers had made their way into the streets leading out of the quarter in the hope of fleeing but had been turned back by the soldiers there, who, seeing the crowd we had formed, were loath to release us. So people thought we should be trapped there in the streets like animals and slaughtered, for no one trusted the soldiers to protect us.

  My own family had ended up in the great square where we held our market. It was my thought that we return to our house, where we might at least conceal ourselves and avoid the mob. But Yehoceph said that for all we knew our house would be burnt to the ground, and that we should stand with the rest. In any event, there would have been a danger that the children would be separated from us if we had tried to make our way through that crowd, or that in the growing panic they would have been injured.

  Many of the men had begun to arm themselves, heaving cobbles up from the pavement to use as weapons. Yehoceph and Yaqob were quick to join them in this, helping to smash some of the larger paving stones so that the rubble from them might be used as well. But just when it seemed certain that the matter would come to violence, a teacher of the quarter by the name of Menasheh began to go around and remind us of the sabbath, and how the Maccabees, when they were attacked on that day, did not offer resistance but willingly gave themselves over to death. He said if we gave battle, we too would surely die, women and children along with the men, for the Greeks outnumbered us and no doubt carried weapons, and the soldiers also would turn against us. Better then that we should lift no hand and at least die innocent, and let heaven and earth bear witness, as was written in the scriptures, that we were killed without pretence of justice.

  Yeshua had not yet picked up any stone.

  Menasheh doesn’t remember that Mattatthias chose to fight when he saw his brothers killed, he said to me, or the Jews would have been wiped from the earth.

  But still he would not arm himself. Yaqob, seeing this, said, People will look to you for your example, because they think of you as a hero.

  But Yeshua seemed appalled at this.

  Let them look to their own minds, he said.

  The truth was that there were many of us in the crowd, particularly among the women, who were ready to heed Menasheh’s advice, not so we should be slaughtered there like lambs but in hopes that the soldiers, seeing us peaceful, would feel obliged to defend us. Throughout the square now there were those who had begun to take up Menasheh’s call, and many of the women had turned to their husbands to try to make them see the horror of what they’d undertaken. I put my own plea to Yehoceph, urging peace on him for our children’s sake. I saw him look to Yaqob then, and notice how his heart was no longer in the thing after Yeshua’s reprimand. Without a word to me he ceased his work and bid Yaqob do the same.

  We were wrong to merely follow the crowd instead of our conscience, he said to Yaqob, which astonished me, since it seemed he deferred to Yeshua.

  By now those counselling peace had gained the upper hand, so that, one by one, people had begun to set aside their weapons. Then the word reached us that the mob had passed through the Gate of the Sun and was drawing near, and Menasheh went around saying we should sit down in the street wherever we found ourselves, to show we would make no defence. The pavement was broken up where we were and Yaqob and Yehoceph needed to clear some bits of rubble away before we could sit comfortably. Yeshua helped them in this. Then, when we all took our seats in the dirt, I saw Yeshua hesitate instinctively as if it seemed forward to join us, before finally settling between me and Yaqob. I could feel the heat of him next to me, and remembered, for what seemed the first time in many years, the infant he had been, and how I had held him. The strangest feeling passed through me then, having him near—we were in that crowd, my family, facing death, for all we knew, yet in that moment it hardly mattered for we were all together.

  We were packed thick in the square by then, perhaps five thousand or more, with thousands again in the streets coming off it. A silence fell over us as the last ones took their places on the ground, and there was a smell of our sweat and our fear, and our deaths seemed to hang over us. Then in the distance we heard the din of the mob as it approached. I thought of the problems I had concerned myself with in my life, and how little they had mattered in the end. My youngest
was but four at the time and I took him in my arms and we sat and waited, silent, as the shouts grew closer.

  It was then when our fear was greatest that some of the women began to sing.

  Sing to the Lord, they cried, for he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

  It was the Song at the Sea that proclaimed our victory over Egypt. Slowly the women’s words spread among us, to ten and twenty and then across the square to the five thousand of us, and then to the thousands more in the streets, like a fire that had spread. In the end our singing drowned out the sound of the approaching mob and helped to put out our fear, so that even when our attackers were upon us and it was clear that the soldiers would not hold them back, at once giving way before them, we did not give up our place.

  From where we sat in the square what we saw was a teeming mass that seemed to spill back in every direction, with clubs raised above it and fisted rocks and charred beams that had no doubt been taken from the site of the previous night’s fire. However, seeing us in the street making no defence and only singing, the mob did not know what to make of us. A few rocks were hurled in at us, and sticks, which because we were thick on the ground found their mark. But when still we did not make a move or give up our song, the mob faltered.

  Lord, who is like you, we sang, so mighty in holiness, who like you among the heavenly powers.

  And indeed it seemed to us that the Lord heard our prayer and worked a miracle then, for the soldiers, seeing perhaps that they did not have the excuse of the crowd’s fury to explain their inaction, finally started to move in to disperse it. There were some scuffles and a few of the more vicious had to be beaten back with the soldiers’ sticks. But when the mob saw that the soldiers were in earnest, they began to turn away. It was not long before the bulk of them had turned back towards the city and the soldiers had reformed their line of defence, so that even those who lingered behind could not make their way to us.