Agrippa's Daughter

by Fast, Howard

  Benur allowed Barfabi through the door, and then Gabo took him to Berenice’s bedroom, where she lay upon her couch with a saffron-colored robe wrapped around her, her red hair loose and cast over her pillow like a great splash of honey. Seeing her half-bare legs and her naked feet, Barfabi began to mutter prayers and invocations against the whores of the mother-god, only to be interrupted by Berenice who exclaimed angrily,

  “How dare you spout that nonsense—what is your name?—Ishmael, isn’t it?”

  “I am the high priest, madam!” he cried.

  “I know exactly what you are, little man—and if you repeat one more word of that stupid invocation about prostitutes and temples, I will call in that oversized soldier who stands in front of my door, and I will have him put you across his knee and spank you until you are unable to sit down for a week.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Barfabi squealed.

  “But wouldn’t I! Don’t you put on airs for me. I know exactly what your family paid my brother’s seneschals for your office, and there are plenty of other priests who are cheaper and more amiable. Now will you behave?”

  Breathing deeply, chewing his lower lip in rage, clenching his trembling fists, Barfabi calculated the chances of opposing the queen and then abandoned them. He let out his breath slowly and nodded.

  “Good. Now I want you to annul my marriage to King Polemon.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can,” Berenice said, sitting up now and facing him. “And you will.”

  “But an annulment can proceed only out of specific cause. That is the Law. Can I change the Law?”

  “Is deception specific cause?”

  “What deception?”

  “Polemon claimed to be a Jew.”

  “He became a Jew.”

  “Nonsense,” Berenice declared. “He was circumcised by some Pharisee physician, which meant nothing. In his heart, he remained an idol worshiper.”

  “I shall have to question him,” the high priest said warily.

  “You will do nothing of the kind. You will annul the marriage. Otherwise, we will find a high priest who is amiable and intelligent as well as pious. Do you understand me?”

  He stared at this tall, lean, and beautiful woman who sat on the couch facing him, and he asked himself, Who can go against a witch or a devil?

  “I understand you,” he said.

  “And do not think that you can turn my brother against me, Barfabi. You are not strong enough for intrigue—nor wise enough.”

  But nothing changed the fact that this was certainly the strangest marriage and the juiciest bit of gossip in the entire world—as the world was at that time. In his report to the Emperor Claudius, Cuspius Fadus, the procurator of Judea, said among other things: “While there is precious little of what we would call entertainment in a Jewish world, all of what passes for polite society here is titillated with the astonishing marriage of Queen Berenice, the daughter of your friend Agrippa and sister to the present tetrarch of Galilee. You will recall that she was formerly married to Herod of Chalcis, who was old enough to be her grandfather, and there is some rumor of a previous marriage to the son of the alabarch of Alexandria—who possesses some rank or role or situation in the unfathomable web of Jewish nobility, if you can call it that. Anyway, both the Alexandrian and the king of Chalcis died mysteriously, as did Berenice’s two sons; and I would hardly think that anyone would look forward to an alliance with her. But apparently this Polemon, who is titular king of old Cilicia, and to whom we permit a palace and certain ceremonies in Tarsus, has a suicidal bent. He fell madly in love with Berenice, submitted himself to having his foreskin hacked away in this nasty Jewish rite of circumcision, became Jewish, and then was married to Berenice. But no sooner the ceremony completed than Berenice up and fled. All that wedding night they hunted vainly for her, and finally old Polemon had to go to bed with no other company than his truncated penis. Now I hear that Berenice has ordered the wedding dissolved. Whatever her virtuses or vices, we should be grateful for the diversions she provides—”

  If all of this and a thousand comments like it were sotto voce, the whispers still penetrated to the palace. Berenice heard and knew. She locked her doors and fortified herself behind them. The last person she saw for a long while, except her brother, was Anat Beradin, the wool merchant. He pleaded for an audience, sent messages importuning her, pleading for five minutes of her time. Finally she consented to see him without even knowing why she consented; and when he confronted her, her rigid form, her face like stone, and her stony silence, he was at a loss. He had believed that he could reach her, but once he began to speak, he realized that she was unreachable.

  “To be a Jew,” he began, “is either a blessing or a curse or both, but in any case, something we are born with, like a sixth finger or a clubfoot, but invisible, or maybe a coat of many colors such as Joseph wore, but also invisible. However, one of the first things one leams in the school of being a Jew is that the Almighty—who does most things humorously—made the Jew indivisible. A Roman beggar or a Roman knight can do unspeakable things, and this reflects not one whit upon the basic character and reputation of Rome, just as an Egyptian can be a thief—as so many of them are without shaking the innate dignity of Egypt. But let a Jewish woodcutter or a Jewish ditchdigger take an action that is indefensible or shocking, and immediately the entire community of the Jew is tried, found guilty, slandered, and condemned—”

  He was watching Berenice for anger, irritation, recognition—but she yawned as if she had heard nothing and asked him whether that was all?

  “Could I simply say this—my lady, Berenice: that in Polemon we have a curious thing—by which I mean something that is not obvious. He may appear obvious, crude by our standards, dull as a Jew measures intelligence, and very much a figurehead maintained by Rome, without either prestige or power. But his line is a very ancient one—not of blood do I speak here, but of the continuity that we call Cilicia. When David Benjesse of the blessed memory was king over all of Israel, there were princes in Cilicia who sent gifts to Jerusalem, out of respect for the Almighty, and even a thousand years ago Jews dwelt in Tarsus and others of their cities, Corycos, where we built a synagogue when every hand was lifted against us, Anas—as you surely know. What you have done to Polemon is not merely cruel—”

  She awakened to his words then. She stood up, her green eyes flaming in rage, and cried, “How dare you! Enough! I have listened enough! Leave me now!”

  When he tried to speak again, Berenice shouted, “Don’t tempt me, you fool!”

  Then Anat Beradin realized suddenly how close to death he was. Step by step, he backed away from this enraged woman, who was like a Greek fury with her great height, her wide shoulders and her long red hair—he backed away until he could feel the door behind him; and then he turned and fled through the door.

  For the next week, Berenice would see no one. Behind the barred doors of her chambers, she sat in an enormous silence, where she existed without desire or regret. Sometimes she would go a whole day without food or drink. Again, in response to Gabo’s pleading, she would have a few figs, dates, some olives. Whether she ate or not was of little moment to her. In a time when the depths of depression were widespread but little understood, her soul had been seized by evil spirits. She had lost all desire to live to eat to move or to speak to members of her own species. Sometimes she paced her room, back and forth, back and forth—like a caged animal. Other times she sat motionless.

  She had warned Gabo to speak to no one about her, but after eight days had gone by, eight days during which everyone was turned away from her door, Gabo disobeyed her and went to the king and said to him,

  “I think my mistress is dying.”

  “What?”

  “Slowly, slowly, Lord Agrippa. Not today or tomorrow—but surely she is dying. I have seen people die like that in the desert in the south. An evil spirit embraces their soul—”

  “I have no desire to hear a
bout your Benjaminite superstitions, and if my sister is dying she is certainly vigorous enough about keeping the sanctity of her chamber. I will go to see her.”

  “The marriage is dissolved,” Agrippa said to Berenice, sitting in her bedroom where the air was thick with scent and dead and stale, where the only light trickled in through the blinds and drapes. “That is what you wanted, isn’t it?” He peered at her face through the gloom. “Well, I have done what you wished. I am even ready to confess that I was wrong. The marriage should never have been arranged, and that stupid ox, Polemon, should never have been permitted to have his penis bobbed.” Still, he searched for some expression on the face, some angle that would reveal her. “Why do you keep the blinds closed, the drapes drawn? How can you sit in this darkness?”

  “I prefer to,” Berenice answered dully.

  “Well, do you blame me, sister?” Agrippa demanded of her. “It’s true that for a while there I found myself acting like our father. Royal blood is a disease, I suppose. But watching poor Polemon was like looking into a mirror. He’s not really a king, you know, but only by the sufferance of the Romans—”

  “Poor Polemon, poor Polemon—I am sick to death of poor Polemon, and if that’s all you have to say, brother, go away and leave me alone.”

  “No—please, Berenice, I just used the expression. He’s a slob. That’s a nasty word, but what else? Some men are slobs by nature—that’s what Polemon is.”

  “Yes,” Berenice cried, “poor Polemon, who had two wives murdered and was ready to murder the third and who put his own brother to death so that he could crawl to the Romans and say, love me, love me—poor Polemon!”

  “Devil take me!” Agrippa cried in despair. “I did not come here to talk about Polemon, but since you have brought it up, you might as well know. The marriage was dissolved before Barfabi left for Jerusalem, and Polemon has gone back to Tarsus. He was filled with empty threats about coming back here with fifty thousand horsemen and burning Tiberias down over my head—which is utter nonsense. He can’t muster ten horsemen without the specific consent of Vibius Marsus, although he can make it uncomfortable for the Jews in Tarsus. Well, I began all this by pointing to him as an example of myself, because my little throne is as fraudulent as his. I am a king by consent of the Romans—and all in all I suppose I am no happier than you are. Happiness has never been a strong family trait of either the Herods or the Hasmoneans. So what do you accomplish, Berenice, by sulking here in this dark and airless room?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “That’s just it, Berenice, if I leave you alone—”

  “Oh no—no more speeches, brother. Leave me alone. Just get out of here and leave me alone.”

  So Agrippa left, and three more days went by and he heard, outside of his throne room, the high-pitched, nasal, Aramaic bleat of Gabo the Benjaminite—cursing his door guards and demanding to see the king.

  “Have them let her in,” Agrippa told his seneschal, Bensimon. “They know she comes from my sister. Why haven’t they the sense to let her in without all this screaming and whining?”

  Gabo said much the same thing. “Do I want to assassinate you, my lord, Agrippa?” she demanded. “Do I want to waste your time with idle gossip? Isn’t it plain to those stupid Galileans of yours that I am handmaiden to your sister, and if I come to you, come I must?”

  “All right, Gabo,” replied Agrippa. “What now?”

  “Now she lies on her couch in the darkness, staring at nothing, saying nothing, hearing nothing, and she does not eat or drink—and she is going to die. She is going to die.”

  Then, out of sheer desperation, Agrippa sent to the House of Shlomo for the physician, Shimeon Bengamaliel. He sent a messenger to say that if it was necessary, he, Agrippa, would come personally. Gideon Benharmish, as the head of the house, came personally to the palace to tell Agrippa that the message had been accepted and that a rider had gone to fetch Shimeon. “He will come here,” Benharmish assured Agrippa. “You have my word for that.”

  His word was good, and the following morning, a few hours after sunrise, Shimeon Bengamaliel appeared at the palace and was taken directly to Agrippa. Always considerate of his guests, Agrippa had bread and fruit and wine placed before Shimeon, and only after the doctor had eaten did he speak of his own problems. As he spoke, he watched Shimeon carefully and curiously, trying to guess the reactions of this tall, wide-shouldered Pharisee. On his own part, Shimeon studied the king, thinking to himself that while it made some sense to employ him as a surgeon for a heathen, it made none at all to consult him in regard to the infamous Berenice.

  Agrippa anticipated that. “I can guess what you think of my sister—” he began.

  “Only what all Israel thinks of her.”

  “Ah—well, that is not even diplomatic,” Agrippa sighed, “and all of Israel can be wrong—terribly wrong.”

  “I have an open mind,” Shimeon said seriously.

  “Do you? I know that is a Pharisee attitude, and I wonder how much truth there is in it. Remember, Shimeon Bengamaliel, that I was taught, as a child, that the Pharisees are the servants of the devil—and the House of Hillel the abode of wickedness itself—”

  Shimeon had to smile.

  “It amuses you? Right, wrong—slander, truth—did it ever occur to you that we, my sister and myself, that we are slandered, that we might be something other than the monsters we are depicted?”

  “That has occurred to me,” Shimeon nodded.

  “Oh? Do you know that when a Jewish mother in Judea desires to discipline her child, she says, ‘Behave or Berenice will get you!’ Amusing, isn’t it? My sister is twenty years old—two months remain before her twenty-first birthday—and she lives with the knowledge that this is common. There isn’t a Jew in Palestine who isn’t certain that she murdered our father, even though we saw the murder done with our own eyes by a Roman knight called Germanicus Latus. You have heard that she murdered the son of the Alabarch Alexander?”

  “I have heard that,” Shimeon nodded.

  “He was dead when she was brought to look at him for the first time—she was a child of fourteen then. Shall I go on?”

  “No,” Shimeon said decisively. “Do not defend your sister to me. I am a doctor, not a judge—and I presume that you summoned me as a physician. Although, why me I do not know.”

  “I believe in you as a physician,” Agrippa said. “I love my sister—not as the filth that is spoken would have it, but because we never had more than each other, if you can understand that. Now she is dying. I don’t want her to die.”

  “Dying? Of what disease? What are her symptoms?”

  Agrippa told him—and Shimeon shook his head uneasily. “No,” he said, “I am not the one you want. I am no rabbi or magician, and I do not practice the laying on of hands. In our house, in the House of Hillel, we look upon such things with distaste and suspicion—but neither do I believe that a doctor can cure a sickness of the soul.”

  “Then she will die,” Agrippa said miserably. “She will not tolerate the laying on of hands—she will die first.”

  There was a long silence then, while Shimeon stared at the table which held his breakfast food and toyed with the bag of instruments that hung from his waist. Agrippa, his eyes closed, listened to the faint clink of the tools as they were moved one against the other. Then he opened his eyes to meet the eyes of the Pharisee. Shimeon nodded.

  “I will see her. I will do what I can.”

  Then Agrippa took Shimeon Bengamaliel to Berenice’s chambers, where Benur stood guard; and where he pointed out to Benur that since the Queen Berenice was sick, a physician was needed.

  “I am sworn to die here for her, if need be,” Benur said to Shimeon.

  “Yes, yes, I know that,” Agrippa said impatiently. “But right now the necessity is not for anyone to die for my sister but simply to permit her to be treated by a competent physician and get well. This is Shimeon Bengamaliel, the physician. When he goes in there, my sister,
who has a ready temper, may not welcome him. Nevertheless, he must go to her and treat her. Do you understand, Adam?”

  The huge man nodded.

  “Even if she calls out, you are not to go to her or interfere in any way.”

  “Oh no. No. My life is hers, to defend her.”

  “But before her life can be adequately defended, she has to get better. This is the doctor. He must treat her. And furthermore, I command you to keep your nose out of the chambers. I am the king—”

  Long years afterward, Berenice would think back to the time when she saw Shimeon Bengamaliel for the first time, and sometimes she would smile in the reflection of her memory and sometimes she would weep. It was the beginning. Before that, there was only confusion and pain, and then one day she lay on her bed and she knew that she was dying. Her room was in darkness, but the darkness in her soul was much deeper. She was removed from all the world. She was alone, and she was sinking into an inescapable pit. Each day she sank deeper into that pit, and each day she cared less. The only escape was to care—but she cared for nothing. Her hands were the hands of death; whatever she touched died; whatever she cared for died; so now she cared for nothing and she touched nothing, and she was dying.

  Only it took a long time to die.

  Then, as she lay in the darkness dying, the interference began. It began as a glare of light, and as much as she clenched her eyelids against it, it increased, and with it noise and action of various sorts.