by Fast, Howard
“I’m never too tired when a reception goes well—only when it goes badly.”
They bid farewell to the high priest and his two followers, to Niger, the strange war chief of the nomad Jews in the land of Gilead and in the trackless desert to the east of Gilead, and to Habin Judaicus, a leader of the Jewish community in Rome. Another interval:
“Florus demands a meeting tonight.”
“With whom?”
“Caleb Barhoreb,” said Shimeon, “myself—you.”
“He’s an animal. He’s drunk anyway. Tell him we’re tired.”
“He’s not drunk. I told him we were tired. The little swine said that the walls of Rome would crumble if every Roman citizen who was tired forsook his duties.”
Again they paused for farewells. The crowd was definitely thinning out now.
“We are not Roman citizens,” Berenice said wearily.
“He is. We are his Jews—remember, my love?”
“No, I don’t remember, and I am sick to death of this city, Shimeon. Yes, of this High Place, with its unending intrigue and crosscurrents and undercurrents—and—no, no, we are not his Jews, not you and me. We are Galileans, and if we must belly crawl to Rome, let us be someone else’s Jews, not his. I want to go home, Shimeon.”
“In good time, when the session of the Sanhedrin is over. Meanwhile, there is nothing I can do about this. His requests cannot be set aside. We will meet with him.”
“But why me?” Berenice asked.
“I don’t know, but like most Romans, I am sure that he is somewhat confused as to your status. Are you queen of Chalcis or queen of Galilee or queen of Israel or queen of Shimeon or what?”
“Only of Shimeon,” she smiled.
“Then he’s probably after money, and you’re still the richest woman in Israel.”
Shimeon spoke in jest, but he turned out to be bleakly correct.
The guard of four legionaries who had accompanied Gessius Florus were squatting on the steps of the palace and dozing when Berenice ushered out her last guest; and the legend that the legionary dies who dozes on guard duty went with him. One of the legionaries still awake cocked a leg and passed air. His hard, crude fart awakened the others, who made some conversation in their bad Latin, which could not run three words without some reference to male or female sex organ.
Berenice turned back to the house and joined the men in Shimeon’s workroom, a pleasant room where he conducted business, saw patients, or did his writing when they were in Jerusalem. Only now it was fewer patients and more of everything else.
Darkness had fallen by now, and the room was lit by half a dozen lamps and full of what was to Berenice the warm and familiar smell of olive oil. Gessius Florus sprawled on a couch. He had kicked off his sandals and made himself comfortable, one foot drawn up on the couch so that he could pick at his toes. Caleb Barhoreb stood leaning against Shimeon’s worktable, and Shimeon himself sat stiffly on a small bench. Barhoreb came erect and Shimeon rose as Berenice entered, but Florus did not move, only looking at her fully and frankly, like a slave buyer examining the merchandise before him. Shimeon drew an armchair out for Berenice, and she seated herself and said without more ado,
“I tell you, Procurator, that I have had a very full day, and if you think that a reception for half a thousand people is a game played for pleasure, why try it. Myself, I am exhausted—and if whatever you have in mind will take time, I must excuse myself.”
“No time at all,” Florus replied, smiling without parting his lips. He got to his feet, went to the table, where a sand glass stood, and turned it over so that a thin stream of sand began to run. “One glass—fair enough?”
“We’re waiting, Procurator,” Shimeon said.
Back on the couch, Florus picked at his toes and said, “I can’t afford to give receptions like this. It would bankrupt me. I can’t even afford to carry out the common and necessary duties of an administrator. It’s a pittance that’s paid to a procurator. The fact is that I am in debt up to my ears. I try to be understanding, patient, and just. Above all, just—and that’s not terribly easy with Jews. But everything bogs down under my obligations. I should not be pressed to think about money, morning, noon, and night—and my debts. It’s a constant state of temper, and that makes for poor judgment. You don’t want that. Do you know that I had to borrow to come here from Caesarea?”
“How much money do you want, Procurator?” Caleb Barhoreb asked quietly, evenly, his voice under severe control.
“Ten talents,” Florus said flatly, staring at his toes.
Both Caleb and Shimeon looked at each other and then bleakly at Berenice.
“We gave you a talent four months ago,” Caleb said. “Three weeks ago we sent you ten thousand silver shekels. Even a cow cannot be milked four times a day.”
“Jews are not cows,” Florus replied, spreading each toe, one after another, staring at the flesh between them.
“I think,” said Shimeon, “that the procurator is amusing himself at our expense.”
“Am I?” Florus did not look up.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am not amused. Why are you amused, Nashi?”
Shimeon shrugged. “Because that is an impossibly large sum of money. It’s the ransom of an emperor. It would take months to raise a sum that size.”
“Months?” Now Florus looked up. “I was thinking of tomorrow. I suppose I could wait another day.”
“And where do we find this money?” Caleb asked. “You say tomorrow. Where do we find the money by tomorrow?”
“I am only a Roman,” Florus said. “You are Jews. It is your business to find money. The queen here is the richest woman in the world.”
“What nonsense!” Berenice said. “Do you think that I could lay hands on ten talents in two days? If you do, Procurator, you know less about the ways of the world than I would have expected.”
“Are you pleading poverty?”
“No, Procurator—not at all.” Berenice had no intentions of diminishing herself in his eyes. He worshiped wealth; then let him be impressed with her wealth. “I can raise ten talents. It would take a little time, and it would mean selling a number of things that I own. I do not keep chests of coins in anticipation of such moments as this. In fact, I could raise ten and another ten and another ten to boot—and I would not be poor, Procurator, far from it.”
Florus had let go of his toes now. He was staring at Berenice, his expression mingled with greed and awe.
“But I have no intention to do so, Procurator. None. I owe you no money. I am the titular dowager queen of Chalcis, and I am responsible only to the Emperor at Rome. I am not impressed with you and your demands—”
“Berenice!” Shimeon cried.
“—no, no, Shimeon. Let me finish.”
Gessius Florus was on his feet now. Barefooted, short, and round as a dumpling, his hair thrusting up in all directions, his face glowing with deepening color, he puffed out his lips and snapped,
“Yes, Nashi—let her finish! I would not miss a word she has to say!” „
Berenice also rose, towering over the procurator, and said quietly, “I repeat that I am not impressed. You have no power over me, Procurator, and may all your gods help you if you or any of your people lay a finger on me or mine. I am not a Judean, and this is not my city, and I am no stranger in Rome. Not one shekel would I give you—not if I were rich as Croesus, with all the wealth of Lydia in my coffers. Let me add this—”
“Enough!” Shimeon cried, but Caleb gripped his arm.
“—others have made a religion out of hating Jews and looting them. They are dead and forgotten. We are still here, Procurator.” With that, she swept from the room, leaving the three men silent behind her.
Shimeon and Caleb remained silent, waiting. Florus breathed deeply until he had himself under control, and then he said, “I want the ten talents tomorrow. Before I leave Jerusalem. Take them out of the temple treasury.”
“That’s i
mpossible, Procurator,” Caleb said. “You know that. I speak in your own interests. The Temple’s treasury is sacred—”
“Except to the priests, who dip into it like a bottomless well.”
“We won’t argue that. But this is not a happy or easy city. Such an action could explode it.”
“My legionaries will handle any explosion your Jews can make.”
“Procurator,” Shimeon said, “would it hurt to give us a little more time? In the past, you have made demands and we have met them. We are not unreasonable.”
“Tomorrow,” Florus said.
Berenice was awake, sitting on her bed meekly, her long legs drawn under her, hardly daring to look at Shimeon while she asked him what had come of it. He shrugged and said that nothing had come of it, except that Florus wanted his money out of the temple treasury.
“I made a fine display of myself,” Berenice said.
“No. It changed nothing.”
“He thought I would offer him the money.”
“I suppose so.”
“Should I have?”
“And next time—and the time after that? You were right. He has no power over you. Well—we shall see. I am tired, Berenice—I feel old and tired tonight.”
“You are the nashi. We were celebrating,” she pleaded. “My husband is a prince over all of Israel—and don’t—be angry with me. Let me be proud.”
“I am not angry,” Shimeon said, “only very tired.”
In bed, she tried to hold him in her arms, but he turned away. She lay there sleepless, telling herself that all would be well when they left this place and went back to Galilee.
Berenice finally slept, but fitfully, and in the hour before dawn, she was awakened by Shimeon’s movements. He was already dressed, and by the time the first red edge of the morning sun topped the desert hills to the east of Jerusalem, his messengers were out calling for an assembly of the Great Sanhedrin. Berenice went to the kitchen, where a red-eyed, sleepy Gabo was scolding the servants, complaining that the milk was sour and telling a fruit vendor at the back door that she would see him crucified, did he ever again dare to sell her tainted figs. Dropping onto one of the benches at the long kitchen table, Berenice gave the orders for Shimeon’s breakfast. “Is there sour dough?” she asked. “I want him to have hot bread. And warm the milk for him, Gabo.” “It’s sour.” She brought Berenice a wooden tub of sour dough, and Berenice began to work and shape the bread. “Then find sweet milk. Where is the milk vendor?” “Dead, I hope,” Gabo snapped. “And the oven isn’t hot enough—unless he waits for the bread. Does he wait?” The cook, a hugely fat Jebusite, pleaded with Berenice that he was not master even in his own kitchen.
“I say the stove is hot enough,” he said. “But she—that one—that devil of darkness—”
“I’ll tear your gonads off, so help me! If you have any, you fat capon!” Gabo shrilled.
“Do you hear? Lady Berenice, do you hear? Is that the way to talk to a man in his own kitchen? Or is it my kitchen? That devil of Benjamin is destroying me. Destroying me. Give me the bread. You will have hot bread. I say so. I pledge so.”
Gabo spat in disgust and went for fresh milk. Berenice, bearing a platter of fruit, went to the breakfast room. The slaves were already at work in the great reception hall, cleaning away the debris and leavings of the celebration of the night before. As she passed, Berenice heard them talking. “Ten talents,” said one, and another corrected this, “Eight talents—I have it on authority.” “Seven, eight, ten talents—do you know what I would do with ten talents?” And another one, an older woman said, “Empty-headed fools—you’ll drink your own blood for the trouble that will come of this. Trouble. That’s what it means when the Romans ask for money.”
In the breakfast room, Berenice put the fruit on the sideboard and prepared the basin of water and the white linen towels for Shimeon’s hands. He came in a few minutes, held out his hands—why was she always surprised at the size of his hands, not the hands of a scholar or jurist, but the long-fingered, strong hands of a woodcutter?—and she laved them from a ewer. He said his blessing to the Almighty softly, “—who maketh the fruit to grow in the field—” She held out the linen and he dried his hands.
“About last night and the procurator’s demands,” she said. “I heard the slaves talking as I came in here, Shimeon. They were arguing about the amount.”
“What? How could they possibly know?”
“You know what slaves are.”
“I don’t want that out. It’s like pouring oil on the city and lighting it. I’ll talk to them.”
But as he left to do so, Berenice sighed and shook her head. It would not help. The word was out, and nothing could bottle it again.
By noon that day, the story of Gessius Florus and his demand was all over the city. The amount—as the story was related—varied from five talents to twenty-five talents; but consistently the story had him pleading his debts and obligations before Berenice and Shimeon. Berenice belonged to the people of Jerusalem, so far as they were concerned, and they were possessed of three singular things that were not to be duplicated elsewhere on earth, namely: Yaweh, His Temple, and the saintly Berenice. They had ceased even to think of a time when Berenice was perhaps not so saintly, and if there was an act of charity that Berenice was responsible for—and there were many—there were ten for the one that were added to the apocrypha, and which had no other basis than the fertile imaginations of the creative taletellers. After all, was it not an Esther come to life and walking among her own folk? So the very fact that Florus should dare whimper his demands to Berenice added fuel to the flames. Also, out of the reception had come a story of unspeakable insult offered to the queen—the Roman had laid his hand against her breast, openly and insultingly. What Roman? No one knew exactly, but obviously Florus. The stories were woven and unwoven, but the children were not content with stories.
By noon, the morning classes were over. The thousands of children who had crouched in the courtyards of the city’s synagogues while the teachers—Levites they were—paced back and forth, listening to the chanted verses of the Torah, listening for any variation in the pronunciation of the holy tongue, the ancient ritual Hebrew, punishing instantly and severely with a blow from the cedar wands they carried—these thousands of children were suddenly released and poured into the streets of Jerusalem. From six to thirteen years of age, they were bold, wiry, and insufferably insolent. They feared nothing and mocked everything that was not Jewish, and as they poured through the streets they whipped off their ritualistic stocking caps—the dashing cap that Judah Maccabeus first wore—held them out, and screeched, “Alms! Alms! Alms for Florus!” Thickening and mispronouncing the Latin word, which someone had supplied, the roar became “Shtipem—Romus—Florus!” They made it into a singsong cadence that was presently echoing from thousands of throats. And joining to the spirit of the occasion, adults began to drop copper coins and even a silver shekel or two into the outstretched hats. Once the game had turned into the reality, the aimlessly circulating swarm of children began a motion toward the Praetorium, which was in the Palace of Herod in the ancient quarter of Zion. Men and women laughingly joined the procession, which a few moments later poured into the great plaza of the Upper City Market. The fruit and vegetable and oil vendors there looked up questioningly, to be met with the cadenced cry:
“Shtipem—Romus—Florus!”
Across the plaza, the palace front was in the Greek style, a deep portico of fluted columns, dark in its shadow; and now, from that shadowed darkness, Florus emerged and stood at one end of the portico—and almost as if he materialized them magically, there appeared behind him a full maniple of legionaries, one hundred and twenty in full armor, carrying scutum and naked Spanish sword, but not pilum. And behind them, still in the shadow and invisible, stood a second supporting maniple.
It was at this moment that Berenice appeared at the head of the marble staircase that led from the market plaza to the Temple.
She took in the scene with a single swift glance—the crowd of children and adults pouring across the plaza and halted suddenly by the clockwork precision of the maniple that marched forward from the portico; the crowds behind them, unaware, and forcing them forward; the sudden screams of women and children mingling with the derisive scream of “Alms for the Roman Florus!” At one side of the market plaza, across from where the vendors’ carts were stationed, there was a line of the finest villas in Jerusalem, magnificent homes of some of the oldest and most revered families in Judea, built thus to take advantage of the splendid view in the rear and from their roof tops. The afternoon sun struck the plaza just in front of these houses. Nursemaids were there sunning the infants of the houses; children played there; mothers watched them. Now these too churned into a screaming effort to escape the death that marched from the portico across the plaza. And from the end of the portico, Florus watched.
Berenice leaped down the stairs, keeping close to one wall to avoid the people streaming by her to escape; and then she was in the plaza and running toward Florus. But already the maniple had mixed with the children and the feckless adults who had joined them, and still children poured into the plaza. At least two or three thousand children were there already, churning in a screaming, terror-stricken mob—and into the center of it the maniple charged, the Spanish short-swords weaving like the warp and woof of a loom, the shriek of death all over, Jerusalem.
Behind the carts, Berenice raced across the plaza; she had not run like this since she was a child—and as she took the last few steps that brought her to where Florus stood, he was watching her and grinning. Her plea came through her gasping intake of breath:
“Stop it, Procurator—in God’s name, stop it!”
“Whose gods?” he smiled. “Yours? Mine?”
“They’re killing children!” she cried. “Children! Look there—infants! Do you make war on infants?”
The second maniple was marching out of the portico now.
“The more glory to Yaweh,” he yawned.
“Please, I beg you.”
“One begs on one’s knees—even queens.”