Written in the Ashes

by K. Hollan Van Zandt

  He took three halting steps forward, then began to cry. She caught him as he fell into her arms, sobbing.

  If only he could always grieve so, she thought. His grief was the only window open to his soul.

  So.

  At all hours after Naomi’s death, friends came to call, and Jemir tried to console them with little cakes and sighs of understanding when he was not assisting Leitah with the cleaning or helping Hannah with kneading bread and preparing hot fuul and tea. Tea. Endless tea. Hannah became the tea-bearer, bringing it even when it was not needed, setting hot cups beside everyone all through the day and into the night. There was no other consolation they could lean on.

  Alizar did not come down from his tower. Hannah visited in the evenings, her footsteps so light in the hall, it was as if she were concerned she might disturb the floor by walking on it. She squeezed her master’s hands, ardently kissed his knuckles, served him wine and warm Roman bread with olive spread. “Can I help you with that?” or “How about with this?” and so much fussing he thought she meant to help him breathe and beat his heart and blink his eyes for him all at once. He finally shut her out.

  After another month had passed, Hannah decided that Alizar needed to at least have a walk, after all it was unhealthy to remain indoors for so long, just watching the light change across the floor. She knew that kind of pain. It did not abate on its own; effort must be made, a pushing from within, enough to break the skin.

  She put on the fine indigo dress that Jemir had bought for her because it matched her eyes and bound her hair back into a long braid with a scarf of the same color.

  When she glided into Alizar’s sitting room he looked up from his tea and smiled his approval. “So the rumors are true,” he said.

  Hannah looked at him, perplexed.

  “We have a goddess in our midst.” Alizar stood, the two red Pharaoh hounds standing with him.

  Hannah bent her head and spoke with her gaze on her feet and fibbed a little. “Jemir thought that you should have a walk.” She had not seen Alizar for a month, and in truth, his gaunt appearance startled her. He was so thin that his clothes simply hung on him as if his shoulders were tree branches. But the bandage was off his hand, as it had healed.

  Alizar winked at her. “And Jemir is right. I should walk. So I should.” He did not move. The hounds, however, turned their ears toward him, tongues lolling. They knew the word immediately.

  Hannah waited.

  Alizar said nothing.

  Hannah picked up his sandals from beside the door and set them beside his chair. A walking gesture.

  The hounds whined in high-pitched expectation and wagged their tails.

  “Bother,” said Alizar. “Wait a moment and I will put on a robe in case I should see someone who wants to pester me with unwanted sympathy.”

  Hannah smiled, and the hounds shot out the door ahead of them.

  The market was busier than usual. The merchants seemed irritated, each trying desperately to draw potential customers into their stalls. There were no Parabolani about, nor had there been in weeks, but no one thought of the priests for the moment as the need to make up for lost business in the stalled economy had everyone scurrying, trying to please, please, please, which only meant the customers felt pestered.

  Rather than push their way through the bustling marketplace, Alizar purchased two ripe plums from a fruit merchant and they walked toward the Gate of the Moon at the other end of Canopic Way, sucking the sweet red juice from the fruit as it ran down onto their fingers.

  Hannah could not think of what to say that had not been said already, and so she decided to go back, back before the riots, and the deaths, and the fires, and so many nights without sleep, and Naomi’s death. “Tell me about Athens,” Hannah said as they stepped onto the beach where the tall, thin waves fell over on the shore like so many fainting women. Before them, a jagged little burm had appeared along the shoreline so they walked along the surf instead, their garments trailing circles in the sea foam.

  “Athens,” Alizar repeated. “Athens is the home of many sages and still many more boasters and charlatans. Piraeus is full of filth and charm, and the Akropolis is another word for beauty. The people are mad when they are not riveted by some new philosophy that offers them another kind of madness. The only thing Athenians love more than fish is women, and the only thing Athenians love more than women is wine. We Greeks argue over things that do not matter to anyone. But they do to us. Once I had an argument with my head gardener that took the better part of a month over what color bougainvillea to plant in the courtyard. He planted red. I wanted fuchsia. He refused to plant the fuchsia. I planted the fuchsia myself and came back to find it missing. We went on like that.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He planted the red, of course.” Alizar chuckled.

  Hannah bent down and picked up a cracked mussel shell that looked like a blue goat hoof broken in half, the inside gleaming pearlescent pink and purple where it was not covered in sand. She rubbed it dry in her palms, and lifted it to the sunlight to admire.

  Alizar took several paces in the soft wet sand. “How are you faring with the upheaval in the city, Hannah? I hear you had more than just a little excitement while I was away.”

  So he knew. Hannah had thought of the girl the Parabolani killed every day. Her beautiful, pleading eyes. “I acted without thought of the consequences; I am sorry. It was my fault Jemir was captured. My anger overcame me. That poor girl.”

  “I want you to know that I am grateful you and Tarek survived the incident. And I am also grateful Orestes was able to free Jemir. But the consequences of your scuffle in the market are not insignificant, as Cyril has targeted me based on whatever he was able to learn from spying on the house afterward. I must tell you that I expect you to pay for the damages the Parabolani caused to my home, Hannah. I have split this evenly with Tarek, who I also see responsible. I will require your library wages to go to the repairs for a time.”

  Hannah nodded in understanding. “Of course, Alizar.”

  “Good then. But is something else troubling you?”

  “I do not understand this city, Alizar. I was not born for this kind of life. I keep thinking of my father and our herd, and I regret not keeping his knife with me the night we were attacked, because maybe then we would still be together.”

  “You do not know that for certain.”

  Hannah cleared her throat. “Yes, I do.”

  Alizar nodded in understanding. “Funny you should mention it, as I have a gift for you.” He drew a bundle of red cloth out from his robe.

  Hannah unfolded it, and withdrew a small silver dagger.

  “I wanted to thank you for helping me, and the Jewish children. I felt I owed you something, and you cannot be out in this city without protection.”

  Hannah smiled and lifted the hem of her himation so she could affix the dagger with its leather strap to her calf. “Thank you, Alizar. I may have been cursed to come to Alexandria the way I did, but I was blessed to come to you. I am terribly sorry for any trouble I have caused you. I have appreciated my lessons in the Great Library. Synesius is a fine tutor.”

  The sky changed then, the wind diving at the silver clouds like a net sweeping after a school of fish. “You are most welcome. I am duly impressed with your Greek, Hannah. You have learned our difficult tongue quickly.” Then Alizar stopped and faced the waves. Hannah paused beside him, sensing that his next words would be important. “So you have given up thoughts of escaping back to the desert?”

  “I never stop thinking of my father, Alizar. Never. But I know I cannot return. He would not want me to die in search of him. I am certain of that.”

  “Good. I feel your education should continue. I can think of nothing more important, especially for a woman. Women possess powerful minds. I feel they should be given more opportunities in governmen
t and as scholars. Look at Hypatia. Anything is possible.”

  Hannah picked up the hem of her dress in both hands as she walked through the swirling saltwater to where the sand was dry. A white gull soared from the waves toward the beach and landed gently, folding her wings across her back. The hounds rushed it at once, and it suddenly lifted into the breeze out of reach, screeching in irritation.

  Hannah tried to read the lines in Alizar’s face, so deeply etched with fatigue, unsettled thoughts, many journeys upon the sea, a childhood full of laughter. “How are you faring, Alizar?”

  He stopped again, having climbed the burm above the ocean’s edge, looking west toward the horizon and the northern tip of Lake Mareotis. “Still among the living, it seems. After I lost my first wife, Mona, I found the soil, and the grapes, and a private, unspeakable relationship with sunlight. And I came to know that I do not define myself by my losses, but by my victories.” Alizar went to tug his beard in his once characteristic gesture, forgetting he had shaved it. A nuisance. He would have to grow it back.

  So.

  They had come to the jetty then, at the south end of the harbor. Alizar stepped up first and gave Hannah his hand to help her. She was so light he thought she must have the hollow bones of a bird.

  “Have you heard news from Antioch? Of the Jewish children?” Hannah asked, and her thoughts went to Gideon and his strong arms, lifting them onto the ship.

  “Nothing yet. My ship will return within the month, and then it will sail again. I am short on time in this life, and my work is never ending.”

  “Shipping wine?” Hannah asked. “I would like to see your vines one day, if you would allow it.”

  Alizar thought a moment and then said, “Hannah, the time has come to make you aware of my real work.” Then he winked.

  Once at the house, Alizar gestured for Hannah to follow him to a small door at the other end of the kitchen she had always assumed led to a storage closet. She had never actually seen anyone in the house open it before. She felt a childish delight seeing him unlock it.

  They passed through the door and climbed a set of stone steps up a narrow, dimly lit passageway that would have been much less dreary had there been a few windows along the walls. At the top of the steps a corridor led off to the east and into a small loft with an elegant transom at one end, the sunlight illuminating a massive altar beneath it. Several urns were set ceremoniously beside slender white candles. There were pots, and reliquaries, and little ancient figurines. Alizar paused and lit a stick of frankincense and fixed it upright in a little bowl of ashes. Then they continued down the passage.

  At the end, Hannah recognized the other hall at the top of the stairs and the large wooden door she was forbidden to enter.

  Hannah touched her fingertips to the winged staff emblem entwined by two serpents carved into the door.

  Alizar explained. “It is the seal of Hermes, the caduceus, an ancient alchemical symbol of the Egyptians with many layers of meaning. You must never show anyone to my tower, Hannah. You must forget it is even here.” Alizar’s tone was stern. Hannah understood. She could keep a secret, especially if Alizar asked it of her.

  With that said, Alizar unlocked the door.

  Hannah imagined for a moment that behind the door she would see a canyon in Sinai that had once been her secret haven. The door would open and she could walk into the deep familiar ravine with rocky crevices that lead into a stone canyon where boulders loomed like ancient people walking side by side, joined like shadows at the shoulder. In the winter the water rushed down with a deafening roar, but in the summer the stream dried up and formed a path to a high cliff that overlooked the valley. Hannah could almost breathe the wet earth and pine in her nostrils.

  Alizar shoved open the door to reveal six stalwart Dorian columns evenly spaced around the room in a circle. Between them a mandala of the planets stretched across the floor, painted in vibrant detail. Tall Moorish windows offered views of the city. In the rear stood an alcove of ever expanding bookshelves, Alizar’s private collection, a lifetime of his painstaking codex-binding successes and failures. In front of them was a sea of scrolls spread out on every available surface. Hannah recognized the scent of musty papyrus, joss sticks, and ocean spray that seeped out of the stones as the one that always lingered on Alizar’s robes. A large brass armillary was set on the closest table, an improvement on previous models from Alizar’s candlelight vigils of undisturbed concentration.

  All along the windows were enormous clay pots large enough for a small child to hide in, each brimming with scrolls. On the tables nearby, scrolls were stacked in piles, bundled with string, spilling out of wooden boxes, and strewn across the floor. Alizar reached into a pot and lifted one out, and unfolded it, inviting Hannah to have a look.

  Hannah tipped her head and tried to discern the odd symbols, but found she could not.

  “The teachings of the great Egyptian alchemists, Hermes Trismagistus.” Alizar returned the scroll to the pot. “So are all the rest.” He went to the next clay pot. Alizar fished out another scroll and opened it, then another. “And this is the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. This the Gospel of Thomas.”

  Hannah looked confused. “So you are a collector?”

  Alizar shook his head. “These scrolls are copies of scrolls in the Great Library, should the Christians ever decide to burn our library like they did those in Pergamon, Tarsus, Antioch and Ephesus. I decide what is significant enough to be kept, I sponsor the copying, and then I send these pots aboard my ship to be concealed in hidden locations around the Mediterranean. Gideon buries them and maps them. Then he returns here and I load the ship with more.”

  “So this is your work.” Hannah was beginning to think Alizar was probably the Emperor of Africa and just had not gotten around to telling her yet.

  “Yes, this is my work, and it is a secret I entrust to you. You must tell no one, and defend it with your life if you must, for all of this is far more important than you or I.”

  Hannah nodded. “I promise.”

  Alizar picked up his pipe from the table and lit the bowl with a nearby candle. “Well, would you like to see the view of the city from the roof?”

  “Very much.”

  Alizar palmed a nautical brass weight that hung by a manila rope from a pulley, slowly lowering a set of small stairs from the ceiling. On top of the roof, looking east to the Jewish quarter, the city sprawled before them like an open wound. In the north, the isle of Pharos and all the sea beyond it lay concealed behind a curtain of mist hovering at the shoreline.

  “The breath of Nereus, the sailors call it.” Alizar said, gesturing toward the fog. “By legend it is said to conceal the interference of gods in the lives of men. I suppose we must entertain the gods. If life were not a spectacle for someone, why live?”

  Hannah walked to the edge. “You are at eye level with the birds up here,” she said as several seagulls dipped and soared past.

  Alizar smiled, looking at all the white bird shit that streaked the stone ledges. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  14

  The fierce summer sunlight blurred the edges of the short nights, and annual customs jolted everyone in the city into a merrymaking mood whether they felt like it or not. Hannah, Leitah, and Jemir wound through the city as two trumpets blew at either end of Canopic Way to signal that the opening ceremony of the Mid-Summer Chariot Race was about to begin. Everywhere people scrambled into viewing positions on top of the city’s walls, pushing and wriggling against each other for a seat. Each successive year always brought one or two fatalities as people crowded in the front were pushed off the top of the high walls by those in the back, like penguins huddled on an ice shelf. No one could remember who first conceived the unusual idea of running this particular race around the periphery of the city instead of in the hippodrome like all the other chariot races, but the popular tradition had held up through the cen
turies.

  This year, however, for obvious reasons, the chariot races were not as well attended. The festivities only thrust the exile of the Jews to the forefront of everyone’s minds, when they saw the bald patches of seats along the wall where families and friends had gathered every year for generations.

  The three moved along the wall to sit above the Gate of the Moon on the west side of the city, where Tarek was already waiting. He held out his hand to Hannah so that she would sit beside him, his eyes sweet with the request. Hannah swallowed and sat down, unable to refuse him when he was kind. Below her the empty street was lined with barrels from Alizar’s vineyard, mostly to keep the chariot wheels from striking the walls. Alizar’s was the most envied box of the west end, as the finish line would be drawn across Canopic Way directly beneath them. The seats had belonged to Alizar’s house for as long as anyone could remember.

  Tarek was already drunk, and in the mood for telling stories. He recounted how in the previous year he had, drunk and stoned, pissed on a wheel of one of the losing chariots. The chariot driver, screaming profanities, had flogged him with his whip while chasing him down the street. “I only wished I was naked,” Tarek had proclaimed with a grin. This story got a few laughs, even from strangers listening in.

  Behind Hannah, Leitah soaked up the heat with her eyes closed, wearing a wide brimmed hat woven from palm fronds to prevent the sun from burning her delicate Egyptian skin. The hat was a wonderful idea, and soon Hannah was wishing she had one as well, since the sea had not offered up even the stingiest breeze. In the west, Lake Mareotis shimmered with the sun’s captured glean, making the day uncomfortably bright. To block out the glare, some people took to wearing eye masks of black horsehair that tied behind the head.

  “Where is Alizar?” Hannah looked over her shoulder.

  “He will be here. He never misses this race.” Tarek smiled as he lifted his flagon of wine.

  However it was not Alizar who appeared weaving through the crowd, but Gideon. He was carrying several boxes, so it took him a long time to reach the front of the wall. Hannah had not recognized the ship’s captain, but once she did, she felt grateful to see him. She had thought often of his valor in saving the children, and realized she must have misjudged him the first time they met. She had seen him as rather coarse and arrogant, yet he had made certain every child had been able to fit on Alizar’s ship. She stood up to make more room for him so he would sit beside her and share how the Jewish children fared in the journey to Antioch.