Apprentice

by Maggie Anton

  The more I heard about the celebration, the less disposed I was to attend, although I understood that I must attend if I wanted to avoid insulting my hosts. For the primary purpose of Tu B’Av, besides being an antidote to the despair of Tisha B’Av, was to arrange matches between unmarried men and women. Under the full moon, in the warm summer air, the young people danced the night away, hoping those they found most appealing would find them appealing in return. Copious amounts of wine facilitated their pairing up as well.

  Suddenly Rabbi Avahu motioned his wife to switch seats with him, so he sat beside me. “Our talk the other day has made me realize how little I know about the Persians,” he said. “Yet it seems that they may defeat Rome and become our new rulers.”

  Had he noticed my discomfort with the older women’s conversation or was he merely bored with it? “What else can I tell you?” I asked.

  “You were careful not to dwell on them earlier, but surely there are other differences between us.”

  I was reluctant to complain about my compatriots to a foreigner, but his interest in my views was so flattering that I had to tell him more. Luckily it was easy to think of a benign disparity between Jews and Persians so soon after Tisha B’Av. “The Persian religion forbids fasting, and they observe no days of public mourning,” I said. “All their festivals are celebrated with feasting and gifts to the poor.”

  He bent his head closer to mine and lowered his voice. “I understand they practice incest.”

  He had undoubtedly also gone to a bathhouse yesterday, for I could smell his spicy anointing oil. “Only the royal family and some of the high nobility marry their sisters and daughters, but many Persians marry cousins,” I replied. “All Persians must marry within their class.”

  “Their class?” he asked. “Like Jews are divided into Kohen, Levite, and Israel?”

  I shook my head. “They have four classes of freemen. The top three are nobles, warriors, and priests, which includes the physicians, court officials, and astronomers,” I said. “Farmers and artisans rank at the bottom.”

  “Where do merchants fit in?”

  He had not moved away, and my heartbeat quickened at his proximity. “There aren’t many Persian merchants.”

  “No merchants?” His eyebrows rose skeptically. “When Persia sits at the very center of the Silk Road?”

  “There is no place in their hierarchy for merchants,” I said. “Ahura Mazda wants his people to earn a living from growing food and making useful items, not by profiting off those who do.”

  “No wonder the Jews in Bavel are so prosperous.” He smiled knowingly and displayed teeth that were not quite as perfect as Rami’s had been. “Their merchants have no competition.”

  “The majority of Jews are like my family,” I protested. “Mostly farmers, except for an occasional merchant.”

  Demonstrating the charisma for which he was famous, Rabbi Avahu spent the rest of our trip questioning me about the intricacies of turning dates into beer and flax into linen, as if these were the most fascinating topics in the world. And though I resisted, I felt myself succumbing to his charm.

  Nurse encouraged me to attend the Tu B’Av celebration. Even though I wasn’t looking for a new husband, the music and dancing would be good for me. After all, she reminded me, I hadn’t been to such a banquet since my own wedding. And in the unlikely event that Yehudit woke during the night, I wouldn’t be far away.

  So I let Leuton curl my hair, daub me with perfume, and dress me in white linen. But when I approached the large courtyard, and heard music playing and people talking in animated voices, I held back.

  What was I, a widow from Bavel, doing at this celebration of matchmaking where nearly everyone was a complete stranger? Not only was I in no position to participate in such an endeavor, but watching them happen all around me while I was excluded was sure to make me miserable.

  I was about to turn back when Yochani came up next to me. “I’m so glad you decided to join us. You look lovely.”

  “Compared to all the fresh young maidens here, I must seem like a wilted flower.”

  “Let all the youths flock to the virgins.” She thrust a cup of wine at me. “You can dance and enjoy yourself without having to worry about such things.”

  I downed the cup of wine, savoring its fine flavor. Despite the large gathering, Rabbi Avahu hadn’t stinted on refreshments. “I will have to depend on you to ensure that I only drink an odd number of cups,” I told her.

  Yochani looked at me in confusion. “Whatever for?”

  I returned her gaze with equal surprise. “You don’t know the danger of pairs?” When she shook her head, I explained, “Demons have permission to attack anyone who drinks an even number of cups.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she sputtered, as Rabbi Avahu walked over to us.

  “Hisdadukh is correct,” he said. “For there is a Baraita that teaches: ‘He should not eat pairs, nor drink pairs, nor wipe in pairs, nor cohabit in pairs.’”

  I knew that Baraita as well, so I recited it with him.

  “It is clear that our Sages knew of the danger,” he said. “Yet today we are not concerned with pairs in Eretz Israel.”

  “Still, I would prefer that Yochani count my cups.”

  He spoke to Yochani but his smile took in both of us. “Since Hisdadukh has only drunk her first cup of wine, you must be sure to give two cups at a time from now on.” Then he disappeared back into the crowd.

  Trying to see where he went, I noticed knots of older men and women chatting at the edges of the dancing. “Why are all those people just standing there?”

  Yochani grinned knowingly. “Those are the girls’ parents, ready to meet with a young man should a mutual attraction develop.”

  “Only the girls’ parents?”

  “Men here marry much later than in Bavel, so most of them have no parents to arrange their matches.”

  I gazed at the dancers and realized that, indeed, the majority of men were my age or older. The musicians began a new tune, and, the wine already untying the knot in my belly, I took my place among the young women.

  After a while I decided that I had been worried over nothing. As long as I didn’t make eye contact with any of the men, none of them troubled me. The musicians were excellent, and I relished dancing again after such a long hiatus. I took small breaks to eat or savor another two cups of my hosts’ excellent wine. I had been silly to be so concerned. This was truly a delightful banquet, and I intended to enjoy it to the fullest.

  The night wore on as I swayed to the music, appreciating the sea breeze on my damp skin. The moon was low in the sky when I sensed that someone was watching me. The feeling was so strong that, forgetting my earlier resolve, I scanned the circle of spectators.

  And met the stare of a man I had never seen before. He immediately recognized that I had returned his gaze and began walking intently toward me.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  In a panic, I looked for an escape. But as the stranger bore down on me, I realized that fleeing the courtyard was childish behavior unworthy of Rav Hisda’s daughter, widow and mother of two children. I took a deep breath and waited.

  He did not look like a scholar. His dark hair was closely cropped and he was clean-shaven. For a moment I thought he might be Roman, but then he addressed me in idiomatic Aramaic. “I’ve been watching and admiring you for so long I’d almost given up hope that you’d notice.”

  “Am I supposed to know you?” I knew I’d never seen this man before.

  “Forgive me, my name is Salaman.”

  Salaman, the king who built the First Temple, but as Greeks pronounced it? I tried to hide my confusion about his identity. “Are you a native of Caesarea?”

  “Sepphoris is my home, but I’ve been working here for several years.”

  I relaxed slightly. Sepphoris was almost entirely a Jewish city, so Salaman was not likely a pagan. But I was baffled at what to do next. Between Saracen caravan guides and Silk R
oad merchants, I’d probably met more strange men than most women, but that was with Father or Tachlifa accompanying me. Here I was without a guardian.

  He gazed at me patiently, and I began to blush. Obviously he was here to find a bride, and just as obviously I needed to let him know that I was not looking for a husband.

  “I must apologize to you, Salaman, for I am celebrating Tu B’Av under false pretences. I am a widow, but it is too soon for me to marry again.”

  He smiled broadly, displaying such perfect teeth that I was instantly reminded of Rami. “I must confess that I too am here under false pretences, for I am not looking for a wife.”

  I sighed with relief, only to wonder what he was doing here. “Are you also a guest of Rabbi Avahu, then?”

  “I am not staying here at the moment, although I have in the past,” he replied, “which is why I am familiar with the banquets he hosts every year at this time.”

  Suddenly I felt tired, both from dancing so late into the night and with this fruitless conversation. I yawned widely, and was perhaps more rude than I might have been otherwise. “I’d like to go to bed before the sun rises, so if you have anything specific you want to say, perhaps you should say it now.”

  “I am the artisan who laid these mosaic floors, and I have a commission for something even more impressive in Sepphoris.” His tone was businesslike. “Two of the panels will include a beautiful woman’s portrait, and I want you to be the model.”

  My first thought was to reject his request unequivocally. But something, maybe the wine, made me hesitate. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’d need to hear more about this project, and I’m too tired to think about it tonight.”

  “When are you going back to Sepphoris?”

  “Tomorrow or the next day.”

  “I won’t be ready to start working on it for months, Hisdadukh, so you don’t have to decide right away. I’ll come see you sometime after Hanukah.”

  I was halfway back to my room before I realized that I had told him neither my name nor where I was staying.

  I knew Yochani would be disappointed, but as soon as we returned to Sepphoris I told her I would be spending Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur at the Babylonian synagogue.

  “Can’t you at least come with me on the first day of Rosh Hashana and go there on the second?” she asked plaintively.

  Usually I tried to please my hostess by joining her outings, but I needed to celebrate the New Year and atone for my sins in a congregation where I was comfortable, where the service and chanting were familiar rather than jarring.

  “I’m sorry, Yochani, but I need to concentrate on my prayers, and the different way they’re said in the West is too distracting.”

  She sighed. “I understand.”

  I gave her a hug. “I’d be happy to go there for Sukkot.”

  The festival of Sukkot started five days after Yom Kippur and lasted a week, so there were plenty of services to attend. At one of Yochani’s synagogues, it was too much of an effort to understand the leader’s dialect, so when he gave his homily, I let my thoughts drift back to the summer. I recalled how I’d wandered through Rabbi Avahu’s residence the day after his Tu B’Av feast, scrutinizing the mosaics. Each one had increased my esteem for the artist. Had Salaman actually created the designs or merely installed them? Surely his asking me to be his model implied the former.

  I’d expected Susanna or Yochani, or perhaps even Rabbi Avahu himself, to question me about the man I’d met that night, but they must have gone to bed earlier. So I said nothing about him, and lost the opportunity to find out how, and how much, he had learned about me. Salaman said that he’d see me after Hanukah. Did that mean he observed Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in Caesarea, or perhaps he came home for them? I hadn’t seen him on the streets, but Sepphoris was a big city.

  As Hanukah approached, I began scanning men’s faces on the street for his, and whenever I walked across a particularly nice mosaic floor, I wondered if he’d created it. I was reluctant to ask Yochani if she knew him, as that was the surest way to inform the entire town of my interest.

  So I concentrated on enjoying my daughter now that she was walking and able to understand some of what she heard. To my relief, Yehudit was more cautious than her older brother, and while she found many things fascinating, she was more likely to observe them for a while before making an investigation. She so enjoyed watching the kitchen slaves make bread that I let her have her own piece of dough to knead along with them. She was an affectionate child, eager for attention from our all-female household, but men made her shy.

  Yet as much as I took pleasure in my daughter’s progress from baby to toddler, I felt restless. Of course I missed Rami and Chama, but I also had a nagging nostalgia for my days as an apprentice charasheta. So while I continued to weave red silk ribbons, I began inscribing amulets for select clients, regulars at the Babylonian synagogue or friends of Yochani. I wasn’t confident of my power to make angels and demons listen to me, not in this new land, so I didn’t advertise my profession. The few amulets I did write left me aching for the power I used to invoke. Thankfully, my amulets were generally effective at protecting my clients.

  Yochani grew excited as Hanukah drew closer, for we would be celebrating the festival at the palace of Judah Nesiah, patriarch of the Jews in Eretz Israel. Judah Nesiah had been a student of Rabbi Yohanan, and every winter since he’d assumed the office of patriarch six years earlier, he’d invited Yochani to join his household for Hanukah.

  His counterpart in Bavel was the exilarch, who was also an enormously wealthy man with great tracts of land. But though both positions ranked highly in their respective political hierarchies, the Romans taxed Jews in the West to support the patriarch’s office, while the exilarch was expected to support his bureaucracy from his own income.

  “We need to buy you a new stola for Hanukah,” Yochani declared. “Anyone invited to the patriarch’s palace must wear their finest clothes.”

  “But Simeon just got me a silk one for Rosh Hashana,” I protested. “Why can’t I wear that?”

  “It’s for warm weather, so there’s no matching palla.” Yochani would not be easily deterred. “I know. We’ll make you a limbus to wear underneath, and a palla to complement it.”

  “What’s a limbus?” I groaned. Not another piece of complicated Roman women’s clothing. It already took me far longer to get dressed here than in Bavel, and it required Leuton’s assistance.

  “It’s just a pleated skirt that gives your stola fullness at the bottom, as if you’re wearing another gown,” she explained. “The more layers a woman has on, the greater her status.”

  There was no point arguing with her, and I didn’t want to deny her the pleasure of shopping with me. Besides, it was time for me to spend some of those gold coins Tachlifa had given me. So we made a trip to Caesarea, where Yochani helped me choose a suitable length of fine wool, a golden yellow to match my silk.

  “It comes from far to the north, in Britain,” she said. “It’s so cold there that the sheep grow exceptional wool.”

  Visiting the port city again reminded me of a question I had for her. “Why does Judah Nesiah celebrate Hanukah in Sepphoris when he lives in Caesarea most of the time?” I asked, as her dressmaker measured me for the limbus and palla.

  “Sepphoris has been the Nesiah’s home for generations,” she replied proudly. “He only goes to Caesarea because the government is located there.”

  Something about her tone struck me as unconvincing, so I asked again after the dressmaker had gone.

  This time she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The Romans don’t object to Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot because they are ancient holidays described in our scriptures. But Hanukah is a new festival, and worse—”

  “It celebrates Israel rebelling against its conquerors, defeating them, and rededicating the Temple,” I interjected. “Unlike Tisha B’Av, when we wallow in our defeat.”

  She nodded. “It would be a provocation fo
r the Nesiah to celebrate Hanukah right under the provincial governor’s nose. That’s why Rabbi Avahu and Susanna come here too.”

  Initially I incorrectly assumed that we’d be going to Judah Nesiah’s for only one night of Hanukah. Luckily for me, and for Yehudit, his palace was just up the hill from Yochani’s home. Thus I could leave immediately after they lit the Hanukah lamps, nurse my daughter before she went to sleep, and return for the feast with no one but Yochani and Susanna the wiser. I would even have time to light my own lamp in the interim.

  But when I slipped out of the palace, the panorama before me took my breath away. From my position high in the upper city, a myriad of brightly burning lamps was visible throughout the lower. Whether shining from upper windows or outside gates and doorways, the flickering points of light were everywhere. It seemed as though the stars had come down to inhabit Sepphoris. The view from Yochani’s roof was almost as impressive, and I couldn’t resist taking Yehudit outside to admire it.

  Kindling fire was prohibited on Shabbat, so everyone lit their lamps late on that night, well after the holy day was over. Thus Yochani was able to enjoy the scene with me as we walked home from the Nesiah’s.

  “My father used to bring me up here during Hanukah when I was little,” she said with a sigh. “He’d carry me on his shoulders and he was so tall I could see the whole town.”

  She sniffed back nostalgic tears, and I sensed that this was the time to ask about Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yohanan.

  “What was your father like? There are so many stories about him.”

  “Such as?” Yochani’s voice rose defensively.

  I tried to pick the least controversial of the rumors I’d heard. “That he was once so poor he sold himself as a gladiator, that he didn’t know any Torah until he began studying with Rabbi Yohanan, that they met when Rabbi Yohanan was bathing and your father thought he was a woman, and that when they were old they quarreled so vehemently over something that they died without reconciling.”