by Tracy Groot
He had hung about that corner for a few days, figuring if they had at least heard of Rivkah, she must be about somewhere. But the people coming and going in this part of town did not like to be questioned. And if he asked a woman her name, he got a variety of answers. Nobody asked a woman her name around here. The question they asked was, “How much?” His cheeks warmed just thinking of it. If his parents could see him now.
Seagulls cried in the harbor. The smell of the sea came in on a breeze, and with it the smell of smoked fish from the smokehouses on the quay. Such different smells from those in Hebron. Everything was different. Caesarea was a port town, a worldly, wonder-filled place. So much to see. It reminded him of Jerusalem because of all the foreigners. It was a place where business was transacted between Romans in their white togas and locals in their decent tunics. Ships of every size came and left the harbor, laden with spices, cloth, grain, wood, balsam, and travelers. Warehouses lined the quay, bustling with people coming and going. Women came to see their men off or welcome them home. Certain women came to pick up business from sailors; Joab had looked for Rivkah here too.
He was coming up on the Great Stadium. He gazed past it to the Praetorium Palace on the promontory. The sight of it brought a curl to his lip. The man had made Marina cry. One day Joab would like to make him answer for it.
The expanding part of south Caesarea—the New City, they called it—was planned out instead of built around. Here the streets were laid out in parallel lines. Here were new villas, expensive ones from the look, and much more expensive shops. This is where Caesarea was the most Roman. Yesterday, on the way back from the palace, Theron had pointed out to Joab a place where he had put in a mosaic.
“A retired Roman general lives there, Antony Scarpus. I did a copy of a Sossus for him. Over there is the home of a woman named Camilla. I did a Sossus for her too. It is in her triclinium and looks as though foods have fallen off the table. Get it? The floor looks like it needs to be swept after a feast—nutshells, fish bones, olive pits, lobster claws—all done in tile. Quite amusing.”
Joab smiled. Who would take him for a master mosaicist? He looked more like a cheated merchant. One minute he shook the heavens with his complaints of the mortar Joab had mixed—apparently, mosaicists were very touchy about their mortar—and the next minute, he cooed like a new mother over the color of some stones Joab had found on the beach.
“I did a labyrinth over there. Theseus killing the Minotaur. Marina helped me on that one. She did a wonderful job. Well—pretty good. Ho, what a lot of money in those tiles. Gold leaf under glass. An exquisite pain to work with such tiles, but Joab, you should see it. You don’t want to be a mosaicist, do you.”
“I—”
“No, it’s all right. I don’t understand it, naturally, but it’s all right. You have to find what you want to do. What kind of trade were you brought up in?”
“Dye. My father owns a small dye works in Hebron.”
“Ah. So you know color. I knew that much.”
The Great Stadium was probably the best part of Caesarea. He’d like to see a chariot race someday; Theron said Pilate was an avid supporter of the races. From the stadium he soon heard the same thin sounds as yesterday.
Maybe he should join the auxiliaries. Wouldn’t that raise Avi from his grave. Jews and Judean Gentiles who actually joined forces with Rome. But did Joab care? Truth was—and if he had ever mentioned this to Avi he’d have been asking for a slit throat—Joab felt the Jews were beaten. The last true Jew on the throne was Aristobulus, and that was a long time ago. Why not try and make the best of it in this Roman world? Except for the taxes it wasn’t so bad. Why spill any more Jewish blood over an enemy too strong? That was what had haunted Joab, in deep secret thoughts, that people would die needlessly because it would take every single Jew in Israel to rise against them, and there was no way that was going to happen. Raziel of Kerioth thought it could, he honestly did, and for a time Joab allowed the man to beguile his hopes to action. But it turned out as his father had warned him: the Jews could not be united. Until that happened, Rome would remain in control. A courageous fool is what Father had called Raziel, with a sadness that spoke of his own bitter longings.
The Teacher from Nazareth had renewed some nationalism, but he made it clear he was not interested in the restoration of Israel’s former glory. The only clear thing was that everything he said would not be clear. And now he was dead—or was supposed to be. Joab tried to push off thoughts of Jesus. It wasn’t easy, considering the words he was charged with.
Before the doctor told him the story, he thought maybe he had seen enough and thought enough of Jesus to shore up what belief he had and cast it toward him. But the story of the adulteress and the stones and no accusers did more to set Joab at a distance from Jesus than anything else. It was an act of mercy, and that was appealing. But it was also a clear defiance of the Torah. And that was unsettling. Torah was Law, Torah was God’s Voice to his people. What Jesus did was much more than an astonishing act of mercy.
Well, and Father was right, wasn’t he. Today he wouldn’t be thinking of issues fit only for rabbis if it wasn’t for his own passion to leave home. Passion for anything got him into trouble. He’d still be mixing dyes with Father, were it not for listening to Avi or Raziel. The cause is everything. Hollow words now. Avi was dead, Raziel likely would follow. Why had he wanted to leave home so desperately? It wasn’t such a bad life.
One thing had happened that perhaps changed Joab for the good: he learned he had an opinion. All his life he had allowed others to shape and guide what he thought. He noticed, lately, that he stood his ground on what he really believed and that felt good. They were his own opinions; they might not be right in the whole scope of things, but they were his own. He was thinking for himself. That counted for something, maybe even with God.
Joab squinted at the curved stadium wall as he passed. Would the auxiliary troop be so terrible? Three meals a day. Lodging. Something to do. He hated working with stone. All week Theron had him chipping out tiny squares. Chiseling strips of stone, chiseling nicks, then breaking off tiles at the nicks. Sorting the tiles to be sanded later. He tucked the bundle under his arm to look at his palms. He’d soon have more cuts on his hands than hairs on his head.
How did he die? Joab imagined Rivkah saying as he stared at his hands.
He died because I did not act in time. He died because I was a coward. Your Nathanael would be alive today, were it not for Joab ben Judah of Hebron.
His tablet under his arm, Orion stood at the edge of the granary work site looking for the foreman. Some of the workers glanced his way and nudged one another. Look, Pilate’s number one. What is he doing here? Investigating the matter of the Jewish whore? Maybe he can see how overworked we are in the bargain.
Orion snorted. They did not appear to be in danger of overwork. Some lounged at the half-finished wall, languidly chatting. Three men threw dice near the cement-mixing barrel. One sat examining the sole of his sandal. Two men at the wall noticed Orion and made a show of labor; one slapped a trowelful of mortar on a stone block, another set a block in place. The one with the trowel scraped away the excess, exaggerating his movements, acting as fussy for the outcome as if setting the block for his own home. Orion rolled his eyes away; when he looked again the man had resumed conversation, leaning on the block he just set, displacing it bit by bit. Orion watched the block press out a curve of mortar.
All the while he was aware of the tree on the slope. He had looked for her the moment he came on site. There she was, knees drawn up, arms about them, gazing out at the sea.
He was here to give the order. What was he thinking to try and talk it over with Theron and Marina? Did he think to buy her time? She had pressed the appeal for two weeks. The foreman had no more patience for her presence. There was no more time left. Orion had his orders straight from Pilate. The tree would come down. Today.
He risked another glance at her. The look on her face, he ha
d not seen this one before. Her features were smooth, features not resolved for battle. He could call the expression tranquil but for the tightness of her eyes. What was that tightness? Worry? She wasn’t worried she would lose her fight, was she? Not she. She had lost it, of course. But she didn’t know that.
What did she see on those waves? Did she think of the one whose tree she guarded? He must be some boy. Orion wondered if the son had as much grit as his mother.
Then she was looking toward him, and his stomach dipped. She was smoothing a long strand of black hair from her face, and her hand stilled when she saw him. He knew the expression would change, would assume that wry haughtiness he knew. But for a moment she gazed at him with the sea expression. For a moment they regarded one another, both faces smooth.
Then wryness came, the superior set to her lips. He in turn allowed his face to go its usual way with her. He felt his face say he was a schoolmaster with a recalcitrant student who amused him. He gave her a nod and turned back to observing the site.
His schoolmaster face dissolved as he became aware of the weight of the tablet. This morning he had scraped the old beeswax from the tablet’s wooden recess and pressed in fresh. He carefully scratched in the words of Pilate’s new decree, copying it from the one he had made on papyrus for the archives. He did not try to word it gently, he gave it as bald as it was. They were Pilate’s words, not his own. Regarding the foreman’s appeal: Cut down Jewish tree. Send Jewish whore away.
Irritation grew as he tried to spot the foreman. He didn’t have time for this, he had to get back to the palace. He could see the matters pile up on his writing table from here. The quicker he was done with this the better.
“I heard you were looking for me,” a voice said behind him. Orion turned to find the foreman, and caught sight of someone else.
Past the foreman, mostly concealed by a tall pile of stone blocks, was the lad from last evening’s meal. Joab. He was holding a bundle and gazing intently at . . . Orion turned to see. And his teeth ground of their own accord.
Rivkah. The lad was gazing at Rivkah. She did not notice him. She had gone back to the sea, her face more expressionless than before. A look nearly bleak, and it jabbed like a thorn. She rested her chin on her knees. A waft of breeze lifted her filmy veil. It billowed, then settled like a tamed wind. Slowly he turned back.
“You want me to take him away, sir?” the foreman was saying.
Orion blinked.
The foreman gestured with his head to Joab. “The lad . . . you’re looking murder at him. What’s he done? I could have a couple of men—”
“That won’t be—” He broke off to clear his throat. “That won’t be necessary. He’s leaving.”
Joab had turned away. Had stumbled away, actually, and broken into a run.
“He must’ve seen your face, sir,” the foreman snickered. He looked to where Rivkah sat. “Probably came to look at the whore. I hope you plan to do something about her, and soon. I’m tired of the disturbance among the men. The lesser of my men leer at her all day. She even had one of them in the shed over there. I keep telling her to take her filthy trade elsewhere, and she curses me to make a barbarian proud.” He folded his arms and sneered at her. A look not far from a leer itself. “I can’t wait to hear her howl when I cut down that tree.”
“Pilate says the tree stays.”
The man took his slobbering face from Rivkah and looked uncertainly at Orion. “Pilate says . . . what, is she Pilate’s whore? But she’s Jewish.”
It took the space of a heartbeat, maybe the time it took for his own gaze to cut to Rivkah. Pilate’s whore. Pilate’s whore, and therein safety lay. The chance to save her tree came through a coarse foreman.
Orion, you majestic idiot . . .
Orion slid his gaze to the foreman. He glanced about as if for privacy, then leaned to the foreman. Through stiff lips, without looking at him, he said deliberately, “Of course she’s not Pilate’s whore. You said it yourself. She’s Jewish.”
In a moment, the man had a sly grin on his face. Now in Orion’s confidence, he grew bold. Just as conspiratorially, he replied, “Who would have guessed, a Jewish whore. Eh, Pilate has taste then. Jewish or not.”
“So you understand the . . . delicacy of this situation.”
The foreman nodded. “I understand plenty.”
You can still back out. Right now . . .
“It cannot become common knowledge that she is . . .”
“. . . in Pilate’s services.” The man pressed his fingers to smirking lips. “Too bad I can’t cut down that tree, but we know women, don’t we. She don’t get her way, Pilate don’t get his.”
Orion made himself grin. “You are a discerning man—what is your name again?”
“Raman.”
“Raman. I would like you to let it be known—in the discreet manner you seem capable of—that the woman and her tree are not to be touched. Do not let the men know why.” He gave him a significant, amused look. “Only you and I have to know that.”
Orion, you fool.
“Yes, sir.” Then, after a lingering grin at Rivkah, whose wary attention was now on the both of them, Raman said, “You have the new plans from the architect?”
Orion moistened his lips, then opened his tablet a little to let his stylus fall out. He bent slowly to retrieve it, and bent, allowed his face to make a vicious fist. The architect! No, by the gods and all their mincing offspring it wouldn’t be as easy as that. The granary would have to be modified to accommodate the tree. The whole place would have to be resurveyed. He would have to spend time he did not have to find and bribe an architect to engineer the changes and keep the reason quiet. Gods, gods he had to think.
Could an eighteen-year-old cedar be transplanted? Or would that violate yet another suffocating custom? With Orion’s luck, such a thing would end up worse than cutting the thing down. He straightened, and on the upswing shot a dark look at Rivkah.
He tucked the stylus into the tablet. “The architect has not yet been informed,” he said briskly. “You know how slowly these matters move. I will get the plans to you in a day or so. The wall is certainly not in danger of reaching the tree any time soon.”
If Raman caught his jab at the slovenly pace he didn’t let on.
Orion surveyed the site. He would have to study the original drawings in the archives. He would have to change the wall to stop short of the tree by at least, what, twenty feet? But ho! Perhaps an additional custom said the birth tree could not be within twenty feet of a Gentile establishment! And what would Orion do then? He’d like to roll up the whole thing and shove it up the nose of the nearest Jewish official. He’d like to laugh himself to weeping, if he had time for it.
To my honorable father, from your Orion, greetings.
What curse was laid upon our lineage to visit every male by the time he turned thirty-seven? Which Fury is fast on my trail? Life, Father, is suddenly surreal, and if I survive the week it is because some god stayed my hand from plunging a knife into my heart.
Orion’s bleak gaze somehow ended up on Rivkah. The worst thing in the whole rancid mess was that he had just made her Pilate’s whore. A rift of wind from the sea stirred the tree branches. Customs. How he hated customs.
She watched until he disappeared, thinking maybe he would turn around. Look up one more time before he left. He never did.
Why had he come? What was he talking to the foreman about? She would find out when she visited the palace tomorrow morning. Today was Sabbath, and as a rule no Jews were heard at the palace on Sabbath—it was assumed they would not show up for business. A new rumor said that all Jewish matters would be heard by Pilate only once a month. Once a month! She would have to ask Orion Galerinius about that.
What did he talk to the foreman about? If it had nothing to do with Nathanael’s tree—and if God heard the prayers of a prostitute then it didn’t—he would simply tell her it was none of her business.
She picked up a stick to stir the
sand. What made him so sad? When the foreman went back to work, Orion Galerinius Honoratus had looked up at her with none of his usual airiness. It was a look to catch her breath, she’d not seen that look before. Then he turned and walked away.
She pitched the stick aside. Her arms resting easy on drawn-up knees, she thought on Orion. . . . He needed something. He needed out of that stuffy palace. He needed to take a walk on the quay at midnight, get a faceful of stars. Someone should throw sand at him, throw him in the sea, wake him up, startle him.
That’s what he needed. He needed to be startled. He was so in control, so efficient. She smiled wryly. Well, she had startled him once. And what she offered him he was too decent to receive. At that moment, not for the first time but for the first time in a long while, she had felt shame. She also felt a crazy contradiction in the offering: if he had accepted, she would have liked him less.
She sighed hard. She hoped Orion Galerinius would have Pilate’s answer soon. Why was it taking so long? Not that this daily vigil was so terribly awful. She’d never had two weeks to do nothing but sit and stare at the sea . . . or amuse herself with fantastical thinking . . .
She was a cloth merchant from Spain! A cosmetic dealer from Egypt! She was a rich woman traveling in Corinth, and in her exotically draped sedan chair borne by handsome slaves, she chanced to pass the temple of Artemis (or whatever god it was called by). There she would call a halt to her slaves. She would descend and enter the temple and ask to speak to the person in charge. While she waited she would not make eye contact with the temple prostitutes. When the person in charge came, and after some astonishing negotiating, she would clap her hands, and her slaves would bring forth chest after chest filled with gold coins. She would purchase the freedom of those cult prostitutes she did not make eye contact with.
They would imagine they were being purchased for their function. How astonished they would be, led away and taken to the harbor and each given a purse filled with gold. They would be told, “Go! Anywhere you want, you are free! Go back to your home, if you can, make for yourselves a new life. Go, you are free!” Free.