“Saul ben Hillel pursues his God as Cadmus sought his sister, Europa,” Aristo said to his wife, and she replied, with that bland and lovely stupid smile of hers, “And with as little success,” thus again delighting her husband. “He will never build a Thebes,” said Ianthe.
The High Holy Days came and went and the Day of Atonement had much significance for Saul, even greater than usual. Overcome with emotion in the synagogue he beat his forehead on the stone floor and prayed, “Harken to my anguish, Lord, that I may know Your Will for me and may follow it, rejoicing, without sin, without repining, and only with joy.” For the first time in his life, as he rose, the tears on his cheeks, he felt that God had not only heard him out that He had opened His lips and was about to speak, and that His countenance had become faintly benign. It was a matter, now, only of the hour.
Then the snow wreathed the scarlet and distorted shapes of the mountains, and the wind was icy and the rain came to the valley in long gray spears of slashing water, and there was a howling in the porticoes and fistlike sounds on the windows and the strong bronze doors vibrated. The river turned to tumultuous lead, tossing wild spray to the dark heavens, and great ships rocked in the harbor and did not raise their sails. Sometimes, in the mornings, there would be hoar frost on the ground, in the stalks of the dead grass and on the branches of the trees, and the orange rising sun would make it sparkle and dazzle the eye. Then it would lift in a mist and be gone and the air would have a clear resonance so that the voices of far distant shepherds could be heard sharply across field and meadow and the atmosphere seemed permeated with tiny points of whirling light.
The red-legged storks flew over Tarsus and there were noisy clouds of other birds, migrating, and the winter was on the land.
A mysterious dreamlike peace came to Saul. He knew he must wait, that the hour was almost at hand. He was not forgotten. He had never attended any of the Roman games, but he had heard of them from Aristo, who had once told him that in every chariot race there was another charioteer waiting, so that when the first was thrown from the vehicle the other could take his place. He felt like that waiting charioteer, impatient for the race, for the victory, for the prize. Somewhere the first charioteer had fallen, or was about to fall, and Saul would be called.
Then the first pink almond blossoms appeared and Saul, like one amazed, saw that the spring was on the earth again and “the sound of the turtle was heard in the land.” The weeks had gone and he had not noticed their passing. He received a letter from his sister, Sephorah, pleading with him to return to Jerusalem for the Passover, for the Seder, which was almost at hand. If he hastened, she wrote, he would be in time. Why did he linger in Tarsus? His business was concluded. His family in Jerusalem yearned to embrace him.
He walked in his gardens and saw the deepening blue sky, the blue pond, the freshening grass, the brightening and flowering trees and the smell of the holy and fecund earth. His heart lifted like that of a warrior who hears a trumpet note, and he cried aloud, with joyful impatience, “Yes, yes, Lord, speak!” Sometimes he found himself trembling. Life flushed into his veins, passion made his spirit soar. He said to Reb Isaac, “I will soon hear the call.” And Reb Isaac said to him, with his tired seamed smile, “Recall what the people said to Moses, ‘Let not God speak to us lest we die!’”
“But you, Rabbi, have heard Him speak often in your soul.”
The rabbi gazed at him a moment and then muttered, “But not as He will speak to you, unfortunate—or blessed—man!”
Saul accepted Reb Isaac’s invitation to dine at his house on the occasion of the First Seder. And one morning Saul awakened to the knowledge that at sunset the feast of the Passover would be held, that most holy day commemorating the “passing over” by the angels of wrath who had preserved the Children of Israel in their captivity in Egypt.
Before the feast they would go to the synagogue, and then the Jewish families of Tarsus would gather at their own tables in their houses and solemnly recount the awesome occasion of the first Passover, and the grandfathers would look at their grandsons and would retell the wondrous tale, and there would be rejoicing and the finest fruits of the season and wine and laughter and lighted candles, and fathers would give thanks that they had fine sons and beautiful daughters and gracious wives.
It was warm now in the gardens, and Saul wandered in them exhilarated, as he had never been exhilarated before, at the wide loveliness of the earth which appeared to be rejoicing with men. Birds were chorusing in the passionate green of the trees. The myrtles were blossoming. The sweetest wind frolicked among new flowers and there were small white clouds in the vivid blue of the sky. The buds of the lilies were like long bulbs of alabaster, glistening and translucent, and their leaves were thin green spears. It was noon, and it was unusually hot, and Saul sat down on a marble bench and looked at the whispering and singing life all about him and laughed to see a jeweled little lizard race near his feet then race away. The black and white swans and the foolish Chinese ducks swam in their reflections, and the water of the pond was like a liquid sapphire.
The heat increased, and Saul felt drowsy and re-entered his house and slept for a while. When he awakened he ordered milk and bread and cheese for himself, and his heart was like a ready cymbal waiting to be struck. The overseer of the hall came to him and said, “Lord, there will be a storm.”
The doors of the atrium were open and from his seat in the dining hall Saul could look through the atrium into the garden. The light outside was now so incandescent that it hurt the eye. There was no sound of bird or wind, only that iridescent silence. The trees stood in it, quivering with brilliance, and the pillars of the portico seemed to have a core of fire within them, so intensely were they glowing. But Saul saw that the sky had become of a more radiant and fervid a blue, utterly cloudless.
After he had finished his small meal he went into the gardens again, and admitted to himself that never had he seen such awesome light nor felt a greater heat, no, not even on the desert. He panted, and heads of sweat appeared on his fair and freckled face. His afflicted eye smarted in the benumbing effulgence, and began to water, as did his good eye. His blue tunic clung to his body and stung him with moisture. Every object, every tree and flower, every wall—now rippling with scarlet and purple flowers—the white walls of the house, the very pond itself, burned with a blinding radiance as if each were being consumed by the sun. A very holocaust of flaming scintillation hovered over all things, appeared to emanate even from the pebbles of the paths. And the heat mounted.
But there was no cloud, no rushing wind, no sign of any storm. Saul looked at the red mountains. Surely they were raging as if being devoured by internal furnaces! Saul could not look at them long. He walked to the road where he could see the valley and the river. The hurrying water was so bright that he had to shut his eyes, and when he did so it was as if he saw, on the darkness of his eyelids, the river again, and now it was the color of blood. A curious oppression fell on Saul, a deep foreboding, a pale terror, a wan agony. He sat down on the marble bench, and panted in the heat, and yet his sweat had turned cold.
He kept his eyes closed, wondering at his sensations which almost prostrated him. He was bemused. Then, all at once, he felt a vast coldness and heard the sudden howl of a wind and it struck his flesh with savage blows. He opened his eyes.
He could not believe it. Black night was on the land, and there was only the most absolute darkness upon him.
I have gone blind, he thought with renewed terror. My sight was taken from me in that fearful light! His hands became wet, and he clasped them together, and again was conscious of the cold. I cannot live if I am blind, he thought. Of what use to God is a blind man? He groaned aloud. And then—horror of horrors—his groan was echoed from the very vitals of the earth in one low vast thunder, and the ground under his feet moved and swayed and the wind howled louder and the chill was shuddering.
Again and again the earth moved and groaned in torment and the wind screamed
to the black and empty sky, and there came sudden human voices, bursting out in confused fright and stunned alarm and the sound of women’s screams, all coming from the alarmed house. The earth rumbled and slid and tilted like a vessel, and thundered in her heart as if dying. (An enormous earthquake occurred at this hour in Nicaea. In the fourth year of tile two hundred and second Olympiad, Phlegon wrote that “a great darkness occurred all over Europe which was inexplicable to the astronomers,” and that it engulfed Asia also. The records of Rome, according to Tertullian, made note of a complete and universal darkness, which frightened the Senate, then convening, and threw the city into an anxious turmoil, for there was no storm, and no clouds, the records of Grecian and Egyptian astronomers show that this darkness was so intense for a while that even they, skeptical men of science, were alarmed. People streamed in panic through the streets of every city, and birds went to rest and cattle returned to their paddocks. But there is no note of an eclipse of the sun; no eclipse was expected. It was as if the sun had reheated through space and had been lost. Many earthquakes, some of them very destructive, occurred widely. Mayan and Inca records also show this phenomenon, allowing for the difference in solar time.)
Saul, unable to move, now understood that he had not gone blind, for he heard the cries for “Light! Light! Light the lamps!” from his house, and he let his pent breath leave his lips slowly and held to the bench lest he be thrown from it in the heaving of the earth.
He thought to himself, “This is the terrible Day of the Lord, which Joel prophesied,” and he was exultant, then terrified again, for had not the prophet Amos rebuked the people, saying, “Woe to you, who desire the Day of the Lord! Why would you have the Day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light; as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him. Or went into the house and leaned with his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the Day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”
Despite his terror, Saul was convinced that this, indeed, was the dreadful Day of the Lord, when God’s wrath would sweep with the whirlwind and the thunder over the face of the earth and all things and all cities and all men would fall before it, and the earth would rush apart in earthquakes and devour all the works of men forever.
His breath came with shallowness and constriction. The earth subsided, but the deep growling remained for some time, as immense stone slipped over stone in the unfathomable abyss below, and chaos was created and chasms disappeared in the endless night. The cold black air quivered like curtains against Saul’s cheek and arms and throat and feet. He did not know if the earth was still trembling or if it was now only his flesh.
Staring into the darkness he waited for what was next to come hardly aware of the cries and shrieks coming from his house. The wind began to fall; it was becoming less furious. The bitter chill was moderating. A breath of warmth touched Saul’s body. Then moment by moment the night receded, and a pale shine began to lighten the zenith. All at once the sun rushed into being again, as effulgent as ever, and as warm, and the growling in the earth subsided, and all was calm and sweet and placid and birds began to chirp and question and a strong and passionate fragrance rose from the blooming ground.
“Thank God,” said Saul aloud, and rose up. He tottered for an instant, like an old man with the palsy and understood that he had felt the deepest fear of his life, more awful than the fear of death.
He went to his house. His servants were prostrate on the floors, their arms covering their heads. They were weeping, but whether with fright or with relief Saul did not know. They raised their heads and showed him their tears.
“It was an eclipse of the sun,” he said to them, kindly. “All is well now.”
It was a compassionate lie, and he knew it, but he did not know the cause of the phenomenon. He had studied both astrology and astronomy, in Tarsus and in Jerusalem. No eclipse had been predicted for this Eve of the Passover. Had there been a strange storm over Tarsus? He had never heard of such a one before, but then his life had not been long. Still, his father had not spoken of a storm like this, nor was there any record pertaining to any like it. Earthquakes were not uncommon in this part of the world, but quite frequent. Still, it was very odd that the sun had disappeared and night had descended—the deepest night he had ever known—and the earthquakes had accompanied the disappearance.
He went to his chamber and sat down and pondered. Had the phenomenon been observed all over the world? He would write to Jerusalem at once.
Then it came to him that something fearful, something dire, perhaps, had happened in the world, something inexplicable, something of calamity and terribleness, and God had uttered a Word and the firmament had been shaken and the foundations of eternity had trembled and the world had been convulsed, Saul pressed the palms of his hands together and shivered.
He decided not to delay in going to Reb Isaac’s house, and then to the synagogue, though it was far from sunset. It was still only the middle of the afternoon. He dressed himself in a white tunic, the best he possessed, with an embroidery of gold at the throat, the gift of his sister who deplored his usual raiment. Over this he threw a brown toga, of not so fine a material as the tunic, and put on his new sandals. He called a quaking servant for the small chariot and drove away to the house of Reb Isaac. The fields and the streams of the valley basked in the gentlest light, but Saul saw disturbed groups gathered in the porticoes of the houses he passed, and standing on the grass, discussing vehemently. He passed a temple to Isis. It was crowded, the people swarming in the portico and he could smell sudden incense and could hear the incantations and prayers of the priests within, and the rising wails of flutes and the cry of harps and zithers.
The house of Reb Isaac was calm, but the old rabbi was very pale and his hands had a tremor. He said at once to Saul, “I thought it was the fearsome Day of the Lord.”
“And so did I,” Saul answered. Then seeing the old man’s suppressed agitation he impulsively embraced him. “It will be explained,” he said, as if to a child.
“Will it? Will it?” muttered Reb Isaac. “I wonder, with all my heart.”
Two days later when Saul again walked in his garden he saw that the lilies were wide open to the sun, their golden stamens shining, and that from them rose a perfume of such intensity that it was like a prayer.
Chapter 25
SAUL wrote to Jerusalem to his sister, Joseph of Arimathaea, and to Rabban Gamaliel, asking them if they had observed “a remarkable and uncommon phenomenon,” which had occurred on the Eve of the passover in Cilicia. He, Saul, considered it a local occurrence, not significant, but “interesting.” He sealed the letter and sent it to Jerusalem, not without some sheepishness. In the meantime, he rationally explained the event over and over to himself and particularly to Aristo, who merely cocked an eyebrow over one of his black and restless eyes and smiled. He made but one observation: “My Saul, I believe it a most ominous event. If I believed in the gods which thankfully I do not—I would say that Olympus had been convulsed to its very heart, and that Zeus had decided to destroy this world out of some divine wrath but had been restrained at the last moment, probably because it came to him that if the world were destroyed so would be thousands of lovely maidens. That is a thought not to be borne lightly.”
Saul did not care for this levity nor did he speak of his own terror on that day. A black storm cloud, he suggested, had gathered over Tarsus for a space and then had withdrawn. “So black a storm cloud,” said Aristo, “that only the sun had gone but the stars peeped out. I saw them myself. No, Saul, I am inclined to believe that the event was preternatural.” And he laughed, seeing that he had vexed Saul.
The spring, golden as dawn, melted into the green and abundant summer and a luminous haze softened the mountains. Saul became more and more impatient, as he was more and more convinced that he was awaiting a call and yet was not receiving it. Again, each day he resolved to return the next to Israel. Then early one morning his overseer came to hi
m in great excitement to inform him that he had a noble visitor, a Roman, a captain of the Praetorian Guards. “Titus Milo Platonius!” exclaimed Saul, hurrying in from the gardens, his hands brown and damp with soil, and he was delighted; and amazed to see his handsome cousin awaiting him in the atrium. The men embraced affectionately. Milo removed his helmet and loosened his belt, and looked about him with pleasure. “And all this, for a man without wife or child!” he said. “Not even I, in Rome, have such a villa.” His strong brown face was heavily furrowed with weather and his cropped brown hair revealed streaks of gray, but his old spare elegance was with him still, and his manner of military grace, and as always he was stately.
Saul showed him to one of the guest chambers and clapped for servants to attend the noble soldier and refresh him. Saul had not known such pleasure for a long time, so long a time that he could not remember. He realized how lonely he had been in his father’s house for nearly a year, and now the house was warm with love and friendship again, and he eagerly awaited Milo’s joining him in the summer portico, where colorful flowers bloomed tall in Chinese vases and pots and a fountain cooled the hot bright air. He clapped for wine and light refreshments, and threw his kitchen into wild dismay as “light refreshments” were usually not encouraged in this house. But by the time Milo came out into the portico the cooks had contrived some delicacies and had unearthed some good wine from the cellar and had brought in a salver of young green onions, radishes and some hot artichokes swimming in oil with a touch of rosemary. From some mysterious hiding—place—not so mysterious to Saul who lightly frowned—they had “discovered” some marvelous cheeses. (They pamper their stomachs, the servants! he thought, but was reluctantly pleased.)
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