Just a Girl

by Jackie French

  His eyes shut in agony.

  We reached the cave. It was hard hauling him through the narrow crevice of the entrance. A body on the ground can’t twist like someone standing up. The slave’s eyes rolled up and again I thought he might be dead. But he was still breathing when I got him into the dimness.

  Rabba stared. Baratha clung to her.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ I said.

  Rabba said nothing for a moment, then sniffed. ‘Well, he’s not sharing my pallet. Or yours! He can lie on a goatskin on the floor.’

  She jerked her head towards a pile of them rolled up on a sack of wheat. And that was all she ever said about me saving him.

  I ended up washing him anyway, the bits that showed, wiping the blood off the cuts on his face and hands, and bandaging his twisted knee with strips of wet goat leather instead of cloth. I didn’t know much about broken bones or knees, just that you needed to use damp leather straps to keep the limbs straight. Though they always healed crooked, no matter how much care the healer took.

  Baratha crouched next to me, still chewing dried figs. She’d never had a chance to eat as many as she wanted before. She’d have a tummy ache.

  The slave’s eyes opened as I finished bandaging, his face twisting in pain.

  I asked, ‘If I take the gag off, will you be quiet?’

  He stared at me, then nodded.

  I untied the cloth cautiously, wondering if he’d bite or grab me. But he must have known he couldn’t get anywhere without help.

  And then I realised. He had screamed in agony as I pulled him, but he hadn’t yelled, ‘Help!’ He couldn’t know that the Romans had left, that there was no one to hear him call and come running to save him. Yet he’d only made a sound when he couldn’t bear the pain. He hadn’t tried to strike me . . .

  His lips were dry. I lifted his head a little and held water to his mouth. He sipped and kept on sipping, as if desperate but knowing he shouldn’t gulp it down. At last he finished.

  What did you say to a Roman slave you’d almost killed? I spoke to Rabba instead.

  ‘I’m going to light a fire, just a little one. There won’t be much smoke and no one will see it in the dark. Shabbat starts tomorrow night. I need to cook food for us so I don’t work on Shabbat.’

  She shrugged agreement, still looking at the Roman.

  I said, ‘His name is Caius and he’s a slave.’

  He looked at me properly then. ‘How do you know my name?’ he whispered.

  ‘I heard two Romans talking about you. The army has left now,’ I added.

  He raised himself onto his elbow, wincing. ‘They saw me down there? They recognised me?’

  I nodded. How did you tell a young man that his companions had abandoned him, alive or dead, for the jackals to eat?

  I didn’t need to tell him. He guessed. I saw the bleakness cross his face. It couldn’t be easy realising you meant nothing, even to those you’d thought your friends. A slave was worth what he’d fetch at the market. Until he was broken, like Caius was now.

  I waited for him to yell at me, or try to hit me, to hurt me back. Instead he was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘Thank you.’

  I stared at him. Did he mean for dragging him up here? Setting his leg, giving him water?

  ‘Thank you for hitting me with the stone,’ he added.

  ‘What stone?’ asked Rabba sharply. ‘Girl, have you been using the slingshot again?’

  I ignored her. ‘Why are you thanking me? I almost killed you.’ I didn’t say: I tried to kill you. I hoped you were dead.

  He said, ‘Because if I live or die now, it will not be as a slave.’ And then he shut his eyes.

  Whether he was sleeping or unconscious, or wanted us to think he was, I didn’t know.

  Chapter 11

  I gathered as many twigs as I could carry, and then the firewood Caius had been carrying, and some dried sheep droppings that would burn hot and long. Some flints and iron had been placed with the sacks. I used them to light the fire over by the cave window, where the smoke would rise and flow outside, but no one would see the flame in the darkness. Even after Shabbat was over, I didn’t want to have to light another fire or cook for a few days. It took ages to light a fire with flint, and it was too dangerous to let the smell of cooking linger.

  Most of the sacks were filled with barley, both the raw grain and cooked parched barley, as well as some wheat; and porous amphorae full of dried figs, apples or dates, and glazed ones with bees’ honey, pomegranate honey or olive oil.

  I had no millstones to make flour for bread. I mixed up a parched barley porridge instead by firelight, several pots of it. Parched barley only took as long to cook as the blessing for preparing food, and Baratha needed something to settle her belly after all those dates and figs.

  I would have liked to light an oil lamp. There were two in the cave — I supposed for use when the goods were stacked or taken away — and pots of oil too. But I was afraid the light might gleam from the crevices, visible to any stragglers who might still linger up above.

  I mixed small cakes from cracked barley as well, moistening the dough with pomegranate juice and a little oil, keeping them thin so they cooked quickly on the hot rocks around the fire; thirty, forty, fifty small flat loaves. Rabba and Baratha nibbled them warm, and so did I as I cooked. They looked like small rocks, hard and heavy, and tasted like them too, but at least they were hot food.

  The barley porridge was better. Even a bad cook can’t mess up parched barley. I gave the goat a small pile too. She ate, but kept looking at the entrance. Goats didn’t like to stay in one place too long.

  Caius kept his eyes closed all through the cooking and eating.

  I tried to work out how long we could live on the food in the cave. There was enough grain for four families for a year perhaps, as well as enough to pay the taxes, and for Sarah’s wedding feast . . .

  I must not think of Sarah now, or Rakeal or Ma. Instead I considered the sacks, the urns, the jars and pots. The only major harvest that hadn’t yet been gathered in was the olives, but there were still several jars of oil from last year. I could hunt pigeons or quail, and wild goats and deer too. There might be fruit left on the trees in the orchards, or some vegetables the Romans had overlooked. Wild greens would spring up when the autumn rains came.

  We could live here for a long, long time, I thought. As long as no one finds us.

  Rabba finished the porridge and handed me the empty pot to wash. I gave it back to her, clean and full of water, with a cloth so she and Baratha could wash their faces and hands.

  Caius’s eyes were still shut, his breathing still regular, but we all knew he was awake.

  At last Rabba said, ‘Pass me that stick.’ It was a long one, part of the bundle of firewood Caius had gathered. She grasped it in her skinny hand and poked him with it. ‘Wake up, you,’ she said in Koine, and then some words in Latin that I didn’t understand. She spoke Latin well from her years in Jerusalem. The words didn’t sound polite.

  Caius opened his eyes. He looked at us warily, muttering a Latin prayer under his breath. I only understood a word or two, but Rabba’s eyes widened.

  ‘Give him water,’ she ordered when he’d finished his prayer. ‘Mix it with pomegranate honey to give him strength.’

  ‘Why does he need strength?’ whispered Baratha, looking at him timidly.

  ‘To answer questions,’ said Rabba flatly.

  I mixed the pomegranate honey and water, then held Caius’s head up again. He drank, then whispered, ‘I need the chamberpot.’ He looked embarrassed.

  So was I. I’d never held a chamberpot for a man; never thought to do so for a man who wasn’t my family.

  ‘Oh, give it to me,’ snapped Rabba.

  She wriggled her way over to him. Her arms were stronger than her legs. I held out a pot, then turned my back. I heard cloth rustle and smelled urine, strong and concentrated, for the sun was hot and he’d lain in it all day.

  ‘Empty the pot,
’ ordered Rabba.

  I put my knife and sling in my belt automatically, then took the pot outside into the moonlight. I washed it quickly, using water from a pool further down the wadi, then ran back, checking that no light or smoke was visible from our cave. But the hill was moonlit black, the rocks gleaming quartz stars from the cliffs.

  On impulse I took my knife and cut some tufts of grass for the goat.

  ‘Maaaaagh,’ she said, smelling it as I came in.

  No one was speaking. I gave the goat her grass, then considered Caius. He was lying back on the goatskin, staring up at the cave roof.

  ‘You must eat too,’ I said, and lifted one of the pots of porridge, still warm, to take over to him.

  ‘Take your knife off before you go near him,’ warned Rabba. ‘Don’t let him grab it.’

  ‘I won’t grab it. I won’t hurt any of you,’ he said wearily.

  Rabba snorted. ‘I’d as soon believe a donkey who said he wouldn’t reach for green grass.’

  I put my knife and sling down near the fire, then edged over to the slave with a bowl of water so he could wash his hands and face. He washed and dried himself, then checked his leg, sitting up to feel along it. When he came to the bandages, he looked up at me quickly, then back to the food.

  He ate some mouthfuls of the porridge and his face grew even paler. I wondered if he was going to be sick. But he just murmured, ‘Thank you. That is enough.’

  ‘Come on then, boy,’ demanded Rabba. ‘Talk. Who are you? And what is happening in our country?’

  I could see from his face that he considered pretending, hoping we would treat him as a Jewish slave who had been captured, not the enemy. But there was truth in his voice when he said, ‘My name is Caius. I’m a calone — a military slave from Rome itself — to Centurion Arius Rubrius of the Fifth Macedonian of the great army of Rome. I —’

  ‘Jerusalem,’ interrupted Rabba. ‘Who cares about your centurion. Tell us of Jerusalem!’

  Caius looked at her steadily. ‘Jerusalem is no more.’

  Rabba’s face closed, like a shadow had eaten it. Silence thickened the air, as if it would smother our words if we tried to speak. At last Rabba whispered, ‘You destroyed Jerusalem?’

  ‘Not I,’ said the young man shakily. He lay back on the goatskin. ‘Slaves are not allowed weapons. But I saw it.’

  ‘What did you see?’ demanded Rabba. Her voice was frog-hoarse, with anguish.

  The slave met her eyes. ‘I saw a giant siege wall built around Jerusalem to starve the city. I saw a fortress built that allowed the army to attack from above, to throw burning embers into the city. I saw battering rams crush the first gates. I saw the smoke and heard the screams as the soldiers burned the second set.’

  He seemed to be watching the destruction all over again, his face growing even paler. I had never seen Jerusalem, and yet the city and our Temple had still been the centre of my world.

  ‘Flavius Titus, the general, gave orders that the Temple should not be destroyed — he wanted to dedicate it to the Emperor,’ he whispered. ‘But the flames spread. I saw the Temple vanish in flames, a fire that reached for the sky. I saw the Temple Mount burn and boil with flames, as if a volcano poured down upon the town.’

  Were those tears on his face? Why should a Roman cry for Jerusalem? It must be a trick of the shadows.

  ‘I heard a thousand voices die. And when at last I was ordered into the city, to help carry out the gold from the Temple, the blood that flowed down the steps rose to my ankles. Men, women and children lay in piles across the street. We had to step on them to reach the treasure.’

  Baratha gave a tiny cry. Rabba hushed her, hugging her close. ‘Go on,’ she whispered.

  ‘When everything of value had been carried out, the general ordered the city walls destroyed — all but one left to shelter the army — so that Jerusalem could never be rebuilt. Even the name Jerusalem is forbidden now.’

  ‘If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem,’ whispered Rabba as our small fire flickered shadow tongues around the cave, ‘may my right hand lose its skill. Jerusalem . . .’

  I will never see Jerusalem now, I thought. And then: Father! My brother Samuel! Jakob . . .

  ‘Were any of our army captured?’ I asked urgently.

  ‘A few.’ Caius’s voice seemed empty of emotion. ‘The soldiers crucified each one of them, on the hills outside Jerusalem.’

  ‘But after the soldiers took the city?’ I thought of my sisters in the cart. ‘Were some people made slaves?’

  ‘Many were enslaved,’ he said. But there was something strange in the way he said it.

  ‘How many?’ I demanded.

  ‘Two thousand, five hundred and fifty-four.’

  ‘How can anyone remember such a large number?’

  ‘It was my job,’ he said in a weary voice. ‘I had to write down how many slaves were captured and how much gold bullion was stored — the total for the whole army, as well as how much was due to my master.’

  ‘So many slaves,’ I whispered. ‘Father could still be alive then. And Samuel and Jakob.’

  ‘No,’ said Caius.

  ‘Why . . . why not?’

  ‘They just aren’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ I cried. ‘They are strong men! They’d make valuable slaves.’

  ‘Tell us,’ Rabba demanded. ‘They are our people. We have a right to know.’

  ‘Only one man captured was left alive,’ said Caius softly. ‘Simon, son of Giora, a leader who called himself the messiah. Simon is being taken back to Rome for the triumph procession, along with the gold and sacred treasures of the Temple.’

  Rabba made a small noise, like a wounded mouse. ‘And the others?’

  ‘Every slave taken at the siege of Jerusalem, every rebel, was marched to Caesarea,’ said Caius, his tone still empty. ‘To the colosseum there, for the victory celebrations.’

  ‘How do they celebrate?’ asked Baratha innocently, before Rabba could silence her.

  Caius made a sound that seemed almost a sob. ‘They were sent into the arena, with the lions. Every single one. I . . . I did not see it. It was . . . too fine a performance . . . for a slave to see. But I heard the screams.’

  I had seen jackals tear apart a young gazelle once. Its leg was broken and it couldn’t escape. It had screamed for so long as they ripped at its flesh. Had Father, Samuel, Jakob died like that? Or had it been a swift sword thrust? Or death by fire as Jerusalem fell? And what would happen to Sarah and Rakeal?

  ‘Are the women from our village being taken to the colosseum too?’ I asked urgently. ‘Will they be eaten by the lions?’

  ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘The women of this village were divided, so many for each officer. I imagine the officers will sell them on their way back to Rome, or keep them for their own households there.’

  I expected Rabba to curse him, to curse all Romans, to call them dogs or donkey spit. But the cave was filled with silence, as thick as a barley cake.

  ‘Gone,’ Rabba whispered at last. ‘Jerusalem is gone.’

  I watched Baratha hug her, as if trying to give comfort for something she didn’t understand.

  ‘I wish —’ began Caius.

  ‘Be quiet, Roman! How long do you mourn a man, eh? How do you mourn a family, a village? How long do you mourn a people? The Temple of God, the holy city of Jerusalem?’ Rabba’s voice rose to a wail. ‘You, who had no family, no people, no temple either — what do you know?’

  ‘I know nothing, Wise Mother,’ said Caius quietly. ‘I know nothing of family or village or temple. I have no people either. But I still pray to God.’

  Rabba didn’t seem to hear him. I sensed her rocking to and fro. She made no sound, and yet her unspoken wails echoed through the cave, across the wadi and our battered village, across the land.

  Caius whispered something in the darkness. It sounded like a prayer again, but in a language I didn’t understand.

  I do not know how long Rabba rocked. But finally she
slept.

  Chapter 12

  I must have slept too and dreamed, for when I sat up again I remembered flames and screams and a river that ran red. I had dreamed of the doors of Jerusalem. But none would ever open to me now.

  I felt as empty as a dry water pot. I should be mourning my father and my brother. But all my grief had already been poured out for Ma, Rakeal and Sarah, for the village women who had been my life. Father and Samuel had vanished when they marched away. I had no more grief to give.

  The fire was only cold ash now. Everyone was still asleep, except the goat. Her yellow eyes gazed at me in the dimness.

  I untethered her quietly. She seemed to understand, for she made no sound as I grabbed the milk pot, led her to the exit, then down the hill and around to a small wadi where a stunted tree stood by a tiny pool. No one could see us here from the cliffs above. The pool dried up in midsummer, but it held water now and tufts of green grass still grew around its edges.

  ‘Maaaaagh,’ said the goat as I tied the tether to the tree. She began to munch.

  What did a goat care about my family, except as the hands who gave her grain or hay or leftovers? She did not know Jerusalem, or the Temple that had been the centre of the law and glory of our God, or our lost brothers, fathers, friends.

  I sat in the early morning sun. Its light seemed more precious than gold after the dust of the cave, the dark blood that had stained the soil outside our village. I stroked the goat’s udder and watched the clean milk squirt into the pot. All was calm, except when the goat tried to kick the pot again. But even that was normal.

  I would have stayed there all day, but Rabba and Baratha would be worried, especially when the Roman slave woke. I must bring them outside, I thought, so they can swallow sunlight too. Those few steps into the sun would seem like a journey. But not until I was completely sure the Romans had gone, in case other slaves came looking for firewood.

  ‘Maaagh,’ said the goat.

  ‘I’ll milk you again just before sunset tonight,’ I told her. ‘And just after sunset tomorrow.’

  Shabbat would begin tonight, when the first star shone in the sky. All of tomorrow would be Shabbat too, until evening. No work could be done at all. Tonight Ma would have lit our menorah, the eight candles gleaming, and while we thanked YHWH for His food and blessing . . .