‘I was a boy then. I’m a man now. Mia, you’re free of me.’
She takes both of my hands, forming that ark we make to carry all of Noach’s animals to safety. ‘Why in God’s name would I want to be free of you?’ she asks.
30
Marta returns home and steps into my alcove while Yirmi and I are discussing Herodotus. Her hunched hesitance and needy eyes give me to believe that her emotional resemblance to Mia is far deeper than I generally want to admit. She asks to speak to me alone, so I tell my son to check if his sister is still napping. Marta lowers my curtains, and, inside the saturnine gloom she and I make together, she dissolves into tearful shame. While struggling against her fear of judgement, stopping and starting, she tells me she is sorry to have cursed Mia and assures me – her hands raised in a position of prayer – that as soon as she realized her error she spoke a counter-spell seven times aloud while standing in Mia’s room.
She looks pale and faint, so I summon her to sit with me. I had planned to tell her that she will be dead to me and my children if she ever tries to bring evil upon us again. Once we are together on my mat, however, I am assailed by misgivings. If she is conspiring against Yeshua and me, would I only be giving her an excuse to become more sly and secretive?
Tears slide down her cheeks as she awaits my reply. She raises her hand to take mine then pulls it back, fearing that I shall reject her. She bends over herself and sobs.
Either her emotions are real or she is giving the performance of her life.
When I squeeze her shoulder, she seems more compact and brittle than I remember. She looks up with lost eyes, cornered by fate.
‘I have already forgiven you,’ I say.
The words come from my mouth, though I did not decide to say them. Who is this ever-accommodating man who speaks for me when I least expect it? I wonder.
‘I become so angry that I don’t know what I’m saying,’ she tells me as she cries. ‘I hear my voice, and I can’t believe it’s me. But I’m unable to stop myself.’ She catches my glance and holds her breath, as though she dares not hope for my renewed affection. She caresses her free hand down her neck and across her chest.
Even the most accomplished actors must have occasional difficulties distinguishing between the solid world and their own thoughts, and it seems to me that Marta may be certifying with her hands that she is absolutely real.
‘Can you understand what I’m telling you, Eli?’ she asks.
I say I do, but I don’t. In fact, I realize that no matter how long I live I shall never fail to understand anyone else as completely as I have failed to understand Marta.
Such a storm of conflicting emotions must rage at times inside her. And yet, there are times when I think that if the Lord were to close his fingers around her he would find nothing.
Might Marta feel the injustice of the world more deeply than anyone I have ever met? Is that the key to understanding her?
And just like that I am rubbing her back and assuring that I shall not hold any grudge against her and that I know she has endured too much. When I ask her if her seething anger has ever taken her anywhere near where she wanted to go, she finds the honesty to admit that it has not, so I tell her that she must finally overcome it if we are to remain a family. And I mean what I say – at least for now. I know from experience that the encouragements I speak to her will fade and die over the course of a single day – like certain butterflies, I’ve been told – and tomorrow I shall not believe I ever said them.
Despite my protests, she kisses my hands. And then she returns to the life she keeps secret from me and I go back to the one I hide from her.
While I listen to the comforting sounds of Mia and Yehudit preparing supper, I consider what to tell Yeshua in the note I shall send to his brother Yaaqov. I must warn him, of course, that a traitor informed Annas of our meeting and that the priest interrogated me about his plans. I shall also tell him that under no circumstances is he to trust Marta, even if I have no proof against her. Finally, I shall say that I intend to send my children to Alexandria just after our Seder. And here is how I shall close the note: ‘When my family is gone, we shall meet, and you shall tell me how I can be of use to you.’
How to send this message to Yaaqov proves a riddle, however; I dare not carry it myself, and I cannot ask Yirmi or Mia, since Annas’ spies might be watching them. Only that evening, long after supper, does a solution come to me …
Onesimos’ wife, Dinora, opens her door to my knocks and looks up at me with bruised eyes.
‘Is Ninah any better?’ I ask.
She shakes her head morosely. Yirmi and I step into Ninah’s dimly lit chamber. The girl is lying on her belly, covered by a dark woollen mantle. Her eyes are closed tight, and she is moaning. Onesimos is seated beside her, a clay oil lamp cradled in both his hands. From the way he bends over the flame – protecting it – I know what he has sworn, for I kept vigil over my second-born son, Talmay, in the same position, nearly motionless, for two days and nights. When he finally stopped breathing, I did not feel any relief as I was told I would. Instead, I wanted to hurt myself for failing to save him – and in a way that could never be healed.
‘You shall not have this girl!’ is what I announce to the memitim who steal our children. ‘In the name of all the blessed hosts,’ I shout, ‘I order you to abandon this place!’
Seven times I repeat my invocation while kneeling by Ninah. Then Onesimos and I converse outside the girl’s door.
He tells me that Baltasar visited them but that he did not pull the tooth – and will not risk doing so until the swelling diminishes. He was able to lower Ninah’s fever and put her to sleep with a mixture of henbane and valerian, but she has refused to drink another cup of the brew. ‘It tastes and smells like vomit,’ he whispers.
I sit by the girl. ‘Ninah, it’s your neighbour, Eliezer the mosaic-maker,’ I say, and I hold her head between my hands as gently as I can – imitating what I have seen Yeshua do on countless occasions – and whisper a protective Psalm over her. As I finish, I sense a prayer shawl – a tallit – being spread across my shoulders. Has Yeshua put it there?
It is never easy to identify the significance of a gift from the Throne World, but in this case an unusual conjunction of words offers me a clue.
I remind Onesimos and his wife that the Lord of Righteousness has commanded us to dye the tassels on our prayer shawls tekhelet – turquoise.
‘I don’t understand,’ Dinora says.
‘Tekhelet does not only refer to a colour. It is also one of the names of the sky-coloured gemstone that Egyptians praise so highly and that your husband uses in his work.’
‘What are you saying, Eli?’
‘Ninah is the daughter of a jeweller. The Lord has given me a sign. To save her, I must cover her with the turquoise of a tallit.’
‘But I don’t own a prayer shawl,’ Onesimos replies, grimacing.
I summon Yirmi and explain the errand I need from him.
Grandfather Shimon’s shawl is frayed and worn but so much the better, since it has soaked up at least half a century of prayers. I drape it over the girl’s shoulders and place one of the turquoise fringes over her swollen cheek. When I look back at Onesimos, I see from his sagging shoulders that he is too afraid to hope it will do her any good.
Yirmi and I accept his invitation to have some wine with him in his courtyard. We speak little at first. But a second cup lends me its courage, and I ask my favour of him, explaining first why I dare not take my message to Yaaqov myself or entrust it to Yirmi. ‘You’re under no obligation to do this for me,’ I assure him. ‘I’ll do all I can for Ninah whatever you decide.’
‘Won’t Annas have my husband stopped and interrogated?’ Dinora asks.
‘It seems highly unlikely – by now he knows I’ve come here to help Ninah.’
‘He knows that our daughter is ill?’ Onesimos asks in disbelief.
‘His spies follow me everywhere. I’ve seen one of
them several times.’
‘But why is he having you watched?’ Dinora asks.
‘He fears that I will use my notoriety to help Yeshua ben Yosef.’
‘And will you?’ she asks in an apprehensive voice.
‘I would if I could, but at the moment I have to safeguard my family.’
‘Have you written out the message you want me to carry?’ Onesimos asks.
‘No, not yet, but if you give me a few moments, I shall –’
‘No, just tell it to me,’ he cuts in. ‘I’d rather not carry a note. I don’t want anything that Annas and his men could take from me and use against us.’
So it is that I learn that Onesimos has already decided to help – and that he is far cleverer at this conspiratorial work than I am.
31
Just before supper, I summon Ion and Ariston to my room and explain what I need from them. I find it easier to address all matters of the heart in Greek, a language that respects my failures and frailties, and my cousins and I are able to settle matters quickly: Ion will take my children and nephew Binyamin to Alexandria, and Ariston will remain in Bethany for a time in order to conclude some delicate business negotiations. The travellers will make their way first to Caesarea and there book passage on an Alexandria-bound vessel. Although I have no savings to pay for my nephew’s and children’s expenses, I insist that Ion take what’s left of my stock of lapis lazuli.
‘It’s also possible that Yehudit and Marta will go with you,’ I add. ‘I’ll ask them for a decision soon.’
At bedtime, I tell Nahara and Yirmi of my plans.
I converse with my son in Greek, so that Nahara will not understand any doubts he might voice. When Yirmi hears he will soon disembark in the land of the pyramids, however, his eyes open as if he has glimpsed the future. Something has finally happened in my life! I can hear him exulting.
I tell him that I shall join them in just a few weeks. It is a lie, for I cannot predict how Yeshua’s mission will go, but I do not wish to see my son’s excitement fall prey to apprehension.
Nahara proves just as easy to persuade, though, in truth, she fails to grasp the nature of what I am proposing; she has no idea what journeying to so remote a land will entail.
‘You’ll be staying with Aunt Ester,’ I tell her. ‘Do you remember her?’
She curls her bottom lip out, which means no.
‘You don’t remember her because you were very small when she visited,’ I say.
‘How small was I?’
I hold out my hand a foot from the floor to show her height at the time. I do so with my palm facing up, because in the Galilee we believe that a hand facing down can block the growth of a child.
I pick up the wooden snake that Nahara has placed by her pillow and shake it. ‘Aunt Ester frightens easily. You’ll like her.’
King David has told us in one of his Psalms that if we are met at daybreak with love and mercy then we shall dance all day long. But what if we are welcomed instead by theft …
At cock-crow the next morning, when I reach for my mother’s amber necklace I discover that it is missing. Neither my sisters nor my children have any idea where it might be. I have no time to hunt for it because Abibaal arrives at my home with Lucius’ donkey while I am completing my morning prayers, and it would be rude to make him wait. Yirmi comes with us.
Shortly after my son and I start work on my mosaic, my employer hails me cheerfully from the rim of the pool. ‘How’s your back, Eli?’
‘Better,’ I say. ‘Thank you for the donkey ride this morning.’
‘My pleasure. Listen, a young friend of mine is here. I want him to see your design.’
‘What’s wrong with your back?’ Yirmi asks me after Lucius is gone, since I did as Mia suggested and refrained telling him about my injury.
‘I fell and grazed it,’ I reply, ‘but it’s almost healed now.’
A few moments later, Lucius leads a slender man with a week’s whiskers on his cheeks – perhaps thirty years old – down the ladder. I recognize him immediately. Indeed, how could I not, for I have known him since he was a toddler.
A raised flag of warning in my mind keeps me from waving or smiling, however: how could Lucius speak of Yeshua’s younger brother as a friend? Unless … Unless Yaaqov is using a false identity, which means I must pretend that we have never met.
I soon learn, however, that I’m the one who has been deceived.
Yaaqov rushes to me with his hands out and eyes shining. ‘Beloved Eli!’ he calls ahead, and he embraces me as if gathering in all the memories we share.
‘Does our host know who you are?’ I whisper in his ear.
‘Yes, don’t worry.’
When I turn to Lucius, he grins at me mischievously. He fixes the drape of his toga over his arm and stands as tall as he can, as though posing for a statue. He is cherishing this moment, I think.
‘Eli, all is never precisely what it seems,’ he tells me, and in perfect Aramaic – with only the slightest trace of Roman accent.
‘Lucius has been helping us,’ Yaaqov tells me, and he goes to my son to give him a kiss.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say.
Yaaqov tugs playfully on my arm, amused by my confusion. ‘It’s simple, Lazar. I received your message, and I wanted a chance to talk to you. So I came to see Lucius last night, knowing you would arrive in the morning. Don’t worry – I took a circuitous route here to make sure no one followed me.’
‘And you – what’s going on?’ I ask Lucius.
‘What do you mean?’ he replies, making the face of an innocent wrongly accused.
‘For so long you gave me to believe that you disliked me! And that you thought it was foolish and dangerous of me to help Yeshua. I was certain you were our enemy!’
He hoots with laughter so hard and continuously that he begins to cry. ‘Oh, it’s just too perfect!’ he tells me when he sees my confusion. Finally, pressing on a cramp in his side and taking a few deep breaths, he says, ‘I had a role to play, Eli, and it was a very challenging one. I couldn’t refuse it!’
‘I could hardly understand your Aramaic! It was pitiful!’
‘Don’t feel bad. Annas ben Seth was fooled as well. I’m a devil with accents!’ He scratches his chin thoughtfully. ‘How would you like to hear a Galilean mosaicist speaking in the dialect of Corinth?’ Without waiting for my reply, Lucius imitates my voice, declaiming a speech that he later tells me is from The Birds. ‘“What’s the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Would you have us fling ourselves headlong down on to these rocks …”’
I am certain that Lucius sounds nothing like me, but Yirmi starts to giggle. ‘It’s you, Dad!’ he tells me excitedly.
‘My first wife used to call me a parrot,’ Lucius says. ‘Though, to tell you the truth,’ he adds, holding out his arm in the way Romans do to indicate an erection, ‘she much preferred it when I imitated a cockerel!’
He erupts again into mirthful laughter, which means, at least, that his Latin sense of humour has not changed. Still, I shall have to create vastly new contours for the Lucius I keep in my mind – one with the boisterous, boyish laugh of a performer who delights in fooling his friends and who now smiles at me affectionately.
‘But you … you lied to me!’ I protest, unable to keep a cry of hurt out of my voice.
‘I’m sorry, Eli, but such changes of identity are what I do best. You see, when I was a boy, my stepfather schemed to get me out of the way – he hated the competition for my mother’s affection – and he apprenticed me to an itinerant acting troupe. Ionians, most of them – and talented. Not that I minded leaving my stepfather’s home. He was a bully and a bore, and my Ionians – bless them! – were never tedious. In any case, my first big role was Hippolytus. In Euripides’ tragedy, of course. To see all those rapt faces staring at me, hanging on my every word … I was hooked! My greatest early triumph, however, was in The Banqueters. Have you seen it?’
‘No
, never.’
‘I was the froward and deceitful son. Wonderful role! For years, I specialized in brutal soldiers and devious satyrs and treacherous hetaireukotes and all the others we get such pleasure in despising. Though I have played sympathetic characters when I had no other choice.’ He shakes his fist at me. ‘I was Heracles battling Death in Alcestis.’ His posture eases and he blows me a kiss. ‘And once, in Mediolanum, I played the beautiful courtesan in The Eunuch, and I don’t mind telling you I had a very … stimulating effect on a fair number of the men in the audience! One old murex manufacturer – so wealthy that his feet were purple from the dyed slippers he always wore – proposed marriage to me! I was sorely tempted to remain with him. I mean, how often to you get a marriage proposal from a sexagenarian with purple feet? And who hasn’t much longer to live! But the climate of Mediolanum – have you been there?’
‘No, I … I’ve never been anywhere near there,’ I stammer, overwhelmed – and enormously impressed – by the fluency of his words and his passion.
‘It’s scalding in summer, with clouds of mosquitoes everywhere, and it’s freezing in winter. Abominable place! In any case, I’m talking too much. I grow excited when I speak of the old days. Excuse me.’
‘It’s all right,’ I say, still stunned by his good-natured vitality.
‘I suppose that the point I’m trying to make, dearest Eli, is that acting is what I most enjoy. So when this role was offered to me …’ He shrugs as if to say he had no other choice.
‘You had me completely taken in,’ I say. ‘I am obviously no match for you.’
‘If only you’d admitted that months ago, I might have gone easier on you!’ he says, laughing again. ‘But you dismissed me immediately as a rich buffoon. I could tell – you’re not very good at hiding your unfavourable opinions of others.’
‘I’m sorry. It was not my intention to offend you.’
‘No, but I am afraid you must accept that you are a bit like garum, Eli – often sour-tempered and generally smelly and most definitely an acquired taste!’
The Gospel According to Lazarus Page 23
