by Gerald Kersh
‘He said no good of me, I will wager,’ said Mnesicles.
‘Oh, who regards the tongue of envy? You are treating Lucius?’
‘Lucius is sick of a Jew’s curse and a Jewish doctor’s criminal mistreatment of the case. I am treating him as a victim of these misfortunes.’
I said: ‘Lucky Lucius! He could not be in the hands of a wiser or more discreet doctor than Mnesicles.’
‘A compliment from Diomed is a compliment indeed!’
‘No, no! Who knows when I may need a physician? In my profession one must look ahead. And to whom should I turn, in that case, but Mnesicles?’
‘I humbly admit,’ said this conceited little fellow, ‘that you might go farther and fare worse.’
‘So, in passing, it occurred to me to ask myself: “How can I be sure that Mnesicles will remain in good health here in Tarsus?” I asked myself this question purely for selfish considerations.’
‘I do not think I quite understand, my dear sir. My health is perfect, and I have no reason to leave this fair city.’
‘No chimera like the illusion of perfect health; and only the gods know where they will be tomorrow…. You see, if some distorted story of Jewish sorcery and Jewish poisoning began to be whispered in the market-place – well, you know how it is; two people attract a third, three is a crowd, a crowd becomes a mob, and then there is a riot. “Death to Parnach!” is as good a rabble-shout as any other. So a mob storms Parnach’s house, kills Parnach, rapes his women, and steals his money.’
‘Deplorable!’ said Mnesicles, pinching out the smoulder of a smile and looking grave.
‘I agree,’ I said, earnestly. ‘It is not that I care a curse for Parnach. But he is not a very rich man like you – he doesn’t deserve to be. So. Having rifled his house, the mob, still dissatisfied, turns on the houses of other Jews and generally unpopular characters, and the riot becomes general. Now I have only a handful of men with which to keep order in the city, and I’d find myself short-handed, you see. So that when – as somebody inevitably would – some trouble-maker shouted: “Mnesicles treated Lucius last!” the mob would turn its attention to you. A drunken mob is undiscriminating as fire or flood, you see; and your house is well worth looting.’
Mnesicles said nothing. His face was grey. I went on: ‘A man as good as you cannot have many enemies, but what does a mob care about that? Even a man as wicked as Parnach must have some friends, and they have only to give a man with a loud voice a couple of silver coins to shout: “Mnesicles! Burn Mnesicles!” at a certain moment, and the mischief would be done. And, don’t you see, my hands being full, I shouldn’t be able to do much to protect you, my dear friend.’
‘But –’ Mnesicles began.
‘Of course, the mob might not burn you,’ I continued. ‘A mob is unpredictable. They might, for no apparent reason, suddenly decide – the gods forbid! – that you were their hero, their idol; in which case I’d give you about three years to live, with a constant and perfectly trustworthy bodyguard. But I want Mnesicles alive, as Mnesicles: the world needs Mnesicles. So I came to urge you to be absolutely discreet in the matter of this affair of Lucius’s so-called “curse”. Go out and about, denying any rumours that might have got loose. And don’t say too much against Paulus, because it happens that he is now a close friend of Soxias.’
‘I did not know this,’ Mnesicles said, biting his pale lips.
‘Last night Soxias gave him an emerald-studded goblet, and another priceless cup. But you would not be the kind of man who spreads malicious gossip! Otherwise, I shouldn’t be talking to you in friendship, and giving you valuable advice. It is true, as I have said, that my motives are partly selfish, but there you are. My opinion is – I was at Soxias’s house last night, you know – that Lucius is simply over-stimulated. Young Paulus was simply joking with him over the wine. Go to Lucius tonight, and I will wager any sum within reason that you will find him peacefully asleep, your wonderfully perceptive treatment having worked to perfection, as usual.’
Armoured in his vanity, this Mnesicles was impervious to irony, but he was not insensitive to fear. Now, I judged that, without unnecessary exercise of authority, I had frightened him no more and no less than enough to make him move promptly but without hurry – just as I wished him to act.
I added: ‘To make assurance doubly sure, my dear Mnesicles, if you happen to meet Parnach when you go out, which I see you are prudently determined to do – show your magnanimity, greet him kindly, walk arm-in-arm with him for a few paces. A good doctor puts his hands into excrement without getting dirty, eh?’
‘I will do just as you advise, my kind friend Diomed,’ said Mnesicles. ‘I have not breathed a word, of course, but I know how people talk, and it is my one aim in life: to keep the peace.’
‘Good. I hear that the contractor Khuzis has pains in the bladder. I will advise him to call on you.’
‘I shall be eternally grateful! Your friends are my friends,’ cried Mnesicles.
Khuzis was not my friend; I disliked Khuzis. There was no legal way of punishing him for his misdeeds – his bribes went high over my head – but Mnesicles would be, to him, something like an African torturer and a Sidonian extortioner combined.
Now I went to Parnach’s house. He was one of the sack-cloth-and-ashes school, and when he saw the glint of the sunlight on Sergius’s armour, and caught sight of me, he fell into that irritatingly equivocal attitude of body and expression of face which says, at the same time: ‘That’s right – murder me because I am a Jew! But why do you want to murder me just because I am a Jew? It is a Jew’s honour and privilege to be murdered because he is a Jew. I shall be delighted to be murdered because I am a Jew, this being part of my proud heritage. But why should a fine young fellow like you want to risk the wrath of the Almighty by murdering an abject old wretch like me, just because I am a Jew? Murder me, by all means … but first let us talk things over …’
I came to the point quickly.
‘You treated Lucius, I think,’ I said, politely.
There came the usual torrent of rhetorical questions in reply: ‘Is it my fault if a gentleman sends to demand my services? Did I want to go to Mnesicles’s patient? Should I be held responsible if a gentleman drinks a cup or two too much on top of too much rich food? Did I curse Lucius? Am I Paulus? Do I send my sons out to eat unclean things at gentlemen’s tables and get drunk and curse people? Did I mistreat Lucius or did Lucius mistreat himself? Was it for me to say to Lucius: “Stop drinking unmixed wine”? And for the follies of a Pharisee, should all Israel be persecuted? Should you not rather go with your soldiers to Paulus’s father with swords?’
‘Oh, please! I have come only to help you, Parnach,’ I said.
‘Don’t I do my duty? Don’t I pay my taxes? Don’t I –?’
‘Listen. Go for a walk. Take the air. And if you meet Mnesicles in the market-place, as you almost certainly will, don’t be surprised if he comes up to you and talks cordially. Don’t run to the other side of the street. Talk to him like a friend. Take his arm and walk with him. I tell you this for your own advantage.’
‘Mnesicles would take my arm? He would spit in my face.’
‘Confidentially, he has hinted to me that he is wounded at the way you avoid him. You are fellow physicians, he says; and between doctors, what is a slight difference in religion, I ask.’
Parnach’s professional gravity and dignity came back to him in an instant. ‘Very well, I will allow Mnesicles to take my arm. It is, as you say, just as well for physicians to be friends.’ Suddenly, he had become almost condescending.
‘Congratulate him on having cured Lucius,’ I said.
‘Oh really, my dear sir! My professional integrity –’
‘Oh, a great physician must be something of a philosopher, too, Parnach; he must pander a little to the vanity of his fellows, for the sake of peace and quiet. Think of the encouragement your gesture will give Mnesicles!’
‘Well …’
&n
bsp; ‘And above all, my dear Parnach, think of peace and quiet. It will be diplomatic on your part, to appear to be Mnesicles’s admirer and friend. In public, mind – positively in public!’
‘I will look for Mnesicles, as it were, casually.’
‘Do so immediately, won’t you? And on no account mention my name in this connection.’
He nodded, and took from a cupboard a heavy little bag. ‘Something for you to bestow in charity upon your poor?’ he said, with a sidelong smile.
I replied, rather curtly: ‘Such generosity has ruined better men than you, Parnach. Keep your money. You may perhaps need it for your journey.’
‘My journey? Where?’
‘To another town, with luck, if you’re not careful. Now do as you were told.’
‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘Yes. Good day to you.’
He ran after me, crying: ‘Forgive me – I meant no harm! – your visit upset me!’
‘If you have a clear conscience, it ought to have reassured you.’
‘My conscience is clear, but …’ he stopped, embarrassed.
How could I be angry with him for assuming that I was to be kept sweet with money? It was a safe enough thing to take for granted in dealing with peace officers, especially in Asia.
‘But nobody has told you yet,’ I said, ‘that if you were a guilty party and Diomed had a just cause, good evidence, and a free hand, he’d have you up for questioning if you were his own brother and he had to dig you out of a mountain of money. I have nothing against you, so rest easy, Parnach. Good day.’
I tried to be in a good humour when I came to Paulus’s house, but I was never at my ease there, although I was received with all the friendly deference in the world. I always went away with an uneasy feeling of having soiled something. Paulus’s wife Jaël made me sit, and with her own pretty hands, which seemed too light for the jewels they wore, offered me fruit, sweetmeats, and a cup of sweet wine.
I recognised the cup – it was a specially ornate one of silver inlaid with gold – and I will swear that it was reserved, like the dishes, for my use only; that it was kept in a special place, and that, having touched it, Jaël would afterwards purify her hands by washing them seven times seven times in running water. And I could not help thinking of her namesake, who received Sisera with such hospitality that she lured him into slumber; whereupon she drove a spike into his head, thereby becoming an immortal heroine among the Jews.
Paulus’s Jaël cast her glance down, in modesty, incidentally revealing luxuriant lashes. Her expression was shyly secretive and demurely sensual, as if she had a great deal to say, but only in a whisper to a girl friend; her red lips were slightly parted in a dreamy half-smile, and moistened as if in anticipation of some pleasantly intimate shock of surprise. The late sun caught the bloom on her cheeks and ringed her face with a warm golden radiance; a shadow of dark down accentuated the affectionate curve of her rich mouth.
‘Ah, wicked Prefect!’ she said. ‘You take my husband away from his home all the time.’
‘Ah, beautiful lady!’ I replied. ‘It is a wicked world. But if every man had a wife only half as beautiful as you, all the world would stay at home, and everything would be perfect.’
My compliments, at least, were kosher; but I think if every such word had been a suckling pig, Jaël would have devoured it. She was beautiful, and she knew it. King David knew what he was doing when he brought several such girls into his bed to warm him in his old age; although, I thought, one such would have been quite enough for him in his prime.
‘Such beauty as yours compels a husband to strict fidelity,’ I said, ‘and is therefore a great power for good in the world.’
This, of course, was a damned lie; but she liked it.
Then Paulus came in. Ignoring Jaël, he cried: ‘Diomed!’
‘I was about to explain to the most exquisite lady in Tarsus,’ I said, ‘that I’d sooner cut my arm off before I’d disturb the peace of her delightful house for anything but a little matter in which I need your assistance.’
‘At once!’ said Paulus. ‘Jaël, please leave us.’
She went, reluctantly, as if Paulus had abruptly stopped the playing of some soothing melody – which, I suppose, he had.
When we were alone, I said to Paulus: ‘Come on, you! Out of it!’
‘Where to?’
‘To Little Lucius’s, you damned nuisance.’
‘He sent for me earlier. I told the messenger to go to hell.’
‘I know. Come.’
‘Strange day!’ said he. ‘Look at what Barbatus sent me –’ he held out his right hand, on the forefinger of which shone a great blue jewel ‘– it is a sapphire. But see what happens when you hold it to the light.’
He showed me. As the sapphire came into a sunbeam, there sprang from its heart a perfect, four-rayed star. He went on: ‘With it, a letter, saying that I was not to reply; that he could not express his gratitude to me here in Tarsus, but would do so in another place, which he did not name; that he was going on a journey, and hoped to meet me in due course. Post scriptum: this ring was given by Solomon to Sheba.’
‘Was that when he sent your father the money he owed?’
‘You know about that, too? Yes.’
‘Well, Barbatus is grateful to you, and so he ought to be,’ I said. ‘Give it to Jaël.’
‘She can have it if she likes,’ he said indifferently.
We were on our way, now, to that eunuch’s vision in rose marble which Little Lucius called a house. I told Paulus: ‘You are to take that idiotic “curse” off Lucius.’
‘You don’t seriously imagine, Diomed, that I laid one on?’
‘Oh, never mind about that! If you caught Lucius at the right moment and said: “Next time you hear an ass bray you will have diarrhœa,” so it would be. Do as I say. Dip your finger in wine as you did last night, let a drop fall where the drop fell last night, and say: “Curse, curse, go away,” or anything you like.’
‘Why should I? I hate that blasphemous pig.’
‘Never mind your hates or your loves. You are going to do what I tell you, blasphemy or no blasphemy. And if it comes to that, as a dispassionate observer, I don’t see why Lucius shouldn’t laugh at Solomon howling after a bit of dark meat. Melanion, for instance, is of the opinion that between your Ruth and Naomi there was a certain relationship of a distinctly unhealthy nature. Do not arrogate to yourself alone the right to mock at strange gods, Paulus. I, also, have read your holy books, among others. And your little joke of last night might end in blood and fire this evening, the gods aside!’
‘How?’
I told him. ‘How could I have foreseen?’ he asked.
‘You could have foreseen that no harm could come of your keeping still.’
‘Lucius made me angry.’
‘Then Lucius defeated you.’
‘Is a man to watch every step and every word?’
‘That’s the way he learns to walk and talk,’ I said. ‘Have you ever considered how much forethought and discipline goes even into putting your shirt on?’ I slapped his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, my boy. You have all the little devils that go to make a proper man. They only need breaking to harness. No man ever won a race with a team of wild horses.’
‘I am going to do what you tell me, Diomed. Just for once, spare me the truisms.’
‘I beg pardon.’
‘No, I’m more happy than you know, that you took me away just now. I was only waiting for a decent hour to come and see you as we said last night. I feel as if I had been buried under a heap of ashes …’
‘Or banked, perhaps, like a slow fire?’
‘Ashes.’
We said no more until we were in Lucius’s house. There he lay, yellow-white and half-naked, almost buried in a heap of purple, green and red cushions, squirming slightly so that he made me think of a titanic maggot in a stupendous putrescence. Near-by his valet, a person of ambiguous sex named Daphnis, anxiously
waved over him a fan of perfumed peacock feathers.
Seeing me, Lucius started up, crying: ‘Diomed! Diomed! The Jew has cursed me! I hereby complain! I will protest! Black magic and Jewish sorceries! I will write a letter –’
‘You will write a letter, Lucius?’ said Paulus, stepping out of the scented shadow behind me.
‘No, no!’ screamed Lucius, pitifully holding up his right hand, which was jerking like a hooked fish. ‘I cannot! Paulus, Paulus, my hand, my hand! For pity’s sake, Paulus, heal me! I will make sacrifice to your gods! I will humiliate myself, mortify myself! I will offer! I apologise, I beg pardon! I will pour dust on my head and eat filth! Take away that curse – oh, take it away!’
Paulus said to Daphnis: ‘Bring a cup of Falernian wine.’
‘Yes!’ cried Lucius. ‘I never thought of it before – we were drinking Falernian. Falernian, Daphnis – bring Falernian, you bitch!’
Daphnis brought the cup of wine. Paulus dipped a finger into it, and said: ‘Lucius, do you see this winedrop?’
‘I see it.’
Paulus took Lucius by the right hand and raised it. The drop fell on Lucius’s wrist. Lucius started, and shrieked.
‘Take the cup in your right hand,’ said Paulus.
Like a man in a dream, Lucius took it, his hand shaking only slightly. ‘I can hold it!’ he exclaimed.
‘Swear that you will write no more blasphemous songs,’ said Paulus.
‘I swear! I swear!’
‘Now drink.’
Lucius drank, threw down the cup, felt his right hand with his left, and began to weep and laugh at the same time. ‘I am cured!’ he managed to say. ‘Paulus! Thanks, thanks!’
‘Yes,’ said Paulus. ‘Good day.’
He went to where a stream of clear water spouted out of a dolphin’s mouth into a marble basin, and washed his hands again and again. While he was doing this I said to Lucius: ‘All right, Lucius. There’s an end of this nonsense. And if one stone – only one stone, mind – is thrown in Tarsus because of Jewish sorceries and curses, I’ll see to it that –’
