We came upon one statue of a man in the middle of the street, bigger than life, and dressed in gilded armor. He had a helmet tucked under his arm and held an orb in his hand. The writing on the pedestal was in Latin and I could not read it. Amelabib squinted at it.
“It says, ‘Now is a child born by heaven’…yes, born by heaven…‘Smile…at the birth of this boy who will put an end to our wretched age…from whom golden people will spring…now does…Apollo…’ My Latin is not so good.”
“Who is this person?” I asked. He sounded wonderful to me.
Amelabib laughed very loudly. “It is Augustus, our late emperor, who says this of himself. He thought he was a god. All of these Roman emperors do that, even this new one, this Tiberius, probably. It is not enough for them to be the richest and most powerful men in the world, they must make themselves equal to the gods. What the gods think about this, I do not know.”
We walked on. My mind wandered back to the statues and if, in fact, all the statues of Aphrodite looked like my mother. It was an unsettling discovery.
“Be still ‘Little Hebrew,’” he said, his attention drawn to a disturbance up the street. He called me “Little Hebrew,” and even though I tried to tell him I did not accept that status, he shook his head and said, “In this world we don’t choose who we are, we just are. And you are Hebrew whether you like it or not.”
I did not argue with him, but I confess, I had enough of the god who made me less than human, who punished people for the wrongs of others, and who let little girls be raped and made crazy. I wanted no part of him.
“Try to look Greek,” he said under his breath, “the priestesses are coming.”
I tried to look like what I thought a Greek must look like. But with my red hair, I doubted I fooled anyone. As it happened, the priestesses had more important things on their minds that day than one insignificant boy who did not care about his mother’s or anyone else’s god.
“There,” he said, “you see there…all those beautiful girls?”
I saw them. They were very beautiful and dressed in stuff that let you see the outlines of their bodies.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“They are the women dedicated to Venus or Aphrodite, depending on whether you lust after women as a Greek or a Roman.” He laughed again.
“People give their daughters to the temple in hopes of finding favor with the goddess and sometimes a rich reward, too.”
“Give? They give their daughters to the goddess?”
“Yes. Most come from the poor farms and the families on the other side of the Diolkos. From families that cannot bring themselves to selling them into the ‘profession of love,’ if you know what I mean.”
I knew what he meant.
“You see that temple up there?” He pointed toward the top of the Acrocorinth. I looked up at an enormous building. I guessed the men of Corinth must have their minds turned to love more than anything else. As if he read my thoughts, Amelabib said.
“This goddess has the biggest temple in every city. No surprise there, eh?”
“Where do they all come from? There must be hundreds of women and girls.”
“There are two kinds of women in the temple. Some—those with much paint and red lips—are the temple prostitutes. They come and go depending on the needs of the priestess. The others are the Vestal Virgins. They must stay that way as a reminder they belong to the goddess. Those girls must be very special.”
“How special?”
“They must be beautiful, of course, nothing less would be acceptable to the goddess, and they must be visited by the goddess herself. If they are accepted, they are taken into the temple and their parents may never see or speak to them again. Some say the parents are given the money collected in the offering salver that day.”
“Visited? You mean the goddess appears to them?”
“It’s like that…or something…a messenger from the goddess, I do not know. Those are the mysteries. All I know is the goddess marks some young girls in some special way and the priestesses in the temple know what that is, and take only those who have it.”
I thought it must be like the wine stain the sandal maker in Caesarea had. He had a red blotch on his face he said the gods gave him. I scanned the Virgins. Their ages ranged from Dinah’s to old women. None of them had a wine stain. One or two of them looked familiar, like someone I knew. But I did not know any girls outside of the House of Darcas and these would not be from any place like that.
We climbed upward. The city on its western edge backed up to the hills. Above us was the temple of Aphrodite.
We wandered around the heights toward the southern edge of the city. I could not take my eyes off the buildings and statuary and so I did not notice where we were going. I ran into Amelabib who had stopped abruptly at a small stall set in front of a low house, the coppersmith’s home and shop. The coppersmith stood at his hearth, a big, rough-looking man, hands gnarled and black from years of working with copper, melting it, alloying it into bronze or brass, and hammering it out into pieces, some of such delicacy, I wondered how those cudgel-like hands could ever craft anything so beautiful. My master introduced me as his “Little Hebrew.”
“Oh ho,” the coppersmith boomed, “well, I am descended from the great Philistine metal workers. There is enmity between our people, so you’d better beware of me.”
I did not know what he meant. The only Philistines I ever heard of were ancient people whose name had been twisted to Palestine, which was what Romans called the land of my birth.
I stood as tall as I could and tried to look brave. He laughed a big laugh. You cannot always tell when someone is joking with you, whether you are safe. That man could turn me over to the Romans on nearly any pretext, and because I had no entry pass, no citizenship, because Mother did what she did to survive, I would not have a chance of seeing freedom ever again. In that corrupt city, where nearly everything was for sale, he could and would do it if the circumstances were right.
On our way back, our bundles of jewelry and copperware carefully concealed beneath our cloaks, my master said, “You should have yourself fixed, you know. This is not a good place to be if you are a Hebrew.”
“Fixed? What do you mean, ‘fixed’?”
“You know, you should have yourself repaired…in that place!”
“That place?”
He waved his hands around, irritated with me. “I know of a Greek surgeon, a very good man, who can fix you back the way you were born. All of the Hebrews that come here to live go to him. You will be safer if you do that.”
Ah, I thought—that place. I should undo with his Greek surgeon what the other one did, and for the same reason. It was unsafe in Corinth to be one of my mother’s people and equally unsafe not to be one in Caesarea. I knew then that my mother’s god must be mean and unmerciful. He punished me for being the illegitimate son of someone I never met. He made me an outcast wherever I went. He played cruel jokes on me for not being circumcised and then for being circumcised and he made it very clear I could never have a part of this world except at its fringes. Not Greek, not Hebrew, nothing.
“I will think about it.”
We did not talk much on the way back to Cenchrea. I was thinking about those girls and women. Why would anyone give a daughter to a goddess?
Chapter Eleven
I made my first illegal money. Not a lot, but some, and realized there could be a great deal more. It started simply enough. I changed some money in the street. Amelabib sent me to the moneychangers to convert the foreign coins we had taken in that day. On my way back, purse filled with denarii, a man stopped me. Newly arrived to the city and not yet acquainted with the ways of the street and the market, he did not know better than to try to change his money in the street, did not know about the moneychangers or the fixed rate. I should have sent him to the official exchange but, without thinking of the consequences, I changed his money, at my rate, returned to the moneychangers and exchanged it a
gain at theirs. I returned my master’s money to him, but four denarii richer myself. No one saw me and even if they had, who would suspect a boy to have enough money to speculate in exchanges?
I decided then I would try my hand at the money changing business. There were risks, of course, and the need of ready cash to make the business work, but I guessed that if I were careful, started with this windfall of four denarii and held back a small measure of my wages in the future, I could make it work. Each day, I saved a few more coins. I was finally doing something about getting us away.
***
One evening I returned late from the stall to our room. It was empty, no Dinah. She never ventured away from the safety of our cramped quarters. I picked up a lamp and went to find her. I checked the privy. I looked into the atrium. I could not find Mother or any sign of Dinah. I remembered the time Darcas brought the man to our room. Did she try it again with the same results? Did Dinah run? I searched the corridors and the buildings in the small courtyard at the back of the house. The privy stood at one end, open space beyond it, where animals were kept and deliveries made. Attached to the rear wall of the main building were a series of low sheds where Darcas stored her goods and things for which she had no immediate use.
I called Dinah’s name, not loudly for fear of drawing attention from the atrium and Darcas. As I walked the length of the courtyard, I thought I heard a whimper. It sounded like a small animal and it came from one of the sheds at the far end of the court. All the sheds were sealed with chains and complicated devices that only opened when a specially fashioned strip of metal was inserted in it. I tried to force the device but failed. The shed leaned against the back wall of the main building. It looked solid. But what appeared to be an impenetrable wall turned out to be only thatch that had been plastered over and scored to look like stone blocks. Finally, I came to appreciate Darcas’ tightfistedness.
I unsheathed my knife and slashed away at the shed where it joined the building. In a moment, I made a hole big enough to allow me to peer into the shed. Someone was in there. Another forty slashes with my knife and I had a hole big enough to squeeze through. I held up my lamp and peered into the darkness. Eyes stared back at me.
“Dinah, is that you? What are you doing in here?” Darcas must have decided to take the matter of Dinah’s introduction to the atrium into her own hands.
She held her arm up and with her lost, faraway look, pointed her finger toward the door. I remembered something about that look. I had seen it recently and not on Dinah’s face. No, I had seen it somewhere else, but where? Then I remembered.
“Dinah, it’s me, Judas. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She whimpered and pointed at the door again.
“Don’t worry. Darcas won’t know.”
Of course, she would know. That was the problem.
I looked around me. The shed held copperware, pots and urns, vases, and salvers of various sizes and shapes, piles of it. Some had scenes worked into the rims and across the plate face. It was as good as, or better than, any of the pieces Amelabib and I purchased from the coppersmith in Corinth. There was a fortune here—a fortune for anyone who knew when and where to sell it.
I do not remember how long I sat there, alternately looking at the copper and Dinah. I could get her out, I knew, but if I took Dinah out, Darcas would know I had broken into her shed and she would turn me over to her guards or the police. If that happened, there would be no one to look after Dinah. Then there were all the goods, the copperware, not to mention the things in the other sheds. I guessed if she stinted building one shed, it was a good bet the others would be easy to break into.
I put my finger to my lips. “I’ll be right back. You be as quiet as you can.” Dinah stared at me. “And don’t leave. Darcas might see you. Do you understand? Stay right here.”
She nodded.
No one saw me. I needed a miracle.
Pagans believe gods involve themselves in their affairs, or at least they used to. Some bore children by women and goddesses sometimes bore men’s children, and sometimes they were so mixed up you could not tell one from the other, which is why, I suppose, Caesar declared himself to be a god, as well. Why not? There is not much to choose between the lot of them and at least Caesar commanded an army, which gave him an edge over the people who ran temples and claimed power from gods. But my mother’s god was another story. Ever since we arrived in Cenchrea, I had made a point of praying to her god. I never really expected any response, but I did it for her and in the secret hope I might be wrong about him.
“God of my mother,” I prayed, “I need your help. Until this day you have caused me nothing but pain and sorrow and you probably will not even listen to me now because I have no father. Will you hear me, then, for the sake of my mother and this other fatherless child in the shed and deliver us from certain destruction?”
Nothing.
Then I saw Gaius. He looked terrible. His luck had run out and he had become a candidate for an early grave, as were the other six standing with him, as sorry a lot as you will ever see. Then I knew exactly what I must do.
“Thank you, god of my mother,” I said under my breath.
Luckily, it was a pitch-black moonless night. I slipped back into the shed and removed the copperware and carefully put it into sacks I found lying on the clay floor of the shed. I thought how very convenient of Darcas to leave them lying about after she unpacked her loot. Dinah watched wide-eyed and wondering. It was a struggle, but I got the best pieces away and hidden. I piled some kindling against the shed to cover the mess I made of the wall. I greeted Gaius and his pitiful squad of cutpurses. I had a proposition for them.
Chapter Twelve
I went back for Dinah. Once out of the shed and safely on my way, I signaled to Gaius. His flock of spotted goats descended on the other sheds and within moments they were looting Darcas’ life savings. I rushed into the atrium out of breath and sounded the alarm. Darcas and her bodyguards rushed out the door, headed toward the backcourt. Gaius and his band had managed, by then, to wreck half of it. How much they had stolen I did not know. They had time enough to make off with quite a lot but their greed was a match for Darcas’ and so they had stayed, trying to grab everything. Others had joined in the looting and a riot began. I threw the lamp onto a pile of dry straw near the cookhouse doorway and it burst into flames, casting an eerie glow on the melee in the backcourt. In the midst of the noise and smoke, the cursing, and the sound of clubs striking skulls, Dinah and I slipped away. We were going to the city—to Corinth.
***
I found the temple of Aphrodite but only after stumbling about in the dark on a dozen streets. Finally I remembered I had to climb to the Acrocorinth. I let my feet find the grade upwards. I promised myself I would pay closer attention the next time I wandered through a city. I stopped in front of the temple. It loomed over us, even bigger than I remembered.
We stood in its shadows for a moment while I wrestled with what I should do next. I led Dinah up the marble steps and onto the portico. I hesitated, reluctant to enter, when the biggest Ethiopian I had ever seen stepped out in front of us. He asked what business I had in the temple. I stammered, momentarily tongue-tied, and wondered if the prudent thing might be to reverse and get as far away as fast as I could. I steeled myself, figuring I had not come all this way to turn and run.
“I bring a gift for the goddess,” I said in my best Greek. My accent was that of Amelabib and sounded local and country. The Ethiopian glared at me and at Dinah. She moaned and scurried around behind me. The Ethiopian motioned us to follow him.
He led us along a path that circled the temple to a low building at the rear. He knocked and had a conversation with someone inside. In a moment, an old woman came out carrying a torch. It burned as brightly as the absent moon. I pushed Dinah forward and whispered to her for the one-hundredth time, “You will be safe here. It is going to be all right.”
Something about the old woman seemed to touch Din
ah. She stood still and stared straight ahead. The old woman circled her and then gazed into Dinah’s face for a long time. She murmured something to the Ethiopian. Their voices were so soft I could not hear what they said. The old woman looked up abruptly and said something to me in Latin.
“She says she has been visited,” the Ethiopian translated. “The goddess knows this child.” She said something else to the Ethiopian who turned back to me. “She wants to know her name.”
I was very nervous. “Dinah,” I mumbled.
“Di…?” the old woman said, “Dia…Diana?”
“Yes,” I said, “her name is Diana.”
The old woman led Dinah, now Diana, away. The Ethiopian signaled for me to wait. In a moment he returned and handed me some coins. I looked at them—silver and gold mixed in with a lot of bronze, a fortune, more than I could earn in a year. I thought, I will never see Dinah again. But she is safe at last. Not even Darcas will find Diana if she is looking for Dinah.
My next stop was the house of Amelabib. He gave me an angry look and complained about having his sleep disturbed before dawn but when he saw the copperware I had, his face brightened. I only showed him a small sample. We were close, but in the world I lived in, you could never really trust anyone. He saw the profit in my proposal. For a share we negotiated, Darcas’ former cooper goods were to be sold from his stall. He asked no questions, I offered no explanations. It was a good arrangement. Soon I would have enough money to take Mother away.
The sun rose red and shimmering as I returned to the House of Darcas. The courtyard still reeked of burning thatch. Smoke hung low on the ground. Darcas raced back and forth cursing at her bodyguards and peering into the wreckage of her sheds. Gaius and his pack had been caught, but not before most of the goods they managed to take, were taken from them in turn, by others stronger and quicker than they. Life on the streets had not been good to Gaius. Too many beatings and too many days without food and sleep had dulled his wits. He could no longer function, even as a thief. He would be dead before the moon was full.
Judas Page 5
