Apprentice

by Maggie Anton

  “How was the food?”

  “Not bad.” He shrugged. “They used a greater variety of spices than at our wedding, and there were some dishes I’d never tasted before, like roast peacock. They served excellent old wine, but no date beer.”

  “No beer? But this is when date beer is freshest.”

  Rami shook his head. “Abba had the audacity to say right to my face that he’d rather drink flax water than date beer.”

  I bristled at the insult. “How can Abba dare show himself at Father’s lectures?”

  “I was surprised when he returned with us,” Rami said. “Especially after I heard him talking to Abaye about studying with Rav Yosef in Pumbedita.”

  I wished Abba would move to Pumbedita. Though Abba had a wife now, I couldn’t forget that he’d wanted to marry me. I couldn’t shake the thought that his returning to Sura meant his rivalry with Rami would not only continue but intensify.

  Instead of disclosing any of this, I asked Rami, “Isn’t a student supposed to stay with his original teacher only until he’s learned all the Mishna?”

  He chuckled. “That’s true now, but when my brother, Ukva, was studying with Rav Hisda in Kafri, your father told his students that ‘he who learns Torah from only one master will never see blessing,’ so they all left him.”

  “Father must have been devastated.”

  “Ukva said that your father knew that would happen, but he told his students anyway. Ukva and I went to study with Rav Sheshet, but the others went to Rav Huna.”

  “What made everyone come back?”

  “Rav Huna taught just what you told me—that students don’t move to a new teacher until they’ve mastered the complete text with the first,” he said. “Only after that should they start to learn various types of logical reasoning and analysis from different teachers, until they are proficient in them all.”

  I was about to say that Father’s students now benefited from learning both with him at the villa and with Rav Huna in court, when I felt a slight flutter inside my belly. I gasped softly and moved my hand to my stomach, eager to feel it again.

  Rami sat up and stared at me, his eyes wide with alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I think I just felt the baby move.”

  He lay down and placed his hand next to mine. But the sensation did not return until the next day.

  Thank Heaven Rami hadn’t taken a vow to never attend another wedding without me, because two weeks later word came from Kafri that Keshisha and Guria would wed shortly after Hanukah, when the final batch of date beer was sure to be finished. I had mixed feelings about this. Evidently Keshisha had repented sufficiently that Yenuka found him worthy to marry Guria. But I was still angry at how he’d used my slave, left her with child, and placed the blame on me, yet had suffered almost no punishment.

  Of course I wouldn’t be able to attend. I’d be starting my eighth month of pregnancy. Yet Rami had to be there; this was my brother and niece getting married, not strangers. Achti and I would stay home and console ourselves with thoughts of our unborn children.

  Unfortunately, this was not to be the case—as I discovered when Zahra, in the course of comparing a nearby stone-lined indoor mikvah with the pond Father had constructed off the canal, mentioned that she and Achti had gone together and immersed one after the other.

  I wanted to console Achti for her loss, but she never brought up the subject and I didn’t dare. She undoubtedly regretted telling me, and her situation must have been painful enough without having to talk about it with her pregnant sister. At least she’d be able to attend Keshisha’s wedding. Achti was occupied with mothering little Yehezkel, and I wondered what, if anything, she’d tell Keshisha about his son.

  Thus, on the final day of Hanukah, shortly before my family left for my brother’s wedding, Rami and I moved our things into what had been our nuptial bedchamber. Though Mother must have used it as her sitting room in the interim, it looked so little changed from our wedding week that Rami and I couldn’t help but exchange smiles at the memories it brought back. Mother expressed only relief at our arrival, and even admitted that Pushbi had been wise to suggest it. There was no question of returning to my old kiton; Mother and Pushbi also agreed that I should avoid climbing stairs.

  It was strange to be the only person living in the villa, aside from the few slaves who had not accompanied the family to Kafri. Rahel had given me kasa d’charasha to inscribe, and I’d brought my silk weaving along. Plus there was Grandfather’s volume of Mishna to study in the evening and the excitement that came whenever I felt the baby move inside me.

  Still the hours passed slowly, and I was relieved when the day came for everyone to return home. I was sitting in the garden, inscribing the last bowl Rahel had left for me, when Imarta surprised me by announcing that a student had arrived.

  “What should I do with him, Mistress?”

  I wanted to finish the line I’d started, so I replied, “Put his belongings in his room. I’ll join him for the midday meal.”

  “He’s already put them away,” Imarta said, a hint of disapproval in her voice. Clearly she expected me to be a more conscientious hostess in Mother’s absence.

  “Very well.” I held out my hand. “Help me up and I’ll greet him properly.”

  I couldn’t imagine what to do with the student. As far as I knew, none of them were expected before next week. At least Father would be back before dark. I was halfway across the courtyard when I saw someone waiting in the entryway. He stepped out into the sunlight, and I gasped in dismay.

  Abba bar Joseph quickly closed his mouth, which had dropped open in astonishment. “What are you doing here?” His deep voice seemed to echo in the courtyard.

  “This is my home.” I put my annoyance into my reply.

  He frowned and shook his head. “No, this is your father’s home. Your home is in central Sura, with your husband.”

  Though I owed him no explanation, it would be better than arguing. “My mother-in-law believes they have provoked the Evil Eye. She says it will be safer for me to have the baby here where Father’s piety can protect me.”

  Since I only came to the villa for Shabbat, when Abba went home to visit his new wife, we had scarcely seen each other since Rosh Hashana. His eyes went to my bulging belly and then, before I could see his expression, he turned away.

  I remembered my manners. “Come inside and have something to eat. Or do you want to rest? You must be exhausted from your long journey.”

  “I don’t need to rest, and I can wait until the midday meal is ready,” he said. “I arrived in Sura yesterday and spent the night at an inn.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my work.” I started back to the garden, and, unexpectedly, Abba walked with me.

  “Do you believe it is your father’s piety that protects you here?” he asked.

  “That and his constant Torah study.” Why was Abba asking about this? Surely not merely to be polite.

  “I think things such as long life, children, and wealth are the result of mazal.” Abba’s low voice made him sound especially solemn. “After all, if these were due to anything besides luck, we wouldn’t have so many pious scholars who are poor and whose children, if they have any, die young.”

  “Rav did some magic in a cemetery and conjured a hundred of the recent dead,” I said. “Ninety told him that they died from the Evil Eye, and less than ten from natural causes.”

  Abba said nothing until we reached the bench where I’d been sitting. When I dipped the quill into the ink pot and picked up the bowl, he asked, “What are you writing on it?”

  “It’s an incantation to protect the people named on it from evil spirits, demons, liliths”—I paused for emphasis—“the Evil Eye and other such dangers.”

  “Really?” He leaned over for a closer look.

  It was tempting, but I did not allow myself to condescend. “My sister-in-law has been producing and installing these for years, for Jews and P
ersians alike,” I replied. “She’s but one of many enchantresses who do this.”

  “So it’s related to an amulet?” He sounded genuinely interested.

  “Yes, except a kasa d’charasha is buried under the client’s home and can hold a longer, more detailed incantation.”

  “Fascinating,” Abba said. “Do have any more?”

  Thankful there was no love spell among them, I showed him the other bowls I’d completed recently. To my surprise, he seemed impressed.

  “So there is a way, in addition to Torah study, to save oneself and one’s children from an early death,” he said.

  Since this looked to be a long conversation, I put down my bowl and quill. “This is a method that women can use.”

  “But women do accrue merit from Torah study. I learned that when we studied the fourth Mishna in the third chapter of Tractate Sotah.” Apparently Abba didn’t think I knew the text concerning the suspected adulteress, for he proceeded to quote it, his hands gesticulating for emphasis: “If she has merit, it suspends her punishment. Hence Ben Azzai says that a man is obligated to teach his daughter Torah.”

  “But the Mishna can’t mean merit from Torah study, for how can a woman gain such merit when she is not commanded to study Torah?” I protested. “The Mishna must mean merit from doing mitzvot.” Surely the Sages hadn’t created a system where the supreme merit was reserved for men only.

  But Abba shook his head. “We learn from a Baraita that the verse from Proverbs ‘A mitzvah is a lamp and the Torah is light’ means that just as a lamp burns only for a limited time, so a mitzvah protects only temporarily. But light itself is eternal, so Torah study protects forever.” Again he gestured to make his point.

  “If the merit of Torah study is greater than that of performing mitzvot, how does this apply to women?”

  “The merit that keeps the suspected adulteress’s punishment in abeyance is certainly the merit of her Torah study, as Ben Azzai suggests.” He saw that I was about to interrupt and added quickly, “But for those who object that she was not commanded to study Torah, let her reward come from encouraging her sons to study and enabling her husband to do so.”

  I said nothing, but inside I was reeling from an epiphany. Surely the merit from enabling others to study couldn’t compare to the merit of one’s own studies. Thus the Sages had excluded women from Torah study and from its rewards, in particular long life for herself and her children. But enchantresses had their own learning, which also brought power and rewards. And as I continued to study both, I would be acquiring merit from each.

  When a kitchen slave announced the midday meal, I was faced with a dilemma. A married woman never allowed herself to be secluded with a man who wasn’t her husband. Until now Abba and I had been outdoors, where any number of slaves could see us. But once we were inside, dining together, it would be different.

  Abba must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “You should ask your steward to join us.”

  I wasn’t pleased with Abba telling me what to do, so I asked Imarta to eat with us as well. Then I asked him, “So what brings you here two days before Shabbat?”

  He frowned. “My wife is niddah.”

  If Abba had been any other of Father’s students, or if I weren’t pregnant, I might have offered some consolation for his wife’s not yet having conceived along with encouragement for the future. But Abba would see this as gloating, and in truth he would have been right.

  We ate with minimal conversation, emulating the Persian custom of dining in silence. Of course we drank date beer, and I couldn’t resist saying, “I understand that you prefer flax water, but we only have that around Shavuot.”

  Rami would have laughed, but Abba was in no mood to be teased. His expression remained serious, and he said, “I recall how you used to listen to Rav Hisda’s classes with Rav Hanan.”

  His mention of Grandfather brought tears to my eyes, but Abba either didn’t notice or didn’t care, for he immediately asked me, “Do you still study Torah?”

  “Yes. Grandfather bequeathed his Mishna codex to me.”

  Abba’s eyes lit up. “Could I see it?”

  Afraid that this was some ruse to accompany me to my room, I stood up and hesitated. But he remained at his table and merely watched as I went to get the precious text. Only when I returned, codex in hand, did he stand up and approach me.

  “This is beautiful,” he said softly, caressing the leather cover and then gently thumbing through the pages.

  “It is, isn’t it?” My yetzer tov was pleasantly surprised at how reverently he handled the book, considering how rough and rude he was in class. My yetzer hara made me wonder if Abba caressed his wife as tenderly. “But I know it all by heart, so I only use it as a memory aid now.” A memory of my grandfather.

  “What is the sixth Mishna in the second chapter of Tractate Shabbat?” he abruptly asked me.

  My throat tightened as I brought the text to mind—it dealt with women dying in childbirth. He may have chosen this passage to intimidate me, but I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

  I deliberately quoted an earlier Mishna to thwart him. “If he puts out a lamp on Shabbat because he fears pagans or robbers, or so an ill person can sleep, he is exempt from sin. But if to save the lamp, oil, or wick, he accrues guilt.”

  “No, the one after that,” he interrupted, speaking with that infuriating tone of authority that made me want to rebel.

  This time I quoted the correct Mishna. “For three sins, women die in childbirth. For neglecting niddah, the challah offering, and kindling the lamp.” I looked him in the eye. “I’m lucky that I don’t have to worry about this. I’ve never made bread or lit a lamp in my life, and I’ve only been niddah once, after which I immersed in the mikvah as the Torah requires.”

  “I’m sure my mother never transgressed any of those either, yet she died in childbirth.” Abba stared back at me, and I could see the anguish in his eyes. “We are commanded to procreate, yet the Merciful One allows so many women to die in childbirth. I thought that as a woman who studies Torah, you might know why.”

  Abba asked an important question, so I gave him the answer I’d learned from Father. “Childbirth is a perilous time for most women, and if she hasn’t performed enough mitzvot, the Heavenly Court may not save her,” I said. “Just as you can leave a drunkard by himself and he may fall.”

  “You’re saying that when danger is near, a person’s sins are remembered and punished,” he said slowly. “And because childbirth is so dangerous, that is the time when women are judged. As they say: When the ox has fallen, sharpen the knife.”

  I poured myself more date beer and refilled Abba’s cup. “The Heavenly Court scrutinizes men as well as women. Since men are obligated to perform many more mitzvot than women, they have many more opportunities to transgress. They are also out in the world more than women and thus encounter more dangerous situations when they might be judged.”

  Abba nodded. “Zeira won’t walk near palm trees when the south wind is blowing, and some students are afraid to cross a bridge or walk beside a crumbling wall.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t that your mother had sinned,” I suggested, “but rather that she was in such peril only a miracle would have saved her, and her merit had already been used to save her at an earlier time.”

  “Still, that doesn’t answer the question—why should childbirth be so perilous?”

  Surely Abba didn’t expect me to know the answer; no one did. I certainly didn’t want to ponder the question, not in my condition, and my anger flared at Abba’s rudeness in persisting with the subject. It would be growing dark soon, and still my family hadn’t returned. I didn’t want to start the evening meal without them, but I also didn’t know how long to wait. What could have delayed them? Please, not an accident on the river.

  Abba’s drumming fingers interrupted my reverie. “I would prefer to discuss another Mishna, if you don’t object,” I said.

  He seemed st
artled, and then quickly apologized for upsetting me. I accepted his apology, although it was difficult to believe that someone as sharp as Abba would be so thoughtless that he’d bring up the topic by accident. So we reviewed a later Mishna, one about what kinds of accessories men and women are permitted to wear on Shabbat, as contrasted with those that might be carried, which are forbidden.

  I took satisfaction in discomforting him by pointing out that the mokh a woman tied between her thighs while niddah was certainly permitted, since it was unlikely to fall and need to be retrieved. Abba blushed but responded that even a mokh that wasn’t tied on, but was inserted directly into the womb, should be permitted, since no woman would pick it up even in the unlikely event that it did fall out. Against my will I was impressed; not only had he said this with aplomb, but he knew more about using a mokh than I did.

  To my chagrin, Abba and I spent the remainder of the day together, he reading through Grandfather’s codex while I inscribed kasa d’charasha. When the sun went down with no sign of my family, I reluctantly asked Timonus to sleep with Abba while Imarta and my old nurse slept with me. The hour grew late, but I knew sleep would elude me until I heard my husband’s voice. So we remained in the traklin. Timonus would not go to bed until Abba did, and Abba hadn’t so much as yawned.

  EIGHTEEN

  EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF KING BAHRAM II’S REIGN

  • 291 CE •

  Just when I was about to tell Cook that she could bank the hearth fire and go to bed, a slave ran in yelling that the master was home. Timonus sprang into action, directing kitchen slaves to ready the traklin for a meal and sending others down to the dock to bring up the family’s luggage.

  Moments later Rami bounded through the door. His smile lit up the room when he saw me, and moments later I was in his arms.

  I said, “Why are you so late? I was worried,” at the same moment Rami inclined his head toward Abba and whispered, “What is he doing here?”