Apprentice

by Maggie Anton

  Yochani’s sigh of relief was so heavy that I realized I must have avoided some sensitive topic. “It is indeed true that he was a gladiator in his youth, but you cannot imagine the poverty that drove him to it. Drought after drought meant that each year his father’s land yielded less produce, and each new emperor increased taxes and debased the currency further.”

  Her voice became bitter. “Small farmers like my grandfather were forced to sell to large landowners, becoming like slaves on their former property. Productivity fell even lower.”

  “How awful.” And how different from Bavel, where the land was so fertile that industrious tenant farmers could earn more than the landowners.

  “Father told me he was so hungry as a youth that when he heard how well gladiators ate, he decided he’d rather die quickly with a full stomach than slowly of starvation,” she said. “He was big and strong from working on the farm, and he was clever too, so he won all his contests. Eventually he won his freedom as well.” Yochani’s voice was full of pride.

  “Is that when he met Rabbi Yohanan?”

  She hesitated and appeared to be deciding something. “I don’t make excuses for what my father did next, for he could have found work as a caravan guard. Instead he became a brigand, robbing prosperous-looking merchants on the road. He even led his own band of highwaymen.”

  I said nothing, although Yochani had just confirmed another rumor I’d heard about Reish Lakish.

  “But the band broke up, each man accusing the others of demanding too big a share. My father was on his way back to the family farm, curious if any of his relatives still lived there, when he noticed Rabbi Yohanan bathing in a stream below.”

  We paused to stare just as a shooting star raced across the sky.

  “Reish Lakish really thought he was a woman?” I asked as we began walking again.

  “Indeed,” Yochani said. “Uncle Yohanan didn’t have a beard, and he was so plump that he appeared to have breasts…”

  “And he was exceedingly beautiful,” I continued for her.

  “My father thought he was a harlot, for what other woman would be bathing like that, all by herself?” she explained. “So he undressed and jumped down into the water.”

  My jaw dropped in amazement. “What happened when he discovered a man instead?”

  Yochani cleared her throat, and when she spoke, I sensed that she was holding something back: “Father was annoyed and said that such beauty belonged to women. But Uncle Yohanan, impressed with Father’s vitality and aware of the lustful act Father had intended, said strength like that should be used for Torah study. Furthermore, he said if my father agreed and repented, he could marry his sister, who was even more beautiful.”

  “And that is what happened,” I concluded, wondering what she hadn’t told me. Was it really just Torah study and a beautiful bride that cured him of his banditry?

  “Indeed. He married my mother, and Uncle Yohanan taught him Torah, both Scripture and Mishna, so he became a great scholar.”

  We stopped at the bottom of the hill to greet several people heading up to view the same panorama we’d just admired. “But eventually there was a problem,” I suggested gently when we reached the Street of Leatherworkers.

  “So many people know, so I may as well tell you.” Yochani sighed. “It was years later, in the study hall, after Father had been a rabbi and Uncle’s study partner for some time. They were debating over when in their formation metal items like swords, knives, and spears could become impure,” she began. “All agreed that they remained pure until finished, but Father and Uncle Yohanan argued over when in the process they were complete. Finally Uncle Yohanan accepted Father’s expertise in the matter, saying, ‘A brigand knows the tools of brigandage.’”

  “Oh no,” I gasped. “How could Rabbi Yohanan publically remind Reish Lakish, his own study partner, of his previous criminal career after he’d repented and gone on to study Torah?”

  “Especially since Uncle taught that it was better to cast oneself into a furnace than to embarrass another person in public,” she said bitterly. “While many people knew Father had been a gladiator, his time as a bandit was a secret. Uncle tried to dismiss his breach of confidence by explaining that he meant that a gladiator knows his weapons. But it was too late. Father felt insulted and humiliated, and expected Uncle to apologize.”

  I shook my head sadly. “I suppose Rabbi Yohanan believed that he’d done nothing wrong, and that Reish Lakish was being both unreasonable and ungrateful after he’d taught him Torah.”

  “Indeed. But the truly terrible part is that Father got sick afterward. Mother went to Uncle Yohanan and cried for him to pray for Father’s recovery, but he refused.”

  “So your father died.” I pulled Yochani close and hugged her. “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for you.”

  “It was.” Yochani brushed away her tears. “But it was worse for Mother, who never remarried. You can’t imagine her anguish when Uncle Yohanan got sick later and she had to care for him.”

  “They say he was sick from grief over Reish Lakish.”

  “Indeed he was.” Her voice was hard with anger. “He tore his hair and clothes, and kept wailing, ‘Where are you, Lakish, where are you?’ I wanted to shake him and make him see that he was to blame for Father’s death.”

  “But he must have been insane.”

  Yochani blew her nose into the street. “That only made things worse. It may have been wrong, but I prayed for Uncle to die, and he did.”

  We continued to her door in silence, and I wondered if Abba bar Joseph felt any responsibility for Rami’s death. Was that part of his desire to marry me so soon, to save me from a widowhood he’d caused? When Yochani and I separated to go to bed, I apologized for bringing up such a distressing subject in the middle of what was supposed to be a joyous festival.

  “Don’t concern yourself over it. Indeed, one thing I learned from this tragedy was to be slow to anger and quick to forgive,” Yochani replied. “Besides, this all happened almost twenty years ago, and I have better things to worry about.” She managed a small grin and added, “Like making sure I still have eight working lamps for the last night of Hanukah.”

  Judah Nesiah, a proud descendant of the great sage Hillel, followed his ancestor’s teaching to enhance the mitzvah of Hanukah by kindling an additional lamp each night of the festival. Rabbi Avahu was not the only guest to bring his own lamps, and there were some visitors who came only to the final lighting. Thus on the eighth night, the tops of the palace walls were ablaze with all sorts of small fires.

  The sight would have outraged the Magi back in Bavel, but I thought it was glorious. Upon my return from nursing Yehudit, I stood outside the Nesiah’s palace, admiring all the shining flames in the town below. Yehudit would be two years old next fall, so this might be my only Hanukah in Sepphoris.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” A masculine voice asked me.

  I whirled around to see Salaman resplendent in a formal white wool toga. He was no longer clean shaven, but his beard was shorter than the kind most men in Sepphoris wore. His sudden appearance surprised and unnerved me, yet I was glad to see him.

  “First at Rabbi Avahu’s and now at Judah Nesiah’s,” I said. “You move in exalted circles for a man who installs floors.”

  “My clients are pleased to welcome me to their homes.” He smiled easily, his teeth glinting in the lamplight.

  “You laid the floors here?” I asked in amazement. “But the palace has been here for generations.”

  “Actually my father and grandfather laid them, but I did help a little,” he replied. “And I repair them as necessary.”

  “You weren’t dressed so aristocratically when last we met.”

  “I’m flattered that you noticed my clothes,” he said. “And you weren’t dressed like a married woman when we met, although this outfit makes you look just as lovely.”

  Feeling both pleased and uncomfortable with his compliment, I ignored it. “What
do you mean, ‘dressed like a married woman’?”

  “Only married women are supposed to wear the stola.”

  I was stunned. Why would Yochani have made me wear a stola? Were Susanna and the Nesiah’s other guests now snickering over my fashion error? Suddenly I didn’t want to go back inside.

  Salaman must have noticed my alarmed expression. “Don’t worry. Some widows continue to wear a stola, especially if they don’t intend to remarry. Few widows as young as you still wear it though.”

  I didn’t want to discuss my marital status with this man I barely knew. “So are you here for Hanukah, or is it time for your next project?”

  “I am almost ready to begin.” He paused and gazed at me. “You look particularly beautiful in yellow. You must wear this gown when you pose for me.”

  I put my hands on my hips and scowled. “I haven’t agreed to pose for you.”

  “Yet,” he added, flashing me that amazing smile. Then he shrugged. “You’ll be my model whether you pose or not, although I do hope you’ll help me so the final portrait will be from life rather than from my memory.”

  Even with inscribing a few amulets again, the many hours I spent with Yochani and her friends were no longer as entertaining as they once were. Posing for Salaman and seeing him create his elaborate floors would be something I’d never do in Bavel. And I had to admit that I felt drawn to the dashing artisan.

  “What exactly would being your model entail?” I tried to sound merely curious, rather than actually interested.

  “To begin with, I would need to sketch you,” he replied. “Then, once I worked out the design and where your portrait fit into it, I would draw the reverse template of your face on a flat, wooden board. Next I’d choose the tesserae I need and lay them on the board upside down, fixing them in position with hot beeswax.”

  “Tesserae?” I’d never heard the word before.

  “That’s what we call the small mosaic tiles.” He looked to make sure I was still paying attention. “All this is done in my workshop, by the way. Only at the end, when it’s time to position the portrait on the floor, do I go to the patron’s home. There I pour the cement, turn the board over, and push the tesserae down into the wet mortar.”

  “Where they will then be right side up,” I said excitedly.

  “Exactly.” He seemed pleased with my enthusiasm. “Then I melt the beeswax with hot water, reposition a few tesserae as necessary, and it’s ready for grouting. I would want you there at this stage too, so I could see that it’s a true image.”

  “Do you do this all yourself?” I thought of Rabbi Avahu’s large mosaic floors and the tremendous amount of work it must have taken to create them.

  Salaman chuckled and shook his head. “I employ an apprentice, plus I already have templates for most patterns, like foods, plants, animals, and the common borders. Only the wealthiest patrons can afford an entirely original floor, although they’re exactly the people who want one.”

  “I agree to pose for you under one condition,” I declared.

  “And what is that?” he asked suspiciously.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I want to see the entire process, at least as it applies to my portrait.”

  He burst out laughing, and then calmed himself. “As long as you’re here in Sepphoris, you’re welcome to watch me work anytime. But I warn you, I can’t delay a step just because you and Yochani are away in Tiberias or Caesarea.”

  “When do we start?” It was too late to pretend I wasn’t eager.

  “I should be ready in two weeks.” He stopped to think for a moment. “I’ll come by for you on the thirteenth, in the early afternoon.”

  It was my turn to think. The thirteenth was an inauspicious day for inscribing amulets, so I wouldn’t be occupied with that. The moon would still be waxing, which bode well for beginning an enterprise, and early afternoon would give me a chance to nurse Yehudit before her nap. Plus, if I invited him to dine with us first, Yochani would be sure to interrogate him more thoroughly than I would have dared. Why should Salaman have the advantage of already knowing so much about me?

  “You must join us for the midday meal first.”

  “Excellent. I was hoping you’d ask.”

  We stood together awkwardly, each waiting for the other to go back inside first, until I felt compelled to break the silence.

  “By the way, when we met in Caesarea, how did you know my name and where I lived?” He couldn’t have questioned my slaves; they were inside with Yehudit.

  “I asked Rabbi Avahu, of course.”

  I walked back to the feast wondering what else Rabbi Avahu had told him about me.

  As I expected, Yochani was delighted with the prospect of Salaman dining with us, although she fretted over the poor selection of produce available at this time of year. She knew him only by reputation, as his family’s workshop had done mosaics in the local synagogues and bathhouses. She insisted that if my features were going to decorate some villa’s floor for years, I must bathe and have my hair done first.

  Needing more time for my hair, I limited my stay in the soaking tubs. There I scrutinized the nearby floor mosaics, which were almost at eye level. I was amazed at how small and precisely cut the tesserae were, how level and smooth, and how, merely individual stones of seemingly random colors when viewed up close, they fit together to create a design or scene that could be discerned only from a distance. I suddenly appreciated how the bath mosaics portrayed an aquatic theme appropriate for their setting.

  Doing my hair took longer than I intended, with the result that Salaman was already talking with Yochani when I returned. He was dressed in the short belted tunic typical of tradesmen, quite different from his previous outfit.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said as I rushed in. “I was delayed at the bathhouse, admiring the mosaics.”

  “Don’t worry,” Yochani said. “Salaman only just arrived.”

  She showed us to our seats, where appetizers were already placed on the small tables before us. I expected Salaman to make the blessing over the bread, but when he didn’t, Yochani said it as if she’d only been waiting for us to get comfortable first. Immediately after I said amen, which Salaman also didn’t, she began her questioning.

  “Tell us, Salaman, how you came to your profession?”

  He dipped his bread in the fish sauce and shrugged. “My grandfather and father made mosaics, so I followed them.”

  She tried for more information. “And how did your grandfather learn it?”

  Salaman saw he would not be permitted to merely eat and then take me to his workshop. “He learned from his grandfather, who was enslaved and sold to a mosaic master in Rome after Bar Kokhba was defeated.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THIRD YEAR OF KING NARSEH’S REIGN

  • 296 CE •

  Salaman spoke as if this were perfectly ordinary. “Considering the fate of so many others, I suppose he was fortunate.”

  If he intended to leave Yochani speechless, he succeeded.

  I stared at him in awe. The Sages in Bavel still spoke of Bar Kokhba’s failed rebellion and how the great Rabbi Akiva had mistakenly believed him to be the Messiah. It took twelve Roman legions to crush the Judean revolt, during which half a million Jews perished and many more were sold into slavery. The emperor Hadrian was so determined to prevent another uprising that he banned Jews from Jerusalem, outlawed circumcision, and changed the name of Judea to Palestina, after the Philistines who used to live there.

  “How did he get from Rome to Sepphoris?” I finally asked. Surely it would be a fascinating tale.

  Salaman leaned back in his seat. “The way I heard it, my grandfather’s grandfather learned how to lay mosaics so well that his master gave him increasing responsibility, until he became an artist as well,” he said. “He was given a Jewish slave woman as wife, they had a son whom they named Salaman in memory of the Temple, and all three were freed at the master’s death. Eventually he brought them to Antioch,
where he and his son studied at the city’s school of mosaic makers.”

  Yochani refilled his wine cup. “What made them come back to Eretz Israel?”

  “According to my grandfather, Antioch had too many Romans and too many earthquakes, so his father decided to move the family to Sepphoris. Here the population was mostly Jewish, plus wealthy enough to afford mosaics in their buildings.”

  “Do you have any relatives here?” I finally asked. I was amazed at the harrowing tale of how his family had risen from slavery to prosperity. It was the Pesach story come to life.

  He shook his head. “I was my father’s only child to reach adulthood, and I don’t think his siblings survived him.”

  Yochani tsked sympathetically. “Times were very hard back then. Between the droughts, pestilence, and famines, I somehow managed to see two children grown, but like your father, I have neither living siblings nor cousins.”

  Here we lapsed into our own thoughts for so long that I felt as if we were in Persia, where silent meals were customary.

  Finally Salaman turned to me and asked, “According to Rabbi Avahu, things are quite different in your family.”

  “I don’t mean to boast, but I am the youngest of nine, seven boys and two girls, and I have so many nieces and nephews from my brothers that I’ve lost count. My father is a rabbi who teaches Torah and Mishna from our home.” I went on to describe my family’s life in Bavel, focusing on our agricultural endeavors rather than on Father’s wealth and prestige.

  “Hisdadukh is being modest,” Yochani said when I finished. “Her father is a great sage, head of the beit din in Sura in addition to his own Torah academy there.”

  “My father was not a follower of the Rabbis,” Salaman murmured, perhaps concerned that his words might offend us. “He didn’t hold with their innovations and the way they took for themselves the authority to decide what is Jewish Law. As far as he and my grandfather were concerned, it was Rabbi Akiva’s fault that Bar Kokhba rebelled and Judea was destroyed.”