by Ann Swinfen
After we had eaten, both of us hungrily, I sat back and looked at him across the crumbs.
‘What do you think Yeshûa is planning to do?’
Yehûdâ spread his hands and shook his head.
‘I truly do not know, Mariam. He fled to Capernaum because it is near and we made friends there when we visited it before on our travels. But I cannot think he means to settle there. Since the arrest of your cousin, the Baptiser, I think he’s felt it his duty to carry on the mission.’
‘But we agreed before that Yeshûa’s ideas are different.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And your brother is a strong man, of deep convictions. I think perhaps he has not yet quite found his voice.’
‘You mean, he doesn’t know how to put into words what he believes?’
‘Well, look at that fiasco in the kenîshtâ yesterday! Scraps of quotations from the scriptures. Silence. Incoherent shouting at people! No wonder they were angry. When people are afraid and confused, of course they will become angry. Especially if they feel threatened from within. Not like a threat from a Roman soldier. One of your own, coming to lecture at you, warning you that you are evil and must repent.’
Had it really been only yesterday?
‘But what will you do?’ I asked.
‘Find out what he plans to do first, if he has any plans. Perhaps persuade him to come to my father’s house in Sepphoris. Try to protect him from himself!’
He reached across the table and took my hand.
‘We can be married in Capernaum, my love. Or from my father’s house. It will not be the wedding your father would have given you, but wherever it is, our love will be as great.’
I lowered my eyes and lifted his hand to my lips and kissed it.
It was a relief to rest for a while, but Yehûdâ said that it was five or six miles more before we would reach Capernaum, so after our meal we set off again. After the rest, the walking seemed hard at first, but the land was quite flat around the edge of the lake, and the scent of the flowers would have made it pleasant, had I not been so tired.
‘There,’ Yehûdâ said, pointing to a cluster of houses ahead, lying along a curve of the shore. ‘That is Capernaum.’
I loved Capernaum from the first, and I spent there some of the happiest days of my life. That afternoon, though, drawing towards evening, I thought mainly of being able to stop walking, to sit down, and perhaps even take off my sandals again. We walked on towards the little town (for it seemed to be not much larger than a village), following the strip of grass that separated the houses from the shore. They were mostly modest houses, smaller than my own home, belonging, Yehûdâ said, to the fishermen who worked on the lake. Boats of all sizes were drawn up on the beach, and a few more were being rowed in from the lake. There were nets draped over bushes to dry, and we passed a couple of men wearing nothing but loincloths who were mending a torn net with fresh twine.
And there, sitting cross-legged on the sand, talking to a group of fishermen, was Yeshûa.
Chapter Ten
Manilius and Julia crouch side by side between the rows of vines. The sun on their backs is scorching, and the soil is arid and dusty, but they ignore the discomfort. Julia is pointing to a tiny green nodule on one of the bare stumpy twigs that look like so much firewood pushed into the ground.
‘See, Father. This one is alive. There’s a leaf coming.’
Manilius peers more closely, his nose almost touching the plant. It needed a child’s sharp eyes to make out this first sign of life, the first hint that the gods, after all, may not have deserted him. Julia crawls along the row on hands and knees, and stops a dozen feet further along.
‘Here’s another one!’
Abandoning all sense of dignity, Manilius crawls after her. The child is right! After that they count another twenty vines showing their first swelling buds, after weeks of worry and despair. Manilius jumps to his feet.
‘They have taken! They are growing!’
He picks Julia up and throws her into the air. They are both shrieking with triumph, so that the Israelite farm hands come running.
‘Another top dressing of manure,’ Manilius says, ‘and water it well in. Then come up to the house to celebrate. We’ll broach an amphora of my best vintage, two years old, and drink to the future.’
Zakkai and the others exchange looks of relief and exultation. The success of the new vines means as much to them as to Manilius, for all their labour in the master’s vineyard declares their stake in their new homeland.
Even in my room I hear them. Today is one of my better days. I am awake and sitting propped up with cushions in my bed, but aware for once of the sounds coming from the farm and of the sunlight flowing through the slats of the half-open shutters to make a geometric pattern on the floor, netted in the entwining shadows of the bay tree.
‘I have brought your midday meal, domina,’ says Rachel, coming in softly on bare feet with a tray of food. Speaking Aramaic, she is fluent and eager to talk. ‘I thought you might be able to eat something more solid today. I have made lentils the way we used to do at home, with onions and cumin and coriander.’
‘It smells good.’
I smile at her.
‘I think my appetite has come back, a little, at least.’
Rachel straightens the cushions and lifts the tray onto my lap. Besides the dish of lentils there is a cup of chicken broth and some fresh raised bread, still warm and fragrant from the oven.
‘What are they shouting about, on the farm?’
‘The vines are coming into leaf. It was Julia who noticed first.’
‘Oh, that’s good! My son has been so worried.’
I can see that Rachel wonders how I could know this, having been lost in a dream world for days, sleeping or unconscious, but mothers have a way of reading their children’s minds.
‘The master would like to know whether you will take a glass of the vintage wine he has opened to celebrate? He has been very kind—he’s sharing with all of us.’
‘And that’s only right, for you have nursed the young vines like infants. Tell Manilius yes, I will take a glass of wine.’
When Rachel returns, I have finished the broth and am eating the lentils.
‘These are good, just how my mother used to make them. I’m afraid I usually overcook them.’
Rachel blushes with pleasure and sets the delicate glass of ruby wine on the tray. I lift it to the light, turning it in my hand.
‘We never had glass to drink from, when I lived in the Galilee. We drank from pottery beakers. Though I remember some very fine pottery in Capernaum.’
‘You know Capernaum?’ Rachel asks eagerly. ‘Our village was not far from there, a little to the west.’
‘Not on the Lake of Gennesaret, then?’
‘No, but only an hour’s walk away. We often went there. When I was a very small child we once went to the kenîshtâ in Capernaum, to hear Yeshûa ben Yosef preach, him they say was the Messiah and was killed by the high priest and the Romans. He did wonderful things! I saw him lift up a lame man, and he could walk again, and he touched the eyes of a blind old woman and she could see! He was wonderful! I think it was wicked that they killed him.’
‘Yes, he was wonderful. And it was wicked.’
‘Did you see him too, domina? I did not realise.’
Rachel’s eyes are glowing, her hands clasped to her heart.
‘Are you,’ I ask gently, ‘a follower of the Christ cult?’
At once the woman’s face clouds over and she lowers her eyes.
‘Zakkai thinks it is too dangerous.’ She looks up again suddenly and her eyes are bright with excitement. ‘But I believe he did come to save us. I saw him!’
I point to my clothes chest.
‘Will you bring me something? In the chest there, towards the bottom, on the right. A cedarwood box, a little larger than a man’s hand.’
‘Is this it?’ Rachel carries the box over to the bed. ‘Oh, it’s so beautiful!
The star of David inlaid in ivory.’
She runs her finger over the inlay, then turns suddenly white and trembling.
‘Are you unwell?’ I ask.
The woman shakes her head as she places the box on the bed.
‘No. I felt for a moment . . . I do not know. Strange. Will that be all, domina?’
‘Yes, thank you, Rachel.’
As the door closes softly, I take the box between my hands and caress it.
Yeshûa looked startled—and angry—when he saw Yehûdâ and me walking towards him along the beach at Capernaum.
‘So you have followed me,’ he said, squinting up at us against the setting sun. ‘I did not ask you to come with me, Yehûdâ. I’m not sure that this path is for you.’ He turned towards me, frowning. ‘And you, Mariam? Have you travelled all this way, alone with Yehûdâ? Does our mother know you are here?’
‘No,’ I said, sitting down next to him, relieved to rest my feet. ‘No. She does not. Nor any of the family. Though by this time, I expect they will have guessed. You must not blame Yehûdâ for my actions. He left on his own to follow you and to protect you against attack. You should be grateful to him. I ran after him without his knowledge or consent. After what happened . . . I could not stay in the village.’
‘You were alone with Yehûdâ all night?’
‘I was. But surely you know that your oldest and dearest friend is a man of honour!’ I could feel the colour flushing my cheeks. ‘I come to you, my brother, as safely as if I had travelled under your own protection.’
He looked from one to the other of us, then nodded slowly.
‘Perhaps this was meant. Not men only, but women also.’
‘Mariam,’ said Yehûdâ, cheerfully ignoring him, ‘these are the friends we made before, when we came to Capernaum. Ya’kob and Yôhânân, brothers, and sons of Zebedee.’
He looked around.
‘Where are the other brothers, Shim’ôn and Andreas?’
Yeshûa pointed to one of the larger boats, which was drawing near the shore.
‘How was the fishing?’ Yehûdâ called to them.
‘Poor!’ shouted one of the men in the boat, a stolid-looking man, a little older than my brother. ‘Never a fish in sight. We have fished all night and all day and caught nothing. They must all have fled away to the eastern shore.’
‘And I promised Mariam a meal of the finest Gennesaret fish tonight,’ said Yehûdâ, giving me a sly glance. He must have noticed my earlier look of distaste at the mention of fish.
Yeshûa stood up and pointed to a spot a little way offshore and to the right.
‘Put your net down there, Shim’ôn, and it will come up full.’ He turned to the brothers called Ya’kob and Yôhânân. ‘Launch your boat and help him, for there will be too much for one boat alone.’
Shim’ôn let out a bellow of laughter, which rang across the water.
‘You’re become a fisherman now, are you, Yeshûa? And know the ways of the fish better than we?’
My brother merely smiled.
‘Oh, let’s humour the lad from the mountain village,’ said Shim’ôn, and the brothers turned their boat to row out to the place where Yeshûa had pointed. The other two fishermen sauntered down to their boat, in no great hurry.
We watched as Shim’ôn and Andreas threw out a huge net that came to rest in a circle, with its edge buoyed up by floats. Suddenly the water within the circle began to churn like boiling milk. The two men in the boat struggled to hold the net steady, then Shim’ôn dived off the gunwale into the lake. He was, I could see, stark naked.
‘What is he doing?’ I asked.
‘That kind of net is called a mehatten,’ Yeshûa said. ‘The bottom is held down with weights. Shim’ôn will dive to the bottom of the net, then draw it together and tie it off, so it forms a bag.’
Shim’ôn’s head appeared above the water again and he flung himself into the boat. Both brothers began waving frantically to the other boat to come to their assistance. We could see, even from the shore, the vast waterfall of fish they tipped first into one boat and then into the other. All four men were hip-deep in thrashing silver fish. Some flopped over the side and swam away.
‘The boats are sinking,’ Yehûdâ said quietly, giving my brother a strange look.
‘Better light a fire,’ said Yeshûa, ‘and find some sticks to sharpen. I think Mariam will have her fish after all.’
The two boats made it safely to shore, though the water was lapping over the gunwales. Seeing me sitting there, Shim’ôn had hastily knotted on a loincloth, but none of the men wore tunics and I tried to avoid looking directly at them. Other fishermen came hurrying along the beach, calling out to their wives and children in the houses along the foreshore. Soon it seemed as though all of Capernaum was on the beach, the women gutting the fish and packing them with coarse salt into barrels as quickly as the men unloaded them. Everywhere there were shining heaps of fish and the air was suddenly filled with gulls swooping down to seize the fish guts.
‘Is it always like this?’ I whispered to Yehûdâ.
He shook his head.
‘Never.’
Shim’ôn’s wife had gutted a pile of the finest fish, which she laid on a straw mat and smeared with oil, in which I could see flecks of herbs. Shim’ôn speared them on sharp sticks and thrust these at an angle deep into the ground beside one of the fires. For fires had sprung up all along the beach. Girls were bringing out stacks of unleavened bread and the fishermen, once they had unloaded the boats and spread out Shim’ôn’s net to dry, carried great jars of wine and shechar down from the houses to the beach. As I sat beside my brother on the ground, sipping the rough wine, I thought that the smell from the cooking fish was not unpleasant. In fact, my stomach groaned a little in anticipation.
The fish were quickly cooked and I was handed a wooden platter holding a whole fish. I looked at Yeshûa enquiringly. He chopped the head off with his knife and threw it over his shoulder into the bushes, where two dogs began quarrelling over it.
‘Just pull the flesh off the bones with your fingers,’ he said. ‘Take care not to burn yourself.’
Tentatively, I put a small chunk in my mouth. It melted away on my tongue. It was dill that Shim’ôn’s wife had mixed with the oil, just a fragment, which blended with the delicate taste of the fish. Yehûdâ grinned at me across the bones of his first fish. Already he was reaching for another.
‘Manna!’ I said. ‘I am converted!’
My brother shook his head at me, and laughed aloud.
That first night in Capernaum, Yehûdâ lodged with Shim’ôn, while Yeshûa and I went home with the brothers Yôhânân and Ya’kob. Their father Zebedee was also a fisherman and their mother, Salome, was a plump kindly woman who exclaimed over the state of my feet, which she washed tenderly and salved. I was given a small attic room to myself, where I laid out my bedroll and after the briefest berâkâ, fell soundly asleep. The long walk and the festive meal on the beach had exhausted me.
The next day, after I had helped Salome with her household tasks, I set out to explore the town. It was larger than I had thought at first, stretching back some distance from the lake, with a bustling market, such as I had never seen before, at the gateway in the northern wall. Country people had come in from the villages round about to sell their produce at stalls they set up there—planks laid across trestles, with a canopy above to protect them and their goods from the sun. A caravan of about twenty camels, with their drivers under the direction of a merchant in the bright clothes of the Bedouin, had taken up a position at one side of the market, while he bartered goods with the townspeople. Then the camels heaved themselves to their feet and began to plod away along the road leading north.
‘Where are they going?’ I asked the woman at the nearest stall.
‘Damascus, probably. They come through all the time, between Damascus and the Middle Sea. Will you have some of my new peaches? Picked fresh this morning!’
I shook
my head.
‘I’m afraid I have no money. Not even a pruta. I came to Capernaum only yesterday. I expect I will have to find work.’
It had not occurred to me until that moment. Yehûdâ had some money, but Yeshûa was probably as penniless as I. How were we live?’
The woman smiled.
‘Here. Have this one. A gift to welcome you.’
I thanked her and walked on, the peach’s furry skin warm in my cupped hand. The soil here must be much richer than the land round my own village, for the houses had gardens abundantly filled with fruit trees and every tiny square or crossroads was shaded by a flourishing fig or pomegranate. There were several springs, where the water was piped through a stone conduit or carved lion’s head, falling into a basin below, so that the women could fill their jars from the water spout, instead of needing to haul it up from beneath the ground with a bucket on a rope, as we did in our village. At these natural meeting places, and in shady corners, there were stone benches where the townspeople sat and gossiped, as if there was no work to be done, even in the middle of the day! In one small square I saw that there was a stone table with the board for the game of kings carved into it, and two men of working age sat there playing. Outside several of the houses stood large pottery jars overflowing with exotic flowers of a variety I did not recognise.
I wandered back at last to the shore and found a spot where I could sit on a rock out of the sun and watch the fishermen at work, while I slowly ate my peach, which was sweet and juicy and larger than a man’s fist. After last night’s astonishing catch, most of the men were not fishing, but were mending their nets, using wooden netting needles rather like the shuttles we used for weaving. Two men had turned their boat upside down and were caulking the seams. Just one man was fishing, not from a boat but standing thigh deep at the edge of the lake. He wound the net round his arm, then flung it out with a beautiful sweeping gesture, so that it fell in a smooth arc into the lake. It looked so effortless, yet I was sure many years’ skill lay behind it. He drew the net in again. There were a few fish wriggling inside. The small ones he tossed back into the lake, the larger ones he dropped into a basket floating in the water beside him and secured by a cord around his waist.
