Bread of Angels

by Tessa Afshar

  “I, on the other hand, soaked up the scholar’s instruction like a parched land. I was not supposed to be learning anything. My father wished nothing but that I keep Benjamin in hand. Instead, I learned Greek and Latin. I read Homer and Virgil and Herodotus. I discovered a world full of wisdom and beauty.

  “The scholar—a Jew, as tradition demanded—instructed my brother on the Scriptures as well as on philosophy and literature. I had never heard anything like what he taught. He expounded upon the Lord like a poet who knows the mystery of words. He breathed life into the Law. It was like being dead and coming alive. I had heard of the Lord since birth, attended synagogue, learned my prayers. But I had never known the majesty of God.

  “The tutor, noting my thirst and potential, spent more time with me than with Benjamin. Not knowing my father well, he boasted to him one day of my accomplishments. He told him that he had never known a quicker mind. I would have warned him if I had known of his intention.”

  “Warned him of what?” Lydia asked, puzzled.

  “Educating girls is a waste of time to my father. Worse. A dangerous undertaking, for filling a woman’s mind with knowledge will likely corrupt an already-inferior soul.”

  Lydia grimaced. “Inferior soul?”

  “My father has little respect for our sex. Every morning, in his prayers, he thanks God that he was not born a woman. Women, as far as he is concerned, only serve one useful purpose: to breed male children.

  “He was furious that I had received so much instruction. Imagine the offense! His son had barely learned to read and write while his daughter proved an adept scholar.”

  “He was not proud of you?”

  “He whipped me until I could not leave my bed for a week. My brother’s tutor was dismissed, of course, and a new man hired. I was ordered to keep my distance from the schoolroom after that.”

  Lydia winced. “I am sorry.”

  “The chamber where my brother studied had a curious construction. Above it lay a cramped room where few liked to go, for it tended to become stuffy in summer and freezing in winter. It had one advantage: sound carried from my brother’s room with absolute clarity. No one had paid mind to this oddity. Few spent enough time in the room to even notice it.

  “I asked my mother if I could complete some of my tasks there. Sewing, weaving, darning. You never saw such an industrious girl. I came out of that room with armfuls of work finished. Of course, in the background of my very feminine labors was the nasal droning of the new scholar. Thus, I continued to learn. The years passed in peace, and I knew contentment though I had little freedom.”

  A trickle of admiration welled up in Lydia for the girl. She had not only survived in that oppressive environment; she had managed to find a way to prosper. “Were you discovered?”

  Rebekah twisted her fingers until they turned white. “No one ever knew about the education I secretly received. My life changed by different means. Father had a friend, Elihu, who visited our home sometimes and brought his wife when he came. Elihu had amassed a fortune but had no children.

  “His wife, Bayla, spent her time with my mother and me when she visited. We would not dream of mixing company with the men. I did not know her well, for unless pressed, Bayla rarely spoke a word. There was something about her that reminded me of a terrorized animal. Her eyes darted about as if in a haze of dread, and she jumped at every sound. Bayla had a lot of accidents.”

  “Accidents?” Lydia asked, confused.

  “Accidents. She always had bruises because she fell or knocked into things. Once, the bruise on her arm was shaped like four fingers. I asked if she had fallen into someone’s hand by accident.”

  “Her husband beat her?”

  “Severely. Elihu was a cruel man.”

  Caught up in Rebekah’s story, Lydia found herself holding her breath. Half an hour before, she had wondered if her guest had committed an unspeakable crime. Now she sat spellbound as if at the feet of Aesop himself, hearing one of his remarkable fables. She thought of Jason, who in spite of his youth and charm had proven also to be a cruel man.

  “Was Elihu young and handsome?”

  “No. He was old and ugly. A tormenter without mercy. I did not know then that my future was inexorably entwined with his wife’s. I pitied her lot in life, not understanding that the same fate awaited me.

  “Last year, Bayla died. I think she simply lost her hold on hope and slipped away. As our great king David put it, ‘her life was spent with sorrow.’

  “When she died, no one seemed to even notice that she was no longer in this world. No one mourned her. Missed her. Elihu cast about, searching for a new wife. A new chance to have sons.”

  “Oh no,” Lydia muttered.

  Rebekah nodded. “Why his eye fell upon me, I cannot say. But my father had drawn the marriage contracts before he even spoke to me.”

  Lydia expelled her breath. “Did he not know how Elihu had treated his wife?”

  “He knew. It did not matter. The marriage would bring many advantages to our house. My mother agreed as she always did.”

  Silence filled the room. Lydia wondered how a young woman might survive the brutality of such a coldhearted father along with the disinterest of such a weak mother.

  “I begged and pleaded,” Rebekah said into the silence. “I reasoned. It made no difference. My father would not be moved. In the end, I simply refused to give my consent. He had me locked in my workroom without food, thinking to break me. Of course he did not know the secret comfort I received in that chamber.

  “That week, my brother’s tutor was teaching him the Psalms. I lay weak with hunger while the Word of God washed over me. It gave me courage and held me together when I thought I might fall apart. The Lord became my food. He became my comfort. His Word became my prayer.

  “I remember one morning after a sleepless night, I cried out in my heart: My enemy is too great for me, Lord. I cannot bear the weight of this affliction. At that very moment, as if in answer to my silent prayer, my brother’s tutor cited a psalm of David, his voice rising into my room as clear as an angel’s song: ‘I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy.’

  “I knew that day that the Lord heard my cry; he cared for my distress. I knew that he would deliver me. In life or in death, I would taste of his freedom.

  “The next day, my father resorted to flogging me. I told him it made little difference, for if I agreed to marry Elihu, then my new husband would flog me every day. I should have held my tongue, I suppose.”

  Lydia thought of the courage it had taken to stand up to such a man and found herself looking at Rebekah with respect instead of pity. Eumenes would have held this girl in high esteem, she thought, for facing so much fear without giving in to it. “That’s when he threw you out?” she asked, her voice gentle.

  Rebekah nodded. “Elihu became furious when he discovered that I was unwilling to marry him. My father said I had shamed him before his friends and cast me out of the house, proclaiming me a stranger to him.”

  “How did you eat?”

  “For the first few weeks, I lingered near our home. I knew where they kept the trash pile before emptying it in the dumps outside the city, and the servants would sneak food for me in there. I thought the sight of me might soften my father’s heart. He did not waver. After three weeks he threatened to have me arrested and thrown into prison if I refused to move away from our old neighborhood. It was no empty threat, for the very sight of me was an embarrassment to my family. So I moved.”

  Lydia shook her head. “I don’t understand how you have survived.”

  Rebekah smiled. There was no hint of bitterness in that smile. No resentment. It held a world of peace. “The Lord has cared for me. He has held me in the palm of his hand.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A friend loves at all times,

  and a brother is born for adve
rsity.

  PROVERBS 17:17

  “DID HE HOLD YOU IN the palm of his hand when your father tried to force you to marry a brutal man? Or when he renounced you and threw you out of his home? I mean no disrespect, Rebekah, but if this is an example of what your god’s palm looks like, I would rather be under his foot.”

  Astonishingly, Rebekah laughed. “He does not always keep us from danger, but he preserves us in danger. I have known hardship, but my heart has felt secure in his steadfast love.”

  Lydia gave a slow nod. “I think I know what you mean. My father was like that. He could not always protect me from harm. But even as disaster visited our family, I knew I was safe as long as I had his love.”

  “Your father told you he loved you?”

  “Often.”

  “I cannot imagine my father saying such a thing to me. I think his jaw might break if he attempted it.”

  By tacit agreement, Rebekah spent the next night at Atreus’s house. And the next.

  “You might as well stay this whole week. I can do nothing to arrange for my trip until the caravan owner returns,” Lydia said.

  As they spent their hours together, Lydia found herself divulging her own story to her guest. She held nothing back, not even the shame of her unrequited feelings for Jason.

  “God has preserved us both from very evil men,” Rebekah said.

  “I don’t feel very preserved,” Lydia said, though she felt a profound relief at the simple acceptance in Rebekah’s words. She had not judged Lydia’s folly.

  “We have both lost our homes and our families. We are both cast adrift from all we knew,” Rebekah said. “‘Better times perhaps await us who are now wretched.’”

  “Virgil again. Shouldn’t you be quoting the poets and philosophers of your people?”

  Rebekah smiled. “‘Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth.’ The prophet Isaiah.”

  The prophet’s words carried a weight that even Virgil’s prose lacked, Lydia had to admit. They contained a promise that pierced her heart like a sharpened arrow, for shame and disgrace were her constant companions since her final encounter with Jason. Would there come a day when she could be free of their piercing bondage? “But isn’t that a promise for your people only?” she asked.

  Rebekah’s face went very still. “I think,” she said after a long silence, “it is a promise for all who seek the Lord.”

  At the end of the week, Lydia returned to the market in search of the caravan owner. This time she did not go alone. Rebekah followed along, like a faithful servant who had been with her since childhood. Her presence brought a comfort that steadied Lydia’s wavering world.

  But it also brought a thorn.

  Every day, she felt a deepening attachment to the girl. It seemed to her as though Fortune had thrust a true friend into her life at a time when all her attachments had been robbed or lost. Before Rebekah, Lydia had been drowning in an ocean of dark isolation, pounded by the utter loneliness of her life.

  Her father had bid her to start afresh. To make a new life. How was a woman alone to accomplish such a thing? She could be swallowed by the dragon teeth of a thousand misfortunes before she even arrived in Philippi. Fear consumed her like a raging fire when she thought of it.

  Rebekah had nothing worldly to give. No fortune, no useful connections, no stability of her own. Yet she offered a treasure greater than all this. She offered loyalty and friendship. She brought with her a deep well of wisdom that could anchor a flailing soul to something deep and secure. Something she called the Lord, but Lydia thought it was Rebekah herself.

  Her pace slackened as Lydia realized that every step toward the market brought her one step closer to losing Rebekah.

  Worse. She was condemning Rebekah to an unimaginable life of misery. What would become of her when Lydia left? Thrown back into the streets of Thyatira, how long would she last?

  They were both silent, wrestling with worries that seemed to have no remedy. When they found the owner of the caravan, Lydia asked when the next group of travelers would leave.

  “In a week,” said the man, his cheeks puffed with a mouthful of dates. “I will bring you as far as Troas. From there, you must arrange for your own ship to Neapolis, though I can give you the names of a few good captains and trustworthy vessels.”

  “How much will that cost?” Lydia asked.

  A fortune, she thought when she heard the sum. She added the numbers in her head: the price of the caravan to Troas plus the journey on the boat. And then she doubled it. The cost for two passengers instead of one. She had kept a careful tally of her remaining coins and valuables. She knew to the last copper coin how much she had. If she sold everything except for the valuable tools of her trade, she would be able to pay the passage for two.

  But then she would arrive in Philippi with nothing. Nothing to help her start a small workshop.

  “I will purchase two places on your caravan,” she said.

  When Rebekah found out what Lydia had done, her eyes grew round, not with wondrous joy but with horror. “No, mistress! You cannot make such a sacrifice. You cannot hazard your future for my sake.”

  “I can if I wish,” Lydia said, her jaw set at a mulish angle. In truth, she had felt more at peace since she had made the decision than she had for many weeks. She had been her father’s caretaker for much of her life. With him gone, she felt adrift and uncertain. Rebekah not only offered her friendship; she also provided her with a purpose. Another person to look after. Another life to protect.

  “Mistress Lydia, how could I live with myself if your future were destroyed because of me?”

  “You underestimate yourself. I need your help. I cannot run a workshop alone. I will teach you my trade, and you shall be my apprentice. You are intelligent enough to help me in a hundred ways.”

  “You cannot eat intelligence,” Rebekah said tartly. “Believe me. I should know.”

  Lydia cracked a rare smile. “You can with me.”

  Atreus, upon hearing her decision that evening, called her rash and told her she had lost her senses. “How will you afford the expenses of a new workshop with so little money left?”

  “You helped me because my father helped you,” Lydia said. “Now it is my turn to help another.”

  “You should claim to be a widow,” Atreus advised as the day of their departure drew near. “Even the shadow of a dead husband provides some protection, as well as greater freedom once you arrive in Philippi. Not many doors will open to an unmarried young woman. Whoever heard of a young girl in trade? It cannot be done. Not even if I write you a letter of introduction as your guardian. No one would trust anything you produce. At least an imaginary dead husband would provide you with a measure of respectability.”

  Lydia noticed Rebekah’s expression. “Their god does not allow lying,” she told Atreus.

  “This hardly counts as a lie!” Atreus protested. “It harms no one and helps two unprotected women.”

  Rebekah rubbed her arms. “What happens when the people of Philippi find out that Lydia made a false claim? If she can lie about being married, she can lie about the quality of her purple, or the worth of her merchandise. Small lies can cause as much damage as great ones.”

  Lydia could see the sense in both arguments. “It would be almost impossible to set up a workshop as an unmarried woman. No one would care how honest I was. They simply would ignore my merchandise.”

  “The Lord will make a way for you. He will open doors you could not carve with your own strength or craftiness.”

  Lydia exhaled a deep breath. “Just as he made a way for you when I first saw you, homeless and hungry?”

  Rebekah grinned. “Exactly like that. For he sent you to me, and look at me now, bound for Philippi and a new life. My family disowned me, and yet I have been given a friend who is closer than a sister.”

  If Lydia gave in to Rebekah’s urging, it was not because
she trusted in her god, she told herself. She had been as betrayed by the gods as by Dione and Jason. Whether Rebekah’s Lord proved superior to her own pantheon of deities remained to be seen. She had little trust to offer the god of the Jews. She chose not to lie, in the end, because she knew deceit of any kind would torment her friend. Their lives were now irrevocably tied together. If Lydia lied, Rebekah would perforce have to lie as well. To protect Rebekah, Lydia told the truth, though she worried that it would cost her all hope of success.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  For you bless the righteous, O LORD;

  you cover him with favor as with a shield.

  PSALM 5:12

  LYDIA KNEW NEXT TO nothing about the Aegean Sea and worried that since it was autumn, they might get caught in stormy weather. To her relief, two different ship captains assured them that unlike in the Mediterranean, the winds attacked the Aegean Sea most fiercely in the summer months, and they had already missed the worst of the storms.

  They purchased passage on a peacock-blue grain ship made of old oak. She and Rebekah joined about twenty other passengers and numberless sacks of wheat on board. The captain of the ship, a Greek man with long, leathery cheeks and guarded eyes, greeted them as they came on board.

  “Traveling alone?” he asked.

  Lydia nodded, her shoulders tensing.

  His gaze moved from Lydia to Rebekah. “I have two daughters your age. Sit over there, and stay out of trouble.” He pointed to a shaded corner of the ship, almost hidden by large sacks of grain.

  The girls scrambled to obey. Less than an hour later, before the ship had a chance to move, one of the sailors found them. He was a large man with an expansive naked chest that glistened with sweat.

  “Look what I found!” he cried with glee, his mouth breaking into a big grin.