My feet fly up the rungs. At the top I see, even in the dim lamp light, that the room is empty. While my bedding is still rolled and placed neatly against the far wall, Esther’s is spread across the floor in disarray. Has she spent the day resting? If so, perhaps she felt the need to stretch her legs and breathe fresh air. I’m about to descend the ladder when I notice Esther’s new clothes are no longer hanging on the peg. I study our quarters more carefully and see things I missed. Esther’s extra pair of sandals that used to be on the shelf is gone; so, too, her scrip and spare blanket. I can hardly breathe as I climb down the ladder and head for the main storeroom. The basket of fresh raisin cakes is overturned and empty, also a small basket of almonds. And the three loaves of bread we made this morning—gone.
Sweat pours from my temples as I race to the small, shelf-lined entrance. I quickly scan it until I find the covered bowl of goat cheese and pluck it off the ledge. Empty! It can’t be true! I drop the bowl, and still carrying my oil lamp, race outside. I’m like a wild donkey, sprinting to and fro around the house, the animal pens, the area of the grinding wheel, the large cone-shaped oven. And when there’s no where else to look, I drop to the dirt, and with my free hand cradle my face and weep.
Esther is gone.
“Another has come,” Mary says, stepping into my sheep pen and tugging nervously at the wrapped parcel in her hand. “He’s at Zechariah’s. But no use going there now. He’s half dead. Best you wait until tomorrow, after he’s eaten and rested.”
I nod and thank her, then continue feeding the lambs their ground grain and milk. Tomorrow? So long? And will he know? Will he have news of Esther? Of my sons? Of Ethan? Oh, Ethan, my love, my heart, why did you send me here alone? Why didn’t you come, too?
“Leah is still in bed with her back full of pain, even after all this time. I told her not to dance like a madwoman at Ira’s and Rina’s wedding.” Mary shadows me like a mother hen as I move around the pen. “You’d think a woman her age would know better.”
“I’ll stop by later and check on her,” I say, not bothering to lift my head. My mind is full of tomorrow. For weeks, stragglers have wandered into our community—dirty, ragged, starving, and all of them men. These are the fortunate ones; the few who have, by some miracle, escaped from Jerusalem. But the women? The children? What of them? I try not to think about it.
Some of the stragglers have stayed to make a new life with us. Others, after resting and gaining strength, have gone on to Galilee or one of the cities of the Decapolis looking for relatives. But all have been questioned by me. And my questions are always the same, “Have you seen my daughter, Esther? Have you seen my sons? My husband?”
“Well . . . I’m off to Leah’s now.” Mary peels back the cloth from the two loaves of bread in her hand and lifts them up for me to see. “I’ve made her my special bread, full of cinnamon and raisins. Simon claims he can never get his fill. Tomorrow, I’ll make an extra loaf for you.”
She’s so sweet, so desperate to please, so anxious to divert my thoughts. How selfish of me not to let her. But it’s pointless. I’m consumed.
The lambs bleat and push against each other, impatient to get at my bowl. “Thank you, and God speed,” I say, turning my thoughts back to tomorrow.
He looks like a skeleton. Never have I seen anyone so thin. There isn’t even enough flesh on his cheeks to sag. Instead, they sit like empty bowls beneath dark, vacant eyes. Everything about him reminds me of death: his carriage, his body, his smell. Even his dry, stiff hair falls out in tiny clumps whenever he scratches his head. It’s as if the clay is returning to dust right before my eyes.
From the doorway I watch this wisp recline at the platform table and peck his flatbread like a bird. His strength is such that he rests between bites. Zechariah hovers nearby, anxious to serve. Without announcing myself, I slip by my friend, but not before seeing the displeasure on his face. The night has been long. Endless blackness that provided no sleep. Oh, the questions that filled my head! Like buzzing bees. Is it any wonder that at first light I came here? I had to talk to this man, this survivor, this carrier of news from Jerusalem.
“Don’t stay long,” Zechariah whispers, his face all firmness and reproach.
I nod, and climb the few stone steps to the platform, then slip quietly beside the stranger. Zechariah follows. When he introduces the man as Tobias, the wealthy spice merchant from the Upper City, I bite my lip. I know him. Everyone in Jerusalem knows Tobias. He’s one of the richest men in the city, even owning a fleet of ships and a huge caravan of camels to transport his goods. I often wondered why he stayed. Why he didn’t abandon Jerusalem when so many of the other merchants did. Some said because he had acquired Roman citizenship and felt he had nothing to fear from the Romans if we lost but everything to gain. Others said it was because his gold was housed in the Temple treasury for safe keeping—a common practice of the rich—and he couldn’t bear leaving it behind. If so, neither has done him any good. When last I saw him he was vigorous and three times the size. Can a man change so much? His lip quivers in a slight smile as though reading my thoughts.
Next, Zechariah informs me that Tobias’s entire family has died from starvation, and that by all accounts he too should have died. I notice Tobias’s swollen belly and wonder if death will claim him yet. The thought makes me rash.
“Did you see my daughter—a recent arrival to Jerusalem?” I blurt. Truly I’m a selfish creature to overlook his poor, wasted state and trouble him with my questions. But I must ask while he’s still in this earthly realm.
“My daughter? Did you see her?” I repeat.
“Pray she didn’t come.” Tobias puts down his bread as though holding it while speaking is too great a task.
“Did you see her?” Oh, how shameless I am!
“You ask such a question? When the streets ran red with blood? When the Romans butchered everyone who fell into their hands, not caring if they were citizen or rebel?”
“You know my Esther. We’ve all been guests at your house. Surely you would recognize her.”
“Did anyone have time to see who came and went? We were all trying to stay alive. At the end, we hid in our homes, coming out only to scavenge for food. But they were like men possessed, these Romans. Going from dwelling to dwelling, slashing and burning. For days, I listened to the cries of our people as the sword of Rome cut through the city.”
“But you survived. Maybe there were others. Maybe you saw my husband and sons. Maybe you heard something, maybe . . . .”
“I survived, yes. The Romans found me lying next to the lifeless bodies of my wife and children. They didn’t bother with me, I suppose because they thought I was already dead.” Tobias pulls himself up into a sitting position, picks up the nearby cup of hot broth with spindly fingers, then brings it, shaking, to his lips. He sips with his eyes closed.
What was he thinking? What was he seeing? The bodies of his wife? His children? I can almost see them, too.
“When they torched my house, the smoke covered my escape.” He placed the cup on the low stone table. “It was as thick as wool. It seemed like the whole Upper City was in flames. Smoke all around. Bedlam. Oh, the bedlam! Titus’s men, mad for gold, were searching everywhere for it. Amid the chaos, I managed to pass through the Essene Gate unnoticed.
“I got as far as Titus’s abandoned siege walls when I collapsed. How long I was unconscious, I can’t say, but when I awoke it was moon bright and the air was still thick with smoke and the cries from the ongoing slaughter.” Tobias coveres his eyes. “Oh, that moon! If only it hadn’t been so bright. Then I wouldn’t have seen the stacks of bodies piled outside the city walls. Titus had been using captives to collect the dead. Nearby, a pit as large as the Pool of Siloam was filled with them—the grave of thousands. Gehenna! Surely, this is Gehenna, I thought.” He rakes his head with fingers that look more like bones, and when he’s done, clumps of hair fill his palm. He looks at them and laughs. “I’m falling apart.”
“Enough. You must rest. And you, Rebekah . . .” Zechariah makes shooing motions with is hand, “you must go home.”
To my surprise Tobias shouts, “No! Let her hear my story.” He casts his hair to the ground, picks up his flatbread, pecks at it, then places it back on the table. “My stomach can’t tolerate much food. It wouldn’t stay down. But it doesn’t matter. I know I’m dying. But if you’re asking, ‘why would Hashem spare me from death in Jerusalem, only to take my life now?’ I’ll tell you. It’s so I can speak of what I’ve seen and heard. Someone must know what happened to our people, to our Holy City.”
A man who walked out of his grave to bring us the story must be heard. And Zechariah understands this. There was no more shooing. No more talk of me going home. Instead, we both sit in silence, waiting for Tobias to continue.
“Before they took the Upper City they took the Temple. After they captured it they brought in their standards.” His face contorts. He’s seeing it. It’s all there fresh and vivid and horrible before his eyes.
“Were they lost? All our men who fought in the Temple?” I hold my breath.
“Surely it must be so. If not in battle, then afterward. Those who were captured were put to the sword or crucified.”
“Oh, my husband . . . my sons. Don’t say it, please, unless you’re certain.”
“It was said that nearly every priest who fought to protect the altar perished that day.”
I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from crying out. When Tobias sees Zechariah place a large, gnarled hand on my shoulder as way of comfort, he quickly adds, “But then nothing is sure. How can it be?”
“Tell us about the Temple.” Zechariah says. “Others have come from Jerusalem and told us it was destroyed but could tell us little else. What happened?”
Tobias groans like a wounded animal. “When the battle for the Holy Place was over the Romans carried their standards into the Temple, our Temple, and set them up opposite the East Gate, then sacrificed all manner of animals before them, even unclean pigs. Oh, how we wailed, those of us who watched from Herod’s towers in the Upper City, from Phasael or Hippicus or Mariamme. We wailed as the smoke of their sacrifices curled before their heathen standards. We wailed and tore our clothes. The whole city heard us. More than one fell on his sword in despair. The Romans had already looted the sanctuary and carried out whatever they could find. The treasury was emptied. My gold, the gold of other aristocrats, taken. Queen Helena’s gold lamp, Agrippa’s golden chain, the golden vines over the sanctuary entrance, the Babylonian curtains—all ripped apart and divided by these dogs.
“Titus didn’t stop them. This was their due. This was their reward for the months of building siege works and ramps and catapults; for the months of slashing and burning and killing. They cheered their legate. They saluted him as he partitioned the spoils of war. They were going home rich men. But greed drove them even harder. It was only a matter of time before the Temple itself became a spoil. Fire had melted the gold covering it. Gold ran from the spikes atop the Temple and all along its face and sides. It ran between the stone blocks like drops of rain. When the Romans saw this they began tearing the walls apart, pulling then down, stone by stone, just to scrape away the gold. There’s nothing left of our Temple now but rubble.”
I cover my eyes and weep as I think of how Jesus foretold this very thing; how He said not one stone would be left upon another. And so it was. Our Temple, and much of our Holy City—gone, all gone. I’m overwhelmed with grief as I weep over this great loss. And I weep, too, for my darling Ethan; for my strong, courageous sons. They were gone too. Surely they were killed along with the other priests defending the altar. And Esther? Was she lost, too? “Oh, please Tobias, think. Try to remember if you saw my daughter.” It’s not my voice that speaks. It’s not even reasonable that I should ask this again. But I won’t apologize for it.
“Your daughter?” Tobias appears confused. “Yes, you wanted to know about your daughter. She was . . . Sophia’s age wasn’t she?” Tobias was speaking of his youngest. He had given all his children Greek or Roman names as was the custom of rich Jews. I once disapproved. I find that disapproval so shallow now. “Pray Esther didn’t come to Jerusalem. If so, she’s surely dead.”
“Not surely. No, not surely. You said yourself nothing is sure. Perhaps she lives. Perhaps she was captured. What then? What would the Romans do with her?”
“Was she strong and healthy? Still pleasing to look at?”
“She’s thin and worn, but yes, she’s still pretty.”
“Ahhh . . . then perhaps it would be better if she were dead.”
Anger flushes my face. “Such a horrible thing to say!”
“Horrible but true. If she was even half alive and had a pleasing countenance the soldiers would have used her shamelessly. And if she survived that, she’d be sent to the slave markets along the coast.”
“Where? What markets?”
Tobias looks at me strangely, his skeleton head tipped to one side. “It’s no use. Who can know such a thing? Count her as one dead. Mourn her. Rend your garments. But entertain no hope of ever finding her. You must forget.”
“Where would they take her? You are a merchant. You know the Romans. You understand them.”
Tobias drops his head against his chest as if it were a heavy boulder he can no longer hold. “Forget her.”
“She’s all I have left!”
“Is it possible to find one lost grain of sand along the seashore?”
“Where?”
Tobias’s bird-like chest heaves upward in a shrug. “Caesarea Maritima. Jerusalem is lost; the war nearly over. And before taking on Masada, Titus will most likely deploy his army to Caesarea. To give his troops some rest and pleasure. The brothels will need more women. They will take many of the captured females there.”
“Then that’s where I’ll look.”
Tobias waves his bony hand in the air. “No, no! You mustn’t. I’ve seen these places. I know what happens there. Spare yourself, I beg you.”
“She’s all I have left.”
“Then understand this: these girls are forced to see more than a dozen men a day, many of whom are little more than vicious brutes. In no time the girls fall prey to disease, some are even battered to death. Most don’t last two years. By the time you find her, if you find her, she’ll be dead. And if she’s not . . . you’ll wish she were.”
There are no words to answer. My heart is in shreds. Zechariah’s, too, for he weeps loudly, his barrel-chest heaving, his gray head bobbing up and down. But no tears stream from Tobias’s eyes. I suppose a person has only a fixed number of tears to cry and he has cried them all. I lean near the drooping skull of a head and whisper, “May God bless and keep you.” I do this because Tobias has earned this blessing. The retelling of his story has cost him. And I bless him because, like me, he has lost so much. But most of all, I bless him because he has ended my anguish; my endless opening and closing of that alabaster box in my heart; my wondering if I’m a widow, if I’m a woman without sons. For a brief second, I rest my fingertips on his hand, and we are one—sufferer, survivor, the seed of Israel’s future. Then I depart without another word.
“This is folly, Rebekah.” Zechariah follows me around my house as I go from one room to the next. “You’re acting like a madwoman.”
“She’s all I have now.” I stuff bread and almonds and pouches of raisins into a large woven bag with handles. “I’ll not lose her, too. I have lost the others.” My throat catches. “My husband . . . my sons.”
“Yes . . . grieve them. Stay here and grieve them. Give yourself time to heal. Time to think.”
“There is no time. You heard Tobias. You heard what happens to girls like Esther in the brothels. For her sake, I cannot delay. My mind is made up, Zechariah. I’m going to Caesarea with my semadi, with my coins, to buy her freedom.”
“How do you know you’ll find her? Suppose they take her to Rome instead, for the Triumph? The Romans a
lways take captives to Rome after their major campaigns.” Zechariah steps in front of me as I try to leave the room. “Suppose she wasn’t captured at all.” He pulls his beard. “How do you even know she went to Jerusalem?”
“Where else? You saw her, how she dressed, how she behaved. Her mind was filled with Daniel, always Daniel. She thought of nothing else. When it came time for Ira’s and Rina’s wedding . . . well, I suppose she could bear it no longer.”
Zechariah’s bushy eyebrows join. His mouth, so well suited to smiles and laughter, tightens. “It’s dangerous for a lone woman to travel the roads. The Romans are everywhere. And many of our fellow Jews who survived, first Vespasian, and now, Titus, have turned to banditry in order to live. And they’re not above robbing one of their own.”
“I must take that chance. Please, Zechariah, don’t dissuade me. Give me your blessing and your continued prayers. I need them both. Even so, I’ll go without them.”
The large man studies me. He sighs, he closes his eyes, he opens them, he shakes his head, then studies me all over again. Finally, he throws up his hands. “If I can’t talk you out of it, then I must go, too.”
“You . . . would do that?” Oh, how my heart soars. I see God’s mercy in this. Surely it shows I follow His path. His will. Or . . . am I just being selfish? “What of the church? How can you leave the others?”
Zechariah’s hair looks like a crop of zukkum thorns sticking out all over his head. He could be as prickly as his hair, and as stubborn. But he was also steadfast. He would never shirk any task given him by God. Now I’ve gone and reminded him of that. And he’ll remember his duty and recant his rash words. I brace myself for disappointment, for I’d like nothing better than to have his company.
“My work here is done.” His mouth forms that familiar grin. “I came here to strengthen the church, to encourage the believers. With Hashem’s help, and that of . . . your cup, I’ve done so. The saints of Pella believe God is with them now. They have new hope, new courage. Simon, the bottlemaker, is a good man. He and Mary will be pleased to open their home to the believers. They don’t need me anymore. And I’ve desired to return to Ephesus for some time now to see John the Apostle again. And to get there I must travel the same road as you. It’s only sensible we travel it together. Besides, you’re like a daughter to me. Shouldn’t a father protect his daughter?”
Rebekah's Treasure Page 12
