The Stones of My Accusers

by Tracy Groot

  “More than what she is . . . ,” Marina said softly, to nobody in particular.

  “She is so fearless,” Orion murmured. “She sits in front of that tree like the Furies couldn’t chase her away.”

  “She’s a wonderful woman,” Marina said. “She just doesn’t know it yet. She doesn’t believe it.”

  Orion blinked. Reality came wriggling back, and with it, pure irritation at his own helplessness. “A wonderful woman?” He snorted. “Marina. You know what she is.”

  Marina nodded, her gaze far away. “I do. But she does not know, not yet. Would to God she will find out someday.”

  “I am not in the mood for your riddles,” Orion snapped.

  “There is no riddle. She is loved by God. Made in his image. She does not believe this. Not yet.”

  He rose, folded his napkin, and set it on the table. “I must leave. Thank you for the meal.” It was as stiff as it felt, but there was nothing for it. “Take the matters to your Council. Perhaps in the matter of the stonemason, they can do something. Maybe your god will see fit to make a concession for him so he can work on his Sabbath. Else he will die.”

  “Do you have to give that order, Orion?” Marina asked sadly.

  “Does your god have to be so stingy with human life?” Orion returned. “What does a day matter, Marina? Theron, it’s no wonder you are a bad Jew. I would be too.”

  Theron rose from the table and stood his tallest. Chin high, he said, “It is true I do not look upon things in the same way as most Jews. But whether a priest or an am ha-aretz, I am a Jew. And I will fight for the beliefs of my people.”

  “You’ll fight for the belief of a day? That doesn’t make sense!” Orion nearly shouted, exasperated. “Gods and goddesses, it’s only a day! Tell your priests to have pity on this poor man and make a concession. They can do that, can’t they? I could help them frame it. They can have the fellow put in extra time at the synagogue if it makes them feel better. He could—”

  Marina cut in with, “The man will not work on the Sabbath because of his conscience, Orion, and conscience is what it is all about.” Wearily, she pushed up from the table and came to stand next to Theron. “The question is, what kind of pity can you have on this man?”

  Orion stared from Marina to Theron. “You make it sound like it’s up to me. You make it sound like it’s my fault! By the gods—‘Orion, see what you can do about this. Orion, we have a situation.’ No. You are on your own with this.” His face burned, he was trembling. He had never spoken this way before, not to Marina and Theron. He started for the door and reached for his robe, but turned. “It was enough for me to put the matters before him. Don’t you see that? Do you know what I risked in that simple act? I could lose my position for it.”

  “A man could lose his life,” Theron said. “Perhaps that would be the beginning of something quite catastrophic. You think they had fits about the standards in Jerusalem? There would be an uprising, Orion. This is one I would join.”

  Orion could only stare. He put out his arms and let them drop. “What am I to do, Theron? I can help you people in many small ways under the table, but not like this.”

  “You people,” Theron muttered. “Now we are ‘you people.’”

  “What do you want? Lots of small ways, or the single one that will end it all, and my career in the bargain? Do you know what that would do to my father? Pilate could charge me with treason—treason, Theron!—and I’d lose more than my job. I’d lose my freedom or my life. I can’t do that to my father. I’m all he has.” Iron collar in a small wooden box. Fashioned for the neck of an eight-year-old.

  “You can’t do it to your father, or you can’t do it to yourself?” Theron asked very quietly.

  The words slammed like a blow. Sick at heart, Orion nodded at Theron. “The cause is everything, isn’t it? That’s your Jewish slogan. Your cause is more important than the life of one insignificant secretary. I see it now, Theron. I see now, Marina. I see what all these Sabbath meals have been about. By the gods, I have been blind.”

  Theron’s darkened face said he was wrong. The tears in Marina’s eyes said he was wrong, and he knew he was, knew it because he knew them. But he said what he said, just as Theron had, and there was no taking it back. He said it because it felt good to say it.

  He had waited all week to come and suddenly could not leave fast enough. He ducked out the doorway, for the first time without a good-bye.

  Candlelight spilled from windows onto the commonyard walkway. Ten steps away and the evening chill told him he had forgotten his robe. He folded his arms tightly; he’d freeze before going back to fetch it. He glanced bitterly into some of the windows as he passed. Orion would never be allowed to cross the threshold of most of these homes. Some purified themselves for even touching a Gentile. Who wanted their god if their god was as quarantined as they? If these people thought to beguile the Gentiles from their wicked ways, they had better start acting like—he grimaced. Like Theron and Marina.

  How could a people be so stubborn? For things that did not matter? They brought it on themselves, they got what they deserved because they would not play Rome’s rules.

  They would suffer again. One will lose her tree. Another will have his back laid open with forty-nine lashes. He will die from blood loss or infection. What would come of it this time? There would be a fourth file. He knew it. He had the same bad feeling he had when Pilate cheerfully dipped his pagan hands into the Jews’ sacred Temple treasury to put in the aqueduct. In his inexorable, obtuse, enthusiastic way, Pilate was making for himself another incident, the repercussions of which would reach Rome. He was the only man Orion knew who would spear his foot and call it good.

  There would be a bloodbath, for the Jews would not put up with it. They would come to the aid of their man and people would die, same as when they protested the standards. People would die.

  He hated the day he left Rome. Hated the day he met two people who changed his mind about Jews. Hated that the people he loved on earth had grown to a grand total of three.

  “To my beloved father,” he dictated out loud, “from your son, Orion Galerinius. Greetings. How is Aunt Vesta? Better, I hope. Well, it’s just another day here in Judea. Another gods-cursed day.”

  3

  JORAH HANDED COUSIN THOMAS the bundle of his prayer shawl and tefillin, and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. The old man took the bundle absently, a delighted smile on his face. He wasn’t used to having someone fuss over him.

  “You will introduce me to the mosaicist today?” Jorah asked him.

  “To Theron. Of course. He will be delighted to meet you. He has a new apprentice.”

  “Yes. You told me. Several times.” Cousin Thomas was getting old indeed. He was supposed to be off to synagogue but took his time about it. He plucked at the bundle, smiling at her.

  “Synagogue, Cousin,” Jorah gently reminded him.

  “Ah, yes. It is Sabbath morning. Good Sabbath morning, Jorah.” He beamed at her, plucking the bundle.

  “Good Sabbath morning.”

  “Today you will meet Theron. He is a good man. His wife was Sarah’s friend. She’s very kind. They have a new apprentice.” A frown briefly pulled his face. “Theron does not go to synagogue.” The childlike cheerfulness returned. “Marina is a good cook.”

  “So you have told me, Cousin. I am glad they take care of you.” She guided him to the door and opened it for him. “Enjoy your morning.”

  He shook his finger at her. “Good neighbors are hard to find.”

  “Yes, Cousin. Synagogue, Cousin.”

  He stood in the doorway plucking and smiling, then finally kissed the mezuzah on the doorjamb and left. Jorah sighed as she watched him go. At least he fell in step with another man emerging from a doorway farther down the row of houses. She hoped he remembered the way home.

  Her gaze left him and went to the mosaic across the commonyard. A standing-up mosaic! There it was—embedded on the wall of his home, proclaiming
to the world what he was all about. So daring and fresh and delightful. Nothing like it in Nazareth, nothing that even felt like it.

  It was transfixing. Perfect crests of the sea, now blue, now white, in some places touched with sunlight. Sunlight! At least that was the effect. It was astonishing. Where did he get that blue? Where did he get the yellow? She wanted to go and run her palms over it again. A work like that beckoned. She could not believe everyone in the courtyard did not come daily to admire it. To respect such talent.

  Perhaps they were used to it. Not a single person gave the mosaic even a glance yesterday, and she had watched to see. If anything, it seemed Theron’s place was ignored. Were they so used to living near such brilliance? And why did he live here? Why didn’t he have his own villa instead of a home with a commonyard?

  She had watched anxiously for the mosaicist to leave for synagogue with the new apprentice Thomas spoke of, but nobody cracked the door this morning. A curtain was drawn over the window. Well, Cousin said he didn’t go to synagogue.

  Shame on you, Jorah, she told herself as she pushed off from the door and turned into the house. Spying on people. You’re just not used to living in a city, living so close to so many people. She had always pitied Annika for living in town. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing.

  She hummed as she gathered the plates and set them in the washtub. She covered the dirty dishes with a towel; they would be washed this evening, when Sabbath was over. She placed the washtub on top of the cupboard so she would not smell the dishes when the day grew hotter.

  She wandered about the little home, gazing at the way Sarah had set things up, the way she had kept house for Thomas for over fifty years. It was evident she had had a lingering illness; the corners of the home were thick with dust that had been there a very long time. The place also had an odor to it. It was the smell of old people and old cooking. The kitchen needed a good scrubbing, that was certain. Jorah had clucked like an old housewife at the dirt under the kitchen table. She couldn’t wait to get at it tomorrow. It was fun to clean someone else’s home.

  Jorah was happy to think of making this place shine again. She liked gentle old Thomas. She remembered when he and Sarah came for visits to Nazareth. More, she remembered coming here. There wasn’t much in Nazareth; here was everything. Herod’s Harbor. The Praetorium Palace, a huge marvel of a place. The Great Stadium, and most of all, the sea. Once she had this place thoroughly scrubbed, she would visit the sea. Find a solitary place to gaze on it for hours.

  She paused at a little table. A small lamp stamped with a seven-branched menorah sat on an embroidered—and very dusty—cloth. She bent close to examine the perfect, tiny stitches in the cloth. She brushed her finger over them.

  Perhaps she could forget what brought her here, for a time. Perhaps she could forget why she left Nazareth. Nobody here knew who she was. The moment she came into Caesarea, she had felt the cloak of who she was lift away, leaving her in a relief of anonymity.

  Thomas did not seem to bear the onus of one related to Jesus of Nazareth. As far as she could tell he was treated the same as anyone else. Perhaps coastal people were different. Perhaps he had never told anyone. There was a great deal of hope in that. Marina had not mentioned Jesus’ name.

  Here, she could be a different person. She could breathe again.

  She lifted the lamp and shook out the cloth. Yes, she came to Caesarea for a reason, but it could wait. It could wait for a very long time as far as she was concerned, because for the first time in a very long time she was free. For once it was Jorah’s turn to leave Nazareth. Maybe Jorah’s turn to never go back. The thought made her eyes widen, and she straightened from the table.

  Well, and why not? Why go back to scandal and notoriety? Why go back to where they whispered behind her back and sometimes right in front of her? She hated Nazareth. Yes, she was to go back and live with Annika once she told Rivkah the news . . . once she breathed to her of certain scars. She was to stay with Annika until word came from her family in Jerusalem. But what if she couldn’t find Rivkah?

  Nathanael was dead, and nothing would change that whether she found Rivkah or not. She who gave Nathanael those scars wouldn’t care anyway. Why waste time searching for her? She centered the lamp on the embroidered doily and continued her tour of the home.

  The sitting area was small, just a couch and two tripod chairs with old leather seats. Two rooms opened off the sitting area, the room that belonged to Cousin Thomas and the storeroom in the back where he had set up a cot for her. Jorah went to the doorway and pulled aside the goatskin curtain. She smiled sadly at the bed; there were still two pillows at the head. Cousin Sarah’s beautiful clothing chest, stained in a lovely light brown, so light it was nearly yellow, was at the side of the bed. On a recessed shelf above it was an assortment of things collected over a lifetime.

  Jorah wouldn’t be surprised if her father had made that chest. There was a time when nearly everything he stained had that color, no matter the wood. She looked at the recessed shelf. Hairpins, a comb. Some jewelry. She reverently picked up a simple bracelet set with a single stone. She put the bracelet on her wrist and held it out. Poor Cousin Thomas. What would that be like, living with someone for over fifty years and then that person is gone? No wonder he seemed bewildered half the time.

  “Oh, Cousin,” she murmured softly. She was putting the bracelet back when her eyes fell on a small wooden trinket box. She froze, bracelet in midair. She knew those crosscuts in that wood. The bracelet dropped with a small clatter. She stared at the box for a very long time.

  They were his crosscuts. Jesus made the same box for James, only bigger. Same smooth lines carved to look like a braid. Same corner squares filled with tiny crosscuts.

  She backed away from the shelf. What ever made her believe she could leave Nazareth? Reminders were everywhere. In the face of Thomas, who looked like Father. In unexpected wooden boxes. She was his sister. She could never leave that behind. Who she was and what had happened . . . it pursued her like a distant thief on a road.

  The moment Jorah had turned into the home, the door of the mosaicist opened. A young man came out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Joab’s face felt like a cold, tiled board, one of Theron’s sample patterns. Today he would tell a mother her son was dead. Today he would tell the last words of Nathanael, which were not his words at all. His arm tightened around the bundle. He hunched his shoulders and made for the gate.

  Even in the commonyard he noticed the way people treated him. He learned quickly that people around here either loved Theron and Marina or hated them. How could anyone hate Marina? He found his teeth clenching at what happened last night. From behind the curtain flap, he had heard the man’s raised voice. And when he had left, he heard Marina crying. That haughty Orion had made Marina cry. The memory brought fury. Wasn’t he ready to fly out the door and flatten his Roman face for whatever he had said to make her weep? He had disliked Orion the moment he saw him. What were Theron and Marina thinking, entertaining Pontius Pilate’s closest employee? Their trust in people went too far. One day they would pay for it.

  They were stupid even to trust him. How did Marina know he wasn’t a common brigand the day she found him in the marketplace and asked him home for dinner? The same evening, Theron hired him without so much as a reference. His father would never have done such a thing. It wasn’t good business. Theron and Marina were good people, kind people, but not very smart.

  If there was one thing that bothered Joab about Marina, it was the way her kindness toward other people came before obligations around the house. Though he loved her kindness, that same kindness had a distraction about it. She would be three houses down, showing a young wife how to make a lentil and onion salad while her own lay half-assembled on the cutting board. She’d help the crabby old woman across the commonyard with her laundry while—Joab sniffed his tunic. His spare tunic had been in the laundry pile since the day he arrived.

  Theron was a diff
erent case. He was not in danger of overabundant kindness, but that workroom—how could he get anything done in such a place? Joab spent three hours the first day just cleaning up. It seemed Theron was always ready to erupt when he started on a new area to clean. He wondered what held him back—not much kept Theron from explaining exactly how he felt about anything.

  He was up and gone by the time Joab woke this morning. When he asked Marina if Theron had gone to synagogue, she merely chuckled. When he asked where he did go, she said (evasively, Joab thought), “Oh, he had to see a few people.” A few people? That early in the morning? Theron did not rise until late. Whom would he see?

  A granary going up in the southeast of Caesarea couldn’t be hard to find. He didn’t tell Marina where he was going—he could be as evasive as she—only that he would be back in time for midday meal. Joab frowned; Theron should be coming up with the design for the palace walkway, the pattern from “Pompeii.” Weren’t they supposed to bring the patterns to the palace today, despite the fact that it was Sabbath? Where was Theron off to? It didn’t seem very responsible. As far as Joab knew, he hadn’t even looked at the sample boards.

  Joab left the commonyard and fell in behind a group of men on their way to synagogue. They walked along the main street, past the main marketplace where Marina had found Joab. On the other side of it, streets led to alleys, which led to the bad part of Caesarea. He had found the bad part his first day in Caesarea. He was referred to an inn by a man who had stood with his friends on a street corner—probably the same inn Theron told him about. It was not the sort of inn where his parents would inquire for lodging. He had gone in and asked a serving girl—if that’s what she was—if she knew where he could find a prostitute named Rivkah. She had looked him up and down and said, You can’t afford Rivkah, but you can afford me, country boy. His face flaming, he tried to explain he just needed to talk to her. Soon a burly man he took to be the innkeeper came and escorted him to the door.