Great Lion of God (43 page)

“It was always so,” said Aristo. “And always will it be.”

“My friend, I agree with you.” Telis was as tall as Aristo and as dark, but under the darkness of his complexion there was a peculiar pallor. “I am a skeptic,” he said, scratching his cheek thoughtfully, as they both leaned over the railing of the bowing ship and looked at the sea and the sky. “I am also not superstitious, as are the Romans. Is it not amusing how they garland their necks with amulets from Delphi and other shrines, both Greek and Roman, and even Egyptian, and the gods know where else? If an oracle at a shrine informed them that they must wear a horseshoe on their heads they would unshoe every horse in the world, and a horseshoe would be worth its weight in gold. The Romans have already debased their currency to meet their debts—another sign of imminent collapse—and are using copper. Someone should, of a certainty, start the rumor that horseshoes guarantee the wearer a lifetime of luck and the handsomest women and feasts and success at the gaming tables, and the Romans could then use iron in their currency, which is cheaper than copper, and lo! most of their problems would be solved.”

“Why do we not finance such a shrine and hire the best priests as oracles?” asked Aristo, smiling.

But Telis had fallen into thought. He said, “I have remarked that I am not superstitious. More than a year ago I acquired a strange pain in my right side, and I began to spit blood occasionally. The episode passed. I ignored the pain, which grew stronger over the months, and went on my journeys. While in Rome I consulted a physician who informed me that I have a cancer in my lungs, and that my days are numbered.”

Aristo made a sound of commiseration and sympathy, but Telis raised a hand. “I am returning to my house in Jerusalem,” he said, “because Israel teems with holy rabbis who cure the sick in the twinkling of an eye, I have heard, though I never saw such a miracle for myself. Again, I am not superstitious, and most miracles are superstition. But I have heard a strange rumor, out of Israel, from a traveling friend. Another holy rabbi has appeared, it is said, out of Galilee, and on a visit to Jerusalem, on one of their High Holy Days, he cured a blind man, a man in extremis, a woman with a cancer, a crippled child, and, it is said, he raised a youth from the dead, whose body was being conveyed to a cemetery. He has aroused much enmity, and much love. I hear he has returned to his province for a space. It is my I intention to seek him out. I will fill his hands with honest gold, and not debased Roman currency. Now, why should not such a man establish a shrine—for us—in Israel, and make a fortune for us?”

“An excellent thought,” said Aristo.

They debarked at the beautiful port of Caesarea, and Aristo saw that Telis was growing weaker and paler in spite of his natural liveliness and humor. “I have friends in Caesarea,” he told Aristo, “and I have promised to visit them. Herod Antipas built a fine house for Pontius Pilate here, and they know him well. I hear he is a man of some refinement, for all his alleged excesses and brutalities—before I left Israel, he had ordered the crucifixion of some hundreds of youths in Galilee for defying the taxgatherers and urging the overthrow of the Roman garrison, and even attacking it, and tearing down its standards and spitting on it. Tut, tut, that grieves me!” He gave a dark smile. “The Romans have their troubles everywhere, in spite of their Pax Romana and their leadership of the world. Do I wish them well?” He made an obscene sign and Aristo laughed.

“One should pity them for doing exactly as Greece did, and empires before her throughout history,” said Aristo. “For her end will be the same.”

They parted at Caesarea but not before Telis had arranged, magnanimously, for Aristo to be conveyed in lavish style to Jerusalem. “What is money?” asked Telis, with a wink.

Aristo surveyed the country luxuriously as he was driven in a fine gilded car with four white horses to Jerusalem. He did not find it entrancing, for it was winter, and the air was chill and the bare mountains were gray and the fields blasted. The towns appeared dismal to him, and the valleys unfruitful, for he was accustomed to the lushness of the valley of Tarsus, even in winter. As a Greek, he felt superior to all other men, and these poor Jews in the fields and the crowded little towns appeared to him to be a miserable and hopeless people, their faces sullen and reserved and abstracted. He saw the round and square brick Roman fortresses, and the ubiquitous soldiers and the snapping standards of Rome. In Greece there were these also, but the people accepted them with droll smiles and witty tauntings and did a fine cheating business with the Romans, and mocked them merrily so that the Romans had to laugh in spite of themselves, and were friendly. They were also awed at the fabled glory and majesty of an ancient Greece, and desired to be known as cultured also. This was hilarious to the Greeks, who humored them for gain.

But the Jews were a stiff-necked people who thought their pride and myths would sustain them, and eventually would free them from the Roman. In the meantime they despised them openly and fought with them vainly—a mouse challenging a tiger. Of course, there were the Sadducees of whom Hillel had told him. To Aristo, they appeared wiser men than their fellow Jews, more realistic and therefore more civilized. To do rich business with the conqueror, and rob him in the process—over a goblet or two of wine—was sensible, and a subtle revenge. The majority of Jews did not understand this, or would not accept it. Therefore they were neither clever nor astute, and had no humor.

Aristo was not impressed by Jerusalem, though this was the teeming commercial center of trade between the east and the west, and always full of caravans. But he did admire the delicate austerity of some Greek temples he saw, and smiled at the large ornate Roman ones. He thought the air of Jerusalem dreary and somber, and too crowded. At sunset, he entered the fine inn recommended by Telis, and was pleased both by his bedroom and the fare of the kitchen. The food was a strange mixture of Jewish, Greek, Roman and Egyptian cooking, and exotic, and the wine was excellent, and Aristo thought that he could endure a week or two in this city, and retire to a soft bed and listened awhile to the howling of the jackals outside the gates. He would find Saul tomorrow. As a wise man he refused to dwell on the meeting and the news he must convey. Tonight he would sleep.

The next day Aristo hired a chariot and a driver from his host, who directed him to the Street of the Tentmakers. It was in a very poor quarter, near the walls, and next to the Street of the Cheesemakers, and as goat’s hair and cheese are pungent in odor Aristo did not find the air delightful. Again, he was appalled at the queer habits and beliefs of the Jews. The sons of rich men, who chose to be rabbis or teachers, learned a humble trade, for they could not accept either money from their fathers or from those they taught. They had a revolting belief in the sanctity of bare labor and endless work, and despised the idle and the malingerer, though they freely give alms to the unfortunate.

The narrow little Street of the Tentmakers was very steep and roughly cobbled, though clean and barren, and each side was filled with tiny shops where the harsh goods could be purchased. Aristo saw the glow of small reddish lamps within, for little winter light reached this street, and he saw the bearded old men and youths in their shops, or saw them bustling about in the rear. They had an air of dedication, such as men who labor strenuously wear, and it depressed Aristo. What a people to believe in work for its own sake, as if hard labor was not to be despised but to be cherished!

Some came to the entry of their miserable little shops to stare at the expensive chariot that came rocking over the stones, for it was evident that few such came here to purchase this humblest of wares. They stared at Aristo in his rich cloak and hood and his embroidered boots and raised their eyebrows. When he halted at one shop and asked for the shop of Saul of Tarsus astonishment overcame the bearded old proprietor. “Saul, Saul, Saul of Tarshish?” he muttered, with incredulity. “You wish Saul of Tarshish?” The old man pointed at the lower end of the steep street. “His shop is the smallest and the poorest. Master, if you desire better goods, I have them.”

So, thought Aristo with wryness, our Saul has not told these poor creatures that he is the son of one of the noblest families in Jerusalem. It is certainly like him, unfortunately.

“He has an afflicted eye, and his work is clumsy,” wheedled the old man, hopefully. “Now, Master, if you will honor me, I will show you splendid goods.”

“I am not buying,” said Aristo, with courtesy. “I have come with news of the family of Saul of Tarsus.” He gestured to the contemptuous driver, and they rolled down the street. The old man watched his passage in new amazement. What family could that impatient and ill-favored and stricken and lonely young man possess, that one dressed like a king and in a gilded chariot should visit him with news of that family? The old man ran inside to his grandsons to convey the gossip, arid to shake his head. “I have heard,” said a grandson, “that he studies with the great Rabban Gamaliel.” But the old man could not believe it.

The last shop was indeed the meanest, smallest and darkest of all, and Aristo looked into the recesses to see the tall loom and a busy figure seated before it. The Greek stood for a moment or two, observing, and shaking his head. He had seen Saul but once in eleven years, on the occasion of Saul’s visit to Tarsus five years before, and the change in the twenty-seven-year-old man appalled Aristo. He was thin to gauntness, and bowed, and his red hair was long on his neck and shaggy, his strong profile like an eagle, his cheeks hollow, his mouth much sterner than before. He was very pale, from lack of sun, and too much work and study. Rolls of goats-hair cloth lay all about him, and the odor was repelling. His hands flew. His thoughts seemed far away. His garments were those of the poorest of men and his sandals, in this chill, could not have warmed his feet, for they were made of rope. It was apparent that he disdained boots, such as Aristo wore. One tiny lamp, flickering and smoking, lighted the recess, and Aristo, knowing of Saul’s afflicted eye, was alarmed.

Saul, feeling himself observed, glanced up impatiently, and the two men stared at each other across the wooden counter that stood between them, also heaped with rolls of cloth. Saul blinked. He did not immediately recognize his old tutor, but he rose courteously and approached the counter. “May I serve you?” he asked, and it was the old powerful voice, full of hauteur and command, which Aristo remembered.

The Greek was so moved and so dismayed that he could not answer, and Saul came nearer, blinking, and now the feeble light shone on those metallic blue eyes and red lashes and the virile nostrils. Then Saul stopped abruptly, and a Took of intense astonishment and disbelief rushed over his face, and he cried, “Aristo? Aristo!”

“Yes, it is I, Saul,” said Aristo, and he pushed himself between the counter and the wall and entered the dreadful little shop. Saul watched him approach, and then with an odd and muffled cry he flung himself into Aristo’s extended arms and embraced him, and clung to him, and tried to laugh but the laugh was more of a dry sobbing. He rested his head on Aristo’s shoulder, and Aristo held him close to his own body, and hated himself for the news he must convey.

“Aristo, Aristo,” Saul said in a choking voice. “How happy I am to see you!”

“And I to see you, my dear pupil,” said Aristo. He was not an emotional man, but he struggled to prevent himself from weeping.

Saul slowly lifted his head from Aristo’s shoulder and stared up at his face, and was silent, his brilliant and intelligent eyes searching. Then he said, very quietly, “It is evil news you bring me.” He had always had great intuition, and it was keener now. A spasm raced down his thin throat. “Tell me,” he said. “You would not have come to Israel on a mere pleasant journey, or to visit me. It is my father.”

Aristo held him tightly by the arms. “It is so,” he said.

Saul released himself and went toward the rear of the shop, slowly. He said, without turning, “Come into my bedroom, where I live, and let us sit down.”

He picked up a sharp knife and Aristo was freshly alarmed, but he followed Saul to the rear, which was concealed by a length of goats-hair cloth. The room was tiny, and contained only a low pallet, two chairs, a table heaped with books, a small chest on which a lamp stood, and a tiny unlit brazier filled with ashes.

Saul sat down on the floor. He slashed his poor garments in silence. He reached into the brazier, removed a handful of ashes and strewed them on his head. Then without sound, though his lips moved, he rocked back and forth in the ancient movement of mourning. Aristo sat down in that gloom and misery and now he could not refrain from tears, not for Hillel ben Borush but for his son. He took his perfumed handkerchief from his sleeve and the room was immediately filled with the scent of roses as Aristo wiped his eyes and cheeks and could not stop his tears.

“He was the noblest of men,” said Aristo, “the kindest, the gentlest, the most tender. Rejoice that he was your father.”

But Saul continued to rock back and forth on his buttocks, and the slit places in his long gray tunic showed his thin arms and breast and thighs, and the ashes ran down his cheeks to mingle with his tears. And now the faintest wailing came from his lips, in Hebrew, and though Aristo did not know the language well he recognized the sound of grief and prayer.

The room became darker and darker, and Saul was but a shadowy figure, and Aristo sat and waited and shivered in the chill for all his leather boots, his embroidered wool tunic and cloak. He looked about for wine, but there was none. The wailing rose and fell in measured cadences, mournful, even majestic, but terrible to the Greek’s ear.

Finally the Greek could endure it no longer. He knew that Saul had forgotten him, and that he could leave this place and his going would not be observed or noted. But Aristo could not bring himself, in spite of his own pain, to depart. Too, he had letters for the younger man.

He said, with sadness, “Saul. Saul, I am here, your friend and your tutor, and you know my love for you, and I know your love for me. We are men. There are letters for you and things you must do, in spite of sorrow. You have a sister, and kinsmen, and they must be told.”