Judas (3 page)
“We are going to the harbor,” Mother announced, jaw set and determined. “We are going to put an end to this madness.”
I had just dashed home from another encounter with some boys from the north end of town, my nose bleeding.
“Mother, they threw stones.” I tried not to cry. I was, after all, the man in the house and it would not do to cry.
“Yes, I know,” she said, and wiped my face with a cloth dampened with vinegar.
“They called you names and I said they shouldn’t and that’s when it started.”
“I know.”
“They shouldn’t call you names.”
“No, they shouldn’t.”
I spent much of my time at the close of my eighth year defending my mother’s honor against the nastiness of boys from the other side of town. They would call her a whore and I would fight them, all the while knowing that they were right and fighting them, even winning, could not alter that fact.
This last time they pulled my clothes from me and, seeing I was not of the circumcision, threw rocks at me instead. I became the target of their contempt, not Mother. I should have been happy for that, but then one of their stones hit me in the face and I ran home. I could not understand what it was about that part of me that provoked the barrage. Mother tried to explain circumcision, but it made no sense. Most adult pagans do not understand it; why should an eight-year-old boy? Bleeding stopped, Mother took me by the hand and led me to the docks.
Herod the Great built Caesarea, and, by anyone’s account, it is a marvel. The harbor is huge. The docks front a broad street with shops and places for sailors to stay. Herod deemed it wiser to subsidize their lodgings and keep them in the harbor than risk them on the streets of Caesarea.
I craned my neck this way and that, looking at the ships and taking in the excitement. I did not notice where Mother led me. We stopped in front of a door marked with a Greek caduceus.
“Here,” she said, “is where we will make you safe.”
Safe? Safe from what? The place smelled faintly of olive oil and wine, sweat and vomit, and the sour residue of dirty clothes—a surgeon’s place of business. She spoke briefly to the man. His eyes swept over me. They were red and still crusted with recent sleep. Coins were exchanged. Then I discovered what he had been engaged to do. Too late for me to run, and where would I have gone?
That day I became a Jew. No sacrifices were made in the temple on my behalf. No fatted calf slain in celebration, no chanting
mohel
wielded a quartz knife to mark my passage. Just my mother, the surgeon, and me. Later, I told my mother I would rather have my daily ration of rocks than go through that again.
***
“Tell me about my father.” I must have asked her that a hundred times.
“Your father is a soldier.”
“Does he march with the soldiers here?”
“No, not here, Sweet, he is far away. Your father came from one of those places where strange and wonderful creatures live and they speak in funny grunts like something is stuck in their throat and they paint themselves blue.”
I laughed at that. I thought my mother was as good at telling stories as her friends. Blue, indeed.
“No,” she said, “they really do, and instead of the Nifillim they have Little People.” That is how she said it, like they were a race of men—Romans, Greeks, Little People.
“Little People? How little?”
“Some of the grown men are smaller than you.”
My mother could be very funny. I thought it must be a wonderful place to live. Sometimes, when the sun lighted the sea to shimmering gold, I closed my eyes and thought about playing with little old men the same size as me. The only person my size I could play with was Dinah.
“You are in charge of Dinah,” Mother said. “When I have my visitors, you watch her and keep her out of the front room.”
She would be my responsibility for five more years. I took it seriously.
Someone had to.
***
Afternoons, if the weather was nice, we spent outside the walls at the beach. I played in the surf. Mother stayed under a screen with Dinah, because Mother needed to keep her skin white.
I preferred the sun.
When they both slept, I sat with my feet in the sea and tried to figure things out. Mother said the boys who lived near us were Greeks. I think she meant they are not Romans or Israelites, which is what she was. If my father was a soldier and my mother was a person of the land of the Israelites, what did that make me? It was a puzzle.
My name, she told me, is very important for the Israelites and I should be very proud of it. The Israelites lived on the north side of the city. We almost never saw them. When they did come by, they crossed the road to avoid us. Mother said they did it because of the entertaining.
Once we walked around the city to the north side. I do not remember why. We passed a deep depression in the ground. A stake with a leather thong attached stood at its center and stones were piled around the perimeter. I asked Mother what it was for. I guessed they put mean dogs in there or maybe they had cockfights. She got very pale and hurried me away. I did not see a pit like that again until years later at the gates of Magdala, when the good citizens of that smelly fishing village were about to destroy one of the Miriams—one of the Mary’s.
***
The desert man stood silhouetted in the doorway, bright sunlight at his back. His hand rested on the hilt of his belt knife.
“Where is it?”
His eyes flashed but his voice stayed even and controlled. I could not hear the anger even though I felt it. His ess sounds hissed, like someone tearing silk.
“What? Where is what?”
“My knife, boy, where is it?”
He came to our house the night before, dressed in the flowing layers of white robes desert men favor, and more knives than I have ever seen on one man. They were slung across his back, at his belt, and in the high leather coverings on his legs.
Sometime during the night one of them separated from the rest. He left later than usual in the morning. While Mother slept and Dinah played in the backcourt, I went about the business of cleaning up. I found the knife under a low table next to an empty wine flask. I turned it over in my hand, admired its red leather and silver sheath. Beautifully cut stones were set in its sheath and handle. The blade, hammered out from hard iron, curved like the new moon. I thought it the most beautiful knife I had ever seen. I coveted it. I tucked it away in my tunic. He had so many; he would not miss this one. Like a wasp, now I could sting.
“I don’t know,” I lied. Mother stirred and came into the room.
“Judas?” She glanced at me and at him.
“I am missing one of my knives,” he lisped, tearing more silk. He spoke to Mother but his gaze never left me. I kept my eyes down. We searched everywhere. Mother suggested he might have lost it somewhere else.
“You were a little drunk when you arrived last night,” she said. “Did you try the wine shop?”
He looked doubtful. Then he caught my eye. In that instant I think he knew. He opened his mouth to say something just as the great bronze horns sounded in the harbor. The tide had turned and the ships were putting out to sea. He cursed me and hurried away. I had my own knife. Now, I was armed…and a man…and a thief.
I do not recall when I first felt the darkness approaching. It lurched toward me like a drunken sailor. I was ten years old and life, until then, had been bearable, all things taken into account. The three of us, Mother, Dinah, and I, had ample. We had the beach, a place to live, and money when we needed it. But that day I felt the way you do when you are about to be sick. You get sweaty and lightheaded and then, no matter how hard you try not to, your insides try to come out. Mother would have none of it.
“Gloomy Judas, what can happen? We have everything we need. We entertain important people…”
She stretched a point there. However much Mother wished it to be so, she had neither the breeding nor the background to be considered an
hetaera
. I let it pass as innocent fiction.
“Nothing will happen. Now go and help Dinah.”
Mother hummed and sorted plates and saucers. Dinah had the task of filling them with dates and figs. She inspected each piece as if she were sorting pearls. Tongue between her teeth, she carefully arranged them on the plates making sure they made a symmetrical pile. The two of them were very cheerful. That night, Dinah would be part of the entertaining, at least for a while. It was to be a special night.
For the previous two months, Mother and Dinah posed for Leonides, the Greek sculptor. A wealthy sponsor had commissioned him to create a statue of a woman and a boy, fashioned, they said, after some Roman or Greek idol, Aphrodite and Eros, but I did not know it then. Pagan gods and goddesses were never something I cared much about.
“It is their goddess of love,” Mother said, and scowled at some tarnish on a brass tray.
“I don’t see why they need a goddess for that,” I said. “There is not much in that department men have not already figured out for themselves.” Pagans have a way of making sacred whatever behavior they wish to pursue. Pan, Bacchus, Aphrodite—the whole pantheon—offers sanctification for the mundane. It is the difference between us.
“It doesn’t matter what they believe,” Mother said. “It puts food in our mouths and if posing as their goddess makes that easier, then it’s all right with me. Our God would not allow any of this, you know. It is a great sin.” My mother never willingly faced the contradictions in her life. She could not afford to.
Leonides had finished the statue and intended to show it off to his patron at our house that night. He arrived late in the afternoon and set it up in one corner of the front room. That was the first time I saw it. The figures were naked and did, in fact, look like Mother and Dinah. Only he had made a little boy out of Dinah; and not a little Jewish boy either.
“There is only that ‘little difference’ between boys and girls,” he laughed. “Men and women have ‘big differences.’ Look—a goddess and her boy.”
The goddess stood, eyes downcast, and the boy leaned against her thigh, looking upward. Her hand covered one breast in an attempt at modesty, I suppose, and the boy’s free hand covered his heart. It stood demure and even sweet in the corner, containing no hint at what it symbolized except, of course, its nakedness. For pagans, especially the Greeks, that is not the scandal it is for us.
“A nice line,” Leonides said, eyeing his work with justifiable pride. He busied himself setting out lamps and arranging wall hangings to show the statue at its best. Then he left, I suppose, to spend some of his commission money.
He’d told my mother his family had wealth and influence, that they were members of the Athenian aristocracy. He said this, but no one believed him. What family in that position would allow their son to lower himself to the life of a stone cutter? It would be like finding Caesarean, Cleopatra’s and Julius’ son, working as a butcher.
Dinah said that posing was easy. “Judas, when I grow up I will be a poser for statues instead of entertaining like Mother.”
“You want to spend your days standing naked in front of strangers?”
“It’s not so bad,” she said, brow furrowed like Mother’s.
The idea of being undressed most of the time and in strange places with strange men apparently had not occurred to her. Dinah drifted through life an extremely shy child. People who knew us were often surprised to discover Mother had a daughter. It is a natural law, I think, that greatness in one thing will always be balanced by a weakness in another. Peacocks have breathtakingly beautiful iridescent plumage but screech like a woman in childbirth. Dinah was the most beautiful child I ever saw, but because she was so shy hardly anyone was aware of her existence.
I wondered how the evening would go. Leonides decided to have Mother and Dinah strike the same pose as the statue so his patron could experience the full measure of his genius. Dinah and Mother would stand naked before this man. Mother could manage certainly, but Dinah?
Mother told me to stay in the back, out of the way. It did not feel right. I knew something terrible would occur as surely as if chiseled into the plaster wall. At that moment, the sun went behind a cloud. I loosened my knife in its sheath and contemplated, with ten-year old instincts, the gathering darkness.
The evening star had been shining for nearly three hours before Leonides reappeared. He reeled into the room, smelling of cheap wine and carrying a small brass bowl in which he’d placed glowing charcoal. He lighted some lamps, extinguished others, and sprinkled incense on the charcoal. The room turned a pale gold. The smoke from the incense drifted to the ceiling and layered slowly across the length of it. The transformation was remarkable. A moment later his patron arrived, accompanied by another man. The patron lumbered heavily into the room, squinting in the smoke and dim light. His face had the pasty look of someone who had not seen the sun for a long time, his skin like dough, and I thought if I poked him with my finger, the dent in his flesh would still be there in the morning. His toga hung loosely from him but did not hide the gross body beneath it. His companion, on the other hand, slipped into the room, shadow-like, lean, and dark. He wore dress armor and a short toga. He had golden eyes and the high aquiline nose common to Roman patricians. His look and manner were reptilian, like a snake.
There was no doubt what the first one did. Officialdom and bureaucrat were written all over him. The other man, however, could have been anybody or anything, a jailer or his prisoner, a general or a foot soldier. The patron addressed him as Tribune and that settled it. My instincts told me to be careful, he reeked of danger. I checked my knife again.
They settled down to eat and drink. Mother sang. Dinah sat behind her, only daring to peek out at the men from time to time. The statue sat on one side of the room cloaked in white sheeting.
“Well, sculptor, let’s see it. You desire your money, I wish to see my statue,” the patron said. His words wheezed out like the air from an empty wine skin.
The sculptor began to speak. He had a hard time keeping his feet under him. He laughed a lot and almost fell as he reached for the corner of the covering, missed twice, and finally, cloth in hand, yanked. The sheet snagged and nearly toppled the statue. When the cloth released, Leonides fell backwards to the floor. He staggered back to his feet and, without missing a beat, continued his speech, a very flowery speech filled with words of praise for himself and his art. The patron drummed his fingers and fidgeted. More wine was poured. His patron nodded and tossed him a purse that clinked heavily as it bounced on the floor.
“Enough of this,” he barked. “Let’s see the rest.”
“Ah,” Leonides said and bowed. “Now you will see the genius of Leonides.”
Earlier, we’d strung a curtain across the other corner of the room. While the men’s attention turned to the statue and Leonides’ babbling, Mother and Dinah slipped behind it, undressed, oiled, and then powdered their hair and bodies with stone dust. The sculptor tugged at the curtain with almost the identical results he experienced with the statue. The curtain fell away and he sat down. Mother and Dinah held the exact pose as the statue. They were naked and I remember feeling proud and at the same time ashamed. They were beautiful. Leonides had taken great care in arranging the lamps and the effect brought a gasp from the patron. Mother and Dinah stood perfectly still. In the dim light, with their pale skins dusted white and eyes closed, they were the mirror image of the statue in the other corner. It was nearly impossible to tell living from stone. Leonides put his hand on Dinah—where she differed from the boy.
“You see,” he giggled, “a genius.”
The patron looked at Mother and then at Dinah. He licked his lips. “Get this fool out of here,” he said. The other man, yellow snake eyes bright, grabbed the poor Greek by the throat, lifted him like a rag doll, and threw him out the door and into the street.
Then what I had feared, but could not define, happened.
The fat Roman beckoned to Mother. Always in the past, she set the terms of her services. No mention had been made of anything except posing. She hesitated. He snapped his fingers and Snake Eyes grabbed her by the hair and spun her around. Dinah screamed and tried to run but Snake Eyes, with his free hand, slapped her to the floor as easily as he would swat a fly. I watched, paralyzed. What happened next is not to be spoken of. The fat man grabbed Dinah by her wrist and pulled her to him. His friend, still holding Mother by her hair, bent her over his couch.
I launched myself into the room, knife drawn. Mother kicked her attacker. He only smiled. He struck her with a closed fist. I heard someone shouting and cursing…me. I looked at her and then at Dinah. The soft Roman had his hand over Dinah’s mouth to stop her screaming. Her eyes were wide with terror and pleaded silently with me. She was my responsibility. I raised my knife over my head, ready to sink it to the hilt in that pudding-faced Roman. I think it may have been the only time in my life I was ever truly brave. As my arm swung down, I thought I heard noises at the door. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Snake Eyes swing at me. His arm looked as big as a galley oar. Everything went black.
***
Sunlight. That morning it hit my eyes like a hammer. My head pounded and I could remember nothing. When finally the previous evening came to me, my eyes popped open. All I could see was the mess on the floor in front of me. Tables overturned and plates scattered everywhere. Leonides’ brass bowl lay upside down an arm’s length away, its charcoal spilled out onto the carpet. Scorched wool and incense lingered in the air. I twisted around. Mother crouched in the corner, her face swollen. She had a piece of silk wall hanging around her to cover her nakedness. Dark bruises were beginning to form on her shoulders and under her eyes. Dinah sat in her lap, eyes that the day before had danced in anticipation now stared vacantly straight ahead, the dull eyes of the dead. Mother crooned and rocked her back and forth. Dinah was bleeding.
The room looked like an army had passed through it. Leonides’ statue lay shattered on the floor, smeared with blood. The boy god, what was left of him, had been converted back to a girl. I tried to sit up. I hurt all over. I raised my head. There was blood on my hand, on the statue, everywhere. How had that happened? My knife stuck to my bloody hand. Mother rocked and crooned. Dinah turned her head and threw up on the floor. Something, someone, a man, looking like a pile of rags, lay behind the broken statue. I looked more closely—Leonides, covered with blood. I saw him thrown out; the Tribune did that before…
“He came back to help,” Mother murmured.
I struggled to take it in. Leonides may have been silly, pompous, and vain, but he had honor, and he had been stabbed many times because of it. I looked at the knife in my hand. Who would believe I did not stab him? In the eyes of the Law I stood lower than a rich man’s favorite dog. Who would believe me? I had no status, no father, nothing. They were Roman officials. Who would dare to question them? But why would I want this poor man dead? The Romans, certainly, I wanted to kill them, but not Leonides.
We cannot stay here.
My head pounded and I lifted my hand to my forehead and discovered it crusted with blood where Snake Eyes hit me. I staggered into the back room and found a pitcher of water. I washed my head, hand, and knife. Mother stirred and stood up. She had been severely beaten. There were bruises all over her body. I tried not to look. She drifted around the room retrieving her wraps, covering herself. Together we washed and dressed Dinah.
We cannot stay here.
Flies buzzed around the Greek. I shooed them away. I clenched my teeth and touched the body. I do not know what I expected. I thought it would be soft but instead it lay rigid, like the statue next to it. I opened his embroidered vest. The blood made it as stiff as tenting. I felt along his belt until I found his leather purse. It was heavy and clinked, filled with many coins, the commission paid for the statue. I wanted to run, just run, and never stop.
“We cannot stay here,” I said.
Mother looked at me, brow furrowed. Horns sounded in the harbor. Boats were sailing. We scrambled about the house grabbing anything we could carry—the rest of our money, some clothing, Mother’s paints and ointments and herbs. Dinah stood in the door watching without seeing. We dashed into the street and headed for the harbor. No words were spoken—none were needed.
Dinah could not keep up.
“Here,” Mother said. “Take the bundles. I will carry Dinah.” She hoisted her up on her hip and we raced on.
The street swarmed with people, a blessing. It gave us some cover. I saw the dark man, Snake Eyes, before he saw us. We ducked down behind a fruit vendor’s stall until he and a cadre of soldiers trotted past us and out of sight. The horns sounded their last warning. We raced to the quay.
Only three boats remained when we arrived. We boarded the only one that would take us. I stood in the aft and watched Caesarea slip away. Dark clouds slowly swallowed the sun over the mountains to the east, a new day, a gray day. The ship tacked neatly through the gap in the northern jetty and turned westward.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“Corinth,” the captain shouted, “The cloaca of the empire. That’s where, Sonny.”
The ship tossed in the chop as we cleared the harbor mouth. I turned my back on Caesarea and the land of my birth. I stood in the stern of that little coastal trader and contemplated the madness that now controlled our lives. I clenched my fists and swore to whatever gods there were, someday, some way, I would return and I would have my revenge. I would do whatever I must to bring those swaggering hypocrites, those arrogant purveyors of Roman justice who debauched women and children, into account.
Hatred is a hard thing to control. Like an alchemist’s acid, which corrodes the hardest iron, hate eats at a person’s soul. Though I struggled daily to contain it, in the end, it slowly and silently directed my feet into a path that would one day lead to tragedy.
