The Book of Longings: A Novel (13 page)

“Well, what is it?” Mother said.

“It is news from the house of Nathaniel ben Hananiah. He has fallen victim to the fever.”

My heart fluttered strangely. Then came an upwelling of relief and hope and gladness. I stared into my lap, afraid my feelings would blossom into my face.

Glancing sideways at Mother, I watched her plunge her elbows onto
the tripod table and drop her head into her hands. Father’s face looked pale and grim. With a colluding glance at Yaltha, I rose from my couch and climbed the stairs to my room, closing the door behind me. I would have danced, except for the guilt I felt over my happiness.

When the same messenger arrived two weeks later with news that Nathaniel had survived, I wept into my pillow.

Ever since the conversation with my aunt that had provoked my doubts, my old understanding of God had begun to fray. Now questions roiled inside me. Had God intervened to spare Nathaniel, ensuring my marriage to him, or was his recovery merely a matter of luck and resilience? Had God caused my aunt’s fever in order to chastise her, as my mother said? And when she, too, was restored, did it mean she’d repented? And Judas—had God willed him to be imprisoned by Herod Antipas? Why had he failed to save Tabitha?

I could no longer believe in the God of punishments and rescues.

When I was nine, I discovered God’s secret name: I Am Who I Am. I thought it was the truest, most wondrous name I’d ever heard. When my father overheard me speak it aloud, he shook my shoulders and forbade me to say the name ever again, for it was too holy to be uttered. I did not stop thinking of it, though, and during those days when I questioned God’s nature, I repeated the name over and over. I Am Who I Am
.

Phasaelis summoned me to the palace on the fourth of Tebet, unaware it was the fifteenth anniversary of my birth. A soldier had arrived at our gate well before noon bearing her message written in Greek on a sheet of ivory hammered so thin it was like a peel of milk. I’d never seen a missive written on ivory. I took it in my hands. Light quivered on the black script, every word taut and perfect—and my old longing was ripped open.
Oh, to write again
 . . .
and on such a tablet!

4th of Tebet

Ana, I hope you have survived the fever and the confinement of these long and woeful weeks. I bid your presence at the palace. If you deem it safe, leave your cage this day and come to mine. We shall take the Roman baths and resume our friendship.

Phasaelis

A shiver ran through me.
Leave your cage.
It had been a month and a half since the sickness had first appeared in the city. Only yesterday we’d heard of a child who’d become newly infected, but the disease seemed to be taking its leave. The funerary processions had nearly ceased, the market had reopened, Father had resumed his business, and Yaltha, though still delicate, had left her bed.

It was Friday—Sabbath would begin that evening. Nevertheless, Mother, her eyes full of jealousy, gave me permission to visit the palace.

T
HE MOSAIC OF SEA CREATU
RES
on the floor in the great hall was even more glorious in daylight. Phasaelis’s silver-haired attendant, Joanna, left me staring at it while she went to seek her mistress. I had the feeling once again of standing on fishes, of waves moving beneath my feet, of the world reeling toward something I couldn’t see.

“My husband’s enthrallment with Roman mosaics has no beginning and no end,” Phasaelis said. I’d not seen her enter. I smoothed the folds of my pale yellow tunic and touched the amber bead at my neck, struck, as I’d been before, by the sight of her. She wore a brilliant blue robe and a string of pearls across her forehead. Her toenails were painted with camphire.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, letting my eyes sweep once more across the sea floor.

“Soon we will not have a tile left that hasn’t been turned into an animal, a bird, or a fish.”

“Does it concern the tetrarch that he’s violating the Jewish law against graven images?” I don’t know what made me ask such a thing. Maybe it came from my own brush with fear when I’d drawn the image of myself inside my incantation bowl. Whatever prompted it, my question was ill-thought.

She released a high, chirruping laugh. “It would concern him only if he were caught. Though a Jew himself, he cares little for Jewish customs. It is Rome he lusts for.”

“And you? You have no fears for him?”

“Should a host of Zealots drag my husband through the streets for breaking this law, it would not arouse the slightest care in me as long as they left the mosaics undamaged. I, too, find them beautiful. I would miss them more than I would miss Antipas.”

Her eyes snapped brightly. I tried to read her face. Beneath her easy indifference and her lighthearted dismissal of her husband lay something blistering.

She said, “Even as the fever scourged the city and his subjects were dying, he commissioned a
new
mosaic. It will be even more flagrant than the rest of them. The artisan himself is afraid to create it.”

I could think of only one reason for such trepidation. “It will depict a human form?”

She smiled. “A face, yes. A woman’s face.”

W
E DESCEN
DED THE STEPS
onto the portico, then another set to the baths. A frail cloud of dampness floated up to us, the smell of wet stone and perfumed oils. “Have you taken the Roman baths before?” Phasaelis asked.

I shook my head.

“I take them weekly. It’s an elaborate and time-consuming ritual. They say the Romans indulge in them daily. If that’s the case, one wonders when they found time to conquer the earth.”

In the changing room, we stripped naked except for towels, and I followed Phasaelis to the tepidarium, where the air flickered with lamps in high niches. We dipped in a pool of tepid water, then lay on stone-top tables while two female attendants thrashed our arms and legs with olive branches and rubbed oil into our backs, kneading us like balls of dough. This odd ministration caused me to leave my body and sit on a little ledge just above my head, free of fret and fear.

In the next room, however, I came hurtling back into myself. The hot vapors of the caldarium were so profuse, I struggled to breathe. We had entered the torments of Gehenna. I sat on the hard, slick floor, gripping my towel and rocking to and fro to keep myself from fleeing. Phasaelis, meanwhile, walked placidly through the mist unclothed, her hair falling around her knees, her breasts full as muskmelons. My own body, though fifteen, was still thin and boyish, my breasts like two brown figs. My forehead throbbed and my belly pitched. I don’t know how long I waited through that small enduring, only that it made what came next a paradise.

The most spacious of the bathing rooms, the frigidarium had curved bright walls with wide arches and bays bordered with vine-painted columns. Entering, I threw off my towel and plunged into the cold pool, then reclined on the bench that wrapped about the walls, sipping water and eating pomegranate seeds.

“It’s here that Antipas intends to place his new mosaic,” Phasaelis said. She pointed to the tiles in the center of the room.

“Here? In the frigidarium?”

“It’s a room hidden from prying eyes, and it’s his favorite room in the palace. When he entertains Annius, the Roman prefect, they spend all of their time in here conducting business. Among
other
things.”

The suggestive tone of her last sentence was somehow lost on me. “I don’t see why he wishes to install a woman’s face here. Wouldn’t fishes be more fitting?”

She smiled. “Oh, Ana, you are still young and naive about the ways of men. They conduct their business here, it’s true, but they also give way to other . . . interests. Why do they wish a woman’s face here? Because they are men.”

I thought of Tabitha. I wasn’t as naive about men as Phasaelis thought.

A scraping sound came from the alcove behind us. The click of bracelets. Then a low, guttering laugh.

“So, you’ve been spying on us,” Phasaelis called out. She looked past me, over my shoulder, and I spun around, grabbing for my towel.

Herod Antipas stepped from behind the arch. He fastened his gaze on me, his eyes moving from my face to my bare shoulders, then along the edges of the towel that barely covered my thighs. I swallowed, trying to force down my fear and disgust.

Phasaelis made no attempt to cover herself. She addressed me. “He sometimes watches me bathe. I should’ve warned you.”

Lascivious old man.
Had he observed me step naked and dripping from the pool?

Recognition flickered in his face. “You’re the daughter of Matthias, the one we betrothed to Nathaniel ben Hananiah. I didn’t recognize you without your clothes.”

He stepped toward me. “Look at this face,” he said to Phasaelis, as if I were a sculpted object to be examined and discussed.

“Leave her be,” she said.

“It’s perfect. Large, well-spaced eyes. The high plump cheeks. Look at her mouth—I’ve never seen a more beautiful one.” Coming closer, he slid his thumb along my lower lip.

I glared at him.
May you become crippled, blind, deaf, mute, and impotent.

His finger wound to my cheek, down to my neck. If I fled, what then?
Would he send his soldiers after me? Would he do worse than rub his thumb across my face? I sat unmoving. I would endure this, and then he would leave.

He said, “You will sit for my artisan so he can sketch your face.”

Draping herself, Phasaelis said, “You want her face for your mosaic?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s young and pure—it suits me.”

I sought his rodent eyes. “I will not allow my face to be in your mosaic.”

“You will not
allow
? I’m your tetrarch. One day I will be called King, as my father was. I can force you, if I wish.”

Phasaelis stepped between us. “If you force her, you’ll offend her father and her betrothed. But that’s for you to decide. You are the tetrarch.” I saw she was practiced at managing his caprices.

He pressed his fingers together, seeming to consider what she’d said. In that brief interim, I wondered if I was to become visible in the world not through my writings, but through pieces of broken glass and marble. Could the vision I’d had of my face inside the tiny sun refer to a mosaic in Antipas’s palace?

As I gripped the edge of the bench, an idea came to me. I didn’t stop to consider how it might turn into something unforeseen, even dangerous. I took a measured breath. “You may have my face for your mosaic, but on one condition. You must release my brother, Judas.”

He let loose a laugh that bounded off the walls. I glimpsed Phasaelis tuck her chin and grin.

“You think I should release a criminal who plots against me only for the pleasure of seeing your face on the floor of my baths?”

I smiled. “Yes, I do. My brother will be grateful and cease his rebellions. My parents will bless you, and the people themselves will call you blessed.”

It was those last words that snared him. He was a man despised by his people. He craved to be named King of the Jews, a title that had
belonged to his father, who’d ruled Galilee, Peraea, and all of Judea. Antipas had been bitterly disappointed when his father carved up his kingdom into three portions for his sons and gave him a lesser part. Failing to get his father’s blessing, he spent his days seeking the approval of Rome and the adoration of his people. He’d found neither.

Phasaelis said, “She could be right, Antipas. Think of it. You could say that your clemency is a gesture of mercy for your people. It could turn their hearts. They will heap praise upon you.”

From my mother I’d learned the skills of deception. I’d secreted my womanhood, hidden my incantation bowl, buried my writings, and feigned reasons to meet Jesus in the cave, but it was Father who’d shown me how to strike a despicable bargain.

Antipas was nodding. “Setting him free would be a magnanimous act on my part. It would be unexpected, a shock perhaps, and that would draw even more attention to it.” He turned to me. “I’ll make the proclamation on the first day of the week, and the next day you will commence to sit for my artisan.”

“I will sit for him when I’ve seen Judas with my own eyes, and only then.”

Judas was delivered to our door twelve days after my visit to the palace. He arrived gaunt and dirty with a sunken stomach, grime-matted hair, and pus-infested lash marks. His left eye was swollen into a slit, but his right eye contained a flame that hadn’t been there before. Mother fell upon him, sniveling. Father stood apart, arms crossed over his chest. I waited for Mother’s frantic attentions to cease and then took his hand. “Brother,” I said.

“You have your sister to thank for your release,” Mother said.

I’d had no choice but to tell my parents about the scheme I’d devised
with the tetrarch—I knew Antipas would speak of it to Father—but Judas had no need to be informed. I’d begged my parents to keep it from him.

Father had shown little reaction to my arrangement with Antipas—he desired only to keep the tetrarch happy—but Mother had been predictably jubilant. It was Yaltha, dear Yaltha, who’d kissed my cheeks and thought to worry about me. “I fear for you, child,” she’d said. “Take care around Antipas. He’s dangerous. Tell no one about the mosaic. It could be used against you.”

Judas stared at me with his one blinking eye while Mother expounded on the whole perverse story.

“You would have your face mounted on the floor of a Roman bath for Herod Antipas and his cohorts to leer at?” he said. “I would rather you’d let me rot in Machaerus.”

The next day, Herod Antipas sent for me.

I
WAS MADE TO SIT
on a low tripod stool in the frigidarium. The artisan used a string and a Phoenician measure to mark off a large circle at least three paces across, then set to work sketching my face on the floor with a finely sharpened stick of charcoal. He worked on his knees, his back hunched, painstakingly creating his pattern, sometimes wiping away the lines and starting again. He admonished me when I moved or sighed or shifted my eyes. Behind him, his workers hammered disks of glass into even-edged tesserae—red, brown, gold, and white, each one the size of a baby’s thumbnail.