He spurred his horse, which pulled behind it another horse,
loaded with water skins and bales of hay.
Five nights in a row, the young Roman, king Herod’s envoy,
had chosen a campsite in the desert, poured water from the
skins into a bucket and watered the horses, then broken hay
and spread it on a tarp of flax before them. He ate heavy
barley bread and ripe cheese and figs. Then he tied the
horses’ front legs two palms above their ankles, as if
handcuffed. If they spooked and took off during the night,
the hooves’ banging on the sand would awake him.
When jackals approached, the horses whinnied and awoke the
envoy, who bolted and waved his arms and shouted until the
jackals withdrew. He lay back to sleep. When the dawn
cracked the dark open, he was in his saddle already, horse
leading horse. Every day he rode the horse he’d spared the
day before. The sunlight scalded his face. His cape
fluttered behind him, like an angry flame billowing off his
shoulders. Scanning with narrowed eyes the shadows of the
dunes, and riding against them, east.
On the third day of riding, bones started cracking under his
racing hooves. Skulls, hidden under shallow sand, exploded
under his passage like catapult shots. The man stopped the
horses, jumped off his saddle, and hunkered down. He dug the
ground with his ornate Roman pugio. In instants, the short
heavy sword revealed more skulls, with hair still clinging,
mixed with shreds of striped fabric -- the dead had been
wearing tallits, male headscarves. The still intact hair was
dark. Those slaughtered men were young. The Roman grinned at
the desert’s fiery air: he was on the right course.
He would find the Jews of the Desert, and there would be
enough of them to bring back.
Hope swelled inside him. He got on his horse and rode on.
Ahead of the Roman man, hour after hour, the desert dried up
more. It looked like a moon face, as in that old tale
whispered before the writing of the Torah:
God made the earth, fertile and wet he made it. Then, just
to play, God made the moon, but it came out barren. God
slammed it to the ground, where it broke into a thousand
shards. God made another moon: again, it came out barren.
God flipped it with the back of his hand, off into the sky:
hover up there, and light up the humans’ nights, or what
good are you? Obeying God’s wish, the second moon shone
silently in the sky. And the first moon, God let its shards
mix with the earth, and they became the earth’s deserts. The
envoy knew many stories of the Jews, even some not written
in books. In just a few months before sailing from Italy, he
had learned so much about God’s chosen people. Across that
shattered moon, he rode until he glimpsed palm trees. The
oasis was no mirage. Had he not found it, he might have lost
his way, using up his supplies until he died in the desert.
But here he was.
The water wheel was moved by a capstan, whose bars were
pushed by girls walking in a circle, like donkeys toiling on
a farm. Clay pots tied on the rim of the wheel brought up
the clear flow, emptying it into in a cistern large enough
to water a caravan. The Roman counted the desert girls:
eight, in wet robes of unfitted flax, treading that muddy
rut. Small and malnourished, they urged each other with
brief guttural cries. As the Roman hissed, tss-tss, to slow
down his horse, one girl jumped onto the wheel and walked
inside it, like a hamster inside a toy.
Amused, the Roman stared at the camp beyond. A jumble of
tents patched with rags. Rock walls, bee-hived with puffing
holes. They live in those holes, he marveled. That smoke is
from cooking pots. The girl in the wheel started to run. The
spokes creaked, the pots splashed onto the other workers.
The impatient girl beat the hair off her face with a tanned
hand. Cries of “stop,” “slow down,” made her run faster --
until the visitor sat up in his saddle and called out: “The
rabbi, who is the rabbi here?”
The girls stopped pushing the capstan. Halting abruptly, the
wheel threw out the prankster – she flew to the ground,
landing by the visitor’s horse. Dizzied, she looked straight
at him. Ite me dei, the man swore softly in Latin, so help
me, gods! – I’ve seen her before! Though he knew he had not.
But since for five days he’d seen only barren sands and the
flanks of his horses, maybe she reminded him of all that was
nurturing and feminine. She was tall. Wearing the
istomukhvia, the all purpose shirt of flax of women from
Galilee, old and worn-out, likely handed down from her
mother. Behind her shirt, he guessed a body without one
ounce of fat.
He took in her face. So baked by the sun, it had the tint of
ripe carobs. Freckles dotted the sides of her small straight
nose, a few above each delicate nostril. Her eyes seemed
lilac in shade, but when she stood up against the late
sunlight, her eyes were brown. When she spoke, he felt that
he knew her voice. “My father’s the rabbi here, and who are
you to ask?”
“I am an envoy with a message from your king.”
The tall one called out: “Orpa!” to a girl even darker and
wirier. The one named Orpa nodded, then both of them
whistled, while the other girls pulled out the capstan’s
ribs – in a blink, these children were armed with bats. The
Roman’s hand went to his sword, but he caught himself. Easy,
he thought. The lips of the freckled girl were thin, but so
finely drawn. “What’s your name?” he asked her. His voice,
thank the gods, was calm.
“Mary-amneh,” she replied, a little defiant. But the Roman
guessed that she blushed, as her skin started to shine under
that tan.
A shadow drew close: a jackal, low-bodied, brightly fanged.
Followed by three more. The Roman gasped: tame jackals! One
jackal put up its muzzle, and the girl stroked it. Were they
trained to attack? If they jumped him, he’d be easy prey…
Seized by fear, he blurted: “Herod the Great sends word to
the tribe of Joachim ben Ahaz ben
Mathan… Are you his tribe?” The brown-eyed girl nodded. “The
king forgives you all! You’re no longer in exile, you can
return to your homes in Nazareth!”
They gaped at him. The silence dripped with the water from
those pots.
Then Mary-amneh threw her head back. She gave a high
ululated call, like a desert bird.
There was a rush of voices, from people lunging out of tents
and caves.
The Roman jumped off his horse. Dizzy. He’d been in the
saddle since dawn.
A crowd was hurrying over. Older men and women, boys with
fuzz on their upper lips, a gaggle of children. They wore
old clothes, discolored from use and washing; only one tall
gray-haired woman wore an apron smeared with bright color
stains – that’s the girl’s mother, and she’s a dyer, the
Roman remembered. The mother did not look much like
Mary-amneh except for her height, but the bearded man
running next to her had the girl’s nose, her thin expressive
lips, her freckles even. Casus patris certi, unquestionably
her father by blood, Apella thought, silently enjoying the
Roman words. He was lonely for home. He spoke Latin to other
Roman soldiers in Jerusalem, mostly when they banded
together to visit a whorehouse outside the walls, in the
Kidron valley.
The pale old man and his wife surged at the fore of the
crowd. Here they are, he thought, Joachim, and Anna. He was
informed of these people’s names, and alert for anything
they would say – speculator vigilans semper, a spy is
forever at work. He glanced back. By the cistern, the girl
pulled a hair slide from some fold of her shift, and forked
it against her rich hair. The crowd yammered in Aramaic,
with harsh khh sounds, as if spit boiled in their throats.
How many of them had survived king Herod’s wrath, fifty,
eighty? He remembered those skulls in the desert, cracking
under his passage. The tribe’s young males had all been
killed, but some boys had been spared – he spotted them in
the crowd now, grown, with fuzz under their noses. But who
had fathered these wailing infants? The visiting camel
drivers? I’ll find the answers to all those questions, he
told himself, while rabbi Joachim, pale, his beard grainy
white, stopped right in front of him and gazed at him
suspiciously.
Civil, the Roman said: “My name is Apella, special servant
to the king, you may have guessed that I’m not Judean, nor
Galilean, though I speak your language and know your
customs. The king’s message is, you can return to Nazareth,
as of right now.”
Joachim and his wife looked at each other, the crowd looked
at each other. It seemed that this message, once so desired,
was coming too late. Then Joachim asked: “You have a writ
from the king, bearing out your words?”
“Of course.” He lunged to the stamping horses, unbuttoned a
leather holster and pulled out the king’s scroll, tearing
the bone clasp that sealed it.
Joachim lifted his arms. When his sleeves fell back, Apella
cringed: Joachim’s hands had been beaten severely. Fingers
knobby and crooked as if they healed broken, nails missing,
he gestured with one maimed hand that the wife should hold
up the scroll before his eyes, then he read like a learned
man, quick, without glancing twice at a word, and shook his
head. “It says here that we’ve been amnestied, but of what
offense? We were never tried in a court.”
Apella shrugged. “It’s the king’s will that you return to
your homes. You should take advantage of his generosity.”
Joachim turned to his daughter: “Mary-amneh?”
The name was common in Galileee. King Herod’s late wife, his
one Jewish spouse among a harem of ten, was also called
Mary-amneh. Herod’s other wives were Greek or Phoenician.
But queen Mary-amneh was Jewish and the king’s favorite,
until the king had killed her in a drunken fit of jealosy.
Allegedly, she had stared out of her window at a young
captain of the guards. Herod has snuffed her with a pillow.
He had also killed Aristobolus and Alexander, the two sons
she bore him. Everyone knew about Herod’s crimes, but Herod
was kept on his throne by the Romans precisely because he
was cruel. That made him an optimus rex socius, an excellent
client king, and client kings did the will of Rome all
around the world. The girl named after the murdered queen
stepped closer to her father. Joachim whispered to her. She
nodded, and whistled again. Now a dozen jackals scurried out
of the bushes, and two of the water girls ran leading them
up the path, back into the desert. Good, Apella thought.
They would scour the dunes and find that I’ve come alone.
After that, they will trust me. The girls particularly must
be dying to leave this hole.
Mary-amneh turned to the cistern, scooped water in her
palms, and washed her face. Apella stepped up. “I’d be
thankful to wash too.”
She grabbed her shift, wiped her forehead and cheeks, then
swung her bare arm at the cistern: be my guest. She wasn’t
going to pour water, or wait on him with a towel. You
un-scrubbed brat, who needs your favors, he grumbled under
his breath, dunking his hands and forearms, then his face.
Flies and wasps floated where she had rippled the water. He
splashed them away, noticing that the cistern was built of
freshly fitted planks. Wood was expensive in Galilee,
earmarked for Roman ships; trading with the caravans, the
Jews of the desert had done well. He was thirsty, but
fearful to drink where camels drank. But the girl had just
washed her face in the cistern. To hell with it. He drank
with long gulps.
He stood up, stocky, his hair short and curly, his eyes
piercingly brown, his nose strong, prow-like. Handsome, he
rated himself.
“Mind the flies,” Mary said. A cloud of them rose from the
rippling water. He peeled off his subucula, his vest,
revealing a gut swollen from eating barley bread, and
slapped the flies away. The girls tittered. Having just
turned twenty-five, Apella had never felt old or unfit in
front of females. Scowling, he pulled his vest back on.
“Has the king arranged for our homes to be returned to us?”
Mary asked. “When we were chased here, the clan of Shalafta
and the clan of Aaron stole our homes, our herds, all we
owned.” Apella frowned as if he first heard about that; but
he knew about those clans. “They joined the king’s Syrians,
to drive us to our deaths -- our own cousins. If we go back,
they’ll jump us and kill us.”
“They won’t. I’ll stop in Nazareth on my way back, and
convey the king’s wish.”
He turned to Anna, “You dye clothes, yes? My mother was a
dyer too. Dyers pass their secret recipes to their children,
yes?” She nodded curtly. He pointed to a purple stain on her
apron: “I thought purple could only be drawn from Red Sea
shells.”
“That’s true, but the caravans bring us shells,” said Anna.
“And we get colors from desert flowers, crushed with water.”
He beamed at her: “You people made the well into a good
business, you’ll know how to bargain for your houses.”
“Sweet-talking, aren’t you?” said the girl Orpa, surprising
him with her daring. “Tell the king to give us our homes
back, otherwise this is meaningless.” And everyone yelled:
“Our homes, yes! Amen! Amen!” Amen. That word which the Jews
used so often and with such passion – it really meant “I
believe.” The Romans felt excluded when they heard the Jews
say it. Some Romans belched or farted when they heard it.
“What do you know about us?” Joachim asked. And the crowd
became deeply silent, eyes drilling the stranger.
Apella answered softly: “Only what I heard at the court.
I’ve been in the king’s pay only a year. When you people
still lived in Nazareth, the king’s oldest son, Aristobolus,
hired you, rabbi, to build him a prayer chest, yes? You were
renowned as a carpenter, yes?” Joachim nodded, suspicious
but flattered. “But Aristobolus was scheming to seize his
father’s throne, so the king had him killed. Then he
banished everyone who knew the prince, including your tribe,
rabbi Joachim, and that’s all I know. After prince
Aristobolus was killed, queen Mary-amneh drowned herself in
the palace pool, but before she did that, she sent a letter
to Rome, telling emperor Augustus that her husband had gone
insane and Augustus should remove him from the throne…”
“The king was always insane!” someone yelled. “He’s like the
lame old lion who eats his cubs!”
“Why are you serving the king?” a teenager shouted, cocking
his scrawny neck at the well-fed visitor.
“What’s your name?” Apella asked.
The boy cleared his voice. “Shimon,” he muttered, less hotly.
“I’m a soldier of fortune, Shimon. A good one too, as long
as the kings pays me, and that makes the king less suspicious.”
“Less crazy, less rabid!” many voices shouted.
“Maybe so,” Apella replied. “But just now, the king’s in a
tight spot. He’s old and sick, and must rein in his sons by
his youngest queen, Malthace the Phoenician. So he hired new
servants, me included, to put a new face on his rule. And I
told him, your majesty, you have too many discontents.
Pardon the Jews of the Desert, write the scroll, I’ll take
it to them…”
Joachim’s cheeks surged red: “You told him to do that?”
“Yes, that was my suggestion. He agreed so easily, maybe the
conjunction of the stars two months ago was unusually
favorable… “
“Two months!” the crowd marveled.
“I’m sorry it took that long. The king keeps me busy.”
“It’s not like Herod to forgive,” an older man shouted.
“This is a trap.”
“Then it’s your choice to stay here,” Apella said. “But I
give you the word of the urbs of Rome, I’m not putting you
in harm’s way! I am a vigil Asiae, a supervisor of these
lands, it’s my duty to maintain peace here. The king is
sixty-nine and his memory’s slipping. I don’t think he
remembered who you were, when he signed the scroll.”
“So, we’ll go home and no one will harm us?”
“Yes. You have nothing to fear.”
The people banded on Apella. The closest ones touched his
vest and his tunic of platelets, while the children scurried
to paw his boots. Dizzied by so many breaths and odors, he
yelled: “It is as I said, amen!” I believe from the lips of
a Roman made them laugh, and he laughed with them. “If you
start on your way back tomorrow, I’ll get a writ for your
homes too, and we’ll meet outside Nazareth’s gates.”
“We can’t leave tomorrow, we must decide what to do with the
well,” Mary said. Her father nodded: “Yes, the lives of
travelers and their animals depend on our water.”
The daughter’s the key, Apella concluded. If she trusts me,
everyone will. I must try to speak with her alone. He gave
her a quick bow: “Show me around, so I can tell whoever asks
how you survived here. You could use some friends.” She was
silent, though she undoubtedly heard him. “Mary, don’t waste
this chance. Don’t you want to go home?” He smiled at the
other girls, folding his arms crib-like, lullabying an
imaginary baby: “Girls, don’t you want to get married, have
children, know the pleasures of neshikot ve reerim (little
kisses and slobbers)?” The girls laughed, all except the
tall one. She leaned toward him, and whispered: “Why did you
lie about the queen’s death?”
“Huh?” The sun stabbed between two trees. He raised his
hands to shade his eyes.
She whispered again: “Or maybe you didn’t know?”
“Know what?” He turned to avoid the glare, right into her
eyes. “The king killed Mary-amneh before he killed
Aristobolus. So Aristobolus wanted to avenge his mother, he
told me that when he came to Nazareth to see my father’s
work. If he failed, he knew that his father would kill him.
It was just a matter of who would be quicker.”
Apella gaped, without faking: “He said that to you alone?”
“No, he said it at my father’s dinner table, for everyone to
hear. He was drunk. Before the night was over, the king
raided Nazareth. I saw him kill Aristobolus, while his
Syrians whipped us out of our homes, and into the desert.”
Her words conjured images of torture and murder – meantime
there was something about her that was so peacefully female,
the arc of her lips, the appeal of her still unripe body.
Apella knew that the caravan masters called her betoola,
meaning an unopened young woman, a virgin, with the special
emphasis Jews put on virginity. But prince Aristobolus had
been a terror with women, seducing so many of them, then
forsaking them all. In the time he had spent in Nazareth,
had Aristobolus tried to seduce the rabbi’s daughter?
Molliter, molliter (gently, gently), I’ll find out all those
answers.
The girl stood on tiptoe, turning toward the desert: the
tamed jackals were trotting back. Behind them, tired, walked
the two water girls. The jackals plunged into the crowd to
be petted, drooling cheerfully: they’d found no hidden
killers in the desert.
Mary turned to Apella and smiled: “Lucky for you, you didn’t
lie about coming here alone. I’ll show you the camp.”