The Book of Longings Page 11
“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.”
* * *
• • •
WE DESCENDED 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.”
xxvii.
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.
The artisan was young, but I saw his talent. He filled the borders with braided leaves and here and there a pomegranate. He would sit back and tilt his head to study his work so that his cheek lay nearly on his shoulder, and when he drew my head, it tilted, too, but slightly. He sketched a garland of leaves in my hair and drop pearl earrings at my ears, none of which I was wearing. A chimera of a smile played on my lips. My eyes bore the faint suggestion of something sensual.
For three days he worked while I sat, hours and hours, while all around us the endless tap, tap, tapping of mallets. On the fourth day, he sent a servant to inform Herod Antipas the sketch was completed. When the tetrarch arrived to inspect it, the hammering ceased and the workers shrank against the wall. The artisan, racked with nerves, sweating and fidgety, awaited judgment. Antipas circled the sketch with his fingers laced behind his back, looking from the sketch to me as if judging the likeness.
“You’ve captured her with precision,” he told the artisan.
He walked to where I sat on the stool and stood over me. There was a raw and frightening light in his face. He cupped his hand around my breast and squeezed hard. He said, “The beauty of your face makes me forget your lack of breasts.”
I looked up at him, at the girth of him, at the lust in his eyes, and I could barely see for the rage I felt, for the way it turned everything white and blinding. I sprang up, my hands lashing out. I shoved him once. Twice. My reaction was spontaneous, but not unconsidered. Even as he’d reached out to hurt me, even as the pain twisted in the little mound of flesh around my nipple, I told myself I would not sit there willing myself to be small and imperceptible as I had that day he’d smeared his thumb across my lips.
I shoved him a third time. He was like a stone, unmoved. I thought he would strike me. Instead he smiled, showing his pointy teeth. He leaned toward me. “So you’re a fighter. I’m fond of women who fight,” he whispered. “Especially in my bed.”
He strode away. No one spoke, and then all at once the workers let out small gasps and murmurs. With relief, the artisan acknowledged he had no more need of me.
Now they would mix the plaster and lay the bright tesserae, immortalizing me in a mosaic on which I hoped never to lay eyes. Phasaelis had been kind to me and I would miss her, but I vowed when I left the palace this day, I would never return.
As I departed, Joanna waylaid me in the great hall. “Phasaelis wishes to see you.”
I went to her room, glad for the chance to tell my friend goodbye. She reclined at a low table, engaged in a game of knucklebones. Seeing me, she said, “I’ve had a meal prepared for us in the garden.”
I hesitated. I wished to be far away from Herod Antipas. “Just us, alone?”
She read my thought. “Don’t fear, Antipas would think it beneath him to dine with women.”
I was not so sure of it, not if it provided him an opportunity to grasp a breast, but I accepted her hospitality, not wanting to offend her.
The garden was a portico surrounded by Teashur trees, Babylon willows, and juniper bushes bowed over with pink flowers. Reclining on couches, we dipped our bread in common bowls, and I drank in the bright light. After so many hours in the dark frigidarium, the shock of it raised my spirits.
Phasaelis said, “Herod Antipas’s proclamation freeing Judas has made him faintly popular among the people. He even spared the life of Simon ben Gioras, though he kept him imprisoned. At least now his subjects don’t spit quite as far when they hear his name.” She laughed, and I thought how much I loved to see her snicker at her own wicked humor.
She went on. “The Romans, however, were unamused. Annius sent a legate from Caesarea to express his disapproval. I overheard Antipas trying to explain that such gestures were needed from time to time to keep the rabble in check. He sent Annius assurances that Judas would no longer be a threat.”
I didn’t want to think of Antipas, nor of Judas. Since returning, my brother had spent his time tending his wounds and gathering his strength. He’d spoken not a word to me since learning of the mosaic.
Phasaelis added, “But we both know, don’t we, that Judas is more of a threat now than before.”
“Yes,” I said. “Far more.”
I watched a white ibis pick at the ground, and I thought of the white sheet of ivory she’d sent to me, of its bold, exquisite script. “Do you remember the invitation you sent inviting me to leave my cage and come to yours? I’ve never seen a more beautiful tablet.”
“Ah, the ivory leaves. They’re the only ones of their kind in all of Galilee.”
“Where did you come upon them?”
“Tiberius sent a parcel of them to Antipas some months ago. I took one of them for myself.”
“And did you write the invitation yourself?”
“Are you surprised that I write?”
“Only at the power of your script. Where did you learn it?”
“When I first arrived in Galilee, I spoke only Arabic, but I couldn’t read or write it. I missed my father terribly despite him sending me away—it was always in my mind to return to him. I set out to learn Greek so I could write to him. It was your father who taught me.”
My father. The revelation cut through me.
“No. But he brought me inks and papyrus from time to time.” That sounded self-pitying and meager. I wanted to believe that teaching her Greek was what had softened Father to my own desire to read and write, why he’d given in to my pleadings despite Mother’s disapproval, why he’d hired Titus as my tutor, but it didn’t change the envy that had surfaced from some old, deep place.
Then, as if we’d conjured him, my father was limping toward us on the portico. His feet dragged as if shackled. His eyes were cast down. Phasaelis, too, studied him. Something was wrong. I sat up and waited for what would come.
“May I speak freely?” he asked Phasaelis. When she nodded, he eased onto the couch beside me, grunting like an old man, and up close, I saw that it was not only sadness on his face, but a quiet infuriation. He looked plundered, as if he’d lost the thing dearest to him.
He said, “Nathaniel recovered from the fever sickness, but it left him weakened. It is my burden to tell you, Ana, he died this day while walking in his date grove.”
I said nothing.
“I know the betrothal was a yoke for you,” he continued. “But now your condition is worse. You will be treated as a widow.” He shook his head. “Yours is a stigma we will all bear.”
In the curve of my ear I heard the rush of wings. I saw the ibis lift away.
xxviii.
In the aftermath of Nathaniel’s death I was required to wear a robe the color of ash and go about with bare feet. Mother put dust on my head and fed me the bread of affliction and complained that I did not cry with loud and bitter wails or rend my clothes.
I was a fifteen-year-old widow. I was free. Free, free, free! I would not enter the chuppah with despair and dread over what my husband would do to me. The cloth of virginity would not be placed beneath my hips and paraded around afterward for witnesses to inspect. Instead, when the seven days of mourning ended, I would beg Father to let me resume my writing. I would go to the cave and dig up the incantation bowl and the goatskins stuffed with my scrolls.