Great Lion of God (14 page)

Aristo knew his pupil far better than did the youth’s parents or Reb Isaac. He suspected that in some unknown spot, at some unknown hour, the rigid young Pharisee had encountered a woman and it had shocked him to the heart. Were it not so amusing Aristo would have felt concern. He knew—that Saul no longer crept away in silence too early in the morning for his school. So, it was a woman. Aristo sighed. These Jews! They regarded human pleasure suspicion and avoided it. What a grim Deity was theirs! Aristo thanked the gods, in whom he did not believe, that such a Deity had kept His afflictions of mind and soul to Himself and His special and circumscribed votaries.

“What is it you suspect, Aristo?” asked the troubled father, who had a very keen eye.

“I voice no suspicions, lord,” said Aristo with respect. “For I have none. But perhaps our Saul is coming into manhood and is disturbed by his longings and unnamed desires.”

Hillel blushed, and Aristo was freshly amused. “Saul is not ready for marriage,” said Hillel.

Aristo could not help saying, “Get him, then, some compliant slave girl.”

Hillel regarded him sternly. “We are forbidden to abuse women, even slaves or servants.”

Aristo chortled, but with respect. “That is not in accord with your teachings, of which Saul has informed me. Did not your David, the king, lust for Bathsheba, and order the murder of her husband so that he could possess her? And I have read the Song of Songs, and surely Solomon was not addressing those Songs to his wives, who were possibly very decorous and uninteresting matrons!” He smiled at Hillel. “I have always thought your hero, Joseph, a fool, or a eunuch, for refusing Potiphar’s wife. Dear Master. You Jews are very rigid, and do not enjoy life. Surely your God is not a Pharisee!”

Hillel could not help smiling. “Reb Isaac thinks so, though I do not.”

Aristo said, “Remember your own youth, lord, for you are a handsome man and doubtless inspired glances from maidens. It is your own counsel. Let Saul keep his.”

Hillel sighed. “Life is a disease from which we do not recover, but by which we are mortally infected. I will keep my counsel, as you advise, Aristo. I will not question Saul. Questions are invariably insulting, from fathers.” He paused. “It is very strange that those we beget and love are alien to us, and are understood only by others. Is that God’s reminder that we do not possess our children and that we give them their flesh only, and that we must never claim them but must always let them go? Their souls belong to God, and not to us. It is sad to be a father.”

One day, Aristo said to his silent and stony pupil: “I do not know what it is that torments you, Saul, but nothing is disastrous, eternally, in this world. Nothing is fixed in time. We must learn, at last, to forgive ourselves.”

Saul said, with sudden and startling fierceness, “There are things of which a man can never forgive himself!”

Aristo smiled faintly. “Assuredly. The betrayal of trusting friends. Dishonor where dishonor was not deserved. Malice. Returning love with hatred. Crimes against the innocent and helpless. Stupidity. Lack of tolerance. The rejection of permitted pleasure. Gloom, where there is sunshine. Abstinence, when wine is offered. Arrogance without reason to be arrogant. Hypocrisy. Sniveling guile. Cruelty without provocation. Lies. Desertions. Malevolence. Deceit. Fasting when feasting is at hand. Denial of life and joy. Covering of the face when dancing is encountered. A harsh voice amid music. The presentation of evil when given good. Of which of these, Saul of Tarshish, are you guilty?”

“Of none,” said Saul, whose bright color had faded recently.

“Then, of nothing dire are you guilty,” said Aristo. But he thought, “Of some of these are you guilty, my poor pupil, but you do not know your guilt, and possibly you will never be forgiven. May your gloomy Deity eventually forgive you, though I doubt other gods will.” Then he laughed to himself. “It is very probable that you do not understand your God, at all, and only malign Him!”

Chapter 5

T
HE
family of Hillel ben Borush had intended to leave for Jerusalem, and the marriage of Sephorah after Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights, which coincided this year with the Roman Saturnalia and the celebrations of various other gods. Tarsus was very festive and never appeared to sleep in these days, and torches flared all night in their sockets on the walls and the streets resounded with music and cymbals and drums and flutes and laughter and running feet and the cries of women and the warning shouts of guards who were also drunk.

A ship from Greece came into the port of Tarsus, a small merchant vessel loaded with resinous wine which the Greeks of the city preferred to all other wines. But it did not unload though it lay at anchor for several days. Then on the fourth day it inconspicuously raised the yellow flag and put out to sea and the Roman centurions looked after it in the pallid dawn light and cursed it, and shook their fists at it, and prayed silently. Their captain warned them not to speak of this to any other, and the soldiers, feeling for the sacred medals strung about their necks on chains, saluted and fell into line and marched away, iron soles clanging on the polished black stones of the street.

But though the vessel had been guarded after doctors had examined several of the crew, and all doors had been bolted and galleys locked, the damage had been done. Several rats had swum ashore in the night and they carried with them their sickness and the fleas who had caused it. They died before morning in the gutters. The fleas found other hosts among the healthy rats of the city.

There were two sanitaria in Tarsus. Three weeks later the Greek and Egyptian physicians knew the dreadful truth: Plague was abroad in the city. They consulted together. Should the people be told of their danger and warned to leave Tarsus, thus possibly carrying the infection with them? Should the gates be closed and guarded so that none could leave and no man enter the city? In any event, the people would panic, and would mill mindlessly, attempt to escape, fight with the guards who tried to restrain them, and eventually, they would lose their minds and loot and burn and kill and commit many other crimes. The doctors decided that they would control matters as long as possible and tell no one.

Winter was upon the land and the air was sharp and clear and cold, and the fields and gardens were brown and the sun was large and pale. The grape-colored mountains blazed with snow and the river ran in dull silver through the rich valley and Tarsus smelled of baking bread and roasting meats and wine in the marketplaces and the taverns and inns. It was not for some time that it was observed that no ships put into the usually turbulent port but stood out at sea and loaded boats that came to them, casks of olives, mats of wool, carpets, silks and cottons, wines, beer, whiskeys, oil, spices, salt and other merchandise. No reason was given even when it was observed that no ships of Tarsus put out to sea. Questions were asked when expected visitors did not arrive. One by one public buildings were quietly closed. Then because there were now too many questions and too many rumors the yellow flag was hoisted over the high Roman guard-tower above the harbor, and the people were stricken with terror, and the guards walked the streets all night with naked swords in their hands.

Tarsus was by nature riotous and passionate, and for a few days, the Romans were strained to their very limits of exhaustion and determination to keep the mindless mobs from too much vandalism and rioting. Terror had the people by the throat. Doors and windows were closed tightly; the streets began to be deserted except for thieves and the gatherers of the dead and the rattling of the death carts over the stones. A putrid stench rose from the gutters. Not even the Romans could force men to clean them and to wash down the streets, even at the threat of imprisonment and death, so the Roman soldiers turned to this task. No one jeered. Fright was too great. The wagons did not come into the city in the mornings but waited outside the gates and there left their wares and fled. Only hunger forced men to the gathering and the distribution. And everyone drank mightily and burned incense to the gods, but no one came to the temples. The weather grew colder.

The house of Hillel ben Borush was heated with constantly fed braziers and woolen curtains, thick and heavy, had been drawn over the windows to keep out the chill winds, and doors were barred. Deborah, for all her vanity and lightness of mind, was a sensible matron when it concerned her household, and the storehouses were full. The family was fitted to endure a siege, and all knew, now, that they were indeed besieged by something more fearful than a human foe.

It was noticed that not many Jewish funerals appeared on the blank streets. Avid and terrified eyes peered from behind curtains at the funerals of the mean and the mighty, but of few Jews. So evil rumors began to spread. It had long been believed that the Jews were acquainted with magic they would share with no others and had sorceries against illness which they kept from their neighbors so only they would survive. But the physicians in the teeming sanitaria knew that it was the Jews’ insistence on absolute cleanliness and their intolerance of vermin which gave them some measure of protection against disease, even against the plague. They became alarmed at the rumors they heard and warned the Roman centurions. The Romans, the most tolerant of conquerors, the most law-abiding, the strongest despisers of tales and passions and disorders, prepared to protect the Jews if necessary, and issued warnings of their own. Those caught looting property would abide by the ancient law: Looters were to be executed immediately. Those guilty of setting fires would be thrown into their own fires, whether graybeard, child, man or woman. There was not a street, even in the harsh and brilliant sunlight of the day, which did not have its patrolling soldiers in war dress. The sun glinted on their swords, and on dropped visors and on armored chests. The resolute steps of the soldiers resounded from stone and the voices of their officers were loud in the silent city. The banners of Rome fluttered against the hard blue sky and the carriers of fasces were everywhere, demonstrating to the people that law was law above all else, and there would be no lawlessness in Tarsus so long as any Roman remained alive.

Hillel heard of these things but did not inform his household. He had no visitors and he was thankful that he lived in the suburbs. The walls and floors of his house were washed down at dawn by his servants, each and every morning, and rats and mice hunted mercilessly. All stayed within the house except for necessary excursions into the garden for last fruits and dates and citrons, and to the storehouses. Fear lived here as it lived in all other houses in the suburbs and the city, but with the fear was mingled prayers.

But the infection spread. Just when the first pale pink blossoms were appearing on the almond trees in the garden and bare twigs were quickening and myrtle was budding, Deborah and her son, Saul, were stricken by the plague. As the household was small and not pretentious it did not possess a family physician in residence, and physicians were always available from the sanitaria or from their private practices. Hillel, for the first time in his life, mounted a horse and rode into Tarsus. He would not permit the family carriage to be used, for he would then endanger a slave or a servant who would be driving it, and he feared a chariot. The horses was the least of his anxiety though he was accustomed to riding an ass when he rode at all, a docile and patient ass and not like this horse which, though gelded, moved too rapidly for its master. The Roman soldiers laughed at his disordered passing.

Hillel went to the largest of the sanitaria and asked for his friend, the famed Egyptian physician, Aramis. While he waited in the cold marble hall he could hear the screams and groans of the dying in their wards, and he wrapped his cloak tightly about him, closed his eyes and prayed the prayer for departing souls. Then Aramis was beside him, touching his arm, and he dropped the hood of his cloak and his eyes were full of tears.

The Egyptian was very tall and dark and lean with a thin and prominent Hebraic face. “Dear friend,” he said, and he was full of concern. “Do not tell me that your family is stricken!”

Hillel nodded. He could not speak for a moment or two, and then he said, “My wife, Deborah bas Shebua, and my only son, Saul. You know them well.”

“I will come at once,” said Aramis, and he went for his pouch and Hillel tried to control his despair and wait in patience. Aramis returned, cloaked and hooded in gray wool, carrying his pouch. His horse, a fine Arabian steed, was waiting for him at the gate. “I cannot thank you enough,” Hillel stammered, as he struggled to rise onto his own horse. He was not adroit; he began to fall over the side of the animal and desperately clutched at its mane, and Aramis’ servant caught him and gravely replaced him. Hillel was hardly aware of this; his haggard face was desolate. He stared at the physician, mounted high and proud. “Save them,” said Hillel. “Save them, and all that I have is yours.”

They rode through the empty streets, Hillel tossing on his horse and hardly able to control it. Finally Aramis took the reins from his hands and led the horse. He said, “Do not despair. The plague is waning and those we now see have it in a milder form. Many survive. Before the summer comes the disease will have left the city.”

But when he saw Deborah in her carved ebony and ivory bed he knew she was moribund. She had the plague in its worst form, in her lungs, and her blood dripped from her lips and she was not conscious. Aramis regarded her with sadness and pity: So beautiful a young woman, and so doomed. He could do nothing for her but relieve her last agony, and so he prepared a potion brewed of opium for her and told her servants to give spoonfuls of it to her when she could swallow. Then he threw aside the darkening wool curtains and let the wind and sun into the room so that at the last Deborah could see the sky and be comforted, and not die in dimness and seclusion. He bent over her and again touched her fiery cheek and she opened dulled and unaware blue eyes, already glazed with death. Aramis returned to Hillel, who awaited him in the atrium. The husband and father had been pacing in extreme agitation. He sprang at the physician when he saw him, and clutched his arms.