Great Lion of God (21 page)

He embraced Hillel first, and let a tear come into his eye. “My dear Hillel,” he said, “this is both a joyful and a sad occasion. But let us not repine too much. You appear well, for all your tribulations.”

Hillel had always detested him, in spite of his own kind and gentle nature. He said, “My tribulations come from God and so I do not reject them, knowing, in humility that God, blessed be His Name, has His reasons, which are full of lovingkindness.”

He felt this in his heart. Nevertheless, he knew it would annoy Shebua, who looked at him with sudden sharper reserve and said, “Ah, yes. We can do nothing but accept. All else is childish.” He sighed. “Deborah was my only daughter. As Rachel was to her father, so was she to me.” He thought that would please or at least divert Hillel. One must concede exceptions for these pious Jews, especially Pharisees who could make themselves disconcertingly dangerous. In an odd way, he was never sure about Hillel. The family of Borush was very distinguished and many of them had been members of the Sanhedrin, and their name was notable, so Shebua could not understand the unaffected simplicity of Hillel. He had half persuaded himself it was the pretense of an assured man, and Shebua ben Abraham was not such a man.

Saul had been acutely observing his grandfather, whom he had never seen before. Shebua stood tall over Hillel, and was very lean and graceful, with long thin white hands and a long thin white face and a similar neck. He had a delicate nose, slender and attenuated, with tremulous nostrils, and his mouth was also delicate and almost invariably sweetly smiling. Friends had often informed him that he resembled one of the more patrician Greek scholars of antiquity, and this was not entirely flattery. His expression was amiable, patient, honeyed and sympathetic, conveying the message that not only was Shebua a gentleman of refinement but a man who was loving in the extreme, and full of sensibility, not to mention subtlety. One did not think of the great stern patriarchs when looking upon Shebua; one thought of scholarship and intellect and cosmopolitan worldliness. His brow was like marble, his thin hair pale and silken over his long skull.

It was only when one looked into his unusually large and almost completely colorless eyes that one saw the glaucous nature of Shebua ben Abraham, the glacial weighing and measuring of all who encountered him, the cold indifference to the spirits, sufferings, pain and torment of others, and the gigantic self-absorption and selfishness. But few discerned all this. He had an undeserved reputation for benign tenderness for every man.

He puts my teeth on edge, thought Saul, and his own teeth clenched hard together. He did not know that Clodia Flavius, wife of David, often made this remark to her husband.

Now the bright but pallid eye of Shebua fell on his grandson, Saul ben Hillel. While ostensibly greeting Hillel he had seen Saul obliquely and had said to himself, What an ugly youth, barbarian in his appearance, a veritable Vandal! He had heard from David that Saul was not similar to a beautiful statue and was not an Adonis in the eyes of his dead mother, and Deborah, in her letters to her father, had often complained that her son did not resemble his parents and was even ugly. Though she had not been intelligent she had a facile gift for words and had described Saul regularly, and minutely, so I Shebua was not too startled. But he felt an immediate aversion for that flaming red hair, so puissant and leonine, that breadth of shoulder, and those metallic blue eyes, and the bowed legs discernible even under the long brown tunic. The feet, in heavy leather sandals, stood firm and stalwart on the gleaming white floor of the atrium, and to Shebua they were the feet of a wrestler or a pugilist.

Shebua had no beard to kiss, so Saul suffered the perfumed embrace of Shebua in silence. (He was scented with sandalwood.) His young body stiffened; only long training in courtesy kept him from drawing away his cheeks from Shebua’s cool kisses.

Then, with his hands on Saul’s shoulders, Shebua held his grandson off from him and his whole face expressed affection and pride. “My beloved Deborah’s only son!” he exclaimed and again a soft tear appeared at the corner of his eyes. “Welcome to this house, Saul ben Hillel, and may you be joyful in the land of your fathers!”

Hypocrite, thought young Saul and his face was stiff. Shebua, who Was very intuitive, felt the youth’s repugnance and his thoughts, and the pale eyes narrowed to icy slits. But he continued to smile as with love and admiration. He patted Saul’s shoulder, then turned graciously to view his granddaughter, Sephorah, and for once his smile was genuine as well as sweet. He not only thought her beautiful and nubile; he also thought she had inherited his own Grecian appearance. He embraced her, and sighed. He had loved his daughter, Deborah. Sephorah was more wonderful in appearance than Deborah had been and as Shebua cherished beauty—he admitted this, himself—he was inclined to instant appreciation and affection for the girl. His grandson, Ezekiel, was lucky; there was also a fine dowry.

He murmured in the words of Homer, as he had murmured to the dead Deborah, “‘Daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair!’” Sephorah suppressed a chuckle. She was certain her grandfather was a mountebank but was amused rather than revolted at the thought. She considered it very discourteous of Saul to stand there and glare so straightly at Shebua as if about to challenge him.

Shebua entered genially and gently into an affable exchange of greetings with Aulus Platonius, for the Roman was not only a Roman officer but of a sturdy and wealthy family. Aulus, as an “old” Roman, thought Shebua effete and wearisome and rarely encountered him willingly, and to Aulus it was not strange that Shebua was the intimate of both Herod Antipas and the Procurator of Israel, Pontius Pilate. Both were depraved men, though Pilate was the more cruel and intelligent. He had only lately arrived in Israel, and Aulus deplored him. He was not of the fiber and the soul of Aulus’ patriotic, sober and industrious fathers. Pilate hated the Jews because he had been sent here, on a matter of discipline, by Caesar Tiberius, and because the Jews were not subservient to the Romans and refused to bow before them and were incalcitrant. He was beginning to make it difficult for his officers and underlings to marry Jewish women, out of pure malice. He often rallied Aulus on his Hannah and once or twice had even tweaked the centurion’s beard and said, “What! Are you becoming a Jew, my Aulus, and have you been circumcised?” Only military training had kept Aulus from expressing his hatred, for to him, as to most soldiers, the decadent men of modern Rome were an affront to the gods, an insult to the history of his nation.

The overseer of the hall entered the atrium, bowed to Shebua and announced that the Lady Clodia awaited the Lady Sephorah in the quarters of the women. Shebua smiled deprecatingly at his lovely granddaughter, spread his hands in apology and resignation, and said, “My son’s wife, the noble Clodia Flavius, is mistress of her house and one dares not oppose her! So you must retire, my Sephorah, my beautiful one, for refreshment and rest after your long journey.”

Sephorah bowed to him, to her father, then, drawing her filmy veil lover her face she bowed to her uncles, to Aulus, but pretended, as was proper, that she did not see her bridegroom who was lingering in the background, half hidden by a column, overcome with his shyness and the marvel of his fate that he was to have one so wondrous as his wife. Then Sephorah demurely winked at her brother, kissed her father’s cheek in a marvelous imitation of a timid daughter, and departed with her maidens for the women’s quarters.

“We live under a quaint rule,” said Shebua.

He then conducted the guests into the magnificent dining room for a rich and subtly elegant feast, for he had an Egyptian cook of great talent.

The women’s quarters were not luxurious nor very handsome. They had the austerity of old Rome about them and there were few ornaments and only the statues of Clodia’s family gods and her lares and penates. There were no murals here and the lamps were plain and unscented and the curtains over the uncolored Alexandrine glass of the windows were of coarse wool striped in the red, black and white hues of the Tribe of Levi, to which Shebua ben Abraham belonged. Sephorah thought it amusing, but not incongruous nor discordant, to find here a mixture of both Roman and Jewish customs and furnishing, for there was a curious resemblance and harmony between them. She realized at once that they were also anachronistic in this modern age of Hellenistic Jews and opulent Romans and degenerate Greeks.

Clodia was seated within her own portico in an oaken chair with no cushions nor fringes, and she was like Demeter in her repose and dignity. About her, her women were not idle; they were sewing or spinning or embroidering, though it was night and the lamps were not many. Clodia, herself, held a heap of linen on her broad knees and she was apparently mending it. She raised her calm brown eyes to Sephorah’s face, scrutinized her sharply and briefly, saw all, smiled with reserve and held out her hand to the girl. Sephorah kissed it With a fine affectation of humility, and Clodia’s eyes suddenly twinkled. She rose, embraced Sephorah. She smelled of fresh bread and clean strong flesh and warmth.

“Greetings, my child,” she said, in Latin, “My son, Ezekiel, is greatly honored and blessed in you.”

Her coarse brown hair was partly covered with the same plain cloth as her stola, and they were both of a dull deep red. Her hands were the hands of a woman who was not ashamed to use them in labor or in the soil, and were dark and short. She was not so tall as Sephorah. She was, indeed, however, the terror of her household which she ruled in the fashion of an “old” Roman, and her sons and her daughters feared her with excellent reason. Though her daughters were married, as were all her sons but Ezekiel, her youngest, they observed the most meticulous and deferential deportment in their mother’s presence. Her features were large and coarse and firm, but when she smiled her expression was truly kind and benevolent. Sephorah loved her at once, for here was all sincerity and truth.

Clodia and Sephorah dined together in Clodia’s austere dining room, which was small and dimly lighted. But the curtains were drawn back for the warm night wind and Sephorah saw the mingled red and white illumination of Jerusalem and heard the dull thunder of the unsleeping city. She also heard fountains, plangent and soothing, and distant laughter and music and the rumble of chariots. She could smell rich gardens and fruit. The crescent new moon stood on tiptoe on a dark mountain. Though Sephorah was tired, she was filled with excitement and anticipation, for henceforth this would be her home.

They dined very simply on broiled fish, hot breads and stewed beans with garlic and cheese and a very ordinary wine, which Clodia favored. The gentlemen’s dinner was quite different, which Sephorah suspected, but Clodia preferred a plain life for herself and her women. There was a rustic basket of fruit on the table, which was covered by a yellowish cloth, and the perfume of it mingled with the flower scents from the gardens and the pervading peppery and aromatic odor of the city.

She is dressed and gemmed finely, thought Clodia, and is of delicate structure and proud bearing, but she is one like myself and I am pleased. She inquired politely of Sephorah’s journey, offered her condolences for the death of the girl’s mother, and conveyed her unbending and formidable serenity to Sephorah who did not find it intimidating. In truth, the girl’s weariness relaxed and she found herself confiding in Clodia as if she were her mother, and some of her remarks were so witty that Clodia laughed abruptly a few times. Sephorah’s composure and ease, her charming face, her smiles, gratified the Roman lady. The girl was not impudent as were the majority of maidens in these deplorable days, and there was no impertinence in her voice, nor was she affected or brazen.

They drank wine in warm comfort together and ate of the luscious fruit. Sephorah began to speak of her brother and her anxious love for him shone in her golden eyes. She told Clodia of the strangeness which had come to him in the past year, and the fixity and gloom which nothing could shake. “Ah,” said Clodia, “I saw him from my portico, in the light of the lamps at the entrance to the atrium. He stood apart. That is very unusual for a youth, for the young are always chattering. Does he love no one?”

“None but God and my father,” said Sephorah with some melancholy. “Once he loved me. But no more. He repudiates me and thinks me trivial. I cannot touch him.”

Clodia reflected. She held a handful of sweet ripe dates in her hand and she munched on them thoughtfully. Then she said, “I have seen a few young men like your brother, Saul ben Hillel, but very few. He recalls my own brothers to me. We, too, were stringent before our gods and loved our country with fervor. At times,” and now she suddenly looked at Sephorah and the usually unrelenting brown eyes were amazingly merry, “I found it tiresome. Of a certainty, I never implied this to my father and my brothers, nor to my husband, David ben Shebua, but women have more humor than men.”

Sephorah was freshly delighted by this Roman lady. The two I women drew more comfortably together. “Virtue,” said Clodia, “is most necessary, and discipline cannot be overpraised. We must learn I this, my child, or we cannot endure in a world of men. We must be sleeplessly controlled and firm and guide them ruthlessly, or this world will surely revert to chaos. We must be veritable Penelopes on this gross, masculine earth, veritable Junos—or our men will become barbarians. It is their nature, though they pretend, in these days, to be excessive refinements and daintiness. Alas, modern women, striving to be as corrupt as men, as vicious as men, as free as men, are fastening us all to destruction. There are few virtuous women alive these evil times, and only they can delay the inevitable hour of death, blood and confusion.”

She sighed, studied a pomegranate in its basket, then took up a lea globe. She regarded Sephorah with interest. The girl’s face was somewhat disturbed. Clodia said, “Do not be sad, my daughter. Civilizations come, and they go. The seed of their death lies in them at their birth. It is inexorable fate, ordained by the gods. Still,” she added, “I often yearn for what I have not had.” She gave a grim chortle. Sephorah gazed at her, waiting.