Great Lion of God (36 page)

“What shall I say to such as this man? Thirty years ago I should have thundered at him and mentioned the wrath of God and sent him from my threshold with anathema. I should have felt righteous, and justified. But, should a man be condemned all his mortal life to loneliness and despair? It is said that a man must accept the life ordained for him, with meekness and try to discover some meaning in it for him alone.” Reb Isaac shook his head. “I tell you, I no longer know. It is said that we must not murder. But if a thief enters our household and threatens our lives and the lives of our family and our servants, is not the householder justified in killing him, if possible? God has not condemned the wars we have waged, yet often He has spoken that to Him the Egyptian, the Ethiopian, the Syrian, the Philistine, and others, are also beloved of Him, and that He has intervened in their distress. Who are we to interpret the Almighty? Shall we say, ‘He has spoken thus, and therefore He means thus?’ We know only that He is full of lovingkindness, and that the sinner, to Him, is often more to be cherished than the man who spends much of his time in the Temple, offering sacrifices.”

Hillel said, “God sent bears to devour the children who mocked Jeremias.” And he smiled again.

“So it is written,” grumbled Reb Isaac. “We shall never know the meaning of God until He sends us His Messias, blessed be His Name, and He shall make all things clear. It is said,” added the old man, sourly.

“We were speaking of Saul, and his marriage,” said Hillel.

They were sitting in the hot gardens of Reb Isaac’s house, in the shade of a striped awning, and were drinking cool spiced wine and eating honeycomb and fresh wheaten bread and refreshing fruits and a cold broiled fish. The date palms were heavy with fruit. Grapes, ripening, climbed the burning walls which enclosed the garden and scented the air deliriously.

“Ah, yes. Saul,” said Reb Isaac. “He will go to Jerusalem soon, to study under Rabban Gamaliel, A mighty Teacher, Nasi of the Temple. I know him. Saul will also pursue the trade of the tentmaker.” The old man chuckled. “When his hands are sore he will become more humble. No matter. Have you a maiden in mind?”

“Yes,” said Hillel. Reb Isaac waited. He eyed Hillel shrewdly. The younger man had aged beyond his years; his once golden beard and hair were almost white, and his figure was bowed and there was sorrow in his brown eyes and secret grief. Was it possible he was still mourning for his Deborah, who had had the mind of a. child, and was that the reason he had not taken another wife? Hillel said, “I would that he were safe as soon as it is possible.”

“Safe? And why?”

But Hillel did not answer. He only looked down at the hands clasped on his knee. Reb Isaac frowned. He had great intuition. It appeared to him that he was moving in the lonely darkness of Hillel’s mind, in which there was no light and no flowering, and only muteness of soul.

“No man is ever safe,” said Reb Isaac. “This is a most terrible and dangerous world, and always was it so and always will it be. It is the delusion of parents that they can protect their children and assure their happiness, so they vainly lay up treasures and properties, thinking—though they know it is not true—that a rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and his happiness also. I tell you, no man born of woman is happy, and if he say so, then he is a liar or a fool. Nor is there ever safety, for the world constantly changes and new governments arise, and new taxes, and often a man’s wealth is like water.”

Then Hillel spoke in a very low voice. “I would that my son be safe. In love. In the care and comfort of a good woman, who will cherish and soothe him and wipe away his tears, who will bear him children who will bring him a little joy in this dolorous world, and console his age and give him the gift of peace.”

Reb Isaac was about to say, with sarcasm, “Such as the one you possessed?” But the very cruelty of the words appalled him. He had not thought that he had the capacity for such derisive heartlessness. He prayed internally for forgiveness, marveling, as always, at the intricate chambers of a man’s mind, and the fearful inhabitants thereof, of which the man, himself, often has no knowledge until such an occasion as this occurred. Now I understand why a man can kill, and without regret, or commit any other crime, he thought, for the demons are forever lurking and waiting in the dark chambers, and the man inadvertently opens the door for them. Of such fearful stuff are we made! The larvae in our souls are deadly, and they eat away our virtues, until we are poisoned and hollow.

The old man repeated what he had said before: “Have you a maiden in mind?”

Hillel looked at him straightly, and said, “Yes. Your granddaughter, Elisheba.”

Reb Isaac gaped, amazed. He stared at Hillel and his old eyes became very wide and startled. “Elisheba? She is but a child!”

“Fourteen, is she not? Of an age to marry, according to the Law, and even above the age.”

Reb Isaac swallowed visibly, and Hillel thought of an old shepherd with a favorite ewe-lamb, for Elisheba was to her grandfather that lamb, and very comely and beautiful, slight and delicately formed, with hair like smooth black silk flowing down her slender back, large dark eyes with thick lashes, a pale but luminous small face, a soft little nose and a wondrously pink mouth like an almond blossom. She was young, but she was nubile, and her voice was the voice of a tender woman when she was cajoling her grandfather, and she possessed a deep long dimple in each cheek.

It was obvious that Reb Isaac was profoundly aghast at the thought that his Elisheba was of an age to marry and that she ought now to be espoused.

“It is ridiculous!” he exclaimed, making a gesture with his hands as if rejecting something preposterous. He forgot Hillel, and brooded. He loved all his grandchildren and thanked God that he was not their father, but Elisheba was like the child of his own loins and a perpetual babe who would never grow old, but would remain at his side forever a child until he died. He could not conceive of a day without Elisheba. He had quickly married off his daughters, and his two older granddaughters and had expressed his pious gratitude that they were no longer in his house but securely in the houses of their husbands. He had not thought this of Elisheba, who was uniquely and only his own. Now his anger was rising. He winced at the vision of his Elisheba in the profane arms of a sweaty man, and he not there to rescue and defend her, she who would be weeping for her grandfather.

“You are mad,” he told Hillel.

“Why?”

Reb Isaac fumed. His stare at Hillel was inimical. His wrath became stronger.

“It is true,” said Hillel, “that Saul will have no great fortune, for I returned to Sephorah her mother’s dowry—and one can be certain that Shebua ben Abraham counted every shekel of it! But I had had it wisely invested and lost not a copper of it, and I have kept the interest, and that, too, is growing. Saul will not want, nor will his wife.”

“Ha!” said the old man, and his withered face became crimson. “You know I am not without resources, nor is Elisheba’s father, and that she will have a handsome dowry! That is what lures you, Hillel ben Borush.”

Hillel sighed. “You know that money has never been of importance to me, Rabbi. I am not rich, nor am I poor, according to my bankers and my brokers. What I have will be Saul’s. I have even returned Deborah’s jewels and Sephorah has them.” A pallid darkness began to flow over his face, and Reb Isaac forgot his outrage for a moment to wonder at the shadow, and to feel compassion for the thought that had caused it. Hillel continued: “My family is not without note and has an honored name in Israel, and Deborah’s mother had an illustrious family. Let us consider my son. You have said it yourself, that he is of enormous intellect and power of mind, and once you remarked that the Finger of God had touched him—”

“Ahah!” cried the old man, joyous that he had discovered an excuse to reject Saul. “I wish no grim prophets in my family, especially not for Elisheba, who is a blossom! The Finger of God! It is wise not only for men to avoid the company of a man who has been so touched—but it is even wiser for women! It is not well to be in such a man’s proximity. There are dangerous lightnings.”

Hillel could not help smiling broadly. “Does so pious a Jew as Reb Isaac speak this? Have you not bewailed the fact that we have no Jeremiases nor Aarons nor Hoseas to marry our daughters in these debased days? Not even Joels. But my son—”

“I know all about your son!” shouted Reb Isaac. “He is possessed! He is entranced! I sometimes gaze at him with fear, for all my affection for him. He shall not have my Elisheba!”

“Then, being so fair and her grandfather so adamant against men of God, she will doubtless marry a Roman or a Greek, or worse still, a Sadducee. Alas.”

Reb Isaac could have struck him. He sat in his chair, his rheumatic knees asprawl, and he trembled with rage. His white beard shook as if in a gale and his black eyes glinted and sparkled. He tried to speak and could not and so he impotently beat his thighs with his clenched fists.

“Or possibly a gross rich merchant of Tarsus, or even an Egyptian,” said Hillel.

The eye fixed on him brightened with ferocity.

“There are few learned and pious Jews remaining in the world, alas,” Hillel continued. “Regard the youths whom you teach, and their worldliness, and their ennui with your exhortations. Have you frequently said that you would wish no damsel to suffer marriage with them? I tell you, Reb Isaac, Jerusalem now seethes with such, If not worse. I could speak of abominations—”

Reb Isaac lifted his hand and shook it furiously. “Halt! You have said enough!”

As he sat in his chair he gathered his robes about him and gnawed bis lip and the corner of his beard and stared at the ground. Occasionally he glanced up at Hillel with a look that avowed his hatred, but Hillel was not disturbed nor startled.

Then the old man said, “Your son is not of a handsome countenance. What florid appearance he once had has diminished. Moreover, his right eye droops. His constitution, it would appear, is not the best. His disposition, once inclined to be merry and expansive and generous, has become leonine and cold and distant, though I see passions not of this earth sometimes flash across his face. Is such one fit for my gay Elisheba, who is like a lamb in the springtime, or a nightingale? He would break her heart.”

“It is true,” said Hillel, with new sadness, “that Saul would appear to have changed, but in truth he is the same as always. I experienced premonitions when he was but a babe. But I tell you, Reb Isaac, that something has whispered in my heart at night that he is destined many things! Ah, you smile darkly, but it is true, and have you not hinted so, yourself? As for his appearance, he is not handsome, he is not revolting, and there is a strange charm about him, brought to my attention by his tutor, Aristo. He has a most eloquent voice. He will be heard in the Temple. He will move men’s hearts. He is devoted to the service of God. He is virtuous. These are a few of his attributes. At the last, Shebua ben Abraham offered me his favorite granddaughter as a wife for Saul, and Shebua is no fool.” He paused. “The damsel could make a meaner marriage.”

“Tell me this!” shouted the old man. “If you were Elisheba’s father and I the father of Saul, would you agree to such a marriage?”

Hillel was taken aback. He thought. He tugged at his beard. Then he said, for he was an honest man, “I do not know. But my daughter, Sephorah has married one less distinguished, and with fewer of the attributes we value, and she was the flower of my heart.” He paused again. “I do not know if Saul would bring happiness to Elisheba, but we do not count happiness in this world the highest good. But of a surety he would never betray her nor treat her lightly nor darken her heart with accusations of pettinesses nor tempers nor humors. Saul is not trivial, not petulant. She will have pride in him. As for Saul, I should like to know that Elisheba is his wife, for her sweetness would lighten his life and her kindness would enfold him. I have been candid. I can do no more.”

“Elisheba has seen him,” said Reb Isaac in a sour voice.

Hillel was startled. “Was that seemly?”

Reb Isaac grinned at him savagely, and shrugged. “He fell over her several times when she was a very young child and romping at my feet. I did not confine Elisheba. She has seen your son very often, but at a distance these past two years. She declares he resembles a young Moses.”

Hillel stared. Then he began to laugh, and there were tears in his eyes, and he held out his hand to Reb Isaac who at first ignored it, then accepted it.

Aristo considered, looking up into Hillel’s face, for he was squatting and teaching a young servant how to weave a tender basket for ripe olives. Then he said, “Master, I am afraid you have false hopes. Saul will never marry.”

They were in Hillel’s garden and the pond was as green as grass and the curious bridge was black against the blue autumn sky.

“That is nonsense,” said Hillel. “I thought that you might prepare him. For my suggestion,” he added lamely.

Aristo stood up and shook shreds of reeds from his garments.

“There is nothing—wrong—with my son,” said Hillel, remembering that Aristo was a Greek and the Greeks had lewd minds.

“No,” said Aristo. “But there is One, apparently, who has the power to suppress a man’s potency.” He smiled his sardonic smile. “I am happy that our gods are not so powerful, so castrating.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Master, let us go apace.” They walked together to a distance, and when Aristo spoke again his antic face was grave and the restless black eyes were quiet. “I know Saul,” he said. “What he has not told me of his thoughts I have divined. There have been some, even among us Greeks, who were like him, retiring to forests and to caves to contemplate divinity, but not of the human kind, such as women. We called them madmen. But Zeus frequently set them in the constellations for men to marvel, at night.”

Hillel could not speak. Aristo continued: “Some years ago I guessed that Saul had encountered a young female who taught him the arts of love against all his convictions. No, he did not tell me. It was sufficient for me when he informed me that he had committed what he called a Vile sin,’ against all the Commandments. Now,” said Aristo, and he could not help smiling, “Saul is no thief, no coveter, no breaker of the Shabbas, nor does he envy, nor does he blaspheme his God, nor does he worship graven images, nor does he dishonor his parents, and he loves his God with all his mind and all his heart and all his soul. You will see I am now well-versed in your religion, for Saul would have converted me, in his zeal. So, what is left that he could consider a sin, in your Commandments?”