The Big Fisherman (24 page)

'Your name, please,' demanded the soldier, crisply but respectfully.

Esther's knees trembled. She felt sick and weak. Before she was able to stammer a reply, a hand was laid gently on her arm.

'I will answer for this young woman,' said David, calmly. 'She is a member of my family. Who wants to know her name, Centurion?'

'His Highness, sir!' retorted the soldier. 'And who are you?'

'I am David—of the House of Zadok. You may bear my compliments to His Highness and assure him that this young woman is not in need of his solicitude.'

The Sadducee had spoken with such haughty self-confidence that the Roman seemed at a loss for an appropriate response.

'Well!' he barked. 'We will see about that! You will wait here until I return!' Mounting his horse, he galloped forward. The crowd stood stunned, silent, gaping at Esther.

'Come,' said David, quietly. 'There is nothing more to see. We will go home.'

'But—the man!' whispered Esther. 'Are we not to wait?'

'He will not return.' David laid a protecting hand on her shoulder and gently propelled her through the bewildered pack.

Hannah was pale with fright when they rejoined her. David smiled reassuringly as he walked between them.

'Have no fear, Hannah,' he said. 'No harm will come of this. Our Tetrarch is ever interested in a pretty face. He likes to have good-looking people about him. In this instance he has made a mistake—and probably knows it by now. It is not to his advantage to accumulate any more enemies. You need not give it another thought.'

'I do thank you, sir, for coming to my rescue!' Esther's voice was still shaken.

'It was my pleasure to serve you.' David bowed. 'I bid you both good-day.' With lengthened steps, he strode majestically away and proceeded toward his home. The women faced each other with inquiring eyes, puzzled over Esther's predicament.

'You had better come back with me,' advised Hannah. 'Search for your uncle another day. The people will recognize you and think it peculiar to see you alone on the highway after what David said.'

'About my being a member of his household? I wonder why he did say it: he might have had to prove it.'

'Evidently he had no fear of that, Esther. David is a man of great influence—greater, perhaps, than I had realized.'

'Even so, he took the risk of offending the ruler. Why should he put himself in jeopardy—for me? I mean nothing to him.'

Hannah's eyes were averted as she remarked, in a vague undertone, that it wasn't always easy to understand David. At that, Esther came to a stop, laid a hand on Hannah's arm, and asked abruptly: 'How much have you told him—about me?'

'There wasn't much to tell, was there?' countered Hannah, with a reproachful little smile. 'Look! He is waiting for us, beside our fence. He has thought of something more he wants to say.'

'He will be wanting to talk to you alone, I think,' said Esther, turning about. 'I shall go now—and try to overtake Simon.' And before Hannah had time to protest, she had hurried away.

* * * * * *

As he set off for Tiberias after breakfast, the Big Fisherman was confused and unhappy. The mysterious girl's account of herself and her errand in Galilee—a much amended story—was anything but satisfactory. It was plain to see that Hannah was worried. He had been a fool to bring the waif home with him.

There was nothing to do today. The crews were off duty, supposedly at the Synagogue, but more likely to be found loafing at the wine-shops. However, there were always some odd jobs to be done on shipboard. He would net a basket of fish from the live-box at the wharf and deliver them to the palace. The rest of the empty day he could spend alone, tinkering at trivial chores on
The Abigail.

A quarter-mile down the road a procession was coming, led by a large contingent of cavalry, the sunshine flashing from their polished spears and the burnished bosses of the shields.

Still farther away a rising cloud of yellow dust, suspended over the rear of the parade, meant that a long train of heavily laden pack-asses was already scraping its hooves, though a laborious three-day journey lay ahead. Simon knew what it was all about: Antipas was setting forth, as was his custom, on the annual excursion to Rome. The party would travel to Caesarea and embark. Galilee would see no more of its Tetrarch until the flowers bloomed again.

Not that it mattered. He meant nothing to Galilee. The people's welfare did not concern him. He was more a Roman than a Jew. Nobody would care if he went to his precious Rome and stayed there. But he would be back, as usual. Returning, he would hold court for a month at the Galilean embassy in Jerusalem, at the time of the Passover fast and festivities; and then—with much pomp—he would come home to Tiberias, accompanied by a horde of other rich idlers, and sit half-naked in the sun—and swill his expensive wines—and splash in his celebrated pool—until it was time to go to Rome again. . . . But Galilee would be no better off under another ruler: provincial governors were all alike. Indeed, Antipas might be preferable to a more ambitious ruler: he was much too lazy to stir up trouble among the people. Perhaps the best ruler you could have, after all, was a drunken loafer who would let the province govern itself.

Ordinarily, when Simon sighted the Tetrarch's garish cavalcade making off toward Caesarea, he indifferently sneered and spat on the ground. Today—he was cross, anyhow—the pageant made him hot with indignation. This renegade, Romanized Jew had so little respect for the cherished traditions of Galilee that he thought nothing of setting out on his pleasure trip while the people were on their way to the Synagogue! The insolence of it! Fine way, indeed, to observe the Day of Atonement! It was little he cared about the feelings of the people! Antipas ought to be in the Synagogue today, at least going through the motions of honouring the religion of Israel. He was a disgrace to the province!

Simon wondered how many of the servants, and which ones, would be left behind, this time. He hoped Leah and Anna would remain at the palace. He always enjoyed their banter. Yes—and that impudent minx Claudia, too. It was impossible to have any respect for her: she was an outrageous flirt; and, besides, she was a Roman; but she was witty. And the Greek girl, Helen, who never had anything to say, but always smiled shyly as if she understood. Maybe she did. Sometimes he playfully winked at her, and she would show the tips of very pretty teeth. Helen often lingered for a while in Simon's thoughts, after he had discharged his errands at the service entrance, but he always put her out of his mind with a 'Pouf!'—for however winsome, she was a heathen. But—heathen or not—there was something very attractive about this Helen; her physical frailty, perhaps. Simon often asked himself why he had so much interest in fragile women when he was so contemptuous of any physical weakness in men.

Sombrely dressed pedestrians along the road were withdrawing to the weeds and brambles where they waited, gaping. Some sat down on the low stone fences. Simon plodded doggedly on, resolved that he would not leave the highway until it was necessary; nor was he going to do Antipas the honour of staring at his damned parade. Entering the little hamlet of Magdala, he turned off into a lane to wait until the thing was over and the dust had settled. He eased himself down on the dry grass in the shade of an old olive tree with his back to the highway. The metallic clatter of the approaching cavalry was insisting that he should turn and look, but he scowled and closed his eyes.

Everything was going wrong for Simon, lately; everything! It had all stemmed from this mad Carpenter who had taken it into his head that the people would be better off if—if—they weren't quite so well off; that's what it came to: own nothing—and be happy.

And why did anyone in his right senses listen to it? Because they had heard a rumour that the fellow could cure diseases. Well, supposing he could: was that what we wanted, a man who went about defying nature? Before the Carpenter had added this confusion to one's thoughts, life made some sense. To be sure, it had its difficulties, but you learned to accept them. Simon glanced back at his own complacency and wished he might recover it. He had never been one to bother himself about riddles. Such dizzying old problems as 'What are we here for? What is the good of it? What is it all about?' had never cost him a moment's anxiety.

As a lad he had been forced to assume a man's responsibilities, requiring him to work early and late while other children were at play, but it had never occurred to him to complain that the world was mistreating him or that Jehovah had singled him out for target practice. A lot of people were for ever whimpering that God had 'hidden His face' from them, when probably nothing much was the matter except that their cistern was low or a few of their chickens had died of the pip.

That's what you got for being so tangled up with religion; you were always in a dither about God. The new calf was a heifer and God was on your side; your donkey went lame and God was angry at you. Better not worry so much about God, who was probably not worrying much about you.

Simon's religion—what little there was of it—had been quite simple. He assumed that there must be a Great Mind in charge of the stars and the sky and other large undertakings, but he couldn't believe that God ever stooped to such trivial engagements as wilfully breaking the windlass-chain at the Abrams' well because the old man had walked a little too far on the Sabbath. Simon's God was a neat and trustworthy housekeeper, who put the sun out in the morning and took it in at night with a regularity you could count on, and He arranged that the seasons should come along in a dependable procession. Nothing ever got out of kilter.

Pursuant to this elementary creed, the Big Fisherman had not considered his childhood drudgeries as a visitation of God's displeasure. Indeed, he had taken pride in his ability to endure hard knocks and prosper in the face of obstacles. Never in his life had Simon looked up and cried 'Why?' Not even when poor little Abigail died. It didn't occur to him that perhaps God was paying him off for his misdeeds. He knew he had made plenty of mistakes—mostly by letting his temper get the best of him, to other men's serious discomfort—and he had missed many a religious fast that he might have observed; but he couldn't think that God had decided to take an interest in his small indiscretions. And when the elderly Rabbi Ben-Sholem, visiting them the day Abigail died, had implied as much, Simon had retorted, bluntly: 'I don't believe that God would do a mean thing like that!'

Sounds from the highway indicated that the company of cavalry was passing now; the jingle of expensive harness, the clipped beats of well-shod hooves, the creak of new leather, the sharp bark of a military command, the crack of a whip. Simon listened to it, hated it, and returned to his reveries.

And next morning after the burial, he had gone back to work, quiet and sad, but spending no time in useless brooding; for life was like that; people sickened and died—even young people like Abigail; even little babies who had had no chance to live at all. But why ask questions about it when you knew that nobody could give you an answer; not even the Rabbi, who should know if anyone did?

Now everything was in disorder. Now you couldn't count on anything! Johnny was not a liar; and that business about the little boy's foot, last night, was very peculiar—to say the least. Of course there was a possibility that the Carpenter had planned a hoax to deceive the people; but what could he expect to get out of it? He would be exposed; probably thrown into prison. There was nothing in it for him. He charged no money for his supposed healings; apparently had no money and didn't want any; owned nothing; saw no value in anything—but birds and flowers. That didn't sound as if he hoped to fill his pockets by fraudulent practices.

It was quiet on the road now. But, Simon well knew, it was not because the Tetrarch's pompous parade had passed. No, this was just the gap in the procession. Presently Antipas himself would ride by on his mincing stallion. None of this belonged to Galilee: a Roman ruler on an Arabian horse! Surely poor little Galilee had enough to confuse it utterly without having the Carpenter on its hands!

Assuming that this Nazarene was entirely honest; that he really could change water into wine and heal cripples—where did that leave you? The man must get his power from Heaven. If so—God did trouble Himself about a silly yokel with a short arm and a small boy with a crooked foot. If you admitted that He did things like that, maybe it was true that the Abrams' water-bucket was lost in the bottom of their well because old Abrams had absent-mindedly walked too far on God's dull and doleful Sabbath Day.

There was another interval of silence; and then the rhythmic lisp of sandal-straps. They would be carrying the hussy Herodias. Simon had seen her once, in the palace garden: she had stared brazenly at him for a moment before shrugging a shoulder and tossing her head and turning away. Herodias was a hard one—anybody could see that; the most important woman in Galilee: the enormity of it! What had poor, pious little Galilee ever done to deserve such a humiliation? Perhaps God would wreck the Tetrarch's ship, this time, if He had determined to take a hand in the cure of afflictions. There was silence again on the road.

Now we had this mysterious Idumean girl to deal with. It was clear that Hannah didn't know what to make of her. Suppose she couldn't find her uncle: then what? Hannah wouldn't want to turn her out. Simon felt lonely; couldn't expect to be entirely comfortable anywhere; not on the fleet, where his men—some of them, anyway—would resentfully remember his quarrel; nor could he feel at ease in his own home with that deceitful Idumean at the table. What a fool he had been to take the dirty beggar home with him.

There were more whispers of sandal-straps. That would be Salome's tall slaves, bearing her costly litter. Simon had often seen Salome on the road, always with a detachment of mounted guards. She was a graceful rider; very pretty, too. It was common talk that she had no more chastity than a cat. It was also rumoured that her mother hated her because the Tetrarch showed her too much attention. You couldn't believe everything you heard, but where there was so much smoke there must be some fire. You couldn't blame the Galileans for believing any evil tale about this young woman. They hated her: why, indeed, shouldn't they?