The Kingdom of the Wicked (49 page)

       'She prefers to stay in Rome. A year is not for ever.'

       'Better that way. She'd bring you too close to these people, get you absorbed. You have to stay aloof, that's important. Know the language, do you?'

       'Enough.'

       'Avoid speaking it too well. Keep your distance. Make them speak Greek or Latin. I suppose Felix has left a lot of unfinished business behind him. Jewish law, Jewish taboos, trials that go on for ever. Why can't they learn to think like Romans? That's what we're here for, anyway. Bring Roman clarity of thought, Roman reason, Roman manners. A civilizing mission.'

       'And, of course, we collect taxes.'

       'That too. After all, civilization has to be paid for.'

       Paul was still at Caesarea, waiting for Poncius Festus to deliver judgment. His cell was commodious and he was permitted visitors. The chief of these was Luke. To Luke Paul dictated a letter about 'Charity, which is another name for love. If I speak with the tongues of men — and of angels — and I have no charity, I'm nothing more than a cracked trumpet or a bit of struck metal. I may be able to prophesy, to understand mysteries, to have immense knowledge of all things, be able to move mountains indeed, but if I have no charity I have nothing. Nothing. I may sell all my property to feed the poor. I may submit to execution, burning, martyrdom. But if I have no charity it means nothing at all. Let me tell you what charity is like. It's ready to suffer. There's no envy in it. It isn't — puffed up. It's never unseemly, never selfish, thinks no evil, isn't easily provoked. It submits, believes more than doubts, hopes more than despairs. It never fails — not in the way that prophecies fail, or words fail, or even knowledge fails. We know a little, we prophesy a little. But when the perfect thing comes — and that is charity — we don't need even that little. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, but when I became a man I put off childish things. So the business of knowing more goes on. Now we see through a curtain, darkly and imprecisely. But some day we'll see reality face to face. Now I know in part, but some day I shall know thoroughly — even as I'm known. And all this will come about through the power of love. There are three things as you know, all great — faith and hope and charity. But the greatest of these is charity. Got all that?'

       'Greatest of these is —’ Luke put down his tablet. 'You believe all that?'

       'They'd better believe it, the ones who are going to have it read out to them. Yes, of course I believe it. You're not staying to eat something?'

       'I have to see this new man again. Trouble in the belly. Cramps. Diarrhoea. Newcomers just will not leave the fruit alone.'

       'You're his official physician?'

       'No. Just called in. I ply the trade. A man has to live. We can't all enjoy the hospitality of a Roman prison.'

       'Rather excessive hospitality. Two years.'

       'As long as that? Everybody must have forgotten what the case is about.'

       'I don't think so, Luke.'

       He was right. Festus and Julius met the leaders of the Sanhedrin at the confines of the Temple, which the two Romans duly admired. Ananias said: 'We appreciate the courtesy visit, procurator. We're glad that Roman law is in operation again. It's been asleep for too long.'

       'Blame the functionaries of Rome for that,' Festus said. 'A change of Emperor, a reorganization of the civil service. If you have cases for me to judge, bring them to Caesarea.'

       'There is one particular case that has slept since the departure of the procurator Felix. The man Paul. He lies in jail in Caesarea, as you will know. We humbly request that he be sent here to Jerusalem for the further investigation of his crimes.'

       'Crimes? Somebody mentioned these crimes to me, but I still don't know what they are. Anyway, it's the task of the judiciary to determine whether there are crimes or not.'

       'Oh, we're sure.' Festus looked at them, and he saw one of them lick his lips. The physician Luke had fed the procurator more than a white medicine. Festus said:

       'Did you have summary justice in mind? An accident on the road to Jerusalem? I've heard of these tricks before.'

       'We do not perform tricks, procurator. We leave those to the Nazarene enemies of the Roman state. We are at one with you in our love of justice.'

       'He'll get justice. And he'll get it in Caesarea.'

       In the open courtyard outside the praetorium in Caesarea Marcus Julius Tranquillus looked with great curiosity at Paul, whose wrists were chained together at the back, who was bald, ugly, ageing but, it seemed, much at peace with himself. He knew all about Paul, or rather Saul, fellow student of his brother-in-law, murderer turned Nazarene fanatic, traveller, religious orator, Roman citizen. He had read the file on Paul in the praetorial office. He did not at all understand the charge which the pompous Greek Jew Tertullus was enflowering with compliments to a Roman official who had as yet done nothing to deserve either praise or blame.

       'So, to conclude, most illustrious Felix —’

       'Festus is the name. Porcius Festus.'

       'I apologize. I've been speaking from the original brief. Most illustrious Festus, this man not only profaned the sacred Temple of our fathers but persisted in teaching false doctrine to the scandal of all true worshippers.'

       'This,' Festus said, 'is an internal and local matter and does not concern Rome.'

       'But, illustrious one, his acts and words have been much to the detriment of public order and tranquillity, and those are very much the concern of Rome.'

       'What,' said Festus, 'does the defendant say?'

       To Julius's ear what the defendant now said was spoken in admirable if provincial Greek with a rise of the voice at the end of each phrase, doubtless a device to ensure clarity but conveying the lilt of a question. 'I have done nothing amiss — neither sin under the laws of religion nor crime under the laws of Rome.'

       'It's that second part that concerns this court. You say that you've committed no crime against Caesar?'

       'I repeat: neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar —’

       'Will you,' Festus asked, 'go up to Jerusalem and be judged there — before me — of the things of which you are accused?'

       Julius thought he saw a glint of complicity in the glance that the procurator cast at the man in black robes who was called the high priest. He certainly saw one of his own troops make a thumb-rolling gesture at a colleague; the colleague sagely nodded. Paul saw too. Paul said:

       'I'm standing before Caesar's judgment seat, where I have a right to be judged. I have done no wrong to the Jews — this you know well. If I'm a wrongdoer and have committed some crime worthy of death — well, I resist neither the charge nor the execution. But if none of these things of which I'm accused are true — then no man can hand me over to these accusers. My appeal is to Caesar.'

       'You say you're a Roman citizen. Centurion, is that confirmed in the records?'

       'It is.'

       'Very well. You've appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go. Wait,' as the Jews started crying to heaven. 'Less noise there. This is a court of justice. I hadn't finished, had I? You shall go to Caesar when it's sufficiently clear to me what precisely this whole case is about.' The Jews relaxed: there was still a chance of putting the knife in. 'Take him away. Clear the court.'

What image of Caesar possessed Paul's still provincial mind is not at all clear: probably some gaunt figure cruel but constant as the north star, lifting a judicial finger towards Olympus, in billowing toga and goldsmith's laurel crown, unaware that conspirators were ready to strike. The real Caesar, pretty but pimpled, was, in that Neronian time which does not quite correspond with Pauline time, marauding in mask and green wig with some of his old schoolfellows in the Suburra district of Rome, among the shops and brothels that lay between the Vicus Longus and the Vicus Patricius. He was, in a sense, trying to escape into a happy adolescence from a matricidal guilt which would not leave him. Rome congratulated itself on the removal of a figure made more rather than less sinister by her undoubted beauty, and Rome guessed where responsibility for that removal lay. Eventually Rome would, when it was convenient, speak of the second most abhorrent crime in the calendar; at present it rejoiced in the liquidation of a monster whose monstrous enactments had been unmitigated by masculine compassion, masculine lethargy, masculine rationality. Rome's citizens slept sound, but Rome's ruler woke sweating. He heard her voice calling him at night; by day he saw her momentarily resurrected in audiences at the theatre, making him forget his lines when acting or, when singing, croak. He was beginning to learn also that one murder always leads to others: her assassins had, in their turn, to be assassinated and the new knifers knifed. He saw that murder could not properly be delegated unless he wanted the whole world to be killed. He was led, which was tiresome, to the study of poisons and the acquaintance of that Locusta (here in this very district of Suburra) whom his mother had vicariously employed to his own ungrateful aggrandizement.

       Gaius Petronius, of course, had praised the device of the leaden galley as most artistic, deplored its failure, accepted the subterfuge of an imagined treason as inferior drama but legitimate, if banal, improvisation. He dismissed the bad dreams and waking apparitions as what he termed, in his refined Greek, mere epiphenomena, comparing them with the tiresome ghosts that encumbered the tragedies of Seneca. He chattered too much and Nero had sent him away on a long paid holiday to Athens, there to prepare the way for his master's participation in the singing contests. In the meantime, nightly raids on shops and brothels in the company of the yelping friends of his youth. Panting after the beating-up of a grocer who had just been shutting up his emporium for the night, they turned a corner and found a closed fish market still open. They had an enjoyable time running after the shop assistants with their own knives for gutting and scaling, flailing each other with sea bass and octopus, slipping and recovering on the slimy floor, whooping and roaring. When the apparent owner of the market appeared, calm, indulgent, even smiling, a huge flounder in his arms like a sleeping child, they paused in their play: they were meeting a reaction past experience had not led them to expect. The man, dark, broad, in early middle age, went up to the disguised Nero and tried to hand the flounder to him, saying:

       'Hail, Caesar. A gift from Neptune to the ruling divinity of Rome.'

       'How do you know who I am?'

       'The imperial light shines, despite that elegant mask, from your worship's countenance. You smell of divinity as this flounder smells of — whatever it smells of. On second thoughts, it's past its first youth. I have fresher fish within. Already in the pan, with garlic, sweet butter, cloves and capers.'

       'You dare to invite the Emperor to supper?'

       'Humble duty, sir. The pride of a subject. I can bring in dancing girls. Or boys, if you prefer. Naked.'

       Wigged Nero smirked at the man. 'So there's money in fish-mongering, is there?'

       'Money in a lot of things, your celestial goodness. I've come back to what I started as out of a certain nostalgia. I plan to make a monopoly of the Roman fish trade — fresh fish, rushed from the coast in cool tanks, sold cheap and hence sold quickly. I already have a monopoly of the Sicilian horse trade. Money, yes. But to be spent, sir. I hate hoarding. I like life. Strong flavours, if your Olympian sagacity knows what I mean. Fish blood is thin, but some blood is as thick as cassia honey. The juices of life, sir — blood and semen. Let them flow.'

       'The Emperor,' Nero said with mock dignity, 'is pleased to consider you a man after his own heart. Your name?'

       'Ofonius Tigellinus, at the Emperor's service. A euphonious name, would your holiness not agree? Euphonious Ofonius. Tigellinus the little tiger. Ever ready to give your supreme imperial divinity most earthly pleasures. An Epicurean is what I am, if I may put this business on a philosophical level.'

       'With no love for the Stoics?'

       'Stoics? Seneca and his crew? I spit on this fishy sawdust. Hypocrites, I'd say. Pretending to virtue and practising secret vices. I hate the hole in the corner. Let's laugh in the sun.'

       'Ofonius Tigellinus, I can smell that frying fish from here.’

       ‘Good, isn't it, sir? It's the garlic. Nothing like garlic.'

       It was on the Vicus Longus that Aquila had his shop and, behind the shop, the living quarters where, with his wife Priscilla as hostess, he sometimes gave hospitality to fellow Jews. They had made money in Corinth but were glad to be back in Rome. Except that these days, nights rather, it was unwise to go out much. They could hear the loud bravoing of the youthful wreckers and wondered when their turn would come. But there was nothing to wreck except a bare workshop, and the shutters Aquila put up were of hard pine with metal bars. Aquila said now, hearing whoops and smashing:

       'The times we're living in, eh? You need somebody to shout out against it. Like your old friend, Caleb.' For Caleb was there with his wife Hannah and their son Yacob, also Sara, who had that day received a letter from her Roman husband telling her about Caleb's old friend, and Ruth, who was now ripe enough for a husband. They were a handsome party. Hannah, who in Gentile company sometimes gave her name as Fannia, was the orphan daughter of a moneylender whom one of his senatorial clients had indicted and convicted on a charge of defiling a statue of Vesta. She had been quick to learn cynicism from Sara, who trusted neither God nor man and had a slight ancestral contempt for the pretensions of Rome: for all that, both ladies could pass as Roman patricians whom a sun more southerly than Rome's had touched. Caleb, whom Rome's sun had made swarthier with the years, caught Aquila's reference and said: