Caleb had once said to Vatinius, “My friend, Jerusalem and Jericho were orderly cities when Rome was a haunt for wolves.”
Vatinius had refuted that with a sturdy answer.
“Age has nothing to do with it. Babylon was an orderly city when your
people lived in tents.“Then Caleb had retorted, “In the tents the Law was kept.”
“How many are there?” Quintilius asked.
“Nameless ones? The official reckoning is, I believe, six hundred; but you could treble that and still be short of the mark.”
“How would you, or your friends, give their numbers?”
With a brusque return to caution, Vatinius said:
“How should I know? I’m acquainted with four or five Jews, all respectable, settled men. None of them is a guerrilla, or related to one, or likely to become one, so far as I can judge. They’re just ordinary fellows who do what they’re told—and pay their taxes.”
“And await a miracle, eh?”
“Not entirely without reason. They have, more than once, been saved by what they call miracles and you and I would terra lucky accidents. Once they were besieged by the Assyrians, and plague broke out in the camp. They were slaves in Egypt, and in Babylon, and both times, for some reason, set free and sent home. But you see, the orthodox Jew, from the moment he fastens his shoes to the time when he takes them off again, in everything he does, down to killing a chicken, is in the hand of his god; to him there are no lucky accidents. All is Jehovah’s will.”
“As Herod said, fanatics. So according to you, the worst thing he, or Caesar, has to fear is some simple Jewish girl who had, shall we say, an unlucky accident and couldn’t or wouldn’t name her seducer and claimed that her conception was Jehovah’s will.”
“I don’t think that could happen. For one thing the genealogy of the mother is known, and girls who are eligible belong to good families, and are not only well guarded, but extremely prudish. That I know for a fact. I was four years in Jerusalem, and I’ve been here three, and in all that time I’ve hardly seen a loose Jewish woman, who wasn’t left without a single male relative. Take my friend Caleb; he’s a shoemaker, he earns pitiably little, but as well as his own family he supports his own mother, his wife’s mother and his widowed sister, and thinks nothing of it. It is the Law.” Vatinius thought, too, of Ebenezer, with his two poor fields; when he grew corn every ear counted, yet he always left some to be gleaned by those who had no field at all; that was the Law.
“Very admirable. I think you do admire them.”
“For those I know I have profound respect,” Vatinius said. He could not tell Quintilius, he could not tell anyone, that when his time for retirement came, he hoped to settle in this country, have a small white house, an orchard and a vegetable plot. A typical old soldier’s dream, except that most men dreamed of returning to their homeland, not of staying in the place of exile.
The slaves came in with the next dish; breasts of pheasant cooked in wine. When the door was open Vatinius lifted his head and listened, his trained ear seeming to catch the sound of some faint commotion somewhere. Then he heard what was certainly Caepio’s tread. Better not to interfere. Caepio had resented the store-room incident and would need tactful handling for a few days. So he sat still and Quintilius chatted on, saying how highly Herod had spoken of the waters of Calirrhoe, and what a beautiful city Caesarea was. Seemingly aimless talk which yet persisted in returning to the Jews. Once Quintilius, who seemed to have wasted no time in Jerusalem, mentioned the Sanhedrin.
“They struck me as being mercenaries,” he said of its members, using the word as only an ex-legionary would do. And Vatinius thought—How odd, that is exactly how Ebenezer and the others regard them. Then Quintilius said, as a more than usually vicious gust rattled the shutters: “Travelling South I did not expect such barbarous weather,” and gave a little shiver.
“I am at fault,” Vatinius said, “I should have ordered a brazier.” He rose to go and shout in the passage; but before he called he listened. The place was not silent; there was the noise, so familiar as to be unnoticeable, of a hundred men busy with their evening routine or relaxation; there were voices, talking and singing, the twang of a stringed instrument, laughter, the rattle of dice, footsteps. All just as usual, and yet … Then he knew that it was not his ear that sensed
something out of theordinary, it was his nose. Mingled with the odour of leather, men’s sweat, lamp oil and whitewash and cooking there was something else. My scented visitor, Vatinius thought, simply by walking in he tainted the air.
He said, “Bring a brazier,” to the man who came running in answer to his call, and unwillingly went back to his room.
When the brazier had been brought and they were alone again, Quintilius said:
“I hope Calirrhoe will do as much for me as it has for Herod; butafter all he is seventy or thereabouts; and he is only human. Of his sons which would your ordinary Jew choose to take his place?”
“The younger Philip,” Vatinius said, after some thought.
“He’s reported to have frugal tastes and is what the Jews call a just man. But the truth is, the Jews don’t take very kindly to kings at all. From what I hear, when they had their own, there was always a prophet busy keeping them in order.”
“Soothsayers?”
“Not exactly, they use the word differently. Certainly they foretold events, but that was a sideline. Holy men is the nearest word.”
He thought how eagerly, in the old days, he would have told Quintilius some of the fascinating stories which in Jewish households were spoken of as sober fact. Elijah, regarding as a miracle, a feast, a few scraps of carrion dropped from the beaks of glutted ravens, for example. It was too late, now; such talk could only be shared with friends.
The dishes were changed again; the slaves brought in small cutlets on a mound of rice, perfectly cooked, each grain separate and fluffy.
Indicating that he had already eaten his fill, Vatinius said, not entirely without malice:
“Small wonder, that you have gout, if you eat like this every day.”
“This!” The surprise in Quintilius’ voice was genuine.
“Why, this is only a makeshift meal, easily carried, quickly cooked. At home eight or nine courses is the rule. After all, Vatinius, eating is one of the certain pleasures, and should be made the most of while it is available. Barring the dubious blessing of early death we’re all going to end without teeth, or appetite, mumbling slops. A fearsome thought. Do you ever feel time seeping away, like water from a leaky goatskin?”
Vatinius remembered that even as a young man Quintilius had been unusually aware of passing time; the awareness had contributed to his decision. He’d said—I’m twenty and what have I ever had? Half my life or almost, sped, with hard work, hard food, hard beds and hard words…. “I’ve thought of it; I shouldn’t think there’s a man who hasn’t, at some time or another.”
“The thought haunts me, Quintilius said; he spoke almost peevishly, and something of his worldliness seemed to drop away.
“I look at my boy and see him bald, with a paunch. I take a bath, am well-scraped, freshly clothed, but I feel the skeleton there under the flesh and the silk. But I try not to brood. Out of the dark we came, and into the dark we go and all we can do about it, all anyone can do, is make the best of the little time we have.” He took up his cup and drank deeply.
“There,” Vatinius said, ‘the Jews have the advantage of us. They hold that this life is no more than so much,” he measured a tiny space between finger and thumb, ‘in a life as vast as the sea.”
“Have you ever contemplated turning Jew?”
“Jews are born. I suppose one could adopt their beliefs; but my credulity has limits.”
“Mithras promises immortality, too. All these Eastern faiths are much the same.”
“I might have taken to Mithras when I was young, but for one thing…”
“I remember. Your mother!”
With all that he had seen and been and done and heard, he had remembered, across the years, those conversations on the banks of the Rhone. There was something so disarming, so almost touching, about this that Vatinius felt embarrassed. His voice was gruff again as he said, repeating what Quintilius remembered : “I couldn’t have truck
with a faith that excluded my motherwho was worth any ten men. Let’s talk about something cheerful. Your son; nearly thirteen you say. What is his name?”