Poisoned Honey Page 5

  The next day, when it was near time to dress for the wedding, Imma discovered that my father was not in the compound. “He went to the waterfront,” my grandmother told her. “Not to conduct business, of course. He’s distributing gifts to the fishermen who work with him.” Safta smiled. “My generous son! He wants them to rejoice with us on our happy day.”

  “That’s all very righteous,” my mother grumbled, “but he shouldn’t keep the wedding party waiting.” She ordered Yael to go to the waterfront and remind him to come home.

  To add to my mother’s irritation, Yael didn’t obey promptly. She didn’t actually refuse, but she twisted her head unwillingly. “Mistress, they say at the well that the Tishri fever’s run right around the lake to Magdala. They say it’s in the air down at the waterfront.”

  The fever? This was the first I’d heard about it. Of course, I knew that every few years in the autumn, the Tishri fever swept through town like an evil wind. When the fever was abroad, no one would go out on the streets if they could help it. All private celebrations had to be postponed. “Oh no!” I exclaimed. “My wedding!”

  My mother frowned at Yael. “Nonsense. Just go straight to our warehouse, deliver the message, and come back. If you don’t linger on the docks, talking to good-for-nothing idlers, you won’t have anything to fear.”

  As Yael went out the gate, I climbed the stairs to the roof. There was nothing I needed to do just then, but I couldn’t sit still. There was a pile of flax fibers under the awning, and I began to comb them.

  As I worked, I thought of my vision while bathing in the holy well and Miryam’s message of “a high purpose” for me. Imma must have been right, that those words were a poetic way to describe getting married and having children. It was a sacred duty and a privilege to be a wife and mother, to carry on the life of our people.

  Still combing flax, I walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the low wall. There was Yael in the alley, not far from our house. She hadn’t even reached the street that ran down to the waterfront!

  I shook my head. Yael had a great talent for not quite disobeying orders. If she dawdled slowly enough, she might meet my father coming home. Then she wouldn’t have to go to the docks after all.

  Yael was annoying, but she was also a pathetic creature. People said that she had been the respectable wife of a landowner, but she’d done something to displease him. He’d divorced her, and her family were so ashamed that they’d refused to take her back. She had no choice but to join another household as a servant, grinding grain and washing feet. My grandmother felt rather sorry for her, but my mother said that Yael’s troubles were her own fault.

  My gaze shifted from Yael in the alley to a group of men climbing the street. They were moving as slowly as Yael, but for a different reason. They carried a man on a litter. I couldn’t see their faces from this distance, but there was something familiar about them.

  Yael emerged onto the street at last, and one of the men—now I recognized my uncle Reuben—called to her. She clapped her hands over her mouth and stood like that a moment. Then she whirled and ran back down the alley.

  Something terrible had happened. With all my will, I tried to keep the bad news away. Instead of running downstairs, I stayed on the roof, watching the men struggle up the street with the litter. But I couldn’t help hearing Yael’s scream: “Mistress, the fever! The master—ah, woe!”

  Of course, my wedding was postponed, but I hardly thought about that. The fever burned its way through our household. First Abba lay on his bed, shivering and sweating. My mother tended him, and I brought cool water and fresh cloths to lay on his forehead. We crept around the house with anxious faces. Then my mother, then Chloe, and then I, too, sickened. In my delirium, I saw weird beings bending over my bed, sometimes one with a jackal’s head and sometimes one with cow’s horns. Then I would realize the phantom was only Yael, holding a cup of bitter medicine to my lips. Yael, in spite of her fears, somehow escaped the illness, and so did my grandmother.

  I woke one day to see Safta’s face near mine. “Thank the Lord, her fever has broken,” said my grandmother. “Yael, hand me a fresh cloth.”

  Yael brought a cloth wrung out in cool water, and my grandmother laid it gently on my forehead.

  Now I remembered the litter, and my eyes focused on my grandmother’s robe. It was ripped at the neck, as in mourning. “Abba?” I croaked. “How is …?”

  My grandmother turned her face aside, and a tear ran down her wrinkled cheek. “Why did I live, to see my dear son die?” she muttered. “Why didn’t the fever take me instead?”

  “Abba!” I groaned. I tried to raise my hands to my neck, to rip my own tunic, but I was too weak.

  During that day, I gradually became aware of what was going on in our house. My mother and Chloe lay in the same room with me, and each of them in turn woke and asked for my father. At the news of his death, my mother screamed out, “Why has the Lord done this to me? What terrible sin have I committed, that he’s made me a widow?” She sat up in bed, as if struck by an even worse thought. “And Alexandros? What about my son? Where is Alexandros?”

  I sat up, too, feeling guilty. I hadn’t even asked about my brother.

  “Hush, Tabitha,” said my grandmother. “The Lord has spared Alexandros. He’s at the packinghouse with his uncle.”

  With a deep sigh, my mother fell back on her bed. “Thank the Lord. We won’t have to become poor relations in my brother-in-law’s house.” She closed her eyes. “Tobias … a good man …” Then suddenly she opened her eyes again and said, “There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?”

  I thought my mother’s worn nerves were making her oversuspicious, but then my grandmother glanced sideways at me and said nothing.

  “Is there something else, Safta?” I asked.

  Safta swallowed. “Mariamne, dear, I didn’t want to give you more bad news while you were—”

  “The fever took Nicolaos, too!” interrupted my mother.

  What a dreadful thing to say! Imma must be still feverish, I thought, but why does she always have to imagine the worst? I waited for my grandmother to deny it. But her eyes met mine, and she nodded.

  “Life must go on,” said Safta, although her tone was uncertain.

  Nicolaos dead? Nicolaos gone—just like that? I’d been sure, even in my grief for my father, that a happy future lay before me. Now that future was gone, sheared off like a mountain meadow in an earthquake. I lay in bed stunned.

  But the next day, I felt strong enough to get up, although still shaky. We sick ones had missed Abba’s funeral, since by Jewish law the dead have to be buried within a day after death. We’d also missed the first days of shiva, the week of mourning.

  Chloe and Imma got out of bed, too, and we sat together in the upper room with Safta, Alexandros, and Uncle Reuben. I saw that my grandmother’s eyes were red, as if she’d cried until the tears were gone. She’d been nursing us all the time she was grieving for her favorite son.

  According to custom, Chloe and I wore the tunics, still stiff with sweat, from our sickbeds. My sister and I held hands like two little children, sobbing and comforting each other as relatives and friends came by to offer condolences. “Tobias was a good man and a righteous Jew,” they told our mother and grandmother. To Alexandros they said, “Your father’s sardines are known from Damascus to Petra. May you follow in his footsteps.”

  My chest ached, and it was hard to draw a deep breath. I had to be polite to our comforters, of course, but—sardines! I was glad to see my cousin Susannah arrive with Kanarit, toddling as she clutched her mother’s hand. “Uncle Tobias was so good to me,” said Susannah. “He was good to everyone.”

  As the people came and went, the meaning of their words to my brother sank in. With my father gone, Alexandros was now the head of our household. This made me uneasy, but I was too sad and weak that day to worry much.

  My thoughts drifted back to my vision in the mikvah. It seemed like somethin
g that had happened a very long time ago, and I wondered what it could mean now. Did it only have to do with my future as Nicolaos’s wife, which was gone forever? Or did it mean something else entirely?

  As I grew stronger, the memory of Miryam and her words grew stronger, too. By the time the seven days of shiva had passed, I had an urgent sense that I should put everything else aside and try to discern the meaning of my vision. I went to talk to my brother. I would have preferred not to deal with him, but he was head of our family. Since Alexandros was young, Uncle Reuben would advise him, but I had no intention of dealing with my uncle.

  I began, “Brother, about my future …”

  My brother looked down on me, rubbing the sparse new beard on his chin. “Hmm. Yes, a new betrothal has to be arranged, but I’m not sure I can promise you … Speaking plainly, Mari, I doubt that Nicolaos was the best choice for you in the first place.”

  It was my brother standing before me, but it was Uncle Reuben’s pompous voice coming from his mouth. Alexandros went on, “Of course, Nicolaos’s family would have been a good connection for us, but … I’m afraid you need more guidance than a young, easygoing man like Nicolaos would give you.”

  “Nicolaos was our father’s choice,” I said, my voice trembling with anger. “You’re not honoring his memory when you speak like that. But I was going to say something else.”

  My brother looked puzzled. “Well, then?”

  “Listen to me, brother, I beg you,” I said. “Before the fever struck, Miryam appeared to me and told me of a special purpose for my life. I’m not sure what she meant, but I believe that if I honor the vision, I’ll be given some sign. So I ask you to wait before speaking to anyone else about my betrothal. If I could spend forty days in quiet, praying for—”

  “Hold—who is this Miryam?” interrupted my brother. “Who let her in the courtyard? Or did you see her in the market?”

  “No! I mean the prophet Miryam of ancient times—Moses’s sister.”

  “Oh.” He gave an annoyed laugh. “That story. You imagined her, you mean.”

  If Imma wouldn’t listen to me, I realized, how much more hopeless was it to try to tell Alexandros of my vision? Angry tears stung my eyes, and I bit my tongue. It would only make matters worse if I spoke the words that sprang to my lips: Do you know how ridiculous you are, trying to talk like Uncle Reuben when you have such a scraggly little beard? With an effort, I asked instead, “May I have forty days, though, to pray and wait for guidance?”

  My brother looked exasperated. “Pray as much as you like, but don’t bother me about it.” I had to be satisfied with that.

  SEVEN

  A NASTY JOB

  Two years after James left, the Tishri fever struck Magdala. No one in Matthew’s immediate family died, but commerce through the harbor slowed to a trickle for weeks. The customs taxes they collected didn’t even amount to what they owed the Romans.

  Alphaeus explained the problem to Quintus Bucco, the Roman official who came to town twice a year to collect from the collectors. The Roman, a man with sandy stubble on his chin and a weathered red face, was not especially sympathetic. “Bad luck about the fever,” he told Alphaeus, “but that’s your problem, not mine. We agreed on a set amount, not a percentage.”

  They were sitting in Alphaeus’s upper room, with a pitcher of wine and a plate of cakes on the table in front of Bucco. Alphaeus, as an observant Jew, did not eat with Gentiles, but he always offered refreshments to his Roman overseer.

  At Bucco’s answer, Matthew saw a flash of anger in his father’s eyes, but the Roman didn’t seem to notice. Leaning on one elbow, he drank deeply from his wine cup before going on in a genial tone. “Here’s an offer for you: I’ve been thinking of replacing the highway-toll collector at the north end of the lake. We should be getting much more from the Damascus–Ptolemais route. An energetic man could double the take and do well for himself and us.”

  Alphaeus was shaking his head. “I have no wish to leave—”

  “But I could do it, sir!” blurted Matthew. As the two men looked at him in surprise, he realized how much he wanted to get away from Magdala. He’d had enough of the unfriendly stares in the synagogue, of the Jews who exchanged greetings with Alphaeus and his son on the street but cursed them the instant they turned the corner. The Syrians, Phoenicians, and various other non-Jews of Magdala weren’t much friendlier. Matthew wanted a fresh start for himself.

  Quintus Bucco raised his eyebrows. “Your son seems capable and hardworking, from what I’ve seen,” he said to Alphaeus. “What do you say?”

  Alphaeus, although he was rarely at a loss for words, hesitated. It occurred to Matthew that his father didn’t want to let his only remaining son leave home. He wished he hadn’t suggested it so eagerly.

  Recovering himself, Alphaeus nodded. “Maybe it would be good for Matthew to get some experience on his own. Then when I retire in a few years, he’ll be ready to take over the harbor office in Magdala.”

  So it was arranged. “What have I always said?” Matthew’s father commented after the Roman official had left. “Romans may be swine, but you can do business with them.”

  Bucco wanted the new toll collector on the job immediately, so Matthew had to make preparations in haste. He assumed at first that he’d rent lodgings in Capernaum, the Jewish community closest to his tollgate. But Alphaeus laughed at the idea. “You don’t want to live in that stinking fishing village! Let’s see, the city of Bethsaida-Julias would be a good place to live, but it’s a little too far away. But we’ll find a decent house for you. If you manage the tollgate as well as I expect, you’ll easily be able to afford it.”

  Soon afterward, a Syrian acquaintance told Alphaeus of a comfortable villa to rent between Capernaum and the tollgate. The former renters had been Gentile, so Alphaeus sent servants ahead to clean the house thoroughly. Then Matthew hired a boat to transport himself and his belongings from Magdala to Capernaum. “You’ll need more servants and more furnishings,” said his father, “but you can get them in Bethsaida-Julias.”

  As they exchanged farewells on the wharf, Alphaeus gave his son a final lecture. “Remember what I’ve taught you about tax collecting. The main thing you have to keep in mind is very simple. If they think you might let them get away with paying less, or paying late, they’ll give you all kinds of trouble. You might even have to hire some lads with clubs to rough them up. But if they know you won’t stand for any nonsense, then most of the time they’ll just pay up.”

  When Matthew arrived at the tollgate on his first morning, he didn’t find anyone on duty. He’d brought two servants with him in case he needed help, but he’d expected that someone—maybe the outgoing toll collector—would show him the ropes for the first day or so.

  The tollgate was a stone arch straddling the highway, with a booth for the toll collector built into the inside. The barrier stood at a logical place to collect tolls, shortly before the wealth from the Mediterranean city of Ptolemais was about to pour into the lakeside city of Bethsaida-Julias. The tollgate should have acted as a sieve, filtering out large clumps of money for the Romans and smaller clumps for the toll collector.

  But the former toll collector must have allowed the traffic to beat down paths through the brush on either side of the tollgate. Even now, before the sun was fully up, the first travelers of the day were leading their donkeys and camels on those paths. Carts and wagons, which needed a level surface for their wheels, stayed on the stone-paved road, but they were rattling through the gate as fast as their drivers could urge the oxen or horses.

  A few of Herod’s soldiers were lounging on a rise overlooking the gate, and their blue-caped captain came down to meet Matthew. “You can see why they decided to replace the last toll collector, hmm?” He waved a hand at the travelers hurrying around the gate. “That fellow wanted everyone to like him.”

  But he laughed when Matthew suggested that the captain could help keep order around the tollgate. “Me, work for the stinkin
g Romans? I’d rather eat donkey dung.” As Matthew stared at him, he added in a friendly tone, “No offense meant. Everyone has to make a living.” He explained that his patrol regularly checked this section of the highway for rebels. “So I’ll be seeing you again—if you last at this job.”

  As the captain strolled off, Matthew cursed under his breath. But there was no time to waste. He ordered his men to stop the traffic on either side of the gate while he stood in the gate itself and began collecting tolls.

  An hour later, Matthew and his two men were soaked with sweat, dirty with road dust, and hoarse with shouting, but they hadn’t managed to force more than a few unlucky travelers to pay tolls. The rest of them dodged the toll collector as skillfully as if they’d practiced together beforehand. First, one of the horses pulling a carriage dropped to its knees in the gate, blocking the entrance. When Matthew called his servants to help clear that roadblock, a whole camel caravan slipped around one side of the gate. When Matthew ran after the camels, a stream of heavily laden donkeys escaped the toll on the other side of the gate. Meanwhile, a flock of beggars ducked in and out of the traffic, adding to the confusion.

  Matthew was getting really angry … and really worried. At this rate, he wasn’t doing any better than the last toll collector. How was he going to pay for the rent on his villa, and his furnishings, and the extra servants?

  Curse those lawless travelers! How dare they use this well-built highway without paying? Curse the Romans! If they expected him to collect their tolls, why weren’t they here to back him up? Matthew thought of his father, and he knew how Alphaeus would solve the problem. He’d call up his thugs with their heavy sticks. Matthew pushed the thought away.

  As Matthew stopped to mop the sweat from his forehead, an older man rode up on a donkey. “Good morning, toll collector.” He gazed at the scrambling tangle of toll evaders, making tsk-tsk sounds with his tongue. His deep-set black eyes, above his trimmed gray beard, had a shrewd gleam. “What a disgrace! This generation has no respect for law and order.”