But the centurion’s bodyguards care. They block Balthazar before he reaches his target. They form a barrier in front of their fellow Roman, grabbing Balthazar’s arms and legs and holding him in place, even as he struggles and screams. Even as his eyes meet Abdi’s, and the little brother suddenly realizes that the big one can’t save him after all.
And the centurion pushes his sword into Abdi’s belly. And the boy cries out as his tender flesh gives way but doesn’t break. So the centurion pushes harder, and the skin tears, letting the blade in. Letting it through his little belly and out the back.
And we stop now for a moment. We stop right here in this little piece of time, because our eyes have deceived us. Because, we tell ourselves, this isn’t what happened at all. It can’t be. It can’t be, because men don’t run little children through their little bellies with sharp swords. It can’t be, because Abdi is going to grow old and have a whole life with us. A whole, rich life of his own, filled with all the beauty and discovery, all the love and opportunity a little boy with a warm heart deserves in life.
But it is real.
The centurion withdraws the blade and lets go of the boy’s half-broken hand. Lets him fall into a seated position, where he remains a moment, before falling over on his side and silently clutching at his stomach. Clutching as the blood runs over his fingers. And as Balthazar watches this in some other world where it can’t possibly be true, he imagines Abdi tugging at his leg and crying, “Bal-faza… Bal-faza… you stay right here… ”
And the anguish. The screams of his big brother. His big brother — still too small, too young to fight off the guards who hold him by the arms and neck. Who beat him into submission as he struggles and screams his throat raw. And the crowd is shocked. Silent. Helpless. It’s not their place. They don’t want to end up on the other side of the river, in one of those shallow graves.
I’m watching all of this, right beside Balthazar, but miles away from the agony he feels. He’s all alone in that, and I know it. Even then, in the first seconds of it. I turn away from my screams, toward his. I watch as Balthazar undergoes a transformation right there in the forum. I watch him fall to his knees. I watch him pick up his brother’s lifeless little body, holding it in his shaking arms. Holding our practice son. And I drop to my knees, too, feel the sickness crawling up the back of my throat.
And now the centurion’s eyes meet Balthazar’s, and he knows. He knows this is a relative. A brother. And he smiles at Balthazar, because he can. Because he’s above the reach of the law. A god. And the centurion decides to leave his mark on this Syrian rat, dragging his blade across Balthazar’s right cheek twice, leaving a bloody “X” behind. And like that scar, the centurion’s face will stay with Balthazar forever.
Adding insult to murder, the centurion takes the pendant that hangs around the boy’s neck — rips it off his neck while he gasps for the breath he can’t find — and hangs it around his own.
“Probably stolen anyway,” he says to the assembled.
And with that he’s gone. Whisked off into the busy forum by his bodyguards.
Just in case, I think. Just in case we aren’t as afraid as you make us out to be, and we decide to rise up against you.
But we are. We’re too afraid, and we let him slip away into the safety and anonymity of Antioch’s ruling Roman class. And with the centurion gone, never to be seen again, we turn our attention back to the two brothers he’s left behind. One big, one small. One dead, one wishing he were.
And we witness this together. Gawking at this deeply private moment. Intruding into this mourning with our eyes, unable to offer any comfort. Together, we witness the end of the being who went by the name “Balthazar” and watch the birth of a new being. The one who they’ll call “the Antioch Ghost.” An angry, murderous creature.
It isn’t good enough to rob the Romans anymore. He wants to kill them. No, not wants. “Wants” is too weak. It’s merely a desire. But even “needs” is insufficient to describe what courses through him now. He’ll kill the centurion. He knows this as surely as he knows his own name. Like me, he wants to burn Rome to the ground. But unlike me, he knows he’s actually going to do it. Not today, not in a year’s time — but someday. He knows he’ll stand over Rome as it burns to the ground. He soothes himself with this knowledge. And though he isn’t a praying man, he prays for this. He prays as earnestly as any man ever has. A silent prayer, right there in the forum:
Give me this, O Lord… give me this. Let me see my enemy’s face again. Let me strike him down for what he’s done. Let me do this before my life on this earth is ended. Let me do this, whatever awaits me across the gulf of death. No matter the consequences of time or punishment.
He’s shaking now, sobbing as Abdi’s body bleeds into his lap. Rocking him back and forth as he kneels on the cobblestones of the forum. And for some reason, my eyes are drawn to Abdi’s robes, and I see that he’s wet himself. And this is what brings the tears at last. For it reduces him to the child he is; it speaks to the fear he must have felt and takes the last shred of dignity from him. And the crowd is already thinning, frightened that the Romans will come back and punish all of us for making too big a scene of so little a murder.
Balthazar sobs and screams and rocks his brother — our son — to sleep, just like he used to on the banks of the Orontes, when Abdi would nap in his arms in the shade of their scarred tree. And I’m on my knees beside them, rocking and sobbing myself. But there’s nothing I can do. I’m already useless, and I know it.
Forget me or his mother or anyone else. Balthazar is alone. But worse — so much worse than that — is what he knows in his heart. He knows that this is his fault. All of it. It’s his fault for being so irresponsible. For teaching a little boy how to steal. For being a bad example to a good soul. And he knows that somehow, some unseen power is punishing him for what he’s done with his own life. All of the unforgivable sins he’s committed. He’s knows that God hates him. Here is proof in his arms. What God could do this? Only a God who hates.
And smooth, singular purpose washes over him. He’s dead now. There are no more consequences in life. He’s dead, and the dead have license to kill the living. He’s dead, and God hates him. Here’s the proof — right here, bleeding into his lap. But Balthazar won’t settle for being hated by God. He’ll hate God right ba —
Sela stopped in midsentence. The desert had grown almost completely dark, but she could feel Balthazar standing over her. She looked up, and there he was, looming over the two sitting women and their tear-streaked faces, silhouetted against the last of the pale sky and the first stars to welcome the night.
“Go on,” he said. “Don’t stop there.”
Sela tried to tell herself she didn’t care what Balthazar thought. But she couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed at sharing his darkest secret with relative strangers. Mary was right. She still cared enough to feel a twinge of guilt over having betrayed something so deeply personal.
“Go on,” he said again, in a tone that sounded less like a suggestion and more like a threat.
“Balthazar, I — ”
“Tell her,” he said. “Tell her what happened next.”
Sela sighed. There was no point in arguing. The damage was done. The damage was done a long time ago. She turned back to Mary, and continued.
“He spent weeks searching all over Antioch, asking questions. Spying on Roman barracks, hoping to get a glimpse of the man who’d killed his brother, a glimpse of the pendant that hung around his neck. I barely saw him anymore, and when I did, he hardly said a word. And then one day, he found what he’d been looking for. A clue. Someone who’d seen the centurion pack up and leave Antioch, headed to a new post in another part of the empire. He left that night without a word to his mother. Or me.”
“Then what?” asked Mary.
