meaning for outsiders and another between the Jews themselves. And even when long familiarity and the joint acquisition of wealth had made them almost normal, I could never forget, as a servant of the Empire, that I was dealing with a people who were in the Empire, but who could never regard themselves entirely – not, at least, since Christianity was established – as of the Empire.
Stepping into the Jewish district of Caesarea was in one sense a homecoming. In another, the long absence from any Jewish place of residence brought back that early feeling of its being a world parallel to but separate from the one that had been mine.
If hardly spotless, though, this place was a sight better than the streets we’d now left. There was no longer need to look out for pyramids of dog shit or puddles of congealed saliva, or for the omnipresent cutpurses. The streets here were decidedly quieter. But what had brought me here? I told myself for the dozenth time that I was mad. I hobbled forward, Edward pushing the wheelbarrow and himself behind me. He was a strong boy – no doubt of that. However, even he was now wilting in the powerful noonday sun.
Then, as we turned a corner, I came upon an old man. He couldn’t have been my age, or anything approaching that. But he was old and shrivelled. Sitting in the middle of the street, surrounded by boys of about Edward’s age, he was scowling into a linen roll he’d arranged on his lap, and droning away at them in one of the Eastern languages. I stopped and leaned against one of the high, blank walls of the houses. I listened hard. I’d thought at first it was Hebrew. But this old Jew wasn’t so learned in his people’s ancient language. It was Aramaic, and he was reading out something nonsensical from one of the more recent prophets. It was no worse than anything you hear in church every Sunday. But even if you aren’t a believer, foreign religions always sound more stupid than your own.
No one noticed me, and I stood there quite a while, trying to keep a smile off my face as the boys repeated the bottom-wiping instructions one phrase at a time, and copied the gestures that accompanied them. Then, without waking, Wilfred moved slightly in the wheelbarrow and groaned. The old man looked up and glared at us.
‘Your sort isn’t allowed in here!’ he cried indignantly in Latin. He stood up and clutched the roll to his chest. ‘Get out now, or we’ll have the magistrates on you.’ He bent slowly down, his hand reaching for a stone.
‘I’ll go where I fucking please, you bag of apikoros dirt!’ I replied in Aramaic.
He shrank back as if I’d thrown lime in his face. I don’t know if it was because I’d spoken in his own language, or because I’d used the worst insult one Jew can give another – as if, mind you, calling someone a follower of the Great and Wondrous Epicurus, Master of All Wisdom, can be other than a compliment. But I’d shut the old man up. He glanced nervously down at his linen roll, and crushed it harder against his chest.
I stepped forward and beat the ground with my stick. ‘I need help,’ I said. I was glad Wilfred wasn’t awake to see this. It wouldn’t do much for his faith in my ability to come up with plans if they involved begging off old Jews chosen at random in the street. But, if there are times when you’re given one, there are times when you have to take a chance.
‘Help you?’ the old man gasped. ‘Some piece of pork-chewing Nazarene shit?’
‘Better that than a baldy-cock Christ killer,’ I answered without a pause.
‘Jesus sodding Christ?’ came the inevitable reply. ‘Jesus sodding Christ? Some “Son of God” he was, I can tell you! Mary was a whore. Joseph was a fool for believing her.’ He waved the linen roll at me, the beginnings of a smile on his face.
I heard a gentle scrape as Edward moved the wheelbarrow out of the sun. What he thought of two old men obviously swapping insults in an unknown language I didn’t bother wondering. He wasn’t Wilfred.
‘So, will you help me?’ I asked again.
The old man came closer and looked carefully into my face. ‘I guessed it was you when you first came in sight,’ he said. ‘I saw you once when you were ruling in Carthage. You do know this entire coast is buzzing with rumours of your return? Do you know what is being offered, no questions asked, for your head?’
‘Less than it’s worth, I’ll be bound,’ I said. We looked at each other. I smiled and leaned back against the wall. ‘I can see you’re a man who doesn’t forget injuries to your people. Are you as keen to remember favours? Will it count for nothing now that I spent sixty years not enforcing the penal laws against your faith?’
There was a long silence. Then: ‘What’s wrong with the boy?’ the old man asked.
I looked down at the sleeping face and the pale, cracked lips. ‘It’s a consumption of the lungs,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. ‘I did hope he’d pull through this attack. That doesn’t seem likely at the moment.’
The old man looked up and down the street. Except for us, it was empty. He pulled at his untidy beard and rolled his eyes. He bent down and gathered the coins they’d earlier left at his feet, and waved the boys about their business.
‘You’d better come quickly,’ he said with a resigned shrug.
I stared at the house of old Ezra. Nowhere that Jews live is ever made to appear prosperous from the outside. My friend Simon of Magnesia was an exception. But he, of course, had lent money to emperors. And he’d made his youngest son convert so he could become Bishop of Nicosia. By and large, though, Jews don’t live in palaces and flaunt their gains. But if those outer walls could have done with a lick of whitewash, it was plain that selling old clothes to finance his work as a rabbi had been a thoroughly profitable line for Ezra, son of David.
After a few hard taps with his stick, the door opened and, with a last look round the empty street, he ushered us in. I found myself in semi-darkness, under an arch that led from the gate right under the upper floors of the house to a central garden. I looked along the ten yards of brick archway to the greens and yellows of the garden. I thought I could hear the splashing of a fountain.
‘Welcome to the impoverished hovel that I must call home,’ he whispered in a weak attempt at irony. ‘Normally, I’d have my lazy bitches of granddaughters come down and wash your feet. Then we’d have all the ritual bits of hospitality to keep us going till dinner. In view of the circumstances, you will forgive me for hurrying you all into my counting house. No one dares disturb me there.’ From inside one of the doors that led on each side of the arch into the house came a sound of sandals flopping on stone. Ezra pulled me into the opposite door, and ordered his doorman to lift Wilfred out of the wheelbarrow and then carry him.
‘We’d better hurry,’ he said. ‘All my children live here with their families. My wife’s father has rooms straight across the courtyard. Until he gets really drunk, as opposed to just pissed, he can be a right nosy sod. We can save introductions till later. For the moment, let’s keep things private.’
We passed through a succession of corridors and various storerooms. There was a continuous smell of fresh bread and spices. The rhythmical thumping of feet on board above our heads told of children at play. At last, we were in a tidy little office. There was a roll of Jewish scriptures half open on the desk, and, beside this, an open parchment ledger marked with entries, I think, in Greek. Opposite the window that looked out to the garden was a bright mural – an apparently formless jumble of birds and flowers, with a large building on one side and a lion on the other. Ezra ordered Wilfred to be laid out on a couch and sat me in a soft chair that he pulled out from behind the desk. He perched himself on the desk and looked across at me.
‘You know,’ he said in a Greek that sounded more natural than his Aramaic, ‘I did idly wonder, when I first heard you might be in Africa, if you’d come to us. It would make sense, I told myself. After all, the Christians won’t help you. And it doesn’t look like you’ve two coppers to rub together when it comes to buying help from them. But you’re right that we owe you. We owe you big – and you’re right that we don’t forget these things.’ For the first time, he smiled properly. ‘I thought you might come to us. I never thought for a moment you’d come to me!
‘Now, let’s drop all this talk of owing and favours. When I welcome guests into my house, they want for nothing. Nor do I ask questions of them. Welcome, then, Lord Alaric, to my house. Welcome to all I can give you, for as long as you want it.’
He clapped his hands at the doorman. ‘Go to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Go and arrange food and drink for our guests. Tell Miriam the Master would have her keep her mouth shut.’
I sat back in the chair. It was the most comfortable resting place I’d known since leaving the ship. No, it was better than the ship. Here, no one was plotting to kill me – or to poison me by accident with slops and stagnant beer. I was hungry, and I wanted to give proper thanks for a stranger’s kindness. But the strain of those days on the road, and that long walk through Caesarea suddenly caught up with me. One moment, I sat there watching a shaft of sunlight creeping towards my feet. Another, and the office was in gloom. I could sense Edward asleep at my feet. I wanted to stretch and pull myself upright in the chair. But Ezra was behind me in a whispered
