Dear and Glorious Physician (28 page)

There was no doubt of it. The leonine appearance of the disease had already thickened Sira’s features. Bluish-red and yellowish-brown erythematous patches scarred his face; here and there, on his brow and on his throat, were ulcerous lesions exuding serum and pus. His hoarse voice betrayed an invasion of his larynx. Even his hands revealed the loathsomeness of the disease, and two or three of his fingers were already gangrenous.

“How unmerciful are the gods,” said Asah, her arms trembling for her husband. “My Sira is the most gentle of men, the most dedicated. Yet now he must die if he cannot escape from the city unseen. But if he must die, then shall I die with him, good Master.”

“Master, take her from me,” implored Sira. “Conduct her to our home. For surely she is lost if she remains longer.”

Lucanus was seized with a very ecstasy of rage and despair and pity. He grasped Sira’s shoulders in his strong hands and closed his eyes and addressed God silently but with fury.

“O You who have so tormented this man who wished only to save Your victims from Your hatred! Must You forever strike down those who help the afflicted, who are innocent, who are without malice and evil? Must always Your smile be reserved for the vile and their children, and Your blessings be poured out on the unrighteous? Why do You not destroy us and let us have our peace forever in a dayless grave, covered by the merciful night, far from Your vengeful eyes? What have we done to merit Your hate, You who have not the eyes and the limbs and the blood of men, and not their flesh? Do You bleed as a man bleeds? Does Your heart tremble as the heart of a man trembles? Have You suffered pain, O You who afflict pain? Have You loved as a man loves? Have You begotten a son, so that You might mourn for him?”

Sira and his wife stood like motionless stone, their ears straining. They heard no voice, but dimly they were aware that something most awesome was sounding in this moon-struck place, this silent and fetid place. They saw Lucanus’ contorted face, his closed eyes, his parted lips, between which the teeth gleamed like marble.

Again he addressed God in the wild bitterness and anguish of his heart.

“Oh, if You were merciful, in Your illimitable might, You would cure this wretched man and return him to his wife and his children! If You possessed only one quiver of human pity You would take from him his disease and make him whole. Am I greater than You, more merciful than You? I swear to You by all that I hold dear that if I could I would take upon me the lesions of this horror instead and flee forever to the desert, remembering that I have saved a man, his wife, and his children.”

Sira felt the hands of Lucanus on his thin shoulders, and it seemed to him that a strange and awful force emanated from Lucanus’ fingers, like a cold and surging fire. The force pervaded him, shattered along his bones, rippled over his flesh, made his back arch and his hair rise on his head. It was as if lightning had struck him. He could not breathe or move; he leaned against Lucanus’ hands, and his heart crashed into sound against his ears like the sound of unearthly drums. He thought, I am dying! And the moonlight faded from his sight and became a blackness before his eyes.

“I am not God!” Lucanus cried from his heart. “I am only a man. Therefore I pity. Oh, be You merciful! Be You merciful!”

He caught Sira to his breast and held him tightly, and his tears dropped over his cheeks and fell on the other man’s forehead. And Asah, understanding vaguely that something had happened beyond human comprehension, sank to Lucanus’ feet and rested her head against them.

Then Lucanus felt some tremendous virtue leave him like flowing blood, and a mysterious weakness made his body shake. Gently, with trembling hands, he put Sira from him, sighing.

“Take my mantle with its hood,” he said. “Hide your face in it. Here are my sandals,” and he bent and removed his sandals and placed them near the leper’s feet. “Here is my purse, and my dagger. No one will recognize or find you. Go from the city and do not return. And if there is a God, go in His peace.”

He threw the mantle over Sira’s shoulders, and pressed the purse and the dagger in his hands, and he stood before husband and wife in his bare feet and clad only in his yellow tunic. And they looked at him and could not speak for bewilderment and gratitude, and it seemed to them that this young man was the son of Isis herself.

He turned and opened the door and stepped out into the stinking street, and the stone cut into his feet, and he did not feel the pain. Blinded with tears, he staggered away, sunk in grief and sorrow.

For a long time Sira and Asah did not move or speak. They stood in the moonlight like carved statues of themselves, stricken dumb. Then Asah approached her husband again with outstretched arms, and he held her off. “Unclean,” he murmured, and let her see his face and arms clearly in the light.

Asah uttered a loud and piercing shriek, then dropped senseless to the stones like one felled by a blow. And Sira stared at his arms and saw that they were whole and clean and without blemish. Dazed, he turned them about and examined them, and there was no spot upon them. He put his hands to his cheeks and his brow, and they were as smooth as an infant’s flesh, and warm and full of sensation.

He looked at the closed door through which Lucanus had vanished. He dropped to his knees beside his fainting wife and lifted his hands in prayer.

“Oh, most blessed,” he murmured. “Oh, that you visited us!”

Cusa looked with consternation at Lucanus. “It is not possible, Master!” he exclaimed, holding his head in his hands. His impish satyr’s face with its plump cheeks and thin little beard, humorous eyes, and impudent nose had blanched with horror.

“I am sorry,” said Lucanus, patiently. “I have tried to explain it. There is no need of another public medical officer in Rome, which is filled with modern sanitoria. Yes, I understand that the Public Assembly has graciously appointed me, at the behest of Diodorus, and at a considerable stipend. But shall a physician not go where he is most needed? Hippocrates has said this, and I have taken his oath. My work will be among the poor and oppressed and the abandoned, the dying and the desperately ill for whom there is no provision in the cities along the Great Sea. I shall minister to slaves and to those hopeless in poverty, and I shall ask no fee except from a rich master of slaves. I shall go among the prisons and in the galleys, in the mines and in the slums, in the ports and in the infirmaries for the indigent. There is my work, and I cannot turn away from it.”

“But why?” cried Cusa, incredulously.

Lucanus sat on his bed in the stark white bedroom where he slept and studied and looked at his long pale hands. “I have told you,” he said. “I must go where I am needed.”

Cusa rocked his head in his hands. Was Lucanus mad? Had the red Furies disordered his mind? Had Hecate secretly visited him in the night? By all the gods, this was not to be understood or to be endured! Cusa spoke reasonably, and quietly, as one speaks to a man afflicted with insanity.

“Master, your family needs you. Your adopted father is proud of you, and he the proudest of Romans. Your mother has not seen you for years; your brother and your sister have never looked upon you. What will it be said of Diodorus that his adopted son is a wanderer, ministering to the scum of the earth in hot barbarian cities and highways and byways? That is good enough for a slave physician, but not for the son of Diodorus Cyrinus. What will you say to Diodorus, and your mother? They will be shamed before the face of Rome.”

Lucanus shook his head. “I have no words to reach you, Cusa, or blow away the fog of your bewilderment. Enough. You and your family will leave with me tomorrow for Rome and my father’s estates. There you will be happy.” He smiled affectionately at his old teacher.

“My lack of understanding is mild to the lack of understanding Diodorus will display, Master.”

“I know.” Lucanus frowned, then smiled, remembering the bellicose Roman. “But I must do as I must.”

“You do not know what poverty is, Master! When you are a beggarly physician drifting from port to port — for certainly Diodorus will not sustain you with his careful money under the circumstances — you will discover what it is to be hungry and filthy and homeless and in rags. You will not delight in it, Lucanus, you whose flesh has been carefully nurtured and tended and clothed in fine linen and wool. Lucanus, enlighten me. What is this madness? What is a slave or a poor man or a criminal? They are less than human. It were better for you to treat the dogs and other animals of the rich and patrician in Rome! It would bring less shame and grief to Diodorus.”

Lucanus reflected. How could he say to Cusa, “I must deliver the tormented from their Enemy?” Cusa would then be completely assured that he was mad.

Cusa watched him narrowly. Then he burst out, “It is that accursed Joseph ben Gamliel! I have overheard him speaking with you in the gardens. Master, the Jews are incomprehensible, with their merciful God and His Commandments and His ridiculous laws for the temperate dealing of man with man. It is all superstition, and deplorable, and adds gloom to life. Have you seen a Jew with a happy face? Have you heard the laughter of Roman feasts and Roman abandonment and dancing in a Jew’s house? No, that is only for a barbarian Roman! Not,” added Cusa, “that I consider a Roman much more than a barbarian. But at least he is a man of sinew and blood and has a proper respect for the arts of Greece, though he is a wolf cub. The Roman is a realist. The Jews deal with transcendent superstitions. They speak of freedom, which is absurd. They expect the impossible from their God, and one of sense understands that the gods never deal in the impossible and expects no great virtue from them.”

Lucanus said with anger, “I do not believe that God is merciful and good! I do not believe what Joseph ben Gamliel tells me of Him! Spare your breath, Cusa. I must leave you for a last farewell to my teachers.”

Cusa, smarting, wounded, and quite confounded, understood that he had been dismissed, and he went to find his wife. Calliope listened as she nursed her child, and she puckered her lips thoughtfully. Then she shrugged. “I have always believed that Lucanus was extraordinary,” she said.

Lucanus had no regret for leaving Alexandria. Since Rubria had died he had felt no attachment for any single spot in the world, no desire to visit it, or to travel as a rich young man. The world to him was a carnal house, full of groaning, and no beauty of architecture, no music had power to lighten his endless sorrow. But last night he had dreamed of Sara bas Elazar, Sara whose father had been buried yesterday. It had been a most confused dream. She had come running to him through a field of flowers, laughing sweetly, and when she reached him her face was the face of Rubria, sparkling as if under spring sunshine. Her dark hair had fallen back from her white brow, and Lucanus had experienced the rapture of complete bliss and joy. And then he had seen the violet of her eyes, and pain had come to him. In his dream, he did not know why, he had said to her questioningly, “Rubria?” And she had answered in her dulcet voice, “Love.” He had shaken his head. “There is no room in my life for love. I shall not take love again, for love is a serpent in the heart, filled with poison and agony.” She had retreated from him then, looking mournfully to the last at his face, as if searching and sad, and the flowers had risen up and hidden her from him. Then he had known his old grief again and had cried out, and had awakened.

He remembered his dream as he packed his large leather physician’s pouch with his precious surgical instruments: forceps, scalpels, amputation saws, probes, syringes, trephines. Each instrument, of the most carefully wrought iron, and perfect, had to be wrapped in a woolen cloth impregnated with olive oil to guard against rust. There were older instruments, too, of copper and bronze, clumsier. These were also gently laid in the pouch in their own wrappings. To these he added his precious medical books, a number of ligatures in a silken case, and some special vials of Eastern medicines. Cusa would care for his personal effects, of which he had few. Lucanus examined them to see what he could give away to the poor and penniless in the infirmary at the medical school. A small bag dropped to the floor from some garment, with a heavy sound, and he picked it up and opened it. The golden cross Keptah had given Rubria lay in his hand, its golden chain twinkling.

Lucanus felt a sudden boiling and despair in him, and he wanted to hurl the cross from his sight. But Rubria had pressed it in his hand at the moment of dying. He could not remember bringing it here. He had forgotten it. Now he breathed on the gold and rubbed it with his sleeve until it brightened, and, remembering Rubria with a fresh access of pain, he kissed the symbol of infamy and replaced it in its bag and dropped it in his medical pouch. And he thought of Sara again, the beautiful young Sara with her graceful figure just burgeoning into womanhood, and her white neck and lovely, artless eyes. He left the room hurriedly, as if fleeing, and went to the university.

His teachers greeted him with affection, and all gave him amulets, even the cynical Greek physicians, and all expressed their regret at his departure, and all blessed him. “Remember, my dear Lucanus,” said one of the Greeks, “that medicine has always been associated with the priesthood, for there is more to medicine than the body, and a physician must also treat the souls of his patients, and, at the last, he must depend for a cure on the Divine Physician.” Lucanus was surprised at this statement from this most lucid-minded Greek, but the man regarded him seriously, then kissed him on both cheeks. “I do not fear for you,” he added.

There was only one of his teachers whom Lucanus wished to avoid. But he found Joseph ben Gamliel waiting for him, and the teacher drew him into his library in his stoa. The library was small and cool and austere, the furniture simple. “We shall not meet again,” said the Jewish teacher, sadly, looking at Lucanus with his large and luminous eyes. “Never again shall we meet. This is farewell for us.”

“You do not know,” said Lucanus.

“Ah, but I know.” Joseph ben Gamliel was silent for a moment. He turned his bearded head in profile to Lucanus, and the hot white light glaring through the small window struck that profile, giving it a mysterious radiance, sharpening it and changing it. “I must tell you a story,” said Joseph.

Lucanus smiled impatiently. “I have discovered that the Jews always have a story,” he said. “Everything is in poetry or metaphor, or hypothetical or obscure, or delivered in the form of an involved question. Life is short. Why is it that Jewish scholars treat time as if it did not exist and there was an eternity for discussion?”

“For the reason,” said Joseph, “that time does not exist and there is an eternity for discussion. Do you still believe, my poor Lucanus, that man’s spirit is bound by time or events?” He turned to Lucanus then, and again his face changed, and it was very strange and infinitely mournful, and Lucanus thought of the old prophets of whom he had been taught by the Jews in Antioch and by Joseph in Alexandria.

“You will remember the hope of the Jews in a coming Messias, of which I have told you,” said Joseph. “He will deliver His people, Israel, according to the promise of God. It was Abraham, the father of the Jews, a Babylonian from the ancient city of Ur, who brought those good tidings to us. You have read the prophecies of Isaias concerning Him. He will be called the Prince of Sorrows, according to that prophet, and His Mother shall crush the serpent’s head with her heel, and man shall be delivered from evil and suffering, and death shall be no more. By His wounds shall we be saved.”

“Yes,” said Lucanus, with growing impatience. Joseph gazed at him. “I know the Jewish Scriptures,” said Lucanus. “I know the prophecies concerning your Messias. But of what concern is that to me? All people have their myths and their gods, and what is a Jewish God to others?”

“There is only one God,” said Joseph. “He is the Father of all men. Did you think the Messias will come only to the Jews? They are a people of prophecy, so it is comprehensible why the prophecy was given to them. The Law was delivered into their hands by Moses. By that Law man lives or dies. This the Gentiles must learn, through the rise of their empires and their bloody decline and the vast and moldering dust of the centuries.

“Lucanus, you will remember that the prophecy of the Messias has seeped into all the religions of the world, and not only in the Scriptures of the Jews. God endowed every man everywhere with the dim knowledge of His coming among men. The soul has its knowledge beyond the sterile reasoning of the mind. It has its instincts as the body has its instincts.”

Lucanus did not answer. His impatience was growing wild. He fumbled at the gold chain at his throat, and then remembered that he had removed Keptah’s cross from the bag at the last moment and had hung it about his neck. Now the cross dropped over his tunic, and Joseph saw it, and a great emotion flashed across his face. But he continued to speak quietly.

“Thirteen years ago, Lucanus, I was a teacher of holy law in Jerusalem. My wife gave birth to a son one cold winter night. It was a very strange night, for a great Star had suddenly appeared in the heavens, stood steadfast for a few hours, then moved to the east. Our astronomers were much excited. They called it a Nova, and prophesied that its appearance portended tremendous events. I remember that night well. Herod was our king, and an evil man. A rumor spread through the city that in the little town of Bethlehem had been born the King of the Jews. It was brought to Jerusalem by humble and simple men, among them shepherds who had a most awesome tale to tell. They spoke of the Heavenly Host appearing to them as they tended their sheep on the hills, and giving them tidings of great joy. As kings are suspicious, they have a thousand ears, and so this story reached Herod’s ears, the story of illiterate and nameless shepherds. He immediately, in his fear for his power, ordered that all boy children who had been recently born be killed by the sword.”

Joseph paused. Lucanus listened with unwilling fascination. Then all at once he remembered that great Star he had seen as a child in Antioch, and his heart beat with dread.

Joseph said simply, “My son was among those murdered by Herod, and my wife’s heart broke, and she died.”

Lucanus was immediately filled with compassion, and he was ashamed of his impatience, and more ashamed of the vehement and angry remarks he had addressed to Joseph in the past. Joseph had known death and sorrow and bitter pain, and he, Lucanus, had accused him of not knowing. He regarded Joseph with pity. He said, “How much you must have hated not only Herod, but God, for those senseless deaths!”

Joseph shook his head and smiled faintly. “No. How can an understanding man hate God? That is for children’s passions.”

He was silent for so long a time that Lucanus felt he had forgotten him. Then Joseph, gazing into the distance beyond the window, continued even more quietly.

“At the last Passover I visited my old home in Jerusalem. The city was teeming with pilgrims from Galilee, Samaria, Judea. In an inner court I was conversing with my learned friends and commentators. It was a day of most lovely spring, filled with the scent of blossoms and the rich odors of spice and incense. The sky was a gleaming pearl, and the city was flooded with light and the sounds of song and rejoicing. Never have I seen so beautiful and calm a day, and the people’s hearts were glad in them, and they forgot Caesar and Herod, for God had delivered them again out of the Land of Egypt. The sounds of cymbals and trumpets were everywhere. The city was bright with colored banners, and the Temple hung against the sky like a golden jewel. Though I was a widower with only one child, a daughter married in Alexandria, I felt my first joy in thirteen years, and my heart rose on a wave as of expectation.”

He paused. His quiet hands linked themselves together, and his face lifted, and he smiled dreamily.

“Roman soldiers filled the streets. They too had felt the unusual delight in the spring. They had only one way to express it, for they were aliens in a strange land which hated them. The poor boys. They wished to be part of the general rejoicing, but the Jews ignored them on their holiday. The soldiers became drunk and went through the streets singing. It is a sad thing when any man is rejected by his brothers, and I was compassionate for the Romans.

“We have Temple guards which protect the inner courts from intrusion. Where was the guard of this room that day? I do not know. But all at once the curtains parted, and a young boy entered the court, a tall young boy of much handsomeness, clad in the rough drab robe of the common people. His feet were brown from the sun and bare. His fair skin was browned also by the sun, and his light locks were bleached by it, and fell on his shoulders. His eyes were as blue as summer skies, and he had a stately and majestic air. He smiled at us, not as a boy who has just reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, and therefore still shy in an adult world. His smile was the smile of a man, and he was at ease, like a man among his peers, like a scholar and a wise man among scholars and wise men.

“We were much astonished. Some of us frowned. What was this boy doing in our secluded court, dedicated only to wisdom and discussion? Where was the guard? The boy was obviously a peasant. Later they wondered why they had not immediately bidden the boy to depart. But I, seeing him, thought of my son, who, if he had not been murdered, would have been this boy’s age. I said to him, ‘Child, what are you doing here, and where are your parents?’ And he replied to me, with his serious smile, and in the gross accents of the poor and unlearned in Galilee, ‘I have come to question you, and to answer you, Master’.”

Lucanus’ face and scalp prickled. Then all at once he wished to leave, and he sprang to his feet. But Joseph appeared not to see this and continued in his far and dreamlike voice.

“He was as regal as a king, this young peasant of Galilee with his work-worn hands and his bare feet and his lifted head. I think it was this aspect of him that prevented the doctors and scholars from dismissing him angrily. We do not regard the people of Galilee with much respect. They are shepherds and workmen, and their speech is unlettered, and they are humble people. But this boy was as a king.

“He sat among us, and he talked with us, and soon we were amazed at his questions and at his replies, for, in spite of his Galilean accent, he spoke as one with authority and one of profound learning. We became engrossed with him. We asked the most difficult and obscure of questions, and he answered them simply. It was like a light dawning in a dark room crowded with learned books full of involvement. And he had barely emerged from childhood, this young countryman from the stark hot hills of Galilee, where there are no doctors and no wise men.