Judas (6 page)
I made my first illegal money. Not a lot, but some, and realized there could be a great deal more. It started simply enough. I changed some money in the street. Amelabib sent me to the moneychangers to convert the foreign coins we had taken in that day. On my way back, purse filled with denarii, a man stopped me. Newly arrived to the city and not yet acquainted with the ways of the street and the market, he did not know better than to try to change his money in the street, did not know about the moneychangers or the fixed rate. I should have sent him to the official exchange but, without thinking of the consequences, I changed his money, at my rate, returned to the moneychangers and exchanged it again at theirs. I returned my master’s money to him, but four denarii richer myself. No one saw me and even if they had, who would suspect a boy to have enough money to speculate in exchanges?
I decided then I would try my hand at the money changing business. There were risks, of course, and the need of ready cash to make the business work, but I guessed that if I were careful, started with this windfall of four denarii and held back a small measure of my wages in the future, I could make it work. Each day, I saved a few more coins. I was finally doing something about getting us away.
***
One evening I returned late from the stall to our room. It was empty, no Dinah. She never ventured away from the safety of our cramped quarters. I picked up a lamp and went to find her. I checked the privy. I looked into the atrium. I could not find Mother or any sign of Dinah. I remembered the time Darcas brought the man to our room. Did she try it again with the same results? Did Dinah run? I searched the corridors and the buildings in the small courtyard at the back of the house. The privy stood at one end, open space beyond it, where animals were kept and deliveries made. Attached to the rear wall of the main building were a series of low sheds where Darcas stored her goods and things for which she had no immediate use.
I called Dinah’s name, not loudly for fear of drawing attention from the atrium and Darcas. As I walked the length of the courtyard, I thought I heard a whimper. It sounded like a small animal and it came from one of the sheds at the far end of the court. All the sheds were sealed with chains and complicated devices that only opened when a specially fashioned strip of metal was inserted in it. I tried to force the device but failed. The shed leaned against the back wall of the main building. It looked solid. But what appeared to be an impenetrable wall turned out to be only thatch that had been plastered over and scored to look like stone blocks. Finally, I came to appreciate Darcas’ tightfistedness.
I unsheathed my knife and slashed away at the shed where it joined the building. In a moment, I made a hole big enough to allow me to peer into the shed. Someone was in there. Another forty slashes with my knife and I had a hole big enough to squeeze through. I held up my lamp and peered into the darkness. Eyes stared back at me.
“Dinah, is that you? What are you doing in here?” Darcas must have decided to take the matter of Dinah’s introduction to the atrium into her own hands.
She held her arm up and with her lost, faraway look, pointed her finger toward the door. I remembered something about that look. I had seen it recently and not on Dinah’s face. No, I had seen it somewhere else, but where? Then I remembered.
“Dinah, it’s me, Judas. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She whimpered and pointed at the door again.
“Don’t worry. Darcas won’t know.”
Of course, she would know. That was the problem.
I looked around me. The shed held copperware, pots and urns, vases, and salvers of various sizes and shapes, piles of it. Some had scenes worked into the rims and across the plate face. It was as good as, or better than, any of the pieces Amelabib and I purchased from the coppersmith in Corinth. There was a fortune here—a fortune for anyone who knew when and where to sell it.
I do not remember how long I sat there, alternately looking at the copper and Dinah. I could get her out, I knew, but if I took Dinah out, Darcas would know I had broken into her shed and she would turn me over to her guards or the police. If that happened, there would be no one to look after Dinah. Then there were all the goods, the copperware, not to mention the things in the other sheds. I guessed if she stinted building one shed, it was a good bet the others would be easy to break into.
I put my finger to my lips. “I’ll be right back. You be as quiet as you can.” Dinah stared at me. “And don’t leave. Darcas might see you. Do you understand? Stay right here.”
She nodded.
No one saw me. I needed a miracle.
Pagans believe gods involve themselves in their affairs, or at least they used to. Some bore children by women and goddesses sometimes bore men’s children, and sometimes they were so mixed up you could not tell one from the other, which is why, I suppose, Caesar declared himself to be a god, as well. Why not? There is not much to choose between the lot of them and at least Caesar commanded an army, which gave him an edge over the people who ran temples and claimed power from gods. But my mother’s god was another story. Ever since we arrived in Cenchrea, I had made a point of praying to her god. I never really expected any response, but I did it for her and in the secret hope I might be wrong about him.
“God of my mother,” I prayed, “I need your help. Until this day you have caused me nothing but pain and sorrow and you probably will not even listen to me now because I have no father. Will you hear me, then, for the sake of my mother and this other fatherless child in the shed and deliver us from certain destruction?”
Nothing.
Then I saw Gaius. He looked terrible. His luck had run out and he had become a candidate for an early grave, as were the other six standing with him, as sorry a lot as you will ever see. Then I knew exactly what I must do.
“Thank you, god of my mother,” I said under my breath.
Luckily, it was a pitch-black moonless night. I slipped back into the shed and removed the copperware and carefully put it into sacks I found lying on the clay floor of the shed. I thought how very convenient of Darcas to leave them lying about after she unpacked her loot. Dinah watched wide-eyed and wondering. It was a struggle, but I got the best pieces away and hidden. I piled some kindling against the shed to cover the mess I made of the wall. I greeted Gaius and his pitiful squad of cutpurses. I had a proposition for them.
I went back for Dinah. Once out of the shed and safely on my way, I signaled to Gaius. His flock of spotted goats descended on the other sheds and within moments they were looting Darcas’ life savings. I rushed into the atrium out of breath and sounded the alarm. Darcas and her bodyguards rushed out the door, headed toward the backcourt. Gaius and his band had managed, by then, to wreck half of it. How much they had stolen I did not know. They had time enough to make off with quite a lot but their greed was a match for Darcas’ and so they had stayed, trying to grab everything. Others had joined in the looting and a riot began. I threw the lamp onto a pile of dry straw near the cookhouse doorway and it burst into flames, casting an eerie glow on the melee in the backcourt. In the midst of the noise and smoke, the cursing, and the sound of clubs striking skulls, Dinah and I slipped away. We were going to the city—to Corinth.
***
I found the temple of Aphrodite but only after stumbling about in the dark on a dozen streets. Finally I remembered I had to climb to the Acrocorinth. I let my feet find the grade upwards. I promised myself I would pay closer attention the next time I wandered through a city. I stopped in front of the temple. It loomed over us, even bigger than I remembered.
We stood in its shadows for a moment while I wrestled with what I should do next. I led Dinah up the marble steps and onto the portico. I hesitated, reluctant to enter, when the biggest Ethiopian I had ever seen stepped out in front of us. He asked what business I had in the temple. I stammered, momentarily tongue-tied, and wondered if the prudent thing might be to reverse and get as far away as fast as I could. I steeled myself, figuring I had not come all this way to turn and run.
“I bring a gift for the goddess,” I said in my best Greek. My accent was that of Amelabib and sounded local and country. The Ethiopian glared at me and at Dinah. She moaned and scurried around behind me. The Ethiopian motioned us to follow him.
He led us along a path that circled the temple to a low building at the rear. He knocked and had a conversation with someone inside. In a moment, an old woman came out carrying a torch. It burned as brightly as the absent moon. I pushed Dinah forward and whispered to her for the one-hundredth time, “You will be safe here. It is going to be all right.”
Something about the old woman seemed to touch Dinah. She stood still and stared straight ahead. The old woman circled her and then gazed into Dinah’s face for a long time. She murmured something to the Ethiopian. Their voices were so soft I could not hear what they said. The old woman looked up abruptly and said something to me in Latin.
“She says she has been visited,” the Ethiopian translated. “The goddess knows this child.” She said something else to the Ethiopian who turned back to me. “She wants to know her name.”
I was very nervous. “Dinah,” I mumbled.
“Di…?” the old woman said, “Dia…Diana?”
“Yes,” I said, “her name is Diana.”
The old woman led Dinah, now Diana, away. The Ethiopian signaled for me to wait. In a moment he returned and handed me some coins. I looked at them—silver and gold mixed in with a lot of bronze, a fortune, more than I could earn in a year. I thought, I will never see Dinah again. But she is safe at last. Not even Darcas will find Diana if she is looking for Dinah.
My next stop was the house of Amelabib. He gave me an angry look and complained about having his sleep disturbed before dawn but when he saw the copperware I had, his face brightened. I only showed him a small sample. We were close, but in the world I lived in, you could never really trust anyone. He saw the profit in my proposal. For a share we negotiated, Darcas’ former cooper goods were to be sold from his stall. He asked no questions, I offered no explanations. It was a good arrangement. Soon I would have enough money to take Mother away.
The sun rose red and shimmering as I returned to the House of Darcas. The courtyard still reeked of burning thatch. Smoke hung low on the ground. Darcas raced back and forth cursing at her bodyguards and peering into the wreckage of her sheds. Gaius and his pack had been caught, but not before most of the goods they managed to take, were taken from them in turn, by others stronger and quicker than they. Life on the streets had not been good to Gaius. Too many beatings and too many days without food and sleep had dulled his wits. He could no longer function, even as a thief. He would be dead before the moon was full.
I slipped into the building and climbed wearily to our room. Mother was frantic.
“Where have you been? Have you seen Dinah? I can’t find her anywhere and Darcas won’t speak to me.”
“She is safe. I took her away to a safe place.”
“Oh. Good. You are a good son, Judas. Go fetch her back now.”
“I can’t bring her back.”
“Can’t? Why? What have you done with her? Where did you take her? Why can’t?”
“She is safe. I took her to Corinth.”
“To Corinth…Corinth?” she said, eyes round and frightened.
“I took her to the Temple of Venus—Aphrodite. She will live there now, and neither Darcas’ men nor any others will be allowed near her. They will keep her safe. They gave me money.”
Mother screamed. A sound of anguish so complete, it would make an angel weep. She leapt to her feet and pulled her hair. She tore her clothing. She ran to the hearth and heaped ashes on her head. She alternately moaned and bellowed like a cow dropping a calf.
“How could you? It is not permitted to sell children to Gentiles…you know that. You must go and bring her back.”
“I cannot. It is done and I did not sell her. They gave me money. Here, take it.”
She slapped the coins from my hand. They clattered and rang across the floor.
“Mother, it was the only way. Darcas had her locked up in a shed. She…You cannot stop her, I cannot stop her and Dinah…is special.”
“I don’t want to hear it. It would be better if Dinah were dead than sold to Gentiles. You have done a terrible thing…a terrible thing. We do not turn our own over to the Gentiles, and never for money, never. Dinah cannot go to the Gentiles.”
She paced up and down flailing her arms, wailing, and looking at me wild-eyed and furious. “It is the same as death. You know the law. You cannot have done such a thing.”
“Mother, for god’s sake…”
“Do not talk about the Lord to me. If you had any sense you would know that—”
“Mother, stop it. That old god of yours has brought us nothing but pain. Dinah was going to die here, Mother. That is a fact. She is damaged and cannot help herself.”
“Dinah is fine, only very quiet.”
“Quiet? Mother, she is mad. What happened in Caesarea broke her.”
She sat down heavily on the bench by the hearth and became very still. Her hands hung limply between her knees, her hair covered her eyes. I listened to her breathing. She stared down at her feet. I never noticed it before but she had very small, thin feet, the feet of a young girl. Somewhere in the midst of her pacing and yelling, she had lost one sandal. Tears streaked the paint on her face, which I realized with a shock, was no longer young. The kohl from her eyes now filled the lines around her mouth. In the three years since we left Caesarea, she had aged ten.
“Look at us,” I said. “Look at what we have become. We live like this in a city, the name of which is the Greek word for what you do in the atrium.”
She looked up sharply and then dropped her eyes again. We both stared at her feet.
“There is enough money here to go home. You could go back to Galilee and your people.”
“Home? I have no home. I have no people. Judas, the moment you were born I lost any possibility of ever going home. This is what I am now.”
“But…”
It was hopeless. What I had done, I had done. I did not regret it and if her people and her god could not see the sense in it, then I wanted nothing to do with it either. We sat in silence.
Finally, she stood and stalked to the door, one foot silent, one slapping, and said, in a voice so soft I had to strain to hear it, “Judas, you are dead to me.”
“Mother?