Damascus, Page 2

  ‘Do we bury her or do we burn the cunt?’

  To earth or to fire, the girl is lost to the Lord. He does not reply.

  Death’s breath is on his skin; he can smell it. The blood and meat and sin and poison of the girl. He wants to be careful not to touch anyone, lest he stain them with his pollution, but the market-sellers have set up their tables and the streets are full of people and slaves, beggars and labourers, scavenging dogs and bleating goats. Saul keeps close to the walls, ducks into narrow passages to avoid contact. In this way, slowly, he weaves through the back streets and manages to avoid the crowds. He breathes deeply with relief. He has reached the wide marble steps leading to the Temple. The mansion of the Lord reaches up to the heavens, the smooth face of the rock glistens from the touch of the sun. He smells incense and burning wood; wisps of smoke curl around him. He unties his sandals, delivers his prayer and enters the bathing pool.

  He washes death off himself.

  Finally, rocking back and forth on his knees, he begs the Lord, the One, the only One, to cleanse him and forgive him.

  I am not a filthy child killer.

  Cleansed, he passes through the first gate of the Temple and enters the courtyard. They have sent Ethan, a novice priest, to pay him. And even that young cur won’t look at him—there’s disdain in the way he drops the coins into Saul’s palm. As if to touch Saul were an abomination. I am not a filthy child killer. He wishes he could grab the young man’s throat, slam him against the walls, deliver blow after blow until the supercilious fool pled for mercy. He has heard the little shit take classes in the Temple, stumbling over the words of the prophets, forgetting the sacred text. It is he, Saul, who should be teaching the young men, it should be Saul promised to priesthood. Every sacred word is carved across Saul’s heart. Every single word of the Lord. But Saul was born to toil, unlike this pampered and sneering child.

  He needs the four meagre coins in his curled fist. The skinning season has not yet begun and there is a cycle of the moon to be completed before he can return to Tarsus, to his brother’s farm, and begin his work of preparing hides to stitch into tents and canvases. This is the life Saul was born to.

  ‘Sir,’ and the word fills Saul’s mouth with bitterness, ‘do you need any tutors?’

  Ethan has turned away. ‘No. We don’t need you this season.’

  Saul groans as he descends the Temple’s steps. How dare he believe himself worthy of priesthood? Though silently, he cursed in the Lord’s house. He could wash and scrub at his skin for years and he would never be washed clean.

  As soon as he enters his sister’s house, Saul intuits danger. He stoops through the doorway and an ill-feeling knocks against his chest and heart, as if a malevolent force were in the room. He brings a prayer to his lips but even before he can recite the words, his sister rushes at him out of the darkness, her fists banging against his chest. He knows that not even prayer will still Channah when she’s in such fury. Her curses are not words, they are the shrieks and wails of the monster that has possessed her. Her fingers claw his cheek and the violence brings him to his senses. He hits her.

  He sees his brother-in-law, Ebron, rise from his seat by the hearth and go over to his fallen wife. ‘You deserve that.’

  Channah curls her veil over her face but the cloth cannot mask her sobbing.

  Saul nods at Ebron and goes to where his nephew, Gabriel, is sitting. The youth jumps to his feet, embraces his uncle. The boy’s arms are as steadying and peace-giving as a prayer. Saul inhales the youth’s scent: toil and strength, salt and earth.

  He turns to his sister. ‘Forgive me, Channi.’

  Even muffled, her words can be heard. ‘May the Lord grant me death.’

  Ebron, furious at her for inviting evil into his home with those words, slaps at her head.

  Saul turns to his nephew. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘They have arrested Jacob.’

  At this Channah stirs, unwinding her veil. ‘And now they will arrest you,’ she seethes. From the ground, her burning eyes then fix on Saul. ‘All this begins with you, brother. You are the oldest—you are our father, and you have abandoned all responsibility. That’s the root of all this evil.’

  She spits on the ground. ‘Unmarried, unfertile. You are no man.’

  A great weariness falls on Saul. It is the cloak of iron that he must wear, the heaviness that cannot be shed. Ebron has raised his arm again but Saul clicks his tongue—an almost imperceptible sound, but it is enough to stay Ebron’s hand.

  ‘What have they arrested your friend for?’

  Gabriel shrugs, makes no answer.

  ‘It will be for sedition,’ says Ebron quietly.

  At the word, Channah starts moaning.

  Turning his back to his sister, Saul beckons the men to come close. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  The boy lifts his shoulders, his eyes returning to the flickering embers of the hearth. ‘I know he had with him a message from our brothers in the Stranger’s city.’

  At this his father snorts. ‘May the Lord shit on Caesarea. Nothing but evil comes out of that stench-hole.’

  Saul takes his nephew’s chin, forces the boy to face him. ‘Please tell me that there was no letter. Tell me that he had memorised the message from your comrades.’

  Gabriel does not answer.

  His father strikes at his son. ‘You play at being warriors,’ he snarls. ‘You emulate and crawl after those arse-fucked Zealots but you are not men, you are just boys. And ignorant children at that. It’s no wonder that the Romans eat us alive.’ He spits into the fire. ‘Your friend has probably already betrayed you.’

  Channah wails.

  Saul turns to his nephew. ‘Tomorrow we will have to leave for Tarsus. You will stay at your uncle Samuel’s house and he’ll find you work as a labourer until the skinning season starts. Then we can work together. In Tarsus you’ll be safe.’

  Gabriel begins to protest but Saul cuts him off. He knows what he has to do. He is not the helpless eunuch his sister believes him to be. He will save this boy; he will not allow the Romans to take him.

  ‘You have no choice in this matter, son,’ says Saul. ‘You will stay with your uncle and I will ask him to find you a bride.’ He grabs the boy by his nape, brings his face close. ‘Your father is right; you are no warrior.’

  It is a mistake. The boy struggles, breaks free and leaps to his feet. ‘How dare you speak of right and wrong? You who do the Council’s bidding, who hunts fellow Jews for those depraved priests? They’re not our rightful priests—they’re lackeys of the false king and of the Strangers.’

  The youth’s eyes burn with his mother’s lethal fire. And like hers, his voice is filled with scorn. ‘You hunted a girl for them, didn’t you? We’ve heard. She was a child and still they stoned her. How do you know what makes a warrior? You’re a lackey to lackeys. My mother is right: you are not a man. We don’t need your counsel and we don’t need your filthy blood money.’

  Saul can’t answer. His nephew’s words have wound tight around his heart. Shame is burning into him. He loves this boy as a son. How often has he dreamed of Ebron’s death, so he could truly be father to Gabriel? Reprehensible thoughts, but he cannot stop dreaming them: this is how much he loves the boy. But the boy detests him, as does their world; can think of him only with revulsion.

  Saul cannot move, he cannot speak. But Ebron is on his feet and has grabbed his son by the hair, cuffed him and thrown him against the wall. The dazed boy drops to the ground and his father stands over him.

  Ebron’s voice is cold, sure, allowing no dissent. ‘You little turds think you’re better Jews than we are because you’ve been schooled in words. I may be an ignorant worker but I know that one of the eternal commandments is to obey your parents and elders.’

  He shoots a look at Saul. ‘Isn’t that right, brother?’

  He doesn’t wait for Saul’s answer. And Saul has no spirit with which to answer.

  The father, shaking, dro
ps to his knees beside his son.

  ‘Boy, my boy, I am sorry to have hurt you. But you don’t have the ruthlessness to be a fighter. I know you—I’ve raised you. That little whore they stoned, she insulted the Lord—she left her husband and her children. Your uncle did her a mercy to denounce her.’

  Ebron strokes his son’s face. ‘You say you hate the Strangers, that you want to expunge them from our lands. Have you got your uncle’s courage? Can you put a knife to the throats of the bastards the Roman soldiers are breeding in the whorehouses behind their camp? Can you hold a blade to an infant’s neck and cut it?’ He kisses his son. ‘That is the kind of warrior we need, my son, my sweet boy. Can you do that?’

  The boy coughs, spits blood. But his hand tightens around his father’s arm. Trying to steady his breathing, struggling to form words, he finally says, ‘I will do as you say.’

  Not as I say, thinks Saul, never as I say. I will never be his true father. You are not a man. The truth of these words slam into him. They are right: he has no son, he has no home; as he is constantly travelling between Jerusalem and Tarsus, he is always in the keep of his sister and his brothers. He is pitiful; he creates nothing. What an absurd vanity to hope that he could ever earn Gabriel’s respect.

  Saul gets to his feet, a storm in his head and a violent trembling in his body. He must flee this house. He stumbles to the door but his sister grabs at him. She kisses his hands, thanking him, praising him, forgiving him. The four winds roar in his head as he searches his tunic, finds the coins, lets them fall to the dirt where they belong—the evidence of his sin and his unmanning. But even as he does so he knows he has kept back two pieces of the thin metal, cold against his heart. The darkness has been expelled from the house but as he pushes through the door, he understands that the darkness is in him, that it comes from deep within himself.

  The wine is new in the barrel, sweet, thin and potent. Between his second and third drink the tavern fills with market workers. He finds himself sitting with Barak, a fellow tentmaker. The man is a bore, always whining about being cheated. But coddled by the warmth of the tavern and the heat of the wine, Saul is content to listen to the man’s complaints.

  He feels a breeze as the thick hide over the doorway is pulled aside and another trader enters. It is dark outside. When did it become night? In the courtyard, servants and labourers are squatting on the ground, drunk and squabbling.

  ‘We must eat.’ Saul goes to get up, to shout to the tavern owner, but he cannot stand and falls back onto the bench. Barak laughs out of his toothless black mouth and calls out for olives, for chickpeas and pickled figs, for oil and bread.

  A young servant boy, half his face carved away by pox, brings the dishes.

  Saul grabs at the figs in vinegar, stuffs the soft fruits into his mouth; they ooze over his chin and fingers. He uses a piece of bread to wipe off the sticky juice and burps in satisfaction. ‘Another wine?’

  Barak’s eyes narrow. ‘Are you buying?’

  You cheap goat. Saul fingers the two coins underneath his tunic. One coin will pay for two more drinks. He will not waste the second. He gets to his feet and this time he remains upright.

  ‘More wine,’ he calls out.

  The boy comes and pours the wine, then stands back as the two men raise their cups. There is something in the servant lad’s scowl: disdain, almost judgement.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  The boy starts and moves away.

  Barak blinks, snorts, and leans into Saul. ‘He belongs to the Nazarene’s sect.’ He winks. ‘He’s probably terrified that you’ll have him be stoned.’

  ‘If I could,’ Saul growls, ‘I’d stone the whole diseased mob of them.’

  Barak gently taps his knuckles against Saul’s temple. ‘All that learning of yours is useless, Saul. Your parents were under a wicked curse when they were convinced to send you to school.’

  He gestures towards the boy, who is serving another table. ‘That one believes that the Lord sent us a saviour who got arse-fucked by the Romans before they nailed him to a crucifix.’ He spits after that accursed word. ‘Concentrate on your work. Why waste your time on such madness?’

  Saul straightens, not wanting to slur his next words. ‘I do it for the Lord, I do it for our people. The madness of that sect undermines us—their madness is what keeps us slaves to Rome.’

  Barak grabs Saul around the neck, holding him close, glancing quickly around the room. He whispers, his breath hot in Saul’s ear, ‘You do it for the coin, friend. And you should learn to keep your mouth shut in a public place.’

  Saul pulls away. But he is chastened. The room is crowded, ringing with noise. Even so, he knows he shouldn’t have spoken so loudly or so recklessly.

  ‘You are right,’ he confesses to his friend. ‘I’ve drunk too much—I’ve got to go.’

  Barak has a grip on his arm. ‘Marry, friend, raise a son. That is the first and the wisest law of the Lord. Mind your trade and forget the nonsense the priests have infected you with.’

  Saul pulls away. He stumbles, knocking against a bench. One of the men seated there shoves him hard and Saul lands face first on the dirt floor. He clambers to his feet. The whole tavern is laughing at him. It burns. He finds his way to the door and as he pulls back the hide, the servant boy is there, returning from feeding the louts outside. The man and the boy stare at each other.

  ‘Who’s your father?’

  The boy, shocked, frightened, does not open his mouth.

  ‘Who’s your father, boy?’

  One of the drunks in the alley calls out, ‘He wouldn’t know.’

  The laughter, now louder, is a roar.

  And Saul laughs too. ‘A bastard, hey? Just like your Yeshua of Nazareth. They say his father was a Roman soldier. Is that right?’

  Fury, hatred and loathing flash in the boy’s round dark eyes. And danger. But then, as if those evils have been lifted from him, the boy’s eyes are smiling. He slides his fingers down one cheek, as if removing phlegm from it.

  ‘Sir,’ he says humbly, ‘I need to work.’

  Pushing the boy aside, Saul steps out into night, the rage collected in his fists. First, to snap that boy’s spine; and then to shatter the whole world.

  Marry, raise a son; his words to his nephew have returned as a curse. The wine swills in his body, poisoning his thoughts and his stride as he bashes through shrub and thickets of nettles. Marry, raise a son. It is a new, weak moon, and there is no light, only darting and disquieting shadows. He is not carried by will, his feet are leading him; he has no thought except to stay upright, to not slip and break his neck as he makes his way into the steep valley. Marry, raise a son. Will he never escape those words? He is nothing but shame, lower than a beast. That whining fool Barak was right: he isn’t even capable of fulfilling the Lord’s first and greatest commandment. He has no son, no heir and no purpose. He kicks at stones on the path, feels the warm wind against his cheek and naked chest; his smock has fallen off one shoulder. He clutches at the cloth, feels for the coin.

  None of them, not his family, his friends—none of them know the depravity of his yearnings. He has no will, all is simply movement, leading him inexorably to corruption. How can anything that comes from him not be poisoned? How can any issue of his not be damned? He has no will, he is only the sum of his lusts. At a bend he trips and falls flat on the ground. The pain brings tears. He twists, tests his foot. Nothing is broken, he can stand. He looks up to the sky and a black cloud glides over the heavens, revealing the slender curved slice of the moon. The Strangers bow and beg to her, believing that she is a goddess who can illuminate their souls. They make offerings to her and they claim she answers their prayers. What if he were to drop back to his knees, what if he were to offer himself to her? Here, on this very spot, outside the Lord’s city itself, the silhouette of the Lord’s house clearly evident? Would the goddess rid him of the fear that winds its coils around him whenever he is near a woman? Would she make him whole, give him
a wife and a son? He spits to the moon; he spits at her—at the idiocy of the Strangers. Pray to the moon, pray to the hearth, pray to the eagle, pray to the goat, pray to the fire, pray to the wind, pray to the sea, pray to the sun. A thousand gods, a thousand dumb and blind idols. He is as broken as Job, but yet his Lord loves him. A thousand idols and a thousand kingdoms have come and gone, only Israel stands immortal.

  Love for the Lord has conquered time. He has climbed to the top of the ridge; he is descending into the second valley. Before him are the fires of the Roman camp. He can smell the wine and he can smell their sins. He can smell the lust. That is why his feet have brought him here. Saul raises a hand, claws at his cheek, is satisfied only when he senses the warm blood. He is no Job, he is not a good man, he is vileness and sin, his will is lust.

  Guarding the wooden gate that opens to the brothel tents, two young Roman soldiers are flicking pebbles into the air, seeing which can send theirs the highest. Saul, his head clear now, marvels again at the Strangers’ fascination with games, with the foolish trickery of sorcerers. This is a new people, thinks Saul, a young people, and they have the manners and pursuits of children. And the cruelty of children. They crush kingdoms as if they were insects.

  At his approach the soldiers stand alert.

  He bows. ‘May I pass?’

  The younger soldier, long-jawed and thick-lipped, points the hilt of his sword to a mound of rocks by the gate. Ash from incense covers the flat headstone. There are offerings before the idol—twigs and torn cloth, petals and a broken reed flute.

  ‘Do what you must do,’ the soldier orders.

  The young idiot speaks a terrible Greek.

  Saul answers clearly. ‘I am a Judean, sir.’

  The youth’s eyes glare.

  They hate us as much as we hate them, thinks Saul.

  But the soldiers move aside and let him pass.

  He hears their laughter, he hears one say to the other, deliberately in Greek so Saul will understand, ‘I pity the poor whore who has to suck on his ugly cut cock.’