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?
Chapter Thirteen
After my mother declared me dead, I left the House of Darcas and made the streets my home. The sale of Darcas’ copperware enabled me to expand my money changing enterprise. Within a year Amelabib was gone. He fell behind in his bribes and the gangs wrecked his stall and ruined him. Later, I switched from money changing to money lending, a less risky occupation. It did require some bribes, but what does not? And I required help to collect debts. Fortunately, the empire produces many slow men suited for that work and who ask little in return by way of wages. I practiced that trade, and one or two others I prefer not to recall, in several cities.
The empire exists through the delegation of decreasing power through its rigid class system. Senators, patricians, equestrians, on down to the meanest farmer are accorded respect by virtue of the wealth and position they have, acquire, or inherit. At the very bottom are the slaves, who have no rights of any kind, including the right to life. Slightly above them are people like me, the humilores, and so on, up the ladder. I came from the brothels and streets of Corinth. To climb from the ranks of the humiliores to honestiores —peons to honorable men, I needed to advance my education. So, I invested a modest portion of my earnings in Patros, a Greek scholar made superfluous by Rome’s cultural pillage. I hired him to give me some polish. Brilliant when sober, which was not often, he instructed me in the finer points of life and culture so that I passed as a man of substance and breeding, that is, if you did not look too closely.
I would have stayed in Cenchrea except for the family of Leonides. From Patros, I learned about the goddess, Nemesis, who sees to the business of retribution. Leonides’ family wished revenge, blood for blood. Nemesis never stops, never gives up. I would be pursued by these men for the rest of my life. I tried changing my name. I shaved my head, dyed my hair, everything I could think of, yet these merciless men kept finding me, driving me from one city to another. In my darker hours, I sometimes wished they would find me and put an end to it.
***
I traveled to Sepphoris armed with letters of credit, gold and silver coins safely sewn in my cloak and tunic, and determined to unravel my history. It seemed strange, walking into the land my mother once called home. In the years since she left, Sepphoris had been rebuilt. A few noticeably charred walls remained here and there, and the buildings lacked the style they once had, if I believed my
“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?
Chapter Thirteen
After my mother declared me dead, I left the House of Darcas and made the streets my home. The sale of Darcas’ copperware enabled me to expand my money changing enterprise. Within a year Amelabib was gone. He fell behind in his bribes and the gangs wrecked his stall and ruined him. Later, I switched from money changing to money lending, a less risky occupation. It did require some bribes, but what does not? And I required help to collect debts. Fortunately, the empire produces many slow men suited for that work and who ask little in return by way of wages. I practiced that trade, and one or two others I prefer not to recall, in several cities.
The empire exists through the delegation of decreasing power through its rigid class system. Senators, patricians, equestrians, on down to the meanest farmer are accorded respect by virtue of the wealth and position they have, acquire, or inherit. At the very bottom are the slaves, who have no rights of any kind, including the right to life. Slightly above them are people like me, the humilores, and so on, up the ladder. I came from the brothels and streets of Corinth. To climb from the ranks of the humiliores to honestiores —peons to honorable men, I needed to advance my education. So, I invested a modest portion of my earnings in Patros, a Greek scholar made superfluous by Rome’s cultural pillage. I hired him to give me some polish. Brilliant when sober, which was not often, he instructed me in the finer points of life and culture so that I passed as a man of substance and breeding, that is, if you did not look too closely.
I would have stayed in Cenchrea except for the family of Leonides. From Patros, I learned about the goddess, Nemesis, who sees to the business of retribution. Leonides’ family wished revenge, blood for blood. Nemesis never stops, never gives up. I would be pursued by these men for the rest of my life. I tried changing my name. I shaved my head, dyed my hair, everything I could think of, yet these merciless men kept finding me, driving me from one city to another. In my darker hours, I sometimes wished they would find me and put an end to it.
***
I traveled to Sepphoris armed with letters of credit, gold and silver coins safely sewn in my cloak and tunic, and determined to unravel my history. It seemed strange, walking into the land my mother once called home. In the years since she left, Sepphoris had been rebuilt. A few noticeably charred walls remained here and there, and the buildings lacked the style they once had, if I believed my
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