The Book of Longings(102)

Oh Diodora, you are not helping.

Haran smiled. “I’ll grant that you’re clever, Ana, but you won’t persuade me.”

He was, I realized, driven as much by revenge as by his fear of disgrace.

“Besides, I’m afraid you’ll be unable to go anywhere. It has been reliably reported to me that you’ve committed a theft.”

Theft? I tried to make sense of what he’d said. Observing my confusion, he added. “It’s a crime to steal papyrus.”

I lifted my eyes to the servant in the doorway. I could hear Yaltha breathing, a quick raspy sound. Diodora cowered against her.

“Charge me, if you must,” Yaltha said. “But not Ana.”

He ignored her and went on speaking to me. “The punishment for stealing in Alexandria can be as harsh as for murder. The Romans show little mercy, but I will do my best to have you spared the flogging and mutilation. I will plead for both of you to be exiled to western Nubia. There’s no return from there.”

I could hear nothing but the heartbeat in my head. It grew until the entire room pounded. My grip on the world loosened. I’d not been clever. I’d been reckless and full of hubris, thinking I could outwit my uncle . . . steal and deceive without consequence. I preferred to be flogged and mutilated seven times over rather than sent to this place of no return. I must be free to go back to Jesus.

I looked at my aunt, whose silence puzzled me—why didn’t she rail at him? But my voice, too, had disappeared into the dark of my throat. Fear sloshed in my belly. It seemed impossible that I’d fled Galilee to avoid arrest only to be charged in Egypt.

Haran was speaking to Diodora. “I will allow you to return to Isis Medica. But it’s on the condition that you never speak of this night, nor of your origins, nor of me and this house. And you will not attempt to seek out Yaltha and Ana. Give me your oath and you may go.” He waited.

Diodora’s eyes trailed to Yaltha, who nodded at her. “I give my oath,” she said.

“If you break it, I’ll learn of it and bring charges against you, as well,” he said. He believed her to be a fragile girl, one he could browbeat into obedience. Right then, I didn’t know if he’d appraised her rightly or wrongly. “Leave now,” he said. “My servant will see you out.”

“Go,” Yaltha told her. “I’ll come to you when I can.”

She hugged her mother, then stepped through the doorway without looking back.

Haran strode across the room and yanked the door to the courtyard closed. He slid the horizontal bolt into the post and locked it with a key tied to a cord around his tunic. When he turned to us, his face had mellowed some, not from lack of resolve, it seemed, but from weariness. He said, “You’ll be confined here tonight. In the morning, I’ll hand you over to the Romans. It’s regrettable it came to this.”

He left, closing the main door behind him. The outside bolt slid into place with a soft thud. The key turned.



* * *



? ? ?

I RAN TO THE COURTYARD DOOR and knocked, gently at first, then louder. “Lavi is in the garden,” I told Yaltha. “He’s been hiding there.” I called out through the thick, impenetrable door, “Lavi . . . Lavi?”

No sound returned. I went on beckoning him for several moments, slapping my palm against the wood, absorbing the sharp stings. Finally, I gave up. Maybe Haran had ensnared him, too. Crossing the room, I shook the handle on the main door, as if I could wrest it free of its hinges.

I paced. My mind was whirling. The windows in our sleeping rooms were too high and too narrow to climb through, and calling for help seemed useless. “We have to find a way out,” I said. “I will not go to Nubia.”

“Conserve your strength,” Yaltha said. “You will need it.”

I slid onto the floor beside her with my back against her knees. I looked from one locked door to the other, a sense of futility gathering in me. “Will the Romans really punish us merely on the word of Haran?” I asked.

Her hand came to rest on my shoulder. “It seems Haran means to swear his case to the Roman court instead of the Jewish one, so I’m unsure, but I suppose he’ll set forth witnesses,” she said. “Ruebel’s old friends from the militia will be eager to say I poisoned him. Tell me, who saw you take the papyri?”

“Haran’s obnoxious servant.”

“Him.” She made a grunt of disgust. “He will take pleasure in bearing witness against you.”

“But we will deny their accusations.”

“If we’re allowed to speak, yes. We won’t give up hope, Ana, but neither should we allow our hope to be false. Haran has Roman citizenship, as well as the ear of the Roman prefect of Alexandria. He commands an important business and is one of the highest-ranking members of the Jewish council. I, on the other hand, am a fugitive and you are a foreigner.”

My eyes began to burn.

“There’s also the possibility my brother could bribe the court authorities.”

I lowered my head to my knees. Fugitive. Foreigner.

Tap, tap.

We looked in unison at the courtyard door. Then came the clatter of a key.

The key pegs found the pins in the lock and Pamphile stepped inside, followed by Lavi, who held up an iron key tied with a piece of identifying parchment.