The Book of Longings(35)

“You’ve captured her with precision,” he told the artisan.

He walked to where I sat on the stool and stood over me. There was a raw and frightening light in his face. He cupped his hand around my breast and squeezed hard. He said, “The beauty of your face makes me forget your lack of breasts.”

I looked up at him, at the girth of him, at the lust in his eyes, and I could barely see for the rage I felt, for the way it turned everything white and blinding. I sprang up, my hands lashing out. I shoved him once. Twice. My reaction was spontaneous, but not unconsidered. Even as he’d reached out to hurt me, even as the pain twisted in the little mound of flesh around my nipple, I told myself I would not sit there willing myself to be small and imperceptible as I had that day he’d smeared his thumb across my lips.

I shoved him a third time. He was like a stone, unmoved. I thought he would strike me. Instead he smiled, showing his pointy teeth. He leaned toward me. “So you’re a fighter. I’m fond of women who fight,” he whispered. “Especially in my bed.”

He strode away. No one spoke, and then all at once the workers let out small gasps and murmurs. With relief, the artisan acknowledged he had no more need of me.

Now they would mix the plaster and lay the bright tesserae, immortalizing me in a mosaic on which I hoped never to lay eyes. Phasaelis had been kind to me and I would miss her, but I vowed when I left the palace this day, I would never return.

As I departed, Joanna waylaid me in the great hall. “Phasaelis wishes to see you.”

I went to her room, glad for the chance to tell my friend goodbye. She reclined at a low table, engaged in a game of knucklebones. Seeing me, she said, “I’ve had a meal prepared for us in the garden.”

I hesitated. I wished to be far away from Herod Antipas. “Just us, alone?”

She read my thought. “Don’t fear, Antipas would think it beneath him to dine with women.”

I was not so sure of it, not if it provided him an opportunity to grasp a breast, but I accepted her hospitality, not wanting to offend her.

The garden was a portico surrounded by Teashur trees, Babylon willows, and juniper bushes bowed over with pink flowers. Reclining on couches, we dipped our bread in common bowls, and I drank in the bright light. After so many hours in the dark frigidarium, the shock of it raised my spirits.

Phasaelis said, “Herod Antipas’s proclamation freeing Judas has made him faintly popular among the people. He even spared the life of Simon ben Gioras, though he kept him imprisoned. At least now his subjects don’t spit quite as far when they hear his name.” She laughed, and I thought how much I loved to see her snicker at her own wicked humor.

She went on. “The Romans, however, were unamused. Annius sent a legate from Caesarea to express his disapproval. I overheard Antipas trying to explain that such gestures were needed from time to time to keep the rabble in check. He sent Annius assurances that Judas would no longer be a threat.”

I didn’t want to think of Antipas, nor of Judas. Since returning, my brother had spent his time tending his wounds and gathering his strength. He’d spoken not a word to me since learning of the mosaic.

Phasaelis added, “But we both know, don’t we, that Judas is more of a threat now than before.”

“Yes,” I said. “Far more.”

I watched a white ibis pick at the ground, and I thought of the white sheet of ivory she’d sent to me, of its bold, exquisite script. “Do you remember the invitation you sent inviting me to leave my cage and come to yours? I’ve never seen a more beautiful tablet.”

“Ah, the ivory leaves. They’re the only ones of their kind in all of Galilee.”

“Where did you come upon them?”

“Tiberius sent a parcel of them to Antipas some months ago. I took one of them for myself.”

“And did you write the invitation yourself?”

“Are you surprised that I write?”

“Only at the power of your script. Where did you learn it?”

“When I first arrived in Galilee, I spoke only Arabic, but I couldn’t read or write it. I missed my father terribly despite him sending me away—it was always in my mind to return to him. I set out to learn Greek so I could write to him. It was your father who taught me.”

My father. The revelation cut through me.

“Did he teach you, also?” she asked.

“No. But he brought me inks and papyrus from time to time.” That sounded self-pitying and meager. I wanted to believe that teaching her Greek was what had softened Father to my own desire to read and write, why he’d given in to my pleadings despite Mother’s disapproval, why he’d hired Titus as my tutor, but it didn’t change the envy that had surfaced from some old, deep place.

Then, as if we’d conjured him, my father was limping toward us on the portico. His feet dragged as if shackled. His eyes were cast down. Phasaelis, too, studied him. Something was wrong. I sat up and waited for what would come.

“May I speak freely?” he asked Phasaelis. When she nodded, he eased onto the couch beside me, grunting like an old man, and up close, I saw that it was not only sadness on his face, but a quiet infuriation. He looked plundered, as if he’d lost the thing dearest to him.

He said, “Nathaniel recovered from the fever sickness, but it left him weakened. It is my burden to tell you, Ana, he died this day while walking in his date grove.”