The Book of Longings(93)

He studied me, seeming to weigh my threat. I doubted I would follow through with it, but he didn’t know that. I held his gaze. He said, “I’ll ignore your goings and comings, but once Haran has returned, my debt to you will be paid. You must give me an oath you will extort me no further.”

“Extort is a harsh word,” I said.

“It’s also the correct word. Now swear before me that your uncle’s return will be the end of it.”

“I swear it.”

He sat down again, dismissing me with a flick of his wrist. I said, “May I ask, is your father still living?”

He looked up. “My father? Why is this of interest to you?”

“You may recall that when I first met you in Sepphoris—”

He interrupted, his mouth tightening, “Do you mean back when you were with child?”

It took a moment to realize what he meant. I’d forgotten the lie I’d told him; clearly he had not. When I’d pretended I was pregnant in order to obtain from him what I needed, I hadn’t known I’d be traveling to Alexandria, where the months would reveal my falsehood. I felt an embarrassed heat on my cheeks.

“Are you going to lie again and tell me you lost the child?”

“No, I confess I lied to you. I’ll not do so again. I’m sorry.” I was sorry, and yet my lie had helped win us passage to Alexandria. And my extortion, as he insisted on calling it, now offered us the freedom to roam about the city. Yes, I was sorry, and no, I was not sorry.

He nodded, his shoulders dropping. My words seemed to mollify him.

I began again. “As I was about to say . . . when we first met, I mentioned that my aunt had known your father. She was fond of him and asked me to inquire of his health.”

“Tell her he’s well enough, though he’s grown corpulent in his old age—he lives on a diet of beer, wine, bread, and honey.”

Apollonios is alive. “If by chance Yaltha wished to see him, how would she find him?”

“I don’t wish to give you another reason to stray from the house, but it seems you plan to do so anyway. My father can be found at the library, where he goes each day to join the enclave of men who sit in the colonnades and debate exactly how far God is from the world—a thousand iters or seven times a thousand.”

“They think God far?”

“They are Platonists and Stoics and followers of the Jewish philosopher Philo—I hardly know what they think.”

This time when he flicked his wrist, I left.





xiii.


I moved along the Canopic Way as if thrust from a bow, flying ahead of Yaltha and Lavi and then having to pause for them to catch up.

In the center of the street, narrow pools of water cascaded one into the other for as far as I could see, and hundreds of copper pots filled with kindling lined the sides, waiting to be set afire at night to light the thoroughfare. The women were clad in blue, black, or white tunics cinched under their breasts with bright-colored ribbons, making me conscious of my plain Nazareth dress, dingy undyed flax. As they passed, I studied their coiled silver snake bracelets, hoop earrings with dangling pearls, their eyes lined in green and black, hair swept into knots atop their heads with a row of curls on their foreheads. I pulled my long, single braid over my shoulder and held on to it as if it were the end of a tether.

Nearing the royal quarter, I spied my first obelisk—a tall, narrow structure that jutted toward the sky. I craned my head back and studied it.

“It’s a monument to a particular part of the male body,” Yaltha said, perfectly serious.

I looked at it again and heard Lavi laugh, then Yaltha. I didn’t say so, but I’d had no trouble believing her jest.

“They are more useful as timekeepers,” she said, inspecting the long, bright black shadow the obelisk cast. “It’s two hours past noon. We’ve tarried long enough.”

We’d set out at midday, leaving quietly through the servant quarters when no one was about. Lavi had insisted on accompanying us. Aware of our mission, he shouldered a pouch containing the last of our money in case it became necessary to bribe Apollonios. Lavi had constantly implored me to slow down, and once had steered us across the street when a legation of officious-looking Roman men approached. I looked at him now, thinking of him and Pamphile—they seemed no closer to realizing their plans to marry than when he had first told me about them.

At the entrance to the library complex, I halted and drew an awed breath, my palms coming together under my chin. Before me, two colonnades stretched along either side of a vast courtyard that led to a magnificent building of white marble.

Finding my voice, I said, “I cannot seek out Apollonios until I’ve seen inside the library.” I knew there to be ten halls containing the half million texts Yaltha had told me about. My heart was running rampant.

My aunt linked her arm in mine. “Nor I.”

We wound through the courtyard, which was dense with people whom I imagined to be philosophers, astronomers, historians, mathematicians, poets . . . every kind of scholar, though they were likely ordinary citizens. Reaching the steps, I read the Greek inscription carved over the doors—“A Healing Sanctum”—and scrambled up them two at a time.

Inside, dimness hit my eyes first, followed by lamplight. A moment later the walls came alive with brightly hued paintings of ibis-headed men and lion-headed women. We moved along a dazzling corridor covered with Gods, Goddesses, solar disks, and all-seeing eyes. There were boats, birds, chariots, harps, plows, and rainbow wings—thousands of glyphs. I had the sensation of floating through a storied world.