The Book of Longings(99)

Diodora shook her head almost violently. “I was told my father was a man named Choiak from a village somewhere in the south, that he sold me out of destitution.”

Yaltha placed her hand on Diodora’s and once again Diodora yanked it away. “It was Haran who sold you. Ana has seen the document of sale, in which he disguised himself as a poor camel keeper named Choiak. I didn’t forget you, Diodora. I longed for you every day. I returned to find you, though even now my brother threatens to revive the old charges of murder if I should seek you out. I ask your forgiveness for leaving. I ask your forgiveness for not coming sooner.”

Diodora dropped her head onto her knees and wept, and we could do nothing but let her. Yaltha stood and hovered over her. I didn’t know whether Diodora was grieved or comforted. I didn’t know whether she was lost or found.

When she ceased weeping, Yaltha asked her, “Was he kind to you, your master?”

“He was kind. I do not know if he loved me, but he never raised his hand or his voice to me. When he died, I grieved for him.”

Yaltha closed her eyes and blew out a little breath.

I had no intention of saying anything, yet I thought of my parents and Susanna, whom I’d lost, and of Jesus, my family in Nazareth, Judas, and Tabitha, who were all so far away, and I felt no assurance that any of them would be restored to me. I said, “Let us be more than cousins. Let us be sisters. The three of us will be a family.”

Light was falling in bright bands across the colonnade, and she squinted up at me and said nothing. I felt I’d said a foolish thing, that I’d trespassed somehow. At that moment, someone called her name from a distance, singing it. “Diodooora . . . Diodooora.”

She leapt up. “I’ve neglected my duties.” She wiped her face with the sleeve of her tunic, then pulled on her tight, stoic mask.

“I don’t know when I can come again,” Yaltha said. “Haran returns from his travels tomorrow and as I said, he forbids us to leave his house. We will find a way somehow.”

“I do not think you should return,” she said. She walked away, leaving us there on the portico of the birth house.

Yaltha called out to her, “Daughter, I love you.”





xvii.


The following day in the scriptorium in Haran’s house, I listened to Lavi read from the Iliad in starts and stops, finding it difficult to stay focused. My mind wandered to Diodora and to the things spoken in the birth house. I kept seeing her walk away from us.

“What will we do?” I’d asked Yaltha during the long walk from Isis Medica back to Haran’s.

“We’ll wait,” she’d replied.

With effort I turned my attention back to Lavi as he faltered over a word. When I attempted to prompt him, he held up his hand. “It will come to me.” It took an entire minute. “Ship!” he cried, beaming.

He was in a happy, though somewhat nervous mood. Earlier that morning a courier had arrived with news that he’d been granted the position at the library. His apprenticeship would begin on the first day of the following week.

“I’ve made a vow to finish reading Achilles’s adventures before my employment,” he said, lowering the codex. “My Greek is not yet perfected.”

“Don’t be concerned, Lavi. You read Greek quite well. But yes, finish the poem—you must find out who prevails, Achilles or Hector.”

He seemed to bask in my praise, sitting up taller. “Tomorrow I will go to Pamphile’s father to ask for a settlement of marriage.”

“Oh, Lavi, I’m glad for you.” His nervousness, I realized, was not merely about his reading skill. “When do you hope to wed?”

“There’s no betrothal period here as there is in Galilee. Once her father and I draw up the settlement and sign it before witnesses, Pamphile and I are considered married. She gave me a portion of her wages and I purchased a shabti box as a gift for him. I will not ask for a bride price. I hope these things will be enough to conclude the contract tomorrow.”

I walked to Thaddeus’s desk and gathered up a stack of papyrus sheets, the costliest and finest in Egypt. “You may offer him these as well. It seems an appropriate gift from a librarian of the great library.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure? Will they be missed?”

“Haran has more papyrus than exists in all of Sepphoris and Jerusalem combined. He won’t miss these few sheets.”

As I thrust them into his arms, there was a shuffling at the door. The servant who did Haran’s bidding was standing there.

“Our master has just returned,” he said, his eyes traveling to the papyri.

“Does he have need of me?” I asked, more haughtily than I should have.

“He asked me to inform the household of his return, that is all.”

Once again we were in captivity.



* * *



? ? ?

WAITING WAS AN INSUFFERABLE ENDEAVOR. One sat, one dithered, one stirred a pot of questions. I fretted over whether we should accept Diodora’s rejection or find a way to return to Isis Medica. I pressed Yaltha to set a course, but she persisted in her waiting, saying if the pot was tended long enough, the answer would bubble to the surface. A week passed, however, and we seemed no closer to resolving the matter.

Then one day with the sun dangling low above the rooftops, Pamphile broke in upon Yaltha and me in the sitting room, breathless from hurrying. “A visitor has arrived asking for you,” she said. I imagined it was the long-awaited courier bearing a letter from Judas—Come home, Ana. Jesus bids you to come home—and my heart began to thump.