Apprentice (41 page)

My screams had woken someone, because I could hear male voices outside, voices that quickly changed from worried to celebratory. A small squirming bundle was placed in my arms, and Mother helped me maneuver my nipple into the tiny mouth barely visible through an opening in the swaddling.

It took some time until the baby figured out what to do, but I was soon filled with a sense of love and contentment that somehow eclipsed the pain I'd suffered earlier. My son, I thought, gazing in awe at the small shock of dark hair. My son.

Rami told me later that both the baby and I were asleep when he'd finally been allowed to see us. By that time, despite my usually excellent memory, I was completely unable to recall the severity of my labor pains.

Eight days later, Father hosted yet another banquet, this time for my son's circumcision. Pushbi's litter arrived late, just in time for her to learn that we had named the baby Chama, after Rami's father. Being from a priestly family, baby Chama did not need to be redeemed at thirty days, but Pushbi would tolerate no risk to her first grandson and insisted that we stay out the month with Father. She would have plenty of time to enjoy Chama after Pesach.

To avoid provoking the Evil Eye, I said nothing, but I was convinced that Chama was the perfect baby. He had no difficulty nursing, seldom cried, and when he woke during the night, he went back to sleep almost immediately after eating. Rami seemed equally delighted with the child and would have taken him to class if it hadn't so visibly disturbed Abba. Not that Rami cared if Chama's presence made Abba jealous, but Father quietly suggested that it was cruel to flaunt the boy before a man whose wife was still barren.

Once Chama entered the covenant at his brit milah, he and I were
supposed to be safe from the various liliths and
ruchim
that preyed on newborns and their mothers. But that didn't stop me from worrying about him. Not a nap went by during which I didn't check several times to make sure he was still breathing, and every time he spit up, I was terrified that this was the first symptom of the plague. As I was still bleeding, I refrained from writing any amulets or
kasa d'charasha
, which left me little to do while Chama napped, except weave silk.

Thus Tazi and Pazi were my usual companions, and I came to realize that their husbands, Samuel and my brother Tachlifa, had not returned to Sura as expected from their most recent business trip. Even before I married Rami, I was ignorant of Tachlifa's travels. I knew only that he was a merchant who journeyed to distant lands, not when he was due to leave or arrive.

As the first Pesach meal drew closer, the twins' anxiety became evident. They made mistakes in their weaving, and in the middle of a conversation would stare off into space, and tears would suddenly fill their eyes.

It was only when Tazi started crying while we were strolling through the garden that I could no longer keep silent. I shifted Chama to my shoulder so I could put my arm around her. “What is the matter with you two?”

Pazi wiped her eyes and tried to talk, but she could only get a few words out at a time. “Tachlifa and Samuel…were due to…be home…by Purim…but now it's…almost Pesach.”

I thought of Imarta, how she'd been left an
agunah
by her camel-driver husband. I wanted to comfort them, but the best I could say was, “Something important must have delayed them, and they'll be home any day now. And even if they've been captured, Father has plenty of money to ransom them.”

Tazi shot me such a scathing look that I cringed. “I should be so lucky that my husband has merely been captured,” she whispered. “If Samuel is lost without witnesses, buried in an east-wind sandstorm for example, I'll become an
agunah
. And should he die on the road, I'll have to give up my children to his family if I wish to remarry.”

I could only stare at her in dismay. I felt confident that the amulets with Father's traveler's incantation would protect them, but perhaps they had encountered several dangerous situations that had weakened the amulets' powers.

Pazi nodded. “At Tachlifa's death, my choice would be to live out my widowhood here as my son's guardian or to relinquish him and remarry.”

“What a dreadful choice,” I said. The obvious solution, for Pazi to marry one of my surviving brothers, was forbidden by the Torah. Yet she would have to remarry. While it was acceptable for an elderly widow to live alone or with a grown child, a young woman without a husband would be scorned.

“As if that weren't bad enough,” Tazi said, “Pazi and I would probably never see each other again.”

This time I spoke more carefully. “Heaven forbid that either Samuel or Tachlifa should die, but you wouldn't have to be separated and give up your children.”

They both looked at me in disbelief, and I continued, “Yenuka and Nachman have sons close to your age. If you married one of them, you'd still be part of our family.”

Pazi smiled wanly. “I realize that you're trying to be helpful, Dada, but there's nothing any of us can do about it now. We just have to wait and see.”

A sudden terror of what I'd do if Rami died made me change the subject and ask about their weaving. “Why are your ribbons so much narrower than before? Are you running out of silk?”

“We always start weaving narrow ribbons in the spring,” Tazi replied. “You never noticed?”

Embarrassed, I shook my head.

“They're for Tiragan,” Pazi replied. When I looked at her blankly, she continued. “It's a Persian festival that they celebrate on the day of Tir in the month of Tir.”

“But that's months from now,” I said. “In summer.”

The Persian year, like ours, consisted of twelve months. But while our months started with the new moon, theirs were unconnected to the lunar cycle. The Persians didn't have weeks like we did either, and instead had a different name for each of the thirty days that made up a month. Since they enjoyed holidays so much, each month Persians celebrated the specific day that shared its name with the month.

“It takes a long time to weave all the ribbons they need,” Tazi said. “One of the ways they celebrate is by tying rainbow-colored ribbons into bracelets.”

“And when Tiragan ends,” Pazi added, “they toss the ribbons into the
air and let the wind carry them away, to evoke a rainbow. It's very pretty to watch.”

“That's not all.” Tazi seemed to have forgotten her worries. “The rainbow reminds us of the rain that comes in the fall, so everyone goes to the canals to play and splash one another in the water. It's great fun when the weather is hot.”

My jaw dropped. “You celebrated Tiragan?” Father would have considered that idolatry.

Tazi blushed, but Pazi only shrugged. “All the Jews in Machoza do. It's not like we're worshipping the Persian God.”

“They celebrate it in Sura too,” Tazi said. “Otherwise we wouldn't need to weave so many narrow ribbons.”

Soon our entire family was anxious for Tachlifa and Samuel to return. The first night of Pesach was the least celebratory I could recall, not that I spent much time at the table. Despite wanting to stay awake to hear Father and my brothers discuss the Exodus from Egypt, I fell asleep before the children did.

The festival week ended with no word from Tachlifa and Samuel. Though I tried to convince myself that surely we would have heard if they'd died or been captured, I headed back to Rami's home with a much-dimmed hope for their return.

Once there I was quickly distracted by how much baby Yehezkel had grown in the nearly four months since I'd seen him, how easily he crawled and pulled himself up to stand. I observed him keenly as the model for what Chama would be doing in six months, and noted that both Achti and Ukva seemed happy to treat him as their son.

Pushbi's decline also distracted me. I wanted to convince myself that her skin was sallow because she hadn't been outdoors in so long and that her weakness came from all that time in bed. She and baby Chama were a perfect match—both of them content for her to hold him until one of them wanted to be fed or required a change of swaddling. Aware that it wouldn't be long before Chama would prefer to be sitting or crawling, and that Pushbi might not live to see it, I put him into her arms whenever she wanted.

But I never left him alone with her.

Once, when she seemed in a particularly good mood, I remembered
to ask her about the amulet she'd written to protect Rami in the privy. But her memory had declined along with her body, and all she could tell me was that it had something in it about “silence and modesty.”

Tachlifa's fate slipped into my thoughts occasionally, and slipped out again when Chama needed me or when Yehezkel did something entertaining. The thought of my brother's body buried somewhere in the desert was too terrible to contemplate.

Yet it seemed odd that no word at all had come to us.

I found out why after Pesach was over, when Rami came home from court unexpectedly for the midday meal.

Before I could ask what he was doing here, he rushed in and embraced me. “Tachlifa and Samuel are safe.”

Achti sighed with relief. “Thank Heaven.”

I hugged Rami tightly. “When did they get back?”

“They haven't returned yet,” he replied. “In fact, they could be anywhere between Antioch and Sura.”

Achti squinted her eyes with suspicion. “So how do you know they're safe?”

“Rav Sheshet was correct to say that he trembled before your father's great analytical skills,” Rami said proudly. “Since many merchants traveled in Tachlifa's caravan, Rav Hisda assumed that he would have heard by now if his son had died or been captured. Also nobody was talking about any caravans lost in the desert or delayed by east-wind storms.”

When Rami saw that we were following his logic, he continued, “Therefore Rav Hisda concluded that Tachlifa and Samuel had been delayed and, furthermore, that they would have sent messages home. Since no message came to Sura, he reasoned, perhaps one had gone to Pazi's family in Machoza, especially since her brother or cousin was likely traveling with them.” Rami smiled widely. “So when Abba bar Joseph went home for Pesach, Rav Hisda had him inquire if anyone had heard from them.”

I clapped my hands with glee. “And they had.” My amulets had kept them safe after all.

“Indeed. Samuel wrote that winter storms on the Great Sea had delayed most shipping, so he and Tachlifa decided to wait them out in Antioch. From there it was only a short journey overland to the Euphrates, where they'd hire a barge to bring them and their merchandise south.”

Antioch, named after the Greek general that Judah Maccabee's men had defeated, was the Roman capital of the East. Timonus described it as the largest Roman city after Alexandria and Rome itself, with a population of half a million people, not counting slaves. Many trading routes converged there, and with so many merchants and soldiers in the city temporarily, its vices, luxuries, and pleasures were legendary.

I never learned exactly what Timonus meant by all those legendary pastimes, although my brothers likely got a thorough description. But the admiration in his voice meant that Tachlifa and Samuel would probably not object to being delayed there. Yet when Tachlifa returned the following week and I pressed him on the subject, he told me that the only thing he'd miss about Antioch was its bathhouses.

I'd heard about public bathhouses from Father's visitors from Eretz Israel, who inevitably complained about the lack of them in Bavel. Only Jews like the exilarch or Rav Nachman had baths in their homes. Jewish women immersed in a nearby river or canal, like our family did. The Magi's insistence that water was too holy to desecrate with men's filthy bodies ensured that Persia would never be known for its baths.

“So was your wait worthwhile?” I wondered how any amount of money could make up for the anxiety their tardiness had caused.

Tachlifa looked so abashed that he must have known what I meant. “I'm sorry that word of our delay didn't get to Sura,” he said. “But the wait was certainly profitable.”

Before I could ask why Sura had remained ignorant of their plans, he asked, “Do you want to see what we brought back? Everything is still in one of Father's storerooms.”

He grinned with such excitement that I couldn't refuse, even though I wanted to punish him for the anguish he'd caused Pazi and the rest of us.

“Ha-Elohim!” I gulped as sunlight illuminated the room's interior.

“Rome is famous for its bronze and metalwork.” He held up one shiny vessel or tool after another. Then he indicated the shelves, which were heavy with translucent pitchers and goblets. “And for its glassware.”

I pointed toward the floor. “What's in the chests?”

His eyes glittered as he approached the largest one. “I don't know if we'll offer it to the exilarch first or take it directly to Machoza for the Persian royal family.” He paused before adding, “Although I heard that
King Bahram II is ill and not expected to survive, so it might be best to wait.”

I watched impatiently as he pulled the chest into the light and unlocked it. “Won't his son succeed him?”

“Bahram III is very young and too easily manipulated by the Magi. Rumor has it that the nobility prefers his uncle Narseh.” He threw back the lid and smiled proudly.

“How beautiful,” I whispered, reaching out to stroke the bolt of deep-purple cloth. “And so soft.”

“It's the finest wool from Britain, dyed with
tekhelet
,” he explained. “The dye is so rare and sought after that only Roman imperial dye works are permitted to utilize it and only royalty permitted to wear it.”

“What's in the others?” I was impressed, not only with my brother's merchandise, but also at how much supposedly secret information he'd obtained.

“All except one contain more bronze and steel goods, including some very fine swords.” Tachlifa beckoned me closer. “You'll have to come here to see what's in it. It's too heavy to lift.”