Apprentice (42 page)

I cautiously followed him through the crowded storeroom to the small chest and waited while he removed various items from on top of it. Then, after carefully positioning his body between the doorway and chest, he unlocked it. He hesitated, cocking his ear for sounds of anyone nearby, and slowly opened it.

I gasped and immediately covered my mouth with my hand. Even in the shadows, the gleam of gold was unmistakable. The chest was full of coins.

“You couldn't have used one of those to hire a messenger?” I asked when we were back outside.

Tachlifa sighed. “We did, but evidently not a trustworthy one.”

“Why be a merchant if it's such an unreliable profession? Why not a rabbi in Sura?”

“I'm not as clever as Nachman or as pious as Mari, and Hanan and Pinchas manage the brewery just fine without me,” he said. “Besides, I like seeing more of the world than I would if I were merely one of the exilarch's many bureaucrats.” Then he gave me a wink. “And it pays a great deal more than the exilarch does.”

Tachlifa and Samuel stayed in Sura only a few weeks before leaving
for Machoza with their wives and merchandise. They'd be back in early summer, when it was time for the men to journey west again. Though I trusted our household, I couldn't resist peeking through the storeroom window every few days to see that his chest of gold coins remained undisturbed.

•     (293–299
CE
)     •

FIRST YEAR OF KING BAHRAM III'S REIGN

•     293
CE
     •

T
he summer day when Chama first smiled at me was the beginning of three years of bliss. Suddenly I understood my sister's infatuation with Yehezkel and how an entire day could go by with nothing to show for it but Chama and me grinning at each other. I was so besotted with my son that it was over a month before I noticed a subtle change in Rami's temperament. He seemed to enjoy Chama's smiles as much as I did, and was as eager to use the bed as ever, but his reports of what he'd learned at Father's were not quite so enthusiastic as before.

“Is something wrong with your studies?” I finally asked as we snuggled together in bed one evening.

“No, everything is fine.” Both his hurried reply and artificial cheerfulness belied his answer.

I let my hand stroke the bare skin of his arms and chest. “Are the merchants in the marketplace giving you any trouble?”

He shook his head. “Though it's only been a short time since Rav Huna appointed me their supervisor, they all respect my authority.”

“You can tell me what's bothering you,” I whispered. “Maybe I can help.”

“Nobody can help, Dodi. Certainly not you.”

So there was something wrong. “You won't know unless you tell me.” I tried to sound seductive.

After some hesitation, he said in a voice as hard as stone, “It's Abba bar Joseph.”

I bristled at the mention of Abba's name. “What has he done now?”

“At first I thought it was my imagination,” Rami said. “After all, it's normal for students to disagree with one another, and even to get quite vehement in our disputes. But Abba seems to attack me personally, rather than my argument, and in a different manner than when he debates Abaye, for example.”

“What kinds of things does he say?”

“Remember how Abba liked to shame me by sarcastically saying that, because of the quickness of my mind, I had made a careless error?” When I nodded, Rami continued, “He's doing it again.”

“What were you discussing the first time?”

“A difficult section from the fourth chapter of Tractate Niddah,” he said. “I asked whether the
zavah
, who must count seven clean days before she is no longer impure from the abnormal vaginal discharge that marks her as a
zavah
, interrupts her count or cancels it if she discharges semen.”

“Why would Abba object to your question?” I asked. “It seems reasonable to me.”

“He called it irrelevant and again accused me of erring because my mind was so sharp.” Rami frowned at the memory. “Then he insisted on giving a lengthy explanation of why a
zavah
who discharges semen does not cancel even one day of her count.”

“But your question is relevant, because it's about a woman,” I said. “Torah teaches that a
zav
, a man with an abnormal discharge, doesn't interrupt counting his seven clean days when he has a seminal emission. But a
zavah
might be different.”

“I know,” Rami said with exasperation. “But let's not talk about it. It just makes me more upset.”

“Abba may be brilliant,” I said, “but he should be gracious in his arguments, not rude to those who oppose him.”

Rami's voice rose with annoyance. “He's not rude to everyone who opposes him, only to me.”

“Then you should feel flattered.”

“Why?”

“Because he envies you. I bore you a healthy son less than a year after our wedding, while his wife has yet to conceive. And my father is your teacher, a great scholar, while there are no rabbis in his wife's family.”

Rami's tone softened. “That explains why Abba got so angry at me today.”

“What happened today?”

“Your father was teasing me, telling me that I'd missed some excellent teachings the previous evening.” Rami grinned and added, “When, of course, I was home enjoying you and Chama.”

“So you asked what they were.”

“I did, and he told me they discussed the case of a man who lives in another's property without the owner's knowledge. Does the squatter have to pay rent or not?”

I considered the situation. “I suppose it depends on whether the owner normally rents the property out or not.”

“Exactly. Can the squatter say to the owner: Since you don't rent out the property, what loss have I caused you? Or does the owner say to the squatter: You have benefited from me so you should pay me?”

“So what made Abba angry?” I didn't want to get caught up in the legal discussion yet.

“Since your father seemed so lighthearted, I teased him back by saying that a Mishna answered these questions, and that I would share it with him if he did me a small service.”

“And Father agreed?” I was amazed. Students normally served their teachers, not vice versa, so Father must have been in a good mood to reverse roles with Rami.

Rami nodded. “He picked up my cloak and folded it for me.”

I had to chuckle. Father was so fastidious that it must have irritated him to see Rami's cloak lying wrinkled on the floor instead of neatly folded. “So what was the Mishna?”

“From the second chapter of Tractate Bava Kama, where it teaches about a woman's animal that ate food dropped in the street,” he replied. “If she benefited, she pays what she has benefited.”

“Abba must have been offended at Father serving you, even if it was in jest.”

“Either that or he didn't like me showing off my special relationship with our teacher,” Rami replied. “Abba sneered at me and said, ‘How saved from illness and worry is the one whom Heaven helps even though he sins. For this Mishna is not the same as his inquiry, yet Rav Hisda accepted it as proof.'”

I was shocked at Abba's harsh words, accusing Rami of sinning. But I wanted to know how the debate ended, whether Rami or Abba won. “Why did Abba think it wasn't the same?”

“He thought the Mishna referred to a case where the animal's owner benefits and the food owner loses, while in our case the squatter benefits but the property owner loses nothing.”

“But the Mishna does apply, for anyone who drops food on the road has surely abandoned it,” I insisted. “So he loses nothing when an animal eats it.”

Rami stifled a yawn. “It wasn't that simple. After a long discussion, with several conflicting Baraitot and other cases where no one loses, the Sages couldn't agree whether the one who benefits must pay or not. It depends on the situation.”

“Considering all that you have benefited, and all that Abba has lost,” I whispered when I got up to nurse Chama before going to sleep, “you should try not to let him upset you so much.”

Rami had a question for me. “I've been meaning to ask you this for some time,” he began, and then cleared his throat. “When your father asked you whether you wanted to marry me or Abba, why did you say both?”

I hesitated as well, for I hadn't thought about it in years. Yet the shame I felt at recalling all the fuss my family had made over my strange reply was as strong as ever. Evidently I'd found something attractive in each of them at the time, although the nasty way Abba had been acting recently, I couldn't imagine what I'd seen in him.

I didn't want to say anything to hurt my husband's feelings. “I don't remember,” I lied. “It was a long time ago.”

“You know Mishna that you learned back then. Can't you try to remember?”

The urgency in his voice meant I had to find an answer for him. “I couldn't understand why Father was giving me a choice. I thought it was all arranged for me to marry you.” I tried to think like a scholar. “He must have had an offer from Rav Joseph, Abba's father, and didn't want to insult him. But I didn't want to shame either of you, especially in front of the other students, so I forced Father to make the decision I knew he had already made.” While this was certainly true, it was by no means the entire explanation.

Before Rami could challenge me by asking how a mere child could figure out such a complex response, I asked, “What did you think when I said both?”

“I was terrified. I too thought the match was already made, and I
couldn't understand why Rav Hisda had changed his mind,” he said. “You can't imagine my relief when Abba gave you up.”

“But he only said that you could have me first.”

“And I intend to live a long, fruitful life, Dodi.” He yawned widely. “I suppose I might be generous and let Abba have you when he's eighty.”

I continued to nurse Chama in silence. As far as I was concerned, I would have to be old and very senile before I agreed to marry Abba bar Joseph.

For the next six months, Rami did not complain even once about Abba bothering him. Yet each Shabbat that Abba spent in Sura, it became clearer that his wife, Choran, was barren. Achti suffered another miscarriage just after Yom Kippur, after which Pushbi told Rami that she was gifting him with her entire estate at her death.

But these things barely penetrated the circle that surrounded Rami, me, and Chama. Our son's every new development fascinated and reassured me: I watched as he sat up, crawled, and explored our home. I would never tell anyone, but it filled me with a selfish pride that, although we bought a slave to care for him, Chama preferred my company to anyone else's.

By Chama's second Pesach, he and Yehezkel looked like brothers and acted like them. Each would search for the other if he couldn't see him, and despite my preference that Chama continue to sleep with me and Rami, the two boys made such a fuss if they couldn't sleep together that I gave in and allowed Chama to share a bed with Yehezkel and their nurses.

Rami certainly enjoyed having me to himself at night, and after a while, I had to admit that I appreciated the freedom that came from using the bed without fear of interruption.

Chama and Yehezkel looked similar, but their personalities were not. Yehezkel was timid and easily frightened, while Chama, oblivious to danger, was eager to investigate everything. Chama insisted on tasting anything that he saw others eating, but Yehezkel ate only a few favorite foods, and he had to be coaxed to try something different.

Pushbi seldom saw the children now, partly because she spent most of the day sleeping, but mostly because they would not stay still for her to hold. Each day she seemed more in the next world than in this one, and occasionally she talked with her deceased husband as if he were in the room with her.