Apprentice (50 page)

“Simeon, what a surprise.” Yochani's voice conveyed both delight and annoyance. “I didn't expect you until Pesach.”

“I arrived at Akko a bit early for the fair, so I decided to come see you for Shabbat,” he replied. “I didn't know you would have company.”

“Hisdadukh,” she gestured toward me, “this is my son Simeon. He is a merchant in Tyre.”

Simeon, blushing behind his beard, nodded in my direction as his mother continued: “Now mind your manners. Hisdadukh's father is a great scholar, head of the
beit din
in Sura, who is at this moment teaching Torah in Tiberias.”

Simeon looked at me questioningly, and then suddenly his face lit up. “Hisdadukh bat Rav Hisda. Do you have a brother named Tachlifa?”

I was so surprised, plus still embarrassed, that at first I could only nod. “How do you know him?” I finally asked.

“I've done business with Tachlifa on occasion and never regretted it,” he said. “Indeed, I'm looking forward to trading with him in Akko. I find that scholars are more trustworthy than the average merchant.”

Yochani pulled up another bench. “Sit down and have something to eat,” she told her son. “Lucky for you I keep a full table. In the meantime, I'm teaching Hisdadukh how to dress like she's always lived in Galilee.”

I recalled that Tyre was famous for its dye works. “Simeon, you wouldn't happen to have some red silk thread?”

“I do, and several other colors too.” He looked at me with new interest. “Why do you ask?”

“I weave red ribbons for amulets.” I picked up my small loom and began working it.

“Too bad you don't write amulets as well,” Simeon said with a sigh. “My children were both ill this winter and I'm not sure their old amulets are still effective.”

“But I do write amulets—to protect travelers, children, and pregnant women.” I saw no reason to hide my skill. “I even qualify as an expert scribe so Jews may wear my amulets on Shabbat.”

“I will gladly trade you all the red silk thread you want if you'll make amulets for my children.”

“I'll also inscribe a traveler's amulet for you,” I replied, confident that I could obtain papyrus. But I wasn't quite so confident that my incantations would be as powerful as before. “You'll need to find a metal- or leatherworker to make their holders though.”

“That won't be difficult,” Yochani said. “My tenant works with leather and is bound to have some scraps you can use.”

Thus I inscribed my first amulets since Rami's death, not in Sura, but in Eretz Israel. After Simeon's, I wrote another for Yehudit, reveling in the angelic power flowing through me to protect my daughter. The inhabitants of Sepphoris might not fear the Shayd shel BeitKisay, but most wore amulets around their necks. That meant there were other, perhaps more dangerous, demons and evil spirits here.

Tiberias had thirteen synagogues, none with a Babylonian congregation, so I was forced to visit four of them before I found my father praying with Rabbis Assi and Ami. I was thankful not to be wearing my Persian outfit, so I could duck in and out without arousing any attention.

Father raised an eyebrow when he saw me wearing Roman clothes,
but then he shrugged. “Enjoy your new clothes while you can. We're leaving for Bavel in ten days.”

Though I was expecting this announcement, I still felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach. And when I told Yochani later, at Eliezer's house, she looked as if she was going to cry.

Simeon must have noticed our distress because he asked me, “Must you return with your father, Hisdadukh? Why don't you stay a while longer and go back with Tachlifa?”

Yochani immediately brightened. “Surely Rav Hisda can make it home without you. I'd so enjoy it if you stayed.”

The way my heart leapt at Simeon's suggestion, there was no doubt what I wanted to do. But how could I abandon Father after Mother had asked me to care for him on the journey? True, Father hadn't needed me during the trip to the West, and he would still have Rabbah bar Huna and Timonus for company if I remained here.

“How can you be sure that you'll be able to find my brother in time?” I demanded of Simeon. “I must return for Pesach.”

“Tachlifa has agreed to meet me at the fair in Akko,” Simeon said. “So unless some accident befalls him, I am certain he will be there.”

“Akko is about the same distance from Sepphoris as Tiberias is, and during fair season there is constant traffic between them,” Yochani informed me. “Simeon can easily send you a message from your brother once they've found each other.”

I didn't know what to say. Tachlifa may have intended to come to the Akko fair and then return to Sura by Pesach, but what if something happened to delay him? Hadn't he recently stayed in Antioch well past the festival? There was also the matter of obtaining Father's consent. True, I was no longer a child who needed a parent's permission, but one travel companion does not forsake another without it.

I hesitated for so long that Simeon declared, “If for some reason I cannot find your brother or he cannot accompany you back to Bavel, then I will do it myself.”

“Very well, I will speak to Father when Shabbat is over.” If my request were going to spark an argument, better it should be after the Day of Rest.

T
o my surprise, Father was quite willing for me to remain in Eretz Israel. “Your Mother and I discussed the possibility and agreed that you should stay as long as you like.”

“You did?” I couldn't believe they had planned this in advance.

“You were too unhappy in Sura. You needed a change.”

“You were right,” I admitted reluctantly. “This trip has been good for me.”

Father smiled wanly and patted my cheek. “If you don't want to return with Tachlifa, we'll miss you but we won't prevent you. After all, it is a mitzvah to live in Eretz Israel.”

“What about Yehudit? I thought she belonged to Ukva.” Certainly Achti had thought so.

He shook his head vehemently. “A Mishna in Tractate Ketubot teaches that a daughter's place is with her mother, even after she's weaned. And should the mother desire to remarry, she can have her new husband stipulate in the marriage contract that he will support the girl until she's grown.”

My heart soared to hear that I would never have to relinquish Yehudit, and then crashed at the thought of Chama, so far away. “And a son?” I asked. Had I given Chama up unnecessarily? If so, was it too late to get him back?

“A boy is different, particularly if he is the only male descendant in the father's family,” he replied.

I sighed with resignation. “Don't worry. We'll be home to celebrate Pesach.” As meritorious as it was for a Jew to live in the West, I couldn't imagine never seeing Chama again.

All my concerns about Tachlifa were unnecessary. Simeon found my brother so quickly that they both came to Tiberias the following Shabbat, where Tachlifa was able to reassure Father in person that he would see me safely home for Pesach.

The next two months passed so swiftly that before I knew it people in Sepphoris were talking about preparing for Purim. Yehudit could sit without aid, although if she fell over, she could not push herself back up. Thank Heaven she wasn't mobile yet. Now that she was truly mine, I was not willing to trust anyone, not even Nurse, with a baby who didn't stay where she was placed. Not after what happened with Chama.

As winter drew to a close, Galilee burst into bloom with a riot of wildflowers, and again I marveled at how different from Sura it was here. Despite Yochani's warning, it never snowed in Sepphoris, but I saw plenty of the white substance, the source of the region's water, on the distant mountaintops.

Finally the day came when, Yehudit and I atop one donkey and Nurse, Leuton, and our belongings on two others, we followed Tachlifa down the road to Akko. The night before, Yochani had insisted I should come visit her whenever I liked, that her door was always open to me. When we hugged and said our good-byes the next morning, there were tears in our eyes.

We were approaching a bend in the road when Tachlifa held up his hand to stop us. “Close your eyes.”

Trusting my brother, I did what he said. The donkeys kept going without my direction, and a short time later Tachlifa called out that we could open our eyes now.

“Ha-Elohim!” I whispered in awe. I'd thought the Sea of Tiberias was large, but this expanse of water had no end.

“It's called the Great Sea,” he said. “If you board a boat sailing south, you can go to Alexandria in Egypt. If your boat sails north, as ours will do, you can go to Tyre, Antioch, and eventually to Greece and Rome.”

I wavered between fear and fascination. “You didn't say we'd be taking a boat.”

“It's the fastest way to travel with merchandise.”

“I thought there were storms at sea in the winter.”

“We'll be staying close to land,” he assured me. “We can always head to the nearest port in the unlikely event of a storm so late in the season.”

“Will we be going to Antioch?” Then I might see for myself if the tales about this scandalous Roman city were true.

Tachlifa nodded. “Samuel will meet us there with the rest of our goods,” he said. “Other merchants from Bavel will join our caravan, and then it's only a short camel ride to the Euphrates, which will swiftly carry us home to Sura.”

I remembered little of our voyage, other than gray skies, choppy seas, and continual nausea. Not that I ever vomited; I just always felt as if I would. Nurse forced me to take nourishment for Yehudit's sake, but otherwise I lay in my bunk, too ill to stand, wishing there was a spell against seasickness. Tachlifa urged me to come up on deck because the fresh air would do me good, but the only time I followed his advice was during the few hours we spent in port.

When we arrived in Antioch, Tazi's husband, Samuel, and the other merchants were waiting for us, so I had no chance to see the city. But I was so relieved to have solid earth under me that I didn't mind sitting on a camel's hump. Unlike the Saracen escort that saw Father and I across the desert, this caravan was large and sluggish.

Surely every Jewish merchant in Bavel and the West was going home for Pesach, making the road a dusty, undulating line of camels, carts, and donkeys. Except when it was raining or had recently rained, when it was muddy instead. I silently thanked Yochani for the cloak she'd made me take, for without it Yehudit and I would have been covered with dust and mud. I also thought longingly of the Galilee bathhouses I'd left behind.

Since there were inns and taverns along this popular trading route, we didn't need to carry food, bedding, or tents. For the most part, we traveled through an unremitting jumble of brownish boulders that echoed the sound of our transit. Every so often this tedious view would be abruptly interrupted by a small depression filled with a colorful splash of wildflowers.

Once we entered the desert, the caravan crawled from oasis to oasis. The landscape was unlike the southern desert, with its endless miles of pale sand dunes. True, there was sand, but chiefly there were rocks—small sharp stones that sheltered scorpions and lay in wait to disable animals.
It seemed we stopped every hour or two as a donkey or camel went lame or lost its load.

Eventually the column of people and pack animals halted entirely. I looked questioningly at Tachlifa, who explained that we were approaching the town of Rakka, on the Euphrates.

“Will it be long until we can sail?” I asked.

Tachlifa shrugged. “It depends on how many boats there are and the number of travelers ahead of us.”

Samuel rode up beside us. “I'll see where we are in line.”

As his brother-in-law headed off, Tachlifa said, “We could wait hours or days until it's our turn.”

“Where do we wait?” I couldn't see any lodging ahead.

“Rakka's inns are near the river,” he replied. “One of us must keep our place while the others eat or sleep. This time of year the barges and boats arrive and leave at every hour of the day and night, so we must be ready to embark anytime.”

“What about the camels?”

“We'll sell them here, and then buy supplies for the trip's duration.” His expression hardened. “Once we're on board, don't expect to get off again until we dock in Sura.”

“So it's not likely that we'll leave today?”

“Who knows? Twenty boats could arrive from the south at any moment.”

Our spot in line had advanced slightly when Samuel returned.

“I've arranged a room for the women. Luckily there are enough merchants heading west that we'll make a profit on our camels.”

Tachlifa smiled as a large group of travelers passed us going in the opposite direction. “Each of them has left an empty seat on a ship sailing south.”

My brother stayed behind while I, with Yehudit, Nurse, and Leuton, followed Samuel to our lodgings for the night, or nights, until it was our turn to leave. I didn't expect luxurious accommodations, but the room was so squalid that I turned to tell Samuel that we would gladly pay more for something better. Dust and grime coated the furniture, the linens were so stained that I shuddered to imagine what had been spilled there, and a dark corner of the floor reeked of stale urine.