Lamb (11 page)

“Which are?”

“In this case, three shekels.”

“That’s a bargain. Pay her.”

Much as I tried—and I did try—I didn’t seem able to convey to Joshua what it was he wanted to know. I went through a half-dozen more harlots and a large portion of our traveling money over the next week, but he still didn’t understand. I suggested that perhaps this was one of the things that the magician Balthasar was supposed to teach Joshua. Truth be told, I’d developed a burning sensation when I peed and I was ready for a break from tutoring my friend in the fine art of sinning.

It’s a week or less by sea if we go to Selucia, then it’s less than a day’s walk inland to Antioch,” Joshua said, after he had been talking to some sailors who were drinking at the inn. “Overland it’s two to three weeks.”

“By sea, then,” I said. Pretty brave, I thought, considering I’d never set foot in a boat in my life.

We found a wide-beamed, raised-stern Roman cargo ship bound for Tarsus that would stop at all the ports along the way, including Selucia. The ship’s master was a wiry, hatchet-faced Phoenician named Titus Inventius, who claimed to have gone to sea when he was four and sailed to the edge of the world twice before his balls dropped, although what one had to do with the other I never figured out.

“What can you do? What’s your trade?” Titus asked, from under a great straw hat he wore while watching the slaves load jars of wine and oil
onto the ship. His eyes were black beads set back in caves of wrinkles formed by a lifetime of squinting into the sun.

“Well, I’m a stonemason and he’s the Son of God.” I grinned. I thought that would give us more diversity than just saying we were two stonemasons.

Titus pushed the straw hat back on his head and looked Joshua up and down. “Son of God, huh? How’s that pay?”

Joshua scowled at me. “I know stone work and carpentry, and we both have strong backs.”

“There’s not a lot of call for stone work aboard a ship. Have you been to sea before?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” Joshua said.

“He was sick that day,” I said. “I’ve been to sea.”

Titus laughed. “Fine, you go help get those jars on board. I’m taking a load of pigs as far as Sidon, you two keep them calm and keep them alive in the heat and by that time maybe you’ll be something of use to me. But it costs you as well.”

“How much?” Joshua asked.

“How much do you have?”

“Five shekels,” I said.

“Twenty shekels,” Joshua said.

I elbowed the Messiah in the ribs hard enough to bend him over. “Ten shekels,” I said. “Five each, I meant before when I said five.” I felt as if I was negotiating with myself, and not doing that well.

“Then ten shekels plus any work I can find for you. But if you puke on my ship, you’re over the side, you hear me? Ten shekels or not.”

“Absolutely,” I said, pulling Joshua down the dock to where the slaves were loading jars.

When we were out of earshot of Captain Titus, Joshua said, “You have to tell him that we’re Jews, we can’t tend pigs.”

I grabbed one of the huge wine jars by the ears and started to drag it toward the ship. “It’s okay, they’re Roman pigs. They don’t care.”

“Oh, all right,” Joshua said, latching onto a jar of his own and hoisting it onto his back. Then it hit him and he set the jar down again. “Hey, wait, that’s not right.”

The next morning we sailed with the tide. Joshua, me, a crew of thirty, Titus, and fifty allegedly Roman pigs.

Until we cast off from the dock—Josh and I manning one of the long oars—and we were well out of the harbor; until we had shipped the oars and the great square sail was ballooned over the deck like the belly of a gluttonous genie; until Joshua and I climbed to the rear of the ship where Titus stood on the raised deck manning one of the two long steering oars and I looked back toward land, and could see not a city but a speck on the horizon; until then, I had no idea that I had a deep-seated fear of sailing.

“We are way too far away from land,” I said. “Way too far. You really need to steer closer to the land, Titus.” I pointed to land, in case Titus was unsure as to which way he should go.

It makes sense, don’t you think? I mean, I grew up in an arid country, inland, where even the rivers are little more than damp ditches. My people come from the desert. The one time we actually had to cross a sea, we walked. Sailing seemed, well, unnatural.

“If the Lord had meant us to sail we would have been born with, uh, masts,” I said.

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” said Joshua.

“Can you swim?” asked Titus.

“No,” I said.

“Yes he can,” Joshua said.

Titus grabbed me by the back of the neck and threw me over the stern of the ship.

That day, thrashing in the sea, trying to swim to catch the merchant ship that plowed through the water under full sail, I first saw that Raziel was, as he claimed, “good with weather.” Joshua was leaning over the aft
rail of the ship, shouting alternately to me, then to Titus. It was pretty obvious that even under the light wind that day, I would never catch the ship, and when I looked in the direction of shore I could see nothing but water. Strange, the things you think of at times like that. What I thought first was “What an incredibly stupid way to die.” Next I thought, “Joshua will never make it without me.” And with that, I began to pray, not for my own salvation but for Joshua. I prayed for the Lord to keep him safe, then I prayed for Maggie’s safety and happiness. Then, as I shrugged off my shirt and fell into a slow crawl in the direction of the shoreline, which I knew I would never see, the wind stopped. Just stopped. The sea flattened and the only sound I could hear was the frightened cries of the crew of Titus’s ship, which had stopped in the water as if it had dropped anchor.

“Biff, this way!” Joshua called.

I turned in the water to see my friend waving to me from the stern of the becalmed ship. Beside him, Titus cowered like a frightened child. On the mast above them sat a winged figure, who after I swam to the ship and was hoisted out by a very frightened bunch of sailors, I recognized as the angel Raziel. Unlike the times when we had seen him before, he wore robes as black as pitch, and the feathers in his wings shone the blue-black of the sea under moonlight. As I joined Joshua on the raised poop deck at the stern of the ship, the angel took wing and gently landed on the deck beside us. Titus was shielding his head with his arms, as if to ward off an attacker, and he looked as if he were trying to dissolve between the deck boards.

“You,” Raziel said to the Phoenician, and Titus looked up between his arms. “No harm is to come to these two.”

Titus nodded, tried to say something, then gave up when his voice broke under the weight of his fear. I was a little frightened myself. Decked out in black, the angel was a fearsome sight, even if he was on our side. Joshua, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease.

“Thank you,” Josh said to the angel. “He’s a cur, but he’s my best friend.”

“I’m good with weather,” the angel said. And as if that explained everything, he flapped his massive black wings and lifted off the deck. The sea was dead calm until the angel was out of sight over the horizon,
then the breeze picked up, the sails filled, and waves began to lap at the bow. Titus ventured a peek from his cowed position, then stood up slowly and took one of the steering oars under his arm.

“I’m going to need a new shirt,” I said.

“You can have mine,” Titus said.

“We should sail closer along the coast, don’t you think?” I said.

“On the way, good master,” Titus said. “On the way.”

“Your mother eats the fungus from the feet of lepers,” I said.

“I’ve been meaning to speak to her about that,” Titus said.

“So we understand each other,” I said.

“Absolutely,” Titus said.

“Crap,” Joshua said. “I forgot to ask the angel about knowing women again.”

For the rest of the journey Titus was much more agreeable, and strangely enough, we didn’t have to man any of the huge oars when we pulled into port, nor did we have to help unload or load any cargo. The crew avoided us altogether, and tended the pigs for us without our even asking. My fear of sailing subsided after a day, and as the steady breeze carried us north, Joshua and I would watch the dolphins that came to ride the ship’s bow wave, or lie on the deck at night, breathing in the smell of cedar coming off the ship’s timbers, listening to the creaking of rope and rigging, and trying to imagine aloud what it would be like when we found Balthasar. If it hadn’t been for Joshua’s constant badgering about what sex was like, it would have been a pleasant journey indeed.

“Fornication isn’t the only sin, Josh,” I tried to explain. “I’m happy to help out, but are you going to have me steal so I can explain it to you? Will you have me kill someone next so you can understand it?”

“No, the difference is that I don’t
want
to kill anyone.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you again. You got your loins, and she’s got her loins. And even though you call them both loins, they’re different—”

“I understand the mechanics of it. What I don’t understand is the feeling of it.”

“Well, it feels good, I told you that.”

“But that doesn’t seem right. Why would the Lord make sin feel good, then condemn man for it?”

“Look, why don’t you try it?” I said. “It would be cheaper that way. Or better yet, get married, then it wouldn’t even be sin.”

“Then it wouldn’t be the same, would it?” Josh asked.

“How would I know, I’ve never been married.”

“Is it always the same for you?”

“Well, in some ways, yes.”

“In what ways?”

“Well, so far, it seems to be moist.”

“Moist?”

“Yeah, but I can’t say it’s always that way, just in my experience. Maybe we should ask a harlot?”

“Better yet,” Joshua said, looking around, “I’ll ask Titus. He’s older, and he looks as if he’s sinned a lot.”

“Yeah, well, if you count throwing Jews in the sea, I’d say he’s an expert, but that doesn’t mean—”

Joshua had run to the stern of the ship, up a ladder to the raised poop deck, and to a small, open-sided tent that acted as the captain’s quarters. Under the tent Titus reclined on a pile of rugs, drinking from a wineskin, which I saw him hand to Joshua.

By the time I caught up with him Titus was saying, “So you want to know about fucking? Well, son, you have come to the right place. I’ve fucked a thousand women, half again as many boys, some sheep, pigs, a few chickens, and the odd turtle. What is it you want to know?”

“Stand away from him, Josh,” I said, taking the wineskin and handing it back to Titus as I pushed Joshua back. “The wrath of God could hit him at any moment. Jeez, a turtle, that’s got to be an abomination.” Titus flinched when I mentioned the wrath of God, as if the angel might return to perch on his mast any second.

Joshua stood his ground. “Right now let’s just stick with the women part of it, if that’s all right.” Joshua patted Titus’s arm to reassure him. I knew how that touch felt: Titus would feel the fear run out of him like water.

“I’ve fucked every kind of woman there is. I’ve fucked Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Ethiopians, and women from places that haven’t even been named yet. I’ve fucked fat ones, skinny ones, women with no legs, women with—”

“Are you married?” Joshua interrupted before the sailor started into how he had fucked them in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse…

“I have a wife in Rome.”

“Is it the same with your wife and, say, a harlot?”

“What, fucking? No, it’s not the same at all.”

“It’s moist,” I said. “Right?”

“Well, yes, it’s moist. But that’s not—”

I grabbed Joshua’s tunic and started to drag him away. “There you have it. Let’s go, Josh. Now you know, sin is moist. Make a mental note. Let’s get some supper.”

Titus was laughing. “You Jews and your sin. You know if you had more gods you wouldn’t have to be so worried about making one angry?”

“Right,” I said, “I’m going to take spiritual advice from a guy who fucks turtles.”

“You shouldn’t be so judgmental, Biff,” Joshua said. “You’re not without sin yourself.”

“Oh, you and your holier-than-thou attitude. You can just do your own sinning from now on if that’s how you feel. You think I enjoy bedding harlots night after night, describing the whole process to you over and over?”

“Well, yeah,” Joshua said.

“That’s not the point. The point is, well…the point is…well. Guilt. I mean—turtles. I mean—” So I was flustered. Sue me. I’d never look at a turtle again without imagining it being molested by a scruffy Phoenician sailor. That’s not disturbing to you? Imagine it right now. I’ll wait. See?

“He’s gone mad,” Titus said.

“You shut up, you scurvy viper,” Joshua said.

“What about not being judgmental?” Titus said.

“That’s him,” Josh said. “It’s different for me.” And suddenly, having said that, Joshua looked as sad as I had ever seen him. He slouched away toward the pigpen, where he sat down and cradled his head in his hands as if he’d just been crowned with the weight of all the worries of mankind. He kept to himself until we left the ship.

The Silk Road, the main vein of trade and custom and culture from the Roman world to the Far East, terminated where it met the sea at the port city of Selucia Pieria, the harbor city and naval stronghold that had fed and guarded Antioch since the time of Alexander. As we left the ship with the rest of the crew, Captain Titus stopped us at the gangplank. He held his hands, palm down. Joshua and I reached out and Titus dropped the coins we’d paid for passage into our palms. “I might have been holding a brace of scorpions, but you two reached out without a thought.”

“It was a fair price to pay,” Joshua said. “You don’t have to return our money.”

“I almost drowned your friend. I’m sorry.”

“You asked if he could swim before you threw him in. He had a chance.”

I looked at Joshua’s eyes to see if he was joking, but it was obvious he wasn’t.

“Still,” Titus said.

“So perhaps you will be given a chance someday as well,” Joshua said.

“A slim fucking chance,” I added.

Titus grinned at me. “Follow the shore of the harbor until it becomes a river. That’s the Onrontes. Follow its left bank and you’ll be in Antioch by nightfall. In the market there will be an old woman who sells herbs and charms. I don’t remember her name, but she has only one eye and she wears a tunic of Tyran purple. If there is a magician in Antioch she will know where to find him.”

“How do you know this old woman?” I asked.

“I buy my tiger penis powder from her.”

Joshua looked at me for explanation. “What?” I said. “I’ve had a couple of harlots, I didn’t exchange recipes.” Then I looked to Titus. “Should I have?”

“It’s for my knees,” the sailor said. “They hurt when it rains.”

Joshua took my shoulder and started to lead me away. “Go with God, Titus,” he said.

“Put in a good word with the black-winged one for me,” Titus said.

Once we were into the wash of merchants and sailors around the harbor, I said, “He gave us the money back because the angel scared him, you know that?”

“So his kindness allayed his fear as well as benefiting us,” Joshua said. “All the better. Do you think the priests sacrifice the lambs at Passover for better reasons?”

“Oh, right,” I said, having no idea what one had to do with the other, wondering still if tigers didn’t object to having their penises powdered. (Keeps them from chafing, I guess, but that’s got to be a dangerous job.) “Let’s go find this old crone,” I said.

The shore of the Onrontes was a stream of life and color, textures and smells, from the harbor all the way into the marketplace at Antioch. There were people of every size and color that I had ever imagined, some shoeless and dressed in rags, others wearing expensive silks and the purple linen from Tyre, said to be dyed with the blood of a poisonous snail. There were ox carts, litters, and sedan chairs carried by as many as eight slaves. Roman soldiers on horseback and on foot policed the crowd, while sailors from a dozen nations reveled in drink and noise and the feel of land beneath their feet. Merchants and beggars and traders and whores scurried for the turn of a coin, while self-appointed prophets spouted dogma from atop the mooring posts where ships tied off along the river—holy men lined up and preaching like a line of noisy Greek columns. Smoke rose fragrant and blue over the streaming crowd, carrying the smell of spice and grease from braziers in the food booths where men and women hawked their fare in rhythmic, haunting songs that all ran together as you walked along—as if one passed his song to the next so you might never experience a second of silence.