My Glorious Brothers (29 page)

Nevertheless, I would not oppose an alliance between Rome and Judea. When one looks upon the world between Egypt and Persia, one must grant that Judea, lying like a jewel among thirteen emasculated kingdoms and two dying empires, is both a balance of power and a decisive factor. An alliance with Judea, temporary though it is, would place us in a position to wield that balance of power; and thereby we could accomplish at little cost what might otherwise spend countless legions. Also, a war at this moment might not be decisive by any means. I shudder to think of our heavily-armed legions marching through the defiles of Judea. At the height of his power and glory now, the Maccabee could call to him, overnight, fifty to seventy-five thousand armed men, veterans backed by years of warfare, and I do not think that against their firm opposition, any force on earth could penetrate Judea.

Nor, from all I can see, is the Ethnarch opposed to alliance. Only three days ago, I pressed him for a straightforward answer.

“My mission cannot go on forever,” I pointed out to him. “Much as I like Judea, I must return to Rome.”

“I would not keep you here against your will, Lentulus Silanus, for all that a guest is welcome and for all the good talk we have had—although to you I imagine it has been the tedious rambling of a garrulous old man. What can I do?”

“Send ambassadors to Rome with me to conclude the alliance.”

“If it were that simple—”

“It is that simple,” I assured him. “These are not Greeks you deal with, but Romans. If I give you my hand, I give you the solemn bond of the Senate, a word that is not broken. And then, where will there be king or petty lord, or King of Kings, or Emperor, that will dare send his mercenaries into a land that has made a solemn pact with Rome?”

“And how does Rome profit from this?”

“We make a firm ally, a strong friend in peace, a keen sword in war. The star of Greece is setting, just as the star of Carthage set, and Egypt and Babylon—and all the mighty empires of old; but there is a new star on the horizon, the young and mighty power of Rome, a power so strong, so certain, so constant that it will endure forever.”

“Nothing endures forever,” the Maccabee said moodily.

“However that may be, Simon, will you send us the ambassadors?”

“If you wish, I will send two men to talk with your Senate—”

“Or better, go yourself,” I told him.

“No—no, Lentulus Silanus. I am an old man, and I know only Jews and Judea. What would I do in Rome where I would be a rustic and foolish curiosity?”

Though I pressed him to go himself, he would not be persuaded; yet he agreed to send ambassadors to represent him. I cannot do more than report and advise; this I present to the noble Senate, may your lives endure and your fortunes increase. I salute you.

Lentulus Silanus, legate

So Lentulus Silanus left me, and with him went two Judeans to appear before the Senate of Rome, yet I knew no peace, but was troubled in heart as never before. A golden sun shone over the whole land, like a sweet benediction, and when I put on the striped cloak of a Jew and walked down the hills and through the valleys to Modin, the land was like a garden, blessed and peaceful and truly like a scented offering to the Lord God of Hosts. May he endure, may his spirit grow!

Never was Israel like this before in all its time, for the children played without fear, laughing as they ran through the grass and splashed in the streams. On the hillsides, the white lambs bleated for their mothers, and between the rocks pink and white flowers grew. Nowhere was there a break in the terraces; layer upon layer, they climbed the slopes, and the crop was a good thing to see, so rich and verdant. Who could see such things and deny that this was the land of milk and honey, blessed and thrice blessed?

Yet my heart was heavy.

There was the smell of good things, bread baking, cheese curing, and the scent of new wine in the vats. Chickens were plucked and hanging, ready to be stuffed and put into the ovens, and the scent of olive oil was in the air too. When the wind blew, there came down from the hilltops the lovely fragrance of the pines—for what is so sweet and precious as a place men laid down their lives for, even brother for brother.

Yet I did not rejoice, and my heart was heavy.

I went through the villages, and wherever I went, the people knew me and did me honor, for the sake of my glorious brothers. The best of everything had to be mine, and this and that I had to taste, for the land had been fruitful.

And everywhere, the people said, “
Shalom Alaichem,
Simon Maccabeus.”

To which I answered, “And unto thee, peace.” Yet the comfort I sought eluded me. To Modin I walked, where the rooftree of Mattathias stood empty, thinking that in the gentle pain of yesterday, there might be some surcease. I climbed the hillside I had climbed so often so long ago, as a child first and then as a boy with his sheep, and then as a man with a maid—and there I lay down on the soft grass with my face turned up to the sky, the cool blue Judean sky. I watched the woolly clouds that blew in from the Mediterranean, rolling slowly across the heavens, lest they leave all too quickly this small and holy land. To a degree I was comforted, as who will not be comforted in a place where his father and his father's father walked? Yet even there, in that grove of old and sturdy olive trees, my heart was troubled and uneasy, and the pain was deep and penetrating.

How little things change, and in Modin I was Simon ben Mattathias, and when I walked down to the village, nestling there in the valley below, I came home. I joined the people who were going to the synagogue for the evening prayer, and I stood among the congregation, my cloak over my head; for even the Ethnarch and high priest is a man like other men in Israel.

Food I took with Samuel ben Noah who vinted wine and lived in a house I was not unfamiliar with. Four pressings he placed upon the table, and while his children listened open-mouthed, we talked of the lore of the grape, as Jews will. Then the neighbors joined us, and there was more talk, the easy bucolic talk of a place like Modin, for this was my home and here I was not Maccabee or Ethnarch, but the son of Mattathias.

At last, I bid them good night and went to the old house, where I laid down on a pallet; but I could not sleep… Going back to the city the following day, I fell in with the little old man, Aaron ben Levi, who had been camel guide and escort for the Roman, and for a space the two of us walked together. I asked him how was it that he had returned to Judea.

“I grew tired of the
nokri,
Simon Maccabeus, and of one Roman in particular, I grew tired to death. Wandering is for the young, my old bones ache, and when I lie down to sleep these days, I am not at all certain that the Angel of Death will not wake me before the dawn. I am out of Goumad, as my father was and his father before him, and also through my father, a Levite—
”
He grinned at me, half challengingly, half apologetically. “So I go to Jerusalem where I may be permitted to act as a Temple porter?”

“Why not?”

“Or a storyteller—I am not at all decided.”

“So long as you don't have to work.”

“In that statement, Simon Maccabeus, as in everything, there is a little bit of the truth. Yet should I be ashamed of the past? Only a great cut here in my arm—” he stopped to roll back his sleeve and exhibit a cruel scar—“only this cut prevented me from being with you in that last fight on the seacoast, where only you and Jonathan lived, so my time is borrowed, by grace of the Almighty, blessed be his name, and should I use the little left of it to labor in the fields?”

“I should think that the Roman would have paid you well enough for you to do nothing at all for a good while.”

“And there you are wrong, Simon Maccabeus, for that Roman is a close and careful man, and he weighed every shekel three times in the palm of his hand.

“You didn't like him?”

“Indeed, I hated him, Simon Maccabeus, and I think I would have slain him, were he not a stranger in Israel.”

“Why?” I asked curiously. “Why, Aaron ben Levi?”

“Because he was evil.”

I shook my head, smiling. “Three months he lived in my house. His ways are the ways of the
nokri,
that's all. Hard and close he is, but thus he was trained.”

“And do you really believe that, Simon Maccabeus?” the guide asked me caustically. I nodded but said nothing, wondering what was in the mind of the little man as he marched along beside me, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. Several times he swallowed, as if each time there were words on his lips that he had rejected, and at last he said diffidently, “Who am I to advise the Maccabee?”

“And if I remember,” I murmured, “you were never backward with advice.”

“It is true that I am a poor man,” he said reflectively, “but nevertheless a Jew is a Jew.”

“Whatever you have to say, Aaron ben Levi, say it.”

“Lentulus Silanus hated you, and not as himself but as Rome, and between Jew and Rome, there is no peace and compromise. That comes from an old and foolish man, Simon Maccabeus, so you can take it or throw it into the dirt you walk on.”

And after that, we walked on in silence, for the little man was afraid he had offended me, and he kept his peace…

I dreamed that night in Jerusalem, and I woke up in an agony of fear. This I dreamed—that the Legions came to Judea. Never have I seen a Legion, but enough I heard of them to picture the long, heavy wooden shields, the heavy iron and wooden spears, the massed metal helmets, the close ranks. Thus I dreamed. I dreamed that the Legions came to Judea and we smashed them in our defiles; and they came again and again, until the whole land stank with the dead of Rome. And still they came, and again and again and again. And always we fought them and slashed them, yet there was no end to them. But to us there was an end, and one by one we died—until in all of Judea there was no Jew, only the empty land. And then I dreamed that a deep and terrible silence pervaded Judea, and from that I woke up, whimpering in fear and sorrow.

Esther woke too, and I felt her warm hand upon me as she said, “Simon, Simon, what troubles you?”

“I dreamed—

“All men dream, and what are dreams but nothing and the shadow of nothing?”

“I dreamed that the land was empty and lifeless and forlorn.”

“And that was a foolish dream, Simon, for where there is the good earth, there are people, and they will take the crops from it and grind the wheat and make their bread—always, Simon, always.”

“No. What I dreamed was true.”

“What you dreamed was a dream, Simon, my child, my strange and foolish child, just a dream.”

“And there was no Jew. As if I stood on a high rock, overlooking the whole land, and wherever I turned my eyes there was no Jew, only a whisper as if many voices said,
We
are
rid
of
them, rid of them—”

“And when was a time when the
nokri
did not say
We
must
be
rid
of
them?
Please, Simon.”

“Still I hear it.”

“Will others decide that, Simon, when we are such an old, old oak, with roots so deep? Men are never without doubt and fear, but a woman knows, Simon.”

“And somewhere,” I said, “through it all, was the Roman—that smooth, dark, knowing face of his—the way he smiled, lifting that thin lip of his. Evil—”

“Lentulus Silanus was a man like other men, Simon.”

“No—no—”

“Be quiet, my husband, and rest and be easy. There is too much of the past; it weighs too heavy. Be easy…”

Her hands stroked me, comforted me as I wanted to be comforted, until presently I sank into that land between sleep and waking, thinking of all the good and honor I had known, and how many had loved me even though I had loved so few.

I thought of my brothers, and it was an old oak, truly, that could send out so firm and mighty a limb as Judas Maccabeus, or Eleazar, or John, or Jonathan. Blessed are they and may they rest in peace, rest easily and in peace. Life is a day and no more, but life is also forever. Soon, soon enough, I, Simon, the least of all my glorious brothers, would go the way they went, but not so soon would it be forgotten in Israel—and among the
nokri
too—that there were five sons of the old man, the Adon Mattathias.