There were still many who slept on the banks of the river, even in winter. Some were wrapped in blankets, some not. Compared to these indigent beggars, they, the inhabitants of the wretched Jewish world of Transtiberim, counted as well-to-do; at least they had roofs over their heads.
Uri would have shared that reflection as well with his father, but they were not in that sort of mood.
His father was morose as he walked, never looking at his son, beset by onerous worries. Uri suspected that it was on his account, but he found it incomprehensible: almost as if his father did not know intuitively that he was unsuitable for such a trip. Why would he want it, all the same? To do him a favor, the biggest he could do? Or was it his way of getting rid of him?
That was how they walked in the true, sleeping, auroral Rome, the two of them, father and son, making their way to their rich patron, the fat Gaius Lucius, who lived at the foot of Capitoline Hill. There was almost no one among the Jews of the world, except the lucky and rich Alexandrian Jews, who would not have envied them on their patron’s account.
By the time they reached Gaius Lucius’s house, all Rome was on its feet, with everybody dashing to greet whatever patron outranked them: equites hurrying to senators, even the senators themselves hurrying to reach the consul at his breakfast, and there were even panting clients who had followed their patrons to the Forum, to some court case or other hearing. The city woke from one minute to the next; it became noisy and dusty, even though the sun had barely risen above the horizon.
There were already a dozen or so clients hanging around the knight at the court. Joseph came to a stop at the entrance, with Uri halting beside him.
The tables in the new atrium, built not long ago, were laden with food, and there were twenty-two of them, all told, in the enormous space. Delicacies of every imaginable kind graced the tables. It was possible to eat standing up, or one could recline on carpets and eat that way; everyone was free to race around, push, and scramble to fill his sportula with food and drink. Musicians had already struck up at one end of the atrium.
Jews were forbidden from partaking of some of this bounty: they were not supposed to consume meat or wine in such a place, but they were able to stuff their baskets with fruits, berries, and smoked or raw fish. Joseph had taught Uri not to participate in the scrum; he might pick and choose from what was left, it did not matter if the sportula was not entirely filled.
Every other day, Joseph and Uri placed sufficient victuals in their baskets to supply the family with food for two days. This included the twenty-five asses’ worth of free food in each sportula, on top of which there was the sustenance received for the past five years from Uri’s tessera.
Then again, they had substantial expenses. The rent they paid for their house to the Jewish community was high, even though Uri’s grandfather had built it with his own bare hands, and had even paid off the plot of land where it stood, while Joseph had rebuilt it with his own bare hands after they returned from the expulsion. That tax was all the more curious since the ground on which Far Side was built never passed into Jewish hands; Rome’s administrators set greater value than any sky-high rent that could be raked in by word of command on being able to expel the newcomers any time they wished without having to worry about lawsuits. The real money was made by the Levite butchers who charged brazenly extortionate prices for supplying and preparing kosher meat, and by merchants who dealt in pure olive oil and wine.
Other patrons treated their clients haughtily, seating them at separate tables and serving them food and drink of lower quality than they themselves consumed. Gaius Lucius was wont to say that his clients should not flatter him to get better fare; flatter him if they wished, but even in their dreams they would not be able to imagine better fare.
Joseph and Uri would always set aside fruits and fish dishes that Sarah and the girls liked; they would only think of their own stomachs if there was space left in the baskets and anything left on the tables. Joseph in particular would never take anything that he truly relished: he was born a hedonist, and this is how he would mortify the flesh. He would overlook it if Uri placed a delicacy in the basket, but Uri would feel his gaze, and in more recent years he too chose the more mediocre foodstuffs for himself. He would look enviously at the non-Jewish clients savoring crabs, snails, and shellfish; unfortunately, any creature that had its bony frame on the outside and did not have scales or fins was ritually unclean in Jewish eyes.
Had Gaius Lucius not been so generous, Joseph and his family would have gone hungry.
A price had to be paid for that gift; every other morning they had to make conversation with the other clients and the slaves who had not yet been able to manumit themselves, or else — and this was most common — had not the slightest intention of purchasing their freedom. They were not held back from freedom by their long years of scrimping so much as by seeing that freedom was burdensome, irritating; it meant solitude and independent decision-making, and they preferred leaving their fate to the whims of their lords and masters. An emancipated slave did not automatically become a Roman citizen, a civis Romanus, merely a metoikos, a tolerated foreigner. Even a son did not acquire full rights of citizenship, including the tessera and its guarantee of gratis food rations; that was only granted to grandchildren. Uri sometimes imagined that he had been born a slave, and he caught himself thinking that this would not have been so bad; he would be given lighter work, reasonable for his poor eyesight, bad back, and bad legs — cleaning up or cooking, for instance — and in his spare time he could recline on a couch in some corner or other and read to his heart’s content. He would do everything that he did as a freedman, and yet better; he would no longer feel the pangs of conscience that whatever he was doing was not quite right — in other words, he was not making anything of his freedom.
It was no pleasure to chat with these narrow-minded simpletons, to nod approvingly at their opinions and hosanna their sagacity. One had to feign cordiality, lest they take umbrage, lest their jealousy and envy be provoked, because other clients and slaves, if nothing else, could do harm: whisper this or that into Gaius Lucius’s ear and suddenly they were no longer welcome at the grand man’s tables. Uri had seen that sort of thing more than once by now.
It was best to appear gray in this colorful mob — stupid and harmless. Much as back home, on Far Side, among the Jews.
Ever since Joseph had become the silk purveyor to the court of knight Gaius Lucius, other clients and the older slaves never missed an opportunity to pester him for tiny, insignificant, negligible sums of money, as a token of the years of servitude they had shared with his father, Thaddeus, the many, many years of shared suffering, and also in requital for purported support and assistance given many years ago. They too, like the Jews, supposed that Joseph was rolling in money, but keeping it quiet. Gaius Lucius himself was not loath to encourage that impression, as he would proudly announce that he had talked Joseph into importing silk for him, and within two weeks Joseph had done so. It was not true, but it sounded good and served to boost the prestige of Gaius Lucius that he had such a talented client.
Hitherto the silk had hindered jealous clients, and the even more jealous acquaintances among the slaves — friends — from being able to harm him: Gaius Lucius valued highly the services that Joseph had rendered him, and even more highly that he could boast to other dignitaries about being blessed with a Jewish client who had such business expertise. As long as Gaius Lucius took delight in this ridiculous tale, trotted out a hundred times and more by now, they could never put a knife in Joseph, and everyone was well aware of that; but the moment Gaius Lucius hinted that he was would wear linen or wool, starting tomorrow, there would be wretched times ahead for Joseph and his family.