He was attracted by the darker-skinned, wild-looking women from far-off lands, Ethiopians especially. They were tall and slender, and they wore their decorative veils with grace, not walking so much as gliding on their long legs, walking along the street as if they were carrying themselves on their own palanquin, even though their ears were pierced. Uri used to daydream about one day converting an Ethiopian woman like that to the Jewish faith, purchasing her out of slavery, and her bringing a cartload of children into the world by him, to the greater glory of the Lord.
There was barely a tavern in Rome in which women did not sit around next to the men; these women were likewise professional, and Uri might avert his gaze, but he could not stop his ears from hearing their puerile suggestions. His command of Latin grew superbly in the process. It was also quite usual for erotic drawings by well-versed hands to appear on house walls, and it was impossible not to see these; they would even desecrate the walls of villas on the Capitoline from time to time, though graffiti like that vanished quickly, as they were washed off by the sentinels. Non-Jewish plebeians with whom Uri was on good terms in the true Rome related that the best paintings were to be found in the thermal springs, always offering some new instruction, and female staff would even demonstrate a desired position with a guest, albeit not cheaply. Uri considered himself lucky that, being Jewish, he was not allowed to frequent such baths, though he was dying to try everything out.
It was late when he finally got to sleep, almost daybreak, and he found it near impossible to get up for the morning prayer. When he wanted to get the matzo from his sack he could not find it at first, and he was alarmed that it might have shaken out somewhere en route, but then he found it, though it was broken up.
Someone had been through the sack.
The pleasant feelings of the previous day evaporated.
They didn’t trust him; they were suspicious.
But what could they have been looking for in a sack that had been given him by Matthew? They could see that, apart from his father’s cast-off cloak, he had arrived with nothing.
After the morning prayer they ate a hearty breakfast to fortify themselves from the journey ahead; the women were languishing in place, while the rich Roman youngsters had taken off. Still, it was not how they looked after group sex that concerned Uri, but only the dreadful emptiness of his belly into which he crammed the food. His companions chatted merrily and even spoke to him pleasantly enough; they did not notice that his mood had altered.
Before the start — there was again a trap to carry the luggage, this time with two donkeys, which meant they would be walking — Uri went up to Matthew and declared gloomily:
“Someone’s been through my sack.”
Matthew cast a glance at him. There was no sympathy in the look but also no malice.
“Was anything taken?” he asked.
“No,” Uri replied, surprised.
“Well, then, no harm came of it,” Matthew replied, and turned away.
Uri was disconsolate. He would have liked to take after this group of strong men, to please them; he had no trouble accepting Matthew as a leader and mentor, but for some reason they were suspicious of him. His father was right: they bore him malice from the outset, and all because his wretched father had been put in a worse position than ever before by Agrippa’s request. And he could not even tell them; they wouldn’t believe him anyway.
He worried away as they walked; on account of that, he did not feel his legs hurting him so much. He no longer looked at the countryside; it was just boring evergreen cypresses everywhere, gentle slopes, hills, withered over-wintering vines, dormant crops, leafless woodlands, and every twenty-five stadia a post where the wealthy could change horses but their group could not drop in, not because it was forbidden but just because everything was more expensive. Uri no longer wondered about anything; he did not blink, just mulled things over bitterly.
Then it occurred to him: what if his sack had not been tampered with deliberately? They all looked the same, after all; maybe someone had mistaken it for their own.
That thought was comforting.
No doubt that is what happened, but he suspected his companions of searching through his sack, and, worse, had made the mistake of relaying that to Matthew. He would have to beg their pardon at the first suitable opportunity.
This was the first time since setting off that he had cheered up.
Life was glorious after all! He was walking in Italia on an important mission, among excellent companions, to Jerusalem — a wretched little Roman Jew, his sandals tied together and slung around his neck, the only one of the group who was barefoot, because sandals were expensive, one needed to take care of them.
Matthew was right; he would toughen up on the journey. Already the walking was easier; his body was already toughening up, the soles of his feet becoming callused. More than likely his eyesight was also improving.
He gazed at the many intermittent points of light against the outlines of the roadside trees: the bare branches would be covered by marvelous green foliage by the time they, having fulfilled their noble mission several months from now, would walk back this way.
Their progress was slower than Matthew had planned, because sunset on the first Friday, the onset of the Sabbath, overtook them in open country.
They had left the paved road by then; they did not have a trap with them, and so, sacks slung on shoulder, they trailed after Matthew up hill and down dale; he, it seemed, was thoroughly familiar with the zigzag route to be taken to avoid costly excise payments in the towns.
They said the Sabbath evening prayers under a tree in full leaf, and on this occasion Matthew read out relevant passages from the Torah scroll he from his sack. It was small, but the crowns of the two wooden staves on which the scroll was rolled were ornamented, maybe that too a gift from the Elders in Rome. Matthew asked Uri to interpret from Greek to Aramaic. Uri blushed; he had never before been picked for such a distinction, and he was amazed to be asked to interpret to Aramaic, of all languages, which, aside from Matthew, none of the others understood. But then again, to interpret from the Torah was a sublime task, whatever the circumstances.
In the more prosperous synagogues, a designated leader would read the Pentateuch text, sentence by sentence, in Hebrew, and another designated adult male, likewise held in high repute, a different person every Sabbath and feast day, would interpret the text sentence by sentence into Greek. In poorer houses of prayers in the provinces, so it was said, there was only a Torah in Greek and no need to interpret. The faithful would only say the “Amen” along with the leader.
Uri interpreted the Greek passages of the Septuagint into Aramaic, even though everyone spoke Greek as their native tongue. With prompts from Matthew, the companions dutifully said the “Amens” in the appropriate places. Uri interpreted fluently and elegantly; his face was burning, he was proud of himself. Matthew, who obviously spoke Aramaic, gave him no plaudits, then, when they began nibbling the matzos and preparing for a day of rest, he said — because one was permitted to speak, just not to work — on Sunday they would see the house where they were supposed to pass the night.
“We’ll call in,” he said, “in case anyone is worried about us.”
For Uri this was the first Sabbath in his life that he had celebrated away from home. He woke up early, said his prayers, rinsed down his feet with dew, dried them on his toga, and used his fingernails to burst the blisters and peel off the thickened skin. It was more a kind of nonchalant and light-hearted picking, rather than with serious corrective intent, as any medication, including self-medication, was forbidden on the Sabbath. It was lucky that the ground was dewy, though religion saw to it that a son of the chosen people would be able to wash his feet even were dew lacking, because there was always going to be soil.