Uri brooded on why he felt such twinges of conscience over a Jewish mill-owner keeping Jewish slaves. In Rome the Jews had all been liberated, and they had not been replaced by new slaves from Palestine; peace had reigned for decades. How come these Jews had become slaves despite that?
He questioned Plotius.
“They were unable to pay their debts,” said Plotius, “so they sold themselves, along with their families.”
Uri shuddered.
“Their thinking is,” Plotius went on, “it is better if the family stays together, and also that they will be better off in a Jewish establishment. That is not always the case.”
Uri imagined having to trundle, with his father and sisters, a ribbed wheel around and around for hours at a time, and he felt dizzy. But it was not every day that a shipment of timber arrived at Syracusa; maybe it was not only on the Sabbath that they had a chance to rest.
He felt badly that he had also failed to greet the slaves, even though they too belonged to the household. There was always tomorrow evening, of course.
Aaron owned a true Italian house — huge and with all the trimmings: an atrium, kitchen, bedrooms, and two big pools in the garden, one for ritual bathing (they too were free to take a dip in it, each of them being given a clean loincloth to cover his genitals), whereas in the second swam gorgeous fish of various shapes and sizes. Non-Jewish slaves (there were also some of them) took care of them throughout the night, as the Sabbath restrictions did not apply to them. The house was plumbed for sewage disposal, with the privies, as in richer Roman villas, built to allow for flushing with water. Uri spent three longish spells perched on the oval pottery seats there over the course of the evening, examining the walls of the latrines, tiled to the ceiling as they were with Solomon’s seals — Stars of David, some called them — the bare soles of his feet pleasantly warmed by the floor tiles — under-floor heating by hypocaust had been installed in all the rooms.
Aaron was a middle-aged man of nondescript appearance, more than content with his lot in life. Two sons of his also spent the Sabbath there; as young adults they already had their own houses and were engaged in other trades even though they were not yet married. Uri had the feeling that they looked down on the delegation’s members: they were a long way from Rome, and they had precious little to do with it; they were successful businessmen from a good Syracusan family, and the Roman Jewish community was of no significance for them. Uri would not be surprised to find that they had never read a single scroll in their life, and if they had been present in the amphitheater they would certainly have been unaware that the orator was declaiming works by others. They looked happy.
Aaron proposed that they cast lots to be “king of the wine,” or toastmaster — a suggestion to which the company enthusiastically assented, though Uri had no idea what that office might entail.
They threw a pair of dice, which, as an implement of a game of chance, was forbidden to Jews not only on a Sabbath but at any time. However, seeing that it was only being used to draw lots, no prohibition applied. After several rounds, Valerius emerged as the winner. The hyperetes was so elated at his luck that he leapt around and clapped his hands ecstatically like a child. Uri could only watch in wonder.
The non-Jewish servants brought in an enormous bronze dish, filled it with water, brought out several more large dishes and a good dozen amphorae, then set out ornamental murrhine glasses before them on the table.
Valerius instructed the servants to mix the wine and water in a fifty-fifty ratio. The big vessels — punchbowls, as they were called — were filled with equal quantities of wine and water, and from these the drinks were measured out with a large ladle through a funnel into each person’s drinking glass.
At that point Aaron announced that it was time to say prayers.
They started with the first of the two classes of blessings, because the second type could only be uttered by a priest, then they said the Sh’ma and the seven obligatory blessings for the Sabbath, and finally the kiddush, which is recited over a cup of wine in private houses to consecrate the Sabbath.
Valerius then ordered everyone to down the glass in one and then he would get the next.
They did his bidding.
From then on it was Valerius who stipulated the proportions in which the wine and water were to be mixed, and how often they should drink. His orders had to be complied with, given that he was the wine king. There was no Law, written or unwritten, that said anything about the office of wine king, and therefore it was allowed to comply with the wine king on the Sabbath.
It was likewise allowed to converse and sit around in the garden while drinking. Uri kept casting stealthy glances at the large building looming in the dark behind the high stone wall, where the sailors were celebrating their Sabbath. He noticed that the others also looked over there from time to time. Oil lamps glowed behind the curtains in the tiny windows, much as they did on the table that had been set out in the garden on their side, and at times a sound like the meowing of cats was audible. Maybe they had a menorah in the rooms over there, because in their garden there was a massive, cast-bronze menorah on a marble plinth, with all seven of its candles burning.
“They’re screwing,” Aaron said.
The rest laughed.
It then began to glimmer in Uri’s mind what the dark, two-story building next door might be.
All the same, he asked, and indeed it was: Syracusa’s Jewish brothel.
That was what the sailors had been hurrying to.
The proprietor of the brothel was Jewish, Aaron related, and the women who lived there were Jewish as well, around three dozen of them — or at least so people say, because he personally had never seen them. He chortled, and his sons gave him looks as disgusted as those Gaius Lucius’s sons gave him in Rome. Except that there was no wife present, and nobody asked if she was still alive, had died, or been driven away by Aaron.
The harlots came from Judaea and Galilee, recounted Aaron, and constantly at that; if any fled or died, the gap was immediately filled, because the demand was very high. There were short girls, tall ones, slim ones, and fat ones, girls with large bosoms and others with small bosoms, skinny thighs or fat thighs, broad-hipped or narrow-hipped, red-haired or black-haired, short-haired or long-haired girls; some could dance, others might play the harp, some could read out loud very nicely, and others were completely dumb, but each and every one was well versed in the arts of lovemaking. Divorced wives, unmarried girls who had been knocked up by mercenaries, girls who had been abandoned or anathematized, women, raped virgins, expectant grandmothers, pickpockets, madwomen, women cursed by magic spells — one and all of them unfortunate females who would long ago have given up the ghost had they not found their way here, where they had a roof over their head and food to eat, and none too bad at that, and plenty enough of it too. They not only received Jewish clients, but Jewish sailors were always preferred and were given discounts, because the proprietor strictly observed religious commandments in all things at all times.
A hush fell; they sipped their wine and strove not to take a peek in the direction of the dark, two-story house lowering at the end of the garden, past the pools, past the high wall, but the place where, Uri sensed, they all, himself included, longed to be.
“On the Sabbath, even fallen women are not supposed to work, if they’re Jewish,” Uri piped up.