Iustus and Hilarus endorsed that vigorously: they thought it was outrageous, an unpardonable sin to force women to work on the Sabbath and, worse still, by a Jew, even if they were whores.
Uri looked at Plotius, but the latter said nothing. Valerius shook his head and ordered a new round in a mix of one-third to two-thirds, the larger part being wine.
“It’s not as if they are working,” Matthew said, and he snorted with laughter. “On the Sabbath married couples have a duty to live a married life.”
“That’s right, but those women are not married! They’re lousy whores!” declared teacher Hilarus.
“But they are married,” Matthew rejoined with a mischievous chuckle. “That’s the custom here in Syracusa.” At which he turned to Aaron: “Correct me if I’ve got that wrong…”
“No, you’ve got it right,” Aaron said with a grin on his face.
“Well, anyway, I’ve been told that sailors can drop into the brothel at any time, and they will be served forthwith. If it so happens that they arrive on the Sabbath, because the wind was against them, or the oarsmen mutinied, or pirates wanted to grapple with the ship and had to be beaten off, then they will be heartily welcome on production of a standard marriage certificate, and on these the only blank that is left is for the client’s name; the girls’ names are entered sure enough, only those of the men are missing. The form is quickly completed as soon as the man chooses a woman; the owner of the brothel personally blesses all the newly married couples, and they are free to couple lawfully the whole night long. They spend the Sabbath like any God-fearing Jew, and because they are married it is even obligatory for them to couple. Then on the Sabbath evening, when the sun goes down and the Sabbath comes to a close, they enter the appropriate names into the standard religious document, both sign it, and thereafter they may consider themselves as divorced under the Law — and all perfectly legally.”
“How hypocritical!” expostulated Uri.
“Why’s that?” Matthew asked. “They do genuinely get married, but nowhere does it say how many times a Jew may contract marriage. And they do genuinely get divorced. It’s all done in accordance with the Law. I’ve seen a bill of marriage — not just one either, because some people collect them. Usually they are burned — the real married ones burn them anyway, so the paper will not be found on them by chance. No proof is left in the brothel. The Lord God sees anyway what he must see, and up till now He has not interfered once; not brought down a pestilence on the house, or an earthquake, and no tidal wave has carried it off, though it’s been operating for quite a while.”
“When I first came here,” said Aaron, “it was already here, and that was nearly twenty years ago.”
That bore thinking about. The Lord bestowed on the Jews laws that were full of holes. Equally, that might, of course, be a matter for rejoicing.
“This Syracusan brothel is the most humane I’ve ever heard of,” said Plotius unexpectedly. “The owner has brought in the rule that the men do not pay up front but upon leaving, and pay precisely what the wench says, her status for the evening of the Sabbath indeed being that of a freshly divorced wife. The women are not beaten up here, because any woman who is beaten will declare, purely out of vengeance, a staggeringly large sum, and if the blighter does not have that much, the proprietor recovers it from the rest: nobody is allowed to leave until everyone has paid. There are brutes of servants who can get anybody to cough up, but that is not needed, because anyone going in is clear about the rules. Apparently there have been cases when the woman asked for nothing, but those are just legends, of course; any owner would instantly dismiss a woman like that.”
They supped more wine; by now there was little water in it.
“Cornelius, the proprietor,” said Aaron, “is just as much a father of the synagogue — Pater synagogue — as I am. He offered it a mosaic floor (ten thousand sesterces, it cost), and not as the proprietor of a brothel, but as a merchant. After all, he does trade as well. The community accepted the gift.”
“Has it ever happened,” an overwrought Uri queried, “that a marriage was not dissolved by the evening of the next day?”
Neither Aaron nor Matthew nor Plotius had yet heard of such a miracle.
Hilarus strenuously disapproved of a mockery being made of the sanctity of married life in a brothel, and he was of the opinion that it was the duty of jurists to hunt out objections to such cases.
Plotius snorted: there were no jurists, only priests and believers. Interpreters of the law were noxious beings, because they did not take their stance on the ground of the Pentateuch of Moses but set themselves up as religious experts upon their own authority without having been granted any sort of legitimacy by the Lord.
Uri was amazed at the ferocity of the fires in the eyes of Plotius, who had himself just been expounding a law that certainly had not been revealed by God. Maybe it had been put forward to Him at some time, but He had not yet gotten around to endorsing it because once He did, it became doctrine.
Aaron had a more indulgent attitude toward the secessionists, the name used for the masters, of whom there were many over there in Palestine, and who had been instructing the population for at least one hundred years. They had acquired prestige with their advice and interpretations of law, and they had seats in the Sanhedrin — admittedly only in a minority. Their legal counsel was called upon in Jerusalem and other cities alike to adjudicate on complex cases.
“So, what does one of those masters advise in this case?” Uri was curious.
“I don’t know,” Aaron said, “but I can imagine tough debates went on in the Sanhedrin about prostitution. Not that they had any outcome: there is complete silence about prostitution. As if it did not exist. Yet they too are Jews, and there are scads of them over there.”
“That’s not quite true,” Iustus interjected. “A courtesan, like an exciseman, is disqualified from testifying in a court of law, not even in her own case. A regulation has been passed against them.”
“True,” said Aaron, “but anyone who uses a courtesan is allowed to give witness; he suffers no penalty, even though he is not sleeping with his wife. He is sinning, but he is not punished for that. What else would you call that but confusion? There are some masters over there who take the side of the courtesans, pleading for compassion to be shown toward them because they are not allowed to partake of the tzedakah or charity-box; or in other words, they are unable to quit the business or else they would die. It’s a vicious circle, but the high priests have never said a single word about it up till now.”
“Is there a priest here in Syracusa at all?” Hilarus inquired.
“Sometimes there is,” said Aaron. “There’s one who usually comes for a few days from across the sea. He shuttles. It just so happens that he’s here right now; you will meet him in the house of prayer tomorrow morning. But he’ll soon be off again; his family lives in Jerusalem, close to the fire. That is where the sacrificial meals are given out; they never come over. He has something like eight children, if I’m not mistaken…”
“And what has he got to say about this disgraceful practice?” Hilarus asked, gesturing with his head toward the neighboring building.
“Nothing at all,” Aaron laughed. “What should he say? Forbid sailors from sleeping with a woman after they have spent weeks cooped up at sea? Tell them to switch to brotherly love? Hardly! Apart from anything else, that would be a grave sin he was proclaiming. So he holds his tongue. Though I don’t know,” he added, “how much he gets, or from whom, for holding his tongue. In the final analysis, he would be within his rights to call down a curse on the place, but he has never done so. Though I also don’t know whether anyone has paid him to lay a curse on the house.”