“You know, there was a slave about eighty years ago who talked like you. He raised an army of slaves against Rome, beat back two of our armies, took over all the territories south of Rome. It’s a story every Roman soldier must learn.”
“Why, what happened?” I asked.
“We crucified him,” Justus said. “By the side of the road, and his body was eaten by ravens. The lesson we all learn is that nothing can stand against Rome. A lesson you need to learn, boy, along with your stonecutting.”
Just then another Roman soldier approached, a legionnaire, not wearing the cape or the helmet crest of the centurion. He said something to Justus in Latin, then looked at Joshua and paused. In rough Aramaic he said, “Hey, didn’t I see that kid on some bread once?”
“Wasn’t him,” I said.
“Really? Sure looks like him.”
“Nope, that was another kid on the bread.”
“It was me,” said Joshua.
I backhanded him across the forehead, knocking him to the ground. “No it wasn’t. He’s insane. Sorry.”
The soldier shook his head and hurried off after Justus.
I offered a hand to help Joshua up. “You’re going to have to learn to lie.”
“I am? But I feel like I’m here to tell the truth.”
“Yeah, sure, but not now.”
I don’t exactly know what I expected it would be like working as a stonemason, but I know that in less than a week Joshua was having second thoughts about not becoming a carpenter. Cutting great stones with small iron chisels was very hard work. Who knew?
“Look around, do you see any trees?” Joshua mocked. “Rocks, Josh, rocks.”
“It’s only hard because we don’t know what we’re doing. It will get easier.”
Joshua looked at my father, who was stripped to the waist, chiseling away on a stone the size of a donkey, while a dozen slaves waited to hoist it into place. He was covered with gray dust and streams of sweat drew dark lines between cords of muscle straining in his back and arms. “Alphaeus,” Joshua called, “does the work get easier once you know what you are doing?”
“Your lungs grow thick with stone dust and your eyes bleary from the sun and fragments thrown up by the chisel. You pour your lifeblood out into works of stone for Romans who will take your money in taxes to feed soldiers who will nail your people to crosses for wanting to be free. Your back breaks, your bones creak, your wife screeches at you, and your children torment you with open, begging mouths, like greedy baby birds in the nest. You go to bed every night so tired and beaten that you pray to the Lord to send the angel of death to take you in your sleep so you don’t have to face another morning. It also has its downside.”
“Thanks,” Joshua said. He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I for one, am excited,” I said. “I’m ready to cut some stone. Stand back, Josh, my chisel is on fire. Life is stretched out before us like a great bazaar, and I can’t wait to taste the sweets to be found there.”
Josh tilted his head like a bewildered dog. “I didn’t get that from your father’s answer.”
“It’s sarcasm, Josh.”
“Sarcasm?”
“It’s from the Greek, sarkasmos. To bite the lips. It means that you aren’t really saying what you mean, but people will get your point. I invented it, Bartholomew named it.”
“Well, if the village idiot named it, I’m sure it’s a good thing.”
“There you go, you got it.”
“Got what?”
“Sarcasm.”
“No, I meant it.”
“Sure you did.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“Irony, I think.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“So you’re being ironic now, right?”
“No, I really don’t know.”
“Maybe you should ask the idiot.”
“Now you’ve got it.”
“What?”
“Sarcasm.”
“Biff, are you sure you weren’t sent here by the Devil to vex me?”
“Could be. How am I doing so far? You feel vexed?”
“Yep. And my hands hurt from holding the chisel and mallet.” He struck the chisel with his wooden mallet and sprayed us both with stone fragments.
“Maybe God sent me to talk you into being a stonemason so you would hurry up and go be the Messiah.”
He struck the chisel again, then spit and sputtered through the fragments that flew. “I don’t know how to be the Messiah.”
“So what, a week ago we didn’t know how to be stonemasons and look at us now. It gets easier once you know what you’re doing.”
“Are you being ironic again?”
“God, I hope not.”
It was two months before we actually saw the Greek who had commissioned my father to build the house. He was a short, soft-looking little man, who wore a robe that was as white as any worn by the Levite priests, with a border of interlocking rectangles woven around the hem in gold. He arrived in a pair of chariots, followed on foot by two body slaves and a half-dozen bodyguards who looked like Phoenicians. I say a pair of chariots because he rode with a driver in the lead chariot, but behind them they pulled a second chariot in which stood the ten-foot-tall marble statue of a naked man. The Greek climbed down from his chariot and went directly to my father. Joshua and I were mixing a batch of mortar at the time and we paused to watch.
“Graven image,” Joshua said.
“Saw it,” I said. “As graven images go, I like Venus over by the gate better.”
“That statue is not Jewish,” Joshua said.
“Definitely not Jewish,” I said. The statue’s manhood, although abundant, was not circumcised.
“Alphaeus,” the Greek said, “why haven’t you set the floor of the gymnasium yet? I’ve brought this statue to display in the gymnasium, and there’s just a hole in the ground instead of a gymnasium.”
“I told you, this ground is not suitable for building. I can’t build on sand. I’ve had the slaves dig down in the sand until they hit bedrock. Now it has to be back-filled in with stone, then pounded.”
“But I want to place my statue,” the Greek whined. “It’s come all the way from Athens.”
“Would you rather your house fall down around your precious statue?”
“Don’t talk to me that way, Jew, I am paying you well to build this house.”
“And I am building this house well, which means not on the sand. So store your statue and let me do my work.”
“Well, unload it. You, slaves, help unload my statue.” The Greek was talking to Joshua and me. “All of you, help unload my statue.” He pointed to the slaves who had been pretending to work since the Greek arrived, but who weren’t sure that it was in their best interest to look like a part of a project about which the master seemed displeased. They all looked up with a surprised “Who, me?” expression on their faces, which I noticed was the same in any language.
The slaves moved to the chariot and began untying the ropes that held the statue in place. The Greek looked to us. “Are you deaf, slaves? Help them!” He stormed back to his chariot and grabbed a whip out of the driver’s hand.
“Those are not slaves,” my father said. “Those are my apprentices.”
The Greek wheeled on him. “And I should care about that? Move, boys! Now!”
“No,” Joshua said.
I thought the Greek would explode. He raised the whip as if to strike. “What did you say?”
“He said, no.” I stepped up to Joshua’s side.
“My people believe that graven images, statues, are sinful,” my father said, his voice on the edge of panic. “The boys are only being true to our God.”
“Well, that is a statue of Apollo, a real god, so they will help unload it, as will you, or I’ll find another mason to build my house.”