Daughter of Jerusalem (12 page)

During the following weeks, he pursued me shamelessly. Wherever I was, there he was too. I knew people were talking about us. I knew I should warn him off.

Whenever I thought this way, however, I would roll my eyes. How did one warn off Marcus Novius Claudius? I doubted that an earthquake could do that, let alone a Jewish woman trying to make her way in an alien society.

There was also the fact that I enjoyed his company enormously. He was intelligent and witty and he knew so much about the world. He appealed to my brain and he made me laugh.
Why shouldn’t I spend time with him?
I asked myself. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

But of course, there was a subterranean text to our meetings that I could not ignore, much as I tried to. Marcus’ very presence stirred me in a way I had only felt once before, with Daniel. But with Daniel I had felt safe. I didn’t feel safe with this man. I didn’t feel safe at all.

I knew what Marcus wanted from me. I hadn’t spent all these years in Julia’s circle without learning something about the morals of the people who surrounded her. I knew that Julia had taken lovers from among the men posted to Sepphoris on either military or administrative duty. I knew that marital fidelity wasn’t always honored among
these aristocratic Romans. In this they were like their gods, fickle and faithless.

Despite my Roman veneer, I was still Jewish enough to know that adultery was a grave sin. I could truthfully say that, since Daniel left, I had never been tempted to betray my husband. I had had offers, but over the years I had perfected a way to refuse them, while at the same time managing not to offend the man I was rejecting.

But Marcus tempted me in a way I had never experienced before. When he put his hand on my arm, I shivered. When he bent his head to say something quietly into my ear, my heart pounded. I knew I was in grave danger, and I resisted. I had to give myself that amount of credit; I tried very hard to resist. But I was wavering, and I knew I needed help if I was to remain a faithful wife.

Julia Tiberia, the adviser for every other aspect of my life, was not the person to consult about this matter. In many ways she was a wise and ethical person, but she wouldn’t understand my reluctance to give in to Marcus. In this, I knew she would be on Marcus’ side, not mine.

My thoughts turned to my only living relatives, my brother, Lazarus, and my sister, Martha. We had corresponded regularly over the years I lived in Sepphoris, although I had refused to visit them while my father lived. Since they were observant Jews, I couldn’t invite them to visit me. After my father died the previous year, I had spent a month with them in Bethany. It had been a wonderful if disturbing time—wonderful because it was so good to connect with the people who were truly my family, and disturbing because they made me realize how far I had traveled from the world of my childhood.

So it was then, when I realized the only sure way I could remain a faithful wife was to remove myself from the source of temptation, I decided I would pay another visit to my brother and sister. My hope was
that by the time I returned to Sepphoris, either Marcus would have gone back to Rome, or he would have turned his attentions to someone else.

I came to this decision on a beautiful night in early March, when a group of us had been to the theatre and returned to Julia’s for refreshments. Marcus hadn’t attended the performance, but he joined us later as we sat around Julia’s peristylum, chatting and enjoying the pleasant cool of the evening.

I was sitting on a couch by the pool, holding wine in one of Julia’s beautiful cups and listening to the young man beside me talk earnestly about himself and his future hopes, when there was a little stir at the door, and Marcus came striding in. He had been at a military function and was still dressed in his uniform.

Marcus in uniform was, quite simply, stunning. I wasn’t the only woman in the room who had trouble keeping her eyes off him. He ignored everyone—even Julia, who had gone to greet him—and walked through the gathering, straight to where I sat by the pool.

His eyes shifted briefly from my face. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

The question was directed to the young man who was sitting next to me. It was phrased as a question, not a command, but the young man jumped up as if the emperor himself had spoken.

“Not at all, Legatus,” he said and moved away quickly, without even excusing himself to me.

“That was rather overbearing,” I remarked as Marcus sat down on the couch, much closer to me than the young man had been.

He shrugged, then stretched his arm along the curved back of the couch and turned his body toward me. “What’s the use of being the commander if you can’t command?”

I smiled faintly. “I suppose that’s so.”

“How was the play?”

His lion’s eyes were fixed on my face with total intensity. I could feel his gaze all the way down in my stomach.

“Entertaining enough, I suppose,” I replied with forced lightness. “It was one of Plautus’ sillier comedies.”

The rest of the party had moved into the garden; later I would wonder if Julia had deliberately steered them all away from us. However it may have happened, when I glanced around for help, I realized that Marcus and I were alone. The murmur of voices seemed very far away. The moonlight was streaming through the open ceiling and reflecting off the pool. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

He took my hand. I tried to pull it away, but he held it tight. He bent his dark head down to mine. “Mary, you must know how I feel about you. Stop pushing me away. We can do better than this, we two.”

I forced myself to breathe. “I cannot become your lover, Marcus,” I replied, wishing my voice sounded more forceful. “I am not a Roman, I am a Jew. My God isn’t like your gods. My God demands that I be a faithful wife, as all the renowned women in our scriptures were faithful.”

His eyes narrowed, and his gaze became even more intense. “Has that old man ever given you a single moment of pleasure, my love? I think not. I can love you the way you deserve to be loved, Mary.”

He had called me his love. I felt as if my heart would burst out of my chest.

I pushed myself to my feet. “I can’t stay here with you, Marcus!” I cried wildly. “Tell Julia I want a litter. I must go home! I must go home right now.”

His green eyes glittered between his thick black lashes. “Don’t fight me, Mary. You know you don’t want to.”

“I
have
to,” I said desperately. “Go away, Marcus! Go away!”

I scarcely slept that night, and in the morning I went to see my husband. He went most days to his warehouse in the city, but I was able to catch him before he left. When I asked to speak to him, he took me into the room off the courtyard where he kept his account books, his business papers, and his money chest.

While Jewish women in Sepphoris had adopted much of the Roman way of dress, Jewish men still kept to the robe and tunic that had been standard for our people for centuries. For a brief moment I compared in my mind the figure of my aging husband, with his big belly and skinny arms, to the figure of masculine perfection that was Marcus, and I winced.

Aaron sat on the stool behind the room’s one table, which was empty except a carved wooden box. “What is it, Mary? I’m meeting today with a man from Lebanon who has wood he wants to ship to Rome. I don’t want to be late for the appointment.”

“I would like your permission to go to Bethany to visit my brother and sister, my husband.”

He frowned suspiciously. “Why?”

I had spent half the night trying to come up with a good reason for the visit, but the best I could answer was “I miss them. They’re my only close kin, and it will do me good to spend some time with them.”

“You’ll see them when we go to Jerusalem for Passover. You know I always allow you to stay with them then. I cannot afford to dispatch a contingent of men to escort you to Bethany just now. I’m too busy.”

“Aaron, please. I want to go.
I need to go
. Don’t deny me this, I beg you.”

He narrowed his eyes and gave me a long look. “Does this have anything to do with Marcus Novius Claudius?”

My breath caught. “What do you mean?”

“I may be old, but I’m not a fool, Mary. Nor am I deaf. I’ve heard the gossip about the two of you. All of Sepphoris has heard it by now.”

I swallowed. “Aaron, nothing has happened between us, I promise you. It’s true that he has been pursuing me, and that’s why I want to get away from Sepphoris for a while. And if the gossip is really rampant . . . well, surely you can see that it will be best for me to go to Bethany.”

There was a calculating look in his eyes. “You have been refusing his advances, then?”

“Yes, my husband! I’ve been a faithful wife. I haven’t betrayed your honor, I swear.”

Aaron pushed his stool back and folded his arms on his chest. His bare toes, with their thick yellow nails, protruded from brown leather sandals as he stretched his legs in front of him.

“I said I wasn’t a fool, Mary, but you are not a fool either. Has it never occurred to you how useful a liaison with Marcus Novius Claudius might be to the both of us?”

My mouth dropped open. “Wh-what do you mean?”

His voice was perfectly reasonable. “I’m telling you to give the Roman what he wants, Mary. It will benefit the both of us.”

What could he mean? I didn’t understand him at all. He was already getting most of the Roman business! I said carefully, “Aaron, what advantage could we possibly reap from my sleeping with Marcus Novius?”

He looked down at the empty table, then he looked up. His voice quivering, he said, “A child.”

I understood immediately, and I was filled with pity. He was so desperate for a son that he would take one any way he could get one. I answered in the most sensible voice I could command. “Aaron, you don’t want the child of a stranger and a pagan to inherit all you have. God has seen fit not to give you children, and you must accept that.”

He slammed his hand on the desk. “I will not accept that! A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother, and you are a Jew. Your son will be a Jew, and that is good enough for me, Mary. I’ll raise him, and he will be my son as well.” He gestured around the office, at the chests filled with documents on papyrus rolls, at the big money box chained to the floor. “I built this business with my own sweat and blood. What’s the purpose of my labor if I have no one to leave it to?”

I backed away. He was beginning to frighten me.

He shouted, “Did you really think I didn’t know what was going on between you and the legatus? Everyone in this city knows what’s going on. What I didn’t know was that you were stupid enough to deny him. I have been praying all this last month that you would tell me you were with child.”

His face was mottled with rage. My heart was pounding with fear. “If I should have a child, he wouldn’t belong to you, Aaron. He would belong to Marcus.”

“That isn’t true! Your child will belong to your husband. That is the Jewish law. And don’t think you can divorce me, Mary. The Romans may allow women to initiate a divorce, but we Jews are not so stupid as to give that power to a woman. You are my wife, and your child will be my child. Do you understand?”

I understood all right, and I fought back with as much reason as I could muster. “Aaron, you cannot push your wife into an adulterous relationship. That’s against God’s law.”

He pushed his chair away and stood. “What do you care about God’s law? You’re more a Roman now than you are a Jew. And think of yourself, Mary. I have seen the legatus. He is exactly the kind of man any woman would like to have in her bed.” For the briefest moment I thought I saw a glint of sorrow in his eyes, but then they hardened and he leaned toward me.

“I’ve seen how you are with the children at synagogue. You love children. Surely you would like one of your own.”

His words struck a chord in my heart. I wanted very much to have a child—a child to love, to teach, to give my life a purpose. The desire was so strong that at times it was an ache. I thought I had reconciled myself to the fact that it would never happen as long as Aaron lived. But at his words, it was as if my very womb was calling out to me to be filled.

We stared at each other across the table. He read the emotions warring visibly across my face, and he nodded. “I don’t think this is the time for you to go to Bethany. I think it will be much better if you remain here in Sepphoris and continue your visits to Julia Tiberia.”