Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (31 page)

 • • • 

When we dismounted in Tiberias, the rabbis, including Rav Zeira, hurried out to receive us. Eager to see Yochani, I left Rava with them and brought the boys to her son’s house. Her jaw dropped when she saw me, and the next moment she used her cane to stand up and hold out her arms while I ran to embrace her.

She wept on my shoulder. “Hisdadukh, I prayed to see you again before I die. But what are you doing here?”

“Don’t tempt the Evil Eye,” I whispered as I held her tight and explained our mission.

“So these are your sons.” She nodded in approval but knew better than to praise them aloud. “Bring them closer so I can see them.”

But the boys stayed hidden behind the nursemaids’ skirts, which only caused Yochani to laugh. She had just managed to get Joseph to overcome his shyness and answer some simple questions when Rava burst in.

“Rabbi Assi says if we hurry we can do the burial today.” Yochani looked at Rava in horror. “You’re not taking Hisdadukh and the boys to Beit Shearim? Not after what happened last time?”

Rava shuddered and shook his head, for I had told him about the debacle at Rav Huna’s funeral, when a pillar of fire in the burial cave had forced the rabbis to drop his coffin inside and flee for their lives.

“Good. You and Tachlifa can meet us at my house afterward, where you shall be my guests as long as you like.”

 • • • 

No sooner had I arrived in Sepphoris than Yochani insisted we bathe. “You and the boys are covered in dust,” she admonished me. “And I’m sure you need to relax after that difficult journey.”

“But the water is too hot for them.” I remembered how I thought I’d be scalded the first time I bathed with her.

She waved aside my objection. “There are warm pools too. The children love them.”

Yochani was right. We went to my favorite, where the floor and walls were decorated with Salaman’s beautiful mosaics. The oil-scented steam enveloped me as I helped my sons navigate the slippery route to the pools. Initially frightened at the unfamiliar scene, they were soon happily splashing in the shallow water. I immediately submerged myself as well. Once my lower body was underwater, the women who’d stared because I was the only adult without pubic hair had nothing more to look at.

Yochani rolled her eyes in irritation. “You’d think they’d never seen a woman from Bavel before.”

 • • • 

The men returned while the children were napping. Tachlifa still wore his Persian riding outfit, but Rava was wearing a bright red Roman tunic with a matching cloak. Only Roman citizens were allowed to wear the toga, but Rava’s cloak was a reasonable substitute.

Questions about the burial would wait. “Where did you get those clothes?” I burst out. Roman aristocrats always dressed in white, occasionally with colored stripes or bands.

“Don’t blame me,” Tachlifa promptly replied. “He insisted on red, using the finest wool I could find.”

“Only slaves and workmen wear colors here,” I protested, though Rava looked strikingly handsome in red.

“Not of this quality,” my brother pointed out.

“I am merely following the Baraita that our Sages forbid new white clothing during mourning’s first thirty days,” Rava said calmly. “And I happen to like the color red.”

Yochani hobbled out with her cane, sniffed the air suspiciously, and grimaced. “You two smell like camels,” she accused Rava and Tachlifa. “If you hurry, you can bathe now and tell us about the burial while we eat.”

Tachlifa took Rava’s arm. “Excellent. I know a bathhouse nearby.”

Rava shrugged off Tachlifa’s hand. “You go without me. I’m not fond of bathing.”

Tachlifa and Yochani stared at Rava as if he had just declared that he wasn’t fond of sexual relations.

“I know you don’t like public bathhouses.” I emphasized the word “public” and sent a silent appeal to Tachlifa. “But surely you don’t want to be the only one dining without bathing first. Even the boys went to the bathhouse with me today.”

Tachlifa, who evidently remembered how the other students had teased Rava, gave me a quick nod. “The place I have in mind is poorly lit in the late afternoon. Nobody will recognize us.”

 • • • 

I donned the red Roman
haluk
and matching
stola
Yochani had given me during my earlier stay. When the two men returned, I washed Rava’s feet and sensuously massaged his legs as a reward for him having bathed despite his disinclination and as a promise for later.

Once at our dining tables, when I asked how the burial had gone, Tachlifa squinted at me curiously. “A large number of scholars and students attended, many eulogies were said, including a fine one by Rava, and then they carried the coffins into the cave. It was all perfectly normal.”

I turned to Rava. “Nothing strange happened?”

He knew what I meant. “When we arrived at the crypt, the same one where Rav Huna’s coffin was left, there was much debate over who would survey the cave for appropriate niches,” he said. “The others were frightened, so I said I’d enter first.”

“And?” I encouraged him.

“I was immediately aware of the sages’
ruchim
, but I sensed no hostility. Rav Huna’s coffin was on the floor, but I saw no burn marks on it, nor any other signs that a fire had blazed there. It took me a while to find three burial niches, two of them adjoining for Rav Huna and his son.”

“So that’s what took you so long,” Tachlifa said.

“I couldn’t leave Rav Huna’s coffin lying there,” Rava declared. “When I went outside again, everyone looked greatly relieved to see me.”

“I would think so,” Yochani interjected.

“I directed the pallbearers to place each rabbi’s coffin in the appropriate niche,” Rava continued. “After this was done, without incident, the crypt door was sealed again.”

The tension drained out of me. “A perfectly normal funeral,” I said.

 • • • 

That evening, in our own private apartment, Rava and I finally got to use the bed in a lengthy and, thankfully, uninterrupted fashion. My body reveled in his leisurely caresses, which for so long had been replaced by a touch that knew exactly how to arouse me most expeditiously. The nights were significantly longer than the days, so neither of us felt the need to sleep immediately after.

Rava was, understandably, in a good mood, so I leaned on my side to address him directly. “I understand that you do not wish to wear white, out of respect for Rav Hamnuna’s death, Abba, but you could have picked a less ostentatious color.”

“Easily.” He gently ran his hand along my side. “But if I am forbidden to wear the same attire as my Roman colleagues, then I will make it clear that I am not one of them.”

“You want to provoke the men here,” I challenged him. “You want them to wonder where you belong when you dress too richly to be lower class yet don’t wear the customary upper-class toga.”

“They will find that my Torah knowledge makes me their superior, not my garments.”

I admired Rava’s confidence in his intellect, but what about his body? “Here in the West, you will find it difficult to avoid bathing with other scholars without offering insult or creating suspicion.”

“That is a problem.”

He sounded so distraught that I had to reassure him. “There will be too much steam to see anyone’s body very clearly. And in the cold rooms you can wrap a towel around your hips.”

“I suppose you’re the only person my size should matter to, Dodi.”

It always warmed my heart when he called me Dodi. I leaned over and kissed him. “And I am perfectly satisfied with it.”

Frankly, I considered my husband’s outsize member a benefit, one that continued to bring me pleasure though I’d borne five children. The Rabbis praised Queen Esther, whose vaginal passage was so tight that the king always found her as desirable as she’d been as a virgin. Odd that they considered a man’s largeness a defect though it produced the same effect.

Apparently Rava was thinking about the same subject. “Dodi, I wonder if you would . . . that is, if you don’t mind . . . touching me there . . . now.”

I placed my hand where he wanted and was rewarded by feeling him start to harden again. “Of course I don’t mind. And you don’t need to ask me. Just take my hand and move it there.”

“That would be too presumptuous. The mitzvah is for me to procreate and satisfy your desire. My pleasure is unimportant.”

From what I’d heard, my husband was not like other men in this regard—for which I was grateful. “Your pleasure is important to me. Touching you arouses me too, just as it excites you to caress my hidden places to increase my passion.”

 • • • 

In less than two weeks, Rava had been invited to sit on the Sepphoris
beit din
, at which time I learned from Yochani that what most impressed everyone about my husband wasn’t his unusual clothes, his large member, or his vast Torah knowledge.

I had just returned from morning services when she hurriedly limped up to me. “Is it true that Rava cast a spell to stop a desert sandstorm?”

“Who told you that?” I demanded in return. Rava might be arrogant, but he would never brag about powers that came from his secret Torah studies.

“The whole city is talking about it, and about how he was the only one, among all the rabbis, able to safely enter Rav Huna’s crypt.”

She paused to catch her breath, and Rava chose that moment to arrive from court. “What is the whole city talking about?”

Before Yochani could speak, I said, “Rumor has it that you had something to do with the desert sandstorm we avoided.”

He was silent for some time before replying. “I expect the camel drivers were eager to share our adventure with the rabbis from Tiberias.” Then, without anger or intimidation, Rava asked Yochani, “What else are they saying about me?”

“People are talking about the way rain started falling just as you crossed into Eretz Israel and began praying for rain.”

“But every rabbi prays for rain at this time of year,” I pointed out. “It’s part of the daily
tefillah
.”

“Every rabbi here also prayed for rain last year, and the year before. Yet so little fell that we suffered both drought and pestilence.” She shuddered at the memory. “Children died everywhere, even one of my son’s. It was terrible.”

I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry.”

“So you see why people think it’s a miracle that we have rain again, especially so early in the season.” She looked up at Rava with hope in her eyes.

 • • • 

The next day Rava brought evidence of that terrible famine, in the form of a student named Papi bar Chanan, who accompanied him back for the midday meal. Judging by his height, the youth couldn’t have been younger than fourteen, but I had never seen anyone so emaciated who wasn’t ill.

“Papi was orphaned by the pestilence,” Rava explained after introducing him. “He is such an excellent student that I asked him to accompany me to court and lectures, and to dine with us so he needn’t take time away from Torah study by trying to find a new host for every meal.”

I understood immediately that we would be paying for the boy’s meals. We couldn’t feed all the hungry people here, but we could feed this one. This time I didn’t need a subterfuge for Yochani to accept payment for our share of the household expenses. She showed me the bill when she or her slaves went shopping, at which time I reimbursed her.

“Perhaps it would be more convenient if he slept here,” I said to Yochani, for if Papi needed a new host for every meal, he didn’t have a regular bed either. “There’s plenty of room in the boys’ bedroom now that Tachlifa is gone.”

Our hostess also recognized Papi’s dire circumstances. “He is welcome to stay here with you,” she said, making it clear that the student was our responsibility. “Now I must see about adding some vegetables and another chicken to the stew.”

Rava waited until Yochani was in the kitchen. “I hope no one expects us to stay for the entire rainy season,” he whispered.

I leaned over and lowered my voice, but Papi appeared to be engrossed in devouring his meal. “My goal is merely to stay through Hanukah, so you and the boys can see what it’s like to celebrate the festival without fear of the magi’s hindrance.”

 • • • 

A few weeks before the festival began, I was visiting the cemetery when I saw a man weeping near Yehudit’s grave. I couldn’t see his face, yet he couldn’t have been much older than me. He was wearing a workman’s tunic, and his exposed arms were wiry from hard work. I slowed and prepared to apologize for disturbing him.

“Hisdadukh? Dada, is that you?” he called out in disbelief.

My jaw dropped as I recognized Salaman’s voice. Heart pounding, I stared up at him. “What are you doing here?” His hair was tinged with gray and his weather-beaten face was more wrinkled than before, but I still found him attractive.

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and closed the distance between us. “What are
you
doing here?”

Of course my appearance in Sepphoris was the unusual one, so I explained about the rabbis who wanted to be buried here and my concern for Yochani after her fall. “My daughter is buried here and it comforts me to visit her while Rava is busy with the other scholars.”

“Both my wives are buried here, as well as two children.”

“Oh, Salaman, I’m so sorry.” Suddenly the discontent that had started in Bavel seemed even more petty. “Do you want to tell me about them?”

“There’s not much to say. My first wife, the one whose wedding you attended, died not long after giving birth to my eldest son, Jacobus. I remarried and had another boy, Gabrilus.” He got those words out easily, but continuing was more difficult. “Then last year . . . when the pestilence was at its worst . . . my second wife and our youngest children . . . They all died within a month of each other.”

I watched helplessly as his tears flowed anew, and my eyes watered in sympathy. Eventually he blew his nose onto the ground and turned to me. “Tell me about yourself. Let me hear some good news for a change.”

So I told him about my marriage to Rava, leaving out our nearly yearlong estrangement, and thanked him for the beautiful mosaic trays. I explained that I was training as a healer and Rava was on the Pumbedita
beit din
, and finally that we had brought our three sons with us.