The katholikos and the armed men also got down. The katholikos seated himself on a barrel. He produced a papyrus, unrolled it, and placed it on a small table set in front of him. Master Jehuda sent over a youngster, who, blushing fiercely, placed the flats of his hands on it so that it would not roll back. The youngster looked around proudly for having been given such an important job. The Levite dipped a goose’s quill in a little inkwell dangling at his chest and scratched at the papyrus.
A chair was placed under the priest, who sat down, and an awning was held over his head. The priest’s head drooped, perhaps he dropped off to sleep. He had done his bit by giving the benediction, something an ordinary mortal was never allowed to pronounce.
The armed escort was given food and drink. They lay down under a tree and quietly snacked.
The civilian in the black robe did not get down from the last cart. Uri could not see his face clearly and had no idea who he might be.
The katholikos made a sign. The supervisor, who was standing beside the little table with the awning holders, also signaled. At the end of the line closest to the table the people started singing a psalm. Some around Uri joined in, and the singing spread along the row. When it came to an end, people started carrying bowls and sacks to the little table. People standing in the chain passed the sacks from hand to hand, untied them in front of the little table, and poured some of the contents out into each bowl. The katholikos examined the flour — there was both barley and wheat in the sacks — and more was only poured out when he gave a nod.
The crowd went into a new psalm, then another. They would carry on for as long as the hand off was in progress.
Uri sang along in his boredom, his back now aching from all of the standing around. They would spend the whole day here at this rate. He had a strong sense of urgency that he had seen this before, and he knew that he ought to be doing something else now. There was no sense of urgency in the minds of the others; they lived in the holy moment that had just taken place. This was an exalted day, the time they received forgiveness for their sins from the Lord. Uri felt a twinge of guilt for not having the feeling that his sins could be forgiven in such a manner.
The priest was dozing, and no one took any notice. Uri was perplexed both at why he was not livelier and why people were not bothered. The priest had an intermediary function between the Lord and His people, but he seemed not to serve it. A prayer-spouting puppet.
The Levite, on the other hand, was an important person. He was not satisfied with one of the bowls, which in shame, without a word of protest, was then immediately thrown to the side so hard that it broke. He also found fault with the quality of one sack’s contents; it was set aside and the opening tied again. Perhaps a fly had gotten into it, or else the deputy receiver had deemed it damp, but whatever the case it would be left behind, to be eaten by the local peasants.
The katholikos beckoned, and Master Jehuda leapt over. A young lad held a bowl in front of the katholikos’s nose. He fished out something from a barrel of oil with a stick and gave it a long, hard look. He dug around in the bowl of lentils with the other hand, took out a single lentil, and measured it against whatever the something was. He weighed it over for a long time, then nodded; the barrel could be put on the cart.
The people around Uri breathed a sigh of happiness and redoubled their singing. It had been a long time since any oil they pressed had been considered impure. Uri regretted that hitherto he had not participated in pressing olives.
When the sacks were done with, it was the turn of the fruits. These were carried on plates and placed before the Levite, who examined every single specimen. The feebler ones were set aside. They would be for us to eat, Uri surmised. Yet they had all been cut down with a flint knife, because that was never unclean. However, it was a case not of the flint knife being unclean but rather of the fruit being unclean.
On a sign given by Master Jehuda, the line broke and the singing stopped. The sudden stillness woke the priest, who stepped into a basin of water, dabbled his feet, bent down and splashed water on himself, stepped out of the bowl, and wobbled over to a table with wine and water. He chanted a prayer, and the Levite mixed wine into a glass of water, which the priest drank. This was the signal for the armed men to start drinking and eating, and now those who up until then had just passed the harvest down the chain started eating. The chain had been formed not to make the work easier (after all, one man could have carried the sacks) but so that everybody would have a part to play.
Once lunch was over, it was time for the calves and lambs, which were lying on straw at the foot of the trees. They were sprinkled with water before being led in front of the katholikos, who closely examined each one from its teeth to its hooves, he alone being qualified to do this because he counted as an expert. There were not so many firstborn animals in the village, Beth Zechariah being small. Uri thought there were too many, but then he was reminded that they were also gathering the best animals, not just the firstborn. The examination proceeded slowly, and more than one of the animals was judged faulty. Those animals would be reared and eventually slaughtered; they were good enough for the second tithe, the provender set aside for the villagers themselves to eat during the pilgrimage. The second tithe could be substandard; only the first tithe, which went to the priests and the Levites, had to be perfect.
The katholikos used a paintbrush dipped in red dye to mark the brow or wings of the selected animals and gestured that the owners should take them back into the shade. It was high time too, with the animals panting and near fainting from thirst. From that moment on, the owners were former owners and merely shepherds for the animals, because the priests — which is to say the Eternal One — now owned them.
The civilian in black now got down from the last cart, looking like someone in mourning, and made his way to the table. The soldiers lined up facing the inhabitants. The man in black halted. Silence fell.
“Who’s that?” Uri whispered.
“The tax collector.”
Animals, sacks of grain, and fruit were set before him, but no one checked their quality. This would go to the Romans in taxes, so it did not matter if it was impure. The tax collector stood there and counted. The sacks were loaded onto the cart, the livestock tethered to the back of the cart. The priest was sleeping or pretending to sleep. The Levite moved into the shade. The rows of people broke up as they gossiped, their backs turned to the tax collector.
“How much is the Edomite tax?” Uri inquired.
One percent of everything was the per capita tax, and one and a half percent the tax on produce. The tax collector was Jewish, and he paid an annual fixed sum to secure the right to collect taxes for Edom. If he happened to pull in more, the margin was his; if it was under, he bore the loss. He was evil, the tax collector, and he standing with the population was of a person in mourning: his testimony would not be accepted, it was forbidden to accept any present from him, and if he gave money to a person, it was forbidden to exchange it. Tax collectors went around the countryside with priests, Levites, and soldiers because they feared popular anger. It was a miracle that people were willing to act as tax collectors at all.
“They ruin the feast for us,” people said tartly.
Against sober voices counseling that one ought to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, people complained bitterly about being ruined by Edom’s shameless tax collectors.