They were greeted by an elderly servant, and Joseph asked for the supper. A back room led off from the front one, and behind the back room was a small garden with a foot-deep basin and a table surrounded by benches. The servant set on the table a terracotta oil lamp of precisely the kind that was in use in Rome. On the roofs of the small white houses that encircled the garden like a wall, neighbors, whole families with children, were perched, drinking and calling across to one another. As soon as the lamp was lit on the table, they greeted Joseph, and he in turn wished them a good evening. The roof of Joseph’s house was also flat, but there was no ladder propped up against the wall.
“Is this the City of David?” Uri asked.
“It only borders it,” said Joseph. “This is the lower part of Acra; we’re not far from the Essene Gate and the Pool of Siloam. It’s only possible to reach the City of David in a circle, because the old wall is still standing. There is a fine basin of water next to the Siloam. At times like now, when no festival is on, one can immerse in it.”
Uri suspected that Joseph did not wish to share the garden basin with him, but no matter.
“Can I go to Temple Square?” he asked all of a sudden.
“What, now?”
“Not now, but by day.”
“You can go now, as it’s open until midnight, but you won’t see very much of it.”
“I saw it once, but I’d like another look. Do I need to be cleansed for a week beforehand?”
“You don’t have to,” Joseph said. “You’ve been cleansed by being in Judaea.”
The servant brought two plates, one with bread, the other with greens. He also fetched a pitcher of wine and two earthenware cups.
“Thank you,” said Joseph.
“Thank you,” said Uri.
The servant went back into the house. Joseph got up and sprinkled some water from the basin on himself, then turned north and waited. Uri likewise sprinkled water from the basin on himself and turned north. Joseph had the shorter prayer because Uri spoke the prayer as he had learned in Beth Zechariah. Joseph stood quietly until Uri had finished, then resumed his seat on the bench. Uri sat beside him.
“Did you also say the part about ‘Give us this day our daily bread’?” Joseph inquired.
“That’s how I learned it in the village,” said Uri. “I thought that was the way everyone in Judaea said the Sh’ma.”
“Not everybody,” said Joseph. “Only people who believe the end is nigh.”
“And you don’t?”
“The end is equally nigh at all times. I am one with those who believe the end may come at any time.”
Joseph picked from the plates.
The food was good to eat, the wine good to drink — a light, slightly acidic wine to which they added no water — and it was good to hear the voices of the chattering neighbors.
“What was your trade in Galilee?” Uri inquired.
“I was a glassblower,” answered Joseph.
“That’s a good trade.”
“Good, but it doesn’t pay as much as in Italia.”
“How did you become a master?”
Joseph gave it some thought.
“I don’t rightly know,” he said. “It sort of happened that way. People seemed to trust in me.”
“Did you do any healing?”
“I’m not a magus,” said Joseph. “I have too little faith to heal people.”
Uri waited to see if the pleasant but serious man was going to ask him a thing or two, but he didn’t. Either I’m of no interest to him, Uri mused, or he already knows too much about me. He hesitated to bring up the matter of Agrippa and confess that it was out of error that he had been seen as some sort of messenger. He made up his mind that if Joseph asked, he would be frank, but he would not bring it up himself. Joseph did not ask him, however.
Once they had finished the wine, Joseph said, “I’m trying to persuade them that it would be better if you had some work. Feel free to wander around the city, but don’t leave because you’ll only have to pay a toll to get back in.”
“I won’t leave,” said Uri, and laughed. “Anyway, I have no money.”
“Do you want some?”
“No, thank you.”
“As a loan — to be repaid when you start earning money.”
“No, thank you, all the same. I can manage fine without — assuming, that is, that I can have meals here.”
“You eat as much as you want here. Just speak to Solomon, the servant. You’ll have to yell, though, because he’s hard of hearing.”
“And my eyesight is poor,” said Uri. “He’s old, I’m young — we complement each other.”
Joseph bade him a good night and went into the house. Uri sat out in the garden for a while, waiting until the neighbors climbed down from their roofs.
What business does Joseph have with knowing that my eyesight is bad? Why did I tell him? To show that I’m no longer ashamed?
Uri got up early the next morning and went into the City. He was surprised at how small it was.
Jerusalem was living its normal everyday life, not swarming with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. A seaside town in Italia would be much the same with the passing of summer: sleepy, unhurried, dead.
The Roman mercenaries were not patrolling atop the colonnades but were standing about chatting in front of Herod’s palace, the palace of the Hasmoneans and the Antonia Fortress. The market in the Upper City was full of stalls where sleepy vendors sold doves and every manner of jug, household article, and soil in small vessels: the holy soil of Judaea for pilgrims from distant lands, who, even when there were no holidays would still crop up from time to time. Few moneychangers were serving; they had mostly withdrawn under the arcades, where they blathered with the soldiers. Uri was mobbed by beggars and had a hard time getting rid of them. It did him no good saying he didn’t have anything to give them because they simply didn’t believe him, leaving Uri no alternative but to make a run for it. Nowhere, though, did he come across the legless beggar who raced around on his hands.
He found it odd that he was quite free to enter Temple Square. The bored Jewish police idled under the colonnades and paid no attention to the altar, where the duty priest made the burned offerings. Inscribed in Greek and Latin on the superb Corinthian brass gates separating Temple Square from the Women’s Court was the warning that entry was forbidden for non-Jews. Through the Temple gates Uri could see no more of the interior than he had the first time, in fact less, because he was not allowed to step over the marble railing. He might have done so when the guards were not looking, for the minute of so that it would take until they noticed, but it never so much as entered his mind to do that.
Although he remembered an even bigger edifice, the Temple was still enormous. It was completely surrounded by scaffolding, but he saw hardly anyone at work; the few workers were just tinkering around. Levites were again lounging around the altar, carrying blocks of wood, or washing their hands in the golden bowl. They took exsanguinated, boned pieces of meat from the slaughterer’s bench to the altar, sprinkled blood around, and sprayed the flesh with oil.
Uri stood on the south side of the altar. Three months before he had stood in the shadow of the wall, but now the sun shone on his head. It was later in the day and almost midsummer. The harvest was in full swing in Judaea. The paving burned the bare soles of his feet.
Not so long ago he had stood here as a suspect, and he had been made to walk seven times around the altar. Now he was again standing there, but at his own liberty.
There was no sign anywhere that in this holy place it was customary to force accused individuals to circle around the altar.