As Uri saw it, he himself was a beneficiary of the power that the workers considered their deadly enemy and against whom they invoked their gravest curses when breathing their solitary prayers. This was now the third occasion when he had sensed how ambiguous his position was as a Roman citizen in Judaea, and if the truth be told, he was also in an ambiguous position as a Jew in Rome. He thought back to what had run through his head while watching the cohorts from Caesarea marching past: our army pushing our people from the road. But then what kind of soldiers were those? There had not been a single Italian or Roman citizen among them. It was all more complicated than something the Almighty could have created; he had created something beautiful and rational, then it slipped out of his hands.
It was the month of Elul, and Uri hoped that nothing would happen until Rosh Hashanah, at the beginning of next month, on Tishri 1–2, so that he could spend the long festival in Jerusalem. Ten days after Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, came Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the biggest of all the Jewish festivals, and on Tishri 15 would come Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, and that festival would last until Tishri 23, the festival of Simhat Torah, the day of rejoicing in the Law, which would mark the end of a year of weekly Torah readings in the shul, and also the restarting of the cycle. Virtually the whole of Tishri, then, was a festival. By that time it would be September in Rome, and the Jews of Far Side asserted that the weather at Rosh Hashanah was always good for at least ten days, as it was necessary for it to be good on Yom Kippur. His mother too had said it each time August came around, nice and early: “You’ll see, the weather will be fine in September, when it gets to Rosh Hashanah.” And it had always been fine, and his mother was proud to be Jewish.
The weather was also fine in Jerusalem at Rosh Hashanah, on Tishri 1.
That day no one worked. In the evening a fire was lit in the hut, and they held a communal prayer with an informal family mood. The next morning they rambled down the Mount of Olives and crossed the River Kidron, but this time instead of entering the City through the Fountain Gate they went to the Valley of Hinnom where many people were already strolling ceremoniously. All the workers had taken with them some insignificant tiny article, which they threw into the Hinnom with a murmured prayer. Uri tossed a prutah into the water to carry away with it all his past year’s sins. He asked why it was that the Kidron was not good enough as a river for that purpose; the Hinnom had also dried to a brook as the autumn rains had not yet arrived. Their reply was that the Hinnom was the river of the wicked, where children had been sacrificed in Israel’s darkest days; the river could not forget this.
That evening it was possible to eat, but the next day was for fasting.
Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem was a rather somber affair, Uri decided. He was expecting Yom Kippur and Sukkot to be more exciting, but the Almighty cannot have wished for Uri to see a glittering festival in Jerusalem, because on Tishri 4, when they resumed work on the palace, a man came and had a whispered conversation with Menachem, after which Menachem came over to Uri to say the man had come for him.
“Where am I going?” Uri asked.
Menachem did not know, but the man was following instructions from the Sanhedrin and would now accompany Gaius.
“Am I going to come back here?” Uri asked, thinking now of the tidy sum that he had buried under the tree next to the privy.
Neither the messenger nor Menachem had an answer.
He was not even able to take proper leave of his colleagues.
This time they proceeded northward along the Valley of the Cheesemakers and entered a smaller building a bit to the east of the Xystus, which Uri had by now learned used to be where the Sanhedrin had held its sessions. The building was known as the Hall of Hewn Stones, as the judges, all seventy of them, had at one time sat in several semicircular rows around a stone platform reserved for the accused or the petitioner.
Uri was curious to see whether he would be received by Joseph or the hunchback whose name he did not know.
It was a Jewish military officer. He was a middle-aged, stocky man, bald and with strongly protruding eyebrows.
“The reason I asked you to come, Gaius,” he said, “is that I would like to make a deal with you. At Rosh Hashanah a delegation will be setting off for Galilee, and I would like you to be a member. You would be passing through Samaria under the leadership of an experienced commander.”
Uri held his peace, not knowing what to make of the matter.
“Who would I be representing?” he inquired.
The officer did not understand.
“I’m a Roman citizen,” Uri added. “Is Rome sending me?”
“You are a Jew,” said the officer, “and you’ll represent Judaea, if you prefer. But like I said, we are offering a deal. You are an experienced delegate, and if you return we would reward you by sending you to Alexandria as you wish.”
Uri’s heart leapt. Alexandria! To swap this dusty provincial small town, sleepy Jerusalem, where nothing ever happened, for the true center of the world!
This meant that Joseph ben Nahum had indeed passed on his request.
“Fair enough,” Uri said. “When do we set off?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
I won’t have time to pick up my money, Uri thought. Never mind.
He was already walking off to the meeting-place in the company of three taciturn Jewish soldiers when he was struck in retrospect by the odd way in which the officer had expressed himself. “If you return,” he had said, though he might equally have said “upon your return.”
Samaria was dangerous. Why are we not avoiding it, as those traveling between Galilee and Judaea customarily do? They had time to choose a detour, and maybe we are now taking an urgent message to someone.
And anyway, who’s this we?
Uri established that he was more thrilled by this new assignment than by spending the whole day laying mosaics in the company of familiar workers, as much as he truly enjoyed that.
I’m an adventurer, he reflected, both remorsefully and proudly.
They cut across the square at the Temple, went down the serpentine path, exited the City through the Jericho gate, and took a northeasterly route. Uri was quite certain that his escort had no idea what kind of mission they were sending him on, so he did not try to interrogate them. That reticence seemed to meet with their approval, as they did not try even once to prod him into saying something.
They came to a rest by a village house that was bigger than usual and had two soldiers on sentry duty in front.
His escort handed him over, took a draft of water, and headed back toward the City.
There were eight mules grazing in the yard. There will be eight of us, including me, Uri reflected. A mule is an elegant beast compared to an ass, appropriate for longer journeys. He was quite sure that his backside was going to get saddle-sore over the first few days.
One of the guards ushered him into the house.
There in the gloom sat a throng of people, a mix of soldiers and civilians.
“Pax to you, Gaius Theodorus!” said an officer.
“Pax to you too! Pax to you all!” said Uri.
“He’s the last of your companions,” said the officer, turning to the civilians. “Gaius Theodorus, young though he may be, is an experienced traveler; he was a member of this year’s Roman delegation, and he has spent time as a peasant and a worker in Judaea to cleanse himself.”
There was a murmured welcome. The officer did not introduce any of the other members of the delegation to him, and they didn’t say anything themselves. Uri had no wish to converse with anybody and spent the night squatting in one corner. During the long trip he would get to know them.