Nowhere else in the world could one get barbel so cheaply.
Uri accordingly ordered the barbel; a girl placed a jug of wine in front of him and a jug of water and a nice-looking copper dish to use as a mixing vessel. Uri protested: he had not ordered any wine.
“It’s included in the price,” the girl said.
Uri cautiously slopped some wine into the mixing vessel then, to be on the safe side, poured in a larger portion of water, scooped some of that with a ladle into a drinking jar, and carefully sipped it. It had a divine flavor. In moderation now, Uri reasoned with himself: no getting plastered until I’ve completed my mission.
The plump woman brought the poached barbel, and Uri was horrified: it was an enormous helping.
“That’s more than half a cubit! It must be more like a cubit and a half!”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the woman. “It costs the same.”
“Is it clean?” Uri asked suspiciously.
The woman laughed.
“We’re in the Delta. Everything here is kosher; if it wasn’t we might as well pack up and leave. Jews come all the time; they sniff and grumble, but no one has ever faulted our food.”
Uri set about the fish. They gave him a broad, flat, thin knife, which made it easy to dissect the meat from the backbone. Uri turned the fish around in his mouth: even a man like Pilate seldom had the chance to eat fish as good as that.
Poor Pilate.
It was not even three weeks ago, on the Thursday before Passover, that the prefect had been brought out, bound, from Herod’s palace as Vitellius, the imperial legate and governor of Syria in person, read out his sentence in Greek so that everyone might understand: on account of the slaughter at Mount Gerizim, Pilate was to be sent to Rome for the judiciary there to pass sentence on him.
Anyone brought out from his palace in chains could hardly count on a rosy future.
The Jews around Uri had been jubilant, not particularly at losing Pilate (because that meant the relatives of the massacred Samaritans were receiving moral redress, and they cared even less for that), but because Lucius Vitellius, for the first time since the Roman occupation had begun, had restored custody of the high priest’s vestments and had abolished the poll tax throughout Judaea. Vitellius was applauded and cheered, and the emperor was also enthusiastically hailed. With great fuss, and in full view of the populace, the high priest’s ceremonial garb was brought out of the Antonia fortress — the crowd delirious with joy and praying as they fell to their knees and prostrated themselves — and handed over to the strategos’s men as if it were made of fragile glass. Pilate, bound, had stood mute and motionless between his guards; he looked nowhere, staring calmly ahead; but no one paid any heed to him as they followed the passage of the priestly garments, which were carried away by tall stalwarts of the Jewish police force toward the palace of the high priest. Vitellius then appointed Marcellus the new provisional prefect, but they paid him no attention either, however much he puffed out his chest.
It went through Uri’s head that it was a smart move to abolish a tax which there was no means of collecting in any case. In a few years another governor of Syria would come along, he would be the boss of whoever would by then be prefect of Judaea, and he would reintroduce the same poll tax, which they would be just as unable to collect.
Uri lunched deliberately, with great pleasure, watched by the woman from a distance, and when she saw that he had sated his immediate hunger pangs she took a seat at his table.
“If the gentleman were to honor us at least once a week, then we could come to an arrangement on the price.”
“Marvelous,” growled Uri, and he dunked the next morsel in what looked very much like a garum sauce, which was extremely garlicky.
“Will the gentleman be staying in Alexandria for long?” the woman wanted to know.
“I very much hope so,” said Uri.
“This is a decent town,” said the woman. “It doesn’t matter who is what, or what you were born as. We’re Hellenes, for example, but we have a good life here, among the Hebrews. No one cares what god you worship. It’s a decent town, though the competition is cutthroat. My husband and I started next to the Gymnasium, but that’s no way to make a living: there are so many places to eat. It’s good here, though; one can hang on here.”
Uri drank half the wine, but he could not manage even one third of the barbel. It was a long time since his belly had last groaned so contentedly; his blood seemed to be bubbling, and his head felt heavier by the minute.
“The gentleman can take a nap,” said the woman. “We’ve got a room for that purpose with a nice big bed for two in it.”
Uri was unable to make up his mind. He still had some time, having arrived a day earlier than expected because the wind had been favorable, but on the other hand he wanted the reassurance of having fulfilled his mission, so he shook his head. He paid in Attican drachmas and the woman gave the change in Egyptian drachmas, so he automatically ran a mental check, but the woman had not cheated him.
Uri asked the way to the Jewish Basilica.
It was four blocks away.
It would, indeed, have been hard to miss.
The Basilica was, in effect, an enormous market hall, though it had no roof. There were long double rows of columns three stories high, with gorgeous Greek capitals; over the two rows of columns there were strips of roofing, but the vast rectangular space between the columns was open to the sky. The edifice did not have an entrance as such — it was possible, in principle, to pass between the columns at any point, though in most places the stall keepers had blocked free circulation. Anything grown or made by all the peoples around the Great Sea could be purchased here; compared with this, the Upper Market in Jerusalem — the biggest in the city — was just a village jumble sale. Uri could not imagine what might be in the Emporium if all manner of goods were already to be had here. And on the main street in the middle of the city there was supposedly an even bigger market — the biggest in the Greek world.
In the inner space of the tidy rectangular covered walkway, which was paved with sheets of ornamental marble, there stood a timber platform on which lay costly carpets. To the east and west of the platform stood rows of stone benches with gilded edges: Uri counted seventy-two rows. He nodded: there were supposed to be that many, because there had been seventy-two translators of the Bible into Greek, working right here, in Alexandria, three centuries ago. Uri looked at the bronze plaques that were fastened to the outside stone benches. In each row places were reserved for Jews of different occupations. All that was inscribed on the end of the first row of benches looking east was alabarkhos. That must be some very elevated rank indeed.
Bronze plaques? Uri was suspicious and leaned a bit closer. The bronze plaques were gold. Uri shuddered. What lavishness, and coupled to such trust! Anyone might pry off one of the plaques, and if he managed to get away with it, he would be rich for the rest of his life. And it was left here unguarded! This city of Alexandria was quite a strange place.
Then he spotted the armchairs standing by the northern entrance, and he went closer. He was dumbfounded: the armchairs too were solid gold. He counted them: seventy-one. He did not dare try to move the one that his hand was touching, because there were people coming and going around the Basilica, but he would not have been surprised if the chairs were fixed to the ground.