The delegation was visiting the alabarch on the matter of what should happen with regard to Simchat Torah, the ninth and last day of Sukkot, when the annual reading of Torah is completed and recommenced, because observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles had been omitted this year, the Jews having been left with not one undesecrated synagogue. Now that the Jews were free, what was it to be, given that the festival would soon be upon them?
The alabarch took the common-sense line that the Torah readings should be quickly made up, if necessary over more than one day, on the island of Pharos, the one sacred spot that was left to the Jews. The island of Pharos was doubly holy to Jews as that was the place where the translation of the Septuagint into Greek had been carried out, and that was also where the Jews who had been freed from the Sector were thronging now; sea water was cleaner than the cleanest water from wells or aqueducts, and Jews wanted to give thanks to the Creator for their lives, their deaths, for being the chosen people, and for their salvation, to give thanks to Him for not having deserted them even in the hour of darkest terror, and for making certain those of their loved ones who had been killed during the Bane would be resurrected at the End of Time, which was nigh, the clearest signal for that being the Bane itself. Henceforth until the End of Time they would best be able to give thanks on the island of Pharos, where — and this was no accident — there had been no massacre there even in the worst days of the Bane. The alabarch even went so far as to propose the incredible, almost awesome idea that from now on sacrificial offerings on the island might legitimately be made equally worthy to sacrificial offerings made at the Temple in Jerusalem; indeed, he proposed that a Temple should be erected next to the lighthouse, where it would also be permitted to make sacrificial offerings of animals and produce. On that point the alabarch said warily that it would be necessary to get Jerusalem’s agreement, but what was important now was Simhat Torah. Altogether just six Friday evening readings of the Torah had been missed, it should be possible to make this up within two days, and the three hundred thousand surviving Jews of Alexandria would fit on the island.
Others were opposed to this: it was not possible to assimilate that much of the Torah in one go, this was sacrilege, the Torah could not just be rattled off.
Nikolaeus said nothing, neither did Uri; they beheld those arguing on both sides, the bulging veins in their necks, the red faces, their hatred, their thinness — thin themselves and amicably loathing one another.
The alabarch decided that he would make a tour of the Sector, or at least what remained of it. Diligent Greek hands, so it was reported, had largely demolished the walls, and before long not a trace would be left. That day Uri twisted an ankle and was unable to accompany the alabarch to the Sector; he truly regretted that, demonstrating that his right ankle really was swollen, and Philo shook his head: Uri should rest the leg and get cold compresses applied to it. The alabarch clenched his teeth but said nothing, and proceeded on toward the Sector with his sons and elder brother without the hoped-for in-house tour guide, who had personally lived through the Bane there. The remaining elders ceremoniously received them and showed them around the Sector, showing where various events had taken place, where and how many had breathed their last, where the wife who had eaten pork had bled to death, where the Jews had broken through the wall, how they were suffocated to death with smoke and stoned; they showed where the crosses had stood at the north gate and where men had been broken on the wheels of oxcarts. The alabarch was appalled, Philo was appalled, Marcus was pale, Tija livid. Some of the elders had organized a protest against the despised, craven, perfidious alabarch and showered him with abuse to that effect, while the alabarch handed out menorahs as gifts; the heroes prayed and the massed crowd prayed, and Philo shed tears.
All of this was recounted to Uri later by Apollos, who, by chance, had been present, having decided that day to visit the Sector for the first time since the Bane. It turned out he had gotten through those weeks unscathed, if bored stiff, and he had even put on a bit of weight, hiding in the rear part of the house of Pamphilus, a Greek fellow student.
“Tryphon’s son is going to make a mark,” Apollos said. “He was leading the protest against the alabarch.”
“Demetrius?” asked Uri. “How do you mean?”
“He was shouting loudly,” said Apollos. “He must want something badly.”
The corpses were exhumed from the temporary burial ground and were reinterred with much fuss in the eastern cemetery outside the city wall, with the alabarch in attendance, along with his family, and leading the prayers.
God, for His part, again reminded Jews and Greeks alike that the Jews were His chosen people and of His love for them as well as the validity of their Covenant, because that very day, in the middle of October, as a bound Flaccus was taken on board a ship which was setting off for Rome, the winter winds were unleashed, earlier than ever before, which even the Greeks took to be a heavenly portent.
Uri was also standing in the crowd and watched the erstwhile prefect as he was shoved up the gangplank. Flaccus lurched along like a crushed man, his gaze fixed as if he were no longer among the living. His belongings were taken on board after him in twenty-six large crates, crammed with precious, beautiful gemstones, busts and furniture, according to people who were reliably informed. That will all go to the emperor, wise heads surmised; none of it will be given to Rome. At the head of a squad standing on the shore, looking very bored, was a squat figure of unprepossessing external appearance: that’s Bassus, said some, the one who saved the Jews. Uri screwed his eyes up to get a better look: Bassus was balding and looked scruffy. The lanky guy on the horse — that’s Castus, Flaccus’s favorite centurion, the one who led the detachments that took over the guard of the Sector. He’s one of those covered by the amnesty, the shit.
By the middle of October Uri had recuperated sufficiently to go back to the Gymnasium.
His teeth were wobbly but were gradually filling the space left by the two incisors which had fallen out, and his gums had stopped bleeding; his stomach no longer troubled him, having righted itself during the period of starvation.
Abdaraxus received him ruefully. Sadly, Uri had missed a lot of the lessons while he was ill and he was hardly going to be able to make up for it in the current academic year; he was advised that it would be best just to take off the remainder of the year and restart his studies in Germanicus. The gymnasiarch wished him good luck. Uri nodded.
He waited outside the classroom for the mathematics master, Demetrius. The students recoiled at the sight of Uri, who greeted them amiably; then they walked off as quickly as they could.
“I found a solution, sir, to the sum of the angles of a spherical triangle!”
Demetrius paled and whispered:
“Oh, dear!”