Sostratos smiled, too. He thought he recognized an opening gambit there. “Ten sigloi are not enough,” he agreed, and he let the smile get broader. “You are a thief, my master.”
In Greek, he would have been sure he sounded like a man playacting. In Aramaic, he only hoped he did. When Eliphaz son of Gatam laughed out loud, he grinned with relief: he’d done it right. “You are a dangerous man, Sostratos son of Lysistratos,” the Ioudaian said.
“I do not want to be dangerous,” Sostratos said. “I only want to trade.”
“Ha! So you say. So you say.” Eliphaz shook his head. “Even if I said ten shekels and a half for one of those nasty little jars, still would you laugh. You would not come down at all, not even by one of those tiny coins the governors issue.”
That was an opening gambit. Sostratos realized he would have to move, that he would lose any chance of a deal if he didn’t. “I will come as far as you have come. If you pay me nineteen and a half sigloi of balsam the jar, the perfume is yours.”
“Mesha!” Eliphaz shouted. When the Moabite slave came up, the balsam-maker said, “Fetch more wine. Fetch it at once. We have work to do here, and wine will grease the way.”
Muttering, the slave went off to get the wine. He was still muttering when he came back with it. When he was a free man, had he had Ioudaioi serving him? Raids across a long-established border could produce ironies like that.
Eliphaz haggled as if he had all the time in the world. Plainly, dickering was among his favorite sports. Sostratos knew Hellenes who took the same pleasure in the act of making the deal. He wasn’t among them, though he wanted the best price he could get.
The best price he could get turned out to be fourteen and a half sigloi of balsam per jar of perfume. Eliphaz son of Gatam stubbornly refused to go to fifteen. “I do not need perfume so badly as that,” the Ioudaian said. “It is too much. I will not pay it.”
That left Sostratos muttering to himself. He knew what he could get for the balsam once he took it back to Hellas, and he knew what he could get for the perfume in ports around the Inner Sea. He would make more for the balsam, yes. Would he make enough more to justify this long, dangerous trip to Engedi? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe not.
But, having come so far, could he justify turning around and going back to Sidon without balsam? He doubted he’d get a better price from any of the other balsam-makers; like any other group of artisans, they would talk among themselves. And he was sure he wouldn’t get a much better price.
Did you think this would be easy? he asked himself. Did you think Eliphaz would say, “Oh, twenty sigloi of balsam the jar isn‘t enough-let me give you thirty”? He knew perfectly well he’d thought nothing of the sort. Whether he had or not, though, it would have been nice.
“Fourteen and a half shekels,” Eliphaz said again. “Is it yes, my master, or is it no? If yes, we have a bargain. If no, I am pleased to have met you. Some Ionian soldiers have come here before, but never till now a trader.”
“Fourteen and a half,” Sostratos agreed unhappily, far from sure he was doing the right thing. “It is a bargain.”
“Whew!” the Ioudaian said. If that wasn’t a sigh of relief, it certainly sounded like one. “You are a formidable foe. I am glad most of your people stay far from Engedi. I’d much sooner dicker with Phoenicians.”
Was that true? Or was he just saying it to make Sostratos feel better? It did the job, no doubt of that. “You are a hard bargainer yourself,” Sostratos said, and meant every word of it. He held out his hand.
Eliphaz took it. His grip was hard and firm. “A good bargain,” he declared. “Neither one of us is happy-it must be a good bargain.”
“Yes,” Sostratos said, and then, “A different question: may I bathe in the Lake of Asphalt? Does it hold up a bather so he cannot sink?”
“It does,” Eliphaz answered. “And of course you may. It is there.” He pointed east, toward the water. “How could anyone stop you?”
“May I bathe naked?” Sostratos persisted. “This is the custom of my people, but you Ioudaioi have different rules.”
“You may bathe naked,” Eliphaz said. “You would be polite to bathe well away from women and to dress as soon as you come out of the water. And do not get any of it in your eyes or in your mouth. It burns. It burns very much.”
“Thank you. I will do as you say,” Sostratos told him.
He got Aristeidas to come with him to make sure no light-fingered Ioudaian lifted his tunic after he doffed it. When he walked into the water, he exclaimed in astonishment; it was as warm as blood, as if it were a heated bath. The oceanic smell overwhelmed him. He walked out till the water covered his privates, to satisfy Ioudaian notions of modesty. Then he lifted his feet and leaned back to float.
He exclaimed all over again. Eliphaz had been right, and more than right. He could keep his head and shoulders and feet out of the supremely salty water with the greatest of ease. Indeed, when he tried to force more of his torso down into the Lake of Asphalt, other parts of him rose out of it. So long as that included only more of his long legs, he didn’t worry about it. When his groin bobbed up out of the water, though, he set a hand over it, lest he offend any Ioudaioi who happened to be keeping an eye on what a foreigner did.
“What’s it like?” Aristeidas called to him.
“I think it may be the strangest thing I’ve ever felt,” Sostratos answered. “It’s like reclining on a couch at a supper or a symposion, only there is no couch, and it doesn’t resist me if I lean back more. And it’s wonderfully warm, too. Do you want to try after I come out?”
“Maybe I will,” the sailor said. “I wasn’t going to, but coming all this way and then not going in would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?”
“I certainly think so,” Sostratos said. “Others may think otherwise.”
After perhaps a quarter of an hour, Sostratos emerged from the Lake of Asphalt. He put on his chiton as fast as he could, to keep from scandalizing the locals. Half a plethron down the shore, a Ioudaian dawdled much more than he did over re-donning clothes. He found that amusing.
The Ioudaian, he saw before the fellow dressed, was circumcised. He wished the man had been closer; he would have liked a better look at the mutilation. Why anyone would subject himself to anything so painful and ugly was beyond him. The Ioudaian himself would probably say it was at the command of his god; that seemed to be the locals’ explanation for everything. But why would a god want such a mark on his people? It was a puzzlement.
Aristeidas did strip off his tunic and walk out into the Lake of Asphalt. As Sostratos had, he exclaimed in surprise at the way the water bore him up. “You can push yourself around with one finger!” he said. “You won’t ever drown, either.”
“No, but you might turn into a salt fish if you stay in there too long,” Sostratos answered. The fierce sun had quickly dried the water on his arms and legs. But a crust of salt crystals remained. His skin itched, far more than it would have after bathing in the Inner Sea. When he scratched, the salt stung. He said, “We’ll have to rinse off with fresh water
when we get back to the inn.”
“No doubt you’re right,” Aristeidas said. “Then what?”
“Then we go back to Jerusalem,” Sostratos said. “And from there, we
go back to Sidon. And from there-”
He and Aristeidas both said the same word at the same time: “ Rhodes.”
For the first time in his travels, Menedemos found himself bored. He’d done everything he’d set out to do in Sidon. Most summers, that would mean the Aphrodite could go on to some other port and give him something new to do. Not here, though, not now. He couldn’t very well leave before Sostratos and his escorts got back.