Agrippa's Daughter (31 page)

When the bodies were counted, the toll was as follows: of grown men, fifty-nine, of grown women, one hundred and fourteen, of boy children, two hundred and six, and of girl children, three hundred and nineteen. This is aside from those who died later.

There was no quarter, no street in Jerusalem where there was not weeping that night. Washing the blood from her aching and tired limbs, Berenice heard the weeping, and Joseph Benmattathias heard it, too, where he was making his own notes on what had happened.

It was nighttime, and Shimeon and Caleb Barhoreb and Phineas Hacohen and the former high priest, Hanan Hacohen, had gone to meet with the Procurator Gessius Florus as a deputation from the Great Sanhedrin. He had summoned them, and they had decided that the wisest course would be to meet with him and speak with him. Hour by hour the excitement and rage and frustration of the people grew—and how it would burst forth and what would be the result of such an explosion no one could say; but it seemed to Shimeon and others—men who kept their heads and tried to weigh consequences—that if Florus could be persuaded to leave Jerusalem with his legionaries and go back to Caesarea for a while, the Sanhedrin might quiet the city and bring order and common sense as a means of dealing with the future.

Meanwhile, at her table and in the light of two smoking lamps, Berenice wrote a letter to her brother, Agrippa, who was in Alexandria at the invitation of the Jewish community there, undergoing a tiresome round of ceremonial dinners and receptions. She had set down all the events of this day and the day before, and now she wrote:

“—So now we sit in a city of grief, yet you must not think me cruel or inured to suffering if I say to you, my brother, that I wish this were it and this Rome’s price from us. We are a people not unused to death and tragedy, and at this moment—or so I feel—such a price, bitter though it is, would not be too much. But the price is never ours to post, is it? And what happened today, if I read the signs aright, is only the beginning. Still, it is not yet Rome against Israel, but Israel with its own dagger in its heart—the House of Hillel facing the House of Shammai. I am terribly afraid of events that cannot be reversed, of action taken that cannot be ever put right, of words said that cannot ever be recalled—and in the end of a series of events that will inexorably lead to war with Rome and to the destruction of all that we are and all that is Israel.

“There is a man here in Jerusalem now, my brother, named Menahem Benjudah Hacohen—a Galilean whom you may have heard about—who is the leader of the dreaded Sicarii. They say that three thousand of these fanatical killers are in the city now—and who is to deny the rumor? There is no way of distinguishing them or identifying them, but those in Jerusalem who are identified with the House of Hillel are terribly nervous. What has happened to us that we should raise up in our own hearts such a breed as these Sicarii? Menahem himself I have met. He came all unbidden to my reception, tall, thin, with icy-cold blue eyes that burned with hate, and dressed all in the pale blue of Levi, as if proclaiming his priestly blood.

“I am told that in an argument at the reception in honor of Shimeon—he was voted nashi, and I must pass so lightly over so great an event—this Menahem took my part against a Roman officer. Why, I do not know, unless anything that includes hatred of Rome concerns him. Whether this had anything to do with what happened today, I do not know; but as I said before, this is a city of fear—and not fear of the Romans. What happened today was ghastly beyond belief, but it was also a piece of the monumental idiocy that has guided these procurators for so many years now. Florus destroyed himself today. He may not yet be aware of that, but it is a fact. So it is not Rome that the people fear at this moment, but the forces that Rome is unleashing. It is even said that each of the Sicarii has been instructed to select a victim—or else that Menahem has assigned victims from his list. You cannot fight this. One of these assassins stands beside you; he strikes with his knife—and it is done. Nor will the House of Shammai utter one word in condemnation of them. There are over twenty Zealots in the Great Sanhedrin, but Shimeon tells me that under no circumstances will they denounce the Sicarii. In fact, the whole party of the Zealots are rather proud of the Sicarii—a kind of twisted, unstated pride which they voice only to each other, as, for example—‘Murderous swine, killers, devils out of hell, but they do the job they do, those Sicarii. They’ve put the fear of God into the Romans. You may argue with their methods, but you have to admit that they get results.’

“So it is that the ultimate negation of all the teachings of Hillel the Good has arisen among us—and may even take control of all the destinies of Israel, if such half-wits as Florus pursue the course on which they have embarked; and it is even doubtful than when this horror we have spawned is released, Rome will be needed—and if needed, it will not be to begin but only to complete our destruction.

“I cannot tell you how I feel or what is happening inside of me. What I saw and went through today would have been as much as a Jew should be asked to endure—yet the background is even worse. Do you remember what I was, brother, in those days before I first laid eyes upon the House of Hillel? That was sixteen years ago, and Israel has been gentle enough to forget and they made a saint of me because they had suffered too long and too much under the just and implacable shadow of Yaweh. They wanted a woman of flesh and blood, a mother image, a Demeter who was not a blasphemy, an Esther who was not a legend, an Ashtarte who was not a whore—all these things they wanted, and I was none of them, but I existed and they chose me; and for sixteen years they have reverenced me—or perhaps what they made me a symbol of. And of course they forgot. But I did not forget. I shall never forget that cruel, cold, warped and unhappy creature that was Berenice. I shall never forget the pain of a shrunken soul, the fear of a child who could not love—and shall I forget that Hillel washed me clean and gave me a rebirth, a second life. Am I the only one who learned the secret of love from the House of Hillel, the secret of understanding, of peace, of charity—or are there not thousands of Jews who were shaped by the teachings of this saintly man? All of my existence is predicated on this—that thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, that this is the whole Torah, the soul and being of the Torah. Thus I married my husband. Thus I lived with him and became one with him. Thus I try to atone for the past in the way that Hillel taught, by doing what I can to ease the pain of this earth.

“And now it is to be swept away, destroyed, and replaced by that easy and invidious doctrine—the doctrine of kill. Kill what you do not like. Kill what shrinks your pride. Kill what has hurt you. Kill and kill and kill—and all wrongs will be righted, all sores healed. Is that the Roman doctrine—man’s doctrine—our doctrine? I don’t know, but oh, my brother, you are needed here. Now. Come here. I don’t know what you can do, yet whatever you can do must be done. So come to us here at Jerusalem.”

Berenice rarely slept until Shimeon came to bed with her, and nights without him were for the most part nights of sleeplessness. Now she lay in the dark until she heard his step, and she realized that simply from the sound of his step she knew of his whole being, whether his spirit was high or low, whether he was in a condition of hope or despondency and whether he came to her with love or without love. Now, as softly as he walked, his step was a step of dejection. She called to him quietly, “My love—Shimeon?”

He sat down beside her. “It would have been better if we had children, Berenice—”

Her voice choked. “You never reproached me before—I saw those children today, God help me.”

“I don’t reproach you.”

“The Almighty makes a womb fruitful or barren—”

“My beloved, you misunderstand me,” he said to her, stroking her hair and brow gently. “It is not out of want or need or desire that I spoke but out of a fullness, too much—too much. Our love for each other is too much—”

“How can love be too much?”

“How? Don’t you know? We are like one soul in two bodies. For fifteen years we have never been away from each other. Tell me, my beloved—what will be with you if I am slain?”

“I won’t talk about that,” Berenice answered with annoyance. “There is enough real grief and no need to imagine more. Tell me what passed with Florus.”

“What should pass with a madman?”

“Always the Jew,” she smiled. “Always the answer that is a question. Why is Florus a madman?”

“When the gods visit a madman—”

“And I will quote Euripides to you, but another time. What did Florus say?—may he be damned and cursed for eternity!”

“No sorrow, no apology, no shame. His manhood stiffened like an erect penis, and suddenly you have the feeling that under his round little belly is a weapon of pride and eagerness. You know what makes the Roman soldier so feared, Berenice? When he is attacked, he goes back and down on one knee, raising that huge wooden shield of his. He is a very little man, by and large. You will recall reading in Caesar’s stories of the wars in Gaul how the barbarians always referred to the legionaries as ‘the little men.’ True with them, with us, with others—little men. He raises his shield, and the barbarian towers over him with spear or ax or sword. And then with that short Spanish sword of his, the legionary thrusts up into the barbarian’s groin—into his penis and gonads—there is the death wound of the Roman, from underneath with a tiny knife, into the manhood—so on a battlefield where Rome has conquered, the men lie apparently unwounded, except those cut down from behind, and Rome has the satisfaction of making a eunuch of the world. War is an orgy for Rome, and Florus was trembling with sex; he smelled sex; the room stank with the smell of his emission—that whole, monstrous slaughter of the innocents had been a sexual debauch for him, and he could not tear himself loose from it. Twice, just the memory aroused him to a point where he had to excuse himself, to come back stinking even higher of his sex—”

“No, no,” Berenice cried. “A man is a man—”

“You should know better!”

“What will he do?”

“Already he has sent to Caesarea for two more cohorts of troops—a thousand men. They will be here in three days, I imagine, and he wants honor done to them. He wants them to be greeted by cheering, loving Jews. He wants flowers strewn in their path. He wants five hundred virgins appointed to embrace them—”

“Yes, he’s lost his senses—”

“God help us!”

“What did you tell him?”

“We mollified him. We told him we would attempt to satisfy his demands. In other words, we lied to him. He was itching for defiance. His testicles had tasted blood, and he wanted nothing so much as an excuse to pick up the slaughter where he left off.”

With Shimeon and a dozen other members of the Great Sanhedrin, Berenice went up to the temple elevation, to the Court of the Nokri, where they would have a clear and uninterrupted view of the Antipatris Road, along which the two cohorts would march to enter Jerusalem at the Damascus Gate. It was a day like so many days in Jerusalem, cool, crisp and clear, the air as brittle as crystal and as sweet as wine, and the visibility so perfect that not only the Mediterranean but miles of Israel in every direction were visible. On a day like this, it was very easy for Berenice to comprehend why her ancestors had believed that God dwelt in the High Places—and Yaweh here in this ancient High Place that was hallowed by a thousand years of unbroken history. She had that singularly Jewish feeling of a memory that went back to a beginning before the beginning—a feeling that always filled her with emotion and even a sense of fear.

All over the city, men, women, and children had chosen places where the view was unobstructed—not to watch the Roman cohorts enter, but because the city was filled with hate and resistance to the notion of a thousand more legionaries to buttress the occupation forces. From her vantage point so high, Berenice could see them—on the city walls, on the outer Wall of Herod, on the second wall, on the Akra and perched over the Fish Gate, on roof tops and packed onto the terraces of the Maccabean Palace, with children everywhere, sitting on tower tops, on ornaments, in the embrasures of the First Wall and even on the temple walls—where they perched in defiance of the curses and warnings the Levite temple guards flung at them. Outside the city, on either side of the Antipatris Road, stood the delegation of Jews who had gone to bid the cohorts welcome; but they were not virgins. Far from it—as Berenice could see even from her vantage point—they were all men, tall, lean men who in the very manner of stance and walk proclaimed the party they belonged to.

Berenice pointed this out to Shimeon. “Zealots, aren’t they?”

Shimeon nodded. “Probably Sicarii—”

“What will come of this, Shimeon?”

He shrugged.

“We see each step,” Berenice said. “We anticipate each step. And still we let it happen.”

“I can do nothing. We deal with a madman.”

“And who does he deal with?”

“He brought it on himself.”

“But where does it go?” Berenice demanded. “Florus is one man. We revenge ourselves on him—but at what cost, Shimeon? We put a city of half a million people on the scale? Or did I never learn at the House of Hillel that vengeance is for the Almighty—if He should will it?”

“Look—there they are,” Shimeon said, and pointed to where the cluster of Roman standards topped a hill about a mile from the city wall. “I can do nothing, Berenice—nothing.”

No one could do anything now, Berenice realized. Events were in motion that had been set to motion a long time ago, and now movement everywhere was toward the climax. It must have only now occurred to Florus that his relief cohorts might walk into a trap they could not handle, and from the Praetorium across the city he dispatched two maniples, or four hundred men. The men passed on the double through the Phasael Gate in the Old Wall, which brought them to Herod’s wall near the valley gate. Inside Herod’s wall, they proceeded at a fast trot toward the Damascus Gate, by which the relief troops would enter the city.