Great Lion of God (8 page)

“Your Homer was merely telling tales, or the real author was, but we are concerned with the question of truth, Aristo.”

“Is truth more than beauty? I dispute that. Or, in a more metaphysical way I would declare that they are one. However, is your Moses, from your uninviting heaven, calling on all Jews to defend his authorship, and David also?”

Saul pursed his wide and sensitive lips and considered. “You still do not understand. To dismiss the question casually is to belittle the Psalms, themselves.”

You Jews take nothing casually and lightly,” said Aristo, “and therefore you are an irritation to other men. Tell me, do Jews ever enjoy themselves, or is their wailing about Jerusalem their secret pleasure? Must Jews be sorrowful so that they can be happy?”

Our household is happy,” said Saul, frowning again.

“Is it, truly? I have never heard much laughter in it, except in the slaves’ quarters, and even there they mute their mirth in deference to the Master. I have seen no gay drinking. I have seen no real feasting, though you have many days in which you declare you are feasting, and rejoicing.” Aristo rolled up his eyes dolefully. “Your father has his guests and after the meal is over they spread scrolls upon the table and pore over them and dispute until midnight and later over the most meager of obscure meanings of some commentator. Is that gaiety, laughter, joy? I have seen no musicians here or singers. I have observed no dancings. Yet, did you not once tell me that your David advocated music and singing and rejoicings in God?”

“In a spiritual fashion,” said young Saul.

Aristo sighed elaborately. “I fear you do even your grim Deity an injustice. Observe the world. Is it not beautiful, intricate, majestic, harmonious? Is not the air sweet and salubrious? Are not the skies an awesome wonder at night? Is not the garden of the world green and blessed with flowers? Do not the birds sing and the animals of the field dance with glee in the spring? Do not men and women love, and is not their love the loveliest thing in creation? Does not sound of music linger entrancingly on the ear, whether it is made by man or the multitude of the voices of nature? Is not all a delight?”

“The world is but a snare for our enticing,” said Saul, but he looked about the garden and a secret shadow of wild excitement ran over his face. “We are not concerned with the world, of which evil is the master, but with God.”

“I still say you insult Him. Moreover, I have seen your father, at sunset, on the conclusion of his prayers, looking about him with a pleasure that is sublime in its innocence and happiness. He does not bend all his thoughts on the evil of the world. He sees deliciousness in it also. He sees brightness and glory. The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

As Hillel had often intimated such things to Saul in the past, the youth became vexed. “My father is not a man of deep spiritual dedication,” he said, “and I say this without disrespect for I know he would admit it, himself.”

“I think, my Saul, that he is more spiritual than you, though, frankly, I am not enchanted by the word.” He put his head on one side like an impudent large bird and said, “I have observed that the Jews and the Romans seem disturbingly similar, both concerned humorlessly with the absolute law, though, of course, the Romans for the last two or three centuries have not been too meticulous about it. We Greeks call them a nation of grocers. But I think they are a nation of lawyers, and so they have esteem for the Jews who, alas, are mentally of such a breed also.”

“I have not told you as yet,” said Saul. “I am to go to the University of Tarsus, and among other things I will study the Roman law. I would be an advocate for my people.”

“You will make an excellent lawyer. You believe you are invariably right.”

It was autumn in the garden and very hot, and in the afternoon. The restless palms themselves were still, and the cypresses and the sycamores and the karob trees had taken on themselves a more shining darkness as the year waned, and the sky was a hard and brilliant turquoise against which the distant mountains, scarlet threaded with green, leaned and tumbled in their grotesque shapes. The valley had deepened to the ripeness of the days, the grass a heavier green, the fields bronze with harvest, and Tarsus, the city, spreading on the banks of the waters—now a flashing purple—revealed with clarity the whiteness of its walls, or their rose or blue or yellow, and their red roofs. Birds were already circling like feathered wheels in the sky, preparing for long flight. And the figs were ripe on the trees in Hillel’s gardens and there was a scent of grapes in the humid air and golden dust and water. The year was dying, thought Aristo, but in death, apparently, there was a last affirmation of life. He looked at the gayly striped awnings scattered over the garden, at the cool grottoes, at the shining whiteness of the graceful statues, at the shimmering pond on which circled the black and white swans, preening, and the ludicrous Chinese ducks who took themselves so seriously and were therefore belligerent. The little bridge over the pond was reflected sharply in the motionless water below, and a young girl stood there on the arch looking down. She was clad in a very short tunic as green as the pond and her golden hair blazed in the sun.

The fountains were scintillating in the too vivid light, and appeared to throw up long streamers like reaching arms or hands, or the tossings of shaking locks. Aristo and Saul sat beneath one of the awnings and they were sweating freely. A plate of fresh fruit stood on a rude rustic table, and Aristo picked up a plum and thoughtfully devoured it. His rough black hair was rougher with patches of gray, now, but his Greek body was still lithe and thin, and his narrow face was dark with the sun, and his nose was sharp and inquisitive and his eyes ever seeking.

He looked at Saul, and recalled that Deborah bas Shebua considered her son hideous. Aristo shook his head in silent denial. The boy might not be of impressive stature but his body was strong and well sculptured and broad, and even the bowed legs added to that impression of vigorous strength. To Aristo, he was like some primitive fire god, with that raised and crested mane of intensely red hair, with those red eyebrows almost meeting above his eyes, and the virile low forehead and the pointed ears. A young Vulcan, perhaps, thought Aristo, or Heracles, though certainly not a Hermes, for there was no lightness about Saul ben Hillel, no soft grace or elegance, but only an aura of power. Power, above all, was to be reverenced, for it had in it a terrible beauty of its own, reflected the Greek, an appalling magnetism, something which could inspire fear but was also irresistible. Even Saul’s features, the wide thin lips, the great nose, the hard firm chin, spoke of power, though the boy, at this moment, was stuffing his mouth with handfuls of grapes and licking his fingers which ran with winey juices.

When Saul spoke, one listened even if not desirous of listening, for he had a deep and vigorous voice, with a curious weight and emphasis to the syllables, an emphatic pronunciation and an echoing timbre. One could not call it a. musical voice, but never, even when he was excited, did it resemble a girl’s. Nor had it been a girl’s voice even before it had changed to the deeper sound of a man’s.

Though Saul, in a very plain tunic of gray linen with no embroidery on it, sat apparently at his ease in his chair and was engrossed in devouring the fruit with gusto, he did not give the appearance of being composed or at peace. All his unruly and impetuous nature asserted itself in the ever-changing contour of his face, in the jerking of his eyebrows, in the quickness of his hands, and the tightness of his shoulder muscles. His hands were browned by the sun, and the nails pale on the short broad fingers—the fingers of a soldier—and his arms were large and muscular and sunburned. He wore the ring his father had given him when he had “become a man” according to the Jewish traditions, and it was set with a ruby as fiery as his hair, and the gold was plain and unornamented. Hillel had known his son, thought Aristo, and had chosen what best expressed him. To the Greek, Saul had a forceful and cogent beauty of his own, which in full maturity might become frightful and intimidating. He set down his strong arched feet with purpose and certainty, and he could move rapidly.

Had he height, thought Aristo—who had more affection for his pupil than anyone ever suspected except Hillel—he would be a veritable Titan. Then an odd following thought came to him: Saul of Tarsus was indeed a Titan, though but fourteen as yet, and the superstitious Greek—who denounced all superstition as unworthy of an enlightened man—seemed to glimpse the future when Saul would walk among men with authority and even with terror, hurling that voice of his into the face of multitudes. In what obscure cataract and caves and mountains of heredity had this prodigy wrought and drunk his being? The gentle and handsome Hillel, the lovely Deborah, were very unlikely parents of this man-child, and Deborah was very petulant on the subject even before the youth, himself.

If he was violent, he was never savage or mean or vengeful. He was disputatious but he was never insulting nor did he gibe at his adversary. He took an idea and elaborated on it, or figuratively mangled and tore it apart, but always objectively, with no malice and no scorn. Ideas of others might exasperate him, but never to denunciations of the other’s intelligence. He was always, he declared, being misunderstood. It seemed to him that it was not too much to ask to be comprehended, even if one disagreed with him. Saul, Saul, thought Aristo the Greek, the world will not edify you nor will it receive you kindly.

Men like Saul might evoke a holocaust, but they were usually devoured with it. Aristo hoped this would not happen to Saul, though he had his fears. Therefore, he tried to temper that vociferous disposition, to quiet the rushing assaults of speech when they became too bursting, to instill in Saul that golden mien which was the mark of a cultivated man. The world was full of timid men; they did not like boldness in others, for it seemed to threaten them. In particular they hated and feared men who demanded that they pursue an argument logically to its conclusion, and use reason.

It was into this world, thought Aristo with unusual sorrow, that this Jewish Hector had been born, all passion but no baseness, all honor but no malevolence, all duty—alas—but no frivolity. The world would not love him, therefore the gods must, and that is more dangerous.

“The figs are very ripe and sweet, Aristo,” said Saul, noticing, with that sharp clarity of eye for which he was distinguished, the mournful expression on his tutor’s antic face. “Eat this, which is the largest and is covered with its own honey.” He put the fig into Aristo’s fingers, and Aristo ate it abstractedly.

“Pigs,” said a laughing voice near them as they ate under the striped awnings. They looked up to see the young girl who had stood on the bridge. She smiled at them teasingly and threw back the mass of her golden hair, in which the sunlight danced. Her eyes, almost as golden, mocked their male gorging of the fruit. Her exceedingly pretty face, fair as a lily, and as translucent, was rosy from the heat of the day, and her pert nose was burned. Her eyes were hardly less golden than her hair and her pretty mouth was always smiling, or, if a grave thought flitted across her mind, the expression of her lips might change to seriousness, which, however, appeared to be instantly about to depart. A year younger than her brother, Saul, and only thirteen, she was taller and her breasts were delicately nubile under the thin stuff of her short green tunic. While Saul was as restless as a young bull, Sephorah was as restless as a flower in a summer breeze.

She was already espoused to her cousin, Ezekiel, in Jerusalem, and would marry him on her fourteenth birthday, for she had reached puberty six months ago.

“That tunic,” said Saul, “is lewd and shameless, for one of your age, an espoused woman, a modest Jewish maiden.”

The girl glanced down at her long fair legs below the hem of the tunic. “Bah,” she said. “Who is concerned with modesty in this garden? The day is hot, too hot even for a chiton.” Her legs gleamed like marble touched by the sun. She bounced under the awning and seized a citron and tore off its skin and sank her white teeth into the pulp. Her merry eyes surveyed them. The juice of the fruit ran down her chin and she licked at it with her red tongue.

“I am thinking of not marrying Ezekiel,” she said, and thrust her hand again between Aristo and Saul and took a plum. She pretended to study it. Her Greek accent was pure and sweet, for Aristo had taught her, himself, whereas her father had taught her Aramaic, and enough Hebrew as was prudent to teach a girl.

It was only when looking at Sephorah that Saul’s eyes lost their metallic gleam and became almost soft. But he spoke disapprovingly. “It is not fitting for a maiden your age to display herself in a boy’s tunic. Where is our mother, that she permits this?”

“It is not a boy’s tunic,” said Sephorah. “It is mine, of a year ago. My legs became longer.” She spat out the seed of the plum. Her feet moved to inaudible music. “I think I am really a nymph,” she said.

While Saul had been taught much of the Greek gods by Aristo, during their classical studies, he did not consider it proper that his sister should know of their lascivious beauty and their adulteries, and so he gave Aristo a glance of umbrage. But Aristo was studying the pretty girl—child with pleasure.

“I think so also,” he replied.

“Shameless,” said Saul. “Your knees have been bitten by mosquitoes, unbecoming for a girl. They are also dirty. Have you been crawling in mud, my sister?”

“Do I ask you where you go so secretly in the mornings, when it is hardly dawn?” asked the maiden, reaching for a bunch of grapes.

Saul, to Aristo’s surprise, colored deeply, and even his pink ears turned red. Sephorah laughed at him. “It must be to visit a girl, a shepherdess, perhaps, or a goose girl, or a herder of goats,” she said. She shook a finger at him, a slender finger running with juices. “Shameless, indeed. You steal from the house when it is hardly light, and only I see you and put my pillow over my face to muffle my laughter. What damsel is it, sweet brother?”