“I should like to ask you a few questions, my nephew,” he said, and glanced at Sephorah. “With your grandmother’s and mother’s permission.”
Clodia’s thick eyebrows twitched and Sephorah bent her head serenely.
“I was told of your illness, before the Passover,” said Saul and now he looked steadily into the boy’s eyes. “Tell me. Did you eat anything—peculiar—or drink it before your illness? Anything that your brothers and your sister did not eat?”
The boy shook his head, puzzled. But suddenly Clodia and Sephorah exchanged a quick look, and leaned forward in their chairs.
Still fixing the boy with his fierce and commanding blue eyes, Saul said, “The servant, the old man, Cephalus, the Greek, did he not give you a sweetmeat or a pastry—before your illness, or a cup of wine, which your brothers and your sister did not share?”
“No, my uncle,” said Amos. “Cephalus does not come to these Quarters, and I did not leave them before my Bar Mitzvah, though sometimes I saw Cephalus from a distance. I have spoken to him but three times in my life.”
“When?” The word was as sharp as the crack of the whip.
“Once, when I was very young,” said Amos, the puzzled frown still between his eyes, “and I had strayed into the garden of my grandfather’s father, Shebua ben Abraham. He returned me. He carried me over his shoulder, like a lamb. And I saw him after that a year ago, when he delivered a message to my grandmother from my grandfather, David ben Shebua.” Amos paused.
“And the third time?”
The boy moved uneasily at this intent questioning. He was afraid of Saul, who could be very intimidating. “After my illness, Saul ben Hillel.”
Saul clasped his hands over his knees and studied the youth grimly, as if doubting his every word, and Amos looked back at him with increasing uneasiness. Once he glanced at his mother who had become pale and still.
“Tell me,” said Saul. “Did you ever accept any dainty or wine, or even a cup of water, or a fruit, from any other member of my grandfather’s house, from any servant, who came to you secretly and quietly and offered it to you, and you ate or drank apart from your brothers and your sister?”
“No,” said Amos. He was now clearly alarmed at this interrogation, the lawyer’s intensive interrogation which had frightened others older than he in the past. His under lip quivered, and he caught it quickly between his teeth, remembering that he was no longer a child.
Saul sat back in his chair but his daunting eyes did not leave the boy’s face. He studied him even more grimly. “Perhaps you forget,” he said. The boy shook his head.
“Are you implying, Saul ben Hillel, that my grandson was deliberately poisoned or drugged?” asked Clodia Flavius. “If so, you are in error.”
Saul did not look at her. He still gazed at his nephew.
“Amos,” he said, “how long did you feel languid or indisposed before you fell into that great illness?”
The boy suddenly looked sheepish, and Saul leaned toward him, waiting. “For two weeks, perhaps,” confessed Amos. “But I told no one, fearing that the festivities attending my Bar Mitzvah would be delayed, and I would pass the occasion in my bed. I did not desire that. But I was stricken at last, three days before, and from that day I remembered nothing.”
“Nothing?” The word was relentless.
The boy’s white lids fell over his eyes. “I remember nothing of my illness, except for an hour before I became unconscious. I believed I was dying. My fever consumed me like flames. My head was like cracking stone. I could not even drink water. Then all became dark.”
“Ah,” said Saul. “Remember Amos, remember. During those weeks before did you eat or drink anything strange, and alone? A berry in the garden, perhaps, which not even birds eat, or a root, or a fruit you found, or an enticing sweetmeat left idly on a seat in the garden?”
Now Saul’s own quick temper suffused the boy’s cheeks and his eyes sparked, and not with alarm. “Saul ben Hillel,” he said in a firm voice, “I am not an infant.
I do not put chance articles into my mouth. Nor am I an idiot, who thrusts oddments between his lips!”
Clodia smiled tightly and Sephorah, looking at her again, also smiled.
“You are disrespectful,” said Saul. “Your deportment has been neglected. I am your uncle, and I have a serious reason for questioning you, for do I not love you, and is it not my wish to protect you from evil superstitions and delusions and the enticements of dark spirits? Therefore, answer me without impudence or quickness, and be temperate.
“Tell me. You fell into a stupor of illness and fever, and do not remember your illness which lasted three days. What is your next memory?”
But, to Saul’s own surprise, the boy became silent and an undescribable expression appeared on his fair face and a melancholy and a curious sadness. Saul took his hand. It had become cold and faintly tremulous. “Tell me, Amos ben Ezekiel,” he said, “for I hold you dear and would not have you harmed. Has anyone asked you this question before?”
“No,” whispered the boy, and now his lips were trembling.
“So it is that I ask you,” said Saul.
“I—dreamed,” said Amos, and tried to take away his hand, but Saul held it strongly.
“Of what did you dream?”
“Is it lawful,” asked Clodia Flavius in her sturdy Roman voice, to question of these things, Saul ben Hillel?”
“It is,” said Saul, still not looking at her. “For the sake of the boy’s soul. I am not inquisitive. I know the Kabalah. I know why I question. Amos, of what did you dream?”
The boy uttered a deep sigh, which was almost a moan. “I awoke in a beautiful country, more beautiful than any vista in Israel.” His voice was hushed and low. “There were mighty ivory and gold mountains in the distance, shining, though I did not see the sun. The sky was very blue. And between me and the mountains there were vast valleys and gardens and many quiet trees and flowers, and the air was full of singing, but I saw no singers. I stood on the bank of a river as green as grass and swiftly flowing. It seemed very deep and wide. And on the farther shore—”
“Yes?” said Saul. The room was completely silent now.
“My grandfather stood there, Hillel ben Borush, in white garments that were like light. I knew him at once, for I had seen him before he died.” Now the boy looked directly into Saul’s eyes, not defiantly, but with a demand that he be believed. It was a man’s imperative gaze, stern and reserved.
Saul was much moved, despite his growing anger and his conviction that the boy had been secretly drugged by a servant, a follower of Yeshua of Nazareth, in order to create just this occasion.
“I believe that you dreamed you saw my father, Amos.”
But the boy’s voice rose clear and decisive. “I did not dream, my uncle. I saw him. And he smiled at me and beckoned to me, but the river lay between us. And then he lifted his hand and the river narrowed to the width of a brook and he reached his hand to me, and I took it and I stepped over the brook and we laughed together, and watched the river widen again.” His words were now loud and tumultuous. “The singing in the air increased and I wanted to weep with joy, and my grandfather said to me, ‘Blessed is that man who dies in his youth and has not sinned, and who awaits here the return of the Messias, Who sits at the right Hand of His Father, blessed be His Name!’”
“What blasphemy is this?” cried Saul, truly appalled. “What is the meaning of your words, Amos ben Ezekiel?”
“I do not know!” said the boy, with emphasis. “I only know what my grandfather said.”
“But the words mean nothing, they are nonsense, for the Messias has not yet left Heaven, and He has not yet come unto man. Do you not understand this, Amos? Do you not understand the absurdity of your dream?”
The boy repeated, “I only know what my grandfather said.”
“All dreams but the dreams of holy men and the prophets are ridiculous,” said Saul. But the boy did not look away from him and the sof
t contours of his cheeks had hardened and he reflected his appearance of when he would be a man in truth. His brown eyes were no longer soft or dreaming. They were resolute and courageous.
Saul sighed and shook his head slowly, and the boy waited. Finally he said, “And what is your next memory, Amos?”
The boy did not answer for a moment or two. He was watching Saul with an incomprehensible expression. Then in a slow and deliberate tone, as if expecting ridicule and preparing to combat it, he said, “I heard a voice. I had never heard that voice before. It was the voice of a man, and it filled the whole transparent air and it was as if the mountains and the valleys and the river listened. And it said to me, ‘I say unto you, Amos ben Ezekiel, arise!’”
A chill unexpectedly seized Saul, and he fought it. He said, “I believe you, Amos, that you are not lying when you tell me of this dream. But you must tell me: What did your grandfather say when he heard that voice?”
“He wept.”
“He wept?”
“Yes. And he released my hand and walked with me to the river again, and again it narrowed and he indicated to me that I must cross over and be on the other side, and I wept also, for I did not want to leave that place of peace and singing joy and my grandfather. But I knew I must obey that voice, but why I should obey it I do not know. The voice had not commanded me to cross the river once more, but I knew that I had been commanded. So I leaped over the brook, and immediately it widened and was wide and running and my grandfather waved farewell to me and turned and descended into the valley and I saw him no more. I called him, but there was no answer and no singing, and where I stood it was dark. It became darker, and it was like night before my eyes, and my heart was filled with sorrow, and I had never known sorrow before. And then it was light again, but not the light I had seen. It was a dimmer light, and paler, and I saw that I lay on the floor of my bedroom—” He looked over his shoulder at his mother and grandmother, who were hiding their tearful faces in their hands now. “And my parents and my kinsmen and my brothers were on the floor with me, shedding tears and clasping my hand and kissing my cheek, and they were crying aloud, calling my name.”
His eyes fell away. A deep silence filled the room.
Saul was moved again, but his anger was growing. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And that was all, Amos? You saw no more?”
“I saw—Him,” said Amos. “I saw Him before I looked at the faces of those who love me. He smiled at me, and He was sad and, it seemed, regretful. His face was most beautiful, and He turned and left the room and two or three strangers left with Him, and I saw Him no more, though I wished to implore Him to remain.” “Why did you wish him to remain?”
The boy’s face visibly darkened with pain. “I felt He was my life, and my desiring, and it was a glory to gaze upon Him, and when He left it was as if the sun had retreated and everything was diminished.”
Saul now caught the boy’s shoulders in both his hands and he I drew him abruptly to him. “Amos ben Ezekiel, you must listen to me, for your soul may depend upon it! The man you saw in your bedroom, that miserable Nazarene, is not unknown to me! He is a sorcerer, la fraud, a mountebank, a blasphemer, and he was executed for his crimes, justly, and he had bewitched you in some arcane way before I he even entered this house! I do not know the reason. I am only I certain that is what happened—perhaps to delude this house, which is an influential one, great in Israel. You must listen to my counsel! You must forget him. You never died, Amos. You were drugged, or in a state of catalepsy, induced by sly enemies, or servants of the Nazarene, who wished to reveal ‘wonders’ and cause awe, and to receive. Had he never entered this house you would have recovered, you must believe me, Amos.”
But Amos, to Saul’s rising wrath and excitement, only shook his head from side to side in quiet denial. Now the sound of the women’s soft weeping could be heard.
Amos said, “I believe, my uncle, that you believe in your own words, and you fear for me. Do not be afraid. I know who He is.”
“Who?” exclaimed Saul, but he knew, with dread, what the boy would say.
“I know He is the Messias, and I know He rose from the dead, and I know He sits at the right Hand of our Father, as my grandfather told me. How I know I do not know, but I know.”
The awful and familiar words were like hard fists beating on Saul’s heart.
“You dreamed,” said Saul.
The boy sighed. “Then, I wish I had never awakened from my dream.”
The broken words, spoken in a man’s voice, made Saul, himself, want to weep. He touched the boy’s arm and put him away from him, and rose. He looked with coldly furious eyes upon his sister.
“You have let him believe monstrous lies, which threaten his soul,” he said. “May God forgive you, though I cannot, Sephorah has Hillel.”
He turned and left the room.
The atmosphere of the house had mysteriously changed. Saul knew it at once, as he advanced to the atrium. It was an atmosphere of serenity, of peace, of composure. It was—and the very thought to him was absurd—like the air of a quiet enclosure of a garden in the Temple.
His kinsmen were awaiting him, Shebua ben Abraham, David ben Shebua and Sephorah’s blue-eyed husband, Ezekiel, who rarely spoke but whose very eyes always seemed to be listening gently but surely. The two younger men rose and embraced Saul, who accepted their greetings impatiently. Over their shoulders he looked at his grandfather, who appeared much older, not suave any longer, not urbane and superbly smiling, but calm and untroubled. He was like a prophet and he wore, for the first time Saul could remember, the ritual hat of the Tribe of Benjamin but not an elaborate one. It was simple and austere. He was a veritable patriarch. He accepted Saul’s brief kiss on “his cheek and pressed the younger man’s shoulder with his long white hand.
“Welcome to this house, my grandson,” he said. “We have longed for your return.”
Saul’s mouth curled somewhat wryly. Shebua’s voice was not the voice he remembered, arrogant and smooth. Shebua clapped his hands and when a servant appeared Shebua asked that the Greek servant, Cephalus, be sent to the atrium at once, as Saul had requested.
“You have come to doubt, and to express your doubt, Saul ben Hillel,” said Shebua in a mild tone. “I do not censor you, nor complain, for had I not seen with my own eyes what had occurred in this house I should doubt also, and probably with more contempt. For I had never believed, no, not in the God of our Fathers, the God of Abraham and Jacob, not once in my life, not even in my youth. But now I believe.” His pale eyes dwelt on Saul without rancor or challenge. They were kindly, and steadfast. He said, almost in a whisper, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
To Saul’s angry and amused amazement David and Ezekiel repeated the words, their heads bent, their hands clasped, as they stood near Shebua.
“The sorcerer, the necromancer, is more powerful than I thought,” Saul said.
As if he had not heard Shebua said, “Blessed is this house, that He entered here, for there was no holiness amongst us, no faith, no piety, no humility, no trust. Blasphemy had dwelt here and all the trappings of a meaningless and secular world, whose name is confusion and whose voices are like those of beasts raving in the wilderness. Yet, He came to us and raised our child from the dead, and delivered him once more to our arms, and I saw His face and I do not know why, but I knew Who He was.”
“I also know,” said Saul, and his teeth clenched together. The old servant entered and came to stand before his master who touched his arm with the affection of a brother.
“Cephalus,” said Shebua, “this is a son of our house, Saul ben Hillel, of whom I have spoken. He would like to put some questions to you.”
Saul regarded the old man with detestation. He was not even an apostate Jew, not even a member of the Amaratzim—the peasantry, the market rabble. He had been a slave, bought in his youth by Shebua ben Abraham and later freed, and his tasks were humble, as he carried wood for baths, emptie
d the kitchen refuse, swept floors, weeded the gardens, picked fruit, washed walls, and carried burdens. He was unlettered. He was thin and bent with labor, and had a long but meager white beard and thin white hair and a crooked nose, and his countenance bore the stigmata of generations of laborers in the dust and the fields.
But his eyes were great and bright and brown, like the eyes of a youth, and they radiated joy.
Saul had been prepared for a lip-sucking, sly, sniveling old slave, lull of the arts of the malicious poor, fawning, nodding, eager to please and just as eager to do mischief. But as Cephalus looked at him respectfully and with interest Saul could not detect any falseness in the old man’s face. He had a curious dignity in spite of his obviously undistinguished origin. He folded his hands and waited for Saul’s questions, and there was no apprehension about him.
It was plain to Saul that Cephalus was simple and that he believed what he had decided to believe, without hypocrisy and falseness or a desire to be singular.
Before he could speak Shebua said, “Cephalus, show my grandson your right hand.”
Cephalus immediately extended his right hand, wrinkled and worn, to Saul, showed him the back of it, and then the palm. Saul frowned. Shebua said, “Cephalus came to us as a young man with a withered hand, twisted and gnarled and bent like a claw. He had had an evil master who, when Cephalus had been a child, punished him for some small crime by forcing his hand into a fire. I bought him out of pity, when we were youths together, and he has been in this house ever since. You will observe, Saul, that the hand, though worn and veined and discolored like my own, is not maimed but healthy and clean. His withered hand had been restored to its present condition in the winking of an eye—by Him the Romans call Jesus of Nazareth, but Whom we know as Yeshua.”
Saul’s face expressed his cold disbelief and distaste. He said, “This is a minor miracle, my grandfather, but it is well-known that our wandering and holy rabbis frequently heal when implored for healing.”