“And was it worth it?” Joseph inquired.
“That’s why you’re here,” I said, indicating that Samson should plunge the pipette into the barrel and withdraw a sample.
The wine, a gloriously rich purple in color, foamed slightly as he released the contents of the tube into the cup. With evident pride he held it up toward a wall sconce before presenting it to the merchant.
The established protocol of tasting a new wine was simple: swirl, sniff, sip, and spit.
It was somewhere between sniff and sip that Joseph’s face took on a transfixed appearance. He held the liquid in his mouth, closed his eyes, swallowed, then took another mouthful and yet another.
“Was it worth it?” I said, repeating his query back to him.
“I have never tasted such a perfect wine,” he exclaimed. “The elegant and inviting scent … lavender? And the balance between tart and sweet. The smoothness. Extraordinary! Not even from the great vineyards of Dalmatia or Gaul have I tasted such. I taste ripe blackberries and figs and maybe a hint of pepper?”
“And our market?”
“To where they will pay the most,” Joseph said conclusively. “You know how I warn you about the uncertainties of the market in Rome and the dangers of shipping, but this … this!” he said, swirling the wine yet again and swallowing another mouthful. “This is worth the risk. I want the lot, and I want to arrange it today.”
Joseph was a fair, righteous man, and we settled our contract in the same terms I had enjoyed with Judah. As was the custom, at the conclusion of our business we rode back to my home to share a meal together.
The merchant of Arimathea knew my concerns and my questions before I inquired. He waited until my household servant had served us and left the room before he murmured, “I have news about our friend Judah.”
I leaned closer. “Judah! Still alive?”
“A galley slave in a Roman warship. So, for the time being, alive.”
“I will pray for him.”
“Pray his suffering does not last too long.” Joseph spoke the blessing, tore his bread, then dipped it into the hummus. “A man does not escape from such a living hell.”
I pictured the torture my good friend endured: the whip, the hunger, chained night and day belowdecks without relief. “May God have mercy …”
Neither of us talked of the injustice of such a fate. Joseph answered, “Our ancestor Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave in Egypt. Slandered by a woman, he was put in prison. How many years did Joseph suffer? I have pondered all these things, and the story of a good man’s life does not end, even when he descends into the grave. Who he is and what he accomplishes will live beyond him, for good or evil. Does he who made the ear not hear? I tell you, the arm of the Lord is not shortened. Pray the Lord will make himself known to Judah, who is trapped like Jonah in the bowels of a Roman ship.”
I nodded. “I have tried every way I know to learn the fate of Judah’s mother and sister.”
Joseph lowered his chin slightly. “They are dead.” He answered plainly. “A Roman quartermaster told my steward as much when we delivered a load of wine to the Antonia Fortress.”
Tears stung my eyes. I had not expected such news. “Tortured?”
“No. An illness. Some disease—a scourge of the lungs—swept like a wind through the women’s cells. Prostitutes and righteous women like Judah’s mother and sister died together. Buried by night in the potter’s field. Jemima and her mother were swept away within days of their arrest.”
Perhaps it was a mercy for these good women to be in Paradise together. “God has indeed delivered them from the hand of their enemies.”
“Omaine. My thoughts,” Joseph answered. “In such an evil world as we live in now, perhaps this is more merciful.”
“Judah would be relieved to know his mother and sister are not destitute and locked away in a dark cell, but embraced and cared for by angels within the bosom of Abraham.” Yet my voice was unsteady, lacking confidence.
Joseph was matter-of-fact. “I hired mourners to keen for them. There is no more to be done.”
I thought of my wife and child and did not reply for a long time. “I will say kaddish. It is good that the suffering of the innocent ends quickly.”
Joseph continued eating, though my appetite was gone. He moved on to other matters. “The prophet in the wilderness, John the Baptizer. Jesus of Nazareth. The Anointed of God is now among us. There could not be a better moment in all of history for the Deliverer to show himself. Like Moses of old, coming to free our fathers and mothers from Egypt … we are little more than slaves in our own land.”
“It is well with you, though, my friend?” I asked Joseph.
“It is well. Business flourishes. The Romans need my skill to feed their armies and their citizens.” He hesitated a long moment. “Your sister, Mary of Magdala, has political connections in Galilee that may keep you safe from suspicion.”
I tried not to let disapproval of my sister register on my face. “Mary goes her own way. It is not my way or the way of my family or of the God of our fathers.”
“She is great friends with Johanna, wife of Kuza, the steward of Herod Antipas.”
“Johanna and Kuza. Those two!”
“I have spoken with Mary at great length about her vineyards and her wine. Mary sells the wines of her late husband’s estates at a fine price to the garrison in Tiberius. No need to export.”
Bitterness consumed me. “Mary has sold her soul, Joseph.”
“Her estates are in the Galil. The Messiah is there. Perhaps your sister’s soul may yet be redeemed by the Redeemer.”
“My younger sister was only trouble from the start. Not good and solid like Martha. A flighty thing. Pretty and spoiled.”
“I remember her as a sweet and lonely child. Affected deeply by your mother’s death. You married her to an old man for the sake of a business arrangement.”
“A great opportunity,” I shot back, “since Mary would not have had other offers in marriage. Mary should have been obedient and accepted with righteousness her purpose.”
Joseph chewed a bit of roasted chicken as he pondered my judgment. “That may be. But even so, with Mary’s husband dead now, she might welcome her brother’s visit.”
I shook my head slowly. “That would be too much for me to swallow. I have nothing to do with my sister. She is a shame to me and to my father’s name.”
I saw pity in the eyes of Joseph, who had seen much more of life and was thus more merciful. At last he said, “Your father was my dearest friend. After your mother died, he wed Mary’s mother. It was plain to all that he did not love her. Nor did he look with favor on your half sister when she was born. When Mary’s mother … drowned … there was speculation that perhaps she had taken her own life. Speculation that because your father did not love her, she waded into the water of the Sea of Galilee and put an end to her loneliness.”
“That speculation and her sin branded us as a family,” I insisted. “It left us few options.”
“And it left your sister Mary … beautiful little child … alone,” Joseph said swiftly. “Now I see, David, that you have your father’s indifference. Perhaps you live in judgment of a woman who has spent her life looking for love.” He stood. “I believe you will be attending your cousin’s wedding in Cana? I pray that Mary will be there also … and that you will show the mercy your father never showed.”
The old man was honest with me. He had brought things to light that my own father had never spoken about before his death. And he was right in his conclusions.
My stepmother’s suicide had affected us all. We had never spoken openly about the circumstances surrounding the death of Mary’s mother. Little Mary had never recovered from watching her mother drown.
Joseph was also correct about my lack of compassion. I had never showed my sister any kindness. When the thirty days of mourning for my stepmother had ended, I had dismissed Mary’s tears and demanded that the child “get on with
life.” And so she had. Bold and defiant, she had gone her own way. The kindness she did not find at home she sought in the arms of lovers. Her first lover had been Barak bar Halfi, the son of our wine steward. Even after the young man was joined to another woman in an arranged marriage, Mary pursued him shamefully. After that, I had married her off to an old man in Galilee to save her … to save all of us.
Mary was a young and beautiful widow now, and she was rich, having inherited the estate of her elderly husband after his death. I hoped Mary would not dare to show her face at the wedding in Cana, yet I expected she would. I dreaded the encounter.
Chapter 9
It was seventy miles from Bethany to Cana, and the journey to attend the wedding would take almost a week. Alone, and on the white mare, I might have done the trip in three days by sleeping rough; two if I rode from dawn to dusk. With Martha along, riding in a donkey-drawn cart, even a full Sabbath-to-Sabbath span would barely be enough time.
We set out at full light on the first day of the week. I was comfortable leaving the vineyard in the hands of Samson and Patrick. Martha had her maidservant, Leah, riding with her in the cart, which was driven by my man, Uri. Going with us as a wedding gift was an amphora of the best vintage.
The most direct route to the Galil was directly north, through Samaria. That route was straight along the spine of hills flanking the valley of the Jordan. It was a good road and evenly planted with cities, but there was still a problem. As much as we Jews disliked our Roman overlords, there was even more animosity against Samaritans. We regarded them as apostates and traitors.
The pilgrim route avoided the problem by crossing to the east side of Jordan. However, I disliked it unless traveling with crowds going home from a festival in the Holy City. Crossing wild stretches, it was the most dangerous. So I chose to take us by the coast road. Parts of it, like that between Joppa and Caesarea, were still under construction, but it was patrolled by the Romans and safe. Subduing bandits was something Rome had brought to Judea, but at a very visible cost.
Just west of Jerusalem, before we reached Emmaus, we encountered three crosses erected beside the road. Mercifully, the occupants were already dead so we did not have to endure their pitiful cries for water or for death. The ravens had already been feasting.
The womenfolk covered their faces, but I forced myself to look. Crudely lettered, the indictments were attached above each head as part of the Roman economy of execution: one spike for each hand, one for the crossed feet, and a fourth so that the legal requirements were strictly observed. SIMON OF AIJALON, REBEL, one sign read. JASON, MURDERER, another. PHILIP OF HEBRON, CONSPIRATOR, noted the last.
I prayed for their souls and for their families and for my own.
We spent the first night of the journey at an inn outside Aijalon and the second at a caravansary in Joppa. The uncompleted road north from Joppa was no more than a cart track, but the breezes from the sea were bracing. As I rode, I watched fishermen putting out in tiny craft on the Great Sea of Middle Earth and marveled at their bravery.
A great Roman war galley passed us, coasting southward toward Alexandria. Its square sail was filled and drawing smartly, and the triple rank of oars were banked. The slaves chained to them were getting a momentary rest from the labor that would eventually kill them. It was said no one got away alive from being a galley slave.
It crushed my heart to think that Judah might be a prisoner on that very ship. I asked Adonai to protect him, wherever he was, and to grant him release from the common fate.
It was while I was still pondering and praying that we reached a tiny village separated from the sea by a conical hill. I did not know its name. It might not have had one. It boasted no more than twenty rude stone buildings and a single well.
It was unremarkable except in one sense: it was empty. No one was beside the well. No children played in the street. A pair of goats badly in need of milking bawled from a pen, but no one came to attend them. No smoke rose from cook fires or ovens.
“David?” Martha said urgently. “David, what is it? Is it plague … or something worse?” Making the sign against the evil eye, my sensible, rational sister spit between her fingers.
“There are no bodies and no … smell,” I said, trying to sound controlled while being far from easy in mind myself. With relief I spotted some movement beyond where the street curved around a rocky outcropping that had been too large to move. “Wait here,” I directed, kicking the mare into a lope.
Outside a hovel, sitting on a wooden stool, was a toothless, elderly woman. In her arms was a sleeping infant. At her feet a little girl, perhaps two years old, played with stones and bits of stick.
“What happened here?” I demanded.
The crone shaded her eyes with a palsied, withered hand. “A penny, kind sir. Adonai blesses those who help the poor. Spare a penny?”
“Where is everyone?”
“Gone … all taken. Except old Bethulah. Alms?”
“Taken … how?”
“Taken. All of them, by the Romans.” Old Bethulah made a sweeping gesture that gathered up the missing inhabitants of her village and flung them over the hill toward the sea.
In singsong chant, the old woman’s voice cracked as she droned over and over, like a sinister lullaby: “Taken by the Romans. Taken by the Romans …”
A chill coursed through me. What would the Romans do if a village was accused of harboring rebels? I did not need the vision of the three crosses to provide the answer, but it came just the same.
By now Uri had driven up with the cart. “Don’t follow until I ride ahead and check,” I ordered sternly.
Martha refused. “David, I’m frightened. I’m not staying here without you. Either we turn back or we go forward together.”
The road curved around the hill, approaching the sea again from the southeast. As we cleared the obstruction, the incessant sound of hammering reached me. My worst fears seemed about to be fulfilled. Would the Romans crucify an entire village: men, women, and children?
Of course they would, if it suited their purposes. They would destroy an entire city to provide an example of Rome’s stern, irresistible justice. At the fall of Carthage, Rome had pulled down every stone, sold fifty thousand people into slavery, and slaughtered the rest.
“Turn back,” I said, gesturing to Uri.
The trail was too narrow to turn just then. We had to drive ahead to find a wider place.
The hammering grew louder. The drumming clashed with the rhythm of the breakers. I heard cries and shouts and demands for water echoed by the clamor of sea birds.
Everything I dreaded to see was about to be unveiled.
Before us the coastal plain rolled down to the water. Halfway between the hill and tide, on a level headland perched above the waves, fifty to seventy people toiled with picks and shovels … building a new road.
Under the lazy supervision of a Roman corporal, the entire male population of the nameless village scraped and raked and leveled. Children carried stones. Women toted baskets of sand. While an Imperial surveyor checked the perfection of his engineering, a squad of ten soldiers played at dice in a hollow out of the wind. They barely glanced up as we approached.
When I spoke to the corporal, he replied testily, “The new road will help that dump of a village grow. But do you think these wretches show any gratitude? Not a chance! All they can think about is that they only have to serve for two more days and then they go back to rotting in their hovels! No gratitude at all!”
He could not have guessed at the strange gratitude in my own heart at that moment.
The further we traveled toward the port of Caesarea Maritima, the more nearly completed was the Coast Road. Our pace increased with each perfectly level, expertly banked mile.
At Caesarea our route turned east toward Megiddo. Once across the Plain of Esdraelon progress slowed again on the climb up the Galilean hills. Nevertheless, we skirted Sepphoris and still arrived at Cana of Galilee a full day sooner th
an I expected.
I put the extra time before the wedding to good use.
The area around Cana was swampy. Where the marshes had been drained, and on the adjacent hillsides, there were orchards of figs and walnuts and pomegranates. These interested me, but not so much as the vineyards occupying the lower, southwest-ward-facing slopes.
The wines of the Galil had a special reputation in the world. Moist air funneled inland by the ridges of Mount Carmel cooled the mornings and left behind a heavy dewfall. The afternoon sun could be intense, bathing the vines in warmth and light that promoted lush growth.
I spoke with several growers about their efforts. One point on which all agreed was that wine grapes were the most awkward of crops. Vines on soft soil, positioned below springs, produced lush bunches in abundance … and watery tasting juice. Vines that grew on stony, barren hillsides produced the more memorable vintages. The yield from such a vineyard was much smaller, but the wine was much richer—bolder and more flavorful.
As Hiram of Rumah said to me when I visited his winery: “No winemaker, no matter how skilled or talented, can find something in the wine that God did not put in the grape. Great wines are truly made in the vineyard, not the winery. It is the vintner’s job to let the wine be what it was created to be and not ruin it!”
Of course, when I explained about my investment in oak barrels, he remarked, “Too expensive. Never work out in the long run.”
The wedding festivities began an hour before sunset. The aroma of meat roasting on spits made my mouth water. An immense crowd was gathering—far greater than anyone had expected. Apparently the Galil, having seen more than its share of forced conscriptions, floggings, and executions, was seriously in need of some laughter and good cheer, at least for one night.
I delivered my gift of the special wine to the father of the groom. At his insistence, I broached the barrel and allowed both he and the bride’s father to sample it. They exclaimed over its quality. I was reassured to find that, even after the rough sloshing journey, it had traveled well. Both men agreed that the many toasts drunk that night would be memorable for more than just the speeches being made.