Judah's Wife: A Novel of the Maccabees Read online

  Simon came over to whisper a private word. “Better wipe the blood off your forehead. You know how seriously he takes these things.”

  The feeling of accomplishment that had heartened me drained away, but Simon had always given me good advice. Though I stood a head taller than both of my older brothers, years of experience had taught me to respect them.

  I spat onto my fingertips, then wiped my forehead. I licked my finger and cleaned a bloody scratch on my upper arm. I could do nothing about the dirt on my best tunic, and from where I stood I could see that Eleazar had a rip in his.

  I caught my younger brother’s eye, pointed to the corresponding spot on my tunic, then pointed at his. He grimaced when he saw the torn fabric at his knees.

  Smiling at his awkward efforts to hide the tear, I folded my arms and looked toward the gate through which Father should soon appear.

  My mother drifted through the small group of relatives and stopped next to me. “You’ve been fighting,” she said, her gaze drifting absently over the Temple wall.

  I will never understand how she knew what we had been doing.

  “It couldn’t be helped,” I told her. “A group of upstarts threatened a couple of girls.”

  She looked up. “Hellenes?”

  I cleared my throat; the very word brought a bad taste to my mouth. Because those who ruled over us had been influenced by a conqueror who came from a land he called Hellas, we called anyone who followed their precepts Hellenes. We expected our Seleucid rulers to be Hellenes. What we found astounding was how many Jews had become devoted advocates of all things Greek.

  “They were practically wearing the uniform, complete with that ridiculous hat,” I told Mother. “They must have been coming out of that cursed gymnasium when they spotted the girls.”

  Simon leaned into our conversation. “I’ve heard about what goes on in that place. Naked wrestling, for one thing. Indecency.”

  Mother stepped away, as a modest woman should.

  “Are we talking about the Hellenes?” Eleazar came closer. “I’ve heard that some of our own Hebrew brothers have taken to wearing a leather strap to hide their circumcision. Others have sought out physicians to stretch the foreskin—”

  “Enough.” Simon held up his hand as we grimaced in unison. Hard to believe that any self-respecting Jew would undergo the pain of a medical procedure to undo the act that marked his covenant with HaShem, but we lived in a peculiar time.

  Mother came closer. “What’s happening in the gymnasium couldn’t be worse than the obscenities taking place right in front of us,” she said, proving that she had not stopped listening to our conversation. “Your father is heartbroken over the state of the Temple.”

  “Hard to believe he has served twenty-five years.” Simon’s gaze drifted over the other men lingering outside the South Gate. “I don’t know how he’s lasted through these troubling times.”

  “Harder still to believe he is fifty,” Eleazar went on, giving Mother a gentle smile. “But he has the zeal of a much younger man.”

  “And the strength.” Simon grinned. “I believe he is strong because he had to keep Judah in line. He says teaching you was often like milking a bull.”

  I crossed my arms and frowned. My brothers often made jokes at my expense, but what could I do about it in public? At home, I might have pounded them until they stopped laughing, but I could not do that here.

  And not today. Not when so many of our friends and neighbors had come to observe a special occasion in Father’s life.

  The South Gate opened, a trumpet blared, and my father’s thin form appeared in the outer courtyard. I lifted my head to better see the man we all loved and respected: Mattathias the Levite, from the priestly family of Joarib. Fifty years old and ready for retirement, as the Law of Moses decreed.

  When Father reached the gate, the crowd surged forward to greet him with warm embraces. “Well done, Mattathias!”

  “Congratulations, Father.”

  “Twenty-five years! May HaShem reward you for your service.”

  When at last I stood before him, I couldn’t find the words to express my depth of feeling. So I drew him into an embrace and released him after a moment.

  “Ah, Judah.” Father looked up with a wistful gleam in his eye. “Lead us home, will you? There are things I must discuss with you and your brothers.”

  I didn’t know what occupied his thoughts, but I set off, leading my family away from a Temple that had once been the home of our God.

  Chapter Three

  Leah

  I clung to sleep as long as I could, despite the grumbling that came from the table and the quick, light steps of my mother.

  “Name of a name, can’t you do anything right?” Father snapped. I opened one eye in time to see him spit out a hunk of bread. “That’s not bread, it’s a mouthful of desert. You’ve got so much sand in there it’s a wonder my teeth aren’t worn down to nubs.”

  “I am sorry,” Mother whispered. With great care she slid a bowl of figs onto the table, then folded her hands and retreated to the wall. “Would you like fruit?”

  “Not figs—yesterday you gave me one with teeth marks on it. How could you offer me something the rats have been at? You are a stupid, good-for-nothing creature. You bring me nothing but trouble.”

  Mother lowered her head, but not before shooting a quick glance toward the corner, where I pretended to sleep. Even shadowed, her eyes glowed with warning, urging me to stay abed.

  Father had other ideas. “Why doesn’t the girl rouse herself? I need her to get to the market.”

  Mother stepped forward as though she would approach me, but I saw no reason to make her cross the room and risk attracting more of Father’s ire. “I am awake.” I tossed off my thin blanket. “What do you want me to do, Father?”

  He grunted and turned in my direction. “Set one of the finest cheeses aside for the high priest. He will stop by the stall today, so give him the cheese and take nothing for it.” He lifted a finger. “Do not make a fuss, but you might mention that the usual cost for such a cheese is twenty drachmas.”

  “But the cost is usually ten drachmas.”

  A muscle clenched along his jaw, a visible warning I had learned to heed. “Forgive me, Father—I am slow to understand. You want the high priest to know how valuable the cheese is.”

  “Exactly.” His jaw relaxed as he pushed away from the table and stepped over the long bench. “You”—his hairy finger swiveled toward Mother—“do not forget to clean my best tunic for the butcher’s wedding next week. And buy bread for my dinner, so I can enjoy something good for once.”

  Mother tucked her chin, and we held our breath as Father walked to the door, took a last look around, and stepped outside.

  Once the door closed, Mother and I both sighed.

  I tied my leather belt around my waist. “Not in the best mood, is he?”

  “Not the worst either, praise be to HaShem. Do not forget to set that cheese aside.”

  “I won’t. But why would someone as important as the high priest stop by our booth?”

  Mother made a noise deep in her throat. “Your father has been courting friends in high places.”

  I broke a generous piece of bread from the loaf on the table and dribbled honey over the torn edge. I took a bite, hoping to quiet the rumbling in my empty stomach. Mother went back to work at her bowl and pestle.

  “Yesterday,” I told her between bites, “a man and his brothers intervened when some of the boys from the gymnasium stopped me and Miriam.”

  A line appeared between my mother’s brows. “Who were these men?”

  “I did not know them, but Miriam said the big man was Judah Maccabaeus. His father is a Levite. All the sons wore beards and did not cover their heads.”

  The faint suggestion of a smile appeared at the corner of Mother’s mouth. “A fine family, then.”

  “Mother.” I shaded the word with reproach.

  “Despite what you may think,
you need to leave this house,” she said. “You are old enough to find a husband and go. Why not Judah Maccabaeus or one of his brothers? I hear the priest has five sons.”

  I ignored her comment about leaving. “I doubt the fellow will remember the incident today. But he seemed to enjoy the fight.”

  “They actually fought?”

  “Out in the street. I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt, but those young Hellenes will think twice before stopping girls again.”

  Mother shot me a look of concern, then shook her head. “It is good to know some are still practicing the old ways. Too many of our people have abandoned the Torah. They pay more attention to the customs of the pagans—”

  “And why wouldn’t they try their best to survive? We do not live in the time of Moses, Mother. We are not struggling against those who would keep us slaves; we are trying to survive under men who learned from Alexander the Great. The Greeks nearly conquered the world, so it is only natural that Greek ideas should permeate the lands they conquered.”

  “Run along, Leah. You’d better get to the market before your father decides to check on you.”

  Frustrated because she would not discuss these ideas with me, I threw a wool scarf over my tousled hair, slipped into my sandals, and gave her an obligatory kiss on the cheek. She tied up a small cloth filled with bread and figs and put it into a basket, then added two wrapped cheeses.

  I picked up the basket and went out the door. I left the house later than usual, because the sun had already crested the eastern hills. The market would begin to bustle in a few moments, and people would be eager for a fine cheese.

  I lowered my head and walked faster.

  The houses stood farther apart here on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and the sounds of animals mingled freely with the shouted greetings of neighbors. Our closest neighbor kept chickens, and we kept four goats in the courtyard—one buck and three does. Mother spent her mornings milking the does; during the afternoons, she made cheese.

  I worked with the goats, too, but did not care about staying inside to make cheese. I much preferred to work in the marketplace, and Father agreed. He said that since I was far prettier than Mother, I would work at the market until no one wanted to look at me anymore.

  On the way to work, my thoughts kept returning to Judah Maccabaeus, who had so nonchalantly stepped forward to defend me—Miriam and me, that is. I simply could not believe that a man who did not know me had willingly, even gladly, risked injury to himself. My mother paid the price for defending me often enough, but mothers were expected to defend their children. Yet I meant nothing to Judah Maccabaeus or his brothers, and they had volunteered to stop that brazen youth.

  Father would not have come to my aid because he admired the Hellenes. The first time I heard him refer to himself as a Hellene, I thought he was talking about some strange tribe of Israel. Then I heard him tell Mother that a Hellene was a deep thinker who loved intellectual exploration. “The Greeks are noble people,” he said, narrowing his eyes as if he doubted she could ever understand. “They produced Alexander the Great, who changed the world. We would all do well to emulate them.”

  Even the High Priest Menelaus loved all things Greek and frequently traveled to Antioch to pay tribute to King Antiochus. Though Hellenes could be Jews or Seleucids or Samaritans, they agreed on one thing. If an idea or deity or fable had originated in Greece, it had to be far superior to anything else.

  Mother did not consider herself a Hellene. Though she was careful to keep her face blank when Father was extolling the virtues of the Greeks, with me she felt free to release her scorn on those who tried to forget they were children of Abraham. “Did the Greeks build Solomon’s Temple?” she asked one morning. “Did HaShem promise the Greeks a land flowing with milk and honey? No. Yet here they are, ruling over our Promised Land as if it belonged to them. It does not, because this land has been promised to the seed of Abraham forever.”

  “Father says Jews live all over the world now,” I said. “He said the greatest Jewish scribes live in Alexandria, a city of Greeks in Egypt. Many of those Jews no longer speak Hebrew, but only Greek.”

  Mother dropped her work and came toward me, then leaned forward until her face loomed only inches above mine. “Your father is neither good nor godly. Keep that in mind when he speaks to you.”

  The heat in her eyes caught me by surprise. Where was that fire when Father sparked into one of his rages? When he lifted his hand to her? Without fail, the flame died just when it would have made the most difference.

  While I loved my mother, I found it difficult to heed or respect a woman who habitually submitted to my father’s cruelty.

  Though they attempted to lower their voices, my parents could not have a private conversation in our one-room house. They rarely spoke of important things when I was awake, and their serious discussions, if Father’s bluster could actually be considered speech, usually occurred when they thought I could not hear them.

  I had just drifted into a hazy doze when Father’s rumbling voice snapped me back to wakefulness. “I have heard stories,” he said, “about the sons of Mattathias the Levite. Apparently they defended our daughter and her friend from trouble on the street.”

  A long silence, then my mother responded, “It is true.”

  “The girl is already past the age of betrothal,” Father went on. “It is time she married. We would do well to unite with such a powerful family. Any of the priest’s unmarried sons would make a fine son-in-law.”

  Somehow, Mother found the courage to offer an opinion. “I believe most of them have already taken wives. Perhaps the youngest.”

  “How like you to point out the problem with my plan.” Father coughed, then cleared his throat. “I will make inquiries tomorrow. It is time our daughter married.”

  “They are not Hellenes.”

  “So?”

  “They are devout, part of the Hasidim. Their son may not want to marry the daughter of a Hellene.”

  “Why would he care? The girl has no opinions. She will believe whatever her husband wants her to believe. And I am nothing but careful in my dealings with all men. I am whatever people need me to be.”

  I clutched at my blanket, taking care not to shift my position lest the rustle of my straw-filled mattress overpower my mother’s soft response. But she said nothing, and within a few moments I heard Father snoring.

  If Father had his way, my life would soon change. He wanted me married, and what Father did not want to see his daughter settled with a fine husband?

  But my father would act out of selfish reasons. Not tomorrow, and perhaps not this month, but before long he would send me away, not out of love and care but in order to reap benefits from a profitable social connection.

  Chapter Four

  Judah

  The odors of donkey manure and open sewers hung in the air as my brothers and I walked through the center of Jerusalem. When we reached the marketplace, I deliberately slowed my step and drifted away from the others. I had no particular interest in shopping, and no wife to please. I had come along only to fill my stomach, and I could usually find fresh bread and good cheese in the merchant booths.

  While Eleazar searched for yarn and Johanan looked at jewelry, I followed the scent of fresh bread and stopped at a baker’s booth. After purchasing a warm loaf, I wandered to the next booth where several slabs of cheese sat on a wooden counter. A slice of cheese would be wonderful with bread . . .

  “Can I get you something?” The gruff voice startled me. I looked up to see a short man behind the counter, an apron tied around his ample middle.

  “I would like some cheese.”

  “What kind?”

  “What kind do you have?”

  The man frowned. “These are goat cheeses. We have sweet cheese, mild cheese, and a mushroom cheese.”

  I stared at the row of cheeses. “Which is best?”

  The man squinted up at me. “What do you like to eat?”

  “Ever
ything.”

  “I’ll give you the sweet cheese.” Shaking his head, the man took out a knife and cut a slice, then extended it toward me, the cheese riding the blade.

  I took it and placed it in the center of my loaf, then pulled a few coins from the drawstring purse at my belt.

  I had no sooner dropped them into his hand when a girl darted into the booth, her face flushed and her breath coming in quick gasps. “I’m sorry, Father. The errand took longer than I thought it would.”

  “You are too slow,” the man grumbled, yanking the apron from his waist. He wadded it up and threw it at his daughter. “Get to work.”

  Without another word he left the booth, leaving the girl flustered.

  Turning toward the counter, she knotted the apron around her waist, then looked up. “May I help you?”

  A betraying flush brightened her face in the moment our eyes met, and I knew I’d seen her before. Was she friendly with one of my brothers’ wives? No, I would have remembered seeing her. Perhaps she had served my mother . . . no, too young.

  I lifted my bread and turned it so she could see the cheese in the loaf. “I have what I came for.”

  She arched a brow. “Are you sure?”

  “Why would I want anything else?”

  Surprising, that a woman’s face could bloom in so many shades of red. Deep scarlet patches appeared on her cheeks, pink colored her forehead and chin, and a rosy flush mottled the flesh at her neck as she turned and pretended to arrange wrapped parcels on a bench.

  I felt a strange lurch of recognition in her movement. I had seen her turn away before, not at home but in the street. On the day of Father’s retirement, when we fought with the Hellenes who had accosted two young girls . . .

  This was one of those girls, but she was not as young as I’d thought. Though she wore a modest tunic, I could trace the outline of hips and breasts, so she had to be at least thirteen or fourteen. Which meant the gruff little man who sold me the cheese would soon be offering this girl for marriage, probably to the fellow who offered the highest price.