The Missing Madonna, Chapter 18 "On the move again"

It’s been a heavy day. I’m used to physical work, but not humping sacks of grain for over twelve hours with but a few minutes’ break to eat a hunk of bread in the early afternoon. My back aches, but at least I have some money to take back to Mari and get our space secured. The ship is still only half full, so there’ll be work tomorrow and if the wages are the same we’ll be able to afford to buy some clean cloth as well as food. Nathaniel has been so helpful. He smoothed the way with the overseer this morning and made sure that I got a full day’s work in. He told me how much my labour was worth so that I was not cheated. I watched his two sons straining to lift the sacks of grain and marvelled that they managed it – they were strong lads, but I can’t accept that it’s right for children of that age to do such heavy adult work. I didn’t mean to challenge Nathaniel on that point but the remark flew from my lips before I could stop it. Nathaniel didn’t take offence but explained that they needed the boys’ wages as well as his own to give all the children the nutrition they needed. Despite my tiredness, there’s an increasing spring in my step as I near the area where Mari and Joshua will be, close by Nathaniel’s tent.

The two lads have run ahead to greet their mother and sisters and play with Joshua before their evening meal. I walk silently with Nathaniel. He hasn’t said much all day, but I have gathered that his family came here when he was only a boy, exiled after his father was accused - falsely he said – of cheating an important official in a building contract in Jerusalem. In other words, Nathaniel had said, he didn’t give the official the bribe or cut he was expecting. He was hoping to earn enough money eventually to get his family out of this area and into the Jewish quarter where more prosperous folk lived, but there was prejudice against families who’d lived in this slum and he thought they might find it difficult to find somewhere decent and be accepted.

As we get closer to Nathaniel’s tent, the older lad comes back and says that Mari and Joshua aren’t there – they’ve been thrown out by the landlord’s rent collector. We break into a fast walk, in fact I almost run, but Nathaniel puts a restraining arm on my shoulder.

“We’ll find them, don’t worry. You can shelter in our tent tonight while we sort the rogue out.”

“That’s very generous of you, Nathaniel. Are you sure you’ve got enough room for us?”

“It’ll be a bit of a squeeze, but we’ll manage for one night. I’ll help you search for them. Let’s see what my wife has to say first though.”

Naomi is sitting nursing her youngest when we enter the flap of her tent. She looks up and immediately I notice that tears are welling up in her eyes.

“Joseph, the brute would not accept any promise to pay a rent. We pleaded with him, but he took no notice at all. He made Mari take Joshua out of the rented area altogether and hit me when I tried to remonstrate on their behalf. I went with them. They’re outside the city gate, down on the banks of the river on the far side of the outcasts’ township. I gave them some water and food.”

“Naomi, we must fetch them back. We can house them tonight until we can sort things out. Joseph has sufficient money now to put a down payment on the rent.”

“Husband, I’m not sure. The man threatened me that he’d be back and would throw us off this land if we tried to back them.”

I can’t accept them putting themselves at risk. “It’s alright, Nathaniel, we’ll make do somehow until tomorrow. Then I’ll find the rent man and negotiate with him.”

“You don’t negotiate with scum like that. He will tell you what is acceptable and you pay it or refuse and leave. There’s no other way. Come, let us go and fetch Mari and the child now before any harm comes to them.”

“What if that thug comes back tonight?” worries Naomi. I can see her point of view.

“He’ll not be back. Not tonight anyway. And in the morning Joseph will be with me at the jetty and here’ll just be you and Mari and Rebecca and Joshua. Why should he come back anyway? You’ve just paid him. And if he comes back, what will he find? You’ve just got a visitor because you’re friends. So what?”

“Come, Joseph, let’s go and find Mari.”

“Can I come too?” pipes up a voice from the depths of the tent. It’s Anna, the seven year old. If she’s been scavenging on the tip all day, I’m surprised she has enough energy to want to walk with us.

Nathaniel is about to tell her not to be so silly, when Naomi says, “She came home in the early afternoon because she was being hounded by some youths and was scared. She’s bored and she can keep Joshua amused when you find him.”

So Anna is allowed to accompany us. She holds her father’s hand and squeezes between the two of us and grasps my hand too. I think she feels safe between two big men and we set off at a good pace with her putting in a few extra paces to keep up. She is nattering to Nathaniel and I don’t catch everything she is saying because her dialect is so strong. I think she’s complaining about the threatening behaviour of the boys on the tip this afternoon and the teasing from them that she encountered. Nathaniel in any case is making soothing reassuring noises.

Darkness came quickly and there is little light as we make our way towards the southernmost city gate. The only light comes from the cooking fires and the occasional flickering candle glowing from some of the tents beside the track. We are now silent and the stench from the refuse dump is getting fouler by the minute. This does not seem to bother either Nathaniel or Anna, they are obviously accustomed to it, but I still find it repellent. The thought of having to spend the night in the open in close proximity to the source of the smell is something I’m glad I’m now going to avoid. We reach the gateway at last and the soldier on duty there looks curiously at us but asks no questions. Then it is pitch black. The moon has not yet cast any real glow and I can only just discern the river flowing to our left, hearing the faint rippling as the water surges against the bank. There is little traffic on the river now. The regular shuttle of barges from the delta wheat fields has ceased until daybreak tomorrow.

As we move carefully between the shacks of the outcasts in the darkness, Nathaniel begins to call Mari. We’re not sure how far in she’ll be, although Naomi had intimated that they’d progressed beyond most of the dwellings. A faint glow is now apparent from the rubbish tip as it is burning slowly on the far side and this now augments the meagre light. I can trace the outline of the mound and see we are not yet more than halfway along its length. We trudge for a further ten minutes or so and at last we get the sound of a woman’s voice in response to our repeated shouts. As soon as she hears this, Anna lets go of our hands and rushes off in the direction of the call. I realise that the girl must know this area blindfold as she spends most of every day in this vicinity.

We stumble over to the river bank where Anna disappeared into the darkness and find the girl hugging Joshua with the boy squealing with delight. Mari pushes herself to her feet when she sees us coming and falls about my neck sobbing. She is cold and I wrap my arms around her and whisper in her ear,

“Don’t distress yourself, Nathaniel has offered to share his home with us for the night. You won’t have to stay out here.”

“But the man said…”

“Don’t worry, Mari, we’ll squash in together tonight and sort things out in daylight tomorrow morning.”

Nathaniel picks up the meagre implements that Naomi had given her and Anna lifts Joshua onto her hip and carries him alongside her father. Joshua is quite content with this, he does not scream for me. Anna, despite her young age and squalid circumstances, seems to have a way with small children – with Joshua at least anyway. I follow still holding Mari tightly and feeling her shiver through her thin cloth. She tries to explain to me what has happened, but I tell her that Nathaniel and Naomi have already told me. When we get back to Naomi, Rebecca and the two boys, we find that the bedrolls have already been pushed together and Naomi has a meal ready for everyone. It’s a very simple meal, true, but they were not expecting to have to cater for us as well. When we’ve finished, Naomi puts her two youngest to bed while Mari feeds Joshua, then he too is laid alongside Rebecca and Anna while the boys are squashed beside their father and me near the exit to the tent so that we do not disturb the others when we rise to go to the jetty.

We got in a full twelve hours’ work the following day and I was happy to receive the hourly rate I’d been promised and realised that I’d now enough to pay rent on a space near Nathaniel’s tent. A few more days of similar work and I’d be able to purchase a tent as well as a change of clothing for everyone. That night Nathaniel helped me bring back some disused bamboo poles, rope and some oily cloth that had covered the grain and had now been discarded, and we constructed a shelter of sorts for ourselves and left Nathaniel’s family to themselves, uttering our repeated and grateful thanks. Anna came over after cleaning herself – she’d apparently escaped attention from the youths who had bothered her the previous day – and she kept Joshua amused while Mari managed to light a fire and heat a meal for us.

A few days went past and we surprisingly became accustomed to our lowly status and the stench and filth. Some more ships arrived with imports from our country and from islands far away with fruit and honey and I was able to earn enough to pay the rent which Nathaniel negotiated for us with the nasty character who was looking for an excuse to throw us out again. I began to feel a little more secure and thought that if we continued in this way I might be able to save sufficient money to try moving on, perhaps to the big city of Alexandria that Nathaniel said was rumoured to be no more than ten days’ further journey and where there was a prosperous Jewish settlement. The grain harvest was beginning to slacken but I hoped that the flow of incoming ships would provide sufficient work for me for a further week or two when I calculated that we might make a move. I was a little concerned, however, that my back might give way as I’d been feeling sore and stiff, unused to such heavy work. Let’s hope I can last a further couple of weeks and then find more appropriate carpentry work in the larger city.

I’d been promised employment on the following day as there was a least a morning’s work to complete the current shipment and there was a rumour that a further boat would shortly be calling for some of the last grain harvest. We arrived at the waterfront in good time only to find an angry crowd milling around the foreman’s hut demanding work. Apparently the second ship had not yet been sighted and the overseer had played safe by engaging only half the men this morning and had told others to wait. The overseer was a Jew and had been accused of favouring Jews over Greek-speaking Arabs, and the mob was angry and threatening violence. The overseer now found himself caught between two confrontational groups as some Jews began to hurl abuse at him when he showed signs of caving in to the Arab’s demands and standing Jews down who’d already been promised work.

The man eventually compromised by taking half the Arabs and half the Jews, but that meant I was excluded, being the most recent Jew to be accepted. I could see that if I protested, the mob could get violent and I could find myself in a riot and arrested by Roman soldiers who would not stand idly by. I was dismissed although Nathaniel was one of the lucky ones and stayed. The boys too found no work and we all sauntered back to Nathaniel’s tent together, frustrated and worried.

I had a long talk with Mari that afternoon about what we should do. I calculated that we had enough money now to purchase sufficient provisions for at least three weeks and we had the tent we were using as our home. I’d heard more talk at the dockside of the prosperous Jewish settlement in Alexandria and of a synagogue there and proposed that we should continue our travels westwards and throw ourselves on the mercy of the rabbis there until we had found work and a more permanent dwelling. Mari at first was loath to leave the friends we had made in this place, despite the filth and obvious poverty, but our prospects without promise of further work were very low. I feared we’d not be able to sustain any ability to pay the required land rent and then we’d finish up begging food from our friends again who could ill afford it.

When Nathaniel returned home that night, he was pessimistic. Squabbles had broken out between Jews and the Greek speaking Arabs all afternoon and the overseer had threatened to dismiss everyone and get the next boat transferred to a different jetty. That had calmed the mob temporarily, but the likelihood of me getting sufficient regular employment to keep my family was looking unlikely.

I persuaded Mari that our best chance, while we had a little money, was to make our way to Alexandria as fast as possible. I asked Nathaniel that night why he had never taken the risk and tried to get his family into better accommodation in that city. It was apparent that he felt while he had regular income he could not put his large family in jeopardy and he would soldier on. Nathaniel understood my decision and did not try to talk me out of it, although both Naomi and Anna pleaded with us to stay. Mari was confused as she understood so little that had been spoken in her presence despite her attempts to learn a few key words and phrases from Naomi, but she did not try hard to argue with me and helped me pack our minimal belongings early the following day.

Nathaniel’s whole family came to bid us farewell, with Anna crying as she nearly crushed Joshua in a giant hug despite her wraith-like appearance. Naomi had packed bread and dates for our journey although her store of food was low and pressed them on us despite our insistence that they should not be so generous towards us. We parted and I thanked Nathaniel and Naomi with all my heart and Mari embraced them both and the children. In response to yet another cry from me that I was unhappy that I could not repay them for their goodness to us, Nathaniel simply said,

“Joseph, all I ask is that when you are in a position to help another in need, that you remember this and are generous too.”

Despite our short acquaintance, I’d grown fond of this huge man and his family and as I watched them in the pale dawn light diminishing in size as they waved farewell to us, I have to admit I shed a tear. Mari made no pretence at holding back and was weeping, while Joshua traced the tears on her cheeks with uncomprehending eyes. He’d seen more tears from both his parents in the previous couple of days than in the rest of his little lifetime.

We’d progressed quickly. We left the worst of the city’s stench behind us as we traversed the paved streets and imposing buildings in the centre and found our way without hindrance to the West Gateway on the Roman road to Alexandria, named unsurprisingly the ‘Alexandria Gate’. We took it in turns to carry Joshua in order to move fast, although he needed to get down and exercise his legs occasionally. This gave us a chance to try to link with other travellers to avoid any danger of becoming victims of robbers again, but in truth we had now virtually nothing left to steal and I think that was apparent from our state – we ourselves were clean but our few clothes bore the obvious signs of having lived in a dirty slum for several days.

We passed along this impressive road which hugged the coast on our right and bordered fertile fields of grain and flax on our left. From time to time we encountered a grove of palm trees under which we could rest awhile in their shade and seek refreshment from a common well. I thought from comments made by other travellers, including the merchants who helped us into Pelusium, that we might make Alexandria in a week or so meaning that we would need to spend just a few days in our tents on the way – at a quiet oasis of palms with a few other similarly poor travellers.

We make good progress during the morning and stop at a village well beside the highway and draw sufficient water to shelter behind a barn and attempt as best we can to wash our outer garments. The sun is already hot so we don the wet clothes knowing that they will dry on our bodies and at least keep us cool for an hour or so. The road is busy and we pass many going in the opposite direction, several mule trains and a group of merchants with a number of heavily laden camels. Joshua watches fascinated and attempts to make the ugly growling noises that the animals utter as they strain their ungainly way eastwards. We can see travellers moving our way too, but we are maintaining a reasonable pace now and few overtake us. We feel safe here, although I keep looking nervously over my shoulder for I can’t forget our experience before we reached Pelusium – there’s no way I’ll trust any strangers now, however friendly they appear to be.

By the middle of the day we’re looking out for a suitable place to rest awhile while we eat some of the produce that Nathaniel and Naomi gave us. I can see some palms in the distance and we agree to carry on and seek shade there. We’re lucky – it’s not just a few trees but a real oasis with a pool of water, although it doesn’t look fit for humans to drink. Many other travellers have stopped here however and there are a number of beasts drinking from the water – mainly asses. I look carefully around seeking the company of people who look trustworthy and see a family with two young children and even as I look I catch a few phrases of our own language – they are obviously Jews. We therefore settle down close by them and Joshua is off at once making friends with the older of the two children – a girl of about three, the other child still being scarcely a year old by the look of him.

Despite my resolution not to engage with strangers I exchange glances with the man and Mari brightens at once when she hears her own language and immediately greets the young woman who cannot be that much older than she is. We sit side by side munching our food and I gather that Mari has already established that they are travelling towards Alexandria also and are hoping to settle in the Jewish community there. Mari eventually persuades Joshua to rest and he soon falls asleep and I notice that their youngest is also fast asleep in his mother’s arms. Since neither of us is clearly ready to move on, we begin to share experiences. The man introduces himself as Philip and his wife as Dora and we exchange casual information about our journeys so far. I tell them that we have suffered from thieves although I don’t go into full details and they look horrified and say that they’ve felt safe on the main highway with its regular traffic and constant military patrols. Then I find out from them that the story we were told about the heavy tax due to cross the river bridge into Pelusium was pure fiction – or at least they saw no signs of such an imposition. It was obviously concocted to persuade us into the clutches of the thieves. I feel sick at heart that I’d allowed myself to be so deceived but there is little I could do about it now, so best to try to put it to the back of my mind.

Philip asks me the reason for our journey and I mention the need to find a better life than the one we could find in Bethany – I still feel obliged to maintain that cover for our emigration. This immediately prompts Philip to own up to a similar reason. Apparently he is the younger of three brothers, all skilled carpenters like myself – what a coincidence! However, there was not enough work for the three of them in their village, which was near Ashkelon. I wondered if we had passed through it on our journey earlier. He had tried to find work in Ashkelon itself returning home each night, but there were many carpenters there and they resented a stranger threatening to take some of their business and made it both difficult and unpleasant for him.

In the end they had decided to seek a new life in Alexandria which they’d heard from travellers needed such skills, as the Romans were constructing many new buildings there. This is music to my ears. I’m reassured that I’ve taken to right decision to get out of Pelusium despite the generosity of Nathaniel and Naomi. Philip goes on to add that there had been tension between himself and Dora’s parents (Dora nods quite vigorously as he says this). Apparently Dora is from a Levite family and her parents had been intending to marry her to a fellow Levite and Dora had upset them by indicating that she wanted to marry Philip, a rebellion that had not gone down well. I hint that there were other reasons for us too and before I can stop her Mari is talking about our urgent need to leave Bethlehem.

Philip looks hard at me and I’m forced to admit that I’d mentioned Bethany only as I had been nervous about sharing our real reasons for leaving Bethlehem so suddenly. I quickly just say that our family had been fearful of having upset the authorities, looking hard at Mari hoping she would say no more, and luckily Philip leaves it at that. I don’t feel we should say any more at present, after all we’ve only just met them and although they look innocent enough, you never know, do you?

As we’re both going to Alexandria, however, and are looking for similar contacts, we agree that it makes sense for us to travel together. It’s heartening to see Mari so animated again. It must be several weeks now since she’s really been able to talk to anyone properly apart from Joshua and me and you can hardly call conversation with Joshua adult however intelligent he is. She is clearly finding a rapport with Dora who can’t be much older than she is and they’re busy chattering away while Philip and I get some rest. I discover then that they have a donkey which is drinking from the oasis and Philip brings it back and, after checking that I have no beast, offers to put some of my burden, especially the tent, with his own baggage.

We stir ourselves eventually as we need to be on our way once the children have woken up. The young girl, whom I learn is called Martha, has been snuggling with her mother while she has chatted with Mari and once Joshua has opened his eyes, she starts making funny faces at him and the two children are soon chortling away, Joshua now wide awake. We get on our way and although it takes a bit longer waiting to assemble children and beast from two families, the time on the road seems to pass more quickly because of the company. In fact, while we are walking, we say very little to each other but the presence of friendly faces going the same way makes it seem easier and time seems to pass more quickly. As night begins to fall, I find that they too are relying on setting up a tent rather than relying on lodging accommodation, so we look for a suitable site together and set up our tents next to one another. Is this a friendship that will last or is it another of our brief encounters that will disappear under the stress and strains of the special call we have? Will we ever be confident enough to tell them the truth and if so, will they respect or ridicule us?