Chapter 12.
(The notes written in Greek by Yehuda bar Shimon after leaving the Gamala estate, his brother and his trade, and going to Capharnahum.)
I
I came into the world feet-first. This is quite a rare event, and it is rarer still for mother and child to survive. My mother lived and so, as you can see, I too still live, though only in the sense that the ignorant give to the word. Only my left leg suffered damage in my unusual birth, but so perhaps did my entire destiny. That’s why I was named ‘Feet-first’. It’s become as much a distinguishing name as bar Shimon. Of all the thousands of Jews on earth there’s only one called Feet-first.
As a little boy I was inordinately proud of this name. I and I alone bore it, and all the rest were bar Yosif, bar Yonah, bar Abbas, that was all. I was the only one to be born feet-first, the way they carry you to the grave. And I alone hadn’t died being born that way; anyone else would have. My miraculous birth made me proud, and I regarded myself as unlike others. My mother had another son after me and he was like other children. Only I was Feet-first. For that reason, and not just because I was the first-born, my brother was jealous and teased me. “No good you being the first-born, you can’t become a nazir!” he would shout if we quarrelled.
Because my parents had wanted to offer me to the Lord as first-born, but the priest turned them away. “Moses ordained that an offering must be immaculate,” he said. My father tried to insist that that regulation only applied to animals and the produce of the soil, but the priest maintained that neither the Law nor the great doctors granted a concession for such a birth, and so the Law applied to me too. Because could anyone be a nazir that had come from the womb feet-first, not headfirst? Was that not a contrary indication? True, Moses didn’t forbid it, but neither did he permit it. “How can you give the Lord a defective son? Because you can’t give him a defective ox, sheep or fruit, nor rusted corn,” said the priest.
It upset my parents badly. Because, as devout Jews who wished to observe the Law to the letter, even when my mother was still carrying me they’d planned to dedicate me to the Lord. They’d been certain that the Lord would bless them, that their son would be born and become a nazir. So there was a bitter disappointment in store for them. Presumably they were being punished through me for sin unwittingly committed, or some sin of their ancestors.
And so I often caught my mother or father looking at me pityingly, concealing the bitterness which they felt towards me, their faces clouded. If my father beat me I knew that in fact he did it because he was disappointed in me. If my mother gave me a piece of cake or a handful of fresh dates without my brother knowing, or stroked my head, I felt that she was being kind to me because her hopes had been shattered and she’d wished me harm. In the silence of night, when they thought I was asleep, I often heard my parents arguing quietly and accusing themselves, but in fact it was me that they were accusing. Later on they did it openly. What had at first been passionate whispers became bitter sighs to the Lord: ‘With what have I troubled thee? What have I done, knowingly or unknowingly, to offend thee?’ In the course of time, however, stifled rage would burst forth: ‘Perhaps you’re the cause of it, not me! And if not you, then your father, your grandfather or your mother!’ They each listed the things that the other had done. The room would fill with ghosts, and these would angrily share in what they dragged forth from the grave. I could hardly catch a word here and there, and what I could make of them was disjointed and meaningless, and with my child’s mind I gave it such meaning as I could. In those nights it was as if I were glimpsing the Underworld. My teeth chattered, I was afraid. I often contemplated packing a bag and leaving home, going a long way so that I’d never be found. For the most part I made such plans outside the town, by myself, on the bank of a stream.
I became withdrawn, suspicious, avoided people. At other times I had an eager desire for them, but even then I couldn’t rid myself of my ever wary distrust.
My parents, then, were very pious and brought us too up in that way, but very harshly, not sparing the rod and punishing us severely. We observed the Mosaic laws scrupulously, the forbidden foods, the fasts, the prescribed prayers. My father tithed meticulously, was never a shekel in debt, was careful that the sacrificial animals and everything that he gave to the Mishkan were immaculate. For Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles we went up to the City, delivered a whole load of gifts, and only those servants who were vitally necessary stayed at home. I went with them on their journeys when I was a little bigger, but mother took my brother in swaddling-clothes.
Even after that, however, the Lord didn’t relieve them of his affliction; my brother was born only four years later, and after him my mother was never pregnant again. Her womb had closed. My parents found that all but unbearable. They did everything to assuage the wrath of Adonai, that he might grant them a child. They besieged him with abundant, special sacrifices and gifts, fervent imprecations, but he turned his face from them and his ears remained stopped.
My father, Shimon bar Menahem, was of the tribe of Yehuda and my mother from that of Shimeon. He settled in Kerioth, near my mother’s home, and we lived there for a year or two before moving toBeersheba. My father was therefore known as ‘Keriothi’, and later, in Gamala, this name was applied to me as well.
My parents preserved the memory of their origins, kept up the traditions. My father was proud of the fact that Yehuda Makkabi had succeeded in holding Yudea against the heathen, andJudeahad then liberated the whole of Eretz Yisrael. One of his ancestors had actually taken part in the bloody fighting, been the first to join the Hero, and stood staunchly beside him through many vicissitudes until the final victory. Both he and my mother were Yudeans to the core, proud of the purity of their ancestry. ‘The lion of Yehuda never sleeps,’ my father used to repeat. His tribe and that of Shimeon had maintained the Laws of Moses in the times of the greatest destruction, the worst aberrations, the greatest darkness. They were hard, tenacious, dogged people.
My grandfather, Menahem, by unremitting toil had amassed some money and bought a house and land inBeersheba. We all moved there. None of us had liked Kerioth, which we thought bleak and empty and always yearned to leave. Our desire was fulfilled. As it was said, their old estate had been lost during the great battles, or rather had been assigned to the Makkabi movement, and the family had thus become impoverished and so, a long time before, had gone to wretched Kerioth. We, however, succeeded in climbing out of poverty. My mother had relations in Gamala – on the other side of the country, and we only met them at the great festivals inJerusalem. In addition to farming, my father also carried on my grandfather’s business activities, delivering asphalt and salt from the shores ofLakeLoth, and had a smallish caravan, a few camels, a dozen donkeys, five or six male and female servants; it didn’t amount to much, but we were able to live respectably. I actually knew my grandfather Menahem. He was a laconic, slow-moving, grey-haired old man with a piercing eye, who never smiled. He prayed fervently, observed the fasts, foods and ritual washing, and declared with satisfaction that his whole life was pure, a life pleasing to Adonai, worthy of his heroic ancestors. By that, however, he merely added to my parents’ disquiet. My brother was too young to have known him. My mother said with relief, when she was carrying my brother, that ‘you see, that old Menahem was the cause of it,’ he’d laid some unwitting sin on her, because as soon as he’d gone to his fathers she’d conceived at once. The delight was great, my father had a calf slaughtered, invited guests, they ate and drank, sang, finally even played music and danced. They thought that they were going to have as many children as Yakob. A crowd of grandchildren and great-grandchildren would surround them by the time they were old, all good-looking, well-built, strong, keen Judeans. They set off forJerusalemwith an even bigger load, sacrifices and gifts without number. Of course, afterwards their disappointment was all the harder.
I was in my teens and going to the beth-hashefer when my father, to escape his crushing spiritual burden, chose a slave-girl to demonstrate that he was not the cause of the childlessness of their marriage, . She came fromEgypt, but how she’d come into his possession I don’t know. Father had acquired her together with other slaves. I can’t remember her name, only that mother called her Lilith out of spite. The girl’s ageing father was a gardener, her two grown-up brothers went with the camels, and her mother sat all the time in a little room, scarcely did any work, all crippled with disease. She was forever moaning and sighing, and only asked the Lord to look after her daughter and let her herself die. The girl was the youngest of her children. She was muscular, slender, swarthy, black-haired, healthy and cheerful. She worked indoors in the family house. I liked her a lot, and she liked me. I remember the lovely days when we played together. I admired her cleverness, the way she could run and her laughing face more than I can say. I was happy when she picked me up, hugged me and kissed me. Her eyes in particular were lovely. They were large, wide apart and brown like an antelope’s, her lashes long and silky. And her voice was like dove’s: ringing, deep, pure and bright. She was well aware that she was beautiful and that her eyes were specially so, because sometimes she would open them wide, sometimes hide them behind her dark lashes, sometimes wink flirtatiously, sometimes stare naively like a tame animal. Even when she was calling the chickens or the cow there was that charming lilt to her voice. This was the girl for whom father lusted.
He had the right. No one could raise any objection. Even mother couldn’t say anything, but she did. She didn’t care about law, traditions, customs, ancient parables, nor that wifely duty to which she’d been brought up. She didn’t accept what her husband did just like that; she said that the woman’s head was the man and the man’s was Adonai, but she didn’t mean it.
Life at home became terrible. And because her woman friends too only paid lip-service to the customs the whispering, discussion and agitation went on ceaselessly, as is the way with women. My poor mother followed now this advice, now that; sometimes she was gentle and tolerant, sometimes hateful and malicious. Sometimes she would be nice to father, sometimes she would burst out and find fault with him, curse him and sob. Sometimes at night she would run out of the house in just a kuttoneth, through the town, out into the gardens and vanish. Father and the servants would search for her until dawn until they found her in a riverside thicket or by an abandoned well-head in which there was no water. I’ve never forgotten those nights. The house was in uproar, everyone running about calling mother’s name. The dogs would bark. Everywhere shutters would be raised and people – inquisitive, malicious, sympathetic or irritated – would stare out of windows. My brother and I would sit on the carpet and wail. But it also happened that mother would take my brother in her arms, seize me by the hand, and set off with us into the night. She would shout something about not stopping before she got to Gamala or died on the road with us. And let our deaths be on father’s soul, and that miserable whore could go to hell with him. Then she would sit down under a big fig tree and my brother would go to sleep in her lap while I, in despair, leant my head on mother’s shoulder and she wept bitterly.
How did father’s connection with the slave-girl end? What became of the Egyptian beauty? I don’t know, I never found out. A long time afterwards my uncle Yehuda said something to the effect that the shopher and other scribes persuaded father to sell the slave-girl, because the calm plough land of peace is worth more than even the most delightful garden of love. One day the swarthy girl with the lovely eyes and nightingale voice vanished from our lives. I missed her badly, her singing of an evening, her calling in the poultry and the cow, her playing with me. I would have liked to snuggle up against her yielding breast, feel her soft, warm kisses.
Father too went about for a long time hanging his head, grimly, not speaking, but mother didn’t cry as much as before, or she hid it. Rather she tried to sing in her colourless, tremulous voice, and bustled briskly around the house. She looked nicer too, dressed with care, spent a long time combing her long hair; her figure filled out, her step became lighter, her movements more delicate. She was a thin-boned woman, quite tall; her dark eyes looked on the world intelligently if a little sharply, and a few early streaks of grey were appearing in her raven hair. She gave the impression of being submissive, now especially, but in fact she was dreadfully stubborn. Even if she yielded voluntarily she only did it outwardly in order to overcome opposition. At that time she was easygoing, taking even the movement of Father’s eye as an order. She knew, of course, that as soon as the Egyptian woman had left the house she was the one and only, and took care not to lose father’s favour.
A woman can change remarkably if she has to. Mother’s blossoming came not from clothes, cosmetics, bathing and brushing. Sometimes, even before then, she had followed the advice of a wiser woman, dressed up, wore her old earrings, put gold bracelets on her wrists and ankles, but it only made her more dismal. She felt it herself too, and after a few days the clothes and jewellery went back into the chests and she was all the more miserable, slovenly, unkempt, pale, with burned-out, red eyes, paying no attention to the house or her children. Now all that went at a stroke.
They had clearly decided to begin a completely new life, because father sold the house and land and we moved to Gamala inGalilee. Father entrusted the sale of the house and land to mother’s relatives.
Indeed, our lives changed radically. To move fromBeershebato distantGalilee, to the shores of Kinnereth, was to move to another world, to break off completely from the old and familiar. My parents decided, however, after long, long discussion that their lives were going to be completely different from before. A different country, different area, different people, different way of life, different air to breathe. Mother’s wish prevailed. “I feel,” she repeated, “that if we live inGalileeI’ll conceive again.” And she proved by a series of examples that completely barren women, and infertile men too, had become fecund through a change of place.
For us children all this was exciting novelty. Now I could boast to my friends not only that I was Feet-first, but also that we were going to Galilee, a very, very long way away. The fuss and bother of the move, all the excitement, was simply great fun. We could run around the empty premises shouting, climb over sacks, barrels and chests, chase startled mice, investigate the mysteries of the old cellar, use old tools and broken pots as weapons. We could establish a robbers’ cave in the musty cavities under the house, hide away like Yehuda Makkabi. All this was like happiness that would never end. Now my brother and I got on well together; I thought up games, I was the hero, and he was my slave, my arms-bearer, my soldier.
Finally we went with mother to the familiar places, looked at the big sacred rock and the huge tamarisk where people used to gather for special celebrations, festivities or mysterious prophecies. We called on our friends too, said good-bye to everyone. Mother was emotional and happy; father was taken up by his work, but we could see that he was out of sorts and gloomy.
We set off at the beginning of summer, in the month of Iyar. The heat was dreadful. We leftBeershebain the evening, so that we could use the cool, moonlit night to travel. My brother and I was placed in baskets, one on each side of a camel, mother rode the quietest of our donkeys, and father led the way on the camel with a bell. The servants accompanied the loaded animals, some on foot and some holding onto donkeys. The Moon soon rose as we left the little town. I remember even today the red half-moon hanging above the hills.
I’d already travelled with my parents to the City, so that part of the journey held no surprises. Then, however, we had travelled in a big crowd, together with all sorts of families that we knew. Almost everyone fromBeershebawent together, moving like an army on the march. Noise, chatter, laughter, the loud singing of psalms and all the laden animals diverted attention from the journey itself. The time taken had been amazingly short – scarcely a few moments went by and we’d reached the City, because I’d had so many friends, so many kindly women picked me up and sat me on their donkeys or camels, that I scarcely saw my own. They gave me things to eat and drink, made a fuss of me, taught me things, played with me, and I often even went to sleep in their laps. The men were even more amusing. They were for ever arguing, telling stories or singing some travelling psalm. All of them had some interesting custom or property. One would solemnly tell stories that made us split our sides laughing, another could drink without swallowing, another was the image of some hated great man and was always imitating the way he spoke and moved, a fourth would always be boasting of how he had thrashed three or four or even twelve mighty men, and so on. In the evening a big fire was lit, prayers said, people sang and told wonderful tales of the old times. Now, however, there was just us in the moonlight, surrounded by dark, silent hills and grim mountain ranges, the journey was long and I could take a good look at everything.
Now and then father would come over to us on his long-legged camel and in a gruff voice ask whether we were comfortable, weren’t we tired, weren’t we feeling sick at the camel’s swaying? Mother would talk to us as well as she jogged along beside us. The camel did shake us, our baskets swung about wildly, and at first we were almost sick. My brother wailed all the time. Now he was thirsty, now he needed to pee, now the basket was hurting him. He was always finding some way of stopping the camel until father lost patience and spanked him hard. Then he screamed and mother comforted him. I sat quietly in my basket without a word and put up with it, swallowed big gulps, and would have liked to drive my brother out into the desert. I looked solemnly at the darkened landscape. I saw antelopes running off, hares crouching, their ears twitching, big old well-heads, irrigation channels. The Moon became brighter and brighter and gleamed wonderfully in an occasional puddle. I could make out mysteriouscairns, isolated stone pillars, mighty, dark trees hung full of all sorts of old clothes, beggars’ staffs and crutches. I saw a little town or two in the distance, down in a valley, like pebbles piled up in a big basket. I caught the strong scents of herbs and earth on the wind, the acrid smell of animals, and finally I enjoyed it all very much and forgot about my brother. In my imagination I looked out at our new home and unknownGalilee. I’d heard that there was a big lake there, and could scarcely wait to see it. Then I started imagining what would happen if we were attacked by a lion. The lion ofJudah. Inquisitively, fearfully too I waited to hear its roar, for it to rush upon us. At length I fell asleep in the basket.
At sunrise we reachedHebron. We spent the whole day in the house of someone that we knew, and it was boring. The elderly lady of the house had a great swelling like a loaf on her neck, and I was frightened of it, but she kept giving me things and patting me. My brother slept in a darkened room, and he was thought to be ill. I wouldn’t have minded if we’d had to leave him there. I didn’t see anything of the famous roses ofHebron. The lady with the bad neck said that by then they’d all withered in the heat. I didn’t believe her.
In the evening we set off again and must have reached the City in the morning.
By that time I’d grown tired of looking round and was more aware that father was pensive and gloomy, and although mother was pleasant to him he scarcely spoke. Because mother was very confident. She was always dreaming, making plans, and if she couldn’t get close to father she would tell us that it was going to be like this, then like that. What lovely peace we would have in our new home. How the relations there would love us. I know that she was certain that in a year she’d have another son and that more children would follow, mostly sons. Father just nodded. From time to time he looked to the South; it went hard with him leaving Judea, the work that he was used to, the graves of his ancestors, the countryside where his forebears had tended their flocks and where such familiar rocks,cairns, old stone pillars, wells and trees had reminded us of them. And I know that he was grieving for something else too. He saw in the move his own defeat, his own weakness. He had failed to make mother submit humbly to her fate like Rachel and Leah. Mother knew this, she was kind and gentle towards him, and watched for even the flicker of his eye.
Janos Kodolanyi: I AM 