Chapter 10
The angel and I had been watching a movie about Moses. Raziel was angry because there were no angels in it. No one in the movie looked like any Egyptian I ever met.
"Did Moses look like that?" I asked Raziel, who was worrying the crust off of a goat cheese pizza in between spitting vitriol at the screen.
"No," said Raziel, "but that other fellow looks like Pharaoh."
"Really?"
"Yep," said Raziel. He slurped the last of a Coke through a straw making a rude noise, then tossed the paper cup across the room into the wastebasket.
"So you were there, during the Exodus?"
"Right before. I was in charge of locusts."
"How was that?"
"Didn't care for it. I wanted the plague of frogs. I like frogs."
"I like frogs too."
"You wouldn't have liked the plague of frogs. Stephan was in charge. A seraphim." He shook his head as if I should know some sad inside fact about seraphim. "We lost a lot of frogs.
"I suppose it's for the best, though," Raziel said with a sigh. "You can't have a someone who likes frogs bring a plague of frogs. If I'd done it, it would have been more of a friendly gathering of frogs."
"That wouldn't have worked," I said.
"Well, it didn't work anyway, did it? I mean, Moses, a Jew, thought it up. Frogs were unclean to the Jews. To the Jews it was a plague. To the Egyptians it was like having a big feast of frog legs drop from the sky. Moses missed it on that one. I'm just glad we didn't listen to him on the plague of pork."
"Really, he wanted to bring down a plague of pork? Pigs falling from the sky?"
"Pig pieces. Ribs, hams, feet. He wanted everything bloody. You know, unclean pork and unclean blood. The Egyptians would have eaten the pork. We talked him into just the blood."
"Are you saying that Moses was a dimwit?" I wasn't being ironic when I asked this, I was aware that I was asking the eternal dimwit of them all. Still...
"No, he just wasn't concerned with results," said the angel. "The Lord had hardened Pharaoh's heart against letting the Jews go. We could have dropped oxen from the sky and he wouldn't have changed his mind."
"That would have been something to see," I said.
"I suggested that it rain fire," the angel said.
"How'd that go?"
"It was pretty. We only had it rain on the stone palaces and monuments. Burning up all of the Jews would sort of defeated the purpose."
"Good thinking," I said.
"Well, I'm good with weather," said the angel.
"Yeah, I know," I said. Then I thought about it a second, about how Raziel nearly wore out our poor room service waiter Jesus delivering orders of ribs the day they were the special.
"You didn't suggest fire, initially, did you? You just suggested that it rain barbecued pork, didn't you?"
"That guy doesn't look anything like Moses," the angel said.
That day, thrashing in the sea, trying to swim to catch the merchant ship that plowed through the water under full sail, I first saw that Raziel was, as he claimed, "good with weather." Joshua was leaning over the aftrail of the ship, shouting alternately to me, then to Titus. It was pretty obvious that even under the light wind that day, I would never catch the ship, and when I looked in the direction of shore I could see nothing but water. Strange, the things you think of at times like that. What I thought first was "What an incredibly stupid way to die." Next I thought, "Joshua will never make it without me." And with that, I began to pray, not for my own salvation but for Joshua. I prayed for the Lord to keep him safe, then I prayed for Maggie's safety and happiness. Then, as I shrugged off my shirt and fell into a slow crawl in the direction of the shoreline, which I knew I would never see, the wind stopped. Just stopped. The sea flattened and the only sound I could hear was the frightened cries of the crew of Titus's ship, which had stopped in the water as if it had dropped anchor.
"Biff, this way!" Joshua called.
I turned in the water to see my friend waving to me from the stern of the becalmed ship. Beside him, Titus cowered like a frightened child. On the mast above them sat a winged figure, who after I swam to the ship and was hoisted out by a very frightened bunch of sailors, I recognized as the angel Raziel. Unlike the times when we had seen him before, he wore robes as black as pitch, and the feathers in his wings shone the blue-black of the sea under moonlight. As I joined Joshua on the raised poop deck at the stern of the ship, the angel took wing and gently landed on the deck beside us. Titus was shielding his head with his arms, as if to ward off an attacker, and he looked as if he were trying to dissolve between the deck boards.
"You," Raziel said to the Phoenician, and Titus looked up between his arms. "No harm is to come to these two."
Titus nodded, tried to say something, then gave up when his voice broke under the weight of his fear. I was a little frightened myself. Decked out in black, the angel was a fearsome sight, even if he was on our side. Joshua, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease.
"Thank you," Josh said to the angel. "He's a cur, but he's my best friend."
"I'm good with weather," the angel said. And as if that explained everything, he flapped his massive black wings and lifted off the deck. The sea was dead calm until the angel was out of sight over the horizon, then the breeze picked up, the sails filled, and waves began to lap at the bow. Titus ventured a peek from his cowed position, then stood up slowly and took one of the steering oars under his arm.
"I'm going to need a new shirt," I said.
"You can have mine," Titus said.
"We should sail closer along the coast, don't you think?" I said.
"On the way, good master," Titus said. "On the way."
"Your mother eats the fungus from the feet of lepers," I said.
"I've been meaning to speak to her about that," Titus said.
"So we understand each other," I said.
"Absolutely," Titus said.
"Crap," Joshua said. "I forgot to ask the angel about knowing women again."
For the rest of the journey Titus was much more agreeable, and strangely enough, we didn't have to man any of the huge oars when we pulled into port, nor did we have to help unload or load any cargo. The crew avoided us altogether, and tended the pigs for us without our even asking. My fear of sailing subsided after a day, and as the steady breeze carried us north, Joshua and I would watch the dolphins that came to ride the ship's bow wave, or lie on the deck at night, breathing in the smell of cedar coming off the ship's timbers, listening to the creaking of rope and rigging, and trying to imagine aloud what it would be like when we found Balthasar. If it hadn't been for Joshua's constant badgering about what sex was like, it would have been a pleasant journey indeed.
"Fornication isn't the only sin, Josh," I tried to explain. "I'm happy to help out, but are you going to have me steal so I can explain it to you? Will you have me kill someone next so you can understand it?"
"No, the difference is that I don't want to kill anyone."
"Okay, I'll tell you again. You got your loins, and she's got her loins. And even though you call them both loins, they're different - "
"I understand the mechanics of it. What I don't understand is the feeling of it."
"Well, it feels good, I told you that."
"But that doesn't seem right. Why would the Lord make sin feel good, then condemn man for it?"
"Look, why don't you try it?" I said. "It would be cheaper that way. Or better yet, get married, then it wouldn't even be sin."
"Then it wouldn't be the same, would it?" Josh asked.
"How would I know, I've never been married."
"Is it always the same for you?"
"Well, in some ways, yes."
"In what ways?"
"Well, so far, it seems to be moist."
"Moist?"
"Yeah, but I can't say it's always that way, just in my experience. Maybe we should ask a harlot?"
"Better yet," Joshua said, looking around, "I'll ask Titus. He's older, and he looks as if he's sinned a lot."
"Yeah, well, if you count throwing Jews in the sea, I'd say he's an expert, but that doesn't mean - "
Joshua had run to the stern of the ship, up a ladder to the raised poop deck, and to a small, open-sided tent that acted as the captain's quarters. Under the tent Titus reclined on a pile of rugs, drinking from a wineskin, which I saw him hand to Joshua.
By the time I caught up with him Titus was saying, "So you want to know about fucking? Well, son, you have come to the right place. I've fucked a thousand women, half again as many boys, some sheep, pigs, a few chickens, and the odd turtle. What is it you want to know?"
"Stand away from him, Josh," I said, taking the wineskin and handing it back to Titus as I pushed Joshua back. "The wrath of God could hit him at any moment. Jeez, a turtle, that's got to be an abomination." Titus flinched when I mentioned the wrath of God, as if the angel might return to perch on his mast any second.
Joshua stood his ground. "Right now let's just stick with the women part of it, if that's all right." Joshua patted Titus's arm to reassure him. I knew how that touch felt: Titus would feel the fear run out of him like water.
"I've fucked every kind of woman there is. I've fucked Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Ethiopians, and women from places that haven't even been named yet. I've fucked fat ones, skinny ones, women with no legs, women with - "
"Are you married?" Joshua interrupted before the sailor started into how he had fucked them in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse...
"I have a wife in Rome."
"Is it the same with your wife and, say, a harlot?"
"What, fucking? No, it's not the same at all."
"It's moist," I said. "Right?"
"Well, yes, it's moist. But that's not - "
I grabbed Joshua's tunic and started to drag him away. "There you have it. Let's go, Josh. Now you know, sin is moist. Make a mental note. Let's get some supper."
Titus was laughing. "You Jews and your sin. You know if you had more gods you wouldn't have to be so worried about making one angry?"
"Right," I said, "I'm going to take spiritual advice from a guy who fucks turtles."
"You shouldn't be so judgmental, Biff," Joshua said. "You're not without sin yourself."
"Oh, you and your holier-than-thou attitude. You can just do your own sinning from now on if that's how you feel. You think I enjoy bedding harlots night after night, describing the whole process to you over and over?"
"Well, yeah," Joshua said.
"That's not the point. The point is, well...the point is...well. Guilt. I mean - turtles. I mean - " So I was flustered. Sue me. I'd never look at a turtle again without imagining it being molested by a scruffy Phoenician sailor. That's not disturbing to you? Imagine it right now. I'll wait. See?
"He's gone mad," Titus said.
"You shut up, you scurvy viper," Joshua said.
"What about not being judgmental?" Titus said.
"That's him," Josh said. "It's different for me." And suddenly, having said that, Joshua looked as sad as I had ever seen him. He slouched away toward the pigpen, where he sat down and cradled his head in his hands as if he'd just been crowned with the weight of all the worries of mankind. He kept to himself until we left the ship.
The Silk Road, the main vein of trade and custom and culture from the Roman world to the Far East, terminated where it met the sea at the port city of Selucia Pieria, the harbor city and naval stronghold that had fed and guarded Antioch since the time of Alexander. As we left the ship with the rest of the crew, Captain Titus stopped us at the gangplank. He held his hands, palm down. Joshua and I reached out and Titus dropped the coins we'd paid for passage into our palms. "I might have been holding a brace of scorpions, but you two reached out without a thought."
"It was a fair price to pay," Joshua said. "You don't have to return our money."
"I almost drowned your friend. I'm sorry."
"You asked if he could swim before you threw him in. He had a chance."
I looked at Joshua's eyes to see if he was joking, but it was obvious he wasn't.
"Still," Titus said.
"So perhaps you will be given a chance someday as well," Joshua said.
"A slim fucking chance," I added.
Titus grinned at me. "Follow the shore of the harbor until it becomes a river. That's the Onrontes. Follow its left bank and you'll be in Antioch by nightfall. In the market there will be an old woman who sells herbs and charms. I don't remember her name, but she has only one eye and she wears a tunic of Tyran purple. If there is a magician in Antioch she will know where to find him."
"How do you know this old woman?" I asked.
"I buy my tiger penis powder from her."
Joshua looked at me for explanation. "What?" I said. "I've had a couple of harlots, I didn't exchange recipes." Then I looked to Titus. "Should I have?"
"It's for my knees," the sailor said. "They hurt when it rains."
Joshua took my shoulder and started to lead me away. "Go with God, Titus," he said.
"Put in a good word with the black-winged one for me," Titus said.
Once we were into the wash of merchants and sailors around the harbor, I said, "He gave us the money back because the angel scared him, you know that?"
"So his kindness allayed his fear as well as benefiting us," Joshua said. "All the better. Do you think the priests sacrifice the lambs at Passover for better reasons?"
"Oh, right," I said, having no idea what one had to do with the other, wondering still if tigers didn't object to having their penises powdered. (Keeps them from chafing, I guess, but that's got to be a dangerous job.) "Let's go find this old crone," I said.
The shore of the Onrontes was a stream of life and color, textures and smells, from the harbor all the way into the marketplace at Antioch. There were people of every size and color that I had ever imagined, some shoeless and dressed in rags, others wearing expensive silks and the purple linen from Tyre, said to be dyed with the blood of a poisonous snail. There were ox carts, litters, and sedan chairs carried by as many as eight slaves. Roman soldiers on horseback and on foot policed the crowd, while sailors from a dozen nations reveled in drink and noise and the feel of land beneath their feet. Merchants and beggars and traders and whores scurried for the turn of a coin, while self-appointed prophets spouted dogma from atop the mooring posts where ships tied off along the river - holy men lined up and preaching like a line of noisy Greek columns. Smoke rose fragrant and blue over the streaming crowd, carrying the smell of spice and grease from braziers in the food booths where men and women hawked their fare in rhythmic, haunting songs that all ran together as you walked along - as if one passed his song to the next so you might never experience a second of silence.
The only thing I had ever seen that approached this was the line of pilgrims leading into Jerusalem on the feast days, but there we never saw so much color, heard so much noise, felt so much excitement.
We stopped at a stand and bought a hot black drink from a wrinkled old man wearing a tanned bird carcass as a hat. He showed us how he made the drink from the seeds of berries that were first roasted, then ground into powder, then mixed with boiling water. We got this whole story by way of pantomime, as the man spoke none of the languages we were familiar with. He mixed the drink with honey and gave it to us, but when I tasted it, it still didn't seem to taste right. It seemed, I don't know, too dark. I saw a woman leading a nanny goat nearby, and I took Joshua's cup from him and ran after the woman. With the woman's permission, I squirted a bit of milk from the nanny goat's udder onto the top of each of our cups. The old man protested, making it seem as if we'd committed some sort of sacrilege, but the milk had come out warm and frothy and it served to take away the bitterness of the black drink. Joshua downed his, then asked the old man for two more, as well as handing the woman with the goat a small brass coin for her trouble. Josh gave the second drink back to the old man to taste, and after much grimacing, he took a sip. A smile crossed his toothless mouth and before we left he seemed to be striking some sort of deal with the woman with the goat. I watched the old man grind beans in a copper cylinder while the woman milked her goat into a deep clay bowl. There was a spice vendor next door and I could smell the cinnamon, cloves, and allspice that lay loose in baskets on the ground.
"You know," I said to the woman in Latin, "when you two get this all figured out, try sprinkling a little ground cinnamon on it. It just might make it perfect."
"You're losing your friend," she said.
I turned and looked around, catching the top of Joshua's head just as he turned a corner into the Antioch market and a new push of people. I ran to catch up to him.
Joshua was bumping people in the crowd as he passed, seemingly on purpose, and murmuring just loud enough so I could hear him each time he hit someone with a shoulder or an elbow. "Healed that guy. Healed her. Stopped her suffering. Healed him. Comforted him. Ooo, that guy was just stinky. Healed her. Whoops, missed. Healed. Healed. Comforted. Calmed."
People were turning to look back at Josh, the way one will when a stranger steps on one's foot, except these people all seemed to be either smiling or baffled, not annoyed as I expected.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Practicing," Joshua said. "Whoa, bad toe-jam." He spun on his heel, nearly turning his foot out of his sandal, and smacked a short bald man on the back of the head. "All better now."
The bald guy turned and looked back to see who had hit him. Josh was backing down the street. "How's your toe?" Joshua asked in Latin.
"Good," the bald guy said, and he smiled, sorta goofy and dreamy, like his toe had just sent him a message that all was right with the world.
"Go with God, and - " Josh spun, jumped, came down with each hand on a stranger's shoulder and shouted, "Yes! Double healing! Go with God, friends, two times!"
I was getting sort of uncomfortable. People had started to follow us through the crowd. Not a lot of people, but a few. Maybe five or six, each of them with that dreamy smile on his face.
"Joshua, maybe you should, uh, calm down a little."
"Can you believe all of these people need healing? Healed him." Josh leaned back and whispered in my ear. "That guy had the pox. He'll pee without pain for the first time in years. 'Scuse me." He turned back into the crowd. "Healed, healed, calmed, comforted."
"We're strangers here, Josh. You're attracting attention to us. This might not be safe..."
"It's not like they're blind or missing limbs. We'll have to stop if we run into something serious. Healed! God bless you. Oh, you no speak Latin? Uh - Greek? Hebrew? No?"
"He'll figure it out, Josh," I said. "We should look for the old woman."
"Oh, right. Healed!" Josh slapped the pretty woman very hard in the face. Her husband, a large man in a leather tunic, didn't look pleased. He pulled a dagger from his belt and started to advance on Joshua. "Sorry, sir," Joshua said, not backing up. "Couldn't be helped. Small demon, had to be banished from her. Sent it into that dog over there. Go with God. Thank you, thank you very much."
The woman grabbed her husband by the arm and swung him around. She still had Joshua's handprint on her face, but she was smiling. "I'm back!" she said to her husband. "I'm back." She shook him and the anger seemed to drain out of him. He looked back at Joshua with an expression of such dismay that I thought he might faint. He dropped his knife and threw his arms around his wife. Joshua ran forward and threw his arms around them both.
"Would you stop it please?" I pleaded.
"But I love these people," Josh said.
"You do, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"He was going to kill you."
"It happens. He just didn't understand. He does now."
"Glad he caught on. Let's find the old lady."
"Yes, then let's go back and get another one of those hot drinks," Joshua said.
We found the hag selling a bouquet of monkey feet to a fat trader dressed in striped silks and a wide conical hat woven from some sort of tough grass.
"But these are all back feet," the trader protested.
"Same magic, better price," said the hag, pulling back a shawl she wore over one side of her face to reveal a milky white eye. This was obviously her intimidation move.
The trader wasn't having it. "It is a well-known fact that the front paw of a monkey is the best talisman for telling the future, but the back - "
"You'd think the monkey would see something coming," I said, and they both looked at me as if I'd just sneezed on their falafel. The old woman drew back as if to cast a spell, or maybe a rock, at me. "If that were true," I continued, "I mean - about telling the future with a monkey paw - I mean - because he would have four of them - paws, that is - and, uh - never mind."
"How much are these?" said Joshua, holding up a handful of dried newts from the hag's baskets. The old woman turned to Josh.
"You can't use that many," the hag said.
"I can't?" asked Joshua.
"These are useless," said the merchant, waving the hind legs and feet of two and a half former monkeys, which looked like tiny people feet, except that they were furry and the toes were longer.
"If you're a monkey I'll bet they come in handy to keep your butt from dragging on the ground," I said, ever the peacemaker.
"Well, how many do I need?" Joshua asked, wondering how his diversion to save me had turned into a negotiation for newt crispies.
"How many of your camels are constipated?" asked the crone.
Joshua dropped the dried newts back into their basket. "Well, uh..."
"Do those work?" asked the merchant. "For plugged-up camels, I mean."
"Never fails."
The merchant scratched his pointed beard with a monkey foot. "I'll meet your price on these worthless monkey feet if you throw in a handful of newts."
"Deal," said the crone.
The merchant opened a satchel he had slung around his shoulder and dropped in his monkey feet, then followed them with a handful of newts. "So how do these work? Make them into tea and have the camel drink it?"
"Other end," said the crone. "They go in whole. Count to one hundred and step back."
The merchant's eyes went wide, then narrowed into a squint and he turned to me. "Kid," he said, "if you can count to a hundred, I've got a job for you."
"He'd love to work for you, sir," Joshua said, "but we have to find Balthasar the magus."
The crone hissed and backed to the corner of her booth, covering all of her face but her milky eye. "How do you know of Balthasar?" She held her hands in front of her like claws and I could see her trembling.
"Balthasar!" I shouted at her, and the old woman nearly jumped through the wall behind her. I snickered and was ready to Balthasar! her again when Josh interrupted.
"Balthasar came from here to Bethlehem to witness my birth," said Joshua. "I'm seeking his counsel. His wisdom."
"You would hail the darkness, you would consort with demons and fly with the evil Djinn like Balthasar? I won't have you near my booth, be gone from here." She made the sign of the evil eye, which in her case was redundant.
"No, no, no," I said. "None of that. The magus left some, uh, frankincense at Joshua's house. We need to return it to him."
The old woman regarded me with her good eye. "You're lying."
"Yes, he is," said Josh.
"BALTHASAR!" I screamed in her face. It didn't have the same effect as the first time around and I was a little disappointed.
"Stop that," she said.
Joshua reached out to take her craggy hand. "Grandmother," he said, "our ship's captain, Titus Inventius, said you would know where to find Balthasar. Please help us."
The old woman seemed to relax, and just when I thought she was going to smile, she raked her nails across Joshua's hand and leapt back. "Titus Inventius is a scalawag," she shouted.
Joshua stared at the blood welling up in the scratches on the back of his hand and I thought for a second that he might faint. He never understood it when someone was violent or unkind. I'd probably be half a day explaining to him why the old woman scratched him, but right then I was furious.
"You know what? You know what? You know what?" I was waving my finger under her nose. "You scratched the Son of God. That's your ass, that's what."
"The magus is gone from Antioch, and good riddance to him," screeched the crone.
The fat trader had been watching this the whole time without saying a word, but now he began laughing so hard that I could barely hear the old woman wheezing out curses. "So you want to find Balthasar, do you, God's Son?"
Joshua came out of the stunned contemplation of his wounds and looked at the trader. "Yes, sir, do you know him?"
"Who do you think the monkey's feet are for? Follow me." He whirled on his heel and sauntered away without another word.
As we followed the trader into an alley so narrow that his shoulders nearly touched the sides, I turned back to the old crone and shouted, "Your ass, hag! Mark my words."
She hissed and made the sign of the evil eye again.
"She was a little creepy," Joshua said, looking at the scratches on his hand again.
"Don't be judgmental, Josh, you're not without creepiness yourself."
"Where do you think this guy is leading us?"
"Probably somewhere where he can murder and kill us."
"Yeah, at least one of those."