He rose from the table. His dark curls glittered with oil. I caught the scent of myrrh. “You threaten me then?”
“I only ask that you look the other way while Haran is away. My aunt and I have been here more than a year and have seen nothing of the greatness of Alexandria. Are a few excursions too much to ask? I don’t wish to go to Haran about the bribes you took from me, but I will.”
He studied me, seeming to weigh my threat. I doubted I would follow through with it, but he didn’t know that. I held his gaze. He said, “I’ll ignore your goings and comings, but once Haran has returned, my debt to you will be paid. You must give me an oath you will extort me no further.”
“Extort is a harsh word,” I said.
“It’s also the correct word. Now swear before me that your uncle’s return will be the end of it.”
“I swear it.”
He sat down again, dismissing me with a flick of his wrist. I said, “May I ask, is your father still living?”
He looked up. “My father? Why is this of interest to you?”
“You may recall that when I first met you in Sepphoris—”
He interrupted, his mouth tightening, “Do you mean back when you were with child?”
It took a moment to realize what he meant. I’d forgotten the lie I’d told him; clearly he had not. When I’d pretended I was pregnant in order to obtain from him what I needed, I hadn’t known I’d be traveling to Alexandria, where the months would reveal my falsehood. I felt an embarrassed heat on my cheeks.
“Are you going to lie again and tell me you lost the child?”
“No, I confess I lied to you. I’ll not do so again. I’m sorry.” I was sorry, and yet my lie had helped win us passage to Alexandria. And my extortion, as he insisted on calling it, now offered us the freedom to roam about the city. Yes, I was sorry, and no, I was not sorry.
He nodded, his shoulders dropping. My words seemed to mollify him.
I began again. “As I was about to say . . . when we first met, I mentioned that my aunt had known your father. She was fond of him and asked me to inquire of his health.”
“Tell her he’s well enough, though he’s grown corpulent in his old age—he lives on a diet of beer, wine, bread, and honey.”
Apollonios is alive. “If by chance Yaltha wished to see him, how would she find him?”
“I don’t wish to give you another reason to stray from the house, but it seems you plan to do so anyway. My father can be found at the library, where he goes each day to join the enclave of men who sit in the colonnades and debate exactly how far God is from the world—a thousand iters or seven times a thousand.”
“They think God far?”
“They are Platonists and Stoics and followers of the Jewish philosopher Philo—I hardly know what they think.”
This time when he flicked his wrist, I left.
xiii.
I moved along the Canopic Way as if thrust from a bow, flying ahead of Yaltha and Lavi and then having to pause for them to catch up.
In the center of the street, narrow pools of water cascaded one into the other for as far as I could see, and hundreds of copper pots filled with kindling lined the sides, waiting to be set afire at night to light the thoroughfare. The women were clad in blue, black, or white tunics cinched under their breasts with bright-colored ribbons, making me conscious of my plain Nazareth dress, dingy undyed flax. As they passed, I studied their coiled silver snake bracelets, hoop earrings with dangling pearls, their eyes lined in green and black, hair swept into knots atop their heads with a row of curls on their foreheads. I pulled my long, single braid over my shoulder and held on to it as if it were the end of a tether.