The Book of Longings: A Novel (35 page)

“What’s her daughter’s name?” he inquired.

“Chaya,” I told him. “She was two years old when my aunt last saw her.”

He squinted, tapping his fingers against his temple as if to dislodge some memory. “That name,” he muttered more to himself than to me. “I know I’ve seen it written somewhere.”

My eyes flared wide. Was it too much to think he knew of her? He’d presided over the scriptorium and its contents for nine years. He knew more about Haran’s business than anyone. I wanted to go over and tap the other side of his head, but I remained waiting.

He got up and walked in a circle about the room and had started a second loop when he stopped. “Oh,” he said. A look passed over his face. Dismay, I thought. “Come with me.”

We slipped into Haran’s study, where Thaddeus retrieved a locked wooden box that sat unobtrusively on a low shelf. It was painted on top with an image of the falcon-winged Goddess Nephthys, guardian of the dead, a detail Thaddeus kindly provided. He produced a key from a peg beneath Haran’s desk and slipped it into a keyhole, then lifted the lid to reveal a cluster of scrolls, perhaps ten or twelve of them. “This is where Haran conceals documents he wishes to keep secret.”

He sorted through the scrolls. “Soon after I began working for Haran, he had me make copies of all the scrolls in the box. If I remember rightly, there’s a death notice in here of a girl named Chaya. Hers was an unusual name; it remained with me.”

The blood left my head. “She’s dead?”

I sank down into Haran’s grand chair, taking a slow breath as Thaddeus opened a papyrus on the table before me.

To the Royal Scribe of the Metropolis from Haran ben Philip Levias of the Jewish Council.

I attest that Chaya, daughter of my sister, Yaltha, died in the month of Epeiph of the 32nd year of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. As her guardian and kinsman, I request that her name be entered among those who have died. She is not default in the payment of taxes being the age of two years at the time of her death.

I read the notation twice, then pushed it back to Thaddeus, who perused it quickly. He said, “The laws do not require notification of the death of a child, only of an adult male who is taxable. It’s done, but rarely. I recall thinking it odd
.
”

Chaya is dead.
I tried to picture myself standing before Yaltha, saying the words, but even in my imagination, I couldn’t say them.

He replaced the scroll and locked the box. “I’m sorry, but it’s best to know the truth.”

So shocked was I, so choked with dread at passing on this horrific news, I wasn’t at all sure knowing was best. Right then, I preferred to go on living in uncertainty, imagining Chaya alive somewhere.

I
FOUND
Y
ALTHA
walking about the garden. I watched her from the doorway for a while, then strode toward her, trying to steady myself.

As we sat at the edge of the pond, I told her about the death notification. She looked at the sky, where there was not a bird or a cloud, then
dropped her chin to her chest as a sob broke from her lips. I wrapped my arms about her caved-in shoulders, and we sat like that for a long time, quiet and dazed, listening to the garden. Birds chirping, the rustle of lizards, a tiny zephyr in the palms.

Days passed in which Yaltha sat and stared into the garden through the open door of the sitting room. I woke one night to check on her and there she was, gazing out at the dark. I didn’t disturb her. She was grieving in her own way.

I returned to bed, where sleep came and with it a dream.

A great wind rises. The air fills with scrolls. They fly about me like white and brown birds. Looking up, I see the falcon Goddess Nephthys streak across the sky.

I woke with the dream still in my body, filling me with lightness, and what came into my mind was the wooden box in which Haran stored his secret documents. It was as if in my dream Nephthys had escaped from her confinement on the lid, as if the box had been thrown open and all the scrolls set free.

I lay very still and tried to remember everything about those moments when Thaddeus showed me the box—the key, the creak in the lid as he lifted it, the cluster of scrolls inside, reading the death notice twice. Then, in my memory, I heard Thaddeus say,
The laws do not require notification of the death of a child, only of an adult male who is taxable. It’s done, but rarely
.
I recall thinking it odd.

The statement had seemed irrelevant at the time, but I wondered now why my uncle had taken the extra precaution of declaring Chaya dead if it wasn’t required. Why had it been so important to record it? And something else came back to me: she’d only been two when she’d died. Was it not strange that her life had ended so soon after Yaltha had been sent away?

I bolted up.

I was waiting in the scriptorium when Thaddeus arrived. “I must look once more inside the locked box in Haran’s study,” I told him.

He shook his head. “But you’ve seen the death notice. What more is there?”

I thought better than to tell him about the dream or my feeling that something was amiss. I said, “My uncle has already left to conduct his business in the city. It will be safe enough.”

“It’s not Haran I’m worried about, but his personal servant, the one with the shorn head.” I knew which one he meant. He was said to grovel before Haran, as well as snoop for him—anything to ingratiate himself.

“We’ll be quick,” I promised, and gave him my most pleading look.

He sighed and led me to the study. I counted nine scrolls inside the box. I unraveled one and read a harsh repudiation of Haran’s second wife for failing in her oath of fidelity. The second scroll was a settlement of their divorce.

Thaddeus watched me, his eyes roving toward the door. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but it would be prudent to read faster.”

I didn’t know what I was looking for either. I smoothed open a third scroll, anchoring it on the desk.

Choiak, son of Dios and a keeper of camels in the village of Soknopaiou, his wife having died and left him toil and suffering, does hand over his two-year-old daughter, Diodora, to a priest of the Temple of Isis for the sum of 1,400 silver drachmae.

I stopped reading. My mind began to reel a little.

“Have you come upon something?” he asked.

“There’s mention of a two-year-old girl.” He started to question me further, but I held up my hand, signaling him to wait as I continued to read.

The purchaser, who is granted anonymity by virtue of his status as a representative of the Goddess of Egypt, receives Diodora into his legal ownership and from this day will possess, own, and have proprietary rights over the girl. Choiak henceforth has no power to take back his daughter and through this sale agreement, written in two copies, gives his consent and acknowledges payment.

Signed on behalf of Choiak, who knows no letters, by Haran ben Philip Levias, this day in the month of Epeiph, in the 32nd year of the reign of the illustrious emperor Augustus Caesar.

I lifted my head. Heat crept from my neck into my face, a kind of astonishment. “
Sophia
,” I whispered.

“What is it? What does it say?”

“The two-year-old belonged to a man named Choiak, a destitute father whose wife died. He sold his daughter as a slave to a priest.” I glanced again at the document. “The girl’s name was Diodora.”

I rummaged in the box for Chaya’s death certificate and placed the
two documents side by side. Two-year-old Chaya. Two-year-old Diodora. Chaya died and Diodora was sold in the same month of the same year.

I didn’t know if Thaddeus had arrived at the same supposition as I had. I didn’t take the time to inquire.

I found Yaltha napping soundly in the chair beside the door to the courtyard, her mouth open and her hands folded high on her chest. I knelt in front of her and softly called her name. When she didn’t rouse, I gave her knee a shake.

She opened her eyes, frowning, her forehead wrinkling up. “Why did you wake me?” she said, sounding annoyed.

“Aunt, it is good news. I found a document that may give us a reason to hope Chaya is not dead.”

She sat straight up. Her eyes were suddenly bright and churning. “What are you talking about, Ana?”

Please, don’t let me be wrong.

I told her about my dream and the questions it had stirred, compelling me to return to Haran’s study and reopen the box. As I described the document I’d found inside it, she stared at me, mystified.

I said, “The girl who was sold into bondage had the name Diodora. But don’t you think it’s peculiar that both Chaya and Diodora were the same age? That one died and the other sold as a slave in the same month of the same year?”

Yaltha closed her eyes. “They are the same girl.”

The certainty in her voice startled me. It impelled and excited me, too. “Think of it,” I said. “What if it wasn’t some poor camel keeper who sold a two-year-old girl to the priest, but Haran himself?”

She gazed at me with sad, stunned wonder.

“And afterward,” I continued, “Haran concealed what he’d done with a notice of Chaya’s death. Does this seem possible to you? I mean, do you think him capable of this?”

“I think him capable of anything. And he would have good reason to cover up the deed. The synagogues here condemn selling Jewish children into slavery. Haran would be removed from the council if this was discovered. He could be cast out of the community altogether.”

“Haran wanted people to believe Chaya was dead, and yet he told you she’d been adopted. I wonder why. Do you think he wanted you to leave Alexandria believing she was loved and cared for? Maybe there’s a speck of kindness in him somewhere.”

Her laugh was bitter. “He knew how anguishing it would be for me to have a daughter out there who was lost to me. He knew it would haunt me all my days. When my sons died, the grief was an agony, but with time I reconciled myself to it. I’ve never reconciled myself to losing Chaya. One moment she seems within reach and the next moment she’s in an abyss I can never find. Haran was pleased to offer me this special brand of torture.”

Yaltha leaned back in the chair and I watched her anger fade and her eyes soften. She let out an extravagant breath. “Did the document record the name of the priest who bought the girl, or what temple he served?” she asked.

“It mentioned neither.”

“Then Chaya could be anywhere in Egypt—here in Alexandria or as far as Philae.”

Finding her suddenly seemed impossible. I could tell by the disappointment in my aunt’s face that she thought so, too.

She said, “It’s enough that Chaya is alive.”

But, of course, it wasn’t.

One morning shortly after I’d arrived in the scriptorium, Haran’s servant appeared at the door. He made a little bow in my direction. “Haran wishes to see you in his study.”

During the many months we’d been here, I’d never been summoned by Haran. In fact, I’d rarely seen him, having passed him no more than two dozen times as I moved between the scriptorium and the guest quarters. I’d paid his rent requirements to Apion.

It’s a curiosity how the mind alights first on the worst scenario. I immediately thought Haran must have discovered I’d been prying into his locked cabinet and box of secrets. Wheeling about on my stool, I looked at Thaddeus, who seemed as surprised and disconcerted as I. “Shall I come with you?” he asked.

“Haran asked only for the woman,” the servant said, shifting about impatiently.

My uncle sat in his study, elbows propped on his desk, one fist balled into the other. He glanced up at me, then refocused his attention on an array of scrolls, pens, and ink vials scattered around him, making me wait. I didn’t think his servant had seen my intrusions, but I couldn’t be sure. I replanted my feet.

Minutes passed. “Thaddeus tells me your work is satisfactory,” he said. Finally. “As such, I’ve decided to waive your rent requirement. You may stay for now as guests, not boarders.”

Guests. Prisoners. There was little difference.

“Thank you, Uncle.” I tried to smile at him. It helped immensely that he had a dab of ink on the side of his nose, which he’d placed there with his smudged finger.

He cleared his throat. “I leave tomorrow to inspect my papyrus crops and workshops. I travel to Terenouthis, Letopolis, and Memphis and expect to be away for four weeks.”

We’d been shut up in this house for nearly a year and a half, but here it was—
sweet freedom
. It was all I could do to keep from breaking into song and dance.

“I’ve bidden you here,” he said, “to advise you in person that my absence does not change our agreement. If you or my sister leave the house, you will forfeit your right to remain here and I will have no choice but to renew the charge of murder against you. I’ve instructed Apion to watch you. He will report your movements to me.”

Sweet, sweet, sweet freedom.

F
INDING NO TRACE
OF
Y
ALTHA
in our rooms, I hurried to the servants’ quarters, where she sometimes retreated. I found her there with Pamphile and Lavi, hunched over a game of senet, moving her ebony pawn over the board, trying to be the first player to pass into the afterlife. The game had become a salve, a way to distract herself, but her disappointment about finding Chaya still hung over her like a small cloud I could almost see.

“Aghhh!” my aunt cried, landing on a square that symbolized bad fortune.

“I’m in no hurry for you to reach the afterlife,” I said, and the three of them looked around, surprised to see me.

My aunt grinned. “Not even this paltry afterlife on the game board?”

“Not even that one.” I slipped beside her and whispered, “I have welcome news.”

She flipped her pawn onto its side. “Since Ana has requested that I not visit the afterlife today, I must withdraw from the game.”

I led her to a private spot near the outdoor kitchen and told her what had just transpired.