even pushing it. Miriam followed him through it. And stopped dead in amazement.
She had never seen anything like this. The room was huge, with a long pool in the center. The roof was supported by elegant columns, but only around perimeter; in the middle, it was open to the sky. The walls were covered from top to bottom with huge painted figures, strange animals, landscapes full of flowers. The floor was composed of greenish marble slabs arranged in a geometrical pattern.
But this was only the memory of a bygone splendor. The water in the pool was so green that it barely reflected the clouds. Seaweed waved in its shadow, and water spiders scurried across its surface. The marble floor was half cracked, the paintings had flaked in places to reveal the white beneath, and the bottom part of the walls was stained with patches of damp. Some of the roof had been destroyed, perhaps by fire, but so long ago that the rains had washed away what remained of the charred structure. In the part of the room that was still sound, piles of sacks and baskets filled with grain, leather, and goatskins lay between the columns in heaps so high they almost reached the roof.
In the midst of this chaos, some fifty men and women stood or lay on woolen blankets and bundles, staring at her unwelcomingly.
âCome in,â Barabbas said. âYouâre in no danger. We all have what we need here.â
Turning to his companions, he announced with a curious pride, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, âThis is Miriam of Nazareth. A brave girl who hid me one night when Herodâs mercenaries were hot on my heels.â
These words sufficed. They stopped staring at her. Impressed by this place, in spite of the disorder and the dirt, Miriam still hesitated to advance. The strange half-naked men and women on the murals, who seemed almost alive, made her uncomfortable. Sometimes only part of the body was visibleâa face, a chest, limbs, the folds of a transparent dressâwhich seemed to make them all the more real and fascinating.
âThis is the first time youâve seen a Roman house, isnât it?â Barabbas said, amused.
Miriam nodded. âThe rabbis say itâs against our Law to live in a house where men and women are paintedâ¦.â
âAnimals, too!â he said sardonically. âGoats! Even flowers! I long ago stopped listening to the rabbisâ hypocritical ravings, Miriam of Nazareth. And this place suits me perfectly.â
He indicated the surroundings with a sweeping theatrical gesture that made his goatskin tunic bob up and down comically.
âWhen Herod was twenty, all this was his. Just because he was his fatherâs son and the young lord of Galilee. This is where he came to bathe. And to get drunk, of course. And to have womenâwomen a lot more real than the ones on the walls. The Romans taught him to imitate them, to be a friendly, accommodating Jew, the way they like them. He learned his lessons so well, licked their backsides to such an extent, that they crowned him king of Israel and set him up over the rabbis of the Sanhedrin. Now Sepphoris and Galilee are much too poor for him. Only good for bleeding dry with taxes.â
Barabbasâs companions were listening and nodding their approval; even though they must know this story by heart, they clearly never wearied of it.
Barabbas pointed to the strange courtyard they had just crossed. âWhat you saw down below are the fires they used for heating the water in the pool in winter. Years ago, the slaves who were guarding it set fire to the whole system and escaped while the neighbors were putting out the fire. After that, the place was abandoned. Nobody dared enter. It was still Herodâs pool, wasnât it? Thatâs how things went on until I made it my home. And the best hiding place in Sepphoris!â
The remark was greeted with laughter. Barrabas nodded, proud of his guile.
âHerod and the Romans
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