As they walked home, Esther felt a growing uneasiness. Something seemed different about the market; the air was heavy with tension. A young mother with two boys walked rapidly, scolding the little one when he couldn’t keep up. A peddler pulling a donkey laden with crates of onions pelted the ragged beast with blows and urged him on. Women in the houses lining the streets slammed the wooden shutters and hastily gathered up the blankets and rugs airing out on their balconies. The blind beggar, who usually sat on the steps of the Temple, walked quickly, navigating the puddles and avoiding stray dogs; Esther had always suspected that he wasn’t really blind. Everyone, it seemed, was in a rush. Shopkeepers huddled together and glanced furtively at the Roman soldiers stationed at the major intersections.
People were furious with the Roman governor Florus, appointed by Emperor Nero to rule Judea. Florus had allowed the Greeks in Caesarea to desecrate the synagogue there. The Greeks had put a chamber pot at the entrance and then sacrificed birds on it. What angered people was not so much what the Greeks had done but that the local Jews had paid Florus eight silver talents to ensure that incidents like that wouldn’t occur. Even their protection money couldn’t protect them anymore. And only yesterday Florus had stolen seventeen talents from the Temple treasury, an enormous sum.
Esther and Matti came upon a crowd in the middle of the street. Lazar’s younger brother, Natan, was at the center. She recognized him at once. Natan and a few other young men were prancing around, imitating the Roman governor. “Please…more coppers for a poor starveling,” Natan shouted, facing the cheering mob with a shallow basket. He nodded encouragement to those who booed. “What’s a poor governor to do if there’s no money?” he asked theatrically. “I’ll have to take from the Temple treasury so I can pay the actors and dancers in my court and buy finery for my lovely dear wife. Oh, pitiful me, the poorest governor of the Roman empire!”
Natan clownishly clasped his hands together. “Thank you, thank you, dear citizens!” he yelled. “Please give money to me, Gessius Florus, your poor governor. We all know how much a banquet costs!”
An older man in the front playfully kicked Natan in the backside and yelled, “Free us from Florus!” More people jeered, and the banter quickly turned into a menacing roar of shouts and curses.
“Impure feet have trampled our holy ground!”
“Florus stole our gold!”
“Whoever robs the Temple robs God!”
The crowd chanted, “Free us from Florus! Free us from Florus!”
Natan punched his fists into the air, encouraging the frenzy. Esther had seen enough. Natan was courting danger by making fun of the Roman governor. Words that people would never utter alone flowed freely, each person emboldened by the next. And the Roman soldiers were near.
Esther took Matti’s hand. “Let’s go.”
As Esther led Matti back toward the main market street, she heard a low rumble followed by a chilling high-pitched scream.
“What’s happ—happening?” Matti grabbed her arm and looked around frantically, trying to tell where the noise was coming from.
The racket intensified with the crash of carts and overturned tables, the neighing of stampeding horses, and the howling of people trying to get away. Fear nailed Esther to the ground.
A woman, her face contorted in terror, flailed her arms as she ran toward them. The wild cries of Roman soldiers shook Esther out of her daze.
“Come!” she yelled. She grabbed Matti and ran. When they reached the corner, more people flooded by. The ground shook. Where had all these people come from?
From the roofs, women pelted broken tiles down on the soldiers. A horse reared up and kicked its forelegs high in the air. The soldier astride it tried to hold on, but slid off. Another rider bared his teeth like a crazed animal and stormed through the crowd, reins in one hand and a long sword in the other. The iron blade glinted as he brought it down on a man’s head. Blood splattered onto Esther’s face.
She wiped the blood out of her eyes, letting go of Matti’s hand, just for an instant. But it was enough; he was swept away. She swung around, but the surging crowd locked her in.
“Matti!” Her cry was lost in the thunderous uproar.
More soldiers, on foot, brandishing daggers and clubs, streamed into the market from every direction. It was impossible to turn around; bodies pressed against her from all sides. She pushed her way toward the stores and crawled under some wooden planks nailed across an empty stall. She lay on the ground, panting. The noise was overwhelming as the crowd roared past. Esther was facedown on the hard dirt, her arms outstretched and palms raked with scratches. She needed to find Matti! Each second she lay there took him farther away.
The stall was littered with broken melons and squashed pomegranates. She struggled to push herself up, stumbled to the back, and kicked open a half door leading to a passageway only a bit wider than herself. The sulfuric smell of rotten eggs and rancid meat made her gag. She waded through the muck until she reached another back alley. Walking as quickly as she could—it hurt to run—she turned at the bakery. She’d made a loop and was close to the same spot where she and Matti had started out. Zahara’s pub wasn’t too far. Maybe he’d gone back there.
Esther pounded on the door. No answer.
“Let me in!” she yelled. “Help me!” She pounded again and again, leaving marks in blood, until the peephole slid open. Zahara yanked her inside, then slammed the heavy door and bolted it.
“I have to find him,” Esther said, breathing heavily. Blood was splattered over her face, and her robe was dirty and torn. “I lost Matti. Is he here?”
“My God, what happened?” Zahara said, her eyes widening.
“The soldiers…they’re killing people in the streets.” She turned back toward the door.
“Stop! Aster…”
Aster? Esther swung around. Only one person called her that. She shouldn’t have been surprised he was here; Zahara’s pub was crawling with Romans.
“You could be killed if you go,” Tiberius said, approaching. “The soldiers will leave this place alone. It’s the safest place to be.”
“My little brother is out there!”
Tiberius cursed in Latin. “At least stay here until the soldiers have satisfied their bloodlust.” He said something about the stupid Jews falling into their trap, but she couldn’t concentrate. She pulled the iron ring dangling from the door’s crossbar, but it wouldn’t budge.
“You can’t go out there,” he said, blocking the door.
Esther tried to push him away. “Let me out!”
“I won’t allow it,” he said, seizing her.
“I don’t take orders from you.” She broke free.
“I’m a friend of your father’s, and I help my friends.”
“Let me out!” Esther shouted, trying to wedge herself behind him, to open the door.
“I’ll look for him. You stay here,” he commanded. He steered her away from the door but this time more gently.
Esther faced him. “You have to find him!”
“I’ll keep looking until I do.”
“He has to be safe.” Her lips trembled.
Tiberius turned to Zahara. “Don’t let her leave. Tie her to a chair or lock her in the cellar if you have to, but don’t let her out of your sight.”
Zahara nodded, her previous bravado gone. She led Esther away. “Come, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Two Roman soldiers from the back room rushed past. Esther drew a sharp breath, but the soldiers didn’t even glance her way.
“It’s all right,” Zahara said soothingly. “Here, they’re just men. They only turn into barbarians when they leave.”
When Zahara relaxed her grip, Esther broke free and stumbled outside. The Roman soldiers must have left the door open. She limped down the street yelling Matti’s name. A stab of pain shot through her right knee.
Tiberius ran after her. “What are you doing?”
“Matti doesn’t know you. He’ll be frightened. And even if he’s not, he may not be able to tell where you are, because of his bad ear.”
He saw her determined expression, and nodded. “Stay close to me.”
Walking quickly, they scoured alley after alley, shouting Matti’s name. Esther stayed close to Tiberius, stepping over the figures strewn on the ground, their limbs angled in unnatural poses.
Tiberius spotted something and ran ahead. The body of a small boy was lying facedown, his legs splayed out. Esther tried to quell the bile rising in her belly as she willed her legs to move faster.
Please, please let it not be him.
Tiberius turned the boy over. It wasn’t Matti. Her body convulsed and seemed to separate from her soul. She felt faint and gasped for air. The corpse had been a laughing, innocent child before the sun had risen and brought with it this murderous day. When her retching subsided, they continued walking. For almost two hours, they combed the streets and back alleys.
In silence, they surveyed the scene of the massacre: dead bodies strewn in the road, buzzards already circling overhead.
“So many people…,” Esther said, shaking her head. She looked at the carnage. “Why?” She mumbled to herself, not really expecting an answer.
“They didn’t pay the proper respect to the emperor,” Tiberius said. “Or they were chanting revolutionary slogans. Or maybe they were just buying vegetables at the wrong time.” He shook his head. “To the Romans, no Jew is innocent.”
“But why do they kill children?”
“The sword of a Roman soldier is like a ravenous cyclops. It devours everything in its path.”
Esther swallowed. Her mouth was dry and her eyes stung.
“I’m taking you home,” he said. Esther started to protest, but Tiberius held up his hand. “I’ll come back and keep looking. It’s better this way. I can go faster without you.”
She wanted to stay, but she knew Tiberius was right. Besides, she had to let her parents know what had happened. Father would know what to do. He would organize a search party; he would find Matti.
She forced herself to keep walking, to keep moving, away from this field of death. Vaguely conscious of Tiberius’s presence beside her, she walked as if she were in a trance, concentrating on putting her feet on the ground. She told herself to breathe, and above all, to not look at the bodies.
At last, she found herself at the staircase leading up to the familiar gate of her home. It was as if she had returned from a long sea voyage where she had been buffeted by storm after storm. It didn’t seem possible that she and Matti had left their house only this morning, on this very same day, in this very same lifetime.
“Go on,” Tiberius said gently. Esther usually bounded up the staircase to their house so quickly that she hardly felt her feet touch the stones. But today, the steps seemed insurmountable. She concentrated on the stone stairs, anything but what awaited her at the top.
If only it were still yesterday, when Matti was playing in the courtyard. Why had she taken him with her to the market? Her parents would never forgive her. She’d never forgive herself.
I’ll never tell another Samson story. I’ll never tickle my palm on the soft tuft of hair on the top of his head. Why didn’t God take me instead?
He didn’t want me.
I don’t blame Him.
She reached the top of the steps.
“Estie!”
She staggered forward. The boy flew into her arms as she gasped for breath.
“Matti, Matti.” She couldn’t stop saying his name, touching his face, rubbing her hands over his cheeks. He was safe! She squeezed him so hard that he shouted. The tears she’d fought back broke loose, and she was swept up in a wave of relief so powerful that she had no choice but to surrender to it.
They stayed locked together, rocking back and forth. Then Esther’s gaze shifted. Tiberius was still at the base of the staircase, watching. She mouthed a silent “thank you” while she clung to Matti. Tiberius gave a slight nod, then left.
“I looked for you everywhere,” Esther told Matti.
“I waited,” he said, his words muffled by their embrace. “But you didn’t come. A priest who knew Father found us and brought us home.”
Esther wiped her eyes. “Us?”
“Me and the kitten. We hid in her hole. I made her be quiet so the soldiers wouldn’t find us. I was like Samson, right, Estie? Just like when he escaped from the Philistines!”
“Yes, you are very brave, just like Samson.” She tousled his hair and cupped his face in her hands.
Her parents and Miriam crowded around her. Esther looked into Miriam’s eyes and shook her head. She hadn’t found Shimon. Miriam’s hand flew to her mouth.
“What in God’s name were you doing there?” her mother demanded.
She couldn’t tell her parents what she’d seen.
Sarah’s eyes were red and swollen. “You said you were gathering garlic, and you ended up in the market! What were you thinking?”
“Sarah, let her rest,” Hanan said, putting his hand on his wife’s arm. “We’ll have time to find out everything tomorrow.”
“She has a lot of explaining to do. The one person I can count on disappears with her little brother.”
Her mother’s words broke through her fog. The one person I can count on? Sarah put her face close to Esther’s cheek and kissed her, then stayed there for a few seconds. Esther wanted to say “I love you,” but the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t say it because she was afraid that her mother wouldn’t say it back. But the feel of her mother’s face pressed against her own was enough.