Two

Matthew unlocked the gate and absently patted the dogs on the head, noticing that they looked a bit listless, and wondering whether they were ailing. They acknowledged him in their usual rather perfunctory way, and retreated behind the house, where, he presumed, they lay down as usual. They would be ready enough to come round with teeth bared if they scented another, he knew.

What had the soldier meant? Obviously, Pontius had sent out word to be on the watch for a Jew who connected himself somehow with Rome, probably as a tax-collector, and was fluent in both Latin and Greek. But he did not want to reclaim his runaway slave, evidently; he wanted Matthew to know that he still regarded him as a friend.

--Or at least, as someone he might find useful in his new role as governor of Judea. "Friends" were fictions, Matthew had discovered, and certainly Pontius knew by this time. Pontius could be under no illusions about "friends," least of all in his tricky position as governor of a state that was always on the verge of rebellion. He was nowhere near as capable as Matthew in academic subjects, but he knew how to manage people. Look at how he had persuaded Matthew himself to become a slave in the Pilate household. "And it was to be temporary, his father told me," Matthew said aloud to himself, as if to give himself reassurance.

"Well, he knows who and where I am now," Matthew said silently within himself, "or will, as soon as this--what did he call himself? Longinus?--reports to him. We shall see what I will be asked to do, if anything. Perhaps he simply wishes to hold me in readiness, until he can 'call upon my friendship,' which will mean threaten me with enslavement once again. But I will die first."

He watched the dogs as they turned and walked away. "Not even the dogs care about me," he thought. They were really, he reflected, his slave Gideon's dogs, though Matthew owned them; but of course, they were with Gideon the whole day, and he fed them and cared for them--as he cared for everything else in the house, for which Matthew paid him a considerable sum of money, even though, since he was a slave, he could have paid nothing if he chose. It pained Matthew to spend the money, but it kept the man from rebelling or pilfering, Matthew hoped--no, he knew, since he kept watch upon him. One must do so, with so much money and so many valuables in the house. But Gideon was almost painfully honest, and so was an even more valuable possession than anything else Matthew's owned. On the whole, it was a valid expense; living assets must be maintained.

There was also, Matthew now realized, his own enslavement behind his treatment of Gideon. He could not bring himself to regard slaves as mere animals to be fed and worked, as so many did. That was the main thing, in addition to the overpowering desire to become rich and powerful, that made Matthew run away, in spite of the fact that he had actually been treated quite well for a slave. It was the fact that he need not be treated as if he were human that was galling.

Matthew had at the beginning given Gideon several tests, leaving something valuable about where it could be taken "and not missed," only to find it there later. He thought back to his own first test as a child, when Pontius' father, his owner at the time, had left out a bauble which he had taken, and for which he was severely whipped. "I care not what you do elsewhere," the father had said afterwards, "but in this house you will be scrupulously honest, or suffer the consequences. You will be watched." He realized then that it had been a trap, to teach him a lesson; and since he had so much to gain in that house, he learned it faithfully. Which meant, of course, that he became much more shrewd and prudent in his dishonesty. Interesting. He had not thought of Pontius in years; but today he seemed to be appearing at every turn.

On an impulse, Matthew did not enter the house at once, but walked rather restlessly around the yard, following the dogs without being quite aware of what he was doing. It was a large enough yard, but perforce bare except for grass, since its purpose was to enable everything to be seen from inside.

The soldier's remarks had moved him to look for the first time on the yard as a prison ground, which made him a bit more uneasy than normal--his normal state, when not one of outright hatred, being severe suspicion.

He, a prisoner? With all he had? And had he not been trying to free himself ever since he had run away from home? A vague feeling somehow connected with his father almost brought his image into consciousness, and in panic he immediately put it away before he could even think why. To distract himself, he looked at the roof of the house, wondering whether it was sound here on the side; though he had never seen water within.

The prison-house. His success. Success in what? He was wealthy, but no one could even see it, since he almost never--no, absolutely never--invited anyone, nor would anyone come if invited, nor would he even be able to think of anyone to invite. And if he did invite them and they did come, he would have been so concerned that one of them would walk off with something that every moment of the festivities would have been excruciating torment, not to mention his concern with all the expense that he would have incurred.

Idly, he began to go over in his mind whom he could invite to a feast in his house, should the impossible occur and he find it safe or desirable to do so. There were, of course, the other tax-collectors he occasionally had dealings with, since they had to coordinate their efforts to see that no Judeans escaped the beneficent ministrations of their service to Rome: Naphtali, Jahath, Micah, Zacchaeus, whom everyone called "Zacchaeus the short," and--and Zadok. (He smiled, since had not there been a famous priest named Zadok? How appropriate for a tax-collector to be named after him!) He supposed he could also invite Uzziah and Kish, the money-changers--and of course, there were Jachin and Aaron, whom he sometimes hired to enforce payment of debts.

Beyond that, who was there? He could imagine how tongues would wag at having such a group all in one place: sinners to the last man--whatever "sin" meant. In fact, they were people who knew what reality was, as opposed to the others, who hated them and called them "sinners" because they envied them.

"How does it feel to be hated by absolutely everyone?" the soldier had asked. He had not thought about it until this very day, this very moment. He had never experienced loneliness, because loneliness implies thinking of companionship as something desirable, and he could not imagine himself desiring to be with anyone, even a woman, in spite of the physical need that sometimes (not often) assailed him, and which he relieved in the usual way. It was enough. Certainly better than having to defer to someone else's wishes, especially someone who ate up money faster than a camel drank water.

And a male companion who would be there--for what? To talk to--and to have to listen to. Who would say things that disturbed him as the soldier's words had. Better to use people by paying them and make it obvious than to engage in the pretense that either of them "cared." When he was used by another, he saw to it that the other compensated him handsomely; and that was as it should be. Life was a series of transactions; each person was trying to gain as much as possible of whatever it is that he wanted, and the trick was to find those who thought they gained more by taking what one cared less about and in return giving up something they considered less valuable, but meant more to oneself. How else could life be lived?

He sneered mentally at the fiction people created that they were more interested in the "loved one's" welfare than their own. How is such a thing even conceivable? It is a contradiction in terms. Why would one care more about another than oneself? Because it gave one satisfaction to do so; which meant that one was really seeking the satisfaction--one's own satisfaction--in this "caring." At least if he was selfish, he was honestly selfish, not a hypocrite who selfishly pretended that he cared about others for their own sake.

In fact, he thought, when it came to prisons, the real prisons were other people. The "prison" the soldier thought Matthew lived in was his true freedom, in spite of the fact that he could not move safely outside this fence without a guard, or inside it without knowing that the dogs were there. It was because other people imprisoned him. Without them, he could go where he pleased.

He was even careful of Gideon when inside the house; Gideon had orders always to absent himself when he entered, and only to appear with due warning, and to confine himself to speaking what was necessary. Gideon perhaps longed for companionship, but that was because he, like so many others, was a blind fool; and besides, he was a slave, and what slaves longed for was beneath consideration. Matthew knew; he had been a slave once himself, for five years.

But still.

Still, all of life was a prison in some sense or other, he thought. Most were caged in a life of "caring," carrying around the burden of others on their backs, making themselves miserable for the simple reason that the ones they "cared" about were miserable--and one either impoverished oneself to make them less miserable, at which they invariably complained that one had not done more, or one fretted and worried about not being able to relieve their misery. And all the while, the misery was not one's own, and if one shook off the others, one could enjoy life.

Whatever "enjoy" meant. It did give Matthew a certain joy to look at his vast store of gold, and to add to it, as he would tonight, the silver and copper that he had collected this day; but he realized it was a pale, silly joy, lying there, representing so many things that could be bought with it, which Matthew had absolutely no interest in owning. Once one has purchased all that one desired--and one desired so little, in the last analysis, did one not, unless one desired simply for the sake of desiring--then the money represented dross and slag.

No, not slag. What it represented was safety--and something undefinable more. Security, perhaps. Knowledge that one would not starve, and would not go without sandals or a cloak, as so many did. But beyond that, it felt as if it somehow was a kind of expiation.

Absurd! In any case, it was there, and Matthew had it and others did not, and envied him. He supposed that was where the primary satisfaction lay. They hated him because they envied him.

But the soldier did not seem to envy him.

Well, but the soldier had people he "loved," and who he thought loved him. He would learn. Still, he did seem to find life pleasant in a way Matthew could not fathom. It was almost as if he had pity for Matthew--or no, not pity, but something halfway between pity and scorn. A kind of benevolent scorn, if that made any sense.

Why was he so exercised about a stupid soldier?

Because he was not stupid?

For some reason, he felt today as he had when he had that strange experience in Judea some weeks previously, the day he had gone to see if there were a more favorable place to set up his tax-booth--Galilean farmers and petty merchants, after all, are not the best possible sources for wealth, though he had done very well for himself in fifteen years. He had avoided Judea at first, for obvious reasons, but then after all this time, he had considered the possibility of returning, and had made a little exploratory expedition. Did he have the idea of challenging Pontius? It mattered not.

In any case, he was by the Jordan, he remembered, and on the other side, he saw the fanatic everyone had been talking about, bathing people "as a change of mind from their sins."

What was his name? John, was it? He remembered thinking that one must have a mind before it could change, and chuckling to himself. But the man was fascinating, if mad. He was a magnet; Matthew could see the crowds flocking to him and listening enrapt. Matthew had stayed on this side of the river, only able to hear because John's clear voice carried over the water, enjoying the fact that no one in this remote area could recognize him as a tax-collector, and so he had no need to avoid the ugly stares, crude remarks, or even the spit directed at him.

He smiled as he remembered recognizing a couple of tax-collectors in the crowd, evidently asking this John what they should be doing; he could not hear them, though John's great voice, which was one of those orator's voices that could carry an enormous distance seemingly with no effort on his part, made it clear what the question was, as he said, "Do not demand from the people more than you were told to collect."

He had thought at the time, "and continue to be hated, while you starve," as he watched the questioners wade into the Jordan with John and be immersed by him, presumably with their sins all washed away.

But what unnerved him was what happened next. A man, who himself must be a natural orator, because he could catch at least the Galilean accent from this distance, though they were speaking privately, came up to John, and John almost knelt before him, saying (he barely heard) that he was the one that should be bathed by him, and receiving a quiet reply that Matthew could not catch. The two of them went alone into the water, and John, laying his hand on the man's head, immersed him in the river.

As Matthew saw his torso rose out of the water into whichi he had crouched, a bird came from somewhere and lighted on the man's shoulder, and suddenly there seemed to have been a thunderclap in the clear blue sky, and Matthew could have sworn that the thunder had said, "This is my son, the one I love; listen to him." It was not exactly words, though it was perfectly clear and distinct. He felt the hair stand on the back of his neck. He looked at the man, awestruck.

But then he waded out of the water with John, and the spell was broken. The bird had vanished, and the thunder spoke no more--if it had spoken at all--and what he saw was just an ordinary man, dripping wet, of course, walking about drying his garments in the warm sun. Did he not look familiar, somehow? At this distance, one could not tell.

He knew not why, but simply the sight of the man, who had, when all was said and done, nothing at all unusual about him--at least from this far away--left him with the same uneasy, almost unclean, feeling he had now. As if he were unclean and needed bathing. From what? From performing a task that someone would have to perform in any case--which there were few indeed who had the courage to perform? And to receive compensation for this task which was necessary and no one wanted: a compensation commensurate with the necessity and the disagreeable nature, not to say the tedium, of the task? Rome regarded what he was doing as a virtue, not sin; and who was he to argue with Rome?

Why should he be so nervous? He looked at the magnificent Roman-style mansion--by no accident modeled after Pontius' house, this mansion that he owned outright with his own slave--which he had not yet entered, and thought with some satisfaction that this was what he had struggled and fought for during his whole life; and then his eyes went again to the bronze fence around the yard, and he once more recalled the soldier's words and his little ironic smile, "You will be safe now in your prison."

Yes, for some reason it did feel like a prison now.

Nonsense. He could leave and enter when he would. As long as he had a guard. Or his dogs. Gideon's dogs. But that was because everyone hated him, was it not? And yet . . .

Could he in fact go into the market-place like everyone else, and haggle over the price of meat or cloth? Could he sit at the city gates with the elders, chatting? Certainly he had enough money, he supposed, to live for the rest of his life without working further--"provided," he added aloud, "I choose to risk losing everything and being reduced to begging and stealing once again. Never will that happen!" Of course, he stole now, in a sense, but that was different.

--This was laughable. Each one chose the life that provided what he considered the smallest amount of agony, and bore the torments chosen for the sake of avoiding even greater torture. Happiness, real happiness, was out of the question. Even the soldier, for all his humming and his grinning, was enduring an evil time; and when he went home "to those who love me," he would find after a few weeks that what he thought would bring him joy was simply a different form of pain. Doubtless he had in mind some woman "who loved him," and would return to find that she had found another in the interim.

Why did he keep concerning himself with this nonentity? The only real evil was poverty, in any case, as Matthew knew well--so well--from experience. And he was fulfilling his vow never to be poor again. The image of his father floated near his consciousness again, and again he thrust it aside without realizing what he was doing.

He looked again at the house in its magnificence. True, his life involved certain inconveniences; but the alternative was to live like these wretched farmers, and to be subjected to such as himself, who took great masses of what one's sweat had produced, simply because they were capable of taking it. Were Rome not here to sanction it, then some other nation would doubtless be occupying the land--and even if it did not, as the revolutionary party called the Zealots proposed, the priests and Levites would see to it that the people groaned under an equal burden. It was only a question of what other party one would enrich while one groaned under a yoke that barely sustained life--and sometimes--often--did not even do that. He was merely the intermediary.

There lay the dogs, under the little shelter behind the house, where they could be chained if need be. They barely condescended to raise their heads as he came in sight.

"Even the dogs care nothing for me," he repeated aloud. But then he added, "Why should this distress me? I care nothing for them; I care nothing for anyone but myself, and everyone else is the same, as I well know, whatever they may say or even think, so why should I expect dogs to do more?" Still, they seemed happy to see Gideon; they fawned over him. "Because he gives them meat," he thought. "They are looking for meat; it is not love."

Odd. They did seem overtired. Had Gideon taken them out for more exercise than usual? It was well that they obeyed his every word instantly, or they would tear apart anyone they met on their little jaunts into the fields. That was what they were for: to see to it that anyone who tried to enter the yard was reduced to shreds of bloody hide before he could take five steps.

Why was the door on this side of the house open? Was it normally thus? Matthew did not know, because he always entered through the front, and never bothered circling the house as he had done today. He felt a small rush of the heat of fear as he continued round the house to the front door. The evening was uncanny, for some reason.

He turned the key in the lock and entered, and the house sounded empty. But did it not always sound empty? Another rush of heat, this time genuine fear. Taking two more steps, he turned quietly to close the door.

--And found an arm about his neck and a knife-point at his back.