"I was 'St. Paul's' third wife.": Historical Novel, Book One

By Mara Meimaridi

Embark on a captivating journey through the ancient world with Rachel, a riveting tale set in the 1st Century AD during the tumultuous time of Jesus and Roman occupation.

Born to a Jewish family in 48 AD on the mystical island of Crete, Greece, Rachel is chosen by the enigmatic Magras to be initiated into the spiritual

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mara Meimaridi
• Release date: Mar 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798892987592

Book preview

CHAPTER I

Rachel

Roman Empire,

Crete, 1st century AD, city of Gortyn,

Rachel recounts her life

"I was born in Crete on May 13th during the eighth year of Emperor Claudius’s reign.¹ (year 48 AD) My father was a merchant and owned ships that sailed to Cyrene, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt. My family is Jewish, they believe in Yahweh and in those years, Crete had many Jews of the diaspora.

Our island, Crete, as well as Cyrenaica, had been ruled by the Romans since the old times.² Crete is a province of Rome and subject to it. My family and I lived in Gortyn, the capital of Crete. It is a long way from Gortyn down to the sea, to the ports, to Kaloi Limenes and to Levin, but Crete suffered much from pirates. People used to live closer to the coast, but every so often the pirates would come and sack the villages. They would steal chickens, food, household goods and even our women and then set fire to the towns. In the north of Crete, the pirates had a whole town of their own, Kydonia, which they used as their base.

When the Romans came to colonize us, some of the Cretans rose up to prevent them. A certain Panaris and another one named Lasthenes led the resistance. These events, my grandfather used to say, happened long ago.³ The rest of the Cretans had a very hard time getting rid of the two rebel leaders from Knossos, who put our necks in danger. Rome got very angry with Crete and sent more troops, finally managing to subdue us. They filled the island with Roman soldiers and some cities were burned. However, in all this, my grandparents were more afraid of the pirates than of the Romans.

My family preferred having the Romans there. They were confident that we’d be much better off than with the rebels, Panaris and Lasthenes. At that time, because he was afraid for his family, my great-grandfather had even thought to bring mercenary soldiers from Egypt and paying for them himself. But when the Romans came, it eased his mind. For Crete, he maintained, it was better. Instead of paying protection to the mercenaries, we would pay it to the Romans, and let them deal with the pirates. My great-grandfather calculated that it would in fact be cheaper for us and had even engaged in secret negotiations with the Romans.

My father was not born in Crete. Out of fear of pirates, he had been born in Tarsus in Cilicia, where he stayed with his mother until he was twelve. At twelve, when you became a man according to the Jews, he came to Crete, to be closer to his father, to help him with the merchant ship trade.

We heard what was going on elsewhere in the world, in Judea,⁴ for example, there were always wars and uprisings. Here in Crete, the years with the Romans passed quietly.

My great-grandparents were among the nobles of the island. One of my uncles was a Rabbi in the synagogue, while my mother’s uncle was a priest in the temple of the Pythian Apollo. For my mother was not born a Jew, but a pagan. She married my Jewish father because she fell in love with him and not deterred by her mother’s screeching about this marriage being immoral and put her foot down and would not listen. Her family were pagans. My mother’s uncle, the priest of Apollo, was my grandmother’s brother. He lived in a nice house next to the temple of Apollo and once a year he held the festival for the god. He would have me help him then, to hold the laurels. Apollo’s songs were very beautiful, my mother hummed them all day long. My uncle played the lyre, too. Other girls from Gortyn would dress up on these feasts of Graces and Seasons and dance. Many people came for the festival of Apollo and sat for three days and three nights. Smoke rose everywhere and the tantalizing smell of the roasting goat meat filled the air. The pilgrims would sit down to eat the meat, drink the wine and dance in the joy of the god Apollo.

The Egyptians who lived alone on the edge of the city, and only fraternized with their own kind, would watch the festivals from afar. They had even built a temple to Isis, whom they claimed to be the only powerful goddess, not to be celebrated with frivolous festivals. Whatever you wished for, Isis would grant you. I remember there was also a little Egyptian girl who would eat bulgur and figs every morning and we played together. My mother would hurriedly call me back, lest I be tainted by the Gypsies, which is what she called the Egyptians. In kind, the little Egyptian girl’s mother, Pachla, when she saw her with me, would immediately beckon her back lest she be infected by us Jews and worse, because my Jewish father faithfully attended synagogue.

One morning the Egyptian girl and I ran away and secretly entered the temple of Isis, sneaking down the stairs and finding a Mikva’ot full of water where we took a dip. Such joy! I liked Isis as I saw her statue in this temple of hers. She was dressed with feathers on her head and a sky-blue ribbon on her scarlet dress. But suddenly our mothers caught us by surprise and pulled us home by the ear. They looked at each other in silence. Another morning the Egyptian girl’s grandmother gave us lachmas to taste. It was a delicious bread they baked, and told us the story of Isis, the goddess.

Our great goddess, Isis she said, was married to Osiris and had no children. When his wicked brother, Seth, killed Osiris, cut his body into pieces and threw it into the Nile to be eaten by the fish, Isis wept inconsolably, but as she was a powerful sorceress, she dove into the river, found the pieces of her husband, and started reassembling him. She took the penis of Osiris and put it in her vagina, and thus became pregnant by him and gave birth to Horus. The Egyptian girl’s grandmother then showed us the statuette she kept by her bedside. It was the goddess Isis nursing the baby Horus.

So, as a child, on the one hand I had Apollo and Yahweh on the other, as well as Isis beyond, so of course, I got confused. Since I didn’t know who my god was, I worshipped them all. Fortunately for me, Babette dawned in my life. But I’ll tell you about Babette in more detail in a moment.

During these years in our city there was a great bustle of activity. Builders streamed in from the surrounding areas and two architects came all the way from Rome, all because the Prefect of Crete and Cyrenaica desired to build a grand villa for himself, worthy of his position, to be admired by all and where he would reside as the supreme leader.

The villa was to have elaborate mosaics on the floors, and it was my father who undertook their construction. He sent teams with my uncles who were stonecutters. They created a stunning mosaic of thousands of little stones, showing Jupiter and Europa under our sycamore tree. Our sycamore tree, or Platanus as it was named, was sacred because it never shed its leaves. As my uncle the priest of Apollo explained, it was blessed by God himself. The old priests used to tell that here, under this plane tree, Zeus embraced Europa and Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon, the kings of our island, were born,

My mother visited the villa to inspect the mosaic during its construction, and as always, she found something wrong with it. She told my father that his Zeus came out a little cross-eyed. Father, to avoid her bedtime nagging, ended up tearing up the face of Zeus and rebuilding it.

My mother had fallen in love with my father when she was thirteen years old, and this was the cause of enormous tension in her family, especially her brothers, because my father was Jewish. But Mother, who is more stubborn than a donkey, insisted.

But you are going to become a Jew! her brothers told her.

My mother was not interested in gods; she fell in love with the man, not his religion. She converted to Judaism only to get married, not to worship Yahweh. Deep in her heart she believed that Zeus was the only true god, not Yahweh. My Mother vacillated between the two religions. She heard stories one and she heard stories from the other and was captivated by them all. Eventually, she grew tired of it all and became a completely indifferent follower, unfaithful to everything, almost agnostic.

She finally said, Enough with this unbearable Zeus, he hasn’t left a single female on earth untouched!

And that Yahweh, she said, what a bloodthirsty murderous god! They say he bade Nahash, the king of Ammon, to capture the children of Gad and gouge out the right eye of each one of them!

What worked out in her favor was the festivals. Although now as a Jew she had nice festivities to participate in throughout the year, Mother decided to keep the old festivals of the Hellenistic gods as well. And so, every month, there was always something for her to celebrate.

I have a lot of work to do, she would say to my grandmother. I do not have the time to run between idols and Passover.

I had five older siblings, all boys. None of them had been circumcised, and here is why. Every time one of my brothers was born, my father happened to be away on a trip. On the eighth day after his birth, the Jews dictate, the boy must go to the synagogue, according to the law of Moses, and the rabbi there takes a knife and cuts the foreskin of his penis. This is what the Jews call circumcision. Each time, Mother would take the boys to the synagogue, and she had the great good fortune of the rabbi being so blind his nose he could not see. In order not do any harm to the child, the overaged priest, at least he had this kindness, would give the Sika knife⁵ to Mother to cut off her own child’s foreskin, and then my mother would say to him:

Alright, Rabuko, it is done!

Then she would quickly wrap the infant up and deliberately leave behind a piece of cloth that had been stained with chicken blood. Everyone was pleased, especially my mother.

She declared, As if I’d mutilate my children!

When my brothers grew up and had girlfriends (Jewish, of course, because, otherwise, Father would banish them from the family business) the girls were astonishingly happy because my brothers on the one hand were wealthy, and on the other hand very handsome, and in making love they had no issue.

When nature gives you something, Mother used to say, she knows better.

Our region was covered with olive groves and produced fine oil. And it was this oil which had made my family rich. The first members of my family who arrived here harvested the oil for their own consumption. Then they made big pithoi jars, packed them with the oil and sold it to the Sicilians. The transport of their precious product cost them more than the oil itself. My great-grandfather then built the first ship and they were able to transport the oil to Sicily themselves. Then they would take the boat to Egypt and buy incense, flax, textiles, and jewelry from there. They loaded this too, along with the oil, for Sicily. The Sicilian ladies waited in the ports anxiously for my great-grandfather’s boat to appear, so that they could shop, and my great-grandfather always sold all his merchandise at a profit. He had made a good name for himself for having good taste, and anything you bought from this merchant was decent.

My grandfather was a sea wolf. What did he do to make a fortune? From Kaloi Limenes he would set sail out on the open seas on a direct course to Sicily. Other merchants, who were more fearful of the sea, hugged the western coast of Crete crossing from Kydonia to Antikythera and catching the winds off the Peloponnese. By this passage, although safer in terms of weather, they would be set upon by the pirates, who attacked them.

Grandfather’s boats were bequeathed to my father, who increased the fleet from three boats to seven. Father’s favorite boat was the one he built when I was born and named it Marea, which in Latin, the Roman language, meant sea and in Hebrew, Father’s language, meant lady.

He liked them both and named the ship The Sea Lady, which is what they eventually named me in Greek. They thought of naming me something else, but I was left with the name Marea.

It was customary for us Jews to have two names: one Jewish and one Greek. In the synagogue, we were called by our Jewish name and to the Greek-speaking world, we would go by our Greek name. My older brother’s name was Yakov and we called him Zay. My second brother’s name was Kefa and we called him Peter. My mother, whose name was Cretaia, was called Esther when she became a Jew.

Who was Esther? asked Mother, and the rabbi told her the story of this very beautiful Persian queen.

Mother, who had a fondness for Persia, and when we were little had told us the story about the three wise men of Persia who chose the princes for the Persian throne, was delighted, and immediately said: Yes. Since then, she has forgotten Cretaia and demanded that we call her by her new Hebrew name: Esther!

Even Father’s best friend Paul had two names. The Jews called him Saul and the Gentiles used to call him Antonin, but then he changed it to Paul.

He kept promising Father he would come to Crete to see him, but he did a great deal of traveling and he always had some more important business to tend to. As a child, I had a very strange appearance: my eyes were gray like a cat and my hair was brown. I had inherited nothing from my mother, I had inherited nothing from my father, nor did I look like my brothers. My grandmother, Arsea, was afraid that I might be a child of Zeus. She would go around asking my mother if she had had any strange dreams when she became pregnant with me, or if she had smelled any strange flower smells, like lilies, for example, or if a sudden golden rain had fallen on her head. Grandmother was convinced that I was different from the family. She knew that Zeus was a skirt-chaser and, when he saw a beautiful woman, he threw himself at her. And my mother was very pretty too. Grandmother chatted it up with her girlfriends and her brother, the priest of the temple of Apollo.

Gradually, this idea became a conviction to her, and she was certain that I was the child of God and not of my father. Word of this miracle spread through our town and people looked at me in awe. Little by little, I became for them Rachel-Marea the demigoddess, daughter of Zeus. Grandmother went to the temple of Zeus, lit an incense burner, and waved the holy smoke in front of his statue, begging him to appear to tell her if I was his child. Zeus did not appear, and Grandmother returned the next day and the day after that, to no avail.

We also had a fortune-teller in town, to whom the women went to find out their future and their husbands’ infidelities. Grandmother took me in her arms and brought me to the sorceress. The fortune-teller looked curiously at my grey cat eyes. She took poppy seeds and painted my cheeks red. Then she spat into a clay dish and burned leaves of the sacred plantanus tree. She asked me to spit too. I spat some saliva on the saucer. The fortune teller let out a couple of screams and started jumping around the saucer lifting her skirts. We could see her sandals tied with ropes.

Hera, she said, finally, won’t let me see. And if she won’t let me see the truth, then know, Arsea, that she is following the child. The child is surely the child of Zeus, so that Hera must have risen up against him.

My cradle was filled with amulets, magic charms, donkey-tail hair, and prayers wrapped in papyrus. One night when he saw me chewing on the donkey tails, my father came and threw it all away, and it was a big drama with his mother-in-law. I was teething then, and the donkey tails helped me rub my sore mouth against them, because of my itchy gums.

As his only daughter, my father had a soft spot for me. He loved his boys for sure, but he granted all the favors to me.

Every Judean ought to visit the Temple in Jerusalem at least once in their lifetime. Your sins are forgiven if you sacrifice a lamb to this temple of Solomon and to it alone! Forgiveness does not work in any other temple elsewhere.

Twice Father had been to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple and both times he had met his friend Paul.

My father had asked Paul, What if one day there is a big earthquake, and the Temple of Jerusalem falls into ruins? Will any of us Jews be able to find Salvation anymore?

For Paul, a nervous guy who knew everything, this was one of the rare times he stopped and thought about my father’s words.

Hmm, was all he said in response.

Father boasted that he was of the tribe of Judah, the tribe that was descended from King David and was the only tribe entitled to raise kings to the throne of Judea. His friend Paul was an Idumean. He was ashamed of it and hid it. He preferred to project the ancestry of his mother who was of the tribe of Benjamin. Even this seemed a little ignoble, as the tribe of Benjamin was much smaller than that of Judah. These two tribes were fighting amongst each other to decide from which tribe the King for the throne of Israel would be chosen. The Judeans always won.

We are descendants of David and the tribe of Judah they always bragged.

Just by looking at his face, one could tell he was an Idumean. You did not even have to ask him where he came from. His family was the Herods and people in Judea hated the Herods. The Herods had been positioned on the throne of Judea by the Romans to do their dirty work. The people of Judea did not like the Idumeans on their throne. They besmirched the Herods with names as puppets of Rome and that they drank poor people’s blood, but I will tell you more about my father’s friend Paul later on because he ended up playing a significant role in my life, perhaps the biggest.

As a clever Jew, my father could trade anything. Father even sold the Romans our city’s hot water. The Romans, who were very fond of hot baths, were looking for a spring to construct their Thermae, large imperial bath complexes where they would enjoy their bathing. The Military Prefect officers accompanied by their wives arrived in Crete. These wives were eager to spend time with my mother as our family was considered noble in Crete. As soon as they arrived, my father led the Romans to a nearby hill on his property where there was a hot spring and the land produced steaming water with sulfur as well as a cold stream nearby. His great-grandfather, also a smart man, had had the foresight to purchase the prime location from a Cretan in exchange for a few drachmas. This had happened when the Romans first conquered Crete and my great grandfather knew that the Romans were very fond of their hot baths. Our town only had this one known spring that produced hot water and my great grandfather had the wisdom to take advantage of a good thing. This is how this spring ended up belonging to my family.

The Romans paid my father well for the muddy field because they liked it very much and they started building their Thermae there. They constructed them elegantly with columns and bathing rooms that were developed to a high degree of sophistication. The hot-water and cold-water reservoirs were separated from each other allowing all the qualities of a modern spa. It was a huge building with many cisterns; the primary tank collected the water straight out of the earth, very hot and full of rich minerals, a secondary tank flowed right from the cold stream and the middle tank was very popular by bathers because in this cistern the hot water mixed with the icy cold water and produced the perfect bathing temperature to enjoy a good bath. The construction of the Thermae was taken over by my father’s brother who was a very clever and able man. Cretan winters could be very severe so my father’s brother would allow more hot water to fill the central reservoir, keeping the bathing water at a warmer temperature to allow for the colder weather. In each cistern, the Romans had built steps to avoid slippery falls. The women were allowed to visit the Thermae but only during a specific time of day. We were very proud that our little town of Gortyn had luxurious Thermae just like the splendid capital city of Rome. We were not behind.

The Romans respected my father greatly. First and foremost, he helped them govern over Crete in peace, because the Cretans listened to him and held him in great esteem. He did the work for them and collected the taxes.

Sometimes the Cretans complained that the taxes were unbearable. Father would then get up and show them the work that had been done.

Would you now have an aqueduct? No!

Would you have a bridge over the river? No!

Would you have the largest theater in Crete? No!

It was well worth a few extra drachmas, then!!

As the baths were close to the magnificent villa of the Prefect of Crete and Cyrenaica, my father offered him a private Thermae a gift to enjoy on his own. My father molded smaller furrows, one with hot and one with cold water and made the Prefect his very own cistern.

When the Prefect returned from an expedition and saw it, he was very pleased. This generated a great friendship between the two men, and they spent many hours together. The Prefect felt he could trust my father and found him to be a most reasonable fellow.

In return for this gift of a personal Thermae, our family received a greater gift from Rome, the commission of Public Works for every Roman building to be built henceforth. Rome, as we all know, was responsible for the construction projects in every province, every market, road, aqueduct, theater, as well as public and private baths. Father proved to be competent at this. He had acquired a reputation to be able to build the most difficult project. He was now called The Cretan and has been known by that name ever since.

Our finest building in Gortyn was the theater. It could be entered via two openings. One led through an arcade that was full of shops selling all sorts of goods, textiles, incense, animals, statuettes of Apollo, as well as food such as eggs, vegetables, and such. There was an old man at the edge of the marketplace who baked pies. You could buy these and bring them into the theater. You would sit on stone benches to enjoy the performance. We, as lords of the island, had the right to privileged seats next to the Prefect and the priests of the Temple.

There were performances all day long in the theater, from dawn until dusk. The Prefect in those years when he was a lover of comedy, would invite troupes from Rome, Athens, Egypt, and Syria.

One of these troupes from Syria was transported by sea in one of my father’s boats from Antioch. To my mother’s dismay, they were accommodated at our home. My mother cried out,

My house is full of rubbish!

Everywhere she looked there were loose capes embroidered with golden threads, hats with feathers, fake armor, and dresses that my mother thought were cheap.

When the actors came from Rome, she was happy to have them there. They were civilized! They knew where to go to defecate as the city had public toilets. Whereas the Syrian performers had their own shovels and would squat behind the pots in the courtyard and then cover their feces with dirt. Even though covered, the dung would reek and my mother would go crazy and scream because the cats would go and dig it up. My mother had to teach them to go to the public toilets, and with which language? They spoke Hebrew to each other and Greek to us.

"They speak ‘village-Greek,’ my mother said, who felt infinitely more civilized than these lowly Syrian villagers.

In our town, if you wanted to defecate, you had to go to the public toilets. You would enter the building which had a row of stone benches around with many holes. You pulled your pants down, sat over a hole, and pooped. Underneath there was a channel with running water to move the feces out. There were people next to you, and everyone would look at each other without any embarrassment at all. There were sponges to use to clean your behind with. My mother was disgusted with the lack of privacy and nagged my father into making our own private toilet in the house and my father did exactly that. If there was running water near your house, you could build it easily.

The Cretan Queen, said my mother, who had heard this from her grandmother and she, from her own great grandmother. The daughter of Minos sat on a stone throne with a hole in it and defecated there and her palace had a sewer. Clay pipes took the filth out of her apartments into a deep pit of dug earth. That’s the kind I want.

My father, who adored her, built her a sewer system and my mother was proud.

Only I and Queen Pasiphae have a privy loo! she would say to anyone who visited us. The one detail she did not know from either her grandmother or great -grandmother, was whether Pasiphae’s throne had a pillow on her throne-defecator. My mother put one on.

I did not miss a beat when the actors came to our town, and I was always nearby when they were rehearsing. I was determined to be an actor when I grew up. I imitated the actors, the way they moved, and the songs they sang, and memorized all the lyrics and sang along with them. Finally, you know, it was my involvement in the theater which saved me when I got lost in Judea and wound up in the slave market.

Father’s boats were also docked in Lasaia, which was the second seaport of our town. We had three harbors so depending on the weather is where the boats would dock.

It took several hours to get down from the city to the ports. One day the ship docked here that brought the man I fell madly in love with. For his sake, I gave up everything and followed him without a second thought. He had arrived from Judea on his way to Rome. However, the winter prevented him to travel further and he spent the season at our house. He stayed for months, because that year⁶ the weather was severe, and the waves were enormous. No ship dared to sail in the open seas.

Be patient; I shall recite all the details later.

Babette the Magra

It is now time to tell you about Babette.

She was my governess. When my mother’s milk suddenly stopped flowing, the family panicked. A wet nurse had to be found because I was only a few months old. Other breastfeeding mothers carrying their own babies had come to take up the job as a wetnurse. My grandmother didn’t want them.

Which infant would end up feeding first?

The next morning, the door opened, and Babette appeared asking to see my mother. My mother and grandmother were startled when they saw her. She had the same gray eyes as mine and the same hair. They looked at her curiously. They asked where she was from and Babette replied she was a Magra⁸ from the Land of Two Rivers⁹. We had heard of this country. It was very far away, but no one had ever been there to describe it to us. Not even my father who had journeyed far and wide in his travels. The woman said that her infant had died, and all her breast milk would go to feed me alone. Grandmother was thrilled and Babette was immediately hired.

She was forced to eat a lot of food cooked expressly from our kitchens so that she would produce the most nourishing milk.

Then a new idea occurred to my grandmother. Maybe Babette was some sort of demi-goddess sent by Zeus himself to protect me from Hera. She told her brother, the priest, who agreed. From then on, when Grandmother came upon Babette in the house, she made much of her and the nurse smiled.

As I grew, Babette and I spent many hours together and I eventually began to speak her language, the language of the Hat Magras. Babette spoke Greek with my mother, Hebrew with my father, and Latin, the language of ancient Rome, with the Prefect’s wife.

She was called, "the Prefecta" and she was a very good woman and spent a great deal of time with my mother. This was unusual because not all Cretans liked the Romans. They spat on their paths and despised them.

Here, in our town of Gortyn, and particularly the port of Kaloi Limenes, I was raised and nurtured by the Magras.

When I got a little older, my mother and grandmother as well as the Prefecta would take me to Levin, one of several harbors and natural bays on the southern shore of Crete. As the wife of the honorable Prefect, we road in his carriage which was troublesome on the bumpy road, jostling us about with every slippery stone. Yet, when we arrived in Levin, escorted by two Roman soldiers on horseback, everyone looked upon us with great envy, and my mother, although tired from the rough ride, beamed with pride, glancing around at all the peasants as we passed.

We visited first the temple of Asclepius, the god of healing. If you were ailing from any disease, had some pain here or there, you would be cured. To Asclepius you would leave a votive offering, purchased from the handy stalls outside of the temple, inscribed with whatever it was you wanted to be healed. Your eyes? You would buy an eye-offering. Your penis? Then you would buy an offering with a penis inscribed.

Levin was famous for its thermal springs and people from all over the empire would come to take therapeutic baths.

But there was a blemish on all this wonderland, for next to this temple of health salvation, was a building that housed the madmen brought from Libya. These lunatics were from rich families who were able to pay the bills to be rid of them. When some of the crazies freed themselves and escaped from the guards, there was a great commotion from the residents of the city.

Let the Cyrenians keep their lunatics there, they protested, And not to get rid of them here. We and our children are not to blame for anything.

The people would gather in front of the Prefect’s villa and shout insults about the lunatic asylum.

Someone decided in Rome that Crete and Cyrenaica should be considered one province. This was difficult for whoever rules, because there were large seas separating the two main lands. The family of the Prefect resided in Gortyn, the capital of the province, which was in Crete, but the Prefect was obliged to travel to Cyrenaica from time to time. This proved to be a treacherous journey in open seas with enormous waves. As the ship drew closer to the coast of Africa on the way to Cyrenaica, the waves would become deadly. The waters of the whole Mediterranean beat the shores of Libya with fury. When the Prefect finally reached Cyrenaica, a very beautiful Greek city, his ship docked at the port of Apollonia. His first wish was to visit the Temple of Zeus, which was very famous in our time. Typically, he arrived there, numb with the terrors of the voyage and most thankful to the God that he had crossed the sea and arrived unharmed even if his hair had turned white from fright.

The Roman Prefect had to stay in Cyrenaica for over a month to try disputes, collect the taxes for Rome, and supervise the works that were being done in that part of his province. Sometimes there in Cyrenaica, they prepared feasts in his honor and put on theatrical performances. When he had finished his work, the Prefect would go to the fresh running water of Apollo’s spring where he would cleanse his hands of all the sin upon them from the hard decisions he had made. He then would go to the shore and look upon the sea. If it was calm, he would hasten to board his boat to sail back to his headquarters in Crete.

That day in Levin, the Temple of Asclepius was very crowded because there was a festival and as with every festival, there was a feast. My mother wore her Greek name to circulate among the worshipers of Asclepius. The feast coincided with another ritual celebration of Easter, as well as the Jews celebrating their own tradition of Passover, when Moses, according to the Jews, led his people the Israelites¹⁰ out of slavery into the Promised Land.

When my nurse Babette would tuck me into bed at night, the story of Moses was among the many stories she would regale me with.

I was sitting comfortably, listening to Babette. She would start as any story would, once upon a time . . . far away there in Egypt there lived a pharaoh named Moses and this pharaoh had a sister named Marea who was of the Magras from our Tribe of the Hat.

The Jews in Levin were gathered in the open air and sat under the pine trees. In those years they liked to hear various prophets who seemed sure that the Messiah¹² that Israel had been waiting for for so long would soon appear.

The prophets traveled from city to city and from village to village. People would gather around them and listen with great interest. Apart from the prophets, healers and spiritualists would also visit Crete. One such Jewish divine healer/magician, very famous so they said, had come to our city from Judea for the Jewish festival of Passover and the Jews were gathering around him that day. He was said to have performed miracles. He would put his hand on your head and if you were blind, you could see; if you were bleeding, the blood would stop; or he would ask you where it was you were hurting, and the hurt would be healed.

The Prefecta, my mother and I, had arrived there first and they sat down to listen. Somewhere deep inside they were afraid of being with all these strangers speaking to god. Their faces showed the fear of not knowing.

Perhaps it’s because when you’re born, you have no idea what is going on around you. What are the dangers? You only know danger when you see it on your parents’ faces. Like a child, you have no worries because, no matter what, your parents will take care of you. I could swear I could hear my mother’s heartbeat as she looked around anxiously.

Hey, you, Woman, said the healer to my mother. My mother was surprised and pointed to herself,

Me?

Yes, you, the healer said.

A girl who had half her face covered with a shawl that was wrapped around her body came crying to the feet of the miraculous healer. Beside her was her mother also covered with a thick veil, weeping, and beating her breasts. She pointed to her daughter and fell at the feet of the healer, begging him to heal her. She was screaming so much that a crowd gathered. The girl who up to then had only one eye, removed the shawl, and the crowd shuddered at her appearance. A few women shrieked at the repulsive sight. She had no eye as half of her face was burnt and disfigured. The healer showed my mother the girl and my mother loathed the sight of her, especially with the blood and wounds from the burns and my mother turned her face away in disgust.

I held Babette’s hand tightly and stuck close to her. She was looking around the crowd.

People were starting to gather more closely to see what the healer would do to this poor girl. The healer asked them all to fall on their knees and beg to the one and only god, the most powerful Yahweh, who was the only one who could perform miracles, to show mercy and heal this young girl. The people did what the healer commanded, and I wanted to get down on my knees, too, as I felt sorry for this unfortunate girl. Babette knelt down next to me. The healer began to chant hymns to Yahweh Almighty. He asked us to repeat the song. It was a pleasant song and I learned it right away. My mother seemed to like it too because she sang along in tears, begging Yahweh to heal her. As soon as the song was over, the healer laid his hands on the girl’s head and asked the people around to close their eyes and softly repeat the same hymn in prayer. By this time, the crowd had doubled. People had come from the Temple of Asclepius to see if this healer was truly a Medicine Man.

A few minutes went by with the crowd murmuring their pray, when suddenly the girl let out a cry of pain so loud, that everyone was startled. People opened their eyes to see what had happened. The healer pulled the girl upright and asked her to show her face. It was a miracle! Her face was now intact, like a normal girl with two eyes, a nose, and lips. People looked on in amazement. The women were crying. The girl’s mother was screaming with joy for her daughter. She kissed the healer’s feet and offered him all the drachmas she had in her purse. The girl made the rounds of the people in the crowd, and they looked on in amazement. People began to fight over who would be next in line to be healed by this Jew and a ragged queue formed. One man was shouting at the people in line,

The Holy Father is leaving tomorrow! Only the ones in line will be attended to.

The line grew even longer, and the healing dragged on throughout the night as people did not want to miss out on the opportunity to be healed by this Medicine Man.

I asked Babette if this Yahweh, who was also Father’s God, was really the best God. I had seen the miracle with my own eyes. Babette watched the healed girl walking with her mother to the baths to take a foot bath. When they were far away enough, she led me to the place the two had left their bags.

Under a pine tree, where they intended to overnight, they had left a big bag. They would sleep under this pine tree and at sunrise they would return home. We didn’t know them; we’d never met them before.

Babette put her hand into their bag and pulled out a false face mask made from linen and clay. Laughing, she put the mask on her face and turned to me. I was astonished. Suddenly, she became the same as the girl who had appeared without an eye. The mask was so masterfully painted it fooled everyone. It made people think she was really a girl with half her face destroyed and with only one eye. The mask was tied back on the head with two ribbons the same color as the girl’s hair. Her rich hair covered the ribbons making them invisible. Even with a close look, a person could be fooled.

Babette put back the theatrical mask in their bag where she had found it and we left.

Yahweh, she said, Is not to blame for anything.

I was sad then, you know. I would have loved it to be true.

When I was weaned from the breast and started drinking goat’s milk and eating regular food, my mother asked Babette if she wanted to stay on. Babette said yes, and my mother was delighted because my grandmother had convinced her that Babette must be some kind of a fairy. Babette told my mother she would stay until I was nine, and not a day longer.

By the time I was four, I had learned to read and write. I could also count numbers. My brothers would go to synagogue and read the Torah. A teacher would come to our house and teach the boys about Moses. I was learning about Moses from Babette. The stories told about Moses by the Rabbi were different from the stories that Babette taught me about him. On Sabbath, the Jews did nothing. They did not even cook. It is a day to be dedicated to God and we were to all sit still. If you are a child, you are permitted to play. They used to send me to my grandmother’s escorted by Babette. I would go to her house across the street. On Shabbat, my grandmother, who was not Jewish, taught me to cook braided bread with flour and eggs. As a girl, I should learn household chores. Besides teaching me how to cook, Grandmother would also show me how to work the loom, teaching me how to make cloth. She had three looms in her house which meant, to enter my grandmother’s house, one had to bend down and then walk carefully around and through all the things she had accumulated. Grandmother had been hoarding for years and my mother wondered where she got it all.

Hamyna

By this time, I was speaking the language of the Magras, Babette’s language, fluently.

One day, just after I had turned five, Babette took me down to the seaside because a friend of hers, a Magra woman named Hamyna, was arriving. I saw the woman waiting for us on a rock, gazing at the shore and throwing pebbles into the sea. Babette took off her clothes and dove into the water. Hamyna dove into the sea as well. They played with each other so beautifully, as if they were dancing. Our sea had many dolphins and they joined Babette and Hamyna and the women caught hold of their fins and the dolphins pulled them up and away.

The sea that day was as calm as a lake, and they’d go round and round the bay. Hamyna waved her hand as if to ask if I, too would like a ride on the dolphin’s back. I was afraid; I said no. No child in this part of the world swam in the sea. Instead, I continued to watch them as they danced in the water. Then, laughing, they started competing to see who could swim faster and reach a distant rock first. They swam fast, moving their legs and arms quickly until I lost sight of them. Right in front of me a little dolphin raised its head and let out dolphin-like whistles. To this day I don’t know what came over me, but I wanted to pet it and wriggled my way across the rocks only to fall into the water by accident. I waved my arms because I did not know how to swim. I panicked and thought I was drowning. All of a sudden, I felt the dolphin come up under my belly and gently lift me up onto the foam. I caught my breath back. The dolphin began to swim calmly with me upon his back, with all my clothes on and I liked this! As if he understood what I was saying, I said, Out! and he took me straight to the sandy beach. He stayed in the waves looking at me like he wanted to play again. This time, I walked across the sand by myself and into the water to climb on his back whereupon he took off and headed for the open bay. I laughed happily. In a flash, we reached the two Magras where they were basking on a rocky ledge in the middle of the sea. Hamyna helped me up the rocks and I sat between them.

Ruah, she said to the little dolphin, and it rose on its tail and ripped away from the water.

The sea was very cool, and I dropped myself down from the rocky ledge into the water to enjoy it, but my heavy head kept sinking.

Hamyna joined me and gently placed her hand under my belly and helped me float. Then she gently dipped my head into the water, in and out, telling me to breathe in and breathe out while waving my arms and legs, and behold I was swimming. Hamyna had taught me how to swim!

The next day I asked Babette if we could go again to the seaside.

The Torah

My brothers were having a tough time learning the Hebrew script. Every respectable male member of a Jewish family was required to read the Torah. They had a chisel and black ink from the cuttlefish that worked in a clay dish with a lid to keep it from drying out. The brothers would have to stick out their tongues and try to write down the difficult letters. Peter, my brother, What a fool he is; he understands nothing and is always asking questions, ‘why this’ and ‘why that.’’ You could see the desperation in the teacher’s eyes. The boys’ teacher was also the local rabbi in the synagogue. Father insisted that his sons learn Jewish law. The Torah had great stories. Of course, Babette characterized them as fairy tales." My brothers would write on papyrus scrolls that my father had brought from Egypt and sold as merchandise to the sons of wealthy families. You were careful not to make a mistake because the scroll was very expensive. Peter had been given a wooden plate smeared with wax on it so he could make as many mistakes as he wanted. He then added a little more wax and again, made new mistakes.

No little girl in town needed to learn how to read and write. I sat beside my brothers and watched them, and Rabbi did not push me away. He just patted my head. I usually sat next to the brother I loved the most, the youngest of the five, John. Then I would go to Babette to write her what I was peeping at. Babette would look left and right to see if anyone was watching us and then corrected my mistakes. She would then make me write the same sentence in the other languages she had taught me, Magra first, then in Greek and Latin.

The summer was not over, and I was competing with the Magras in swimming. We would swim from the rocks of the land from which I made a long dive, to swim swiftly all the way to the rocky shore in the middle of the bay. I also made deep dives to catch stones from the bottom of the sea that Hamyna was throwing at me, deeper and deeper.

A Crucifixion 57 AD.

I will tell you now, said Rachel, something incredible that happened to me when I was nine years old. During all these years, I had progressed a great deal with Babette, both in letters and in gymnastics.

In the month of Pyanopsion, in October, those who worship Zeus and the goddesses on our island held a festival that people in our country liked very much. Grandmother said we should keep the traditions of our ancestors and would prepare for this celebration days in advance. Hierapytna, Polyrhenia, had many goats and many lambs. Mother respected their good livestock.

We will get our Passover lamb from Polyrhenia, she would say.

Villagers from many towns in Crete would gather in a place that the Cretans call Rhizenia. The people came from as far away as Elyros, Priansos. Some would travel for days to get to Rhizenia. It was the season of the Vine, and they say even the God of the vines would appear here before the faithful to give the nod to begin the pressing.

The hills of Rhizenia are full of vineyards that produce the fine wine of Crete. Barefoot men and women, with their skirts lifted up, would enter the wine presses. They would form a circle, crossing their arms and holding each other so they wouldn’t fall down, singing together as they pressed the grapes. The circle would go round and round in small steps and the sweet juice from the bunches of grapes would soon be flowing. The most beautiful song they sang, Adonijah, Adonai" was the name of the god. The old women in Crete called this god, "Digonouso" Dionysius. That is because it was how their great-grandmothers called him. It is said that he is the "ouso" or the Son, of the Father Digo, or the Son of Father Zeus. The old Cretans, when they speak the old Cretan language, you do not understand them. The local story is that the God Digonouso married a Cretan girl. The Cretans were sure that Digonouso loved their island. However, evil spirits crucified him, and he was resurrected after days.

When the circle of dancers would slip and fall all together into the wine press, much laughter would take place. Often a dancer would get in the middle of the circle and do tricks. The dancers would continue to sing, asking him

"τίς δ ‘ εζί; πώ δ ‘ εζί; (Who are you? Where are you from?)

And he would answer with this song:

". . . γαίᾱς υἱύς εἰμί τῷ Ωὐρανῷἀστερόεντῐ . . ."

(I am the son of Earth and I am the son of Heaven, the one with the many stars.)

He would return to the circle to be joined by the next one. The juices flowed . . .

My mother was the first to hurry to the press and sing for each town provided their best grape dancers and the towns would compete.

These hundreds of towns of Crete were usually not peaceful and were constantly fighting amongst themselves. Some were mortal enemies with their neighbors for generations. When the feast of the God of the Vine took place, all foes were friends.

On these holidays, and everywhere people would congregate, bandits would appear, not just the local thieves but robbers from the surrounding countryside would exploit the gathering crowds. The streets were very dangerous back then. We ourselves had been attacked by bandits while we were going to Dionysus. The Magras, of course, finally vanquished them, but not without danger. To get to Rhizenia, one must climb high hills and pass through dark forests of beech and oak trees. The trail was just wide enough for a donkey, but not if it was loaded. There were treacherous streams on cliffs and deep crevices that were frightening just to look into their bottomless depths.

Two weeks before, there in Gortyn, Babette and I followed the river that ran through our town. Grandmother called this river Ilithio, or stupid in the Cretan dialect. Everyone else called it Lethaio. We wanted to go to the woods to pick berries. I adored delicious berries and preferred them with honey and walnuts. As we were walking, a bandit suddenly jumped out in front of us.

For the past two weeks, Babette and I had been playing sticks. We would each take a stick and fight with the other as if with swords, laughing all the time. I had to fend off the blows that Babette would strike at me with my own stick. I was trying to hit her but to no avail. It must have been my stick, I said, and chose another one. It was full of splinters, and they stuck into my palms.

The first law, Rachel, Babette said, We protect our hands. She threw me a pair of leather gloves. Our battle continued fiercely. Then Babette caused me to stumble, which I didn’t expect, and I fell to my knees. I realized then that it mattered a lot where you put your feet and my attention was taken from my head.

She approached me and suddenly grabbed my hair, laughing.

The second law, Rachel, she said, Is to tie your hair up before you go to war!

I screeched! My pigtails were almost ripped out. I got angry and attacked her. Babette fought me off, laughing.

Go for it! Go for it, Ruah, she would say in the Magra language.

My mother came out the door to say we were chasing the chickens away. If a bandit jumps out in front of you, you don’t have time to think, oh, wait, I must put on my gloves and tie back my hair!

So, when the bandit jumped out in front of us, Babette rushed him, jumping on his back, and the bandit laughed. He opened the face of the hood he was wearing and behold, it was Hamyna! My heart went back into its place.

The third law, Rachel, Hamyna said to me, Is always be ready!

I drew my bow at my first mallard but missed. The bird fell anyway as Hamyna had also aimed with her bow. Because we are hungry, she said. We ate the bird in the woods with blackberry sauce. I even licked the bones. I was exhausted from all the running we had been doing. At first, they made me run in my dress. We little girls in Crete wore girly dresses. Then they made me run with the bow on my back and my little sword in my belt. Then I ran with a loaf of bread on my back in addition to the bow, a canteen of cedar wood with water, and two stones. What I was carrying running, counting weapons and supplies, was heavier than my own weight. I was hunched over and just wanted to go to my mother. The two Magras were not discouraged by my crying.

Go, they said and kept running.

I followed them panting to the springs. On the way, I first threw away the stones and began to eat the bread. I ate half of it.

So, let me go back to tell you about the adventures we had on the way to Rhizenia.

On our way from Gortyn to the Rhizenia’s Wine Press, Babette, Hamyna, and I were walking behind each other. Ahead went the tracker who knew the paths and behind followed the people. From Gortyn, small groups of believers marched on foot, starting in the morning to get there by the afternoon. Our group numbered seventeen, two donkeys carried the bedding, the pots and pans and the gifts for the God. Our course was northward. The Magras wore cossacks tied with a cord that wrapped around their waists and their heads were covered with hoods. Each one of them also carried a shepherd’s crook to help them walk on the stony ground. Every hour, we would take a rest in the forest glades.

For the god Digonouso, the Son of the Father, our house would offer δίγο μέρα ‘digo-mera’ as we called it in Cretan, or two honeys. The gifts from the faithful, which were gathered in large numbers, were stored by the priests and eaten throughout the year. For the festival, the women were dressed in their best and wore heirloom jewelry of their families. My mother wore a pair of gold earrings, a gift from Father, depicting two dancers dancing with snakes in their hands. Grandmother’s neck was adorned with her mother’s gold necklace.

We entered thickets and walked, pushing the bushes aside to clear the way. Over the years a path had formed, and we followed it. At some point, we came out of the shrubs and reached a passage, were on the right rose an out-of-the-way rock cliff, and on the left, you could see a gorge disappearing into the emptiness of the abyss. The donkeys walked fearlessly and stumbled along the edge of the cliff, throwing pieces of gravel into the gorge. On the next turn, to our misfortune, we were set upon by bandits. They raised their swords and stopped us.

The first one to get out of the way was the tracker. As he was walking oblivious, he was immediately thrown into the gorge without expecting it. The women froze and some of them started to scream. They tried in a panic to turn back but two other bandits cut them off from behind. There was a commotion. With shouts and gestures, the bandits threatened us and told us to sit down and give them whatever gold we were wearing, or they would throw us into the gorge. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother crouching down to whisper to my mother to hide her earrings in her vagina as she was concealing her mother’s necklace in her own. They bundled up in the shawl and began to move in such a way so as to conceal their efforts to keep their valuables hidden. Out of my other eye, I saw the Magras passing the leather gloves and tying back their hair. I, too, caught my braids high upon my head. I looked at the rock. It was impossible to climb as it was too slippery. However, the rock was surrounded by bushes that might be able to bear the weight of a little girl like me. I thought I would give it a try. I snuck up and grabbed the first bush. The bandit in front of me was too busy grabbing the jewels from the neck of a Gortyn woman. I caught the second bush. The Magras was watching me. Amidst the screams of the women, I grabbed the shrubs up high where they couldn’t reach me. One woman was thrown into the gorge after they stole everything she had on her because she kept fighting back. I finally found a hole in the rock which was full of stones where the water had collected. I threw them at the bandits. They saw me and one of them reached up into the bushes to grab