Chapter 10 - The Samaritan

Soon, we ended up in Samaria, in Shira, where pious people had no business, but they did not frighten me. Yes, there lived Hebrews who had mixed their blood with that of Syrians and the people of Mesopotamia, and our spiritual father strongly condemned it. But could you sometimes measure love for God by the purity of blood...? Besides, the opinion of the Scribes has always interested me only as that of collectors of wry human errors.

At that time, we were penniless and yawn-hungry, and I could not earn anything by profiting because the fire to do so had been temporarily extinguished in me after the conversation with Shammai. My students extorted some food from villagers along the road, an onion or unleavened bread. It was a small celebration when Judas managed to steal a sheep, which we roasted in a hidden place and ate, sending prayers to heaven about its owner. Although, objectively, the sheep's owner was neither the shepherd nor the villager who had fattened it for slaughter, but God alone, if He existed. You could also designate some RAM for the owner and spouse.

I humbly confess that "fire" is an overly glorious and, thereby, significant word to describe my ability to engage in conversation with people, cheer them up, and earn money for a dripping piece of meat and a burp of good wine. Therefore, it was better to put it this way: for a short time,, the smoking lamp within me was extinguished, whose soot irritated many the eyes and made breathing difficult, but in the light of that lamp,, the most unsightly and deeply hidden truths were brought to light.

During those weeks of hunger, I was reminded more than once of the days of abundance we had known in Capernaum, in the widow's great house, and I dreamed of returning there if possible. And we walked north, toward Capernaum, slowly and cautiously, stopping often. We hid from mounted patrols and the rich chariots of Hebrew highmen. That spring, along the roads, heralds of all kinds of freedom were often rounded up, and there was even one person sentenced to death.

And it suddenly puzzled me: what had people invented writing and the wheel for? The art of healing? To what purpose did they soften the conditions under which they held slaves? After all, despite this triumph of reason, the thread of life of any man could be broken at any moment; who could have become a poet of all times or a merciful, wise king who had changed the world for the better, or become neither one nor the other, but no less valuable to the one who truly loved him, a dog if need be, or a woman.

The night before, Simon had gone after Sihzra alone to find out if we were in no danger while we waited for him at a nearby shelter. He had been chosen for this mission because his face least resembled that of a Hebrew or Gaul, and we hoped that his sight would not anger the Samaritans.

Simon returned and informed him that the inhabitants of Shizra were gloomy and distrustful (as to be expected), and it would not be easy to get a nutritious dish and nightly lodging there, but there was a chance: he had met a Samaritan, with whose help such could be easily accomplished.

As chance would have it, Simon had been alone with this woman at the well at the foot of the mountain, and no one had seen him. He had said something nice to her; she had trusted him and tearfully told him that her husband mocked her every day, the local miller, who suspected his wife of infidelity, where there was none. This would happen towards evening when he would pour himself full of sweet wine. Her foolish husband had almost convinced the whole town of it, and it looked serious that she might be punished by the legal judgment of the elders. She had no way out and begged Simon to help her because she rightly saw a man who could in him.

Simon immediately understood what he had to do. In his large leather knapsack, crammed with everything and anything, he kept a supply of the simplest of medicines. One was a remedy that caused an extremely powerful belly run with fever and was used for poisonings, as a cleanser, a powder of senna leaves, klitz seeds, and crocodile dung.

Simon gave her the drug in a dose large enough to keep a couple of grown men down for a time and told her to mix it for her husband through the jug of wine he drank every night.

The woman proved insightful enough and executed everything to perfection.

Drained by a sleepless night, fever, and colic, by morning, the distrustful miller of Shira, lying on a straw mat in his garden, was ready to believe anything.

We arrived in town by noon and met our Samaritan in the square before the local baths at the appointed hour. She appeared small in stature, slender, and lovely. In the presence of casual witnesses, I walked up to her. I asked loudly and liltingly, as I usually spoke to the crowd, "How sad are you, woman? Is perhaps one of your loved ones dying?'

The Samaritan began to cry, plunged to the ground, and wrapped her arms around my legs so truthfully that I was almost moved to tears.

"You are a great teacher! Shrieked, the townspeople took a peek over their fences, and passersby kept looking at us. 'You have looked into my heart, teacher! My husband is very sick. I fear he is dying, for I love him so, so very much!'

'Get up, my daughter, and take me to your husband.'

I replied affably.

We went to their house, followed by a small, noisy crowd.

It was a hot day; the sun shone brightly, and the air was pregnant with the general anticipation of a miracle.

A powerless miller laughed under a peach tree in the garden behind the house, next to the stinking cesspool. His face looked gray, and he was so exhausted that he was not even surprised when people filled his garden. He screamed in madness, showed his teeth, and was horribly afraid, awaiting death. Of course, the powder had worn off by now, but he did not know that, so he prayed softly, mixing words of psalms with curses and groans.

I sat down next to him. He looked at me obliquely as if he saw a ghostly apparition. Simon said something to people, and they shut up.

"My name is Jesus," I said, "Do you want me to heal you?

'Yes, Rabbi,' barked the miller plaintively, and he opened his eyes. 'Save me, sinner, I am dying.'

"And are you doing a good job?" I asked.

'Yes,' he said.

'But can you separate all the sand from the flour?' I looked at him as if on doomsday. 'The sand your millstones left in the flour?

'No one can do that, rabbi,' replied the miller evasively, 'but that's not my fault because all millstones wear out and make the sand,'

'And then, how can you separate the truth from the lie!' I exclaimed, 'When the simple sand is not even in your power?' Your dear wife suffers from you, even though she has sinned against you in nothing, which is recorded in the heavens!'

The people in the garden began to murmur, and the miller, who did not even have the strength to cry, shouted hoarsely: "I believe it! I believe it! And I will never doubt my wife again if God is merciful in sending me healing.'

'By the evening of this day, you will be healthy again.'

I said.

And so it happened.

All of Sihzra was at our feet. We spent three days in the miller's house,, and we moved on under the pleasant burden of his gifts,.

Sometimes, it can be helpful to give a woman back her honor. 'I praise you, Lord, that you did not create me as a woman' is how many Jews pray at bedtime, and I think it's not a bad prayer...

We returned to Capernaum, but the rumors of my wickedness at the walls of the Temple had rushed ahead of me, and that did not bode well. My purpose had not been achieved because, with few exceptions, the people saw it as a crime that served no higher purpose. I also no longer wanted to perform such feats of art at the risk of being torn apart by the crowd. I thought about becoming an ordinary doctor in Capernaum, the quiet green city I found so attractive.

Indeed, I did not know what to do with my students in such a case. By then, they were so used to doing ordinary, monotonous work that without me, they could perish from boredom, hunger, and desire.

Thanks to the teachings of the Syrian doctor Aprim, I was able to help people as a physician, but what were they to do? The situation of my students was aggravated by the fact that each of them, to a greater or lesser extent, did indeed see the Messiah in me and did not want to abandon his teacher, the man who was able to bring them within God's landmarks.

The first thing I did in Capernaum was show my students around the marketplace. (magicians could always make a little extra money in the large crowd), was that I walked to the house of the kind-hearted widow, but unfortunately, she was not there; she was still living with her parents, while the house was occupied by a Chajaten family, emigrants from the Kingdom of Armenia, whose head, a handsome greasy-haired merchant, had somehow convinced the widow that he was as distant as he was a beloved relative of hers. As expected, the Chajats chased me away relatively roughly and with mockery. No wonder, too, it was worth leaving Armenia for such a home in one of the world's most beautiful cities.

I shouldn't have left that house at the time, afraid of being worn down for epicurean, because it didn't matter what some sourpusses thought of me...

April, I could not find; he had left the small stone shack on the grounds of the slaughterhouse where he had lived and had left town, having been accused by relatives of the local head of customs of failing to save his life.

This official had had a heart ailment, and Aprim had recommended that he not drink wine but, more importantly, retire, having handed over his directorial care to someone else. But the official had stubbornly insisted on a miracle cure, had gotten done that Aprim gave him an oily sage drink to rub his chest with, and had died one morning.

I stuck my light out to a few more people in town who had eagerly listened to my preaching. I was given food and some money, but no one suggested I stay in his home.

At long last, we were helped by a well-known fisherman who offered to shelter us in one of the sheds on the shore where fish were dried.

We washed in the lake, cooked and ate fish soup (the fisherman's wife had temporarily lent us a large kettle), and chatted by the campfire when it got dark. Up on the hill shone the sparse yellow lights of the town. From there, a black dog came running. I petted him and gave him the remains of the fish soup, and he stayed with us. Behind each of us danced a living, quick, and realistic shadow, and it was as if there were not six of us but 13 because, at a certain angle, the shadow of the burly dog was indistinguishable from the shadow of a freedom-loving Jew.