The Salt Roads Read online

  I just waved him away, too busy being sick. We’d only been four days on the water, but he was turning into quite the sailor, Judah was. Had to. The ship was out to sea before I’d discovered my mistake. How was I to know that I didn’t have enough money to cover our fares? How was I to know that we’d have to pay for food and drink? Our dates and olives had run out pretty quickly, but not before we had the runs and were sick to death of the sight of them. So, Judah was working as a sailor, and I was paying my way in the manner I knew best: as a whore. I didn’t even get to see Antoniou all that much! He was busy, busy, all the time busy. Not like when he came to see us at the tavern. Always climbing some damned mast, or mending some damned rope. Just like bloody Judah, who was loving it that he got to spend time with the sailors. Giving his loving away for free, he was, since he was earning his money in other ways. He said the sailors were all beautiful, even the ones with scars or damaged limbs.

  The fucking ship wasn’t even going straight to Aelia Capitolina. How was I to know that Capitolina wasn’t a port city?

  I stared out to sea. My belly hurt. Time for my courses soon, I guess. Looking at the horizon was the only thing that kept the dizziness from coming over me. Antoniou let me and Judah share his tent out on the deck, but I preferred to sleep right out in the open, uncovered, though it was cold sometimes. I didn’t feel so ill when I could get the wind in my face. When I had to go into one of the sailors’ tents to service them, they’d learned that they’d best do their business quickly, else I’d be spewing all over their beds. And they’d better not touch my breasts. Gods, but they hurt!

  I had thought Antoniou would come out and sleep with me, nights, but he said it was too cold and he didn’t like getting sprayed with sea spume all night. “Get enough of that during the day,” he told me.

  I just wanted to be in Aelia Capitolina, or Joppa, or wherever the fuck we were going, on solid ground. We were nearly there, Antoniou told me. Another night. Please, let it only be another night.

  I went looking for some wine to wash the taste of vomit from my mouth. The galley guard liked me; he’d sneak me some.

  That whispering; it’s like many voices, speaking, but I don’t quite make them out. I almost can. When Thais sleeps and I am set free, I travel to that between place and I strain to hear. Sometimes I think I can see shadows moving too, but it may be just clouds. I catch a glimpse that could be that Hathor lady. I can swim the betweenplace better now, and I always avoid the streams where I can taste/see/sense Hathor. She makes me think about what I mean, and she frightens me. Sometimes it’s Jeanne I taste in the flow, her story being, was, and will-being. That taste satisfies me. It is something that I helped to weave, something ultimately strong, despite tears and broken threads. Sometimes it is Mer, and Georgine, and Tipingee. And not just women. Patrice is in my storystream too. And Georgine’s little boy.

  There is more besides; half-sensed forms, half-heard voices. I feel like human babies must, straining to make their limbs and senses work, without knowing quite what they do. Like them, I feel like crying, like squeezing out that salt water of which I am so, so weary. These bodies that entrap me—they are nothing but brine bound about by flesh.

  We will be in Aelia Capitolina soon. Perhaps there are answers there. I try to soothe the Thais girl’s stomach, but her body keeps rejecting food. I am dizzy when I am within her. I try to make her sleep, often. It’s easy. She is very tired these days.

  Who’s there, whispering? What are you saying? What are you? Are you speaking to me? What are you trying to tell me?

  Saint Domingue

  I think I understand what Father is trying to tell us. A test, a trial. The Ginen are being tested by their gods. Tempered. And our reward, if we are true to them, is that they will take us to them. Mami Wata, is it so? Can I dare to believe that it is so?

  My legs won’t work right,” Judah laughed.

  “Me neither.” We held each other as we walked down the gangplank into Joppa. Sea legs, the sailors had told us. Said we would have gotten used to walking on the rolling deck, and we would stumble on dry land.

  “Move it, children!” growled Claudius behind us. The men needed to offload their cargo onto the donkey carts waiting to take the wheat to the Roman Legion. Maybe we could hitch a ride that way to Capitolina.

  Antoniou wasn’t coming. He was still on the ship somewhere. He’d kissed me goodbye, but I could tell that his thoughts were somewhere else. Judah’d heard that Antoniou had a favourite brothel in this port. Probably he’d head there right away. I’d thought he really wanted my company. I was so stupid.

  Our feet hit the sands of Joppa. I wanted to lie down right there and hug the unmoving earth, I was so grateful. But there was no time. The bustle of the port jostled us, and I almost got separated from Judah. We grabbed on to each other’s hands and held on tight.

  “I’m hungry,” I said to him. He looked surprised. I hadn’t been hungry much at all since the nausea started.

  “Don’t look at me like that. It’s because we’re not moving for once, thank the gods. Let’s go and buy some lunch. I have money.” This time, I knew it wouldn’t go far, but I had more than Judah did, cause I’d been too sick to spend my earnings on food.

  Judah looked around. “Okay, let’s eat. I’ve been here once before, a few years ago, as they took us to be sold into slavery.” He gazed at the streets around him to get his bearings. “This way. After that, we can see about begging a ride.”

  “All right.”

  Judah led us off down one of the streets. He thought he remembered a market there. On the way, I stared at people till I thought my eyes would leap out of my head! I was used to Jews; there were plenty in Alexandria, the men with their fringed shawls, but here there were so many of them! “Everybody talks funny,” I whispered to Judah. “They’re all speaking Hebrew. Sounds like gargling.”

  “Thais, we’re the ones who talk funny here.” He heaved his bag higher up onto his shoulder.

  “What do you mean? We talk normal.”

  He just shook his head and didn’t explain. We bought some bread from a vendor and some garum paste to dip it in. Must have been a long time since I’d eaten a full meal. It was delicious.

  The soldiers did let us ride with them to the garrison. More fucking to pay our passage, sometimes right there in the carts amongst the sacks of grain. Judah complained the whole way there. “I hate Roman soldiers,” he whispered to me one night when we’d gone off a little way to piss. “They’re the ones who destroyed my city. You know what Aelia Capitolina used to be called before Rome got its hands on it, don’t you?”

  “No, what?” I found a smooth rock, rubbed it clean against my tunic, and used it to dab my nethers dry. It was warm from the day’s sun. I tossed it away.

  “It was Jerusalem,” Judah said.

  “Yeah? I’ve heard that name somewhere.”

  Judah shook himself off and smoothed his linen kilt back down. “It existed for thousands of years before Rome sacked it.” He fussed with his pleats until they were perfect. Seven days of travel, and I looked like shit. Judah was as perfect as a Festival rose.

  I stood up and sighed. “Time to go to work,” I told him. I was with a skinny balding man tonight. He had bad breath. Judah and I picked our way back to the camp in the dark. Hoped I could keep down the dinner we’d eaten. I still wasn’t quite recovered from the sea trip.

  That other place, that rancid, stagnant place in the aether. It draws me towards it. There are other places I can go in the spherical world, but they all end up there, at the blockage. I cannot get by it. Its taste is foul. It reeks of grief and horror. I gather my forces—I am much more able now—and throw myself at it, hoping to break through. Instead I land in it, and it is vile; corruption creeping into every sense. Spitting, gagging, I fight myself free, but I am back where I started. This cancer, it blocks my freeflowing world. Forces it to move in only one direction. I must, must clear it.

  When I start to be dragged
down into human time as I have been before, start to feel the weight of bones and flesh again, it makes me as bitter as poor Jeanne is for so much of her life. Is it back to Thais, then? She my only means of travel as she plods her single-visioned way to Capitolina? Must I be sunk forever in her puking flesh, drown in her? What will become of me? And what is wrong with my flowing world of stories? I scream anger into the careless ocean of aether, but there’s no reply.

  Aelia Capitolina was all hills. The donkeys trudged along a road that went up and up. They clambered up it, uncomplaining, to the soldiers’ garrison. We stopped in front of its gates.

  “You two are off here,” said one of the soldiers, jerking his chin in the direction of the path that led back to the city.

  I didn’t remember his name. He was the one in charge. He liked me to suck him. “Can’t we come in?” I asked. Judah rolled his eyes at me. He just wanted to get away from them. But I wanted a bath.

  The soldier just laughed at me. “What, and let the Centurion know we had two whores with us the whole way back? We’d be polishing his armour till our arms fell off.”

  The others chuckled with him. “Off you get, chicks,” one of them said, shooing us off the cart.

  We clambered down. I heard my tunic tear on a nail as I went. It was my favourite tunic, too. But I hardly cared any more. At least I still had my doll.

  “Can you at least tell us the way to the Christian church?” I heard Judah asking. “The big one?”

  I didn’t wait to hear the directions. I was off down the hill already, looking for somewhere to puke. It was so bloody hot in this city! I spat out my breakfast, then went back to the path. Judah was on it, kicking stones as he went. He looked happier, now he was away from the soldiers.

  “I think we should just find someone to take us to my uncle’s place,” Judah said. He stooped to pick up a rock, and heaved it down the path. It bounced away over red dirt.

  “No, I want to go to the church first,” I told him.

  Yes, child. Take me to the whispering.

  He looked at me. “You’re sure? You don’t look so good, Thais. My uncle would look after us. We could rest a few days, then come back.”

  It sounded good. It’d make sense to get settled somewhere first. But . . . “the Church of the Holy Sepulchre first,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. We continued on down.

  “Thais, listen; when we get to my uncle’s place, we have to be on our best behaviour, right?”

  My head ached.

  “Thais? Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, rubbing my forehead. It was starting to pound. “Your uncle’s an old fart, is he?”

  “I guess. He’s just very, you know, orthodox. You won’t be able to wear any of your fancy clothes around the farm, and you’ll have to help with the chores, and observe Sabbath.”

  “Gods, that sounds dreary. I might as well be back in the tavern in Alexandria.”

  “But he’s a good man, though. And my young cousins are so sweet. Lila, Tamar, and Farah. Only they’re probably not so young any more. It’s been seven years since I’ve seen them. I was only a boy then myself. And Thais?”

  “Yes?” My belly felt like a dogfight was going on inside it.

  “We can’t talk about me liking to go with men, okay?”

  “Why not?”

  “Uncle thinks it’s a filthy Greek habit.”

  I chuckled at that, despite how ill I felt. “Shows how much he knows.”

  “He thinks I’m the manager of Tausiris’s tavern. Thinks I should come and live with him and work on the farm once Tausiris frees me.”

  I made a noise of disgust. I tried to imagine Judah up to his knees in mud behind a plough. I laughed, but that made my belly hurt more. My bag felt heavy, and the sound of my sistrum chiming every time it banged against my hip was making me dizzy. I kept walking. “Judah?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re a Jew, right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, how come you don’t wear the fringed shawl, like the men do here?”

  He didn’t answer for a little while. Then he shrugged and said, “I don’t observe the Sabbath either, unless I’m here visiting my uncle. I was born Jewish, but I just feel more Greek, you know?”

  “I think I know. Me, I feel both Nubian and Greek.” Judah’s uncle would probably throw several fits if he knew that Judah’d been wearing weights on the skin of his dick to reverse his circumcision; said that he was tired of the men at the gym staring at him and knowing he was Jewish, not Greek. “I’m thirsty, Judah.”

  He smiled at me. “One of the soldiers gave me a skin of wine,” he said, “in gratitude for this little trick I taught him.”

  “You have wine? Give me some!” I hadn’t even noticed the skin slung over his shoulder. I felt better already.

  He handed me the skin. I stopped, put my head back, and held the skin up to my head. Sweet red wine poured into my mouth. I swallowed the first wonderful mouthful, then gagged. Spilled wine all down the front of my tunic. “Fuck,” I said to Judah, “what’s wrong with it? He’s given you sour wine!”

  “Here, let me taste it.” He took a small, cautious mouthful, lowered the skin, and frowned at me. “It’s just fine, Thais. Not the best wine in the world, but it’ll do.”

  “You’re mad,” I told him, continuing down the path. “It tastes like camel’s piss.”

  “Pretty Pearl,” he said from behind me, “sometimes I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “Just get me to the Church of the Sepulchre.” I thought of all Antoniou had said about it, how marvellous it was. I wanted to see a marvellous thing.

  We were finally in the city. We stopped every little while so that Judah could ask directions. A woman was staring at me. I glared her down, then nudged Judah. “What’s up with her?”

  “They don’t get many Nubians here,” he said. “You look strange to them.”

  “That’s silly! Only my mother is Nubian! My dad’s a Greek!” What a backwards place this was! But Judah found us a stall that sold bread with honey, and once I’d eaten, the world looked much brighter. I recognised some of the food in the market; olives and dates and barley, and I heard a few people speaking Meroitic and Greek, and saw some more Roman troops. But still, it wasn’t the same as Alexandria. “It’s so dusty here, Judah. Why aren’t the streets paved?”

  He tousled my hair. “It’s not like Alexandria everywhere, Thais.”

  Well, I knew that. What did he think I was, a child? “Oh, look at that.” A woman was walking by, wearing a beautiful yellow pallia. “That’s so pretty. Wonder where she got it?”

  Judah smiled at me through his fifth piece of bread and honey. “It’s good to see you bright-eyed again. Hey, you think we can afford some of those dates? They’re stuffed with pistachios.”

  “No, we can’t. Come on, let’s go.” I didn’t tell him, but I didn’t actually feel so good any more. My belly was hurting, low down. Probably from the food. I had eaten so fast. He asked directions in Hebrew from the vendor. The answer really did sound like water tumbling over sharp rocks.

  “He says it’s a long way,” Judah said. “We can walk, but it’d be better to rent a donkey.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking of my hard-earned money. Wonder where a whore went to work in this town? “Let’s see how much a donkey costs first.”

  We asked around until we found the stall of a man who would let us ride his donkey and lead us to the church. Judah found out the price. I hated not being able to talk to anybody. “Tell him that’s too much, Judah.”

  The man shrugged. Judah didn’t need to translate that. Well, maybe a stroll would help ease my aching belly. At least my breasts didn’t hurt any more. “Let’s walk,” I said. Gods, it was hot! And the market smells were making me queasy. I’d gotten used to the constant sea breeze on the ship, and the roar of the waves. And even on the trip to the garrison, we’d been in the open for most of the ride. Here, it wa
s all people jabbering. We got directions from the man with the donkey, and set off. Hilly and dry, this land. Pretty soon, my feet were powdered to the calves with dust.

  “Is it much further?” I was sweaty and hot, and my head and my belly were pounding.

  Judah shaded his eyes and looked up at the sun. “Another hour or so, I think. The vendor said it would be close to sundown before we got there.”

  Damn. Walking wasn’t helping. It felt like I was going to be sick again. Last time I buy any food from that stall!

  It felt like my courses were coming, too. About time. They should have come while we were on the ship.

  “You all right, Pretty Pearl? You’re sweating all over.” Judah was looking at me, worried.

  “It’s okay. My head hurts a little, that’s all.”

  “Do you want to sit for a while?”

  “No, let’s keep going.” If we weren’t going to even get to the church until sundown, we’d have to spend the night at an inn or something. Which means we’d have to pay for it. I wondered whether we had enough money. “Come on, walk faster.”

  He did, but it was me who kept slowing us down. I stopped twice to be sick by the side of the road. The dust, red dust; it got in everything; my hair, my nose, my eyes. My throat stung with the sour taste of being sick, and my belly cramps were coming in waves now.

  “You are sick, aren’t you?” said Judah. “Shit.”

  “No. Yes. Let’s just go to the church. They’ll look after me there, won’t they?”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded scared. “Your skin’s gone a funny colour; all grey.”

  “It’s the dust,” I muttered. I hated Capitolina.

  It felt like hours before we got to the church. A long, long time of walking. I don’t remember the journey too clearly any more, just that I hurt and Judah kept asking me if I wanted to stop.