“They are like a great family to me, you see Nicholas. They are always there to help, never to criticize. They have become my reason to live, my guiding light. And I am sure they will support me now that my job is finished in this house.”
“But why, Irene? Why are you thinking of leaving? I am still here and you know how to run the household. Please don’t go. Stay with me and look after the house. I haven’t got anyone else.”
So it was arranged that Irene would stay on as the mater familias and minister to me and manage whatever needed doing in the
THE JOURNEY
house. I was most grateful to her, being otherwise now all alone in the world.
Sometime later my father’s old friend Eugenios came to call, to offer his condolences and to ask me what I intended to do now.
“So, will you continue to run the business down at the harbour? You know that Eurymachus can manage the whole thing on his own, don’t you? He doesn’t really need you there. I don’t know why you don’t go travelling, get some experience of the world, try new places and meet new people? You need to broaden your horizons a bit, not stay here bogged down in Patara. Whenever I spoke to your father I told him he should diversify into other trading commodities, get into some other aromatics like frankincense. I know Aquila wasn’t too keen on the idea. He could see all the obstacles, trade tariffs and monopolies. Maybe he was too old, too set in his ways. But you’re still young. Anyway, why don’t you travel a bit and see if you can get any new ideas, maybe from Europe, or even from Africa.”
With that, rather conspiratorially he showed me where my father had kept his hoard of gold pieces.
“See Nicholas, you’re a wealthy man now, but there is so much you haven’t seen yet. It would be a great experience for you. Just take off and get some notion of what the rest of the world is about.”
DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS
Over the next few days I thought a lot about what Eugenios had said. I’d spent all my life in Patara. I didn’t really know the world at all and as he rightly had pointed out, the business was virtually self-sufficient. Eurymachus could manage it single-handedly and Irene was perfectly capable of running the house on her own. Yes, I thought, maybe I should go travelling. I went down to the harbour one morning to talk to Eurymachus. He was deep in conversation with a newly-docked sea captain. They were talking about prices and politics, as usual. Eurymachus introduced me. The captain’s name was Polios and he came from the island of Cyprus. He had been in Patara only a couple of nights and was due to set sail again at the weekend for Egypt.
When I showed a lot of interest in where he was going, he rather jokingly asked, “Why, are you thinking of coming with me?”
“Yes,” I replied quite suddenly. “Yes, I would rather like to join you on your journey. Do you have any space? How much would it cost? When exactly are you thinking of leaving?”
“Look, you don’t need to pay me. Just come for the excitement. I’ll be casting off the day after tomorrow soon after dawn. If you can organise yourself by then, you can come with us. How would that be?”
Irene and I talked over dinner that evening and again the following morning. As it became clearer I was going to travel
THE JOURNEY
to the east and to the valley of the Nile, she became more and more animated.
“Do you know, you will be travelling near the places our Lord Jesus was when he was alive? I wonder whether you’ll visit some of them. Oh, Niko, I would love to see such places, like Bethlehem, where our Lord was born, where he preached and Jerusalem where he was crucified and entombed then rose from the dead. We believe he was crucified and buried and that three days later he rose again and conquered death for our sake. That is how we have been saved from the clutches of the evil one and can attain everlasting life. If you only knew how wonderful this news is for us and all who believe in him! It makes us all into new men and women, in his name.”
I didn’t really understand the principle of this faith as Irene described it to me, but there was no mistaking her enthusiasm and the light in her eyes. She was almost ecstatic as she described the mystery which she experienced and the love that she so clearly felt in her heart. I was very moved by her sincerity; she was obviously a true believer. It was strange to think that she’d been part of this Christian movement for some years without any of us knowing about it.
But I had heard that the Christians were a somewhat secretive band and I understood that this was because they kept everything hidden to exclude outsiders from being
DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS
admitted to their religious practices. I didn’t appreciate just how vulnerable they all felt in the uncertain political climate of the empire and the upheavals in Rome with its overbearing emphasis on the cult of the divine emperor and the new obsession with the worship of Sol Invictus, the invincible sun which currently dominated every town and city. It was such an overpowering craze, but for me it totally lacked any inspiration. It didn’t answer the questions that were in most people’s minds, questions about life and death, good and evil or fear of the unknown. For me, it was all a bit Roman and as such rather too wooden.
After our mid-day meal the next day, and I had made provision for Irene, I spent the afternoon getting some things together for the journey – clothes, shoes and some gold pieces from my father’s hiding place. When I said I was leaving Eurymachus had told me the names of a few traders in Alexandria, our main port of call in Egypt, upon whom I could rely if I needed any help. It was good to know that our family name counted for something even in such a far off and foreign place. I spent my last evening at home looking through the few books Eugenios had lent me to see if I could find out anything about where I was going, otherwise I was about to launch myself into the unknown. It was exciting and daunting and I got little sleep that night turning the whole journey over in my mind, without knowing anything about it.
THE JOURNEY
Just after day-break I bade a sorrowful farewell to Irene, who hugged me and cried as though she was never going to see me again. I tried to comfort her by saying I was only going away for a few months, not for ever, but she was inconsolable. To lose my father and me in the space of only a few weeks must have been very difficult and unsettling for her. But I was eager to be off. If I was going to go, it had to be now. I tore myself away from her and set off down our street, waving at the corner before walking quickly, bag in hand, down to the harbour to meet Captain Polios. I found the ship where it had been moored the previous day. The seamen were getting her ready to sail, but they said I still had about half an hour or so, so I went across the quay to a small stall selling fresh wheat cakes and rather watery tea and for a few coins enjoyed my last breakfast in Patara.
“Going anywhere nice Nicholas?” asked the stall keeper.
“Egypt,” I replied, full of a confidence I certainly didn’t feel.
“Well, enjoy the experience! I’ve heard it’s very different from here, very Greek in one way, but very foreign and strange in others. You’ll come back a totally changed person, I’m sure.”
Little did I know just how changed I would be when next I saw my home city. Had I realised just how much I would alter, maybe I would never have started out in the first place. When you are young how can you possibly calculate these things?