Chapter 5

In this case, however, there was still better reason for the friendship of the lawyer and the fisherman. The seed of it had been sown many years before, when Simon, a self-conscious, ragged, immensely overgrown youngster, had regularly delivered fish at the Zadoks’ kitchen door. David, his senior by a decade, occasionally encountered him on a garden path and stopped to feel his bulging muscles in about the same careless manner with which he tousled the ears of his dog; and Simon would grin and mumble ‘Yes, sir’ to David’s playful comments on the astounding number of his freckles and the prodigious size of his bare feet. And then David had gone away to school in Athens; absent for five years. Returning, he had joined an eminent law firm in Caesarea, then rapidly becoming a metropolis, and was seen only rarely, briefly, in Bethsaida. At wide-spaced intervals Simon passed him. David would nod and smile, absently.

Even after arriving at something like dignity in his lowly occupation, Simon had continued personally to deliver choice fish to a few important patrons: to the Tetrarch’s palace, of course, and to the Zadok mansion, and—for a while—to Jairus’ beautiful villa, though latterly he had given that up; it was too far.

Now that David, slightly stooped and grey, had come home for good, Simon often saw him sauntering about on the grounds. One day they met. Without any preliminary greeting, David said, ‘Still peddling fish, eh? Surely you should have found a better job by now.’

Simon was offended, but kept his temper.

‘I do have a better job, sir. I do not peddle fish. True, I still select them carefully for you and bring them myself to your house—and to the Tetrarch—but I could easily send them.’

If Simon had thought to flatter his customer by mentioning that the House of Zadok and the Villa of the Tetrarch were somehow of the same standing in his esteem, he was quickly set right about that. David’s lip curled unpleasantly.

‘So—that abominable drunkard eats fish, eh?’ he muttered. ‘I had supposed he lived exclusively on beverages.’

Simon didn’t care to risk a comment on this seditious speech, but he nodded perfunctorily; and David, dismissing the subject with a flick of his fingers, said, ‘You’re doing well, then. Perhaps you own a market.’

Simon’s lips twitched with a grin that hinted at something better than a market.

‘No, sir. I am still a fisherman, but I own my ships and have a score and ten men in my employ.’

‘That is very good,’ commented David. ‘I am glad you have prospered. I dare say you have a home—and family.’

Simon explained briefly about that, and David was respectfully sympathetic. After a little pause, he remarked, ‘Perhaps you have some office in the Synagogue, now that you have done so well in business.’

‘No, sir,’ replied Simon almost bluntly. ‘I have no time for the Synagogue.’

‘You mean—you are not religious?’ inquired David, surprised.

‘Well, sir…’ Simon shifted his weight, deliberating a reply. ‘I believe in the God of our fathers—who made the world—and gives us our life—and the sunshine, rain and harvests. I do not believe that He takes any notice of our small doings—or cares whether we roast calves and lambs in His honour.’

‘Very well spoken,’ said David soberly. ‘You are thoughtful…I bid you good-day.’

That brief conversation had marked the beginning of an acquaintance that was ripening to a friendship. There were frequent talks thereafter, Simon encouraged to speak his mind freely and David nodding his approval. Even when Simon had ventured quite beyond his depth and it was obvious that he didn’t know what he was talking about, David—in need of diversion—would slowly nod his head and smile.

Then came the visits at the fence, which brought all that section of Bethsaida to the window. And one afternoon David consented to come into the yard and sit down with Simon in the shade of the tall cypress, and Hannah brought them cups of pomegranate juice.

* * * * *