She turned and looked at him. “I don’t know what the right thing is to do,” she said simply. “You’re a physician and you want physical answers. All I know about diet is what I remember from the Pentateuch, and you’ve already written that down. All I know about drugs I learned from you. All I know of massage and rubbing techniques I learned by watching you.”
“Pray then, and tell me what God says.”
Hadassah’s hands clenched. “I do pray. I pray all the time. For you.” She turned away again. “And others . . . ,” she added after a moment.
Was Marcus all right? Why did she have this persistent nagging inside her to pray for him? And what of Julia? Why was she on her mind so much lately?
Lord, I pray and pray and still have no peace about them.
“So Venescia’s problem isn’t physical,” he said, doggedly searching for treatment. Hadassah said nothing. Maybe she was thinking the problem over. Alexander took some meat from the platter and poured himself some wine. “All right. We’ll look at this logically. If it’s not physical, it’s mental. Maybe she thinks an ailment into being.” He chewed the tender beef and swallowed. “Maybe the answer is to have her change her thinking.”
“Will you ever change yours?”
He raised his head and looked at her standing by the windows. Something in her stance made him sense her sadness. He frowned slightly. Crossing the room, he put his hands on her shoulders. “I believe everything you’ve told me, Rapha. I swear it. I know God exists. I know he’s powerful.”
“Even the demons believe, Alexander.”
His hands tightened as he turned her to face him. Filled with an inexplicable fury, he swept the veils from her face so he could see her eyes. “What are you saying? That I’m a demon in your eyes?”
“I’m saying your knowledge is all in your head, and that’s not enough. Saving knowledge is of the heart.”
“I want saving knowledge,” he said, mollified, thinking again of Venescia. “What do you think I’ve been asking for all this time we’ve been together?”
Hadassah shook her head. His hands dropped from her shoulders, and she sank down on a stool.
Alexander went down on one knee before her and put his hands on her knees. “I believe, Rapha. I say all the prayers I’ve heard you say exactly the same, and still I never have the answers I need. Tell me where I’m going wrong.”
“Maybe you receive no answers because you’re asking for the wrong things.” She put her hands over his. “Maybe what you really desire is God’s power and not his revealed wisdom.”
Alexander let out his breath. “I’d take either one if it would help that woman get well. That’s all I want, Rapha, to heal people.”
“It’s what I want, too, only in a different realm. God comes first.”
“I only know the realm of reality. Flesh and bone. The earth. Reason. I have to deal with those things I know best.”
“Then think in those terms. Life is like a pond, and every decision and act we commit, good or bad, is a pebble flung into it. The ripples spread in widening circles. Perhaps Venescia suffers the consequences of the choices she made in her life.”
“I’ve thought of that. I told her to abstain from sexual relations with men other than her husband, and she’s already abstaining from wine and lotus.”
“You still don’t understand, Alexander. The answer isn’t in removing things from your life or adding more rules to follow. The answer is giving your life back to the God who created you. And he’s every bit as real as flesh and blood, the earth, reason. But I can’t make you see that. I can’t open your eyes and ears.”
He sighed heavily and stood. He rubbed the back of his neck and went back to his scrolls. “Unfortunately, I don’t think Venescia is looking for God, Rapha.”
“I know,” Hadassah said quietly.
Venescia was like so many of the patients that had come to Alexander and her since Antonia had been delivered of her child. They came looking for magic cures and quick recoveries. Some were pale and thin, addicted to vomiting one rich meal so they could partake of another. Others complained of trembling muscles while their breath reeked of wine and their skin was yellow with jaundice. Men and women alike practiced a life of promiscuity and then wanted to be cured of ulcers on their genitals or noxious discharges. The appeal was so often the same: Make me comfortable so I can go on doing whatever I want to do.
They wanted sin without consequences.
How do you bear us, Lord, when we are so stubborn and foolish? How do you bear us at all?