Chapter 21: A Walk in the Garden

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED with men (and a few women like Isabella, Cleopatra, and Artemisia) who fancied themselves rulers. I had been a king in Bathra, but I couldn’t recollect ever feeling happy about being a ruler. I led armies to subdue our enemies and levied taxes to pay for the armies. But my rules to live by were simple and not retributive.

I wandered through the Kingdom of Judah, perhaps 2,700 or 2,800 years ago, and found a people who were generally happy with what they had. Their god had given them laws and they were the most rigidly law-abiding people I had ever seen in all my travels. Being a soldier was something they did when necessary, not as a career. Yet they had gained their lands a thousand years earlier by defeating and destroying everyone in their way. It was a bloody nation.

I had settled myself down with a lovely young woman named Miriam as my wife. I’d adopted a body that was of similar sort to the Jews and was even circumcised. It seemed strange to me, but a gentile would not be welcome there. There was some hullaballoo about people worshiping false gods (defined as any god but their own) and the country was in disarray.

And into this disarray stepped the king who would overthrow an empire. Babylon—the famed city of the lawgiver Hammurabi—was an Assyrian province, but Nebuchadnezzar saw a weakness there and decided to become the ruler of the world as he knew it. He had several battles in a ten-year period and defeated the Assyrians in the east and north and the Egyptians in the south and west. He considered Judea to just be a worthless province until the king there decided to stop paying taxes. If there was one thing Nebuchadnezzar was keen on, it was his taxes. He besieged Jerusalem, tore down its walls and its temple, and took the king captive with all his court. Since he couldn’t trust the king, he marched him off to Babylon with his retainers and priests.

The people of Judea had been indoctrinated for a thousand years to follow the treasures of their temple; and so, several thousand went into exile with the rulers and priests. Miriam and I went along.

In Jerusalem, there had been all kinds of places where I could slip off and enjoy the company of my harem. When I was gone for a few days, Miriam would ask where I had been. I would good-naturedly tell her that I’d been off with my harem. She would inevitably respond that she would have to become one of my concubines, so she could see me more frequently.

But Miriam didn’t believe I had a harem. She knew I was an architect and builder and I had built several buildings in Jerusalem which were now rubble. When we got to Babylon, I set to work helping build the Jewish Quarter. We needed to house a few thousand exiles and, of course, Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t thought about that. He only intended to take the ruling household and priesthood with him, but all these other people had followed. He had no plan for housing them, feeding them, or putting them to work. It didn’t take me long to get everyone organized and building rudimentary dwellings. Once we had the ghetto laid out, I began replacing the rudimentary dwellings with more permanent houses of brick and stone. As far as building an economy went, the people needed no help with that. They were up and functioning as a community before all the houses were built.

I guess word of my efforts finally made its way to the ears of Nebuchadnezzar and I was summoned. That meant that a company of guards came, chained me, and led me to the court.

Neb hadn’t intended that I be chained and got them removed right away. He asked me about the development of the Jewish Quarter and how I was able to build so rapidly. He wanted to know what techniques and materials I was using. I explained some of the architecture from the south of his territory and how I had made bricks for a temple where there wasn’t enough stone available to build with. I stressed the aesthetic of pools and gardens, of which we had included some in the Jewish Quarter.

“Oh, yes! I quite agree!” he said enthusiastically. I discovered he was a bit of an architecture enthusiast himself and he took me for a walk around his palace. One feature struck me above all else.

“Nice gardens,” I said as we walked through a veritable hanging jungle.

“The hanging garden was the last thing the venerable Hammurabi of many centuries ago decreed. It has withstood the invasions of Medes, Persians, Assyrians, and others—all of whom have looked upon the gardens and declared their admiration. The garden has lasted longer than his code, though we still abide by as much of it as we’ve been able to locate.”

I nearly told him I had a copy, but decided to leave well enough alone.

“You know what you need here?” I said as I turned and looked back at the marvelous garden. “You need a reflecting pool, say all the way from here to the foot of the steps ascending into the garden. Then when people saw the garden, they would also see its reflection and it would look twice as large as it is.”

“Yes, a great idea, but where would the water come from? I have a hundred people bearing water each day from the river to the top of the gardens to keep them lush. I can’t imagine how many I would need to keep a pool filled.”

“We could arrange a tiled passageway and a pump to draw water from the river to the top of the garden. Then we could use the steps to bleed off the excess and let it run down into the pool. A further channel could be used to take the overflow from the pool down into the city where people could draw water without going all the way to the river. Beautiful.”

“Water flowing uphill? Make it so! I want to see this miracle!”

Which was my first commission from Nebuchadnezzar. It took a year for me to get the pool dug and set up the waterwheel pump that drew water to the top of the gardens and let it run down the steps to fill the pool. I employed people from the Jewish Quarter, of whom there were still many who were unemployed. During that time, most others had found employment in households and farms, and as tradesmen in the Quarter. They weren’t exactly slaves. They were treated more like immigrant workers and were paid for their work. As they have always done, they prospered.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR WAS so pleased with his pool that he spent many hours each day sitting next to it. And, like party boys throughout the ages, when he was beside the pool, his women were also there. He was married, of course, to—I don’t remember. Six or seven wives. There were another hundred concubines who were part of the treaties with the nations he had conquered. Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians, Jews, Sumerians, Lebanese, Greek. I was certain I saw women of Trojan blood among them. Looking at the beauties arrayed around his pool was a veritable feast for the eyes.

Especially since Nebuchadnezzar liked his women the same way I did—naked.

Most of his business that did not require him sitting on a throne, he conducted at the pool. As a frequent consultant on the architectural affairs of Babylon, I was often privileged to be present at the pool. On those nights after spending the day at his pool, I hurried home, made love to Miriam, then disappeared into my satchel to work my way through my own harem. I spent a lot of time with the priestesses of Aphrodite I had rescued from Troy, who had not found mates and settled down. Apparently, Aphrodite noticed.

“So, my randy little demon,” she said from beside me one night. “You are still besotted with my women.”

“My Lady Goddess,” I answered quickly. “They remind me of you. How could I not be in love with them?”

“You are such a smooth talker. Enjoy them as much as you can,” she said. “I am unfortunately here on a mission.”

“How may I be of assistance?”

“The gods are having a little contest.”

“Oh, no. Please don’t turn Babylon into another Troy!” I said.

“No, not quite. You know the Jews have a unique relationship with their god. The Olympians have mostly ignored him over the years, but they’re extending a hand with this little contest since most of them are here in Babylon.”

“And what am I to do here? Are there priestesses I need to rescue? A library to pillage?”

“No, no. But you have the king’s ear. He’ll ask a number of questions and you will answer. As easy as that. Okay?” she said sweetly.

“And how am I to know the answer to give?”

“Let me introduce you to my cousin Morpheus,” she giggled. “Not as fun as me, I think, but a good resource.”

“My Lord Morpheus,” I said to the visage that appeared. My mind suddenly flashed with images. It was as if I was dreaming, but as I dreamed, I understood what the dream meant. Okay. Whatever. When I looked around again, there was no sign of Aphrodite, Morpheus, or the dream. I couldn’t even remember it. I couldn’t imagine what I was supposed to do next.

GODS. MY experience is that they are generally capricious. They operate on such a different plane from everyone else that they are usually out of touch with the reality of the human experience. They’ve never quite reached the point of understanding humanity. I dare say that I’m not perfect at it either. The whole idea of free will means that humans will continually surprise you.

There is a story told about the god of the Jews in regards to that. In the Jewish writings, it is said that the angel Lucifer challenged God to a contest in which he bet he could make a particular loyal worshiper deny God. The deity was quick to accept the challenge, only forbidding Lucifer to physically harm Job.

Mark the implication here. Lucifer was given the right to kill Job’s children, steal his cattle, take all his wealth, and ultimately to afflict the man with painful boils, just to see if he could make him deny God. All to no avail. Job remained constant, but protested his innocence before God. At which time, God speaks to Job through one of his friends and says basically, “Who are you to question me? I made you and I can unmake you. The world is mine to do with as I please. Who do you think you are to question my decisions or actions?”

Excuse me, but this is basically no answer at all. Oh, God restores Job’s wealth. He gives him seven more sons stronger and smarter than what he had before. He gives him seven more daughters, more beautiful than any in the land. Job is ‘rewarded’ for his faith in God.