Thessalonica

On the other hand, he might have painted himself orange with green stripes and got into Thessalonica unchallenged right then. So long as the men coming in didn’t look like Slavs or Avars, the guards who stayed at the gates weren’t bothering them. The guards were not in a bothering mood. They were passing a jar of wine back and forth. He wondered what Rufus would say about that. Give me some, most likely. George walked past the guards into the city.

XII

People packed the narrow, winding streets. They pounded one another on the back. They shouted out bits of song, generally off-key. Men and women kissed in doorways or sometimes out in the middle of the street, blocking other traffic. Nobody showered them with abuse, not now. George would have bet anything anyone cared to name that not all, or even most, of the couples embracing were married to each other. Nobody cared, not now.

He spied a familiar tall, thin figure. The Thessalonicans were so overjoyed at being delivered from the Slavs and Avars, they even included Benjamin the Jew in their celebration. No one showered him with abuse either, not now. He looked absurdly confused. He had no idea how to cope with acceptance. It wasn’t anything he’d ever had to worry about before.

Then he spotted George. He smiled, waved, and picked his way through the crowd toward the shoemaker. He clasped his hand. “Praise the Lord, to see you here and well,” he exclaimed. “I had heard you were lost beyond the wall, which grieved me greatly.”

“I was lost beyond the wall,” George said. “I managed to get back.”

“God must think well of you,” Benjamin said.

George wondered about that. If God thought so well of him, why had He put him through so much trouble and danger? Why had He inflicted Menas on him? Why, for that matter, had He cured Menas, so the noble had a fresh chance to inflict himself not just on George but also on the rest of Thessalonica?

Before George could come up with answers for any of those questions, a different, more obvious one occurred to him. “You can see me!” he exclaimed. Of itself, his hand went to his head. Yes, he was still wearing Perseus’ cap. “How is it you can see me?”

“With my eyes?” Benjamin suggested, which was, George supposed, about as near as the sobersided Jew came to making a joke. Before either of them could take the question further, the crowd separated them. Someone stepped on George’s toes. In the crush, whether that fellow saw him or not was irrelevant.

Under the rim of Perseus’ cap, George scratched his head. The Slavic demons and demigods hadn’t plagued the Jewish district of Thessalonica, and now Benjamin not only penetrated the pagan Greek enchantment that lay over George, he didn’t even seem to notice there was an enchantment to penetrate. George didn’t know exactly what that meant. Whatever it was, he had the strong feeling Bishop Eusebius would not approve.

He got stepped on several more times before he finally reached his own street, and elbowed, and kneed, and poked. In close quarters, invisibility had its disadvantages, too. When he did get to his own street, the first thing he found was Claudia arguing with the woman who lived next door to her and Dactylius. Between them was a pile of garbage someone--George didn’t know who--had thrown into the street right between the two houses. If the two women knew the Slavs and Avars had been routed and the siege of Thessalonica broken, they didn’t care. George smiled. Some things didn’t change.

But if Claudia and her neighbor remained intent on their own private quarrel, the rest of the street celebrated along with the rest of the city. People passed jars of wine back and forth. Those who still had salt meat or candied fruit stored away brought them out and shared them with friends--and sometimes with passersby, too--confident they could replace them now.

And, everywhere, people were embracing. George almost walked past a young couple in a doorway three or four doors down from his house and shop. They didn’t seem any different from scores of other happy pairs he’d seen … till he noticed that one of them was Constantine the potter’s son and the other his daughter Sophia.

He coughed. At the same time, he took off Perseus’ cap, returning to visibility. Constantine and Sophia jumped in the air, then flew apart from each other as if he’d dumped a pad of water over them.

“Father!” Sophia exclaimed. She managed to pack a multitude of meanings into the one word: joy at having him come back again, along with something that wasn’t joy at all at having him come back at that particular moment

“Uh, we didn’t see you, sir,” Constantine added.