Galerius Coins: Antoninianus, Radiate Fractions and the 311 Edict

The man who had broken the bench came back carrying a hammer. Timotheos saw it first, hanging from the belt beside his tunic, and put his hand against the door.

“I heard you were meeting,” Marcellus said.

“Who told you?”

“Your sister.”

Timotheos wished she had spoken to him before speaking to anyone else. She had said the announcement meant people could gather again. He had said that he would open his house. Neither had discussed who might come through the door.

In the street outside, Nicomedia was going about its morning. Marcellus stood aside for a woman carrying water, then moved back. He was older than he had been when Timotheos last saw him work. There was a gray patch in his beard, and he wore the same leather belt with a new hole cut beside the old ones.

“I brought wood,” he said.

A boy behind him held two lengths against his shoulder. Timotheos had not noticed the boy. He looked like Marcellus around the eyes.

“My son,” the carpenter said. “He'll help carry it.”

Timotheos glanced toward the covered part of the courtyard, where the bench rested against a wall. One leg had been broken; the seat bore a deep split. He had kept it because it was his, and because throwing it away would have required him to decide what to do with the empty place.

“You know what happened to it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You did it.”

“Yes.”

Marcellus did not look at his son. The boy stared down at the wood.

“They told me to,” the carpenter said.

Timotheos took his hand off the door. “We both remember what they told you.”

“I am not saying that makes it right.”

“But you have said it first.”

A neighbor had given him that bench years before the soldiers came. Timotheos remembered people moving over to make room, knees touching, someone always claiming that the shortest person required the most space. Marcellus had fitted its new leg then. Later he had struck that leg until it broke. He had known exactly where to put the hammer.

From inside the house Timotheos heard his sister call him. He did not answer.

“I can mend it outside,” Marcellus said. “You needn't let me in.”

“That is not what you came for.”

“No.”

They stood at the threshold. Timotheos wanted an apology large enough to cover the years between them. He could not imagine its words. He could imagine Marcellus saying them and himself remaining where he was.

Old Anna arrived with her daughter. She greeted the carpenter by name, then asked whether there was somewhere to sit. Her daughter was supporting her elbow and carrying a small jar of oil at the same time.

“My knees won't let me stand through it,” Anna said.

“There is a stool.”

“One stool?”

“The bench is broken.”

“I remember.”

She looked past him, toward the wall. Then she looked at Marcellus’s wood. She had understood too much too quickly. Timotheos moved to let her pass.

Her daughter set down the jar and came back with two small coins. “Will someone buy more oil? My brother will bring a lamp.”

“I can send my boy,” Marcellus said.

The boy lifted his head. Timotheos saw how eager he was to be given an errand that took him away from the doorway.

“Set down the wood first,” Timotheos said.

They put it against the outside wall. The daughter gave the boy the money and told him which seller to use. He went quickly, without looking back at his father.

Timotheos's sister appeared in the courtyard. She saw Marcellus and stopped.

“I said he could ask you,” she told Timotheos.

“He has asked.”

“I didn't promise more.”

He nodded. He had wanted to accuse her of arranging everything. She had left him the decision, which felt worse just then.

Marcellus began picking a loose fiber from the end of a board. He stopped when he noticed Timotheos watching.

“Help me carry it,” Timotheos said.

They brought the bench into the street. Timotheos supported the broken end; Marcellus took the other. Neither could put it down alone without tipping it. For a moment they had to tell each other what to do.

They rested the seat on the lengths of wood. Marcellus examined the split. He moved his fingers along it, then held them still.

“It won't look as it did.”

“I can see that.”

“It can hold.”

Timotheos waited for him to say something about himself. The carpenter only unfastened his tools.

“Work here,” Timotheos said. “I'll bring water.”

“And afterward?”

“Today, work here.”

Marcellus looked toward the open door. Anna was settling herself on the stool, slowly, while her daughter held her arm. Timotheos’s sister was making room for the people arriving behind them.

“All right,” he said.

Timotheos fetched water. When the boy returned, he carried the oil inside himself and gave back the change. Timotheos thanked him. The boy looked from the people in the courtyard to his father working outside, then went back to help hold the wood.

They began without the bench. Someone moved so Anna’s daughter could sit on the floor beside her. Timotheos remained near the doorway. From the street came a measured tapping, then a pause, then another.

Anna turned her head toward the sound. Timotheos expected her to speak to him. Instead she shut her eyes and folded her hands. He sat down where he was, with the door open beside his shoulder.