Thessalonica

George coughed, which wasn’t a good idea, because he’d taken a swig of wine a moment before. “I don’t know that Germanus does like pretty boys,” he said once he wasn’t trying to choke to death.

“Neither do I,” John said cheerfully. “That wouldn’t stop me from telling jokes about him, though.” He took a sip of his own wine, making a point of doing it neatly. A moment later, though, he looked glum, which added close to ten years to his apparent age. “Of course, that’s why I don’t live in Constantinople anymore, which I suppose proves your point.”

A barmaid came around with a bowl of salted olives. Before the Slavs came, a big handful had cost only a quarter of a follis. They were up to three quarters of a follis now, but that was still cheap. George bought some and ate them one by one, spitting the pits onto the rammed-earth floor. By the time he’d finished them and licked his fingers clean, he was thirsty again. He called for another cup of wine. The wine was where Paul really made his money.

John ordered more wine, too. When the girl brought it to him, he slipped an arm around her waist and said, “After I get done tonight, why don’t we go someplace quiet and--”

She twisted away, shaking her head. “I’ve heard about you. If you don’t like me in bed, you’ll call me names so nasty, they’ll make me cry, and then you’ll tell jokes about me tomorrow night. And if you do like me, you’ll sweet-talk me till I don’t know up from down--and then you’ll tell jokes about me tomorrow night. No thank you, either way.” She went off, her nose in the air.

George had heard John tell a lot of jokes about a lot of different women, which made him think the barmaid was likely to be right. John peered down into the cup of wine the girl had given him. Harsh, black shadows from the hearthfire and the torches on the wall kept George from reading his expression.

After a while, Paul thumped his fist down on the bar in front of him, once, twice, three times. The racket in the tavern faded, though it did not vanish. Paul said, “Now, folks, here’s someone who can keep us laughing, even with the Slavs all around. Come on, tell John what you think of him.”

“Not that!” John exclaimed as he bounced to his feet and, seeming like a builder’s crane, all built of sticks, with joints in curious, unexpected places, made his way up to the little platform that might at another time have housed a lyre-player or a fellow with a trained dog. Most of the people in the tavern clapped for him. A few did tell him what they thought--likely those who’d been his butts in the recent past.

He ignored them, with the air of a man who’d heard worse. “Being a funny man is hard work, you know that?” he said, swigging from the cup of wine he’d brought with him. “I was trying to talk a girl into bed with me, and she turned me down, just on account of I’m a funny man.”

“Who says you’re a funny man?” a heckler called.

John turned to Paul, who was dipping up a mug of wine behind the bar. “You’ve got to stop feeding your mice so much. They keep squeaking for more while I’m doing my show.” He waited to see if the heckler would take another jab at him; he disposed of such nuisances with effortless ease. When the fellow kept quiet, John shrugged and resumed: “Like I was saying, she told me that if I didn’t like her, I’d insult her and then tell jokes about her, but if I did like her, I’d say all sorts of nice things to her--and then I’d tell jokes about her.” He waited for his laugh, then went on, “So you see, friends, this isn’t easy work.”

George looked around the tavern till he spotted the barmaid who’d turned down John’s advances. She stood with both hands pressed to her cheeks. She hadn’t said yes--and, by the same token, John hadn’t waited till the next day to tell a joke about her, even if it was the same joke she’d told about him. George envied the comic his ability to take something from everyday life and incorporate it into his routine as if he’d been using it for years.

Thinking about the way John told jokes kept him from paying attention to the jokes John was telling. He started listening in the middle of one: “--so the Persian king had this new woman brought in before him, and he looked her over, and she was pretty enough, so he said, ‘Well, little one, tell me, are you a virgin or what?” And she looked back at him, and she said, ‘May it please you, your majesty, I am what.’ “

About three quarters of the people in the tavern got the joke and laughed. “What?” several people said at the same time, some of them smugly, showing they understood, others sounding bewildered enough to prove they didn’t.

“Day after tomorrow,” John said, “I promise you, an angel of the Lord will come in here and write it out in letters of fire, but it probably won’t do you any good, because if you can’t figure that one out, it’s a sure bet you can’t read, either.”