Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

by Anne Rice

  Around me, people whispered. Hands lifted me.

  I was put down on a bed. I felt a cool rag against my forehead. I was choking in my sobs. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't stop seeing the babies dying, I couldn't stop seeing the lambs slaughtered, the blood on the altar, the blood of the babies. I saw the man, our man, in the Temple with the spear through his chest. I saw him turn over. I saw Baby Esther, Baby Esther bleeding. Babies on the stones. Lord in Heaven, no. Not because of me. No.

  "No, no ..." I said this word over and over if I said any word.

  "Sit up, I want you to drink this!"

  I was lifted.

  "Open your mouth, drink this!"

  I choked on the liquid, the honey, the wine. I tried to swallow. "But they're dead, they're dead, they're dead!"

  I don't know how long it went on until it became an easy crying, a full-throated crying, and I said, "I don't want to sleep. I'll see them when I dream."

  25

  I WAS SICK. I was thirsty. The voices and hands were so kind. I was given the wine and the honey to drink. I slept, and the cold rags on my head felt good. If there were dreams, I didn't remember them. I heard music—the deep smooth voices of the Levites. I drifted. Only now and then did I see the babies, the murdered innocent ones, and I cried. I turned my head into the pillow and cried.

  I have to wake up, I thought, but I couldn't wake up. And once when I did, it was dark, and the old Rabbi was asleep in his chair. It was like a dream, this, and I slid back into sleep without being able to stop it.

  Finally, there came a moment when I opened my eyes, and I knew I was well.

  I thought at once of the murdered children, but I could see it without crying. I sat up and looked about. The old Rabbi was there and at once got up from his table. Another man was there and he came to me as well.

  The younger man felt of my forehead and looked into my eyes.

  "Ah, it's over," he said. "Little nameless one. You're yourself again. I want to hear you speak."

  "I thank you," I said. My throat hurt but I knew it was only from not talking. "I thank you for tending to me. I didn't want to be sick."

  "Come, I have fresh clothes for you," said the younger man. "I'll help you."

  I saw as I got up that I was in a new tunic and that kindness touched my heart.

  When I'd returned from the bath, much refreshed and dressed, the old Rabbi dismissed the man and told me to sit down opposite him.

  There was a stool there. I don't think I'd ever sat on a stool before. I did as I was told.

  "You're a little boy," he said, "and I forgot that you were a little boy. A little boy with a heart."

  "I wanted to know the answers to my questions, Rabbi. I had to know the answers. I would never have stopped asking."

  "But why?" he asked. "The child born in Bethlehem has been dead for eight years, as you said yourself. Now don't begin to cry again."

  "No, I won't."

  "And the virgin mother, who could believe such a thing."

  "I believe it, Rabbi," I said. "And the child's not dead. The child escaped."

  For a long moment, he looked at me.

  And in that moment, I felt all my sadness, all my separation from those around me. I felt it so bitterly.

  I felt that he was about to dismiss what I had said, about to say that even if the child had somehow escaped Bethlehem, it was all just a story, and Herod's butchery was all the more a horrid thing.

  Before he could speak, however, I heard voices that I knew very close by.

  My mother and Joseph were there.

  My mother called my name.

  I stood at once and turned to greet them as they came in, quickly saying to the scribe that yes, I was their son.

  My mother put her arms around me.

  Joseph kissed the hands of the old Rabbi.

  Much was said quickly. I couldn't follow all of it. Joseph and my mother had been looking for me for tiiree days.

  The Rabbi praised my answers to his questions, when I had been with the other boys. As far as I could tell, he was saying nothing about our talk of Bethlehem, and nothing about my being ill.

  I went to him and I kissed his hands and thanked him for all the time he had spent with me, and he said,

  "You go now with your mother and father."

  Joseph wanted to pay for my keep, but the Rabbi refused this.

  When we were out in the bright light of the Great Court, my mother took me by the shoulders:

  "Why have you done this?" she asked. "We've been in misery searching for you!"

  "Mother, I must know things now," I said. "Things I'm forbidden to ask you or Joseph. I must be about what it is that I have to do!"

  It was a blow to her. I could hardly bear to see it in her face.

  "I'm sorry for it," I said. "I'm so sorry for it. But it's the truth."

  She looked at Joseph and he nodded.

  We went together out of the Temple and down into the old city, and through the narrow streets until we came to the Synagogue of the Nazarenes, and there up to a small room. It was there that they had been staying as they looked for me.

  There was a window in the room, covered by a lattice and the light was good. The room was clean.

  My mother sat against the wall, with her legs crossed. And Joseph quietly went out.

  I waited, but he didn't come back.

  "Sit here and listen to me," my mother said.

  I sat down across from her.

  The light was full on her face.

  "I've never told this story," she said. "I want to tell it one time."

  I nodded.

  "Don't say anything to me as I tell it."

  I nodded.

  She looked away as she spoke.

  "I was thirteen years old," she said. "I was betrothed to Joseph, my kinsman, as was always the custom with us, distantly related, yet part of the same tribe. Old Sarah had given her approval to my mother and father of him even before I came down from Jerusalem where I'd worked on the Temple veils. I hardly remembered him. I met him. He was a good man.

  "I was strictly brought up. I never went out of the house. The servants went to the well. Cleopas taught me what little I know of reading. What little I know of the world. I was to be married in Nazareth, as my parents had come there from Sepphoris to live with Old Sarah. And it was the big house in which you live now.

  "Now one morning, I'd awakened early and I didn't know why. It wasn't light yet. I was up and standing in the room. My first thought was that my mother needed me. But I went in to her and she was asleep and well.

  "I came back into my room. The room completely filled with light. It happened instantly. It happened silendy. The

  light was everywhere. Everything that was in the room was still there but it was filled with the light. It was a light that didn't hurt my eyes but it was absolutely bright. If you can imagine looking at the sun and the sun not hurting your eyes, you can imagine this light.

  "I wasn't afraid. I stood there and I saw a figure in the light, the figure of a man only it was much bigger than a man and it didn't move. I knew it wasn't a man.

  "It spoke to me. It said that I had found favor with the Lord. It said that I was blessed among women. And that from my womb would come a son named Jesus, that he would be great and he would be the Son of the Most High. It said that the Lord God would give him the throne of his father David and that he would reign over the House of Jacob forever. I spoke to the voice. I said I'd never been with a man. The voice said the Holy Spirit would come over me. It said the Holy Child born from me would be the Son of God."

  My mother looked at me for the first time.

  "This voice, this being, this angel wanted an answer from me and I said, I'm the servant of the Lord. Let it be done.'

  "Almost at once, I felt life inside me. Oh, not the weight of the baby that comes later, or the movement, no. But the change. I knew it was happening. I knew! I knew as the light completely disappeared.

  "
I ran out into the street. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't know what I was doing. I cried out. I cried out that an angel had come to me, that an angel had appeared to me and spoken to me, that a child was coming."

  She stopped.

  "And that has earned me the everlasting ridicule of some in Nazareth, hasn't it?" she asked. "Though in time many forget."

  I waited.

  "The hardest part was to tell Joseph bar Jacob," she said. "But my parents, they waited. They believed me, yes, yet they waited. And when they saw that their virgin daughter had a child within her, when there was no denying it, then and only then did they talk to Joseph. And what they'd seen, others came to know as well.

  "But an angel had come to Joseph in a dream. He didn't cry out in the streets about this as I had. And it wasn't the angel who came to me, who filled the room with light, no. But it was an angel and the angel had told him to take me as his wife. He didn't care that the whole village was talking. He had to go to Bethlehem for the census and he spoke to Cleopas and it was decided we would all travel together to Bethany, where Cleopas and I could lodge with Elizabeth and there Joseph and I would be married, and it would be over and done with, in that way. It was a winter journey and a hard journey, but we went together, all of us, and Joseph's brothers went with us, as you know now, and so did little James, our beloved James."

  She went, speaking slowly.

  She told me now the story that James had told—of the crowded stable and the shepherds coming, of their faces so full of happiness, and of the angels they'd seen. She told of the magi coming, and of their gifts.

  I listened to her as if I hadn't heard these things.

  "I knew we had to leave Bethlehem," she said. "There was too much talk there. The shepherds and then the magi. People came to the door night and day. Then Joseph awoke one morning and said we had to go right away. We packed up everything, and left within the hour. He wouldn't tell me why—only that an angel had come to him again in a dream. I didn't know we were going south to Egypt until it was evening, and we pushed on late into the night."

  Her face became troubled. She looked away again.

  "We wandered, all of us," she said. "We lived in many a small town in Egypt. The men took work when they could, and we did well. Carpenters can always work. People were kind. You were my delight. I didn't think of anything but you. You were the sweet child every woman wants. And all this while I didn't know why we were running. Then finally we went back north up to Alexandria and settled in the Street of the Carpenters. I loved it there. Salome and Esther loved it. So did Cleopas.

  "Only after a while I heard stories, stories of what had happened in Bethlehem. Tales of a Messiah born there had caused a jealous rage to come from King Herod. He'd sent soldiers down from his fortress only a few miles away. They'd killed every little child in the village! Some two hundred children murdered in the darkness before dawn."

  She watched me.

  I struggled not to cry, not to fear, not to tremble—only to wait.

  She bowed her head, and her face tightened.

  When she looked up, her eyes were moist with tears.

  "I said to Joseph, 'Did you know that was going to happen? Did the angel who came to you tell you?' He said, 'No, I knew nothing about it.' I said, 'How could the Lord let such a thing happen as the murder of those innocent children!' " She bit her lower lip. "I couldn't understand it. I felt, 'We have blood on our hands!' "

  I thought for a moment I would give way to tears, but I used all my strength not to do it.

  "Joseph said to me, 'No, the blood is not on our hands. Shepherds came to worship this child. Gentiles came to worship him. An evil King has sought to kill him because the darkness cannot abide the light, but the light can't be quenched by the darkness. The darkness always tries to swallow the light. But the light will shine. Don't you see? We must protect him and that we will do, and the Lord will show how.' "

  Her eyes settled on mine.

  She stared intently at me.

  She reached out and took me by the shoulders.

  "You weren't born of a man," she said.

  I said nothing.

  "You are the begotten of God!" she whispered. "Not the Son of God as Caesar calls himself the Son of God; not the Son of God as a good man calls himself the Son of God. Not the Son of God as an anointed King is called the Son of God! You are the begotten of God!"

  She waited, staring at me, but she asked nothing of me. Her hands remained firm on my shoulders. Her eyes never changed.

  When she spoke again, her voice was lower, softer.

  "You are the son of the Lord God!" she said. "That's why you can kill and bring back to life, that's why you can heal a blind man as Joseph saw you do, that's why you can pray for snow and there will be snow, that's why you can dispute with your uncle Cleopas when he forgets you're a boy, that's why you make sparrows from clay and bring them to life. Keep your power inside you. Guard it until your Father in Heaven shows you the time to use it. If he's made you a child, then he's made you a child to grow in wisdom as well as in everything else."

  Slowly I nodded.

  "And now you come home with us to Nazareth. Not back to the Temple. Oh, I know how much you want to stay at the Temple. I know. But no. The Lord in Heaven did not send you to the house of a Teacher in the Temple or a priest in the Temple or a scribe or a rich Pharisee. He sent you to Joseph bar Jacob, the carpenter, and his betrothed, Mary of the Tribe of David in Nazareth. And you come home to Nazareth with us."

  26

  FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, we took the last look back on the city of Jerusalem.

  Joseph told me what I knew, that three times a year we would come up to Jerusalem for the great Feasts, and that I would come to know the great city very well.

  Our journey was a quick one back to Nazareth, as we didn't have the whole family with us, but we were never hurried, and we fell into easy conversation about the beauty of the land around us, and the little things of our daily lives.

  When we finally came over the ridge, and the village was clearly in sight, I told both my parents that I would never do again what I had done—that is, leave them as I'd left them. I didn't try to explain what had happened. I simply told them that they need never worry that I would go off on my own away from the family again.

  I could see that they were pleased but they didn't want to talk about what had happened. They had already let it slip deep and away from the current of everyday thoughts. At once my mother talked simple things to do with the household and Joseph was nodding to what she said.

  A stillness came over me.

  I walked with them, but I was alone.

  I thought about what my mother had said—her quotation of Joseph, that the darkness tries to swallow the light and the darkness never succeeds in swallowing it. These were beautiful words, but they were words.

  In my mind, without feeling, without crying, without shivering, I saw the dead man in the Temple, I saw the Passover lamb bleeding into the basin, I saw the children I'd never seen killed in Bethlehem. I saw the fire in the night leaping up to the sky from Jericho. My mind went over and over these things.

  When we entered the house, I sat down and rested.

  Little Salome came up and stood before me. I didn't say anything, because I thought she would set down a bowl or a cup and then go away as she always did, the busy little woman that she was.

  But she didn't do this. She stood there.

  Finally I looked up.

  "What?" I asked.

  She knelt down and she put her hand on the side of my face. I looked at her and it was as if she'd never left me to be busy with the women. She looked into my eyes.

  "What is it, Yeshua?" she asked.

  I swallowed. I felt my voice would be too big for me if I tried to say it, yet say it I did.

  "Only what everyone has to learn," I said. "I don't know why I didn't see it before." The man on the stones. The lamb. The children. I looked her.

  "Tell me
," she said.

  "Yes!" I whispered. "Why didn't I see it?"

  "Tell me," she said.

  "It's so simple. It won't mean anything to you until it comes to you, no matter who you are."

  "I want to know," she said.

  "It's this. That whatever is born into this world, no matter how, and for whatever reason, is born to die."

  She didn't answer.

  I stood up. I went outside. It was getting dark. I walked through the street and out to the hillside and up to where the grass was soft and undisturbed. This was my favorite place, just short of the grove of trees near which I loved so to rest.