The Transmigrant

by Kristi Saare Duarte

  “That’s quite foolish, isn’t it?” the young monk said.

  Yeshua hesitated. It was difficult to explain. He barely understood it himself. Why would God choose specific families to be priests when others might be more suitable? Wouldn’t God prefer someone dedicated, like Yeshua, to spread his word to the masses?

  “In my culture, anyone can be a monk,” Dhiman said. “I was only a baby when my father left me in a monastery.”

  “And you can be the highest monk one day?”

  Dhiman laughed. “Yes, with years of study and devotion, I could be the highest monk. But that is not important.”

  Yeshua swallowed. Where was this place?

  “I come from Sindh. Far away.” Dhiman pointed in the direction of Mesopotamia. “Very different too. A pleasant land, many green mountains and dry mountains, a hot-hot desert, and a cool blue sea that stretches on and on until the end of the world. And more forests and rivers and fields than you could ever count. Everyone is very kind there.” Dhiman’s eyes shone when he spoke about his country. “I’m on my way home now. I mean soon—tomorrow.”

  Dhiman radiated with anticipation, but Yeshua pouted. He wished his new friend could stay a little longer. They had so much in common.

  “You want to come along? With me?” Dhiman asked.

  Yeshua’s jaw dropped. Could he really? Then he remembered his father’s plan. “No, I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. My family…”

  His family what? His family expected him to stay and work and marry a rich girl. But couldn’t his brothers also marry into wealthy families and work in his father’s shop? What if he left Palestine? Maybe he, too, could become a monk? In his mind it seemed impossible, but in his heart the decision was already made. He couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful.

  “Absolutely out of the question!” Abba said when Yeshua revealed his plan. “Are you some kind of scavenger rat searching for a new home? Do you want to roam the world like the madmen preaching in the fields? You will remain here and wed.” He grabbed Yeshua by his robe and dragged him into the workshop. “I will not tolerate such disrespect,” he muttered as he bolted the door from the outside.

  Yeshua stared at the door. He tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. In despair, he fell to the ground, curled into a fetal position, and wept like a child. How could his father be so selfish? Didn’t he know this was his last chance for happiness? He had to go to Sindh. It was his destiny. He was meant to serve God as a monk, and now Abba had ripped his future away. Yeshua screamed and pounded his fists on the thick door. He swore and begged and called for his father to open it. But it stayed shut.

  As the sky changed into a watermelon pink and the birds tweeted their morning calls, Yeshua knew he had lost his chance. Dhiman’s caravan was leaving at dawn. Yeshua would never find him again. His fate was sealed. Time had run out, and marriage was unavoidable. If he couldn’t go to Sindh and he couldn’t be a monk or a priest, he had to find a wife, work as a carpenter, and suffer through his life like any other laborer. What was the point of studying if it could never lead to a better life?

  Yeshua slammed an ax into the first piece of wood he found. He hacked and slashed until his arms ached and he couldn’t find another log to kill. Then he sighed and kneeled at the pile of wood chips he had created. What did God want with him?

  “Use me then, Lord,” he prayed in resignation. “If I can’t serve you as a priest, show me what to do. Use me for a purpose greater than myself.”

  Three days later when Abba released him from his prison, he made it clear that Yeshua had lost the right to consider any further prospects. He was told to select one of two girls, both from respectable families. But Yeshua didn’t like either of them.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “You choose.”

  Abba broke into a broad grin and announced that at last they could start planning the betrothal feast of their firstborn son.

  Chapter Six

  Capernaum, Galilee, AD 8

  A wife had been chosen and a date set for the wedding. Soon Yeshua would have a family to support. He tried not to think of the dream he had surrendered. If God wanted him to be a carpenter, that’s what he would be.

  Every morning thereafter, he rose before dawn and worked until long after the sun had set to improve his skills. He might never be a master, but he now aspired to be adept. His angles still never came out quite straight, and somehow he always managed to chip off part of a rose petal or palm leaf by mistake, but the harder he tried, the more he improved. The day his wife moved into their house, he would be ready. He resolved to make his father proud.

  That’s why he couldn’t believe it when several weeks later, he saw Dhiman sitting on a ledge by a fruit cart in the same corner of the market, as if time had stood still. Yeshua rushed to his friend and flung his arms around him. “What happened? Why are you still here?”

  “I fell very sick,” Dhiman said. “My stomach turned all the way upside down. I couldn’t get out of bed for many weeks. I had to stay until I recovered.”

  “You should have called for me. I could have helped you,” Yeshua said, before he remembered what he had gone through since they had last met.

  He told Dhiman how his father had locked him up and then forced his engagement. “He’s a good man and all, but he thinks everyone should live like him, in peace and quiet, fearing God. He’s happy if he makes enough money to feed his family after he’s paid his taxes. He simply doesn’t understand why I yearn to serve God.”

  Dhiman smiled knowingly. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ll be on my way in three days.”

  “I can’t. I’m engaged now.” Yeshua thought his heart would break. Dhiman was offering him a last straw of hope, and he had to turn him down.

  He waved a sad good-bye as he left Dhiman behind and returned to the coolness of the workshop. A tabletop needed finishing before day’s end, and when that was done, the planks for a tax collector’s door had to be measured and cut. Still, a tender seed of optimism incited him to run, escape, delve into the unknown. His dreams were within reach, if only he could muster the courage. He picked up the scraper to smooth the surface of the tabletop. Abba would never survive the humiliation if he broke the engagement. He just couldn’t let his family down. Hadn’t he caused them enough trouble already? No, there was no way he could leave.

  Three sleepless nights later, Yeshua woke with a stomachache. In only a few hours, Dhiman would embark on his journey home, leaving him behind. Outside the narrow window, the stars twinkled at him, as if urging him to go. Should he? Without thinking, Yeshua slipped out from under the blanket he shared with his brothers, grabbed an extra tunic, and rolled it into a bundle. Salome grunted in her sleep but didn’t wake. He cast a last look at his brothers and sisters and stole out of the room. He must leave now, before he changed his mind. Before it dawned on him that from now on his life would continue without his father and mother, without sweet Salome. And without Yakov, his brother and best friend. Who else would make him laugh so hard he got the hiccups? But his brother belonged right here, in Palestine. Yeshua wiped away his tears, lifted the crossbar off the front door, and pushed it open slowly, making sure it didn’t creak.

  He stopped short. What was that sound?

  Behind him, someone moved. Someone was watching him. Yeshua held his breath, but his heart beat so loudly it even blocked out the chirping crickets. Materializing from the shadows, Ama held out a bundle to him, smiling sadly. Yeshua wanted to apologize, explain, embrace her, but she motioned for him to go. Quickly.

  “I’ll be back, Ama. Soon. Before winter—or maybe a little longer. But I’ll return.”

  He looked back only once before he closed the door behind him. Tears blinded his vision. In the bundle, he found dried fruit, almonds, flatbreads, and the golden ring with its turquoise stone, the gift from the Zoroastrian priests. Carefully, he placed the ring in the pouch that hung off his belt and ran toward the market. It wasn’t rightfully his; the ring
belonged to the Messiah. But what else did he own of value? Perhaps it would save his life one day.

  “You made it, my friend!” Dhiman said when Yeshua caught up with him in the deserted market. “I knew you would come.”

  Yeshua shivered with excitement. He hugged his new traveling companion. And then they ran. They had to make it as far away as possible before dawn, because surely Abba would come chasing after him. In a day or two, they would join a caravan, but only once they had made sufficient headway. Yeshua smiled on the outside, but inside he wept for the pain he had caused. Could he ever forgive himself?

  The night was dark and quiet and frightening. Yeshua trembled as they climbed the Gawlana hills and passed through high grass along the road to Damascus. In the distance, a hyena laughed. Behind a tree, a lion growled as it ripped the flesh of its prey.

  Dhiman squeezed Yeshua’s hand. “They don’t like how we smell, you know. Other animals are much tastier than we are. Don’t worry, we’re quite safe.”

  When at last the sun peeked over the eastern mountains and the nocturnal creatures had retired, Yeshua and Dhiman paused by a stream to take their first well-deserved rest.

  “Here, take this.” Dhiman handed Yeshua a mustard-colored robe, identical to his own. “Wet your hair in the water, and I’ll shave it for you.”

  “Shave it?” Yeshua hesitated. Yehudi law forbade men to shave the head or beard. He might be on the run, but he was still Yeshua bar Yosef, from Capernaum.

  “Come on, don’t be such a faintheart.” Dhiman laughed. He showed Yeshua what a child’s game it was by stroking his shaving knife against his own head. “Look, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

  Yeshua flinched. “It’s against the law,” he tried.

  “What law? The one that says you can’t be a priest because you hail from a family of carpenters? Why do you obey a law that makes no sense to you?”

  Dhiman’s words stung, but his expression was soft. “Sit here. And trust me, your God won’t be angry. He’s not upset with me, and I shave my head every day.”

  Yeshua frowned. Dhiman might be right; he had traveled the world, and apart from a few days of illness, God had protected him from harm.

  “Look, we have to disguise you somehow. If not, you’ll be on your way back home before you know it, married to some girl who burps and farts in her sleep.” He poked Yeshua, teasing a smile. “Besides, monks get free food, even from the most penny-pinching merchants. And you don’t want to go hungry, do you?”

  Reluctantly, Yeshua dipped his head in the river, then kneeled before his friend and succumbed to Dhiman’s knife. He watched his dark brown locks fall, one after the other, to the ground. The wind swirled around his bare head and a sense of freedom surged within.

  He beamed at Dhiman, pressing his palms together as he had seen the other monks do.

  “Kehro haal aahei!” Dhiman said, answering his friend’s smile with a bow.

  “Kehr— what?”

  “Kehro. Haal. Aahei. It’s hello in Sindhi.”

  Yeshua practiced his first Sindhi greeting over and over again as he walked around Dhiman with his head lowered and his palms pressed together. He had to get the part right if he was to pass as a monk.

  “Now teach me something else,” Yeshua said, all smiles, when he had mastered the phrase.

  Yeshua’s legs ached from the tiresome journey, but excitement put a spring in his step. Within two days, they reached the Roman city Caesarea Paneas. Dhiman suggested they stop there to wait for a caravan, but Yeshua begged him to continue; Abba might be close behind. He couldn’t go back now. His life was on the road, like Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, who had wandered from place to place accompanied by God. Still, every night before going to sleep, he asked to be forgiven for the shame he had caused his family. And despite his enthusiasm, he cried himself to sleep, knowing he might never see them again.

  Four long days after leaving Capernaum, they finally reached the southern gate of Damascus. Tall poplars and sweetly scented apricot trees lined the colonnaded streets in the busy city that heaved with people on their way to somewhere else. A hot wind pushed Dhiman and Yeshua toward the Temple of Hadad in the city center. Yeshua recoiled with terror when heavily armored Roman legionnaires in horse-drawn chariots drove past them at full force, and exhaled with relief when they disappeared out the arched gateways without even glancing at him.

  Dhiman found his way with ease through the narrow side streets to a field outside the temple where a half-dozen caravans had paused to sell their merchandise. The traders came in all shades of brown, from the blackest soil to the pale hue of tanned leather, and wore garments in every color of the rainbow, from vibrant purples, dull greens, and faint yellows to reds as dark as blood. The women who passed them hid their faces behind veils as thin as onion skins or scarves of the thickest wool. Yeshua could have spent days mingling in the crowd, looking at the people, and learning everyone’s stories and hearing their dreams.

  Dhiman and Yeshua put their bundles down in the shade by the merchants’ post, and Dhiman fished out two wooden bowls from his sack.

  “Sit here,” he said. “Place the bowl on your lap, close your eyes, and imagine it filled with breads and oranges, whatever your heart desires.”

  Yeshua’s mouth watered at the thought of freshly baked flatbreads and olives. The food his mother had given him was long gone. If only someone would have mercy on them and give them a morsel to eat. He peeked through half-closed eyelids and saw a man passing with a cart full of grapes. His heart fluttered, but the vendor didn’t stop. Nor did the next one, or anyone else. Yeshua’s stomach pinched with hunger. If he didn’t eat soon, he would faint.

  Dhiman urged him to be patient. “Remember what I told you,” he said. “If you train your mind, you can do anything.”

  Yes, Yeshua remembered. Being a monk meant liberating yourself from suffering by reaching a state of nonattachment or peace. And if he accepted his hunger as a pain that was not real, he would not feel it. Dhiman claimed some monks spent months in caves praying—or meditating, as he called it—without eating. And they survived. Yeshua wasn’t sure he believed him. If his body cried with hunger, how could his mind overcome it?

  With no other choice, he pressed his tongue against his palate and centered on a full stomach after a sumptuous dinner of grilled tilapia. And within moments, the pangs of hunger dissipated.

  Yeshua was about to tell his friend of his astonishing accomplishment when a man paused in front of them. With his white turban, robe, and flowing beard, he looked exactly like the Zoroastrians who had sought him out when he was a child. Yeshua tried to hide behind Dhiman, but the man looked straight into his eyes as he dropped a roll of bread and a slice of salted mutton in each of their bowls.

  “Taudi! Thank you!” Dhiman yelled after him, and Yeshua joined him, relieved. There was no need to be afraid. No one would recognize him in this clothing. He relaxed, and they fell to eating like starved wolves. Moments later, a Mesopotamian merchant placed a piece of cheese and some figs in their bowls. Their luck had changed.

  But when Yeshua looked at the food, his heart sank. “I can’t eat this.”

  “What?” Dhiman laughed and peeked into his bowl. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I can’t eat the cheese. I just had meat.”

  “Just eat it, sheep. If you want to survive, you’ve got to forget your laws. For now. Pretend it’s not cheese. Look, it’s an apple.”

  “What do you mean, survive? Didn’t you tell me that monks can spend months in a cave without eating?”

  Dhiman picked up the piece of cheese and stuffed it into Yeshua’s mouth as he was talking. “See? Not bad, right? Let’s see if your God punishes you. Then you can go back to eating only meat or only cheese. Agreed?”

  Yeshua chewed while he thought about how to answer.

  Dhiman chuckled. “You’ll see: when you are hungry, when you are traveling, your God doesn’t care about what you eat. He only cares whether you’r
e kind and friendly and generous—that sort of thing.”

  Yeshua was too exhausted to argue. And that salty cheese had tasted so good. It had already passed his lips; how much worse could it get? His stomach was full, his body nourished, and his soul filled with gratitude. Perhaps Dhiman was right: when you stop searching for a solution, problems simply resolve themselves.

  Just before nightfall, a caravan on its way east pushed into the field: a hundred camels and dozens of mules, all staggering under heavy bundles of merchandise. Dhiman sprang up to greet the traders as they secured their animals to the cattle posts. Yeshua watched them from a distance. Some of the men looked like Dhiman, with heavy eyelids and skin the color of honey. Others were short with round faces and mere slits for eyes. And then there were the tall, near-black, reed-like men with long hair and full beards.

  Dhiman approached the leader of the convoy, a burly man with baggy pants, long black mustache, and an aloof attitude. Not too friendly. Yeshua shuddered. He wanted to call him back, ask him to please wait for the next caravan, but his friend was already in deep negotiations.

  Dhiman returned with his hand stretched out: “The ring. I need the ring.”

  Instinctively, Yeshua’s hand went to the pouch that hung from his belt. “No, it’s mine.”

  “Come on, give me the ring.” Dhiman tried to grab the pouch, but Yeshua dodged out of the way. Dhiman shrugged. “Very well, Yeshua. You stay here. Or go back to Capernaum. Whatever you want to do.”

  Yeshua wavered. What if the caravan leader was a crook and deserted them at the next village? Or worse, what if Yeshua needed the ring to return home one day? But Dhiman’s face was unrelenting. He had to give up the ring or return home. Warily, Yeshua unfolded the yellow silk scarf and took a last look at the golden ring before he handed it to his friend.

  May God help him.