Lazarus’s shoulders slumped.
“She must have the baby soon, or I don’t think she’ll have the strength . . .” She laid a hand on Lazarus’s arm. “Don’t tell Josiah. Not yet.”
Lazarus’s eyes slid to Zakai; the boy’s face was worried, too. “Come, Zakai. We’ll go to Josiah and pray with him.”
As darkness embraced the little house, broken only by a pair of glowing lamps, Mary’s pains increased. Her labored breathing turned into moans of pain. Penina motioned to Martha. It was time. Together, they helped her to the birthing stool. Mary, her grip as weak as a baby lamb, held on to Martha. Safta awoke and scooted beside Mary, murmuring into her ear. “You can do this, my girl. You are stronger than you know.”
Penina grunted. It was the only sound she could make, but Martha knew what she meant. “Push,” Martha whispered. Please, oh God of Israel, please. “Push, sister. Your child needs to come into the world.”
Oh Lord, save her. Please, Lord, do not punish her, too, for my sins.
Chapter Eight
MARTHA SUPPORTED MARY’S back and shoulders.
Mary pushed. Her face stretched into a grimace as a cry of agony tore from her. She stopped and sucked in a breath.
Penina, her hand on Mary’s belly, nodded to Martha.
“Again, my sweet,” Martha crooned.
Mary didn’t respond; her head lolled forward.
Safta clutched her. “Don’t give up, granddaughter. I won’t allow it.”
Martha lifted her sister’s chin. Mary’s eyes were closed, her mouth slack. “Mary!” She shook her. Mary must finish—for her own life and the baby’s. Martha used her most commanding voice, the one she’d used when Mary was a child. “Push, Mary. Once more, and then you can rest.”
“Once more,” Safta repeated the command.
Mary’s eyelids flickered open.
Please, little sister. This time, a note of pleading crept into Martha’s voice. “Once more and you will have your child in your arms.”
Mary took a shuddering breath, and her lips firmed. One more push, a cry from her, and she crumpled. Martha folded her sister in her arms.
A warbling cry sounded from below the birthing stool. Penina held the baby, squirming, blue, and very alive. She passed the bundle to Safta’s reaching hands.
“A boy, Mary,” Safta cackled. “Thanks be to the Almighty.”
Joy and relief weakened Martha’s legs. “Did you hear, Mary?” Her voice wavered. “Mary, you have a son.”
Mary’s eyes fluttered open, and the ghost of a smile twitched her lips. Safta pushed the child into Martha’s arms and helped Penina lower Mary to her pallet. Penina motioned for Martha to give her room to work.
While Penina cared for Mary, Martha poured salt on the squalling baby boy’s wet limbs, gently rubbing it into his soft skin to harden it against disease. Relief and gratitude swelled in her heart. A boy who would carry on Josiah’s line, learn the law and faith of his people.
She reached for the linen wrappings and wound them around the infant’s arms and legs, murmuring the prayers of thanksgiving and joy. Thanksgiving for another child for Mary. Joy for Josiah, who had a son.
The baby began to snuffle and cry. She took him to her shoulder and patted him, swaying as she sang a tuneless song. She laid her cheek against his tiny head and closed her eyes, reveling in the softness and warmth of a new life.
Josiah burst into the room and stumbled to Mary’s side. He dropped to his knees beside his wife. “How is she?”
“Tired, but she’ll be fine, Josiah,” Martha answered, hoping Josiah couldn’t see the line of Penina’s mouth, the furrow in her brow that told of another difficult birth.
Josiah stroked his wife’s face, and only when she’d opened her eyes and murmured to him did he turn to see the baby.
Martha settled the child in his father’s arms. “The Lord has blessed you. You have a son.” Martha’s throat tightened as Josiah’s face transformed from worry to joy. This boy has a father who will love him. Mary and her family were blessed indeed.
• • •
BY THE TIME dawn stretched fingers of ruby and gold into the eastern sky, Mary was asleep with her new son snuggled to her breast. Josiah and the two girls nestled close by, and Chana stood watch over them.
Martha pulled on her cloak with leaden arms.
Chana hovered as Martha and Penina crossed the courtyard. “Thanks be to the God of Sarah, the God of Rebecca, and the God of Leah, and the God of Rachel. Martha, you are a blessing to your sister.” Chana pulled open the courtyard gate and ushered them through. “Go home now, and take your rest. Safta and I will take good care of them.”
Martha glanced sideways in time to catch Penina’s brows flicker. It wasn’t the first time a village woman had forgotten to thank her after a birth. “Send Adina if you need us.” Martha would bet her favorite knife Chana was waiting to run to the well to share the news of her grandson.
Martha stepped into the biting wind, Penina at her side. Penina’s face was drawn in fatigue, her bare arms crossed against her chest. Martha slipped off her cloak and wrapped it around them both. If Penina would obey her, she’d order her to sleep for the rest of the day. But when had Penina ever obeyed her? Very little when she was a slave and even less after she was freed.
They threaded their way past houses yet untouched by the sun’s first rays and out of the city, nodding at the sleepy gatekeeper.
Martha plodded on, her heart heavy. As the night had turned into dawn, her joy had seeped away. Each moment witnessing the happiness she could never have rubbed her heart as raw as a fresh wound.
When they reached the walls of her father’s house, Martha stopped. Inside the impressive gate, there was work to be done. Always more work, always more to worry about. And never a husband who loved her like Josiah loved Mary, never a family. Good Jewish men married virgins. Not women who had shamed their fathers and themselves.
The weight of her sorrow, the loneliness of her life stretching out before her, threatened to crush the breath from her body. A shudder shook her shoulders, and she slumped against the wall.
A warm hand slipped into hers. She may be mute, but Penina could read Martha like the Pharisees read the scrolls of the Torah. The tears that Martha had held back for hours spilled over. Penina wrapped her arms around Martha’s shaking shoulders and drew her close.
When her tears were spent, Penina wrapped the cloak around Martha, turned her toward the orchard, and gave her a push. Yes, she needed to be alone there. Penina knew that, too, after all these years. Just for a few moments before she could face the rest of the day . . . and the rest of her life.
Martha shuffled toward the orchard on stiff legs. A dull pain pounded in her temple. She plunged down the bank and splashed through the stream, which was hardly more than a trickle. Up the far bank, and she was under the apricot trees.
No pink blossoms littered the grass under her feet. No hint of the springtime buds or soft green leaves. The branches above were black and gnarled, reaching up to the brightening sky as if begging the heavens for rain. She pulled a dead leaf from an empty branch.
Here, right here, was the only place she let herself think of Isa. The only place she whispered his name or remembered his kiss. The only place she asked the question that had haunted her for more than seven years.
Isa, why didn’t you come back to me?
She stroked the dry leaf over her lips. After seven years, how could thoughts of Isa still hurt like a knife in her heart? How could she still look to the east and hope to see him coming back to her? She’d been a fool.
A fool waiting for someone who would never return.
A fool with a secret that made marriage an impossible dream, no matter what Lazarus thought.
For seven years she’d waited. Isa was either dead or he’d deserted her. Either way, it was time to give him up. Time to stop tormenting herself with a ridiculous shred of hope that refused to be crushed. Time to forget about Isa.
He wasn’t coming back.
Martha crushed the brittle leaf and let the crumbled pieces scatter in the wind.
Isa was either dead or he deserved to be.
Chapter Nine
Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense.
—Psalm 51:3
HUNGER. THIRST. DESPAIR.
His tortured mind understood nothing more. He writhed on a cold stone bed. The cave was dark but for a murky beam of light seeping through the entrance. Dense, still air choked him with the smell of decay and rot. The voices that had been with him for all eternity shrieked in laughter. Or did they wail in despair?
The cries—the pain of a thousand lifetimes, the torture of an untold number of souls—suffused him. It swept away all thought, all memories of a life before this torment.
Hunger clawed at him. He stumbled from the cave, shielding his eyes from the sun struggling to shine through a bank of gray clouds. His feet found the rocky path to the shore. Food. He needed food. At the water’s edge he might find a fish.
The wails increased, became frantic. Stay away from the water.
But this time, his hunger won.
Light glinted off the waves like sharp knives. The scent of water ignited a rage of thirst in his dry throat. New cries assailed his ears, echoing off the rocks that lined the shore. A despairing lament, like a monster’s heart was breaking. His throat rasped in pain. The voice was his.
He stumbled along the rocky edge of the water. Nothing. Not even a dried-up fish carcass. Nothing but the relentless lapping of the waves. The voices cried out as he approached the wet stretch of shore. They threw him back, away from the water.
Thirst burned through his body.
Despair clouded his vision.
Laughter pounded in his head.
His hand closed around a stone, sharp and flinty. He scraped the rough edge over his naked chest. A line of blood showed bright against his dirty skin. The pain sharpened his vision, cleared his mind. The cacophony subsided for a sweet moment. He rushed to the water, threw himself on the pebbled edge, and drank like an animal.
As the water quenched his thirst, one thought formed like a lamp lit in the night. Someone was waiting for him . . . someone needed him. But who? And where? As the pain faded to a dull ache, the wails swelled to a crescendo of agony.
There is no one. You are alone.
His brief hold on his thoughts loosened and fractured. There were too many of them. The howls surged to a fever pitch, and he knew nothing more.
Nothing but hunger, thirst, and despair.
Chapter Ten
My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands, Turning your ear to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding . . .
—Proverbs 2:1–2
LAZARUS LAID HIS white prayer shawl over his head and shoulders and smoothed the fringes into place. A pair of crows flapped and paced on the ledge above the mouth of the tomb, crying out as if in warning. Stay out. Stay out.
Earlier in the day, he’d asked some of the village men to help him push the thick stone slab from the mouth of the tomb. Now the men were gone, and he was alone. It was his duty, and his alone, to lay his father’s bones to rest.
The day was cool, and a dry wind blew from the eastern deserts, carrying the smell of the village, the smoke of cooking fires, and the sweet tang of the olive trees on the hillside. The mountainside was peaceful. Why then did the mouth of the tomb seem to gape at him like a hungry animal? Lazarus closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the fresh air before ducking through the opening into the dim stillness, his heart thumping in his chest.
The ceiling was just tall enough for him to stand upright. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and his heartbeat slowed. In front of him, a funerary bench was carved into the smooth rock wall, long and narrow, large enough for the outstretched body covered in a shroud. No restless spirits prowled the room. No smell of death lingered in the chamber, just the dry scent of old bones and a lingering aroma of myrrh and nard.
Nothing to fear.
Along each of the three sides, a deeply carved niche held a square ossuary. One held the bones of his mother, and the second his grandparents except for old Safta. The third would receive his own bones at the appointed time. His appointed time. . . . A breath of cold air on his neck sent a shiver down his spine.
Just one year ago, Lazarus had watched his father take his last breath, had watched as Sirach’s spirit left his body and went to a place none could follow. Martha and Mary had wept and keened at his passing. Lazarus had held Abba’s hand as it cooled and became rigid. With his grief, the weight of responsibility settled like a yoke of stone on his shoulders.
He had just passed his seventeenth year, and he’d become the man of the family.
Sirach had been a good father. He had taken care of his family even as his body sickened and his wealth declined. Even as he had kept his son in Bethany to work the land instead of study the law with the teachers at the Temple. And now, Sirach’s voice from the grave reminded Lazarus to do what was best for his family.
Sirach’s last words to him had been a command. That command weighed heavy on Lazarus as he murmured the kaddish and approached his father’s body. Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world which He created according to His will . . .
The wrappings were deflated, like an empty water skin. His father’s flesh had gone to dust, just like Adam, Abraham, and Moses. Sirach, like most of the Pharisees, believed that he would wake on the last day. He, with the rest of the pious sons of Abraham, would go to the paradise of the righteous, while the sinful would be forever confronted with their own disgrace. Lazarus, too, believed the dead would rise on the last day and that he would see Abba in paradise.
As Lazarus unwound the stained coverings and stared at the skeletal remains of his father, Sirach’s last words echoed in his ears as though they had been spoken within the empty chamber. Your sister . . . Sirach had clutched his hand, and he’d known it was Martha his father spoke of. Promise me . . . do what is best for her.
And Lazarus had promised. Now the year of mourning was over, and he must keep his promise and see her securely married. That must have been what his father had meant. It had to be.
But how could he find a husband for Martha? Abba had turned away every would-be suitor for his sister until all of Bethany knew that he would never give her up. They said it was because she was a treasure, and she was. Martha was beautiful, devout, and the best cook in Bethany. But those weren’t the reasons Abba hadn’t given her in marriage. No. It was because good Jewish men didn’t marry women who weren’t virgins. If she married, her husband would discover her secret on their wedding night. And then Martha could be stoned or, at the very least, banished from Bethany.
Lazarus cursed the name of the man who had defiled his sister. The pagan, Isa. May he be thrown into the fiery reaches of Gehenna. If not for him, Martha would be free to marry, to have a family. And Lazarus would be free as well.
He pulled out the ossuary that housed the bones of the mother he had never known. Stone scraped against stone as he slid the cover back. His mother’s skull stared up at him. The perfect woman. Martha was just like her mother; everyone in the village said it. Had Mama been perfect, as his father believed? Or was it just easier to remember the dead without their frailties and sins? He would never know, unless he met her after the last day.
He gathered his father’s bones and laid them next to his mother’s. Finally, they were together again. Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He. May He who makes peace in the heavens, make peace for us and for all Israel. He set his father’s sightless skull on top. Amen.
He pushed the stone box back into its niche in the wall and sat down on the bench. His chest ached as though he were underwater. It had started at Tabernacles—a shortness of breath, a pain under his ribs. By the time winter winds swept over the far
m, he could hardly work a full hour without sitting down to rest.
He reached under his tunic to feel the hard lump that had swelled under his arm weeks ago. It didn’t hurt, but it had grown. Another—just behind his jaw under his ear—was covered by his hair and beard. He’d have to make sure Martha didn’t notice when she cut his hair. She would worry . . . and Martha worried too much already.
He pushed himself up, leaving the dim coolness of the tomb for bright sunlight and a cold wind. He’d feel better when the spring sun warmed the air. He must. Because when Abba had made his dying request of Lazarus, there was something his father hadn’t known. Something that changed everything.
The Messiah had come.
After centuries of waiting, he was here, and his name was Jesus.
What would Abba have thought, now that there was talk of Jesus—their own cousin—working miracles? Would he believe that Jesus was the Messiah, or would he side with the rest of the Pharisees and call him a fraud? According to Abba, it was the purity of the people of God—the purity that set them apart from the other nations—that would bring about the coming of the Kingdom. But Jesus didn’t even follow some of the laws that Abba had held so dear.
Lazarus gazed out over the gardens and fields stretching down to the Jordan. He couldn’t ask Abba now what he thought of Jesus. He must decide for himself. And he had. Jesus was the Messiah, and he must follow him. The only thing holding him in Bethany was Martha.
He started down the winding path to Bethany, his heart swelling in his chest. Jesus was coming tonight—he’d sent a message to expect him and his disciples. Soon, Lazarus, too, would follow the Messiah, be part of the new Eden. As soon as he found a husband for Martha, a husband who would be forgiving, merciful—a husband who would give her a second chance.
Chapter Eleven
Like merchant ships, she secures her provisions from afar.
Tomb : A Novel of Martha (9781451689136) Page 6