The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  They spoke of other matters. He described, as best he could, his house in Sepphoris. He tried not to conceal its deficiencies, which suddenly, although he had never been aware of them before, appeared to be many.

  However, she seemed to think it would do quite well.

  “And it is made of stone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Stone is cooler. And Hannah will appreciate the fountain in the square. Here it is such a distance to the well. It sounds like a very convenient house.”

  “There is no garden,” he answered, feeling suddenly that he had been overpraising it. “There is only an alleyway behind, across from which is my workshop and forge. And there is no balcony. The houses are jammed up against each other.”

  “I can live without a balcony. I can even live without a garden. I have never liked this house. The balcony and garden are merely places to which I can escape from it.”

  “Still, it is pleasant to feel the sun on one’s face. We can take walks outside the city walls. The main gate is only a few minutes from my door, and the countryside is quite beautiful.”

  He smiled at her, wondering why she suddenly seemed pensive.

  “Joshua must be told,” she said quietly, almost gravely.

  “I will speak to him this afternoon. I will bring him to dinner, with your permission. By the way, am I invited to dinner?”

  Deborah seemed not to have heard.

  “Do you think he will approve?” she asked. There was real anxiety in her voice.

  “Why shouldn’t he approve?”

  21

  It was perhaps two hours past noon when Noah left Deborah’s house. He had promised her that his first task would be to find Joshua and tell him.

  At that hour Capernaum was almost deserted of men. At sunset, when the fishing boats returned, it would fill up again, but for the moment the only person who might know about Joshua’s whereabouts was Levi, the former tax collector, who now did penance in Deborah’s warehouse, a building near the water.

  Except for Simon, Noah had never exchanged more than a few words with any of Joshua’s disciples, but he had always suspected that Levi was a bit mad, an impression he did not now find it necessary to revise.

  “Have you repented?” Levi asked him, forgoing the customary introductions. “Have you truly repented? I have repented and Joshua has said that God forgives me. Yet the weight of my sins is heavy upon me. Do you think it is always thus?”

  “I think the hardest thing is to forgive oneself. Do you know where I might find Joshua at this hour?”

  “Yes, the hardest thing is to forgive oneself. Perhaps that is what it means to repent—not to forgive oneself but to understand truly how much one has offended God. Even after forgiveness, there is the punishment of remorse.”

  Levi was a small, frightened man whose beard looked as if some animal had clawed out strips of it. His hands fluttered about, giving the impression that he wanted to touch you but did not quite dare.

  “Remorse is like poison,” Noah agreed, “but if you are forgiven you are allowed to take comfort in that. Where can I find Joshua?”

  “Do you wish to confess your sins to him?”

  “No. I merely wish to speak to him, on family business. I am his cousin.”

  “Oh yes. I remember you now. He would be at his prayers at this hour. He talks to God. What a gift, to be able to talk to God!”

  “Yes, I agree. It is remarkable. Where does he go to pray?”

  There was a grove of trees about two miles north of Capernaum. It was too far to go for wood and, from the perspective of the villagers, it had no other attractions. Thus it was the perfect place for one who wished to be alone with his thoughts—or with God.

  It was here that Levi directed him, and it was here that Noah found Joshua, sitting on the trunk of a tree that had somehow become uprooted in the sandy soil. His hands were clasped in his lap. He looked stricken.

  He raised his eyes and beheld his cousin, without apparent surprise.

  “Is something troubling you?” Noah asked, sitting down beside him.

  “What you said yesterday, about my father. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you prayed? I was told you come here to pray.”

  “I have prayed. God is silent.”

  “So, which afflicts you, that God is silent or that your father is dying?”

  “Both.” Joshua shook his head. “I do not understand why God will not direct me.”

  “Perhaps because He already has.”

  “Do not mock me.”

  It was now Noah’s turn to shake his head.

  “God has commanded us, ‘Honor thy father and mother.’ This we were taught in childhood. Have you forgotten?”

  “No.”

  “Then you know what is God’s will, and it is no wonder that He is silent. Return with me to Nazareth and see your father. If Grandfather is right, you may not have another chance.”

  “Father and I never got along. If I go back, we will only quarrel.”

  “Nevertheless, he loves you. His eyes hunger for the sight of you. And he is your father.”

  For a long moment Joshua was silent. Finally he rubbed his face with his hands, as if driving away sleep.

  “All right. When you leave I will go with you. How long will that be?”

  “After the Sabbath.”

  “The Sabbath is four days from now. Why so long? You have business in Capernaum?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can guess what it is. So tell me—have you seen Deborah yet today?”

  Noah turned to look at his cousin and smiled. “Has it been as obvious as that?”

  “It was obvious last night. The way you avoided each other’s eyes, I thought at first you had had some sort of quarrel. You were better at the deception than she. When she finally did look at you, from the expression on her face she seemed likely to crawl into your lap right then. Are you going to marry her?”

  “Yes. We agreed this morning. She sent me to tell you.”

  “That was considerate of her.”

  “You don’t seem pleased.”

  “I am merely a little disappointed.”

  Joshua stood up and helped Noah up from the tree trunk. They walked in silence out to the edge of the grove, from which one could see the water stretching far enough that the shore opposite was hidden.

  “It is so near. It is so very near, and she can only think of being married.”

  “What is so near?” Noah asked, struggling to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “God’s kingdom.” Joshua turned to him and smiled, as if embarrassed. But he was not embarrassed. “He is sending His messenger to be judge of the world, of the living and the dead. Then there will be no evil, no sin, no death, no unhappiness. God’s law will rule to the ends of the earth. The time is so short. The hour is nearly upon us.”

  “Why do you believe this?”

  “What?”

  “It is a simple question. God has visited worse times upon us.”

  Noah stood, not quite facing his cousin, his gaze focused on the line where sky and sea met, the prey of emotions he did not wish to speak of.

  “Only consider,” Noah continued, his voice almost toneless. “The Jews have been through captivity and exile. We have endured worse rulers than Antipas—his father, for instance. The Romans are less dreadful than were the Babylonians. This is not so terrible an age, so why does God choose this moment?”

  “Because it must end sometime.”

  “You have not answered my question. Why now?”

  “I don’t know.” Joshua shook his head. He seemed genuinely perplexed. “I only know that it is so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because He tells me.”

  Noah realized that they had come to a dead end and, as he thought of Deborah and what she might feel listening to this, he felt her slipping away from him. Perhaps desperation made him cruel.

  “Two months ago, when I saw
you last, you spoke then of God’s kingdom as if it might arrive before dinner. Since then the days have rolled by without the heavens parting to show the face of your son of man. Will it happen today? This month? Before the Passover? Within your lifetime? Do you know?”

  For the first time, something like doubt showed itself in Joshua’s face.

  “I know only that it will come,” he answered at last. “The time and the place are known only to the Father.”

  “And therefore it is vanity and presumption to believe that mere men can understand the mind of God.”

  “I have never claimed to understand His mind. I know only what He tells me.”

  “But He has not told you when.”

  “No.”

  “Then I will tell you something, Joshua.” Noah touched him on the arm and they began to walk down toward the beach. “If God’s kingdom should come and He should allow me to live in it, and if, as you say, life there would be everlasting, then I would choose to live in your renewed Eden with Deborah and with no other. For without her there could be no happiness, even in a perfect world.”

  “Then you should marry her. Does she feel the same?”

  “How could she help it? Am I not handsome, charming, and clever—not to mention tall?”

  This allowed Joshua to laugh, and he swung his arm playfully over Noah’s head, the top of which barely reached his shoulder.

  * * *

  It was agreed between them that Joshua would come to dinner and that he would give his blessing to the proposed marriage. Joshua displayed no reluctance. He seemed amused by the whole business. Yet, when the appointed hour arrived, Joshua did not.

  They waited dinner. The time passed.

  “He is angry with us,” Deborah said at last. “I knew it would be so. He thinks we should put away all thoughts of happiness in this sinful world.”

  “He does think that, but he is not angry.”

  “Then why has he stayed away?”

  The instant she phrased question, Noah was sure he knew the answer. It was not something he felt he could explain to Deborah—not because she would not understand, but because she would.

  “I will go find him,” he said.

  “Will you bring him back?”

  “No.”

  “How will you find him? He could be anywhere.”

  “It will not be hard. I think he wants to be found.”

  There was a large jar of wine resting on a side table. The seal had not yet been broken. Noah picked it up.

  “Have no fear,” he said, with a joyless smile. “He will drink to our happiness.”

  A full moon filled the streets with light, and Noah had not far to go. Only to the shore.

  In his experience there was nowhere on earth as deserted as a seacoast at night. It was the same at Capernaum as at Sidon and Caesarea, where the docks grew ghostly quiet after sunset. Those who make their livings by the water withdraw from it as from a thing accursed.

  On the beach the fishing craft were overturned and, in the harsh moonlight, looked as if they had been abandoned forever. There was no one about—except, of course, God’s messenger to Galilee, the prophet Joshua, who was sitting disconsolately on the sand, with his back resting against the hull of a boat.

  “You didn’t come,” Noah announced, taking his place beside him, “so I thought I would bring the celebration to you.”

  “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  Noah ignored him and broke the seal on the wine jar. He took a sip himself, decided it was not entirely contemptible, and offered the jar to Joshua, who took it without apparent reluctance. He drank in silence for several minutes.

  “Is Deborah angry with me?” Joshua asked finally.

  It was, in some ways, an interesting question.

  “You have known her longer than I have. Have you ever seen her angry?”

  “No. Somehow I cannot imagine her angry.”

  “Neither can I.” Noah shrugged and took back the wine jar. “No, she is not angry. She thinks you must be angry with her. I assured her that was not the case, but she remained unconvinced.”

  “I am sorry for that.”

  “You should be.”

  “Are you angry?”

  “A little. But not enough to make a difference.”

  As if to demonstrate this, he gave Joshua back the wine jar.

  For a long moment Joshua sat with the jar resting on his knee. He seemed lost in contemplation.

  “Drink,” Noah told him, almost harshly. “Either drink or give it back.”

  “Do you want to make me drunk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sometimes that is the best use one can make of wine. That is one reason why God in His mercy taught us how to make it.”

  “When the time arrived, I simply could not bring myself to enter Deborah’s house and smile on her happiness.” He took a swallow and then another. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do. It brings back the past—for me as well.”

  Joshua nodded and handed him the jar.

  “Do you remember, the night after we buried Rachel, how you and I went up on the roof of Uncle Benjamin’s house and drank ourselves into oblivion?”

  “Yes. We woke up the next morning with the sun in our faces.”

  “I think you saved my life that night.” He put a hand on Noah’s arm. “I don’t know what my despair would have brought me to if you hadn’t been there.”

  “I understood how you felt. My own wife had been dead less than a month.”

  “Did you love her?”

  Noah took a swallow of wine, as if to help him clarify his response.

  “Yes. I loved her. But not, I think, as you loved Rachel. I don’t think I am capable of such intensity of feeling, and I am thankful for it.”

  “Do you still think of her?”

  “Yes. Sometimes, against my will. I have learned that is a pot best left unstirred.”

  “I think of Rachel all the time.”

  Noah shrugged, although in the gathering darkness the gesture was more likely felt than seen.

  “You should let her go,” he said. “It is not possible or even desirable to forget, but one should recognize the will of God. The dead have left us.”

  “And yet she has never left me.” Joshua tilted his head back in a way that suggested he was close to weeping. “I feel her presence. There are moments when she seems so near that I imagine I have but to glance around to see her smiling at me.”

  Noah handed him back the jar, since it was clear he had need of it, but Joshua did not drink. The jar rested on the sand beside him.

  You poor fool, Noah thought, but did not say. It would have been a thousand times better if they could both have gotten fuddled with wine, but it was not going to happen.

  And perhaps there was no escape, not even in drunkenness. Joshua, it seemed, was one of those who could not accept the permanence of misfortune. He had no gift for resignation.

  “Even in God’s kingdom she will not be my wife again,” Joshua announced suddenly. “Those who have passed through the grave will be purified of desire. Yet I do not regret this. She will still be herself. She will still be Rachel. I will see her again, and that will be enough.”

  “God’s kingdom,” Noah murmured, hardly even intending to be heard. Yes, of course. In a world full of death and injustice, where a Herod ruled and Rachel lay rotting in the earth, how could someone like Joshua help but believe that God would come to set everything right?

  Noah picked up the wine jar and took a long swallow. The wind from the sea was growing cold.

  22

  Caleb sensed his danger the moment he received the Lord Eleazar’s note. The First Minister was still in Tiberias—he had been there five days, which for him was an unusually long visit—and now Caleb’s presence was requested: “The Tetrarch wishes you to attend him,” was all the note said. It had been brought by mounted courier and was not even signed, but Caleb recognized th
e long, precise, faintly slanting hand.

  There was nothing to do except to go. Within half an hour Caleb was on his horse, with an escort of only two soldiers, and he reached the gates of Tiberias a full hour before sundown.

  However, sundown brought the Sabbath, during which nothing could be done.

  Caleb was accorded the use of a small house near the palace, and he went there now to wash and change. He was surprised to find his wife waiting there for him.

  “Were you told I was coming?” he asked, experiencing a small thrill of anticipation. Michal was a beautiful woman, a fact which always impressed him anew whenever he saw her.

  “No. I have been turned away.”

  “What?”

  “I have been banished from the Lady Herodias’s presence,” she announced, with suitable emphasis, as if she had been accused of jesting.

  “Why?”

  She turned her gaze aside for a moment, seemingly gathering the strength to cope with such stupidity.

  “No reason was given,” she said finally. “I was not at fault.” And then, as an afterthought, “Why are you here?”

  “I was summoned.”

  Michal covered her mouth with her hand and then slowly shook her head. But the conclusion was too obvious to deny.

  “Then you have fallen from favor.”

  Immediately, and without another word, she left him. There was a room in the house that she sometimes used when she wished to be alone. Caleb knew better than to follow her there.

  So he was alone, with the Sabbath, that empty day, looming before him.

  Caleb did not consider himself an impious man, so he felt uncomfortable when his wife did not appear for the lighting of the Sabbath candles. A servant woman performed that office, and Caleb recited the prayer, which he knew so well that the words almost spoke themselves.

  “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe…”

  The words were just collections of syllables, somehow pleasing to God. He had long since ceased to reflect on their meaning.

  As he recited, his mind was clear. He knew Michal was right. He had fallen from favor. How Eleazar had achieved it, he had no inkling.