“Come,” said Orpah. “He won’t be going anywhere now, come with me.”
Anna went with her, and they went to see Mary, who told them where they were to sleep.
They were given some space in a family home, up against a wall, on the floor where something had been laid down for them to lie on. Anna sat down with Esther, but she couldn’t face telling any stories now, so she tried singing. Then Andrew came and asked if she wanted to come with him. Esther grabbed Anna’s hands and held on to her tightly.
“Just go,” said Orpah. “I’ll sit here with her.”
Anna bent down to Esther, kissed her forehead, and freed herself from her grip.
“I know this place well now,” said Andrew, as they walked together along a narrow path of large, jagged rocks. He pointed at a gnarled thicket and said he sometimes played hide-and-seek in there with the youngest children. He waved his hands and said there were small paths everywhere, and that he knew almost every single shortcut that was worth using, and a few more. He told her how it rained more up here in the hills, about the smell of the fruit trees, and how some of the children gathered the resin that ran out of the trunks, thinking it would turn to myrrh. Anna walked next to him. She yearned for him to stop talking, she wanted to touch him, she just wanted him there, still and close to her.
Andrew stopped. A lone tree reached up from where they were standing. Anna hadn’t spotted it in the twilight. She peered at the thick branches and the leaves hanging still. The sun had set, but the whole sky still shone above them, clear and black. Far away from Nazareth, down in the plain, a small bonfire was burning, like a single, glowing piece of coal in an oven. Anna stood there, staring at it, and Andrew said it was probably shepherds.
“You want to know why I left you that time,” he said.
Anna turned to him and nodded.
“I’d been quarreling with Simon, my elder brother, Simon Peter,” he said. “I went off on my own. I had nothing when I came to Sychar. I found you, but I had to keep going, I had to find a job to survive. I thought you didn’t need me, I couldn’t give you anything, there was nothing there for me. I went back to Capernaum, to Simon. That was where Jesus found us.”
“You left me,” said Anna. “You left me when I needed you most.”
Andrew didn’t say anything and just stared ahead.
“If you’d known that Jesus was going to Sychar,” Anna asked, “would you have gone too? Would you have gone to find me?”
Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know, Anna,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d have brought you here to this. Some of us say that the soldiers will come, that they’re waiting for us. I’ve told myself that I must believe in the power of the Lord, in the Lord’s mercy. But even Simon is worried about our safety. Still, I feel at home here. I was in Capernaum, with Simon Peter, when I met Jesus. I followed him here. I like it here.”
“I waited for you,” she said. “I thought that you were out there somewhere, waiting for me.”
“I thought you’d forget me,” he said.
Anna didn’t know what to say. She started to go, but she turned around and went back to him.
“You’ve got to tell me, Andrew,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me straight out. I’ve come all the way here, I’ve waited for so long. You’ve got to tell me.”
Andrew took her hands and held them in his.
“I never thought I had this in me,” Andrew said. “I don’t what’s happening. I don’t know what this is, but I want to be with you. Not like with the others. I want to be with you like we are now. I’ve spoken with Jesus and asked him if it’s right for me to be with you.”
Anna fell silent. It had turned dark, and the sounds of the others rose up to reach them.
“He said he lights a beacon for everyone in love,” Andrew went on, “for everyone who’s walking around in circles, unable to find the way. He said he lights a beacon for all love that’s lost, lighting a path through the night to the promised land.”
Anna tried to pull back her hands, but Andrew wasn’t letting go. His fingers were warm and soft, and she remembered the way he used to stroke her.
“He said that was all he could do,” Andrew said.
Anna tried to hush him, asking him to be quiet.
“I didn’t wait for you,” Andrew said. “I didn’t dare to wait for you. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Don’t say another word,” she said, pulling him close. “Just come here.”
When she came back, confused and bewildered, Esther wasn’t there. It was dark, and the children weren’t supposed to be out alone at that time. Orpah was sitting outside by a bonfire.
“Where’s Esther?” Anna asked, and Orpah gave a start when she realized that Esther was missing. She got up and ran in to check where Esther should have been lying.
“She fell asleep straightaway after you left,” Orpah said.
Andrew told Orpah to stay there while they went to find her. “Maybe she’ll come back while we’re looking,” he said.
Anna and Andrew went around asking those who were still awake. Nobody had seen Esther, nobody knew anything, so they began to knock on the doors of the houses where their group had been taken in. They called out into the night, but there was no answer. When Anna eventually gave up and Andrew took her back, Orpah was standing there waiting for them. She said that Esther had suddenly come back.
“She didn’t want to talk to me,” said Orpah. “She just went to bed.”
They crept inside and found Esther on Anna’s blanket, her legs up against her chest, her mouth open, and her hair spread out loosely in a circle around her head.
“Maybe somebody who lives here thought she was a leper,” Andrew said, speaking softly so as not to wake anyone. “Maybe she was chased.”
“But it’s night,” Anna whispered. “What was she doing out at night?”
“Maybe she was just sleepwalking,” Orpah whispered. “I’ve seen others do it. She’s got nobody else but us. What do we know about her dreams, her nightmares?”
Andrew knelt down and stroked his hand over Esther’s hair.
“What happened to her?” he muttered. “I’ve never seen a wound like that, what do they call it, a mark of the beast?”
“I know what it is,” Orpah whispered. “It’s water that burns. I knew a girl who had it thrown on her by her brother. Her nose and her lips disappeared, and her eyes couldn’t see anymore.”
“But Esther must have been a child when it happened,” Andrew said. “How old is she now, ten, twelve?”
“It’s a mark of the beast,” Orpah whispered. “It can be put on anybody, in the same way evil doesn’t distinguish between adults and children, men and women.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Anna whispered. “She might wake up, she needs to sleep now.”
She kissed Orpah, kissed Andrew, wished them good night, and lay down next to Esther. Her tiny body was so warm. She gathered together Esther’s hair, draped it over her neck, and patted her head gently.
“Esther,” she whispered. “My little Esther.”
Anna closed her eyes and thought about how everything had changed and was new now. It was a strange feeling. She had been blessed with a new life, but there was still a flicker, a quiver, a twitch. She’d learned that good was followed by bad. All that time with Ruth, and then she vanished. When Andrew had been closest to her, he left. Reuben had sung to her softly, and then he went away when she got better. Was there something bad waiting for her now? Would she be taken back one morning, one evening, one night, by a Reuben, or by a Baasha? Would they all be surrounded one day by troops and punished for following Jesus? Once, several years ago, just outside Sychar, Anna had come across six crucified men. Their broken bones, the nails, their crooked fingers, and the smell made her run home, crying and afraid.
She held on tightly to Esther. She thought about Andrew, about everything he’d told her, and how quiet he’d been when she held him tight. She’d car
essed his face, and down over his neck. She’d laid her hand over his warm stomach; he’d closed his eyes and whispered her name. “Anna, Anna, Anna.”
Morning came, darkness left, everything rose and shone. Esther didn’t want to get up. She whimpered, laid her cheek against Anna’s, and said, “Sing to me, can you sing to me?” Anna stroked her, sang softly, and told her it was morning. Esther eventually got up, but she didn’t run off that day, she stayed close to Anna. All day there was a small hand with tiny fingers getting caught in Anna’s clothes or around her leg.
When Andrew came, he lifted Esther and threw her up into the air, calling her a little rascal and asking where she’d been last night. But Esther began screaming and crying, so Andrew gave her back to Anna. He apologized and returned with some flowers he’d picked.
“These are for you,” he said, crouching down and giving the flowers to Esther. “Please forgive me, I don’t know what was wrong with me. It’s a good thing you have Anna and Orpah to look after you.”
Esther didn’t say anything and just stood there with the flowers in one hand.
“I’m not going to take Anna away from you,” Andrew said.
Esther glanced up at him and nodded.
“Andrew’s nice,” she said. “He can come and meet the King.”
“The King?” asked Andrew. “Who’s that?”
“He’s my king,” said Esther. “He sent me away, but now he’s come back to fetch me.”
“What are you talking about?” said Andrew.
But she said no more, in spite of Anna and Orpah both trying to get her to tell them who this king was. Andrew made her promise that the next time she met this king, she would take him or Orpah or Anna with her. Esther nodded and agreed.
“Maybe that’s what the children call him,” Orpah wondered. But Anna thought it was odd. There was something about the way Esther had said “the King.”
“The children love Jesus,” said Anna. “They don’t talk about him like that.”
That evening, a great meal was prepared for the whole group and for anybody else who wanted to join them. A family opened their house, others helped out, setting up tables outside, and gathering torches and vases. Mary got somebody to fetch food, and the children helped to collect firewood, build bonfires, and fill the vases with flowers. Anna stood there with Esther, watching Andrew whittle. He sat there with some of Jesus’s brothers, cutting away at small, rough pieces of wood, turning them into horses, bears, birds, smooth sticks, and slingshots. Andrew gave Esther a small, round disk with tiny marks etched on it. Anna laughed and asked what it was.
“It’s a sun, can’t you see?” Andrew said. “It’s a sun that’ll never set. It’ll always shine, even through the darkest of nights.” Anna laughed again and shook her head. Andrew was the worst carver of them all, but the children appreciated him. Even Esther seemed to like him now. She hid the figurine under her clothes and smiled at Anna.
Anna went to help sort out the food and put it in bowls and on plates. She didn’t notice, but Andrew followed her. He went up to her and put one of his hands in hers.
“Anna,” he said, “can I speak with you again?”
“I don’t know how to say this,” he continued when they’d got away from the others and were walking alone at the edge of Nazareth. The sun was going down, darkness was creeping in on a chill wind.
“I don’t know how long all this will last,” he said, “how long we’ll be together like this.” Anna was about to say something, but Andrew spoke first: “No, no, just listen to me, Anna. I’m telling you I don’t know when we’ll be leaving again. I want to be by your side when the Master summons us. I want you to come too. It’s so long since I was with you, Anna, I thought you’d forgotten me. I didn’t think there would be a place for somebody like me with you. But now, I don’t know. Let me put it like this. There’s something about you, you change me into a different person. I don’t know quite what it is, but it’s all that I can be. I don’t normally talk like this, Anna, I don’t talk like this to other people. You’re something else, when I think about you, when I see you, when I hear you speak. You know when it rains, when the whole sky comes falling down? The next time the rain comes, if you’re without me, then I will be the gentle rain falling on you. If you’re in the rain, I will be the lucky droplet running off your nose. I will be the water you catch in your hands. I will beat on the roof over where you sleep. I will be the gentle rain that nobody fears going out into. I will be the crowns of the trees, making puddles for the children. I will be the gentle rain that sends you to sleep. And then I will rise up through the dream, like a shaft of rising sunlight.”
They stood there in the last remains of the day. Andrew and Anna held hands, they moved closer to each other, they kissed, strands of hair tickling their noses, their cheeks. Anna closed her eyes and thought of the rain, how it could come drifting over the land, drenching everything. She thought of Ruth, who said, “All we need to do is to let them think they’ve found the way home.” She thought it was the other way around, it was Ruth and she who had lost their way. They’d lost their way again and again. And it was only now, in Andrew’s hands, that she was really found.
II
Night had fallen over Nazareth. The meal had begun, somebody sang, and in the middle of the song, a very high-pitched voice, Judas’s, carried the whole song before everybody else joined in. The song seemed to lift up the tables and the roofs of the houses, even the stones on the ground. After the song died down, Jesus spoke. He spoke of the small and the weak, of his father’s kingdom, and justice and courage and the struggle of all those who followed him. He turned to Mary, and she began to sing. After one verse, Judas joined in, their voices intertwined, as they sang about the Lord and his holy kingdom, about everything that had been built, and everything that had been torn down. When their song ended, all that could be heard were the shouts of the children running around.
Anna stood there, watching everybody walking around her, everybody brushing past her, whispering and laughing and shouting. She heard Andrew’s words, his soft voice. I will be the rain. The bowl of water you catch in your hands. Orpah was there; she came over and gave her a hug, carrying a candle, a small, burning candle. The rain that sends you to sleep. Men and women and children danced, their arms around each other, they sat on the ground, stood on stools and benches. I will rise up through the dream. Those who were bound in rags took them all off, and in the faint light, their cuts and wounds resembled dark hollows. Like a shaft of sunlight.
They were all there, together.
“Anna,” said a soft voice.
“What?” said Anna, turning around, but there was nobody there. Something brushed by her foot; she bent down, and it was Esther. She held on tightly to Anna and said something.
“What’s that, Esther?” Anna asked.
“The King,” said Esther.
“What?” said Anna, putting her head close to Esther’s mouth.
“I want to show you the King,” said Esther.
Esther took Anna’s hand and dragged her along. Andrew was there, and Anna waved at him. He waved back and said something she couldn’t hear. She smiled and could still sense his fingers, his warmth, and his salt taste.
“Come,” said Esther, and Anna followed her. They were heading away from the gathering around the meal, and Anna asked where they were going, but Esther didn’t answer. It became dark, the torches and the bonfires fell behind them, and Anna suddenly felt afraid. Nobody could see them, where were they heading? She pulled away her hand.
“Esther,” she said. “Stop.”
“It’s here,” said Esther.
“I can’t see anything,” said Anna. “We’re too far away from the others. Maybe this can wait until tomorrow, Esther, maybe you could show me this king when it’s light?”
“It’s here,” said Esther. “Can’t you see it?”
Anna stared into the darkness ahead of them, and there, she saw it now. There was a deep sha
dow in the darkness. Esther took her hand again and pulled her closer to it.
It was a cave, and they’d have to crawl inside. Esther let go and disappeared. Anna could hear her crawling into the cave. She followed her, kneeling down and feeling her way forward with her hands.
“Come back, Esther,” said Anna. “We can’t do this in the dark.”
No answer. Everything had suddenly fallen silent. Esther had gone.
“Esther,” Anna shouted.
It was too late to turn around, she couldn’t leave Esther in there, so she’d have to follow. She crawled, her knees bashing into stones. Then she tried to stand up. “Esther, Esther,” she said, first loudly, then more quietly, as she realized to her astonishment that she couldn’t reach the ceiling of the cave with her hands. It was no longer a small, dark cave. She held her fingers out ahead of her in the faint glow, and they were covered by a strange color. “Where am I?” she whispered, and Esther answered, as the little girl suddenly appeared, standing by her side.
“We’ve arrived at the King,” said Esther. “He’s waiting for us.”
“King?” said Anna, kneeling down in front of Esther. “Who is this king, Esther? Maybe we should go back. If something happens, nobody would find us.”
“He’s my king,” said Esther. “He took care of me when I was younger, he protected me. I was his queen, but he sent me away.”
Anna had never heard Esther speak like this. The words were streaming out of her mouth. Her hands moved in time with her words. She smiled and seemed happy, so Anna thought that it couldn’t be anything threatening or dangerous in there.
“But why the cave, Esther?” Anna asked. “Can’t you ask him to come out? Can’t you ask him to come and join the others outside?” Esther didn’t answer. Instead she knelt down and bowed her head.
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