No Lasting Burial

by Stant Litore

  He rushed into her atrium and stopped short, for he could see Rahel bat Eleazar bending over a cookfire and prodding fish on the coals, calm and focused, as though she had never known pain. The air was rich with the smell of fried musht, mingled with the herbs from the scented fire. Rahel glanced up at him, and her eyes were full of life. So full of life.

  “You are alive,” he whispered. “Alive.”

  “Of course I am alive,” she said, and straightened. There were others around them, other people in the atrium, but Zebadyah hardly noticed. He could see nothing but her face. She should have been shaken with fever, or dead, or—or worse.

  After Yakob had led off his search party for Benayahu, Zebadyah had gone out to the old altar, the all but abandoned altar. There he had thrown himself to the ground and wet the soil with his tears, praying for a consolation that did not come. Natan El had found him there and had gasped out a story of Rahel bat Eleazar bitten by the dead. Zebadyah had found himself on his feet and running, running into the town.

  And now she stood before him as full of life as when she had been young and he had been young, as when he had first seen her laughing as she walked alongside his brother. She was alive, she was alive. With a hoarse cry of joy, joy that wrenched everything in him, he leapt forward and seized her arms and pulled her to him, crushing her, his mouth finding hers, the heat and softness of her against him. So, so alive.

  She stiffened. Then her hands beat at his shoulders, and he let her go. He took a step back and nearly fell, dizzied. She stood staring at him, a few strands of hair across her face, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide with alarm. “Bar Yesse!” she gasped.

  “Get away from her!”

  The shout came from the door. The whelp, Hebel, stood there, his eyes cold with fury—looking so strangely, in that moment, like Zebadyah’s brother Yonah. But the priest felt neither unease nor anger. He was too overwhelmed. He opened his mouth to apologize to Rahel, but only laughter came out. And then he fell on his rump and sat there in the middle of her house, laughing, his eyes squeezed shut, as though he were a small boy again.

  “Zebadyah.” That was an old voice, a rasping voice. “I don’t think I have heard you laugh in a long time.”

  Zebadyah looked up. For the first time, he took note of the others in the house. The men and women preparing for a meal. The boat people, crouched back against one wall as though to communicate that they were no threat. The witch from Natzeret. And beside him—standing beside him—his father. Yesse.

  Standing.

  “Abba,” Zebadyah whispered. “Abba.”

  Yesse walked slowly over and knelt beside Zebadyah, putting his arms around his son, pressing his lips to his hair. Zebadyah wanted to weep, but could not; so many mornings he had crouched beside his reclining father, holding him, comforting him, and always he had longed to be the one comforted, the one guided, the one fathered. Always he had felt his aloneness and his inadequacy, his guilt for hiding beneath the boats while his father was maimed.

  Now his father was back. Consoling him. Lending him his strength.

  It was as though the sky had fallen into the sea and the sea had become the sky. He was spinning, falling. He clutched at his father’s arm. “Abba,” he moaned, “help me to my feet.”

  A moment later, they were standing together. He faced his father, looking into those eyes old and gray as the voices of cranes over the water. His hand trembled where he held his father’s arm. He tried to say with his eyes the words he had never voiced to Yesse, words of regret for that night.

  I’m sorry.

  The skin around Yesse’s eyes crinkled. I know.

  Drawing in a slow, shuddering breath, Zebadyah glanced about him, saw the pale and hungry faces of those gathered in the house: fishermen and a few of their wives, and boat people, and the bruised face of the stranger from Natzeret. This house was now filled with just such an assembly as he’d feared: a mingling of the clean and unclean, a collapse in the order he’d so carefully shored up against storm and wind, and no wall of fire or stone to hold it back.

  Yet—

  “I should thank you,” he said, and found it difficult to swallow. He didn’t know whether to laugh or weep or rage. Perhaps he was asleep and didn’t know it; perhaps he was lost in the dream country. The world had stopped making sense.

  Yeshua’s face shone with sweat. “You will see greater things than these,” he said. His voice was sad.

  Zebadyah gazed at his face, trying to understand. His father’s hand was strong on his shoulder. He choked back fresh tears, a tightness in his throat, and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. This sudden joy in him was running out at his eyes. Prophet or madman, he didn’t know, couldn’t know. But he had his father back. He turned his head at a sound and saw, through bleary eyes, Hebel still standing by the door, the boy’s face white with wrath.

  Koach didn’t even notice the people gathered behind him on the doorstep. He felt he could tear down a wall, even one-handed, even weak, he was so angry. When the priest turned his face toward him and Koach saw his eyes wet with tears, it was too much. The priest dared affront his mother. That hateful old man who had denied him his bar ‘onshin, whose son had beaten him in the street—he dared. He would not feel sympathy for this man.

  “This is my brother’s house,” Koach said, his voice loud in the atrium. “And you are an uninvited guest.”

  Yesse frowned, and Zebadyah turned, his face flushed—though whether with anger or embarrassment, Koach didn’t know.

  “Koach!” His mother rose to her feet. Her face was flushed, too, but her eyes flashed. Her tone cut through Koach’s anger like a boat’s keel through water, parting it.

  “Bar Yesse,” Rahel said, her voice cool though her face betrayed how shaken she was, “has done me no lasting harm. If I were to see my own father here, and strong, I would be wild with joy, as well. He is the kohen of our village and deserves your respect.”

  “How can you say that?” Koach cried. “He hates us.”

  “Koach!”

  “He does! He always has. He acts as though he is the father of this house, but he is not!”

  His mother straightened, and there was such fire in her eyes that he fell silent.

  “Koach,” she said, her voice sharp, “we have all said hateful things, and many of us have done hateful things. Because we are hungry, and we are tired, and none of us have slept well in many years. But there are fish, and we are sitting to eat. And we have this chance to make things right again.” She glanced down, and for a moment her hands trembled as though she were fighting to hold in some tempest of emotion. Koach suddenly burned with shame, though he couldn’t have said why.

  “Help me make things right,” she said.

  “Amma,” Koach whispered.

  Rahel turned to Zebadyah, her tone tightly controlled. “Bar Yesse, I would ask you to atone for the insult to me by accepting my sons’ hospitality and sitting at our fire for a while with your father.”

  Koach bit his lip, hard, to keep from opening his mouth and letting out the harsh words in his heart. He certainly didn’t intend any hospitality to the priest—or to any of these people. His mother needed rest, and he … he needed time to breathe, privacy, a chance to retreat to his secret place and think. His hand itched to hold his carving knife. Finding beauty within the wood, he would find also some way to cope with the strangeness and the horrors and the joy of this day.

  Rahel said, “Will you sit at my sons’ fire, you and all these others, Zebadyah bar Yesse? It has been a long time since Kfar Nahum sat together.”

  Zebadyah stood as though struck—so long this house had been barred against him. But Yesse took his arm and drew him to the cushions that lay about the olive tree. “My son accepts, and so do I, Bat Eleazar. I have missed my grandson’s house, and my daughter-in-law’s cooking.” And Yesse sat, seeming a little sore from age, but otherwise as able as any other man, as though his hip had never been twisted, his dignity never assaulted
by Romans or the dead.

  Rahel took charge, as though she were a queen in a palace of Shushan and not a fisher’s wife. She knew all the names of those who had stepped into her house, all but the boat people, and she demanded theirs. Then she recruited helpers and seated others, and soon more fish were roasting, and a few women were helping her grind bread while others poured water for the ritual washing to the elbows before a meal. With a start, Koach realized the silent woman was among them, still clothed in his father’s coat, its hem sweeping along the ground at her feet. She had already washed her hands and arms, for they were clean, and she sat down to grind bread as though she were any other woman of Kfar Nahum, dipping her finger into the meal and lifting some to her mouth as she worked. Rahel gave her a cool look but let her be; when there is an entire community to feed, a woman doesn’t turn down help. Mordecai’s sister and Natan El’s wife carried platters and bowls around the circle that the seated guests formed. Yeshua stood alone, to the side, and for the moment none bothered him. The scent of food demanded the attention of those who’d been starving far more than any miracle of healing could. Zebadyah sat by his father, his face dappled by shadows and sun through the leaves of the olive, and his eyes were dazed. Yesse gripped his son’s shoulder and leaned in to speak into his ear.

  The bustle had sprung up so swiftly, Koach was left standing by the door. His stomach snarled at the scent of fish, but he ignored it. He couldn’t join them at the meal, couldn’t bear to be around so many people, his heart naked to their eyes. Breathing raggedly, he leaned back against the wall and lifted his hand to his face; he could smell death on his skin. Tamar’s death.

  Abruptly, he realized he wasn’t alone. Yeshua was leaning on the wall beside him.

  “Why don’t you eat?” Koach said. “You are a guest.”

  “Eat,” the man whispered. His eyes were a little glassy in a face that shone with sweat. “How can I eat?”

  Koach wet his lips, not understanding. The man unnerved him, and the grief was so sharp in Koach’s chest that he wanted no company. But this man had helped his mother, had … healed her. Brought her back. He blinked quickly against the moistening of his eyes.

  “Your hands are shaking,” he said.

  Yeshua lifted his hands to look at them; his fingers were trembling. He was very pale. “There’s a door, Koach,” he whispered. “A door. I’m doing too much. Too much, too fast. Not ready, not ready for it yet, whatever is coming. I have to … have to be able to stand in that door, see what he sees, first.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “But how can I stand there?” His voice low. “I heard him, heard him weeping in the desert. Like all the world weeping, such terrible cries. Tore at my heart.” He shut his eyes, the shaking in his hands worse. “How can I stand in that door, in that light, stand to see what makes him weep? Isn’t the moaning in my ears enough? How can I bear any more? I can’t, I can’t bear it.”

  His shoulders shook and, startled, Koach realized Yeshua was sobbing. The man let no tears leak from under his eyelids. He let no sound break from his lips. He just shook. Koach stood awkwardly, unsure what to do. He was accustomed to his mother’s comfort and to the indifference or hostility of others to his own pain, but he was not used to standing by another.

  Except Tamar.

  Except her.

  The stranger drew in a ragged breath. “I am grateful to you,” he said, opening his eyes.

  Koach shook his head.

  “You are the only one here, Koach, the only one who has made no demand on me. None. Though I hear your screams, too, and they are loud, they are loud, they are loud. But the others, their eyes. Prophet. Witch. Heal my grandfather. Heal Israel. Bury the Romans. You … you make me a guest in your brother’s house. You didn’t even bring me your arm, though you saw a lame man stand on his feet.”

  Koach went still. He had been so furious—at the priest, at Bar Cheleph, at the town and himself for letting Tamar suffer and die—and in such panic and then delirious relief over his mother, that he had not even considered that the stranger might … might straighten and strengthen his arm. He stared at the man in shock.

  Koach glanced down at his right arm, concealed in its thick woolen sleeve. No, not concealed. He could never conceal it. Instinctively, he glanced at the people eating. Some of them kept looking up from their fish and watching Yeshua and himself by the door. Others were talking together in low voices. He listened to their talk for a moment, caught bits of it:

  … a lame man healed …

  … the fish, and the fish …

  … and Bat Eleazar. Signs, these are signs …

  … signs …

  … he’s the navi …

  … he must be the navi …

  … no, he’s a witch. You heard how he babbles, and he …

  … said the dead are coming, the dead are coming. A vision …

  … end of our town, this is our last meal …

  … over there with Hebel? Why is he with Hebel …

  “Could you … ?” Koach whispered.

  “I think so,” Yeshua murmured. He was staring at those feasting now, too. “But I know why … why you didn’t ask. You have a worse injury. I know that injury. It is mine also.”

  “Your bruises,” Koach whispered. He understood. Though this man had two arms, not one, somehow he had suffered as Koach had.

  “I haven’t eaten with my kin in some time,” Yeshua said. “I tried to. After the desert, after that. I came back, slept one night in my mother’s house, only one night before her neighbors lifted stones to throw.” He looked down. “I miss that town, Natzeret. It is a small town, Koach, so small. Much smaller than this one. It is …” He swallowed. “It is lovely. There are olive trees and one press that still works, and in the morning, in the beautiful morning, I wake and I hear … the press creaking. And when the night … when it’s night, I fall asleep to my father’s hammer, tapping, tapping in his shop by the house. I miss that. Sometimes I am sleeping, in the lee of some ridge, and I wake, suddenly, quickly, so that the world tilts as though I’ve been spinning too fast, too fast, like a small child, all the stars around me like the gulls. And I hear it. That tapping. It sounds so real. I miss it. I miss it, Koach. He made beautiful things. I miss hearing him work. Miss helping him. I miss the old midwife’s scowls and the way the weaver’s children play stones in front of the well.” He rubbed his hand quickly across his eyes. “Ah. I think I will eat.” He indicated the gathering people with a small motion of his head. “You mustn’t hate them, Koach. The priest, the others.”

  Koach met Yeshua’s gaze, and then it seemed to him that this stranger who had healed his mother was gazing not only at him but into him. As though everything he had ever hidden, every secret place, every word he’d signed to Tamar, every time he had tossed in his bed, every time he had dreamed of taking her far across the sea to some new place—as though everything, everything, was laid bare before this man.

  “They hate me,” Koach said.

  “No.” Yeshua gave a vehement shake of his head. “No, they don’t. They do not hate you. Because they … they have never seen you. They look at you and see only what they fear, only that.” Yeshua’s face twisted in pain; he closed his eyes and put his forehead to Koach’s own, an uninvited yet comforting touch, as though they had a shared history. The stranger whispered a word in Hebrew too softly for Koach to hear. Then he said, “They do not hate you.”

  “I’m scared,” Koach whispered back, startling himself. But now he’d spoken and the words could not be taken back. Tamar was dead. His mother had almost died. His brother loathed him. There might be no one who would really see him, ever again.

  “We are all scared,” Yeshua whispered. “Every one of us. Maybe even the father in the desert. We could all lose so much, so much.”

  Hearing a footstep, Koach lifted his head and found the silent woman standing before them, still in his father’s coat, which enveloped her small body like a winter
blanket. She held out a bowl of water cupped between her hands. Her eyes lifted for a single instant; Koach saw the flash of them before she lowered them again. As Yeshua looked on silently, Koach took the bowl unsteadily in his left hand, felt the smooth clay against his fingers and palm.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The water was cool and clear in his mouth.

  The young woman offered the bowl next to Yeshua, who took it and drank in slow gulps, watching her over the rim. His eyes were not unkind. She blushed, which surprised Koach, who had seen her perform a small seduction at that cookfire on the shore earlier without any reddening of her face.

  As though flustered, the woman turned back to Koach. She made a small sound in her throat, and from within the long coat, she brought out an article of wood and placed it in Koach’s hand, lifting her fingers quickly so that her hand would not brush his.

  He searched her face a moment, and then glanced down. It was a wooden horse, warm from her touch. Rougher than the one he’d carved over many weeks for Tamar. He’d made this one to practice. He must have left it in one of the long pouches sewn inside the coat.

  His chest constricted. “Thank you,” he whispered again.

  Knowing the carving to be his, she must have meant its return to comfort him. Yet it made him think of Tamar. He dropped the carving carefully back into her palm. “But you keep it. Someone should have it.”