by Tracy Groot
But time after time, each kind eye proved something in disguise. An arguer. A sectarian. A leader of Israel, all with a smooth approach and an acid finish. The only decent thing to happen around here in a long time was Nathanael. He suspected Nathanael did not care enough to be opinionated.
But Judas bought the stranger’s act. He did what James did not and extended his hand, welcomed him in. The stranger murmured the house blessing as he crossed the threshold. James shook his head and slid a look at Jude. It was pathetic the way Judas strained at anything resembling humanness.
And truly, James’ inkling proved out.
“Judas!” the man exclaimed after Jude introduced himself. “You are well-named indeed! It should not surprise me one of the brothers would bear the name of the Maccabee.” He took Jude’s hand warmly.
“I am called Raziel. Raziel of Kerioth.”
3
PAIN EXPLODED in James’ gut as Judas gasped. James lunged for the stranger and hauled him into the shop, casting a swift glance toward the road. He kicked the door shut and turned to seize Raziel by the tunic. “How dare you show up here!”
Judas went quickly to the door, cracked it open to anxiously peer down to the road. “Did anyone see you? Are you known here?”
James shoved Raziel, and he stumbled backward. He shoved again until Joses’ bench on the other side of the room stopped the man.
Once-bridled rage now coursed freely in red-black waves. Filled with its release, trembling with it, James grabbed fistfuls of the man’s clothing and yanked him nose-to-nose with himself. His fist would be the mallet, his fingers the vise. Crush his neck between his hands.
“James!” Jude shouted, a strangely dimmed cry.
Teeth bared, James hissed into his face, “What have you done—”
“James, stop!”
Everything precious—Jorah, Mother, the last of everything to him. Gone in one visit from a stranger. He could almost hear the footfalls of the soldiers.
“Let him go!” Jude’s words were garbled, a shout underwater.
His fingers crept around the man’s neck; his nails began to entrench human flesh.
“James, let him go.” Her words cut through.
The red-streaked blackness began to abate. The roar in his ears became a rush. With Mother’s voice came clarity.
“Release him, James.”
Raziel’s neck was between his hands. Nathanael stood at the entrance, poised as if to either help James or haul him off. Jorah stood near Nathanael, her face white.
He looked at his fingers, digging deeply into the man’s neck. They would not release. Like the man in the story Father had told him as a child, the man who guarded the plot of beans with his sword. The sword had stuck fast to the battler’s hand, as Raziel’s flesh stuck in James’.
Mother laid her hand on James’ shoulder. “Let him go, my boy,” she whispered into his ear. Mother placed her hands on James’ own, her fingers loosening his. She put an arm about his waist and tugged him away from the man. She took him to his stool, picked it up and righted it, and pushed him gently down to sit.
“I deeply regret causing any . . . it was not my intent . . .”
“One Roman!” Judas erupted. “It would take only one Roman to see you! They are asking if Jesus knows you. The Romans are asking!”
“No one saw him,” Nathanael said quickly. “I followed him from Annika’s; he took the ridge.”
“Annika! He is staying with Annika? How could she . . . ?” That from Jorah.
How did Jorah know who this man was? How could she understand? She was only seventeen. Didn’t James work daily to keep her from the craziness? God of Israel, let me go insane. Maybe things would make sense there.
“Annika does not know who you are, does she . . . Samuel?” Nathanael said in a softly dangerous tone, and James smiled. Insanity could wait. Raziel was in trouble, and James looked from hooded eyes to see.
Nathanael was circling Raziel. In an ominous singsong, he intoned, “Annika put him up for the night, didn’t she, Samuel from Hebron? Annika thought he was who he said he was, a traveler come late to Nazareth with no place to stay.”
“I am a traveler,” Raziel said simply. “I did not use my real name to protect her.” Raziel looked directly at James. “To protect Jesus, and your family.”
“So you came right to our home,” Jorah accused.
“What protection is that?” Jude spat.
Raziel did not answer and did not turn his gaze from James.
What calm was this in those gray-green eyes? The red around his neck spoke of what the stranger risked to come here. He nearly got himself killed and was even now surrounded by hostility. Why the steadiness in that face? Four people—Mother did not count—would make him answer for nearly sending Rome crashing through their doors. Was it not enough to daily live their lives balanced on the edge of a cliff? What if someone in Nazareth knew who this man was? It would be the tiny push needed to send their lives sliding over the edge. That which I have feared the most . . .
“I should remove my shoes,” Raziel finally said, “because I am not worthy to be in such company as this.”
James felt his mouth fall open.
The gray-green eyes—intelligent eyes—were steady and peaceful. They reminded him of Father.
Raziel shook his head, looking at each person in the room in turn. “What you daily live . . . what you daily endure . . . my own circumstance is worthless in comparison.”
“They daily endure people like you,” Nathanael sneered on his circling march.
“Miriam sent me.”
Nathanael reached for him, but James held up his hand. “Wait, Nathanael.”
“‘Tell them,’ she said. ‘They need to know. Tell them they are not alone.’”
Nobody, not one, could respond.
“‘Tell them,’” Raziel continued softly, eyes brushing each face until they came to rest on James. “‘Tell them we know what it is to be a daily affliction to all who see. Tell them we know the shame and the betrayal. They need to know.’”
A foreign sound broke over the silence of those who heard his words. It was not a pretty sound. It was a small and choking sound. Shock full on his face, James searched the workroom and saw his mother.
Her hands were on her cheeks, and from her lips rose a keen like an animal in pain.
“Know from this day you are not alone,” Raziel said, voice heavy with weariness.
The wail rose, and Mother pressed her hands to her mouth. She choked and snuffled, and the keen stifled was almost worse. Never had he heard such a sound from her. Never such an ugly, awful sound.
“She is wise, my Miriam,” Raziel murmured, eyes downcast, fingering his beard. He went to the doorway, put his fingertips to his lips, and touched the mezuzah. “I must leave now. More people will be about soon. I will take the back ridge again.” He reached inside his tunic and brought out a small bundle wrapped in cloth. He set it down on the threshold. “My Miriam sent this for you, good woman.” And he left.
Nathanael followed him out the door, muttering over his shoulder, “I will make sure no one sees him.”
“He is not to leave until dark,” James called after him.
The sounds from Mother crooned to silence. She took the end of her head covering and wiped her face. Except for its blotchiness, the face had returned to its normal, if weary, composure. The brothers, the sister, and the mother stood long in silence. At last Mary went to the threshold and knelt to pick up the small bundle. She unwrapped it, and fresh, silent tears flowed at what she saw.
She fingered the delicate fabric of the scarf, a fabric miraculously thin, with a satin sheen that seemed to change colors with movement. Tentatively, Jorah came beside her mother, gazing more at her mother, to be sure, but she did touch the fabric and murmured something appreciative.
Mother held the scarf across the front of her tunic, smoothing it down to admire it. And suddenly she laughed through her tears like a young g
irl.
James found himself shaking his head. One moment wailing, the next moment laughing as delightedly as a child. He would never understand women, his mother least of all. In her face was a happiness, if a weary happiness, one he had not seen in a long, long time.
“Isn’t it lovely, Jorah?” she murmured. She lifted it to her nose and smiled. “It is perfumed. Such a lovely scent.” She held it to Jorah to smell. Then she looked outside as if to see where Raziel had gone. But James watched her, and she was not looking toward the back ridge.
No, she was gazing south toward the Esdraelon Plain . . . toward Judea. Where he was. Her anguish from moments ago was replaced by a strange and glowing certainty. And James knew he was about to lose his mother.
She leaned against the door as she stared beyond Nazareth, hugging the scarf to her chest. At length she said softly, “I will be leaving soon.”
Judas dropped his head. Jorah put the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob, then whirled and ran through the room for the curtained passage. The sound of her cry retreated to the back of the home.
James stared at his mother’s back; then he looked about for his stool. He pulled it to the front of his bench, settled down, and took up a rusted nail and a rag.
From the doorway he heard his mother murmur, “He has done mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts.”
He dipped the rag in water, squeezed out the excess, and smudged up filings from the jar. He rubbed the nail to a dull shine, then plinked it into the nail jar.
Far and away, many miles from Nazareth, an old man closed his eyes and turned in a circle until insensible of direction. Eyes tightly shut, he drew a breath and held it. He quieted his heart, smoothed his mind, and spread his arms wide . . . then slowly he raised an arm and pointed. He opened his eyes and gazed down the length of his arm. Fixing his finger to a spot on the horizon, he checked the position of the sun.
“So. Still we travel west and north,” he said to the One True God. “Who is James?”
He could not help smiling as he squinted at the spot on the horizon. It looked like a tent slanted in the wind, from this distance.
“Oh, I will get no answers from you,” he grumbled cheerfully to the sky. Seek James. An imperative not so very different from Follow the star.
He had heard Galilee was beautiful this time of year. If that was the end of his journey—and he had his suspicions—then this wasteland of crown after crown of upturned wasp nests would soon give way to hills clothed in spring green. His eyes ached for color. This barrenness looked as if the One True God had sniffed at it and turned away.
Balthazar knelt to retie the cloth about his flapping sandal. From between his big toe and the one next to it, he dug out a bit of greenery snagged from the brush. He examined the crushed leaf, sniffed it, rolled it between his fingers, and tossed it aside.
He rose and shouldered his sack again, then picked up his stick.
“Now. Where were we? Ah, yes. Melkor. You have yet to explain his presence on that journey, and from what I can see, we have all day.”
The old man fell into the rhythm of his stride, the slanted tent on the horizon his next destination.
He shifted his shoulder strap and adjusted the pack to rest on his hip. “‘Come, let us reason together.’ Melkor was a woodenhead. Tell me why you chose him, and please, do not spare the details. I promise I will not tell a soul.” West and north he went.
4
FAR FROM BEING put out with the stranger from Kerioth, Annika was secretly delighted. Not many fooled her, and fool her this one had.
Samuel—she smirked and amended it—no, Raziel, the famous Zealot from Kerioth, no less, sat meekly in a chair at her very own table. Across from him, his arms folded and face grim, sat Nathanael, magnificently indignant. She would not let him down. So from where she stood at the table, she made her scowl match Nathanael’s and looked down with a cold, cold eye on Raziel.
Annika waved away a few fruit flies from the rim of the wine pitcher, then poured its contents into another pitcher half-filled with water. As she swirled the vessel gently to mix the two, she shook her head as if greatly disappointed. To hide her delight with the stranger, she would imagine he was her neighbor Esther at the well, screaming at her children as if they were pariah dogs. That vexing shriek could make the Almighty himself stuff his ears with wool. The memory of it must have done its work; one timid peek at her face, and the fellow’s glance skittered away.
Annika pursed her lips and bit the inside of her cheeks to keep the smile in check. She would let this upstart simmer in his own sauce. Was she not a mother, and an expert at uncomfortable silence?
When Nathanael and Raziel returned from Mary’s, Nathanael shoved the older man into a chair and told Annika the entire story. Annika listened in silence, allowing her face to go dark only when Nathanael expected it. Truth to tell, she had to step on her own toes to keep from laughing out loud, especially at the meekness in which the mighty Raziel now huddled.
To bring a threat of Rome to Mary’s doorstep, no, that was nothing to laugh about. But heaven help her, that family needed something more than a daily plague of curious driftabouts and indignant elders. James, in particular.
Poke him and prod him; it was all Annika could do. Hope for a little of the old James to show himself again. These few years that Jesus had been gone . . . daily she watched her James descend into someone she barely knew. Simon was bad enough, getting a smart mouth on him and goading James into his fits of temper. Several weeks back, James had finally let his fist fly—Simon left for Gaza with a bruise on his cheekbone. Truly, the boy had it coming . . . but it troubled her. James had never struck one of his brothers, not in his adult life.
That Simon. Annika allowed her thoughts to further sour her expression. (It would make dear Nathanael happy.) Simon and his Torah and the Prophets, Simon and this renewed fling of his to become a scribe. Yes, he had neat handwriting. But to deliberately ignore his God-given gift for carving was nothing but a slap in God’s face. A nasty little defiance for all the unhappiness wrought on the family. Simon’s own brand of rebellion.
As for Joses, she did not see him much anymore. He spent half his time at the shop and the other half helping Tobias farm his land. She wondered how he handled it. Did Joses work harder than he ever had; did he treat his wife any differently? Surely, with the absence of Jesus, Joses had been affected too; Annika just couldn’t figure out how.
Judas, the youngest son of Joseph and Mary, certainly worked harder. He hid himself in work and pretended nothing was different; that, too, a defiance. Never an outgoing sort, he now treated Annika with more affection than he ever had, and that purely annoyed her.
Devorah was married and down in Bethany, gone a whole year now. She had seemed eager to put Nazareth behind her, and who could blame the girl? Maybe in Bethany Devorah did not hear much about what went on with Jesus. But Annika grimaced. If she did, she would probably pretend it was a different Jesus, not her own brother. Devorah had been the first to disown—or ignore—the doings of her older brother. Acted as though he did not even exist. The other siblings had not gone so far.
And Jorah. Her own sweet and willful Jorah, last child of Joseph and Mary, was different from all of them, from the stubborn fool brothers and Mary and Devorah alike. Jorah did not fail to openly question the activities of their oldest sibling. Annika saw the way the rest of the family dismissed Jorah, but in her eyes the child was the only honest one in the lot. Annika lifted one brow and shrugged, thinking. Mary was honest but did not voice her fears as Jorah did. Beneath that calm and capable appearance, Annika knew Mary was terrified. Annika sniffed. She did not care who Jesus was or wasn’t; Mary was his mother, and his mother was going to worry. And with Jesus, God have mercy, the worry was fearsome indeed.
With James . . . here Annika allowed her face to go its measure in contempt. Didn’t Mary have enough to kill herself in worry without Ja
mes to salt the pot as well? The boy deserved a whipping for all the fret he dumped on his mother, but he was too selfish to see it. Annika herself would whip him if she were young enough to do it. She thought about Joseph, and wished again, time without number, that he were alive for this family crisis. Joseph would have held them together. Joseph would have known what to do. That the Almighty had seen fit to leave it to Annika herself was something she still shook her head over.
It was odd how she worried more about James than Jesus. She feared for Jesus, yes, and she prayed for him daily, but James . . . James.
Oh, Mary’s firstborn had been her joy and delight all his life. How Annika missed that boy—how she missed him. She knew that half the villagers threw torment toward the family in payment for that day Jesus came home for a visit. But she also knew that the other half lashed out because they, too, missed him. Why did he leave? Why had he abandoned them?
How many times had she seen Jesus squat to speak to Mulaki, the beggar with no legs? Mulaki still asked about him, still did not understand why Jesus left him. Oh, Annika would have liked to strangle Jesus for the hole he had left in so many hearts . . . but didn’t she see that he was bringing a part of Mulaki with him, to every village he went? “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. . . .” Mulaki did not seem blessed, now that Jesus was gone, nor in any real danger of inheriting the earth. But Jesus carried Mulaki in his heart, wherever he went, with those words. Jesus had not forgotten Nazareth, though its people did their best to forget him.
So, yes, with his gamboling about the country and his crazy turn-the-other-cheek ideas, Jesus had her fear; but James had her worry.
Sometimes when she looked at James it was as if she had the second sight. Sometimes she saw in him a strange, pebbled blackness. It did not happen every time she saw him, but it was occurring with more frequency. She almost didn’t like visiting him these days, but she went because she knew she had to.
The pebbled blackness was not hate, of that she was sure, but somehow it was just as horrifying; it was as if a violence brooded in James. She had never seen this before.