by Tracy Groot
Jude rubbed his face on his sleeve, leaving it ruddy. “I don’t know. Bring him to the Temple; let the Sanhedrin decide. I think he is eager for punishment.”
“He needs to be questioned when he is of the right mind. What brought him to such a thing?” Simon murmured. The lad had sat on the outskirts of the prayer circle, praying in rhythm yet perhaps feeling unworthy to join. His face would sometimes crumple in anguish. And like Jorah, he did not stray far from Nathanael. Simon shook his head as he gazed at the lad now. “What a putrefying world we are part of, Judas.”
“Hidden reefs . . . clouds without water. Doubly dead. Uprooted.”
Simon felt a prickle on his skin. What were these words Jude muttered?
“An illusion of brilliance, but instead, wandering stars.”
Simon swallowed. Was his entire family going mad? He looked to where James sat in a brooding crouch, apart from anybody, face dark and staring. He had heard James mutter strange, bitter words when he passed him on the way up the hill. Consider it all joy. And, Trust the one with the scars; scarred ones know. James had spit the words like curses. It had chilled Simon then . . . the way Jude chilled him now. Hidden reefs? Clouds without water? Maybe Jude needed to talk, but Simon could not listen, not to that. Someone had to stay sane.
Briskly, he said, “Can Nathanael be moved? We can make a place—”
“I have never felt so helpless.”
“Jude—” Simon broke off and held still. He suddenly knew why Kardus held hostage his thoughts. Nathanael’s legs. Like the demoniac’s arms.
All over Kardus’s arms, and perhaps the rest of his body, were scar upon scar upon thick and ridged scar. As though fingernails had ripped his skin. As though teeth had torn off ovals of flesh. Scars from gashes so numerous that Simon had whitened at thoughts of what caused them. Scarred ones know.
Kardus had described with vivid words the hugeness of the storm. Sudden. Violent. Crashing. Angry. And despairing—he could no longer see the coming boat.
But still he came . . . more relentless than the storm.
Simon did not know he had spoken the words aloud until he realized Jude was staring at him. Wonderful. Now he was the one to babble.
“Can he be moved?” Simon asked sharply.
Jude wiped his nose and gave a bleak shrug. “Sure. He can be moved because it does not matter. He has lost too much blood.”
Simon rose and rubbed his lower back, then sighed heavily. So Jude would not say it. And James would not say it, not by the lost look on his face. Why did he have to be the one?
“Then we take him to Jesus,” Simon said. “If he dies on the way, he dies. But we give him a chance.” He nearly had a grim chuckle at that; whom were they really giving a chance? Nathanael . . . or Jesus?
He waited until Judas rose, and together the two made their way down the slope to the camp below.
Every jostle of the cart, however small, made James wince. He knew Simon watched the road carefully, avoiding stones and ruts. The roads were always prepared for heavy travel months before Passover, but it was now nearly the end of the time for pilgrimage. The wear of the road from thousands of carts and donkeys and horses and camels and feet was apparent.
The roadsides were littered with evidence of pilgrimage. James frequently saw cast-off items, worn-out sandals, broken parts of wheels, rotted peelings from fruits and vegetables, empty spits with charred bits left on them. They passed scuffed-over fire pits and places that stank, perhaps a popular spot to visit the brush.
They traveled in silence. The supplies had been piled up on the side of the cart, their bedrolls spread and laid on top of each other. Nathanael was placed on the bedrolls. Two embroidered cushions, gifts for Devorah, were tucked snugly on either side of his head to keep it still from the cart movement. Jorah walked ahead of Simon, working endlessly to kick away rocks and animal droppings. She had kept at it for nearly two hours now, since they had left the pass early this morning. Jude and James walked on either side of the cart, never more than a few feet away. Joab walked a distance behind the cart with his pack slung over his back and the lamb across his shoulders. What had happened back there was still unclear. Nobody spoke to him.
And nobody had slept much last night. Nathanael was restless and once in the third watch had roused the camp by the alarming sounds of his vomiting. Jude had to reseal the bottom wound. They had settled him down again, and he drifted into a fitful doze, but no one else slept after that.
Songs of ascent eluded them. The dismal quiet of the party caused more farmers to stare instead of glance. James exchanged a gaze with one man who had straightened from a thresher. The man was a Samaritan, one of the despised race. James did not feel hate for the man, nor did he sense it in return. The man looked to the cart and back at James. He kept his gaze on them as the party passed, then bent again to the thresher.
Consider it joy? James flicked a glance at the white face secured between the cushions. What sort of god did Balthazar serve?
Whenever Judas checked on the wounds, James leaned to see as well. The woman Beca had given Jude admonition to keep him as still as possible to keep the seal unbroken. They had to help Nathanael visit the brush with the utmost care. Should the seal break, a candle was at the ready to be lit from the bucket of ash-banked coal.
James gazed at distant hills as he strode beside the cart. The hills were dim with haze; the morning held promise of thick warmth for the afternoon. Flies were coming up thick, and James held a long sheaf of grass, ready to whisk them from Nathanael. Two walking sticks secured in the front corners of the cart propped the tarp over the lad to shield him from the sun.
The road wound through the troughs of hill after hill. Some hills were striped with terraced farming, like wide stairways to the top. Some hills were covered with trees, some with rock; some had equal amounts of both. Even now they were passing a rock quarry, where stonemasons were at work chiseling blocks from the bedrock. Surrounding trees and plants and ground cover were coated with the white rock dust.
James was not sure which bothered him more, Nathanael’s lapses of silence or his talk. With his one good eye on James, Nathanael took up conversation again after an hour of silence. “How did you know?”
It was the one question he feared. James shook a pebble from his sandal. Who could understand Seek Nathanael? It came and left in a whirlwind, an impression more than a voice. He was not even sure it really happened, if those were the exact words. What he remembered was the dread.
He realized Jude was looking at him too. “I don’t know,” he finally mumbled. “You thirsty?” They had settled a waterskin next to him, where he could drink as he wanted.
“No.”
James did not like to look at him long. The purple gash on his eye and the whiteness of his face kept James’ gut at a constant simmer. And the thoughts Simon had confided last night—they could keep his stomach stewing until Jerusalem. Nathanael, maybe the victim of some blackmail plot? James glanced over his shoulder at Joab. The entire family at possible risk because of some fanatical Zealot notions? If he did not look sharply to the hills before, he did now. The only thumbnail of hope was the last thing Simon had announced last night: They were taking Nathanael to Jesus.
We head for Bethany. He will most likely be there, at Devorah’s or at the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Wherever he is, we will find him.
James remembered with quiet astonishment. Simon, of all people. He who never ceased to remind them, with or without words, of the blasphemy of Jesus. Simon had left the campfire soon after that, muttering about seeing to the lamb. Jorah and Jude and James had exchanged glances, eyes glittering in the firelight.
“Why don’t the Samaritans go to Jerusalem for Passover?” Nathanael said weakly.
“Remember? I told you. They are not allowed in the Temple.”
“Whyever not? They are Jews too.”
James and Jude exchanged bemused looks. Nathanael and his indignation. At least it wa
s good to hear him speak. Jude answered this one. “It was said a Samaritan had once come at night and strewn bones in the porches and throughout the Temple to defile the Holy House.” He glanced to either side of him before he said in a low tone, “Leave it to the Samaritans. Another reason to hate them.”
“Do you? Hate them?”
Jude shrugged. “They despise us as much as we despise them. Makes us even.”
“Makes no sense,” Nathanael said drowsily.
Judas sighed, a sound as close to exasperation as the usually placid Jude could get. “It is more complex than that, Nathanael. They claim to be the true representatives of Israel. They say Mount Gerizim is . . .”
James pressed back a smile as Jude held forth. Was Nathanael taking advantage of his condition to argue so freely with those who were his employers? No. It was simply Nathanael, every inch of him. He always put himself on equal footing, which is why he was always in trouble with Simon.
Nathanael did not respond to Judas, and James glanced at him. He had drifted off to sleep again. At the times Nathanael slept, it was as if each took up brooding thoughts again, and conversation stopped altogether.
Last night’s moon was a thumbnail from full, putting today at the thirteenth of Nisan. Passover began at sunset tomorrow evening. James was supposed to be in the Temple compound tomorrow, as he had been for the last two Passovers, to slaughter the lamb and have the priest collect the blood. While Jesus played the rabbi for the past two Passovers, James had taken over the abdicated position of head of the tribe of Joseph. What would happen now? If Jesus knew James was not there, what would he do? Would his conscience prick him to take responsibility at last and offer a lamb for their household himself?
You owe us at least that, James thought bitterly.
“Simon, can we stop and get some figs?” Jorah asked over her shoulder, ever vigilant to kick away stones. Her cheeks were flushed and perspiration shone on her forehead.
They were coming into a more populated area where smart merchants had set up stalls along the road to take advantage of the burgeoning traffic at festival time. Simon led the donkey to the side of the road and went to the cart to find the money box. He glanced at Nathanael, then Jude. “How is he?”
“He needs to drink more,” Jude answered, a pucker of worry between his eyebrows. He leaned over the cart side to lightly rest his hand on Nathanael’s stomach. “His belly is swelling,” he said mostly to himself, the pucker becoming a frown. “I don’t know what that means. Maybe he bleeds on the inside. Maybe it is infection.”
“It’s too early for infection,” Jorah said quickly, standing on her toes to look in the cart. She looked at Jude. “Isn’t it?” Jude did not answer.
Simon worked the lid from the money box. He tossed a coin to Jorah and went to replace the lid. He hesitated, then took a coin and slipped it into his pocket.
“James, have Joab water the lamb. I need to see about supplies for . . .” But James did not catch what Simon mumbled over his shoulder as he strode to a cluster of merchant stalls.
The dropping sun made long shadows of the trees on the ridge. They stretched across the road, thin limbs streaking up the hill on the other side. Her chin on her knees, Jorah watched orange butterflies flit in the greenery growing on the bedrock beside her. Like huge dollops of gray porridge, bedrock was cropped in lumps on the green. She would have picked up the stone next to her to look it over carefully, but she was just too tired. Simon had stopped the cart to make camp, and she had enough strength to slip onto this boulder. She should be helping to unload the cart, to put together a meal. She could not move.
Not far south lay Shechem. They had hoped to reach it before nightfall but had to negotiate with great care a washout of rock from a recent rain. Other caravans passed their little party, bumping over the stones with never a care. Jorah looked at the stone beside her. It would only take one of those under the cart wheel to break the seal on Nathanael’s wound.
Shechem. The place of God’s promise to Abraham. “To your descendants I will give this land.” She heard James tell it to Nathanael, who had kept up his questions all morning. In the afternoon, the questions came less frequently, then stopped altogether. As if to fill the silence, James began to offer to Nathanael all sorts of information about the places they were passing through. Was it more painful to hear the silence from Nathanael, or the efforts from James to ignore it?
Nathanael grew weaker by the hour. The last time they sat him up to go to the brush, he nearly fainted. Was it from the pain or from the loss of blood? Jorah tightened her arms around her knees. Maybe both. Early in the afternoon, James had leaned close to hear something Nathanael was saying, then shouted to Simon to stop the cart. Nathanael had been straining for breath, and his lips were darkening. He himself did not realize the seal had been broken. Jude had scrambled to reseal it.
She would not have blamed Nathanael if he had cried out at the pain from the wax, dribbled and smeared over the lowest wound, or from the heinous wounds themselves. But no, he took it with nothing more than a teeth-bared grimace now and then. The only time she had heard him groan was when he vomited. Jorah dug angrily at a slipping tear. Men and their stupid fool bravery. Why was it so important to face pain in silence?
That their journey had come to this was bad enough; worse was that one traveled with them who could have prevented it. She had not even looked at him, not once. Now Jorah looked over to where Joab fussed with the lamb.
Had she ever hated before? She had not hated in these past few years, not when the insults came or when trades were refused, not even when they were banned from the synagogue. She watched Joab timidly approach the donkey, where it stood with its feedbag fastened on, his nervous glances all for the brothers, who ignored him. She watched him quickly dip his hand into the bag, then slip to where the lamb was tethered by Joab’s shoulder pack. He spilled the feed onto the ground near the lamb and stood back to watch him eat.
Jorah put the bloody slashes on Joab’s chest, made his face white and his lip fat with a blow and his eye swollen and—
“Mother,” Jorah whispered. She rested her cheek on her knee. A tear rolled to the tip of her nose and dripped away.
She had seen the crushed loaf Nathanael had brought to Avi and Joab. She could not get it out of her mind. Its image brought wave after wave of—was this what it was to hate?
They were helping Nathanael from the cart. For the first time, as they eased him to a sitting position, a groan escaped his lips. She was on her feet and running for the cart.
James watched Simon in the distance. He had gone to a place where the waning sunlight was not blocked by a hill, taking with him his bundle of writing implements, and another small bundle he had purchased on the road. He found a smooth boulder and with his back to the group, settled down to work. On what, James could not see.
While they helped Nathanael to the brush, Jorah dragged the bedrolls from the cart and arranged them on the ground, near a smothered fire pit from earlier travelers. It would be the second night they all slept in extra clothing instead of their bedrolls, but it was nothing to Nathanael’s comfort.
Joab was off refilling the waterskins from a well in a settlement not far up the road. Jude was rummaging in the supplies, probably for something to use for fresh bandages. Jorah was already asleep, curled on the ground on the other side of the fire pit, her back to them. James set about making a small coal fire; wood was scarce, the place picked over from pilgrims. They had brought kindling but had not reckoned on an extra day to make it to Jerusalem.
“Tell me about your brother,” Nathanael murmured, words slurring from fatigue.
“Which one?” James answered, eyes going to Simon.
“The one you are taking me to.”
James’ hand froze midway to the coal bag, only for a moment. He shoved his hand in, pulled out two chunks, and tossed them onto the others.
“I can still hear,” Nathanael said, answering the question James did not ask
.
James glanced over at him. The apprentice was too peaceful, as though the fight had gone out of him. His cocky manner had mellowed into something that made James want to . . . tear things apart.
“You should not worry so much,” Nathanael murmured. He looked down and touched his fingertips to his swollen stomach. “It’s still there.”
“What is still there?”
But Nathanael only smiled, a smile as weak as it was mystifying. Then he said, “James . . . if we do not make it to your brother in time, I want to tell you—”
“You want to know about Jesus?” James broke in quickly. “What do you want to know?”
“—how much it has meant to me, being a part of something . . . normal.”
James forced a short laugh. He dug in the metal ash bucket with the tongs until he found a smoldering chunk. “Normal? You call this family normal?”
“I have never been . . . more happy in my life.”
James built the little pile and coaxed it into a fire. Once he had it going, he sat back, then flicked a glance over at Nathanael. A tear had left a glistening trail down the side of his face. God of Israel . . .
James bit the insides of his cheeks to keep the emotion in place. Normal, yes, normal. More so than ritualistic scars on a child’s leg. Than life without a father, and with a mother who . . .
“You want to know about him?” James whispered. “He was my best friend.”
“I thought so,” came the slurred reply. Then, “What are you . . . so afraid of?”
James stared into the fingers of flame. He rubbed his hand over his fist. “Afraid,” he murmured. “I am afraid of . . . terrified of . . . who he may be.”
The sun had set, leaving behind a sky lavished in color. Stars began to light the night, and the rising moon was one day from full.
Joses stood outside the city gate of Bethany, eyes ever on the people entering the town. But most of them were pilgrims who had already settled themselves in the tent city on the slopes surrounding Bethany and were merely visiting relatives in the town. Joses could not share the festive mood prevailing in the city.