The Brother's Keeper

by Tracy Groot

  James produced a loaf of bread and broke some off. Nathanael reached for it, lest James entertain any notions of feeding him. He wasn’t that bad off. Not yet. He ate one bite and tried for a second but could not. Faint nausea was enough to fear him into not eating. He took another drink instead.

  James was unusually quiet. He remained in the cart, half in the sun where the canvas did not cover him and half buried in the supplies to make room. His gaze was drifting about, then came to rest on the tefillin still wound around Nathanael’s arm. Nathanael lowered the waterskin and squinted at him. The movement cost him pain in the bad eye, but James caught his look and glanced quickly away.

  “What, James? Am I that bad off?”

  “You do have a fever,” James replied absently, fixing his eyes instead on one of the cushions. “And a wound is infected. Second lowest.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “No,” James answered, rubbing his hands together. “I have wanted to tell you something. For a long time.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to hear it. Not if you think you have to tell me before I die. I am not going to die, James.” He had not spoken so much in . . . devil take him, he was getting tired. He sagged dead weight into the cushions. This was not the time to convince James he was ready to chop wood. His heart skittered as though he had just sectioned an entire tree.

  “I said I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. Ever since I knew that—” He broke off.

  “What?”

  James picked at his thumbnail. “Since I knew that . . . your mother . . . you know.”

  Nathanael could feel himself stiffen, and his tone went flat. “What about my mother?”

  James would not look him in the eye. “It’s a story I heard, Nathanael. You up for a good story?”

  Coldly, “What does it have to do with my mother?”

  James settled back on the piled-up provisions. He folded his arms and this time looked right at him. Nathanael noticed his sunburned face, his thinner-than-usual cheeks. James had been the sick one not so long ago.

  “The story goes that there was a woman. A woman who was caught in the act of adultery.”

  Nathanael’s stomach tightened, and he forced a wry smile. “My mother is not an adulteress, James. She’s a flat-out whore.”

  “This woman was dragged to the Temple by religious men to another man.”

  He could feel his jaw clench, bringing a spasm of pain. Avi had a good right. “This man wouldn’t be your brother, would he?”

  “They said to him, ‘Teacher! This woman has been caught in adultery, the very act. The Law of Moses commands us to stone such a woman. What do you have to say about it?’”

  What was in that face? Pity? Sympathy? He would kill him if it were so. “Well? What did your brother have to say?”

  “Nothing, at first. The story goes he ignored them. Settled down and wrote in the dirt with his finger.”

  “Why would he do that?” Writing in the dirt. What kind of crazy was that? “What did he write?”

  “The religious men kept pestering him for an answer until finally the Teacher stood. He looked at them, every one, and said this: ‘The one who is without sin among you—let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’”

  Nathanael stared. He couldn’t have heard what he did. “Say that again.”

  “Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

  Silence. “He said that?”

  “So I heard.”

  “What did they say to that?”

  “Nothing. They dropped their stones and left.”

  Nathanael studied the leather packet on his hand. Quietly, he said, “The woman . . . what did she do?”

  James drew a breath. “Well. Story goes he said to her, ‘Where are your accusers? Is there no one left to condemn you?’ And she said, ‘No one.’” James paused a moment. He cleared his throat. “And he said, ‘I don’t condemn you, either. Go home now. Sin no more.’”

  He did not know how long he stared at James. He stared until . . .

  . . . a strange sensation began to sweep up from his toes.

  It swirled around him like a gentle wind, briefly fluttering his senses until he closed his eyes against the faint dizziness. Then the gentle wind was gone. . . .

  . . . taking with it . . .

  Seek James.

  His eyes flew open, and he looked down. His hand went to his stomach.

  “Nathanael . . . ?”

  “It’s gone,” he breathed.

  “What is gone?”

  He slowly raised his disbelieving face to James.

  “I never came for you,” Nathanael whispered.

  James was backing away. “Judas? Jude!”

  “I never came for you.”

  “Judas!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know!”

  I never came for you.

  “James?” Nathanael slurred. “Tell Jorah she can worry now.” His fingers closed around the leather packet on his hand. He had even more impossible words to clutch now.

  Where are your accusers?

  “Simon!” Jude shouted. “Simon, we have to go!”

  Neither do I condemn you. They were the last words he knew before the silken haze enfolded him.

  19

  THEY WOULD NOT make it to Bethany, not today. The sun was ready to dip behind the hills, and no one had the heart to push farther. The cart’s jostling was unforgiving. The wounds showed the wear of the journey, three of them seeping now, the lowest breaking the wax seal more than once. And more than once, James heard from him a faint groan.

  Simon stopped the cart at the roadside and went off to the brush. Jorah crawled into the cart to nestle next to Nathanael. From where he sat on a rock, James watched her trace her fingertips over his eyebrow, smooth a curl of hair thickened with grime.

  Didn’t Jorah see he was dying? She whispered to him as if he could hear her. She took a daisy from the posy she had fixed to the canopy where Nathanael could see it and drew it playfully over his nose. She acted as though they were lovers in the grass on a picnic, and Nathanael was only sleeping.

  The infected wound was frightfully hot and no longer oozed water but fluid tinged in yellow. Jude tried to draw it out with a poultice he had concocted from plants alongside the road, but Jude was a carpenter, not an herbalist. He and Joab had gathered a doubtful assortment and drawn it up in a square of coarse cloth cut from Joab’s tunic. Jude soaked it in water and settled it on the wound. The only thing it seemed to do was leak murky water down Nathanael’s sides. But it made Jude feel better; it was something he could do. All James could do was watch him die.

  “Caesarea or Nazareth,” he heard Jorah murmur to Nathanael. “Neither, let’s leave both behind. Wherever we go, we will have the sweetest little place where I will plant jasmine bushes. You will have a shop, and you can make things ready-to-sell for market. I can make mosaic plaques. Perhaps we can visit Caesarea for a time and I can study with Theron. He is a great mosaicist and lives near Father’s cousin. And we can come back and visit Father’s olive tree if you wish. I think Father would have liked that.”

  Jude came next to James. He wiped his brow free of sweat with his sleeve. “We are sending Joab to see if he can find someone to sell us unleavened bread. Have you seen the money box in that mess?”

  “No. Jude—I’m worried about Jorah.”

  Jude frowned and said in a low tone, “That’s why I’m sending Joab. Have you seen the way she looks at him? I’ve never seen her face like that.”

  James saw. He hoped Joab could find bread. James had gone through the cart less than an hour earlier, holding the candle aloft in search of the sack of leavened bread made by Jorah and Annika. No one would have guessed the trip would have taken an extra day. Passover would be upon them at sundown.

  “Come on, help me look for the box,” Jude said. They went to the back of the cart and began to rummage.

  “Jorah, are you lying on the
money box?” James asked.

  “No,” she murmured, blowing away a fly from Nathanael’s nose. The swelling there had gone down, as well as the swelling in his eye. In moments of consciousness he could open the bad eye to a slit; the white of his eye was now crimson, a jarring contrast to the amber.

  Jude pulled out a rolled-up tent to prop alongside the cart. “Well, we’d better find that box if we want to eat. We only have some figs left. I hope we didn’t lose it somewhere.”

  Article after article came out of the cart. James pulled out a mess of tangled rope and dropped it onto the heap growing next to him. “Jorah, are you sure you’re not on the box? Is it behind Nathanael?” She didn’t seem to hear him at first, then gave a disinterested glance around.

  “Oh, wait—here it is.” She pulled it from under a wadded bunch of clothing in the corner. James snatched it from her, glowering. They didn’t have all day! In fact, they had about half an hour before sunset. Nobody would sell them bread on Passover. He set the box on the edge of the cart to open it, but it slipped and tumbled to the ground. Coins scattered in the dirt. With a curse, he bent to retrieve them.

  “Watch your tongue, James,” Jorah said absently.

  The box had fallen on its edge, and the lid had come free. He picked up the lid, then looked closely at it. A shard of wood had chipped from it at the fall. There was something . . .

  “What is that?” Jude asked, leaning closer to see.

  “I don’t know. Get me a knife.”

  James pried at the edge of the lid, breaking off another shard. He brought the lid closer to his eyes. He worked another chunk off with his thumbs, barely noticing when a splinter went in beneath his thumbnail.

  Simon had returned from the brush and came close to see. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Look at this; the lid isn’t one piece. Looks like there’s a veneer.”

  Jude came with the knife. James set the lid on the cart rail and worked the knife into the edge of the lid. He pried until a chunk of wood snapped up. Revealing . . .

  “What is that?”

  “What’s going on?” Jorah asked. She sat up and crawled to the side of the cart.

  James worked at the lid, snapping off piece after piece until what was left in his hands was . . . a thick, tarnished silver square. Embedded with . . .

  “My money says you’re looking at the finest lapis lazuli,” Nathanael croaked groggily.

  Simon took the lid from James and put it in a patch of waning sunlight. He looked at it closely, then slowly raised his eyes to Nathanael. “It is lapis. How did you know?”

  “The box, James,” Nathanael murmured, but he was already closing his eyes. “The box the . . . crazy old . . . crazy . . .”

  “That driftabout from—?”

  “The East,” James finished for Jorah. His arms and his neck and his scalp prickled with chill. He dared to look at Judas, who dared to look back. Yes, Jude remembered what was unspoken. The family had agreed not to speak of it anymore, for all the trouble it brought. So what was unspoken drifted into story, and what was story drifted into vague childhood memories.

  Simon picked up the rest of the box and hefted it, then carefully examined the edge where the lid fit. “This is all veneer too.” He shook his head wonderingly. “No wonder this thing is so heavy. Never for the money in it. I always thought the wood was purpleheart or ebony heartwood.”

  “He stained it the color of ebony heartwood,” James said in quiet surprise. He took the lid from Simon and began to pick away the remaining bits of wood stuck in the tiny crevices.

  “Who stained it?” Jorah demanded.

  “Father.” When James had cleaned off every scrap, he blew his breath on the lid and polished it on the front of his tunic. Then he held it up for the others to see.

  Tarnished, to be sure, smudgy black with it, but the workmanship was evident. Square-cut stones of lapis lazuli nestled in ridges of silver, arranged in a pleasing, symmetrical design.

  “What a lovely pattern for a mosaic,” Jorah breathed. “Why would Father hide such a thing?”

  Nobody answered. Simon took the box with the knife to the rock and sat down to go to work freeing it of the veneer. Jude followed to stand behind him and watch. Joab even ventured near to see what was going on. James folded his arms and rested them on the cart, watching Simon.

  “Why would Father—?”

  “I imagine he fashioned a disguise for it for the journey to Egypt,” James replied. Simon’s knife paused at that. The three brothers traded looks; then Simon went back to his task.

  Jorah’s eyes narrowed. After a moment of studying James, she said warily, “Journey to Egypt? I don’t think I—”

  “In that box was the frankincense.” Saying it dried out his throat. James troubled waters long still with those words. He took a great paddle and stirred up memories probably different with each child of Joseph. How did Jude remember it? How did Simon? Was Simon ever ridiculed, as James was, when he told other children about the entourage to visit his brother? About the angels? How they laughed. Jorah was the youngest; she would have only the vaguest memory of the stories, because by then they had stopped talking about it altogether.

  “Balthazar said he got it from a man who died on the way. He said the others brought myrrh. And gold. To Bethlehem, Jorah.” He glanced at her, and she was shaking her head.

  “Stop it, James,” Jorah whispered.

  Judas kept his eyes deliberately fixed on the lid and said, “Did he . . . did Balthazar say anything about a star?”

  “Yes,” James and Simon said together, then glanced at each other.

  “Stop it!” Jorah suddenly shouted. She climbed out of the cart, took a few steps back, a few steps forward. “Isn’t it enough that we are taking Nathanael to him? Those stories are in the past! Best left alone. Best forgotten.”

  “I thought you always wanted to be included,” Jude snapped. “This is what it’s about, Jorah.”

  “You spoke with him?” James asked Simon. “He told you about the star?”

  “I spoke with him,” Simon answered grimly. “He hung about the shop for two whole days, waiting for you to come around.” He handed the box and knife to Jude to have a go at it.

  “What did he say to you?” James asked. When Simon didn’t answer, he said, “Well? What did he say?”

  Simon scratched behind his ear and gave a halfhearted chuckle. “Oh, nothing much.”

  Doubtfully, James said, “He had plenty to say to me.” But Simon would not answer no matter how much James prodded him, until finally he said he didn’t want to talk about it and got up and walked away.

  Suddenly, James noticed Joab. He didn’t like it that Joab found the whole thing so wide-eyed interesting. This was family business, not belonging to a stranger. James looked at his feet where the coins had fallen from the box and picked up a shekel. He dusted it off and tossed it to Joab. “Here—see if you can purchase some bread from the settlement ahead. Be quick.”

  Joab caught the coin and, with a backward glance at the box in Jude’s hands, hurried off.

  “I don’t know why he travels with us,” Jorah said darkly.

  James looked from the box to Jorah, then to where Jorah’s smoldering gaze went. “He travels with us because he is lost.”

  “I hate him. I wish he were dead.”

  The words were a hand slap on his cheek. Jorah never said such things. She did not know James was staring at her until she caught his look when she turned from watching Joab. She lifted her chin. “Well, I do. He could have prevented it.”

  From where he sat on the rock, Judas muttered, “Hate isn’t pretty on you, Jorah.”

  Her lips trembled. She pointed at the cart and said tightly, “That isn’t pretty. Anyone who could let something like that happen deserves to die.” She turned to walk away, then broke into a run, head covering fluttering behind her. Jude stood up to go after her, but James said quietly, “Let her go.” They watched her leap the dit
ch next to the road and run for a grassy knoll. She scrambled to the top and disappeared down the other side.

  Have you seen the box? Fashioned of silver, inlaid with the finest lapis lazuli.

  Simon whipped a stone at a distant boulder, pale bright in the moonlight. Crazy old man. Filthy foreigner. He smelled as bad as he looked, and Simon had to assure himself more than once that a mallet lay handy—any man who babbled as he did was unpredictable at best.

  He had hung about in the workshop for two straight days, waiting for James to waken. Two days! He watched Simon work with those dark glittering eyes; he possessed the corner of the shop like a brooding shadow. He was eerie, he and his words.

  Amazing, the confines of a miracle, don’t you think? Once, a manger. For years, this place.

  He did not speak much in those two excruciatingly long days, but when he did, his words were anything but mere talk.

  What chafes you, Master Simon?

  What chafes me? You do! What business sends you to a man who is broken in his bed, perhaps beyond redemption?

  He brings change, Simon. Change will always chafe.

  Change? What would you know of it? I was once a respected carver. I once went to synagogue.

  How is it a foreigner knows your own prophecies better than you do? You should see what is written in our holy books.

  What prophecies, you mad old vagabond? You think we do not search the Scriptures? Daily, we do! Many times daily!

  Does it chafe that he came as no one expected? That the One True God chose pagans to herald his coming? He remembered the Gentile, Simon. We, too, are in his image.

  Herald his coming? I will—I will throw you out for your blasphemy!

  Blasphemy, Simon? The answer is simple. Either it is blasphemy—or it is not.

  “What of that box?” came a timid voice behind him.

  Simon closed his eyes. Joab rarely spoke on this journey; why did he have to choose a time like this? “I don’t know,” Simon answered wearily, opening his eyes to gaze upon a moon luminous and full. “I don’t know about the box. God help me, Joab, I don’t.”