The Brother's Keeper

by Tracy Groot

27

  “I THINK HE WENT to the ridge. I don’t know.”

  “How long has he been gone?” Jude asked.

  “I don’t know.” Jorah slid the stick into the wet tunic and twisted it until a stream of water drained into the laundry tub. She untwisted it, pulled out the stick, and dropped the damp tunic on the others. Then she picked up the heavy basket of wet laundry and went to the clothesline strung in the back of the courtyard.

  “This isn’t going to last,” she said loudly.

  Jude dropped to the couch and put his feet up on the small oval table. He reached for the bowl of dried fruits and nuts on the table and reclined with the bowl on his stomach. He picked through it; apparently, he wasn’t going to ask anytime soon what she meant.

  “Not for me, it isn’t,” Jorah declared. She draped a tunic on the line, then held it aside to grab a couple of towels. She held one up and grimaced. Why couldn’t she get them as white as Mother did? She flung the towels over the line, sneaking a peek at Jude. He was peeling a dried fig. He was the only one she knew who did that. He would also peel an orange so clean of the white pith that it looked indecent.

  “What isn’t going to last?” Jude finally asked in a not-very-interested tone. The stupid fig interested him more. He pulled off the leathery peel in tiny strips, making a little pile on his stomach next to the bowl. He would surely put them on the oval table when he was done, and she would be the one to clean up the sticky mess.

  She’d had a week to work it to eloquent perfection. It was good enough to record on papyrus. A rabbi would weep. She only had to know when to say it. Well, this was jolly well when.

  “Do you think I’m going to cook and clean for you boys the rest of my life? I am sorry to say it is not so. Do you think I will clean up fig peeling—” she threw that in, pure inspiration—“and haul water and hem tunics and feed goats and collect eggs and grind wheat and spin wool and—” she grabbed a breath—“weed the garden and preserve food and do it all again the next day, all for you boys, for the rest of my life? I am sorry to say it is not so. Get married and let your wives do that.”

  “You want to leave too?” Jude put his head back and dropped the peeled fig in his mouth.

  She opened her mouth and closed it. She studied him a moment. “You want to leave?”

  He finished eating the fig and rummaged in the bowl for another. “I don’t want to stay. I’m not going to.”

  Jorah blinked. “Me neither,” she said softly. She looked at the dark, wet head covering in her hand. She held it out from her and let it drop into the laundry basket, took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. Right now, this moment, was the best she had felt in a long, long time.

  She ducked past a hanging tunic and went to sit next to Jude, tucking her legs beneath her. He was busy peeling. She leaned to look into the bowl and selected a portion of dried pear. Then she shifted so she could watch Jude while she ate.

  He seemed to find it amusing and began to flick glances at her while he stripped his fig. Finally he rested his hands in his lap and looked her full in the face. He had a half smile, which soon faded. After all, when was the last time they had looked into each other’s eyes? He resumed peeling. “You’re a tough woman, Jorah.”

  “Maybe not tough enough. I want to leave, after all.”

  “I don’t think staying has anything to do with being tough. I think we all have different roads to take.” He looked at her again. “Where is your road?”

  “Caesarea Maritima.”

  His eyebrows came up. “Caesarea?”

  She nodded and fell to examining what was left of her pear. “He was from Caesarea. I want to find his mother. Abishag said to tell her he died a decent Jew. And maybe I should bring her his tefillin; I haven’t decided that yet. But, Jude, those aren’t the only reasons. I want to see if Theron the mosaicist still lives near Cousin Thomas. I’d like to know if he thinks I have talent.” She shrugged. “You never know. I really may have talent for it, Jude. I might.”

  “You might. I think you should find out.”

  Jorah looked up. “You really think so?”

  “I’ll take you there myself. You can stay with Cousin Thomas.”

  “Oh, Jude! That would be—” She threw herself in a hug at him. It toppled the bowl and made Jude protest and laugh.

  “Now look what you’ve done.” He pulled his feet from the table and leaned to pick up the fruit.

  She joined him, and as she dusted off fruits and nuts and tossed them into the bowl, she said, “When? When will you take me? How about after Sabbath? Maybe a few days after Sabbath. I can make sure you’re taken care of before I leave. I can talk with Annika, and we can hire someone from the village to come a few days a week and do laundry and make bread—”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Jude said. He wrinkled his nose as he picked up the naked fig. It had tumbled to the ground and collected a coat of dust.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think there will be anyone here.” He set the bowl on the table.

  Jorah studied this brother. The sudden pang for him made her put aside the excitement of Caesarea. She sat back on her heels. “Where will you go? Will you be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine, Jorah. I don’t know about James, but I’m going back to Jerusalem.”

  “Why?”

  He took a deep breath, sighed, and gave a small rueful grin. “I don’t know.” His gaze went to the curtain flap at the smallyard. “I just know it’s time to leave. Jerusalem seems the best place for now. It seems like a place for answers. I have many questions, Jorah. I get the feeling I never should have left. I want to talk with Matthias. I want to find some of those disciples. I want to ask them things, the way Joses wanted to do a long time ago.”

  The thump of the workroom door sounded beyond the curtain flap. They expected James to come through the passage, but instead heard various noises from the workroom. Jorah and Judas exchanged a glance, then got up to go to the workroom.

  James had a rough sack, and he was filling it with strange things.

  Judas and Jorah stood by the curtain flap and watched. He snatched an item from his shelf, examined it, and added it to the sack. Then he dashed to the corner bench, took the vase off the shelf that Jorah had made for Jesus, and put it in. He went to Simon’s bench, and his gaze flitted all over it. He selected the olive bowl, the last project Simon completed, and dropped it in. He went to Jude’s bench and looked it over well. Then he took a medium-sized mallet, Jude’s favorite, and put it in the sack.

  “James!” Jude said. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Come on, Jude, you won’t be using it anymore.” James went to Joses’ bench and studied it thoughtfully.

  “That’s my favorite tool,” Jude protested. He came alongside James to stare at him and his sack. “What are you doing?”

  “I know it’s your favorite. That’s why I want it.” James frowned as he studied the things on Joses’ shelf. He selected the ball-in-a-cage puzzle Joses had made when he was a child.

  “James! Put that back.”

  James went to Father’s bench, and here his shoulders came down. “The box,” he muttered. “That’s what I would have taken. The perfect thing. I hope Joab knows what he’s doing. I know he took it.” He tapped his fingers on his lips, then pushed aside some junk to reveal Father’s nail jar. He emptied it onto the bench and added the jar to the sack. He was leaving the bench but stopped to grab one of the nails and put it in the sack too.

  “What are you doing?” Judas demanded.

  Jorah leaned against the doorway. “What happened, James?”

  He was at his own bench now, picking things up to look them over and setting them down again. At first he did not seem to hear her. He was in the middle of examining the wooden box Jesus had made for him when he froze and set it down. “I can’t tell you because you won’t believe me. All I can say is everything is different.”

  He refused to look a
t them. Instead, after a moment’s pause, he roused himself and immediately began to rummage in his drawer. He came up with a dirty scrap of leather, which he shook out and wrapped around the box, then he put the box in the sack.

  “You saw him, didn’t you?” Judas said.

  It took a moment; then her breath stopped. It came again in a gasp.

  Jude went to James. “Look at me,” he said. “I want to see your eyes when you say it.”

  James looked at him and simply said, “I saw him.”

  Jude backed away, turned to his bench, and grabbed the edge to steady himself. He dropped heavily onto his stool. Jorah’s legs could hold her no longer, and she sank to the ground. James slowly took hold of his own stool, slowly sat down.

  “He’s alive,” James whispered. “It changes everything.”

  How to tell them? It was useless. Words were sawdust.

  How could he tell them that everything everything everything was changed? Everything! Not an inch of his soul untouched; how could he make words for that? How could he say what he felt? It was so utterly hopeless he decided not to say anything at all. They would ask about it one day, probably they would, but on the pathway home he had decided if he even tried to tell it would . . . Well, Jesus the crucified appeared to James—what more did he have to tell them?

  Maybe an hour had passed since he had returned from the ridge. Jorah still sat at the smallyard entry, arms about her knees. Judas sat on his stool, hunched at his bench, idling with a nail.

  They were out of his hands. James wasn’t afraid for them anymore; he would not worry for them. God would take care of them. He would pray for them. They were on their own, to muddle their way to him as he had done. And how had he done it? And what had he done to earn himself an appearance? “Nothing,” he marveled beneath his breath. “Nothing.”

  “Do you think he will appear to the rest of us?” Jorah presently asked in a very small voice.

  “I am certain of it,” James replied.

  “What is it like to believe in him?” Jude asked, turning the nail in his fingers. His voice was dim and cool.

  James lifted his head and watched the summer awning gently rise and fall in the breeze. He picked up a scrap of wood and gripped it hard. He looked out the door to the ordinary day. “It is familiar.” Then he said, “Like the sky. Like the earth. It is hard ground beneath my feet. And it is . . . relief.”

  “You’re not afraid anymore,” Jorah said in surprise. She rose from the wall and went to examine James. She looked wonderingly from eye to eye. “You’re not afraid. You weren’t afraid when he was here. None of us were.”

  Judas sat straight on his stool and looked out the doorway. He was a stark outline against the brightness of the day. His head tilted, and as he looked out he murmured, “I always said to myself, I liked me better when Jesus was here.”

  James smiled slowly. “You too?”

  “That’s what I said to myself,” Jorah put in. “Sort of.”

  “You think you’re going to talk about it someday?” Jude asked, still looking out the door.

  “Probably not.”

  Jude nodded. “Then I won’t ask.” He turned to look at James. “Well? Jerusalem?”

  James regarded his brother, this son of Joseph. He was the one who looked most like Mary. Thin face, hollows in the cheeks, dark puffy curves under the eyes. James found himself smiling.

  “What?” Judas asked.

  “What we’ve been through together,” James said in wonder. “What we’ve been through. I’m glad it was you, Jude.” He looked at his youngest sister. “I’m glad it was you, Jorah.”

  “It’s not over, is it?” Jude replied.

  “No, it is not over. Remember Father’s verse? He brought us through fire and water, out to a wide place. I will spend the rest of my life learning of this place.” Then he said, “Yes, Jude. Jerusalem.”

  Simon would have to calm their alarm first, when they saw him return without Jorah and James and Judas. Then he would have to explain why he had come all the way back to Jerusalem. What would he tell them?

  Maybe Matthias wouldn’t be surprised. For that alone he would avoid him. Devorah? He wasn’t sure. And what would Joses say? Maybe he could avoid them all, skip Bethany altogether. He wasn’t going to Bethany, oh, no. He knew exactly, precisely where he was going.

  At least he wouldn’t have to tell Jude and James. That was one solid relief in this convoluted journey. You never went to Decapolis? they’d accuse when he returned home. And he would say, No. Because I wasn’t half an hour on the road to Beth Shean, just about to the Kishon River, and I knew that I had to go to Jerusalem. Knew it was Jerusalem all along. And they would reply, You knew? That’s it? And Simon would answer, Yes. Because I am mad mad mad.

  “Ho, that’s not all, brothers,” he muttered beneath his breath, keeping quiet lest those passing him on the Roman road should hear. “You want to know just how mad I am? I’m not only going to Jerusalem, but I know where in Jerusalem I am going. I’m going to the south part of the city, to the Essene Quarter, not far from the Essene Gate. And there I will find an upper room, a place where Jesus held Passover with his friends. And what will happen then? Your guess is as good as mine and probably better. Because, after all, I am mad. Me, of all people.”

  Then Simon laughed, and those passing did hear. But Simon did not care. He might be mad, but he was never more certain of himself. Certain and crazy. That made him laugh harder. At least he wouldn’t soon have to explain himself to James and Jude.

  28

  IT WAS SPRINGTIME in Galilee.

  Vibrant color rang in the fields, a shofar blast of poppy red, heather purple, daisy yellow and white. The color dazzled and heartened. The backdrop of green made the flowers lovelier, and their fragrances filled the warm breeze.

  The last of Joseph’s tribe in Nazareth would leave in the morning. James had gone to Annika to tell her they were going first to Caesarea Maritima, and then Jerusalem. Perhaps never to return. After she spent ten minutes in arm-raised consternation over the whole thing, she baked them a storm of honeycakes.

  Annika and Jorah sat at mending in the courtyard. “What has happened to James?” Annika muttered as she bit off thread from a tunic. “Yesterday he said to me, just as happy as a child, ‘Mulaki is still at his old corner! And did you know he got married?’ And I said, ‘James ben Joseph of Nazareth in Galilee, what do you mean he’s still there? He never left!’” She shook out the tunic and leaned to see through the doorway to the workroom. She had pulled aside the curtain and hooked it on a nail because she didn’t want to miss any activity. “This is the old James. The one I liked. Who absconded with the sorry selfish one?”

  “Jesus appeared to him,” Jorah replied matter-of-factly.

  “Ah.” Annika nodded. Well, and Annika had prayed for James, hadn’t she?

  The pebbled blackness was gone. The walking shroud had disappeared. He still had a foul mouth. Not a minute ago, he’d loosed a wicked word when he dropped a carved box on the floor. Annika had hollered at him, and he had yelled back, “It’s all Joab’s fault! I wouldn’t have had to use my own box if he hadn’t taken ours! Look at this—it has a nick!”

  But there was no rancor in it, save the vile word, and, truth to tell, Annika didn’t think it terribly wicked of him. She’d said worse and double for things less.

  Annika smiled and murmured beneath her breath, “It’s good to have you back, James of Nazareth.”

  She liked what he had told her yesterday. There was a great deal of hope in it. He had sat at the old oak table in her kitchen, as he had done so many times before. They talked over plates of raisin cakes and cups of watered wine.

  I thought all I ever wanted was to be normal again. I thought that in being normal I would find myself happy again. But Annika . . . that’s settling for a world less. Happiness isn’t joy, and joy isn’t what I thought it would be.

  And what is that, boy?

  James had gone quiet. He g
azed out the window to the commonyard, then he said, A wide place. You can breathe there; you can put your weight down and it won’t give. And I think joy is very like belief itself, and I think we won’t allow ourselves joy because we are mean. But it’s there, and it’s worth it. Right on the other side of pain. At that James had looked her straight in the eye, and Annika would remember his words until she died. I can consider it joy because he’s there, Annika. On the other side of it all.

  “If I ever get my hands on that Joab . . .”

  “Oh, enough with the whining,” Annika scolded and leaned to peer at him. But apparently James had already forgotten Joab. She watched him set the box on his bench. Then he went to the doorway and folded his arms and leaned against it. He stood there long, gazing outside. While his eyes stayed on the view, his hand went to the mezuzah, and he put his palm flat against it. Then he turned to look at the mezuzah, really look at it. Annika held her breath. What an expression on that face! She watched in pure pleasure until he turned into the workroom; then she hastily pulled back from view.

  Annika smiled, and with a great, happy sigh took a towel from the mending basket. “My, my,” she said. “Good to have you back, boy.”

  Jerusalem, AD 57

  James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you—

  Simon lifted his hand. “Hold up.” He dipped his pen and touched the excess to a scrap of felt. “Lacking . . . in . . . nothing.” He scratched the last letter on the scroll. “Go on.”

  “But if any of you—”

  “You know, others may be perfectly content not to know what Jesus said to you in Galilee that day. I am curious, James, and it doesn’t make me a sinner.”