Mary of Nazareth

by Marek Halter

  “They turned this house completely upside down, searching for money I don’t have. I’d only just finished putting together two small chests for the children’s clothes. So, of course, they took them. They even took the figs Halva had just picked! They were probably rotten by the time they got to Jerusalem, but they wanted to take everything. Just for the pleasure of humiliating us.” Yossef sighed, but with a sardonic wink. “They didn’t get our flocks, though. We’d already sent some of the boys into the forest with the animals.”

  “And weren’t those idiots surprised to find them gone?” Barabbas asked.

  “Of course they were! But we said we’d had enough and had decided not to keep livestock anymore. Since they always took it away from us, what was the point? One of the tax collectors said, ‘You’re lying, as usual. Your livestock’s in the forest, I’m sure of it.’ Someone answered, ‘Well, go into the forest and find it. Be careful, though: the Almighty may have turned our animals into lions!’ ”

  Joachim and Barabbas laughed in approval.

  Yossef shook his head. “We really cursed them, I can tell you. And then imagine how happy we were when we found out that Miriam and Joachim had succeeded. Knowing you were alive and well made our hearts feel light again. Even the rabbis, who see every misfortune as a punishment from the Almighty, didn’t think he’d have approved of something as horrible as that!”

  Carried away by the emotion of the situation, his eyes clouded with tears, Yossef suddenly stood up and took Barabbas by the shoulders. “May the Lord bless you, my boy! You’ve made us happy and proud. That’s something we really needed.”

  He was about to hug and kiss Miriam, but shyness held him back. Instead, he took her hands and kissed them tenderly.

  “You, too, Miriam, you, too! How proud of you Halva and I are!”

  Laughing happily, Halva took Miriam by the waist and drew her inside the house, where the two youngest children, made edgy by all this unaccustomed excitement, were starting to cry.

  “You see what a state my Yossef is in?” she whispered, delighted. “Look at him; he’s redder than a carob flower! When he gets emotional, he’s the most tenderhearted man in God’s creation. As gentle as a lamb. But so shy! So shy!”

  Miriam placed her cheek against her friend’s. “You don’t know how good it is to see the two of you again. And I can’t wait to see my mother. I didn’t think I would hurt her so much when I left.”

  With little Shimon clutching at her tunic, Halva bent over the cradle to lift up Libna, who was crying with hunger and impatience. “Oh, as soon as she sees you and your father, she’ll forget her—” She broke off abruptly. Her cheeks had turned white, her eyes closed, and she gasped for breath.

  Miriam quickly took the baby from her arms. “Are you all right?”

  Halva took a deep breath. “Don’t worry. They’re just dizzy spells. They always take me by surprise….”

  “Rest for a while. I’ll see to the children.”

  “Oh, no, come on!” Halva said, making an effort to smile. “You must be a lot more tired than I am, after walking all day.”

  Miriam gently cradled Libna, who twisted her curls in her tiny fingers, and drew Shimon to her with a caress. “Let me help you, then,” she insisted, anxiously. “Go and have a rest. You’re so pale, it’s frightening.”

  Reluctantly, Halva yielded. She went and lay down on a bed in an alcove at the far end of the room, and watched as Miriam prepared Libna’s wheat cereal and made some biscuits for Shimon and Yossef, who was two years older. The oldest boy, the placid Yakov, helped as best he could. After they had eaten, she played with them, so openly and tenderly that the children, as trusting as if they had been with their mother, forgot their whims and anxieties.

  OUTSIDE, Yossef was still telling Barabbas and Joachim, in his monotonous, softly passionate voice, how the news of their exploit had been brought to the synagogue by an ink merchant.

  At first, many had doubted that it was true. There were so many rumors of things that people wanted to be true and that turned out to be false. But the following day, and the day after that, other merchants, coming from Cana and Sepphoris, had confirmed that the brigand Barabbas had indeed set fire to Tarichea and freed a number of prisoners from the field of crosses, including Joachim.

  Everyone had sighed with relief, even those who had already started mourning for Joachim. Joy had quickly turned to a feeling of victory.

  “If you entered Nazareth this evening, Joachim, the whole village would give you a hero’s welcome,” Yossef said. “They’ve forgotten how they protested when Miriam said she was going to ask for Barabbas’s help in saving you!”

  Joachim frowned. “We must be careful. This is when things could start getting dangerous for Nazareth.”

  Barabbas nodded. “That’s what I find strange. It’s been several days since we gave the Romans in Tarichea a kick up the backside. The mercenaries should be here by now, causing havoc in the village.”

  “I think there’s a perfectly simple explanation for that,” Yossef said. “They say Herod is so ill, he’s going off his head. Apparently, his palace is worse than a nest of snakes. His sons, his sister, his brother, his mother-in-law, the servants…there isn’t a single one of them who doesn’t want to hasten his death and take his place. They’re all seething with hatred. Both palaces, the Antonia palace in Jerusalem, and the one in Caesarea, are in a state of chaos. The Roman officers aren’t prepared to keep backing this degenerate family. If that madman Herod survives his illness and learns that they acted without his consent, they won’t be long for this world. Our king is mad, but he’s the master of everything in Israel, from the smallest grain of wheat to the ungodly laws that come out of the Sanhedrin. We poor people of Galilee fear his mercenaries and his vultures. But they fear him as much as we do. So, while he’s ill and can’t give orders, they’re all trapped in his shadow.”

  “That’s a piece of news that does my heart good!” Barabbas cried. “And it makes me think I’m right to want—”

  He could not continue, because just then loud cries and the sound of footsteps made them all rise from the benches. It was Hannah, rushing toward them beneath the plane trees, her hands raised above her head.

  “Joachim! God Almighty! Blessed is the Lord! You’re there, I can see you! And to think I refused to believe this boy….”

  Joachim welcomed his wife into his arms. Hannah hugged him as tightly as she could, the tears streaming into her mouth. “Yes, it’s really you!” she stammered. “You’re not a demon. I recognize your smell! Oh, my husband, did they hurt you?”

  Joachim was about to reply when Hannah broke away, her eyes and mouth wide open, her face convulsed with panic.

  “Where’s Miriam? Isn’t she with you? Is she dead?”

  “No, Mother! I’m here.”

  Hannah turned and saw Miriam running from the doorway of the house.

  “My mad daughter!” she cried. You gave me such a fright!”

  Overwhelmed by all this accumulated emotion, Hannah was having difficulty breathing, and seemed too weak to stroke their faces or touch their beloved eyes. For a moment, it looked as though she were about to faint, but then she recovered, and they all laughed.

  Obadiah, who had been following her at a distance, scratched his head, ruffling his unkempt hair even more. “You know what?” he said to Barabbas. “She nearly alerted the whole village when I told her Miriam was here with Joachim. She just wouldn’t believe me. She thought I was spying for the mercenaries. I was luring her into a trap, she said, things like that. Impossible to shut her up without losing my temper. What a good thing Miriam isn’t like her!”

  LATER, once night had fallen and the women and children were asleep, they gathered around a lamp, and Barabbas, in a low voice, revealed his great plan to Yossef. The time had come to start a rebellion that would sweep through Galilee and the whole of Israel, overthrow the ignominious rule of Herod, and free the country from the Roman yoke.

&nb
sp; “Isn’t that going a bit far?” Yossef breathed, his eyes wide.

  “If what you say about Herod is right, then there’s no better time than right now.”

  “Herod is certainly weak. But not as weak as that.”

  “If the whole country rises against him, who will support him? Not even the mercenaries—they’ll be afraid they won’t get paid.”

  Joachim entered the conversation. “It’s a mad idea. As mad as Barabbas himself. But that’s how he saved me from the cross. I think this is worth discussing with the people who hate Herod and the Sadducees as much as we do: the Zealots, the Essenes, and some of the Pharisees. There are wise men among them who’ll be prepared to listen to us. If we can persuade them to bring their followers into the rebellion…”

  “When the people see they’ve joined us,” Barabbas said enthusiastically, “they’ll know it’s time to start fighting.”

  Yossef did not contradict them. He did not doubt either their determination or their courage. Like Joachim and Barabbas, he was convinced that passively enduring Herod’s madness led only to more suffering.

  “If you want to call a meeting of all these people, we can hold it here,” he said. “It’s not all that risky. We’re quite a distance from Nazareth, and the Romans have never suspected me of anything. The people you invite will be perfectly safe. There are plenty of roundabout ways to get here. They won’t even have to come through Nazareth.”

  Barabbas and Joachim thanked him. The real difficulty was to find men they could trust. Men of wisdom, but also men with their hearts in the right place, who had power over others. Men who were not violent by nature, but were prepared to fight. Such men were rare.

  In the course of the discussion, Joachim and Yossef kept coming back to the same names. Among the Essenes, they narrowed their choice down to two men whose reputation for independence and opposition to the Temple in Jerusalem was well known: Joseph of Arimathea, surely the wisest of all the Essenes, and Giora of Gamala, who led a rebel movement based in the desert near the Dead Sea. Joachim also mentioned the name of a Zealot from Galilee whom he knew and trusted.

  Barabbas grimaced, highly suspicious of men of religion. “They’re even more fanatical than the Essenes.”

  “But they fight the Romans whenever they get the opportunity.”

  “They’re so inflexible, the villagers are scared of them! I’ve heard they sometimes beat those who don’t pray when they tell them to. If we have these people with us, we’re never going to convince the doubters.”

  “We won’t do it without them either. I don’t believe this story of them beating peasants. The Zealots are harsh and austere, it’s true, but they’re brave, and they’re not afraid to die fighting the mercenaries and the Romans.”

  “All they want is to impose their own idea of God,” Barabbas insisted, raising his voice. “That’s why they fight, not to help the hungry or spare them further humiliation by Herod.”

  “That’s also why we need to convince them. I know at least two who are good men: Eleazar of Jotapata and Levi the Sicarion, from Magdala. They fight, but they’re also good listeners, who respect other people’s opinions….”

  Reluctantly, Barabbas agreed to approach the Zealots. But the argument became heated again when they touched on the subject of Nicodemus. He was the only Pharisee in the Sanhedrin who had ever shown any compassion toward the people of Galilee. Joachim was in favor of his coming, Barabbas was strongly opposed to it, and Yossef was undecided.

  “How could you possibly ask a member of the Sanhedrin for help?” Barabbas cried. “They’re all corrupt! You, of all people, should know that! Didn’t you stick a spear into one of their tax collectors?”

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other!” Joachim retorted in annoyance. “Nicodemus is against the Sadducees who bleed us dry at every opportunity. He’s always responded to our grievances. Many’s the time he’s come to one of our synagogues to hear us.”

  “So what? That’s hardly a great achievement. He comes, yawns through it all, and then goes back to his life of luxury in Jerusalem….”

  “I tell you, he’s different.”

  “Why? Open your eyes, Joachim: They’re all the same! Cowards, in the pay of Herod, that’s what they are. If your Nicodemus wasn’t a coward, he wouldn’t still be sitting in the Sanhedrin. As soon as he finds out we’re planning a rebellion, he’ll denounce us—”

  “Not Nicodemus. He argued with Ananias, the high priest, in the middle of a meeting in the Temple. Herod wanted to throw him in prison—”

  “But he didn’t get thrown in prison, did he? He didn’t get hung on a cross like you! You can be sure he bowed his head and asked forgiveness…I tell you, he’ll betray us! We don’t need him!”

  “No, of course not!” Joachim said, really angry now. “You don’t need anyone! You can stir the people to rebellion all over the country without any support at all in Jerusalem or the Sanhedrin! If that’s the case, go ahead. Why wait? Go ahead….”

  “Don’t we just have to be a little careful?” Yossef said, in a placatory voice. “We could talk to Nicodemus without telling him what we’re really thinking.”

  “For what purpose?” Barabbas replied obstinately. “To make sure that he’s a coward like all the Pharisees?”

  Joachim exploded. “What’s the point of continuing with this discussion? You’re talking like a child!”

  The quarrel lasted awhile longer. At last Barabbas yielded, but his foul mood lasted the rest of the evening.

  They still had to write and send the letters of invitation. Joachim got down to the task of writing, while Obadiah and his gang of am ha’aretz divided into groups of two or three, ready to scatter throughout the land.

  “Aren’t we giving them too much responsibility?” Yossef asked.

  “Not at all!” Barabbas said, still irritable. “It’s obvious you don’t know them. They’re more resourceful than monkeys. They could deliver messages all the way to the Negev, if they had to.”

  Yossef nodded, anxious not to needle Barabbas any farther. It was not until later, after a good meal, that he expressed his doubts.

  “Here we are, stuck here on this hillside in Galilee,” he said, broaching the subject cautiously. “I find it hard to believe that the three of us could start an uprising that would stir up the whole of Israel.”

  “I’m pleased to hear you say that!” Joachim cried, a hint of mockery in his voice. “I’d have doubted your intelligence if you hadn’t. That’s really the question: Do we have to embrace Barabbas’s madness in order to counter Herod’s madness?”

  Barabbas glared at them, refusing to enter into the spirit of the joke. “Miriam is cleverer and braver than you carpenters,” he said acidly. “She says I’m right. ‘We are the ones who decide if we are powerless before the king. To think that his mercenaries are always stronger than us is to give him a good reason to despise us.’ That’s what she says.”

  “My daughter speaks well, I’ll grant you that. I sometimes think she could persuade a stone to fly. But is she any less mad than you are, Barabbas? God alone knows.” Joachim was smiling, affection softening his features.

  Barabbas relaxed. “It may simply be that you’re too old for rebellion!” he said, patting Joachim on the shoulder.

  “It can’t do any harm to gather the opinions of a few wise men,” Yosef ventured.

  “Nonsense! Who’s ever seen a rebellion of ‘wise men,’ as you call them? It’s people like me you should invite here. Thieves and scoundrels who aren’t afraid to risk everything!”

  THE next day at dawn, armed with the letters and a thousand pieces of advice from Barabbas, Obadiah and his comrades left Yossef’s house.

  Before leaving, Obadiah made Joachim promise that on his return he would finish telling him the story of Abraham and Sarah or the even more wonderful story of Moses and Zipporah. Joachim promised, a lot more moved by Obadiah than he admitted.

  His hand resting affectionately on the back o
f the boy’s neck, he walked along with him a little way. They parted at the edge of the forest. Obadiah said he would cut across it to gain time.

  “Take good care of yourself, Joachim!” he said, making a comical face. “I don’t want to find out I took you down from the cross for nothing. Take care of your daughter, too. One of these days, I may well ask you for her hand in marriage.”

  Joachim felt himself blushing. Obadiah was already running off through the bracken, his roguish laughter echoing among the trees. After he had gone, Joachim stood for a moment deep in thought.

  Obadiah’s provocative words came back to him. He saw himself in the synagogue in Nazareth, a few years earlier. It was one of those days when the rabbi had thundered at the top of his voice. For some reason, he had been inveighing against the am ha’aretz. They had to be cut in half, he said, just like fish. Getting carried away, he had raised a finger to heaven and cried into his beard, “A Jew must not marry an am ha’aretz girl! And we certainly can’t let this rabble touch our daughters! They have no consciences, and to claim that they’re men is ridiculous!”

  Remembering these words now, surrounded by trees and under-growth, Joachim felt ashamed, soiled even.

  Could it be that the am ha’aretz, these paupers so despised by the doctors of the Law, were merely the victims of the age-old contempt of the rich for the poor, which even the Lord had not managed to eradicate from the hearts of men?

  Nevertheless, Obadiah was the best of young men. That much was obvious. A valiant little fellow, eager to learn and affectionate to anyone who took an interest in him. Wouldn’t any father dream of having such a son?

  All at once, Joachim wondered if sending him as an ambassador to the haughty Essene Giora, who was constantly preaching purity, was such a good idea. In truth, neither Barabbas nor he himself had thought about that. It could well compromise the meeting before it even took place.